Transhumanism
‘Designer babies’ are coming soon, but who gets to have them?
Designer babies are coming in 20 to 30 years. Your children will be able to select, to some degree, their ...
Keeping aging at bay by killing ‘zombie cells’
[Jan] van Deursen and his colleagues at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, [had] an idea: could killing off these 'zombie' ...
Ancient incompatibility: Why human females and Neanderthal males had difficulty conceiving
After years of sequencing the genomes of female Neandertals, researchers have finally got their first good look at the Y ...
How our brain perceives time
Internal time perception is complex, involving disperse areas of the brain. But a new field of research called neurorelativity, using ...
Biohackers help ‘patient’ inject himself with experimental HIV treatment—live on Facebook
[Tristan] Roberts is about to inject himself with an experimental gene therapy for HIV, a DIY prototype treatment designed by ...
How epigenetics is linked to drug resistance
Scientists at Vanderbilt University say they have discovered a nongenetic cause of resistance to cetuximab, a therapeutic that is used ...
Protecting against cancer: What can we learn from animals who live for centuries
There are an increasing number of genetic clues from animals that could provide hints to treating aging and age related ...
Google’s self-learning AI starts with blank slate and ‘creates knowledge itself’
Google’s artificial intelligence group, DeepMind, has unveiled the latest incarnation of its Go-playing program, AlphaGo – an AI so powerful that ...
Cutting calories likely lengthens lifespans—but why?
Nearly a century ago, researchers discovered that cutting calorie intake was actually able to extend lifespan in various animal species ...
Viewpoint: Is having children immoral?
[Editor's note: David Benatar is a professor of philosophy and head of the department of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, ...
Innovative CAR-T cancer treatments offer cures–and sometimes high risks
[T]here’s a reason CAR-T is reserved for [cancer] patients that fail to improve under front-line treatments: it comes with horrid side ...
Are we on the brink of another smallpox outbreak?
[Editor's note: Gregory Koblentz is a professor and director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at the Schar School of Policy and ...
Android intimacy: Drawing the line between science and human
Today, the technical ability to produce a robot that truly looks and moves and speaks like a human remains well ...
First alien life forms we encounter could well be robots
[T]he first aliens we encounter are likely to be machines, and they’ll be almost unimaginably old. Susan Schneider of the ...
Genetically modified skin grafts could monitor glucose, end needle sticks for diabetes
Painful and inconvenient, needle sticks are part of daily life for many people with diabetes. Wouldn’t it be great if ...
Why we shouldn’t be afraid of human gene editing
[Editor's note: Dave Gammon is an associate professor of biology at Elon University.] Many feel a visceral dread that scientists ...
Viewpoint: Overly strict human gene-editing regulations let patients suffer and die
[Editor’s note: Henry Miller is a physician and molecular biologist, and a Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He ...
We’re a long way from Blade Runner-like organic androids
[Editor's note: Fumiya Iida is a lecturer in mechatronics at the University of Cambridge.] The new Blade Runner sequel will return ...
Is sexual orientation ‘gaydar’ detection machine sound or ethical?
[Michal Kosinski] decided to show that it was possible to use facial recognition analysis to detect something intimate, something “people ...
Human extinction could come within 5,100 years
Every day, it seems, brings with it fresh new horrors. Mass murder. Catastrophic climate change. Nuclear annihilation. It's all enough to make a ...
Is life-extending modern medicine ‘unnatural?’
The word ‘unnatural’ conjures up feelings of doom and dread, and it is unfortunately often used by critics of science ...
Why won’t pharmaceutical companies invest in male birth control?
Male birth control is the great promise that never was. We’ve been just a few years away from a male ...
Biohacker: How to genetically modify yourself
“What we’ve got here is some DNA, and this is a syringe,” Josiah Zayner tells a room full of synthetic ...
Mass tragedies underscore desperate need for synthetic blood
Scientists have been working on creating synthetic blood for years now. The hope is that this substance will have a ...
Different types of meditations affect your brain in unique ways
We are used to hearing that meditation is good for the brain, but now it seems that not just any kind ...
Viewpoint: What are the odds on the future of humanity?
The more we learn about the history of our own world, and the wider solar system, the more we see ...
Who gave humans genital herpes? Maybe this ancient ancestor
Genital herpes infects about one in six American adults. But who was patient zero, the individual responsible for this irritating scourge? Researchers in ...