1. The Dog Allusion

Comment #128413 by dreamsphere on February 17, 2008 at 12:47 am

Dogs and other pets manipulate human responses that evolved to facilitate human relationships. Generally pets trick the owner into establishing a parent-child relationship, enabling pets to elicit caregiving from humans.

This is discussed in detail in the article: Archer,J. 1997: Why do people love their pets? Evol.
Hum. Behav. 18, 237-259.

(or you could just watch more Penn and Teller)

2. Ethical storm as scientist becomes first man to clone HIMSELF

Comment #113569 by dreamsphere on January 20, 2008 at 4:17 am

The title of this article plays on the widespread confusion between therapeutic cloning and the cloning of an entire organism. This ploy is also used by opponents of therapeutic cloning.
This confusion needs to be combated to allow rational debates on the ethical implications of this technology. A call for conscience raising, perhaps?