Bioethics.net

The earliest stages of life have been the subject of intense fascination for eons. Aristotle, for instance, observed and recorded the development of a chicken embryo in its egg.

It took 80,000 genetic samples, seven years and the work of 300 scientists from around the world, but scientists now have the most complete dossier on schizophrenia ever.

The married virologists at Aix-Marseille University had made a career of it. But pithovirus, which they discovered in 2013 in a sample of Siberian dirt that had been frozen for more than 30,000 years, was more bizarre than the pair had ever imagined a virus could be.

A federal judge Wednesday struck down California’s death penalty, saying the “dysfunctional” system that makes prisoners wait decades to be executed violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.