40 years ago marked the pinnacle of human space exploration. 500 million people around the world watched or listened as the first human to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, stepped out onto the dusty lunar surface, proclaiming “That’s one s…

A war of words has broken out in the pages of The Australian between friends of the University of Melbourne School of Philosophy and the Dean of Arts at the University of Melbourne, Mark Considine. See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/…

Recent figures showing a large increase in the number of animal experiments in the UK have spurred strong complaints from animal rights campaigners (link). Nearly 3.7 million experiments were performed on animals last year, an increase of 1…

Anyone who wishes to work with children, including even a parent who wishes to help out in the school their child attends, is required to undergo vetting by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The politicians responsible say that this w…

In recent days there have been reports of a jump in the number of cases of H1N1 influenza (swine flu) in the UK. There have been 29 deaths associated with pandemic influenza in the UK, and there are 652 people in hospital in England with th…

Professor Karim Nayernia and his team at Newcastle University produced sperm cells from embryonic stem cells (here and here)Italian newspapers ( here and here) (English ones were more restrained here) ran articles about this research claimi…

A study by Canadian researchers published in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science (20:7, July 2009, 860-66), as recently reported by BBC news, discovered that people with low self-esteem paradoxically happened to feel worse…

Fears of the spread of pandemic influenza in the UK continue to grow. Three apparently previously healthy patients have died here. There are now plans for widespread immunisation later in the year – though initially this is likely to …

Australian Graeme Clark developed the cochlear implant, or bionic ear, in the 1970s. It does not amplify sound but directly stimulates any functioning auditory nerves in the inner ear. The Australian Government has promised a screening prog…

This has been a good week for life extension research, with the Nature paper Rapamycin fed late in life extends lifespan in genetically heterogeneous mice by Harrison et al. (free News and Views) showing that the drug boosts lifespan in mid…