Science Controversies
FDA, USDA announce formal agreement to tag team lab-grown meat regulation
Two government agencies will team up to regulate the emerging market of lab-grown meat, the Trump administration announced [March 7]. The Food ...
Second person cured of HIV? Stem cell transplant sends ‘London patient’ into long-term remission
A man has been in remission from HIV for a year and a half, without drugs, after receiving a stem ...
Esketamine touted as ‘game changer’ for depression—but who gets to use it?
[Recently,] the Food and Drug Administration approved Johnson & Johnson’s Spravato, the nasal spray version of a ketamine-like sedative, for ...
Viewpoint: Many organic farmers aren’t anti-GMO, and they’re tired of ‘meaningless’ food labels
[In February], I attended the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, the largest such gathering in the U.S., with thousands of people in ...
PR battle between biotech industry, anti-GMO activists could determine fate of CRISPR gene-edited crops
In the grocery store of the future, consumers might shop for tomatoes with the spiciness of a chili pepper....and bread ...
Can a blood test lead to more precise treatments for lung cancer patients?
Could a blood test help more lung cancer patients get drugs that are targeted to the genetic weaknesses of their ...
Esketamine nasal spray, touted as biggest advance in years for treating depression, gets FDA approval
The Food and Drug Administration approved a novel antidepressant late Tuesday [March 5] for people with depression that does not ...
UN: ‘Unintended consequences’ of CRISPR gene editing among top 5 ’emerging’ environmental concerns
Genetic engineering, the consequences of thawing permafrost soils and the fragmentation of animal and human habitats through gigantic construction projects ...
Using personality types to predict cancer? Why was this 30-year-old case of ‘probable scientific fraud’ never investigated?
The Journal of Health Psychology has just published an extraordinary pair of papers that call for a new inquiry into a 30-year ...
Polio almost eradicated. Here’s why we can’t simply ‘declare victory’
So far this year, there have been six known cases of polio infection, in Afghanistan and Pakistan—two of the three countries left ...
Bioweapons research gets quiet OK from National Institutes of Health: Here’s why that could be ‘horrific’
For more than a decade now, two scientists–one in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands–have been trying to create ...
Big Fat Failure
A closer look at the genetics of failure—why we fail to lose weight thanks to our genes ...
Zambia lifts ban on GMO imports, says biotech crops are safe to consume
Health Minister Dr Chitalu Chilufya says Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) food stuffs have been found not to affect the health ...
Challenging Nature’s decision to run a stem cell advertisement portrayed as research
Readers of Nature, one of the world’s most important scientific journals, might have been struck recently by an audacious claim ...
Is a 10 minute cancer blood test coming soon?
About seven years ago, researchers at the US DNA sequencing company Illumina started to notice something odd. A new blood test it ...
Mississippi may ban use of ‘meat’ labels on lab-grown protein, citing need to maintain ‘truthful advertising’
Mississippi lawmakers have real fears about "fake meat," and the state could become the latest to ban food made from ...
US ambassador urges British public to reject protectionist ‘smears’ against American agriculture
[The first week of March] the United States published our objectives for a future trade deal with the UK. We are ...
EU’s prohibitive gene-editing rules spur unprecedented backlash from plant scientists, crop biotech firms
The controversial decision by the European courts [in July 2018] to regulate gene edited organisms as GMOs has already had ...
Judge dismisses plant geneticist Kevin Folta’s defamation lawsuit against New York Times
A University of Florida horticulture professor known for his scientific defense of genetically modified foods lost his defamation suit against ...
‘Epitranscriptomics’: New field aims to treat cancer through RNA code
It’s not every day that a biotech investor stumbles across an entirely new field of science. And frankly, Carlo Rizzuto ...
US pushes China to speed biotech crop approvals, import more ethanol as trade talks continue
The Trump administration is pressing China to approve biotech corn traits and import more American ethanol and a byproduct of ...
Anti-GMO activism: Latest example of age-old resistance to innovation, says African biotech scientist
A cloud of resistance hangs over the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Kenya....Uncertainties created by technophobes instill fear ...
Viewpoint: FDA needs to regulate alcohol companies that imply non-GMO cocktails are healthy
When liquor companies start promoting the health benefits of cocktails, you know it’s time for the feds to get serious ...
Did China’s government fund the controversial ‘CRISPR babies’ experiment?
Three government institutions in China, including the nation’s science ministry, may have funded the “CRISPR babies” study that led to ...
California bill would curb open records requests used to harass biotech, public health researchers
Corporations and activists from the left and the right are abusing open records laws to harass public university researchers. A ...
USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue: Anti-GMO activism could ‘derail’ vital agricultural tools
An amorphous “fear-your-food” movement, fed in large part by the ceaseless churning of the internet, could sideline, deter, or even ...
Did China’s CRISPR babies have their brains enhanced? It’s possible.
The brains of two genetically edited girls born in China last year may have been changed in ways that enhance ...
