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Comet mysteries
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Upfront
Vanuatu calls for action INEVITABLY, climate change has been blamed for Vanuatu’s worst natural disaster in living memory. Cyclone Pam has killed at least 11 people and 15,000 homes are thought to be uninhabitable across the country’s 65 islands in the South Pacific. Winds reached almost 300 kilometres per hour, and a hospital and medical repository have both reportedly lost their roofs. The cyclone hit while Vanuatu’s president, Baldwin Lonsdale, was in Japan with other world leaders for the UN’s third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Speaking in Japan, Lonsdale linked cyclone Pam – and other recent cyclones – to climate change. Lonsdale said that in the past, the country was rarely hit by cyclones in
March, but that it has become a regular occurrence for the last three years. World Bank Group vice-president and special envoy for climate change, Rachel Kyte, agrees with Lonsdale. She says the four tropical cyclones currently threatening islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans are very unusual. “One of the reasons for this trend is a vastly warmer Pacific Ocean,” she says. “We know that we are embarking on an incredibly volatile decade, in large part because of climate change. So the number of people in the world who will be increasingly in harm’s way from an intensity and frequency of disasters, from floods to droughts to storms, means that this should be urgent. It is urgent that we change the way we do development.”
–Cyclone patterns are shifting–
Don’t alter embryos WHOA, whoa. Let’s put the brakes on and talk some more. This is the message from scientists who are concerned that their colleagues are rushing head-first into replacing faulty genes in early human embryos, sperm and egg cells without considering the consequences. Such changes affect DNA in the nucleus and so would be heritable – ultimately, they could be used to create a genetically modified baby. Writing in the journal Nature, scientists from advocacy group
“At this early stage, scientists should agree not to modify the DNA of human reproductive cells” the Alliance of Regenerative Medicine (ARM), have called for a moratorium on such gene editing. The move was triggered by reports that several groups have tried modifying the genome of a human embryo and submitted their results for publication. This kind of research is already illegal in some countries. 6 | NewScientist | 21 March 2015
We don’t know the details yet, but based on what’s been done in monkeys, the work probably involved fertilising human eggs by injecting a sperm cell and then various RNAs. These RNAs cut DNA at specific sites, tricking our natural DNA repair system into destroying or replacing one or more genes. The embryos would then have been allowed to develop for a few days before being destroyed. Sequencing the embryos’ DNA would have shown if the gene editing had worked. The ARM scientists argue that editing genes in the germline is dangerous, unnecessary and could lead to designer babies. They also claim it could trigger a backlash that would impede editing genes to produce non-heritable changes in our bodies, something that the authors are pursuing in their own research. A wide range of diseases, from HIV to cancer, could potentially be treated this way (Nature, doi.org/2v3). “At this early stage, scientists should agree not to modify the DNA of human reproductive cells,” they write.
Penis transplant NINE more men could soon receive new penises following news last week of the world’s first successful penis transplant. Performed in December, the 9-hour procedure relied on surgical techniques developed for face transplants to connect fine blood vessels and nerves to the new organ. Although full sensation is expected to take two years to return, the 21-year-old recipient can already achieve erections
and orgasms and can ejaculate and urinate. “Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years, and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” says André van der Merwe of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, who carried out the surgery. The team had been planning the procedure since 2010 and now hopes to repeat it. Like an estimated 250 South African men each year, the recipient had to have his original penis amputated following a botched traditional circumcision when he was 18.
Comet mysteries #Rosettawatch COMET 67P is giving up its secrets. Philae, the probe that landed on its surface in November, has provided a wealth of data. But researchers are desperate for the probe to wake up again, because they have been left with as many questions as answers. The latest pictures from Philae, taken during its descent, were released on Monday at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. They suggest
that what looked like the kind of wind-blown dunes you see on Earth might really be created by jets of gas moving dust on the comet’s surface. Other pictures, taken after Philae landed, show the comet’s surface is partly made up of tiny pebbles. The spacecraft is unlikely to be warm enough to wake up until May, when the seasons change on 67P and its dark side is illuminated – Philae is thought to be just on the wrong side of the dividing line.
Upfront
Vanuatu calls for action INEVITABLY, climate change has been blamed for Vanuatu’s worst natural disaster in living memory. Cyclone Pam has killed at least 11 people and 15,000 homes are thought to be uninhabitable across the country’s 65 islands in the South Pacific. Winds reached almost 300 kilometres per hour, and a hospital and medical repository have both reportedly lost their roofs. The cyclone hit while Vanuatu’s president, Baldwin Lonsdale, was in Japan with other world leaders for the UN’s third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Speaking in Japan, Lonsdale linked cyclone Pam – and other recent cyclones – to climate change. Lonsdale said that in the past, the country was rarely hit by cyclones in
March, but that it has become a regular occurrence for the last three years. World Bank Group vice-president and special envoy for climate change, Rachel Kyte, agrees with Lonsdale. She says the four tropical cyclones currently threatening islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans are very unusual. “One of the reasons for this trend is a vastly warmer Pacific Ocean,” she says. “We know that we are embarking on an incredibly volatile decade, in large part because of climate change. So the number of people in the world who will be increasingly in harm’s way from an intensity and frequency of disasters, from floods to droughts to storms, means that this should be urgent. It is urgent that we change the way we do development.”
–Cyclone patterns are shifting–
Don’t alter embryos WHOA, whoa. Let’s put the brakes on and talk some more. This is the message from scientists who are concerned that their colleagues are rushing head-first into replacing faulty genes in early human embryos, sperm and egg cells without considering the consequences. Such changes affect DNA in the nucleus and so would be heritable – ultimately, they could be used to create a genetically modified baby. Writing in the journal Nature, scientists from advocacy group
“At this early stage, scientists should agree not to modify the DNA of human reproductive cells” the Alliance of Regenerative Medicine (ARM), have called for a moratorium on such gene editing. The move was triggered by reports that several groups have tried modifying the genome of a human embryo and submitted their results for publication. This kind of research is already illegal in some countries. 6 | NewScientist | 21 March 2015
We don’t know the details yet, but based on what’s been done in monkeys, the work probably involved fertilising human eggs by injecting a sperm cell and then various RNAs. These RNAs cut DNA at specific sites, tricking our natural DNA repair system into destroying or replacing one or more genes. The embryos would then have been allowed to develop for a few days before being destroyed. Sequencing the embryos’ DNA would have shown if the gene editing had worked. The ARM scientists argue that editing genes in the germline is dangerous, unnecessary and could lead to designer babies. They also claim it could trigger a backlash that would impede editing genes to produce non-heritable changes in our bodies, something that the authors are pursuing in their own research. A wide range of diseases, from HIV to cancer, could potentially be treated this way (Nature, doi.org/2v3). “At this early stage, scientists should agree not to modify the DNA of human reproductive cells,” they write.
Penis transplant NINE more men could soon receive new penises following news last week of the world’s first successful penis transplant. Performed in December, the 9-hour procedure relied on surgical techniques developed for face transplants to connect fine blood vessels and nerves to the new organ. Although full sensation is expected to take two years to return, the 21-year-old recipient can already achieve erections
and orgasms and can ejaculate and urinate. “Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years, and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” says André van der Merwe of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, who carried out the surgery. The team had been planning the procedure since 2010 and now hopes to repeat it. Like an estimated 250 South African men each year, the recipient had to have his original penis amputated following a botched traditional circumcision when he was 18.
Comet mysteries #Rosettawatch COMET 67P is giving up its secrets. Philae, the probe that landed on its surface in November, has provided a wealth of data. But researchers are desperate for the probe to wake up again, because they have been left with as many questions as answers. The latest pictures from Philae, taken during its descent, were released on Monday at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. They suggest
that what looked like the kind of wind-blown dunes you see on Earth might really be created by jets of gas moving dust on the comet’s surface. Other pictures, taken after Philae landed, show the comet’s surface is partly made up of tiny pebbles. The spacecraft is unlikely to be warm enough to wake up until May, when the seasons change on 67P and its dark side is illuminated – Philae is thought to be just on the wrong side of the dividing line.