Acting Absolutely Beastly
In its most expansive mode, bioethics deals with the biosphere and our responsibility for all living things. But it is a bold thinker who dares to tackle this, which helps to explain why the purview...
View ArticleHow IVF Is Changing Human History
Evolution works because of differential reproduction. If an organism has a harmful gene, it will perish before reproducing or fail to have offspring. Infertility may be nature’s way of decreeing that...
View ArticleGrim News for Immortals
An analysis of global demographic data by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests that the limit to human lifespan is about 125 years. Maximum lifespans around the globe kept...
View ArticlePatient Zero
Dr Hannibal Lecter, of the Silence of the Lambs, has been voted the Number 1 Hollywood villain of all time by the American Film Institute. But there are scarier characters. Psychopath Hannibal the...
View ArticleFrozen Stiff
A 14-year-old British girl dying of cancer recently won a court battle to be cryogenically frozen after her death. The world-wide publicity has revived public interest in this peculiar end-of-life...
View ArticleLocked-in’s Challenge to Autonomy
The craze for Marvel superheroes encourages us to think that merely being human is too easy. We need to exceed our limitations by adding superpowers – breathing underwater, eternal youth, colossal...
View ArticleTurning Psychopaths into Nice Guys
Our culture is fascinated by psychopaths. Go shopping on Amazon and you will find books like The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success; or Without...
View ArticleThe Facts About Surrogacy
Whether you are pro-this or anti-that, a passionate believer in human dignity or an ultra-rational utilitarian, your bioethics always has to begin with the facts. While knowledge of consequences is...
View ArticleEthics for an Edited Embryo
It will probably be described as one of the most important inventions of the 21st century. After just 4–5 years, CRISPR gene-editing technology is racing ahead, creating myriad opportunities for...
View ArticleLast-Minute Complications
The gold standard for experiments on human beings is a randomly assigned double-blind placebo-controlled study. Naturally, organising one of these to assess the effectiveness of lethal drugs is...
View ArticleGet Your Head Screwed on Right
What can you do if you become a quadriplegic after a catastrophic injury, or if you’re getting old, weak and fat? One solution is head transplantation – once the theme of very bad science fiction...
View ArticleThe Man with the DNR Tattoo
Doctors at a Florida hospital’s emergency department were startled to discover the words “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed on an unconscious man’s chest. The word “not” was underlined. Beneath this...
View ArticleEthical Challenges About Voluntary Assisted Dying
Will voluntary assisted dying (VAD) legislation provide compassionate physician-assisted dying, as hoped, or are we providing state-sanctioned euthanasia and assisted suicide? It certainly raises some...
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The Unspoken Limits of Liquid Biopsies
Inline Image: Byline: Ainsley Newson Abstract: Liquid biopsies promise early detection of cancer, but some of their current limitations risk being overlooked. read more
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Is Cognitive Enhancement a Problem in Australia?
“Cognitive enhancement” is a catch-all term for the improvement of cognitive function: attention, alertness and memory. It has caught our attention because it is thought to be the main motive for the...
View ArticleMolecular Life Extension
It is a universal certainty that we will all die one day. And we have a near-universal goal for our deaths to come painlessly after a long and full life.Of course illness, disease and accident can cut...
View ArticleShould Scientists Declare Non-Financial Conflicts of Interest?
When the term “conflict of interest” arises in scientific research, often the first thing that springs to mind is the use of financial incentives by industry to unduly influence researchers. Byline:...
View ArticleAntibiotics: Which Lives Matter?
Antibiotics are used to relieve the symptoms of disease and save human lives every day. They are one of the wonders of modern medicine and a key component of clinical care since the 1940s. However,...
View ArticleThe Wild West of Biotech Innovation
Recently, we avidly listened to a podcast from ABC Radio America called The Dropout. This five-part series followed the rise and fall of Theranos, a Silicon Valley health start-up that folded in 2018....
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Values in Science Affect What Your Doctor Recommends
A GP is facing a common quandary: whether or not to recommend exercise to a patient suffering from chronic pain. The GP knows that many experimental studies have found that exercise temporarily...
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