Will developing countries slow their industrialisation by submitting to controls on greenhouse gas emissions? At the time of writing, Australia’s new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, with a plane-load of ministers, advisers, public servants and journalists, has flown to Bali for the UN-sponsored climate conference which was supposed to put in place enforceable policies to stop…
New evidence shows a near-complete failure of quarantine which clearly contributed to the horse flu outbreak, reports Peter Westmore. Astonishing new evidence has come to light about the possible causes of last August’s equine influenza (horse flu) outbreak, which has devastated the thoroughbred and racing industries in New South Wales and Queensland. A special commission of…
The reported systematic failures in Australia’s quarantine system would be comical if they were not so tragic. The recent equine influenza (horse flu) outbreak in Australia was caused by the total failure of quarantine protocols at both Sydney Airport and the quarantine station at Sydney’s Eastern Creek, and by systemic failures in the administration of…
Professor Ian Wilmut’s decision to abandon embryonic stem-cell research has sent shock-waves through the cloning community. Professor Ian Wilmut, the medical researcher who pioneered animal cloning and created Dolly the sheep, has announced that he will abandon research aimed at producing human embryonic stem-cells through cloning, i.e., so-called “therapeutic cloning”. Professor Wilmut is chair of reproductive biology at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine. Like Australia’s Professor Alan Trounson, his background is in animal health. He obtained a B.Sc in agricultural science at the University of Nottingham before studying at the University of…