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Retinal cone cells transplanted into blind mice
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Stem cell anxiety
moments after the big bang, the universe was so hot that they could escape, becoming a fluid of free quarks and gluons. A signal thought to represent this quark-gluon plasma has been seen before, following collisions between ions much heavier than the protons that the LHC smashes together. Now the CMS detector has captured a similar signal. Whether this really is a quarkgluon plasma is still unknown, but the CMS team hopes to pin this down. “What is happening may be fully understood in the next few months or year,” says CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli.
60 Seconds
Mosher’s research is a victim of wrangling over whether federal funding of work on hESCs should be banned because their creation can involve the destruction of an embryo, potentially violating a legal amendment passed in 1995.
FRUSTRATED scientists in the US are anxiously awaiting a court decision on whether federally funded work on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) should continue until the legality “I might not be allowed to of their use is resolved. do my work because of “I might not be allowed to do my research because of someone’s ideological beliefs rather than the quality of science” ideological beliefs rather than the quality of the science,” says On 27 September judges must Jack Mosher at the University of decide whether research can Michigan in Ann Arbor. His work on a bowel condition was disrupted continue until the issue is settled, or until legislation is introduced in August after a court injunction which supersedes the restrictions. on federally funded hESCs.
Colour cones grow in new eyes
Planet prediction
OMIKRON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
IS THE pace of science predictable? RETINAL cone cells vital for colour vision have been successfully We may soon find out. A pair of transplanted into blind mice. researchers have used the rate of The same team transplanted rod exoplanet finds to date to predict that the first habitable “exo-Earth” cells, used in night vision, four years ago. The hope for restoring vision in could turn up in May 2011. blind people is that transplantable In 1965, Gordon Moore, who went on to co-found Intel, observed cells which mature into rods or cones can be derived from human embryonic that the number of transistors that stem cells (hESC), which can grow fit on a chip doubles every two into any of the body’s tissues. years or so, a trend now known as “Ultimately, all blindness results Moore’s law. Samuel Arbesman from loss of cones,” says Jane Sowden of Harvard Medical School wants of University College London. to see if “scientometrics” – the Sowden’s team extracted cells for statistical study of science – can transplant from the eyes of fetal or predict a rate of discovery. newborn mice. They selected cells He and Greg Laughlin of the with active cone rod homeobox University of California, Santa genes, which commit cells to Cruz, are testing the idea with becoming rods or cones. exoplanets. To predict when astronomers might find the first planet similar in size to Earth that also orbits far enough from its star to potentially boast liquid water, they scoured the discovery records of 370 exoplanets. They used each one’s mass and surface temperature to assign a “habitability metric”, which they plotted against the date of the planet’s discovery. Extrapolating the curves led them to conclude that there is a 50 per cent chance that the first exo-Earth will be found by May 2011, a 75 per cent chance by 2020, and a 95 per cent chance by 2264. –Rods and cones illuminated–
Transplants were performed on mice engineered to mimic a form of childhood blindness called Leber’s congenital amaurosis. The team injected 200,000 isolated cells into a space in each eye at the rear of the retina between the layer of lightsensitive cells – engineered to be damaged in the recipient mice – and a supporting epithelial cell layer above. Within 21 days, the new cells settled into the photoreceptor layer and grew into rods and cones (Human Molecular Genetics, DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddq378). It’s “exciting work”, says Robert Lanza at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, “but incorporation of cells doesn’t mean they’re functional, which is the ultimate goal.”
Gull superbug Migrating gulls have been found to carry bugs resistant to antibiotics, showing for the first time that wild birds may spread them around. Six of 57 droppings collected in the Berlengas archipelago, off Portugal, contained bacteria resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin (Proteome Science, vol 8, p 48).
Tigers get high Camera traps at 4 kilometres above sea level in the mountains of Bhutan have recorded a male tiger apparently marking its territory and a female lactating, suggesting that tigers are breeding high in the Himalayas. The potential existence of “tiger corridors” in Asia, and of mountain refuges, are cause for optimism.
Fish left dangling A decision on whether to permit the sale in the US of salmon that are genetically modified to grow twice as fast as normal was deferred this week. Instead, the Food and Drug Administration called for more research on issues including potential environmental impacts if transgenic salmon were to escape.
Global goals shaky The world is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals set for reducing poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. The number of people in extreme poverty is down, but almost exclusively in China; child deaths have also fallen, but less than half as fast as targeted; and 1.02 billion people are chronically hungry – the highest number ever.
World nuclear bank The US is pushing for the creation of an international nuclear fuel bank to supply countries that want it for peaceful purposes. Energy secretary Steven Chu said the US would seek approval for the bank at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in December. It is hoped that such a bank could make it harder to obtain nuclear material for weapons.
25 September 2010 | NewScientist | 7
Stem cell anxiety
moments after the big bang, the universe was so hot that they could escape, becoming a fluid of free quarks and gluons. A signal thought to represent this quark-gluon plasma has been seen before, following collisions between ions much heavier than the protons that the LHC smashes together. Now the CMS detector has captured a similar signal. Whether this really is a quarkgluon plasma is still unknown, but the CMS team hopes to pin this down. “What is happening may be fully understood in the next few months or year,” says CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli.
60 Seconds
Mosher’s research is a victim of wrangling over whether federal funding of work on hESCs should be banned because their creation can involve the destruction of an embryo, potentially violating a legal amendment passed in 1995.
FRUSTRATED scientists in the US are anxiously awaiting a court decision on whether federally funded work on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) should continue until the legality “I might not be allowed to of their use is resolved. do my work because of “I might not be allowed to do my research because of someone’s ideological beliefs rather than the quality of science” ideological beliefs rather than the quality of the science,” says On 27 September judges must Jack Mosher at the University of decide whether research can Michigan in Ann Arbor. His work on a bowel condition was disrupted continue until the issue is settled, or until legislation is introduced in August after a court injunction which supersedes the restrictions. on federally funded hESCs.
Colour cones grow in new eyes
Planet prediction
OMIKRON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
IS THE pace of science predictable? RETINAL cone cells vital for colour vision have been successfully We may soon find out. A pair of transplanted into blind mice. researchers have used the rate of The same team transplanted rod exoplanet finds to date to predict that the first habitable “exo-Earth” cells, used in night vision, four years ago. The hope for restoring vision in could turn up in May 2011. blind people is that transplantable In 1965, Gordon Moore, who went on to co-found Intel, observed cells which mature into rods or cones can be derived from human embryonic that the number of transistors that stem cells (hESC), which can grow fit on a chip doubles every two into any of the body’s tissues. years or so, a trend now known as “Ultimately, all blindness results Moore’s law. Samuel Arbesman from loss of cones,” says Jane Sowden of Harvard Medical School wants of University College London. to see if “scientometrics” – the Sowden’s team extracted cells for statistical study of science – can transplant from the eyes of fetal or predict a rate of discovery. newborn mice. They selected cells He and Greg Laughlin of the with active cone rod homeobox University of California, Santa genes, which commit cells to Cruz, are testing the idea with becoming rods or cones. exoplanets. To predict when astronomers might find the first planet similar in size to Earth that also orbits far enough from its star to potentially boast liquid water, they scoured the discovery records of 370 exoplanets. They used each one’s mass and surface temperature to assign a “habitability metric”, which they plotted against the date of the planet’s discovery. Extrapolating the curves led them to conclude that there is a 50 per cent chance that the first exo-Earth will be found by May 2011, a 75 per cent chance by 2020, and a 95 per cent chance by 2264. –Rods and cones illuminated–
Transplants were performed on mice engineered to mimic a form of childhood blindness called Leber’s congenital amaurosis. The team injected 200,000 isolated cells into a space in each eye at the rear of the retina between the layer of lightsensitive cells – engineered to be damaged in the recipient mice – and a supporting epithelial cell layer above. Within 21 days, the new cells settled into the photoreceptor layer and grew into rods and cones (Human Molecular Genetics, DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddq378). It’s “exciting work”, says Robert Lanza at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, “but incorporation of cells doesn’t mean they’re functional, which is the ultimate goal.”
Gull superbug Migrating gulls have been found to carry bugs resistant to antibiotics, showing for the first time that wild birds may spread them around. Six of 57 droppings collected in the Berlengas archipelago, off Portugal, contained bacteria resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin (Proteome Science, vol 8, p 48).
Tigers get high Camera traps at 4 kilometres above sea level in the mountains of Bhutan have recorded a male tiger apparently marking its territory and a female lactating, suggesting that tigers are breeding high in the Himalayas. The potential existence of “tiger corridors” in Asia, and of mountain refuges, are cause for optimism.
Fish left dangling A decision on whether to permit the sale in the US of salmon that are genetically modified to grow twice as fast as normal was deferred this week. Instead, the Food and Drug Administration called for more research on issues including potential environmental impacts if transgenic salmon were to escape.
Global goals shaky The world is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals set for reducing poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. The number of people in extreme poverty is down, but almost exclusively in China; child deaths have also fallen, but less than half as fast as targeted; and 1.02 billion people are chronically hungry – the highest number ever.
World nuclear bank The US is pushing for the creation of an international nuclear fuel bank to supply countries that want it for peaceful purposes. Energy secretary Steven Chu said the US would seek approval for the bank at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in December. It is hoped that such a bank could make it harder to obtain nuclear material for weapons.
25 September 2010 | NewScientist | 7