June 30, 2007
Nearly two months ago, I posted an entry about the science journal Nature Neuroscience’s unfair editorial attack on Dr. Maureen Condic because she dared to question embryonic stem cell research dogma that ES cells offer the best hope for treatments, … Read More
June 29, 2007
Researchers have developed a laser smaller than a red blood cell that can be tuned to emit different colors. They have incorporated the nanowire-based laser into a device that, by combining features from multiple microscopy techniques, could reveal new details … Read More
June 29, 2007
A team led by maverick U.S. geneticist Craig Venter is reporting it has successfully transferred an entirely new set of genetic machinery into a tiny microbe and “booted” it up. The feat, published online Thursday by the journal Science, is … Read More
June 29, 2007
Eighteen days after his wife instructed doctors to disconnect food and water tubes, a Chandler, Ariz. man is sitting up in his hospice bed, giving the thumbs-up sign and communicating with visitors. (USA Today)
June 29, 2007
Italian scientists have developed a pill that expands in the stomach to make dieters feel full. They liken the effect to eating a bowl of spaghetti and say the pill can stop hunger for a few hours. (BBC)
June 29, 2007
A puppy found hobbling in the Kuwaiti desert has ended up at Colorado State University, where she might be a candidate for an experimental prosthesis that could one day help humans. (MSNBC)
June 29, 2007
A new article in The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics calls for a change in the regulations surrounding xenotransplantation, the transplanting of animal cells, tissues or organs into humans. Although few xenotransplantation procedures have been done to this time, … Read More
June 29, 2007
First, Mike, I want to thank you for inviting me to the Washington, D.C., premiere of your new movie SiCKO. You invited me even though you knew I was likely to criticize the film’s prescription for health care reform. (TCS … Read More
June 28, 2007
The creativity of biotechnologists sometimes astounds. In this instance, as reported in Scientific American, scientists transformed one type of bacteria into another by transferring the latter’s total genetic makeup into the former. Why transmute one species into another? As radical … Read More
June 28, 2007
Keep in mind this isn’t peer reviewed, hasn’t been replicated, and was released as part of a PR move, but get this: From May 2006 to January 2007, 25 patients with SCI were treated at Luis Vernaza Hospital in Guayaquil, … Read More
June 28, 2007
The Hastings Center Report is probably the most prestigious bioethics journal in the world. Thus, when an opinion article appears in its pages, the ideas expressed are definitely in play among the bioethical elite. I bring this up because an … Read More
June 28, 2007
Doctors voted yesterday for easier access to abortions for women in the first three months of pregnancy. But the British Medical Association’s annual representative meeting drew the line at allowing nurses and midwives to conduct abortions, or relaxing the rules … Read More
June 28, 2007
In Douglas Adams’s science fiction classic, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,†there is a character by the name of Slartibartfast, who designed the fjords of Norway and left his signature in a glacier. I was reminded of Slartibartfast recently … Read More
June 28, 2007
Our reporter enters the new world of neuroenhancers by having his brain zapped with electricity and dosed with chemicals. (Technology Review)
June 28, 2007
A British stem-cell discovery has brought scientists within sight of the medical revolution which could lead to spare body tissue being mass-produced in laboratories. The first clinical steps towards this goal could now be just five years away, according to … Read More
June 28, 2007
New studies underline the importance of extreme caution in any decision to limit the life chances of patients during the acute phase of a vegetative state. (News-Medical)
June 28, 2007
The American Medical Association has decided not to soften its 1995 position that it is unethical to patent surgical procedures. (MedPage Today)
June 28, 2007
Scientists say they’ve created embryonic stem cells by stimulating unfertilized eggs, a significant step toward producing transplant tissue that’s genetically matched to women. (Washington Post)
June 28, 2007
Emma Crichton-Miller reviews Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Men, Women, and the World by Liza Mundy. In the epilogue of this thought-provoking book, Liza Mundy writes of a friend seeing, on holiday on a New Jersey beach, a … Read More
June 28, 2007
The multicountry odyssey of Andrew Speaker, infected with an ultra-rare type of tuberculosis that resists some of our best drugs – and the first person placed under a federal quarantine order in more than 40 years – has raised concerns … Read More
June 28, 2007
Euthanasia, whether in a medical setting (hospital, clinic, hospice) or not (at home) is often erroneously described as “mercy killing”. Most forms of euthanasia are, indeed, motivated by (some say: misplaced) mercy. Not so others. In Greek, “eu” means both … Read More
June 27, 2007
We often think of “suicide tourism,” as sick or despairing people traveling to a suicide friendly venue like Switzerland to have help shuffling off this mortal coil. Several years ago, George Exoo, then a Unitarian minister, did the suicide circuit … Read More
June 27, 2007
After years of infertility treatments and three heartbreaking miscarriages, Molly Magnani stared at the black and white monitor as an ultrasound wand moved over her belly. She saw one fetus, then another. Then — wait — were there more? (San … Read More
June 27, 2007
Microbes dwelling in oil fields and coal beds could inspire new methods of extracting fossil fuels from the depths of the earth. That’s the hope of Ari Patrinos, a genomics pioneer who helped run the Human Genome Project and is … Read More
June 27, 2007
The passing of a bill overturning a ban on therapeutic cloning in NSW allows stem cell research to start, but the journey will be “long and arduous”, a leading scientist says. (Yahoo!7 News)
