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Space shot or political stunt?
News in perspective
FARS FATEMI/ABACA/EMPICS
Upfront– SPACE SHOT OR POLITICAL STUNT? Confusion reigns among defence analysts over Iran’s claim to have launched a rocket to a sub-orbital altitude. The country’s existing 2000-kilometre-range tactical missiles are already known to be capable of reaching that altitude, so analysts can’t understand why Iran should brag about it. Might it mean that an attempted orbital mission failed? On Sunday, the Iranian state broadcaster’s website said Iran had “fired a missile able to reach space”. This was later revised to say the rocket “would rise to about 150 kilometres” before landing by parachute. Low-Earth orbit starts at 200 kilometres. “My guess is that this is a cobbledtogether explanation for something that didn’t quite work,” says Rob Hewson, a rocket specialist at Janes, the UK-based
military publisher. He doubts Iran’s 1970s-era rocket technologies are up to orbital standards and suspects it may be “grandstanding”. ”We haven’t any confirmation that this launch took place at all,” says Rick Lehner of the US Missile Defense Agency in Washington DC. If Iran is getting closer to orbital technology, he says, “that would demonstrate proper staging of rocket motors” and the capability to launch a long-range missile. Andrew Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London thinks Iran merely “lobbed an old missile up in the air to prove it can” in the face of the 21 February UN Security Council deadline requiring it to cease its nuclear enrichment programme, a deadline that Iran ignored.
Supplement irony
“There’s absolutely no benefit from taking these supplements, and I would suggest people avoid them,” says Christian Gluud of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, who co-led the study. Supplement manufacturers are claiming many of the trials included people who were already sick. “You can’t expect an antioxidant supplement to reverse 20 years of chronic smoking,” says Judy Blatman of the Council for Responsible Nutrition in Washington DC, which represents US supplement makers. Gluud stands by his results, however. “Seventy per cent of the participants were healthy,” he says.
–Iran likes to show off its rockets–
IT HAS been called the last marine frontier. Now seabed that was hidden for thousands of years below Antarctic ice sheets has been visited. Nearly barren in some places, in others it is teeming with life. The unexplored zone was covered by the Larsen A and B ice shelves until they collapsed in 1995 and 2002 respectively. Researchers led by Julian Gutt, based at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, sent down a remotely operated submersible to capture video footage and collect samples. Where the ice shelves scraped along the bottom, the seabed is bare. In other areas, animals and plants are thriving and seem to
octopus and 15 new shrimp-like amphipods. One amphipod is 10 centimetres long, putting it among the biggest ever seen in Antarctica. Gutt also says his team has evidence of the past presence of a rare “cold seep” – a seabed vent that would have spewed methane and sulphides and supported life. “The break-up of these ice shelves opened up huge, nearpristine portions of the ocean floor, sealed off from above for at least 5000 years,” he says. The mission was the first of 13 planned for International Polar Year, which was formally launched on Thursday. GERRY ELLIS/MINDEN PICTURES
Life that ice hid
“The break-up of these ice shelves opened up huge portions of the ocean floor” be long established. In particular, there are a lot of sea cucumbers, normally found at depths below 2000 metres but now discovered living above 850 metres. Among potentially new species are two of –The elephant’s address is in its DNA– 6 | NewScientist | 3 March 2007
WASTING money on vitamin supplements that may not work is one thing. But what if those same pills actually harmed you? That’s the question raised by an analysis of 68 clinical trials of vitamin supplements involving almost a quarter of a million participants. It found people taking vitamin A supplements are 16 per cent more likely to die than those not taking supplements within the trial period, while beta-carotene and vitamin E supplement-takers are at 7 and 4 per cent greater risk (The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 297, p 842).
Tracing poachers BEWARE all ivory poachers. The cops are on your case, thanks to a DNA test that reveals the geographical origin of ivory. Developed using comparisons of elephant DNA from different regions, the test can theoretically pinpoint to between 500 and 1000 kilometres the origin of a particular sample. In its first use, the test showed that a huge cache of 532 tusks, seized in Singapore in 2002, came mainly from Zambia, not from multiple www.newscientist.com
FARS FATEMI/ABACA/EMPICS
Upfront– SPACE SHOT OR POLITICAL STUNT? Confusion reigns among defence analysts over Iran’s claim to have launched a rocket to a sub-orbital altitude. The country’s existing 2000-kilometre-range tactical missiles are already known to be capable of reaching that altitude, so analysts can’t understand why Iran should brag about it. Might it mean that an attempted orbital mission failed? On Sunday, the Iranian state broadcaster’s website said Iran had “fired a missile able to reach space”. This was later revised to say the rocket “would rise to about 150 kilometres” before landing by parachute. Low-Earth orbit starts at 200 kilometres. “My guess is that this is a cobbledtogether explanation for something that didn’t quite work,” says Rob Hewson, a rocket specialist at Janes, the UK-based
military publisher. He doubts Iran’s 1970s-era rocket technologies are up to orbital standards and suspects it may be “grandstanding”. ”We haven’t any confirmation that this launch took place at all,” says Rick Lehner of the US Missile Defense Agency in Washington DC. If Iran is getting closer to orbital technology, he says, “that would demonstrate proper staging of rocket motors” and the capability to launch a long-range missile. Andrew Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London thinks Iran merely “lobbed an old missile up in the air to prove it can” in the face of the 21 February UN Security Council deadline requiring it to cease its nuclear enrichment programme, a deadline that Iran ignored.
Supplement irony
“There’s absolutely no benefit from taking these supplements, and I would suggest people avoid them,” says Christian Gluud of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, who co-led the study. Supplement manufacturers are claiming many of the trials included people who were already sick. “You can’t expect an antioxidant supplement to reverse 20 years of chronic smoking,” says Judy Blatman of the Council for Responsible Nutrition in Washington DC, which represents US supplement makers. Gluud stands by his results, however. “Seventy per cent of the participants were healthy,” he says.
–Iran likes to show off its rockets–
IT HAS been called the last marine frontier. Now seabed that was hidden for thousands of years below Antarctic ice sheets has been visited. Nearly barren in some places, in others it is teeming with life. The unexplored zone was covered by the Larsen A and B ice shelves until they collapsed in 1995 and 2002 respectively. Researchers led by Julian Gutt, based at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, sent down a remotely operated submersible to capture video footage and collect samples. Where the ice shelves scraped along the bottom, the seabed is bare. In other areas, animals and plants are thriving and seem to
octopus and 15 new shrimp-like amphipods. One amphipod is 10 centimetres long, putting it among the biggest ever seen in Antarctica. Gutt also says his team has evidence of the past presence of a rare “cold seep” – a seabed vent that would have spewed methane and sulphides and supported life. “The break-up of these ice shelves opened up huge, nearpristine portions of the ocean floor, sealed off from above for at least 5000 years,” he says. The mission was the first of 13 planned for International Polar Year, which was formally launched on Thursday. GERRY ELLIS/MINDEN PICTURES
Life that ice hid
“The break-up of these ice shelves opened up huge portions of the ocean floor” be long established. In particular, there are a lot of sea cucumbers, normally found at depths below 2000 metres but now discovered living above 850 metres. Among potentially new species are two of –The elephant’s address is in its DNA– 6 | NewScientist | 3 March 2007
WASTING money on vitamin supplements that may not work is one thing. But what if those same pills actually harmed you? That’s the question raised by an analysis of 68 clinical trials of vitamin supplements involving almost a quarter of a million participants. It found people taking vitamin A supplements are 16 per cent more likely to die than those not taking supplements within the trial period, while beta-carotene and vitamin E supplement-takers are at 7 and 4 per cent greater risk (The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 297, p 842).
Tracing poachers BEWARE all ivory poachers. The cops are on your case, thanks to a DNA test that reveals the geographical origin of ivory. Developed using comparisons of elephant DNA from different regions, the test can theoretically pinpoint to between 500 and 1000 kilometres the origin of a particular sample. In its first use, the test showed that a huge cache of 532 tusks, seized in Singapore in 2002, came mainly from Zambia, not from multiple www.newscientist.com