Designer babies are in the news again. The LA Fertility Institutes, headed by a 1970s IVF pioneer, have offered the opportunity for potential parents to choose traits such as the eye and hair colour of their children: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

The English Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, is reported  to be considering scrapping the lotteries which determine whether parents get their first choice of schools for their children. Balls is quoted as saying that the lotte…

The public often complains about the fluctuating and conflicting attitudes of scientists.  So often do things heralded as good for us one week turn out to be deadly the next (consider, for example, this recent report about vitamin pil…

If you were offered a treatment that claimed to be able to improve your memory and creativity, enhance neuroplasticity and increase cognitive ability, and prevent later cognitive decline would you take it? Many people would – at least if th…

On Sunday The Observer published an article by Colin Blakemore entitled ‘Science is Just one Gene away from Defeating Religion’. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/genetics-religion). After a necessarily brief overview…

The Ethox Centre and the Programme on the Ethics of New Biosciences are co-organising a one-day workshop to explore the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding the recent development and marketing of direct to consumer genetic tests. Comp…

A paper has recently been published demonstrating that a previously learned fearful reaction can be weakened using a drug. The aim of the research is to ameliorate PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, where traumatic experiences cause an o…

Two of our regular authors, Rebecca Roache and Barbro Bjorkman, have written an opinion piece on the ethics of keeping a child from its parents for BBC Magazine Online, discussing the issues surrounding the case of the Web…

Back in 2001 Richard Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, donated a kidney to his wife Dawnell Batista in an attempt to save both her life and their failing marriage (here and here). Although the transplantation …

“Luca was gay”(in Italy Luca is a male name) is the title of a song that will compete at the next Italian musical festival of Sanremo in few days.Unluckily the regulation of the competition forbids circulating lyrics and music of the songs …