Book Review: Marginalised Reproduction

When leading family researcher Professor Susan Golombok says a book is 'important and highly illuminating' and 'it should be read by everyone with a connection to the field', I thought I should add it to my 'to do' list...[Read More]

Exhibition Review: Identity: 8 Rooms, 9 Lives

Can you identify yourself? How? By your name, sex, religion, by what you do, or the relationships you form? These are the types of unenviable and arguably unanswerable questions the Wellcome Trust asks in its current Exhibition 8 Rooms, 9 Lives. The exhibition does not set out to answer questions about identity (and with good reason). However, wandering through the myriad of rooms the exhibition displays, through a series of individual life stories, brings to life at least some of the various...[Read More]

TV Review: Having a baby to save my child

I think the producers of this emotive BBC One documentary sought to challenge criticisms of saviour siblings by presenting the heartbreaking, desperate struggle that two couples face in their battle against time to create the miracle baby that will save their child's life... [Read More]

Book Review: Flesh and Blood: The Human Story behind the Headlines

Stephen Blood died in 1995, following the sudden onset of bacterial meningitis. His widow, just twenty-eight years old, hit the headlines after fighting for the right to use his sperm to conceive their child. Flesh and Blood tells the human story behind the headlines...[Read More]

TV Review: 8 boys and wanting a girl

Any media coverage focusing on views toward children is always bound to be both emotive and contentious. '8 Boys and Wanting a Girl' fit that description perfectly. Throughout Channel 4's hour-long show, I felt an emotional cocktail of disgust, confusion, empathy, sorrow and disbelief....[Read More]

Book Review: The Usborne Introduction to Genes and DNA

The media is filled with coverage of genes and genetics, ranging from new clinical developments to genetic advancements. But few biology textbooks/booklets offer a way of simplifying the topic to pupils. This is one of the advantages of this introductory book...[Read More]

TV Review: 'Too old to be a mum?'

I have a feeling that whether you work in the fertility field or not everyone has a strong point of view about the upper age that a woman should have fertility treatment and become a mother. Maybe this thought was behind the producers of this BBC documentary that they could challenge all our firmly held beliefs? Or maybe they just thought that it would make contentious sexy television?...[Read More]

Book Review: The Rough Guide to Genes and Cloning

This book does what it says on the tin: it is filled to the brim with information on genes and cloning. The authors have managed to treat the basics of the subject without dumbing it down, venturing into specialist areas such as laboratory techniques for cloning and behavioural genetics and explaining the associated jargon along the way, and exploring links with philosophy, culture and psychology...[Read More]

Book Review: Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People

Quite understandably, eugenics got a bad name during the 20th century; and, in many people's minds, it is still associated with programmes of mass forced sterilisation and industrial killing. On the other hand, the project of 'improving' humanity - which is what eugenics is really about - doesn't have to demand these measures...[Read More]

Book Review: An Introduction to Stem Cells

With modern day medico-scientific technology advancing at an incredible pace, it is very easy for the layperson to become caught up in the technical language used by scientists and academics in their specialist field. Often, out of a lack of expertise, even the media misrepresent information, particularly in relation to research involving stem cells...[Read More]

Book Review: Choosing Life, Choosing Death: The Tyranny of Autonomy in Medical Ethics and Law

Autonomy is commonly thought of as a guiding ethical principle which promotes the ability of an individual to determine their own 'life path'. It is commonly translated in the legal area in positive terms of self-determinism and negative constraints of non-interference. But the term holds a special meaning in the ethics/rights discourse as an inalienable virtuous human quality which generates rights and warrants respect...[Read More]

Book Review: Reproductive Ageing

The first question I asked when picking up this book was: What is the image on the cover? Closer inspection and the power of Google revealed it is a dried poppy head (somniferum papaver) not, as I first thought, the egg from Alien - the science fiction horror film. What message does this convey?

Film Festival Review: 'Eugenics: Science Fiction or Future Reality?'

The Edinburgh Filmhouse ran its fifth Biomedical Ethics Film Festival from 20-22 November 2009 in partnership with the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SHCB), the British Science Association and the ESRC Genomics Forum at Edinburgh University. Its theme was 'Eugenics: Science Fiction or Future Reality?' and its format was film showings followed by comments from a panel leading off a general discussion with the audience. The first day's major film was 'Homo Sapiens 1990', a documentary on ...[Read More]

Book Review: Born and Made

Born and Made - An Ethnography of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis...[Read More]

TV Review: Is it better to be mixed race?

Channel 4, Monday 2 November 2009...[Read More]

TV Review: Octomum: Me and my 14 kids

Channel 4, 12 November 2009...[Read More]

TV Review: Fix Me

BBC 2, 27 October 2009...[Read More]

Would you like to review something for BioNews?

BioNews is read by around 10,000 people every week - an eclectic mix of scientists, clinicians, ethicists, science communicators, policymakers, academics, teachers and journalists. Following the launch of our new website we are now building up a dedicated section of reviews of current books (fiction and non-fiction), films, theatre, TV programmes, exhibitions and anything else to do with the fields of genetics, assisted conception, or embryo and stem cell research. Books and films we review c...[Read More]

TV Review: The secret life of twins

BBC1, 30th September and 1st October 2009...[Read More]

Book review: Genomes and what to make of them

A feature of science, perhaps a characteristic feature, is that over time some of its better 'ideas' have come increasingly to be seen as actual 'things'. From being (only) conceptual they become physically real with a definite measurable size and a three-dimensional structure. A process of materialisation is in evidence... [Read More]