New scientist new law claims a fetus can feel pain

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60 SecoNDS
trip to an asteroid, he said. Paper wastage recycled paper consumes 64 per Tibetan toll
Travelling to an asteroid will not cent less energy and 50 per cent
China’s Qinghai province is
be easy. Astronauts will be exposed NEXT time you reach for the toilet less water, and creates 74 per cent
recovering from a magnitude
to higher levels of radiation, and roll, consider this: 60 million rolls less air pollution, compared with
6.9 earthquake that hit on 13 April,
will have to find a way to attach of toilet paper are flushed away in paper made from virgin wood
killing around 2000 people. The
themselves to the asteroid’s surface Europe every day. And the average pulp. The biggest obstacle to
United States Geological Survey
to cope with its weak gravity. American gets though 57 sheets a recycling, says Worldwatch, is a
says the quake occurred because
But the pay-off for planetary day, six times the global average.
the Indian plate is colliding with Asia,
defence could be big. One future In a report last week, the “Millions of tonnes of office causing this part of the Tibetan
mission might be to nudge an Worldwatch Institute in paper and newspaper are Plateau to move eastwards.
asteroid from its original orbit. Washington DC highlighted the dumped, despite being
That “would demonstrate once wastage of paper in rich and rapidly recyclable as toilet paper”
and for all that we’re smarter than developing nations. In the US,
Halting hepatitis C
the dinosaurs and could therefore 14.5 million tonnes of office paper preference for luxury, multi-ply Hepatitis C virus – which causes
avoid what they didn’t”, White and newspaper will be dumped tissues. The problem is growing: liver cancer and cirrhosis and
House science adviser John this decade, despite being ideal western nations are the biggest infects nearly 200 million people
Holdren said in a discussion for recycling as toilet paper. users of toilet paper, but its use is worldwide – may have met its match.
after the speech. The potential savings are huge: increasing in China and Africa. An experimental drug stopped it
replicating in test tubes and reduced
the levels of virus in eight people
Dam war rages on New law claims fetuses feel pain
with hepatitis C by a factor of more
than 1000 (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/
A TUG of war that has raged for CAN fetuses feel pain – and if so, The law also claims that after 20 nature08960).
decades over the construction of when? The questions have long been weeks fetuses have reflex responses
what would be the world’s third- debated by scientists and are key for to evade painful stimuli. Rosen Sunbed worship
largest dam is becoming frantic. opponents of abortion. But this week counters that these responses are Surveys normally used to identify
The Belo Monte dam on the Nebraska became the first US state involuntary, and, like “knee-jerk” alcoholism have found that of
Xingu river in the Brazilian to restrict abortion on that basis. reflexes, don’t correspond to pain. 229 users of tanning beds, the
Amazon could power as many The Nebraska law, passed on Vivette Glover of Imperial College behaviour of 50 indicated addiction.
as 23 million homes. But since 13 April, lays out several arguments London says that fetuses may feel The study authors suggest that
its proposal 20 years ago, it has about fetal pain. Each was pain at 20 weeks, but they can be interventions to reduce skin cancer
been the subject of a vitriolic contradicted last month in a letter given anaesthetics in any case. must address addiction and anxiety
dispute with the government on to the Nebraska legislature by Mark Rosen and others believe the in order to be effective (Archives of
one side and indigenous people Rosen of the University of California, law is designed to provoke a legal Dermatology, vol 146, p 412).
and green groups on the other. San Francisco, co-author of a 2005 challenge from LeRoy Carhart, a
The latter say it would flood review on the subject. surgeon who performs late-term Salt licked
500 square kilometres of farms The law states that at 20 weeks abortions in Nebraska. This could
The US government should curb
and rainforest and prevent the a fetus “has the physical structures take the claims of fetal pain to the US
salt levels in prepared and processed
migration of fish that are a major necessary to experience pain”. But Supreme Court, which has the power
foods, according to a National
food source for 800 indigenous Rosen argues that fetuses don’t have to overturn the Roe vs Wade ruling
Academy of Sciences report. The
communities. It would also the brain connections needed to feel of 1973 that gave US women almost
Food and Drug Administration has
function at full capacity for a mere pain until about 29 weeks. unrestricted access to abortion.
the authority to force manufacturers
three months of the year – the dry
and restaurants to reduce salt levels.
season means its overall efficiency
Brian Lehmann/The new York Times redux/eYevine
Companies should also cut them
would be just 39 per cent.
voluntarily, the report says.
Contractors were due to bid for
the project at noon on Tuesday
but the auction was suspended
Tree data released
by an injunction late on Monday. A UK university has been told
A similar injunction was issued, to release tree ring data going
then lifted, last week. back about 7000 years. The ruling
The latest one calls for Brazil’s follows a three-year Freedom of
environment agency to revoke Information (FOI) dispute. In January,
a go-ahead it gave the project the Information Commissioner’s
earlier this year. It claims some office criticised the University
evidence was ignored during the of East Anglia for its handling
environmental impact assessment. of FOI requests from climate
As New Scientist went to press, this change sceptics.
injunction was still in place. –Under siege–
24 April 2010 | NewScientist | 5