August 8, 2024
(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – It is often said that autonomous weapons could help minimize the needless horrors of war. Their vision algorithms could be better than humans at distinguishing a schoolhouse from a weapons depot. They won’t be … Read More
August 5, 2024
(The Guardian) – Sam Altman’s ChatGPT promises to transform the global economy. But it also poses an enormous threat. Here, a scientist who appeared with Altman before the US Senate on AI safety flags up the danger in AI – … Read More
August 1, 2024
(New York Times) – With years of fractures, surgeries, hardware and pain, Olympians can list their injuries as readily as their achievements. Wear and tear naturally degrades human bodies, even the most talented ones. But performing at the elite level, … Read More
July 24, 2024
(CBC News) – Nearly 45,000 Canadians died through MAID between 2016, the year it became legal in Canada, and 2022. It has been widely discussed and debated, and continues to be controversial, especially as eligibility has expanded. But an often … Read More
July 23, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – The White House’s voluntary AI commitments have brought better red-teaming practices and watermarks, but no meaningful transparency or accountability. One year ago, on July 21, 2023, seven leading AI companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft,and OpenAI—committed … Read More
July 18, 2024
(Aeon) – Selfishness channels ambition, envy drives competition, pride aids the win. Does it take a bad person to be a good athlete? Globally, there are 567 track and field athletes currently ineligible to compete in the sport due to … Read More
July 16, 2024
(MedPage Today) – Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun … Read More
July 12, 2024
(BBC) – Members of an Australian religious group have gone on trial accused of killing an eight-year-old diabetic girl by denying her medical care and offering prayer instead. Elizabeth Struhs was found dead at a home in Toowoomba – about … Read More
July 9, 2024
(Christianity Today) – Francis Collins, the former longtime head of the National Institutes of Health and founder of BioLogos, has seen deaths in his work as a physician and researcher. But some of those have been personal: He watched his … Read More
July 9, 2024
(GEN) – Porteus is a scientific co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics, the company that launched the exa-cel CRISPR trial that culminated in the approval of Casgevy in December 2023. With the latest companies he has co-founded—first Graphite Bio, now Kamau Therapeutics— … Read More
June 20, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A resolution affirms the moral goodness of new life, but not of all means to achieve it. The Southern Baptist Convention—whose nearly 13 million members make it the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.—is often described … Read More
June 17, 2024
(New York Times) – Dr. Walker, 39, first publicly opposed in vitro fertilization five years ago, co-writing an article titled “Breaking Evangelicalism’s Silence on IVF” for the website of the evangelical organization the Gospel Coalition, which ran a companion essay by a … Read More
June 14, 2024
(WBUR) – When news broke last June that bodies donated to Harvard Medical School were stolen and sold, it instantly became a scandal. But roll the tape back a few hundred years, and grave robbing, body stealing and the ravaging of cadavers were commonplace … Read More
June 14, 2024
(Associated Press) – Pope Francis challenged leaders of the world’s wealthy democracies Friday to keep human dignity foremost in developing and using artificial intelligence, warning that such powerful technology risks turning human relations themselves into mere algorithms. (Read More)
June 13, 2024
(Wired) – Ray Kurzweil rejects death. The 76-year-old scientist and engineer has spent much of his time on earth arguing that humans can not only take advantage of yet-to-be-invented medical advances to live longer, but also ultimately merge with machines, … Read More
June 12, 2024
(Android Authority) – Speaking with Mr. Astray, we learned his intentions behind submitting his photo to an AI photo contest. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: “Of course, I feel bad about leading the jury astray, but I think that … Read More
June 12, 2024
(New York Times) – Southern Baptists, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, voted on Wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. The vote was an indication that ordinary evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human … Read More
June 10, 2024
(Axios) – Increased attention to patients’ spiritual needs would improve U.S. public health, researchers argue in a new Health Affairs article. Why it matters: A growing body of scientific evidence shows that spiritual beliefs and practices positively affect health, but patients’ … Read More
June 5, 2024
(Associated Press) — When faced with infertility, Amanda and Jeff Walker had a baby through in vitro fertilization but were left with extra embryos — and questions. Tori and Sam Earle “adopted” an embryo frozen 20 years earlier by another couple. … Read More
May 24, 2024
(Associated Press) – Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most famous work skewered American food and diets and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died. He … Read More
May 21, 2024
(New York Times) – He also identified the virus, which can cause infants to be born with severe physical and mental impairments as well as causing miscarriages and stillbirths. Dr. Paul D. Parkman, whose research was instrumental in identifying the … Read More
May 20, 2024
(Quartz) – Artificial intelligence is going to become more ingrained in our day-to-day lives — and OpenAI’s leadership wants the world to know it’s taking the risks seriously after the company shuttered the team responsible for AI’s existential dangers. In … Read More
May 14, 2024
(New York Times) – To embark on a career in medicine is like moving to a foreign country where you do not understand the customs, rituals, manners or language. Your main concern on arrival is how to fit in and … Read More
May 3, 2024
(Beatrice Institute Podcast) – As a bioethicist and Catholic deacon-in-training, Dr. Michael Deem has spent years in the medical trenches as well as in theological and philosophical research. Michael Deem joins Grant in this episode to answer questions such as, … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Vox) – More than half a century ago, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth. All that urine, … Read More
