 |
 |
Views You Can Use Vol. III No. 4 |
 |
 |
| Successful Practices Network |  |
In this monthly briefing memo, my colleagues at the International Center and I share information on trends and technologies that will have an impact on education. Sincerely, Bill Daggett
|
|
| ||
Cloning Primates Proving to
be Difficult
More than a dozen different animal
species have been cloned successfully since Dolly the sheep was introduced by
scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland seven years ago. During that
time, scientists have found that some animals are better suited for cloning
than others, e.g., a cat is easier to clone than a dog. The monkey, however,
has been particularly difficult - efforts have failed even to produce a
pregnancy. Because monkeys belong to the same overall classification
(primates) as humans, some scientists regard this as nature's warning. "I
feel like nature has given us a scientific reprieve" to block human cloning
with current technologies, said University of Pittsburgh scientist Gerald
Schatten, who has been trying to clone monkeys for years. "Human
reproductive cloning is unsafe, unethical and ought to be illegal everywhere
in the world," Schatten declared. A company in Massachusetts is
guaranteeing a healthy calf for $19,000 - two for only $34,000. When the
prospect of producing human babies through cloning becomes reality, what will
the price be for aiding an infertile couple or providing a genetic duplicate
of a child who has died? As we learn more about the human genetic code, the
possibilities seem endless. Imagine an embryo that genetic testing reveals to
be disabled in some fashion. How interested would the parents be in altering
the embryo's genetic sequence to result in a healthy child? Source: Malcolm Ritter, "The
Case for Cloning," Associated Press article in The
Sunday [Schenectady] Gazette, November 9, 2003. Cure for Pain
"Ziconotide is about a thousand
times more potent than morphine," claims developer and neuroscientist
George Miljanich, of the Dublin, Ireland-based Elan Pharmaceuticals. The drug
is derived from the venom of a marine snail and, in small amounts, can
actually block pain in desperately sick and injured people. Because of its
severe side effects, Ziconotide is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, but has spawned a new generation of drugs designed to block
the electrical impulses that cause pain, without affecting other body
systems. Billions of dollars are being invested - from small biotech
companies to pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline and Merck - in
an effort to create pain cures as potent and safer than Ziconotide. "The
idea here would be a drug that only takes out the pain," says
neuroscientist Allan Basbaum of the University of California, San Francisco. The American Pain Foundation
claims that more than 50 million Americans suffer persistent pain. Modern
pain medications, such as Vioxx and Celebrex, are effective against arthritis
pain, but not the really severe pain associated with surgery, cancer,
traumatic injury, and severe chronic back pain. People who suffer intense
pain must resort to morphine, which has serious side effects, for relief.
Whereas acute pain has benefits, such as alerting the body to injury, chronic
pain serves no purpose. The drug that is developed which can make chronic
pain disappear without producing debilitating side effects will offer
tremendous hope to all those whose quality of life is diminished due to
devastating pain. Source:
Ken Garber, "Stopping Pain," Technology
Review, November 2003, pp. 48-55.
Cancer Vaccine Close at
Hand?
More than 50 vaccines are
currently being tested in the United States, Canada, and Europe for various
types of cancer. Several are in the final stages of human trials. If the
tests progress as hoped, the first vaccines could be ready for general use in
three to five years. This puts us on the brink of a major milestone in the
hard-fought war against the deadly disease. The biggest challenge to overcome
has been, and still is, to recruit the body's immune system to attack
malignant cells while leaving healthy ones alone. Being that the body is
relatively tolerant of cancer, the trick is to develop a vaccine that will
cause the immune system to see tumors as the enemy. Vaccines, however, will probably
not be enough to fight cancer alone, but will work in combination with other
therapies. One key advantage of the vaccine is reducing the need to employ
chemotherapy or radiation as treatment strategies, which are indiscriminant
in their destruction of both healthy and cancerous cells. Issues yet to be decided are how
the treatments will be regulated and what the cost will be to receive the
vaccine. Will people of certain economic status have greater access to
treatments than others? Source: Corie Lok, "Booster Shot
against Cancer," Innovation News,
November 2003. Article appeared in Technology
Review. Biometric TechnologyFingerprint Recognition
Systems in Stores - and Schools?
At Fox Mill Pets in Herndon, VA, you can pay for your purchase with cash, check, credit card, or simply by placing your thumb on a fingerprint scanner. Since fingerprints are unique, a computer attached to the scanner can identify a customer and deduct the purchase cost from that individual's checking account. This signals one of the first retail applications of biometric technology, which identifies people by their physical characteristics. Previously, biometric devices such as retinal scanners, fingerprint readers, and facial recognition systems have only been used in high-tech security systems, due mostly to the impracticality for everyday use. BioPay, whose system is installed at Fox Mill Pets, is hoping to prove otherwise. "It improves productivity, reduces operating cost, improves cash flow, and lowers fraud," claims Ron Smith, CEO of Biometric Access, another developer of fingerprint recognition systems. As with most new technologies,
there are concerns about biometric systems. "At best, fingerprint scanners
are 98% accurate," says Meta Group analyst Earl Perkins. Furthermore,
biometric systems store large amounts of personal data, which would be at
risk, since it is stored on a computer. One can envision uses for biometric systems in education, too. They could be used to prevent an individual from fraudulently taking the SAT for a student, for example. Scanning the student's fingerprint prior to entering the test room would leave little doubt that the correct person is taking the test. Source:
Michelle Kessler, "Thumbs Pay at Some Stores," USA
TODAY, November 16, 2003.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-11-17-biometrics_x.htm Information
Technology
Black Box Data Recorder -
for Your Car
On November 6, Ireland's
Transportation Minister, Séamus Brennan, announced an agreement to outfit
the nation's automobiles with data recorders linked to an emergency
notification system. Under the agreement, New York-based Safety Intelligence
Systems (SIS) will partner with IBM to supply the black boxes and build a
comprehensive crash-data network. The system "has the potential to make a
significant contribution to this country's determined efforts to reduce
deaths and injuries caused by accidents," said Brennan. The black box is a scaled-down
version of airplane flight recorders - approximately the size of two decks
of playing cards laid side-by-side - and is installed in the car's
dashboard or under the hood. The box is packed with sensors that can tell
when an accident has occurred, the exact geographic coordinates of the
accident, and a measurement of how fast the car decelerated or changed
direction - information that will be very helpful to the police and
insurance companies. Since it is equipped to send a distress signal over a
standard cellular link, it can relay an estimate of the crash's intensity
so that emergency responders will know in advance if an ambulance may be
necessary. The units, which will go on sale by mid-2004, are being built by
Toronto's Celestica and will cost about $300 - a price that could drop by
half once sales volumes rise. Source:
Adam Aston, "A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car," BusinessWeek
Online, November
7, 2003. ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
Your feedback is welcome. E-mail dale@leadered.com
If you wish to unsubscribe from our Occasional E-mail, send e-mail to
email@leadered.com
with "unsubscribe" in the subject line. |  | |||||
| www. LeaderEd.com | ||||||