Science

Building embryos

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway

John Wallingford

How like the kiwi we are

To understand helpless human babies, our big brains and oddly involved dads, look to the evolution of birds not mammals

Antone Martinho-Truswell

Is artificial-womb technology a tool for women’s liberation?

Sasha Isaac

The macho sperm myth

The idea that millions of sperm are on an Olympian race to reach the egg is yet another male fantasy of human reproduction

Robert D Martin

We are multitudes

Women are chimeras, with genetic material from both their parents and children. Where does that leave individual identity?

Katherine Rowland

Sex makes babies

As far as we can tell, no other animal knows this. Did our understanding of baby-making change the course of human history?

Holly Dunsworth & Anne Buchanan

Can surrogacy ever escape the taint of global exploitation?

Katharine Dow

The twin boom

The proportion of twins in the population has waxed and waned in human history. For the first time we understand why

Laura Spinney

New research helps predict which human embryos are most likely to succeed

4 minutes

The first cut

Most American boys are circumcised as a matter of course. Now, many of them feel violated. Should the practice be banned?

Rhys Southan

Where’s the male Pill?

Many promising male contraceptives are in development, but none have come to market. What’s taking so long?

Jalees Rehman

Magic or medicine?

If you were a poor Ugandan mother with a desperately ill baby, would you turn to Western medicine or the village healer?

Brendan Borrell