The Petrie-Flom Center and Harvard Law School are delighted to announce our partnership with Duke University, Stanford University, and Oxford University Press to launch a new peer-reviewed, open access, online journal in 2014: Journal of Law and the Biosciences (JLB). JLB will become the preeminent outlet to publish cutting-edge scholarship wherever law and the biosciences intersect. The journal…
By Michael J. Young A prospective cohort study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine adds to a growing body of research illuminating the neurocognitive sequelae of critical illness requiring intensive care. Researchers reported that “one out of four patients [treated in the ICU] had cognitive impairment 12 months after critical illness that…
By Matthew L Baum “Examining the intersection of law and health care, biotech & bioethics” – the subtitle of the Bill of Health blog. I approach this intersection like many of my fellow students: outfitted with the tools and spectacles of a specific discipline. Whether that is health law, policy, medicine, engineering, philosophy, genetics, or…
By Michelle Meyer The op-ed, which will appear in tomorrow’s print edition, is online here. It’s co-authored with Christopher Chabris (who happens to be my husband). Here—where I’m writing only for myself—I thought I’d say a bit about what motivated us and elaborate on a few points whose force may have been blunted by the…
By Matthew L Baum What are the implications of advances in brain science for the justice system? This was the topic of a panel discussion held Tuesday at MIT’s McGovern Institute and moderated by Alan Alda in conjunction with the premier of his new PBS special, “Brains on Trial”. The discussion ranged from using fMRI for lie-detection…
A new article in The Atlantic, “Could the Government Get a Search Warrant for Your Thoughts?: Why remain silent if they can just read your mind?“, cites Bill of Health blogger Dov Fox’s research on brain imaging. Last year, a Maryland man on trial for murdering his roommate tried to introduce results from an fMRI-based lie…
By Adam Kolber A new study has found a relationship between cortisol levels in our hair and prevalence of metabolic syndrome (a cluster of abnormalities that increase the likelihood of developing diabetes and heart disease). Here’s how the New York Times describes the study: High levels of cortisol — the so-called stress hormone — have been associated…
By The Petrie-Flom Center
