December 22, 2006
Scientists have made a breakthrough in their understanding of the genetics behind human eye colour. They found that just a few “letters” out of the six billion that make up the genetic code are responsible for most of the variation … Read More
December 22, 2006
Learn how this process can help others with serious illnesses. (Star-Gazette)
December 22, 2006
New Jersey’s stem cell research institute will be named for Christopher Reeve, a New Jersey native who promoted stem cell research after he was paralyzed in a 1995 horse riding accident. (AP)
December 22, 2006
Nature, which is published by a unit of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., said in an editorial in Thursday’s issue that it was ending the experiment due to lack of participation. The journal found that in the competitive world of scientific publishing, … Read More
December 22, 2006
Two rival companies that sell machines designed to scan genes and find clues to curing diseases are in a price war — one that could end up accelerating genetic research. (Wall Street Journal)
December 22, 2006
Great news! Physicians in Toronto have discovered a cure for diabetes in mice. Thinking outside the box, Dr. Hans Michael Dosch and Dr. Michael Dalter injected the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, capsaicin, into the pancreatic sensory nerves in … Read More
December 21, 2006
A terminally ill Italian man who lost a legal battle for the right to die has passed away after his doctor said he switched off his life support machine. (BBC)
December 21, 2006
After watching her husband and two daughters die painfully from cancer, Madeline Neumann decided she did not want to prolong her own death. When she moved into a nursing home in Florida at age 89, she signed an advance directive … Read More
December 21, 2006
Even before Adolf Hitler and his Nazis launched their genocidal campaign across Europe, doctors became white-coated killers and nurses served as accomplices in the murder of about 200,000 German children and adults, all in the name of creating a superior … Read More
December 21, 2006
Governor aims to cover California’s uninsured millions, raising issue’s profile nationally. (Wall Street Journal — Free Link)
December 21, 2006
ONE of the tests of a liberal society is whether the state stays out of the bedroom—but more than 3m people alive now were not made in bedrooms. They came into being as a result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) … Read More
December 21, 2006
The UK’s fertility regulator has amended a licence to allow stem cell researchers to recruit egg donors not already having medical treatment. (BBC)
December 21, 2006
Sperm stocks in Canada are significantly down since the federal government made it illegal to pay men for the donations, and the supply of sperm imported from the U.S. will eventually be cut off, Health Canada says. (CBC News)
December 21, 2006
The well-advertised conflict between progressive science and backward ethics has had the important effect of distracting attention from the feebleness and sometimes the actual deceptiveness of the scientific claims made on behalf of embryonic stem cells. (American Spectator)
December 20, 2006
Brief sessions of brain exercise can have long-lasting benefits for elderly people, helping them stay mentally fit for at least five years, one of the most rigorous tests of the “use-it-or-lose-it” theory suggests. (AP)
December 19, 2006
Slate has posted William Saletan’s The Best “Human Nature” Stories of 2006. If you’ve never read his Human Nature column, you owe it to yourself to check out his best of list. And if you’re a regular Human Nature reader, … Read More
December 19, 2006
The medical promise of therapeutic cloning has been oversold and its unreasonably high profile risks turning the public against more promising aspects of stem-cell research, according to one of Britain’s most respected experts in the field. Cloning research “clearly upsets … Read More
December 19, 2006
This fall, affluent Californians gave $31 million to the state agency that doles out grants for stem cell research, allowing it to begin functioning. Private money is also building new stem cell labs on university campuses across the state. (Washington … Read More
December 19, 2006
Research on embryonic stem cells continues to ignite national debate over the beginning of human life. And with the Legislature likely to take up the issue in its next session, many worry that inaccurate information is being perpetuated by stem … Read More
December 19, 2006
The Government Accountability Office has released a scathing report on the way the Food and Drug Administration handles direct-to-consumer prescription-drug advertising, saying the agency has issued fewer warning letters to pharmaceutical companies for false and misleading advertisements and is taking … Read More
December 19, 2006
Back at the beginning of 2002, there was considerable optimism regarding the promise that embryonic stem cells were said to hold for millions of people suffering from fatal or debilitating medical conditions. Stem cells derived from human embryos, it was … Read More
December 18, 2006
Yesterday’s Washington Post has a fascinating first-person account of the effects of reproductive technologies on the children thereby conceived. The author, 17 year-old college student Katrina Clark, is the child of a single mother who was artificially inseminated with donor … Read More
December 18, 2006
Michael Cook, Editor of MercatorNet, was kind enough to ask me to review Michael Crichton’s latest novel, NEXT (welcome to our genetic world: fast, furious, and out of control). I sent in the review on Friday, and they posted it … Read More
December 18, 2006
State and local governments are starting to take aggressive steps to reduce the enormous cost of providing health care benefits to retired teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public workers. As 43 state legislatures prepare to convene next month, governments … Read More
December 18, 2006
An ex-collaborator of disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk claimed Monday that he succeeded in cloning a female dog after last year’s breakthrough of creating the world’s first cloned dog, which was male. (Associated Press)
