Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the most fundamental ethical questions facing the world of science and technology has to do with whether some knowledge is so dangerous that it simply ought not be sought. That, essentially, is the question posed by recent research … Continue reading →

From the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ): Federal government says regulation of consumer genetic tests is unnecessary: Industry forecasts indicate that Canadians will soon face a marketing avalanche to persuade them to purchase personal genetic test kits. But while American … Continue reading →

A new study published in Nature suggests that, while height definitely has a strong genetic component, the contribution of genes to height is far from simple. See the report here, via Scientific American: Complex Genetic Trait Research Reaches New Heights … Continue reading →

OK, so the FDA seems unlikely to require the probably-soon-to-be-approved GM salmon to be labelled. See this story by Lyndsey Layton, for the Washington Post: FDA rules won’t require labeling of genetically modified salmon …As the Food and Drug Administration … Continue reading →

Someone (I can’t recall the source) once said that rather than envy the creative power of nature, we ought to emulate it. Genetic algorithms have, for a couple of decades now, allowed scientists and engineers to harness the power of … Continue reading →

Over at my Food Ethics Blog, I’ve got a new (short) posting about cloning animals for food: Milk and Meat from the Offspring of Clones. (Not surprisingly, given that this is 2010, there’s turning out to be a fair bit … Continue reading →

Check out this blog entry over at my new Food Ethics Blog: Cloned Animals, Food, Ethics. The short version: attempts by European Parliamentarians to ban food from cloned animals was predictable, and based on what look to be pretty terrible … Continue reading →

A lot has been written about the risks & mostly theoretical & associated with genetic testing. Genetic information is highly personal, often difficult to understand, subject to considerable interpretation, and of widely variable predictive power. Two main kinds of worries … Continue reading →

Gone are the days when a college student’s first exposure to genetics came after the first day of school, in a biology class. U.C. Berkeley is offering (or should I say “offering”) genetic testing to a few thousand freshmen this … Continue reading →

I was recently interviewed for the newsletter of Genome Atlantic, about my work at the intersection of Business Ethics & biotechnology / genomics. (I sit on a Genome Atlantic advisory body known as the “GE3LS Forum”. “GE3LS” stands for “Genomics-related, … Continue reading →