Science Controversies
WHO launches daunting task of tracing COVID’s global path
The search will start in Wuhan — the Chinese city where the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was first identified — and ...
3 biggest COVID rumors and false claims debunked
One of the most shared claims this week - one that has been circulating since early this year - is ...
No country has yet approved human embryo gene editing
[F]our researchers reviewed policy documents from 106 countries to map out the policy landscape regarding human germline and heritable genome ...
Men and women require distinct brain tumor therapies, underscoring hard-wired differences in the brain
[Glioblastomas] are the most aggressive tumors of the brain and occur at 60% higher rates in males, whether human or ...
Although Taiwan is one of the few countries to control COVID, WHO assembly will not allow it to explain how
Fiercely democratic Taiwan, which China claims as its own, has been angered by its inability to fully access the WHO, ...
Bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel makes his case for why he wants to die at 75
By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved ...
Viewpoint: Transgender rights and sports: Should trans women be permitted to compete in female-only sports?
[I]n 1972, Congress enacted Title IX, a law that prohibits sex discrimination by schools that receive federal money. That led ...
‘Exceptionally potent yet easily scalable’: Synthetic biology-based COVID vaccine could pull ahead of current frontrunners
Years ago, researchers learned that, when made with biotechnology, some viral proteins could spontaneously assemble themselves into “virus-like particles,” or ...
Statistics’ dark past? History of eugenics still haunts American universities
[University College London] was an epicenter of the early 20th-century eugenics movement—a precursor to Nazi “racial hygiene” programs—due to its ...
In a politically divided America, here’s how the biotechnology sector sees its future
[W]hat does Joe Biden’s presidency mean for biopharma? Part of that question will rest on whether Democrats can pull of ...
Europe’s current GM crop rules only ‘partially applicable’ to CRISPR plants, EU Food Safety Authority finds
The European Commission requested the EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) to assess whether section 4 (hazard identification) and ...
Brazil approves Bayer’s insect-resistant GM Bt corn, finding it poses no risk to humans, animals or the environment
The National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio), linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications, approved a commercial ...
Have you gotten a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine? If so, your chances of getting severe COVID are significantly reduced
The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has been theorized to provide protection against COVID-19. In a new study published in mBio, an ...
Latin America can’t let its COVID crisis go to waste – it needs a structural overhaul
The pandemic has highlighted two long-standing structural weaknesses in Latin America. The first is pervasive and chronic shortcomings in state ...
Black biologist Charles Henry Turner’s groundbreaking research on animal cognition remains largely unacknowledged
A new Perspectives essay published in Science describes the contributions of biologist Charles H. Turner (1867-1923), an American zoologist whose “early discoveries ...
How should we prioritize a COVID vaccine for communities that have been hit hardest?
Frontline health workers, elderly people, and those with chronic conditions that make them especially vulnerable to Covid-19 are likely to ...
Pressure builds to switch to ‘open science’ model, facilitating development of COVID vaccines and therapeutics
In October, the head of the [World Health Organization], Tedros Ghebreyesus Adhanom, alongside human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, and Audrey ...
German Greens compromise on support for CRISPR crops, remain ‘the party of precaution’
The Greens are debating a new policy program .... Many conflicts were resolved in advance, but on the subject of ...
German Greens’ anti-GMO consensus may ‘shatter’ as 160 scientists urge party to endorse crop gene editing
The carefully organized unity of the Greens [on genetic engineering] is breaking up. The party threatens to relapse into a ...
Which countries are most and least open to embracing a safe and effective COVID vaccine?
[A] study, which polled the opinions of over 13,000 people from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas and was published [October 20] ...
Viewpoint: USDA’s ‘lax’ gene-editing regulations could hurt consumer acceptance of CRISPR crops
Researchers at North Carolina State University call for a coalition of biotech industry, government and non-government organizations, trade organizations, and ...
Politics spoiling Americans’ trust in COVID-19 vaccines
[H]ow can politicians convince large swathes of the American public to take a vaccine once it becomes available? The answer ...
Viewpoint: Creating a COVID vaccine may turn out to be the easiest part. Logistics pose a global nightmare
Governments deserve credit for supporting [COVID vaccine] advances through public subsidies. But that was always going to be the easy ...
Video: Test everyone – Slovakia goes its own way to control COVID
As Europe sees record coronavirus cases and deaths, Slovakia is testing its entire adult population. WSJ's Drew Hinshaw explains how ...
COVID vaccine roulette: Here’s why so many people are wary of a coronavirus shot
A June poll by University of Miami researchers found that 42 percent of Black respondents agreed with the statement: “The coronavirus is ...
Scourge of pay-for-play predatory journals: American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research publishes Pokémon satire on COVID with Bruce Wayne quote from Gotham Forensics Quarterly
[My] paper, “Cyllage City COVID-19 outbreak linked to Zubat consumption,” blames a fictional creature for an outbreak in a fictional ...
Do AI robots have a ‘right to life’?
In the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Measure of a Man,” Data, an android crew member of the Enterprise, is to ...
