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• Is politics stuck in the present? As the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill ducks and weaves through parliament, the debate around it reveals the poverty of the politics of the future. Politicians are pretty happy talking about VALUES, INTERESTS, THE EVIDENCE and even ETHICS. So abortion gets the headlines, alongside daddies for test tube babies. When it comes to the research aspects - hybrids, embryonic vs adult stem cells and all that - the evidence and the ethics are only part of the story. So Ann Widdecombe insists... from : jackstilgoe 21st May 2008
• The synthesizer Demos has this morning hosted a round table with Craig Venter, controversial human genome projecteer and now spearhead of the next Next Big Thing: Synthetic Biology (or Synthetic Genomics if you prefer). Venter was engagingly open about the possibilities and pitfalls of Syn Bio, which promises to combine engineering with biology to design new lifeforms. He pointed to the possibilities of energy and fuel generation from new organisms and warned us that, if an innovative Siberian happened upon... from : jackstilgoe 23rd October 2007
• Speaking blogs to power It seemed worth highlighting the unfortunate blogging saga involving billionaire and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov (here's his wikipedia entry - it should be interesting to see how this develops).Earlier this month Craig Murray, former ambassador to Uzbekistan, posted a strongly worded, um, 'critique' of Usmanov containing a number of allegations regarding his conduct during his rise up the ranks of rich post-communists.  Usmanov denies them and via law firm Schillings forced the post to be removed... from : petebradwell 26th September 2007
• 21st century rebellion Who controls a website when the content is user-generated? Digg recently decided that the users do - or, at least that users cannot be censored. from : mollywebb 3rd May 2007
• O'Reilly Radar > Draft Blogger's Code of Conduct Draft bloggers code of conduct from : petebradwell 13th April 2007
• Live forever A Harley St plastic surgeon plans to sell an anti-ageing drug. But do you want to live forever, or perhaps to the ripe old age of 1,000? There was a time when beating biology to become immortal was the stuff of dreams. from : samhintonsmith 31st August 2006
• Hwang Woo-suk New York times article about the controversial new techniques used by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang (In korea spelled: Hwang Woo-suk)AP coverage on Hwang's response to religious outcryEthical Debates covered in The Korea TimesHe's also on a newly formed committee of experts in charge of guiding Korea's future in science and technology - June 3 article in Korea HeraldNew US legislation on stem cell research HR 810 from : mollywebb 13th July 2006
• East Asian Science, technology and Society (EASTS): an international Journal We strongly believe that East Asian STS will offer fresh STS perspectives because of her special local experiences, sharing similar cultural and colonial history, similar meteorological and biological makeup, and similar global positions with respect to the West. from : mollywebb 26th June 2006
• Koreans admit disguising stem-cell lines Federally funded US researchers were supplied with a prohibited stem-cell line, disguised as an approved line by researchers at Seoul's MizMedi hospital. Allegations that a cell line had been switched surfaced earlier this month (see Nature 441, 680; 2006). Sung-il Roh, chairman of the board of trustees at MizMedi Women's Hospital, has now admitted to Nature that this was indeed the case. from : mollywebb 26th June 2006

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