May 14, 2018
(The Atlantic) – Harvard University researcher Bruce Western’s new book, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison, could add significantly to that understanding, illuminating the role prisons play for the poor and highlighting the contours of infirmity that mark the … Read More
May 7, 2018
(The Guardian) – The aims of the transhumanist movement are summed up by Mark O’Connell in his book To Be a Machine, which last week won the Wellcome Book prize. “It is their belief that we can and should eradicate … Read More
April 30, 2018
(Vox) – E. Paul Zehr is a neuroscientist and author of Chasing Captain America, a new book about how advances in biotechnology may lead to the creation of “superhumans,” of the sort depicted in the film Avengers: Infinity War or … Read More
April 12, 2018
(STAT News) – As with much of the flood of bad news for Theranos, word of the layoffs came from John Carreyrou, the investigative reporter at the Wall Street Journal who was the first to break the story of the company’s … Read More
April 10, 2018
(The Atlantic) – In her new book, Barbara Ehrenreich ventures into the fast-growing literature on aging, disease, and death, tracing her own disaffection with a medical and social culture unable to face mortality. She argues that what “makes death such … Read More
March 28, 2018
(NPR) – As she began to research her own condition, Dusenbery realized how lucky she was to have been diagnosed relatively easily. Other women with similar symptoms, she says, “experienced very long diagnostic delays and felt … that their symptoms … Read More
February 26, 2018
(National Review) – Our present age has been marked by various forms of collectivism. People follow trends. They rarely think or ask questions. The idea of examining one’s life has become foreign, even old-fashioned, and yet the question of what … Read More
January 10, 2018
(Science) – The tale of Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation has become a universal touchstone that encapsulates our visceral fears regarding the promises, perils, and pitfalls of countless diverse areas of science and technology. This annotated volume of Mary … Read More
October 10, 2017
(STAT News) – Almost a year ago I began thinking about how to tell the story of what happened to my circle of friends. I hoped that by examining how the drugs took hold in my hometown, I could illustrate … Read More
October 3, 2017
(The Atlantic) – Every day brings fresh reminders that liberal and illiberal democracy can entwine uncomfortably, a timely context for James Q. Whitman’s Hitler’s American Model, which examines how the Third Reich found sustenance for its race-based initiatives in American … Read More
August 23, 2017
(New York Times) – In Owen’s chronicle of these cases, “Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death,” he describes what happened next. In an initial examination Jeff indeed seemed dead to the world, failing … Read More
August 21, 2017
(Quartz) – Marjorie Prime uses emerging technology as a window into our desire to self-select the past. Directed and co-written by Michael Almereyda and based on a play by Jordan Harrison, the movie’s focus is on a timeless question that … Read More
June 27, 2017
(The Atlantic) – When Greely tells people about his theory—which is the subject of his 2016 book, The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction—they tend to say, “‘This is Gattica,’ or ‘this is Brave New World,’” he … Read More
June 26, 2017
(NPR) – Their relationship brought Grubbs face to face with the dilemmas of kidney transplantation — and the racial biases she found to be embedded in the way donated kidneys are allocated. Robert Phillips, who eventually became her husband, had … Read More
June 9, 2017
(Wired) – Life hacks make tedious tasks like slicing avocados or opening jars a bit easier. Such tricks are for amateurs. Hardcore hackers slice open their arms, or hands, or ears to install magnets, RFID tags, and other nifty devices … Read More
May 31, 2017
(Nature) – The prospect of a memoir from Jennifer Doudna, a key player in the CRISPR story, quickens the pulse. And A Crack in Creation does indeed deliver a welcome perspective on the revolutionary genome-editing technique that puts the power … Read More
April 18, 2017
(Science Daily) – Most Americans have some form of digital technology, whether it is a smartphone, tablet or laptop, within their reach 24-7. Our dependence on these gadgets has dramatically changed how we communicate and interact, and is slowly eroding … Read More
April 6, 2017
(The Verge) – The field of synthetic biology, or engineering new forms of life, is less than two decades old, but its pioneers are responsible for some of the most interesting projects coming out of labs today: inscribing lines of … Read More
April 6, 2017
(NPR) – “He tried to reproduce them all,” Harris tells Morning Edition host David Greene. “And of those 53, he found he could only reproduce six. That was “a real eye-opener,” says Harris, whose new book Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy … Read More
April 4, 2017
(The Conversation) – How closely will we live with the technology we use in the future? How will it change us? And how close is “close”? Ghost in the Shell imagines a futuristic, hi-tech but grimy and ghetto-ridden Japanese metropolis … Read More
March 27, 2017
(The Washington Post) – In this, the fifth and final piece in a series of excerpts from my new book, “Sex and the Constitution,” I will briefly address Margaret Sanger and the birth of the birth control movement. As we … Read More
March 20, 2017
(New York Post) – Imagine a world where parents can give birth to superbabies with bones so strong they’re impervious to a surgical drill and a heart less prone to failure. A world where a child has DNA from three … Read More
March 8, 2017
(Nature) – In 2000, two landmark papers started a revolution in our ability to design entirely new functions inside cells. The authors took two electronic circuits — an oscillator and a switch — and built the equivalent from living matter. … Read More
March 7, 2017
(Undark) – What if technology could set us free from our own mortal bodies? If there were a way to expand our mental and physical beings beyond the limitations we were born with? If we could harness science to morph … Read More
March 2, 2017
(NPR) – “Flesh is a dead format,” writes Mark O’Connell in To Be a Machine, his new nonfiction book about the contemporary transhumanist movement. It’s an alarming statement, but don’t kill the messenger: As he’s eager to explain early in … Read More
