The BA Science News Digest - 17 March 2006
In the news this week, volunteers critically ill as drug trial does wrong. Scientists report that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise sharply. Plus, meerkats exposed...
The news has been dominated this week by the story of the drug trials which have gone terribly wrong. As BBC News Online reports, six volunteers are in intensive care in hospital – two still critically ill – after adverse and horrific reactions to a drug they were testing. The drug was expected to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and leukaemia.
Despite the horror of the current case, Nigel Hawkes, the Times Health Correspondent, explains that drug trial rarely go so wrong. ‘Few processes are more scrupulously designed or more carefully monitored, and while they often end in disappointment they seldom produce such dramatic and frightening effects.’
In the Guardian, columnist Mark Lawson wonders whether the success of animal rights protestors has shifted the brunt of the risk onto human guinea pigs. He writes: ‘If an increase in human testing proves to have contributed to this tragedy, the time will have come for society to decide what it prefers: dead guinea pigs, dead human guinea pigs, or fewer drugs.’
News of the drug trials somewhat overshadowed the news that millions of heart disease sufferers have been offered fresh hope as doctors revealed they have found a way of reversing the illness. The Herald reports that an international research team, which included staff at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, has announced they have managed to reduce the build-up of fatty deposits in patients' arteries for the first time.
To mark National Science Week, which is drawing to a close, Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society, warned of the problems that the decline in popularity of science in schools poses to Britain’s’ place in world science. As the Telegraph reports, Lord Rees used a very symbolic image to illustrate his point – the decaying statue of Sir Isaac Newton in Leicester Square.
As readers of the Science News Digest will be aware, the BA has been running Click for the Climate as part of National Science Week. The initiative is aimed at getting everyone to take personal responsibility to reduce their energy consumption and hence their carbon dioxide emissions – already we have received almost 15,000 pledges. News this week showed why this is ever more urgent...
New Scientist reports that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere at an ever faster rate. Research published this week by the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has renewed concern that nature’s ability to absorb the gas may be waning.
Officials from UNESCO have been meeting this week to discuss the threat posed by climate change to world heritage sites, which include the Great Barrier Reef and even the Tower of London. And surprise, surprise – according to BBC News Online, ‘the US says UNESCO has no brief to consider anthropogenic climate change as a "threat" to protected sites because it is an unproven theory.’
The much-anticipated UK Biobank finally began recruiting participants this week, nine years after the idea for the project was first proposed, as The Scientist reports. The £61 million study is designed to allow researchers to probe the complex interplay between genes, environment, and disease in half a million people.
The Guardian reported this week on a bizarre patent which has recently been re-discovered...
Fed up with the trains being delayed by leaves on the track or the wrong type of snow? If a patent placed by British Rail in 1973 had been developed further, these might no longer have been a problem. Engineers patented plans to transport passengers by... a nuclear-powered flying saucer!
And finally...
Meerkats have long been a favourite of mine, livening up any natural history programme. (In fact, the sight of a meerkat atop Sir David Attenborough’s shoulder in Life of Mammals was almost as perfect as TV could get.) But news this week that they are not quite the cute, inquisitive creatures that they first appear... As the Daily Telegraph reported this week, scientists have revealed how meerkat society is riven by jealousy, murder and cannibalism.
The news has been dominated this week by the story of the drug trials which have gone terribly wrong. As BBC News Online reports, six volunteers are in intensive care in hospital – two still critically ill – after adverse and horrific reactions to a drug they were testing. The drug was expected to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and leukaemia.
Despite the horror of the current case, Nigel Hawkes, the Times Health Correspondent, explains that drug trial rarely go so wrong. ‘Few processes are more scrupulously designed or more carefully monitored, and while they often end in disappointment they seldom produce such dramatic and frightening effects.’
In the Guardian, columnist Mark Lawson wonders whether the success of animal rights protestors has shifted the brunt of the risk onto human guinea pigs. He writes: ‘If an increase in human testing proves to have contributed to this tragedy, the time will have come for society to decide what it prefers: dead guinea pigs, dead human guinea pigs, or fewer drugs.’
News of the drug trials somewhat overshadowed the news that millions of heart disease sufferers have been offered fresh hope as doctors revealed they have found a way of reversing the illness. The Herald reports that an international research team, which included staff at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, has announced they have managed to reduce the build-up of fatty deposits in patients' arteries for the first time.
To mark National Science Week, which is drawing to a close, Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society, warned of the problems that the decline in popularity of science in schools poses to Britain’s’ place in world science. As the Telegraph reports, Lord Rees used a very symbolic image to illustrate his point – the decaying statue of Sir Isaac Newton in Leicester Square.
As readers of the Science News Digest will be aware, the BA has been running Click for the Climate as part of National Science Week. The initiative is aimed at getting everyone to take personal responsibility to reduce their energy consumption and hence their carbon dioxide emissions – already we have received almost 15,000 pledges. News this week showed why this is ever more urgent...
New Scientist reports that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere at an ever faster rate. Research published this week by the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has renewed concern that nature’s ability to absorb the gas may be waning.
Officials from UNESCO have been meeting this week to discuss the threat posed by climate change to world heritage sites, which include the Great Barrier Reef and even the Tower of London. And surprise, surprise – according to BBC News Online, ‘the US says UNESCO has no brief to consider anthropogenic climate change as a "threat" to protected sites because it is an unproven theory.’
The much-anticipated UK Biobank finally began recruiting participants this week, nine years after the idea for the project was first proposed, as The Scientist reports. The £61 million study is designed to allow researchers to probe the complex interplay between genes, environment, and disease in half a million people.
The Guardian reported this week on a bizarre patent which has recently been re-discovered...
Fed up with the trains being delayed by leaves on the track or the wrong type of snow? If a patent placed by British Rail in 1973 had been developed further, these might no longer have been a problem. Engineers patented plans to transport passengers by... a nuclear-powered flying saucer!
And finally...
Meerkats have long been a favourite of mine, livening up any natural history programme. (In fact, the sight of a meerkat atop Sir David Attenborough’s shoulder in Life of Mammals was almost as perfect as TV could get.) But news this week that they are not quite the cute, inquisitive creatures that they first appear... As the Daily Telegraph reported this week, scientists have revealed how meerkat society is riven by jealousy, murder and cannibalism.
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