From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Thu Jun 17 1999 - 15:55:14 MDT
Okay, I hope this is better, although, you can't expect me to forgoe further
postings beyond this daily news. However, this is showing an effort!
Nanogirl
Chimps Have Culture
AP Newswire
Researchers now agree that the variety of behavior exhibited by mankind's
closest relative can be summed up in a single word: culture.
Story at:
http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/SCIENCE/ChimpCulture.html
First human embryo is cloned in America
Scottish Daily Record
SCIENTISTS in America have cloned the first human embryo, it was revealed
last night.
Using methods similar to those which produce Dolly the Sheep at Edinburgh's
Roslin Institute, they produced a male embryo made up of nearly 400 cells.
This is illegal in Britain.
The research team at the Massachusetts-based Advance Cell Technology firm
incinerated the embryo after 14 days.
They want to produce human body tissue which can be used to treat patients
with various conditions, including nerve damage, diabetes and Parkinson's
disease.
A DNA-loaded nucleus of a human cell was extracted from a skin sample from a
man's leg and then inserted into a hollowed-out egg from a cow.
The egg was then placed in a laboratory dish and soaked in a chemical
solution that fooled it into thinking it was a newly conceived embryo.
The cells then began to develop into an embryo.
News of the breakthrough is expected to fuel worries about the advance of
genetic technology and allied ethical problems.
It is also expected to raise serious moral concerns over exactly what
constitutes a human being.
Advance Cell Technology deny they have any intentions of producing a cloned
baby.
And they insist the embryo cannot be considered a person if it is less than
14 days old, because no nervous system has developed up to that point.
British fertility expert Lord Winston said the development was "totally
ethical" and defended the technology as a huge breakthrough in tissue
engineering with huge medical potential.
A team of engineering students from the University of Illinois at Chicago
won the 1999 Ethanol Vehicle Challenge on May 26, demonstrating both their
engineering prowess and the commercial promise of ethanol, a corn-based
fuel.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990615080429.htm
University Park, Pa. -- Anyone who uses a microwave knows that metals, such
as aluminum foil, should not be placed in these ovens, but a team of Penn
State material scientists is microwaving a wide range of powder metals and
producing machine components with improved properties.
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/psu-mpm060999.html
Matter Studied, Jiggling, At Virtual Absolute Zero
For the first time, researchers have, in effect, studied matter at a
temperature of absolute zero. According to quantum mechanics, objects cooled
to absolute zero do not freeze to a complete standstill; instead, they
jiggle around by some minimum amount. This amount has now been measured,
according to the American Institute of Physics' Physics News Update No. 433.
MIT researchers measured such "zero-point motion" in a sodium Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC), a collection of gas atoms that are collectively in the
lowest possible energy state. According to Wolfgang Ketterle, "the
condensate has no entropy and behaves like matter at absolute zero."
Ketterle and other MIT physicists measured the motion (or lack thereof) by
taking advantage of the fact that atoms absorb light at slightly lower
frequencies if they are moving away from the light, and at slightly higher
frequencies if they are moving towards the light.
To determine these Doppler shifts (100 billion times smaller than those of
moving galaxies), the researchers used a technique known as Bragg
scattering.
In this technique, atoms absorb photons at one energy from a laser beam and
are stimulated by a second laser to emit a photon at another energy which
can be shifted upward or downward depending on the atoms' motion towards or
away from the lasers.
Measuring the range in energies of the emitted photons allowed the
researchers to determine the range of momentum values in the condensate.
Multiplying this measured momentum spread (delta p) by the size of the
condensate (delta x) gave an answer of approximately h-bar (Planck's
constant divided by 2 pi) -- the minimum value allowed by Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle and quantum physics.
While earlier BECs surely harvested this zero-point motion, previous
measurements of BEC momentum spreads were done with exploding condensates
having energies hundreds of times larger than the zero-point energy. (J.
Stenger et al., Physical Review Letters, 7 June 1999.)
Try your hand at cracking the code that the CIA can't
ABC
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt9990615_ciacode.html
In search of eternal youth (MSNBC)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/180101.asp
Thursday June 17 4:34 PM ET
U.S. Rejects Animal-Human Patent Attempt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected an
attempt to patent a technique for making animal-human hybrids, the activists
who submitted the patent application said Thursday.
The activists, who said they submitted the patent as a demonstration and
never planned to actually make a half-human, half-animal creature, called
the ruling a victory for their cause.
``The landmark ruling puts in jeopardy scores of previously granted patents
on animal inventions which contain human genes and other biological
information in their genetic makeup,'' Jeremy Rifkin, president of the
Foundation on Economic Trends, and New York Medical College biology
professor Stuart Newman said in a statement.
Rifkin, a writer and economist who has battled against granting patents on
living things, and Newman, who helped found the Council for Responsible
Genetics, said when they filed the patent application last year that they
wanted to spark a debate on the issue.
They also hoped to block research that involves making cross-species
animals, known technically as chimeras. They said they had hoped that by
owning a patent on it, they could stop researchers from using the technique.
But according to their statement, the Patent Office said it could not issue
a patent embracing human beings.
Rifkin and Newman argue that it already has.
Mice, rabbits, sheep and cows have been genetically engineered to carry
human genes for making products ranging from alpha 1-anti-trypsin, used to
treat cystic fibrosis, to lactoferrin, which can boost the immune system.
Many have been patented, although they usually only carry one or a few human
genes, making them at the most only a fraction of a percent human.
Now Rifkin and Newman said they plan to appeal the decision.
They say they want to force Congress and the courts to take another look at
the policy of granting patents on life forms.
``The question of how much human genetic information may be included in a
genetically modified animal and still be granted a patent will be of
increasing commercial, legal and political interest in the months and years
ahead as life science companies seek patents on a range of genetically
modified research animals and cloned animals,'' they said.
``The PTO (Patent and Trademark Office) has presented no criteria that can
distinguish a human from a non-human organizm,'' Newman said in the
statement.
``The logical conclusion of their response to us is that no organizms should
be patented.''
In 1987 the PTO ruled that all living things can be patented except human
beings, because of the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed
slavery.
Russians hack US Printer
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990617S0007
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
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