Animal - Human Embryo Research Approved In Britain

January 17, 2008

Experiments to create Britain’s first embryos that combine human and animal material will begin within months after a government watchdog gave its approval yesterday to two research teams to carry out the controversial work.

Scientists at King’s College London, and the University of Newcastle will inject human DNA into empty eggs from cows to create embryos known as cytoplasmic hybrids, which are 99.9 per cent human in genetic terms.

The experiments are intended to provide insights into diseases such as Parkinson’s and spinal muscular atrophy by producing stem cells containing genetic defects that contribute to these conditions. These will be used as cell models for investigating new approaches to treatment, and to improve the understanding of how embryonic stem cells develop.

They will not be used in therapy, and it is illegal to implant them into the womb. The decision, taken by the by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority HFEA, to grant one-year licences to both teams ends more than a year of uncertainty for the researchers, who first applied for permission in the autumn of 2006.

Frankenfoods - Alert Over Grey Goo In Nanotechnology

January 14, 2008

A new breed of Frankenfood is being introduced into human diet and cosmetics with potentially disastrous consequences, experts said last night.

Academics, consumer groups and Government officials are warning that the arrival of nanotechnology threatens dangerous changes to the body and the environment.

The particles it uses are so small - 80,000 times thinner than a human hair - that they can pass through membranes protecting the brain or babies in the womb.

Nano health supplements, such as antioxidants, are already on the market while the first of hundreds of new foods are expected to arrive in the next 12 months.

However, the products are being introdeduced without any regulation or independent assessment to ensure they are safe - mirroring the controversy over the launch of GM foods ten years ago.

Some critics have talked of the threat of the creation of a “grey goo” of tiny particles with hidden harmful properties.

Prince Charles has said it would be “surprising” if the technology did not “offer similar upsets” to thalidomide - the morning sickness drug that caused children to be born with deformed limbs.

Professor Vicki Stone, Professor of Toxicology at Napier University in Edinburgh, is concerned about unforeseen side effects.

“We know very little about the ability of nanoparticles to move around the body, to accumulate or to be excreted, or their potential to cause toxic effects in organs,” she said.

However, nanotech advocates have remarkable claims for the technology. For example, foods are in development that are said to stave off the aging process.

On a more trivial level, they suggest it would be possible to create a fizzy drink that changes flavour according to the number of times the can is shaken.

Helium Supplies Endangered, Threatening Science And Technology

January 7, 2008

The element that lifts things like balloons, spirits and voice ranges is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years.

This deflates more than the Goodyear blimp and party favors. Its larger impact is on science and technology, according to Lee Sobotka, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Helium’s use in science is extremely broad, but its most important use is as a coolant,” said Sobotka, a specialist in nuclear chemistry and physics who collaborates with researchers at several national laboratories.

Generally the larger users of helium (He), such as the national laboratories, have the infrastructure to efficiently use and recycle helium, Sobotka said. The same cannot be said of many smaller scale users.

Helium plays a role in nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production, among other technological applications. NASA uses large amounts annually to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks.

“Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it.”

Drift away

The helium we have on Earth has been built up over billions of years from the decay of natural uranium and thorium. The decay of these elements proceeds at a super-snail’s pace. For example, one of the most important isotopes for helium production is uranium-238. In the entire life span of the earth only half of the uranium-238 atoms have decayed (yielding eight helium atoms in the process) and an inconsequential fraction decay in about 1,000 years.

As the uranium and thorium decay, some of the helium is trapped along with natural gas deposits in certain geological formations. Some of the produced helium seeps out of the Earth’s mantle and drifts into the atmosphere, where there is approximately five parts per million of helium. However this helium, as well as any helium ultimately released into the atmosphere by users, drifts up and is eventually lost to the Earth.

Helium is applied broadly in science and technology, from nuclear magnetic resonance to computer microchip production and devices like this mass spectroscopy apparatus.

“When we use what has been made over the approximate 4.5 billion of years the Earth has been around, we will run out,” Sobotka said . “We cannot get too significant quantities of helium from the sun — which can be viewed as a helium factory 93 million miles away — nor will we ever produce helium in anywhere near the quantities we need from Earth-bound factories. Helium could eventually be produced directly in nuclear fusion reactors and is produced indirectly in nuclear fission reactors, but the quantities produced by such sources are dwarfed by our needs.”

Unlike any other element, helium 4 (two protons, two neutrons) becomes a liquid below 4.2 Kelvin, just four degrees short of absolute zero. When one puts an object next to liquid helium, energy is extracted from the object, making it colder. The energy extracted from the object vaporizes the helium. It is this helium vapor which, Sobotka claims, should always be recaptured, to be recycled for future use.

Much of the world’s supply of helium lies in a reserve in the Texas Panhandle, better known for the locales of Larry McMurtry’s novels, such as “The Last Picture Show,” and “Texasville,” than as an elemental factory farm.

Scientists haven’t even approached mining helium out of the air because costs are too prohibitive.

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Animal - Human Embryo Research Approved In Britain

Frankenfoods - Alert Over Grey Goo In Nanotechnology

Helium Supplies Endangered, Threatening Science And Technology

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