Mark Henderson, Science Editor
Genetically modified crops will be the only sustainable way of solving Britain’s dietary shortcomings, scientists claim.
Barely one in four British adults consumes close to the recommended quantities of critical omega3 fatty acids found chiefly in oily fish. Genetic engineering is the sole practical means of getting more of them into the food chain without damaging fragile fish stocks, researchers said.
Two long-chain omega3 acids, EPA and DHA, are known to play important roles in health, protecting against heart disease, diabetes and hypertension and promoting the growth of brain cells in the young.
Both acids, however, are produced only by algae and reach the human body through the fish that eat them, or from meat, milk or eggs from animals reared at least partly on fish meal. Raising dietary levels of the nutrients would thus place further pressure on fisheries that are already under threat.
Crops enhanced with genes from algae, however, can make DHA and EPA. These can then be used as feed to boost the quantities found in chicken and other animal products.
Experimental GM linseed and oilseed rape have been produced at Rothamsted Research, in Hertfordshire, which expects to seek regulatory approval for ...   more »

Advances in stem-cell technology cheer and alarm ethics watchers.
Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra
While scientists in the U.S. hailed sperm cells as a possible alternative to embryonic stem cells, regulators in Great Britain became the first to approve inter-species experimentation.
The U.K.'s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which reports to the Department of Health, ruled in September that there was no "fundamental reason" not to use animals as egg donors for the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos. Currently, researchers depend on human embryos from fertilization clinics.
Hybrid embryos are created by scraping an animal's DNA out of its egg and inserting a nucleus from a human cell. Researchers don't know yet if hybrid embryos will display the developmental flexibility that human embryos do. "But the odds are high," said William B. Neaves, president and CEO of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. "It's worth trying."
The U.K. has not legalized the implantation of hybrid embryos, which are 99.9 percent human and 0.1 percent animal, into wombs. Still, development of a human-animal chimera should worry everyone who values human life, said Nigel Cameron, president of the Institute on Biotechnology & the Human Future.
"This is a wake-up call that really does catch ...   more »

By IAIN DUNCAN SMITH 
Tomorrow Parliament will start debating a proposed new law that will erase fathers from applications by single or lesbian women for IVF treatment.
Under the existing law, clinics are legally obliged to take into account a child's need for a father when considering such applications. But that requirement will vanish if the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill becomes law next year.
Another nail will have been hammered into the coffin of the traditional family. And another blow will have been struck against fatherhood.
This move could not have come at a worse time. Just as we are beginning to appreciate the vital role fathers play in the successful upbringing of children, Labour Ministers are sending out the utterly wrong signal that fathers don't matter.
A guiding light: Iain Duncan Smith's father Wilfrid and mother Pamela on their wedding day
Earlier this year the respected all-party Commons Home Affairs Committee warned that shocking levels of family breakdown are propelling black teenagers into street gangs and a life of crime.
It pointed out that although young Afro-Caribbean boys make up less than three per cent of ten to 17-year-olds, they account for 26 per cent of arrests for ...   more »

President defends emergency rule, saying arms could fall into wrong hands
LONDON - President Pervez Musharraf, defending his decision to declare emergency rule, has said Pakistan's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands if elections led to disturbances.
The comments, in a BBC interview broadcast on Saturday, come as U.S. envoy John Negroponte visited Pakistan to put pressure on Musharraf to revoke the two-week-old emergency, make peace with opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and hold fair elections.
Musharraf said that if elections were held in a "disturbed environment," it could bring in dangerous elements who might pose a risk to control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
"They cannot fall into the wrong hands, if we manage ourselves politically. The military is there -- as long as the military is there, nothing happens to the strategic assets, we are in charge and nobody does anything with them," he said.
Musharraf, who took power in a coup eight years ago, cited rising Islamist militancy and a hostile judiciary as reasons for declaring emergency rule. He has said a general election will be held before January 9 and he expects to step down as army chief and be sworn in as a civilian president ...   more »