Uninformed consent, revisited

Early in my pregnancy, a research assistant sat down next to me in the waiting room of my doctor’s office, where I was scheduled to undergo a routine checkup. She asked me if I wanted to take part in a research study and described the study’s goals, risks and benefits. After I agreed to join [...]

Uninformed consent

Last year, after years of writing about research studies, I agreed to become a research subject myself. I agreed to allow a local medical center to use my tissue, health records, fluids, cells, and other “specimens” for research. Not only that – I also allowed the researchers to use the same types of information and [...]

Synthetic biology and weapons of war

A few years ago, Eric Klavins found himself starting at the ceiling of his room in the Athenaeum, a private lodging on the grounds of the California Institute of Technology, in the middle of the night. Unable to sleep, Klavins found himself pondering a question that had been posed to him earlier that day at [...]

Body and Soul

I just wrote a story about robots whose brains are based on the neural networks of real creatures (mostly cats, rats and monkeys). Researchers put these ‘brains’ in an engineered body — sometimes real, sometimes virtual — equipped with sensors for light and sound and touch. Then they let them loose into the world — [...]

Rat: Killing in the Name of Science

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE WITH THIS IMAGE, SKIP THIS POST. I open the lab door, flick on the light switch, and watch a herd of cockroaches scuttle for cover.  It’s seven in the evening, when most of the university’s workers have left for the night.  Even so, after I lift each rat from its [...]