World News
Find out what’s happening in Science & Society around the world. Discover changes to science policy and law, new scientific study results, Supreme Court rulings, debates about nature versus nurture, and news about the sharing of genetic information.
Wed, Sep 07
Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell closer to Reality
Researchers have cleared the last scientific hurdle to a clinical trial of gene therapy to cure sickle cell disease, they reported on Tuesday, fueling hopes that they will begin enrolling patients early next year. But they dodged a bullet.
Wed, Aug 24
This is how South Florida Ends.
It’s a scorching midsummer day, and the sawgrass is still under a pale blue sky. Waist-deep in water and sinking slowly into the muck, I fend off mosquitos as a man from South Florida’s Water Management District mixes a bag of salt into a hot tub-sized bucket on the side of the road. Thirty feet away in the marsh, another city official wearing waders and a bug hat stands on a narrow steel walkway, dangling the end of a long hose over a plexiglass chamber.
The experiment seems innocuous enough. Seawater is being added to a freshwater wetland, and scientists are observing what happens. The grim subtext is that this same experiment is about to play out in real life and on an enormous scale, from here in the southern Everglades, to Miami forty miles east, to the Florida Keys due south. If scientists are correct, much of South Florida will be underwater by the end of the century.
Wed, Aug 24
Why More Young Adults are Having Strokes
The headaches were excruciating and wouldn’t go away. Her doctor said they were migraines. Then, one morning a few weeks later, Jamie Hancock stood up from the couch and discovered she couldn’t move the right side of her body. When she spoke, her speech was slurred.
At the hospital, doctors told her she was having a stroke. The 32-year-old Hancock, whose children were just 1 and 3, had a sobering epiphany: “My whole life is changed forever.”
Wed, Aug 24
Why Gene Tests for Cancer Don’t Offer More Answers
Genetic tests for cancer have come a long way since they first entered the clinic in 1995. Back then, mutations in two genes—known as BRCA1 andBRCA2—hinted at the crucial role that genetics can play in treatment decisions. Women carrying one of those mutations (and having a family history of breast or ovarian cancer) were much more likely than the general population to develop tumors in their breasts or ovaries. Then, as now, some of these women opted to have their breasts and ovaries removed before any malignant growths could arise.
Tue, Aug 23
The Sharks that Live to 400
In 1620, the Mayflower set off from Plymouth, carrying hopeful pilgrims to the New World. As it sailed over the Atlantic, it passed over deep, cold waters, where baby Greenland sharks were starting out their lives. Those youngsters slowly grew into giants. And if a new study is right, some of them are still alive today.
The Greenland shark is similar in size to a great white but the points on its body are rounded, giving it a much less fearsome countenance. It’s sluggish too, cruising at a typical speed of 0.7 miles per hour—a pace that has earned it the nickname of “sleeper shark”. Its skin looks like a charcoal etching, and its eyes usually have parasitic crustaceans hanging from them. Its stomach can contain the scavenged remains of everything from fish to moose to polar bears, but no one has ever seen one hunt. Indeed, it’s an enigmatic and rarely seen animal, which prefers to stick to the almost sub-zero waters of the deep North Atlantic.