May 21, 2019
(Smithsonian) – The post-war era saw scientists on the right-wing fringe find ways to cloak their racist views in more palatable language and concepts. And as Angela Saini convincingly argues in her new book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, … Read More
May 3, 2019
(NPR) – We all know that the world is changing. Fast. But do we know where it is going? Not exactly. That being the case, how can we control where it is going? And who is the “we” in control? … Read More
April 26, 2019
(Smithsonian) – It really feels to me like the world of science fiction and science fact are, in many ways, converging,” says Jamie Metzl. The polymath would know—he’s an expert on Asian foreign relations who served in the State Department, … Read More
March 18, 2019
(Vox) – All in all, Topol discovered that most of the companies currently marketing personalized diets can’t actually deliver. It’s just one of the great insights in his new book about artificial intelligence, Deep Medicine. AI for diet is one … Read More
March 11, 2019
(Science) – In 2011, poet and writer George Estreich wrote about the impact of biotechnology on family life in his first book, The Shape of the Eye. The memoir centers on how his family’s life was changed, and enriched, by … Read More
March 8, 2019
(STAT News) – In “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” we are treated to great expanses of curtain without learning much of the woman behind it. The film, airing on HBO later this month, comes from Alex Gibney, … Read More
February 19, 2019
(PBS News Hour) – The Academy Award-nominated documentary “End Game” looks at different approaches in palliative care for people with terminal illness. The film follows medical practitioners, patients, and their families, as they tackle the difficult questions that arise during … Read More
January 29, 2019
(Nature) – In the 1840s, the Alabama physician James Marion Sims conducted infamous experimental gynaecological surgery exclusively on black women, bound to the surgical table by chattel slavery, physical force and opium. The drug did not allay their pain, and … Read More
January 18, 2019
(NPR) – Each organ responds to transplant in a different way. “The liver will start pouring bile. The lungs start essentially breathing,” Mezrich says. “Maybe the most dramatic organ, of course, is the heart, because you put it in and … Read More
December 4, 2018
(The Atlantic) – Of course, as sperm donation has grown more popular, the practices surrounding it have changed, too, trending ever more toward transparency: Today, parents of donor-conceived kids are far more likely to openly share their children’s origins with … Read More
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