Text 680, 60 rader
Skriven 2005-12-22 15:21:02 av Herman Trivilino (1:106/2000.7)
Ärende: What's New, by Bob Park
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What's New
by Bob Park

Friday, December 16, 2005

1. SPACE DEVELOPMENT: WILL "SIX FLAGS OVER THE MOON" BE NEXT?
The big news this week is that New Mexico is building the first commercial
spaceport. British entrepreneur Richard Branson says his Virgin Galactic
Airline will use the spaceport to launch tourists on suborbital flights
beginning in 2008. A $200,000 ticket will buy you five minutes of
weightlessness, with no extra charge for space sickness. With America's
once-proud space program hard-put to support a crew of only two, wandering lost
in the cavernous ISS, the future in space seems to be theme parks. According to
China Daily, even the newest space-faring power wants some of the theme park
action. Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province, said to have been visited by a
UFO in 1994, received $20M from a Taiwan-based company for a UFO research
center.

2. CLONE SCANDAL: KOREAN SCIENTIST REPORTEDLY ADMITS FABRICATION.
The goal of treating people with tissues cloned from their own stem cells had
seemed almost in reach. In May, Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues reported in
Science that they had cloned stem cells from 11 patients. Hwang became an
international celebrity and a Korean hero. Then there were reports that women
who worked in his lab had been pressured to donate eggs for the experiment.
Last month, an American collaborator asked that his name be taken off the paper
citing "ethical violations." Now the work seems to be unraveling completely,
with Hwang reportedly admitting that critical parts of the "discovery" had been
fabricated.

3. GHOST STORY: WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS.
On Tuesday, a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal, by Staff Reporter
Anna Wilde Mathews, dealt with publication of ghost-written papers in major
medical journals. The papers bear the names of academic researchers, who
presumably agree with the articles. The intent, however, is not to disseminate
knowledge, but to promote the products of the company that paid to have it
written. We expel students who turn in ghost-written papers. WN has reported
before on unhealthy ties of NIH scientists to drug companies, (WN 9 Jul 04) .
Something like it seems to be going on with academic scientists.

4. EVOLUTION: THINGS ARE A LITTLE STICKY IN COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA.
Yesterday, a federal appeals court panel seemed to some observers to be
critical of the ruling requiring removal of a sticker from biology texts (WN 14
Jan 05) . It read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is
a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material
should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically
considered." The sticker was not factually inaccurate. The attorney who argued
the case against the stickers at last years trial remarked admitted that, "I'm
more worried than I was when I walked in this morning."


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Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but
they should be.

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 * Origin: Big Bang (1:106/2000.7)