January 16, 2020
(Scientific American) – Whether it is ever acceptable to genetically engineer future children is a question for humanity, not for science. As such, governing the future of this technology is a responsibility for democracy. We the people must ask fundamental … Read More
January 9, 2020
(New York Times) – My first visit to the Aktion T4 killing site at Brandenburg an der Havel was in autumn. My destination, where 9,000 disabled people were murdered as part of the Nazi “euthanasia” program, is embedded in the … Read More
January 3, 2020
(Newsweek) – China has confirmed that He Jiankui’s gene editing experiments led to the birth of three babies. Previously, only two babies were known to have been born—twin girls named Lulu and Nana. State news agency Xinhua announced that three … Read More
December 31, 2019
(Reuters) – A Chinese court sentenced the scientist who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies to three years in prison on Monday for illegally practising medicine and violating research regulations, the official Xinhua news agency said. In November 2018, He … Read More
December 30, 2019
(The Guardian) – The scientist who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies has been sentenced to to three years in prison by a court in China. He Jiankui said in November 2018 that he had used gene-editing technology known as … Read More
December 23, 2019
(Australian Broadcasting Co) – When we talk about Charles Darwin, it is rarely in the same breath that we discuss the modern-day internet algorithms which are dividing society with selective information. But according to the author of a book examining … Read More
December 13, 2019
(Singularity Hub) – The brash attempt at making scientific history clearly shows that, ethics and morality issues aside, when it comes to germline editing—that is, performing gene edits in egg, sperm, or the embryo—we’re simply technologically not there. Make no … Read More
December 12, 2019
(MIT Technology Review) – None of the outraged hot takes offered any details on the app, but we now have exclusive details on the new DNA dating company spinning out of Church’s lab. The startup, called Digid8, was incorporated in … Read More
December 12, 2019
(Popular Mechanics) – Church’s proposed app will pair potential star-crossed lovers based on their genome sequence, rather than, say, their love of Stephen King novels or affinity for chess. The idea is that if two people will likely produce offspring … Read More
December 10, 2019
(Nature) – Fed up with this logical cul-de-sac, by the turn of this century some epidemiologists had begun suggesting that their field should call it a day. Advances in genetics, they said, could do a better job. They were half-right. … Read More
