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Two Chinese satellites rendezvous in orbit
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Risky rendezvous
ill after receiving it, but without further investigation it is impossible to say whether it was the vaccine that caused the illness to arrive at that moment, or mere chance. “Most of the links don’t pan out,” says Neal Halsey, a vaccines researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Fifteen children in Finland were diagnosed with narcolepsy after receiving Pandremix, around twice the usual incidence. The European Medicines Agency has said it will examine data on the vaccine for any clear evidence of a link with narcolepsy.
60 Seconds
satellites designed to approach and dock with other spacecraft and these, too, are considered double-edged swords. Brian Weeden of the US-based Secure World Foundation, which promotes peace in space, has
SECRET meetings often spell trouble, so it should come as no surprise that an unannounced rendezvous between two Chinese satellites is raising eyebrows. Satellites that can approach each “It was probably not a other and make contact in orbit military exercise, but could be used to help clear space junk, fix satellites or pave the way transparency is needed for docking procedures to be used to avoid ‘misperception’ ” with China’s first space-station analysed the Chinese manoeuvre. module, set to launch in 2011. It was probably not a military But such technology is viewed with suspicion because it can also exercise, he says, but greater transparency is needed to avoid be used to attack satellites from what he calls “misperception”. other countries. The US has
Road will block migration route
Stem cell chaos
Anup Shah/naturepl.com
AS THE full implications of the LOOK out wildebeest, here come the cars. Tanzania’s government plans to shock court ruling that has frozen build a commercial road in the north US government support for work of Serengeti National Park, cutting on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) sink in, researchers want to through the migratory route of know if Congress can provide a fix. 2 million wildebeest and zebra. The road would cut the animals If the ruling stands, all projects off from their dry-season watering relying on federal funding will be holes, causing the wildebeest shut down within 12 months, as population to dwindle to just a their grants come up for renewal. quarter of current levels, says The government will appeal, but the Frankfurt Zoological Society Congress could amend the law on in Germany. It could also be which the ruling depends. Called a collision zone for humans and the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it blocks federal funding for research animals, leading to casualties on both sides, and there is a risk that that harms a human embryo. transported livestock would spread Congress could stipulate disease, the society adds. that Dickey-Wicker should not The International Union for the preclude research on hESCs, but Conservation of Nature has written merely prevent federal funds being used to create new cell lines. Such wording could be added to the National Institutes of Health’s next spending bill, but that is unlikely to pass in the brief window between Congress returning from recess on 13 September and a break in October to allow its members to campaign for mid-term elections in November. Another option would be to add the words to a bill already before Congress, to turn into law an executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, which sought to expand federal funding –Where to now?– for hESC research.
to Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete to voice its concerns. While praising Tanzania’s commitment to conservation, noting that 38 per cent of its land is already protected, the IUCN recommends carrying out a full assessment of the road’s environmental impact. Meanwhile, the African Wildlife Foundation is campaigning for the road’s path to be altered so that it passes south of the park, avoiding the migration route. Despite the ongoing campaign, the road is set to go ahead, with construction kicking off in 2012. In a recent speech, Kikwete said the best he could do was to leave the part of the road that crossed the migratory route unpaved.
Iceman funeral rites Ötzi, the 5000-year-old mummified “iceman” discovered in the Alps in 1991, may have been ceremonially buried. A new analysis of the objects buried with him lends weight to the controversial idea that his body was carefully laid to rest (Antiquity, vol 84, p 681). It is generally thought that he became entombed in ice after being attacked.
Smoking stool pigeons Analysing a baby’s first stools could reveal how much tobacco smoke the fetus was exposed to. The amount of tobacco breakdown products in 337 babies’ excretions correlated with those in the mothers’ blood. The method could be used as a non-invasive measure of the duration and intensity of prenatal tobacco exposure (Environmental Health, DOI: 10.1186/1576-069X-9-53).
Bread genome rises Five times as large as the human one, the genome of the world’s most important cereal crop has at last been sequenced. The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium expects the draft sequence of Chinese spring wheat to accelerate development of new varieties that will yield more, tolerate drought and cope with climate change.
Guilt-free smashing On 24 August, a Hawaiian appeals court absolved in advance the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies of responsibility for any dire event that might occur in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. Phew.
No Russian reliance Seeking space independence, Russia aims to start launching cosmonauts from within its own borders by 2018. It currently leases its Baikonur Cosmodrome site from Kazakhstan, which has previously suspended rocket launches.
4 September 2010 | NewScientist | 7
Risky rendezvous
ill after receiving it, but without further investigation it is impossible to say whether it was the vaccine that caused the illness to arrive at that moment, or mere chance. “Most of the links don’t pan out,” says Neal Halsey, a vaccines researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Fifteen children in Finland were diagnosed with narcolepsy after receiving Pandremix, around twice the usual incidence. The European Medicines Agency has said it will examine data on the vaccine for any clear evidence of a link with narcolepsy.
60 Seconds
satellites designed to approach and dock with other spacecraft and these, too, are considered double-edged swords. Brian Weeden of the US-based Secure World Foundation, which promotes peace in space, has
SECRET meetings often spell trouble, so it should come as no surprise that an unannounced rendezvous between two Chinese satellites is raising eyebrows. Satellites that can approach each “It was probably not a other and make contact in orbit military exercise, but could be used to help clear space junk, fix satellites or pave the way transparency is needed for docking procedures to be used to avoid ‘misperception’ ” with China’s first space-station analysed the Chinese manoeuvre. module, set to launch in 2011. It was probably not a military But such technology is viewed with suspicion because it can also exercise, he says, but greater transparency is needed to avoid be used to attack satellites from what he calls “misperception”. other countries. The US has
Road will block migration route
Stem cell chaos
Anup Shah/naturepl.com
AS THE full implications of the LOOK out wildebeest, here come the cars. Tanzania’s government plans to shock court ruling that has frozen build a commercial road in the north US government support for work of Serengeti National Park, cutting on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) sink in, researchers want to through the migratory route of know if Congress can provide a fix. 2 million wildebeest and zebra. The road would cut the animals If the ruling stands, all projects off from their dry-season watering relying on federal funding will be holes, causing the wildebeest shut down within 12 months, as population to dwindle to just a their grants come up for renewal. quarter of current levels, says The government will appeal, but the Frankfurt Zoological Society Congress could amend the law on in Germany. It could also be which the ruling depends. Called a collision zone for humans and the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it blocks federal funding for research animals, leading to casualties on both sides, and there is a risk that that harms a human embryo. transported livestock would spread Congress could stipulate disease, the society adds. that Dickey-Wicker should not The International Union for the preclude research on hESCs, but Conservation of Nature has written merely prevent federal funds being used to create new cell lines. Such wording could be added to the National Institutes of Health’s next spending bill, but that is unlikely to pass in the brief window between Congress returning from recess on 13 September and a break in October to allow its members to campaign for mid-term elections in November. Another option would be to add the words to a bill already before Congress, to turn into law an executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, which sought to expand federal funding –Where to now?– for hESC research.
to Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete to voice its concerns. While praising Tanzania’s commitment to conservation, noting that 38 per cent of its land is already protected, the IUCN recommends carrying out a full assessment of the road’s environmental impact. Meanwhile, the African Wildlife Foundation is campaigning for the road’s path to be altered so that it passes south of the park, avoiding the migration route. Despite the ongoing campaign, the road is set to go ahead, with construction kicking off in 2012. In a recent speech, Kikwete said the best he could do was to leave the part of the road that crossed the migratory route unpaved.
Iceman funeral rites Ötzi, the 5000-year-old mummified “iceman” discovered in the Alps in 1991, may have been ceremonially buried. A new analysis of the objects buried with him lends weight to the controversial idea that his body was carefully laid to rest (Antiquity, vol 84, p 681). It is generally thought that he became entombed in ice after being attacked.
Smoking stool pigeons Analysing a baby’s first stools could reveal how much tobacco smoke the fetus was exposed to. The amount of tobacco breakdown products in 337 babies’ excretions correlated with those in the mothers’ blood. The method could be used as a non-invasive measure of the duration and intensity of prenatal tobacco exposure (Environmental Health, DOI: 10.1186/1576-069X-9-53).
Bread genome rises Five times as large as the human one, the genome of the world’s most important cereal crop has at last been sequenced. The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium expects the draft sequence of Chinese spring wheat to accelerate development of new varieties that will yield more, tolerate drought and cope with climate change.
Guilt-free smashing On 24 August, a Hawaiian appeals court absolved in advance the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies of responsibility for any dire event that might occur in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. Phew.
No Russian reliance Seeking space independence, Russia aims to start launching cosmonauts from within its own borders by 2018. It currently leases its Baikonur Cosmodrome site from Kazakhstan, which has previously suspended rocket launches.
4 September 2010 | NewScientist | 7