For the first time in U.S. history, a death row inmate has been killed with a lethal injection containing fentanyl, a potent drug at the heart of the ongoing opioid overdose crisis.
The UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics says it’s acceptable to genetically engineer human embryos, so long as the interventions aren’t harmful to the future child or society as a whole. The council is taking a surprisingly progressive position on the matter, but we’re still a long way off from the birth of the…
The five year long struggle to free a pair of captive chimps in the state of New York has finally come to an end. Yesterday, New York’s highest court denied an appeal by the Nonhuman Rights Project, but one of the judges was clearly unsatisfied with the ruling, pointing out deficiencies in the legal system’s ability…
Two years ago, a consortium of scientists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs announced a plan to synthesize an artificial human genome from scratch—an extremely ambitious endeavor that’s struggled to secure funding. Project organizers have now disclosed details of a scaled-down version of the venture, but with a goal that’s…
A neuroscientist from Yale University is claiming to have developed a technique that preserves the brain tissue of pigs for an extended period following decapitation. The brains are apparently not conscious, but the new technique is raising a number of important ethical issues.
Over 150 experts in AI, robotics, commerce, law, and ethics from 14 countries have signed an open letter denouncing the European Parliament’s proposal to grant personhood status to intelligent machines. The EU says the measure will make it easier to figure out who’s liable when robots screw up or go rogue, but critics…
A prominent research lab at MIT has terminated its relationship with Nectome, a new startup with the stated mission of preserving human brains such that they can be digitized and uploaded into a computer in the future, effectively bringing the dead back to life. But while MIT has chosen to distance itself from the…
A study published a week ago about an enigmatic, six-inch-long skeleton found near the Atacama Desert is causing serious upset among Chile’s scientists and government officials, who are now claiming the specimen was illegally obtained by grave robbers.
The United States is dealing with a drug shortage—a legal injection drug shortage, that is. In response, states where capital punishment is still practiced are having to come up with new ways of killing people. Earlier this week, Oklahoma announced that it will start using nitrogen gas for all its executions moving…
As part of a $63,000 research project to devise new and effective ways of pruning back the skyrocketing iguana population in south Florida, wildlife officials in the state have started to smash in the heads of iguanas, saying it’s a quick and “humane” form of euthanasia. Sounds dreadful—and it is—but the situation in…
This week, the Westminster Kennel Club is hosting its popular annual dog show, where canines of all shapes and sizes get to strut their stuff in front of discerning judges. Seems like harmless fun, but many purebred dogs are, or soon will be, in poor physical health—the result of an emphasis on cosmetic, and not…
Wrap your head around this one: On November 25, 2017 a healthy baby girl was born to a 26-year-old mother in Tennessee—but the embryo that would later result in the baby was conceived and cryogenically frozen in 1992. It’s now considered the oldest known frozen embryo to result in a successful birth.
When an unresponsive patient arrived at a Florida hospital ER, the medical staff was taken aback upon discovering the words “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed onto the man’s chest—with the word “NOT” underlined and with his signature beneath it. Confused and alarmed, the medical staff chose to ignore the apparent DNR…
The researcher behind an offshore herpes vaccine trial widely viewed as unethical first secretly experimented on patients in US hotel rooms, according to an investigation by Kaiser Health News.
Yesterday, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a petition on behalf of three elephants being kept at a Connecticut zoo. The suit demands that the court recognize these animals as “legal persons” and release them to sanctuary, but given that the same legal team failed to secure similar personhood rights for chimps in New…
Imagine for a minute that you survive a terrible accident, and lose function of your right arm. You receive a brain implant able to interpret your brain’s neural activity and reroute commands to a robotic arm. Then one day, someone hacks that chip, sending malicious commands to the robotic arm. It’s a biological…
Tristan Roberts sits sandwiched between two men on a couch in a bland DC apartment, with leafy, dusk-lit trees peeking out from the sheer curtains behind him. The mundanity of the setting betrays the extremity of what is about to happen next. On the elliptical glass coffee table in front of him is a bottle of hydrogen…
For the first time, a research team from China used a new technique to fix a blood disorder in human embryos. The scientists performed “chemical surgery”—a procedure that rewrites errors in genetic code instead of snapping and replacing strands of faulty DNA, which is the central strategy employed by the CRISPR gene…
A US company has sold nearly five tons of genetically-engineered Atlantic salmon fillets in Canada, marking the world’s first sale of GM fish for human consumption. Skeptics of the futuristic food are crying foul, citing ecological and health concerns, but government scientists say folks eating the modified fish have…
German Shepherds are among the most popular breeds in the world, but their numbers have started to decline. New research suggests the decreasing demand for German Shepherds may have something to do with the breed’s propensity for health problems—likely the result of selective breeding for cosmetic traits.
