Cloning scandal update

A panel of Seoul National University experts reviewing the research of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk on human embryo cloning ruled Monday that his team’s results were faked. In 2004, Hwang made waves with claims of having cloned a human embryo. Hwang has been embroiled in controversy since it emerged last year that he had been untruthful about the source of some of the eggs used in his experiments. “The stem cell number one which was documented in the 2004 Science paper was not a stem cell originated from a cloned human embryo,” the panel of experts concluded in a statement. They did, however, accept Hwang’s claim of having produced the world’s first cloned dog.

-Mike Ghenu

Source: BBC News

A caste of cooks

It seems everyone, including baby ants, helps out with the cooking in some ant colonies. Dr. Deby Cassill at the University of South Florida tracked the fate of fruit flies as they moved through the colony of the insect-eating ant Pheidole spadonia. Soldiers start supper by slaughtering flies, while workers carve up the carcasses and drop the chunks of meat into shallow bowl-like depressions on the stomachs of the worm-like baby ants called larvae. The larvae drool digestive enzymes into the bowl and marinate the meat for five hours, dissolving it into meat stew. Workers then suck-up the stew and serve it to the rest of the colony. The study shows that ant larvae are not helpless baby freeloaders, but actively contribute to the day-to-day running of the ant colony.

-Chris Damdar

Source: Insectes Sociaux

Warming warning

Massive dumping of fresh melt water-from melting glaciers, say-in the North Atlantic Ocean was the likely cause of a bout of climate warming around 8,000 years ago, according to simulations done by a Columbia University graduate student. The sudden influx of fresh water disrupts the ocean currents responsible for circulating heat around the globe. Allegra LeGrande also showed that the resulting fall in temperature throughout northern Europe caused by this disruption was not as great as previously thought. Moreover, LeGrande’s simulations showed that after falling off dramatically ocean circulation probably rebounded within 50 to 150 years.

-M.G.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences