Science journals: Anything for a headline

W ell, this week's sensational result is reported in the Oct 5  Nature  in a paper about limits to the human lifespan. The un sensatio...

agingethicsmaximum lifespansciencescience hyperbole

Mesenchymal stem cell transplantation and a mouse model of autism

I once again tread carefully in this brief post talking about stem cells and autism on the back of what seems to be some growing research i...

autismclinical trialethicsmesenchymal stem cellsmousestem cells

"Henrietta's" what?: A prudish response

I just feel compelled to react to the cover of the latest issue of Nature that dropped over the transom.  It, to me personally, reflects th...

Bullshit factorethicsHenrietta Lacks

What cloning is and what it isn't

There is a new story about cloning, which we saw on the BBC (but which is published in the journal Biology of Reproduction ).  Mice have b...

cloningethics

Research Ethics in Anthropology: Problems in/with the field

Recently there has been a lot of bioanthropology buzz about sexual harassment and assault in “the field”, the diverse, global settings in ...

anthropologyethicsfield workother-ologiesprimatology

HeLa cells and cavalier scientists

Last week came the news that the HeLa cell genome had been sequenced and published.  HeLa are cells that were taken from the tumor that even...

ethicsHenrietta Lacks