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US opens enquiry into monkey mistreatment
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60 SECONDS
Cruelty to chimps?
difficult to create hybrids. Now a hybrid variety of pigeon pea has been developed by Kulbhushan Saxena and colleagues at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India. The key was to create a variety of pea with sterile male parts, which can be fertilised by pollen from other breeds to produce high-yielding, proteinrich hybrids. The first hybrid, called Pushkal, was commercially launched last week by ICRISAT. “Pushkal is truly the magic pea,” says the institute’s director, William Dar.
“extreme psychological distress” due to cramped housing and rough handling, and that some animals have been self-harming. University of Louisiana officials say that the centre often undergoes outside review and has passed all
THE US Department of Agriculture is looking into claims that monkeys and chimpanzees are being mistreated at a major research laboratory. These claims stem from an “The animals are in ‘extreme undercover investigation by the psychological distress’ due Humane Society of the United to cramped housing and States into the New Iberia poor handling, it is alleged” Research Center, part of the University of Louisiana in recent assessments. The Lafayette. The centre does Foundation for Biomedical research for pharmaceutical Research, a lobby group based companies and the National Institutes of Health. The Humane in Washington DC, is reserving Society alleges that animals are in judgment until after the inquiry.
Patient victory
Sea level rising faster
COLIN MONTEATH/HEDGEHOG HOUSE/MINDEN
A VICTORY for patients. That’s WE NOW have a clearer idea of what is happening to the ice in Greenland how consumer advocates and Antarctica, and it means rising interpret a US Supreme Court sea level may drown the official decision that would have made it estimates. That’s the warning tougher to sue drug companies, from a major climate meeting in had it gone the other way. Copenhagen, Denmark, this week. The case concerned Diana In 2007, the Intergovernmental Levine, a Vermont-based Panel on Climate Change forecast a musician who lost her hand rise of 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100. after a botched injection of the But these figures did not include anti-nausea drug Phenergan in water from the Greenland and 2000. If the drug is injected into Antarctic ice sheets because models an artery instead of a vein, as it of future melting were deemed was in Levine’s case, it can cause inconclusive. Yet Greenland alone gangrene. Levine successfully sued Wyeth, holds enough water to raise sea level which makes Phenergan, claiming by 6 metres on average worldwide. Recent measurements show the company did not do enough that sea level has been rising by to warn of the drug’s dangers. 3 millimetres a year since 1993, Wyeth appealed on the grounds that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the warning on the drug’s label. But on 4 March, the Supreme Court ruled against Wyeth and upheld the $6.7 million in damages that Levine had already been awarded. A ruling the other way would have given legal immunity to drug companies with FDA approval. That would have been a huge mistake, says Brian Wolfman of Public Citizen in Washington DC, as companies don’t always inform the FDA of the dangers –Behind the increase?– associated with their products.
which exceeds IPCC forecasts. Not surprisingly, it seems Greenland and Antarctica are to blame. “The ice sheets are already contributing more and faster to sea level rise than anticipated” due to the acceleration of the glaciers flowing from them, says Eric Rignot of the University of California in Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “If this trend continues, we are likely to witness sea level rise by 1 metre or more by 2100,” he says. A rise of only half a metre would be bad enough, says John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research. He has shown that in Australia, such a rise would cause “hundred year” flooding events to occur several times a year by 2100.
Mars probe reboot NASA was due to attempt a risky reboot of its Mars Odyssey orbiter on Tuesday. Odyssey is the main communications link between NASA’s Mars rovers and Earth, and if it wakes up after the reboot its memory should be cleared of the build-up of errors that resulted from cosmic-ray bombardment. It may also restore back-up power circuits to health.
Artificial ribosome In a step towards the creation of artificial life, George Church of Harvard Medical School in Boston claimed on 7 March that he has built a ribosome from scratch. Ribosomes, which are found in all cells, make proteins. The ones Church says he has built make luciferase, which gives fireflies their glow.
Plundering the depths Trawlers go deep, but the damage they do goes deeper. Populations of fish as far as 2.5 kilometres down in the north-east Atlantic are suffering serious decline, although trawling only reaches down to 1.6 kilometres (Proceedings of the Royal Society B , DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0098). Researchers comparing populations before and after the fishery opened in 1990 found declines in nine of 15 species.
Firebomb attack in LA An animal rights group has claimed responsibility for a firebomb on 6 March. The attack destroyed a car belonging to a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies schizophrenia and drug addiction. The FBI is investigating the incident.
Cholera on the wane As the rainy season ends, the cholera epidemic originating in Zimbabwe appears to be declining. Cases are now being diagnosed at a quarter the rate they were in January. The outbreak has so far led to at least 90,000 people in Zimbabwe becoming ill, and has killed 4000.
14 March 2009 | NewScientist | 7
60 SECONDS
Cruelty to chimps?
difficult to create hybrids. Now a hybrid variety of pigeon pea has been developed by Kulbhushan Saxena and colleagues at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India. The key was to create a variety of pea with sterile male parts, which can be fertilised by pollen from other breeds to produce high-yielding, proteinrich hybrids. The first hybrid, called Pushkal, was commercially launched last week by ICRISAT. “Pushkal is truly the magic pea,” says the institute’s director, William Dar.
“extreme psychological distress” due to cramped housing and rough handling, and that some animals have been self-harming. University of Louisiana officials say that the centre often undergoes outside review and has passed all
THE US Department of Agriculture is looking into claims that monkeys and chimpanzees are being mistreated at a major research laboratory. These claims stem from an “The animals are in ‘extreme undercover investigation by the psychological distress’ due Humane Society of the United to cramped housing and States into the New Iberia poor handling, it is alleged” Research Center, part of the University of Louisiana in recent assessments. The Lafayette. The centre does Foundation for Biomedical research for pharmaceutical Research, a lobby group based companies and the National Institutes of Health. The Humane in Washington DC, is reserving Society alleges that animals are in judgment until after the inquiry.
Patient victory
Sea level rising faster
COLIN MONTEATH/HEDGEHOG HOUSE/MINDEN
A VICTORY for patients. That’s WE NOW have a clearer idea of what is happening to the ice in Greenland how consumer advocates and Antarctica, and it means rising interpret a US Supreme Court sea level may drown the official decision that would have made it estimates. That’s the warning tougher to sue drug companies, from a major climate meeting in had it gone the other way. Copenhagen, Denmark, this week. The case concerned Diana In 2007, the Intergovernmental Levine, a Vermont-based Panel on Climate Change forecast a musician who lost her hand rise of 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100. after a botched injection of the But these figures did not include anti-nausea drug Phenergan in water from the Greenland and 2000. If the drug is injected into Antarctic ice sheets because models an artery instead of a vein, as it of future melting were deemed was in Levine’s case, it can cause inconclusive. Yet Greenland alone gangrene. Levine successfully sued Wyeth, holds enough water to raise sea level which makes Phenergan, claiming by 6 metres on average worldwide. Recent measurements show the company did not do enough that sea level has been rising by to warn of the drug’s dangers. 3 millimetres a year since 1993, Wyeth appealed on the grounds that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the warning on the drug’s label. But on 4 March, the Supreme Court ruled against Wyeth and upheld the $6.7 million in damages that Levine had already been awarded. A ruling the other way would have given legal immunity to drug companies with FDA approval. That would have been a huge mistake, says Brian Wolfman of Public Citizen in Washington DC, as companies don’t always inform the FDA of the dangers –Behind the increase?– associated with their products.
which exceeds IPCC forecasts. Not surprisingly, it seems Greenland and Antarctica are to blame. “The ice sheets are already contributing more and faster to sea level rise than anticipated” due to the acceleration of the glaciers flowing from them, says Eric Rignot of the University of California in Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “If this trend continues, we are likely to witness sea level rise by 1 metre or more by 2100,” he says. A rise of only half a metre would be bad enough, says John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research. He has shown that in Australia, such a rise would cause “hundred year” flooding events to occur several times a year by 2100.
Mars probe reboot NASA was due to attempt a risky reboot of its Mars Odyssey orbiter on Tuesday. Odyssey is the main communications link between NASA’s Mars rovers and Earth, and if it wakes up after the reboot its memory should be cleared of the build-up of errors that resulted from cosmic-ray bombardment. It may also restore back-up power circuits to health.
Artificial ribosome In a step towards the creation of artificial life, George Church of Harvard Medical School in Boston claimed on 7 March that he has built a ribosome from scratch. Ribosomes, which are found in all cells, make proteins. The ones Church says he has built make luciferase, which gives fireflies their glow.
Plundering the depths Trawlers go deep, but the damage they do goes deeper. Populations of fish as far as 2.5 kilometres down in the north-east Atlantic are suffering serious decline, although trawling only reaches down to 1.6 kilometres (Proceedings of the Royal Society B , DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0098). Researchers comparing populations before and after the fishery opened in 1990 found declines in nine of 15 species.
Firebomb attack in LA An animal rights group has claimed responsibility for a firebomb on 6 March. The attack destroyed a car belonging to a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies schizophrenia and drug addiction. The FBI is investigating the incident.
Cholera on the wane As the rainy season ends, the cholera epidemic originating in Zimbabwe appears to be declining. Cases are now being diagnosed at a quarter the rate they were in January. The outbreak has so far led to at least 90,000 people in Zimbabwe becoming ill, and has killed 4000.
14 March 2009 | NewScientist | 7