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Here’s why you’re not smart enough
An interesting article in The New York Times describes how the way in which the brain forms memories can, over time, lead to false information from noncredible sources being reinterpreted as true. The article notes that this may explain why smear campaigns can be so effective in politics: those who spread misinformation ‘know that if
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Duck and cover: how expensive does impact safety have to be?
This week is Tunguska week: on June 30 1908 a large meteoroid or comet exploded with the force of 5-30 megatons above the Tunguska River in Russia. The journal Nature celebrates it with several articles about impacts, ranging from a discussion of a controversial meteorite artwork to the confirmation that most of the northern hemisphere
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Behavioural Internet Advertising
A recent article in The Economist reports the development of a new behavioural approach to targeted internet advertising being developed by companies such as Phorm, NebuAd and FrontPorch (see http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482452 ). The current market leader is Phorm who have recently signed up the three biggest internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK, BT, Virgin Media
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When autonomy trumps sense: the costs of refusal to allow withdrawal of life support.
In Canada this week, an 84 year old man died after 9 months of treatment in an intensive care unit. He had severe brain damage and multi-organ failure, but his family sought a legal injunction to prevent doctors in the intensive care unit from withdrawing life-support. Over the course of his long intensive care stay,…
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The Clash of Environmental Values
GMO and climate change seem currently one of the more upsetting issues not only for environmentalists, but for the wider public as well. Carbon tax proposals like the one released by Canada’s opposition party last week (e.g Financial Times) or requests to the EU by Britain to embrace a more liberal attitude towards GM crops
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Discrimination and infertility treatment
It has been reported in the newspapers today that in many parts of the country smokers have been refused access to in-vitro-fertilisation treatment. This appears to be contrary to the national evidence-based guidelines for fertility treatment. Is this unfair?
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“Reanimation” and Taking Organs from Living People
One of the greatest fears associated with organ transplantation is that the person from whom organs are taken is not really dead. That nightmare was almost realised in France last week when a French patient “came back to life” after 30 minutes of unsuccessfully heart massage. In 2007, in order to address the shortage of
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My Genes, not a Doctor’s
California has sent cease-and-desist letters to firms offering Web gene tests to consumers. The legal reason is that California law requires a licenced physician to order any lab tests. This follows from a similar crackdown in New York. Wired responds by top 10 reasons that regulators should not hinder genetic testing. Is there any good
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Setting a Minimum Price for the Sale of Organs
Professor Maqsood Noorani, a leading surgeon made the headlines asking for legalisation of the sale of organs to prevent the exploitation that exists in the black market. Yet his comments show that he is uneasy with the concept of a market in organs. He believes that the sale of organs in richer nations would ‘tarnish
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Helping others to save the rainforest
The Congo basin rainforest is a natural resource of staggering scale, second only to the amazon in size. It stretches across six countries in the centre of Africa and provides shelter, food, income and fuel for millions of local people. However, like most of the world’s remaining forests, it is being destroyed at an unsustainable