Originally it was dinosaurs, of course. I remember when the novel of Jurassic Park first came out. I was just getting into reading novels then, and I was just absolutely enthralled. Later, I was ...

If you ask a chatbot how to cause a pandemic, it will suggest the 1918 influenza virus, according to researcher Kevin Esvelt. It will even tell you where to find the gene sequences online and where to ...

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. We do, in fact, have a weapon that could end the ...

Earlier this month, Kevin Esvelt got something many researchers only dream of: coverage of his latest project in the New York Times. That’s especially noteworthy considering his research hasn’t even ...

Never let it be said that Martha's Vineyard lags behind Nantucket when it comes to novel plans for beating back the Lyme disease that taints the joy of nature on even the most idyllic of islands. MIT ...

Several years ago, Kevin Esvelt pioneered the concept of using Crispr and gene drive technology to alter whole species. Today, he is researching ways to limit the spread of introduced gene drives and ...

Last summer, MIT researchers proposed a futuristic solution for the problem of widespread Lyme disease on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard: modify the genes of the islands' mice to make them resistant ...

Lyme disease has become part of daily life for residents on the rural Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, where the tick population has exploded. Now a scientist at MIT is ...

It’s summer, which means that it’s also tick season. Through their bites, these bloodsuckers pick up the bacteria that cause Lyme disease from white-footed mice and then spread those microbes to ...

Often referred to as Chekhov’s principle, the physician-dramatist’s stage direction has been applied metaphorically to situations in which something potentially dangerous is brought into the world ...

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. So maybe the FOIA Improvement Act could usher in a new era of government transparency. There are still plenty of dark corners where big ...

Kevin Esvelt, an evolutionary biologist at MIT, has conjured up an interesting way to combat Lyme disease. Instead of dealing with ticks that carry the pathogen, his method involves genetically ...