More Australians making use of international surrogacy services
The number of Australians using commercial surrogacy in India has grown dramatically over the past five years. In an interview this week the founder of...
Ban boxing, says neuroscientist
One of Britain’s leading neuroscientists, John Hardy, of University College London, has used the magazine New Scientist to call for a ban on boxing. One...
Grave concern about the safety of new IVF procedure
A paper published this week in the journal Science questioned the safety an IVF procedure designed to prevent mitochondrial diseases in children. A paper published...
The coming battle over brain scans in the courtroom
The possibility of reading minds with brain scans is creating fierce controversy among legal scholarsThe possibility of reading minds with brain scans is creating fierce...
Scientists overcome roadblock to therapeutic use of stem-cells
Israeli researchers have made a major breakthrough in the search for an efficient method of producing induced pluripotent stem cells. Israeli researchers have made a...
Stephen Hawking and assisted suicide
Stephen Hawking is in the news this week (see article below). A documentary has just been released on the life of the 71-year-old cosmologist timed...
Nature editor questions “the religion of science”
The public should treat scientists with a bit less reverence, says a senior editor of Nature in a controversial column in The Guardian. The public...
Google searches for life extension
If you have US$50 billion or so in cash lying around, you can afford to spend some of it on out-there projects. Which is what...
UK bioethicists promoting a second wave of eugenics
Eugenics is alive and well in British academia. Eugenics is alive and well in British academia. Stephen Wilkinson, of Lancaster University, recently published a long...
“Louise is not afraid of inflicting pain on troubled families”
The head of the British government's troubled families programme says that some mothers of large, expensive and troubled children should be forcefully counselled about using...
Is using Prozac a valid defence for murder?
One of the more interesting films released this year has been Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller Side Effects. One of the more interesting films released this...
Should mentally incompetent people be allowed to donate organs?
Should a mentally incompetent person be allowed to donate organs? Should a mentally incompetent person be allowed to donate organs? Surprisingly, according to an article...