Arresting evidence

State-of-the-art forensic technology is forcing us to face the reality that even our most applauded trade bans and moratoriums aren’t working. From ivory cell phones to shark fin soup, it’s all available—at a price.

By Natasha Loder. Conservation magazine.
July-September 2007 (Vol. 8, No. 3)

Inside a glitzy store in one of China’s port cities is a room that might shock you. Low lights, shiny glass, and mirrored cabinets: the room is a temple to ivory. It’s all available at a price, from tiny figurines to massive high-end carvings and even entire carved elephant tusks. A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) (1) in the U.K. says it’s a similar story all over China. Trade in ivory goods is flourishing, from key holders and chopsticks to pendants, bead earrings, and hankos. Given enough money, it is even possible to buy an ivory mobile phone. It all begs a simple but unsettling question: where does all this ivory come from 17 years after the international trade was halted? (Read more of this article here).

More reefer madness

Everyone warned me. I can't say I wasn't told. But motherhood is far more work than I'd imagined. So, in the last few months I've just produced two articles (and a beautiful bouncing boy).

The first was on cannabis research in the US, where scientists hoping to grow the weed for medical research have had to fight a long court case with the DEA. The latest news is that they've had an unexpected breakthrough, winning an important court case. The fight isn't over, by any means, and we shall have to wait and see if America's DEA agrees with court's decision that a professor of agronomy can be allowed to grow cannabis. At the moment the government maintains a monopoly in the growth of cannabis. This has restricted the supply of the weed to researchers.

Joint action

Mar 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition

A victory for American cannabis researchers

FOR almost six years Lyle Craker, a researcher who studies medicinal plants at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying to grow pot. Quite a long time, one might think, for a professor of agronomy—his students, presumably, have far less trouble. The difficulty for Dr Craker, though, is that he would like to grow marijuana legally, but the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has so far refused to give him a licence. (More... subscription required)

The second piece was an article for a new journal called Ethos. The blurb describes it thus: "published three times a year and will be aimed at politicians, civil servants, think-tanks and other interest groups involved in delivering public services. Ethos will help lead and anticipate the public policy agenda, as well as stimulate debate on the future direction and challenges facing government and the wider public service arena." We will see. In any case, the commission, on the new Chinese eco-city of Dongtang was too interesting to pass up. The piece makes the point that even if this eco-city experiment is successful in builing a zero, or even low carbon city, it is just one of hundreds that China will be building in the near future. Depressingly, a project of such vision seems beyond any other country in the world. Dongtan is unique. The world needs thousands of these, not one. But as they say, a journey of a thousand miles...

Impending arrivals

Natasha Loder is on maternity leave.

Rocket renaissance

ALMOST two years ago, SpaceShipOne became the first privately-built vehicle to travel into space. Although the X-15 did something similar four decades earlier, the simple, safe design and low cost of SpaceShipOne was significant—for the first time the cost of a spacecraft fell within the price range of companies and wealthy individuals, rather than just governments. That’s one reason why today at least half a dozen private spaceships at various stages of design and construction. Today, rocketry is going through a renaissance.

Stalking through the corridors of the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Los Angeles this year, are the men who are going to build a new generation of spaceships. While promises about cheap space travel for the masses have been made before, this time things seem different. Besides the birth of SpaceShipOne, there has been a recent shift in US legislation to encourage personal spaceflight by simplifying government licensing requirements, straightening uncertainties over liability issues and allowing paying customers to fly at their own risk in novel craft that might be dangerous.

Most importantly, though, there is money. Lots of it. More than $1 billion has been committed on ships and infrastructure. The state of New Mexico, for example, has recently started work on a purpose-built $225m spaceport, of which the state has committed $135m to funding, even though it has nothing yet to fly. The spaceport is intended to provide a launch pad for commercial operations of the second-generation suborbital vehicle SpaceShipTwo—currently being designed in Mojave, California and which may start test flights as early as next year. The commercial development of this vehicle, in itself, is costing its financial backers, Virgin Galactic based in London, $240m. One study suggests that after five years of operation, New Mexico spaceports will have led to $1 billion of spending within the state.

Meanwhile, in Dubai, another new spaceport costing $265m was recently announced by space tourism company Space Adventures, based in Arlington, Virginia. Of this sum, $30m has been committed. (Space Adventures itself, in the last five years, has made $120m in orbital spaceflight sales—taking wealthy businessmen such as Dennis Tito, to the International Space Station with the help of the Russians.) Many other spaceports, too, are being planned around the world for an anticipated new generation of tourist vehicles, some of which are still on the drawing board or have only recently come off it. But overall, the signs lead many to suspect that a lot of money is being spent on rocketry and infrastructure that has not yet been revealed.

All this enthusiasm is being generated by plans by individuals and private companies to build a variety of suborbital spaceships--craft that travel just to the edge of space and back again. Which one, though, is best and who will succeed? This is the topic of a two-page article in this week's Economist. There is also a useful chart comparing all of the main designs.

I've been researching this piece for some time and a large array of overmatter has accumulated. I'd like to thank Charles Lurio, a space consultant, and Roger Launius, a curator at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, for their help as their comments were left on the cutting room floor. Charles is particularly knowledgeable about hybrids and solids. He also reckons that the Space Adventures vehicle, still in design, is a solid-based rocket.


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Rocket renaissance
The Economist
May 11th 2006 | LOS ANGELES
The era of private spaceflight is about to dawn

TWO years ago next month space travel underwent its Wright-brothers moment with the first flight of SpaceShipOne. The roles of Orville and Wilbur were played by Burt Rutan, who designed the craft, and Mike Melvill, who flew it—although they were ably assisted by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, who paid for it. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly. Unlike the brothers Wright, who were heirs to a series of heroic failures when it came to powered heavier-than-air flight, Messrs Rutan and Melvill knew that manned spaceflight was possible. What they showed was that it is not just a game for governments. Private individuals can play, too. (more...)

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Overmatter:

XCOR on why it chose an air-launched suborbital
Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace, a small aerospace company based in Mojave, California, is developing a two-person, ground-launched suborbital rocketplane. Ground launch, he says, is technically more difficult but has significantly lower unit operating costs. “We are doing it this way because our engineering tradeoffs lead us to believe it is optimum for us for our market, resources, for the skills we have. Does that mean everybody else’s idea is bad? Of course not.” The XCOR vehicle, which will be a derivative of a previous design called the Xerus. As of last October, the company has money from private investors to start work.

Space Adventures on its vehicle plans
Of the six most prominent vehicles being developed (see chart), two are launched from the air. SpaceShipTwo will launch on a purpose-built high altitude aircraft known as Eve, built by aviation designer Burt Rutan. And although plans for the Explorer have not been fully disclosed, Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, says it will launch from the top of a high-altitude Russian research plane the M-55X. The project, he says, will be fully funded by a venture capital group belonging to wealthy, space-enthusiast and entrepreneurial Ansari family. The Myasishchev Design Bureau, an experienced Russian aerospace organization based near Moscow, with oversight from the Russian Space agency, will build it.

Rocketplane on the stability of its XP
At first sight, the notion of converting a Learjet to a suborbital vehicle fills some with horror. However, as Charles Lauer explains, there is actually very little left of it except the fuselage. “Starting with the existing Lear gave us a frame of reference to be able to build from and saved us a year in terms of schedule,” he says. It has a new delta wing, a new v-tail, and wind tunnel studies show it has “natural stability” on re-entering the atmosphere says Mr Lauer. SpaceShipOne solved the problem of stability on re-entry with a revolutionary technique of flipping its wings in half—something called the feather. Mr Lauer says the XP has this but “without having to reconfigure our airplane twice in the course of a flight profile and that’s a more sensible way to fly”.

George Whittinghill, chief technologist for Virgin Galactic, responds, "SpaceShipTwo can re-enter in any attitude, even upside down. The feather acts like a shuttlecock, and will right the ship as soon as it hits air, without any action from the pilot. I seriously doubt that the Rocketplane can re-enter in any attitude, hands-off, righting itself. Its attitude control jets will have to position the ship just right, or it will get into trouble later on during the entry.

Dennis Tito on liquid fuels
Dennis Tito, an entrepreneur and the world’s first space tourist, says ultimately liquid fuel will make a suborbital more reusable because it is possible to “gas and go”. In other words, operations can be more aeroplane-like and this will lower costs. XCOR’s ship seems quite likely to be the smallest, and cheapest, of all the new suborbital ships. Although no timeline has been announced, one potential customer reckons that they could fly within a year and a half. The ship is also intended to fly four flights per day.

Charles Lurio on rocket design
With their premixed fuel and oxidizer, solid propellant systems have always raised safety questions. They’re tricky systems to master, as evidenced by the literally explosive difficulties that the then-Soviets had in developing them for ICBMs. As a result the USSR retained primarily liquid fueled missiles long after they were minimal parts of the US arsenal. NASA, driven by the desire to get the Space Shuttle program funded, convinced itself that solid boosters (with a lower upfront development price) were acceptable despite long-standing anxiety about the safety of putting people atop them. Of course, ‘turning off’ a solid in an abort condition - let alone restarting it in flight - is essentially impossible. Hybrids do appear to have a higher safety potential, not merely by separating fuel from oxidizer but because they can be shut off by cutting off the flow of oxidizer. As with solids, however, they have much larger combustion chambers than do liquid motors. That volume effectively ‘stores’ combustion energy, which, as one person dryly put it, “can go somewhere inappropriate in a failure [condition].” But the greatest unease that I and others have with the hybrid results from the relatively miniscule amount of existing experience in building and operating them compared to either solids or liquids. As I’ve noted, Brian Binnie had to cope with significant accelerations and vibrations while SpaceShipOne’s motor was firing (see page 60 of the February 6th Aviation Week). There are design and flight adjustments that likely would ameliorate those effects for commercial passengers. By contrast, while a solid’s acceleration can also be moderated (though not in real-time) it essentially unavoidably produces what’s not-so-fondly referred to as the ‘paint shaker effect.’ Of course, reentry forces (Mr. Binnie experienced 5.5g’s) are not directly dependent on the ascent propulsion system, and are malleable with aerodynamic design and chosen flight paths.Some of the initial passengers on the suborbital flights will want to primarily liquid fueled missiles long after they were minimal parts of the US arsenal. NASA, driven by the desire to get the Space Shuttle program funded, convinced itself that solid boosters (with a lower upfront development price) were acceptable despite long-standing anxiety about the safety of putting people atop them. Of course, ‘turning off’ a solid in an abort condition - let alone restarting it in flight - is essentially impossible.

Hybrids do appear to have a higher safety potential, not merely by separating fuel from oxidizer but because they can be shut off by cutting off the flow of oxidizer. As with solids, however, they have much larger combustion chambers than do liquid motors. That volume effectively ‘stores’ combustion energy, which, as one person dryly put it, “can go somewhere inappropriate in a failure.” But the greatest unease that I and others have with the hybrid results from the relatively miniscule amount of existing experience in building and operating them compared to either solids or liquids.

Reefer madness

Is marijuana medically useful? Many people, from patients to doctors and scientists think so. The US Food and Drug Administration appears to disagree. These ideas are in line with what the Whitehouse, Drug Enforcement Administration, and some vocal congressmen think. However, in eleven states around America compassion hasn't taken a back-seat to politics and laws allowing medical marijuana have been passed. More on this subject in this week's Economist...

Reefer madness
Apr 27th 2006
Marijuana is medically useful, whether politicians like it or not

IF CANNABIS were unknown, and bioprospectors were suddenly to find it in some remote mountain crevice, its discovery would no doubt be hailed as a medical breakthrough. Scientists would praise its potential for treating everything from pain to cancer, and marvel at its rich pharmacopoeia—many of whose chemicals mimic vital molecules in the human body. In reality, cannabis has been with humanity for thousands of years and is considered by many governments (notably America's) to be a dangerous drug without utility. Any suggestion that the plant might be medically useful is politically controversial, whatever the science says. It is in this context that, on April 20th, America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement saying that smoked marijuana has no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (more...)

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Update (12th May)
In response to this article, we have received a letter from John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy--also known as the "Drug Czar". I would expect The Economist would publish this on its letter's page in the near future.

Commentary & comments from other blogs:
This article has inspired a lot of commentary, some of it useful.

One commentator here discusses the FDA's existing programme to supply cannabis medicinally. (more...)

From the Democratic Daily (here...)

Overview of the debate, Politics and Pot.

A critique of the Reefer Madness (here...)

More commentary, and my reply to one critique of the piece (more..)

Overview of the debate, Politics and Pot.

And a few more comments (here..)

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References

Nicoll, Roger & Alger, Bradley, 2004. The brain's own marijuana. Scientific American. December 2004.

Wilson, Clare, 2005. Miracle Weed, New Scientist, vol 185, issue 2485, p38.

Neuroprotection by delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active compound in marijuana, against ouabain-induced in vivo excitotoxicity. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2001, 21 (17): 6475-6479.

Inter-agency advisory regarding claims that smoked marijuana is a medicine. FDA, April 20, 2006.

Medical Marijuana. American Medical Association, June 2001.

Marijuana and medicine: assessing the science base. 1999. Institute of Medicine.


Press releases
Doctor suggested cannabis for pain relief, says one in six medicinal users in the UK. Press release from McGill University.

Cannabis-based medicine relieves the pain of rheumatoid arthritis and suppresses the disease. Press release from Journal of Rheumatology, Oxford University Press.

Cannabis extract reduces pain in multiple sclerosis patients. Press release from British Medical Journal.

UK trial results on value of cannabis for multiple sclerosis patients. Press Release from the Medical Research Council.

Brain’s own cannabis compound protects against inflammation. Press release from journal Cell.

Hebrew University scientists develop prototype drug to prevent osteoporosis. Press release from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Cannabis-based drugs could offer new hope for inflammatory bowel disease patients. Press release from University of Bath.

Groups

Food and Drug Administration

Drug Enforcement Administration

Office of National Drug Control Policy

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Medical Marijuana ProCon.org

American Civil Liberties Union

GW Pharmaceuticals

Marinol

The magic of nano

At the end of March, a new bathroom cleaning product called MagicNano was released onto the German market. Within only a few days, almost 80 people had suffered respiratory complaints and six people had been hospitalised with fluid on their lungs.

Nano-watchers were quick to raise the question of whether this is the first example of a harmful nanotechnology product. This time, at least, it does not appear that nanotechnology is to blame. MagicNano was released in two versions: a pump spray and an aerosol spray. While the product inside the packaging was identical, only the aerosol spray caused respiratory problems. So it seems likely that the problem is down to the propellant in the aerosol.

This finding will not give much comfort to anyone. Companies making products that include nanoparticulates would very much like firm guidance from governments as to what tests they need to perform to demonstrate their product is safe. Governments, meanwhile, seem to be waiting for advice from scientists.

Has all the magic gone?
Apr 12th 2006
A nanotechnology product is recalled in Germany after health concerns (more...)

The drug trial that went wrong

This important story about a drug trial that went wrong in London has almost been buried by the alarm over a single case of H5N1 in a swan in Scotland. In the middle of last month, six people were taken seriously ill--with multiple organ failure--after taking part in a small clinical trial of an antibody treatment called TGN1412.

The mishap was so serious that Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), a government body, swiftly launched a full inquiry. On Wednesday of this week it announced interim findings. The trial had been run correctly, doses were given as they were supposed to, and there was no mistake in manufacturing. In other words, there was something unexpected about the drug itself, despite testing on animals and human-cell cultures, and despite the fact the doses given to humans were only 1/500th of what had been given to animals.

This is a difficult result for the drug business because it raises questions about the right way of testing medicines of this kind. TGN1412 is unusual in that it is an antibody. And it is an unusual antibody as well. Unlike all other antibody drugs it is what is called a “superagonistic” antibody, designed to increase the numbers of a type of immune cell known as regulatory T-cells.

Reduced numbers, or impaired function, of regulatory T-cells has been implicated in a number of illnesses, such as type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Boosting the pool of these antibodies seemed like a good treatment strategy. Unfortunately, that strategy fell disastrously to pieces and it will take a little longer to find out why.

The result highlights concerns raised in a paper just published by the Academy of Medical Sciences, a group of experts based in London. It says there are special risks associated with novel antibody therapies. For example, their chemical specificity means that they might not bind to their targets in humans as they do in other species.

The MHRA has decided that a working group of experts is now needed to decide how trials of this sort of drug can be handled more safely. Its main concern is how to test protein molecules that have novel modes of action--particularly in the immune system. While this expert group is working (it could take around three months) the MHRA will authorise further trials of compounds of this kind only after taking advice.

Tales of the unexpected
Apr 6th 2006
Why a drug trial went so badly wrong
IN ANY sort of test, not least a drugs trial, one should expect the unexpected. Even so, on March 13th, six volunteers taking part in a small clinical trial of a treatment known as TGN1412 got far more than they bargained for. All ended up seriously ill, with multiple organ failure, soon after being injected with the drug at a special testing unit at Northwick Park Hospital in London, run by a company called Parexel. One man remains ill in hospital.
(more.. subscription required)