SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefelle... (more)
A string of news articles on vaccines contained in GM food have hit the media over the last few days. The articles talked about research being carried out to see if it would work. But that is exactly what it is, re-search. Current scientists, on a lower level, re-doing the work that has been proven to work at an equivalent or higher level years ago. The New Scientist article below publicly reported in 2005 that Arizona State University’s re-search from 2003 successfully created “Gene... (more)
An organization that has been battling Minnesota state procedures in which DNA from every newborn is collected and warehoused says virtually all states do the same thing, and the alarming trend eventually could lead the United States back into eugenics.
The report from Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care,says, "Throughout history, proponents of eugenics have focused on the reproduction of children, either through encouraging the 'healthy' to reprodu... (more)
Middle-class children are more likely to be clever than those from poorer families because they have 'better genes', former Ofsted chief Chris Woodhead said yesterday.
The comments caused an immediate storm, with critics calling them insulting and 'crazy'.
However, Mr Woodhead won support in some quarters - including the backing of an evolutionary psychologist, who said research had shown there was a link between class and average IQ.
Drink from plastic bottles can raise the body’s levels of a controversial ‘gender-bending’ chemical by more than two thirds, according to tests.
Experts have been concerned about the possible health effects of bisphenol A (BPA) - an everyday chemical used in many plastic food and drink containers and tins as well as clear baby bottles - which is officially classified as toxic in some countries.
A study found that participants who drank for a week f... (more)
Philosophers and engineers have debated whether or not we are all gradually becoming post-human cyborgs for decades. Now, the European Parliament is meeting to debate the issues next month.
"We should welcome with open arms the rich possibilities of technologically enhancing our bodies," reports Andy Miah in the Guardian this week, adding the important caveat, "just so long as we don't all end up looking, and thinking, and acting the same."
One afternoon in late 2007, a Yahoo executive named Salim Ismail stepped up to a podium at company headquarters to talk about what some call "the world's most dangerous idea." An intense man from India, Ismail faced a conference room packed with computer whizzes from the likes of Google, Apple, and Intel and launched into a tirade about the far frontiers of digital technology and the big battle that lay ahead.
"The current system is flawed," he said, pacing the stage. He went ... (more)
Some studies have found that lead, a toxic metal, may play a key role in homicides and other related crimes in the U.S. Likewise, studies have found that many low - income and public housing in the U.S. still contain high levels of the toxin.
Along with cadmium and manganese, lead is considered to be neuro-toxic. When ingested by those who are poorly nourished, or via prenatal and neonatal or psychological stress factors, they can be susceptible to damage of the brain structures ... (more)
An increase in the awareness of fertility treatment, a rise in infertility and new techniques meaning more problems can be treated, have boosted the number of treatments being carried out.
The average age of women having fertility treatment has increased from 33 in 1992 to 36 in 1997, as women put off motherhood and advances in fertility treatments are increasingly successful in older mothers.
Around one in six or one in seven couples will experience difficulties if... (more)
One of most influential scientists in the US government has said that the Earth’s population has exceeded the planet’s “limits of sustainability”.
Dr Nina Fedoroff, the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state, currently Hillary Clinton, told the BBC’s “One Planet” program that “There are probably already too many people on the planet.”
JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.
Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.
The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.
AUSTRALIANS have been refused insurance protection because of their genetic make-up, researchers have shown in the first study in the world to provide proof of genetic discrimination.
Most cases were found to relate to life insurance. In one instance, a man with a faulty gene linked to a greater risk of breast and prostate cancer was denied income protection and trauma insurance that would have let him claim if he developed other forms of cancer.
New plans to use mosquitoes as micro-syringes have been released by a leading British biotechnology company. John Soames, Chairman of the Medical Life Sciences group based in Cambridge, England, held a press conference yesterday afternoon to announce the news to the world’s media. The new technology is set to revolutionise the medical profession, allowing minuscule amounts of drugs, vaccines and serums to be injected directly into patients.
Millions of men who take anti-depressants are risking infertility, researchers warn. They could be damaging the DNA of their sperm by using the common drug, Paroxetine, tests show.
The proportion of sperm damaged more than doubled from 13.8 per cent to 30.3 per cent after four weeks of taking the drug, researchers claimed.
The sperm recovered when Paroxetine use was halted but were damaged again within days of resuming.
Children have been used as 'lab rats' in GM rice trials that were carried out in breach of ethics rules drawn up in response to the medical crimes of Nazi Germany, it is claimed.
Youngsters aged 6-10 were fed so-called Golden Rice, which has been modified to contain enhanced levels of beta carotene or vitamin A.
The rice is being developed to combat Vitamin A deficiency, which is linked to damage to the sight, poor brain development and immune system failure.
... (more)
Pregnant women in the U.S. are at greater risk than previously thought for infertility and reproductive problems from exposure to chemicals found in many consumer products including food wrappers, cookware and clothing.
According to scientists at the UCLA School of Public Health, women with high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in their blood had a harder time conceiving and were twice as likely to be diagnosed with infertility as women ... (more)
Jan. 29, 2009 (ABC News) - Could your cookware and cleaning supplies make it harder for you to have a baby?
In the current issue of Human Reproduction, researchers suggest that chemicals called perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs for short, might be linked to delays in getting pregnant. But study authors and experts in the field caution that the findings are preliminary and mainly highlight an area that needs more research.
"The finding is interesting," says one of th... (more)
THURSDAY, Jan. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Chemicals known as perfluorinated chemicals, which are pervasive in food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products, may delay pregnancy, a new study suggests.
These chemicals are being phased out in the United States because of their toxic effects, and are expected to be completely gone by 2010. However, they remain in the environment and in the body for decades, and have been linked to developmental probl... (more)
MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average... (more)
One in five pregnancies in the small Brazilian town have resulted in twins - most of them blond haired and blue eyed
The steely hearted "Angel of Death", whose mission was to create a master race fit for the Third Reich, was the resident medic at Auschwitz from May 1943 until his flight in the face of the Red Army advance in January 1945.
His task was to carry out experiments to discover by what method of genetic quirk twins were produced -- and then to artif... (more)
The cocktail of gender-bending chemicals entering rivers and streams is more potent and harmful than anyone realised, it has been revealed.
Scientists have found an entirely new class of chemicals that is changing male fish into females – and which could be contributing to the soaring rate of infertility and defects in men.
They have yet to find the source of the chemicals, known as anti-androgens, but believe they could come from pesticides, industrial pollut... (more)
The health officials were facing charges of aggravated deception, manslaughter and causing unintentional injury by administering the hormones to almost 1,700 children suffering from stunted growth in the 1980s.
They were accused of ignoring safety rules by extracting pituitary glands from the brains of corpses many of whom died of cancer, or infectious or brain diseases – making them potentially infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD.
