January 31, 2024
Research Ethics
January 30, 2024
Elon Musk Says Neuralink Has Implanted Brain Chip in Human
(Wall Street Journal) – Elon Musk said that the first human received a Neuralink brain implant, a potential milestone in the development of “brain-computer interface” technology that could one day help those suffering from debilitating conditions such as paralysis to … Read More
January 30, 2024
A New Edition of The New England Journal of Medicine Is Now Available
January 29, 2024
Science Sleuths Are Using Technology to Find Fakery and Plagiarism in Published Research
(Associated Press) – Allegations of research fakery at a leading cancer center have turned a spotlight on scientific integrity and the amateur sleuths uncovering image manipulation in published research. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, announced Jan. 22 … Read More
January 29, 2024
Report: Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers: The Human Domain of War
(RAND) – A complex, high-threat landscape is emerging in which future wars might be fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts; the military-industrial base is disturbed by synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues; and the future warfighter goes beyond … Read More
January 26, 2024
Musk Brain Implant Company Violated US Hazardous Material Transport Rules–Documents
(Reuters via Yahoo! News) – Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink was fined for violating U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rules regarding the movement of hazardous materials, according to records from the federal agency reviewed by Reuters. (Read More)
January 26, 2024
A New Edition of Neuroethics Is Now Available
January 25, 2024
Whistleblowers Flagged 300 Scientific Papers for Retraction. Many Journals Ghosted Them
(Science) – Over the past decade, a team of scientific sleuths uncovered one of the most extensive known bodies of faked research. They notified 78 journals about almost 300 papers by a pair of Japanese physicians that bore signs of … Read More
January 24, 2024
Unethical Studies on Chinese Minority Groups Are Being Retracted–But Not Fast Enough, Critics Say
(Nature) – Moreau and a few other researchers have alerted publishers to 96 papers over the past half-decade, and raised questions about genetic databases that hold data from minority ethnic groups. Ethical concerns are particularly acute in forensic science because … Read More
January 24, 2024
New Articles from BMC Medical Ethics Are Now Available
January 23, 2024
New Blood Test that Screens for Alzheimer’s May Be a Step Closer to Reality, Study Suggests
(CNN) – Testing a person’s blood for a type of protein called phosphorylated tau, or p-tau, could be used to screen for Alzheimer’s disease with “high accuracy,” even before symptoms begin to show, a new study suggests. The study involved … Read More
January 22, 2024
If You Donate DNA, What Should Scientists Give in Return? A ‘Pathbreaking’ New Model
(NPR) – Back then, says Handley, the elders in the community had made a request that’s almost never demanded of researchers: “They said, ‘We will only allow this if you promise to return and tell us what it is that … Read More
January 22, 2024
We Urgently Need Data for Equitable Personalized Medicine
(Knowable Magazine) – The fact that warfarin is riskier in some populations than others isn’t a surprise. Different geographic regions tend to host people with slightly different genetic makeups, and sometimes those genetic differences lead to radically different reactions to … Read More
January 22, 2024
A New Edition of Neuroethics Is Now Available
January 19, 2024
A First-Ever Experiment Shows How Pigs Might One Day Help People Who Have Liver Failure
(Associated Press) – Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure. The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment … Read More
January 17, 2024
Synthetic Memories: Piecing Together the Past with AI
(Quartz) – Welcome to the concept of synthetic memories. They aren’t photographs. They’re visual representations of what we can remember. And, using futuristic-sounding technology that’s actually available in the present, they can help us piece together elements of our past. … Read More
January 17, 2024
Chinese Lab Mapped the Deadly Coronavirus Two Weeks Before Beijing Told the World, Documents Show
(Wall Street Journal) – Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about … Read More
January 16, 2024
Cloned Rhesus Monkey Created to Speed Medical Research
(BBC) – Chinese researchers have cloned the first rhesus monkey, a species which is widely used in medical research because its physiology is similar to humans. They say they could speed up drug testing, as genetically identical animals give like-for-like … Read More
January 12, 2024
Will a Full-Body MRI Scan Help You Or Hurt You?
(The New Yorker) – Crownholm is an unusual patient. He is wealthy enough to afford, and eager to use, a wide variety of optional care; he’s drawn to experimental technologies, whether or not doctors recommend them. He also had a … Read More
January 10, 2024
A New Edition of Journal of Medical Humanities Is Now Available
January 9, 2024
A New Edition of Journal of Medical Ethics Is Now Available
January 8, 2024
A New Edition of Developing World Bioethics Is Now Available
January 5, 2024
They Had PTSD. A Psychedelic Called Ibogaine Helped Them Get Better
(Wired) – Derived from the root bark of the African iboga shrub, ibogaine has been used for centuries by the Pygmy tribes in Central Africa in spiritual and healing ceremonies. It is illegal in the US and many other places. … Read More
January 5, 2024
A New Edition of The New England Journal of Medicine Is Now Available
January 3, 2024
Thermo Fisher Says It Has Halted Sales of DNA Technology in Tibet
(Wall Street Journal) – Instrumentation maker Thermo Fisher Scientific said it no longer sells certain DNA-based human-identification products in Tibet, building on a similar halt of sales to China’s Xinjiang region of technology that human-rights groups allege can be misused … Read More
