India’s bad sex ratio worsens
Early returns for the 2011 census shows that the number of girls to 1,000 boys has shrunk to 914 girls to every 1000 boys, down...
Animal rights gains ground in US legal system
Researchers are beginning to feel threatened by the rapid development of laws favourable to animals, according to a wide-ranging feature in Science. Researchers are beginning...
51 die in first full year of Washington’s right-to-die law
Fifty-one people have died in the first full year under Washington state’s Death with Dignity Act. Fifty-one people have died in the first full year...
Was Dante a transhumanist?
Dante is not a figure who is often invoked as a forerunner of transhumanism, the movement to accelerate man’s evolution with technology and genetic engineering....
Rwanda’s “voluntary” population control scheme
Health minister Richard Sezibera has unveiled a plan for 700,000 men to have voluntary vasectomies over three years to curb Rwanda's population growth. Mass sterilisation...
Rebecca Black not so bad now
Thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black’s music video “ Friday” may be atrocious, but with nearly 65 million views (at last count) it seems a good return on...
Does the future include three-month accelerated pregnancies?
Hi there, The New York Times reviewed a thought-provoking book this weekend, “Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do...
China considers scrapping 1-child policy
The Chinese government may consider lifting restrictions on its notorious one-child policy. Wang Yuqing, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the...
Half of Austrian medical students favour euthanasia
The proportion of medical students in Austria who are sympathetic to voluntary euthanasia has more than tripled in the past ten years. According to researchers...
A future with 3-month pregnancies
Biopolitical Times, a California blog on bioethics, never seems to stop unearthing intriguing examples of our reproductive future. This time it found a series...
NYC transgenders sue to change birth certificates
At least three transgender people are suing the City of New York for discrimination because they cannot change the gender listed on their birth...
“What on earth have I done?” asks 58-year-old mother of IVF twins
Another chapter in the reproductive revolution from the UK: 58-year-old Carole Hobson, a single woman, is now the mother of twins. Not exactly her twins....