Is there still hope for coral reefs damaged by human activity?

Kate Wheeling | Pacific Standard | 
Humans bear much of the responsibility for the steady decimation of coral reefs. The marine ecosystems have been overfished, dissolved ...

Anti-corporatism envelops local food movement

James McWilliams | Pacific Standard | 
If your idea of a locavore is a slow-foodie-body-inscribed-lefty type who’s disdainful of big corporations and ready to Occupy, you ...

What does it matter if there are non-coding regions of DNA?

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
John Brockman, the publisher and science impresario who runs the online science and culture salon Edge.org, has asked his provocative, ...

We made love, not war, with Neanderthals

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
What does it mean to be part Neanderthal? We’ve known since 2010 that if you have any non-African ancestry you ...
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FDA backs genetic screening, but struggles against ‘wild west’ of consumer genomics

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The FDA's tussle with personal genetics company 23andMe may make the headlines. But in many other ways the agency is ...

The will to work out might be genetic

Bruce Grierson | Pacific Standard | 
To a certain kind of sports fan—the sort with a Ph.D. in physiology—Olga Kotelko is just about the most interesting ...

Do we need to be protected from our genomes?

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The Food & Drug Administration provoked a furious controversy when it recently ordered the personal genetics company 23andMe to stop ...

Genetic evidence suggests chronic unemployment shortens lives

Tom Jacobs | Pacific Standard | 
The high unemployment rates of recent years have led to variety of serious problems, including intense financial strains, tension within ...

Whole genome sequencing at birth might change everything

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The National Institutes of Health recently funded BabySeq, a project to sequence the genomes of several hundred newborns and determine ...
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Would prenatal testing for sexual orientation undermine gay rights?

Alice Dreger | Pacific Standard | 
We're approaching a time when we can identify the genetics behind conditions that typically become identities, like sexual orientation. Will ...
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How climate change is causing species to evolve

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
Researchers in the new field of "landscape genetics" find that global warming is causing effects that spur species to evolve ...

Wait, could we make a computer out of our DNA?

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
It's easy to miss the amazing natural computing power of living things. Our brains recognize faces with a facility that ...

Your genome is a post-apocalyptic wasteland

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
Contrary to what you may have heard, your genome is not a highly sophisticated, finely tuned data storage and processing ...

No scientific debate over GM food safety

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
It’s no secret that people are nervous about foods made from genetically modified organisms. A July Gallup poll found that 48 percent ...

The social life of genes

David Dobbs | Pacific Standard | 
Scientists have known for decades that genes can vary their level of activity, as if controlled by dimmer switches. Most ...

We still don’t know why we look like our parents

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
Today, we take it as given that children have inherited genes from their parents, but the idea that parents pass ...

The flaws of familial DNA matching

Lauren Kirchner | Pacific Standard | 
It’s always been true that a family member’s guilty conscience could be a criminal’s ultimate downfall. Now, thanks to familial ...

Be a good kid and eat your GE vegetables

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The following is an edited excerpt. Foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMO) are called a lot of things, but ...

Be a good kid and eat your GM vegetables

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The following is an excerpt. Foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMO) are called a lot of things, but “healthier” ...

The threat of genome theft

Michael White | Pacific Standard | 
The following is an excerpt. Most of us occasionally worry that some online mishap, like a misreading of Facebook’s latest ...
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Political incorrectness alert: Genes and hormones likely influence women’s votes

Tom Jacobs | Pacific Standard | 
CNN has been widely ridiculed this week for posting and quickly taking down a story about new research regarding how ...
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Genetic engineering turns mosquitoes into disease fighting weapons

Linda Marsa | Pacific Standard | 
Good intentions often go bad. Questions over the potential danger from spraying DDT to control malaria and other insect-borne scourges ...
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