Bioethics News.
06/13/2014
For One Baby, Life Begins with Genome Revealed
How a California father made an end run around medicine to decode his son’s DNA.
06/11/2014
Google, Autism Speaks team up on database of whole genomes
Autism Speaks is teaming up with Google on what the research foundation says is the world’s largest database of whole genomes, a move that could accelerate research into autism spectrum disorder.
06/10/2014
People Unemployed Over A Year Are 2 Times More Likely To Be Depressed Than Employed Americans
A new poll reveals that unemployed adults in the United States were more than twice as likely to have been treated for depression than those who are currently employed.
06/10/2014
Light-sensitive retina created with human stem cells
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, have created a miniature human retina in a dish from human stem cells, which they say can sense light. They are hopeful their creation could eventually lead to technologies one day that restore vision.
06/09/2014
Study: Price tag of autism in the U.S. exceeds $236 billion per year
A new study estimates that the lifetime cost of being diagnosed with autism in the United States is somewhere between $1.43 million and $2.44 million.
06/09/2014
Military Funds Brain-Computer Interfaces to Control Feelings
Researcher Jose Carmena has worked for years training macaque monkeys to move computer cursors and robotic limbs with their minds. He does so by implanting electrodes into their brains to monitor neural activity.
06/06/2014
The National Institutes of Health is Working to Launch the BRAIN Initiative
About a year ago, President Obama announced the “launch” of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative
Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. The National Institutes of Health approved an agenda and new funding plan on Thursday.
06/04/2014
Japan researcher agrees to withdraw disputed stem cell paper
A Japanese researcher accused of fabricating scientific results originally hailed as a breakthrough in stem cell research has agreed to retract two papers, deepening doubts about her “game- changing” findings.
06/04/2014
Stress hormone receptors in taste buds ‘may help explain emotional eating’
In a new study, the investigators identified receptors for stress-activated hormones located in oral taste buds responsible for detecting sweet, savory and bitter tastes.
06/03/2014
China follows USA with emissions pledge
One day after the United States said it would slash carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30% below 2005 levels, China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, said it would set an absolute cap on its emissions by 2016.
06/03/2014
End-of-Life Doc Payment Plan Returns to the Fray
06/02/2014
Insured young cancer patients fare better, live longer: study
Young adults with cancer are far more likely to recover or live longer if they have health insurance, a new study on the potential impact of the Affordable Care Act shows.
06/02/2014
A nice, bright smile: Scientists use lasers to regrow teeth
Scientists have come up with a bright idea – literally – to repair teeth.
05/30/2014
Exposure to smoke in cars may worsen asthma: study
People with asthma may face increased risk from secondhand smoke exposure while riding in the close quarters of a vehicle, according to U.S. researchers.
05/29/2014
House Committee Votes to Allow Schools to Opt Out of Nutritional Program
The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed an agriculture budget bill that included nearly $21 billion for child nutrition that would allow schools to opt out of White House nutritional guidelines passed in 2012.
05/29/2014
World population is getting fatter
Almost a third of the world is now fat, and no country has been able to curb obesity rates in the last three decades, according to a new global analysis.
05/28/2014
Smart seniors might have this gene variant
A gene variant that scientists already knew to be associated with longer life also seems to make people smarter, and may help offset the effects of normal cognitive decline in old age, according to a team of San Francisco researchers.
05/28/2014
Stanford’s Big Data in BioMedicine Conference Turns Two
With Silicon Valley blazing on as number one hot spot for high tech and the Bay Area claiming the same for biotech, it makes sense that Stanford, sitting there mid-peninsula basking in all that brilliance, should command a leading role in bioinformatics.
05/27/2014
New Venture Aims to Understand and Heal Disrupted Brain Circuitry to Treat Mental Illnesses
Scientists and physicians at UC San Francisco are leading a $26 million, multi-institutional research program in which they will employ advanced technology to characterize human brain networks and better understand and treat a range of common, debilitating psychiatric disorders, focusing first on anxiety disorders and major depression.
05/27/2014
Our mental health care system is a joke — even mass murderer Elliot Rodger slipped through the cracks
Rodger’s murderous rampage had nothing to do with guns. Fixing our broken, sorry excuse for a mental health care system in America isn’t rocket science. It could be done in a few years, without huge expense.
05/27/2014
Green billionaire prepares to attack ‘anti-science’ Republicans
An environmental advocacy group backed by hedge fund tycoon Tom Steyer is set to unleash a seven-state, $100 million offensive against Republican “science deniers” this year, a no-holds-barred campaign-style push from the green billionaire that could help decide which party controls the Senate and key statehouses come November.
05/22/2014
Cannabis may Help Prevent Seizures in Children with Severe Epilepsy
For children suffering from severe epilepsy, a recent study shows that cannabis may be able to prevent the onset of seizures.
05/21/2014
‘E-cigarettes help smokers quit,’ new study says
Though some health officials have warned that electronic cigarettes should not be marketed as smoking cessation aids, a new study finds that, among people who are trying to quit without professional help, those who use electronic cigarettes are 60% more likely to succeed, compared with those who use willpower or nicotine replacement therapies.
05/21/2014
High cholesterol levels may make it harder to get pregnant
Couples may have a harder time becoming pregnant if both the man and woman have high cholesterol levels, a new study suggests.
05/20/2014
What Is This Child Doing in Prison?
LAST month a 16-year-old child was placed in solitary confinement at the York Correctional Institution for Women in Niantic, Conn. She has never been charged, tried or convicted. What is her crime? That she has survived.
05/20/2014
Here come the rice-grain-sized brain implants: Stanford discovers way of beaming power to microimplants deep inside your body
Stanford electrical engineer and biological implant mastermind, Ada Poon, has discovered a way of wirelessly transmitting power to tiny, rice-grain-sized implants that are deep within the human body.
05/19/2014
‘Right to Try’ laws spur debate over dying patients’ access to experimental drugs
Colorado, Missouri and Louisiana are poised to become the first states in the nation to give terminally ill patients the right to try experimental drugs without the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration, setting the stage for what could be a lengthy battle over who should decide whether a drug is too risky to try.
05/19/2014
The Ethics of Erasing Bad Memories
Though the emerging possibility of deleting traumatic memories could provide some people relief, the question remains whether it would fundamentally change who they are.
05/19/2014
How to Succeed in Translational Science
An advisory group today offered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) some suggestions for how to frame metrics for evaluating its vast $475 million consortium of translational research centers—such as the need to define what it takes to be a translational scientist. But it’s leaving the details of those metrics to NIH staff.