Science Controversies
Hospitals are refusing transplants for unvaccinated patients. Is that ethical?
A Boston hospital’s denial of a heart transplant to a man who is unvaccinated for Covid-19 has generated national attention, but ...
Viewpoint: Did Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins preside over lab-leak theory suppression for political reasons?
From almost the moment the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the city of Wuhan, the medical-research establishment in Washington and ...
Future of transhumanism: When might a genetic makeover of the human body be viable?
According to transhumanists, we have the potential to evolve so radically that we can become ‘posthuman,’ altering ourselves so successfully ...
Is Gerber Baby Foods misrepresenting their products with a “Non-GMO” label?
A class-action lawsuit filed at the end of last year alleged that Non GMO (genetically modified organism) claims on many of Gerber’s ...
Disease free future? Debating the prospects of human embryo gene editing
Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he had produced the first gene-edited human babies on November 27, 2018, shocking an ...
How artificial intelligence can isolate the most effective medical compounds in psychedelics
An emerging trend in some bioscience startups is the development of both cannabis and psychedelics products. One such company is ...
Consumers in Germany are open to buying CRISPR gene edited tomatoes, new study shows
The CRISPR gene-editing (GE) breeding method is used to increase the resilience of high-yielding tomato cultivars against pests and diseases, ...
What does it mean to be fully vaccinated?
The definition of what it means to be "fully vaccinated" is evolving even as the CDC has remained careful not ...
Neil Young’s hypocrisy? Before his COVID misinformation Spotify ultimatum, Young released a propaganda album misrepresenting crop biotechnology
Neil Young demanded in a (since-deleted) open letter on his website that Spotify either remove his music or Joe Rogan’s podcast from its ...
After rightwing media complaints, Utah ends allocation of limited monoclonal antibodies to men and Black Americans at heightened risk for COVID
After complaints by right-wing media personalities, Utah is eliminating race and sex as factors in allocating its limited supply of ...
Can the Omicron variant still cause long COVID?
It is too early for scientists to know much about the relationship between Omicron, vaccination and long Covid. Research from ...
Red sea bream and tiger puffer: Japan approves two new gene edited fish for sale
In October and November 2021, two genome-edited fishes were approved for commercial sale in Japan. Aiming to revitalize Japanese aquaculture, ...
COVID is mostly a respiratory disease — but it can devastate the brain. Here’s what we know about its mysterious neurological effects
How can a respiratory pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 cause the nervous system to go haywire? That's a question yet to be ...
Viewpoint: Both vaccine skeptics and advocates can learn from history — 300 years ago, the world faced a similar split
Americans have a strong tradition of both vaccine advocacy and resistance, and the inceptions of these movements are astonishing. We ...
Viewpoint: ‘We must be open to innovation in farming and not elevate the precautionary principle to a principle of inaction’ — Why Europe should embrace crop biotechnology
[T]he number of European patents in the field of plant biotechnology is proving to be largely insufficient compared to the ...
Can CRISPR gene edited seeds be grown organically? Organic farmers and advocates are split
The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) said, in a paper, that “new genetic engineering technologies… are not compatible ...
Viewpoint: Genetic tinkering is the future of food — and that’s a good thing
Over time, man has begun to change the phenotype of plants, identifying and selecting those with characteristics that are most ...
Unvaccinated seniors who contract the coronavirus are 49 times more likely to require hospitalization than boosted elderly people
[According to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], unvaccinated seniors are 49 times more likely to ...
COVID risk social contract: Is it okay to walk into a bar if you might sicken someone who might need hospital care?
When is it morally acceptable for one person to subject another to risk? Is it okay to walk into a ...
Combined flu shot and COVID booster? Moderna hopes to have one ready by 2023
Moderna hopes to market a combined booster vaccination for COVID-19, influenza and RSV — a common respiratory virus — as ...
Second pig-to-human organ transplant: GM kidneys successfully implanted in a patient
Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported on [January 20] that they had for the first time successfully ...
With Omicron fading, England poised to end almost all COVID restrictions
Most legal restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in England will be dropped next week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told ...
Fourth vaccine shows limited efficacy against Omicron
An Israeli hospital on [January 17] said preliminary research indicates a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine provides only limited ...
UK edges closer to embracing CRISPR gene edited crops, breaking further from the EU
Research into the gene editing of plants in the UK will become much easier with new rules brought forward by ...
Did you lose your sense of smell or taste after catching COVID? Blame it on part on your genes
A study published [January 17] in the journal Nature Genetics identified a genetic risk factor associated with the loss of ...
China gears up production of GMO soybeans in shift toward independence from Western imports
China’s status as the world’s largest importer of soybean and corn for animal feed is expected to change once it ...
CRISPR gala apples among numerous gene-edited crops that could be greenlighted without regulatory approval in new USDA proposal
On July 19, 2021, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced an important proposal through the Federal Register ...
