What We’re Reading

“THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF NEXT-GENERATION DNA SEQUENCING AT BIRTH: PROCEEDINGS OF A WORKSHOP IN BRIEF”

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

2023

http://nap.nationalacademies.org/27243

“Pilot programs are employing whole-genome sequencing and whole-exome sequencing during the newborn phase both within the United States and internationally. While sequencing offers the opportunity to screen for treatable but not clinically evident conditions early in a child's life, it raises a host of ethical, legal, and social questions for experts, including parents, to consider. The National Academies Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health hosted experts from health care, industry, academia, the federal and state governments, and patient and consumer advocacy groups for a June 2023 workshop. Participants explored the potential benefits and harms, data security, and health-equity considerations for the widespread utilization of newborn genome sequencing in the United States. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.”

“HOW A HARVARD PROFESSOR BECAME THE WORLD’S LEADING ALIEN HUNTER”

New York Times Magazine

August 24, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/magazine/avi-loeb-alien-hunter.html

(audio available, 46 minutes)

“Avi Loeb was known in the scientific community for his openness to unconventional ideas, but he was an establishment figure who had published hundreds of papers over three decades on traditional astronomical subjects. …By the time Loeb published his Oumuamua hypothesis, he had collected a stack of impressive titles at Harvard: Chairman of the astronomy department, Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, Director of the Black Hole Initiative. Loeb could not have been any more mainstream or credentialed, yet here he was, saying that maybe an alien spaceship had arrived. It only took a few days for camera crews to show up at his house. Since then, Loeb has made extraterrestrial life his primary research focus.”