Space pioneer fined
Private rocket-builder Scaled Composites has been fined $25,870 over an accident that killed three of its employees in July 2007. California鈥檚 industrial safety agency said the company failed to fully train employees to handle nitrous oxide, which exploded during tests of its SpaceShipTwo craft.
Cloned meat 鈥榝it to eat鈥�
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Food safety authorities in Europe and the US have independently declared meat and milk from cloned livestock to be safe to eat. Not that we鈥檙e likely to taste it any time soon: both the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority say cloned animals are too valuable to be used for anything other than breeding.
Spot the damaging genes
Volunteers from China, the US and the UK are to hand over their DNA to speed the search for medically important gene differences between individuals. Through the 1000 Genomes Project launched on 22 January, teams in participating countries will sequence and compare the DNA of volunteers to identify disease-specific gene variants.
Night-time spinach
The lack of meat in refugee rations in east Africa has prompted a flourishing illegal trade in wild meat, known as 鈥渘ight-time spinach鈥� in refugee camps. The trade is endangering wildlife populations and threatening rural communities鈥� food supplies, according to a report by the Traffic wildlife monitoring network.
Poor nations鈥� burden
Ecological damage by rich nations is costing poor nations more than their combined foreign debt, according to an analysis of more than 40 years of data on human activity and environmental damage. Climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation and overfishing have cost up to $47 trillion at current values (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ).