News in perspective

Upfront–

the Foundation for Biomedical

Research in Washington DC.

“We’re pleased that the judge has

made clear that such actions will

not be tolerated.”

Despite the convictions, Trull

says new legislation is needed to

deal with the growing number of

attacks by animal rights activists

in the US. Earlier this month,

Republican senator James Inhofe

and Democratic senator Dianne

Feinstein introduced the Animal

Enterprise Terrorism bill, which

would increase protection for

anyone associated with animal

research. The bill is under

consideration by the Senate and

House Judiciary committees.

ABORTION rates are climbing in

the UK despite increased access to

emergency contraception.

The number of British women

aged 15 to 44 opting for abortions

rose from 11 per 1000 in 1984 to

18 per 1000 in 2004, even though

the morning-after pill has been

available over the counter since

2000. Advocates of emergency

contraception argue that it helps

to lower the risk of unwanted

pregnancy, so it ought to have a

knock-on effect on abortion rates.

DRAINING reservoirs may not

sound like the best solution to

water shortages, but in parts of

the US it may be the only answer.

Overuse of underground water

in states such as Kansas and

New Mexico is causing aquifers to

empty at alarming rates. Similar

overuse of reservoirs combined

with the earlier springtime

melting of snow packs, caused

by global warming, is shrinking

them too. So how best to make use

of the dwindling supplies?

Refilling the aquifers may

provide a solution by avoiding

the evaporation that takes place

from reservoirs, according to Tom

Brikowski of the University of

Texas at Dallas. He told delegates

at a meeting of the Geological

Society of America in Longmont,

Colorado, on Monday that slowly

releasing some reservoir water

can allow it to soak into the river

bed downstream, refilling the

aquifers beneath.

Brikowski studied the town

of Hays, Kansas, which loses

75 per cent of its water supply,

stored in the nearby Grand Bluffs

reservoir, to evaporation. Using a

computer model of the subsurface

sand and gravel, he showed that

releasing reservoir water would

recharge the local aquifer and

ensure that the town would have

enough water to survive any

repeat of past droughts.

“This is a radical new way of

thinking about how we manage

our water, but we have no choice,”

Brikowski says. “Kansas is at

the forefront of this problem.

As climate change continues,

the rest of the West will

experience it as well.”

“STOP Huntingdon Animal

Cruelty is basically now defunct

in the US,” says Jacquie Calnan of

Americans for Medical Progress

in Alexandria, Virginia.

Three US-based members of

this animal rights campaign group

were each sentenced last week to

between four and six years in

prison for inciting violence against

people associated with research

organisation Huntingdon Life

Sciences. Three other SHAC

members will be sentenced

within the next two weeks.

“This has been a very ugly

campaign,” says Frankie Trull of

It has been called the first genocide of

the 21st century. Now it seems that the

crisis of death and displacement in the

Darfur region of Sudan has been

underestimated. A new analysis suggests

that hundreds of thousands of people

have died in the conflict rather than

the tens of thousands earlier reported.

John Hagan at Northwestern

University in Evanston, Illinois, and

Alberto Palloni at the University of

Wisconsin at Madison used UN counts

of refugees living in camps in western

Darfur and combined them with the best

available surveys which had interviewed

internally displaced people living in

these camps. They then extended this

ratio of death to displacement across

northern and southern Darfur.

“It is likely that the number of deaths

DARFUR DEATHS UNDERPLAYEDfor this conflict in greater Darfur is

higher than 200,000 individuals, and it

is possible that the death toll is much

higher,” Hagan and Palloni write in

the journal Science (vol 313, p 1578).

Earlier estimates relied on data from

restricted areas over shorter periods

and failed to take into account the

elevated death rates among people

living in refugee camps.

Sudan was high on the agenda at

a meeting of the UN General Assembly

in New York this week, where officials

were expected to push for UN troops

and logistical support to back up

the African Union peacekeeping forces

already in the area.

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan

Bashir continues to oppose UN

intervention in the country.

SVEN

TORF

INN/

PANO

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–Peaceful protests only–

MEL

EVAN

S/AP

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PICS

“This is a radical new way of thinking about managing water, but we have no choice”

–Survivors of genocide–

4 | NewScientist | 23 September 2006 www.newscientist.com

Water wisdom Activists jailed

The morning after

060923_N_Upfronts 4060923_N_Upfronts 4 19/9/06 5:09:20 pm19/9/06 5:09:20 pm