genetic engineering

A “forbidden research” conference at MIT tackles areas of science constrained by ethical, cultural and institutional restrictions. 

Has technology advanced enough that we could stitch together body parts and reanimate the dead? Bill Nye one-ups that old-school Frankenstein vision with newer (and cooler) scientific possibilities.

Geneticists make a surprising find in the DNA of Melanesians.

Being able to rewrite DNA as we wish could give us almost god-like power over all life on earth.  

Genetic engineering, utilizing CRISPR, promises to change human lives by bringing an end to disease while irreversibly modifying our gene pool.

Physicists confirm the presence of a second layer if information in DNA that determines how it folds and what kind of cells it creates.

A cave in France contains man’s earliest-known structures that had to be built by Neanderthals who were believed to be incapable of such things.

Homo sapiens would have carried tropical diseases with them out of Africa, infecting Neanderthals and speeding up their annihilation.

At some point this century, we will confront the prospect of immortality, says Steven Kotler. After our bodies die, it will be possible to upload our minds into a computer, and then download them into another body.

There may be another human’s DNA trapped inside of you. This foreign DNA could potentially influence which hand is dominant or the propensity to develop Alzheimer’s.