Report: Ban Cloning or Prepare for Consequences

Report: Ban Cloning or Prepare for Consequences

Human cloning should be outlawed or else the world community needs to prepare to protect clones from potential abuse and discrimination, according to a new policy analysis by the United Nations University.

A legally-binding global ban on work to create a human clone , coupled with freedom for nations to permit strictly controlled therapeutic research, has the greatest political viability among options available to the international community, says the report, "Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance," released Nov. 12 by A.H. Zakri, director of UNU's Institute of Advanced Studies, based in Japan.

More than 50 nations have legislated bans on efforts to create human clones, said report co-author Brendan Tobin, although the United States is not yet one of them. However, negotiation of an international accord foundered at the UN in recent years due to disagreement over research cloning (also called therapeutic cloning).

Without an international prohibition, human reproductive cloning in certain countries could be judged legal by the International Court of Justice, said Tobin, of the Irish Center for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway.

“Failure to outlaw reproductive cloning means it is just a matter of time until cloned individuals share the planet,” Tobin said.

“If failure to compromise continues, the world community must accept responsibility and ensure that any cloned individual receives full human rights protection. It will also need to embark on an extensive awareness building and sensitivity program to ensure that the wider society treats clones with respect and ensure they are protected against prejudice, abuse or discrimination.”

There have been no substantiated claims of cloned human embryos grown into fetal stages and beyond, but such an historic event is not far off, most experts agree.

Clones have been achieved with mice, cats, sheep, pigs, cows and dogs and U.S. researchers last summer accomplished the first cloning of a primate—a rhesus monkey embryo cloned from adult cells and then grown to generate stem cells.

Reproductive vs. therapeutic cloning

The report calls the prospect of human cloning “one of the most emotive and divisive issues to face UN negotiators and the international community in recent years.”

Efforts in 2005 to negotiate an international convention fell through over so-called research or therapeutic cloning.
Whereas reproductive cloning is meant to duplicate a person or animal, research cloning is meant to produce tissues that genetically match those of the person or animal whose cells are cloned.

Proponents of research cloning for regenerative medicine say it offers great hope of producing replacement tissue without the fear of immunological rejection, and that it offers a potential cure for millions of people suffering common diseases of the industrialized world—diabetes, stroke, spinal injury and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

Opponents view research cloning as the unethical production and destruction of living embryos to produce stem cells upon which such therapies are based. The clash of positions led to a compromise non-binding UN Declaration on Cloning.

Ethics

The report explores in depth the difficult ethical considerations behind the issue. Some cloning opponents claim reproduction should occur by chance and through natural selection. This argument may be based upon religious lines, or to natural selection and the importance of ensuring continued human diversity.

Others claim that cloning will turn human life into a commodity, leading to a spare parts market for harvesting human organs from cloned “brain-less bodies” for the rich as they seek to extend their lifespan.

“These are not issues which can be lightly dismissed," the authors wrote. "However, it is clear that any debate on human dignity needs to separate the various elements of the debate in order to consider whether opposition to cloning stems from concern for human dignity or respect for divine dignity.” 

The Birth of a Brain Cell: Scientists Witness Neurogenesis

The Birth of a Brain Cell: Scientists Witness Neurogenesis

New method allows researchers to pinpoint young nerve cells in the living human brain

	SQUARE MARKS THE SPOT:  New neurons visualized via NMR spectroscopy. The methodology may allow researchers to see how young neurons behave in neurological disorders.

For the first time, researchers have developed a way to view stem cells in the brains of living animals, including humans—a finding that allows scientists to follow the process neurogenesis (the birth of neurons). The discovery comes just months after scientists confirmed that such cells are generated in adult as well as developing brains.

"I was looking for a method that would enable us to study these cells through[out a] life span," says Mirjana Maletic-Savatic, an assistant professor of neurology at Stony Brook University in New York State, who specializes in neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy that premature and low-weight babies are at greater risk of developing. She says the new technique will enable her to track children at risk by monitoring the quantity and behavior of these so-called progenitor cells in their brains.

The key ingredient in this process is a substance unique to immature cells that is neither found in mature neurons nor in glia, the brain's nonneuronal support cells. Maletic-Savatic and her colleagues collected samples of each of the three cell types from rat brains (stem cells from embryonic animals, the others from adults) and cultured the varieties separately in the lab. They were able to determine the chemical makeup of each variety—and isolate the compound unique to stem cells—with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. (NMR helps to determine a molecule's structure by measuring the magnetic properties of its subatomic particles.) Although the NMR could identify the biomarker, but not its makeup, Maletic-Savatic speculates it is a blend of fatty acids in a lipid (fat) or lipid protein. 

After pinpointing their marker, the team ran two tests to determine the method's sensitivity and accuracy: First, they injected a bevy of stem cells into a rat's cerebral cortex, an outer brain layer where neurogenesis does not normally occur. They then passed an electric current through the animals' brains; electric currents induce neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a forebrain structure that is one of two sites (the other being the subventricular zone) where new neurons are believed to arise.

After performing each procedure, the team used NMR spectroscopy to capture images of the living rats' brains. There was, however, too much visual interference on the scans to find their biomarker. The researchers called upon Stony Brook electrical engineering professor Petar Djurić to help them come up with an algorithm to cut through the clutter and glean a clear picture of their target compound.

With the analytical method helping to decode their scans, they could clearly see increased biomarker levels in the cortex after a neural stem cell injection. Similarly, after the animals were given electric shocks, levels of the compound clearly went up in the hippocampus.

The team next turned its attention to humans, enlisting 11 healthy volunteers, ranging in age from eight to 35, who each spent 45 minutes in an NMR scanner. Hippocampal scans turned up more of the marker than the cortical images. In addition, the older subjects showed lower levels of the biomarker than younger ones (a finding consistent with earlier studies). "This is the first technique that allows detection of these cells in the living human brain," says Maletic-Savatic.

Fred Gage, a genetics professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and co-author a 1998 report in Nature Medicine that announced the discovery of neurogenesis in the adult human brain, praises the new approach. "It seems that they are measuring proliferation rather then maturation based on their results," he says. "It will be important for them to knock down neurogenesis in a mouse and show that [this] signal disappears to confirm the causal link with neurogenesis."

If the new work is replicated and confirmed, it may allow for faster diagnosis and tracking of myriad psychiatric and neurological conditions. Among them: chronic depression. Study co-author Grigori Enikolopov, an associate professor of molecular biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, N.Y., showed last year that antidepressants lead to new nervous system cells, raising questions about the role these cells play in the causation of the ailment.

"Although we are only just beginning to test applications, it is clear that this biomarker may have promise in identifying cell proliferation in the brain, which can be a sign of cancer," Enikolopov says. "In other patients, it could show us how neurogenesis is related to the course of diseases such as depression, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, and post-traumatic stress disorder." 

NASA pressed to avert catastrophic Deep Impact

NASA pressed to avert catastrophic Deep Impact

NASA penny-pinching risks exposing humankind to a planetary catastrophe if a big enough asteroid evades detection and slams into Earth, US lawmakers warned Thursday.

But the US space agency said the chances of a new "Near-Earth Object" (NEO) like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs were too remote to divert scarce resources.

Scott Pace, head of program analysis and evaluation at NASA, said the agency could not do more to detect NEOs "given the constrained resources and the strategic objectives NASA already has been tasked with."

Pace and other NASA officials were grilled at a congressional hearing on the existing NEO program, which seized the public imagination in the late 1990s through the movies "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact."

Lawmakers decried the threatened closure of a giant radio telescope in Puerto Rico run with NASA's assistance that is the world's foremost facility for tracking space objects.

"We're talking about minimal expense compared to the cost of having to absorb this type of damage," Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said. "After all, it may be the entire planet that is destroyed!"

Puerto Rico delegate Luis Fortuno fretted over the economic impact on his impoverished US territory, but also warned of the broader consequences for the entire planet.

"We must take action now to enhance our awareness to prevent a catastrophe," he told the hearing.

The National Science Foundation has earmarked the Arecibo Observatory, which featured in science-fiction movie "Contact" and the James Bond installment "Goldeneye," for closure after 2011 if new private-sector money is not found.

NASA officials said they would get by with new monitoring systems, including a network of four telescopes being built in Hawaii by the US Air Force.

Critics say NASA has imposed big cuts on many research programs in a bid to meet President George W. Bush's goal of returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and use it as a stepping stone for manned missions to Mars and beyond.

The hearing of the House of Representatives space and aeronautics subcommittee highlighted one small asteroid named Apophis, about 250 meters (273 yards) wide, which some scientists say could swing by Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029.

NASA says there is a one in 45,000 chance that Apophis could pass through a "gravitational keyhole" and return to hit the planet in 2036.

"It's a very unlikely situation and one we can drive to zero, probably," said Donald Yeomans, who manages the NEO program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA now only tracks NEOs larger than one kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter, which come near Earth only once every few hundred thousand years.

Objects of that size can cause global disaster through their immediate surface impact and by triggering rapid climate change.

"Extinction-class" objects measuring at least 10 kilometers, such as the object that crashed into Mexico's Yucatan peninsula about 65 million years ago, would be rarer still.

Lawmakers complained that NASA had failed to come up with a budget in line with a 2005 act of Congress that mandated an expanded search for NEOs that are at least 140 meters in diameter.

The agency's annual NEO budget of 4.1 million dollars was attacked as being too meager to cover this goal.

There are about 20,000 smaller objects with the potential to hit home, according to NASA, and Republican Representative Tom Feeney said "they could still inflict large regional impacts if they struck the Earth."

Options to divert space rocks on a collision course with Earth include slamming nuclear missiles into them, although scientists believes that in most cases involving smaller debris, conventional rockets would do the job.

Yeomans said also that while the European and Japanese space agencies are stepping up their own NEO programs, more than 98 percent of the work is now done by NASA.

 
Artist's rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt in orbit around a star. ...

Are Cigarettes More of a Drag on Teens than Marijuana?

Are Cigarettes More of a Drag on Teens than Marijuana?

New study shows that adolescents who toke up function better than those who also use tobacco

	SMOKING HABITS:  New study shows that teenagers who only use marijuana fare better than those who smoke both pot and cigarettes.

Reefer madness? Apparently not, according to a new Swiss survey of students that concludes teenagers who smoke pot function better than those who also use tobacco. In addition, researchers at the University of Lausanne report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, teens who only use marijuana are apparently more socially driven and have no more psychosocial problems than those who neither smoke nor toke.

The scientists surveyed 5,263 Swiss students (2,439 females) aged 16 to 20 years, including 455 who said they smoked weed only; 1,703 who reported being tobacco and marijuana users; and 3,105 who said they did not imbibe at all. 

"The gateway theory hypothesizes that the use of legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol) is the previous step to cannabis consumption," the authors wrote. "However, recent research also indicates that cannabis use may precede or be simultaneous to tobacco use and that, in fact, its use may reinforce cigarette smoking or lead to nicotine addiction independently of smoking status."

Among their findings: Compared with students who reported using both drugs, those who smoked pot only were more likely to be male (71.6 percent versus 59.7 percent); get good grades (77.5 to 66.6 percent); play sports (85.5 to 66.7 percent); and live with both parents (78.2 to 68.3 percent).

Cannabis-only smokers were also less likely than their cigarette-and-joint smoking brethren to have used other illegal drugs or to have been soused or have used pot more than twice in the previous 30 days, according to the study.

In contrast to those who shunned both substances, the pot-only crowd was more likely to be male (71.6 to 47.7 percent); have a good relationship with friends (87 versus 83.2 percent); and play sports (85.5 versus 76.6 percent). They were less likely than the abstainers, however, to get along well with their parents (74.1 percent compared with 82.4).

The researchers stressed that whereas students who smoked and toked seemed more prone to psychosocial problems, the marijuana-only users should not be dismissed.

"Even though they do not seem to have great personal, family or academic problems," they wrote, "the situation of those adolescents who use cannabis but who declare not using tobacco should not be trivialized."

Groups working toward the decriminalization of marijuana especially for medical purposes praised the findings.

"Studies like this show associations, not cause and effect," says Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.–based Marijuana Policy Project, a lobby that believes marijuana should be legalized but also regulated and taxed much like cigarettes and alcohol. "But the drug czar's office regularly uses associations between marijuana use and problems like poor grades to frighten parents into thinking that cause and effect is proven. So will [it] now say that smoking marijuana makes teens have better peer relationships and be more likely to participate in sports?"

"No one wants to encourage teens to smoke marijuana," he adds, "but this study strongly suggests that the most serious problems for teens and parents isn't occasional marijuana use, but heavy use of multiple substances, which is likely a sign of kids who are seriously troubled and need help." 

Fact or Fiction?: Sitting Too Close to the Computer Screen Can Make You Go Blind

Fact or Fiction?: Sitting Too Close to the Computer Screen Can Make You Go Blind

Eyestrain is a common—and occasionally debilitating—effect of staring at screens

	SCREEN BLINDNESS:  Staring at screens may make you forget to blink but it probably won't make you nearsighted.

You roll your head, hoping to loosen the knots in your neck, and shut your eyes. After rubbing them you settle back into staring, hunched inches away from the computer screen. Despite the brief reprise your vision remains cloudy, causing the words on the monitor to blur. At this point, you need to know: With each further click on the keyboard, video watched on YouTube, and e-mail sent—are you damaging your vision?

Ophthalmologists, optometrists and other eye professionals note a seeming link between myopia, also called nearsightedness, and "near work"—visual activities that take place at a distance of about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from the eye—such as reading a book. Staring at a computer screen qualifies as well, though monitors usually are around 50 centimeters (20 inches) away.

But only a small—and mysterious—subset of people see myopic progression from near work, whether they are focusing on a computer or accounting books. "We are not very clever in identifying who [is affected] yet," says James Sheedy, a professor at the Pacific University College of Optometry in Oregon.

The fact that near work doesn't lead to myopia in all of us, however, doesn't mean sitting close to a computer screen causes no problems. Though for most it is not permanently damaging, computer near work leads to an uncomfortable, at times debilitating, list of symptoms collectively known as eyestrain.

Eyestrain, says Mark Bullimore, a professor at The Ohio State University College of Optometry, results from staring at a screen over long periods of time. Such activity causes eye exhaustion: burning, dryness and muscle aches—all unpleasant and potentially incapacitating symptoms while they last.

The simplest way to understand why eyestrain develops—and learn how to prevent it—is by looking at the way our built-in binoculars show us the fine print. When we "see" something, light reflects from an object through the cornea, the transparent, dome-shaped layer covering the eye. The cornea and the crystalline lens (a transparent, round, flexible structure behind the iris) then bend the wavelengths so they hit the rods and cones—photoreceptors on the retina that gather incoming light information. This innermost layer at the back of the eye is responsible for collecting and then moving light information, via the optic nerve, to the brain, which produces an image.

Staring closely at a screen forces our ciliary muscle, which controls the shape of our lens and therefore how well we focus, to remain contracted, without rest. This is demanding—and tiring—for the poor little muscle. Up close focusing also stops us from blinking.

Blinking is essential because it spreads tears over the surface of the eye; if blinking stops, the corneal surface dries out. When this happens, the cornea becomes cloudy, causing "foggy" vision, according to Sheedy. The normal blink rate is around 20 times per minute but using a computer can drop it to as low as seven, though experts believe this has no long-term effect.

Staring at a screen—surrounded by glaring peripheral lights—also causes us to squint, says Dennis Robertson, an ophthalmology professor at the Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn.

And though squinting cuts down on glare and prevents exorbitant amounts of light from assaulting your eyeballs (which solves some of the problems created by not blinking), it's exhausting. Freezing the muscles around your eye into a tense, squinched position all day long is just as tiring as it would be to hold a stomach-crunch for nine hours.

These eyestrain symptoms usually only last a few hours, dissipating as we allow ourselves time to blink and focus on things farther away. But once they start, they hamper productivity and, more importantly, make us grumpy. All is not lost, however. We can fix these burning, aching, dried out sensations one ergonomic workstation at a time. 

Invest in one of today's nonglare computer screens, and don't be afraid to change your computer's brightness, contrast or text size, all of which will alleviate eye stress. Also, position your screen slightly lower than your eyes; the top of your monitor should be level with your eyebrows. For physiological problems, hit your doctor up for a pair of corrective lenses.

Finally, eliminate any glaring peripheral light. To find out what lights are bothersome, Sheedy recommends performing the hand-as-visor trick: Shield your eyes with your hand, and see if that makes the tension in your face and shoulders dissipate. If it does, manually adjust the lamps you blocked out as bothersome. As for watching TV, experts recommend laughing along with your favorite sitcom from a comfortable distance. (Finally, a reason to be a couch potato.)

But by far the simplest and best expert advice for eliminating eyestrain from any type of medium: take regular breaks. Go on, walk over to the water cooler, even if you aren't thirsty; and by all means, move your easy chair at least two feet from the television. Above all: don't forget to blink.