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Tackling tobacco in poorer countries
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Upfront– The world’s rarest cat may yet avoid extinction – by a whisker. Around 200 Iberian lynx were thought to survive in just two locations in southern Spain. Now a small number of cats have been discovered living in pockets of forest across the country’s centre, and these animals may help save the species. The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) once lived across the Iberian Peninsula, but trapping, loss of habitat and a crash in the numbers of its main prey, rabbit, have devastated its population. Two separate populations of around 50 and 150 survive within Andalusia. If the Iberian lynx were to become extinct, it would be the first big cat species to do so since the sabre-toothed Smilodon, some 10,000 years ago. However, a team of researchers led by Fernando Alda and Ignacio Doadrio of the National Museum of Natural
JOHN CANCALOSI/NATUREPL.COM
GOOD NEWS FOR LAST FEW LYNX Sciences in Madrid surveyed five central regions of Spain looking for lynx faeces. Within four they found scat from the lynx, as confirmed by genetic analysis (Animal Conservation, DOI: 10.111/ j.1469-1795.2008.00185.x). It is too soon to say how many cats survive in these regions, but in one, along the Guadalmez river, photographic evidence suggests tens of the animals are at large, including cubs. “These lynx could have an important ‘genetic rescue effect’,” says Alda, if they could be mated with captive animals to bolster the species’ dwindling gene pool. We should quickly try to conserve these remnant populations, he says, but points out that “the lands where these lynx occur are mainly private estates that promote hunting”, so it is crucial to raise conservation awareness, and incentivise the estate owners. “Unfortunately, neither action exists in Spain,” he says.
–The gene pool just got bigger–
Stem cell storm THE ethical quagmire that surrounds human embryonic stem cell research just got even stickier. Some of the cell lines sanctioned for use by the current US administration may have been obtained without proper consent from the women who provided the original embryos. The discovery could halt some federally funded research. Embryonic stem cells have huge therapeutic potential. A cell line is made by taking a stem cell from an embryo and growing it in the lab with nutrients. In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that federal funding
“The consent forms did not state that viable embryos would be destroyed” would be restricted to research on previously isolated cell lines produced from surplus IVF embryos. His intention was to discourage the destruction of more embryos. Currently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) lists 21 approved cell lines. 6 | NewScientist | 2 August 2008
But Robert Streiffer, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has obtained the original consent documents from the NIH using the federal Freedom of Information Act. “None of them were perfect,” he says. The consent forms used by two companies, BresaGen, now owned by Novocell of San Diego, California, and Cellartis of Gothenburg, Sweden, were particularly problematic – neither of them stated that viable embryos would be destroyed in order to derive cell lines for use in research over many years. The two firms were responsible for obtaining 5 of the 21 approved lines. As well as creating a headache for labs using those lines, the findings may also spark political debate, notes Rick Weiss of the Center for American Progress in Washington DC, who drew attention to the research in a blog last week. Both the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain have backed expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research – but McCain is under pressure from religious conservatives to revise his stance.
CO2 blame game COULD developed nations be to blame for China’s greenhouse gas emissions? A study of the source of these emissions suggests so. Economists say that one-third of China’s human-made emissions are pumped into the atmosphere while manufacturing goods for export. Climatologists have long thought this was likely, but few had tried to quantify the effect until now. Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues
combined a standard model of the Chinese economy, which reflects how much money flows in and out of different sectors, with nationally produced emissions data. They calculated that in 2005 the export industry generated 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – 33 per cent of China’s total emissions. How to apportion the liability for emissions due to China’s exports is “the million dollar question”, says Weber. “It’s just like narcotics,” says Benito Müller of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, UK. “Who is responsible, the drug baron or the junkies?”
STUB IT OUT ROUND THE WORLD The west is winning the war on tobacco but the death toll from smoking-related illnesses is still rising as poorer nations take up the habit. Now two very wealthy men are taking action. Prompted by the prediction that smoking will claim 10 million deaths a year by 2025, double the current toll, last week Bill Gates teamed up with Michael Bloomberg, the multibillionaire mayor of New York City, to pledge $375 million towards anti-smoking
programmes in developing nations. The money will build on Bloomberg’s $125 million Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which he established in 2005. The initiative will include funding for public information campaigns designed to take on the advertising power of major tobacco firms. The companies are often accused of using techniques in the developing world that are banned in the west, such as adverts that associate smoking with success.
www.newscientist.com
Upfront– The world’s rarest cat may yet avoid extinction – by a whisker. Around 200 Iberian lynx were thought to survive in just two locations in southern Spain. Now a small number of cats have been discovered living in pockets of forest across the country’s centre, and these animals may help save the species. The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) once lived across the Iberian Peninsula, but trapping, loss of habitat and a crash in the numbers of its main prey, rabbit, have devastated its population. Two separate populations of around 50 and 150 survive within Andalusia. If the Iberian lynx were to become extinct, it would be the first big cat species to do so since the sabre-toothed Smilodon, some 10,000 years ago. However, a team of researchers led by Fernando Alda and Ignacio Doadrio of the National Museum of Natural
JOHN CANCALOSI/NATUREPL.COM
GOOD NEWS FOR LAST FEW LYNX Sciences in Madrid surveyed five central regions of Spain looking for lynx faeces. Within four they found scat from the lynx, as confirmed by genetic analysis (Animal Conservation, DOI: 10.111/ j.1469-1795.2008.00185.x). It is too soon to say how many cats survive in these regions, but in one, along the Guadalmez river, photographic evidence suggests tens of the animals are at large, including cubs. “These lynx could have an important ‘genetic rescue effect’,” says Alda, if they could be mated with captive animals to bolster the species’ dwindling gene pool. We should quickly try to conserve these remnant populations, he says, but points out that “the lands where these lynx occur are mainly private estates that promote hunting”, so it is crucial to raise conservation awareness, and incentivise the estate owners. “Unfortunately, neither action exists in Spain,” he says.
–The gene pool just got bigger–
Stem cell storm THE ethical quagmire that surrounds human embryonic stem cell research just got even stickier. Some of the cell lines sanctioned for use by the current US administration may have been obtained without proper consent from the women who provided the original embryos. The discovery could halt some federally funded research. Embryonic stem cells have huge therapeutic potential. A cell line is made by taking a stem cell from an embryo and growing it in the lab with nutrients. In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that federal funding
“The consent forms did not state that viable embryos would be destroyed” would be restricted to research on previously isolated cell lines produced from surplus IVF embryos. His intention was to discourage the destruction of more embryos. Currently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) lists 21 approved cell lines. 6 | NewScientist | 2 August 2008
But Robert Streiffer, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has obtained the original consent documents from the NIH using the federal Freedom of Information Act. “None of them were perfect,” he says. The consent forms used by two companies, BresaGen, now owned by Novocell of San Diego, California, and Cellartis of Gothenburg, Sweden, were particularly problematic – neither of them stated that viable embryos would be destroyed in order to derive cell lines for use in research over many years. The two firms were responsible for obtaining 5 of the 21 approved lines. As well as creating a headache for labs using those lines, the findings may also spark political debate, notes Rick Weiss of the Center for American Progress in Washington DC, who drew attention to the research in a blog last week. Both the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain have backed expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research – but McCain is under pressure from religious conservatives to revise his stance.
CO2 blame game COULD developed nations be to blame for China’s greenhouse gas emissions? A study of the source of these emissions suggests so. Economists say that one-third of China’s human-made emissions are pumped into the atmosphere while manufacturing goods for export. Climatologists have long thought this was likely, but few had tried to quantify the effect until now. Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues
combined a standard model of the Chinese economy, which reflects how much money flows in and out of different sectors, with nationally produced emissions data. They calculated that in 2005 the export industry generated 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – 33 per cent of China’s total emissions. How to apportion the liability for emissions due to China’s exports is “the million dollar question”, says Weber. “It’s just like narcotics,” says Benito Müller of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, UK. “Who is responsible, the drug baron or the junkies?”
STUB IT OUT ROUND THE WORLD The west is winning the war on tobacco but the death toll from smoking-related illnesses is still rising as poorer nations take up the habit. Now two very wealthy men are taking action. Prompted by the prediction that smoking will claim 10 million deaths a year by 2025, double the current toll, last week Bill Gates teamed up with Michael Bloomberg, the multibillionaire mayor of New York City, to pledge $375 million towards anti-smoking
programmes in developing nations. The money will build on Bloomberg’s $125 million Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which he established in 2005. The initiative will include funding for public information campaigns designed to take on the advertising power of major tobacco firms. The companies are often accused of using techniques in the developing world that are banned in the west, such as adverts that associate smoking with success.
www.newscientist.com