Should fitness share the stage with beauty? My review of Prum’s “Evolution of Beauty”
The Times Sunday Book Review, six days ahead of the Sunday paper, published today my review of Richard Prum’s “The Evolution of Beauty” (and a...
Category: Genetics
Did the gene-drug revolution just arrive?
Did the genomic revolution arrive last week, or was that just the snowstorm? The answer depends on whom you listened to and what they thought of a study publish...
On Ending Blindness
I spent much of last winter working on a story about what it might take to end global blindness. I’m tickled to see the result now on and inside the cover...
The most terrifying childhood condition you’ve never heard of | Spectrum
I’m honored to have written this story of a rare, severely debilitating disorder; the researchers trying to crack it; and the uncommon love between a fath...
Anthropology/Biology/Brains and Behavior/Culture/Culture of Science/Genetics/History of science/Published elsewhere
The Selfish Gene is a static meme, and that ain’t science
Richard Dawkins’s “The Selfish Gene,” book and meme, is now 40 years old. Has it served its purpose? And how do we talk about whether it has? ...
Is the gene still selfish after all these years?
Philip Ball on the strange, often savage defense of a 40-year-old meme past its prime: The fact is that genes can only propagate with the help of other g...
Two Sharp Takes on Mukherjee’s The Gene
Nathaniel Comfort, “Genes Are Overrated”: Mukherjee gives us a Whig history of the gene, told with verve and color, if not scrupulous accuracy. The ...
Biology/Biotech/Brains and Behavior/Culture/Culture of Science/Genetics/Readings/The Best Thing I Read Just Now
Brooke Borel’s strange story about Kevin Folta interviewing himself, among other (mis)adventures
The Kevin Folta/GMO/Monsanto/Right-to-Know/conflict-of-interest variety show and bazaar — a saga about a food scientist who took $25,000 from Monsanto wi...
Biology/Biotech/Culture/Culture of Science/Genetics/Healthcare policy/History of science/Medicine/Politics/Psychiatry/Published elsewhere
The limits of genetics – my essay at Buzzfeed
A bit late to my own story here, as a reporting trip intervened, but but a couple weeks ago I wrote an essay for Buzzfeed about the overselling of medical genom...
The gassy dead. A million-genome march. How to do science.
What to do with the dead? This timeless problem took extra urgency in Victorian London. Excerpted from the book Dirty Old London, by Lee Jackson, in the Guardia...