The federal trial over BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill was slated to start this week (Feb. 27) but was delayed for more settlement talks. Watch farmer, poet, and conservationist Wendell Berry, who said the BP spill showed "we're putting too much at stake" in the way we go after oil and mineral resources.

"Computers will match us in emotional intelligence, which includes our whole moral system," says inventor and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil.

Biological and technological evolution "is a spiritual process," says this famous futurist. "Entities become more godlike, never reaching that ideal but moving in that direction exponentially."

Purposefulness and self-sacrifice in human life "can never be reduced to a machine," according to this bioethicist.

Donating organs "is considered an altruistic, charitable act, and all the major religions look favorably upon that behavior," says ethicist Robert Veatch.

Watch scenes from an emotional meeting of transplant donors and recipients after the largest kidney exchange ever.

"We can open up the question of financial incentives" for organ donations "without worrying about undue coercive pressures," says medical ethicist Robert Veatch of Georgetown University.

“Being religious or spiritual has a very profound effect on our biology and our brain,” says neuroscientist Andrew Newberg. “It can change our brain and change ourselves over time.”

"Blood samples are sacred," says Carletta Tilousi, a Havasupai Indian, and "a major part of our spiritual, cultural, and religious identity." The tribe was recently involved in a dispute that raised ethical questions about research subjects and the use of genetic material.

Is the promise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing being oversold? What ethical and policy concerns are raised by selling gene tests directly to the public?