Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Bioethics/Biotech
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A really interesting article by Alex Mauron that I skimmed today. ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Is the Genome the Secular Equivalent of the Soul? — Mauron 291 (5505): 831 — Science. With the complete human genome sequence now at hand, the notion that our genome is synonymous with our humanness is gaining strength. This…
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Just in case you were looking for a copy of this, there’s an online version of Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, a report of The President’s Council on Bioethics (Washington, D.C., October 2003). PDF and HTML versions available. Bits of it have been useful for me as I’ve noted how different groups…
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Picked up a copy of Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids by Sidney Perkowitz this week from the university bookshop. It looks quite interesting and I admit that once I saw the blurb on the back about science fiction movies – just after I’d edited some similar ideas in my introduction – I was…
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The Royal Society of NZ is holding an essay competition for high school students to write about genetics and ethics. See RSNZ: genETHICS. The Genethics Essay competition is a unique and innovative competition that provides secondary school students with an opportunity to discuss ethical issues associated with human genetics research. The competition is open to…
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A few articles out recently that pick up on the potential of nanotechnology for the purposes of human therapy and enhancement. Popular Mechanics has an article Redefining The Human: The Upgradable You which covers a range of technological developments relating to nanotechnology among other things. The forever techno-optimistic Ray Kurzweil has an article in the…
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From this morning’s email a Damaris article on cyborgs. See Culture Watch – Downloads and upgrades: The Cyborg Future by Philippa Taylor (The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy). This is a reprint of an article from the CBPP Newsletter (Issue 7, Winter 2005/6).
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Couple of things of interest this week. Firstly, Four Door Films have released the rough cut of their 90 minute documentary file “Building Gods” on Google Video. (See Building Gods Rough Cut – Google Video). Haven’t looked at it beyond the first few minutes but it looks like an interesting survey of perspectives on transhumanism.…
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Article on the Nature website about replacement bladder sacs grown externally from patients’ tissue and then reimplanted. See news @ nature.com – Scientists grow bladder replacement in lab – Trial points way to engineered organs using patients’ own cells.
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Article in the (UK) Independent’s legal section on the status of frozen embryos from IVF in Britain. See Independent Online Edition > Legal : Fertility: The frozen ones by Cole Moreton. It’s mainly concerned with the stories of people involved, but also has some basic technical information.
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Ben Myers on his posting Faith and Theology: Theology and GM foods has a link through to an interesting Science & Spirit article on religious debate (or lack thereof) over genetic modification foodstuffs. The article is at Science & Spirit: God and the New Foodstuffs. The article makes some good points and highlights some of…