There have been dramatic headlines in the media ('Coma Man. I think…I’m alive') following the publication yesterday of a new study using brain scans to detect consciousness in profoundly brain damaged patients. For the first time sc…

You’ve stumbled upon a group of beings. For all you can tell, these beings are self-aware, intelligent, have emotions, solve complex problems, and call each other by name. They have thoughts and feelings and probably experience life in a wa…

Much attention has been paid over the last week or so to An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, a government-sponsored study which has taken over ten years to produce: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/27/unequal-britain-repo…

Some of us know Professor Robert George as the ultraconservative Catholic bioethicist from Princeton. It could hardly be said that his writings have dominated discussion in contemporary ethics. It is thus slightly surprising to find out, in…

Now we move on to what is owed to other enquirers keep records of original data  and methods and make such records freely available. The global temperature record produced by the CRU is one of the four sets of data on which the IPCC h…

The days following the devastating earthquake in Haiti saw a surge in fundraising efforts from organizations all over the world. In this charitable climate, the atheist scientist Richard Dawkins set up an aid campaign of his own: Non-Believ…

There has been a good deal of discussion about obesity recently, since the Royal College of Surgeons criticized access to weight loss operations in the UK as a ‘postcode lottery’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/21/morbid-o…

Is the traditional jury system in trouble? The first crown court criminal trial in England and Wales without a jury in 350 years is being held right now, dealing with the Heathrow robbery of 2004. The Guardian discusses the problem of keepi…

In a recent article, “Sure, It’s Treatable. But Is It a Disorder?” the New York Times warns its readers to “brace yourselves for P.E. – shorthand for premature ejaculation”. If the pharmaceutical industry is to be believed, that may not be …

In the headlines this week is the tragic story of Frances Inglis, whom a jury at the Old Bailey found guilty of murdering her disabled son Tom and sentenced to nine years in jail. Tom Inglis had been left severely braindamaged after falling…