In a letter to the journal Nature, 18 scientists and ethicists from seven countries called for a global moratorium on the type of gene editing that can result in genetically altered babies. The letter was prompted by a 2018 announcement by a Chinese scientist declaring the birth of the world’s first gene-edited twin babies. “The 18 signatories of this call include scientists and ethicists who are citizens of 7 countries. Many of us have been involved in the gene-editing field by developing and applying the technology, organizing and speaking at international summits, serving on national advisory committees and studying the ethical…

Japanese neurosurgeons have implanted ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells into the brain of a patient with Parkinson’s disease for the first time. The condition is only the second for which a therapy has been trialled using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are developed by reprogramming the cells of body tissues such as skin so that they revert to an embryonic-like state, from which they can morph into other cell types. Scientists at Kyoto University use the technique to transform iPS cells into precursors to the neurons that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. A shortage of neurons producing dopamine in people with Parkinson’s…

I have to be honest with you: when I think of a Tesla car my mind expands and my senses get heightened. Actually, it’s enough to read something about the company and I feel my interest growing! If you feel the same and you want to know more about the most interesting company of the hour, stick with us. In the rows below we’ll have a heart-to-heart about Tesla Motors and the cars it produces.   First, I think it’s important to know that Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Elon Musk and a few other car enthusiasts who…

Background Little information is available about the geo-economic variations in demographics, management, and outcomes of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We aimed to characterise the effect of these geo-economic variations in patients enrolled in the Large Observational Study to Understand the Global Impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Failure (LUNG SAFE). Methods LUNG SAFE was done during 4 consecutive weeks in winter, 2014, in a convenience sample of 459 intensive-care units in 50 countries across six continents. Inclusion criteria were admission to a participating intensive-care unit (including transfers) within the enrolment window and receipt of invasive or non-invasive ventilation.…

NTRODUCTION Scientists and inventors can combine information from an ever-expanding knowledge base dispersed across documents, experiments, and data (1). The Web of Science (WOS) contains 28.4 million publications, including more than 1.5 million new articles published in 2014 alone, sextupling the 1970 rate. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued 287,831 patents in 2013, quadrupling the 1970 rate. Although more knowledge enables more novel ideas to be combined (2, 3), scientists and inventors have limited time to search through the expanding base (4, 5). As the rate of knowledge expansion grows, but the time to search for new knowledge remains fixed,…