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Chemical progress
60 SECONDS work backwards to establish that specific mutations in 40 per cent of the HIV cases evolved before the nurses arrived at the Al-Fateh Hospital in Benghazi in March 1998. Likewise, 70 per cent of the children with hepatitis C, which can also be spread through dirty needles, contracted it before the arrival of the nurses (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature44836a). The analysis concludes that both viruses spread through poor hospital hygiene. The big question now is whether the court accepts the evidence even though the trial ended on 4 November. “We’d like it to be heard or taken into account somehow,” says Pybus.
CAN WE stop tomorrow’s terrorists making deadly viruses from scratch? That was the question exercising the minds of 150 biologists and policy specialists who gathered in Washington DC on 4 December to debate a draft report on the new science of “synthetic genomics”. The draft considers 20 options, highlighting those aimed at “plugging the biggest holes in the current system of governance”. These include educating students about biosecurity and lab safety, and a requirement for companies synthesising DNA to screen their orders for potentially
Chemical progress
THE ULTIMATE INSURANCE?
IT IS finally going to happen. Next week, after years of debate, Every minute of every day a British the European Union is expected submarine armed with up to 48 nuclear to adopt its largest legal warheads, each capable of destroying framework ever. REACH entails a city, is on patrol somewhere under the “registration, evaluation and the world’s oceans. And that’s how authorisation” of some 30,000 Tony Blair wants it to stay. commercial chemicals, over half The underlying aim of the British never tested for toxicity before. prime minister’s decision to replace Even green campaigners, who are the country’s ageing Trident-armed not entirely happy with the final submarines, announced this week, is to package, call it the most maintain “continuous deterrent patrols” progressive chemicals legislation for the next 50 years. It will be possible in the world. to achieve this, he suggests in a white Its effects won’t kick in for a paper presented to Parliament on while. Companies will only have 4 December, while cutting the number to register chemicals they make, of submarines from four to three and import or use after the European the number of “operationally available” Chemicals Central Agency starts warheads from 200 to 160. up in Helsinki, Finland, in 2008. The weapons are no longer targeted At first they will register only on Russian cities, and Blair accepts that chemicals they make in quantities over 1000 tonnes a year, with quantities over a tonne by 2019. However, REACH will still require firms in Europe to produce environmental and human safety data for tens of thousands of chemicals. Information only exists for some 12,000 chemicals in use, so the next decade will see an orgy of testing the rest. It is unclear which toxicology tests will be necessary, but chemicals executives and greens agree on one thing: if you are looking for a career with prospects, become a toxicologist. –A battle lost– www.newscientist.com
dangerous sequences – which some still fail to do. Robert Friedman of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland,who helped write the draft, says it will be amended after a five-week period for public
Bin that Viagra Men who received the highest doses of a pioneering form of gene therapy to treat erectile dysfunction experienced normal erections for the entire six-week study. Volunteers were injected once in the penis with loops of DNA containing hSlo, a gene that relaxes penile muscle cells enabling blood to engorge the penis (Human Gene Therapy, vol 18, p 1165).
“Companies making DNA must screen orders for potentially dangerous sequences”
Celebrating Carl Linnaeus
comment. The key suggestion on screening orders is expected to stay, and mirrors an earlier recommendation from the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (New Scientist, 4 November, p 6).
It will be a year for the animals and plants. On 7 December 12 months of celebrations begin, marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who invented the binomial system for naming biological organisms. Events will be organised by The Linnean Society of London, the UK’s national academy for biology and the oldest such organisation in the world.
they won’t deter “terrorists”. He claims they will make governments think twice about sponsoring terrorists, however, and will give the UK the “ultimate insurance” against future uncertainties. His arguments are angrily rejected by anti-nuclear campaigners, who argue that the Trident missile system, and its planned successor, are a “dangerous irrelevance” in a post-cold war world. The proposals also keep the UK bound to the US. In the government’s plan, the new missiles and the warheads will both depend on US technology and maintenance, as do the present Trident missiles. “The UK will remain the US’s nuclear junkie,” says Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council in London.
Mouse mind mapped Patterns of gene activity across the entire mouse brain have been mapped, showing for the first time which genes operate in different parts of the brain. The “Allen Brain Atlas” of some 20,000 mouse genes has been compiled by Ed Lein and colleagues at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05453).
Ice ice baby
STEPHEN HIRD/REUTERS
Bioterror plan
A healthy baby boy has been born in Spain after the embryo from which he developed had spent 13 years in cryopreservation, beating the previous record by a year. The success will bolster claims that frozen embryos can remain viable for unlimited periods of time.
Ice ice shelf The size of the world’s largest ice shelf has fluctuated wildly over the last 10 million years. Sediments extracted from the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic show that it disappears and reappears in cycles. The ongoing international drilling project will help researchers understand how stable the shelf is.
9 December 2006 | NewScientist | 7
CAN WE stop tomorrow’s terrorists making deadly viruses from scratch? That was the question exercising the minds of 150 biologists and policy specialists who gathered in Washington DC on 4 December to debate a draft report on the new science of “synthetic genomics”. The draft considers 20 options, highlighting those aimed at “plugging the biggest holes in the current system of governance”. These include educating students about biosecurity and lab safety, and a requirement for companies synthesising DNA to screen their orders for potentially
Chemical progress
THE ULTIMATE INSURANCE?
IT IS finally going to happen. Next week, after years of debate, Every minute of every day a British the European Union is expected submarine armed with up to 48 nuclear to adopt its largest legal warheads, each capable of destroying framework ever. REACH entails a city, is on patrol somewhere under the “registration, evaluation and the world’s oceans. And that’s how authorisation” of some 30,000 Tony Blair wants it to stay. commercial chemicals, over half The underlying aim of the British never tested for toxicity before. prime minister’s decision to replace Even green campaigners, who are the country’s ageing Trident-armed not entirely happy with the final submarines, announced this week, is to package, call it the most maintain “continuous deterrent patrols” progressive chemicals legislation for the next 50 years. It will be possible in the world. to achieve this, he suggests in a white Its effects won’t kick in for a paper presented to Parliament on while. Companies will only have 4 December, while cutting the number to register chemicals they make, of submarines from four to three and import or use after the European the number of “operationally available” Chemicals Central Agency starts warheads from 200 to 160. up in Helsinki, Finland, in 2008. The weapons are no longer targeted At first they will register only on Russian cities, and Blair accepts that chemicals they make in quantities over 1000 tonnes a year, with quantities over a tonne by 2019. However, REACH will still require firms in Europe to produce environmental and human safety data for tens of thousands of chemicals. Information only exists for some 12,000 chemicals in use, so the next decade will see an orgy of testing the rest. It is unclear which toxicology tests will be necessary, but chemicals executives and greens agree on one thing: if you are looking for a career with prospects, become a toxicologist. –A battle lost– www.newscientist.com
dangerous sequences – which some still fail to do. Robert Friedman of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland,who helped write the draft, says it will be amended after a five-week period for public
Bin that Viagra Men who received the highest doses of a pioneering form of gene therapy to treat erectile dysfunction experienced normal erections for the entire six-week study. Volunteers were injected once in the penis with loops of DNA containing hSlo, a gene that relaxes penile muscle cells enabling blood to engorge the penis (Human Gene Therapy, vol 18, p 1165).
“Companies making DNA must screen orders for potentially dangerous sequences”
Celebrating Carl Linnaeus
comment. The key suggestion on screening orders is expected to stay, and mirrors an earlier recommendation from the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (New Scientist, 4 November, p 6).
It will be a year for the animals and plants. On 7 December 12 months of celebrations begin, marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who invented the binomial system for naming biological organisms. Events will be organised by The Linnean Society of London, the UK’s national academy for biology and the oldest such organisation in the world.
they won’t deter “terrorists”. He claims they will make governments think twice about sponsoring terrorists, however, and will give the UK the “ultimate insurance” against future uncertainties. His arguments are angrily rejected by anti-nuclear campaigners, who argue that the Trident missile system, and its planned successor, are a “dangerous irrelevance” in a post-cold war world. The proposals also keep the UK bound to the US. In the government’s plan, the new missiles and the warheads will both depend on US technology and maintenance, as do the present Trident missiles. “The UK will remain the US’s nuclear junkie,” says Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American Security Information Council in London.
Mouse mind mapped Patterns of gene activity across the entire mouse brain have been mapped, showing for the first time which genes operate in different parts of the brain. The “Allen Brain Atlas” of some 20,000 mouse genes has been compiled by Ed Lein and colleagues at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05453).
Ice ice baby
STEPHEN HIRD/REUTERS
Bioterror plan
A healthy baby boy has been born in Spain after the embryo from which he developed had spent 13 years in cryopreservation, beating the previous record by a year. The success will bolster claims that frozen embryos can remain viable for unlimited periods of time.
Ice ice shelf The size of the world’s largest ice shelf has fluctuated wildly over the last 10 million years. Sediments extracted from the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic show that it disappears and reappears in cycles. The ongoing international drilling project will help researchers understand how stable the shelf is.
9 December 2006 | NewScientist | 7