The morality of science, and more, in today's links
By M. Farbman
Posted 12.08.2008 at 12:53 pm
HIV Virus
C. Goldsmith / CDC
And other issues: fighting AIDS, cyberthreats, and children's health problems.
- Remember those severed feet in Vancouver? Two of them have been matched up.
- A new study suggests the ancestor of the virus that causes AIDS evolved millions of years earlier than believed, opening the door to further understanding of how broadly HIV-like viruses are currently distributed, and how animals carry them without getting sick.
- People in religious countries are more likely to see nanotechnology as immoral, according to a new report. I'm dying to know how this was assessed for the report. I wouldn't have thought most people had a working understanding of what nanotechnology is, much less a sense of it as a moral or immoral force.
- And speaking of answering questions: if you're pregnant, consider signing your unborn child up for the largest long-term study of children's health ever planned, to be conducted from pregnancy on through birth, childhood and young adulthood. And 21+ years from now, as all the data gets analyzed, you may get to feel really righteous, or really guilty.
- The U.S. Commission on Cybersecurity is calling for rapid action from President-elect Barack Obama, due to the country's precarious position in the battle against cyber-threats. Read more about that threat here, here and here.
I don't see why the finding that nanotechnology is less morally acceptable among the very religious would surprise anyone. When you develop a technology that offers the potential to provide for the material needs of every human being, and to possibly extend the human life span or even reverse aging, you are going to run into some opposition from religious fundamentalists. Let's just hope that the obvious benefits overcome some of these prejudices, and allow the technology to develop in a reasonable, but controlled manner.