Word: took
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...even his many critics acknowledge that Venter is a scientist with remarkable insight--indeed, a likely Nobel prizewinner. Francis Collins, who took over the Human Genome Project after Watson's departure, concedes that Venter "stirred the pot," while Watson, still Venter's severest critic, is careful to avoid public comment on their feud. But with the race entering its final laps, Venter is prepared to stake everything he has on the outcome. "In three years or so," he promises, "one of us is going to look mighty foolish...
...pregnancy had to have been the result of rape; yet the woman was uniquely unable to name her assailant. If she couldn't speak, however, the blood of her daughter could. Shortly after the baby's birth, the police drew a sample of the infant's blood, then took voluntary samples from male relatives of the woman as well as from nursing-home personnel and others who might have had access to her. Comparing the men's DNA with the baby's, they figured, could lead them to the rapist...
...intend is not necessarily what's going to happen. Indeed, the technology that permitted the Collinses family to pick the sex of their child was first used to select for health, not gender per se. Adapting a technique used on livestock, researchers at the Genetics & IVF Institute in Fairfax took advantage of a simple rule of biology: girls have two X chromosomes, while boys have one X and one Y. The mother has only Xs to offer, so the balance of power lies with the father--specifically with his sperm, which brings either...
...controlling the development and use of these techniques. It is taken for granted that the production and sale of drugs will be regulated by governments, but this was not always the case. A hundred years ago, the production and sale of drugs in the U.S. was unregulated. Unscrupulous companies took the opportunity to include in their products substances, like cocaine, that were likely to make the patients feel better even if they offered no treatment for the original condition. After public protest, championed by publications such as the Ladies' Home Journal, a federal act was passed in 1906. An enforcement...
...defined future benefits for fear of dangers that can't be quantified. Though it may sound at first uncaring, we can react rationally only to real (as opposed to hypothetical) risks. Yet for several years we postponed important experiments on the genetic basis of cancer, for example, because we took much too seriously spurious arguments that the genes at the root of human cancer might themselves be dangerous to work with...