Neil Shubin, a renowned evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, will become the new president of the National Academy of Sciences on July 1, just as the Trump administration is slashing funding for research and seeking to impose greater political control over scientists and their work. He spoke to The New York Times about the state of American science and his hopes for his five-year term as president. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Continue reading “Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’” →

Scientists at Columbia University have edited the DNA of early human embryos with unprecedented accuracy, an achievement that could open the way to babies engineered with particular characteristics.

The prospect has fueled controversy for years. On the one hand, the technology might one day enable parents to safely repair disease-causing mutations in embryos. But it might also be used to select desired traits — a practice that some ethicists have argued is nothing short of eugenics.

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As the Ebola outbreak spreads in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, health workers are rushing to provide supportive care, hoping that some patients will recover on their own, while isolating the sick and tracing contacts of the infected.

Missing from the fight? Vaccines and drugs that might stop the virus. Dismayed by the scale of the burgeoning epidemic, scientists are scrambling to find them.

Continue reading “As Ebola Spreads, Scientists Race to Find Vaccines and Treatments” →