Bioethics in the News

IVF NUTRIENTS MAY DICTATE IF THE BABY’S A BOY OR GIRL(New Scientist) Will it be a boy or a girl? For people undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), the nutrient-rich liquid their embryos grow in could tip the balance. The finding adds to mounting evidence that the culture medium is playing a role in determining the baby’s sex. The scales seem tipped toward males.ETHICS OF EMBRYO EDITING DIVIDES SCIENTISTS(Nature) Research that uses powerful gene-editing techniques on human embryos needs to be restricted, scientists agree but they are split over why."I personally think we are just not smart enough—and won't be for a very long time—to feel comfortable about the consequences of changing heredity, even in a single individual." —DAVID BALTIMORE, a former president of the California Institute of Technology, on a call for a moratorium on using a gene editing technique to change human DNA. As quoted in The New York Times.