GoKawiilThe use of 'base editing' to precisely tweak human embryos has divided researchers. Plus, the number of lives saved by less-polluting cars in China and how to tip the world towards a sustainable future.
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Researchers say they have used a precise genome-editing technique called base editing to alter the genome of human embryos — prompting praise and censure from scientists. Some say the new work is an impressive step towards being able to fix disease-causing mutations in embryos. Others worry the technology could be used to create ‘designer babies’. But it’s premature and risky to attempt this, says developmental cell biologist Dieter Egli, who co-authored the new study, because base editing can damage embryos. In its current form, “you can’t use it. It’s as clear as day and night,” he says.
Nature | 7 min read
Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
Several diabetes experts were thrown out of the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) as they handed out copies of an editorial critical of the Trump administration’s science policies. Among them were the editor in chief of the organization's flagship journal, which published the editorial, and other physicians and researchers. “They physically grabbed us, forced us out of the conference center, and now are telling us we can no longer attend this meeting,” said Aaron Kelly, a professor of paediatrics. “It really has come to this in America.” The ADA said in a statement that it is obliged to “maintain a strictly nonpartisan environment”.
MedPage Today | 6 min read
Reference: Diabetes Care editorial
262,000 The estimated number of premature deaths prevented by the change from gas-guzzlers to electric cars across 150 cities in China from 2019 to 2023. (Nature | 5 min read) Reference: Nature Health paper
A massive slab at the center of Stonehenge somehow travelled 700 kilometres from its origin in northeast Scotland to its current home in the south of England. A model of Neolithic ice flows suggests a glacier might have carried the six-tonne monolith as far as Doggerland — an area that is now beneath the North Sea. Then, roughly 3,000 years before it came to Stonehenge, people may have saved the rock from rising sea levels. “What is exciting about these findings is that they could imply that the people of Doggerland attached cultural significance to the Altar Stone long before it was incorporated into Stonehenge,” says glaciologist and study co-author Remy Veness.
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