News

US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’

By Hannah Devlin, Tom Burgis, David Pegg, and Jason Wilson, The Guardian [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson] | 10.18.2024

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing...

Genetic Selection

South Africa amended its research guidelines to allow for heritable human genome editing

By Françoise Baylis and Katie Hasson, The Conversation | 10.24.2024

A little-noticed change to South Africa’s national health research guidelines, published in May of this year, has put the country on an ethical precipice. The newly added language appears to position the country as the first to explicitly permit...

Policies

The New Artificial Intelligentsia

By Ruha Benjamin, Los Angeles Review of Books | 10.18.2024

IN THE FALL OF 2016, I gave a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton titled “Are Robots...

A "Post-Human" Future?

What Do You Risk With At-Home DNA Test Kits?

By Ashleigh Wyss [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], Listnr | 10.09.2024

Discovering your genetic history can be as simple as spitting into a test tube, but what happens when your data...

Society

Experts push for genetic testing to personalise drug prescriptions

By Linda Geddes, The Guardian | 03.28.2022

Genetic testing to predict how individuals will respond to common medicines should be implemented without delay to reduce the risk...

Genomics

How natural “short sleepers” thrive on 4 hours of sleep per night

By Ross Pomeroy, Big Think | 03.28.2022

^{Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash}

Too many Americans are sleep-deprived. Although the overwhelming majority of adults needs at least seven...

Genomics

4 pregnant women dressed in robes, standing in line; grayscale

Safety Concerns For Ukrainian Surrogate Mothers And Babies

By Bianca Facchinei, Newsy [cites CGS' Emily Galpern] | 03.25.2022

^{Photo by Astaken on Flickr}

The war in Ukraine has disrupted trade and threatened the global economy, from oil to...

Other Countries

Some past Science News coverage was racist and sexist. We’re deeply sorry

By Science News Staff, Science News | 03.24.2022

^{Image from Wikicommons}

In late 2019, with the 100th birthday of Science News a few years off, our team considered...

Bioethics

tweezers are used to take a DNA strand apart

Should we use genome editing to make better babies? Here’s what the experts think

By Tim Brinkhof, Big Think [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 03.23.2022

George Church is one of the world’s most famous pioneers of genetics and biotechnology. He has made colossal contributions to...

Society

Are We About to Cure Sickle-Cell Disease?

By Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker | 03.22.2022

In September, 1904, a twenty-year-old Grenadian man named Walter Clement Noel disembarked in New York after an eight-day voyage from...

Assisted Reproduction

In a first, brain implant lets man with complete paralysis spell out thoughts: ‘I love my cool son.’

By Kelly Servick, Science | 03.22.2022

In its final stages, the neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can bring extreme isolation. People lose control of their...

Synthetic Biology

Person in black uniform typing on a laptop

This Database Stores the DNA of 31,000 New Yorkers. Is It Illegal?

By Troy Closson, The New York Times | 03.22.2022

Three years ago, Shakira Leslie was returning home from a cousin’s birthday party in the Bronx when officers pulled over...

Policies