Eighteen days after his wife instructed doctors to withdraw food and water, an Arizona man has awakened from a coma. Jesse Ramirez Jr, 36, had...

The fact that there is only a about a 1% difference between the genetic make-up of chimpanzees and human has been called "the most overly...

An Australian palliative care specialist has called upon the United Nations to declare an International Year of Pain Management. Writing in the journal Anesthesia &...

Pharmaceutical companies are reeling from criticism in the US and Australia over claims that industry-funded medical education programs are "infomercials" which gloss over the weak...

Excitement about so-called "synthetic life" is growing as scientists reflect more on the implications of experiments which are aimed at creating artificial cells. A group...

Caesarean section births are rising and rising in the United States -- and no one knows exactly why. In the 1940s, Caesareans were rare, but...

Nurse murders: A Berlin nurse has been convicted of murdering five patients at a top hospital with drug overdoses. Irene Becker, 54, was sentenced to...

 One of America's leading bioethics journals features a strong argument for assisted suicide for the mentally ill in its latest issue. Jacob M. Appel, a...

 According to a feature on suicide in the Economist, the global suicide rate has risen by 60% over the past 45 years, with about one...

 "Manimals" are around the corner, according to the bioethics writer for the Washington Post and Slate, William Saletan. In an update on scientists' progress towards...

Nature has launched a new website dedicated to news and views about stem cells. "Our goal is enlighten and promote communication in stem cell research...

Coming from a different angle, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have told a parliamentary committee that human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory...