[BioEdge] There is no human right to assisted suicide, the European Court of Human Rights has declared, in a unanimous verdict.

The background to this important judgement is in Switzerland. A 57-year-old Swiss national, Ernst G. Haas, felt that he could no longer live a dignified life after battling a serious bipolar affective disorder for 20 years. [...]

[jsonline] The cloning of animals may have come from agriculture, but its real promise may be in the lucrative field of medicine rather than as food.
Genetically modified cows and goats can produce proteins in their milk that can be extracted as a drug component. Cloning animals to create living drug factories could lower the costs [...]

[Economist] MORE than a week after the earth convulsed beneath it, Haiti has still to plumb the depths of suffering and want. The numbers are still only more-or-less informed guesses, but their magnitude is grim: perhaps 200,000 killed, 250,000 more injured and some 3m in desperate need of help. The generosity of the world’s response [...]

 
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida [Reuters] – A Canadian astronaut aboard the International Space Station said on Sunday it looks like Earth’s ice caps have melted a bit since he was last in orbit 12 years ago.
Bob Thirsk, who is two months into a planned six-month stay aboard the station, said he is mostly in awe when he looks [...]

 
[NPR] Climate change is a potential environmental disaster — but it’s also potentially an economic opportunity. President Obama spoke of it in economic terms Tuesday when he urged the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would address global warming.
“The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation [...]

Bioethics International’s Executive Director, Jennifer Miller, will be a panelist for Fordham University’s Conference ADVANCING CLIMATE JUSTICE: TRANSFORMING THE ECONOMY, PUBLIC HEALTH, & OUR ENVIRONMENT organized by WeAct.
Ms. Miller’s panel entitled, “Climate Justice Adaptation: Public Health and Emergency Preparedness,” is schedule for this Thursday January 29th at 1:15pm.  We look forward to seeing you Thursday. 

Panel [...]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provides interesting commentary on environmental sustainability in the below article:

“I think Americans and the press and most of our political leaders have now made the connection we’ve long been urging that the environment is intertwined with all the other critical issues that concern us, starting with national security, [...]

The below article linking climate change, at least part of which is thought to be human-induced, with the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters is old (2000) but nonetheless caught my attention given Bioethics International’s current work with Disaster Preparedness Ethics and Environmental Sustainability.  (J.E.M) —
Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity [...]

A pair of doctors have said that British parents should have fewer children, because kids cause carbon emissions and climate change. The two medics suggest that choosing to have a third child is the same as buying a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzling car, and that GPs should advise their patients against it.
Writing in [...]

How will the world look in the year 2058? Sixty thinkers from around the world rise to that challenge in “The Way We Will Be 50 Years From Today,” a collection of essays edited by longtime journalist Mike Wallace.

The consensus view is that we’ll muddle through many of the issues that vex us today – [...]