Ethics

NASA has quietly taken steps to prepare for a death in space. We need to ask how nations will deal with this inevitability now, as more people start traveling off the planet

Uncorrected errors in science and the unconscionable reluctance to correct them erodes trust in science, throws away taxpayer money, harms the public’s health and can kill innocent people

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, owes his superstar success to self-satisfied competitors who blew obvious opportunities

The withdrawal after 22 years of a controversial stem cell paper highlights how perverse incentives can distort scientific progress

A technology meant to help severely premature infants raises questions of inequity and may someday threaten parents’ rights to make decisions

Requiring FDA approval for laboratory-developed tests would be an overreaction to the Theranos debacle and would ultimately harm patients

An Alabama court ruling that human embryos outside the uterus should be regarded as children has raised concerns among doctors and scientists about the future of the fertility treatment in vitro fertilization

A state court ruling that embryos from in vitro fertilization are unborn children harms access to care for fertility patients, as well as medical innovations

Scientific research needs to slow down, not speed up, to produce trustworthy results

Capital punishment must come to an end. It does not deter crime, is not humane and has no moral or medical basis

Organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to feed demand worldwide, ruining ecosystems and communities. Can it be stopped?

The world has launched into an era of injectables not just to treat obesity but to manage weight. Is that all good news?