New York Times
Science and religion: Why ‘needless hostility’ could be hampering scientific discovery
I am no apologist for religion. As a psychologist, I believe that the scientific method provides the best tools with ...
Ancient DNA answering previously ‘unresolvable’ questions about extinct species
The idea that [the answer to ancient questions] might be preserved in [the DNA of] old specimens has been around ...
Rethinking evolution: Animals’ attraction to beauty may have nothing to do with survival
Numerous species have conspicuous, metabolically costly and physically burdensome sexual ornaments, as biologists call them. Think of the bright elastic ...
We need to produce 56 percent more calories by 2050—can we do it sustainably?
If the world hopes to make meaningful progress on climate change, it won’t be enough for cars and factories to ...
Genetically modified humans? Here’s why they already exist
It felt as if humanity had crossed an important line: In China, a scientist named He Jiankui announced on Monday ...
What if you think you’re Black, but your DNA test disagrees?
Three years ago, when Sigrid E. Johnson was 62, she got a call from a researcher seeking volunteers for a ...
Abuse of open records requests by activists, corporations threatens government transparency, report shows
Dennis J. Ventry Jr., a law professor at the University of California, Davis, drew the ire of tax preparation companies ...
White supremacists, milk and an ‘inconvenient truth’ about genetics
Nowhere on the agenda of the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, being held in San Diego...is ...
Patenting the genes of marine life and what it means for medicine
[Marine animal] DNA is included among thousands of patents owned by BASF, which calls itself “the largest chemical producer in the ...
‘Anger into activism’: One woman’s quest to raise awareness of BRCA mutations in Jewish populations
You don’t have to be Jewish to inherit one of the BRCA gene mutations. But these mutations, which increase the risk ...
Can we eradicate malaria with promising new gene drive technique?
Malaria is among the world’s worst scourges. In 2016 the disease, which is caused by a parasite and transmitted by ...
When consumer genetic tests disagree on critical mutations
[Matt Fender] wasn’t worried last December when he clicked a button to dump all the raw data from his 23andMe ...
Viewpoint: Precision medicine promises a lot, but has delivered little
Doctors and hospitals love to talk about the patients they’ve saved with precision medicine, and reporters love to write about ...
‘Living medicine’: Reengineering bacteria to tackle genetic diseases
In a study carried out over the summer, a group of volunteers drank a white, peppermint-ish concoction laced with billions ...
Discovering a ‘third kingdom’: How this scientist upended Darwin’s ‘tree of life’
On Nov. 3, 1977, a new scientific revolution was heralded to the world — but it came cryptically, in slightly ...
Pursuing alternatives: Honeybees may be helped by other pollinators
The honeybee, Apis mellifera, has been the dominant pollinator for decades but now is threatened by pesticides, pathogens, parasites and ...
Bringing us closer to ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ hemophilia treatment with experimental gene therapies
Scientists are edging closer to defeating a longtime enemy of human health: hemophilia, the inability to form blood clots. After ...
DNA links Nevada inmate to 34-year-old unsolved murders in Colorado
The murders were as inexplicable as they were gruesome: separate killings six days apart in 1984 near Denver that claimed ...
Genetic crystal ball? Forecasting 5 serious diseases with algorithm that checks 6.6 million DNA spots
Scientists have created a powerful new tool to calculate a person’s inherited risks for heart disease, breast cancer and three ...
Viewpoint: Here’s how to separate science from marketing hype on food labels
If your head starts spinning when trying to make healthy and budget-friendly food choices, you’re not alone. Take a look ...
Why you may need a second, or even third, opinion on your genetic test results
[Radiology resident Joshua Clayton] sent a sample of his saliva to 23andMe, the genetic testing company. His report was pretty ...
‘Astonished and appalled’: World Health officials shocked by US opposition to breast feeding resolution
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who ...
Bumblebees do better in cities than on farms, study finds
Cities are filled with buildings, people and concrete — usually not seen as the ideal place for anything wild but ...
Precision medicine and cancer: More than just ‘mutant-hunting’
In many of our genome-obsessed minds, the problem of cancer had become reduced to a rather simple, scalable algorithm: find ...
Why don’t men have longer, healthier lives? Blame it on the Y chromosome
New evidence indicates that the Y chromosome participates in an array of essential, general-interest tasks in men, like stanching cancerous ...
Treating alpha thalassemia major with prenatal blood transfusions, bone marrow transplant
In the three months before she was even born, Elianna Constantino received five blood transfusions and a bone-marrow transplant. All ...
Why can your DNA vary from cell to cell? Mosaicism is a ‘hidden mix of mutations’
James Priest couldn’t make sense of it. He was examining the DNA of a desperately ill baby, searching for a ...
Bridging the ‘gulf between patients and researchers’ in cancer treatment
When my cancer support group visited a research lab, the discussion of proteomics, fibroblasts and microRNAs made about as much ...
