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Catholic Conscience and Hybrid Embryos
The first hybrid embryo was created yesterday and the debate about it and the HFEA Bill continues. Recently, the most senior Catholic scientist Sir Leszek Borysiewicz has criticised the Church for its position. Sir Leszek is quoted in The Times as saying: I was brought up as a Catholic at home, both my parents are…
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Extinction Risks and Particle Physics: When Are They Worth it?
The Large Hadron Collider, LHC, is the worlds biggest particle accelerator and due to start investigating the structure of matter later this year. Now a lawsuit has been filed in the US calling on the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop preparations for starting the LHC for a…
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Peering into the mind and ‘new threats to privacy’
In recent studies, neuroscientists have been able to use brain imaging to reliably predict inner states such as lying or intention. In a groundbreaking study published in a recent issue of Nature (and briefly summarised here, here and here), Kay and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to make predictions about what subjects…
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PatientsLikeMe.com
The New York Times recently published a feature article on a website called PatientsLikeMe. This is an online community like facebook or MySpace, but with a medical twist. The members have serious medical conditions, like Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or HIV, and they use site to post quantitative information about their treatment and symptoms. The…
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Are artists, writers, sportsmen, academics, scientists, politicians, and businessmen addicts?
Various news sources this week, including Fox News and The Guardian, are reporting on an editorial published in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry. In it, the author, Jerald J. Block, argues that internet addiction is a real psychological disorder, and that it ought to be recognised as such in DSM-V, the fifth edition of…
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A National Health Database
The Australian Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon has announced plans for a national health database. According to a report in The Australian today, the current version of these plans includes enabling patients to look up mortality rates for surgeons as well as rates of hospital-acquired infections and readmission rates. This development is seen…
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Adoption and the golden rule
We have good reason to admire parents who are able to care for children like Imogen. The challenges that they face are enormous, and the personal sacrifices that they make are often extraordinary. But should we demand parents sacrifice their own interests, those of their other children and their partners? What weight should we put…
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Remembering what happened vs. remembering what it meant
An upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin will include a review suggesting that the memories of children may be more reliable – at least for evidential legal purposes – than the memories of adults. The review conducted by Valerie Reyna and Chuck Brainerd assesses over thirty studies sparked by their own earlier research on what…
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Killing the goose that laid the golden egg
The US government has just announced that it is likely to close its enormous Pacific salmon fishery, which stretches across 80% of the USA’s west coast. The once vast salmon stocks have crashed and are now at a mere 6% of the long-term average. Many readers will remember the similar crash in the cod stocks…
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Is it Wrong to Deliberately Select Embryos which will have Disabiltites?
A current bill before Parliament would revise the current regulation of IVF. One clause has caused great debate, especially amongst people with disabilities. It states: (9) Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop— (a)…