Science Controversies
Colonial warfare: Were smallpox-infected blankets given to Native Americans?
North American colonists’ warfare against Native Americans often was horrifyingly brutal. But one method they appear to have used shocks even more ...
CRISPR treatment for rare genetic eye disorder gains FDA study approval
Days after a Chinese researcher incensed the world of science with claims of editing the genomes of twin girls, an American ...
Japan’s ‘moderate’ regulation proposal could spur development of gene-edited crops
A health ministry panel said [December 5] that most of the foods currently under development using genome editing can be ...
GM cotton could revive Nigeria’s ‘comatose’ textile industry, government says
Despite growing opposition against introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the country, the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology ...
Is Europe ‘turning its back’ on reason and science?
Is Europe, home of the Enlightenment, turning its back on reason and science? Recent decisions by Europe’s regulators, judges, and ...
Rethinking confidentiality: Does a child have the right to know if a parent has the Huntington’s disease gene?
Lawyers are bringing a case against a London hospital trust that could trigger major changes to the rules governing patient ...
Video: As gene editing hits the farm, how will agriculture change?
Cows born without horns or pigs that never reach puberty? These scenarios could become a reality soon thanks to new gene-editing ...
USDA set to release final ‘bioengineered’ food labeling rule
After a contentious two-year comment period .... a rule requiring companies to label genetically modified foods is being finalized [the week ...
Using single-cell sequencing to refine the search for disease culprits
[S]cientists, using a powerful technology called single-cell sequencing, have begun to peel apart the precise mechanisms of how individual cells ...
Precautionary principle may threaten progress of agriculture, medicine in Africa, expert says
An over-reliance on the precautionary principle threatened to impede innovation in decisions made at [the recent] Convention on Biological Diversity ...
Will GMO food labels ease consumer fear and bring biotechnology ‘into the limelight’?
There is .... a debate amongst GMO supporters about whether GMO foods should be labeled. Some supporters believe GMO food ...
Switzerland may update its 2004 genetic engineering law to better regulate CRISPR gene editing
The Swiss Federal Council wants to adapt genetic engineering regulations to new [gene-editing] techniques. In view of these new technologies, ...
Controversial Chinese scientist behind CRISPR babies is missing
The current whereabouts of He Jiankui—the scientist who claims to have engineered the world’s first genetically modified human babies—is unknown ...
Non-browning mushrooms, heart healthy soybean oil: Milestones in the quest to fine tune food with gene editing
White button mushrooms .... [T]hese little mushrooms represent an important agricultural milestone because they were the first gene-edited crop to ...
Genetically modified humans? Here’s why they already exist
It felt as if humanity had crossed an important line: In China, a scientist named He Jiankui announced on Monday ...
Viewpoint: Why we need a 3-year moratorium on gene-edited babies
Chinese researcher He [Jiankui] dropped the bomb with his claim that he produced twin CRISPR’d babies. He cited a 2017 National Academies ...
Viewpoint: What FDA’s Scott Gottlieb is missing in the gene-edited baby debate
I am a huge fan of FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. ... But in his comments on the news that gene ...
Inside the quest to solve mystery disease paralyzing kids
To parents and the press, the “new” disease that is paralyzing kids is a mystery. Media coverage of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), ...
Improving human sperm with gene editing? Harvard researcher moves forward as scientists debate CRISPR babies
In the wild uproar around an experiment in China that created twin girls whose genes were altered to protect them ...
Viewpoint: Ideology has no place in gender science discussions
Radical egalitarianism defends the idea that any collective of adult human beings has the same innate distribution of qualities, independently ...
Will allergen-free milk revive New Zealand’s genetic engineering debate?
It is an irony of bioscience that a country that prohibits most genetically modified produce from the food chain is ...
Geneticist George Church on why gene-edited babies aren’t such a bad thing
[Editor's note: Harvard geneticist George Church has come to the defense of Chinese researcher He Jiankui, who shook up the science ...
Are we ‘playing God’ if we screen IVF embryos for IQ potential?
IVF clinics may soon use a controversial screening technique to get rid of embryos which are likely to grow up ...
China halts human gene editing in wake of controversial trial resulting in birth of twins
The Chinese government on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to research activities for people involved in the editing of human ...
How the news of China’s gene-edited babies blew up
He Jiankui didn’t wake up on Sunday [November 25] expecting his world to change. … He knew international attention was ...
Gene editing set to revolutionize agriculture—but how should it be regulated?
In the next few decades, humanity faces its biggest food crisis since the invention of the plow. The planet’s population, ...
Boost for precision medicine? FDA approves drug targeting different cancers with shared mutation
The Food and Drug Administration on [November 26] approved a drug for a wide range of cancers based on a ...
