Jurassic Park UK to rescue dying species
British scientists laid the foundation for their own Jurassic Park yesterday with the opening of the world’s first animal DNA bank. Tissue samples from thousands of endangered species will be stored at the bank, which is a collaboration between the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Society of London and the Institute of Genetics at Nottingham University, raising the possibility that they could be brought back to life through cloning if they ever become extinct.
( Daily Mail , The Times , The Guardian , The Independent, Daily Telegraph )
Activists challenge monkey lab approval
Animal rights activists have challenged the Government’s approval for a primate research laboratory on greenbelt land, even though Cambridge University has since abandoned the project.
( Financial Times )
Oxford bid to get more black boys in to higher education
The number of black boys entering higher education is set to rise after the launch of a joint initiative between the charity the National Black Boys Can Association and Oxford University. Boys with the potential to benefit from higher education will be invited to take part in a two-day residential programme at Oxford.
( The Voice )
Use your gap year wisely, students told
Gap-year students attempting to convince their parents that sitting on a beach is a worthwhile way to spend a year will be sorely disappointed with the message in a new Government-backed report: volunteer or get a job.
( The Guardian )
Surgical training faces crisis in UK
Surgical training in the UK is facing a crisis. There is a significant risk that in five to ten years’ time, National Health Service hospitals will be staffed by inexperienced surgeons who have undergone insufficient training, according to consultant Nick Boyle.
( Daily Telegraph )
Rogue waves proved to be no sailors’ tall tale
Scientists have discovered that freak or rogue waves that can reach heights of more than 150ft are more than just a seafaring myth. Two satellites operated by the European Space Agency have completed a radar survey from space and found that not only do these waves exist, but also they are more widespread than people feared.
( Daily Mail )
Stem-cell hope in stroke therapy
Master cells taken from foetuses may help to repair the brain damage suffered by stroke victims, a study by scientists at Stanford University has shown.
( The Times )
Foetal operation gives a breath of life
A pioneering operation in the womb could save the lives of dozens of babies every year. In research trials, run at King’s College Hospital, London and the University Hospital in Leuven, Spain, almost two thirds of babies who developed a hole in the diaphragm were saved by the operation. A fine tube containing a balloon is inserted into the foetus’s windpipe, the balloon is inflated to block the windpipe and the lungs are able to develop normally.
( The Times , The Independent , The Guardian , Daily Telegraph )
Queen Victoria will speak again thanks to science
Eminent Victorians such as Alfred Tennyson, Florence Nightingale and even Queen Victoria herself might soon speak again to modern ears. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California are turning technology developed for tracking sub-atomic particles to the task of decoding unplayable sound recordings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
( The Times )
Pigeons ‘may have followed roads since Roman times’
Pigeons have taken the easy route home and followed major roads and other human thoroughfares for thousands of years, researchers at the University of Zurich have found.
( Daily Telegraph , Current Biology )