A couple whose only daughter died following a bonfire accident last July have applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) for permission to try and conceive a baby girl through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Louise and Alan Masterton want to use an embryo screening technique - preimplantation genetic diagnosis...
US president Bill Clinton and UK prime minister Tony Blair have issued a joint statement urging all human genome researchers to place their results in the public domain. 'Raw fundamental data on the human genome, including the human DNA sequence and its variations, should be made freely available to scientists...
Five pigs cloned using nuclear transfer technology - the 'Dolly technique' - were born on 5 March, announced UK firm PPL Therapeutics last week. Genetic tests have proved that the pigs, called Millie, Christa, Alexis, Carrel and Dotcom - are all genetically identical to an adult female pig. The scientists say they now...
Scientists battling to save endangered species are turning to surrogates from other species for help, according to a report in the Sunday Times yesterday. A team of researchers at the Audubon Institute, University of New Orleans has frozen 170 tiger embryos produced by in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which they plan...
The Swiss public have voted overwhelmingly against further restrictions on assisted reproduction, following a referendum on 12 March. Seventy-five per cent of the population rejected a proposal to ban in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and sperm donation, which would have left non-donor insemination as the only permitted technique. The call for...
The Bishop of Edinburgh, the Most Rev. Richard Holloway, has spoken out in favour of therapeutic cloning - the proposed use of cloned early embryos to grow new body tissues. He said he could see no ethical reason to oppose the creation of human organs and tissues, if the technology became...
A House of Lord's report says more must be done to restore public confidence in science, following the BSE debacle and recent concerns over GM (genetically-modified) food. The Science and Society report, published last week, also suggests that there should be more rigorous guidelines for science journalists. However, they rejected...
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Comment
Why shouldn't scientists indulge in media spin?
by Juliet Tizzard
Three cheers for PPL Therapeutics! Not for their success in cloning pigs (although this is worth at least three cheers), but for their success with the media coverage of those five little piggies. Press coverage in the United Kingdom of the cloned pigs was almost universally positive. With only a...