Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari!otc!metro!ipso!runx!jon
From: jon@runx.ips.oz (Jonathon Seymour)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Nature Articles. Anyone read them?
Message-ID: <1628@runx.ips.oz>
Date: 1 Jul 88 12:02:44 GMT
Organization: RUNX Un*x Timeshare.  Sydney, Australia.
Lines: 40


I'm after issue dates for two issues of Nature which have been referred
to recently in the Sydney Morning Herald. 

The first article is about a discovery made by Prof. Paul Schimmel, a
professor of biochemistry and biophysics at MIT. It centres around what
Schimmel thinks is a second, more primitive genetic code which performs some
of the functions of DNA. It was referred to in an article in the SMH on May
17th this year as "appearinging in this week's issue of ... Nature ". Given
the media's propensity for distorting reality in order to squeeze it between
the cigarette advertisements I wouldn't be at all suprised if the article is
a few months old. 

Today another interesting article was referred to in the SMH. This time 
the subject was a controversial experiment which seemed to show that 
"the immune system's antibodies can work even when the solution they are
in is so diluted that no antibody molecules are left in it". Powerful
stuff. What's more:

"the result...was particularly objectionable because it tends to
support homeopathy - the discredited practice of using herbs and oils
'attuned' to organs in order to cure ailments in them.....The authors
said that shaking the solution for 10 seconds was essential; failure
to shake it resulted in a failed experiment"

Stories like this last one no doubt excite people involved intimately with
the field. For me, a person who has to take a tractor to the monthly issue
of Scientific American to plough through to the end, such stories have a
quaintly destabilising effect on the keel of my belief system. 

A Mr. J. Benveniste of the French Medical Research Council was the Chief
Author of the report, which appeared in Nature. This story sounds as if it
would get into the paper even if a shuttle blew up. So it probably is this
week's news. 

My local library (the Mitchell Library, no less) is about two months 
behind publication in the issues of Nature. Is there anyone with a
more uptodate collection? I would be interested in hearing peoples comments
about the two articles I have mentioned.

jon.