“Exhumations, DNA testing of historical figures draw interest, but ethics are questioned“. — The Scientist

Cloning is not Copying: “Unfortunately, the idea of clones as copies has found a prominent place in our cloning conversations. Ian Wilmut, who headed the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, used the term early and often as he sought to demonstrate his revulsion at the idea of human reproductive cloning – at ‘copying people’.

But people cannot be copied. Our mirror image will never come to life on our side of the looking glass. Reconstructing a new person using a single cell taken from a progenitor would duplicate only the genome. The clone would be a later-born identical twin. While the copying metaphor may lend itself more readily to clones than twins because, sequentially, the clone follows the progenitor, the term is as misleading applied to one as it is to the other. Perhaps the most profound and pernicious of the misunderstandings about cloning is that genetic identity is equivalent to personal identity.” —Guardian.UK

“So while the national headlines recently trumpeted good news about STDs—herpes rates fell significantly throughout the 1990s, especially among young people—the local, untold story was scarier. An all but banished disease was making a serious comeback—and it wasn’t the only one. “The fact of the matter is we have seen increases in gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis,” says Blank. The health department doesn’t keep tabs on herpes cases, but the tracking of these other STDs paints a dark picture. Last year, there were 35,000 cases of chlamydia, a key cause of infertility. Girls between 10 and 14 years old account for a small but fast-growing fraction of that number. And while the national gonorrhea rate went down between 1999 and 2001, it went up slightly in the city in the same period, with cases almost doubling in girls between 10 and 14.

But at the center of heightened concern about the rising tide of STDs is syphilis, which Blank calls “the high-profile disease of the day.”” — Village Voice

“The kids who survived the worst school massacre in U.S. history have graduated, and some of them have even forgiven. But many of their parents have not.” — Salon

“As more Americans die in Iraq and evidence piles up that the president rushed into war, even his right-wing allies are turning on him. Has the White House reached the tipping point?” — Joe Conason, Salon

“The brainpower of young women who are lacking in iron can be markedly boosted by taking supplements of the mineral, suggests a new study.

Even women who were just modestly iron deficient did much worse on attention, memory and learning tests than those with enough iron in their blood, found the study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US.” — New Scientist

World’s marine life is getting sicker: “A new study provides the first solid evidence that creatures from turtles to sea urchins are getting more diseases, more often.” — New Scientist

Denis Dutton on Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings: “Personally, I think the New Zealand government should bring back knighthoods just to give him one. So when I add that the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is, as a work of cinematic art, ham-fisted, shallow, bombastic, and laughably overrated, don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking Jackson and his hard-working team. The larger issue is Hollywood and the degraded state of big-budget movies.” — Los Angeles Times

Actually, It May Become Worse — Robert Freeman, CommonDreams

Environmental ‘Nobel Prizes’ Announced: “The Goldman Environmental Prize recognizes the perseverance – and the very concrete accomplishments – of grassroots activists throughout the world. The prize is considered by many to be environmentalism’s highest honor, established in 1990 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman (Richard Goldman founded Goldman Insurance Services in San Franciso, and Rhoda Goldman was a descendant of jeans-maker Levi Strauss). Winners are nominated annually by environmental organizations, and chosen by a panel of former prizewinners and other activists. Each winner or team of winners receives a no-strings-attached award of $125,000. This year’s crop was honored in a ceremony in San Francisco on April 19.

Below is a list of the winners followed by the first in a series of interviews with the 2004 Goldman winners discussing their victories and defeats, their plans for the future, and their mystifying, inspiring optimism. ” — AlterNet

‘Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. has promised President George W. Bush the Saudis will reduce oil prices before this November’s election to help the U.S. economy, according to Bob Woodward, author of a new book about the Iraq war.

Oil prices are “high, and they could go down very quickly,” Woodward said last night in an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes.’

“That’s the Saudi pledge,” said Woodward. “Certainly over the summer or as we get closer to the election they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.” ‘ — Bloomberg

“Bob Woodward’s new book depicts a president who shuns responsibility, critical thinking and self-doubt, and instead mistakes stubbornness for leadership.” — AlterNet

“In 1997, psychology professor and spiritual leader Ram Dass suffered a stroke that left him with expressive aphasia and partial paralysis. The Independent Lens feature ‘Ram Dass: Fierce Grace’ (Tuesday night on PBS; check local listings) begins with Ram Dass coping with the physical and emotional challenges of his stroke, but the film quickly expands into a wider examination of his life’s work. While you might think you’d be nothing but amused by a documentary in which interviewees stare directly into the camera and say things like ‘You can’t buy into someone else’s trip,’ and ‘He brought me to my guru. How can you ever repay that?’ in fact, this film is remarkably moving. From his pre-Maharaji days as Harvard professor Richard Alpert to his ‘Be Here Now’-era group meditations on his father’s farm, each step of Ram Dass’s journey is handled with such patience and compassion, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the emotional momentum of the film. And when Ram Dass meets with the girlfriend of a murdered activist, their conversation is at once so devastating and so inspiring, you won’t be able to get it out of your mind for days.

Most of all, though, the film bears witness to the ego’s struggle with aging. ‘This isn’t who I expected to be,’ Ram Dass explains. ‘This is all new because my expectations of me didn’t have this stroke in it.’ By humbly presenting us with his own challenges, Ram Dass does a great service in helping us prepare for those times when our plans get derailed and our lives suddenly don’t live up to our expectations.” — Salon Arts [via walker]