February 11, 2020
(Nature) – A super-precise version of the CRISPR genome-editing tool just got even better. Researchers have boosted the accuracy of a technique based on the popular but error-prone CRISPR–Cas9 system by engineering enzymes that can precisely target DNA without introducing … Read More
January 24, 2020
(Scientific American) – Enter the invention of brain “organoids”: cells grown in 3-D clusters in the lab and designed to mimic the composition of the organ’s tissue. The technology recently reached the point where specific brain regions can be modelled … Read More
January 23, 2020
(Quanta) – In the popular imagination, fueled by over-the-top descriptions of organoids as “mini-brains,” these questions often center on whether the tissue might become conscious and experience its unnatural existence as torture. The more immediate, realistic concerns that trouble experts … Read More
December 20, 2019
(Science) – Although cognizant of the important bioethical and philosophical debates surrounding the issues raised, we focus on how legal systems may respond to these bioscience challenges to traditional binary, legal classifications. Determining whether some “thing” is now some “one” … Read More
December 13, 2019
(The Conversation) – Like it or loathe it, the robot revolution is now well underway and the futures described by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick are fast turning from science fiction into science fact. … Read More
December 13, 2019
Public Understand of Science (vol. 28, no. 3, 2019) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Content, Evaluations and Influences in Newspaper Coverage of Predictive Genetic Testing: A Comparative Media Content Analysis from the United Kingdom and Switzerland” by … Read More
December 11, 2019
(Vice) – A new report from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center—a scientific research division of the Army with a focus on biological and chemical weapons—detailed what the field of cybernetics might look in 2050. The … Read More
December 10, 2019
(STAT News) – Even allowing for the fact that these were lilliputian brains, they were not behaving at all according to plan. From the first days of the tiny lab-grown organs’ development, primitive “progenitor cells” romped out of their birthplaces … Read More
December 3, 2019
(MIT Technology Review) – Earlier this year a source sent us a copy of an unpublished manuscript describing the creation of the first gene-edited babies, born last year in China. Today, we are making excerpts of that manuscript public for … Read More
November 26, 2019
(Quartz) – People suffer when their bosses have access to wide-ranging information about their health, such as blood pressure, average heart rate, and sleep patterns. But the rising cost of health insurance makes having healthier workers an important cost-saving measure. … Read More
