New hope or false hope for vegetative patients?
A BBC documentary screening this evening on the ‘Inside Out’ program reports on what it describes as a breakthrough for patients in a vegetative state. It is based upon research by a group of neuroscientists in Cambridge, who have used soph…
Read MoreThe Dignity of the Carrot
What are you allowed to do to plants? At least in Switzerland you are not allowed to do research that deeply offend the dignity of plants. The Swiss federal Gene Technology Law stipulates that any scientific research should respect the &quo…
Read MoreThe Lewis wind farm and the need to compromise environmental values
After steering the Lewis wind farm proposal though a six year development process, the Scottish Government has decided not to consent to the proposal. The Scottish Energy Minster is reported as saying that the proposal by Lewis Windpower to…
Read MoreWhat computer simulations can tell us about the success of international treaties
International negations on climate change sometimes give the impression that a lot of hot air is raised for nothing: Politicians, policy makers and scientists alike gain air miles on their way to countless conferences, thereby emitting non-…
Read MoreDo we own our bodies? Should we?
There was a sad story last week about a young woman who died unexpectedly at the age of 19. She was on the organ donor register, and her own mother was on the waiting list for a kidney donation, but the mother was refused one of…
Read MoreBan Cosmetic Surgery in Children?
The Queensland Government, in Australia, has announced it will ban cosmetic surgery in people under 18 years of age. Other states, such as New South Wales, have stated they will also consider restricting access by teenagers to cosmetic enha…
Read MoreTrading on Testosterone: Doping and the Financial Markets
Two cambridge researchers have found that found that the amount of money a male financial trader makes in a day is correlated with his testosterone level. The pair – John Coates and Joe Herbert – also found that a trader&#…
Read MoreAcademic Integrity and Vioxx
Drug company Merck and its product Vioxx are in the news again. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has examined the documents from the legal proceedings against Merck in connection with the withdrawal of Vi…
Read MoreWho’s this ‘we’, Dr Soon? Unconscious Action and Moral Responsibility
A paper in Nature Neuroscience by Soon, Brass, Heinze and Haynes has demonstrated that it is possible (in the case of a simple decision about pressing buttons) to predict what the decision will be and when it will happen several seconds bef…
Read MoreThese are not the probabilities you are looking for
There has been an increasing buzz in the papers regarding the impending launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Some of this concerns the possibility that it will lead to a disaster which destroys the world. This certainly sounds unlikel…
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