Biotech's Boiling Point
October 27, 2003 · J. Bottum, for the Editors, Magazine, Editorials
YOU KNOW THE STORY. The frog in a saucepan on the stove will die--because the temperature creeps up so smoothly and stealthily that he's never given the clue that now is the time to hop out. And so he boils to death, for if the rise from 70 degrees to 71 degrees didn't make him jump, why should the…
The Biotech Project
March 11, 2002 · Magazine, J. Bottum, for the Editors, Editorials
RECENT WEEKS have seen news of biotech advances all along the front: cloned cats, artificial wombs, nascent human-animal hybrids, genetic selection of embryos for implantation, fetal-tissue manipulation--and on, and on, nearly every day bringing some news item about the technology that is…
While the Senate Sleeps
December 10, 2001 · Magazine, J. Bottum, for the Editors, Editorials
AROUND THANKSGIVING--under a headline in the New York Times that read "24 Cow Clones, All Normal, Are Reported by Scientists: A Challenge to Arguments Against Human Cloning"--a company called Advanced Cell Technology announced that there was no need to fear cloning, for it had succeeded in…
A Nation Mobilized
September 20, 2001 · Magazine, J. Bottum, for the Editors, Editorials
There was much talk in Washington last week of the need for the government to reassure the nation. But it is not just reassurance the American public seeks from its leaders. To talk to people on the street, to listen to friends and relatives across the nation, is to hear something not heard in this…