Genetic Literacy Project
Beyond family history: Should all women be screened for BRCA breast cancer genes?
New evidence shows that women without a family history of breast cancer often carry disease-causing mutations in BRCA 1 and ...
Who owns your DNA? It’s not who you think
Recent court cases show the law favors hospitals and law enforcement rather than individuals when it comes to handing genomic ...
Hornless cattle make case for gene editing and less restrictive regulation of GM animals
Will new gene editing techniques that don't involve the insertion of "foreign" genes soften the opposition to genetic modification? Researchers ...
Genghis Khan and the role of power, wealth and behavior in human genetic ancestry
Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan marked 16 million males as his progeny after he conquered Eurasia with his sons and brothers ...
Is “reductionism” in behavioral genetics a boon or curse?
Reductionism haunts modern genetics, but how has this approach — akin to taking apart a watch to see how it ...
Genetic short cuts: Horizontal gene transfer
Some plants rely on specialized bacterial backup to help them synthesize nutrients. Instead of evolving these traits over and over ...
Viewpoint: Neither individuals nor (especially) the government should support ‘National Politically Correct Radio’
This article originally ran at Forbes and has been republished here with permission of the author. NPR–“National Politically Correct Radio”–has ...
Humans’ love for simple stories and status quo make opinions intractable in face of fact
Popular opinions about complex issues in science and technology are often held to even when facts and experts are presented ...
Deconstructing the polarizing debate over ‘3-parent babies’
On most issues, the public debate follows a normal distribution curve, with the majority in the 'muddled middle'. That's not ...
Parasite practices genetic mind control to spread infection
Toxoplasma gondii, the parasitic infection that may infect almost half the worlds human population uses some special trick to control ...
When the media hypes epigenetics, mothers take the blame
There's a lot of talk about epigenetics in the news, but scientists still don't know what it all means. A ...
Total Recall: Are we nearing the era, for better and worse, of reprogramming memories?
Scientists are edging closer to a time when we can enhance good memories and banish paralyzing ones. While that offers ...
Richard Dawkins’ moral policing aside, new era of fetal diagnostics underway
What would you do if you were pregnant with a fetus affected by a severe disorder? Abortion is often the ...
Brain, behavior and genetics
The link between our genetics and how we behave is the topic of much speculation, some if it highly controversial ...
Personal genomics: Care to update your haplogroup status page?
Personalized genomics offers the opportunity to revolutionize medical care and our understanding of disease. But many first adopters won’t wait ...
Food labels: Gimmicks or guides to the future of food?
We are experiencing a labeling orgy. Consumers with no gluten allergies are snapping up gluten free producers. Non-GMO labels pump ...
Portrayal of Vandana Shiva as ‘credible’ spokesperson for GMO labeling crusade promotes anti-science ‘false balance’
Reports in the GLP and by Michael Specter have painted a devastating picture of Vandana Shiva as an extremist who ...
Debate: Are “Non GMO” labels deceptive?
Non GMO products are reportedly a $7 billion a year business — but do consumers get what they think they're ...
Why liberals are embracing GMOs and rejecting mandatory labeling
Polls show that support for GMOs is weakest among those who call themselves liberals. But slowly that's begun to change ...
Can open-source strategy help synbio avoid controversial fate of GMOs?
It’s not the use of recombinant technology, but rather capitalism and greed that has stigmatized genetic engineering in our culture ...
Should Down syndrome fetuses be terminated? Abortion, Richard Dawkins & morality
Richard Dawkins tweeted that abortion is the moral choice for a Down syndrome fetus. As usual, vilification ensued. But the ...
Beyond autopsies: Using post-mortem brain scans to understand stroke, head injury and death
Besides their ability to lie completely still in MRI scanners, making them excellent patients, corpses have a lot of offer ...
How do hummingbirds find life-sustaining nectar without sweet-taste receptor genes?
Birds can't taste sweet, they lack all traces of genes for sweet-taste receptors. So how is it that hummingbirds -- ...
Who is Vandana Shiva and why is she saying such awful things about GMOs?
Vandana Shiva's status as a celebrity anti-GMO activist is not in question, but virtually everything else about her, from her ...
Ten years in, first trial treatment from California’s stem cell initiative approved
It’s been ten years since California voters approved their state-funded stem cell initiative. Critics have charged that the initiative as ...
Black Plague modified human genes, no biotech needed
Evidence continues to build that at least part of our ancestors’ story is encoded in our DNA--and the information comes ...
I’m more afraid of my kids’ genomic data NOT being sequenced than how it might be misused
The era of precision genomics is upon us, and as with GMO foods, that scares some people. But not GLP ...
