December 11, 2007

Study This! Separating Siblings for Science

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These two women had always known they were adopted but had no idea that they had a sibling, let alone an identical twin!

At 35, when one started searching for her birth family, they found out that researchers had intentionally separated them, and as many other twins and triplets as they could get their mitts on, specifically so they could study the nature v. nurture thing. To top it all off, these separated siblings have no legal recourse. The study results won’t even be available until 2066. Did the birth parents know their kids would be separated?

I guess I’d have made a lousy scientist because there’s no way I could ever have devised, or agreed to, something so callous. Here’s hoping they don’t give up on the legal angle so no one ever comes up with this type of psychological Tuskegee experiment again.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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