BIONIC and Dr. Barry Belmont invite you to join them for the December Bioethics lunch - a Harry Potter special! What are the ethical implications of Polyjuice Potion?  Does the human-run Ministry of Magic have a right to impose legislation upon populations of intelligent magical creatures (e.g., goblins, centaurs, house elves)?  Do you think you know more Harry Potter trivia than some of our BIONIC members? Please join us for a magical afternoon of free lunch and insightful discussion.

BIONIC and Dr. Barry Belmont invite you to join them for lunch and a discussion on the ethics of publishing in science and the peer-review system with special guest Dr. Nick Kotov. Peer-review is colloquially deemed to be sub-optimal, if not broken, but we continue to rely upon it for publishing our results. Furthermore, we routinely evaluate scientists (e.g. their caliber as scientists, considerations for promotion, etc.) based on the quantity of their publications - not the quality. How can…

Join BIONIC, Dr. Barry Belmont and Dr. Parag Patil for a lunch discussion on medical therapies and technologies designed around interacting with, reading information from, and sending signals to the nervous system. Such topics could include implantable neuroprostheses that treat disease (e.g. deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease), brain-machine interfaces that blur the lines between humans and technology, and the morality of cognitive or physical enhancement via augmentation of the nervous system. Dr. Parag Patil is an Associate Professor of…

The Biointerfaces Interlaboratory Committees (BIONIC) and Dr. Barry Belmont invite you to join us for our April Bioethics lunch! Though Winter has officially departed, the final season of Game of Thrones is coming! If you're even tangentially aware of the premise of the series, you'll know that it's chock-full of 'ethically interesting' situations. Are you an 'A Song of Ice and Fire' fanatic? Do you like expensive animation budgets? Do you hate the show but love free pizza? Do you…

The Biointerfaces Interlaboratory Committees and Dr. Barry Belmont invite you to join us for our last Bioethics lunch of the semester! In celebration of both the end of another successful semester and Star Wars Day, our May ethics lunch will be the second iteration of last year's highly popular "Ethics of Star Wars." Last year barely scratched the surface, and there are many Star Wars themed ethical dilemmas left up for debate. How might human-machine interfaces and life-preservation technology lead…