The doctors have ruled out a single hand transplant on the grounds that any operation would be of more benefit to a person without any hands.

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China has been making substantial efforts on its own to curb such excesses, and these might well benefit from co-operation with outsiders.

ECONOMIST: Some milestone

The Federal Reserve and central banks in general are currently attempting a major and highly experimental operation on the economic body, without benefit of anesthesia.

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Mr Dawkins suggests the source is a combination of genetic instincts, which evolved because morals allowed humans to benefit more efficiently from co-operation, and a cultural Zeitgeist.

ECONOMIST: Religion

"The new and unique aspect of this operation is that we acted against those who benefit from this trade at the point of origin of the trafficking, " he added later.

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Before this study, it was unclear whether patients who are about to undergo heart surgery would also benefit if they took statins before the operation.

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Certainly, this rate was too high and surgeons set about refining the indications for carrying out this potentially risky operation, reserving it only for those patients most likely to benefit.

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You have shifted to a far more expensive mode of operation in which the really dramatic results are produced by machines or by drugs and benefit a relatively small fraction of the population.

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