CRISPR gene editing. It's gone from an obscure biotech term to a household name in the past few years, in no small part due to a scientist who last year announced that he'd not only modified the DNA of human embryos but that two baby girls had been born carrying the edits he'd made. The CRISPR system is not the only way to edit DNA, but it is faster, easier, and less expensive than alternatives. It also has the potential to be far more precise. And that has pushed longstanding debates about

Science and poetry aren’t necessarily seen as complementary - and certainly not overlapping - pursuits. But Elisa New, Harvard University professor and host of Poetry in America , has been seeking out scientists to read and talk about poetry. And she says scientists and poets have more in common than is widely recognized. “The love affair between poetry and science is a really long one,” New said. “I think about those poets of the 19th century whose delight in poetry was often nurtured by their

The World Health Organization has declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a global health emergency. Over the past year, more than 2,500 people have been infected and close to 1,700 have died. It is the second deadliest Ebola outbreak ever. But the leader of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says the fact that the outbreak hasn’t been even worse is a testament to both health workers and biomedical researchers. Efforts to develop vaccines

"One of the things that we've learned from the West Africa outbreak of Ebola and now the [Democratic Republic of Congo] outbreak is that you can do ethically sound and scientifically sound clinical research within the setting of an ongoing outbreak. We have really learned a lot, and hopefully with the therapeutic trial we'll learn even more." - Anthony Fauci This week on Living Lab Radio: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gives an update on

July 20 th marks fifty years since the Apollo 11 moon landing and those fateful words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Apollo missions advanced our understanding of the moon by leaps and bounds, but they were far from the first forays into lunar science. “We can go all the way back to the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras,” said David Warmflash, author of Moon: An Illustrated History . “He had an idea that the moon was a rock from Earth that was flung out from Earth somehow.

We typically hear what scientists have learned about animals. And Sy Montgomery’s career as an author and naturalist has taught her plenty about animals, from octopuses to moon bears . Along the way, Montgomery has also been learning from the animals she has studied and cared for, and those lessons are the focus of her latest book, How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals . Perhaps the most influential animal in Montgomery’s life was her first pet, an “absolutely fierce, and feral

It's summer and it gets hot but climate change is driving temperatures higher and making heatwaves more extreme, as we've already seen this summer from Europe to Alaska. Extreme heat is more than just a nuisance. Heat waves actually kill more Americans than any other type of natural disaster. And those deaths are not evenly distributed.

Each month, we check in with our colleagues at the journal Nature to review recent science headlines that they have been following. Nick Howe of the Nature multimedia team brought us highlights of some major developments and trends in science. Climate litigation is on the rise globally. While over three-quarters of lawsuits about climate change since 1990 have been filed in the United States, the number being filed in low- and middle-income countries is rising. These lawsuits include cases

“We found that African-Americans were much more likely to die than other racial groups within New York City during heatwave events. We also found that there were particular neighborhoods where people were more likely to die during extreme heat events than other neighborhoods.” – Jaime Madrigano This week on Living Lab Radio: Nick Howe of Nature’s multimedia team talks through the increase in climate litigation, the Hungarian government’s take-over of academic research institutions, and NASA’s

Much of what we hear about rising sea levels consists of long-range projections hundreds of years in the future -- projections that mostly consider the impact of melting ice. But this global perspective won't tell you what will happen at any particular location. And it turns out, all sea level rise is local.