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4 | NewScientist | 20 October 2012 WHERE do the lies end? That’s the question facing Hisashi Moriguchi, who last week shot from obscurity with an amazing claim – reported by Japan’s biggest newspaper – to have injected genetically reprogrammed cells into six heart failure patients. Induced pluripotent stem cells hold huge medical promise, recognised earlier this month with a Nobel prize to Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka. But safety concerns remain – which made Moriguchi’s claim to have won ethical approval for the trial from Harvard Medical School surprising. Moriguchi claimed in a poster at a meeting of the New York Stem Cell Foundation to have greatly improved heart output in the treated patients. The Yomiuri Shimbun splashed the story, based on an interview with Moriguchi, who said he worked at Harvard Lies and stem cells and the University of Tokyo. Within hours, Harvard released a statement noting Moriguchi had no current affiliation with the university, nor ethical approval. The poster was taken down, and on Saturday, Moriguchi admitted that for five of the patients he was describing “planned” procedures. He maintained transplanting cells into one patient but, as New Scientist went to press, had produced no evidence. On Monday, the Japanese government and relevant universities began to probe all projects involving Moriguchi, including his previous papers. In papers published earlier this year, for instance, Moriguchi described freezing human ovarian tissue, and claimed to have eliminated liver tumour cells using cellular reprogramming (Scientific Reports, doi.org/jht and doi.org/jhv). The Nature Publishing Group, which produces the journal, is investigating allegations that Moriguchi made false statements in these papers and used an image taken from the website of the Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago. Rogue geoengineer A CLIMATE hacker may have gone rogue. Independent geoengineer Russ George has reportedly conducted a small field test in the north-east Pacific Ocean. It has been condemned by researchers. According to The Guardian newspaper, George dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the sea near the Canadian Haida Gwaii archipelago in July. Iron can trigger plankton blooms, which lock carbon away if they sink. George was previously CEO of Planktos, a company aiming to profit from iron fertilisation by selling carbon credits, but abandoned the project in 2008. New Scientist was unable to reach him for comment. “I am disturbed and disappointed,” says Victor Smetacek of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. “This is extremely unhelpful for those of us wanting to do some serious work on iron fertilisation,” says Richard Lampitt of the UK’s National Oceanography Centre. –Just 5 minutes from home– Skydiver goes supersonic “I’M COMING home now.” Those were the words of Felix Baumgartner just before stepping off his capsule 39 kilometres above Earth’s surface. About 5 minutes later, the Austrian daredevil did just that, breaking several records as he went. Preliminary figures suggest that Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall, although he says he didn’t feel a sonic boom as he was tumbling. The record, announced by the Red Bull Stratos team after the jump on 14 October, came 65 years to the day after pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in an experimental aircraft, the Bell X-1. Brian Utley of the US National Aeronautic Association said that Baumgartner’s maximum velocity in the thin air of the stratosphere was 1342.8 kilometres per hour, or Mach 1.24. The speed of sound changes depending on altitude, but the Stratos team has yet to reveal exactly how high Baumgartner was when he hit top speed. Utley will now submit the figures for verification. The mission also saw Baumgartner break records for the highest crewed balloon flight and the highest freefall jump. US air force pilot Joe Kittinger retains the record for longest freefall, set in 1960. And Google confirmed that the jump racked up a record 8 million concurrent views on YouTube. Baumgartner’s team will now collect and analyse physiological data from instruments on his suit. They say the information will benefit studies of escape systems for astronauts. “Moriguchi claimed to have greatly improved heart output in patients treated with reprogrammed cells” THE world really is getting stormier. Climate change is making hurricanes more severe, according to a new study of their effects on the US. The idea that hurricanes are becoming more common, or stronger, has been controversial because older weather records are less reliable than satellite data. So Aslak Grinsted of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, analysed storm surges due to hurricanes dating back to 1923, as measured by six US tide gauges. Hurricane threat deepens JAY NEMETH FOR RED BULL He found a clear upward trend. If it continues, the average number of hurricanes to hit the US each year will almost double by 2100 compared to 1923, and big storms like Hurricane Katrina will become more common (PNAS, doi.org/jh9). Extreme weather already costs US insurers huge sums – some $32 billion in 2011, according to a report by sustainability campaigners Ceres. Only 2005, the year Katrina struck New Orleans, saw worse losses. UPFRONT
