Science Controversies
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 ...
Biotech expert urges Nigeria to ignore activist calls to ban GMO Bt cowpea
Following fears and concerns by some civil society organisations and farmers over the safety of the newly commercialized Bt Cowpea ...
Esketamine could soon be approved for depression, prompting ‘excitement and hesitation’
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to approve esketamine, which would become the ...
Animal gene-editing researchers leaving US to escape FDA’s ‘regulatory confusion’
In a few weeks, reproductive biologist Charles Long will travel from Texas to São Paulo, Brazil in search of collaborators ...
Artificial intelligence could have a future diagnosing sick children, study says
With the money and time that visits to the ER and urgent care soak up, the chance to revisit old-fashioned ...
South Australia considers repealing GMO crop cultivation ban that has cost farmers $33 million
The South Australian Government will consider overturning a longstanding ban on genetically modified (GM) crops, after a review into the ...
Black-white cancer mortality gap has narrowed significantly, ‘but we still have a long way to go’
Longtime cancer disparities between African Americans and whites — with blacks having a sharply higher mortality rate — have narrowed ...
Plant geneticist Kevin Folta: University of California-San Francisco teams with anti-biotech activists attacking independent scientists
The University of California at San Francisco has compiled a database of documents claimed to shine a bright light on ...
Viewpoint: Developing nations should reject Europe’s fear-based crop biotech rules to grow their economies
In a recent speaking tour in South-East Asia, I was horrified to learn how many emerging market governments in the ...
Immunotherapy could extend survival for patients with aggressive glioblastoma brain cancer
Glioblastoma — the aggressive brain cancer that killed Sen. John McCain, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden ...
India’s Supreme Court refuses to halt investigation into Monsanto’s alleged anti-competitive practices
The Supreme Court on [February 18] refused to stay a Competition Commission of India (CCI) investigation into the alleged anti-competitive ...
Rethinking cancer care: Home-based treatments may be right around the corner
Imagine having cancer and being told that most of your treatment will happen in your home instead of a high-tech ...
Viewpoint: ‘GMO,’ ‘non-GMO,’ ‘Organic’—let’s put an end to meaningless food labels
Food labeling has reached a feverpitch. But it hasn’t made shopping for healthy food any easier. A recent survey by the International ...
‘Trojan horse’ ‘TV’ drug shows potential to fight 6 different cancers
A brand new type of cancer drug that acts as a 'Trojan horse' to get inside tumor cells has shown ...
Public opposition to promising CRISPR gene-editing technology is ‘tragic,’ biotech experts say
In one version of the future, beef and dairy animals are disease-free, fruits and vegetables are resistant to viruses, potatoes ...
41% glyphosate-cancer increase claim under fire: Did authors of new meta-study deliberately manipulate data or just botch their analysis?
Among other lapses, The Zhang paper does not mention the serious science and ethical questions raised pertaining to IARC’s assessment ...
Fighting depression: Nasal-based ketamine spray clears key FDA hurdle
One of the largest hurdles to ketamine becoming a mainstream depression treatment may have just been cleared. On [February 12], ...
Fact checking Senator Elizabeth Warren: Does Monsanto dominate the global seed market?
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has put regulating the power of large firms at the center of her campaign. She often ...
Podcast: Here’s why scientists don’t call genetically modified plants ‘GMOs’
GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, and CRISPR – which stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, are used to ...
Viewpoint: It’s time for a debate on precision medicine and its failed promises
Although some niche applications have been found for precision medicine, and gene therapy is now becoming a reality for a ...
Making the case for expanded prenatal genetic testing to identify disorders
Approximately three per cent of pregnancies will have an abnormality in the structure of the developing baby, which is detected ...
Are DIY designer babies a real possibility?
[Bryan] Bishop, a 29-year-old programmer and Bitcoin investor, has been leaving a trail of comments about human “enhancement” on the ...
Shortcomings of new cystic fibrosis treatments illustrate the complexity of some genetic diseases
Josh Hillman, a 23-year-old Harvard Law student from Alabama, has cystic fibrosis, the progressive genetic disease that causes frequent lung ...
Viewpoint: We need to get better at diagnosing Alzheimer’s if we hope to improve treatments
Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and unlike with cancer and heart disease, we ...
