In the Scotsman this week there is an interview with a scientist who has claimed that a loophole in the draft UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is likely to lead to the creation of hybrid human-apes or “humanzees”. In essence this…

The US Congress today passed legislation banning the use of genetic information by insurance companies, unions and employers. As Dominic Wilkinson noted in his post on 26 April, this legislation might have interesting implications for profe…

Controversy has erupted around whether experiments to test artificial blood should stop. Experimental blood substitutes raised the risk of heart attack and death, yet U.S. regulators allowed human testing to continue despite warning signs, …

Stuart Rennie writes a thoughtful blog on bioethics.net, Can you buy changes in health behaviours? on how the World Bank backs an anti-AIDS experiment paying young people to not contract sexually transmitted infections. The basic idea is no…

There are several possible solutions to genetic discrimination in sport. Legislation, like that passed this week in the US could be used to prevent clubs from using genetic screening in recruitment. However that would still allow clubs to d…

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…

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…

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…

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-…

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…