Sarah Zhang
What Mormon Family Trees Tell Us About Cancer
By searching the church's famed family trees, scientists have tracked down a cancer-causing mutation that came west with a pioneer couple—just in time to save the lives of their great-great-great-great grandchildren.
-
![]()
smartboy10 / Getty Your DNA Is Not Your Culture
A Spotify playlist tailored to your DNA is the latest example of brands cashing in on people’s search for identity.
-
![]()
Karl Tapales / Getty No One Knows Exactly What Would Happen If Mosquitoes Were to Disappear
A four-year experiment sets out to study the ecological consequences of a bold scheme to end malaria.
-
![]()
Gregory Adams / Getty A Man Says His DNA Test Proves He’s Black, and He’s Suing
A case in Washington questions how the government defines race.
-
![]()
Max Whittaker / Reuters The Future of Chicken, Without Antibiotics
Human drugs have been crucial to poultry farming. So what’s replacing them?
-
![]()
Stoyan Nenov / Reuters With CRISPR, Scientists Engineered Nearly 4,000 Mutations of a Breast-Cancer Gene
The “tour de force” technique is supercharging the search for dangerous genetic variants.
-
![]()
Chip East / Reuters A Plane Quarantine in New York Started Out Like a Sci-Fi Nightmare
One hundred supposedly sick passengers ended up being only 19. But the story tapped into potent fears about flying.
-
![]()
Joel Berger The 'Bloody Business' of Wildlife Conservation
A veteran conservationist reckons with his career studying animals in the most extreme places on Earth.
-
![]()
Steve Gschmeissner / Science Photo Library / Getty The Patients Who Don't Want to Be Cured
A hemophiliac says his genetic disorder is part of his identity, and therapies like CRISPR threaten to erase it.
-
![]()
Wade Payne / AP Naked-Mole-Rat Queens Control Their Subjects by Having Them Eat Poop
Feces turn subordinates into better caretakers for the colony’s pups.
-
![]()
Phil Noble / Reuters Should You Take a DNA Test?
Kits from companies like 23andMe can reveal unpleasant surprises.
-
![]()
Juliane Zeidler Fog Is Full of Microbes
“A fog droplet isn’t a bad environment to live in"
-
![]()
Thomas Higham / University of Oxford Scientists Stunned by a Neanderthal Hybrid Discovered in a Siberian Cave
The extraordinary find is rewriting the story of archaic and modern humans.
-
![]()
Brandon Martin / Rice University The Parasitic Vine That Slowly Sucks the Life Out of Wasps
“Pretty freaky”
-
![]()
Michael Virtanen / AP The Mystery of the Ancient Volcano That May Have Inspired Atlantis
Experts still vehemently disagree over when one of the biggest eruptions of the Holocene actually happened.
-
![]()
Toru Hanai / Reuters Why Is Buying Pet Food So Hard?
A new start-up is making vegan food for dogs and lab-grown mouse meat for cats. It wants to change the way all pets eat.
-
![]()
Kyselova Inna / Shutterstock Blueberry Earth: The Delicious Thought Experiment That's Roiling Planetary Scientists
“A roaring ocean of boiling jam, with the geysers of released air and steam likely ejecting at least a few berries into orbit.”
-
![]()
Phil Noble / Reuters Big Pharma Would Like Your DNA
23andMe’s $300 million deal with GlaxoSmithKline is just the tip of the iceberg.
-
![]()
Jorge Silva / Reuters Why Did 11 Babies Die in a Generic Viagra Trial?
On the many attempts to repurpose a drug best known for treating erectile dysfunction
-
![]()
Reuters The Deleted WeChat Post That Fueled China's Vaccine Scandal
It alleged a complex web of corruption going back decades.
-
![]()
Nikola Solic / Reuters The Mystery of How Neanderthals Got Fire
Fifty-thousand-year-old tools suggest that modern humans weren't prehistory's only pyros.
