Fusion reactor wrangle
The project to build the world’s first large-scale experimental fusion reactor-the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)-has been stalled since December 2003. The six international project partners can’t agree on a site for it: the European Union (EU), China, and Russia want the reactor to be built in Cadarache, France, while the U.S., South Korea, and Japan want it in Rokkashomura, Japan. Last week, the EU’s research minister said the EU should go ahead with the project, possibly on its own, if no decision is made by June.
ITER is estimated to cost between $6 billion and $12 billion (U.S.); the earliest it could become operational is 2015. If it proves successful, the international community plans to then build a prototype commercial reactor. Fusion power would produce no greenhouse gases and its fuels are plentiful on Earth.
-Mike Ghenu
Sources: New Scientist, BBC News
Drunkenness, delinquency, and dope
Scientists have uncovered three main factors that drive teenagers to use marijuana. By assessing 13,700 U.S. high school students in 1995 and again a year later, they established the use of substances (such as cigarettes and alcohol), delinquency, and school problems as the main factors. Teens who have engaged in all three are 20 times more likely to experiment with marijuana and 87 times more likely to become regular users. Based on these and other risk factors, the scientists predict there are five stages to marijuana use: initiation of experimental use, initiation of regular use, progression to regular use, failure to discontinue experimental use, and failure to discontinue regular use.
-M.G.
Source: Archives of General Psychiatry
Less is more
A way to reduce the risk of cancer and to prolong life, in mice at least, is by feeding them less food less often. Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley reduced the rodents’s energy intake by five per cent, but fed them only three days per week. Compared to mice that could feed freely, the cells of fasting mice divided less often. By doing so, said Dr. Marc Hellerstein, the principal investigator, cells have more time to fix damage done to their DNA. This decreases the risk that harmful mutations-such as those causing cells to reproduce uncontrollably (as in cancer)-will be passed down to the two resultant cells.
-M.G.
Source: American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism
