4 | NewScientist | 20 February 2010

BU

RO

MO

NA

CO

/PL

AIN

PIC

TU

RE

SALE! DNA tests half price! But beware – the offer could stymie any chances of getting life insurance .

Australian firm Nib , which sells both health and life insurance, is offering 5000 of its customers half-price genetic testing, via the Californian firm Navigenics . “That’s a saving of US$500 from the retail price of US$999,” reads a letter sent to customers in January. Those taking up the offer will be given access to counsellors to help them make sense of the results. Nib chief executive Mark Fitzgibbon says the results may help customers take steps to improve their health.

The move has reignited long-held fears that insurers might use

genetic testing to discriminate between customers . Law professor Margaret Otlowski of the University of Tasmania points out that while Australian law

Cut-price DNA tests prohibits the refusal of health insurance based on genetic test results, applicants must give potential life insurers such results, which they can use when deciding who to cover and to set premiums. Nib reminds its customers of this in a footnote to its letter, but Otlowski fears some customers may not read this.

Whether so much weight should be ascribed to genetic test results is also doubtful. Last year, researchers found analyses of the health risks associated with genetic mutations varied between firms , including Navigenics.

Fog leaves trees

RECEDING coastal fogs may threaten the next generation of California’s mighty redwoods .

A new analysis of cloud cover over California reveals that fogs are 30 per cent less frequent today than 50 years ago. “The large trees intercept the fog, and much of it drips onto the soil, watering young redwoods,” says Todd Dawson at the University of California, Berkeley. So far, the mature trees, at least, appear to be coping, but Dawson warns that saplings may soon suffer.

He is hesitant to blame global warming, but notes that warmer seas off California over the past half century have decreased temperature contrasts with overlying warm coastal air, reducing condensation.

He warns that the foggy climate could move north to states like Oregon and Washington. “If the climate changes faster than the redwoods can migrate, we might need to plant them ourselves to save them,” he says (Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0915062107).

Wrinkle proof

IS THE cosmetics industry about to get a much-needed facelift? For the first time, a skin cream has been compared with the gold-standard anti-ageing drug – and seems to be as good at reducing wrinkles.

The result – from a team led by Joseph Kaczvinsky at the firm Procter & Gamble, which makes the cream – could put pressure on cosmetics companies to back up their claims with proof.

–Coral reefs but no Chagossians–

–Reducing those lines–

Protection plan slammedCONSERVATIONISTS are at war over

a British plan to create a marine

protection zone around a large chunk

of surviving empire in the Indian

Ocean. The zone, which is twice the

size of Britain , would cover much

of the Chagos archipelago, one of

the most unspoiled coral reef systems

in the world.

This week the world’s foremost

conservation science body, the

International Union for Conservation

of Nature (IUCN), was in ferment after

announcing support for the plan in

spite of warnings from its own lawyers

that the scheme was unethical.

The archipelago is claimed by

Mauritius, and the UK has promised

to hand the islands over when it has

no further use for them. Meanwhile

the largest island, Diego Garcia, is

home to a major US military base and

is not covered by the proposed zone .

In the 1960s, the UK expelled 1500

Chagossians to make way for the base.

Last Thursday, the IUCN, ignoring

protests from Mauritius, formally

backed the British plan, calling for

“full protection” of the reserve. But

in emails seen by New Scientist,

several members of the IUCN’s ethics

group, part of its Commission on

Environmental Law, have condemned

the move. One said that IUCN support

for the plan “violates IUCN’s own

commitments towards sustainability”

because the plan would “invalidate…

the right of the Chagos islanders to

return” to the islands within the

zone. The email adds that for IUCN to

back their permanent exclusion from

these islands is “unethical”.

“Life insurers must be given genetic test results, which they can use to decide whether to cover a person”

JOH

N P

AR

KE

R/C

OR

DA

IY P

HO

TO

LIB

RA

RY

/CO

RB

IS

UPFRONT