April 4, 2018
(MIT Technology Review) – The MIT Media Lab will sever ties with a brain-embalming company that promoted euthanasia to people hoping for digital immortality through “brain uploads.” The startup, called Nectome, had raised more than $200,000 in deposits from people … Read More
March 29, 2018
(The Conversation) – The central premise of transhumanism, then, is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process. This was the kernel of More’s founding definition in … Read More
March 29, 2018
(Medical Xpress) -With the promise of inexpensive procedures luring patients to travel abroad for plastic surgery, medical tourism has become an expanding, multi-billion-dollar industry. But while the initial procedure may be cheap, it can place a significant burden on U.S. … Read More
March 27, 2018
(The Atlantic) – Your face is not flat. This might seem self-evident, but as people have begun to live richer, more selfie-filled lives online, a peculiar lacuna has formed around this point. In a recent survey of American plastic surgeons, … Read More
March 16, 2018
(The Conversation) – Blood is a potent symbol of life and of death. It is hardly surprising, then, that this incredible fluid is linked to the search for eternal youth in literature, legend, magic and medicine. Recent scientific studies have … Read More
March 13, 2018
(MIT Technology Review) – This story has a grisly twist, though. For Nectome’s procedure to work, it’s essential that the brain be fresh. The company says its plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to a heart-lung machine in … Read More
March 6, 2018
(BBC) – At a trendy east London bar, a group of body hackers are putting forward their reasons for human augmentation to a packed audience of mainly under-35s, many of whom are sporting piercings and tattoos. Putting a chip under … Read More
March 2, 2018
(STAT News) – “Take that initiative,” Faloon urged his audience of about 120 people who had flown in from as far as California, Scotland, and Spain. How? Paying to participate in a soon-to-launch clinical trial testing transfusions of young blood … Read More
March 1, 2018
(The Washington Post) – In the first broad demographic study of trends in gender-affirming surgeries in the United States, researchers found that the number of operations increased fourfold from 2000 to 2014. Some of the significant rise, according to a study … Read More
March 1, 2018
(Vox) – Boris Paskhover, a facial plastic surgeon at Rutgers University and one of the authors of the paper, says patients have been coming into his clinic demanding nose jobs because they thought their noses looked too big in their … Read More
February 28, 2018
Bioethics (vol. 32, no. 2, 2018) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Judgments of Moral Responsibility in Tissue Donation Cases” by John Beverley and James Beebe “Enthusiastic Portrayal of 3D Bioprinting in the Media: Ethical Side Effects” by … Read More
February 23, 2018
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (vol. 14, no. 4, 2017) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “When Doctors and Parents Don’t Agree: The Story of Charlie Gard” by Natasha Hammond-Browning “The Issues of Freedom and Happiness in Moral Bioenhancement: Continuing the … Read More
February 20, 2018
(The Atlantic) – Ascendance Bio soon fell apart in almost comical fashion. The company’s own biohackers—who created the treatment but who were not being paid—revolted and the CEO locked himself in a lab. Even before all that, the company had … Read More
February 16, 2018
(Inc.) – Diamandis’s newest startup, Celularity, is emerging from stealth mode Thursday. The company is working on finding a remedy to many of the world’s worst illnesses within an unlikely source: human placentas. The entrepreneur claims that by extracting stem … Read More
February 15, 2018
(The Guardian) – A body-hacking scientist has said he plans to launch legal action against the New South Wales government after it cancelled a travel card he had surgically implanted in his hand. Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow – his legal … Read More
February 14, 2018
(Vox) – There’s a common misconception that athletes dope to move faster or become stronger. “Sure, there’s some of that,” said Herman Pontzer, an associate professor at Hunter College who studies energetics. “But what athletes really go for, and what … Read More
February 6, 2018
(TIME) – Between 2014 and 2015, there was an 80% increase in the number of girls 18 and younger receiving genital plastic surgery, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The numbers shot up so quickly that the … Read More
February 5, 2018
(Wired) – For years, the World Anti-Doping Agency has considered requiring all Olympic athletes to submit copies of their genetic code. It would work as a check on so-called “gene doping,” the idea of changing the body’s biological machinery to … Read More
January 17, 2018
(Vice News) – The question of consciousness is at the heart of what he does just as it is at the heart of much science fiction. From the replicants of Blade Runner to the digital clones of Black Mirror, we … Read More
January 16, 2018
(STAT News) – Some women use the creams in hopes of erasing dark spots, but many rub them over their entire bodies multiple times a day in hopes of whitening their brown skin. The practice pervades many cultures in Africa, … Read More
January 16, 2018
(Scientific American) – The study examined if and under what conditions it would be appropriate to apply human enhancement technologies along a continuum of use: therapeutic use to restore ability, prevention when there is a known risk or relevant family … Read More
January 16, 2018
(The Conversation) – The bottom line is not that eugenics has become defunct but that people want to be more personally involved in its application. This still leaves open many of the great moral questions that have dogged the field, … Read More
January 3, 2018
(The Guardian) – Musk is not alone in believing that “neurotechnology” could be the next big thing. Silicon Valley is abuzz with similar projects. Bryan Johnson, for example, has also been testing “neural lace”. He founded Kernel, a startup to … Read More
December 28, 2017
Bioethics (vol. 31, no. 9, 2017) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Scanning the Body, Sequencing the Genome: Dealing with Unsolicited Findings” by Roel H. P. Wouters, Candice Cornelis, Ainsley J. Newson, Eline M. Bunnik, and Annelien L. … Read More
December 26, 2017
BMC Medical Ethics has new articles available online. Articles include: “Limits to Human Enhancement: Nature, Disease, Therapy or Betterment?” by Bjørn Hofmann
