The Precautionary Principle Should be Used with Caution — and Should be Applied to Animal Experimentation and Genetic Manipulation, Not Merely to Protection of the Environment

I-14: Assisted Reproduction and Religion What Consideration Should Be and Should Not Be Relevant,

Several important issues are pertinent to an ethical discussion of the new technology today grouped under the name Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART). This is a moral imperative because each of us must decide what is to be considered ethically acceptable in assisted reproduction. Reflecting on the ethical dimension of ‘creating’ a new human life can play a major role in ensuring that in eac...

The Fundamental Reasons Why Laptop Computers should not be Used on Your Lap

As a tendency to use new technologies, gadgets such as laptop computers are becoming more popular among students, teachers, businessmen and office workers. Today laptops are a great tool for education and learning, work and personal multimedia. Millions of men, especially those in the reproductive age, are frequently using their laptop computers on the lap (thigh). Over the past several years, ...

Transfection of microRNA Mimics Should Be Used with Caution

Transient transfection of chemically synthesized microRNA (miRNA) mimics is being used extensively to study the functions and mechanisms of endogenous miRNAs. However, it remains unclear whether transfected miRNAs behave similarly to endogenous miRNAs. Here we show that transient transfection of miRNA mimics into HeLa cells by a commonly used method led to the accumulation of high molecular wei...

Liposome-mediated RNA transfection should be used with caution.

Liposome-mediated RNA transfection appears to present a number of advantages for studying the metabolism of reporter mRNAs in mammalian cells. This method is also widely used to transfect siRNAs. Here we describe results indicating that reporter mRNAs introduced into HeLa cells by liposomes do not present the expected behaviors. Namely, the stability of reporter mRNAs was independent of the pre...

Should Environmental Taxes Be Precautionary?