Monthly Archives: October 2012
October 31, 2012
The widow of the right-to-die campaigner Tony Nicklinson, who died in August after suffering from locked-in syndrome, is to call for Scotland to change its law on assisted suicide. (Telegraph)
October 31, 2012
Where you live – and where your doctors did their training – has a lot to do with whether you’ll be operated on, get an infection or have other potentially risky medical tests, a report out Tuesday said. (U.S. News … Read More
October 31, 2012
The trial for the largest organ trafficking case in China was canceled recently, on the same day that it was announced that Bo Xilai, the disgraced official, would be stripped of his position in the Communist Party’s legislature, the National … Read More
October 31, 2012
Nanotechnology is helping to revolutionise many technology and industry sectors, such as environmental science, energy, medicine, food safety and transportation. For teaching and research I often have to recommend a text that introduces risk assessment to graduate students who are … Read More
October 31, 2012
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Poland for the inhumane and degrading treatment of a 14-year-old rape victim whom the authorities tried to stop having an abortion. (Chicago Tribune)
October 30, 2012
Patients diagnosed with lung cancer that is considered incurable appear to misunderstand the purpose and likely effect of a treatment aimed at making them more comfortable, a new study says. (L.A. Times)
October 30, 2012
Scientists have developed a prototype ultra-sensitive sensor that would enable doctors to detect the early stages of diseases and viruses with the naked eye, according to research published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. (Nanotechnology Now)
October 30, 2012
Why it matters that Death with Dignity is poised to be come the new norm. (Slate)
October 30, 2012
AUSTRALIAN fertility experts have debunked concerns that higher levels of hormones given to women on IVF treatment leads to more chromosomal abnormalities. (The Australian)
October 30, 2012
ADULTS who were born through IVF are just as well-adjusted and satisfied with life as those conceived naturally, the first longitudinal study into IVF children’s quality of life has found. (The Herald)
October 30, 2012
As they walked across the parking lot, Brandi Koskie started talking about a plan: Build a website, call it BabyOrBust.com, and ask visitors for $1 donations toward IVF. (ABC News)
October 30, 2012
In research sponsored by the United States Army Research Laboratory, the Carnegie Mellon researchers presented an artiï¬cial intelligence system that can watch and predict what a person will ‘likely’ do in the future using specially programmed software designed to analyze various real-time … Read More
October 30, 2012
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that said a proposal to grant “personhood” to human embryos would be an improper ban on abortion. (New York Daily News)
October 30, 2012
Yet, after exploring so-called medical tourism options in Thailand, India, Hungary and Dubai, I settled on nothing so exotic. (Washington Post)
October 30, 2012
Today marks the 30th anniversary of an event that kicked off an important new era in drug therapies – the approval by the FDA of human insulin synthesized in genetically engineered bacteria. (Forbes)
October 30, 2012
Scientists who created cartilage from adult stem cells in mice say their success could lead to new treatments for cartilage injury and osteoarthritis. (U.S. News and World Report)
October 29, 2012
A dystopian society supported by genetically modified clone workers stands out among the six stories that make up the sprawling film “Cloud Atlas.” The idea may seem far-fetched because of political opposition to human cloning and genetic modification in today’s … Read More
October 29, 2012
Scientists have come up with a test for the virus that causes AIDS that is ten times more sensitive and a fraction of the cost of existing methods, offering the promise of better diagnosis and treatment in the developing world. … Read More
October 29, 2012
Remine, founder of the Seattle-based American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, says the moment will come when a robot in an automobile factory “will become sentient, realize that it doesn’t want to do that unfulfilling and dangerous … Read More
October 29, 2012
A federal inspection of a company whose tainted pain medicine has caused one of the worst public health drug disasters since the 1930s found greenish-yellow residue on sterilization equipment, surfaces coated with levels of mold and bacteria that exceeded the … Read More
October 29, 2012
Talk about a birthday gift. According to the Brazilian news website G1, the woman gave birth to not one but two babies Tuesday night in Santos, a coastal city about an hour south of São Paulo. The births followed three … Read More
October 29, 2012
Although sporting world records continue to be set, the improvements are getting smaller, suggesting that human athletic performance is reaching its limit. As athletes move ever closer to this performance ceiling, the search for ways of identifying and developing future … Read More
October 29, 2012
Unlocking the secrets of human DNA is one of the most promising avenues of medical research. But along with a host of scientific and ethical issues, genome sequencing raises some tough economic questions at a time when U.S. health care … Read More
October 29, 2012
Months after the federal Indian Health Service said it was finalizing a policy that would make emergency contraception more accessible to American Indian women, advocates say they’re still waiting. And in the meantime, Native women face a patchwork of policies … Read More
October 29, 2012
In a landmark ruling last July, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal cleared the way for the 34-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to gain access to the expensive fertility treatment. But Chief Justice Marilyn Warren today … Read More