The UK couple who had triplets following fertility treatment, despite originally wanting only one or two babies, have settled out of court with the clinic involved. Patricia and Peter Thompson won their case against the Sheffield Fertility Clinic last year, in which they claimed that doctors had ignored their wishes...
A new study has raised concerns over variation in the communication of prenatal test results by staff working in obstetrics units. Dr Lenore Abramsky and her colleagues at Imperial College, London, found that parents are sometimes given inaccurate or misleading advice when they are first told of a sex (X...
Support groups representing families affected by genetic conditions are planning to form an international alliance to support medical research, reports last week's New Scientist. The new patient advocacy movement also aims to challenge anti-abortion groups, animal rights activists and other organisations that object to some areas of medical research. Founding...
UK and US researchers have identified a gene that may be involved in up to 50 per cent of all cases of asthma. The team say their findings could lead to a new genetic test for the condition, as well as potential new drug treatments. But details of the function...
Researchers at biotech firm PPL Therapeutics have managed to convert skin cells back into stem cells - the body's master cells, capable of growing into a wide range of tissues - and then into working heart cells. The experiments were carried out using cow cells grown in the laboratory, but PPL's UK...
US scientists have shown that blood stem cells from umbilical cords can grow into brain cells, providing a potential new treatment for brain damage caused by stroke. The findings, presented at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco, were based on experiments carried out...
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On unnoticed Holy Grails
by Juliet Tizzard
When scientists are a little secretive about an exciting new finding, it's hard to know whether a major advance has taken place. Before the research has been published and the real evidence is in the public domain, the scientific community is often understandably wary of breakthroughs. But it doesn't usually...