Darwin dissenters

Darwinists around the globe celebrated the biologist’s 210th birthday on Tuesday, as a growing body of scientists voiced doubt about his theory of evolution.

The Discovery Institute announced this month that the number of doctoral scientists who have signed its “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list has topped 1,000. The list’s signers collectively state, “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

The group includes professors and researchers at prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley, MIT, and UCLA, as well as members of the national academies of science in countries such as Brazil, the Czech Republic, Russia, and the United States.

David Klinghoffer, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said the list grossly underrepresents the actual number of doctoral scientists skeptical about Darwinism because fear of professional repercussions keeps them silent. “Given all this—the fear of taint and reprisals—it follows inevitably that the 1,000+ names represent only the tip of a vast iceberg,” he wrote on the organization’s blog.

The world of secular science makes it nearly impossible for researchers who don’t buy into Darwinian evolution to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, no matter how credible and scientifically rigorous it may be, Nathaniel Jeanson, a creationist who earned a doctorate in cell and developmental biology at Harvard, told me. But then secular scientists point to the fact that research supporting creationism isn’t published in peer-reviewed journals as evidence it isn’t scientifically credible. “It’s a circular argument,” Jeanson said. “They put up an impenetrable wall.”

Stanford University investigates researchers

Stanford University confirmed last week that it has launched a third-party investigation into three of its faculty members who had interactions with He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who received worldwide disapproval when he announced in November that he had produced the first gene-edited babies.

Chinese government officials released their preliminary investigation of He’s work in January, according to the state news agency Xinhua. The report said He sidestepped regulations, dodged supervision, forged ethical review documents, and raised funds and organized a research team outside of his university lab to edit the genes of human embryos for the purpose of reproduction, a scientific act explicitly banned in China. As soon as the report came out, administrators fired He from his position at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen.

Several prominent U.S. scientists knew of, or strongly suspected, what He was doing. He did postdoctoral research at Stanford University, and three professors—Stephen Quake, his former adviser; William Hurlbut, a bioethicist; and Matthew Porteus, a genetics expert—kept in contact with the young scientist after he returned to China to begin his job in Shenzhen, MIT Technology Review reported.

Hurlbut and Porteus said they knew of He’s interest in gene-editing babies and discouraged him from it, but Hurlbut said he had strongly suspected He went ahead with his plans anyway.

Rice University in Houston is investigating interactions He had with Michael Deem, a bioengineering professor and He’s former adviser. He also sent an email to Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts announcing the pregnancy of the gene-edited babies. Mello served as a scientific adviser for He’s Direct Genomics company (not involved in the gene editing) until he resigned in December, just after He announced that gene-edited twin girls had been born.

The situation brings up ethical questions about how much responsibility scientists should bear in policing one another. Leigh Turner, a University of Minnesota bioethicist, said scientists who knew of He’s intentions seemed to adopt a culture of silence: “There seems to have been multiple lost opportunities.” —J.B.

Back to the moon after 50 years

A half a century ago, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag on the moon. Three years later, human footprints stirred lunar dust for the last time on the Apollo 17 mission.

But international efforts to return to the moon are ramping up. In 2017, President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive-1 to encourage NASA and international and commercial partners to go back to the lunar surface. The United States hopes to land a craft on the moon by 2020 and send a manned flight to orbit the moon in 2023. Plans are also in the works to establish a lunar orbiting space station in cooperation with the European Space Agency, which will serve as a fuel depot, a place to command robots on the moon’s surface, and a safe haven for astronauts exploring the moon.

China landed a rover on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, and several international cooperative efforts are planning lunar explorations in the coming decade. The European Space Agency is trying to send robot scouts to the moon and, with Russia, plans to assess the feasibility of melting lunar ice to support sustainable human exploration and possibly a permanent base, according to Horizon magazine. India’s space agency plans to launch a lander-rover mission, possibly this month, CNET reported. And in a few weeks, SpaceX expects to launch an Israeli lunar lander from its Falcon 9 rocket. —J.B.

Putting mosquitoes on a diet

Preventing mosquitoes from biting may prove as simple as putting them on a diet, according to a study in the Feb. 7 issue of the journal Cell. In the experiment, researchers found that human appetite suppressants satiate female mosquitoes’ desire for blood.

Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the species that spreads dengue fever, the Zika virus, chikungunya, and yellow fever, possess a strong attraction to humans because human blood contains a protein they need to produce eggs.

But once they have binged on blood, they lose their appetite for it for several days.

The scientists discovered they could get the same decrease in appetite by injecting the mosquitoes with human appetite suppressants. But using human drugs on mosquitoes in the wild could produce unwanted effects on humans or other animals, so the researchers developed a similar but safe substance they call compound 18.

When the researchers fed compound 18 to a group of female mosquitoes and then offered them a mouse feast, the mosquitoes showed no more interest in indulging than mosquitoes that had recently filled up on blood.

The researchers hope to refine their compound to make it even more potent and deliver it to female mosquitoes in the wild with baited traps or through the semen of male mosquitoes genetically modified to produce the compound themselves. The scientists believe compound 18 could also suppress the appetites of other blood-feeding insects such as the species of mosquitoes that spread malaria and ticks that transmit Lyme disease. —J.B.

NASA bids farewell to Opportunity

NASA pronounced the Mars rover Opportunity dead Wednesday after it failed to respond to their final attempts to make contact on Tuesday. Despite the funeral-like announcement, Opportunity was a stunning success. The rover, only built to operate for three months, had rolled around the red planet for 15 years, setting records for both endurance and distance. The last message sent to Opportunity was Billie Holiday’s song “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Opportunity’s demise leaves two rovers still surveying Mars: Curiosity, which landed in 2012, and the recently arrived InSight. Three more landers, from the United States, China, and Europe, are due for launch next year. —Rachel Lynn Aldrich