Guest post by Katrina Hui What if memories could be enhanced or erased, not through traditional pharmaceuticals, but directly, through manipulation of the molecular processes that govern memory? Several years ago, scientists thought they had found a single molecule believed to be the key to memory editing. This molecule, called protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ), appeared to […]
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Free Speech and the CMF
Despite a slight reticence when it comes to quoting Mill approvingly, I do have to admit that sometimes he does articulate a thought clearly and pithily, and sometimes it’s a thought in which all right-thinking people ought to see the merit. Like, for example, this, from the opening paragraph of chapter III in On Liberty: An opinion […]
A Bit More on Nonhuman Persons
A bit of a followup to my last post: sometimes, nonhumans are granted habeas corpus: Orangutans have been granted the status of “non-human persons” with legal rights in a landmark court ruling in Argentina. The decision clears the way for Sandra, a shy 29-year-old, to be freed from Buenos Aires Zoo after spending her entire life in […]
Rights, Duties, and Species
A little earlier this year, there was a case brought before the New York courts concerning a chimpanzee called Tommy: the matter was the lawfulness of keeping Tommy confined. Acting on Tommy’s behalf was an organisation called the NonHuman Rights Project. The legal documentation filed is available here. The basis of the case was not so […]
Would the Falconer Bill Increase the Suicide Rate?
This is just a quickie – I promise. A tweet this morning from Kevin Yuill raises what he sees as a scary prospect: The Falconer bill will treble suicides amongst the terminally ill, according to Dignity in Dying. Is that what we want? Reject this bill. He bases his claim on two things, both from […]
This could get Personal
And so 23andMe has launched in the UK. For those not familiar with it, 23andMe allows individuals to swab themselves and have their genome analysed, at a cost of £125. The company is offering to generate a report covering about a hundred traits, giving information on a range of potentially important to fun things: the list […]
Questions to which the Answer is Yes
Over at Practical Ethics, Charles Camosy asks a question: Can bioethics be done without theology? Yep. It can. Well, that was quick and simple. But – oh, all right: I probably ought to say a bit more. Now, Camosy’s post is quite long, and that means that if I want to scrutinise it in any detail, […]
Should Anyone get IVF?
Cast your mind back to this summer, and Christina Richie’s paper about the provision of ARTs. It attracted a fair bit of controversy because of the way it talked about gay people’s rights to access ARTs, and their “voluntary” infertility. For my money, that was the weakest part of the paper, and it should have been […]
Would Aristotle Vape?
As I surfaced the other day, there was a discussion on Today about the marketing of e-cigarattes between Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, and Lorien Jollye of the New Nicotine Alliance (now there‘s an organisation that wears its heart on its sleeve!). It’s available from about the 1:22 mark here. Having re-listened, it appears to me […]
Growing a Kidney Inside a Pig Using your own DNA: The Ethics of ‘Chimera Organs’
Guest post by David Shaw Imagine that you’re in dire need of a new kidney. You’re near the top of the waiting list, but time is running out and you might not be lucky enough to receive a new organ from a deceased or living donor. But another option is now available: scientists could take […]