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Health Plans Support Consumer Protections
Health plans reiterated their strong support for new market rules and consumer protections to cover all Americans and guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions.
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IRIN Examines Efforts To Improve Sleeping Sickness Dectection
IRIN examines the efforts of the Geneva-based Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) to develop less costly surveillance equipment to improve the ability to detect the parasitic disease trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in endemic countries. Though "trypanosomiasis can be cured within a week of hospitalization," left undetected, the disease advances, making it treatable only by medication that "can be toxic in up to 10 percent of patients," according to Joseph Ndung"u, head of FIND"s trypanosomiasis program.
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Jellyfish Shed Fluorescent Light On How The Brain Works
New research offers prospect of watching the brain as it learns. Scientists at the University of Leicester are developing new ways of studying how brain cells work -thanks to jellyfish!
Mental Health

Does Synthetic Biology Need Synthesized Ethics?

The emerging field of synthetic biology draws on a variety of technologies, including genetic engineering and nanotechnology, to engineer biological systems to perform novel tasks. As the science and its applications develop, instead of creating a "new kind" of ethics for each new techno-scientific arena, a comprehensive approach is needed to address ethical and social issues of emerging technologies as a whole, according to a report by Erik Parens, Josephine Johnston, and Jacob Moses of The Hastings Center. Synthetic biology promises significant advances in areas such as biofuels, specialty chemicals, agriculture, and medicine but also poses potential risks. Commissioned by the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ethical Issues in Synthetic Biology: An Overview of the Debates analyzes how the ethical issues raised by a variety of emerging technologies are often similar and familiar. The authors find that these similarities are abundant enough to justify developing an ethical framework that cuts across emerging and converging technologies. "Rather than stove-piping ethical questions into the hyphenated areas of bio-ethics, nano-ethics, neuro-ethics, and so on, it is time to begin developing an ethics of emerging technologies as a whole," said Erik Parens in a discussion of the report"s findings at the Woodrow Wilson Center on June 24. Access the free report here. Gregory Kaebnick, also of The Hastings Center, described the Center"s new, multi-year project examining the ethical issues raised in the report in greater depth. That project is also funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "Given the rate at which new technologies are emerging a comprehensive ethical approach should be developed to more readily identify and address ethical challenges and foster a productive public dialogue about social implications," said David Rejeski, director of the Synthetic Biology Project. "Synthetic biology provides both a test case and an opportunity to get in front of these issues." The Hastings Center


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