Patra Caesar
15-07-2005, 06:32
We have four stories of interest to show you this week, mostly scientific so please enjoy.
1. Monkey Magic: A possible explanation of George Dubya
2. A planet discovered orbiting three suns
3. Time Travel Conundrum caused by Einstein's theory resolved
4. 300 cats: That's a lot of stir-fry
Source (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15891104-13762,00.html)
'Human-brained' monkeys
July 11, 2005
SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.
In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.
Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.
An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.
The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.
These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.
Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes.
This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.
The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.
"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics.
New planet 'has three suns'
July 15, 2005
STAR Wars fans know all about Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet, whose two suns glare down on a vast desert.
Now comes an even more extraordinary, real-life sight: a newly discovered giant planet with three suns wheeling overhead.
The Jupiter-sized world is 149 light-years (about 1200 trillion kilometres, just next door for astronomers) from Earth in a triple-star system in the northern constellation Cygnus, or the Swan.
Maciej Konacki, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, reported the sighting in this week's edition of the British scientific journal Nature.
"With three suns, the sky view must be out of this world, literally," said Konacki.
Scientists 'prove' time travel
From correspondents in London
July 12, 2005
THE conundrum posed by Einstein's Theory of Relativity that allows space-time to loop back on itself, theoretically allowing time-travel to the past, has been resolved, according to two physicists writing in New Scientist.
Quantum theory, which describes small particles as both waves and matter, yields probabilities on the location of these particles, the particles appearing - in layman's terms - where the waves interfere with each other constructively.
Daniel Greenberger, of New York, and Karl Svozil, of Vienna, solved the equations for waves going backwards in time and found they always interfered destructively.
This means the particles do not appear and the conundrum does not arise.
"If you go back quantum mechanically, you would only see alternatives consistent with the world you left behind," Greenberger said.
Elderly woman hoards 300 cats
July 13, 2005
ABOUT 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman's Virginia home after neighbours complained of a stench coming from the house, US police said today.
The house, less than 1.5km from late president George Washington's historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, faeces and urine.
"Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them," Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry said.
He said animal control officers removed 273 cats - 86 of them dead - over the weekend and slapped a condemnation order on the door of the house. The woman, her husband and daughter were told to leave.
Later, Mr Henry said, the woman returned and tried to smuggle an additional 30 cats from the house. These animals were confiscated, bringing the total to more than 300.
Ruth Knueven, 82, was charged with failing to care for her animals and of improperly disposing of them.
Dozens of dead cats were found in plastic bins around the house.
Most of the cats were inbred and sick and were unfit for adoption, said Mr Henry.
"These were feral cats who were given free range of the house and almost all of them will, unfortunately, have to be put down," he said.
Two weeks earlier, a 58-year-old woman in nearby Falls Church, Virginia, had her home condemned after neighbours complained of an overpowering stench coming from the property.
She had hoarded 88 cats and 29 of them were dead.
1. Monkey Magic: A possible explanation of George Dubya
2. A planet discovered orbiting three suns
3. Time Travel Conundrum caused by Einstein's theory resolved
4. 300 cats: That's a lot of stir-fry
Source (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15891104-13762,00.html)
'Human-brained' monkeys
July 11, 2005
SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.
In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.
Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.
An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.
The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.
These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.
Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes.
This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.
The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.
"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics.
New planet 'has three suns'
July 15, 2005
STAR Wars fans know all about Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet, whose two suns glare down on a vast desert.
Now comes an even more extraordinary, real-life sight: a newly discovered giant planet with three suns wheeling overhead.
The Jupiter-sized world is 149 light-years (about 1200 trillion kilometres, just next door for astronomers) from Earth in a triple-star system in the northern constellation Cygnus, or the Swan.
Maciej Konacki, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, reported the sighting in this week's edition of the British scientific journal Nature.
"With three suns, the sky view must be out of this world, literally," said Konacki.
Scientists 'prove' time travel
From correspondents in London
July 12, 2005
THE conundrum posed by Einstein's Theory of Relativity that allows space-time to loop back on itself, theoretically allowing time-travel to the past, has been resolved, according to two physicists writing in New Scientist.
Quantum theory, which describes small particles as both waves and matter, yields probabilities on the location of these particles, the particles appearing - in layman's terms - where the waves interfere with each other constructively.
Daniel Greenberger, of New York, and Karl Svozil, of Vienna, solved the equations for waves going backwards in time and found they always interfered destructively.
This means the particles do not appear and the conundrum does not arise.
"If you go back quantum mechanically, you would only see alternatives consistent with the world you left behind," Greenberger said.
Elderly woman hoards 300 cats
July 13, 2005
ABOUT 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman's Virginia home after neighbours complained of a stench coming from the house, US police said today.
The house, less than 1.5km from late president George Washington's historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, faeces and urine.
"Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them," Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry said.
He said animal control officers removed 273 cats - 86 of them dead - over the weekend and slapped a condemnation order on the door of the house. The woman, her husband and daughter were told to leave.
Later, Mr Henry said, the woman returned and tried to smuggle an additional 30 cats from the house. These animals were confiscated, bringing the total to more than 300.
Ruth Knueven, 82, was charged with failing to care for her animals and of improperly disposing of them.
Dozens of dead cats were found in plastic bins around the house.
Most of the cats were inbred and sick and were unfit for adoption, said Mr Henry.
"These were feral cats who were given free range of the house and almost all of them will, unfortunately, have to be put down," he said.
Two weeks earlier, a 58-year-old woman in nearby Falls Church, Virginia, had her home condemned after neighbours complained of an overpowering stench coming from the property.
She had hoarded 88 cats and 29 of them were dead.