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
pregnant Ukrainian woman

‘It’s a Terrible Thing When a Grown Person Does Not Belong to Herself’

By Susan Dominus, The New York Times Magazine | 05.03.2022

Photo by Astaken on Flickr

On Feb. 24, in the early hours of a cold, dark morning in Lviv, two...

Other Countries
a science building with a model of the human brain and skull made of transparent plastic

As PopSci turns 150, we reflect on the highs and lows of our long history

By Corinne Iozzio, Popular Science | 05.02.2022

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

The work of creating science has been organized for centuries,” wrote Popular Science founder...

Eugenics
harvard university flag

Where Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Lives Today

By Cara J. Chang, Isabella B. Cho, Ella L. Jones, And Monique I. Vobecky, The Harvard Crimson | 05.02.2022

Photo by Manu Ros on Unsplash

Harvard’s campus is replete with the names of prominent historical figures who were essential...

Perspectives
tangle of tree roots

Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots

By Maya Jasanoff, The New Yorker | 05.02.2022

A mile into Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon, heading east from Salt Lake City toward the Wasatch ski slopes, several concrete...

U.S. States
3 dna double helixes of 3 different colors

Substituting genetic ancestry for race in research? Not so fast

By Anna C. F. Lewis, STAT | 05.02.2022

Race, widely used as a variable across biomedical research and medicine, is an appropriate proxy for racism — but not...

Genomics
Australian Parliament buildign

Australia Moves Ahead Cautiously With '3-Parent IVF'

By Emily Mullin, Wired | 04.29.2022

Photo by Michael on Unsplash

Australia has become the second country after the United Kingdom to legalize a fertility procedure...

Policies
college lecture hall

Not the full story: Seeking eugenics history in Yale’s science curriculum

By Tigerlily Hopson, Yale News | 04.29.2022

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

According to students and professors, the mark of eugenics has not left campus —...

Public Opinion
Flag of China

China focuses on ethics to deter another ‘CRISPR babies’ scandal

By Smriti Mallapaty, Nature | 04.27.2022

"China Flag" by BWJones is
marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

China’s powerful State Council is calling on research...

Policies