bioethics

A US team has developed a non-invasive language decoder: a brain-computer interface that aims to reconstruct whole sentences from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This is not the first attempt to create such a decoder; some of the existing ones are invasive - requiring neurosurgery; others are non-invasive, but only identify words or short phrases. In this case, as reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the team recorded brain responses - captured with fMRI - of three participants as they listened to 16 hours of stories. The authors used this data to train the model, which was then able to decode other fMRI data from the same person listening to new stories. The team argues that the model trained on one person's data does not decode another person's data well, suggesting that cooperation from the subject is required for the model to work properly.

Researchers in the United States have tested a new technique to select sperm and thereby increase the chances that the embryo will be of either sex. The proven efficacy is around 80 %. Although some countries such as the United States allow this type of procedure, in Spain it is prohibited except in cases of prevention of diseases linked to sex chromosomes. The authors of the article state that sperm selection is more ethically acceptable than embryo selection. The results are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

The variety of current dog breeds is the product of two centuries of human intervention, which has often selected characters for extravagance or supposed aesthetics. Lluís Montoliu, president of the CSIC Ethics Committee until last February, recalls that 15% of current dog breeds have some sort of more or less serious congenital disease.