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GLOBAL NEWS of AFP cases and the irrational administration of OPV. Normally, he said, the chances of children under the age of 15 getting affected by non-polio AFP are 1-2 per 100,000, but the rate of non- polio AFP nationally "is now 12 times higher than expected". In 2011, an additional 47,500 children were newly paralysed, over and above the standard rate of two children per 100,000 non-polio AFP cases, says the journal paper. (Source: Deccan Chronicle, India, 14 April 2012, http://tinyurl.com/8xwo6ck) The team then evolved enzymes, called polymerases, that can make XNA from DNA, and others that can change XNA back into DNA. This copying and translating ability allows for genetic sequences to be copied and passed down again and again—an artificial heredity. All of XNA's actions are "completely controlled by experimentalists—it's 100 per cent unnatural," Chaput noted. Such control means that scientists can "use [XNA] to ask very basic questions in biology", such as about the origins of life, Chaput said. "It's possible that life didn't begin with DNA and proteins like we see today. It may have begun with something much, much simpler,” he said. common spent-fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel assemblies, located some 50 metres from the no. 4 reactor. In both cases, the radioactive assemblies are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. Murata stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. According to Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the US Department of Energy, the spent fuel rods contain "roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 [caesium-137] released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the US National Council on Radiation Protection". If that much caesium-137 were released, it would destroy the world environment and our civilisation. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival. (Source: Akio Matsumura, 4 May 2012, akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html) FUKUSHIMA’S SPENT FUEL: A DISASTER LOOMING Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budget Committee of Japan's House of Councillors on 22 March, on the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. Before the committee, Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit no. 4—with 1,535 fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 metres) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but it will also affect the Jeries former Ambassador to A scientist could potentially evolve XNA to discover various functions that would have been important for early life. (Source: National Geographic News, 19 April 2012, http://tinyurl.com/c86q2pb) PARALYSIS CASES RISING WITH POLIO VACCINATIONS Cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis, better known as AFP, have sharply risen with the increase in the administration of oral polio vaccination (OPV) in India under the much-acclaimed polio eradication program. According to a report by Dr Neetu Vashisht and Dr Jacob Puliyel, appearing in the April-June issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, the incidence of non-polio AFP increased by 12 times over and above the normal rate with the onset of the administration of OPV 10 years ago. Dr Puliyel, also a member of the ational Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and of the Working Group on Drugs & Food Regulation for the 12th Five Year Plan, said that there was a definite correlation between the increase in the number REALITY TELEVISION JUNE - JULY 2012 NEXUS ¢ 7 www.nexusmagazine.com