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 prod…

Blogs, papers and other resources relating to news of first synthetic life form Updated 27/05/10

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 substa…

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.

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 spec…

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…

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 pr…

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'…

Imagine a naked, beautiful person of your preferred gender. Now imagine that they sensously fondle a sausage. They gently caress it, they lick it, they eventually insert it somewhere… While no doubt some of my readers have been turned…

Practicalethicsnews is now 2 1/2 years old, and continues to grow. We are keen to improve this blog further, and are going to make a few changes in coming weeks. One change that we are trialling is an alteration to our comments policy. We a…