Alcohol abuse in the UK has been escalating for decades, contributing to crime, unemployment, illness and death. Last month, the government reported that alcohol-related deaths in the UK have doubled over the last 15 years to almost 9,000. …

A television report aired in the US last week claimed that bodies used in public anatomical exhibitions might have included executed Chinese prisoners. There have been subsequent denials from exhibitors that any of the bodies currently bein…

An interesting new study on the heritability of childhood obesity has been widely publicised. The paper, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found only a modest effect of shared environment on body mass index. The study…

The editors of Nature have today called for the US Senate to bypass Senator Tom Coburn’s (Republican, Oklahoma ) ‘hold’ the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Bill. The Bill, if enacted “would protect people from being discriminated aga…

An alternative approach to the problem of fake anti-malaria drugs would be to make such drugs available for free to those who need them in the developing world. It would be a shame if the problem of fake pharmaceuticals became a part of the…

The BBC today reported calls to scrap an acoustic device designed to disperse crowds of troublesome teenagers. There are 3,500 such ‘Mosquito’ devices in use in England, which work by emitting a sound normally audible only to those under th…

An article was published in Science on Friday (8 February 2008) reporting the results of a study on the generation of energy via an ‘energy harvester’ mounted on the human knee. The authors of the article begin by noting that humans are a r…

When we make decisions about which future persons will live – children to teenage parents, or children with disability, the types of objections cited above can be expressed. If we think that such objections are convincing, we should not try…

Health Secretary Alan Johnson wants to fluoride to be added to England’s water supplies to tackle tooth decay. He wants health authorities to compel water companies to add the chemical.

A well-known diabetes expert has abused his function as peer reviewer for the renowned The New England Journal of Medicine. The reviewer broke confidentiality and leaked a damaging report about a substantial hike in the risk of heart attack…