Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. Does it matter if I give a name to you?
According to the Daily Mail yesterday scientists have found that giving cows individual names boosts milk yields. This extravagant and utterly unsubstantiated claim has been repeated in numerous places including the BBC and Scientific Ameri…
Read MoreSid Vicious, Julieraptor, and the Ownership of Fossils
There is a thriving market in fossils, much of which can be found on-line. Extinctions, Inc (www.extinctions.com) claim to have the ‘… largest, most complete, and most detailed fossil websites on the internet’ and claim to have been selling…
Read MoreTennis and Sex
Once a week I thrash around haplessly on the tennis court. This week, I’m also a tennis spectator. While the global economy implodes, at least one event appears to be untouched – the 2009 Australian Tennis Open. …
Read MorePolar exploration: small steps towards cheaper, safer, easier IVF?
A new method of screening eggs for IVF has been developed, promising better chances of successful IVF cycles. Two out of three women fail at each IVF attempt, and a large part of this is believed to be due to abnormalities in the number of …
Read MoreStem Cell Trials – Should They Go Ahead? Why Harm to Patients Is Not a Reason to Stop Them
Professor Savulescu comments: Professor Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford, Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, and Director of the Program on the…
Read MoreAnnouncement of Neuroethics Lectures: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong will be giving two Leverhulme lectures and a special ethics seminar on Neuroscience and Neuroethics at the University of Oxford as part of his Leverhulme Visiting Professorship programme 2008 &…
Read MoreA wonderful, unspecific day
Tuesday was a wonderful, exciting, day. But the job of the philosophical blogger is to look beyond the general euphoria, and seek out discussion points. A commentator in the ChicagoTribune remarked th…
Read MoreWhat if oestradiol could really affect the relationships of highly attractive women?
A recent study at the University of Texas published in the "Royal Society Journal Biology Letters" suggests a connection in attractive and young women between high levels of oestradiol and some peculiar charac…
Read MoreThe Lost Genius objection to pre-natal testing for autism
In an opinion piece on the BBC website this week Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has questioned the wisdom of adopting pre-natal screening for autism, raising the possibility that it would prevent the existence of future great mathematicians. T…
Read MoreNon possumus?
These days the Vatican’s statements sound a bit like a broken record, repeating continuously “Non possumus”. It started at the beginning of December when Benedict XVI refused to support President Sarkozy’s proposal that encourages the gover…
Read More