Studies of the content of dreams confirm what most of us already suspect: dreams are more likely to be nasty than pleasant, or as the researchers put it, “negative dream contents are more frequent than corresponding positive dream contents”…

You might think after Usain Bolt’s almost superhuman performances in the 100 and 200 m that the war on doping has been won. However winning one battle is not winning the war. As the example of Lyudmila Blonska shows, doping is still occurri…

A new worry has hit parents: digital drugs. The idea is that sounds can affect brain states, so by listening to the right kind of sounds desired brain states can be induced – relaxation, concentration, happiness, PMS relief or why not…

In the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday, doctors from Denver reported on three controversial cases of heart transplantation from newborn infants. These cases are striking for several reasons. They were examples of so-called ‘donati…

In its just-published report Taking Exception on the allocation of cancer drugs by UK Primary Care Trusts, the Rarer Cancers Forum (http://www.rarercancers.org.uk)  provides further evidence of a ‘postcode lottery’ operating within the…

If, like me, you were one of the kids whose preferred superpower was invisibility, you may soon be in luck. The BBC reports today that US scientists have created a material that could one day be used to make people and objects invisible. Th…

Yesterday’s Daily Mail online contains an opinion piece bemoaning the decision by NICE – the UK body responsible for rationing healthcare resources – to decline funding for four new treatments for Kidney Cancer. The Mail c…

Scientists in Korea have for the first time successfully cloned a dog commercially. Cloning of dogs is notoriously difficult. This brings us closer to human cloning. The film Boys from Brazil , made in the earlier 80s, portrayed accurately …

The Guardian yesterday reported the death of the man who had been so tragically shot in Antigua, with his wife, three weeks after their wedding. It began like this: "Ben Mullany, the newlywed who was shot on honeymoon in Antigua in an …

Nature reports that in response to analysis done by bioethicist Robert Streiffer (and published in the Hastings Center Report), Stanford University may withdraw the use for research of several of its publicly funded stem cell lines because …