The DNA sequence that comprises the human genome--the genetic blueprint found in each of our cells--is undoubtedly the greatest code ever to be broken. Completed at the dawn of a new millennium, the feat electrified both the scientific community and the general public with its tantalizing promise of new and better treatments for countless diseases, including Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's. Yet what is arguably the most important discovery...

From Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Beak of the Finch, comes His Brother's Keeper-the story of a young entrepreneur who gambles on the risky science of gene therapy to try to save his brother's life. Stephen Heywood was twenty-nine years old when he learned that he was dying of ALS-Lou Gehrig's disease. Almost overnight his older brother, Jamie, turned himself into a genetic engineer in a quixotic race to cure the incurable....

"The image of the 'Welfare Queen' still dominates white America's perceptions of Black women. It is an image that also continues to shape our government's policies concerning Black women's reproductive decisions. Proposed legislation to alleviate poverty focuses on plans to deny benefits to children born to welfare mothers and to require insertion of birth-control implants as a condition of receiving aid. Meanwhile a booming fertility industry serves...

"While most Americans participate in vaccination, for a small number of Americans, vaccination is perceived as a threat and possibly even a conspiracy. This volume of The Reference Shelf looks at the history of vaccination as well as the regulation and administrative processes surrounding the creation and dissemination of vaccines. The cost and availability of vaccines in American communities is examined, as well as laws regarding childhood vaccination...

When genetic engineering gives the human race immortality through a vaccine, a small band of rebels form to reclaim their right to die.

Three years after the devastating ZN1 virus gutted the country, a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of a zombie attack, and humanity's last hope to develop a vaccine, from New York to California. However, he's hiding a secret that could endanger the mission.

"The questions and dilemmas of bioethics touch everyone. Should people who refuse to be vaccinated be treated for COVID-19, even if that displaces vaccinated patients with other serious conditions? What restrictions on abortion should there be, if any? Should women be paid to donate eggs? Bioethics: What Everyone Needs to Know ® discusses these and other similar questions facing the public today--as well as providing a way for thinking deeply about...