Japan creates sperm from stem cells
Researchers in Japan have managed to produce mouse sperm from mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, according to a report in this week's advanced online publications of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The research may prove valuable in the quest to understand and control male infertility. In May...
Comment
Genetic Testing for Cardiovascular Disease Risk: Fact or Fiction?
by Steve Humphries
Heart attacks, the leading killer of people in the developed world, can be caused by one of a number of conditions, which are collectively labelled cardiovascular disease (CVD). Several companies in the US and Europe now market genetic tests that claim to identify individuals who are at higher than average...
Posthumous fathers and the law
by Juliet Tizzard
This week the law in the UK has been changed to allow the name of men who have died before their child was conceived to appear on that child's birth certificate. It's not a radical change in the law or any great philosophical shift in the way that we regulate...