http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/human-animal-trans-species-science?cat=commentisfree&type=article Friday's report by the Academy of Medical Sciences on the increasingly fuzzy boundaries between the human and the animal is the latest in a long series of policy reflections on how to keep pace with developments in the biosciences. It can justly be said that politics and regulation have not dealt well with our newfound capacities for muddying the boundaries between us and other species. And yet the last two decades have witnessed an unprecedented growth in bioscientific techniques that increasingly call into question what it means to be human. Take the human genome project: many of us may have… ]]> Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:20:18 -0700 http://guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/human-animal-trans-species-science?cat=commentisfree&type=article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:11:22 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLXgLiwIRoQ&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:06:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLXgLiwIRoQ&feature=youtube_gdata http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/are_animals_people/ The recent fatal attack of a SeaWorld trainer by the orca Tilikum has led to renewed questions about how humans should deal with potentially intelligent animals. Was Tilikum’s action premeditated, and how should that possibility influence decisions on the animal’s future treatment? Orcas, like their close relatives, dolphins, certainly seem smart, though researchers debate just how intelligent these cetaceans are and how similar their cognition is to humans. Should we ever treat such creatures like people?

For centuries it seemed obvious to most people what separated them from other animals: Humans have language, they use tools, they… ]]> Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:18:00 -0700 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/are_animals_people/ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/science/29mouse.html People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language. The gene, FOXP2, was identified in 1998 as the cause of a subtle speech defect in a large London family, half of whose members have difficulties with articulation and grammar. All those affected inherited a disrupted version of the gene from one… ]]> Fri, 29 May 2009 06:51:00 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/science/29mouse.html http://www.machineanimalcollages.com/ Fantastic meat landscapes and animals made of machinery ]]> Tue, 05 May 2009 01:02:00 -0700 http://www.machineanimalcollages.com/