Science

Who Owns Molecular Biology?

The patent war for DNA-editing technology.

  • Yarden Katz

Resisting Antibiotics

The social challenges of drug reform

  • Robert Bud

Ghost in the Machine

Is digital life soulless or the site of a new transcendence?

  • Jenny Hendrix

CRISPR: The Latest Biotech Hype

A useful as the CRISPR-Cas system of gene editing has proven in research, we should be wary of bio-hype. One can’t accurately read—or write—the future in genes alone.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

Too Much Information

Making Transparency Good for You

  • Elena Fagotto
  • Archon Fung

Cold Case

The limits of using DNA to create images of subjects.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

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A Science of Literature

It has been said that computation will mark the end of humanistic inquiry. Actual literary research in this vein suggests otherwise.

  • Ben Merriman

Toxic Tourism

  • Tom Barry

GMOs Are Safe—So Let’s Label Them

Genetically engineered foods are safe, but there are still good reasons to label them.

  • Simon Waxman

Beaches and Bombs

On vacationing in Vieques.

  • Sarah Hill

Justice and Warfare in Cyberspace

The Department of Defense's Cyber Strategy Memorandum

  • Lisa Lucile Owens

The New New Guidelines

Why do our ideas about nutrition change so quickly?

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

How Patent Law Created Inventors

Alexander Graham Bell and telecom’s founding myth.

  • Graeme Gooday

Curbing the New Corporate Power

Consumer prices are not the only concern raised by dominant companies.

  • K. Sabeel Rahman
with responses from
  • Dean Baker
  • Juliet B. Schor
  • Robin Chase
  • Adam Thierer
  • David Bollier
  • Arun Sundararajan
  • Mike Konczal
  • Sofia Ranchordás
  • Richard White

Getting Personal

Individuality can emerge even when genes and environment are constant.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

A New Deal for the Colorado River

What is being called a drought is likely the new norm.

  • Ben Merriman

For Americans, Science and Religion Are Largely Compatible

It is when science directly touches faith that the conflict flares up.

  • Claude S. Fischer

A Matter of the Skies

More birds appear. Bending against the cold, I watch, name, and name again.

  • Dave Byrne

The Virtue of Scientific Thinking

Scientists have discarded the moral authority that previously accrued to their vocation.

  • Steven Shapin

One in Five

One in five in college women is sexually assaulted. This statistic might be wrong, but does it matter?

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

Of Popes and Dogs

The Church has always had a vexed, somewhat aggrieved relation to dogs and their status as things to be blessed or sanctified.

  • Colin Dayan

Democratic Science

We can resolve the contradiction between popular government and top-down decision making by engaging citizens in science and science funding.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

The Bill of Rights in the Modern Age

Technology, business, and government are changing the 482 words in the U.S. Constitution.

  • Michael Dearing

The Neighborhood Effect

A bad environment can worsen the life chances not only of a child, but that of the child’s child.

  • Claude S. Fischer
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