One of America's most influential bioethicists draws on a childhood memory of the polio epidemic to question the long-standing practice of therapeutic deception.
Caplan connects modern medical ethics to his childhood experience of the polio epidemic.
Physicians of that era routinely concealed true prognoses from patients' families.
The patient's right to informed truth is now central to bioethics, though not universally applied.
Scientists have uncovered the molecular mechanism by which bean plants convert a caterpillar bite into an airborne alarm signal that recruits the pest's natural enemies.
Bean plants use PRR immune receptors to detect compounds in caterpillar saliva.
Detection triggers the release of volatile compounds that attract parasitic wasps.
The molecular mechanism is closely related to how humans sense pathogens.
Chinese researchers simultaneously transplanted a liver and two kidneys from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead patient — a global first in xenotransplantation.
World first: liver and two pig kidneys transplanted simultaneously into a human.
Organs functioned for several hours; the patient was brain-dead.
Research aims to address the chronic global shortage of donor organs.
Male bowerbirds increasingly use plastic and glass debris instead of flowers and shells — a behavioural shift that tracks the spread of human waste into remote ecosystems.
Male bowerbirds decorate courtship structures with shiny objects to attract females.
Plastic, glass and packaging increasingly replace traditional flowers and shells.
The shift documents the reach of human waste into remote Australian ecosystems.
Climate scientists warn that the upcoming El Niño episode may be exceptionally intense, with far-reaching consequences for temperatures and rainfall worldwide.
Unusual warming of equatorial Pacific waters signals an imminent El Niño event.
The last comparable episode, in 2015-2016, set global temperature records.
Overlaid on ongoing climate warming, the new cycle could amplify meteorological anomalies.