It occurred to me that I’m a geneticist writing a science blog and I’ve never written about the phenomenon that is CRISPR/Cas9. Anyone vaguely interested in science, and I’m assuming that must include you, dear Reader, cannot have failed to hear about this technique which has taken the biomedical research field by storm in recent… Read More CRISPR: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Time for one last post in this vague series about genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In it I am going to commit the ultimate sin and defend Monsanto. Or rather, I want to do for it what I did for organic farming. I’m not interested in attacking organic farming but I would like to shed light… Read More Monsanto: The Anti-GMO Boogeyman
It is time, at last, for my eagerly anticipated exposé of the organic farming industry (OFI). The eagle eyed/bored amongst you will have noticed that I missed my usual ‘a post every other day’ deadline yesterday. Blame it on this post. I’ve put a lot of hours into researching and fact checking this. What follows… Read More The Distasteful Truth About Organic Farming
On February 6th 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada annulled the part of the Criminal Code that made physician assisted death (PAD) illegal for a “competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease, or disability) that causes enduring… Read More Physician-Assisted Death: A Conversation We Need to Have
Lying. You do it. I do it. We all do it. Whether it’s just a little white lie or an outright, in your face deception no one has ever gone a lifetime without telling porkies. Most of the time it’s harmless, like perpetuating the Santa Claus myth or saying that your significant other’s new haircut… Read More The Truth Behind Lie Detectors
There is a large multinational organisation out there that is at least partially responsible for millions of deaths. They act on ideological notions that bear no relation to reality. They persecute, literally, individuals who are brave enough to publicly contradict them; actively trying to discredit them both personally and professionally. They contact employers of said… Read More Greenpeace: Harbinger of Death
Yes, yes, I know, I’m a couple of days late; but I have a good excuse. Yesterday was my final deadline for this semester and I had 5,000 words to write so these words had to wait a little. On the upside I am now free of uni work till about October so I’ll hopefully… Read More The Demise of Three-Parent Babies
A few weeks I wrote a post on the remarkable recovery of a little girl with leukaemia. She was being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and her doctors had used a revolutionary new gene therapy to cure her of her cancer. The technology in that particular instance used a system for… Read More Should We ‘Enhance’ The Human Race?
A report by the American Heart Association reveals that the rich are more likely to get a transplant than those with less money. Researcher Raymond Givens looked at data on all transplants from 2000 to 2013 and found that people who registered themselves on more than one donor list were less likely to die whilst… Read More Need A Donor Organ? Be Rich.
We’re going to play an ethical game. It’s a classic one that you have probably heard of before but is now beginning to have real world applications that I will explain a little later. Let us begin. You are on a bridge overlooking a train track. Tied to the track are 5 people and there… Read More I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
