Health & Science

Engineering human babies

In a highly controversial breakthrough, scientists have successfully engineered a human embryo to glow fluorescent green. Though the embryo was designed to die just a few days into its gestation, the experiment is being decried as the first step toward “designer babies”— implantable embryos whose genes have been manipulated to make children taller, smarter, or otherwise “better” than they would have been naturally. Scientists who designed the embryo insisted that this was not their intention. “None of us wants to make designer babies,” says Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, a researcher in reprodutive medicine at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center. “This particular piece of work was done on an embryo that was never going to be viable.” He says his team was attempting to use the fluorescence gene as a marker to track cell division during development. But the technique—inserting a gene into a developing embryo—could be used to “improve” human offspring by adding genes for height, intelligence, blue eyes, athletic ability, etc. “These scientists, on their own, decided to step over that boundary with no public discussion,” Marcy Darnovsky, director of a scientific ethics watchdog group, tells The New York Times. The next big breakthrough, she warns, could be a fully viable designer baby.

Reading to kids pays off

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Moms and dads who spend hours reading The Cat in the Hat or Goodnight Moon to their young children aren’t just lulling them to sleep. A new study says that every time parents read a child his favorite bedtime book, they’re preparing him for a successful future in school. Bedtime reading stimulates nearly every facet of a child’s development, from language to memory to motor skills, as he or she learns how to turn pages, understand sequences, and follow a narrative. “You can imagine if someone technologically came up with a widget that would stimulate all aspects of a 2-year-old’s development, everyone would want to buy it,” study author professor Barry Zuckerman tells the London Guardian. That widget happens to be made of paper and ink. Zuckerman’s study shows that the earlier a kid gets into reading books with family, the better his test scores are as he grows up.

Gruesome, but eco-friendly

There’s now an alternative to burial and cremation. The new option, says the Los Angeles Times, is bound to horrify some, but it’s the ultimate in efficiency: dissolving a body in lye and high heat and pouring the remains down the drain. The method, which is known as alkaline hydrolysis, involves placing a dead body in a steel container with the caustic chemical lye. The vat is then heated and pressurized so that human remains boil down to a brown, sterile fluid the consistency of motor oil. These remains can then be safely disposed of in public sewerage systems. There’s also a small amount of dry bone residue remaining from the body, which can be handed over to family in an urn. Critics say the process—which is already being used by two medical research centers on donated cadavers—is disrespectful to human remains. But advocates point out that it is more environmentally friendly than burial, which takes up needed land, and cremation, which can pollute the air with toxic chemicals from items such as dental fillings. “It’s not often that a truly game-changing technology comes along in the funeral service,” writes the newsletter Funeral Service Insider. But “we might have gotten a hold of one.”

Washing away allergies

Allergy sufferers spend billions of dollars every year on pills, inhalers, and nose sprays to get them through the pollen-filled months in spring and fall. But the best treatment for allergies might be a technological throwback called nasal irrigation. Nasal irrigation is exactly what it sounds like: You squirt salt water up your nose and let it leak back out. To deliver the saline solution, you can either use a teapot-like device called a neti pot, popular for centuries in India, or a water bottle with a squeeze top, a turkey baster, or a needle-less syringe. Just pour some room temperature tap water with a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt into one nostril and allow the water to flow out the other. This will wash out mucus and grime, along with pollen grains and other airborne allergens you’ve inhaled. “People say at first that this seems weird and disgusting,” sinus expert Dr. Melissa Pynnonen tells The Wall Street Journal. “But generally, if I can get adults to do it once, they don’t want to stop since it treats post-nasal drip and mucus better than anything else.”

Why most small businesses fail

More than 50 percent of small businesses fail, and a new study explains why. British researchers set up a game in which prospective entrepreneurs decided whether to launch a new restaurant in an established community. The most confident game players—those who appeared “full of themselves”—fared worst, because they ignored signs that the market was already filled to capacity. “Market entry decisions tend to be overoptimistic,” lead researcher Briony Pulford tells LiveScience. She warns people starting businesses to “beware of overconfidence,” and to be “especially wary when entering small markets or markets that seem to present easy business opportunities.” For people launching businesses, self-confidence is essential, but that trait is useful only when it’s based on a realistic assessment of the competition and other market conditions.