Proof-of-concept mouse experiment will have a long road before use in humans is possible. Researchers have made eggs from the cells of male mice and showed that, once fertilized and implanted into female mice, the eggs can develop into seemingly healthy, fertile offspring. The approach, announced on 8 March at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing in London, has not yet been published and is a long way from being used in humans. But it is an early proof-of-concept for a technique that raises the possibility of a way to treat some causes of infertility or even allow for single-parent embryos. "This is a significant advance with significant potential applications," says Keith Latham, a developmental biologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the governments purposes are beneficent.

Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

There was a time when the census was just a head count.

That is no longer the case.

The American Community Survey (ACS), sent to about 3.5 million homes every year, is the byproduct of a government that believes it has the right to know all of your personal business.

If you havent already received an ACS, its just a matter of time.

A far cry from the traditional census, which is limited to ascertaining the number of persons living in each dwelling, their ages and ethnicities, the ownership of the dwelling and telephone numbers, the ACS contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire.

At 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), these questions concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including questions relating to respondents bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among other highly personal and private matters.

For instance, the ACS asks how many persons live in your home, along with their names and detailed information about them such as their relationship to you, marital status, race and their physical, mental and emotional problems, etc. The survey also asks how many bedrooms and bathrooms you have in your house, along with the fuel used to heat your home, the cost of electricity, what type of mortgage you have and monthly mortgage payments, property taxes and so on.

And then the survey drills down even deeper.

The survey demands to know how many days you were sick last year, how many automobiles you own and the number of miles driven, whether you have trouble getting up the stairs, and what time you leave for work every morning, along with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. And the survey demands that you violate the privacy of others by supplying the names and addresses of your friends, relatives and employer.

The questionnaire also demands that you give other information on the people in your home, such as their educational levels, how many years of school were completed, what languages they spe...