If you had died 50 years ago, your body would have stood a pretty good chance of serving science. In the 1960s, autopsy rates at US hospitals exceeded 50 percent. Pathologists weren’t necessarily looking for what killed people — they were taking advantage of the fact that a body was available and ready for inspection. There was still much to learn about normal human biology, the thinking went, so every corpse was an educational opportunity.

These days, autopsy rates have fallen below 10 percent, a decline that’s symptomatic of a larger deficiency. Medicine has become all about finding a problem — a tumor, a heart attack, a failing kidney — and deploying advanced treatment technologies. In the process, we seem to have given up on measuring and tracking what constitutes normal. That’s an alarming — and potentially dangerous — trend. (Wired)

These days, all medical schools have some type of education in topics like the physician-patient relationship and breaking bad news. But knowing how to respond to a personal wave of stress or sadness remains a major challenge. Is crying O.K.? How about hugging a patient who starts to cry? (New York Times)

Euro MPs have called for an EU-wide organ donor card to tackle the shortage of organs for transplant. (BBC)

The BTK case was an early use of an emerging tool in law enforcement: analyzing the DNA of a suspect’s relatives. In the BTK example, police had a suspect and were looking to tie him to the crime. But now, states are moving to conduct familial searches of criminal databases, looking for close-to-perfect matches with DNA from crime scenes. A partial match with a convicted criminal could implicate a brother or daughter or father of the convict. Such searches, advocates say, constitute a powerful law enforcement tool that, experts say, could increase by 40 percent the number of suspects identified through DNA. (Washington Post)

Your DNA falls into the realm of “the world’s information,” and it seems that Google (GOOG), as part of its corporate mission, is making a play to organize that, too. The Internet giant received heavy press in 2007 when it invested at least $4.4 million [BusinessWeek.com, 11/29/07] in a genetic screening company, 23andMe, that was started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and her business partner. (BusinessWeek)

The newest skin creams beckon with an air of scientific gravitas, holding out the hope that now, at last, medicine has triumphed over the visible aging process. With tantalizing biological references and understated packaging, the products are among the first on the market to capitalize on the public’s insatiable appetite for stem cell technology. (Los Angeles Times)

There is an unacceptable ambiguity used in ethical parlance: the mistaken use of “bioethics” and “medical ethics” interchangeably. (The Current)

Until the Human Tissue Authority has properly assessed the implications, it will not change the rules for deceased donation. (Times Online)

A new nonprofit institution plans to build a $115 million stem cell research facility in San Diego that would open by 2010. (The Associated Press)