May 12, 2025
(New York Times) – Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. In the meantime, her partner is starting one of his own. Billy Evans, who has two children with Ms. Holmes, is trying to … Read More
May 8, 2025
(Reuters) – Federal health agencies will create a database of autism patients enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid that researchers will use to study the causes of autism spectrum disorder, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said … Read More
May 7, 2025
Research Ethics (vol. 21, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 6, 2025
(NPR) – President Trump issued an executive order Monday restricting federal funding for research that involves a controversial field of scientific study known as “gain-of-function” research. The research, which is also known as “dual-use” research, involves experimenting with viruses and … Read More
May 5, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – This time, the surgeons faced a greater challenge. A second, smaller chordoma was strangling Flores’s spinal cord near the base of the skull. After much discussion, the medical team had decided to try something that … Read More
May 2, 2025
(New York Times) – Scientists identified antibodies that neutralized the poison in whole or in part from the bites of cobras, mambas and other deadly species. Over nearly 18 years, the man, Tim Friede, 57, injected himself with more than … Read More
May 2, 2025
(NPR) – “We were surprised,” says Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, one of at least four journal editors to get a letter from Martin and probably the most prominent. “Other journals … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Wired) – A research facility within the US National Institutes of Health that is tasked with studying Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases has been instructed by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop research activities. According to an email viewed by … Read More
April 30, 2025
(New York Times) – What makes humans conscious? Scientists disagree, strongly, as one group of peacemakers discovered the hard way. Seven years ago, Dr. Melloni and 41 other scientists embarked on a major study on consciousness that she hoped would … Read More
April 29, 2025
(404 Media) – Reddit called it an “improper and highly unethical experiment” and said it did not know it was happening. Reddit’s top lawyer, Ben Lee, said the company is considering legal action against researchers from the University of Zurich who ran … Read More
April 29, 2025
(Wired) – Italian essayist Andrea Colamedici tells WIRED Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality was a “philosophical experiment and a performance.” The book’s Chinese author does not exist. When Italian philosopher and essayist Andrea Colamedici released Ipnocrazia: Trump, Musk e … Read More
April 21, 2025
(BBC) – Genetic factors are thought to play a major role in the development of autism – but for decades what they are has proven elusive. Now scientists are starting to uncover clues. But while this can offer huge benefits … Read More
April 21, 2025
American Journal of Law & Medicine (vol. 50, no. 3-4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
April 18, 2025
(Wired) – Workers who recently lost their jobs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety say they’re concerned that there’s no plan for managing biological samples tied to research projects. The NIOSH researchers collected the tissue samples as part of … Read More
April 16, 2025
(The New Atlantis) – As with so many other scientific controversies in our political life, public opinion on Covid origins has come to track — and serve as a signifier for — partisan identity. This bodes ill for dispassionate investigation, … Read More
April 16, 2025
(Undark) – For some patients, removing brain tissue can help treat OCD and other disorders. But ethical concerns remain. Originally known as psychosurgery, this uncommon approach to mental health care involves operating on the brain to alter its function. After … Read More
April 14, 2025
(New York Times Magazine) – With diagnoses at a record high, some experts have begun to question our assumptions about the condition — and how to treat it. As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues … Read More
April 14, 2025
(Knowable Magazine) – Studies show psychological strain can accelerate tumors — could beta blockers slow them down? Most researchers now reject the idea of a cancer-prone personality. But they still haven’t settled what influence stress and other psychological factors can … Read More
April 11, 2025
(Associated Press) – An Alabama woman who lived with a pig kidney for a record 130 days had the organ removed after her body began rejecting it and is back on dialysis, doctors announced Friday – a disappointment in the … Read More
April 9, 2025
(The Conversation) – And 23andMe collected more than just genetic data generated from consumers’ spit. Eighty-five percent of customers consented to 23andMe research, allowing their individual-level data to be used for studies. The company then collected information from survey questions … Read More
April 9, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Somewhere in the northern US, drones fly over a 2,000-acre preserve, protected by a nine-foot fence built to zoo standards. It is off-limits to curious visitors, especially those with a passion for epic fantasies or mythical … Read More
April 9, 2025
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 33, no. 3, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
April 8, 2025
(Nature) – The 50th anniversary of a landmark biosafety conference is an opportunity to ensure its spirit lives on in today’s scientists. In 2008, Nature published a six-part essay series called Meetings that Changed the World. One of our choices … Read More
April 8, 2025
(New York Times) – If the current legal landscape when it comes to embryos seems messy, it’s a result, in no small part, of the unsettled nature of what preceded it. For over a century, courts generally did not grant … Read More
April 7, 2025
(The Independent) – A quote from James after the publication of his caffeine study neatly underlines how Oster’s attitude diverges from the attitude of the medical establishment: “Certainly, there is no evidence to suggest that caffeine benefits either mother or … Read More
