Bioethical issues remain front-page news, with debate continuing to rage over issues including genetic modification, animal cloning, and "designer babies." With public opinion often driven by media speculation, how can we ensure that informed decisions regarding key bioethical issues are made in a reasoned, objective way? Ideal for students new to the subject, Bioethics: An Introduction for the Biosciences offers a balanced, objective introduction to the field. With a focus on developing powers of reasoning and judgment, the book presents different (...) perspectives on common themes in an impartial way, thereby fostering debate and discussion. The opening section, "The Ethical Groundwork," introduces students to the nature of bioethics and ethical theory. The book goes on to cover a broad range of bioethical issues relating to people, animals, and food, before concluding with an overview of bioethics in practice. Features: * The broadest, most balanced textbook on bioethics available, offering students just the right mix of science and philosophy as well as a clear, objective introduction to the subject * Presents different perspectives on common themes in order to encourage students to question, evaluate, and form their own opinions * Incorporates many useful pedagogical tools including self-assessment questions, topics for discussion, and exercises * Includes references for further reading and useful web sites * A companion website offers resources for both students and instructors. (shrink)

Most debate about the ethical implications of modern biotechnology has centred around medical issues, but public concerns over the impact of agricultural biotechnologies have gathered momentum. This volume, resulting from the 55th University of Nottingham Easter School in Agricultural and Food Science, provides a survey of this new field of enquiry. The book will be of interest to a wide readership, including applied philosophers, sociologists, economists and ecologists, as well as biotechnologists and agricultural and food scientists.

Greek art and literature follow parallel courses through the long period from Homer to Euripides. Homer and Euripides, Dipylon vases and the latest white lekythoi are as far apart from each other as it is possible for works in the same medium to be. The distance can only be explained by a similar change in the views of artists, writers, and their public.

in this article, we explore how responsible research and innovation (RRI) interacts with the current political context. We examine the (1) possible consequences for RRI and related agendas if values associated with ‘populist’ movements become more pervasive, (2) the role that a lack of RRI has potentially played in the development of this political context, and (3) how RRI as a concept, practice, and research agenda should respond. We argue that whilst RRI is threatened, it is now more important than (...) ever. We propose that RRI needs to go beyond being a method for facilitating societal input into research and innovation and for highlighting desired impacts. RRI needs to evolve to provide an effective conduit for criticisms and the input of critical thinking and reflexivity into science and innovation, including in terms of economic policy and politics. (shrink)

In answer to Professor Beare's note, which he has generously shown me, I would make the following points: I think it unlikely that Middle Comedy was more obscene than Old Comedy, and the Attic vases go back to about 420 B.C., 110 f.).

The comic is one of the principal esthetic categories; it unites the multifaceted experience of the social mind as it assimilates and cognizes the world, particularly the social world, on the basis of axioms of common sense, or even of public opinion about these axioms. Boldly violating the laws of logic and the verisimilitude of images, of normal connections and notions, and playing upon these violations, the comic nonetheless remains firmly on the side of common sense. The comic is inexhaustible (...) in its nuances — from light merriment and entertainment to malicious ridicule and satire, from gross farce to subtle forms of irony and humor. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the effect of unitarity bounds sb⩾s≡(E1+E2) cms 2 for the recently proposed types of nonderivative 4-fermion contact interactions. To this purpose we decompose the helicity amplitudes at c.m.s. into partial waves. The bounds are defined to hold for all reaction channels due to the same type of contact interaction. We find sb=τ4π/κ. Here κ is the coupling constant. The factor τ depends on the type of coupling and on the different cases to identify the fermions. (...) It ranges from 1/3 to 4. (shrink)

Marx was barely 25 when he produced this astonishing rich body of work-including economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and On the Jewish Question.

The late Sir George Hill in the first volume of his monumental History of Cyprus remarks that the Cypriot syllabary is found in use until the third century B.C. This, it may be noted, is the traditional opinion which for some sixty years has stood the test of time. I read therefore with interest on p. 330 of the same volume, among the addenda, that ‘pottery with incised inscriptions, discovered in 1939 in an excavation four miles from Nicosia, shows that (...) the syllabary continued to be used as late as the first century B.C.’ Sir George Hill in effect is here accepting the claim of Mrs. E. H. Dohan and Professor R. G. Kent, which he has hitherto ignored, that the syllabary survived until 50 B.C. Now this is an important claim, partly because it would add from two to three centuries to the life-span of a script already in possession of a long and reputable lineage; more particularly because, if true, it will convict the ancient Cypriot, admittedly a conservative individual, of a degree of conservatism with which I find it hard to credit even him. That there should still have been men in the hinterland of the island under the governorship of Cicero so little affected by the impact of the whole Hellenistic age that they were prepared to write Greek in a manner so uncouth and preserve, incidentally, certain elements of their old Arcadian tongue, is to my thinking highly improbable. A fresh examination of the evidence on which Mrs. Dohan and Professor Kent based their claim is clearly called for. (shrink)

In The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens Dr. Pickard-Cambridge includes a most useful and convenient collection of south Italian vase-paintings which have been held to throw light on the stage-settings of Greek tragedy. He concludes that they give no evidence for Athens in the fifth century and in particular do not justify the assumption that interior scenes were played in a porch in front of the central door. The second conclusion is true, but some of the vases do show that (...) the central doors could be thrown wide open to display an interior scene. The first conclusion is formally correct, but it should be remembered that the “plays came from Athens, and it is at least possible that the south Italian producers modelled themselves on Athenian producers. In any case these vases are worthy of further consideration. (shrink)

The Court of Appeals of Minnesota, in State v. Saunders ), held that the statutory offense of practicing medicine without a license was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to a claim involving a farmer who offered a home remedy to cure cancer. The court held that, although Minnesota Statute § 147.081 subd. 3 contains general language and undefined terms, the statute contains sufficient particularity to show ordinary persons what conduct is prohibited, and thereby passes the void-for-vagueness test. The court stated (...) that, according to the statute, while a person holding a license to practice medicine is permitted to engage in a broad range of conduct, those without that license are proscribed from engaging in that same range of conduct.The defendant, Mr. Saunders, a dairy farmer, claimed that he could cure ill people by injecting an ill person's blood into a cow and then feeding that person the cow's colostrum. (shrink)