Feature Channels: Ethics and Research Methods

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n a Harrisburg, Pa., Federal courtroom 11 years ago, Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller was the first witness in a historic takedown of Intelligent Design's pretense of scientific relevance. In the context of ongoing culture wars over evolution, climate change, stem cell research and vaccination, Miller will reunite with figures from the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial to review that trial's lessons at the annual meeting of the AAAS in Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2016.

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A commentary in Nature suggests that the process for fixing mistakes in peer-reviewed research articles is flawed. The article, written by scientists at UAB, points out that journals are slow to respond and even slower to take action when questions regarding the accuracy of a published research paper are raised.

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So-called citizen science has become a significant force in several scholarly disciplines. The phenomenon can be found in both the natural and the social sciences, according to the largest systematic analysis to date on the topic, the results of which are published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

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he J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) policy group today released a new report titled, “DNA Synthesis and Biosecurity: Lessons Learned and Options for the Future,” which reviews how well the Department of Health and Human Services guidance for synthetic biology providers has worked since it was issued in 2010.

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The health professional community should urge the United States Secretary of Defense to adopt and implement the recent recommendations of the Defense Health Board, and in addition rescind directives authorizing participation of health professionals in interrogation and force-feeding because they are inconsistent with professional ethics according to Leonard Rubenstein, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Berman Institute of Bioethics, Baltimore, and colleagues in a new Essay published this week in PLOS Medicine.

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Lay people who participate in citizen science develop more interest in science after participating in such a project, a new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences study shows. “Participating in science does more than teach people about science,” said Andrea Lucky, an assistant research scientist in the UF/IFAS entomology department and co-author of the study. “It builds trust in science and helps people understand what scientific research is all about.”

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No one wants to knowingly buy products made with child labor or that harm the environment. But a new study shows that we also don’t want to work too hard to find out whether our favorite products were made ethically. And we really don’t like those good people who make the effort to seek out ethically made goods.

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For a software to be maintained in an optimal condition, as well as in track of any necessary updates and innovations, it needs to be kept in check constantly. This appears to be the only way for any potential quality problems that may arise to be detected and handled momentarily well before a user can encounter them.

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The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values at the University of Notre Dame has released its fourth annual list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology for 2016. This list is designed to get people thinking about potential ethical dilemmas before controversial science or technology goes mainstream.

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The ROCKET AF Clinical Trial Executive Committee today announced its secondary analysis of the phase III trial (ROCKET AF) of the oral anticoagulant rivaroxaban. The analysis was prompted by a December 2014 FDA recall of a device used in the study.

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Global Conference April 25-30, 2016 Loews Ventana Canyon Tucson, AZ

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While some people today feel driven to purchase the latest smartphone or other technology, historian Michael Bess worries how near-future generations will deal with innovations ranging from pills that boost intelligence to bioengineered body parts for all ages.

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Social media has become engrained into almost every area of our life, but should you really be Facebook friends with your doctor?

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R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and longtime student of the regulation and ethics of biotechnology, was named co-chair of a study committee established Nov. 12 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to look into the implications of a faster, easier and more precise method for "editing" genes.

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A content analysis of nearly 500 anti-vaccination websites found that over two-thirds used what they represented as scientific evidence to support the idea that vaccines are dangerous and nearly one-third contained anecdotes that reinforced the perception.

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A blue-ribbon project group funded by the National Institutes of Health has published the first consensus guidelines on how researchers should share genomic findings in research on adults and children with other family members. The recommendations, published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, offer direction on sharing information before and after the death of an individual research participant.

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A new study conducted by researchers from three institutions has examined in the role of negative citations in academic publishing. The researchers found that one in 50 citations from a major academic journal contained criticism of previous work.

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In the past two decades there has been little to no adherence to the recommendations published by U.S. and European regulatory agencies on the manner in which translational research is conducted in large animal models used to study cartilage repair. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania detailed their findings in a paper published in Science Translational Medicine.

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The traditional pressure in academia for faculty to “publish or perish” advances knowledge in established areas. But it also might discourage scientists from asking the innovative questions that are most likely to lead to the biggest breakthroughs, according to a new study spearheaded by a UCLA professor.

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A new research project at the University of Chicago and University of South Carolina will bring together scholars from different fields to study the factors that bring about deep happiness and a sense of meaning in one’s life.

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The U.S. federal government is preparing to launch a set of sweeping new regulations that will have a major impact on how biomedical researchers and social scientists work. It will require researchers to change how they get ethics approval, how they collect informed consent from participants, and more. “These proposed rules are the first major changes in more than 40 years to the laws on how researchers get permission for studies,” said Laura Stark, assistant professor of medicine, health and society, who has closely followed the evolution of research protocols and wrote a recent book on ethics regulations.

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The fall 2015 issue of Changing Business is now available online and in print. The cover story, “Trial by Fire,” examines a study in which workers in various fields can benefit from the lessons that wildfire fighting offers in performing well under unpredictable circumstances. The topic is of particular timeliness as states in the Western U.S. continue to battle spreading wildfires.

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A new study finds that nearly a third of people who fill out advance health care directives —a document that lays out a patient’s wishes for end of life care — request medical interventions. The research from DePaul University explores the choices people make in advance directives, where they store the documents and with whom they discuss their plans.

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A special series of articles addressing the ethical and regulatory challenges to pragmatic clinical trials appears this week on the website of the journal Clinical Trials. The 12 articles were sponsored by the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory with additional support from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and include authors drawn from the fields of clinical research and patient advocacy, as well as clinicians, bioethicists, and regulatory experts.

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A scientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine is rescuing vast amounts of humanity’s knowledge of the submicroscopic world from potential oblivion, making it more accessible than ever before and doing so on a budget many thought impossible.

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A consensus statement from the Hinxton Group, global experts in bioethics, stem cell research and science policy, asserts that human genome editing research is essential to scientific knowledge and should be permitted, and there may be morally acceptable uses of the technology in human reproduction.

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Visit the website of a notable research university, and you'll likely read about the amount of federal dollars the institution won and spent in some recent year. But these types of marketing messages—which help attract faculty, students and patients—don't tell the whole story.

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The widespread practice of incentivizing mammogram completion via cash payments, typically by insurance companies and ranging from $10 to $250, is unethical according to a Viewpoint article published this week in JAMA by an expert from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead, incentives should be offered to women to use evidence-based decision aids to decide if they want a mammogram, even if this policy likely averts fewer breast cancer deaths overall.

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As more money has been spent on biomedical research in the United States over the past 50 years, there has been diminished return on investment in terms of life expectancy gains and new drug approvals, two Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say.

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Despite an increasing ease in acquiring genetic information, the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) points out that doing so has consequences, particularly when it comes to children. It is this population, they say, that is the most vulnerable. With this precaution in mind, the ASHG Workgroup on Pediatric Genetic and Genomic Testing has issued guidelines for genetic testing in children and adolescents that are based on a thorough review of studies on ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI). The recommendations were published in The American Journal of Human Genetics.

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The computer brains inside autonomous vehicles will be fast enough to make life-or-death decisions. But should they? A member of UAB's national championship-winning Bioethics Bowl team — and the team's coach, a renowned bioethicist — weigh in on a thorny problem of the dawning robot age.

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The 50 hospitals in the United States with the highest markup of prices over their actual costs are charging out-of-network patients and the uninsured, as well as auto and workers’ compensation insurers, more than 10 times the costs allowed by Medicare, new research suggests. It’s a markup of more than 1,000 percent for the same medical services.

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a new study from the Indiana University Bloomington explores "sleeping beauties," research papers whose citations don't peak until years -- or decades -- after publication.

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A fairly simple and ethical change in policy would greatly expand the nation’s organ pool while respecting autonomy, choice, and vulnerability of a deceased’s family or authorized caregiver, according to ethicists at NYU Langone Medical Center.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: WWII and PTSD, stem cells, cancer, racial segregation, supplements and glaucoma, medical research, cybersecurity, vision research, and physics.

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The Global Biological Standards Institute (GBSI) has launched a video competition as part of its #authenticate campaign, which is designed to raise awareness in the life science community about the powerful role cell authentication can play in improving research reproducibility and fidelity.

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To accommodate 21st century ethical concerns and begin resolving discordant approaches to medical ethics training, scholars from leading medical schools across the United States have issued updated education recommendations in the journal Academic Medicine.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, environment, crowdfunding, engineering, smoking, pharmaceuticals, medical research, cardiology and diabetes

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Researchers at The University of Manchester and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) have published data for the first time about public knowledge of and interest in the process of medicines research and development (R&D).

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, concussions, STEM jobs, Medical licensing, gun safety and youth, research ethics, and sleep apnea and blood pressure.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: nanotech treating cancer, immunology, autism, patient monitoring, research ethics, lingering effects of dispersant in Gulf of Mexico, wildlife conservation.

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The scientific community is facing a ‘pollution problem’ in academic publishing, one that poses a serious threat to the “trustworthiness, utility, and value of science and medicine,” according to one of the country’s leading medical ethicists.