Australasian Science: Australia's authority on science since 1938
Quandary
Quandary column
The Whole Truth
For every 660 Down’s syndrome foetuses that are detected and terminated in the UK each year, 400 normal children perish as well.
By Michael Cook
A blood test for Down’s syndrome claims to be the “Holy Grail” of prenatal testing.
If you are ever searching for bioethics case studies, it’s hard to go past the Daily Mail, Britain’s number-two tabloid. It’s not all saucy tittle-tattle about the glam set and the royals: human interest is what drives the Daily Mail, and there are no more poignant stories than birth and death, the great themes of bioethics.
Synthetic Life or Cellular Machine?
By Michael Cook
The creation of synthetic bacteria will increase the speed with which new organisms can be generated, and reduce the value of animal life to mere chemical devices.
It was described as a scientific earthquake, but Craig Venter was just a fraction more modest in summing up his team’s biotechnology feat in May. His synthetic bacterium was, he said, “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer”.
It certainly was an impressive technology. As they reported in Science, researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute painstakingly assembled the genome of one species of bacterium and inserted it into another cell. The constructed cell began to function, dividing and growing like a natural cell.
If You’re Not a Criminal, You’ve Got Nothing to Worry About
Over-reliance on DNA profiles in crime investigation is just one facet of a growing acceptance of genetic determinism – the assumption that we are our DNA. Credit: Jamie Tufrey
By Michael Cook
When the DNA profiles of innocent people are kept by law enforcement agencies it places them at risk of a lifetime of genetic surveillance.
One of the longest-running TV shows in the US is America’s Most Wanted, a reality show that gets viewers to dob in murderers, rapists and child molesters. To date, it claims to have fingered 1110 criminals.
Michael Cook is editor of the bioethics newsletter BioEdge.
Plastinated People
By Michael Cook
Exhibits of "plastinated" human remains in garish poses raise issues of human dignity.
Australasian Science July/August 2019
