Rodents gone mad
In other schizophrenia news, a new transgenic mouse may allow researchers to better study the enigmatic disease, which afflicts one percent of people worldwide. A Johns Hopkins University team this week reported inserting a disrupted human gene, the schizophrenia risk factor DISC1, into lab mice, causing them to exhibit the brain asymmetry characteristic of schizophrenia as well as agitation in open spaces and trouble finding hidden food—traits reminiscent of the restlessness, impaired sense of smell and depressionlike symptoms schizophrenics suffer, Reuters reports. Until now, researchers had needed drugs to simulate the condition in mice. (Reuters)

No quarter for stem cells
The White House ban on new stem cell research is blocking testing that could potentially spare embryos, according to the Washington Post. The newspaper reported Sunday that researchers at Alameda, Calif., stem cell firm Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) as well as Wake Forrest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and others have been in limbo since submitting a grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health in February to compare new techniques for deriving embryonic stem cell lines, such as extracting a single cell from an eight-cell embryo. Robert Lanza, ACT's vice president of research and scientific development, complained to the Post that the White House is "trying to ride the clock out." (Washington Post)

Bad pot luck: Marijuana is like cigarettes on crack
Potheads took another hit this week when a study found that smoking a single joint can cause as much lung damage as five cigarettes. Those who sipped of the weed at least once a day had no signs of emphysema after five years—unlike pack-a-day cigarette smokers after one year—but marijuana smoke obstructed air passages to a similar extent, closing fine airways and restricting the larger ones. Researchers said pot's damage stemmed from a joint's higher burn temperature and the deeper inhalation, not to mention the lack of a filter. (Associated Press)

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