School of Science, Engineering, and Environment

The representation of science, medicine, and technology has been an emerging agenda item for cultural and media research in the last decade. In part, its importance arises out of a concern for the public understanding of science (PUoS), which has been a priority in governmental policy discussions. This paper discusses how the utilization of cyberspatial communities can address the challenge of developing a global engagement with science and ethics, by considering the case of genetic technology and the role of experts in public debate. It critically appraises the PUoS and suggests that a way of advancing its methodological assumptions is through developing a "Public Engagement with Ethics." On this basis, concerns about scientific journalism are more effectively contextualized and enhance the possibility of ensuring that nonexperts are aware of the importance of any scientific innovation.

This paper examines how 'surveillance medicine' has expanded the realm of the medical gaze via its infiltration of cyberspace, where specific features of healthism are now present. Drawing on Foucault's notion of biopower, we examine how digital health resources offer new ways through which to discipline individuals and regulate populations. The emergence of health regulation within and through cyberspace takes place in a context wherein the relationship between the body and technology is rendered more complex. Departing from early literature on cyberspace, which claimed that the body was absent in virtual worlds, we articulate a medicalized cyberspace within which the virtual and corporeal are enmeshed.

This paper problematises the ethics of genetic modification (GM) in sport by outlining the perspectives of four organisations which have recently spent time considering the subject: the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the United States President's Council on Bioethics, and the Australian Law Reforms Commission. The paper outlines scientific developments in genetic research, which might make realisable the genetic engineering of athletes. Subsequently, an overview of the varied perspectives of the four organisations is given, by articulating the moral discourses which is present through each. Various arguments are recognised as having importance in reaching a conclusion about whether GM in sport should be legal or not. In particular, these arguments comprise concerns about safety, fairness, and moral character. It is suggested that reflective bioethical investigations can assist the development of a coherent ethical policy about genetics in sport, by informing sports ethics with a rich basis of literature dealing with such central concepts as personhood, autonomy, and humanness. In conclusion, it is argued that sport ought not approach GM in a comparable manner to how it has approached doping, as GM entails a much wider breadth of ethical implications, often unrelated to sport.

This article investigates the conceptual distinctions between therapy and various forms of human enhancement. It begins by proposing a typology of human enhancements in order to make more rigorous and grounded discussions about the distinction between therapy and enhancement. Three types of human enhancement are proposed: 1) engineering traits of accepted value, 2) engineering traits of contested value and 3) radical transhuman enhancements. Subsequently, the paper explores the distinctions between the ethical justifications that are advanced for therapeutic interventions, comparing them with human enhancements, concluding that the salient characteristic of health-related suffering enables enhancement to gain legitimacy from the perspective of traditional medical ethics. Finally, the paper considers a number of practical obstructions to the realization of radical transhuman enhancements. Specifically, it discusses procedural obstacles to approving experimental medical research for human enhancements, the likely commercialization of human enhancements that would ensue from their development, and the need to develop experimental medical interventions via animal models.

This paper examines the UK regulatory framework and the ethical arguments surrounding the use of genetic tests, specifically considering how they would apply to selecting for enhanced health characteristics. It discusses the Human Genetic Commission reports on the use of genetic information more broadly, identifying the implied values and concerns arising from their conclusions. It argues that the HGC conflates the concepts of 'best' and 'enhancement' and this limits the persuasiveness of their moral stance against preimplantation genetic selection for nondisease characteristics. Subsequently, the paper develops a conceptual framework of ethical objections related to genetic tests and selection. In response, it is argued that there are good reasons to permit access to genetic tests (preimplantation and postnatal) on the basis that a) it will enable the accumulation of biocultural capital and b) the burden of proof deems prohibition to be unacceptable. In conclusion, a number of issues are described as unresolved, such as a lack of clarity over whether postnatal genetic tests should be considered medical interventions and the capacity of a national health care system to provide for enhancement choices. However, it is argued that neither of these factors creates insurmountable problems for the regulation of genetic tests for enhanced health characteristics.

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a preseason strengthtraining programme for the hamstring muscle group -emphasizing eccentric overloading -could affect the occurrence and severity of hamstring injuries during the subsequent competition season in elite male soccer players. Thirty players from two of the best premier-league division teams in Sweden were divided into two groups; one group received additional specific hamstring training, whereas the other did not. The extra training was performed 1-2 times a week for 10 weeks by using a special device aiming at specific eccentric overloading of the hamstrings. Isokinetic hamstring strength and maximal running speed were measured in both groups before and after the training period and all hamstring injuries were registered during the total observational period of 10 months. The results showed that the occurrence of hamstring strain injuries was clearly lower in the training group (3/15) than in the control group (10/15). In addition, there were significant increases in strength and speed in the training group. However, there were no obvious coupling between performance parameters and injury occurrence. These results indicate that addition of specific preseason strength training for the hamstrings -including eccentric overloading -would be beneficial for elite soccer players, both from an injury prevention and from performance enhancement point of view.