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Chillin’ with the Texas Board of Education
The Texas Board of Education recently approved changes to the state's high school social studies curriculum. The Board also has responsibility for reviewing and approving textbooks for use in Texas schools according to whether they meet its curriculum standards, so its move will effectively force textbook publishers to revise their presentation of American history. The…
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The hammer or the nail – are addicts morally responsible?
In a case that is probably echoed daily across this country and many others, an amphetamine addict Michael Hunter was jailed yesterday for attacking a friend with a hammer. The judge noted that "amphetamine had clearly affected Hunter’s mental health, but he highlighted the fact that he had been responsible for two unprovoked attacks using…
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Today we lost the drug war
What does synthetic biology mean? Quinn Norton argues it means the end of the drug war: synthetic biology might be able to do the wonderful things (as well as the dangerous things) envisioned by Venter and others, but it definitely can produce drugs. It is also much easier to produce chemicals than fix the environment…
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Synthetic life special edition
Blogs, papers and other resources relating to news of first synthetic life form Updated 27/05/10
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Synthetic biology: eroding the moral distinctions between animate and inanimate.
Sometimes science reveals distinctions to be false. Time and space were thought to be distinct, separate things, until Einstein showed that they were fundamentally intertwined. Graphite and diamond were thought to be made of distinct substances, until Tennant showed that they would release the same gas when burned. In a similar way, progress in the…
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Playing God for the first time…
With his new paper Craig Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity’s history, potentially peeking into it’s destiny. The challenge is to eat the apple without choking on the worm.
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Venter creates bacterium controlled by a synthetic genome
Craig Venter’s team have succeeded in producing a synthetic bacterium capable of self-replication. The group synthesised from scratch a variant of the Mycoplasma mycoides genome, which they then transplanted into a different Mycoplasma species to produce a bacterium controlled by the synthetic genome. The resulting bacterium could be regarded as the first truly synthetic organism.…
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A nick for Nick, but nix to nicks for Nickie?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has come under fire for a policy statement that has a more nuanced approach to female circumcision (FC) than its previous absolute opposition. The new policy proposes that the law be changed to allow pediatricians to perform a ritual ‘nick’ as a compromise where families request female circumcision. The…
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The carnival is coming…
Practical Ethics News will host the 109th Philosophers' Carnival on 7th June. If you know of a particularly good (recent) philosophy blog post, you can nominate it for inclusion via this link. Posts need not be on the topic of practical ethics, although they should be accessible to a popular audience. Posts relating to current…
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Should bio-scientists think about bio-weapons?
Following the September 11 attacks and subsequent Anthrax attacks, the US began introducing new biosecurity regulations as a counter to bioterrorism. The centrepiece of the new regulatory framework has been a list of 'select agents' – pathogens with particular potential for use in weapons of mass destruction. Agents on the list are subject to special…