Open your eyes for there is a brave new world upon us! Aldous Huxley’s 5thnovel prophetically anticipates developments in reproductive technology, drug use, education and psychoanalysis that combine to change society. Watch our brave new world come into focus before your very eyes by reading our news archive on the subject. CLICK HERE
BBC – Researchers have succeeded in mimicking the chemistry of life in synthetic versions of DNA and RNA molecules. The work shows that DNA and its chemical cousin RNA are not unique in their ability to encode information and to pass it on through heredity. The work, reported in Science, is promising for future “synthetic biology” and biotechnology efforts. It also hints at the idea that if life exists elsewhere, it could be bound by evolution but not by similar chemistry. Read article
Australian Popular Science – The first human eggs grown from human stem cells could be fertilised with human sperm cells later this year, potentially revolutionising fertility treatment for women. This could be one more step on the path toward reproduction sans human interaction – in this case, a potential parent wouldn’t even need to donate her eggs. But it could also turn stem cells into an infinite loop, of egg cells into embryos into stem cells, and on and on, in a fractal-like repetition of reproduction. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital were able to coax…ovarian stem cells into becoming immature human egg cells… Now these same scientists, working with a team at Edinburgh University, want to fertilise them. Read article
Daily Mail – The number of children taken into care has hit a record 10,000 in one year.Since the 2007 killing of Baby P, there has been a huge surge in the number of youngsters being removed from their families by social workers. The children’s court advisory service dealt with 10,199 cases between April 2011 and March 2012 – a near-doubling of the numbers in just four years. It is the first time the body has received more than 10,000 referrals in a single year. The trend has raised fears that rising numbers of vulnerable children are being taken away from their families unnecessarily and consigned to languish in a care system that too often fails them. Government statistics have shown children who spend years in care are more likely to leave school with barely any qualifications and fall into crime, drug abuse and prostitution. Family Rights Group, a charity which offers advice about social services, warned the care system was ‘struggling to cope’ with the rising numbers. Read Article
University of Oregon – Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change. That’s the message to this week’s Planet Under Pressure Conference by a group of speakers led by Kari Marie Norgaard, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. In a news briefing today, Norgaard discussed her paper and issues her group will address in a session Wednesday, March 28, at 2 p.m. London time Read Article
Editorial Comment – Perhaps those of us that are sick can be treated (at a price) with Big Pharma’s latest wonder drug, Propranolol, which apparently can be used as a cure for racist thoughts.
New Scientist – In the 1940s, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield found his patients would recall seemingly random information – the smell of cookies for instance – when he stimulated different brain areas with electric shocks. Two studies have now found evidence to support the memory storage theory that Penfield stumbled across. The research, in mice, even demonstrates that it is possible to manipulate brain cells to create false memories. Read article
Live Science – Brain research and associated advances such as brain-machine interfaces that are funded by the U.S. military and intelligence communities raise profound ethical concerns, caution researchers who cite the potentially lethal applications of such work and other consequences. Read article
The Telegraph – Volunteers given the beta-blocker, used to treat chest pains and lower heart rates, scored lower on a standard psychological test of “implicit” racist attitudes. They appeared to be less racially prejudiced at a subconscious level than another group treated with a “dummy” placebo pill. Read article
The Atlantic – From drugs to help you avoid eating meat to genetically engineered cat-like eyes to reduce the need for lighting, a wild interview about changes humans could make to themselves to battle climate change. Read Article
Editorial Comment – Aldous Huxley in his seminal warning “A Brave New World” did not even imagine anything this radical. Followed to their logical conclusion, Liao’s proposals outstrip anything in that 1932 dystopian novel about a future scientific dictatorship that seeks to drug, genetically manipulate, and medically induce humanity into complete slavish subservience.
Daily Telegraph – A common heart disease drug may have the unusual side-effect of combating racism, a new study suggests. Volunteers given the beta-blocker, used to treat chest pains and lower heart rates, scored lower on a standard psychological test of “implicit” racist attitudes. They appeared to be less racially prejudiced at a subconscious level than another group treated with a “dummy” placebo pill. Scientists believe the discovery can be explained by the fact that racism is fundamentally founded on fear. Read Article
Open your eyes for there is a brave new world upon us! Aldous Huxley’s 5thnovel prophetically anticipates developments in reproductive technology, drug use, education and psychoanalysis that combine to change society. Watch our brave new world come into focus before your very eyes by reading our news archive on the subject. CLICK HERE
NY Times – Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital say they have extracted stem cells from human ovaries and made them generate egg cells. The advance, if confirmed, might provide a new source of eggs for treating infertility, though scientists say it is far too early to tell if the work holds such promise. Read article
BBC – New York City police secretly collected information on Muslim communities in nearby Newark, New Jersey, police records have shown. Read article
Guardian – Soldiers could have their minds plugged directly into weapons systems, undergo brain scans during recruitment and take courses of neural stimulation to boost their learning, if the armed forces embrace the latest developments in neuroscience to hone the performance of their troops. These scenarios are described in a report into the military and law enforcement uses of neuroscience, published on Tuesday, which also highlights a raft of legal and ethical concerns that innovations in the field may bring. Read Article
BBC – The Czech Republic and the UK refused to sign up. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said his government would act if the treaty threatened UK interests. He still has “legal concerns” about the use of EU institutions in enforcing the fiscal treaty, he said. The Czechs cited “constitutional reasons” for their refusal, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy said. Read article
Associated Press – People sterilized against their will under a discredited North Carolina state program should each be paid $50,000, a task force voted Tuesday, marking the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of a once-common public health practice called eugenics. The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The Legislature must still approve any payments. Read Article
Open your eyes for there is a brave new world upon us! Aldous Huxley’s 5th novel prophetically anticipates developments in reproductive technology, drug use, education and psychoanalysis that combine to change society. Watch our brave new world come into focus before your very eyes by reading our news archive on the subject. CLICK HERE
AFP – Europe’s top court on Tuesday banned researchers from patenting any process to extract stem cells when it leads to the destruction of a human embryo. In a ruling that could affect medical research, the EU Court of Justice court said the use of human embryos “for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it is patentable.” Read Article
Telegraph – Elderly patients are being condemned to an early death by hospitals making secret use of “do not resuscitate” orders, an investigation has found. The orders – which record an advance decision that a patient’s life should not be saved if their heart stops – are routinely being applied without the knowledge of the patient or their relatives. Read Article
Daily Mail – Traumatic experiences could soon be no more than a distant memory thanks to a ground-breaking pill. Scientists have unlocked some of the secrets of how the brain deals with stress – paving the way for a drug that eases painful memories. Within a decade we could have a pill that would help those haunted by car crashes, as well as sufferers of crippling phobias. Read article
New American – A report issued by a defense science advisory panel suggests that the Pentagon may begin collecting DNA from military personnel to identify the genome sequence that defines a good soldier. Findings reported by JASON, an independent group of scientists which advises the U.S. government on matters of science and technology, recommends that the Pentagon take advantage of “the rapidly falling cost of gene sequencing by preparing to engage in the mass sequencing of the genomes” of the men and women of the armed forces. Read Article
Discovery – Last week, a medical doctor named Shakil Afridi, who worked with the CIA in Pakistan, was arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. According to reports in The Guardian, Afridi cooperated with the CIA in creating a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad, the city in which Osama bin Laden took refuge, in order to gather DNA evidence from members of bin Laden’s family. Read article
The Star – A South African public hospital plans to tag babies electronically as one of several security measures to beat baby-snatching. If it goes ahead, Tygerberg Hospital would become the first public health facility in the Western Cape to use the tag. The device is activated if a tagged baby is removed from a specific area. The infrastructure for the plan is expected to be completed next year. Read article
New Scientist – US government cash for research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) is safe for now, thanks to a ruling by judges sitting in the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC. Read article
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Mail Online – Would you feel comfortable if market researchers could know your every thought? A headband designed by San Francisco firm EmSense can sense your brainwaves as you have reactions to watching something and then record the data for researchers. The process of measuring your reaction to something is known as ‘quantitative neurometrics’ and it can be carried out as you watch a computer or television screen. Read Article
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