SCIENCE IN THE NEWS
from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


Today's Headlines - January 18, 2008

As Human Cloning Advances, Ethics Debate Gets Louder

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

The possible has become the probable. A human embryo has been cloned by
using a woman's egg cells and a man's skin cells. Biology and morality
have
crossed paths again. And so has a question for the ages: Just because
you
can do it, does it make it right?

California voters gave a green light to this kind of research - known as
somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT for short - when they approved
the
historic $3 billion stem cell funding initiative in November 2004.
Proposition 71 said state-funded researchers could clone human embryos
for
the purpose of deriving stem cells as long as the embryos aren't kept
beyond 12 days.

Still, the announcement from Stemagen Corp. in La Jolla was met by
surprise
from Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for
Genetics and Society, a biotech watchdog group in Oakland. "Yikes,"
Darnovsky said [Wednesday] when told about the development.

To read more:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/biotech/20080117-
9999-1n17ethics.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yv9gqx


Bush Sides with Navy in Sonar Battle

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

President Bush on Wednesday moved to exempt Navy sonar training missions
off Southern California from complying with key environmental laws, an
effort designed to free the military from court-ordered restrictions
aimed
at protecting whales and dolphins.

The president's directive was designed to short-circuit a long-running
battle in which environmental groups have won court victories that
frustrated the Navy's preparations for nine training missions over the
next
year, the first one set to begin next week.

The battle pits concerns over injuries to marine mammals against troop
readiness and national security. But with Bush's latest action, it took
on
overtones of a struggle between the administrative and judicial branches
of
government. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in Los Angeles,
who
ordered the restrictions, has called the Navy's plans "grossly
inadequate
to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure."

To read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-me-
sonar17jan17,0,5999753.story

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2epdfe


Huge New Palm Found--"Flowers Itself to Death"

from National Geographic News

A couple on a casual stroll in Madagascar recently discovered a new
gigantic palm that flowers itself to death. Taller than a six-story
building, with a trunk 1.5 feet in diameter, it is the most massive palm
discovered to date in Madagascar.

After the plant has rocketed to its full height, a vast candelabra-like
structure of flowers develops above its leaves, said William Baker, a
scientist with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London. Baker and
colleague John Dransfield have studied and cataloged the plant.

"The [structure] produces hundreds of thousands of flowers, which drip
with
nectar when they are open," he said. "It is truly spectacular." Once
pollinated, each flower turns into a fruit. The palm's nutrient reserves
then become depleted, the crown collapses, and the tree dies a prolonged
death.

To read more:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080117-new-
palm.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yswrah


Antidepressant Studies Unpublished

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

The makers of antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil never published the
results of about a third of the drug trials that they conducted to win
government approval, misleading doctors and consumers about the drugs'
true
effectiveness, a new analysis has found.

In published trials, about 60 percent of people taking the drugs report
significant relief from depression, compared with roughly 40 percent of
those on placebo pills.

But when the less positive, unpublished trials are included, the
advantage
shrinks: the drugs outperform placebos, but by a modest margin,
concludes
the new report, which [appeared] Thursday in The New England Journal of
Medicine. Previous research had found a similar bias toward reporting
positive results for a variety of medications ...

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/health/17depress.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2msxcj


Internet Maps Get Streetwise

from Scientific American

Google took Internet maps to the streets when it launched its Street
View
feature in Google Maps. Rather than relying on satellite photos, Street
View, which debuted in May, enables users to view and navigate
360-degree
street-level digital images of 21 U.S. cities, including San Francisco,
Denver, Las Vegas, Miami and the Big Apple.

Now a Berkeley, Calif., start-up called earthmine inc plans to offer a
similar Web-based navigation service that employs technology that NASA
uses
on the Mars Exploration Rover missions to help guide Opportunity and
Spirit
on their treks across the Red Planet's craggy surface.

Earthmine last month announced that it had cut an exclusive deal with
the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., and
the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that it runs for NASA to license
software
and algorithms that create 3-D data from stereo panoramic imagery. JPL
actually began developing these algorithms and software for autonomous
navigation about a decade ago.

To read more:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=internet-maps-get-street

Or: http://tinyurl.com/23l5nt


European Ethics Group Opposes Food From Cloned Animals

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Opponents of cloning animals for food got a boost yesterday as a
European
ethics body came out against the practice, expressing concerns about the
clones' welfare.

The report, from the European Group on Ethics in Science and New
Technologies, which advises the European Commission, is likely to weigh
heavily in the growing European debate on the issue.

It counters a scientific report released there last week that, like one
by
the Food and Drug Administration, found no human health concerns
connected
to the consumption of meat and milk from clones. Unlike in the United
States, the European Commission is required by law to consider ethical
criteria when approving new foods.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702905.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2x5a6s


Early Settlers Drained Marshy US Landscape

from New Scientist

Standard notions of the 'natural' eastern US landscape with its
meandering
ribbon-like streams may be misguided, suggests historical research.

In the US, a multibillion-dollar landscape restoration industry is
guided
by the almost intuitive notion that natural, gravel-bedded streams
wander
in single channels across the land.

... But a new study now overturns this notion, suggesting that the
meandering streams are actually the result of early forms of land
management imposed by ... settlers. This understanding comes from
studies
of stream geometry carried out in the 1950s. But Robert Walter and
Dorothy
Merritts of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania now say those
studies got it wrong - the New World was a wetland.

To read more: http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn13199-early-
settlers-drained-marshy-us-landscape.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yrozol


Green Light for Hybrid Research

from BBC News Online

Regulators have given scientists the green light to create human-animal
embryos for research. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
granted permission after a consultation showed the public were "at ease"
with the idea.

Experts said it was vital for research into life-threatening diseases.
Two
centres, King's College London and Newcastle University, will now be
able
to begin their work under one-year research licences.

Any other centres wishing to do similar work will have to apply to the
HFEA
for permission, which will make a decision on a case by case basis.
Scientists want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with
animal
eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. The embryos would then be destroyed
within 14 days.

To read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7193820.stm

Or: http://tinyurl.com/29ly8a


FDA: Cold Medicines Too Risky for Tots

from the Seattle Times

(Associated Press) - Parents may be left with only love and lots of
liquid
to give their sniffling babies and toddlers now that the government is
declaring over-the-counter cough and cold medicines too risky for tots.
The
Food and Drug Administration was issuing that warning Thursday to
parents
of children under 2.

It's a move expected for months: Drug companies last October quit
selling
dozens of versions of nonprescription cold remedies targeted
specifically
to babies and toddlers. That month, the FDA's scientific advisers also
voted that the drugs don't work in small children and shouldn't be used
in
preschoolers, either - anyone under age 6.

The FDA still hasn't decided if OTC decongestants, antihistamines and
cough
suppressants are appropriate for older children, officials told The
Associated Press. Expect a decision on that by spring ...

To read more:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004129986_apcoldmedicines1
7.ht
ml

Or: http://tinyurl.com/ysllnl


The Battle Over Bottled vs. Tap Water

from the Christian Science Monitor

Medford, MASS. - For most of the past seven years, Kate Daniel was "a
fiend
for bottled water." Believing that bottled water was healthier and
better
tasting, the Tufts University junior would carry along a bottle wherever
she went.

But after she failed to identify bottled water in a blindfolded taste
test
sponsored by a group called Think Outside the Bottle, Ms. Daniel's
confidence in bottled water faltered. "I felt slightly duped," she says.

Even as bottled water companies continue to see increased sales, the
recent
raft of negative media coverage and activist campaigns against the
industry
has caused a product once seen as fundamentally green and healthy to
lose
some of its luster. Now, brand-name bottlers are scrambling to
reposition
their products by upping their green credentials to fend off further
consumer backlash fermenting in churches, college campuses, and city
halls
across the country.

To read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0117/p15s03-sten.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/28jdlk