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Another Tragic Suicide You Haven't Heard About
(Kyodo News / Associated Press) The world is reeling from the apparent suicide of Robin Williams. As someone who has suffered with debilitating depression, I could probably add quite a bit to the already expansive commentary. All I will say is that if you feel, on a regular basis, that your family and the world would be better off without you, that is your depression LYING to you. Even though you may think that it is, your perception is not reality. Please seek help right away. And if you are already under the care of a medical professional, please tell them that you need to try something else. There is hope. You can craw...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - August 13, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: STAP stem cells Source Type: blogs

Nicolas Wade’s troubling ideas
Among the popular myths about human genetics left over from the era of eugenics, social Darwinism and racism, two are especially relevant to Nicolas Wade’s recent book, “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History.”  The first is that natural selection has stopped due to advances in health and medicine, and that, as a result, the unfit are now contributing more to each succeeding generation. Early in his Book, Wade disagrees, stating that “human evolution has been recent, copious and regional”, and much of the first part of the book is devoted to this claim. I think this statement is well-suppor...
Source: On Genetics - August 10, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Source Type: blogs

Nicolas Wade ’s troubling ideas
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Source: On Genetics - August 10, 2014 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Source Type: blogs

Giving a Keynote at HIC2014 in Melbourne
I’m flying to Melbourne to give a keynote at Australia’s premier digital health, e-health & health informatics conference called HIC 2014. My keynote, The Guide to the Future of Medicine, will feature directions medicine is heading at the moment accompanied by a guide to help everyone prepare for this future world. I’ll live tweet during the event through #hic2014. See you there! (Source: ScienceRoll)
Source: ScienceRoll - August 8, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: Conference australia digital future Health Source Type: blogs

Thai Surrogacy Scandal: The Difference Between Begotten and Made
A surrogacy story gone wrong has recently made headlines all over the world: David and Wendy Farnell, an Australian couple, contracted with a Thai woman, Pattharamon Janbua, to carry their in vitro fertilization (IVF)-created embryos. Pattharamon gave birth to twins, a boy with Down syndrome and a girl. The Farnells took the girl home to Australia and left the boy, named Gammy, in Thailand.The Farnells say that they were told that Gammy was going to die, so they left him behind. It is telling that nowhere in the couple’s statements do they mention going back to get him. Pattharamon is now committed to raising Gammy as a p...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - August 7, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Reproductive Technologies Source Type: blogs

Smart Socks, Necklace, Tattoo And Even Water Bottle: When Does It Stop?
Many times I wrote about the wearable gadgets that help me live a healthy life. I know there is a wearable revolution going on but some of the recent announcements make me think whether the list and range of such gadgets ever get rationale. A few examples from the past days: Smart socks as fitness activity trackers Smart water bottle to alert you to keep yourself hydrated: “The Hug solution includes a sensor band that wraps around just about any water bottle to track your H2O consumption, and an accompanying mobile app that reminds you to drink when your hydration levels are low.” Smart ring controlling devic...
Source: ScienceRoll - August 7, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: Health Medicine Medicine 2.0 Wearables gadget Source Type: blogs

US: Destination for Sex-Selection
There are dozens of countries around the world that have banned sex selection. Unfortunately, the United States is not one of them. That makes the U.S. a destination spot for couples who want just the right number of girls and boys in their family.The United Kingdom is one of those places where selecting the sex of your embryos in the IVF process is prohibited. The Daily Mail reports that more and more Brits are coming to America to “choose” the sex of their next child.Continue reading at LifeNews>> (Source: Mary Meets Dolly)
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - August 6, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Reproductive Technologies Source Type: blogs

Stem Cell Cookbook of the Future has "Recipe" for Self-Cannibalism
**Now before anyone goes and reports that this a real cookbook, this is fiction people, fiction.** This author is either a visionary or he is totally crazy. The mention of self-cannibalism makes me lean toward crazy. From Dominic Skelton at the Times Live:A year after the presentation of the world’s first lab-grown hamburger a strange conceptual cookbook for stem cell food has arrived on the scene.Koert van Mensvoort, an artist and philosopher from Amsterdam is behind the In Vitro Meat Cookbook. With help from the Next Nature Foundation he decided to explore the prospects of lab-grown meat and thought about the kinds of d...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - August 5, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Genetic Engineering Source Type: blogs

Fight! Radical Feminsim vs. Transgenderism
To be honest, this piece at The New Yorker is one of the most fascinating stories I have read in a long time. It opened my eyes to two foreign worlds that are in a battle I never knew was going on.The radical feminists and the transgendered are fighting over what it means to be a woman. The radical feminist insists that transitioning from a male to a female is just another way men assert the privilege they were born with. (Backed by some psychology research, well-known radical feminist, Sheila Jeffreys, claims that male-to-female transgenderism is simply a sexual fetish where men find it erotic to think of themselves as fe...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - August 4, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Source Type: blogs

The Guide to the Future of Medicine: Let’s Prepare For The Future!
We are facing major changes as medicine and healthcare now produce more developments than in any other era. Key announcements in technology happen several times a year, showcasing gadgets that can revolutionize our lives and our work. Only five or six years ago it would have been hard to imagine today’s ever increasing billions of social media users; smartphone and tablet medical applications; the augmented world visible through Google Glass; IBM’s supercomputer Watson used in medical decision making; exoskeletons that allow paralyzed people to walk again; or printing out medical equipment and biomaterials in three...
Source: ScienceRoll - August 4, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: Future Health Health 2.0 Healthcare Medicine Medicine 2.0 Technology The Guide to the Future of Medicine Web 2.0 book Source Type: blogs

Why Predicting The Future Is Not Possible Without Knowing Today’s Trends
Minsuk Cho, South Korean architect, curates an “epic-scale show about both Koreas” at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. One of the most exciting projects they present there is the result of how architects of North Korea designed the future of houses and cities without actually ever leaving the country or studying about other city design in details. Look what kind of futuristic concepts they came up with while, for instance, keeping the old types of phones alive, not really moving forward with the advances of technology. It clearly shows how important it is to stay up-to-date about how technolog...
Source: ScienceRoll - July 31, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: Future Health 2.0 Medicine Medicine 2.0 Technology architecture Source Type: blogs

Would You Volunteer for Google’s Moonshot Medical Study?
The new moonshot project from Google is to create a Google Maps of the human body including molecular and genomic information as well. The Personal Genome Project (PGP) had a similar mission years ago, but this one seems to be even bigger. The 175 healthy people will go through an exam that includes the collection of body fluids like blood and saliva, after which Google X researchers will review what they have learnt and engage researchers at Duke University and Stanford University for a much larger study. The eventual aim is for Baseline to act as a reference for the chemistry of a well-run, healthy body, and in turn, ide...
Source: ScienceRoll - July 29, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: genetics Google Health Health 2.0 Medicine Medicine 2.0 data study Source Type: blogs

The Medical Futurist: Weekly Introduction
As a medical futurist, I work on bringing disruptive technologies to medicine & healthcare; assisting medical professionals and students in using these in an efficient and secure way; and educating e-patients about how to become equal partners with their caregivers. I publish a daily newsletter about the future of medicine, and share related news almost every hour on Twitter. Scienceroll.com is updated on a regular basis about the future of healthcare with an emphasis on social media. Here is my white paper, The Guide to the Future of Medicine. I’m the author of Social Media in Clinical Practice handbook;...
Source: ScienceRoll - July 26, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs

What Rubens Tells Us About Genetic Engineering
Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish painter that lived in the late 16th century. This is one of his famous paintings, The Three Graces, which I have seen at the Prado in Madrid.Likely considered to be the ideal female form at the time, these women have creamy white skin with plenty of lumps and bumps. Look at those generous thighs, those round bellies! Fast forward 500 years and this is now considered to be the ideal female figure. (I actually googled "ideal female body".)Slim, tan, and not a lump or bump to be found anywhere.Now I do not want to discuss which ideal is the best. I only want to point out that in less ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - July 24, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Genetic Engineering Source Type: blogs

Reinventing The Medical Curriculum
Medical curriculum worldwide cannot meet the needs of today’s e-patients and technologies any more, therefore there is time for a substantial change. Good examples are sporadic but at least exist. At Monash University, they developed a kit of 3D-printed anatomical body parts to revolutionize medical education and training. I studied anatomy when I was a medical student from books with tiny font sizes and old atlases. Here is how it can be a different experience. The 3D Printed Anatomy Series kit, to go on sale later this year, could have particular impact in developing countries where cadavers aren’t readily avai...
Source: ScienceRoll - July 24, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Bertalan Meskó (MD, PhD) Tags: 3D Printing Future Medical education Medicine Medicine 2.0 Technology Source Type: blogs