4 | NewScientist | 22 June 2013

PILL-POPPERS and drug regulators everywhere: turn your eyes to New Zealand. The country looks set to adopt new laws permitting the sale of some designer drugs for recreational use.

Under the proposed laws, which a parliamentary committee last week recommended to be passed, manufacturers will be able to sell any currently unregulated psychoactive substance if they can demonstrate it has a “low risk of harm”. But the laws also allow for any substance not already regulated to be prohibited from sale until approved.

The bill was designed to regulate the supply of designer drugs like synthetic cannabis and “meow

meow”. Its guiding principle is that products can be sold provided they meet safety requirements.

“The new law will put the onus on industry to demonstrate

Drug law shake-up their products are low-risk, using a similar testing process to pharmaceuticals,” says Ross Bell of the New Zealand Drug Foundation in Wellington, an organisation that campaigns to reduce drug harms.

Some inconsistencies may arise: cannabis will continue to be banned, but a synthetic cannabis could potentially be legalised if it passes safety tests. Bell says existing bans may be reconsidered in the future. A new regulatory authority will be set up to administer the measures, advised by an independent expert technical committee.

“The neat thing about this is that it says to the industry, ‘we’ll let you create a market for your products, but you have to play by the rules and not do stupid things like label substances as bath salts’,” says Bell. He says that while everyone else is still trying to ban every new drug that comes along, New Zealand is the first country to try to regulate them. “This is one of the more pragmatic responses to new psychoactive substances, and it could provide a model for others to follow.”

Astronauts in fluxEIGHT new people have what it takes to travel in space – if NASA can decide where they will go.

On 17 June the US space agency announced its new class of astronauts, the first who will be trained for exploration beyond Earth orbit since the Apollo years.

Chosen from a pool of more than 6300 applicants, the class of 2013 includes pilots, military officers, doctors and a physicist. Early training will focus on trips to the International Space Station

and flying in commercial vehicles like the SpaceX Dragon capsule. After that, their path is uncertain.

NASA recently confirmed a plan to drag an asteroid into lunar orbit to use as a training ground for deep-space exploration. But if a bill drafted by the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology passes, the mission will be axed. “The draft legislation focuses NASA’s limited resources on initiatives that have strong, long-standing bipartisan support, like sending humans to Mars,” a Congressional aide revealed.

–More farm than good–

Fish leave cows standingCOWS have been overtaken by fish. For the first time in modern history, the world has been producing more farmed fish than farmed beef. But instead of being a boon for the environment, many fish farms are damaging it because of the types of fish they breed.

A report by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC has found that farmed fish production is rising rapidly, reaching a record 66 million tonnes in 2012. Cattle farm output, by contrast, has levelled off, with just 63 million tonnes of beef produced in the same year.

If current trends continue, humans are set to consume more farmed fish than wild-caught fish by 2015, says the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Some farmed fish are good for the environment. Chinese aquaculture, which accounts for 62 per cent of the world’s farmed fish, relies heavily on species such as silver carp. These can be grown on rice paddies and feed on grass, plankton and detritus. This relatively sustainable way of farming fish boosts rice yields and produces little pollution.

However, other popular farmed species such as salmon are carnivorous. They must be fed on smaller fish like anchovies, caught from the wild. As a result, salmon can only be farmed by further depleting wild fish stocks. “It would be preferable to shift the balance back in favour of farmed fish raised without feeds based on protein from other animals,” the report concludes.

“It says ‘we’ll let you create a market, but you have to play by the rules, and not do stupid things’ ”

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has gained the space fan’s ultimate accolade: immortalisation in Lego.

The Curiosity toy is the fifth design to be approved for release via Lego’s Cuusoo programme, which lets enthusiasts submit their own designs to the Danish-based company for others to vote on. Any model that wins at least 10,000 votes is considered for commercial release.

Designed by former NASA engineer Stephen Pakbaz, who

Curiosity immortalised in LegoJa

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worked on the real Curiosity, the Lego version has a working suspension system, an articulated arm and a posable mast for recreating your favourite events in the rover’s ongoing mission – such as finding the first definitive evidence that Mars could once have supported life.

Pakbaz has also released plans for a Lego version of the Sky Crane, the novel system daringly employed by NASA to lower Curiosity to the surface of Mars.

UPFRont

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