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From the discovery of the double helix structure in 1953, to the Human Genome Project of the 1990s and early 2000s, to the Precision Medicine Initiative announced by President Barack Obama in 2015, the DNA revolution has touched almost every corner of society. While a deeper understanding of genetics offers great potential for positive social change and targeted medical treatments, it also presents complex new ethical challenges that must be confronted with care and a thorough understanding of the history of racism in science. In this Aeon interview, Alondra Nelson, dean of social science and professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia University in New York, argues that this unique moment requires a new bioethics that takes into account ‘the full social life of DNA’.
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Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
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Human rights and justice
When a burial for slave trade victims is unearthed, a small island faces a reckoning
29 minutes
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Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
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Bioethics
Is it ethical to have a second child so that your first might live?
10 minutes
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Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes
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Biography and memoir
A gentle soul in an oppressive land – Bonnie’s story of life in America
11 minutes
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Biology
In 1886, a US agency set out to record new fruit varieties. The results are wondrous
5 minutes
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Space exploration
Would children born beyond Earth ever be able to return to humanity’s home planet?
5 minutes
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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes