Ethics

Richard Axel resigned from his post co-leading Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute over his long ties to Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein aggressively sought access to publishers, mentions of Scientific American and other media in Department of Justice files show

The National Institutes of Health’s move to end support for research using fetal human tissue is “clearly a political decision, not a scientific one,” one expert says

The Epstein files revive questions of whether the disgraced financier sought to merely cultivate famous scientists, or to shape science itself

This clinical trial in Guinea-Bissau would withhold vaccination from some babies, sparking ethical concerns

A genomics firm saying they can help parents with “genetic optimization” of their embryos is tone-deaf Silicon Valley marketing trampling over legitimate science. Parents should be wary

A controversial arsenic microbe study unveiled 15 years ago has been retracted. The study’s authors are crying foul

My lawsuit in Hawaii lays out the safety issues in OpenAI’s products and how they could irreparably harm both Hawaii and the rest of the U.S.

NASA has quietly taken steps to prepare for a death in space. We need to ask how nations will deal with this inevitability now, as more people start traveling off the planet

Uncorrected errors in science and the unconscionable reluctance to correct them erodes trust in science, throws away taxpayer money, harms the public’s health and can kill innocent people

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, owes his superstar success to self-satisfied competitors who blew obvious opportunities

The withdrawal after 22 years of a controversial stem cell paper highlights how perverse incentives can distort scientific progress