Begotten, Not Made

Let's take a time out from medically slaughtering our own children to consider another side of modern eugenics, in vitro fertilization. Increasingly, IVF isn't about addressing the problem of human infertility (heck, adoption does that), but about the manufacture of made-to-order children:

What is particularly chilling (no pun intended) is Gillian's description of how she weighed the pros and cons of freezing her offspring as if she was deciding whether the lasagna she made the night before would freeze well enough to still taste good in a few months.

More HERE.

Warning: Check Your Blood Sugar

This picture is making the rounds in cyberspace. Some things are just so darned cute that we willingly take the risk of diabetic coma. Just as people falling down is always funny, small furry animals are always adorable. It won't do to ponder that this fluff-ball will grow up and eat your kid, or shill for Al Gore.

Hat tip to That Cute Girl.

Science Marches On

The Sunday Times reports:

A woman has conceived Britain’s first baby guaranteed to be free from hereditary breast cancer.

Doctors screened out from the woman’s embryos an inherited gene that would have left the baby with a greater than 50% chance of developing the cancer.

The woman decided to have her embryos screened because her husband had tested positive for the gene and his sister, mother, grandmother and cousin have all had the cancer.

The couple produced 11 embryos, of which five were found to be free from the gene. Two of these were implanted in the woman’s womb and she is now 14 weeks pregnant.

By screening out embryos carrying the gene, called BRCA-1, the couple, from London, will eliminate the hereditary disease from their lineage.

Via our friend Dawn Eden, who observes: "The media portrays embryo selection as though it were a "cure" for breast cancer. It is not. It is an end to human beings who may develop breast cancer."

G&S Has Productive Days at the Office

"This Made Me Laugh Out Loud" is a common and acceptable rejoinder among my friends (and by 'friends', I mean 'people I email 40 times a day and see twice a year'). I have yet to see anything more deserving of such a comment than this: