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Scientists Create Living Entities In The Lab That Closely Resemble Human Embryos

For decades, science has been trying to unlock the mysteries of how a single cell becomes a fully formed human being and what goes wrong to cause genetic diseases, miscarriages and infertility.

Now, scientists have created living entities in their labs that resemble human embryos; the results of two new experiments are the most complete such “model embryos” developed to date.

The goal of the experiments is to gain important insights into early human development and find new ways to prevent birth defects and miscarriages and treat fertility problems.

But the research, which was published in two separate papers Wednesday in the journal Nature Portfolio, raises sensitive moral and ethical concerns.

“I’m sure it makes anyone who is morally serious nervous when people start creating structures in a petri dish that are this close to being early human beings,” says Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a bioethicist at Georgetown University.

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Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco Coalition Emerges to Shape Legalization in Their Favor

We’ve already seen the influence of these corporate interests. In some instances, many of these same people have lobbied against consumer-friendly legalization provisions, such as the right for adults to cultivate marijuana in the privacy of their homes. These corporate entities also have pushed for statewide limits on the number of licensed cannabis producers and retailers, in an effort to keep prices and supply artificially limited — and to keep the economic benefits of legalization largely out of the reach of average Americans, especially people of color.

That’s their vision of legalization. NORML’s vision of legalization includes the right to personal cultivation and mandates low barriers of entry to the cannabis market so that every American who wishes to benefit from legalization can do so. Our vision includes the mass expungement of criminal records and provides justice to those communities that have been historically most impacted by the failed drug war. Our vision of legalization stops the discrimination in the workplace against those who choose to consume cannabis in their off-hours. Our vision includes low taxes and ready access to those adults who wish to legally obtain affordable cannabis products in a safe, licensed, regulated environment.

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Why Dictionary.com will no longer use ‘slave’ as a noun to describe people: ‘It’s dehumanizing’

As part of its ongoing efforts to feature language that is more inclusive and reflective of modern-day society, Dictionary.com will no longer include the word “slave” as a noun identifying a person, instead using the adjective “enslaved” or referencing the institution of slavery. The change is one of 7,600 updates the online resource has announced, which also include the addition of terms relevant to race, social justice and identity, such as “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and “Critical Race Theory.”

The latest updates — which also include capitalizing “Indigenous” when referring to people, and adding entries for “racialization,” “disenfranchisement” and “overpolice” — follow those announced last September. That round of revisions saw the capitalization of the word Black in reference to people, and the addition of terms relevant to mental health (specifically, suicide and addiction) and LGBTQ identity. John Kelly, managing editor of Dictionary.com, tells Yahoo Life that the changes are an important part of respecting the power of language and its ability to offer representation and dignity.

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High-profile failures, errors threaten media’s credibility with already skeptical public

Major media outlets in recent weeks have been struggling under a flood of major reporting failures, scrambling to address significant lapses in reporting as nationwide trust in media reaches record lows.

The Washington Post this week revealed that it had significantly misreported a story in which then-President Donald Trump was alleged to have called one of Georgia’s top elections investigators and urged that official to “find the fraud” in the state’s election data. The Post, which had relied on anonymous sourcing to verify the claim, said that a review of an audio file of the call discovered this month revealed that Trump had never uttered those words. 

Those allegations were explosive at the time they were reported, even finding their way into the impeachment trial memorandum of Senate Democrats. The Post in its correction indicated that its reporter has not listened to the recording prior to reporting on it, instead relying on “information provided by a source” to bolster the allegations in the report. 

Other media outlets picked up on the allegation as well, including CNN, which after the discovery of the recording quietly updated its own report on the alleged scandal. But its 10.5-font-sized “Editor’s Note” did not specify the errors from the earlier report, instead linking readers to a report on the recently discovered recording that itself did not identify the error from the network’s original article. 

The New York Times has been involved in several corrections, some big like the elaborate hoax played on its Caliphate podcast and others small but still affecting reputations on Twitter. Last month, for instance, Times technology reporter Taylor Lorenz had to be corrected when she tweeted an allegation that tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen had used  “the r-slur” during a forum, only to have one of the forum’s moderators deny it happened. Lorenz then tweeted back: “Thanks for clarifying.” 

The Capitol riot on Jan. 6 resulted in more journalism malpractice, so much so that award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote an entire essay about “false and exaggerated” media claims he had uncovered. “False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels,” he declared.

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