THE position of the Bush administration on human cloning could not be clearer: just say no. No to putting a cloned embryo into a surrogate mother in an effort to create a cloned child. And no to taking the first steps in the process 鈥� using somatic cell nuclear transfer to put an adult cell鈥檚 DNA into an egg. Both are morally wrong, according to the White House.
While there鈥檚 virtual unanimity on that first 鈥渘o鈥�, the second is causing problems. 快猫短视频s, via sympathetic senators, have managed to thwart any legislation that would prevent the second form of cloning, because they see therapeutic promise from stem cells derived from cloned embryos. But the White House has said no to any legislation that does not say no to all forms of cloning.
Foiled at the national level, the administration has taken its problem to the UN. With the help of Costa Rica, it proposed an international convention against human cloning. More than 60 countries, including Vanuatu, Lesotho, Nauru, Timor-Leste and Fiji, signed up to the proposal. The US representatives correctly gauged that those troublesome scientists back home would have less clout with those countries than they do with US senators.
Advertisement
The anti-cloning juggernaut appeared to be heading for success when, of all things, a bloc of Islamic nations stepped in with a suggestion that the whole issue is put on hold for two years. If the Bush administration feels aggrieved at the notion that more study is needed on a problem to which the solution seems perfectly clear, it would do well to remember how other nations felt when the US argued that more study was needed before action was appropriate to combat global warming.
IN OCTOBER, the world experienced one of the biggest geomagnetic storms in recent years. Several solar flares launched pulses in quick succession, which bathed the atmosphere in ionised particles. There were predictions of possible blackouts in the North American power grid, satellite malfunctions and skittering global positioning system readings. That didn鈥檛 happen. In fact, the storm had a beneficial effect: it occurred just as a congressional committee was debating whether to cut off money to the Space Environment Center (SEC), the government agency that predicted and tracked the storm.
The SEC only needs $8 million a year, but some in Congress want it to be either $5m or zero. They say the air force or NASA can do the work. At the hearing, while the radiation was presumably raining down on all concerned, the air force and NASA said they didn鈥檛 want the job.
Some believe the proposed cut is part of an attack on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where the SEC resides. Members of Congress have already tried to strip the NOAA of control over parts of the outer continental shelf, where its work on protecting marine mammals is not seen as friendly to efforts to explore for oil and gas. Whatever the motivation for anti-SEC sentiment, the NOAA and its space weather forecasters seem to have been handed a reprieve from on high.
