Joost van der Burg of the Centre for Plant Breeding and Reproduction
Research in Wageningen says: ‘Selection by hand on basis of X-ray images
halves the percentage of nonproductive plants.’

Van der Burg and fellow researcher Henk Jaling grew hundreds of tomato
plants after X-raying each seed individually. Each seed received an exposure
equivalent to 0.01 millisieverts – too low to harm them, but enough to distinguish
internal features. An average chest X-ray produces an exposure of 0.05 millisieverts.

By comparing the images, they concluded that the easiest tangible determinant
was the so-called ‘free space’ between the plant embryo and the endosperm.
Seedlings most likely to die came from seeds with the most free space. Van
der Burg has designed a computer program that can analyse the amount of
free space in the digitised X-ray image by generating a false-colour image.
Work is also under way on a program which can also analyse more subtle features,
such as the shape of the embryo.

The success rate for tomato seeds selected by traditional methods –
which include sieving or floating the seeds in water – is 60 per cent.
This is a significant loss, as 1 kilogram of seed, containing about a quarter
of a million seeds, can cost up to 60 000 Dutch guilders ( £21 000),
and seedlings can absorb several weeks’ water and food before dying.

Van der Burg and Jailing’s research may not be easy to apply just yet,
since automation is a prerequisite for commercial use. That needs a video
camera which works in real time, taking about 30 images per second and
resolving details 20 micrometres across, which is 10 times finer than the
best medical X-ray cameras.

The panel of 15, which spent three days debating the issues, decided that
there are still too many unknowns in genetic engineering. They were
particularly worried about animal welfare and the chance that ‘runaway’
genes could cross into other animals and plants.

The debate, organised by the government-funded Foundation for Public
Information on Science, Technology and the Humanities, focused on whether
genetic manipulation of animals should be allowed. The panel’s report has
been sent to the parliamentary com-mittee on science policy which is
discussing experiments being carried out by Gene Pharming, the Dutch
company that has created transgenic cattle (This Week, 8 May). The
committee aims to draw up new laws to regulate such practices.

The panellists, including a housewife, a teacher and a welder, were selected
from a group of 111 people who responded to newspaper advertisements. They
were extensively briefed about different aspects of the subject by experts
before the debate began.

The report lays out two points of view. Nine members of the panel criticised
the government for its general lack of control and inconsistent policies on
genetic engineering. For example, researchers working for universities and
the government must gain approval for experiments from ethical com-mittees,
while there are no such safeguards in industry.

The nine also felt that the government gave higher priority to economic
considerations than to animal welfare, and they criticised scientists for
lacking clear research goals.

The human genome project caused the panel much anxiety; people fear that it
increases the opportunities for eugenics. Any attempt to manipulate humans
should be widely discussed, they said. A moratorium on genetic engineering
would provide a breathing space during which consensus might be reached on
ethical issues, with the public having the last say in a referendum.

The other six members of the panel are anxious about genetic engineering,
but they believe in its benefits, especially for making new drugs. They
concluded that genetic engineering of animals is acceptable, as long as it
is carefully regulated.

Last autumn, farmers were simply curious about the huge numbers of crows
picking over their meadows. But when large patches of grass began to turn
brown at the end of January they called in Henk Vlug from the Plant Protection
Service. He found that the soil was infested with around 500 grubs per square
metre instead of the usual five or so. The grubs were the young of a dung-dwelling
beetle belonging to the genus Aphodius.

Most of the damage is concentrated in the east and south regions with
sandy soils. ‘In these areas, up to 50 per cent of the meadows are affected,’
says Vlug.

Farmers in these regions are barred by law from applying manure to their
fields in the usual way, by spraying it over the surface. Instead they must
‘inject’ it into the soil. This rule is intended to reduce the release of
ammonia, which catalyses the conversion of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere
to sulphate, and so accelerates the formation of acid rain.

Most farmers prefer a type of machine which makes slits about 5 centimetres
deep every 20 centimetres, delivering the manure near the roots of the
grass. This method does the least mechanical damage to the grass. Jan Huijsmans
of the Institute of Agrotechnology in Wageningen, who helped to design the
machine, has shown that it reduces the amount of ammonia released from the
soil by about 80 per cent.

Farmers generally apply manure in summer, when the grass is growing
fastest. This is also the time when the beetles fly in search of a place
to lay their eggs. Vlug suggests that the beetles are attracted to these
fields by the odour of manure. The manure in the slits is barely covered
with soil, making it easy for them to lay their eggs. Vlug believes most
of the damage is done by the crows probing about among the grass roots for
grubs.

Not everyone is convinced that Vlug has the right culprit. According
to Hugo Lieffen of the National Reference Centre for Cattle, some of the
afflicted meadows have not been treated with the manuring machine. ‘It could
simply be the population dynamics of the beetle at the bottom of this,’
he says.

The tinkling sound of peas falling on a plate is helping a Dutch researcher
to select peas most suitable for sowing in the cold, damp soil of the Netherlands.

Dutch farmers sow peas early in the year when the ground is still wet
and cold. These are not the best conditions for germination because initially
the seeds need to soak up water very slowly. Too much cold water in the
seed can easily destroy its inner structure and kill the developing embryo.
Cracks in the seed coat greatly reduce the chance of germination, so farmers
need to weed out peas with cracked coats before they start planting.

Joost van der Burg, a researcher at the Centre for Plant Breeding and
Reproduction Research in Wageningen, started dropping peas from a height
of a few millimetres onto a sensor, called a force transducer. The sensor
measures the forces which act on the surface during the impact, which normally
lasts for about 0.5 milliseconds.

He found that a healthy pea produces a symmetrical bell-shaped curve
on impact. If the seed has a cracked coat, it produces a skewed pear-shaped
curve. The sensor can also spot diseased peas: these are normally softer
than healthy seeds and produce an irregular curve when dropped on the force
transducer.

Van der Burg has built a prototype pea analyser and believes it could
be automated so that all peas used for sowing could be individually tested.
He has applied for a patent and several manufacturers of agricultural machinery
have already expressed an interest in producing the machine.

An automated machine could also improve the quality of peas sold to
consumers. At the moment, the canning industry uses sieves to select the
smaller high-quality peas. But because this only selects according to size,
some dried peas can end up in the can. During the canning process the dried
peas fall apart, creating pea-soup-like debris. ‘A consumer prefers peas
without debris on his plate,’ says van der Burg.

As the force transducer can distinguish between soft and hard seeds,
it can be used by the canning industry to assess the quality of a certain
lot. ‘It is impracticable to test all individual peas, simply because the
numbers involved are so massive,’ says van der Burg. Also, the peas have
to be processed in just a few weeks.

A researcher at the Agricultural University of Wageningen has found
that the original mixture of grasses and broad-leaved flowering plants did
a much better job. After the Dutch built their network of river dykes, a
rich community of plants colonised the bare soil, mostly growing from seeds
carried along the rivers. This ‘dry river valley vegetation’ includes more
than 140 species.

By mimicking the erosion caused by heavy rain Friso van der Zee of the
Department of Vegetation Science found that between 5 and 25 times as much
soil washed away from manured ‘pasture dykes’ than from those with a carpet
of mixed vegetation. They were also more likely to suffer landslides.

Plants with deep roots stabilise banks of earth most effectively. According
to van der Zee, the roots of pasture grasses fed regularly with manure do
not penetrate more than about 10 centimetres. ‘They simply don’t need to,
because they get manure every so often, as farmers use the dykes to dump
their surplus,’ he says. The plants in experimental plots left without manure
for three years have already developed root systems that penetrate an average
of 30 centimetres.

Manuring not only prevents plants putting down deep roots, it also leads
to an increase in the earthworm population. The worms attract moles, which
tunnel through the soil tearing the plant roots and destabilising the banks.
A count of molehills suggests that there are twice as many moles living
beneath well-manured vegetation.

The way the farmers have chosen to manage the grass has also contributed
to the destruction of the mixed river valley vegetation. The cheapest way
to keep down the grasses is to cut them and leave the hay to rot down. This
stunts the growth of plants beneath the hay, reducing both the diversity
of species and the actual numbers of plants. The mown hay also attracts
small mammals such as mice which, like the moles, dig into the dykes and
damage the structure.

‘This sort of maintenance was developed to save money, which, in the
short term, it does. In the long run, however, it costs heaps,’ says van
der Zee.

Ecologists would like to see a return to the old-style dykes, with colourful
carpets of flowers – and less risk of erosion. A change of management would
help but there is very little of the original mixed vegetation left to provide
a pool of seeds for recolonisation.

To compound this problem there are plans to raise the dykes by covering
them with a new layer of soil. This is likely to destroy the last remaining
stretches of old-style flower-covered dykes.

Fons Heule studied 46 women aged between 45 and 64. He gave half of
them a placebo and the other half two tablets a day of ImedeeN, a food supplement
made by Scan Vita International. After three months, most of the wrinkles
had disappeared from the faces of the women taking Imedeen. For a more objective
assessment, Heule measured the elasticity and thickness of the skin. Again
the women taking the tablets showed improvements.

While the manufacturer was delighted by the findings, the director of
Heule’s department was less than thrilled. Five days after the results were
announced, Theo van Joost, director of dermatology, retracted the claims.
The results should not have been released before they had been accepted
for publication by a scientific journal, he says.

‘Until the paper has been through the scientific peer review process
there is not enough evidence to claim that Imedeen works, nor that it doesn’t,’
says a spokesman for van Joost. The paper will shortly be submitted to the
Journal of Dermatology.

Scan Vita’s Dutch subsidiary, which funded the research, was dismayed
by the retraction. All stocks of Imedeen had sold out within a few days
of the announcement. Piet Bouwman, the general manager, says the study will
stand up to the scrutiny. ‘I think it is lunacy to deny results obtained
by sound research solely because they have not yet been accepted by a scientific
journal,’ he says.

Imedeen is sold in 40 countries, including Britain. No one knows how
the product works. The label on the package states that each tablet contains
190 milligrams of ‘deep-sea protein’.

The accompanying information leaflet says the protein is isolated from
the cartilage of deep-sea fish, caught around Japan. After freeze-drying,
the powdered cartilage is transported to Sweden and turned into tablets.
Caspen Wen, general manager of Scan Vita International, declined to disclose
the precise source of ‘deep-sea protein.’

Herman was ‘created” by Gene Pharming Europe, a company based in Leiden.
The company’s bioengineers wanted to implant into cows a modified version
of the human gene for a protein called lactoferrin. The protein, which is
secreted in milk, is part of a mammal’s natural defence against infection.
Gene Pharming hopes that cows with an extra lactoferrin gene will be less
susceptible to mastitis.

Unfortunately, the only success in Gene Pharming’s implantation experiments
was not a cow, but a bull. The company now hopes that Herman will pass the
gene on to his daughters, and that they will be less likely to suffer from
mastitis.

This lands Herman right in the middle of an acrimonious debate over
patenting the products of biotechnology in the European Community. Earlier
this month, the European Parliament finally ended four years of debate,
and approved a draft directive on patenting biotechnological inventions.
The directive is aimed at unifying the very variable rules on what can be
patented in different countries in the Community.

When the directive was first proposed four years ago it would have allowed
Gene Pharming to patent Herman, his extra gene, and his offspring. Every
time the bull or his offspring passed along the lactoferrin gene, Gene Pharming
could have charged royalties – until the patent ran out.

The European Parliament amended this. It demanded ‘farmers’ privilege”,
whereby farmers pay royalties on a patented gene in seed or livestock only
once, not every time the gene is passed to a descendant. MEPs said the original
proposal would cost farmers too much in royalties, and in legal battles
to prove any crop or livestock on the farm does not carry unpaid-for descendants
of patented genes. The Parliament also passed an amendment forbidding the
patenting of ‘human parts’, including cloned ones.

Farmer’s privilege would mean Gene Pharming could patent Herman, but
not his daughters. The effect of forbidding patenting of ‘human parts’ is
less clear because the lactoferrin gene is based on, but not identical to,
the human gene.

The proposed directive will now be discussed by the patent authorities
in the 12 member states. The directive, perhaps with more amendments, will
eventually be passed by the Council of Ministers, then handed back to Parliament.

MEPs can insist on keeping the amendments proposed by Parliament, unless
the ministers agree unanimously to reject them. Commission staff believe
the ministers may accept some form of farmers’ privilege, but are unlikely
to ban patents on human genes. This would still leave Herman’s daughters
unpatented.

Meanwhile, it is still far from clear how the directive will relate
to the European Patent Convention. This agreement covers not only the Community
but most other European countries as well. The European Patent Office, which
administers the convention, would decide whether Herman could be patented
on the basis of whether he was morally acceptable, innovative and useful.

The Dutch government, at least, considers Herman morally acceptable.
The Dutch agriculture minister, Piet Bukman, is in favour of giving Gene
Pharming permission to breed from him on that basis. But Ria Beckers, chair
of the Dutch Green Party, vows to fight Herman’s breeding permit, which
must be approved by Parliament. ‘We have often been promised a national
discussion of this issue. Now would be the right moment,’ she says. The
Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals has launched a campaign against
the genetic manipulation of farm animals.

Herman’s usefulness is open to question. Uri Vecht, of the Dutch National
Institute for Veterinary Research, says the type of bacteria inhibited by
lactoferrin are responsible for only half the cases of mastitis. Moreover,
cows produce their own lactoferrin just after calving, yet this is when
the incidence of mastitis is highest. Vecht says ‘I really don’t know’ whether
an extra lactoferrin gene will help.

Gene Pharming says the milk from Herman’s daughters will be useful as
a source of human lactoferrin to fight human infections, such as the gut
infections and diarrhoea common in AIDS patients. But Jan van der Meer of
the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam says many of these infections are
not caused by the bacteria that are inhibited by lactoferrin.

The technique is suitable for salads such as Waldorf which have a thick
dressing holding together a mixture of vegetables, potatoes or meat. When
untreated, these soon spoil because the ingredients are invariably contaminated
with microorganisms. Adding artificial preservatives such as sorbic or benzoic
acids inhibits the growth of many of these organisms, extending the shelf
life of the salads to about eight weeks.

Consumer pressure is, however, discouraging the use of artificial preservatives.
Increased concentrations of acetic acid can be used, but this gives the
salad a sharp acid taste, which many people dislike.

The new process, devised by Martin Bonestroo of the Department of Food
Chemistry and Microbiology at the University of Wageningen, uses naturally
occurring lactobacillus bacteria isolated from the water in which soy curd
has been soaked. These bacteria are commonly used to make yoghurt and salami
and grow well at temperatures between 40 and 50 °C, producing lactic
acid in the process. Most of the organisms that spoil salads cannot grow
at these high temperatures.

Bonestroo simply mixes the bacteria into the dressing. After preparation
and packaging, the salads are incubated for seven hours at 45 °C and
then refrigerated. During incubation the bacteria produce enough lactic
acid to prevent growth of other bacteria at lower temperatures. The salads
then have a shelf life of about five weeks if kept at temperatures below
7 °C.

‘One bonus is that the fermentation actually leads to a better tasting
product. Lactic acid gives the salads a pleasant, mildly sour taste,’ Bonestroo
says.

The fermentation also delays the oxidation of unsaturated oils which
form the basis of the dressing, presumably because the added bacteria consume
all the oxygen. Normally, prepared salads displayed on supermarket shelves
often develop a rancid taste because the display lights promote oxidation
of the oils.

One drawback is that the process is only suitable for salads in which
solid ingredients make up less than 70 per cent of the total. Also the salads
should not contain too much cumin or oregano, as they inhibit the growth
of the lactic acid bacteria.

The outbreak began late in September in a small town south of Rotterdam
(This Week, 3 October). Health officials had hoped to contain the disease,
but cases have now been reported in three provinces to the north. They now
fear that this outbreak will follow the same disastrous path as the last
one in 1978, which led to 110 cases.

Another concern is that polio may spread easily among the country’s
illegal immigrants who are reluctant to come forward for vaccination. A
spokeswoman for the health department said this was seen as a particular
threat in Rotterdam. At present anyone under 41 years of age can receive
the vaccine.

What is needed most, said the health department, is a public discussion
of this issue, especially among the religious groups most at risk. Prime
Minister Ruud Lubbers said that debate over the issue is expected to last
several weeks at least.

The institute’s financial troubles came as a surprise to many because
it attracts contract research from all over the world, including work on
an AIDS vaccine. But at the beginning of the month it became clear that
there was a shortfall of £2.1 million in the budget for 1993. The
director, Joost Haaymans, was immediately replaced by a manager whose priority
was to sort out the organisation’s financial problems.

A group of employees, worried about the future of the centre’s 120 chimpanzees,
70 marmosets, 60 capuchin monkeys and 1200 rhesus monkeys, protested to
the national veterinary inspectorate, which should have been informed of
the killings, and leaked the story to the press. The inspectors could only
point out that the right procedures had not been followed.

The TNO’s board of directors has now announced that it will consider
selling surplus animals to zoos or other research institutes. In the meantime
a planned reorganisation of the institute will mean the loss of 70 jobs.

At the same time as the decision to sacrifice the animals was made,
the commission governing the use of experimental animals at TNO announced
that it had decided to allow its chimpanzees to be used in lethal experiments.
Many see this as a cynical attempt to get rid of the chimps. The TNO’s directors
deny that this was the intention.

Peter Bentvelzen, one of the group that informed the veterinary inspectors,
agrees that these suggestions are preposterous. When chimps were first used
in AIDS research, the experiments could have turned out to be lethal. Only
later did it become obvious that chimps infected with HIV did not develop
AIDS. ‘At the time, we all thought that the monkeys would develop the disease,’
he says.

Why the institute has got into financial difficulties is not clear.
Some blame the decision to build a new laboratory costing around £3.5
million. Others say the problem goes back to 1990 when the Primate Centre
was merged with the already troubled Institute of Radiobiology. The TNO
blames the government for reducing funding of medical research.