IN BRIEF
Title: IN BRIEF , By: McGovern, Celeste, Report / Newsmagazine (National Edition), 6/10/2002, Vol. 29, Issue 12
Section: BRAVE NEW WORLD
• An Israeli scientist who helped to produce the first genetically modified bald chicken warned it might catch cold in cooler weather countries. Avigdor Cahaner of the Rehovot Agronomy Institute near Tel Aviv produced his red-skinned “naked” chicken by crossbreeding a small, bare-skinned bird with a broiler chicken. Is this a genetic scientist with a sick sense of humour? Mr. Cahaner swears his unfortunate critter is environmentally friendly, and low-calorie too. The bird doesn’t need plucking, which saves time at slaughter, and it grows faster than its feathered friends. Animal rights activists are likely not the only ones put off by this innovation, however. They have warned of the development of “roast chicken factories.” How would you like your chicken? Roasted, barbecued or sunburned?
• The most sophisticated and up-to-date in security systems is fingerprint recognition. Well, it was. Turns out that your unique and inimitable fingerprint that you alone carry with you at all times can be stolen. Ananova News Online reported May 17 that a Japanese researcher has made gelatin fingers from casts and used them to lift fingerprints from a glass surface. The jelly fraud fingers fooled the latest fingerprint security systems 80% of the time. So get ready for microchip implants.
• North America’s obsession with squeaky, shiny, and germ-free spic and span just got one degree cleaner. New Scientist News Online reported May 20 that researchers in New Jersey have invented a “super soap.” It creates a layer on the skin’s surface that bacteria have a hard time clinging to. Hands washed with the new soap become bacteria repellent, picking up 58% fewer bugs than those washed with ordinary soaps.
• Trying to quit smoking? Tried nicotine gum? The patch? Nothing curbs that craving? Researchers at the British firm Xenova are just rounding up the first set of trials for their anti-smoking vaccine. Five shots could induce a smoker’s body to form antibodies against nicotine –and help him quit. If it works, Ananova News Online reported May 13, it is five years or so before it comes to market. And then comes the anti-chocolate vaccine? The shot for French fries? An anti-beer immunization?
• No more “Not tonight honey, I’ve got a headache.” Concordia University’s Jim Pfaul is thrilled that he’s gotten the female rats in his Montreal laboratory three to five times more solicitous around the males in the cages after giving them a dose of a stimulant drug. Now the psychology professor sounds pretty excited himself about getting the Spanish fly drug, PT141, to market–within three years as a nasal spray that he hopes will have instant lust-inducing effects in women who sniff it.
“There’s nothing in the arsenal now to treat female sexual dysfunction,” Prof. Pfaul told BBC News Online May 21. “If you have a woman in a loving relationship, but who just doesn’t feel desire for sex, the question is why.” His answer, he thinks, “could be bigger than Viagra.” Well, of course it will be huge if it’s considered a “dysfunction” every time a man is randy and a woman is thinking she’ll paint the ceiling beige.
• Ryma, a beloved giraffe, died at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo recently, and, according to the Federalist Digest, the zoo turned an inquiring reporter’s request for the animal’s medical records down. “One reason is privacy,” zoo director Lucy Spelman wrote explaining the refusal. “Certainly, the privacy rules that apply to human medical records, and the physician-patient relationship, do not apply in precisely the same way to animal medicine at a public institution like the National Zoo. But we believe they do in principle.”
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By Celeste McGovern
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Source: Report / Newsmagazine (National Edition), 6/10/2002, Vol. 29 Issue 12, p56, 2p
