Congressional Hearing Asks: Should Privately Funded Human Cloning Be Banned in the U. S.?

Since Dolly, the Scotland sheep, was the world's first cloned mammal in 1997, many other animals have been cloned and some scientists now want to clone humans. Graphic © 2001 by The British Council.
Since Dolly, the Scotland sheep, was the world's first cloned mammal in 1997, many other animals have been cloned and some scientists now want to clone humans. Graphic © 2001 by The British Council.

April 1, 2001  Washington, D. C. - Representative James C. Greenwood (R., Pa.) called a hearing to order on March 28, 2001 to consider human cloning and whether it should be banned in the United States. Rep. Greenwood is Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee. "Although publicly funded human cloning research is prohibited," Rep. Greenwood said, "privately funded human cloning research is not."

 

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Mad Cow and Foot and Mouth Disease Spreading

A British farmer aims bolt gun to kill another of his cows in effort to contain spread of foot and mouth virus. Photograph © 2001 by The Associated Press.
A British farmer aims bolt gun to kill another of his cows in effort to contain spread of foot and mouth virus. Photograph © 2001 by The Associated Press.

March 26, 2001 -

Foot and Mouth Disease Spreading Internationally

The Dutch Agriculture Minister confirmed last week that four cows and hundreds of goats in Holland are infected and the herd and flocks must be destroyed and incinerated. The European Union quickly imposed a ban on livestock exports from the Netherlands and on exports of meat, dairy and animal products from four Dutch provinces. About 17,000 animals within a 1000 yard radius of the three infected farms will be killed.

 

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Alps Permafrost Melting

Swiss Alps between Wenger and Kleine Scheidegg © 2001 by Johnno.
Swiss Alps between Wenger and Kleine Scheidegg © 2001 by Johnno.

March 24, 2001  Swiss Alps - The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported this week that the Alps are warming up faster than the rest of he world. Prof. Martin Beniston, head of the Geosciences Department of the University of Fribourg, predicted that global warming could push the snow line up from 1200 to 1800 meters (3,816-5,724 feet).

 

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Earth Hasn’t Been This Warm Since the Pliocene 3 Million Years Ago

 

March 21, 2001 - It was only six months ago that Presidential campaigner George Bush pledged to regulate power plant emissions of carbon dioxide in order to help reduce global warming. But this month as president, he has now reversed himself saying there is a national energy crisis. At the same time, a study was published in the journal Nature confirming unequivocally that greenhouse gases are increasing. Scientists at London's Imperial College compared 1997 infrared reflections of carbon dioxide, methane and ozone from Earth's surface and found less was escaping into space compared to satellite data in 1970. Atmospheric physicist John Harries said, "We're absolutely sure; there's no ambiguity. This shows the greenhouse effect is operating, and what we are seeing can only be due to the increase in the gases."

 

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USDA Finally Removes 233 European Sheep from Vermont Farm After Court Battles

European sheep in morning mist © 1998 by ilfracombe.
European sheep in morning mist © 1998 by ilfracombe.

March 21, 2001  Greensboro, Vermont - After months of legal battles, the U. S. Department of Agriculture acted today and took 233 sheep from Vermont farmers, Houghton Freeman and Linda and Larry Faillace. It started back in July 2000 when four sheep on their Greensboro, Vermont farm tested positive for antibodies to Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, or TSE, - a family of diseases caused by misshapen proteins called prions - the most famous being BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow disease. The destructive proteins attack the spinal cord and brain, literally eating holes in tissues which deteriorate to resemble a sponge, always ending in death.

 

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Can Earth Plants and Bacteria Grow On Mars?

Global topographic map of Mars created from more than 6 million laser measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Red is highest altitude and blue is lowest. The Northern Hemisphere of Mars shown in the bottom globe is several meters lower than the Southern Hemisphere and is where water would have collected if it ever existed, shown in blue. The big groove is the Valles Marineris, largest canyon in solar system and the white objects are the huge volcanoes in the Tharsis Montes, Olympus Mons being the largest volcano in the solar system. Large blue oval on upper globe is the Hellas Basin, the largest crater impact known in the solar system. Images courtesy NASA.
Global topographic map of Mars created from more than 6 million laser measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Red is highest altitude and blue is lowest. The Northern Hemisphere of Mars shown in the bottom globe is several meters lower than the Southern Hemisphere and is where water would have collected if it ever existed, shown in blue. The big groove is the Valles Marineris, largest canyon in solar system and the white objects are the huge volcanoes in the Tharsis Montes, Olympus Mons being the largest volcano in the solar system. Large blue oval on upper globe is the Hellas Basin, the largest crater impact known in the solar system. Images courtesy NASA.


March 18, 2001 Houston, Texas - This past week I was in Houston at the Johnson Space Center to attend the 32nd Lunar and Planetary Space Institute meeting held since the first Apollo days. This was the largest conference so far. More than a thousand planetary scientists from around the world presented their latest research data on Mercury, Venus, Earth's Moon, the Asteroid Eros, Jupiter's moons, Europa, Callisto and Io. But probably the most exciting sessions were about Mars. There were more than a hundred papers presented about the red planet. Hundreds of high resolution photographs from the Mars Global Surveyor showed valleys and rippled features that on Earth would mean only one thing: water.

 

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Are the “Tubes” On Mars from Lava, Water, or Wind?

 Mars Global Surveyor MOC Image m0400291, Northern Hemisphere, Acidalia Planitia, Latitude 39.12 Degrees North and Longitude 27.08 Degrees West. Spacecraft Altitude was 410.24 kilometers. Image by Malin Space Science Systems.
Mars Global Surveyor MOC Image m0400291, Northern Hemisphere, Acidalia Planitia, Latitude 39.12 Degrees North and Longitude 27.08 Degrees West. Spacecraft Altitude was 410.24 kilometers. Image by Malin Space Science Systems.

March 11, 2001 - Planetary scientists, geophysicists and astrogeologists will be gathering in Houston this week to discuss our solar system. It's the 32nd Lunar and Planetary Institute meeting at the Johnson Space Center. One of the most puzzling planets is Mars and recently I talked with two scientists who will be presenting papers about their work on the red planet. Dr. Maria Zuber is Professor of Geophysics and Planetary Science at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is also Deputy Investigator of the Global Topography Map Mission now underway on Mars. Dr. Bob Craddock is a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution Center for Earth and Planetary Studies in Washington, D. C.

 

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Disappearing Glaciers – Evidence of A Rapidly Warming Earth

"Since 1963, the Qori Kalis glacier in Peru's Quelccaya ice cap
in the Southern Andes has shrunk by at least 20%.
The rate of retreat has been 509 feet per year, or 1.3 feet per day!
You can literally sit there and watch it retreat.
And if you assume that the current rate of retreat will continue,
this ice cap will disappear some time between 2010 and 2020."

- Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D., Glacial Geologist, Ohio State University -

Qori Kalis glacier in Peru's Quelccaya ice cap, Southern Andes. Image on left, 1978. Image on right, 2000, shows new 10 acre lake from ice melt. Twenty percent decrease in square kilometers of ice, retreating at 1.3 feet per day since 1963. Photographs by Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D.
Qori Kalis glacier in Peru's Quelccaya ice cap, Southern Andes. Image on top, 1978. Image on bottom, 2000, shows new 10 acre lake from ice melt. Twenty percent decrease in square kilometers of ice, retreating at 1.3 feet per day since 1963. Photographs by Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D.


March 4, 2001  Columbus, Ohio - At the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in San Francisco on February 25, Prof. Lonnie Thompson from Ohio State University's Department of Geological Sciences presented a paper entitled "Disappearing Glaciers - Evidence of A Rapidly Changing Earth." He spoke before a special session of Earth Systems Science: The Quiet Revolution, organized by the International Geosphere/Biosphere program. Dr. Thompson has completed 37 expeditions since 1978 to collect and study perhaps the world's largest archive of glacial ice cored from the Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, the Andes in South America, the Antarctic and Greenland.

 

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Slowing Light to A “Stop” for Fraction of A Second

Harvard-Smithsonian laser apparatus used to store photon "signal" for fraction of a second in small glass cell filled with rubidium gas. February 2001 photograph courtesy physicists Ron Walsworth and David Phillips.
Harvard-Smithsonian laser apparatus used to store photon "signal" for fraction of a second in small glass cell filled with rubidium gas. February 2001 photograph courtesy physicists Ron Walsworth and David Phillips.

February 27, 2001  Cambridge, Massachusetts - A revolutionary step in physics was reported around the world on January 18, 2001 when The New York Times headlined "Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It,Then Send It on Its Way." The scientists are actually two independent teams of physicists who both managed to slow photons down. One group is led by Lene Vestergaard Hau, Ph.D. of Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass. The second group was lead by Ronald L. Walsworth, Ph.D., and Mikhail D. Lukin, Ph.D. of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also in Cambridge, with colleagues Dr. David Phillips, Annet Fleischhauer and Dr. Alois Mair.

 

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A New Martian Mystery

"It's puzzling. I looked at a few pictures around (area) and couldn't find anything to explain it. Very puzzling! These are huge boulders. There are no indications of any outcrops that could shed such boulders."

- Michael Carr, U. S. Geological Survey -

Scattered 80-foot dark boulders - from where? Nilosyrtis Mensae Valleys, mid-Martian latitude. High resolution image is 3 kilometers wide by 4.9 kilometers vertical (1.9 miles by 3 miles) taken on February 14, 2001 by the Red Rover Goes to Mars International Student Training Mission. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Malin Space Sciences Systems.
Scattered 80-foot dark boulders - from where? Nilosyrtis Mensae Valleys, mid-Martian latitude. High resolution image is 3 kilometers wide by 4.9 kilometers vertical (1.9 miles by 3 miles) taken on February 14, 2001 by the Red Rover Goes to Mars International Student Training Mission. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Malin Space Sciences Systems.

February 25, 2001  Carlsbad, California - On February 14 while NASA's Near spacecraft was making its historic landing on the Eros asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, a camera on the Mars Global Surveyor orbiting the red planet was under the guidance of an international group of four girls and five boys aged 10 to 15 known as the Red Rover Goes to Mars team.

 

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