Altered Human Embryo Decried as 'Designer Baby' source : discovery.com

Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press e-mail share bookmark print



Altering the Human Form


May 13, 2008 -- News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."

But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.

"None of us wants to make designer babies," said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.

The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn't draw widespread public attention then. The result was reported over the weekend by The Sunday Times of London, which said British authorities highlighted the work in a recent report.

Rosenwaks and colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable. Following a standard procedure used in animals, they inserted a gene that acts as a marker that can be easily followed over time. The embryo cells took up the gene, he said.

The goal was to see if a gene introduced into an abnormal embryo could be traced in stem cells that are harvested from the embryo, he said. Such work could help shed light on why abnormal embryos fail to develop, he said.

No stem cells were recovered from the human embryo, said Rosenwaks, noting that abnormal embryos frequently don't develop well enough to produce them.

Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, said the Cornell scientists were developing techniques that others might use to make genetically modified people, "and they're doing it without any kind of public debate."

A London-based group called Human Genetics Alert similarly criticized the work.

But Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said she's not troubled by the work. She said the idea of successfully modifying babies by inserting genes remains a technically daunting challenge.

"We're not even close to having that technology in hand to be able to do it right," she said, and it would be ethically unacceptable to try it when it's unsafe.



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Related Links:


Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility

How Stuff Works: Stem Cells

Center for Genetics and Society

Human Genetics Alert

Genetics and Public Policy Center



original link:trackback
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/13/modified-human-embryo.html

Femtosecond Laser Ideal for Killing Cancer, Installing Adamantium Skeletons

/>Did you know that the same ultra-fast, ultra-intense laser (UUL) that can blast individual cancer cells without harming any good cells in the vicinity can also be used to fuse metal to bone? A new laser lab at the University of Missouri has been built to test the awesome power of this system, whose pulses last just one quadrillionth of a second, known in street terminology as a "femtosecond." Here's why the American Dental Association, the American Cancer Society and the Pentagon would be equally interested in this developing technology:

The key characteristic of the femtosecond laser is the fact that it uniquely can hit its target without burning anything in the surrounding areas. According to Robert Tzou, head researcher and chairman of the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, this could mean the end of nasty chemotherapy:

"If we have a way to use the lasers to kill cancer cells without even touching the surrounding healthy cells, that is a tremendous benefit to the patient. Basically, the patient leaves the clinic immediately after treatment with no side effects or damage. The high precision and high efficiency of the UUL allows for immediate results."

In surgery and in dentistry, the super accuracy of the laser can be utilized to reduce the collateral damage currently made by incisions and cavity drilling.X-Men fans will be happy to hear that the laser can also be used to fuse metal dust to bone, "sintering" metal powder locally with just enough heat, but without the need for molten metal. Says researcher Yuwen Zhang:

"With the laser, we can melt a very thin strip around titanium micro- and nanoparticles and ultimately control the porosity of the bridge connecting the bone and the alloy. The procedure allows the particles to bond strongly, conforming to the two different surfaces."

In case you doubt that metallicized bones might have military application, Zhang and some of his colleagues have just received a DoD grant to poke around in precisely that arena. [University of Missouri]




source:


http://gizmodo.com/367903/femtosecond-laser-ideal-for-killing-cancer-installing-adamantium-skeletons

Americans turn to online videos source: BBC

Online video sharing sites are reaping the benefits of the ongoing writers' strike in the US.

According to net measurement firm Nielsen Online, some online video sites have doubled their audience since the strike began at the end of October.

The news comes as US-based Pew Internet Project highlights a more long-term growth of video sharing sites.

Its study finds that the audience to sites such as YouTube has nearly doubled in the last year.

Sudden rise

According to Pew Internet nearly half (48%) of US net users visited a video sharing site during 2007.

On a typical day, some 15% were either watching or posting video.

The on-going writers' strike has meant that many popular programs are currently off-air in the US and, according to Nielsen Online, this has seen Americans turn in large numbers to online alternatives.

Its figures show that YouTube's audience was up 18% in the two months after the strike started, and newer video-sharing sites such as Crackle have also experienced unprecedented growth.

In September and October, Crackle enjoyed an audience of 1.2m users which doubled to 2.4m in November and December, it found.

"That is greater growth than you would normally see in such a short period and the strike could be a possible factor," said Nielsen analyst Alex Burmaster.

The Pew Internet Project cites the spread of broadband connections and the widespread use of video by a variety of websites as factors for the longer term growth in audiences to video sharing sites.

Home-made video

Some 54% of American adults now have a high-speed connection at home, compared to 45% at the same time last year.

According to the Pew Internet Project, men are slightly more likely to use a video-sharing site than women - 53% compared to 43%.

But it is the young who are really driving the increase with 70% of people under 30 using such sites.

The dramatic rise in the number of video-sharing sites and other websites that incorporate video has had the knock-on effect of increasing the number of amateur video makers.

Some 22% of Americans now shoot their own videos, with 14% of them posting at least some of that video online.

Video sharing sites are also getting more closely involved in the issues that affect everyday Americans.

In the summer YouTube co-hosted a presidential debate with TV giant CNN.

The two-hour long broadcast featured all eight of the declared Democratic candidates and consisted entirely of questions that had been submitted online.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7180889.stm

THE MICROWAVE MAGICIAN source:popsci

I’m not sure if I’m watching a magic trick, or an invention that will make the cigar-chomping 64-year-old next to me the richest man on the planet. Everything that goes into Frank Pringle’s recycling machine—a piece of tire, a rock, a plastic cup—turns to oil and natural gas seconds later. “I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me,” Pringle says without sarcasm.


The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running).

Pringle created the machine about 10 years ago after he drove by a massive tire fire and thought about the energy being released. He went home and threw bits of a tire in a microwave emitter he’d been working with for another project. It turned to what looked like ash, but a few hours later, he returned and found a black puddle on the floor of the unheated workshop. Somehow, he’d struck oil.

Or rather, he had extracted it. Petroleum is composed of strings of hydrocarbon molecules. When microwaves hit the tire, they crack the molecular chains and break it into its component parts: carbon black (an ash-like raw material) and hydrocarbon gases, which can be burned or condensed into liquid fuel. Pringle figured that some gases from his microwaved tire had lingered, and the cold air in the shop had condensed them into diesel. If the process worked on tires, he thought, it should work on anything with hydrocarbons. The trick was in finding the optimum microwave frequency for each material—out of 10 million possibilities.

Pringle has spent 10 years and $1 million homing in on frequencies for hundreds of materials. In 2004 he teamed up with engineer pal Hawk Hogan to take the machine commercial.

Their first order is under construction in Rockford, Illinois. It’s a $5.1-million microwave machine the size of small bus called the Hawk, bound for an auto-recycler in Long Island, New York. More deals loom: The U.S. military may use Hawks in Iraq on waste such as water bottles and food containers. Oil companies are looking to the machines to gasify petroleum trapped in shale.

Back at the shop, Pringle is still zapping new materials. A sample labeled “bituminous coal” goes in and, 15 seconds later, Pringle ignites the resulting gas. “You see,” he says, “why they might want to kill me.” —RENA MARIE PACELLA

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html?

Youtube hacked???

Future directions in computing source:BBC

Silicon electronics are a staple of the computing industry, but researchers are now exploring other techniques to deliver powerful computers.

Quantum computers are able to tackle complex problems

A quantum computer is a theoretical device that would make use of the properties of quantum mechanics, the realm of physics that deals with energy and matter at atomic scales.

In a quantum computer data is not processed by electrons passing through transistors, as is the case in today's computers, but by caged atoms known as quantum bits or Qubits.

"It is a new paradigm for computation," said Professor Artur Ekert of the University of Oxford. "It's doing computation differently."

A bit is a simple unit of information that is represented by a "1" or a "0" in a conventional electronic computer.

A qubit can also represent a "1" or a "0" but crucially can be both at the same time - known as a superposition.

This allows a quantum computer to work through many problems and arrive at their solutions simultaneously.

"It is like massively parallel processing but in one piece of hardware," said Professor Ekert.

'Complex systems'

This has significant advantages, particularly for solving problems with a large amount of data or variables.

"With quantum computing you are able to attack some problems on the time scales of seconds, which might take an almost infinite amount of time with classical computers," Professor David Awschalom of the University of California, Santa Barbara told the BBC News website recently.

In February 2007, the Canadian company D-Wave systems claimed to have demonstrated a working quantum computer.

At the time, Herb Martin, chief executive officer of the company said that the display represented a "substantial step forward in solving commercial and scientific problems which, until now, were considered intractable."

But many in the quantum computing world have remained sceptical, primarily because the company released very little information about the machine.

The display also failed to impress.

"It was not quite what we understand as quantum computing," said Professor Ekert. "The demonstrations they showed could have been solved by conventional computers."

However, Professor Ekert believes that quantum computing will eventually come of age.

Then, he said, they will not be used in run-of-the-mill desktop applications but specialist uses such as searching vast databases, creating uncrackable ciphers or simulating the atomic structures of substances.

"The really killer application will probably be in designing new materials or complex systems," he said.

China building more power plants source: BBC

By Roger Harrabin BBC Environment Analyst

China is building two large power stations every week

China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said.

He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions.

Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC.

His statement came as a new report suggested that China may have already become the world's biggest polluter - much earlier than expected.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China's CO2 emissions had risen by 9% last year, compared with 1.4% in the US.

Carbon footprint

"It is a massive challenge," Mr Ashton told the BBC following a recent trip to China.

"We need to convince China that they don't have to make a choice between prosperity and protecting the climate. We need to help them towards a low-carbon future.

"There is also a moral case. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been put there by developed countries without the constraint of having to worry about the climate. That means we should bear the leading edge of responsibility.

Mr Ashton added that the Chinese had put out their first climate strategy, in an effort "to get to grips with their emissions and use energy efficiently".

He pointed out that much of China's emissions growth was being driven by consumers in the West buying Chinese goods, and noted that China's emissions per person were still well below those of rich nations.

Profile: John Ashton

It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more than the average Chinese person.

Climate sceptics in the UK have been asking why Britons should switch off lights, turn down central heating and avoid foreign flights in order to save carbon when the Chinese are increasing emissions at their current rate.

"Responsibility for China's soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo," said Greenpeace UK director John Sauven.

"All we've done is export a great slice of the West's carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result.

"Let us not forget that the average Chinese emits just 3.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, whereas Britons emit nearly 10 tonnes and Americans 20 tonnes.

"The West moved its manufacturing base to China knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US," he added.

"No environmental conditions were attached to this move; in fact the only thing manufacturers were interested in was the price of labour.

"This trend kept the price of our products down but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Long term, this policy has been a climate disaster.

"We should export clean energy technology to China to increase low carbon and renewable energy take-up so the products we import have a smaller carbon footprint."