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Science
Friday > Archives > 2002 > July > July 12, 2002:
Hour One: News Roundup:
Fossil Skull Find / Knee Surgery / Artificial Virus
| Researchers report this week in the journal Nature
that they have discovered the fossil skull of what may be a distant
human ancestor. The over six-million-year old skull, found in
the Djarab desert of Chad by the Mission Paleoanthropologique
Franco-Tchadienne team, predates other hominid finds by about
a million years. Some scientists say that it might be a distant
early ancestor, far back on humankinds' family tree. In this hour,
we'll talk about the find, how it fits into our picture of human
evolution, and what questions remain to be answered. |
"Toumai," found in the Djarab desert of Chad. Image
courtesy MPFT.
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Then, we'll turn our attention to a study published this week in
the New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors examining a form of arthroscopic
knee surgery to treat osteoarthritis have found that the procedure
is no more effective than a sham surgery. Some patients in the study
received a treatment known as arthroscopic débridement, in which parts
of the joint are scraped through a small incision. Others received
a washing treatment, while a third group - the placebo group - had
incisions made in their legs, but received no actual treatment. "At
no point did either of the intervention groups report less pain or
better function than the placebo group," write the authors. We'll
talk with them about their study, as well as about the ethics of performing
sham surgery.
Lastly, we'll talk about an advance in biotechnology. Starting with
only the genetic sequence, researchers have been able to build an
artificial polio virus that appears to be identical to those found
in nature. The work was done entirely in the test tube, with no assistance
from living hosts or natural templates for the virus to pattern on.
We'll find out more. Call in with your comments and questions at 1-800-989-8255,
and share your opinions online in our Listeners'
Lounge (registration
required).
Guests:
Tim White
Professor, Department of Integrative
Biology
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Dr. Bruce Moseley
Associate Professor, Orthopedic
Surgery
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas
Dr. Baruch Brody
Professor, Biomedical Ethics
Director, Center for Medical
Ethics and Health Policy
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas
Eckard Wimmer
Professor, Microbiology
State University of New York, Stony
Brook
Stony Brook, New York
Books/Articles Discussed:
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"A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central
Africa" by M. Brunet et al. Nature 418, 145–151 (2002).
"A Controlled Trial of Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritis
of the Knee" by J. B. Moseley and Others. NEJM, Volume
347, No. 2, July 11, 2002.
"Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of
Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template," by J.
Cello, A. V. Paul and E. Wimmer. Science, 12 July 2002.
(find
more SciFri books here)
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Related Links:
Nature:
Focus on human origins
Fossil
Hominids: the evidence for human evolution
Human
Evolution: The fossil evidence in 3D
NEJM
-- Abstracts: Moseley et al. 347 (2): 81
Arthroscopic
Surgery
Virtual
Hospital: Iowa Health Book: Orthopaedics: Knee Arthroscopy
International
Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine
The MIT Press - Artificial Life
BBC
News | SAN FRANCISCO | Synthetic virus nearing reality
This segment produced by Karin
Vergoth and Dorothy Lam
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