A gene edit can be therapeutic or result in above-average performance. The same tool that might help a child avoid a fatal disease could also be used, someday, to create more muscle, sharper memory, or resistance to aging. It is important to distinguish between therapy and enhancement, but it is not always easy. We now have the ability to change our genetic makeup. Some approved treatments already aim to replace, silence, or repair faulty genes involved in serious disease. En

Only a tiny slice of the human genome directly codes for proteins. The rest, once dismissed as “junk DNA,” is now one of the most active areas of modern biology. In humans, about 98% to 99% of DNA is non-coding, meaning it does not contain instructions for making proteins. That number surprises people because genes are often described as the main story of heredity. Genes matter deeply, but they are not the whole book. Much of the genome helps decide when, where, and how stron