A team of UK-based researchers is going where no scientist has dared to go—writing artificial human DNA from scratch. They’re hoping the project will answer fundamental questions about the human ...

Around 45 percent of human DNA is made up of transposable elements, or TEs—genetic leftovers from now-extinct viruses that scientists once believed to be “junk DNA.” But that view is changing, and a ...

Biological science has made such astonishing leaps in the last few decades, such as precise gene editing, that scientists are now tackling the next logical — yet inherently controversial — step: ...

Russell has a PhD in the history of medicine, violence, and colonialism. His research has explored topics including ethics, science governance, and medical involvement in violent contexts. Russell has ...

Work has begun on a controversial project to create the building blocks of human life from scratch, in what is believed to be a world first. The research has been taboo until now because of concerns ...

The human genome has yielded another round of secrets with the publication of two back-to-back papers in Nature on July 23, 2025. Both studies re-sequenced probands from the open-access 1000 Genomes ...

WHEN THE first draft of the DNA sequence that makes up the human genome was unveiled in 2000, America’s president at the time, Bill Clinton, announced that humankind was “learning the language with ...

The first-of-its-kind synthetic human DNA is in the making by UK scientists. On June 26, the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest medical charity, committed an initial £10 million to the Synthetic ...

NIH funding has allowed scientists to see the DNA blueprints of human life—completely. In 2022, the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium, a group of NIH-funded scientists from research institutions around ...

Around 45 percent of human DNA is made up of transposable elements, or TEs—genetic leftovers from now-extinct viruses that scientists once believed to be “junk DNA.” But that view is changing, and a ...