Category: Health

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Opinion | Are Embryos Property or People? Even the Courts Don’t Know

OPINION   Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither? The Embryo Question is a three-part series about the cluster of cells at the crossroads of science, ethics and the law. Read the introduction. Between divorce cases and I.V.F. disputes, the frozen embryos vials like these will

Photograph: Kayla Reefer

How Robots Helped My Parents’ Dementia

Forget the crappy caregiver bots and puppy-eyed seals. When my parents got sick, I turned to a new generation of roboticists—and their glowing, talking, blobby creations. This article first appeared in the January, 2024 edition of Wired. Her research was supported by an Alicia Patterson

In September 2023, the second xenotransplantation of a genetically-modified pig heart into a living human patient was performed by surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Due to the risks of xenotransplantation, researchers have become increasingly interested in testing the procedure in brain-dead subjects. Visual: University of Maryland School of Medicine

The Allure and Dangers of Experimenting With Brain-Dead Bodies

For scientists who perform medical research on the recently deceased, there are few regulatory or ethical guardrails. This article, written by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, is based on her 2023 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship research on human experiments and greater openness behind clinical trials. It appeared in