Italy moves towards ban on euthanasia
Italy’s lower house has passed a controversial end-of-life bill which makes it illegal to withdraw hydration and nutrition from comatose patients in most cases. Italy’s...
Does neuroethics have a future?
What is the half-life of ethical specialties? Following recent speculation about the future of bioethics, it seems to be getting shorter. What is the half-life...
IVF child to have grandma, but no pa and no ma
Marissa Evans, broken-hearted, watched her 21-year-old son die in hospital. When doctors told her it was time to turn off his life support, the 44-year-old...
Frozen embryo transfer leads to larger and heavier babies
IVF babies born using frozen embryo transfer are more likely to be larger and heavier, research has shown. IVF babies born using frozen embryo transfer...
Japanese researchers grow first stem cell tooth
Japanese scientists have grown an entire tooth from stem cells implanted into a mouse’s kidney. Japanese scientists have grown an entire tooth from stem cells...
Should parents lose custody of their obese children?
One way of managing the US’s childhood obesity crisis could be to remove the most severely overweight kids from their parents, argues a Harvard obesity...
Call for head of US bioethics commission to step down
Corporate governance and management oversight are flavour of the week with the shenanigans at Rupert Murdoch’s defunct News of the World on every front page....
A bigger whiteboard, please
I used to get headaches studying the genealogies of the royal houses of Europe. Just the House of Windsor, which stretches back only to George...
Does bioethics have a future?
Despite pugnacious assertions of right and wrong, permissible and impermissible, the future of bioethics (and perhaps bioethicists, as well) is often clouded by self-doubt. Few...
Adult stem cells create artificial windpipe
For the first time a working artificial windpipe using a patient’s own adult stem cells has been created. A 36-year-old Eritrean man had a rare...
BC government appeals sperm donor ruling
The British Columbia government is appealing a judicial ruling in May which abolished sperm donor anonymity. It was the first of its kind in the...
Germany legalises pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
The German parliament has legalised pre-implantation genetic diagnosis after a long debate over three competing proposals. The bill was passed on a conscience vote. PGD...