In a somewhat peculiar development in the scientific community today, China Daily reported that its motherland has produced the first cloned rabbit from cells taken from a fetus. "Chinese cloning research has reached a global advanced level," said Wang Hongguang, director of the China Centre for Biotechnology Development.

Although swamped immediately with claims from the international scene that French scientists have accomplished that same feat five years earlier, China Daily clarified that the "Chinese rabbit" was first to be cloned using "fibroblast" cells from a fetus.

As of press time, independent, third-party review or official publication of the find has yet to surface, inviting speculations that the discovery could turn out to be another South Korean cloning controversy - albeit no involvement of human cells.

The female rabbit grew steadily and normally since birth in February and currently resides in an animal center in Shanghai. The rabbit shares the same fate as many other animals such as mice and cattle, after the first cloned sheep, named Dolly, was attempted and successful back in 1996. Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

Sleep is important. Okay, maybe eight isn't the magic number anymore, but sleep is important. Now, it seems that medical research into the nature of sleep is paying off as the UK Daily Mail reports scientists are working on a "Sleep Machine."

It is not made of magic sand and run by a guy named Sandman.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that it is possible to induce or "stimulate" the brain into going to sleep mode. It revolves around making the brain produce "slow-wave activity" which is typical of deep, non-dream state (no rapid eye movement or REM) sleep.

These researchers used harmless magnetic pulses to produce these waves. The effect is to produce a deep-sleep power nap, equivalent, they say, to the restorative effects of eight hours of rest.

There is some skepticism regarding its therapeutic use. One sleep expert contends that the real challenge is getting insomniacs to sleep in the first place. Although this is the claimed objective of the U. of Wisconsin-Madison research, perhaps the contention is that it's not enough to simply trigger slow-wave activity and induce the effects of sleep... The patient has to actually sleep in the first place and not merely simulate it.