Science Controversies
Politics behind farmer suicide claims in India
As politicians scramble for India’s 815 million votes in the most expensive and closely contested general election in the nation’s history, ...
‘Food Babe’ promotes misinformation on food, GMOs
Did you know that the calcium pill you may be popping contains the same chemical found in gravestones? What are these ...
Vermont’s GMO-labeling bill faces tough First Amendment challenges
Legal experts say the Vermont bill requiring foods produced with genetic engineering to be labeled that now just needs Governor Peter ...
Chipotle’s aggressive anti-GMO stance helps boost earnings
Lost amid the swirl of attention showered on Chipotle Mexican Grill's first price hike in three years is the news that ...
Will European opposition to GM foods slow biomedical advances?
Genetically modified bacteria might be able to relieve celiac sufferers from inflammatory symptoms but researchers worry that tight restrictions promoted ...
Not the end of men: Set of Y chromosome conserved through evolution
A core set of genes on the Y chromosome has been retained through much of animal evolution, not just for ...
GMO debate rages in Tanzania
Some people talk against genetically modified (GM) products, particularly food, as if it’s a matter of choice between evil and ...
American’s know genetics relate to health, survey says
23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, is celebrating National DNA Day by taking an in-depth look at what Americans know ...
Gene therapy can restore hearing to deaf poeple
In two months' time, a group of profoundly deaf people could be able to hear again, thanks to the world's ...
Depressed people may produce too much of a damaging neuroprotein
Post-mortem analysis of brain tissue has shown that the dendrites that relay messages between neurons are more shrivelled in people ...
Impacts of genetic analysis and patient advocacy for extremely rare diseases
Marshall L. Summar, MD, Chief of the Division of Genetics and Metabolism at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, ...
Optogenetics: Light can control behavior when genes mediate
Dr. Karl Deisseroth is having a very early breakfast before the day gets going at the annual meeting of the ...
Court challenge looms as Vermont legislature passes law requiring GMO labeling by 2016
The movement against genetically modified crops scored a signal victory Wednesday, as the Vermont legislature passed a bill that would ...
Old blood, new science: 115-year-old woman’s blood suggests lifespan depends on stem cells
The blood of one of the oldest women to have lived -- and quite possibly the oldest to ever donate ...
Australian government push back on anti-vaccine sentiments needs to be repeated for GMO resistance
Imagine that a group of advocates tried to alert the public to a danger they perceived, only the evidence showed ...
Did the Washington Post ‘overstate’ ‘marker-assisted’ breeding method?
A recent Washington Post article by Adrian Higgins, titled, “Trait by trait, plant scientists swiftly weed out bad seeds through marker-assisted breeding” ...
General Mills expresses support for agricultural biotechnology despite removing GMOs from Cheerios
General Mills recently released its 2014 Global Responsibility report in which it affirmed biotechnology as key to addressing feeding a ...
Surrogacy without infertility: Is career reason enough?
Although still rare, rich women are choosing to use surrogates during pregnancy for social reasons without medical necessity ...
New indie film takes on designer babies
The most recent Pew survey released last week, US Views of Technology and the Future, is an in-depth look at ...
Viral cloaking device hide DNA nanomedicines from immune system
It's a familiar trope in science fiction: In enemy territory, activate your cloaking device. And real-world viruses use similar tactics ...
RNAi gene silencing comes back to life
After a rocky start, RNA interference (RNAi), a gene-silencing technique that won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, ...
Academics Review: Organic food industry engaged in ‘multi-decade public disinformation campaign’
Consumers have spent years paying over the odds for organic foods based on the erroneous belief - promulgated by stakeholders ...
Biofuels from corn residue worse than gasoline for climate change in short term
Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, ...
Glyphosate dangers in breast milk challenged as ‘junk science’
On April 7, 2014 a television “documentary” in Australia reported that a study of 10 nursing mother’s milk revealed the presence ...
Academics debate what GMO labeling policy should look like
Mark Edelman, professor of economics at Iowa State University, and Barry Flinchbaugh, emeritus professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State ...
Poor pay for the affluent’s misplaced anxiety over GMOs
I wrote several papers on the political economy of agricultural biotechnology that analyzes the opposition and support of GM. The ...
Philippines NGO claims Golden Rice poses economic threat to organic farmers
The contamination of organic rice from the genetically modified Golden Rice poses an economic threat to many organic farmers in ...
