domingo, 26 de abril de 2015

BioEdge: the latest news and articles about bioethics

Bioedge
BioEdge: the latest news and articles about bioethics


Now for something completely different because April 25 is Anzac Day, “the one day of the year” , a solemn commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landing, the first (and disastrous) battle fought by an independent Australia. Today is the centenary celebration.
The highlight of every Anzac Day is the Dawn Service, a simple ritual which is held in nearly every town and hamlet throughout the country.
For me, the most memorable of these took place in Hobart a few years ago. I walked with hundreds of others through the dark towards the Cenotaph on a frosty morning. There was complete silence as an elderly Protestant minister gave a short and eloquent address about Australia’s fallen heroes which managed to make everyone, both religious and secular, happy.
However, there was something quite eccentric about his delivery. Every couple of paragraphs there was an pause. It only lasted long enough to remind us how cold we were and how dark it was, but it was slightly embarrassing. Then there was another burst before he lapsed into silence again. Finally, he concluded with an Amen.
In a quavering voice he said that this would be his last Anzac Day service. He was 85 now and had done it for 30-odd years. Time to pass the baton to someone else. And then he apologised for those pauses. “It was so cold,” he said, “I had to blow on my fingers so that I could keep on reading.” Suddenly it dawned on me: the old minister was blind and had been reading his Braille text with his frozen fingers. You find heroism in the most unexpected places…

Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge

This week in BioEdge
 









by Michael Cook | Apr 25, 2015
Scientists have been editing the genome of human embryos, a world first.









by Michael Cook | Apr 25, 2015
A 30-year-old Russian IT worker could become the first person to get a body transplant.









by Michael Cook | Apr 25, 2015
A lesbian couple was misled about the superior qualifications of their sperm donor.









by Michael Cook | Apr 25, 2015
The Health Ministry has finally drawn up guidelines for voluntary euthanasia









by Xavier Symons | Apr 25, 2015
A New York State judge has ordered Stony Brook University to justify its detention of two chimpanzees.









by Xavier Symons | Apr 25, 2015
The scandal-ridden field of social priming research has taken yet another blow.









by Xavier Symons | Apr 25, 2015
A 65-year-old German woman has fallen pregnant via IVF to quadruplets.









by Xavier Symons | Apr 25, 2015
An international consensus on brain death will be very difficult, say US neurologists.
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