In years past, environmental catastrophes have helped environmental advocates win some of their biggest victories. In 1969, the Santa Barbara oil spill and images of a river on fire in Cleveland helped drive the passage of several anti-pollution laws. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez disaster helped spark a key clean-air law.

But this year, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, by far the biggest in US history, hasn’t had the same effect.

The Senate remains gridlocked on an energy bill. Public opinion has barely changed, and the demand for gasoline continues to surge.

It’s not that environmentalists aren’t trying. It’s just that they’re facing headwinds from a lousy economy, general mistrust of government and lingering suspicions from “Climategate,” which were sparked by since disproven allegations that environmental scientists were cooking their data to promote their views about global warming.

The dreadful economic tailspin has caused public officials and the public to back-off proposals that would lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, for example. Just 2 summers ago, gasoline cost $4-a-gallon, and millions cannot afford a return to such prices.

A related factor is the site of the oil spill. Louisiana residents, devastated by the calamity, have targeted BP rather than the oil industry itself, in part because the industry powers the state’s economy.

These issues are reflected in recent opinion polls which show that after the spill, only about 53% of people are concerned about climate change. That is unchanged from January, and down from 63% before the economy went south.

“It’s the short-term concerns overriding longer-term benefits” of greenhouse-gas laws, Ralph Izzo told the Washington Post. Izzo is CEO of the Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey-based utility that supports carbon emission price control legislation.

A Presidential commission tasked to explore ethical issues associated with man-made life has held initial meetings to better understand the matter and begin figuring out whether additional regulations are needed for the burgeoning new field.

In May, J. Craig Venter and colleagues reported creating a self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell, a landmark achievement that many believe represents the dawn of an era in which man can create brand-new organisms that produce drugs and fuels, and perhaps gobble up oil spills on the cheap.

The report prompted President Obama to organize the commission. He has asked it to produce recommendations within 6 months.

Venter attended the opening meetings himself. He suggested that researchers in the field could, perhaps, produce seed stock for a flu vaccine in just 12 hours. “With rapid DNA sequencing, we can predict, we think, well in advance what the changes will be for next year’s flu before the WHO even makes the decision as to the vaccine stocks,” he told  BurrillReport.

Venter added that synthetic biologists could also potentially cause harm—as by producing new, highly lethal viruses. Venter insisted however that such behavior could “be readily prevented by some straightforward regulations.”

Kristala Prather, a Chemical Engineering professor at MIT concurred that, that although the potential benefits are large, so too are the risks. “Because there is this information gap between what we understand about biology and what our capabilities are, it is impossible to predict what’s going to happen in every experiment,” she told GenomeWeb News.

The commission will hold more meetings in September and November.

Surgeons at UC San Diego have removed a woman’s gallbladder through her mouth. The procedure, known as natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), was performed as part of a prospective multicenter clinical trial designed to compare it with laparoscopy.

Soon after laparoscopy was introduced in the 1980s, it became the technique of choice for gallbladder removal (cholecystectomy), because it was associated with reduced costs and morbidity.

Typically, laparoscopic cholecystectomy requires creating 3-5 incisions in the abdominal wall. In contrast, NOTES involves accessing the gallbladder through the mouth and a subsequent a hole created in the stomach (the so-called transgastric approach). An alternative NOTES procedure accesses the gallbladder through the vagina (the transvaginal approach).

“What is unique about this trial is that we will not only evaluate the safety and efficacy of NOTES compared to laparoscopy but will also assess and compare pain levels, cosmetic outcomes, operative costs and logistical outcomes,” said Santiago Horgan a principal investigator in the study and chief of minimally invasive surgery at UCSD Health System. Horgan has performed more than 70 NOTES surgeries.

Horgan said that traditional laparoscopy is highly effective, but suggested the newer approach might reduce post-operative infection, hernia, scarring and pain.

“We hypothesize that NOTES procedures may reduce pain and infection by eliminating abdominal wall incisions altogether,” Horgan explained. “Post-operatively, many patients experience pain while walking or coughing due to contraction of the abdominal muscles. This discomfort is absent following the natural orifice approach.”

The trial is designed to perform 70 NOTES cases (35 transgastric and 35 transvaginal) and 70 laparoscopic cases. The UCSD site plans to enroll 20 patients.

Cholecystectomy is one of the most common surgeries in the US. Nearly 750,000 patients undergo the procedure each year.

The dream of an effective vaccine against the AIDS virus may have moved one step closer to reality, according to federal scientists.

The scientists identified 2 naturally occurring antibodies that destroy nearly 90% of all strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. They say their finding could hasten development of new HIV treatments as well as a vaccine.

HIV is deviously mutable. Frequent mutations in its DNA change the composition of surface proteins on the virus, allowing it to escape an immune response. This enables the virus to continue infecting cells even after antibodies targeting it have appeared — it has thus been able to avoid vaccines developed against it so far.

There are hundreds of variants of the HIV virus around the world. Finding so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can kill the majority of these strains has been the goal of HIV researchers for 2 decades.

To date, the best researchers have been able to do is find antibodies that block about 40% of the known HIV strains. Key to a breakthrough in this regard is to isolate antibodies that attack relatively unchanging parts on the surface of the HIV virus. And that’s what may just have been accomplished.

“I am more optimistic about an AIDS vaccine at this point in time than I have been probably in the last 10 years,” Gary Nabel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told the LA Times. Nabel headed the project reporting the breakthrough. The write-up appears in Science.

Nabel’s team isolated antibodies from a 60-year-old African American man that had been infected with HIV. Using new imaging and analytical techniques, the team isolated 2 antibodies, known as VRC01 and VRC02, which are directed against a protuberance on the surface of the HIV virus. The spike facilitates binding to something called the CD4 binding site on white blood cells of humans. When an antibody binds to to the spike, it prevents the virus from entering the cell.

The HIV virus relies exclusively on this receptor to enter human white blood cells, so it can’t infect them when antibodies are attached to the spike.

Nabel’s team is currently testing a synthetic version of the spike as a possible vaccine in animals. They hope to begin human testing fairly soon.

Traditional wisdom holds that children who are picky eaters will outgrow the behavior, so no intervention is required. That holds true for the vast majority of people, but recently scientists have called attention to a small group of adults who are remarkably picky eaters.

One woman featured in a Wall Street Journal article on the subject for example, has lived on the following diet for more than 20 years: French fries, pasta with butter or marinara sauce, vegetarian pizza, cooked broccoli, corn on the cob and cakes and cookies without nuts.

“When I was younger it was cute,” the woman told the Journal. “Now it’s embarrassing.”

Adult picky eaters don’t fit existing definitions for eating disorders, since their behavior is not driven by the need to achieve a certain body weight. In fact, they aren’t necessarily skinny or obsessed with their appearance, at all.

Yet their odd food preferences can interfere with their social and professional relationships, which suggests a true behavioral disorder. For example, some adult picky eaters lie about their diets and avoid parties or business lunches in order to keep their secret. Others refuse to eat with their families. Many feel ashamed or inconvenienced about their dietary preferences.

In an attempt to understand adult picky eating, scientists at Duke University have launched a national public registry that allows people to report on their unusual dietary habits (www.eatingdisorders.mc.duke.edu). Counseling is also available, though no therapeutic strategy has been shown to be effective so far.

Meanwhile, a group of experts that has been tasked to author the Eating Disorders section of the 2013 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders may recognize for the first time a condition called “selective eating” that could apply to both adults and children.

The decades-long hunt for an obesity pill has been sullied by market withdrawals and clinical failures. The largely fruitless quest was recently dubbed the “$11 billion market that never was” by Datamonitor, a research firm that predicted drug sales in the space would reach just $560 million in 2018.

“Current approaches just aren’t good enough to capitalize on this opportunity,” the firm reported.

Nevertheless, the hunt continues. Last month for example, Arena Pharmaceuticals announced a $1.3 billion marketing and supply agreement which calls for the company to sell its experimental obesity-fighter lorcaserin to Eisai for a purchase price beginning at 31% of Eisai’s annual net sales, with escalator clauses reaching as high as 36.5% if sales exceed $750 million. Arena can also receive up to $1.2 billion in purchase price adjustment payments, according to BurrillReport.

Lorcaserin, the most advanced drug in Arena’s pipeline, is a so-called selective serotonin 2C receptor agonist. The serotonin 2C receptor is located in the hypothalamus, an area of the brain known to help control appetite. According to Arena, stimulation of the serotonin 2C receptor is associated with a sensation of satiety.

Also last month, Orexigen reported that a late-stage trial of its experimental obesity drug Contrave had achieved promising results. Contrave includes the antidepressant Wellbutrin and an opioid blocker that is currently used to treat drug and alcohol addiction.

The Contrave trial involved patients with type 2 diabetes. After 56 weeks of treatment, obese patients with diabetes lost more weight and achieved better glycemic control than those receiving a placebo. In addition, more than twice as many patients taking Contrave lost 5% or more of their body weight.

Arena has a date with the FDA this October. Orexigen’s big day comes next January.

A 10-pack of Vitaminwater costs about $10. Its maker, Glaceau, which also sells vitamin enriched water products like Smartwater and Vitaminwater Zero, sold 142 million cases in the US alone last year.

Vitaminwater sales are driven by cool packaging and product names like Focus, Revive and Connect. But are these products, and those of competitors like Propel and SoBe Life Water, nutritionally useful?

Eh, not really. The average-sized adult needs 6-8 8-oz. glasses of liquid per day, but tap water is just as effective for that purpose (unless you live in the District of Columbia, where lead may lurk in the water). As for electrolytes, only people that work-out vigorously for at least an hour need to replenish them.

“Vitaminwater is a marketing ploy,” Nancy Rodriguez, a professor of nutrition and a sports nutritionist at the University of Connecticut, told the Washington Post.

And a full bottle of Vitaminwater contains 125 calories; almost as much as a can of Coca-Cola (lower- and zero-calorie versions of these products are also available).

Well then, what about the vitamins themselves? Vitaminwater contains mostly B vitamins and Vitamin C, which are not stored in the body.

“Once you go beyond what you need, you urinate it out,” Lona Sandon, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association told the Post. “You’re peeing that money away.”

And you’re not getting the full spectrum of vitamins and nutrients that are contained in a One-a-Day or a Centrum, or better still, in a balanced diet.

“I would hate for someone to use Vitaminwater in lieu of eating fruits and vegetables,” said Sandon. “Whole fruit and vegetables contain phytonutrients and fiber that work together. You don’t find the same benefit in a bottle.”