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Genetic engineering, conceptual illustration. Robot hand editing a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule to alter and rearrange an organism's genetic material. DNA is composed of two strands twisted into a double helix. Each strand consists of an outer sugar-phosphate backbone with nucleotide bases attached. The sequence of these bases forms the genetic code, determining each cell's structure, function and behaviour. Inserting new DNA into a section of original DNA will alter the instructions from this region.

The Genetic Age review: Is genetic engineering a costly distraction?

24 August 2022

Matthew Cobb's latest book is a disturbing history of genetic engineering, which asks whether it is worth the money – or the risk

Portrait of woman looking on blue screen lit with binary code

Risky Talk review: How to protect yourself from dodgy statistics

2 March 2020

Everything from genetic tests to immigration numbers is full of shaky statistics. David Spiegelhalter's new podcast helps separate the factual from the flaky

Fate vs free will: A new book clarifies the determinism debate

12 June 2019

We're not wrong to think we have free will, but The Science of Fate by Hannah Critchlow reveals the moral complexities underpinning our sense of unlimited choice

Three Identical Strangers review: a good film about bad science

5 December 2018

What begins as a feel-good human-interest documentary about the dance of nature and nurture will leave you feeling very angry indeed - and much better informed

Don't miss: animal-centred film, mysterious extinctions and virus art

7 November 2018

See a national park from through the eyes of animals, learn about the puzzling demise of megafauna and visit an art installation about how we visualise HIV

Review: The Tangled Tree and Lamarck's Revenge are genetic misfits

24 October 2018

Two new books make big claims, but prove only that reports of the death of Darwinism have been greatly exaggerated

Don't Miss: missing green, a doomed sub, and a giant fatberg

3 October 2018

Watch a film on a failed weapons-to-green project, play a controversial game about the doomed Kursk sub, and visit a show where the fatberg goes on growing

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore wins 2018 Royal Society Book Prize

2 October 2018

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore walked away with the honours at the 2018 Royal Society Insight Investment Book Prize - and the calibre of the runners-up made it a hard year to call

The complex and unfolding story of heredity shows genes’ true place

18 July 2018

Inheritance is about so much more than the handing on of a genetic baton down the centuries, argues a nuanced new book, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh

Model Behaviour: How a sceptic was won over by life in the lab

30 May 2018

A new book about shadowing a team of behavioural geneticists shows them at great pains to capture the vagaries and complexities of their tricky research