EVEN with war looming, there can be few more delicate academic issues than whether certain results should be withheld from publication. 快猫短视频鈥檚 recent news item 鈥淩ecipes for bioterror鈥� (18 January, p 10), focused on the dangers of allowing potentially dangerous biotech research to fall into terrorists鈥� hands. I asked Lord Sainsbury, the science minister, for his comments.
Sainsbury replied that there are controls on the publication of some types of highly sensitive information. However, in the present circumstances some mainstream research might well prove useful to terrorists. He agreed that it is a difficult and sensitive issue, not least because of the inherently dual nature of some research: it can often be used for good or ill. The key requirement is that the research community should debate the issues and possible solutions, in conjunction with other interested parties, such as the media. For that reason, the minister welcomed the discussion that is now being led by the Royal Society, 快猫短视频, Nature, Science and others.
He added that the government believes a code of conduct for scientists could raise awareness about the implications of publishing research. At last year鈥檚 5th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the government promoted and endorsed the concept of an international code. As a priority, it is now exploring the implications of such a code for Britain鈥檚 research community.
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My own view is that withholding research can diminish its potentially beneficial effects. Besides, terrorists already have information aplenty with which to harm the rest of us. All good research should be published.
IT CAN prove impossibly difficult to nail people who smuggle the pelts of endangered species such as tigers and ocelots. At the ports of entry into countries, customs and excise experts who have the know-how to distinguish between illegal pelts and those that can be traded legally are understandably few and far between. But there may now be an answer.
Klaus Hollemeyer, an expert in biocatalysis at the Saarland University in Saarbr眉cken Germany, has devised a test that will help sort out the illegal from the legal. It depends on detecting the unique combination of amino acids that makes up the protein of a particular animal鈥檚 fur (快猫短视频, 30 November 2002, p 19). He treats hair strands with trypsin, a digestive enzyme that strips protein fragments from the strands. Feeding these fragments are into a small mass spectrometer then gives a unique 鈥渇ingerprint鈥� for that animal. I asked John Healey, the Customs and Excise minister, what he thought of the idea.
Healey replied that fur fingerprinting could greatly help the day-to-day work of Customs and Excise if it proves to be a practical and effective way to distinguish between legal and endangered species. British customs officials are consulting with counterparts in Germany and with officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which has responsibility for policy on controlling trade in endangered species, to seek further information on the system.
Thanks to 快猫短视频, the government is following up this avenue of research. It could prove a great help by enforcing laws designed to control such imports. Hitherto enforcement has been far too weak.
