| Galton Institute Home Page | March 2002 Newsletter Contents | Newsletter Index |
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American Scientists are outraged over plans for a multi-million-dollar museum dedicated to telling the nation’s schoolchildren that God made the world in seven days and that Darwin is a fraud.The backers of the $14 million (£10 million) Creation Museum and Family Centre, which is to open in 2004 close to the Ohio River in Kentucky, boast that the structure will act as an antidote to the “brainwashing” taught in science museums worldwide.
- Sunday Telegraph
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There were at least three major waves of early human migration out of Africa, our DNA suggests. Apparently the wanderers made love, not war: gene patterns hint later emigrants bred with residents. This interpretation by Alan Templeton, an American biologist who compared the genes of populations around the world, is controversial. Many researchers believe that the most recent wave of African emigrants, about 50,000 years ago, replaced all previous Asian and European populations- Sunday Times
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Researchers have genetically modified bugs to churn out the indigo pigment used to dye jeans. The bugs could offer an environmentally friendlier rival to chemical indigo production, which has potentially toxic waste.- The Times
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The world’s first cloned human embryo is the son of a rich Arab, according to claims made by Severino Antinori, the Italian fertility specialist. Dr Antinori said that the embryo was the clone of a VIP and that he had been experimenting to produce human clones “in an Islamic country”.- The Telegraph
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Sperm samples from 300 patients might have been damaged after a fault in a freezer, according to hospital chiefs.Patients possibly affected gave samples before treatment, mainly for cancer and with a risk of infertility, at the Western General Hospital, in Edinburgh, between December 14, 1979, and last July 6. The hospital trust said it was contacting patients and human error or negligence had been ruled out.
- The Telegraph
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Chinese scientists are to receive state backing for the mass production of human organs from sacrificial embryos, using controversial technology involving the fusion of human tissue with animal cells.New legislation, to be enacted this year, will ensure that China provides the most deregulated environment in the world for scientists working in the field of biotechnology.
- Sunday Times