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Leaky labs get off scot free
FIONA HANSON/PA
60 SECONDS
Carry on regardless IF YOU can’t innovate, then reinvent the wheel. That seems to be the thinking behind the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) plans for a nuclear fuel reprocessing programme – but this tactic may play into the hands of weapons-makers. The idea of reprocessing spent
“If mitigating proliferation risks and waste reduction are their goals, they should reassess” nuclear fuel had been anathema to US policy-makers for decades because of the fear that plutonium could end up in weapons. Then in 2006, the DoE announced plans to build a plant to test reprocessing technology that would both significantly reduce the amount of nuclear waste and keep the plutonium mixed in with other radioactive materials. Critics, however, argued that technology to do this didn’t exist. Now it seems the DoE has backtracked on its original plans and is using a separated plutonium technology similar to that used by Japan, France and Russia, according to an independent report by the US Government Accountability Office. “If mitigating proliferation risks and waste reduction are their goals, we think they should reassess their approach, says GAO researcher Daniel Feehan.
EIGHT young pandas traumatised by the Chinese earthquake in Sichuan province are being treated for anxiety at Beijing Zoo. Lu Yong, their keeper at the Wolong reserve, told London newspaper The Guardian that the pandas were so scared that they had stopped eating. Five staff members at Wolong were killed in the quake and one panda is still missing.
NASA climate blame
No one’s to blame THE UK research lab that accidentally released the foot-andmouth-disease virus last August is to escape prosecution due to lack of proof. Eight resulting outbreaks led to meat export bans, causing an estimated £100 million in losses. On 29 May, Surrey County Council dropped its case against the two organisations occupying the site at Pirbright in Surrey because of the difficulty of proving which one released the
“The case was dropped because of the difficulty of proving which one released the virus”
KATRINA WITTKAMP/DIGITAL VISION/GETTY
virus from the damaged pipework they both share. The result is that neither the Institute for Animal Health, the world’s premier lab for studying strains of the disease, nor Merial Laboratories, which makes vaccines against the virus, will be found criminally culpable. Three independent reports commissioned by the UK government established that the virus did come from Pirbright, but none could nail the source. “It’s a disappointing and unsatisfactory end to the issue,” says Steve Ruddy, assistant county trading standards officer at the council. The story may not end there, though. The National Farmers’ –Safest way to sleep– Union is preparing a civil action.
www.newscientist.com
Shaken pandas
Managers of the press office at NASA’s HQ systematically downplayed news on climate research between 2004 and –The pipes did it– 2006, according to the space agency’s watchdog. News on climate science “We’re giving it a go because, was “marginalised or mischaracterised”, dammit, there were enormous according to the Office of the Inspector losses to our economy and to our General, and NASA climate scientists members,” says NFU chief legal were prevented from speaking freely. officer, Julie Robinson. The managers in question no longer A spokeswoman for the work at the agency. agriculture ministry said the pipes have been repaired, and Icy quake the government is “now satisfied that the labs have put in place all Big, slow and icy. That’s the quake the necessary measures to ensure that shakes Antarctica’s Whillans ice strict biosecurity”. stream twice a day. Douglas Wiens of Washington University and colleagues found that as the frozen stream moves over rough bedrock, it triggers seismic SMOKING cannabis has been waves for up to 30 minutes at a time. linked to having a small brain – at If released all at once, that energy least if the dope is taken in large could create a magnitude 7 earthquake doses, over a long period. (Nature, vol 453, p 770). Murat Yücel at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Stem cell freedom colleagues scanned the brains of 15 heavy users, who had smoked Brazil can now pursue research on at least five joints daily for more human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). It than 10 years. The volume of their became the first Latin American nation hippocampus, involved in to approve human ESC research in March memory and regulating emotion, 2005, but the then attorney-general was on average 12 per cent smaller argued that the law violated the right than non-users, while the to life enshrined in the Catholic country’s amygdala, involved in feeling fear constitution. On 29 May, Brazil’s Supreme and aggression, was 7.1 per cent Court rejected the challenge. smaller (Archives of General Psychiatry, vol 65, p 694). The HIV treatment milestone cannabis users also scored worse on memory tests and were more More than 3 million people infected likely to suffer from social with HIV in poor countries are now withdrawal or paranoia. receiving antiretroviral drugs to control Since the users’ brains were the virus, the WHO said on 2 June. not measured before they began Unfortunately, 6.7 million people in poor heavy smoking, no one knows if nations remain in need of treatment. dope causes the brain to shrink.
Going to pot
7 June 2008 | NewScientist | 7
60 SECONDS
Carry on regardless IF YOU can’t innovate, then reinvent the wheel. That seems to be the thinking behind the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) plans for a nuclear fuel reprocessing programme – but this tactic may play into the hands of weapons-makers. The idea of reprocessing spent
“If mitigating proliferation risks and waste reduction are their goals, they should reassess” nuclear fuel had been anathema to US policy-makers for decades because of the fear that plutonium could end up in weapons. Then in 2006, the DoE announced plans to build a plant to test reprocessing technology that would both significantly reduce the amount of nuclear waste and keep the plutonium mixed in with other radioactive materials. Critics, however, argued that technology to do this didn’t exist. Now it seems the DoE has backtracked on its original plans and is using a separated plutonium technology similar to that used by Japan, France and Russia, according to an independent report by the US Government Accountability Office. “If mitigating proliferation risks and waste reduction are their goals, we think they should reassess their approach, says GAO researcher Daniel Feehan.
EIGHT young pandas traumatised by the Chinese earthquake in Sichuan province are being treated for anxiety at Beijing Zoo. Lu Yong, their keeper at the Wolong reserve, told London newspaper The Guardian that the pandas were so scared that they had stopped eating. Five staff members at Wolong were killed in the quake and one panda is still missing.
NASA climate blame
No one’s to blame THE UK research lab that accidentally released the foot-andmouth-disease virus last August is to escape prosecution due to lack of proof. Eight resulting outbreaks led to meat export bans, causing an estimated £100 million in losses. On 29 May, Surrey County Council dropped its case against the two organisations occupying the site at Pirbright in Surrey because of the difficulty of proving which one released the
“The case was dropped because of the difficulty of proving which one released the virus”
KATRINA WITTKAMP/DIGITAL VISION/GETTY
virus from the damaged pipework they both share. The result is that neither the Institute for Animal Health, the world’s premier lab for studying strains of the disease, nor Merial Laboratories, which makes vaccines against the virus, will be found criminally culpable. Three independent reports commissioned by the UK government established that the virus did come from Pirbright, but none could nail the source. “It’s a disappointing and unsatisfactory end to the issue,” says Steve Ruddy, assistant county trading standards officer at the council. The story may not end there, though. The National Farmers’ –Safest way to sleep– Union is preparing a civil action.
www.newscientist.com
Shaken pandas
Managers of the press office at NASA’s HQ systematically downplayed news on climate research between 2004 and –The pipes did it– 2006, according to the space agency’s watchdog. News on climate science “We’re giving it a go because, was “marginalised or mischaracterised”, dammit, there were enormous according to the Office of the Inspector losses to our economy and to our General, and NASA climate scientists members,” says NFU chief legal were prevented from speaking freely. officer, Julie Robinson. The managers in question no longer A spokeswoman for the work at the agency. agriculture ministry said the pipes have been repaired, and Icy quake the government is “now satisfied that the labs have put in place all Big, slow and icy. That’s the quake the necessary measures to ensure that shakes Antarctica’s Whillans ice strict biosecurity”. stream twice a day. Douglas Wiens of Washington University and colleagues found that as the frozen stream moves over rough bedrock, it triggers seismic SMOKING cannabis has been waves for up to 30 minutes at a time. linked to having a small brain – at If released all at once, that energy least if the dope is taken in large could create a magnitude 7 earthquake doses, over a long period. (Nature, vol 453, p 770). Murat Yücel at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Stem cell freedom colleagues scanned the brains of 15 heavy users, who had smoked Brazil can now pursue research on at least five joints daily for more human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). It than 10 years. The volume of their became the first Latin American nation hippocampus, involved in to approve human ESC research in March memory and regulating emotion, 2005, but the then attorney-general was on average 12 per cent smaller argued that the law violated the right than non-users, while the to life enshrined in the Catholic country’s amygdala, involved in feeling fear constitution. On 29 May, Brazil’s Supreme and aggression, was 7.1 per cent Court rejected the challenge. smaller (Archives of General Psychiatry, vol 65, p 694). The HIV treatment milestone cannabis users also scored worse on memory tests and were more More than 3 million people infected likely to suffer from social with HIV in poor countries are now withdrawal or paranoia. receiving antiretroviral drugs to control Since the users’ brains were the virus, the WHO said on 2 June. not measured before they began Unfortunately, 6.7 million people in poor heavy smoking, no one knows if nations remain in need of treatment. dope causes the brain to shrink.
Going to pot
7 June 2008 | NewScientist | 7