The US National Nanotechnology Initiative has spent billions of dollars on submicroscopic science in its first 10 years. Corie Lok finds out where the money went and what the initiative plans to do next. (Nature News)

Mimicking the behaviour of ants, bees and birds started as a poor man’s version of artificial intelligence. It may, though, be the key to the real thing. (The Economist)

Biomedical Microdevices (Volume 12, Number 4, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “What We Know and Don’t Know About the Bioeffects of Nanoparticles: Developing Experimental Approaches for Safety Assessment” by Mel E. Stratmeyer, Peter L. Goering, Victoria M. Hitchins and Thomas H. Umbreit, 569-573.
• “Nanotechnology for Regenerative Medicine” by Dongwoo Khang, Joseph Carpenter, Young Wook Chun, Rajesh Pareta and Thomas J. Webster, 589-596.
• “Combinatorial Targeting and Nanotechnology Applications” by Glauco R. Souza, Fernanda I. Staquicini, Dawn R. Christianson, Michael G. Ozawa and J. Houston Miller, et al., 597-606.
• “Compressed Collagen Gel as the Scaffold for Skin Engineering” by Kuikui Hu, Hui Shi, Ji Zhu, Dan Deng and Guangdong Zhou, et al., 627-635.
• “Sustained Release of Insulin Through Skin by Intradermal Microdelivery System” by Yan Wu, Yunhua Gao, Guangjiong Qin, Suohui Zhang and Yuqin Qiu, et al., 665-671.
• “Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Scaffolds for Heterogeneous Tissue Engineering” by Li-Hsin Han, Shalu Suri, Christine E. Schmidt and Shaochen Chen, 721-725.

FOR generations, the Avidians have been cloning themselves quietly in a box. They’re not perfect, but most of their mutations go unnoticed. Then something remarkable happens. One steps forward, and that changes everything. Tens of thousands of generations down the line, some of its descendents will evolve memory. (New Scientist)

If we are to believe transhumanists, people who bill themselves as champions of superlongevity and artificial human enhancement, 2045 should be a very good year. (The Boston Globe)

The idea is for heart patients to take readings like their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics using wireless and other technologies; the data are then transmitted to a case manager or medical care giver. That way health care givers can catch, and address, warning signs before the patient lands in the ER with shortness of breath or a heart attack. In the past, patients have found such technology difficult to use. But a number of managed-care companies are experimenting with electronic devices meant to make the process easier. (Wall Street Journal)

Six months since it launched, the world’s first factory for making professional-quality biological DNA ‘parts’ is beginning to stock its shelves. (Nature News)

A voyage through the human body is no longer mere fantasy. Tiny devices may soon perform surgery, administer drugs and help diagnose disease. (Scientific American)

Reason, Theology, and the Genome: A Conference on the Ethics of Human Enhancement
Christ Church, University of Oxford
October 9, 2010

What is the place of theology in the growing debate over genetic engineering and human enhancement? Are theological reasons of interest only to believers? Or, as Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas have both suggested, might they be important for society generally, for secular and religious alike? Reason, Theology and the Genome brings together a distinguished international panel of speakers, representing many different disciplines and points of view, to consider the relevance of theology to one of the most important questions of our time.

For more information or to register

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues convened last week for its first meeting. The commission—created by executive order with the “goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, healthcare delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner”—was tasked by President Barack Obama to study first the implications of synthetic biology. The president’s request came on the heels of J. Craig Venter’s announcement that his lab had successfully created a single-cell organism with a genome synthesized entirely from scratch. (Science Progress)

What does the future look like? We essentially rely on science fiction thrillers to give us a taste of what lies ahead for humanity: Avatar; Iron Man; I, Robot; Surrogates; Star Wars; and I am Legend. But these films only give us part of the picture both in terms of the science and the social implications. They also never explain how we’ll get from here to there, making the future tantalizing but also implausible.Big Think

The federal government issued new rules Tuesday that will reward doctors and hospitals for the “meaningful use” of electronic health records, a top goal of President Obama.

The rules significantly scale back proposed requirements that the health care industry had denounced as unrealistic. (New York Times)

I had vowed to myself not to think about or write about “the internet makes you smarter, the internet makes you dumber” argument. Even when some of my favorite authors (Steven B. Johnson, Clay Shirky, Nicholas Carr, and Jonah Lehrer) weighed in, I thought it best not to participate.

And then I read about Paro, either “a disturbing turn in our treatment of the elderly or the best care-giving gadget since the Clapper.” This $6,000 Japanese robot is approved by U.S. regulators as a Class 2 medical device, and some believe it soothes dementia patients and helps them communicate. The non-profit Danish Technological Institute has encouraged every Danish nursing home to get a Paro, and Danish filmmaker Phie Ambo featured the robot in her Mechanical Love documentary. Isn’t Denmark supposed to be a model for the U.S. of what wired medicine will look like in the future? Maybe the Danes are on to something. (KevinMD)

The impetus for the meeting was a May report in Science in which researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute synthesized the genome of a bacterium, added it to another bacterial cell, and got the cell to replicate using the new DNA. The startling feat prompted President Barack Obama to ask his newly formed bioethics commission to examine the implications of the Venter study and other kinds of synthetic biology, such as creating biological circuits by putting components together in a cell. Obama asked for a report in just 6 months. (ScienceInsider)

Wallach is a pioneer in the nascent field of robot ethics and has captured the imaginations of futurists with his theories on artificial moral agents and computational ethics. In fact, he designed the world’s first course on the subject at Yale, and he published a book last year entitled, Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong. (ZDNet)

Amy Gutmann, chair of the US presidential bioethics commission, discusses the challenges of bringing synthetic biology to the public arena. (Nature News)

Nothing Eileen Oldaker tried could calm her mother when she called from the nursing home, disoriented and distressed in what was likely the early stages of dementia. So Ms. Oldaker hung up, dialed the nurses’ station and begged them to get Paro. (New York Times)

The announcement that the J. Craig Venter Institute has succeeded (finally) in synthesizing the genome of Mycoplasma mycoides—inserting it into a cell of Mycoplasma capricolum whose genome had been removed, and creating a fully functioning Mycoplasma mycoides—has been heralded as the moment that science finally took the magic out of life. Venter has said that the achievement has changed the definition of life. Bioethicist Art Caplan, a friend of mine, thinks it puts forever to rest the idea that living things are “endowed with some sort of special power, force, or property.” It is conclusive proof that life is nothing more than interacting chemicals. (The Scientist)

“I don’t ever want to die… It wouldn’t suit me,” said Innokenty Osadchy. Fortunately, the 35-year-old investment banker is certain he has found a loophole out of death. Osadchy is ready to pay a small fortune to freeze his brain until future technology allows him to continue his life — after being transplanted into a new body and resuscitated. (AFP)

Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics (Volume 38, Issue 2, Summer 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “Embryo Stem Cell Research: Ten Years of Controversy” by John A. Robertson
• “Why Scientific Details Are Important When Novel Technologies Encounter Law, Politics, and Ethics” by Lawrence Goldstein
• “Old and New Ethics in the Stem Cell Debate” by Richard M. Doerflinger
• “Creating Embryos for Use in Stem Cell Research” by Dan W. Brock
• “Resolving Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Clinical Trials: The Example of Parkinson Disease” by Bernard Lo and Lindsay Parham
• “Allowing Innovative Stem Cell-Based Therapies Outside of Clinical Trials: Ethical and Policy Challenges” by Insoo Hyun
• Stem Cell Research and Economic Promises” by Timothy Caulfield
• “Diagnosing Consciousness: Neuroimaging, Law, and the Vegetative State” by Carl E. Fisher and Paul S. Appelbaum
• “Damage Control: Unintended Pregnancy in the United States Military” by Kathryn L. Ponder and Melissa Nothnagle
• “Teaching Health Law: Teaching Law and Medicine on the Interdisciplinary Cutting Edge: Assisted Reproductive Technologies” by Susan B. Apel
• “Recent Case Developments in Health Law” by Kate Wevers

The members of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology will convene in Extraordinary Session at UNESCO headquarters in Paris (Room XI, Fontenoy Building) on 28-30 June, 2010.

COMEST is an advisory body and forum of reflection composed of 18 independent experts and 11 ex officio representatives of international scientific bodies. The Commission is mandated to formulate ethical principles that could provide decision-makers with criteria than go beyond economics.

The agenda will focus on environmental ethics with an emphasis on ethical principles in relation to climate change, an interim report on which will be adopted at the Session. In addition, questions concerning the ethics of science, nanotechnologies, and converging technologies will be an integral part of the programme.

The session will be open to the public with the exception of the morning of the 28 June and the afternoon of 30 June. Advance registration, which is free of charge, is required for persons wishing to attend the Session.

Contact
John Crowley
COMEST Secretariat
UNESCO
1 rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 FRANCE
Tel.: +33 (0)1 45 68 38 28
Fax: +33 (0)1 45 68 57 24
E-mails: comest@unesco.org

Website: http://www.unesco.org/shs/ethics