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BERKELEY, Calif. - Gunther Stent, who helped pioneer the field of molecular biology as one of the first scientists to confirm the structure of DNA, has died. He was 84.

Stent died June 12 of pneumonia at his home in Haverford, Pa., according to the University of California, Berkeley, where he served on the faculty for nearly 40 years.

The push to unlock the mysteries of human genetics in the years after World War II was led by the “phage group,” a small collection of scientists that included Stent, James Watson and Francis Crick.

Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953. As a biochemist at UC Berkeley, Stent performed experiments with bacterial viruses that confirmed Watson and Crick’s results a year later.

“Gunther was part of the intellectual glue that kept this small band of pioneers together,” said Michael Botchan, co-chairman of UC Berkeley’s department of molecular and cell biology, which Stent helped found in 1987.

Stent also led the formation of the campus’ department of virology in 1957 and the department of molecular biology in 1964.

His 1963 book “Molecular Biology of Bacterial Viruses” became a key text in the study of genetics.

In later years, Stent’s interests turned to neurobiology and the relationship between the brain and mental experience. His research on the nervous systems of leeches helped establish the leech as a signature organism in the study of the connections between neural physiology and behavior.

Stent was born Gunter Siegmund Stensch in Berlin in 1924. He escaped Nazi Germany in 1938 and joined his sister in Chicago.

He received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1948 and worked alongside Watson at the California Institute of Technology before arriving at UC Berkeley in 1952.

Stent was also known as a scholar of the history and philosophy of biology. He published books on the biology of morality and the nature of consciousness, along with several books about molecular genetics.

His 2002 book “Paradoxes of Free Will” won the 2002 John F. Lewis Award from the American Philosophical Society

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources, according to a new government projection.

There are 6.7 billion people in the world today. The United States ranks third, with 304 million, behind China and India, according to projections released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning it will take only 13 years to add a billion people.

By comparison, the number of people didn’t reach 1 billion until 1800, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. It didn’t reach 2 billion until 130 years later.

“You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,” Haub said.

Haub said that medical and nutritional advances in developing countries led to a population explosion following World War II. Cultural changes are slowly catching up, with more women in developing countries going to school and joining the work force.

That is slowing the growth rate, though it is still high in many countries.

The global population is growing by about 1.2 percent per year. The Census Bureau projects the growth rate will decline to 0.5 percent by 2050.

By then, India will have surpassed China as the most populous country.

The Census Bureau updates projections each year on a variety of global demographic trends, including fertility and mortality rates and life expectancy. U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years for the first time, the National Center for Health Statistics announced last week.

The new Census report comes amid record high oil and gasoline prices, fueled in part by growing demand from expanding economies in China and India.

There is no consensus on how many people the Earth can sustain, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. He said it depends on how well people manage the Earth’s resources.

Today, industrialized nations use a disproportionate share of oil and other resources, while developing countries are fueling population growth.

There are countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where the average woman has more than six children in her lifetime. In Mali and Niger, two African nations, women average more than seven children.

“There’s still a long way to go in the developing world,” Frey said. “A lot of it does have to do with the education of women and the movement of women into the labor force.”

In the U.S., women have an average of about two children, which essentially replaces the population. Much of the U.S. population growth comes from immigration.

by Aresu Eqbali

TEHRAN (AFP) - Tehran Friday warned its arch-enemy Israel of a “strong blow” if it takes forceful measures, after the US media reported military exercises by the Jewish state were a possible practice for a strike against Iran.

“If enemies especially Israelis and their supporters in the United States would want to use a language of force, they should rest assured that they will receive a strong blow in the mouth,” senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said in his Friday prayers sermon.

Khatami, whose speech was broadcast live on state radio, stressed that the Iranian nation’s mentality was “to fight foreigners.”

“Given this mentality, if you make a hostile look at the Islamic Iran, you will witness such a united roar by our nation that it will definitely make you regret any vicious move forever,” the conservative cleric added.

A Friday report by the New York Times cited US officials as saying that a major military exercise carried out by Israel earlier this month seemed to be a practice for any potential strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A Pentagon official briefed on the exercise said a goal of the practice was to send a message that the Jewish state was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts failed to halt Tehran’s production of bomb-grade uranium.

Last month the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s atomic watchdog, expressed “serious concern” that Iran is still hiding information about alleged studies into making nuclear warheads and defying UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

World powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — offered Tehran a new package of technological and economic incentives on Saturday in exchange for suspending uranium enrichment activities.

The West fears Iran could use uranium enrichment to make an atomic bomb although Tehran insists it wants only to generate nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has given no signal that it would comply with the key demand.

“The nuclear issue has ended from our point of view,” said Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday.

“Recently they have started a new game — by testing us — but this will result in no achievement for them except humiliation,” he said without pointing to the offer.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who presented the new proposal to the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has called on Iran for a quick response.

Mottaki however said on Thursday that the offer was under consideration and the response will be given “at an appropriate time.”

“Solana came with some of the EU representatives and brought the package. We have two points here,” Khatami said in his Friday prayers sermon.

“We have been pro negotiation since the beginning, but a logical one that is after a solution.

“Not a type of negotiation that aims for mischievous actions,” he said.

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s campaign announced Friday that he will campaign with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton next week, a step toward unifying a fractured Democratic Party after a bruising primary fight.

Obama’s campaign said in a brief e-mail that said the two senators and former opponents will campaign together for the first time on Friday, June 27, and more details would be forthcoming.

A day earlier, Obama and Clinton also plan to meet in Washington with some of her top contributors in an effort to calm donors who remain frustrated with Obama’s presidential campaign. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers.

Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination earlier this month after Obama, an Illinois senator, secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination.

Obama’s campaign disclosed the joint appearance — but offered few details — one day after announcing that he would reverse an earlier position and reject some $85 million in public financing for the general election. That announcement opened him up to a flood of criticism and dominated the news cycle.

Thus, Obama’s campaign sought to redirect attention by putting word out a full seven days in advance that Obama and Clinton would campaign together.

Clinton ended her campaign on June 7, four days after Obama got enough delegates to clinch the nomination. “I endorse him and throw my full support behind him,” she said at the time.

The two met privately on June 5 after ditching reporters to make sure there would be no photos or coverage of the first post-race meeting. Obama was asked Wednesday whether they were talking.

“I have not had conversations with Senator Clinton because she has been getting a well-deserved vacation,” he said at the time. “We will be speaking I think in the next few days or certainly the next week and will be having an ongoing conversation.”

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Suspended NFL player Adam “Pacman” Jones will surrender to authorities in Nevada and fight felony charges in a strip club melee that preceded a triple shooting, his lawyers said Thursday.

Lawyers Manny Arora of Atlanta and Robert Langford of Las Vegas said they had no information about a noon Friday deadline set by police.

Arora said he was working with Clark County District Attorney David Roger’s office on arrangements for Jones to surrender Friday or Monday in Las Vegas. Roger declined comment and said police were handling the negotiations.

Las Vegas police Capt. James Dillon confirmed that authorities gave Jones, Sadia Morrison and Robert Reid until midday Friday to turn themselves in or face arrest in the melee at the Minxx strip club that took place during the NBA All-Star Game weekend.

Police have described Reid as Jones’ bodyguard, and Morrison as a member of an entourage of about six people who arrived with Jones before the pre-dawn Feb. 19 fracas at the club, several blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.

The charges in Las Vegas have cast more doubt on Jones’ playing status with the Tennessee Titans. Since he was drafted in April 2005, he has been arrested five times — although he has not been convicted of any crimes. Jones has been involved in at least 11 separate police investigations, authorities say, and is currently sought by Atlanta-area police for questioning in a shooting early Monday after a fight at a strip club there.

The NFL and Titans owner K.S. “Bud” Adams Jr. issued terse statements declining comment about Jones until he serves at least 10 weeks of his season-long suspension.

Jones, 23, of Franklin, Tenn., faces two counts of felony coercion stemming from allegations he threatened to kill Minxx club employees and that he bit a bar bouncer.

Coercion is the act of threatening or physically interfering with a person trying to do something that he or she has a right and responsibility to do. If convicted, Jones faces a maximum of 12 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

“We’re looking forward to vigorously defending against the charges,” Langford told The Associated Press in a brief interview.

Arora accused police of unfairly leaking information about Jones because of the player’s’ celebrity. He said investigative reports were released before charges were filed and before arrest warrants were issued.

“Police keep saying they want to treat him like everyone else,” Arora said.

“It’s infuriating. He isn’t being treated like everyone else,” Arora said, adding that he and Langford “will do whatever we have to do to protect Adam.”

Langford also represents Reid, 37, of Carson, Calif., who faces one felony coercion charge alleging he attacked a bouncer who tried to restrain Jones, and Morrison, 25, of New York.

Morrison faces five charges including coercion, felony assault with a deadly weapon and battery stemming from allegations that she hit a bouncer in the head with a bottle and attacked other club employees with a chair and a stanchion.

No one is named as the shooter, which left a club employee paralyzed and a bouncer and female patron with less serious wounds. But police allege that Jones instigated the fracas inside the club by attacking a dancer who tried to pick up cash Jones showered on stage from a black plastic trash bag.

Jones is accused of threatening the life of club employees, punching a man who police identify as his own business manager, and walking away from the club with a man wearing a baggy black T-shirt and blue jeans.

Minutes later, police say a similarly dressed man standing next to a palm tree fired five or six shots toward people at the front of the club.

Police have released an image of a person who Dillon said police wanted to identify and talk with as a “person of interest” in the shooting.”

Dillon said Las Vegas police also wanted to question Jones in an altercation reported at another area strip club several days before the Minxx shooting. That incident is not cited in court records, and Dillon did not immediately provide details.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press