SHS continues to its slow, but satisfyingly steady growth. We just passed 30,000 visitors in the last 30 days. That is thanks to you all. My deep appreciation for your support and participation, for sending me stories you think will be of interest, and for your comments. Thank . . . . Continue Reading »
I reported a few days ago here at SHS about how an ethics committee in Switzerland expounded on what could be called the rights of plants. Now Nature has weighed in about the ridiculous matter of “plant dignity,” worrying that it could impede biology. From the editorial:The Swiss federal . . . . Continue Reading »
This shouldn’t be necessary—and it isn’t enough—but the Animal Liberation Front and others have been enjoined from coming within 50 feet or researchers’ homes and from otherwise intimidating and harassing them. Of course, that will make no difference to the fanatics. . . . . Continue Reading »
The exciting news of the the day does not come from Pennsylvania, but from Rome, where it was announced that John Henry Cardinal Newman will be beatified. A leader of the Oxford Movement, a catholic reform movement in the Anglican Church, Newman later converted to Catholicism and founded the . . . . Continue Reading »
I submit, it is my hypothesis, that medicine is devolving from a profession with firm standards of excellence and ethics, into a technocracy—still possessing excellence—but with a very fluid concept of ethics. Case in point: A law that would require “good moral character” as . . . . Continue Reading »
In October, I wrote about dying languages—languages whose use is declining—and why they are worth saving. In today’s New York Times , there was a small article on Syrian villages where Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus, is still used, but by increasingly fewer people. . . . . Continue Reading »
Ian Wilmut was an enthusiastic human cloner, and indeed, had obtained a license from the never-say-no UK Embryo Authority to create cloned embryos from the DNA of motor neuron disease patients, known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease in the USA. Then Shinya Yamanaka invented Induced Pluripotent . . . . Continue Reading »
That’s the title of a recent article in MercatorNet by Maggie Gallagher . Gallagher, the President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, is quite simply the most effective spokesperson making public arguments in defense of marriage today. Not surprisingly, she’s also a First . . . . Continue Reading »
A sensible word from the Wall Street Journal on the Pope and how his celebration of immigration is the right and Christian thing to do, in contrast to virulent rumblings from the some corners of the American political scene: “You know the restrictionists have gone head-first into the fever . . . . Continue Reading »
As I keep saying, most biotechnology is not controversial. This is amazing: Scientists have restored site with a bionic eye. From the story:Surgeons have carried out the first operations in Britain using a pioneering “bionic eye” that could in future help to restore blind people’s . . . . Continue Reading »
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