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Will knowing your genes change your behaviour?
News in perspective
STEVE WINTER/NGS
Upfront– HOW TO SPOT A RARE LEOPARD A genetic test specific to endangered snow leopards can pin down vital information on their numbers and diversity from the animals’ faeces. What is more, a pilot study has found that some faeces thought to come from snow leopards were actually from foxes or lynx – a disturbing sign that estimates of snow leopard numbers may be far too high. Some 4000 to 7000 snow leopards are thought to remain in high-altitude regions of central Asia. The area’s inaccessibility makes the population hard to count. Camera-trap surveys can record individuals, but are costly and time-consuming. Searching for traces such as shed fur or faeces is faster, but can yield only indirect estimates. Genetic testing would be more precise, but efforts to date have been
disappointing: testing fur proved impractical because shipping samples across international boundaries requires special approval, while standard genetic primers based on domestic cats were not reliable when testing the degraded DNA in faeces. This led co-author Jan Janecˇka of Texas A&M University to develop tests specific for snow leopard DNA in scat. Trials using the new approach in China, India and Mongolia show it is much more reliable and can even identify individual snow leopards (Animal Conservation, vol 11, p 401). That information is crucial for conservation, says co-author Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy of Sonoma, California, which has plans for an expanded testing programme.
Genetic destinies
Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego, California, says that independent scientists will be in charge. “We have complete, independent control of the database and all publications derived from the study.” Topol says plenty of gene variants have robust links to disease, despite a recent analysis in the American Journal of Human Genetics which casts doubt on many claimed associations between genes and disease (DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.12.020), and a US Government Accountability Office investigation which found that different companies interpret the same gene data differently.
–There’s no business like snow-leopard business–
IT SEEMS China’s catastrophic destruction of a defunct weather satellite last year may have been facilitated by the country’s failure to translate an international agreement into domestic law. The smashed satellite created an orbiting blizzard of long-lived shards. This breached international guidelines covering the mitigation of space debris, which are defined by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), which counts the majority of spacefaring nations as members, including China. The country’s motivation for exploding the satellite was unclear, but the act was especially curious because Chinese delegates had helped to formulate the IADC guidelines.
“China should establish and perfect a national mechanism on space-debris mitigation” According to Li Shouping, director of the Institute of Space Law at Beijing Institute of Technology, the reason the IADC guidelines were ignored was because China had not 6 | NewScientist | 18 October 2008
incorporated them into domestic laws like other nations had. “China should establish and perfect a national mechanism on spacedebris mitigation as soon as possible,” Li wrote in a paper presented at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, UK, this month. “This confirms what we only surmised,” says Richard Crowther, head of the British delegation to the IADC. “The complex nature of Chinese government and the absence of a formal national framework to communicate these issues is the most obvious explanation” for China’s failure to restrain itself. ADLER PLANETARIUM
Lawless space
IF YOU discovered that your genes made you prone to obesity, would you eat dessert as usual or rush to the gym? It’s not a trick question. Whether people act on news of their genetic fate or simply ignore it is the subject of a 20-year study of 10,000 Americans. Announced last week, the study was prompted by the recent launch of a clutch of companies offering genetic tests directly to consumers. The study will be partly funded by one of these firms – Navigenics of Redwood Shores, California. Nevertheless, Eric Topol of the
Who needs stars? “THREE million dollars for an overhead projector at a planetarium. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?” So said John McCain in last week’s presidential debate, aiming to highlight what he sees as Barack Obama’s would-be profligacy. McCain was talking about a proposed upgrade of the projection system at the notfor-profit Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois – the state –Projected overhead– Obama represents in the Senate. www.newscientist.com
STEVE WINTER/NGS
Upfront– HOW TO SPOT A RARE LEOPARD A genetic test specific to endangered snow leopards can pin down vital information on their numbers and diversity from the animals’ faeces. What is more, a pilot study has found that some faeces thought to come from snow leopards were actually from foxes or lynx – a disturbing sign that estimates of snow leopard numbers may be far too high. Some 4000 to 7000 snow leopards are thought to remain in high-altitude regions of central Asia. The area’s inaccessibility makes the population hard to count. Camera-trap surveys can record individuals, but are costly and time-consuming. Searching for traces such as shed fur or faeces is faster, but can yield only indirect estimates. Genetic testing would be more precise, but efforts to date have been
disappointing: testing fur proved impractical because shipping samples across international boundaries requires special approval, while standard genetic primers based on domestic cats were not reliable when testing the degraded DNA in faeces. This led co-author Jan Janecˇka of Texas A&M University to develop tests specific for snow leopard DNA in scat. Trials using the new approach in China, India and Mongolia show it is much more reliable and can even identify individual snow leopards (Animal Conservation, vol 11, p 401). That information is crucial for conservation, says co-author Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy of Sonoma, California, which has plans for an expanded testing programme.
Genetic destinies
Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego, California, says that independent scientists will be in charge. “We have complete, independent control of the database and all publications derived from the study.” Topol says plenty of gene variants have robust links to disease, despite a recent analysis in the American Journal of Human Genetics which casts doubt on many claimed associations between genes and disease (DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.12.020), and a US Government Accountability Office investigation which found that different companies interpret the same gene data differently.
–There’s no business like snow-leopard business–
IT SEEMS China’s catastrophic destruction of a defunct weather satellite last year may have been facilitated by the country’s failure to translate an international agreement into domestic law. The smashed satellite created an orbiting blizzard of long-lived shards. This breached international guidelines covering the mitigation of space debris, which are defined by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), which counts the majority of spacefaring nations as members, including China. The country’s motivation for exploding the satellite was unclear, but the act was especially curious because Chinese delegates had helped to formulate the IADC guidelines.
“China should establish and perfect a national mechanism on space-debris mitigation” According to Li Shouping, director of the Institute of Space Law at Beijing Institute of Technology, the reason the IADC guidelines were ignored was because China had not 6 | NewScientist | 18 October 2008
incorporated them into domestic laws like other nations had. “China should establish and perfect a national mechanism on spacedebris mitigation as soon as possible,” Li wrote in a paper presented at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, UK, this month. “This confirms what we only surmised,” says Richard Crowther, head of the British delegation to the IADC. “The complex nature of Chinese government and the absence of a formal national framework to communicate these issues is the most obvious explanation” for China’s failure to restrain itself. ADLER PLANETARIUM
Lawless space
IF YOU discovered that your genes made you prone to obesity, would you eat dessert as usual or rush to the gym? It’s not a trick question. Whether people act on news of their genetic fate or simply ignore it is the subject of a 20-year study of 10,000 Americans. Announced last week, the study was prompted by the recent launch of a clutch of companies offering genetic tests directly to consumers. The study will be partly funded by one of these firms – Navigenics of Redwood Shores, California. Nevertheless, Eric Topol of the
Who needs stars? “THREE million dollars for an overhead projector at a planetarium. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?” So said John McCain in last week’s presidential debate, aiming to highlight what he sees as Barack Obama’s would-be profligacy. McCain was talking about a proposed upgrade of the projection system at the notfor-profit Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois – the state –Projected overhead– Obama represents in the Senate. www.newscientist.com