The FDA finally approved Elon Musk’s Neuralink chip for human trials. Have all the concerns been addressed?
Since its founding in 2016, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company Neuralink has had the ambitious mission to build a next-generation brain implant with at least 100...
Human challenge studies: what we’ve learned from intentionally infecting people with COVID
When COVID began to spread rapidly in 2020, sending the UK and other countries into lockdowns, many people asked what they could do to help....
‘Your ChatGPT advance directive is ready for signing …’
I couldn’t help thinking of the trash talk at the weigh-in before a professional heavyweight fight when I read the recent JAMA Network editorial on...
Teaching the brains of paralysed people to communicate
One of the most terrifying accidents imaginable is to become paralysed and to be unable to speak. Fortunately, scientists are gradually learning how to interpret...
Is politics invading a leading science journal?
An editorial in Nature Human Behaviour has sparked a lively debate over woke science and free speech. Its headline, “Science must respect the dignity and...
Fallen stem cell hero convicted in Swedish court
Once hailed as a stem cell technology pioneer, Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini has been convicted of causing bodily harm and given a suspended sentence in...
Recipient of pig’s heart dies
The xenotransplant patient who made history by receiving a pig heart has died, about 40 days after his operation. David Bennett, a 57-year-old with serious...
New implant from Switzerland offers promise for the paralyzed
On a cold, snowy day last December, Michel Roccati – an Italian man who became paralyzed after a motorcycle accident four years earlier – took...
Are human challenge studies for Covid ethical?
Researchers at Oxford University, in the UK, are seeking volunteers to participate in human challenge studies. These are carefully controlled experiments which involve deliberately infecting...
US doctors transplant pig heart into human
Surgeons in the United States have implanted the heart of a genetically modified pig into a human patient in a global first, the University of...
Francis Collins reflects on 12 years of leading NIH
Francis Collins is stepping down as director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) after more than 12 years on the job. He was...
Hepatitis research: more dark corners in American medicine
When World War II began, the US military discovered that it had a huge health problem: hepatitis. Nothing much was known about the disease and...