essay
Bioethics
Selected before birth
Embryo risk screening could lower the odds of illnesses ranging from depression to diabetes. Can it be ethically done?
Todd Lencz & Shai Carmi
essay
Evolution
What on earth is a xenobot?
The more we understand how cells produce shape and form, the more inadequate the idea of a genomic blueprint looks
Philip Ball
essay
Evolution
The web of life
Classic evolutionary theory holds that species separate over time. But it’s fuzzier than that – now we know they also merge
Juli Berwald
essay
Genetics
An idea with bite
The ‘selfish gene’ persists for the reason all good scientific metaphors do: it remains a sharp tool for clear thinking
J Arvid Ågren
essay
Human evolution
Brains in a dish
What pea-sized brain organoids reveal about consciousness, the self and our future as a species
Alysson Muotri
essay
Genetics
The science of terrible men
The pioneers of social genetics were racists and eugenicists: should we give up on the science they founded altogether?
Kathryn Paige Harden
video
Genetics
If trauma can be passed down, could new therapies blunt the transgenerational impact?
9 minutes
essay
Genetics
The genes we’re dealt
The new field of social genomics can be used by progressives to combat racial inequality or by conservatives to excuse it
Erik Parens
essay
Human evolution
Choose your own birth
Every human is both an animal with a deep evolutionary history and an individual who must bring their existence into being
Ada Jaarsma
idea
Gender
Testosterone is widely, and sometimes wildly, misunderstood
Matthew Gutmann
video
Human evolution
In the tug-of-war between mother and baby, the placenta is a life-giving referee
4 minutes
idea
Biology
Consider the axolotl: our great hope of regeneration?
Scott Sayare
video
Mood and emotion
Till genetics do us part – why the success of your marriage is encoded at birth
5 minutes
idea
Genetics
Like the emperor’s new clothes, DNA kits are a tailored illusion
George Estreich
idea
Animals and humans
Dog breeds are mere Victorian confections, neither pure nor ancient
Michael Worboys
idea
Medicine
The right to know, or not know, the data from medical research
Emily Willingham
essay
Genetics
Hormones united
The hormone system works like a democracy: every tissue in the body is an endocrine organ asserting its needs and demands
Liam Drew
idea
Genetics
Wired that way: genes do shape behaviours but it’s complicated
Kevin Mitchell
video
Biotechnology
Spidergoats to the rescue! How to make silk from milk with genetic engineering
6 minutes
idea
History of science
Enlightenment rationality is not enough: we need a new Romanticism
Jim Kozubek
essay
Genetics
Haunted by history
War, famine and persecution inflict profound changes on bodies and brains. Could these changes persist over generations?
Pam Weintraub
essay
Human evolution
In to Asia
New evidence about the ancient humans who occupied Asia is cascading in: the story of our species needs rewriting again
Christopher Bae
essay
Human reproduction
We are multitudes
Women are chimeras, with genetic material from both their parents and children. Where does that leave individual identity?
Katherine Rowland
idea
Genetics
Even if genes affect intelligence, we can’t engineer cleverness
Jim Kozubek