Wired
How humans evolved to play music
One bone became particularly useful as a hearing device, the hyomandibular bone, a strut that, in fish, controls the gills ...
Genetic data used to screen for diseases are disproportionately white. That imbalance needs fixing
Would you like to benefit from the massive, game-changing, groundbreaking genomic revolution, already well underway? If you’re white, you’re in ...
What are the genetic causes of autism? The brain is difficult to study but gene-edited organoids open avenues for research
Hundreds of genes have been linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a complicated range of conditions affecting the behavior, social ...
Air steaks? This California startup believes it can make meat out of thin air with some help from tweaked bacteria
The company is taking carbon dioxide—the pernicious greenhouse gas warming our planet—and transforming it into a juicy steak or a ...
240 million people suffer annually from malaria. Could deploying CRISPR to gene edit mosquitoes’ pesticide resistance contain the scourge?
Insecticides kill off most of the mosquitoes in an area. But a small number may survive because something about their ...
Ethics and bioscience: Stem cell-based embryo research could help dramatically reduce birth defects
According to multiple studies, one in three pregnancies results in miscarriage, and one in 33 babies that are born will ...
Lab-based foods are poised to change what we eat — but ethical and regulatory hurdles lie ahead
The forces driving the synthesized meat movement are practical. Modern agricultural systems are helping destabilize Earth's climate and ecosystems, while extreme ...
Visual sleuthing: ‘An ecosystem of misinformation about the meaning of nonverbal behavior’
Over the course of the past few years, the idea that a twitch or an itch reveals a person’s innermost ...
What worms and fruit flies can tell us about living past 100
To figure out how to slow (or even stop) ageing, we need to know why our bodies do it in ...
Replacing chemical pesticides? Sprays made from RNA may be the next generation of plant pest control
The downsides of existing fungicides and pesticides are well-known: Residue from the sprays can build up in the environment and ...
5-minute at-home dementia test has some health experts concerned
Neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s are more feared than cancer and heart disease combined, according to a 2016 survey, ...
Is DNA data from at-home genetics tests private? Not always, and some states are cracking down
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, protects individuals’ medical information when it's handled by doctors, hospitals, ...
Are DNA from at-home ancestry tests private? Not always, and some states are cracking down
If you’ve ever spit into a plastic tube or swabbed your cheek and mailed your saliva away to learn about ...
Switching from beef to chicken can have big environmental benefits — but it also means many more animals to miserable lives and death
We often talk about steak, lamb chops, bacon and chicken nuggets as if they’re on a level playing field. Just ...
It all started in Italy? Latest COVID origin theory explodes on the web
In early August 2021, a preprint reported a potentially huge discovery. Researchers had looked at samples that were collected as ...
Edible but ugly: Bruised apples and spotty potatoes never make it to supermarket shelves. Tweaking crop genes could feed billions and help address climate change
Farming has a major food waste problem. Approximately 40 per cent of the food produced globally goes uneaten every year, ...
AI-driven robots can now be found everywhere — but they’re often annoying. Will they ever evolve grace and consciousness?
With AI, engineers had typically used a top-down approach to programming, as though they were gods making creatures in their ...
Delta COVID fallout: Vaccine mandates are becoming the new normal
[Recently,] dozens of influential organizations decided it’s time for vaccine mandates. [July 29,] President Joe Biden announced vaccine rules for ...
Tempering optimism: Here’s why the trajectory of COVID’s third wave will be so hard to predict
On June 24, the number of daily infections in the UK crossed 16,000, levels not seen since early February when ...
Why the UK’s announced embrace of CRISPR gene editing food revolution likely won’t go as smoothly as hoped
“Let's start now to liberate the UK's extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules, and let's develop the blight-resistant crops ...
Search for the perfect cell-donor cow: Why cultured lab-grown beef is the future of sustainable meat
At a glance, the formula for cultured – or lab-grown – meat is simple. Take some animal cells, feed them ...
Arabic language anti-vaccine conspiracy theories feature Bill Gates as the central target
Across dozens of Arabic pages and groups, dangerous conspiracy theories about the pandemic are racking up millions of views and ...
Scientific conundrum solved? Dairy-free cheese that mimics the real thing in development
“Coming at it from a scientific perspective, you can't help but realise that there's no magic in cows or in ...
This cold war neurosurgeon successfully transplanted monkey heads. Could it work on humans?
Robert White [was] a neurosurgeon who spent decades performing head transplants on monkeys, hoping to eventually use the procedure to ...
Lab-grown tuna could satisfy growing demand for fish without the severe environmental impact
From 1961 to 2015, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, global fish consumption grew from 9kg to 20.2kg ...
Jennifer Doudna on how CRISPR is moving out of the lab to transform medicine and revolutionize disease treatments
In 2021, we will see increased use of CRISPR-Cas enzymes to underpin a new generation of cost-effective, individualised therapies. With ...
Virus wars: The evolutionary battle between humans and COVID-19
The past (horrible, tragic, no-good, very bad) year might have seemed like a straightforward battle between scientists and a virus ...
Viewpoint: Let them eat cheese: Evidence shows this ‘guilty pleasure’ doesn’t deserve its unhealthy reputation
A large body of research suggests that cheese’s reputation as a fattening, heart-imperiling food is undeserved. When it comes to ...
