Science & Technology

Vatican critical of stem cell creation

A Vatican official last week criticized a new method of making stem cells that does not require the destruction of embryos, calling it a "manipulation" that did not address the church's ethical concerns.

Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's top official on bioethical questions, said in an interview with Vatican Radio that the method of making stem cells devised by scientists at Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Alameda, Calif., remains an in-vitro form of reproduction, which the church opposes.

"That, from a point of view that is not only Catholic, but from a point of view of bioethic reasons, is a negative factor," said Sgreccia, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life. Church teaching holds that in-vitro fertilization is morally wrong because it replaces the conjugal union between husband and wife and often results in the destruction of embryos. Artificial insemination for married couples is allowable if it "facilitates" the sex act but does not replace it. The church condemns all forms of experimentation on human embryos.

Advanced Cell's method "doesn't solve the ethical problems," Sgreccia said.The new method - described online Wednesday in the British journal Nature - works by taking an embryo at a very early stage of development and removing a single cell, which could then spawn an embryonic stem cell line.

With only one cell removed, the rest of the embryo retains its full potential for development.

But Sgreccia said the new method does not address what he said was the fact that even the single cell removed in the new approach could theoretically grow into a full-fledged human.

The current method of creating stem cells involves the destruction of embryos after about five days of development, when they consist of about 100 cells.

Stem cells are important because of their potential to transform into any type of human tissue, perhaps leading to new treatments for a series of illnesses.

But the Vatican and President Bush, among others, have argued that the promise of stem cells should not be realized at the expense of human life, even in its most nascent stages.

Pope Benedict XVI said in February that embryos developed for in-vitro fertilization deserve the same right to life as fetuses, children and adults - and that that right extends to embryos even before they are transferred into a woman's womb.

Benedict's comments were significant because he specified that even an embryo in its earliest stages - when it is just a few cells - is just as much a human life as an older being.

Storm threatens Atlantis launch

Nasa is set to move the space shuttle Atlantis back off the launch pad if Tropical Storm Ernesto, heading towards the Gulf of Mexico, worsens. If the orbiter returns to the Vehicle Assembly Building lift off would probably be delayed more than a week. The shuttle's launch has already been pushed back from Monday to Tuesday to allow engineers more time to examine the effects of a lightning strike.

This would be only the third mission since the loss of Columbia in 2003. "We have really two competing objectives," Bill Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for space operations, told reporters.

"One, we want to get the vehicle ready to go fly. The other objective is we want to get the vehicle ready to roll back to the VAB. "We are kind of hedging our bets both ways," he added. Atlantis' six-strong crew is taking giant new power-generating solar arrays to the International Space Station.

The half-built $100bn space station must be completed before 2010, when the shuttle fleet is due to be retired.

Construction work has been on hold for four years 16 nations contribute to the ISS, including the US, Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil and European Space Agency states The ISS will eventually be the size of a football field The mission's main objective is to fit the P3/P4 truss, a 17-tonne segment of the station's truss backbone that includes a huge set of solar arrays and a giant rotary joint to allow them to track the Sun.

The second of four sets of solar arrays, they span 240ft (73m) when fully extended.

(BBC NEWS)

Technology lets ads get personal

Advertising is huge business. Companies are constantly looking for new ways to reach consumers and some are turning to new technology to make their brands stand out from the rest. Last year, $6.3bn (o3.3bn) was spent on posters, neon lights and other out-of-home advertising in the US alone.

Advertisers will jump at the chance of looking cool, and getting more bang for their buck, wherever their ads may be.

If you believe some agencies anything that is currently paper and paste is going to become video. This not only gives the benefit of looking snazzier, but you can change the ad to anything you want, anytime you want. All of a sudden ad campaigns do not last a week, they last 10 seconds.

In the underground station of the future video rules. Messages will follow you up the escalators on LCD screens, they will even be projected onto the wall as you wait for your train. James Davies, of out-of-home advertisers Posterscope, says: "We can run adverts that are only on display at a particular time of day. We can change the copy and creative on our adverts at the click of a switch."

That so-called '"dayparting" is a real money maker for media owners. For the first time, out-of-home advertisers can fine-tune their messages to the audience in that part of the day.

(BBC NEWS)