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US animal researchers face criminal charges
Laif / CAMERA PRESS
UPFRONT
Ending China’s coal fires IS THIS, finally, the end for the gigantic coal fires that have been burning in Inner Mongolia, China, for 50 years? The province’s government announced earlier this month that it would spend 200 million yuan ($29.4 million) a year through to 2012 on extinguishing over 60 fires that burn, unchecked, at seven of its coalfields. The fires can be ignited naturally by lightning or forest fires but more often are lit by sparks from mining equipment or burning waste. Some are at the surface, but they can also burn below ground, making them hard to spot and control. The fires are difficult to extinguish, as oxygen can seep into cracks and reignite hot coal several metres below the surface. China has the worst underground coal fires. Each year, around 20 million
tonnes of coal go up in smoke, emitting up to 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. As China’s main coal-producing area, Inner Mongolia is home to the severest fires. “If Inner Mongolia invests 200 million yuan, another 400 million can be expected from the central government,” says Jianzhong Zhang of the German Aerospace Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, who studies the fires. “That will be enough to put out almost all the fires in Inner Mongolia.” This is the first time that the regional government has made a concerted effort to control its fires. It plans to remove nearby coal to stop fires spreading and bury burning coal in sand and slurry. The plan’s low-tech nature makes some environmentalists wonder why it didn’t happen earlier.
Doubt is spreading
the same questions as in previous years, plus new ones about recent controversies. Of the 32 per cent of respondents who had heard about climategate, just 29 per cent thought the unguarded comments in the leaked emails meant climate scientists should not be trusted. The survey showed a long-term drop in the proportion of people who believe that global warming has been happening, from 84 per cent in 2007 to 74 per cent this year. A UK poll by researchers at Cardiff University shows a similar drop, from 91 per cent in 2005 to 78 per cent this year.
–Burning unchecked for 50 years–
US stem cell block
“Stem cell lines carrying mutations for cystic fibrosis could be denied US government funding” RGI submitted its lines for clearance to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in October 2009. But last week, an advisory committee to 4 | NewScientist | 19 June 2010
SHAMSHAHRIN SHAMSUDIN/epa/Corbis
NUMEROUS lines of human embryonic stem cells carrying mutations responsible for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease are set to be denied US government funding, because of a problem in donor consent forms. The 42 lines were created by a team led by Yury Verlinksy of the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI) in Chicago. Verlinsky, who died in 2009, was a pioneer of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis: screening IVF embryos for genetic mutations. Some couples also donated embryos carrying the mutations, allowing Verlinsky’s team to extract stem cells for research.
NIH director Francis Collins recommended that the lines be excluded from federal funding. The problem is a single sentence in the consent forms, which waives any rights to sue for negligence or harm arising from the donation. As New Scientist went to press, Collins had yet to make a final decision, but he seems to have little room for manoeuvre as such waivers are forbidden under US government rules. The lines are very valuable, says Alan Trounson of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco.
“CLIMATEGATE” and the flaws in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s last report have not greatly influenced US public opinion about global warming. That’s according to a survey from Stanford University, California. But this and other polls – including one carried out in the UK – also show a steady decline in belief that the planet is warming. Jon Krosnick has run polls on global warming each year since 2006. In his latest, 1000 randomly selected adults in the US were asked
Bendy sheep ANIMAL experimenters in the US, beware: you may find yourselves facing criminal charges. That’s what has happened to nine staff at the University of WisconsinMadison, who could go to jail or pay heavy fines for carrying out decompression experiments on sheep for the US navy. Some sheep died in the experiments, which aimed to find new ways to save divers from “the –Mice develop ethical awareness– bends”. Antivivisectionists at the
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Afghan riches
Alliance for Animals in Madison and at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals discovered that Wisconsin has a law banning the killing of animals through decompression. The AFA and PETA filed charges, and on 2 June judge Amy Smith backed them, concluding that the researchers had “intentionally or negligently violated Wisconsin law” and so should face criminal charges. Smith dismissed the university’s defence that the research was exempt from the law. This is the first time that animal researchers have faced such charges in the US since 1981.
60 Seconds
up the bulk, and unvalued deposits of lithium also exist. Who will mine it? Afghanistan has little mining infrastructure of its own. “The Afghan government does not have the resources and needs to attract outside
WAS Afghanistan’s mineral bounty simply undiscovered until now? Not quite. Geologists announced this week that a trillion dollars’ worth of mineral reserves had been found in the country. But efforts “Efforts to survey mineral to survey mineral deposits started deposits in Afghanistan with the Soviet occupation, when started with the Soviet Soviet and Afghan surveyors drew occupation” up maps of underlying geology. companies,” says Stan Coats of US geologists used these maps the British Geological Survey. The as a basis for aerial surveys and China Metallurgical Group has a borehole samples – revealing head start: it has 30-year rights to the 24 most promising mineral mine a copper deposit near Kabul. deposits. Iron and copper make
The falcon has landed
Playing God ‘OK’
ap/pa
SOME people may shudder at Only the Millennium Falcon could rival the journey this bird has made. the idea of scientists creating synthetic life but not, it seems, the A capsule from the spacecraft Hayabusa – Japanese for peregrine British. At least that’s the message falcon – has landed in one piece in from a UK government-funded the Australian outback. It hopefully “dialogue” with the public about contains the first samples of an synthetic biology. asteroid ever brought to Earth by “We expected people to human effort. be very wary of claims about Hayabusa entered the atmosphere creating synthetic life, but they at 11.21 pm local time on 13 June weren’t,” says Brian Johnson, the (see photo). Three hours earlier, independent consultant who led the capsule, which should contain the exercise. “They were quite samples from the asteroid Itokawa, relaxed about it, and seemed to had separated from the spacecraft, see it as a natural extension of according to the Japan Aerospace biological knowledge,” he says. Exploration Agency (JAXA). “Those with disabilities or Some feared that the capsule’s illness were most keen because parachute would not deploy: when of the medical potential, whereas Hayabusa landed awkwardly on others urged caution till the societal and ethical issues had been considered,” says Johnson, whose report on the dialogue was published on Monday on the bbsrc.ac.uk website. Participants were most concerned about who was doing the research, for what reason, and who will benefit. The potential of synthetic biology exploded into the public realm just a month ago, when entrepreneur Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, announced that he and his colleagues had made a live bacterium containing –Hayabusa’s last flight– a completely synthetic genome.
Itokawa in 2005, the parachute controls could have been destroyed. Another concern was that a beacon needed to find the capsule had failed. Yoshiyuki Hasegawa of JAXA announced in the early morning of 14 June that the capsule had made a soft landing. “So we are very happy,” he said. The beacon had also worked. The capsule will be opened at the Sagamihara Curation Center near Tokyo, Japan. But its contents will be revealed only after it has been cleaned and tested, which will take a couple of months. Hayabusa is not the first spacecraft to return material from beyond the moon. In 2006, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft retrieved samples from the comet Wild 2.
Death-defying drug Around 100,000 lives could be saved each year if heavily bleeding trauma patients were given infusions of a cheap clotting agent called tranexamic acid (TXA). In a trial involving 20,000 patients in 40 countries, TXA reduced the risk of bleeding to death by about a sixth (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S01406736(10)60835-5). No harmful side effects were reported.
Sail away Japan’s IKAROS solar sail has successfully unfurled in space, and its solar cells are generating power. In the next few weeks, it will start to move using the momentum of photons, becoming the first spacecraft fully propelled by sunlight.
Creationism in Russia A senior cleric in the Russian Orthodox church last week called for creationism to be taught alongside evolution, echoing repeated calls from creationists in the US. Reuters reports Hilarion Alfeyev saying during a lecture in Moscow on 9 June that he wants to end “the monopoly of Darwinism” in schools.
Biodiversity monitor Eat your heart out, IPCC. Governments have given a green light to the creation of a body that will do for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate – and it’s got an even longer name: the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES for short.
Genome of darkness First Craig Venter and James Watson… now Ozzy Osbourne. The “Prince of Darkness” is to have his genome mapped, apparently to figure out how he has survived years of drug and alcohol abuse. Knome, the Massachusetts-based genomics company behind the stunt, claims it will help reveal why some people can tolerate substance abuse more readily than others.
19 June 2010 | NewScientist | 5
UPFRONT
Ending China’s coal fires IS THIS, finally, the end for the gigantic coal fires that have been burning in Inner Mongolia, China, for 50 years? The province’s government announced earlier this month that it would spend 200 million yuan ($29.4 million) a year through to 2012 on extinguishing over 60 fires that burn, unchecked, at seven of its coalfields. The fires can be ignited naturally by lightning or forest fires but more often are lit by sparks from mining equipment or burning waste. Some are at the surface, but they can also burn below ground, making them hard to spot and control. The fires are difficult to extinguish, as oxygen can seep into cracks and reignite hot coal several metres below the surface. China has the worst underground coal fires. Each year, around 20 million
tonnes of coal go up in smoke, emitting up to 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. As China’s main coal-producing area, Inner Mongolia is home to the severest fires. “If Inner Mongolia invests 200 million yuan, another 400 million can be expected from the central government,” says Jianzhong Zhang of the German Aerospace Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, who studies the fires. “That will be enough to put out almost all the fires in Inner Mongolia.” This is the first time that the regional government has made a concerted effort to control its fires. It plans to remove nearby coal to stop fires spreading and bury burning coal in sand and slurry. The plan’s low-tech nature makes some environmentalists wonder why it didn’t happen earlier.
Doubt is spreading
the same questions as in previous years, plus new ones about recent controversies. Of the 32 per cent of respondents who had heard about climategate, just 29 per cent thought the unguarded comments in the leaked emails meant climate scientists should not be trusted. The survey showed a long-term drop in the proportion of people who believe that global warming has been happening, from 84 per cent in 2007 to 74 per cent this year. A UK poll by researchers at Cardiff University shows a similar drop, from 91 per cent in 2005 to 78 per cent this year.
–Burning unchecked for 50 years–
US stem cell block
“Stem cell lines carrying mutations for cystic fibrosis could be denied US government funding” RGI submitted its lines for clearance to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in October 2009. But last week, an advisory committee to 4 | NewScientist | 19 June 2010
SHAMSHAHRIN SHAMSUDIN/epa/Corbis
NUMEROUS lines of human embryonic stem cells carrying mutations responsible for conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease are set to be denied US government funding, because of a problem in donor consent forms. The 42 lines were created by a team led by Yury Verlinksy of the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI) in Chicago. Verlinsky, who died in 2009, was a pioneer of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis: screening IVF embryos for genetic mutations. Some couples also donated embryos carrying the mutations, allowing Verlinsky’s team to extract stem cells for research.
NIH director Francis Collins recommended that the lines be excluded from federal funding. The problem is a single sentence in the consent forms, which waives any rights to sue for negligence or harm arising from the donation. As New Scientist went to press, Collins had yet to make a final decision, but he seems to have little room for manoeuvre as such waivers are forbidden under US government rules. The lines are very valuable, says Alan Trounson of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco.
“CLIMATEGATE” and the flaws in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s last report have not greatly influenced US public opinion about global warming. That’s according to a survey from Stanford University, California. But this and other polls – including one carried out in the UK – also show a steady decline in belief that the planet is warming. Jon Krosnick has run polls on global warming each year since 2006. In his latest, 1000 randomly selected adults in the US were asked
Bendy sheep ANIMAL experimenters in the US, beware: you may find yourselves facing criminal charges. That’s what has happened to nine staff at the University of WisconsinMadison, who could go to jail or pay heavy fines for carrying out decompression experiments on sheep for the US navy. Some sheep died in the experiments, which aimed to find new ways to save divers from “the –Mice develop ethical awareness– bends”. Antivivisectionists at the
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Afghan riches
Alliance for Animals in Madison and at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals discovered that Wisconsin has a law banning the killing of animals through decompression. The AFA and PETA filed charges, and on 2 June judge Amy Smith backed them, concluding that the researchers had “intentionally or negligently violated Wisconsin law” and so should face criminal charges. Smith dismissed the university’s defence that the research was exempt from the law. This is the first time that animal researchers have faced such charges in the US since 1981.
60 Seconds
up the bulk, and unvalued deposits of lithium also exist. Who will mine it? Afghanistan has little mining infrastructure of its own. “The Afghan government does not have the resources and needs to attract outside
WAS Afghanistan’s mineral bounty simply undiscovered until now? Not quite. Geologists announced this week that a trillion dollars’ worth of mineral reserves had been found in the country. But efforts “Efforts to survey mineral to survey mineral deposits started deposits in Afghanistan with the Soviet occupation, when started with the Soviet Soviet and Afghan surveyors drew occupation” up maps of underlying geology. companies,” says Stan Coats of US geologists used these maps the British Geological Survey. The as a basis for aerial surveys and China Metallurgical Group has a borehole samples – revealing head start: it has 30-year rights to the 24 most promising mineral mine a copper deposit near Kabul. deposits. Iron and copper make
The falcon has landed
Playing God ‘OK’
ap/pa
SOME people may shudder at Only the Millennium Falcon could rival the journey this bird has made. the idea of scientists creating synthetic life but not, it seems, the A capsule from the spacecraft Hayabusa – Japanese for peregrine British. At least that’s the message falcon – has landed in one piece in from a UK government-funded the Australian outback. It hopefully “dialogue” with the public about contains the first samples of an synthetic biology. asteroid ever brought to Earth by “We expected people to human effort. be very wary of claims about Hayabusa entered the atmosphere creating synthetic life, but they at 11.21 pm local time on 13 June weren’t,” says Brian Johnson, the (see photo). Three hours earlier, independent consultant who led the capsule, which should contain the exercise. “They were quite samples from the asteroid Itokawa, relaxed about it, and seemed to had separated from the spacecraft, see it as a natural extension of according to the Japan Aerospace biological knowledge,” he says. Exploration Agency (JAXA). “Those with disabilities or Some feared that the capsule’s illness were most keen because parachute would not deploy: when of the medical potential, whereas Hayabusa landed awkwardly on others urged caution till the societal and ethical issues had been considered,” says Johnson, whose report on the dialogue was published on Monday on the bbsrc.ac.uk website. Participants were most concerned about who was doing the research, for what reason, and who will benefit. The potential of synthetic biology exploded into the public realm just a month ago, when entrepreneur Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, announced that he and his colleagues had made a live bacterium containing –Hayabusa’s last flight– a completely synthetic genome.
Itokawa in 2005, the parachute controls could have been destroyed. Another concern was that a beacon needed to find the capsule had failed. Yoshiyuki Hasegawa of JAXA announced in the early morning of 14 June that the capsule had made a soft landing. “So we are very happy,” he said. The beacon had also worked. The capsule will be opened at the Sagamihara Curation Center near Tokyo, Japan. But its contents will be revealed only after it has been cleaned and tested, which will take a couple of months. Hayabusa is not the first spacecraft to return material from beyond the moon. In 2006, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft retrieved samples from the comet Wild 2.
Death-defying drug Around 100,000 lives could be saved each year if heavily bleeding trauma patients were given infusions of a cheap clotting agent called tranexamic acid (TXA). In a trial involving 20,000 patients in 40 countries, TXA reduced the risk of bleeding to death by about a sixth (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S01406736(10)60835-5). No harmful side effects were reported.
Sail away Japan’s IKAROS solar sail has successfully unfurled in space, and its solar cells are generating power. In the next few weeks, it will start to move using the momentum of photons, becoming the first spacecraft fully propelled by sunlight.
Creationism in Russia A senior cleric in the Russian Orthodox church last week called for creationism to be taught alongside evolution, echoing repeated calls from creationists in the US. Reuters reports Hilarion Alfeyev saying during a lecture in Moscow on 9 June that he wants to end “the monopoly of Darwinism” in schools.
Biodiversity monitor Eat your heart out, IPCC. Governments have given a green light to the creation of a body that will do for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate – and it’s got an even longer name: the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES for short.
Genome of darkness First Craig Venter and James Watson… now Ozzy Osbourne. The “Prince of Darkness” is to have his genome mapped, apparently to figure out how he has survived years of drug and alcohol abuse. Knome, the Massachusetts-based genomics company behind the stunt, claims it will help reveal why some people can tolerate substance abuse more readily than others.
19 June 2010 | NewScientist | 5