For my column this week for the New York Times, I take a look at one particularly astonishing use for CRISPR, the gene-editing technology. We might be able to use it to override the usual rules of genetics and spread a gene into a wild population. Scientists have proposed using this "gene drive" to wipe out invasive species, or to drive down malaria by killing off mosquitoes. But a new study suggests that CRISPR gene drive shows just how carefully we should think about this idea before putting it into practice. It could prove much more powerful than previously appreciated. Rather than changing genes in a particular place, it could race around the world.

I'll have much more to say about CRISPR and gene drive--and heredity in general--in She Has Her Mother's Laugh , coming out in May.