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This is Science in the News, in VOA Special English. I'm SarahLong.

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And I'm Bob Doughty. This week, something new and something old... the debate over the cloning of human embryos, and the discoveryof the oldest insect ever found.

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Plus, some hopeful news from research on a dangerous disorder ofpregnancy.

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Two doctors in South Korea are inthe news a lot these days. They are the first scientists to reportsuccess in efforts to create a human embryo and to remove stem cellsfrom it. Stem cells have the ability to grow into other cells, suchas heart, nerve or brain cells. So they might offer new ways totreat disease.

Hwang Woo-suk and Moon Shin-yong are doctors at Seoul NationalUniversity. Their study was published in February in Sciencemagazine.

Sixteen women took part in the research. They agreed to takefertility drugs for a month. These caused them to produce a largenumber of eggs. The doctors collected two-hundred-forty-two eggs fortheir study.

They removed the nucleus from eachcell in the eggs. The nucleus contains DNA material, the completegenetic plans for an organism. Then the researchers used electricityto join each egg cell to a different cell taken from the women'sovaries. The ovaries are the organs that produce eggs.

Thirty of the joined cells grew into what are called blastocysts,an early form of an embryo. The doctors say they were able tocollect stem cells from twenty of them.

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There are many political and moralquestions about this work. Lawmakers around the world remain dividedover how to supervise cloning research. But scientists, politiciansand clergy generally agree that cloning should not be used to copyhuman beings.

It has been done with animals. In each case, scientists createdan embryo and placed it in a female animal to grow. There was Dollythe cloned sheep, for example. This form of science is calledreproductive cloning.

But many scientists do support therapeutic cloning for humans.This is where stem cells are harvested for research on possibletreatments for disease. Supporters argue that cloned stem cellscould be used for gene therapy or to repair tissue. Researchers saythey are still years away from such uses. Yet critics say they fearthat human embryos could become just another industrial product.

Some people would ban any form of cloning.

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Doctor Hwang says he understands the issues about his research.But he says human embryo cloning must go forward to help people withdeadly diseases.

The two doctors are seeking patent ownership rights to theprocess they developed. They say they also want to protect thecloned human stem cells that grew from their experiments.

Seoul National University will own sixty percent of the patent.Organizations that helped finance the research will own fortypercent.

Hwang Woo Suk and Moon Shin Yong say they are not seeking anyeconomic gains in the future. They say their only hope is that oneday, their discovery will help solve some incurable disease.

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Last week, there was a separate development in the United States.Harvard University announced plans to build a center to grow andstudy human stem cells. Harvard officials in Cambridge,Massachusetts, say they will pay for the center with private money.

The Bush administration bars the use of federal money for stemcell research. This is because a developing embryo must be destroyedin order to collect the cells. Opponents of such research say thisdestroys life.

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Some pregnant women develop a condition called preeclampsia[pre-ee-CLAMP-see-ah]. This causes dangerously high blood pressure.It causes the urine to contain large amounts of protein. And itcauses fluid to collect in the hands and feet. Preeclampsia canthreaten the life of the mother and her baby. In severe cases, thewoman can suffer seizures and die.

Doctors can treat the effects. But the only cure known is givingbirth. However, babies born to mothers with preeclampsia may besmall for their age. Or they may be born too soon. This puts thebaby at risk for a number of problems.

Researchers say preeclampsia affects about five percent ofpregnancies. It can happen without warning. The cause is unknown.But new findings may help doctors look for signs of preeclampsiabefore it happens, and do more about it.

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A study found that two proteins in the blood may point to thedevelopment of preeclampsia. The New England Journal of Medicinepublished the findings last month. Researchers from the NationalInstitutes of Health and Harvard Medical School did the study.

They studied protein levels in blood taken from onehundred-twenty women who had preeclampsia. The blood had been takenthroughout their pregnancies. They compared the findings to theblood of one-hundred-twenty other women who had not developedpreeclampsia.

The two groups began their pregnancies with similar levels of thetwo proteins measured. But the researchers found that changes tookplace in the women who later developed preeclampsia.

Levels of one protein began to increase about five weeks beforethe women showed any signs of the condition. Also, levels of theother protein decreased beginning in the thirteenth and sixteenthweeks of their pregnancies.

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Doctor Richard Levine of the National Institute of Child Healthand Human Development led the study. He notes that the study did notinclude women who developed pregnancy-related high blood pressurebut not preeclampsia. So it is not known if these women have similarchanges in their proteins.

But Doctor Levine says the findings do offer the possibility ofpreventing and treating preeclampsia.

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Have you heard about the world's oldest insect? Scientists say asmall bug found in Scotland is four-hundred-million years. No, it isnot still alive. The finding suggests that insects existed on Earthtwenty-million years earlier than thought. It also suggests theywere among the first living creatures on land.

The insect was first discovered about eighty years ago. But therewas little interest until two-thousand-two. Then, two scientistsrediscovered it while doing other research. They examined the fossilat the Natural History Museum in London.

The two are David Grimaldi of the American Museum of NaturalHistory in New York and Michael Engel of the University of Kansas.They examined the remains under a powerful microscope. Details oftheir discovery appear in Nature magazine.

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The scientists say the insect was probably just over one-halfcentimeter long. It may have been about the size of a grain of riceand looked like a small fly. The insect was found in red sandstonecalled chert. The scientists say the insect probably became trappedin crystals that formed around a hot spring.

They examined parts of the head and body. Mister Grimaldi saysthe jaws proved it was an insect. He says the jaws were very similarto those found only in insects with wings. He says he and MisterEngel became excited at the idea that the insect may have flown.

They did not find any wings. However, Mister Grimaldi says thejaw parts, or mandibles, provide strong evidence that it had them.

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Other scientists agree that this is the oldest insect found sofar. But not all agree that it flew. The oldest known flying insects-- at least until now -- date back about three-hundred-twentymillion years.

Until now, the oldest insect fossils on record were two insectswithout wings. They are said to be about three-hundred-eightymillion years old. They were found in New York State and Canada.

The four-hundred-million-year-old insect is known by the Latinname Rhyniognatha hirsti. Mister Grimaldi says the finding suggeststhat insects likely developed during the Silurian period. This isthe period when evidence shows that plants began to appear on land.

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English, was written by JillMoss, Lawan Davis and Cynthia Kirk, who was also our producer. Thisis Bob Doughty.

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And this is Sarah Long. Listen again next week, when we throwsome light on the dark ... dark energy, that is. Scientists say itappears to support a theory that Albert Einstein once proposed, andthen rejected.