Cloning Around In Japan

Nature reports that Japan may soon authorize experimental human embryonic cloning. This would overturn a 2001 Japanese ban on such research. Human cloning will have to adhere to "rigorous ethical regulations", and human reproductive cloning will still be banned.

Japan's legal volta face will not go unnoticed by countries hoping to remain at, or reach, the competitive frontiers of biotechnology.

Remember the quagga

Olivia Judson, Musings inspired by a quagga, The New York Times: The Wild Side blog (May 27, 2008)

The hall is hushed, like a church. No one else is here. The only sound is the clicking of the heels of my shoes. I walk up and down, looking at the animals. They make no noise, for they are dead.

Franz Roubal, The Extermination of the Quagga. Oil on canvas, 1931

Many of them are also gone. Like the quagga, a kind of zebra from southern Africa, which was hunted to extinction in the 19th century. It stares at me from behind glass. I stare back. It has a zebra’s face and neck, but lacks stripes on its torso, which is a dusky gray. Zookeepers said that the quagga was more docile than other zebras; but even in zoos there are none today.

A few glass cases later, I come to the O’ahu O’o’, a small, pretty bird from the forests of the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. A living specimen has not been seen since 1837. I pause to wonder about its mating display. Further on, there’s the desert bandicoot, a tiny creature with huge ears and kangaroo feet that had vanished from Australia by 1907. And now I’m gazing at the dark flying fox, a fruit bat from the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Réunion. In the 1730s it was so abundant it was considered for commercial exploitation (the making of oil); by 1880 it had gone.

Grande Galerie de l'Évolution, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Here, at the natural history museum in Paris, in the hall of the endangered and the recently extinct, the vanishing and the vanished, it’s poignant to see these creatures. To put a few faces to the names, to visit a handful of representatives from the dreary and numbing statistics of forests felled and oceans over-fished. . . .

The Double Helix

James Watson's memoir, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (1st ed. 1969; reprint 2001), has been described by Sylvia Nasar as "unique in the annals of science writing." The Double Helix describes a "discovery . . . of a magnitude comparable, in terms of scientific and social significance, to the breakthroughs that led to the splitting of the atom and the invention of the computer." Perhaps even more remarkable, "[i]t is also a wonderfully readable human drama that lets nonscientists share some of the intellectual excitement, high emotion, and incredible suspense."

Watson's own words speak for themselves:

[S]cience seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles. To this end I have attempted to re-create my first impressions of the relevant events and personalities rather than present an assessment which takes into account the many facts I have learned since the structure was found. Although the latter approach might be more objective, it would fail to convey the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty. Thus many of the comments may seem one-sided and unfair, but this is often the case in the incomplete and hurried way in which human beings frequently decide to like or dislike a new idea or acquaintance.

More on the Polar Bear Listing

Along with the decision to list polar bears (noted here, history here), DOI issued a 4(d) rule. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s comments announcing the listing decision also lay out its limits: it will “not open the door to use the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources” and the 4(d) rule “will ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way.” In other words, the rule is crafted, in part, to minimize impact on oil operations. This is not surprising, given that Kempthorne, roundly criticized by environmental groups upon his nomination, complained in the announcement that the ESA prevents him “from taking into account economic conditions and adverse consequences in making listing decisions.”

Potentially more important than its impact on specific activities, the polar bear listing carries enormous symbolic value. It highlights the effects of climate change beyond human discomfort or dislocation. It is a clear illustration of climate change impacting species survival. Because addressing climate change requires global thinking and recognition of complex natural systems, it may be the best route to broader public (and policy-maker) recognition of the need to maintain biodiversity as the planet’s life support system. As in past environmental issues, this charismatic megafauna represents the vanguard of public awareness. Protecting the polar bear is clearly a biodiversity issue, reaching broader ecosystem issues just as the spotted owl or Pacific salmon do. But can the acknowledgement of the threat to this top predator from climate change promote better understanding of the biodiversity crisis? Or is it simply another tangible attention-getter for promoting climate change awareness (like sea level rise) that, however valuable, will not significantly affect biodiversity policies or perceptions?

An AP piece, appearing in the Anchorage Daily News, opens: “It's not about saving the polar bear as much as the polar bear saving us” (from climate change). For towns in polar bear country, there is the speculation whether the listing will reduce tourist income (by banning import of trophies from hunting in Canada) or boost it (by creating urgency for the visits).

At this point, there is little evidence that the polar bear listing will spark greater attention to biodiversity concerns in climate change policy. Nonetheless, using the nation’s – perhaps the world’s – strongest biodiversity protection law at the cutting edge of climate change issues bodes well for biodiversity preservation gaining ground in the draft of the momentum that climate change has gained.

Trouble in bear country

As rising temperatures change life on a global scale, we should not be surprised that Ursus maritimus, the eponymous bear of the far north, has now come under the aegis of the Endangered Species Act.

Threatened

Ovarian Cancer Awareness

Among women in the United States, ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer, and fifth most common cause of cancer deaths. Although, far less common than breast, colon or prostate cancer, ovarian cancer has a much higher death rate. Why? Because there is no screening test, and most women experience few symptoms until they have advanced stages of the disease. The combination often proves deadly.

According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 21,000 women will be diagnised with ovarian cancer in 2008, and more than 15,000 will die. Worldwide there are more than 190,000 new cases of ovarian cancer each year, accounting for around 4% of all cancers diagnosed in women. Incidence rates vary considerably, with the highest rates in the USA and Northern Europe and the lowest rates in Africa and Asia. The WHO has recently launched a campaign to reduce incidence and mortality of cancer worldwide.

As with many other cancers, early detection greatly enhances ovarian cancer survival rates, but without a reliable early detection technique, many women are only diagnosed at a relatively advanced stage. Pap smears do not detect ovarian cancers. The CDC information sheet on ovarian cancer is available here.

Once diagnosed, women too often do not get proper treatment. In 2006, the National Cancer Institute announced that a combination of intravenous paclitaxel and intraperitoneal cisplatin following surgery was the preferred treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. This IV/IP treatment has prolonged survival rates by more than a year. At the time, experts predicted that the cancer institute action would lead to widespread changes in treatment. Increadibly, two years later, only a small percentage of newly diagnosed women are given IV/IP treatment. This despite the more than $2 billion spent annuany on treating ovarian cancer.

But, the news is not all bad. At the April meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, a Yale Medical School team led by Dr. Gil Mor (left) announced that they had identified, characterized and cloned ovary cancer stem cells, and demonstrated that these stem cells are likely responsible for recurrences and resistance to chemotherapy.

There is currently a petition to convince the US Postal Service to issue an Ovarian Cancer Awareness Stamp. I am not sure how that will help, but I guess anything that raises awareness is a good thing.


crossposted on intlawgrrls

The platypus genome

The platypus genome has been sequenced. Some of the cooler details:

1. Sex determination. It has been known that platypuses have not one but five (!) pairs of sex chromosomes. Male platypuses exhibit an XYXYXYXYXY genotype. And those sex chromosomes bear some connection to the ZW sex determination system found in birds. But what the newly sequenced genome reveals is that the platypus's male-determining gene, the monotreme equivalent of primates' SRY gene, is not located on any of those five pairs of sex chromosome. Instead, it resides on an altogether different chromosome, one with no apparent connection with sex determination.


2. The beginnings of a transition from oviparous to viviparous reproduction. Whereas some birds (such as chickens) have as many as three genes affecting the production of egg yolk protein, platypuses have just one. The platypus genome evidently exhibits some sort of transition from egg-laying, which requires the delivery of nutrition during incubation, toward providing more nutrition after hatching.


3. Platypus milk. And that nutrition takes the form of milk, which female platypuses deliver without the benefit of nipples. Secreted from "milk patches" on the abdomen, platypus milk appears to be a modified version of a moisturizing fluid originally developed for keeping eggs from drying out during incubation. At least five distinct genes direct the progressively growth of nutritional complexity in platypus milk.


4. Detecting chemicals under water. Platypuses have an impressive arsenal of "vomeronasal" genes that help them detect pheromones under water. Platypuses can thereby detect mates and prey even as they close their eyes and nostrils while diving.


5. Venom. Male platypuses deliver venom from spurs their rear legs. The only mammal to make venom, platypuses generate chemicals that are very similar to some snake venoms. Apparently these similarities are the product of evolutionary convergence rather than genetic descent. Although platypuses and snakes built venoms from the same starter molecule in their immune systems, they evolved venom independently and by different genetic routes.

If moving from (mono)treme dreams to 'treme genes leaves you hungry for more information on Ornithorhynchus anatinus, reread this old Jurisdynamics post, Monotremata.

Symmetrical and sexy

Herewith a neat article, courtesy of the literature-scouring tool called The Scientific Lawyer and its systematic scouring of Science Daily:

Anthony C. Little, Symmetry Is Related to Sexual Dimorphism in Faces: Data Across Culture and Species, PLoS ONE 3(5): e2106. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002106 (May 8, 2008)

Background

High and low symmetry composite faces for macaques, Europeans, and Hadza.

Many animals both display and assess multiple signals. Two prominently studied traits are symmetry and sexual dimorphism, which, for many animals, are proposed cues to heritable fitness benefits. These traits are associated with other potential benefits, such as fertility. In humans, the face has been extensively studied in terms of attractiveness. Faces have the potential to be advertisements of mate quality and both symmetry and sexual dimorphism have been linked to the attractiveness of human face shape.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Here we show that measurements of symmetry and sexual dimorphism from faces are related in humans, both in Europeans and African hunter-gatherers, and in a non-human primate. Using human judges, symmetry measurements were also related to perceived sexual dimorphism. In all samples, symmetric males had more masculine facial proportions and symmetric females had more feminine facial proportions.

Conclusions/Significance

Our findings support the claim that sexual dimorphism and symmetry in faces are signals advertising quality by providing evidence that there must be a biological mechanism linking the two traits during development. Such data also suggests that the signalling properties of faces are universal across human populations and are potentially phylogenetically old in primates.

Rhapsodizing further on insects

Elaborating further on Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects," in this weblog network's preferred variation on the theme of synesthesia:

I. The Theater of Insects Revisited

Images from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2000-2007. Left to right: 19: Coleoptera, 17: Meganuera.

Jo Whaley's visual tour de force, The Theater of Insects, is heavy on butterflies and moths, on the order Lepidoptera. As these images demonstrate, though, Ms. Whaley does not altogether neglect the extremes of the insect world. She pays homage to Coleoptera, the most diverse extant order of insects, and to Meganuera monyi, perhaps the largest insect ever. A member of the order Protodonata, Meganuera closely resembles and is related to modern dragonflies (Anisoptera) and damselflies (Zygoptera).

Ms. Whaley, to my knowledge, hasn't trained her considerable talent on Hymenoptera, typified by the three big taxa of strikingly eusocial insects: bees, wasps, and ants. We'll just have to wait for her book.

II. A Musical Interlude

Herewith three versions of George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (1924):

A. The original 1924 recording of Rhapsody in Blue (parts 1 and 2)

George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (Part 1)  (1924) George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (Part 2)  (1924)

B. An upbeat, one-file version, courtesy of Imeem.com

C. Leonard Bernstein plays Rhapsody in Blue in 1976 (parts 1 and 2)

III. A Modest Scientific Observation

What precisely should we make of Meganuera monyi, the Carboniferous giant portrayed at the top of this post? Gigantism, in insects and other organisms, may depend on atmospheric conditions. See Gauthier Chapelle & Lloyd S. Peck, Polar gigantism dictated by oxygen availability, 399 Nature 114-15 (May 1999) (doi:10.1038/20099):

The tendency of some animals to be larger at higher latitudes ('polar gigantism') has not been explained, although it has often been attributed to low temperature and metabolism. Investigation of gigantism requires widely distributed taxa with extensive species representation at many well-studied sites. We have analysed length data for 1,853 species of benthic amphipod crustaceans from 12 sites worldwide, from polar to tropical and marine (continental shelf) to freshwater environments. We find that maximum potential size (MPS) is limited by oxygen availability.

This study's specific discussion of insect gigantism offers further insight into the vulnerability of giant species to changes in global temperatures and/or oxygen levels, as well as the heightened vulnerability of such species' to extinction over geological time:

Oxygen supply may also have led to insect gigantism in the Carboniferous period, because atmospheric oxygen was 30-35% . . . . The demise of these insects when oxygen content fell indicates that large species may be susceptible to such change. Giant amphipods may therefore be among the first species to disappear if global temperatures are increased or global oxygen levels decline. Being close to the critical MPS limit may be seen as a specialization that makes giant species more prone to extinction over geological time.

Couple this environmentally driven evolutionary constraint with the tendency of megafauna to be K-strategists — which is to say that they have long lifespans, low death rates, slow reproductive rates, and few or no natural predators (at least against adults) — and you have a recipe for extermination through human exploitation. So it was when humanity began to colonize the earth. Imagine how much more lethal our species will become as climate change compounds the sixth great extinction spasm of the Phanerozoic Eon.

A regulatory train wreck

Polar bears face an increasingly uncertain future. (photo credit)

The Problem

Global warming is changing the arctic — reducing the coverage and availability of the ice on which polar bears depend. Richard Steiner, a marine biology professor at the University of Alaska, puts it a little more bluntly:

For anyone who has wondered how global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple — they die.

The polar regions bear the brunt of climate change. For example, last year's summer sea-ice shrank to record low levels, about 4.3 million square kilometers in September — nearly 40% below the levels that would be expected based on long-term average levels! That is bad news for polar bears, which depend on sea ice to hunt seals.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers polar bears to be a vulnerable species.

The Lawsuit

The threat that global warming, and the resulting loss of sea ice, poses to the continued existence of the polar bear prompted a lawsuit from Greenpeace, in conjunction with the Center for Biological Diversity (logo at left), and the Natural Resources Defense Council, alleging that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to protect the polar bear and its habitat. The Center had first petitioned the Department of Interior in 2005, requesting that the polar bear be listed as "threatened." Under ESA § 1532(5)(C)(20), a species is "threatened" whenever it is "likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future through all or a significant portion of its range." Despite a statutory deadline requiring action within 90 days, years passed with no decision about the polar bear.

Footdragging at the Agency

In 2006, in response to a lawsuit challenging FWS’s inaction, the Department made a preliminary finding that catastrophic climate change is destroying polar bear habitat.
Thus, on January 9, 2007, FWS published a proposed rule in the Federal Register listing the polar bear as threatened. The ESA requires that listing decisions be made within one year of publication of the proposed rule. Nonetheless, Interior failed to meet the January 9, 2008, statutory deadline for making a final decision. Why? Maybe because another agency within the Department of Interior, the Minerals Management Service, (MMS) is busy issuing oil and gas leases for vast portions of the polar bears' remaining habitat. Indeed, on January 2, 2008, just days before FWS was supposed to list the polar bear, MMS published the Final Notice of Intent for the Chukchi Lease Sale 193, which will open to oil and gas activities 29.7 million acres of the pristine Chukchi Sea, situated in the Arctic Oean between Russia and Alaska.

The Chukchi Sea is home to 10% of the world’s polar bears. (map credit) Rather than protecting the polar bear, FWS has actually been working to eliminate existing protections of polar bears. Indeed, in June of 2007, FWS proposed exempting the oil industry from the Marine Mammal Protection Act protections of polar bears in the Chukchi Sea. Listing the species under the ESA would make these oil and gas leases much more difficult to issue.

Evidence continues to mount that loss of habitat is threatening the continued existence of polar bears. Indeed, a recent MMS study documents that polar bears are drowning as a result of record low sea ice levels off the coast of Alaska.

Judge Wilken acts
Condemning the delays as unreasonable, Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco, found for the environmental groups on all issues. She ordered the administration to publish its final decision on polar bear status in the
Federal Register by May 15. Reflecting the urgency surrounding the question, Judge Wilken also ordered that the decision take effect immediately, invoking an exception to the ordinary 30-day waiting period before an administrative rule takes effect.

Last month, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino (left) claimed that the lawsuit was "inappropriately" trying to use existing environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act, to address climate change. The result, Perino said, would be a "regulatory train wreck."

While it is certainly true that the polar bear listing will be the first time global warming will be officially labeled a species' main threat, this statement is outrageous.

The Executive Branch has a constitutional duty to “take care that the law be faithfully executed.” It is the administration’s do-nothing policy is the regulatory train wreck.

The failure to list the polar bear is not only “inappropriate,” it is inexcusable.There is no dispute that global warming is threatening polar bear habitat. Kudos to Judge Wilken for forcing much needed regulatory action!

crossposted at intlawgrrls.blogspot.com

Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects"

Images from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2007. Top — 47: Doxocopa cherubina and 8: Papilio ulysses. Bottom — 60: Anaea cyanae and 102: Morpho deidamia.

From the introductory essay accompanying Jo Whaley's forthcoming book, The Theater of Insects (2008):

Like moths attracted to the light of a flame only to perish in that flight, I wonder if we, too, are tied to self-destruction through a drive toward greater technological heights. Conversely, we may be able to use technology and our creativity to become more integrated with nature. As always, the future is uncertain. Art and science are not so diametrically opposed. The practice of both begins with the intense observation of nature, which in turn sparks the imagination toward action. Just pause long enough to look. There is a flicker of hope fluttering in the collective peripheral vision.