The passengers in our microbiome contain at least four million genes, and they work constantly on our behalf: they manufacture vitamins and patrol our guts to prevent infections; they help to form and bolster our immune systems, and digest food.
Any group that intends to sell laboratory meat will need to build bioreactors - factories that can grow cells under pristine conditions. Bioreactors aren't new; beer and yeast are made using similar methods.
I started to write about science and medicine at the 'Washington Post,' in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
There has never been a verified scientific report that chelation therapy, a gluten-free diet, or anything else can cure autism.
Newspapers and magazines are vanishing. But science writers are not. In fact, they are becoming so adept and varied that I hardly have time to read 'Gawker' anymore.
Universal vaccination may well be the greatest success story in medical history.
