by Heather Zeiger | Feb 10, 2016 | Announcements, Ethics, Human Dignity, Science, Society, Technology
I have a new article at The Stream on the U.S.’s Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that the FDA approve mitochondrial transfer, or what is being called “three-parent IVF” in the media. Read about it here.
by Heather Zeiger | Jan 28, 2016 | Ethics, Science, Society
The recent issue of Scientific American has an article by Carl Erik Fisher, a psychiatrist and bioethics professor at Columbia University, in which he explores whether behavioral addictions are mental illnesses or just bad habits. His article, “Food, sex, gambling,...
by Heather Zeiger | Jan 19, 2016 | Ethics, Salvo, Science, Society
Check out my latest post at Salvo’s blog, Signs of the Times. I look at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on how the words “natural,” “unnatural,” and “nature” are used in the media, journals, and in other venues. In...
by Heather Zeiger | Nov 5, 2015 | Salvo, Science, Society, Technology
My latest post in Salvo’s Signs of the Times addresses a question posed by several researchers from Australia, The Netherlands, and the U.K. in a recent commentary in Nature Methods: What if stem cells turn into embryos in a dish? While it is not yet possible to...
by Heather Zeiger | Oct 22, 2015 | Ethics, Science, Society, Technology
It’s the stuff of comic book lore. A young woman who was a former professional athlete gave birth to a baby with unusually developed muscles. She did not give the identity of the boy’s father, but several members of her family have been known to have unusual strength....
by Heather Zeiger | Sep 1, 2015 | Ethics, Science, Technology
In an opinion-editorial in the Boston Globe Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker wrote that the best thing bioethicists can do to help society is to get out of the way: Biomedical research, then, promises vast increases in life, health, and flourishing. Just imagine how...
