One of the first actions of the new centre-left government in Cuba has been to initiate a crackdown on the growing trade in designer babies. Laboratories across the nation have been offering gene treatments on embryos to produce desirable features, such as good looks or intelligence. Germ-line therapy is outlawed in Europe and the US, and Cuba had been under increasing pressure to curb the practice. JB
China has appointed a new prime minister following the death in a plane crash of Cheng Ziyang. Wang Ying, 49, who trained as a chemist at Imperial College, London, is a liberal like her predecessor. She is expected to deal swiftly and decisively with her most immediate problem: the growing challenge to government authority posed by the belligerent so-called Southern Warlord. Born in Chengdu City, Sichuan, Wang is married to a financier and is the mother of twin boys aged 11. PF
It's alive, but is it a boy or girl? Alan Shillet's prediction of artificial computer life has finally been realised. A research team at Cambridge University reports that the Internet-based Cyberman software package has achieved 'self-awareness'. It promptly tried to make an arrangement to grow another 100 terabytes of memory and argued when it was shut down. SA
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