Diverse perspectives on science and medicine
On January 22, the World Health Organization declared anti-vaxxers a “Top Threat to Global Health in 2019.” The agency specified “ vaccine hesitancy” as the “reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability.” It’s the first
“Once upon a time, in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, different types of ancient peoples were having sex,” I wrote last year in “The Cave Where It Happened: The Daughter of
This is my 300th blog post for DNA Science. I’m so grateful to Public Library of Science for enabling me to comment so freely on all matters of genetics and genomics. This week I look back
In her just-released memoir “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love,” Dani Shapiro tells of discovering that she was donor-conceived. The subtext of her compelling story is to confront genetic determinism: the idea that we are
The secret to a fecal transplant that treats ulcerative colitis might be a change in the recipe and preparation: pool stool from donors and prepare it in a no-oxygen environment, according to a new report
When a population rapidly plummets, the chance sampling of genetic drift and inevitable inbreeding can accelerate the pace of extinction. A new report in Current Biology reveals the genetic evidence behind the dire situation for
A few minutes into watching the compelling new Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, in which the viewer chooses the story path, I realized that the experience echoes a journey with breast cancer. Black Mirror, the brainchild of
Science magazine’s Breakthrough of the Year for 2018 is “Development cell by cell: Scientists are tracking embryo development in stunning detail.” The announcement rightly begins with acknowledgment that the fascination with how a multi-celled organism develops from
A team of biologists, policy analysts, and legal experts from the University of Queensland call for a new Genetic Data Protection Act in an article just published in Genetics in Medicine. A new law is
A re-opened case from the history of medicine suggests that “seeds” of a protein that aggregates in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease may have been transmitted with human growth hormone, brain covering grafts,