Science & Technology
Science & Technology
Relative Freedom Unleashes Global Advances
Ari Armstrong December 21, 2012
Today is the end of the world, according to some. Of course, last year marked the end of the world, too; as did the year before that. It seems that some people just can’t get enough mysticism or despair. People have been predicting the imminent destruction of the earth on…
Science & Technology
Heroic Researchers Markedly Improve Thought-Controlled Prosthetics for the Severely Paralyzed
Ross England December 17, 2012
Jennifer Collinger, Andrew Schwartz, and other researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System have made spectacular progress in the treatment of severe paralysis by producing a new, highly advanced thought-controlled prosthetic arm. In a summary of their work published today in The Lancet, the research…
Politics & Rights, Science & Technology
Time for the Ethics of Organ Donation to Catch Up with the Heroics of Dr. Joseph E. Murray
Michael A. LaFerrara December 12, 2012
Organ transplant pioneer Dr. Joseph E. Murray died November 26, 2012, in Boston. The New York Times reports that Murray, “who opened a new era of medicine [in 1954] with the first successful human organ transplant, . . . was awarded the [1990] Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.” As…
Politics & Rights, Science & Technology
Medical Device Tax: Immoral and Impractical
Joshua Lipana December 10, 2012
Fox Business’s Elizabeth MacDonald writes, “Starting January 1, medical-device makers must pay a new 2.3% excise tax on sales, regardless if they make a profit, to raise $30 billion over the next decade to pay for health reform”—that is, ObamaCare. Already, venture capital funding in the medical device industry in the…
Science & Technology
SpaceX Founder Musk Envisions Mars Colony: Potential Value is Immense
Ari Armstrong November 28, 2012
You can’t accuse Elon Musk of not thinking big. He helped found the internet commerce site PayPal and went on to found SpaceX, which has successfully rocketed a supply capsule to the space station. Now Musk is in the early stages of planning a colony on Mars. As Rob Coppinger…
Science & Technology
Stem Cell Research Offers New Hope for Repairing Brain Damage
Ari Armstrong November 27, 2012
Thanks to new research with embryonic stem cells, doctors may one day be able to transplant neurons developed from stem cells into patients who suffer brain damage, including Alzheimer’s patients. Connie K. Ho reports for RedOrbit.com: Researchers from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute [and other research centers] recently discovered that…
Politics & Rights, Science & Technology
Does Reason Support a Carbon Tax?
Ari Armstrong November 25, 2012
Although Reason magazine publishes some pro-liberty articles and videos, it unfortunately publishes an occasional endorsement of statism. Such is the case with a November 19 article by A. Barton Hinkle, “The Case for a Carbon Tax.” Hinkle, granting the highly disputed notions that the globe is warming, that this is…
Science & Technology
Chemo-Baths for Single Organs, A New Ear from One’s Own Tissue, and a Wealth of Knowledge for the Developing World: Good News Abounds
Joshua Lipana November 21, 2012
A few items from the benevolent news front: BBC reports that “A ‘chemo-bath’ which delivers toxic cancer drugs to just one organ in the body has been used on patients in the UK for the first time, say doctors.” Dr Brian Stedman, a consultant interventional radiologist, said: "To cut off…
Science & Technology
Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action
Karl Kowalski November 20, 2012
Surveys Apple’s staggering creation of great products, new markets, and massive wealth—for itself, its customers, and its competitors.
Politics & Rights, Science & Technology
Rooting Out the Motive of "Plant Rights" Advocates
Ross England November 18, 2012
Almost forty years after animal rights advocates began asking us to put down our steak knives, plant advocates may start asking us to relinquish our salad forks as well. Plants have rights too, they say, and we ought to “reconsider our ethical approach to eating them.” Michael Marder, a philosopher…