Welcome to Dailypedia

For the first time, scientists have successfully created dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, a technological breakthrough that is bound to revive concerns about the ethics of possible human cloning. According to a new report from the UN University Institute for Advanced Studies, the international community faces a stark choice regarding the future of human cloning—it must either ban the practice or create a framework in which rights of cloned individuals are protected. In 2005, negotiations for an international cloning ban collapsed following disagreements about whether or not to permit research cloning, also known as therapeutic cloning.

Eric York, a wildlife biologist at Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park, has died after performing a necropsy, or post-mortem examination, on a mountain lion. Officials believe that York contracted the pneumonic plague from the infected animal and succumbed to the disease just days after showing symptoms. On average, only 13 cases of the plague are reported in the US each year and 14 percent prove fatal. It is transmitted primarily by fleas that have had direct contact with an infected animal, but when it causes pneumonia, it can then be passed along by airborne cough droplets.

On Sunday, the Ulster Defence Association, the largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, announced plans to disband its armed units. While the group intends to "put arms beyond use," leaders are refusing to hand the weapons over to international disarmament officials. The group is believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 400 people during the period Britain describes as "The Troubles." Since 1997, when an international commission was formed to oversee decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in Ireland, only the IRA has surrendered its stockpile of arms.

Using an ultra-purified form of capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their "heat," scientists are exploring alternative treatments for post-operative pain management. Doctors, citing the chemical's post-burn numbing effects, are administering capsaicin directly into anesthetized patients' open surgical wounds. The compound binds to nerve cells that sense long-term throbbing pain and overloads them until they shut down. Doctors hope that this will lead to a reduction of post-surgical pain and minimize patients' reliance on habit-forming narcotic pain relievers.

Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, claims his team has traced the timeline and transmission route of HIV from Africa to Haiti before it was brought to the US in about 1969. The researchers genetically analyzed blood samples from 122 early AIDS patients, five of whom were Haitian immigrants to the US. They then used the collected data to create a genetic family tree pinpointing the origins of the virulent HIV-1 strain and concluded that it was probably carried into the US by a single infected Haitian immigrant.

Chad has charged nine French and seven Spanish nationals with fraud and abduction for attempting to illegally airlift 103 children to Europe. The flight was organized by a French charity called Zoe's Ark, which claims the children are displaced orphans from Darfur and that they were being taken abroad to receive medical treatment. The children were to be placed with European families, and Chad, which does not allow adoption, contends that the group's actions constitute kidnapping and is now investigating whether or not the children involved are actually orphaned.

In the 1950s, Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine using a live but weakened form of the polio virus. While this form of vaccination allows recipients to develop full immunity and can even be transmitted to non-vaccinated individuals, conferring some immunity to them, mutated forms of the vaccine can actually spread the paralytic disease among those who have not been immunized. Recently, the UN's World Health Organization confirmed that a Nigerian outbreak of polio has been traced to such a mutation. Sixty nine children, about 5% of Nigeria's recent polio victims, have been diagnosed with the vaccine-induced viral disease.

When Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel died in 1896, his will and 31,000,000 kronor bequest established the Nobel Prizes, awarded annually to people or organizations that have made outstanding contributions to society. This year, former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share the Nobel Peace Prize for their investigations of human-induced climate change and for raising awareness of global warming. The committee's decision to honor an environmental effort, rather than the more traditional attempts to resolve armed conflicts and minimize human suffering, is now the subject of controversy and debate.

Results of a study financed by Johnson & Johnson Inc.'s Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, makers of the migraine medication Topamax, suggest that the drug may also be effective in the treatment of alcohol addiction. The study followed 371 heavy drinkers for 14 weeks. By the end of the study, 15% of the participants taking the drug had quit drinking for at least 7 weeks. Only 3% in the placebo group had done the same. Topamax works by inhibiting dopamine, a neurotransmitter commonly associated with the brain's pleasure system, and appears to curb the craving for alcohol.

For years, doctors have debated the purpose of the appendix, a narrow pouch extending from the cecum of the large intestine. Many believe that it is a vestigial remnant of some previous organ or structure and that it no longer has a purpose in human anatomy. Recently, investigators at Duke University Medical School published a study suggesting that the appendix actually protects the human body from the effects of diseases like cholera and dysentery. According to their research, the pouch shelters important intestinal bacteria that can repopulate the digestive system even after it is completely wiped out by disease.