The quixotic prohibition of attention-enhancing drugs in sport.
Amphetamines and major league baseball are in the news again, with a number of busts made for the prescription drug Adderall, which contains several amphetamine stimulants in its list of active...
View ArticleCan Liberals Support a Ban on Sex Selection?
Australia essentially bans sex selection, except to prevent babies being born with serious sex-linked disorders. The National Health and Medical Research Councils also prohibits it in its guidelines. A...
View ArticleFerretting out fearsome flu: should we make pandemic bird flu viruses?
Scientists have made a new strain of bird flu that most likely could spread between humans, triggering a pandemic if it were released. A misguided project, or a good idea? How should we handle dual use...
View ArticleExperimenting with oversight with more bite?
It was probably hard for the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to avoid getting plenty of coal in its Christmas stockings this year, sent from various parties who felt NSABB...
View ArticleH5N1: Why Open the Stable Door?
Professor Paul Keim, who chairs the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, recently recommended the censoring of research that described the mutations which led to the transformation of...
View ArticlePersonalised weapons of mass destruction: governments and strategic emerging...
Andrew Hessel, Marc Goodman and Steven Kotler sketches in an article in The Atlantic a not-too-far future when the combination of cheap bioengineering, synthetic biology and crowdsourcing of problem...
View ArticleWe may need to end all war. Quickly.
Public opinion and governments wrestle with a difficult problem: whether or not to intervene in Syria. The standard arguments are well known – just war theory, humanitarian protection of civilian...
View ArticleHow much transparency?
By Dominic Wilkinson (Twitter: @Neonatalethics) There are reports in the press this week that the remains of 86 unborn fetuses were kept in a UK hospital mortuary for months or even years longer than...
View ArticleThe future of punishment: a clarification
By Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter here I’m working on a paper entitled ‘Cyborg justice: punishment in the age of transformative technology’ with my colleagues Anders Sandberg and Hannah...
View ArticleGene-Editing Mosquitoes at The European Youth Event 2018
By Jonathan Pugh The below is a slightly extended version of my two 5min presentations at the European Youth Event 2018, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. I was asked to present on the...
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