The Mystery Genes That Are Keeping You Alive

To hear stories three days earlier, listen on The Big Story: ⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://swap.fm/l/wi-bigstorypod-feeddrop Earth is teeming with unknown species, and they’re dying off faster than ever. Now biologists are battling over an old question: how to catalog life? Written by Brooke Jarvis ...  Show more

To hear stories three days earlier, listen on The Big Story: ⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://swap.fm/l/wi-bigstorypod-feeddrop Sneaking six Americans out of Iran in 1979 would take an audacious plan, false identities, and an epic Hollywood cover story. Written by Joshuah Bearman. Originally published ...  Show more

From whole populations to individual cancers, we're taking a look at genes and evolution. We're also talking about dogs and their diseases, shining a light on Van Gogh's sunflowers, and wondering whether the USB-sized DNA sequence is hope or hype. Plus we've got our gene of the m ...  Show more

Genomics is fundamentally changing the way we think about health and disease and driving forward personalised treatment options that would have been pure science fiction just a few years ago. Still, some parts of our genome are more ‘mysterious’ than others. In this episode, we m ...  Show more

Are we entering a ‘newgenic’ age - where cutting-edge technologies and the power of personal choice could achieve the kind of genetic perfection that 20th century eugenicists were after?In 2018, a Chinese scientist illegally attempted to precision edit the genome of two embryos. ...  Show more