Do you know a good film on…?

The SCHB has developed a database of films with bioethical themes

At BioethicsBytes we are sometimes asked if we know a good movie or documentary on a particular ethical topic. On many occasions we do, but our strategy here has generally been only to list items when we are specifically recommending a clip or a certain use of a film, rather than producing an overall list.

I am delighted therefore that the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics has just released a resource where they have a longer list of potential films and TV programmes organised by theme. The list can be accessed via this link. Remember to check back here afterwards to see if we’ve discussed the film on more detail.

Model Organisms in Biomedical Research

We have recently published the latest of our videos on bioethics. The subject this time is the use of model organisms in biomedical research (it last six and a half minutes). I am particularly please about this one as it is the first of two main films that have been at the core of a project supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (the other film, due for completion shortly, is on Comparative Genomics).

For reasons I needn’t go into these videos have had longer gestation than a baby elephant but we are very pleased with the outcome and hope you will agree that they have been worth the wait. In the fullness of time there will also be some structured suggestions for how to use these videos in a teaching context.

Production of the two main videos has resulted in the release of seven further films as side-product of the project. These have been previously mentioned on this site, see here for a list.

Ethics in the biosciences (Resource)

The Briefing contains recommendations about useful resources for teaching about various aspects of bioethics

Anyone involved in teaching ethics to bioscience students should get hold of a copy of Ethics in the biosciences: Resources, references and tools for ethics teaching in the biosciences. This is the second Briefing document produced by the UK Centre for Bioscience (the first was on Assessment).

The new booklet includes coverage of the following topics:

• Teaching ethics
• Assessing ethics
• Ethical theory: How are ethical decisions made?
• The ethics of being a scientist
• Environmental ethics
• Issues at the beginning of life
• Issues at the end of life
• Genetics and genomes
• Animal experimentation
• Transhumanism
• Ethics and Risk

Each chapter includes a short introduction written by an expert on the topic and then a recommendations of other resources (websites, books, articles, slides, videos, etc) which have proven to be useful in teaching on the subject.

In addition to the online version of the booklet, a number of hard copies have been produced – if you would like one please contact the UK Centre for Bioscience before December 2011 when, unfortunately, their activities will be substantially scaled back.