Selected by Rebecca Skloot
Behind every medical advance—vaccines, IVF, gene editing, GLP-1s—you’ll find animal research, the hidden thread linking all of modern medicine. And behind animal research, you’ll find two polarized extremes who’ve been arguing for a century. (Shocking, I know.) One side says it’s all waste and abuse; the other, it’s all essential and well regulated. I’ve spent 15 years researching a book about this and interviewing thousands of people. The truth lies in a vast nuanced middle. Media reports claim new technologies (organoids, organs-on-chips) can finally replace animals in research. They can and should replace more than they do, but replacing most is still far from reality. People in the middle say overhyping this technology risks backlash that could slow the field. It also pulls attention (and funding) away from improving animal welfare for those who remain in research. Two scientists, William Russell and Rex Burch, saw this moment coming in 1959, when they proposed a framework for addressing the polarization: The 3Rs. Replace animals wherever possible; reduce their numbers; refine how they’re treated, because better welfare means better science. “Desirable as replacement is,” they wrote, “it would be a mistake to put all our humanitarian eggs in this basket alone.” 
Skloot is a science writer and the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.