January 8, 2025
(New York Times) – Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from Indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes. When Stephane Castel first met with a group of M?ori people and other … Read More
January 6, 2025
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (vol. 33, no. 4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
January 3, 2025
BMC Medical Ethics has new articles available online. Articles include:
December 31, 2024
(New York Times) – Early intervention tries to rein in psychotic disorders before they can ruin young lives. For Kevin Lopez, everything is on the line. An estimated 100,000 people experience a first episode of psychosis every year, roughly four … Read More
December 31, 2024
(Wired) – Do “anti-hangover” supplements really work? With the sterling help of a UK rugby team, we raised a glass or five to find out. So on a cold and frosty Saturday night in December—with a crate of beer in … Read More
December 26, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council’s work on Covid-19 origins complied with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity,” the spokeswoman said. But an investigation by The … Read More
December 24, 2024
(Daily Mail) – A retired NHS scientist has sensationally revealed that IVF pioneer Patrick Steptoe, whose work led to the world’s first test tube baby, used sperm from ‘lots’ of medical staff without keeping records of the children they fathered. … Read More
December 23, 2024
(404 Media) – Anthropic created an AI jailbreaking algorithm that keeps tweaking prompts until it gets a harmful response. New research from Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies and the developer of the Claude family of Large Language Models … Read More
December 20, 2024
(Nature) – More than 100 clinical trials put stem cells for regenerative medicine to the test. It’s a turning point for a field beset with ethical and political controversy. The study is one of more than 100 clinical trials exploring … Read More
December 19, 2024
(Science) – A brace of new studies probes benefits and risks for an understudied group Profound feelings of unity, transcendence, ineffability, and awe—as well as improved mental health. Those were among the testimonials in a recent survey of 233 people … Read More
December 18, 2024
(Nature) – Paper on hydroxychloroquine led by French researcher Didier Raoult is second-most-cited study ever to be withdrawn. A study that stoked enthusiasm for the now-disproven idea that a cheap malaria drug can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more … Read More
December 18, 2024
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (vol. 45, no. 6, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
December 17, 2024
(Science) – Study on hydroxychloroquine by Didier Raoult and colleagues gets pulled on ethical and scientific grounds A 2020 paper that sparked widespread enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment was retracted today, following years of campaigning by scientists who … Read More
December 17, 2024
(CNN) – A group of 38 scientists working in nine countries has sounded an alarm about the potential creation of mirror bacteria — synthetic organisms in which the molecular structure found in nature is reversed and could put humans, animals … Read More
December 13, 2024
(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) – Scientists say mirror image versions of life are possible: organisms built on molecules that, for example, don’t use the normal “right-handed” DNA of life on Earth, but a synthesized “left-handed” DNA instead. Although the capability … Read More
December 13, 2024
(Aeon) – What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’ [TED-Ed video] After decades of experimenting on animal brains, the US neurosurgeon Robert J White proposed executing a ‘whole body transplant’ on a rhesus monkey … Read More
December 13, 2024
(NPR) – “The for-profit sector is focusing on conditions, such as sickle cell disease, such as cancer, which are commercially viable because there are just enough people with them,” Urnov says. The problem is, “that leaves 99.5% of folks outside … Read More
December 10, 2024
(Undark) – New dialogues are emerging about what comes next in biology, 25 years after completion of a draft of the human genome. In today’s world, post-genomic is built on two important ideas: that, as previously mentioned, doing genomics is … Read More
December 10, 2024
(Gizmodo) – While the exact fate of the misplaced samples is still unknown, they likely pose no danger to the public, government officials have said. A research facility in Australia is in hot water over losing track of its viruses. … Read More
December 9, 2024
Journal of Medical Humanities (vol. 45, no 4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
December 6, 2024
(Reuters via U.S. News & World Report) – An animal testing laboratory at Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain technology company was found to have “objectionable conditions or practices” by the Food and Drug Administration, which cited the company and urged it … Read More
December 6, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – The UK is seen as a global leader in regulating reproductive technologies. Some worry that onerous paperwork is causing embryos to be wasted. IVF is a success story for embryo research. But today, valuable embryos that … Read More
December 6, 2024
(Live Science) – Dozens of people in the United States have caught bird flu from animals this year, but there’s no evidence that the viral disease has spread from one person to another. However, a single mutation in the virus … Read More
December 6, 2024
Nursing Ethics (vol. 31, no. 8, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
December 4, 2024
(UPI via MSN) – In 2006, Wolfgang Jäger was in his 30s when a skiing accident left the young Austrian wheelchair-bound from a spinal cord injury. Fast-forward to today, where an innovative deep-brain stimulation technique is helping the 54-year-old Jäger … Read More
