Before I forget – I wrote a story last week about a race to break the record for the shortest ever metal-metal bond. A race that the participants didn’t seem to be aware that they were a part of.

Check it out.

New Scientist is reporting that South Korea has refused disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk request to resume work to make stem cells from cloned embryos. Nature’s Asia correspondent tells me no Korean institute has been approved to do human nuclear transfer (human cloning to make embryonic stem cells but not new people) since the Korean health ministry revoked Hwang’s license in early 2006.

Once featured on the country’s postage stamps, Hwang has been on trial for over two years for misusing funds and for obtaining eggs from junior female lab members in ethically shady ways.

Nature previously reported rumours that Hwang was attempting work in Thailand, and both Hwang and former colleagues are working with start-up companies to clone dogs that would serve both pet owners and industries that rely on canines for drug-sniffing.

Related articles:

Dog cloners baring their teeth

Disgraced cloner Woo-suk Hwang attempts a comeback

Hwang’s “clone” was really a parthenote, Daley reports

A collection of stories on the rise, fall, and fraud of the scientist who claimed to be the first to clone human embryonic stem cells