Nexus - 0110 - New Times Magazine-pages

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- PLANTS GROW HUMAN PARTS - | ecological system. They are performing ELDER AUSTRALIANS Plants are being used as miniature | processes not performed in nature.” Stone artefacts found in a cave floor at factories to produce large amounts of Genetically altered plants can produce | Kakadu have pushed back the ‘official’ biological chemicals. Using advanced | larger amounts of useful human proteins | dating of Aboriginal occupation of biotechnology, scientists have grown | than conventional yeasts, bacteria or | Australia by tens of millennia. tobacco plants that produce human | animal cells into which human genes are Reported in Nature in May, the antibodies, potatoes that make serum | implanted for the purpose. Plants Malakunanje Il rock shelter - occupied albumin (a human blood protein used | generally take care of themselves and 60,000 to 65,000 years ago - “represents widely in surgery), and rape plants that | require far less culturing or tending. | the oldest direct dating of art in the make enkephalin, a Genes can be transferred | world,” said Dr Rhys Jones, Australian natural _ painkiller into plant cells with ease, | National University, leader of a 3 person normally produced in and the plants can be | team that announced the discovery. the human brain. grown by the acre to “Irs extremely exciting, because 1 One Californian producemassiveamounts | regard art as probably the most biotechnology of hitherto almost | important artefact of the past, because it company is planning unobtainahle chemicals. | encodes so much information about to market a sunscreen A system developed by | Auman brain function, perception and containing human Biosource Genetics carries | our view of nature.” melanin (skin pigment) which was also | genes into plant cells using an RNA The occupation date overlaps that of grown in tobacco. Jeremy Rifkin, | molecule which multiplies and spreads | the ‘Solo people’, a group that occupied President of the FoundationonEconomic | itself and the foreign gene throughout a | Java from 110,000 to 55,000 years ago. Trends, says “Turning living creatures | plant, which will then produce human | An almost continual fossil record now into chemical factories” has obvious | protein. The RNA degrades with time, | links the Solo people with Java Man, a benefits, but “the environmental and | according to Biosource President Erwin, | form of Homo erectus, a presumed ethical implications have not been | andthe foreign geneisnever passedonto | ancestor of modern humans. “Robust” explored. If the plants are raised | subsequent generations. Their first | human skulls found at Kow Swamp in outdoors and the new genes get into the | product is plant-derived human melanin Victoria and the Mungo- Willandra Lakes wild gene pool, it could have a | - naturally better at scattering ultraviolet | region of south-western NSW, closely potentially destabilising effect on the | radiation than chemical sunscreens. EB] | resemble those of Solo people. ss Elsewhere in Australia —— GIVE BLOOD... OR ELSE ensure prisoners give a blood sample. ancient skulls are The NSW Government passed legis- But perhaps the new system does do | unmistakably those of lation last May to test all prisoners in | something after all. State and Federal ; modern humans. Yet NSW for the AIDS virus. This seems a | police forces have recently begun to put ; skulls of modern very good idea, although civil liberties | in place a Gene Bank (similar to Aborigines from and prisoners’ organizations and others | fingerprint file) for identifying criminals various parts of have reservations. by body tissue (blood, semen, hair, skin | Australia often show Despite the announcement from Peter | etc) left at the scene of a crime. features intermediate between Solo and Anderson, Opposition spokesperson Some prisoners’ organizations and | modern humans. A skull found in the on law & order, that there was “dubious | others have pointed out that in order to | Willandra region not far from the 30,000 policy justification” for these changes | build such a genetic data bank, the data | year old Lake Mungo site is radically and that there are no proper measures to | hastocome from somewhere - preferably | different from the Mungo remains, guarantee confidentiality, the legislation | blood samples from known criminals. indicating Australia may have been was not opposed. Mr Anderson also But how could you persuade known | simultaneously inhabited by two very described the bill as “dangerous, in so | prisoners to voluntarily donate blood | different races of people; one Homo far as it appears to be dealing with a | for such a purpose? You couldn’t. Erectus & one Homo Sapiens (modem- serious problem and, in fact, does | Was this legislation passed without style humans). The Malakunanje II rock nothing,” before he recommended thatit | opposition for this reason? shelter may trigger a sweeping revision be passed anyway. It would be easy to dispel such | of dates assigned to other human sites Under the new system, all prisoners | announced fears with an official denial, | around the continent. But a new method will be compulsorily tested upon entry | but so far none has been forthcoming. for extracting DNA in blood extracted into the prison, three months later andon Recent tests of blood from 5,000 | from fossilised bones being tested at the departure. As under similar anti-drugs | Australian servicemen & women showed | ANU may provide more accurate carbon legislation recently enacted around | no signs of contamination with HIV, the | dating & interesting genetic information Australia, necessary force may be usedto | human immuno-deficiency virus. EJ | than any breakthrough to date. 1} wa tf Nexus *10