science wire

King's College London has received a major endowment from the Peter Sowerby Foundation to establish the first Chair in Philosophy and Medicine with the purpose of building on the University's groundbreaking work on the relationship between philosophy and medicine.

Drones - UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles - are not exactly ubiquitous yet. But that future may not be far away.

What are the ethical implications for society of allowing healthy people to take 'smart drugs' to enhance their performance? Barbara Sahakian will discuss the issue at Hay this weekend.

King's College London has received a donation of £7 million to set up a new research-based Centre for Politics, Philosophy & Law.

In a digital world, literature, art and music are often the result of collaborative efforts. But who owns what, and can copyright law cope? New research aims to find out. Authorship remains an important concept in the digital age, though there is real diversity in its meaning.

Don't miss the chance to hear the controversial commentator Cornel West in dialogue with other great minds on politics, philosophy and literature, touching in particular on issues of race and identity.

Sophie Zadeh, a PhD candidate in the Centre for Family Research, is contributing to a new study of the well-being of single mothers by sperm donation and their children.

It's no accident that money obtained through dishonest or illegal means is called "dirty money." A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that when people perceive money as morally tainted, they also view it as having less value and purchasing power. Challenging the belief that "all money is green," and that people will cross ethical boundaries to amass it, social scientists from UC Berkeley and Stanford University have found compelling evidence that the source of wealth really does matter.

Concerned about whether your genes could be patented? Worried about being left in the dust by genetically mutated colleagues or classmates? Losing sleep over what your genes may tell you about your susceptibility to sickness? A University of Alberta professor is championing the call for less fear-based hype and more evidence-based policy on the issue of genetics.

Stanford scholar Sara Mrsny says philosophy can help American lawmakers develop policies that will make it easier for someone to both hold a job and perform caregiving functions.

At some point, scientists may be able to bring back extinct animals, and perhaps early humans, raising questions of ethics and environmental disruption.

When, in 2006, the South Korean university and scientific communities were stunned by the apparent research misconduct of stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk, part of the response was to significantly increase national efforts to promote research ethics.

A new University of Melbourne research initiative will put the spotlight on when human suffering and animal cruelty intersect.

III. "Fear," one informant told Studs Terkel when the latter conducted an oral history of the 1930s, "unsettled the securities, apparently false securities that people had.

In the United States alone, an estimated 100,000 patients per year receive implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) - devices that detect life-threatening heart rhythm irregularities and deliver a high-voltage shock to return the heart to a normal pace.

Nationally recognized orthopedic surgeon Christopher Wahl, MD, has joined the University of California, San Diego Health System as the new chief of Sports Medicine.

When it comes to judging art, beauty may not just be in the eye of the beholder, according to a study from the University of Leeds. The research challenges the idea that what people value in art is largely what they are used to, or that people will come to like any image if they see it enough times.

The University of Birmingham is joining forces with Yale to support the development of a pioneering global justice programme at the University of Delhi.

Stanford Report, February 26, 2013 Thomas Sheehan, a religious studies professor who pursued the priesthood before becoming an academic, says the conservative agenda of the Catholic Church is stifling theological scholarship.

Stanford Report, February 25, 2013 Philosophy Talk and Stanford Continuing Studies team up to create a unique course that combines philosophical wisdom with a radio broadcast experience.

Stanford Report, February 20, 2013 Stanford literary researcher ties our modern obsession with zombies to the survivalist mentality that developed after World War II.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery has mounted a new show that aims to expand the public's understanding of the challenging terrain of conceptual art.

Half of a word's meaning is simply a three dimensional summary of the rewards associated with it, according to an analysis of millions of blog entries undertaken by researchers from the University of Bristol and published today in PLoS ONE. We make choices about pretty much everything, all the time  - "Should I go for a walk or grab a coffee?";  "Shall I look at who just came in or continue to watch TV?" - and to do so we need something common as a basis to make the choice.

Vom 7. bis 9. Februar findet ein internationaler Kongress, organisiert vom Fachbereich Philosophie der Kulturund Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät, statt.

The University of Birmingham is proud to announce the appointment of Randall Curren as Professor of Moral and Virtue Education to the Jubilee Centre for Character and Values, in the School of Education.

Rowlands, who is currently Lecturer in Theology and Ministry at King's College, London and also a Research Associate of St Edmund's College, works at the interface of Political, Moral and Practical Theologies.

Is it possible to put a price tag on the natural world? A researcher at The University of Nottingham has been examining the rise of a new concept — ecosystem services — to describe the multitude of resources supplied to us by Mother Nature.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Name-calling is not nice. And resorting to schoolyard taunts is surely not the way to make the world a better place. But a little bit of ego sting may not be such a bad thing. Reminding people of the link between behaving unethically and being an unethical person keeps people honest, suggests research led by UC San Diego's Christopher Bryan, assistant professor of psychology in the Division of Social Sciences.

There is an endless amount of knowledge available on the internet, but also an endless supply of rubbish.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has awarded a total of $15 million to Columbia University, the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and High Tech Rochest

Australian political leaders keep finding new and innovative ways to position themselves as 'national defenders' in the face of regional challenges and threats, according to new research by the University of Melbourne.

As the latest Warner Bros' fantasy blockbuster, The Hobbit, hits our cinema screens this week, a University of Nottingham writer and academic is claiming the film will fulfil deeper needs in modern society than pure entertainment.

A society born from an Oxford University academic's decision to give more than half of all his future earnings to charity has attracted $100m in pledges, it announced as it celebrated its third birthday this week. Giving What We Can, which evaluates which charities most cost-effectively tackle global poverty and invites members to pledge at least 10 per cent of their lifetime earnings to these charities, was set up by Toby Ord of the Philosophy Faculty at Oxford University in December 2009.

Dr Brian Easlea, who died on 24 November, was first appointed to the Sussex faculty as a Lecturer in Theoretical Physics in 1963, by when he had already taught in Denmark and the USA.

The two classical Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata , are not only some of the oldest tales in human history.

Trust is very important to young people and loss of trust in an aspect of a relationship can have a knock-on effect on other aspects.

The University of Sheffield's Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy, Angie Hobbs, will join high profile guests and speakers to discuss the moral resourcing of the nation at Westminster Abbey this week (Wednesday 14 November 2012).

Technologies that enhance human functions such as memory, hearing and mobility could dramatically change how people work over the next decade, according to a workshop hosted by four of the UK's national academies and chaired by Genevra Richardson from The Dickson Poon School of Law at King's.

A public lecture series at Heidelberg University will address the question of how philosophy can be viewed from a global perspective and what challenges and opportunities arise from this.

AUSTIN, Texas - As emerging markets in the Middle East and North Africa become increasingly attractive for business opportunities, they also have become more prone to ethical infractions in advertisi

27. Basel - Novartis Basel, November 27, 2009 - The global financial crisis has brought chaos to economic activities worldwide - new discussions about values and morals are taking place more often and becoming increasingly intense.