Tuesday May 13th, 2014
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GeneTrends
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When some of us left Africa to spread all over the wider world, we began developing small differences in what some of our genes did. Nicholas Wade explains in his just-published A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, that, yes, races do exist. And he lays out how and why.
Agriculture
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If you can't win the biotechnology debate on the science, at least you can claim bigger breasts. That seems to be the rationale behind Babes for Biotech, the Hawaii based anti-GMO NGO that has captured the affection of mainstream crop biotech opponents around the world.
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The business of oncology drugs that use a patient's own immune system to fight cancer is growing rapidly. But is the medical evidence as hopeful as investors believe?
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Bioethicist argues that regulating direct-to-consumer genetic testing violates personal autonomy and protects against nothing.
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Biology's sexism isn't overt, but researchers and media can't help but propagate the war of the sexes and the importance of men.
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When a debate gets as contentious as that on GMOs, juxtaposed viewpoints can serve to put many dimensions of an argument in perspective. In this newspaper opinion column shootout, the science bubbles to the surface.
Will Vermont's GMO label, if upheld, really promote consumer choice as its supporters claim? In reality, feeding the unfound fear of foodies and could hamper a globally promising technology. Food scares are easy to start but hard to stop.
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Alternative medicine and crop biotechnology critics have tried to link autism to GMOs that are used in tandem with glyphosate. Contributing columnist and scientist Layla Katiraee examines the established research and wonders why activists have not touted the correlation of autism with organic foods, pedicures and coffee drinking.
A 15-year effort has yielded a bacterium that can use two 'alien' base pairs in its genetic code, expanding the genetic alphabet from four letters (A, C, T, and G) to six. It has big implications for the future of synthetic biology and our understanding of the fundamentals of DNA. Nature's Ewen Callaway reports.
Synbio will soon be weathering legal and ethical challenges as its advances enter people's everyday lives. In order to mature, the discipline needs transcend its tribalism and become a cohesive whole -- all while a culture war rages over whether open-source or closed-door policies are best for innovation.
Evan Halper at the LA Times chronicles efforts to breed livestock that can endure a warming world ... but should we be trying to keep up with meat demand at all, or instead focus our efforts on reducing meat consumption and developing more efficient sources of food?
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