# data[].attributes.body
Gene-edited animal plan to relieve poverty in Africa

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A researcher in Edinburgh is leading efforts to develop gene-edited farm animals for poor farmers in Africa.

Prof Appolinaire Djikeng is developing cows, pigs and chickens that are resistant to diseases and more productive.

Among them are cattle that have been gene edited to be heat-resistant.

Details of the project were given at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington DC.

Prof Djikeng is the director of the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health.

He believes that gene editing along with more targeted traditional cross-breeding will lead to healthy, productive livestock that will transform the lives of some of the very poorest people in the world.

"We can drive out poverty in some of the most vulnerable communities," he told BBC News.

"We are talking about smallholders with just one, two or three animals.

"If the animals die or are not producing to their potential, it means no income for the smallholder's family and the risk of falling into absolute poverty."

Prof Djikeng speaks from personal experience.

His father was just such a subsistence farmer who reared pigs on a small farm in western Cameroon.

He told me how each August his father would have a pig ready to sell to pay the year's school fees so he could go to class in September.

But one year in the mid-80s, there was an epidemic of African swine fever and Prof Djikeng's father had no pigs to sell.

Personal mission

Luckily, his mother kept chickens for just such an emergency, and Prof Djikeng was able to continue his education and become an eminent scientist.

But, he told me, the incident had taught him how children's prospects are based on livestock in Africa and how easily they can be robbed of their futures when disease strikes.

"Growing up, I understood that if you are farming and you are that vulnerable, there has to be something there to help, perhaps resilient animals, disease-resistant animals, and developing the best practices.

"At the time, the science was not good enough to make a difference. And it was my commitment to change that. It was a personal mission."

Prof Djikeng's centre was funded by the Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates visited some of the world-leading livestock research institutes around Edinburgh in 2014.

He saw that the key to giving farmers like Prof Djiken's father more security was to harness research to create more resilient livestock.

Prof Djikeng and his team are working closely with African research institutes to identify local problems and to help them find solutions.

He is aware more than most that a colonialist, top-down approach would not work.

His team is currently focussing on developing chickens that are resistant to Newcastle disease and dairy cattle resistant to East Coast fever.

One approach is to make cows whose coats repel the ticks that spread the disease.

There is also a collaboration with a US firm, Acceligen, to produce cattle that are able to cope better with heat.

The company has identified a gene that makes a breed found in the US Virgin Islands, called Senapol, naturally heat-resistant.

The gene gives the animals a sparse amount of hair and they sweat more.

This gives them a slick coat and so reduces their body temperature by at least 0.5C compared with a cow without the gene.

The firm has spliced in what it calls the "slick gene" into an embryo of a Red Angus, a US dairy breed.

A calf called Genselle was born in Minnesota and transferred to a ranch in Brazil, where temperatures can reach 45C.

The firm will begin thorough scientific trials with Genselle and two non-gene-edited Red Angus calves to see what impact, if any, the change has made.

But the company's chief scientific officer, Dr Tad Sonstegard, told BBC News that the initial signs were that Genselle was settling in well with her new surroundings.

"She acts like a normal animal with no signs of heat stress in what is now the middle of summer in Brazil. And that is very unusual," he said.

The company has used gene editing instead of traditional cross-breeding because Senapols are relatively poor milk producers. And so it would probably take decades of cross-breeding to develop a high-milk-producing cow that was heat-resistant.

The campaign group Compassion in World Farming, has submitted evidence to a review of the technology by the Nuffield Council for Bioethics.

It opposes the use of the technology to simply boost industrial livestock production in advanced economies, because the process requires modified embryos to be surgically implanted into a surrogate animal to create a new variety of gene-edited animal.

CIWF argues that efforts to create disease-resistance could be better addressed by keeping farm animals in better conditions. And it says that using gene-edited animals to boost food production is also misconceived because, it argues, feeding cereals to animals is wasteful and intensive livestock production increased CO2 emissions.

Invasive technology

The organisation's research manager, Phil Brooke, told BBC News that it was vital to support smallholder farmers in Africa, who are struggling to maintain an income from their animals. "However, we see gene editing as an invasive technology to be avoided wherever possible in favour of traditional breeding," he said.

"Whatever technology is used, it should be applied in ways that are not detrimental to the animals. "It is good to breed animals that are adapted to their environment but, for example, heat-tolerance should not be used to keep too many chickens in a shed.

"Likewise, disease-resistance shouldn't be used to keep animals in overcrowded conditions in which disease would otherwise be likely to spread."

Greater scrutiny

Prof Bruce Whitelaw, of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, who works closely with Prof Djikeng, says that they are both sympathetic to such concerns.

"In Africa, the scrutiny by the farmer on their animals is much higher than in the western world. If you have five animals, they are really important to you an if three of them die, that is catastrophic.

"The project is to improve the genetics of animals through traditional breeding if possible and if we can't we will use gene editing. That has to be good for the animal; in turn that has to be good for the farmer."

Follow Pallab on Twitter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A researcher in Edinburgh is leading efforts to develop gene-edited farm animals for poor farmers in Africa. Prof Appolinaire Djikeng is developing cows, pigs and chickens that are resistant to diseases and more productive. Among them are cattle that have been gene edited to be heat-resistant.

# data[].attributes.body
Rare half-male, half-female cardinal spotted in Pennsylvania - National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rare half-male, half-female cardinal spotted in Pennsylvania - National Geographic

# data[].attributes.body
World's coffee under threat, say experts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first full assessment of risks to the world's coffee plants shows that 60% of 124 known species are on the edge of extinction.

More than 100 types of coffee tree grow naturally in forests, including two used for the coffee we drink.

Scientists say the figure is "worrying", as wild coffee is critical for sustaining the global coffee crop.

About one in five of the world's plants is threatened with extinction, and the 60% figure is an "extremely high" one.

"If it wasn't for wild species we wouldn't have as much coffee to drink in the world today," said Dr Aaron Davis of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

"Because if you look at the history of coffee cultivation, we have used wild species to make the coffee crop sustainable."

Research published in the journal, Science Advances, found conservation measures were "inadequate" for wild coffees, including those considered "critical" for long-term global coffee production.

The study found that 75 wild coffee species are considered threatened with extinction, 35 are not threatened and too little is known about the remaining 14 to make any judgement.

Furthermore, it was found that 28% of wild coffee species grow outside protected areas and only about half are preserved in seed banks.

A second study, in Global Change Biology, found that wild Arabica coffee can be classed as threatened under official (IUCN Red List) rankings, when climate change projections are taken into account.

Its natural population is likely to shrink by up to 50% or more by 2088 because of climate change alone, according to the research.

Wild Arabica is used to supply seeds for coffee farming and also as a harvested crop in its own right.

Ethiopia is the home of Arabica coffee, where it grows naturally in upland rainforests.

"Given the importance of Arabica coffee to Ethiopia, and to the world, we need to do our utmost to understand the risks facing its survival in the wild," said Dr Tadesse Woldemariam Gole, of the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum in Addis Ababa.

What is wild coffee and why do we need it?

Many coffee drinkers are unaware that we only use the coffee beans from two species - Coffea Arabica and Coffea robusta - in the thousands of different blends of coffee on sale.

In fact, there are 122 coffee species on top of that which occur naturally in the wild.

Many of these wild coffees do not taste good to drink, but may contain genes that can be harnessed to help coffee plants survive in the future, amid climate change and emerging diseases that attack coffee trees.

More stories you might like to read:

In the longer term, we will need to call on wild species to safeguard the future of the world's coffee crop, say researchers.

"We will call on those wild resources time and time again," said Dr Davis.

How does coffee compare to other plants in terms of extinction risks?

Globally, about one in five plants is threatened with extinction, compared with 60% for coffee.

As a comparison, about half of wild tea and mango species are threatened with extinction, 6% of hazelnuts and 9% of pistachios.

Where is wild coffee found?

The vast majority of wild coffee grows in the remote forests of Africa and on the island of Madagascar. Beyond Africa, wild coffee is found in other tropical climates, including parts of India, Sri Lanka, and Australia.

What types of coffee do we drink?

Global coffee trade relies on two species - Arabica ( Coffea arabica) and Robusta ( Coffea canephora).

A third species - Liberica ( Coffea liberica) is grown around the world, but is rarely used for coffee drinks.

What are crop wild relatives?

Crop wild relatives are wild plants that are genetically related to cultivated crops.

They continue to evolve in the wild, and can be crossed with domesticated crops.

They have been used to improve the yields and nutritional quality of crops since the dawn of agriculture.

What are scientists calling for?

They say we must understand the risks to coffee farming and make sure we have the resources in place to overcome threats.

Coffee trees, like many tropical plants, have seeds that do not survive the freeze-drying process used in conventional seed banks - 45% of coffee species have not been "backed up" outside the wild.

Dr Eimear Nic Lughadha of Kew said this is the first time an IUCN Red List assessment has been carried out to find the extinction risk of the world's coffee, and the figure of 60% is "extremely high".

"We hope this new data will highlight species to be prioritised for the sustainability of the coffee production sector, so that appropriate action can be taken to safeguard the species," she said.

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World's coffee under threat, say experts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first full assessment of risks to the world's coffee plants shows that 60% of 124 known species are on the edge of extinction. More than 100 types of coffee tree grow naturally in forests, including two used for the coffee we drink.

# data[].attributes.body
We may have finally spotted a star turning into a black hole - WIRED UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We may have finally spotted a star turning into a black hole - WIRED UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the first time, researchers observed a stellar death before their eyes - a supernova and a forming black hole or a neutron star

# data[].attributes.body
Rats and pigeons 'replace iconic species' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.body
Not just mammals: Some spiders nurse their young with milk - National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Not just mammals: Some spiders nurse their young with milk - National Geographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although lactation and nursing is more commonly associated with mammals, some other animals-like these jumping spiders-do the same thing

# data[].attributes.body
Why Scientists Want to Name the Poison Frogs Species Before It's Too Late - Inverse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Scientists Want to Name the Poison Frogs Species Before It's Too Late - Inverse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dart frogs - of orange, yellow, and blue hues - come from the rainforests of Central and South American and make their powerful poison by eating toxic bugs. With wild populations of poison frogs quickly declining, scientists are trying to name their species to protect these captivating animals.

# data[].attributes.body
Turning carbon dioxide into rock - forever

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Wild flowers are being driven off Britain's roadside verges by air pollution and poor management​, the charity Plantlife claims.

It says emissions from vehicle exhausts are acting as a fertiliser for a group of nitrogen-loving plants like nettles, which outcompete traditional flowers.

​The group reports an almost 20% loss in the diversity of plants.

And this has led to a decline in the insects that depend on many of these plants, the charity says.

​The government says nitrogen emissions from exhausts will steadily fall as vehicles get cleaner over coming decades.

The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, BSBI, agrees that roadside plant diversity is falling, and nitrogen deposition near roads had increased.

But it said the interplay between air pollution and poor management impacts on roadside verges by local councils was not well understood.

Its spokesman, Kevin Walker, told BBC News: "More frequent cutting with the (mowings) left in place can reduce plant diversity as well. This is due to suppression and disturbance rather than elevation of nutrients."

Plantlife has been campaigning for local authorities to follow the lead of the Highways Agency and positively reduce nitrogen levels by removing hay from verges.

It admits this will not be easy in areas where motorists have treated the verges as linear rubbish dumps.

Among the nitrogen-lovers thriving on exhaust fumes are those that Plantlife calls the "thugs of the plant world". They include stinging nettle, bramble, rough meadow-grass, cow parsley, Yorkshire fog and creeping buttercup.

The losers are plants that cannot cash in on the surfeit of nitrogen, so are crowded out.

These include tufted vetch, bugle, tormentil, red clover, lady's bedstraw, white campion and greater knapweed.

​The charity says roadside verges are especially valuable as a habitat for wild flowers because so many traditional meadows have been lost since the 1930s. It says often verges are the main contact with the plant world for many motorists.​

Plantlife's botanist, Trevor Dines, said: "Our once colourful and botanically diverse road verges are becoming mean, green thickets where only thuggish species can thrive.

"After the froth of cow parsley in May, many verges no longer enjoy a bountiful summer. For the 23 million people who commute to work by road, the verge can be their only daily contact with nature."

The charity says road verges are home to over 700 species of wild flower - nearly 45% of our total flora - including 29 of 52 species of wild orchid.

Dines continued: "The impact of air pollution on human health is well documented but how pollution affects plantlife remains under-appreciated.

"Poor management has combined with pollution to create a perfect storm. Councils have adopted an over-eager regime that sees flowers cut down before they can set seed and the mowings left on the verge simply add to the soil richness."

The charity calls for councils to cut less - and later in the year. It says councils following this advice save money as well as flowers.

The Plantlife analysis was done by homing in on road verges that have been monitored as part of the Countryside Survey.

Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wild flowers are being driven off Britain's roadside verges by air pollution and poor management​, the charity Plantlife claims. It says emissions from vehicle exhausts are acting as a fertiliser for a group of nitrogen-loving plants like nettles, which outcompete traditional flowers. ​The group reports an almost 20% loss in the diversity of plants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Methane emissions from lakes in the northern hemisphere could almost double over the next 50 years because of a novel "feedback loop" say scientists.

Climate change is boosting the proportion of cattail plants growing in and around freshwater lakes they say.

But when debris from these reed beds falls in the water it triggers a major increase in the amount of methane produced.

The gas is at least 25 times more warming than CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Freshwater lakes play an important but relatively unrecognised role in the global carbon cycle, contributing around 16% of the Earth's natural emissions of methane - compared to just 1% from all the world's oceans.

The gas is produced by microbes in the sediment at the bottom of lakes who consume organic matter that falls into the water from plants and trees that live close to the shore.

The amount of methane generated according to this study, varies considerably depending on what enters the lake.

The research team carried out tests in the laboratory that compared the impact of coniferous and deciduous trees with debris from cattails (often known in the UK as bulrushes).

Incubated in the lab for 150 days the scientists found that cattails produced over 400 times the level of methane compared to conifers. The researchers believe that chemicals in both coniferous and deciduous trees restrict the ability of the microbes to produce the gas.

"The cattails don't have the same chemicals and so they are no longer inhibiting the microbes from producing methane," senior author Dr Andrew Tanentzap, from the University of Cambridge, told BBC News,

"By now comparing what's happening in the reed beds to what's might happening beneath a forest - wow, it's a massive difference!"

The researchers believe they have discovered a new mechanism that has the potential to cause substantially more greenhouse gases to be produced by freshwater lakes. They say the warming climate that promotes the growth of aquatic plants has the potential to trigger a damaging feedback loop in natural ecosystems.

To assess this impact the team looked at species distribution models that predict how plants are going to change their ranges under different climate scenarios.

"This forecasts a whole range of these different aquatic plants moving northwards with warmer temperatures into a part of the world that's dominated with lakes so there is going to be more habitat available to them," said Dr Tanentzap.

Their calculations show that the number of northern lakes colonised by cattails could double between 2041 and 2070 and that this could elevate methane production by at least 73% during the growing season.

"It would offset what plants and soils do in terms of buffering the greenhouse effect," Dr Tanentzap added.

Other researchers in the field acknowledged that the new study was a step forward.

"Methane production is currently underestimated in global climate models," said Dr Sapna Sharma, an expert in climate change impacts on lakes from York University, Toronto.

"This study was able to elucidate a mechanism by which lakes may produce even more methane that previously thought. Uncovering another potential source of methane production from boreal lakes is useful to further understanding global carbon cycles and ultimately improve climate projections."

The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Methane emissions from lakes in the northern hemisphere could almost double over the next 50 years because of a novel "feedback loop" say scientists. Climate change is boosting the proportion of cattail plants growing in and around freshwater lakes they say.

# data[].attributes.body
New climate 'feedback loop' discovered in freshwater lakes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Evolutionary theory suggests that species favouring asexual reproduction will rapidly become extinct, as their genomes accumulate deadly mutations over time.

But a study on an Amazon fish has cast doubt on the rapidity of this decline.

Despite thousands of years of asexual reproduction, the genomes of the Amazon molly fish are remarkably stable and the species has survived.

Details of the work have been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

There are two fundamental ways in which new generations of life come to being - sexual and asexual reproduction.

Sexual reproduction relies on special reproductive male and female sex cells, the eggs and sperm, joining together during the process of fertilisation.

Each sex cell contains half the number of chromosomes of normal parent cells, then following fertilisation, when the egg and sperm fuse, the normal cell chromosome number is reinstated.

Asexual reproduction is different.

A life born of celibacy

Instead of creating a new generation by mixing equal measures of DNA from the mother and father, asexual reproduction dispenses with the male and instead creates new offspring containing an exact copy of the mother's genome - natural maternal cloning, if you like.

This is an incredibly efficient way of creating new life. By not wasting genetic material on the creation of males, all offspring arising from asexual reproduction can go on to produce more.

But there is a downside. Because the progeny are genetic facsimiles of the mother they exhibit limited variability.

And genetic variability can provide a big advantage. It's what allows populations to respond and overcome changes in environment and other selective pressures - it underpins survival of the fittest.

Sexual reproduction provides lots of scope to generate genetic variability; when pieces of individual chromosomes recombine as the eggs and sperm are formed and when the unique combinations of chromosomes are merged at fertilisation.

Another advantage of sexual reproduction is that harmful mutations, which accumulate naturally over time, are diluted out and their effects nullified during this genetic mixing.

Organisms relying on asexual transmission are presumed to forfeit these advantages.

Prof Manfred Schartl, who is based at the University of Würzburg and is one of the lead authors of the study, said: "The theoretical predictions were that an asexual species would undergo genomic decay and accumulate many bad mutations and, being clonal, would not be able to rely on high genetic diversity to react to new parasites or other changes in the environment.

"There were theoretical predictions that an asexual organism would demise after around 20,000 generations."

In evolutionary biology circles, this gradual and fatal accumulation of deadly mutations is known as Muller's ratchet, in honour of the Nobel prize-winning scientist Hermann Muller who came up with the theory.

But the latest study of the long-term stability of the Amazon molly fish genome has thrown up some surprising new insights into the potential cost of asexual reproduction.

Beating the odds

The Amazon molly fish is thought to be a hybrid that arose following breeding between two related species of fish - the Atlantic molly and the Sailfin molly.

In order to multiply, the resulting Amazon molly relies entirely on asexual reproduction; one of only a handful of backboned animals that reproduce this way.

In an unusual twist, the Amazon molly female can only reproduce when exposed to the sperm of a related species of molly, but the sperm DNA doesn't usually find its way into the offspring.

To define the impact of its celibate lifestyle, the team compared the genome sequences of Amazon molly fish collected from various locations in Mexico and Texas.

Using the genome sequences the research team were able to build a phylogenetic, or family, tree.

This tree showed that all the fish shared the same ancestor and this progenitor fish is predicted to have swum the American waters around 100,000 years ago.

Tenacious survivor

The Amazon molly had been around for half a million generations - far in excess of what theory would suggest.

Not only that, but when the scientists looked for hallmarks of long-term genomic decay there were very few, as Prof Schartl explained:

"What we found is that this fish had preserved its hybrid genome and what we know from plant or animal breeding is that when we try to make something better we breed a hybrid".

And he thinks it's this 'hybrid vigour' that underpins the Amazon molly's tenacious survival.

"What nature has done is create from the beginning a good hybrid, which then thrived."

"Of course it got mutations but what we feel has not been taken into consideration is that evolution will wipe out the deleterious mutations and only those that become better with good mutations will thrive."

Commenting on the significance of the work, Dr Laurence Loewe, assistant professor at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told the BBC:

"Usually species without regular recombination are not very long-lived evolutionarily. However, the Amazon molly seems to have found a way of surviving for a surprisingly long time without accumulating signatures of genomic decay".

"To figure out how, we will likely have to combine many of the exciting advances in evolutionary genetics from the last 100 years."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Evolutionary theory suggests that species favouring asexual reproduction will rapidly become extinct, as their genomes accumulate deadly mutations over time. But a study on an Amazon fish has cast doubt on the rapidity of this decline. Despite thousands of years of asexual reproduction, the genomes of the Amazon molly fish are remarkably stable and the species has survived.

# data[].attributes.body
How flowering plants conquered the world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientists think they have the answer to a puzzle that baffled even Charles Darwin: How flowers evolved and spread to become the dominant plants on Earth.

Flowering plants, or angiosperms, make up about 90% of all living plant species, including most food crops.

In the distant past, they outpaced plants such as conifers and ferns, which predate them, but how they did this has has been a mystery.

New research suggests it is down to genome size - and small is better.

"It really comes down to a question of cell size and how you can build a small cell and still retain all the attributes that are necessary for life," says Kevin Simonin from San Francisco State University in California, US.

'Abominable mystery'

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the Earth was dominated by ferns and conifers. Then, about 150 million years ago, the first flowering plants appeared on the scene.

They quickly spread to all parts of the world, changing the landscape from muted green to a riot of vibrant colour.

The reasons behind the incredible success and diversity of flowering plants have been debated for centuries.

Charles Darwin himself called it an "abominable mystery", fearing this apparent sudden leap might challenge his theory of evolution.

Simonin and co-researcher Adam Roddy, of Yale University, wondered if the size of the plant's genetic material - or genome - might be important.

The biologists analysed data held by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on the genome size of hundreds of plants, including flowering plants, gymnosperms (a group of plants, which include conifers and Ginkgo) and ferns.

'Strong evidence'

They then compared genome size with anatomical features such as the abundance of pores on leaves.

This provides "strong evidence", they say, that the success and rapid spread of flowering plants around the world is down to "genome downsizing".

By shrinking the size of the genome, which is contained within the nucleus of the cell, plants can build smaller cells.

In turn, this allows greater carbon dioxide uptake and carbon gain from photosynthesis, the process by which plants use light energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen.

Angiosperms can pack more veins and pores into their leaves, maximising their productivity.

The researchers say genome-downsizing happened only in the angiosperms, and this was ''a necessary prerequisite for rapid growth rates among land plants''.

"The flowering plants are the most important group of plants on Earth and now we finally know why they have been so successful," they say.

The research published in the journal PLOS Biology raises more questions about plants.

For instance, why were flowering plants able to shrink their genomes more than others? And why do ferns and conifers still exist, despite their large genomes and cells?

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How flowering plants conquered the world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists think they have the answer to a puzzle that baffled even Charles Darwin: How flowers evolved and spread to become the dominant plants on Earth. Flowering plants, or angiosperms, make up about 90% of all living plant species, including most food crops.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A mini ice age that would freeze major rivers could hit Britain in less than two decades, according to research from universities in the UK and Russia.

A mathematical model of the Sun's magnetic activity suggests temperatures could start dropping here from 2021, with the potential for winter skating on the River Thames by 2030.

A team led by maths professor Valentina Zharkova at Northumbria University built on work from Moscow to predict the movements of two magnetic waves produced by the Sun.

It predicts rapidly decreasing magnetic waves for three solar cycles beginning in 2021 and lasting 33 years.

Very low magnetic activity on the Sun correspond with historically documented cold periods on Earth.

Professor Zharkova claims 97% accuracy for the model which dovetails with previous mini ice ages, including the Maunder Minimum period from 1645 to 1715 when frost fairs were held on the frozen Thames.

But she cautions that her mathematical research cannot be used as proof that there will be a mini ice age this time around, not least because of global warming.

"I hope global warning will be overridden by this effect, giving humankind and the Earth 30 years to sort out our pollution," she said.

But Professor Zharkova warned that any downward impact on global warming will last only until the Sun's two magnetic waves become active again in the 2050s.

"We have to be sorted by that time and prepare everything on Earth for the next big solar activity," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scientists predict 'mini ice age' could hit UK by 2030

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A mini ice age that would freeze major rivers could hit Britain in less than two decades, according to research from universities in the UK and Russia. A mathematical model of the Sun's magnetic activity suggests temperatures could start dropping here from 2021, with the potential for winter skating on the River Thames by 2030.

# data[].attributes.body
Steroid abuse 'raising health risk for thousands'

# data[].attributes.headline
The family that doesn't feel pain - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
The family that doesn't feel pain - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Letizia Marsili, 52, first realised she was different when she was very young.

She had a high threshold for pain, which meant she didn't feel burns or notice broken bones. Five other family members are also affected by the condition which means they are insensitive to pain.

Letizia told the BBC: "From day to day we live a very normal life, perhaps better than the rest of the population, because we very rarely get unwell and we hardly feel any pain.

"However, in truth, we do feel pain, the perception of pain, but this only lasts for a few seconds."

Scientists believe the condition could be down to some nerves not reacting properly.

Researchers who studied the family hope their discovery of a gene mutation in family members could help chronic-pain sufferers in the future.

"We have opened up a whole new route to drug discovery for pain relief," said Prof Anna Maria Aloisi from the University of Siena in Italy.

How is the family affected?

Letizia's mother, two sons, sister and niece all show signs of being affected by the syndrome that is named after the family - Marsili pain syndrome.

She said pain was an important alarm signal and because they feel it only fleetingly, the family often have fractures that go undetected and this leads to inflammation in their bones.

They also experience burns and other injuries without knowing.

Letizia said her 24-year-old son Ludovico, who plays football, has encountered problems.

"He rarely stays on the ground, even when he is knocked down. However, he has fragility at the ankles and he often suffers distortions, which are micro fractures.

"In fact, recently X-rays have shown that he has lots of micro fractures in both ankles."

She said her younger son Bernardo, 21, had a calcification of the elbow without even realising he had broken it after falling off his bike. He continued to cycle for another nine miles.

Letizia says she fractured her right shoulder while skiing but continued to ski all afternoon, only going to the hospital the next morning because her fingers were tingling.

The same thing happened when she broke a bone in her elbow playing tennis.

"Because of a lack of pain, it got so stressed that it ended up breaking," she says.

But the worst thing, she says, has been problems in her mouth because of a tooth implant that went wrong.

Letizia's mother, Maria Domenica, 78, has had a number of fractures which have never healed properly and have hardened naturally. She often suffers burns because she doesn't feel any pain.

Her sister Maria Elena often damages the top of her mouth because she burns herself with hot drinks, and her daughter Virginia once left her hand in ice for about 20 minutes without feeling pain.

Despite all this, Letizia says she has never seen the condition "as a negative for our lives".

Why do they feel little pain?

Lead study author Dr James Cox, from University College London, said the Marsili family members had all their nerves present, but "they're just not working how they should be".

He said: "We're working to gain a better understanding of exactly why they don't feel much pain, to see if that could help us find new pain relief treatments."

The research team, whose findings are published in the journal Brain, worked with the family to find out the nature of their phenotype - the observable characteristics caused by their genetics.

The Marsili syndrome, named after them, means the affected individuals are less than normally sensitive (or hyposensitive) to extreme heat, capsaicin in chilli peppers and have experienced pain-free bone fractures.

What did scientists discover about their genes?

The researchers mapped out the protein-coding genes in each family member's genome and found a mutation in the ZFHX2 gene.

They then conducted two studies in mice which had been bred without this gene and found that their pain thresholds had been altered.

When they bred a new line of mice with the relevant mutation, they found they were notably insensitive to high temperatures.

Prof Aloisi said: "With more research to understand exactly how the mutation impacts pain sensitivity, and to see what other genes might be involved, we could identify novel targets for drug development."

The family is believed to be the only one in the world to be affected by this faulty gene.
Additional reporting by Mauro Galluzzo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Letizia Marsili, 52, first realised she was different when she was very young. She had a high threshold for pain, which meant she didn't feel burns or notice broken bones. Five other family members are also affected by the condition which means they are insensitive to pain.

# data[].attributes.body
Interstellar asteroid checked for alien technology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A project searching for intelligent life in the cosmos is going to check the first known interstellar asteroid for signs of alien technology.

The odd-shaped object was detected as it sped towards the Sun on 19 October.

Its properties suggested it originated around another star, making it the first such body to be spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood.

An initiative backed by billionaire Yuri Milner will use a radio telescope to listen for signals from it.

The team's efforts will begin on Wednesday, with astronomers observing the asteroid, which is currently speeding away from our Solar System, across four different radio frequency bands.

The first set of observations at the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is due to last for 10 hours.
Interstellar visitor given a name Bizarre shape of interstellar asteroid
Previous observations of the object, called 'Oumuamua, have noted its strange, elongated shape, making it look a bit like a cigar.

Mr Milner's Breakthrough Listen programme released a statement which read: "Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust."

Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, who is part of the initiative, said: "'Oumuamua's presence within our Solar System affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects."

You might also like
Daredevil climber dies in China fall Huntington's breakthrough may stop disease American who defected to North Korea dies
He added: "Whether this object turns out to be artificial or natural, it's a great target for Listen."

Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, who is not involved with Breakthrough Listen, told BBC Surrey radio: "I believe there is an experiment being done to actually listen to this object to see if there are any potential signs of life on it.

"I think this is most unlikely because it's left over from the beginning of that planetary system elsewhere. Much better ways of looking for life are actually missions like our ExoMars project, which is going to be going to Mars in 2020, drilling underneath the surface to look for signs of life. We're building the camera system for that."

He added: "But as this thing is passing through very quickly, why not have a listen just in case. But I think it's most unlikely."

Other researchers who have carried out observations of the asteroid with ground telescopes say that, apart from its shape, it closely resembles natural objects found in the outer parts of our Solar System.

It has a reddish colour, which is often indicative of organic compounds that have been irradiated by cosmic rays. Measurements suggest it has a dense structure and is comprised of rock and metal, but with little - if any - water-ice.

Although 'Oumuamua formed around another star, scientists think it could have been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our Solar System.

The asteroid's name, 'Oumuamua, means "a messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A project searching for intelligent life in the cosmos is going to check the first known interstellar asteroid for signs of alien technology. The odd-shaped object was detected as it sped towards the Sun on 19 October. Its properties suggested it originated around another star, making it the first such body to be spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood.

# data[].attributes.headline
Flies more germ-laden than suspected - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Flies more germ-laden than suspected - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientists have discovered that flies carry more diseases than suspected.

The house fly and the blowfly together harbour more than 600 different bacteria, according to a DNA analysis.

Many are linked with human infections, including stomach bugs, blood poisoning and pneumonia.

Flies can spread bacteria from place-to-place on their legs, feet and wings, experiments show. In fact, every step taken by a fly can transfer live bacteria, researchers said.

''People had some notion that there were pathogens that were carried by flies but had no idea of the extent to which this is true and the extent to which they are transferred," Prof Donald Bryant of Penn State University, a co-researcher on the study, told BBC News.

Outbreaks

DNA sequencing techniques were used to study the collection of microbes found in and on the bodies of the house fly ( Musca domestica) and the blowfly ( Chrysomya megacephala).

The house fly, which is ubiquitous around the world, was found to harbour 351 types of bacteria. The blowfly, which is found in warmer climates, carried 316. A large number of these bacteria were carried by both types of fly.

The researchers, who published their study in the journal Scientific Reports, say flies may have been overlooked by public health officials as a source of disease outbreaks.

"We believe that this may show a mechanism for pathogen transmission that has been overlooked by public health officials, and flies may contribute to the rapid transmission of pathogens in outbreak situations," said Prof Bryant.

"It will really make you think twice about eating that potato salad that's been sitting out at your next picnic," he added.

However, the researchers believe flies could have their uses - acting as early warning systems for disease or even living drones sent into tight spaces to search for microbes.

"In fact, the flies could be intentionally released as autonomous bionic drones into even the smallest spaces and crevices and, upon being recaptured, inform about any biotic material they have encountered," said Stephan Schuster, research director at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

House flies are well known for their poor hygiene habits - visiting rubbish tips and feeding on all sorts of decaying food, animal corpses and faecal matter. They are suspected of carrying a range of human, animal and plant diseases.

Blow flies are one of the most common flies found around dead animals. They are common in urban areas and are often found near meat-processing plants, rubbish dumps and slaughterhouses.

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists have discovered that flies carry more diseases than suspected. The house fly and the blowfly together harbour more than 600 different bacteria, according to a DNA analysis. Many are linked with human infections, including stomach bugs, blood poisoning and pneumonia. Flies can spread bacteria from place-to-place on their legs, feet and wings, experiments show.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If heart transplantation - 50 years after Christiaan Barnard carried out the first operation - has become routine, what exactly will medicine be capable of in the future?

Will we one day be able to build, or even grow, replacement hearts, or will surgeons be able to use genetically modified animal hearts in their place?

The pace of progress has been staggering.

Harefield Hospital heart and lung transplantation director Mr Andre Simon says: "I fell into the trap when I was 18 and I saw my first heart transplant. That was 1986.

"There were two surgeons. I could see them tying knots, and you couldn't see their fingers because they were so fast. It was weird, fantastic.

"It was the end of the 'cowboy' time in cardiac surgery. I remember coming into the office, and I was impressed by the fact that everything was full of cigarette butts and empty beer bottles.

"It was a completely different time. Things have changed.

"Overall, we are in a lot better position because we can do things we couldn't do - but we have also lost some of the necessary will to push limits."
The operation that took medicine into the media age Witness: The First Heart Transplant
New techniques are badly needed because the number of donor organs - about 200 per year in the UK - is dwarfed by demand. About 2,000 people under the age of 65 a year will die of heart failure without a transplant.

One option researchers hope to develop is to use stem cells to grow new cardiac muscle.

Dr Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology, at the Texas Heart Institute, in Houston, says: "If we want to build a whole heart, that takes hundreds of billions of cells.

"The good news is we can now do that.

"My goal is within the next six months to have two to three hearts built that are contracting at a level that makes them transplantable [into large animals such as cows]."

Using pigs, Dr Taylor's team are stripping cells from hearts, and then rebuilding them using stem cells.

They are hoping to perfect a technique where a diseased heart is plumbed up to a newly grown heart.

Ultimately, they hope the new heart can take over completely.

"What we have found is that cells that migrate to different areas tend to differentiate into the type of cell that belongs in the region in which they find themselves," Dr Taylor says.

However, cardiothoracic surgeon Prof John Dark warns against raising false hopes.

"One has seen people come up with very exciting ideas several times in the past," he says.

"Twenty years ago, we thought we were on the verge of taking organs from pigs and using them for so-called xenotransplants. And while there are some exciting developments in that field, we are still not there.

"Ten years ago, there was huge excitement about using stem cells to repair damaged hearts.

"The clinical results have been very disappointing: we have seen a few percentage points' improvement in the function of hearts in patients in large clinical trials.

"One wants to see the final product before you are really convinced."

An alternative to growing new hearts is to refine devices that can keep a patient alive until they can have a transplant.

In recent years, the left ventricular assist device (LVAD) - an artificial pump that helps the left side of the heart do its job - has shrunk from a large external piece of kit to a tiny battery-operated device that can be implanted into the chest.

For the first year, they are as effective as a transplant.

Each generation has become more effective, but there is still a risk of infection, and they are not always easy to live with.

Will the next step be the development of mechanical hearts? Mr Simon thinks so.

"I can see that such a device, if mass produced, is not going to be that expensive," he says.

"It is going to be like a pacemaker, you just go and get one, like a new iPhone.

"The problems we face are making a device that does not lead to clotting and strokes, and works 100%."

Researchers are also working to try to preserve a heart for longer after it is removed from the donor.

At present, speed is of the essence to maximise the chances of success - more than three hours, and the odds decrease sharply.

The current technique is to stop the heart and store it in a cool solution.

But experiments have shown that if a beating heart is perfused with warm blood, it can be preserved for much longer out of the body - up to 12 hours.

Scientists hope that eventually it will be possible to store hearts for up to a month.

This would potentially enable hearts to be matched up immunologically to the patients most likely to benefit.

The key to the future is not likely to be any single technology, but a combination of all of them.

But if the past 50 years have taught us anything at all, it is that things that seem impossible today will become the medicine of tomorrow.

BBC Radio 4 is marking 50 years since the first heart transplant with a range of programmes this week. Dr Fong presents Inside Health Special: The Future Heart on Tuesday, 5 December, at 21:00 GMT.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What will medicine be able to do with hearts?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If heart transplantation - 50 years after Christiaan Barnard carried out the first operation - has become routine, what exactly will medicine be capable of in the future? Will we one day be able to build, or even grow, replacement hearts, or will surgeons be able to use genetically modified animal hearts in their place?

# data[].attributes.body
What will medicine be able to do with hearts?

# data[].attributes.headline
How dinosaur scales became bird feathers - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
How dinosaur scales became bird feathers - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The genes that caused scales to become feathers in the early ancestors of birds have been found by US scientists.

By expressing these genes in embryo alligator skin, the researchers caused the reptiles' scales to change in a way that may be similar to how the earliest feathers evolved.

Feathers are highly complex natural structures and they're key to the success of birds.

But they initially evolved in dinosaurs, birds' extinct ancestors.

Leading the study, Professor Cheng-Ming Chuong told the BBC that this discovery links important recent palaeontological finds with modern biology, in understanding feather evolution.

Birds have had feathers for as long as they have existed as a group and Professor Chuong couldn't study primitive examples of feathers in any living animals.

"In today's existing reptiles, the one more similar to dinosaurs is actually the alligator, belonging to the Archosaur group," said Prof Chuong from the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles.

Dinosaurs and birds also belong to this wider group of "Archosaur reptiles"; Prof Chuong wanted to investigate whether the feather-forming genes he had identified in birds could change those scales into feathers. So he set out to turn on these genes in the skin of alligator embryos.

"You can see we can indeed induce them to form appendages, although it is not beautiful feathers, they really try to elongate" he explained of the outcome. They are likely similar to the structures on those feather-pioneering dinosaurs 150 million years ago.

The reason the gene doesn't cause the development of a fully feathered alligator is that unlike birds, alligators don't have the underlying genetic architecture evolved to support these central feather-making genes, or hold the structures in place on the skin.

But the team's research does provide evidence for how early dinosaurs initiated the development of feathers.

In recent years, palaeontologists have found evidence of "proto feathers" in a huge range of different dinosaur species.

"Feathered dinosaurs have unusual so called proto-feathers... it looks like they have feathers but the feathers are not identical to today's (bird) feathers."

Some of these were very simple structures, without the branching complexity seen in birds today. We now know that many dinosaurs were warm blooded like birds and mammals, this meant that they could save energy by holding onto heat produced in their bodies. Scales are not good at this, and so there was a selective pressure to develop something like fur.

As with mammalian fur, the early single-shafted feather growths prevented heat being conveyed away from the body in the air. But unlike fur, proto-feathers became more complex over evolutionary time, branching off with side veins and barbs, and developing extraordinary colours.

Today, feathers are phenomenally useful to birds, and not just because they allow flight.

Alongside the strong asymmetrical flight feathers, there are fluffy downy feathers that keep the animals warm, but in many birds, there are also feathers that grow continuously and break down into a powder that waterproofs the other feathers to keep them dry and buoyant. In others, long wire-like feathers grow like whiskers all over the body and feedback information about air-flow in the sky.

Many of these extraordinary feather structures had already developed in their late ancestor dinosaurs. This was necessarily the case, because the complex, strong, asymmetrical feathers that are necessary for powered or even gliding flight in birds, existed at in the very first known bird ancestor, archaeopteryx, and all modern birds descended from a flying ancestor.

But flight was just one highly successful experiment with feathers.

Modern feathers involve a range of different genes working together and being expressed at the right time and in the right space during the embryo's development. This new work helps to establish how feathers initially evolved, around 120 to 150 million years ago, but hints at five separate genetic processes active in birds that needed to work together to create modern feathers.

"In human evolution the great achievement is the brain, in birds it is the feathers," says Prof Chuong. Today his research is opening the door to understand how such a great achievement came about.

There are practical implications of Prof Chuong's work. His team is working with plastic surgeons to help understand why skin structures don't develop well on scar tissue.

This research informs our understanding of the process of how skin creates the structures that interact with the outside environment. With a better understanding of this, regenerative therapies could help people get better after accidents.

The study is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Follow Rory on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The genes that caused scales to become feathers in the early ancestors of birds have been found by US scientists. By expressing these genes in embryo alligator skin, the researchers caused the reptiles' scales to change in a way that may be similar to how the earliest feathers evolved.

# data[].attributes.headline
Galapagos finches caught in act of becoming new species - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Galapagos finches caught in act of becoming new species - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A population of finches on the Galapagos has been discovered in the process of becoming a new species.

This is the first example of speciation that scientists have been able to observe directly in the field.

Researchers followed the entire population of finches on a tiny Galapagos island called Daphne Major, for many years, and so they were able to watch the speciation in progress.

The research was published in the journal Science.

The group of finch species to which the Big Bird population belongs are collectively known as Darwin's finches and helped Charles Darwin to uncover the process of evolution by natural selection.

In 1981, the researchers noticed the arrival of a male of a non-native species, the large cactus finch.

Professors Rosemary and Peter Grant noticed that this male proceeded to mate with a female of one of the local species, a medium ground finch, producing fertile young.

Almost 40 years later, the progeny of that original mating are still being observed, and number around 30 individuals.

"It's an extreme case of something we're coming to realise more generally over the years. Evolution in general can happen very quickly," said Prof Roger Butlin, a speciation expert who wasn't involved in the study.

What makes a species?

This new finch population is sufficiently different in form and habits to the native birds, as to be marked out as a new species, and individuals from the different populations don't interbreed.

Prof Butlin told the BBC that people working on speciation credit the Grant professors with altering our understanding of rapid evolutionary change in the field.

In the past, it was thought that two different species must be unable to produce fertile offspring in order to be defined as such. But in more recent years, it has been established that many birds and other animals that we consider to be unique species are in fact able to interbreed with others to produce fertile young.

"We tend not to argue about what defines a species anymore, because that doesn't get you anywhere," said Prof Butlin. What he says is more interesting is understanding the role that hybridisation can have in the process of creating new species, which is why this observation of Galapagos finches is so important.

The researchers think that the original male must have flown 65 miles from the large cactus finches' home island of Española. That's a very long way for a small finch to fly, and so it would be very unlikely for the bird to make a successful return flight.

By identifying one way that new species can arise, and following the entire population, the researchers state this as an example of speciation occurring in a timescale we can observe.

In most cases, the offspring of cross-species matings are poorly adapted to their environment. But in this instance, the new finches on Daphne Major are larger than other species on the island, and have taken hold of new and unexploited food.

For this reason, the researchers are calling the animals the "Big Bird population".

To scientifically test whether the Big Bird population was genetically distinct from the three species of finch native to the island, Peter and Rosemary Grant collaborated with Prof Leif Andersson of Sweden's Uppsala University who analysed the population genetically for the new study.

Prof Andersson told BBC News: "The surprise was that we would expect the hybrid would start to breed with one of the other species on the island and be absorbed... we have confirmed that they are a closed breeding group."

Due to an inability to recognise the songs of the new males, native females won't pair with this new species.

And in this paper, new genetic evidence shows that after two generations, there was complete reproductive isolation from the native birds. As a result, they are now reproductively - and genetically - isolated. So they have been breeding exclusively with each other over the years.

"What we are saying is that this group of birds behave as a distinct species. If you didn't know anything about [Daphne Major's] history and a taxonomist arrived on this island they would say there are four species on this island," said Prof Andersson.

There is no evidence that they will breed again with the native medium ground finch, but even if they did, they now have a larger size and can exploit new opportunities. Those advantageous traits may be maintained by natural selection.

So hybridisation can lead to speciation, simply through the addition of one individual to a population. It may therefore be a way for new traits to evolve quickly.

"If you just wait for mutations causing one change at a time, then it would make it more difficult to raise a new species that way. But hybridisation may be more effective than mutation," said Prof Butlin.

Follow Rory on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A population of finches on the Galapagos has been discovered in the process of becoming a new species. This is the first example of speciation that scientists have been able to observe directly in the field.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Huge quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilisers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet, a study says.

Researchers at the British Geological Survey say it could have severe global-scale consequences for rivers, water supplies, human health and the economy.

They say the nitrate will be released from the rocks into rivers via springs.

That will cause toxic algal blooms and fish deaths, and will cost industry and consumers billions of pounds a year in extra water treatment.

In a paper in Nature Communications, the scientists from BGS and Lancaster University estimate that up to 180 million tonnes of nitrate are stored in rocks worldwide - perhaps twice the amount stored in soils.

They say this is the first global estimate of the amount of nitrate trapped between the soil layer and the water-bearing aquifers below. They warn that over time the nitrate will inevitably slowly seep into the aquifers.

Most nitrate, the team says, is in rocks in North America, China and Europe where fertiliser has been lavishly applied for decades.

In some developed countries, the amount of nitrate stored in the rocks is increasing, despite improvements in farming practice and the introduction of rules to control the pollutant.

In developing countries, the problem is currently not so severe. But there is an urgent need for early intervention to avoid the environmental damage experienced by rich countries.

Matthew Ascott, hydrogeologist at the BGS and lead author, said: "With big investments being made to reduce water pollution through changes in farming, it is vital that we understand what pollution is already in the environment.

"Water and the pollutant travels through the rocks below our feet very slowly. This and a history of intensive agriculture means that a large store of nitrate pollution has built up over time.

"When this pollution is released, it will continue to impact water quality for decades, in some cases, even where controls on fertiliser use have been put in place."

This is what's known as the nitrate timebomb.

The EU is trying to clamp down on careless application of nitrates but farmers say the fertilisers are vital for agricultural productivity.

The UK government has said all EU environmental laws will be brought into British law after Brexit. But a legal taskforce set up by the UK Environmental Law Association (UKELA) to examine the risks of Brexit identified nitrate pollution as an example of the protections that will be at risk when European laws are rolled over into domestic legislation in 2019.
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Huge quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilisers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet, a study says. Researchers at the British Geological Survey say it could have severe global-scale consequences for rivers, water supplies, human health and the economy. They say the nitrate will be released from the rocks into rivers via springs.

# data[].attributes.headline
Longer beaks in UK great tits 'down to garden feeders' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Longer beaks in UK great tits 'down to garden feeders' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The British love of feeding birds may have caused great tits to evolve longer beaks than their counterparts in Europe, according to an academic study.

The study compared the DNA of more than 3,000 birds in the UK and the Netherlands and established "genetic differences" in terms of beak lengths.

Differences evolved over a short period and could be down to higher numbers of garden bird feeders in the UK, it said.

The RSPB said it may also be one reason for rising great tit numbers in the UK.

According to the research paper, published in the Science journal, Britons spend twice as much on bird feeders than their counterparts in mainland Europe.

It estimated that people in the UK spend £334m a year on "supplementary feed" for birds, whereas those in mainland Europe spend £167m.

Increasing numbers

It also compared the beak length of tits in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, with those in Wageningen, in the Netherlands and tracked how long they spent at automated bird feeders.

The average UK great tits has a 0.3mm longer beak than its European counterparts, the study established.

Oxford University researchers have recorded the beak sizes of great tits in Wytham Woods for 70 years - and say they have seen a substantial increase in growth since the 1970s.

Those with longer-beaked gene variants were more successful at reproducing in the UK.

The study was conducted by researchers at Oxford University, Sheffield University, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.

UEA's Dr Lewis Spurgin said: "It's certainly true that birds who have adapted to better access food will be in better condition generally, and so better able to reproduce and outperform others without that adaptation."

He added: "Although we can't say definitively that bird feeders are responsible, it seems reasonable to suggest that the longer beaks amongst British great tits may have evolved as a response to this supplementary feeding."

RSPB spokesman Martin Fowlie said: "As our countryside has changed over the decades, our birds have responded in a variety of ways.

"Great tits numbers have increased fairly steadily since the 1960s and this new study may shed light on why and how this has happened."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Longer beaks in UK birds 'due to feeders'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The British love of feeding birds may have caused great tits to evolve longer beaks than their counterparts in Europe, according to an academic study. The study compared the DNA of more than 3,000 birds in the UK and the Netherlands and established "genetic differences" in terms of beak lengths.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plants have been "hijacked" to make polio vaccine in a breakthrough with the potential to transform vaccine manufacture, say scientists.

The team at the John Innes Centre, in Norfolk, says the process is cheap, easy and quick.

As well as helping eliminate polio, the scientists believe their approach could help the world react to unexpected threats such as Zika virus or Ebola.

Experts said the achievement was both impressive and important.

The vaccine is an "authentic mimic" of poliovirus called a virus-like particle.

Outwardly it looks almost identical to poliovirus but - like the difference between a mannequin and person - it is empty on the inside.

It has all the features needed to train the immune system, but none of the weapons to cause an infection.

Leafy factory

The scientists hijacked a relative of the tobacco plant's metabolism to turn its leaves into polio-vaccine "factories".

First, they needed to create new instructions for the plant to follow.

The starting material was the genetic code for making the outer surface of poliovirus.

It was enhanced by combining it with material from viruses that naturally infect plants.

The new instructions were then put into soil bacteria, which were used to infect tobacco.

The infection took hold, the plants read the genetic instructions and started making the virus-like particles.

Infected leaves were mixed with water, blended, and the polio vaccine was extracted.

The virus-like particles prevented polio in animal experiments, and an analysis of their 3D structure showed they looked almost identical to poliovirus.

Prof George Lomonossoff, from the John Innes Centre, told the BBC News website: "They are incredibly good mimics.

"It's a very promising technology,

"I would hope we get vaccines produced in plants in the not too distant future."

The research is funded by the World Health Organization, as part of efforts to find replacements for the polio vaccine.

Polio - which can cause permanent paralysis - is a thing of the past for most of the world, but the infection has not been eradicated.

And using weakened poliovirus in current vaccines poses a risk of the virus regaining some of its dangerous traits - called vaccine-derived poliovirus.

Dr Andrew Macadam, principal scientist at the UK's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, said: "Current vaccines for polio are produced from large amounts of live virus, which carries a threat of accidental escape and re-introduction.

"This study takes us a step closer to replacing current polio vaccines, providing us with a cheap and viable option for making virus-like particle-based vaccines."

Great potential

But this technology is not limited to polio or even just to vaccines.

As long as researchers have the right sequence of genetic code, they can make a vaccine against most viruses.

And they have also used plants to make antibodies like those being used in cancer therapy.

Plants are also being investigated as a new source for the winter flu jab.

Currently, it is grown in chicken eggs and takes months to develop.

Prof Lomonossoff told the BBC: "In an experiment with a Canadian company, they showed you could actually identify a new strain of virus and produce a candidate vaccine in three to four weeks.

"It has potential for making vaccines against emerging epidemics, of course recently we had Zika and prior to that we had Ebola.

"It's highly responsive, and that's one of the great attractions of the technology."

The plants have the advantage of growing quickly and needing only sunlight, soil, water and carbon dioxide to grow.

It means it could be a cheap and low-tech solution to vaccine development.

But there are still issues to resolve, including making vaccine on a large scale.

Another issue is whether there is any risk from using plants to make the vaccine - does the tobacco-relative mean there is nicotine in the vaccine?

Dr Tarit Mukhopadhyay, a lecturer in vaccine development at University College London, said: "The initial results look impressive.

"However, there are very few plant-based vaccine manufacturers and almost no licensed human vaccines that are currently produced in plants."

Denis Murphy, a professor of biotechnology at the University of South Wales, said: "This is an important achievement.

"The challenge is now to optimise the plant expression system and to move towards clinical trials of the new vaccine."

Follow James on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plants 'hijacked' to make polio vaccine - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plants have been "hijacked" to make polio vaccine in a breakthrough with the potential to transform vaccine manufacture, say scientists. The team at the John Innes Centre, in Norfolk, says the process is cheap, easy and quick. As well as helping eliminate polio, the scientists believe their approach could help the world react to unexpected threats such as Zika virus or Ebola.

# data[].attributes.headline
Waste products, not crops, key to boosting UK biofuels

# data[].attributes.subject
Waste products, not crops, key to boosting UK biofuels

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The UK should focus on using waste products like chip fat if it wants to double production of biofuels according a new study.

The report from the Royal Academy of Engineering says that making fuel from crops like wheat should be restricted.

Incentives should be given to farmers to increase production of fuel crops like Miscanthus on marginal land.

Even with electric vehicles, biofuels will still be needed for aviation and heavy goods say the authors.

While the European Union has mandated that 10% of transport fuels should come from sustainable sources by 2020, these biofuels have been a slow burner in the UK.

Suppliers are already blending up to 4.75% of diesel and petrol with greener fuel, but doubling this amount will take up to 10 years say the authors of this new report, that was commissioned by the government.

To get to this point, the authors argue that several important changes will need to take place.

While in countries like the US and Brazil biofuels are mainly made from maize or sugar cane, the main sources in the UK are wheat and used cooking oil.

To boost production there will need to be restrictions on crops grown for fuel, say the authors.

Last year according to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), almost half the land in the UK used for biofuels was used to grow wheat.

When the authors of this study reviewed the global scientific literature, they found that if all the extra emissions involved in changing land use to grow wheat were added in, fuel based on this grain was worse for the environment than regular petrol or diesel.

"Generally, we know if land use change is involved, do not use wheat to make biofuels, it is higher than petrol in terms of carbon footprint," said Prof Adisa Azapagic from the University of Manchester who chaired the panel that produced the report.

"What we need to understand about agriculture, is that it is different from farm to farm. This is what we have found across the world, how people farm wheat in different ways and the emissions would be different depending on soil, previous carbon stocks and so on, it really is a very complex science."

The study recommends that the government set a cap for all crop-based biofuels to reduce the risk of indirect land use change.

"We would be concerned if we went up to 10% and allowed all of that 10% to come from food based crops, then we would say no, that's not what we're recommending," said Prof Nilay Shah from Imperial College London.

Instead, the report suggests that renewed emphasis be placed on developing waste. In the UK we produce 16 million tonnes every year, enough to double our current biofuel supplies. A third of that waste is called green waste, a quarter of it is agricultural straw.

The authors believe there is great scope for expansion in the use of unavoidable waste, such as used cooking oil, forest and sawmill residues, the dregs from whisky manufacture, even so-called "fatbergs" from sewers could play a role.

However the study warns that care must be taken to avoid giving people perverse incentives to create waste just to cash in on biofuels.

"There have been some examples where people have used virgin cooking oil as a source of biofuel because it was cheaper than used cooking oil so we need to make sure we avoid these market distortions that unfortunately do happen," said Prof Azapagic.

The government should also aim to remove any incentives for the use of materials in biofuels that involve deforestation or the drainage of peat land. Incentives should be put in place to encourage farmers to grow crops like Miscanthus and short rotation coppice wood on marginal land.

If we want to double the amount of biofuel we are using over the next decade, say the authors, the government will have to stump up some cash.

"If you've got a ready supply of used cooking oil it is not very challenging or expensive, if your alternative is to go clear some land and plant Miscanthus and all the processing that goes with that, then the prices are going to be different," said Prof Roger Kemp, a professorial fellow from Lancaster University.

"We wouldn't be getting up to anything like 10% if it was purely a market based thing."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Waste products, not crops, key to boosting UK biofuels - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The UK should focus on using waste products like chip fat if it wants to double production of biofuels according a new study. The report from the Royal Academy of Engineering says that making fuel from crops like wheat should be restricted.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ultra-tough antibiotic to fight superbugs - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Ultra-tough antibiotic to fight superbugs - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
US scientists have re-engineered a vital antibiotic in a bid to wipe out one of the world's most threatening superbugs.

Their new version of vancomycin is designed to be ultra-tough and appears to be a thousand times more potent than the old drug, PNAS journal reports.

It fights bacteria in three different ways, making it much less likely that the bugs can dodge the attack.

It is yet to be tested in animals and people, however.

The Scripps Research Institute team hope the drug will be ready for use within five years if it passes more tests.

Fighting superbugs

Experts have repeatedly warned that we are on the cusp of a "post-antibiotic era", where some infections could become untreatable.

One hard-to-treat infection that has been worrying doctors is vancomycin-resistant enterococci or VRE.

It has been found in hospitals, can cause dangerous wound and bloodstream infections and is considered by the WHO to be one of the drug-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health.

Some antibiotics still work against VRE, but the 60-year-old drug vancomycin is now powerless.

The Scripps team set out to see if they could revamp vancomycin to restore its killing ability.

They made some strategic modifications to the molecular structure of the old drug to make it better at attacking bacteria where it hurts - destroying cell walls.

Three changes in particular seem to be important, increasing the strength and durability of the drug.

Lead researcher Dr Dale Boger explained: "We made one change to the molecule vancomycin that overcomes what is the present resistance to vancomycin. And then we added to the molecule, two small changes that built into the molecule, two additional ways in which it can kill bacteria. So the antibiotic has three different, we call them 'mechanisms', by which it kills bacteria. And resistance to such an antibiotic would be very difficult to emerge. So it's a molecule designed specifically to address the emergence of resistance."

The modified drug was able to kill samples of VRE in the lab and retained nearly full potency after 50 rounds of exposure to the bacterium.

Dr Boger said: "Organisms just can't simultaneously work to find a way around three independent mechanisms of action. Even if they found a solution to one of those, the organisms would still be killed by the other two.

"Doctors could use this modified form of vancomycin without fear of resistance emerging."

Prof Nigel Brown of the Microbiology Society said: "This development could be hugely important.

"Vancomycin is an antibiotic of last resort against some serious infections. There has been great concern that resistance has been emerging."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ultra-tough antibiotic to fight superbugs - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
US scientists have re-engineered a vital antibiotic in a bid to wipe out one of the world's most threatening superbugs. Their new version of vancomycin is designed to be ultra-tough and appears to be a thousand times more potent than the old drug, PNAS journal reports.

# data[].attributes.headline
Norway to boost protection of Arctic seed vault from climate change - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Norway to boost protection of Arctic seed vault from climate change - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Norway is boosting the flood defences of its Global Seed Vault on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard after water entered the entrance tunnel last year.

The storage facility, deep inside a mountain, is designed to preserve the world's crops from future disasters.

Unseasonably high temperatures last year caused the permafrost to melt, sending water into the access tunnel.

No seeds were damaged but the facility is to have new waterproof walls in the tunnel and drainage ditches outside.

The vault stores seeds from 5,000 crop species from around the world. Dried and frozen, it is believed they can be preserved for hundreds of years.

Although most countries keep their own supplies of key varieties, the Global Seed Vault acts as a back-up.

If a nation's seeds are lost as a result of a natural disaster or a man-made catastrophe, the specimens stored in the Arctic could be used to regenerate them.

Scientists at the facility describe the vault as the most important room in the world.

Government spokeswoman Hege Njaa Aschim told the BBC that the reason the vault was built on Svalbard was because the permafrost was thought to be permanent.

She said the problems emerged last October when the temperatures, instead of being -10C or colder, were hovering around 0C.

"It was like a wet summer in Norway," she told the BBC.

"Inside the mountain it's safe but the problems we have experienced are just outside and in the front of the tunnel, which is the entrance. So Yes, maybe something has changed in the permafrost, but we don't know, and that is what the climate researchers are looking into. We have to follow them carefully."

The new measures announced include drainage ditches on the mountainside to stop water from accumulating around the access tunnel.

Waterproof walls inside the tunnel itself will provide extra protection for the vaults.

In addition, Statsbygg, the agency that administers the vault, is to carry out a research and development project to monitor the permafrost on Svalbard.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Norway to boost protection of Arctic seed vault from climate change - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Norway is boosting the flood defences of its Global Seed Vault on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard after water entered the entrance tunnel last year. The storage facility, deep inside a mountain, is designed to preserve the world's crops from future disasters. Unseasonably high temperatures last year caused the permafrost to melt, sending water into the access tunnel.

# data[].attributes.headline
Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood - CNN.com

# data[].attributes.subject
Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood - CNN.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood - cnn.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For decades, scientists have sought to create red blood cells in the lab -- a "holy grail" that some hoped could ease regional shortages in the blood supply.

# data[].attributes.headline
Colourful, creative and close up: Wellcome Images 2017 - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Colourful, creative and close up: Wellcome Images 2017 - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This magnified image of a baby Hawaiian bobtail squid - which has a light organ on its backside that houses a colony of glowing bacteria - is one of the finalists in the 2017 Wellcome Image Awards.
The squid - which measures only 1.5 cm across - provides food and shelter for the bacteria in return for their bioluminescence. The glow is similar to moonlight and starlight, and helps mask its silhouette in the Pacific Ocean - reducing the risk of predator attacks from below.

This is the 20th annual Wellcome Image Awards which celebrates colourful and captivating scientific images - from photography and illustration, to super-resolution microscopy and medical scans.
Scroll to see more of the finalists.

Stickman, The Vicissitudes of Crohn's (Resolution) - Overall Winner 2017 Spooky Pooka
This character "Stickman" is the alter ego of the artist who suffers from Crohn's disease - a chronic condition caused by inflammation of the digestive system.

The skeleton is made of sticks rather than bones - to show the body's fragility to a flare up.
Judge's comment:
"This image is a stunning representation of what it must be like to have Crohn's disease and it's like nothing I've seen before in terms of the portrayal of someone's condition.

"It conveys the pain and torment the sufferer must go through. The image really resonates and is beautifully composed. It's a haunting piece."
Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Correspondent

Intraocular lens 'iris clip' Mark Bartley, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

This image shows how an "iris clip" - also known as an artificial intraocular lens (IOL) - has been fitted on to the eye of a 70-year-old man with a 3mm surgical incision.
Judge's comment:
It is used to treat conditions such as myopia (nearsightedness) and cataracts (cloudiness of the lens). The patient regained almost full vision following his surgery.
Dirk Pilat, Medical Director for e-Learning at the Royal College of General Practitioners and a GP in Essex

#breastcancer Twitter connections Eric Clarke, Richard Arnett and Jane Burns, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
"I think this picture is absolutely stunning in its clarity. I am sure I will be using it frequently to demonstrate to my patients the intricacies of ocular lens implants."

This is a graphical visualisation of data extracted from tweets containing the hashtag #breastcancer.

Twitter users are represented by the dots, or nodes, and lines connecting the nodes represent the relationships between the Twitter users.
Judge's comment:
Nodes and lines are sized differently according to the number and importance of other nodes to which they are connected.
Rob Kesseler, visual artist, professor at Central Saint Martins and Chair of Arts, Design and Science at the University of the Arts London

Blood vessels of the African grey parrot Scott Birch and Scott Echols

Judge's comment:
"A beautiful starburst of pointillist coloured nodes, a complex representation of convergent energies, the image visualizes a topic so important to discuss today."
Alice Roberts, Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham and a clinical anatomist, author and broadcaster

Pigeon thermoregulation Scott Echols, Scarlet Imaging and the Grey Parrot Anatomy Project
This image shows a 3D reconstruction of the head and neck of a dead African grey parrot - with a highly intricate system of blood vessels.

"This wonderfully detailed image, mapping blood vessels in 3D, succeeds in being both beautiful and informative. The ghosted outline of the bird's head and neck provides context."
Judge's comment:
This image shows the intricate network of blood vessels in the neck and head of a pigeon - down to capillary level.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

Cat skin and blood supply David Linstead
All animals possess unique variations in their anatomy that help them adapt to their environment - and this extensive blood supply just below the skin helps the bird control its body temperature through a process known as thermoregulation.

"The amazing quality of this image shows how complex and dense the network of blood vessels is, and its seemingly angry squawk at the viewer makes it really eye catching."

This polarised light micrograph of a section of cat skin shows the blood supply feeding hairs and whiskers.
Judge's comment:
Blood vessels were injected with a dye (here shown as black) to visualise the capillaries in the tissue.

It is a composite view of a Victorian microscope slide, and is made up of 44 individual images stitched together.
James Cutmore, Picture Editor of BBC Focus

Rita Levi-Montalcini Daria Kirpach / Salzman International
"At first glance it could be a painting of a tiny underwater creature, or some weird fairytale monster. But the fact that this is a cat's whisker is a real surprise.

"This image just highlights to me amazing details that exist in even the simplest organic structures, a product of millions of years of evolution right there in front of us."

This work of art depicts Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012) - an Italian neurobiologist.
Judge's comment:
She was the joint recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF) - which has increased the understanding of many conditions, including tumours, developmental malformations and dementia.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

Surface of a mouse retina Gabriel Luna, Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara
For her early work in Italy, Levi-Montalcini built a small laboratory in her family home and worked in secret because of Mussolini's 1938 Manifesto of Race, which barred non-Aryan citizens from having academic careers.

"The striking colours reflect the courage of this Nobel prize-winning scientist, and the details reveal the way she had to conceal her work from the fascist powers during the war."

This digital image of a mouse retina, at the back of the eye, contains light-sensitive cells responsible for converting light into electrical nerve signals that the brain can process.
Judge's comment:
Blood vessels (blue) can be seen radiating from the centre of the image - with astrocytes, specialist cells of the nervous system, double stained in red and green.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

MicroRNA scaffold cancer therapy Joao Conde, Nuria Oliva and Natalie Artzi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Here, scientists are researching whether the function of astrocytes changes during retinal degeneration, which may lead to the development of new treatments for vision loss.

"An extraordinary montage of over 400 tiled images showing in incredible detail the intricate filigree pattern of astrocytes in the tiny retina of a mouse."
Judge's comments:
The problem with conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy is their non-specificity, and the side-effects they cause. But the hope is that this mesh can be used as a cancer therapy through surgical insertion around a tumour.
Anne Deconinck, Executive Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT

Vessels of a healthy mini-pig eye Peter M Maloca, OCTlab at the University of Basel and Moorfields Eye Hospital, London; Christian Schwaller; Ruslan Hlushchuk, University of Bern; Sebastien Barre
The image shows how a synthetic polymer (purple) has been combined with two types of miRNA, in red, which are short genetic sequences responsible for controlling cell growth. The miRNA molecules can be released locally into cancer cells to stop them dividing.

This therapy has already been tested on mice, where tumours have shrunk by nearly 90 per cent after just two weeks.

"At first glance, this image made me think of a futuristic, sci-fi movie in which a normally-invisible technological wonder ends up saving the world. The possibility of using RNA as a therapeutic biomaterial delivered by a clever engineering approach opens up new opportunities in the personalized medicine era, where platform technologies are key."
Judge's comments:
This shows a 3D model of a healthy mini-pig eye. The dent on the right-hand side of the image is the pupil, the opening that allows light into the eye.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

Caricatural medieval medical practitioners Madeleine Kuijper, Madeleine Kuijper Illustraties
Blood vessels shown are bringing energy and food to the muscles surrounding the iris, which controls the amount of light entering the eye.

The smallest vessels seen here are 20-30 micrometres (0.02-0.03 mm) in diameter.

"The data gathered to make this 3D print allows the scientist to view the detail and handle it in three dimensions in a way that a 3D screen image cannot do. It's fascinating to see the ways in which new technologies complement one another in finding out more about how organs work."

These four scenes are inspired by works by medieval artists and the 15th Century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.

They are separated by Asclepian snakes, representing both Asclepius - the ancient Greek god of medicine - and the modern-day symbol for medicine.

The top left image is a parody of alchemy - with a masked figure holding a conical flask from which frogs jump.
Judge's comments:
The top right shows a man sitting on a cart, asking a doctor if his disordered limbs can be repaired.

In the bottom left panel, a patient is being offered tea as a surgeon operates on his opened head.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

Language pathways of the brain Stephanie J Forkel and Ahmad Beyh, Natbrainlab, King's College London; Alfonso de Lara Rubio, King's College London
And in the bottom right, a doctor is performing an operation - and appears to be pulling a bunch of sausages out of a patient's belly while surrounded by hungry dogs.

"With its style and watercolour tones reminiscent of old manuscripts, the wit of this illustration is in the details.
Judge's comments:
"The faceless doctors with their 'plague doctor' masks and the dunce-like funnels on their heads."
Rob Kesseler, visual artist, professor at Central Saint Martins and Chair of Arts, Design and Science at the University of the Arts London

The Placenta Rainbow Suchita Nadkarni, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London
This is an image showing a 3D-printed reconstruction of the white matter pathway connecting two areas of the human brain - the arcuate fasciculus.

The arcuate fasciculus links grey matter, which contains cells and is responsible for processing information, with white matter which connects areas of grey matter - allowing information to be transferred between distant areas of the brain.
Judge's comments:
"What is so mesmerizing about the 3D model of a brain pathway is that it renders visible the very mechanism in our brain we are using to look at it, a neurological portrait."
James Cutmore, Picture Editor of BBC Focus

Synthetic DNA channel transporting cargo across membranes Michael Northrop
This is a placenta rainbow. It highlights differences in mouse placental development that can result from manipulation of the mother's immune system.

They have been stained to show three proteins. Blue represents the nucleus, where DNA is stored and controlled. Blood vessels are stained red. And trophoblasts, the first cells to form in the developing embryo, are green. Additional colours are present due to an expression of two or more of these proteins in the same cell.

"A lot of micrography images I see have been coloured for artistic purposes, but this image balances visual considerations with telling a real story, the rainbow effect communicating the passing of time and the occurrence of a biological process, whilst at the same time being aesthetically appealing."
Judge's comments:
Every cell is surrounded by a membrane, which serves to protect the cell's contents and connect the cell to others to form tissues and organs.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

Developing spinal cord Gabriel Galea, University College London
Tube-like channels made of proteins span this membrane and control two-way communication between the cell and its environment.

Researchers are using DNA as a building material to make synthetic channels that behave in exactly the same way - and this image is an artist's representation of what these channels look like.

"The creator has used metallic textures and colours with machine-like shapes that convey the potential of nanotechnology in the future of biomedicine."
Judge's comments:
Our spines allow us to stand and move, and they protect the spinal cord, which connects all the nerves in our body with our brain.
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images

'Hidden Learning', from the Chrysalis project Original painting by Sophie McKay Knight, with imagery contributed by women scientists from the University of St Andrews - part of the Chrysalis project coordinated by Mhairi Stewart
The spinal cord is formed from a structure called the neural tube, which develops during the first month of pregnancy - but problems can occur with neural tube development and lead to conditions such as spina bifida.

This series of three images shows the open end of a mouse's neural tube, which researchers are studying to try to prevent the development of such conditions.
Judge's comments:
"The elegant curves of these embryonic forms look almost like unfurling lilies. We see how even the beginnings of life can be beautiful, and how revealing and studying these forms can help science to identify sources of debilitating congenital conditions."

This artwork is taken from Chrysalis, a project at the University of St Andrews designed to bring together women scientists at all stages of their careers to talk about issues and to seek advice and inspiration.
Anne Deconinck, Executive Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT

Zebrafish eye and neuromasts Ingrid Lekk and Steve Wilson, University College London
Some of its conversations were interpreted in various ways by artist Sophie McKay Knight - and this example explores what women feel they keep hidden in the work environment, such as the pull between their career and home life. The woman's veil is made up of the molecular structure of a sugar molecule.

"A recent study just confirmed that in the biotech industry, women hold only 10% of board positions. So I am particularly pleased that many of the (male) Wellcome judges insisted on including this image.
Judge's comments:
"I hope it will raise awareness and serve as a conversation starter on our continuing journey towards gender equality."

This four-day-old zebrafish embryo has been modified using two mechanisms borrowed from the worlds of bacteria and yeast - which are widely applied in genetics research.
Anne Deconinck, Executive Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT

Brain-on-a-chip Collin Edington and Iris Lee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This image appears as a result of the partnership between Wellcome Images and the Koch Institute at MIT
Scientists used DNA-editing technology to insert a gene - called Gal4 - next to the gene that the researchers wished to study. These Gal4 fish were then bred with special reporter fish, to create hybrid fish where the gene being studied fluoresces red whenever it is activated.

"The 2017 Wellcome Image Awards would not be complete without an appearance by the gene-editing technique CRISPR/Cas9, so de rigueur these days. CRISPR allows scientists to precisely replace a specific piece of DNA, opening up the opportunity to cure a wide range of diseases caused by defective genes.

"It is a stunning image that simultaneously highlights both the simple beauty and the complex sophistication of nature."
Judge's comments:
Here, researchers are investigating how neural stem cells grow on a synthetic gel called PEG. After just two weeks, the stem cells (magenta) produced nerve fibres (green).
Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Correspondent

Patient receiving treatment during outreach eye screening in India Susan Smart
This work supports the Human-on-a-Chip project, which is addressing the inefficiency and cost of traditional drug testing. Researchers have devised ways of growing miniature organs on plastic chips, which they hope can be connected to represent the human body.

This could then be used to accurately predict the effectiveness and toxicity of drugs and vaccines - and remove the need for animal testing in medical research.
Judge's comments:
"'Mini-brains' grown in an incubator are powerful research tools. This image of neural stems cells is stunning - and is also useful in helping to show how brain cells in development organise themselves."
Dirk Pilat, Medical Director for e-Learning at the Royal College of General Practitioners and a GP on the Essex coast

Unravelled DNA in a human lung cell Ezequiel Miron, University of Oxford
Here, a patient is being treated by a doctor at a makeshift eye clinic in India.

This image was taken while the photographer was volunteering for the charity Unite For Sight. Since 2000, the charity has given eye care to 1.9 million people - some of whom live in extreme poverty.

"As a general practitioner in the NHS I often forget how lucky I am to work in relatively comfortable surroundings. This picture demonstrates that not all primary care professionals are as lucky as I am."
Judge's comments:
In order for plants and animals to grow and remain healthy, cells need to have the ability to replicate. During cell division, also known as mitosis, the entire DNA content of the cell is copied, with half going to each new cell.
Alice Roberts, Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham and a clinical anatomist, author and broadcaster

DNA is found in a region of the cell called the nucleus, which acts a bit like the brain.
The winning images will be exhibited from 16 March 2017 in venues across the UK, Europe and Africa.
This picture shows the nucleus of one of two new daughter cells. The DNA in this cell has somehow become caught, and is being pulled between the two cells. This has caused the DNA to unfold inside the nucleus, and DNA fibres can be seen running through it.

"This jewel-like image shows a rare moment in time - chromosomes being tugged apart in a dividing cell. I love the dynamism in the image as well as the choice of colours."

All images subject to copyright.

The UK venues include: Aberdeen Science Centre, At-Bristol, Cambridge Science Centre, Dundee Science Centre, The Eden Project Cornwall, Glasgow Science Centre, Techniquest Cardiff, Millennium Point Birmingham, W5 Belfast and in the windows of Wellcome's HQ in London.

The non-UK venues include: Africa Health Research Institute, South Africa; Polytechnic Museum, Moscow, Russia; Science Gallery, Dublin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Colourful, creative and close up: Wellcome Images 2017 - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This magnified image of a baby Hawaiian bobtail squid - which has a light organ on its backside that houses a colony of glowing bacteria - is one of the finalists in the 2017 Wellcome Image Awards. The squid - which measures only 1.5 cm across - provides food and shelter for the bacteria in return for their bioluminescence.

# data[].attributes.headline
BBC - Earth - Reviving woolly mammoths will take more than two years

# data[].attributes.subject
BBC - Earth - Reviving woolly mammoths will take more than two years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Woolly mammoths are in the news again. According to recent news reports, they are " on the verge of resurrection" and " will be back from extinction within two years." The prompt for this was a statement by the Harvard geneticist George Church, lead scientist for the " Woolly Mammoth Revival" project.

However, in the wake of the excitable reports, other commentators have been urging caution. The palaeontologist John Hawks went so far as to call the reports of the mammoth's imminent revival " fake news".

So are shaggy-coated pachyderms really poised to stampede across the frozen wastelands of Siberia any time soon? If such creatures are created, will they really be mammoths? And even setting aside exactly when this might happen, is it a good idea to bring a species back from the dead?

I am a former cell biologist and have spent the last two years researching and writing about de-extinction, the science of bringing extinct animals back to life. I have spoken with Church, as well as many of the other scientists at the forefront of de-extinction research, and two things are clear to me. The first is that a living, breathing woolly mammoth is far from imminent, and the second is that, nevertheless, the science needed to make it is progressing at quite a lick.

The woolly mammoth would not be the first species to be revived after having been wiped out. The world's first de-extinct animal was born in 2003 in a laboratory in Spain. It was a type of wild mountain goat called a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex.

The animal only lived for a few short minutes, but since then the science underpinning de-extinction has progressed in leaps and bounds. The researchers who brought back the bucardo tell me that only two things stand between them and a whole herd of healthy de-extinct bucardo: time and money.

Church is not talking about making a living, breathing, fur-coated mammoth calf

Such revivals depend on manipulating basic biology.

An animal's life begins when a single cell splits in two, then keeps on dividing to form a miniscule bundle of cells called an "embryo". In time, the cells of the embryo divide and become more specialised. Different tissues, organs and limbs form, leading eventually to a complete living animal.

Anyone wanting to make a woolly mammoth must first create a single mammoth cell, coax it into becoming an embryo, and then nurture that embryo while it grows into an entire mammoth.

Speaking ahead of this week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, Church said he thought he was a couple of years away from making an embryo. In my opinion, this is entirely possible, but only so long as you pay close attention to what Church is claiming.

The first thing to bear in mind is that Church is not talking about making a living, breathing, fur-coated mammoth calf. His work so far focuses solely on single cells.

For the last few years, Church and his team have been carefully placing mammoth genes into the cells of Asian elephants, woolly mammoths' closest living relatives. They are endowing these elephant cells with the "essence of mammoth": the potential to grow long, luscious locks, lay down Sumo-wrestler-sized rolls of body fat, and other characteristics that should help the animal to look and act like a mammoth.

It will be an animal whose DNA is largely elephant, but with a smattering of judiciously-placed mammoth DNA

When I spoke to Church in 2015, he had already added in the gene for mammoth haemoglobin. Haemoglobin is the molecule in red blood cells that ferries oxygen around the body. The mammoth version works even at low temperatures; essential for an animal, like the woolly mammoth, that evolved during an ice age.

It is now two years later and Church's team have made 45 changes to the elephant genome. They are moving closer to their goal of "mammoth-ifying" an elephant cell.

But they may have a long way to go. A 2015 study compared the woolly mammoth genome with that of living Asian elephants, and identified changes in 1,642 genes. Church's 45 changes amount to a small fraction of that total, but Church argues that he does not need to put every single tweak into his elephant cells to make something mammoth-like.

Church has never claimed that he is making a bona-fide, genuine, 100% authentic woolly mammoth. Instead it will be an animal whose DNA is largely elephant, but with a smattering of judiciously-placed mammoth DNA.

He talks of making a "mammoth-elephant hybrid" or a "cold-adapted elephant". I prefer to call it a "mammophant" or "elemoth".

In order to make a mammophant embryo, Church's team will also need to advance the science of cloning

Assuming Church manages to create a mammophant cell, the next step will be to convert it into a mammophant embryo. One way to do this is to insert the mammophant DNA into an egg cell - again, from an Asian elephant - that has had its DNA removed. This is the same technology used for cloning.

In 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Many different mammalian species have since been cloned, but the elephant is not among them. Cloning research suggests that, just because it is possible to clone one type of animal, it is not necessarily easy to clone another, even if they belong to closely-related species.

One key problem is that there is still a lot we do not understand about cloning. During the process, the egg somehow reprograms the newly-inserted DNA to a more youthful state so that it can drive embryonic development. It is a bit like restoring the factory settings on a mobile phone, but no one knows how it happens or how to fully control it. So in order to make a mammophant embryo, Church's team will also need to advance the science of cloning.

It is a mammoth task (sorry about that) but it is not impossible. However, even if Church pulls it off, he will still need to find a way to nourish the embryo while it grows.

When I first heard about attempts to bring back the woolly mammoth, I was not keen. There was an elephant in the room, which most people either failed to notice or chose to ignore: in order to revive the woolly mammoth, scientists would have to perform experiments on elephants.

These are not animals to be experimented with

First, elephant eggs would be needed for the cloning process. Then, surrogate elephant mothers would be required to nurture the developing embryos in their wombs, then give birth to them and bring them up. Since cloning is an inexact science that produces far more failures than live births, this would put the health of the elephant surrogate at risk.

The trouble is that there are so few elephants left. The number of Asian elephants has more than halved over the last three generations because of habitat loss and poaching, and they are classed as " endangered".

In short, these are not animals to be experimented with. I am not keen on bringing back the woolly mammoth at the expense of an animal so deserving of our care.

However, Church is unfazed. He believes he can perform his experiments without risking any elephants at all.

The elephant eggs needed for cloning need not come from the reproductive systems of living elephants. There are other ways to make them.

Animal studies have shown that skin cells can be reprogrammed in a dish to make stem cells, which can then be coaxed to form eggs. It is almost like cellular alchemy. Rather than performing invasive surgery to retrieve eggs from adult female elephants, it should be possible to make them from non-invasive skin biopsies.

The technology of artificial wombs is still, well, embryonic

Once the embryos have been made, they could be nurtured, not in adult animals, but in "artificial wombs". This may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but Church and other researchers are quietly developing the science needed to make it happen. He explained last week that researchers in his lab have grown a mouse embryo in an artificial womb for 10 days; halfway through its normal gestation period.

In theory, artificial wombs would get around the surrogate mother problem. But it will be no mean feat to scale them up from mice to mammoths.

Mouse pregnancies last for 20 days, while mammoth ones take over two years. And while a newborn mouse weighs as much as a paperclip, a newborn mammoth calf is the size of a washing machine. What's more, each species will need a different cocktail of "ingredients" to help its embryo grow.

In short, the technology of artificial wombs is still, well, embryonic.

At this point it should be clear that de-extinction is profoundly difficult, and that we are not going to have any living mammoths roaming the Siberian tundra in the next few years. But at the same time, it seems likely that if scientists like Church keep pushing, they will get there eventually.

The bigger question is: should we do it? What would be the point?

Advocates of de-extinction will tell you there are many reasons to bring extinct species back to life.

We live in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis, with up to 150 species disappearing every day. Extinction rates are currently 1,000 times higher than during pre-human times. We are responsible for this travesty. So if the tools exist to undo some of that damage, maybe we have a moral obligation to do just that.

De-extinction should be about producing populations of genetically-diverse animals that can breed and live in the wild

However, I think we need to think a little more deeply about it.

In 2014, ecologist John Ewen of the Institute of Zoology in London, UK helped design a checklist. The idea was to help researchers select the most suitable candidates for de-extinction. The paper went on to influence a set of de-extinction guidelines drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The checklist essentially asks whether, if we re-created an extinct species, it could survive in our modern world. Among other things, it asks: whether there is suitable habitat to be had; if the original cause of extinction is still present; whether the animal could become a pest; and how its revival might affect people living nearby.

"Resurrecting the woolly mammoth should be more than the production of a biological orphan destined for an exhibit," says Ewen. "To embrace this technology with responsibility, we should consider the loftier goals of ecological enrichment, and assess the feasibility and risks surrounding mammoth reintroduction."

In other words, de-extinction should be about producing populations of genetically-diverse animals that can breed and live in the wild, where they can contribute to the ecosystem.

All living things provide vital services to the ecosystems they are part of. There are pollinators, seed dispersers, water purifiers, pest controllers, and much else.

An estimated 500 gigatonnes of organic carbon is locked up in the Arctic permafrost

Mammoths were gardeners. In their heyday, they trundled around eating grass, trampling saplings, and fertilising the ground with their nutrient-rich dung. When they went extinct, there was no other species to do these jobs. As a result, the rich "Mammoth steppe" turned to scraggy, mossy tundra.

If we were to plug the ecological niche left vacant by mammoths' demise, it may be that they could return the unproductive wastelands of northern Siberia to their biodiverse heyday. But no one knows for sure.

"There will be uncertainty here," says Ewen. "We need to judge the capacity for the mammoth to restore such habitat."

Similarly, Church argues that mammoths could help stop dangerous climate change.

A series of as-yet-unpublished experiments in Siberia have suggested that, where large grazers are present, soil temperatures are several degrees colder than where they are absent.

It would still take well over half a century to make a single viable herd

"When big animals graze, they trample the snow, which exposes the surface of the soil to cold air," says biologist Sergey Zimov of the Northeast Science Station in Cherskii, Russia, who conducted the research. "This helps keep the ground frozen."

An estimated 500 gigatonnes of organic carbon is locked up in the Arctic permafrost. That is two to three times as much as in all the existing rainforests combined. As our climate changes and the Arctic melts, scientists have warned that this "carbon time bomb" could go off and accelerate global warming still further.

However, if we were to repopulate the wilds of Siberia with herds of woolly mammoth, the argument goes, they might prevent the carbon time bomb from going boom.

It is an enticing argument, but not without flaws.

Suppose Church perfects all the methods that he needs and makes a viable hybrid "mammoth" embryo in the timescale he imagines. It would then take a further two years for that embryo to turn into a calf, and another 15 years for it to reach sexual maturity. Even if all the technical hurdles involved in making a mammoth were overcome tomorrow, it would still take well over half a century to make a single viable herd, which would not be anywhere enough to do the job.

There appear [to be] some uncertainties that may reduce the value of the mammoth as a de-extinction candidate

Instead, by that time, if current predictions are to be believed, the Arctic permafrost will already have melted. What's more, the Siberian ecosystem may have changed too much and may be unable to support the new arrivals.

In other words, we cannot look to mammoths to help solve global warming. The real story is that climate change undoubtedly played a role in polishing mammoths off last time round: they died out when Earth's climate warmed and the ice retreated. So if anything, climate change makes the future of any de-extinct mammoth looks decidedly woolly.

"Using the IUCN reintroduction criteria, there appear [to be] some uncertainties that may reduce the value of the mammoth as a de-extinction candidate," says Ewen.

At this point, it may seem that bringing back woolly mammoths is a hopeless prospect. The challenges are certainly formidable. But that is not to say that de-extinction is without value.

For me, the single biggest argument in favour of resurrecting extinct species is the beneficial spin-offs it will create for endangered living species.

Conservationists plan to use genome editing and cloning to help save black-footed ferrets

The same techniques being used to bring back extinct animals - stem cell technology, genome sequencing and editing, and assisted reproduction techniques such as cloning - can be used, far more easily, on threatened living species.

In New Zealand, genome sequencing is being used to help rescue the kākāpō; a large, green, flightless parrot. The species is suffering from fertility problems and inbreeding. Researchers are currently decoding the full genetic codes of all 154 living kākāpōs, and plan to use the information to help steer their breeding program. By mating only the most genetically distinct birds, they hope to produce offspring that are more healthy and fertile.

Similar plans are also afoot in North America.

Conservationists plan to use genome editing and cloning to help save black-footed ferrets. In the 1980s, these feisty little creatures were on the brink of extinction, partly because of an infectious disease called sylvatic plague. A decades-long captive breeding program has kept the species going, but there are still only a few hundred in the wild.

Worse, today's wild black-footed ferrets are massively inbred. They are all effectively second cousins. This is not good for the long-term health of the species.

If both of these projects pan out, they would make conservation history

However, stored away in vats of liquid nitrogen are the frozen cells of wild ferrets that were captured, but then died without passing on their genes. These cells are a resource waiting to be used.

In 2015, the pro-de-extinction organisation Revive and Restore submitted two ground-breaking proposals to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the body that oversees American nature.

The first is to use the frozen cells to make new, genetically vibrant animals. These will then be able to breed naturally, giving the population back some of its lost genetic variation.

But there is no point going to all this trouble if the animals are then set free and become infected with plague. So the second proposal seeks to edit the ferret's genome to make it plague-resistant.

If both of these projects pan out, they would make conservation history. Even better, similar techniques could then be applied to countless other species.

In Kenya, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy is home to the world's last three northern white rhinos. These magnificent beasts were once widespread in east and central Africa before poaching, civil war and habitat loss took their toll.

We do not know if projects like this will work. But desperate times call for desperate measures

The last three - Sudan, Najin and Fatu - are grandfather, mother and daughter. They are too old, too ill and too closely-related to ever breed naturally. Their subspecies is functionally extinct and they are the walking dead.

However, stem cell technology and assisted reproduction could even now pull them back from the brink. Led by veterinarian Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany, researchers plan to create some truly special test-tube babies.

Using sperm from male northern white rhinos, collected and stored before they died, and eggs created by the same method that Church is developing for his mammoths, the team hope to create the embryos of northern white rhinos in a dish. These will then be transferred into the surrogate wombs of the animal's closest living relative, the southern white rhino, who will carry the little embryos to term.

We do not know if projects like this will work. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

The world is warming, habitats are being lost, many places are becoming more polluted, and the biodiversity crisis is deepening. De-extinction, for all its pitfalls, is worthy of our attention because of the potential it has to help repair ailing ecosystems.

De-extinction is not just about bringing back the dead

In short, this is a bigger issue than simply whether we could, or should, bring back woolly mammoths. They are only one species, and there are many we could restore - whether already extinct, or merely close to it.

When de-extinct animals finally blossom into healthy wild populations, they could vastly boost overall levels of biodiversity, not just by their presence, but by the impact they will have on the other species in their ecosystems.

What's more, the knowledge we are gaining from figuring out how to bring back extinct species is already having a positive effect on the wildlife that we still have. In other words, de-extinction is not just about bringing back the dead. It is also about helping the living.

Helen Pilcher (@HelenPilcher1) is a freelance science writer. Her book Bring Back the King: The new science of de-extinction was published in 2016 by Bloomsbury.
Join over six million BBC Earth fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 5 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reviving woolly mammoths will take more than two years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Woolly mammoths are in the news again. According to recent news reports, they are " on the verge of resurrection" and " will be back from extinction within two years." The prompt for this was a statement by the Harvard geneticist George Church, lead scientist for the " Woolly Mammoth Revival" project.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mysterious fossils find place on the tree of life - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Mysterious fossils find place on the tree of life - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A strange animal that lived on the ocean floor 500 million years ago has been assigned to the tree of life, solving a long-held mystery.

The creature has eluded scientific classification since the first fossil was discovered 175 years ago.

The extinct hyolith has a cone-shaped shell, tentacles for feeding and appendages that acted as "feet".

It belongs to an invertebrate group that includes animals such as the horseshoe worm, say scientists.

Joseph Moysiuk, of the University of Toronto, made the discovery after analysing more than 1,500 specimens dug out of rocks in Canada and the US.

"Hyoliths are small cone-shaped sea dwelling animals. They are known from all around the world, mostly from fossils of their shells," he told BBC News.

"They appear in the fossil record about 530 million years ago and survived until about 250 million years ago.

"But the question of where hyoliths actually fit into the tree of life has been somewhat of a mystery for the last 175 years, since they were first described."

The research, published in the journal Nature, analysed soft tissue preserved in "very special fossils" from a site in Canada known as the Burgess Shale.

In the past, hyoliths have been interpreted as being related to molluscs, which are common today and include squid, clams and snails.

The new research suggests the animals are in fact more closely related to a different group of shell-bearing organisms, known as lophophorata, which includes brachipods (lamp shells), among others.

Ancient seas

Hyoliths were present from the beginning of the Cambrian period about 540 million years ago, during a rapid burst of evolution that gave rise to most of the major animal groups.

"Being able to place them on the tree of life, it solves this long paleontological mystery about what these creatures are," said Joseph Moysiuk.

"We have been able to discover some new features of a very old group of fossil animals, and it's allowed us to reveal the evolutionary history of this group of animals and where exactly they sit on the tree of life."

Dr Martin Smith, of the University of Durham, UK, also worked on the fossils.

He said by placing hyoliths in their rightful home and understanding how they lived, scientists now had a better picture of life in the ancient seas.

This gives an insight into the impact of mass extinction events such as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, which wiped out most animal life, including the hyoliths.

"Understanding the effects of such mass extinctions on ecology and diversity is particularly important as we seek to appraise and mitigate the implications of the current mass extinction event brought about by human activity," Dr Smith said.

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A strange animal that lived on the ocean floor 500 million years ago has been assigned to the tree of life, solving a long-held mystery. The creature has eluded scientific classification since the first fossil was discovered 175 years ago. The extinct hyolith has a cone-shaped shell, tentacles for feeding and appendages that acted as "feet".

# data[].attributes.headline
Arctic heatwave could break records - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Arctic heatwave could break records - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve, in what scientists say is a record-breaking heatwave.

Climate scientists say these unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change.

Temperatures throughout November and December were 5C higher than average.

It follows a summer during which Arctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded by satellites.

Dr Friederike Otto, a senior researcher at Oxford's Environmental Change Institute told BBC News that in pre-industrial times "a heatwave like this would have been extremely rare - we would expect it to occur about every 1,000 years".

Dr Otto added that scientists are "very confident" that the weather patterns were linked to anthropogenic climate change.

"We have used several different climate modelling approaches and observations," she told BBC News.

"And in all our methods, we find the same thing; we cannot model a heatwave like this without the anthropogenic signal."

Temperatures are forecast to peak on Christmas Eve around the North Pole - at near-freezing.

The warm air from the North Atlantic is forecast to flow all the way to the North Pole via Spitsbergen, giving rise to clouds that prevent heat from escaping.

And, as Dr Otto explained to BBC News, the reduction in sea ice is contributing to this "feedback loop".

"If the globe is warming, then the sea ice and ice on land [shrinks] then the darker water and land is exposed," she said.

"Then the sunlight is absorbed rather than reflected as it would be by the ice."

Forecasting models show that there is about a 2% chance of a heatwave event occurring every year.

"But if temperatures continue to increase further as they are now," said Dr Otto, "we would expect a heatwave like this to occur every other year and that will be a huge stress on the ecosystem."

Dr Thorsten Markus, chief of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory, said the heatwave was "very, very unusual".

"The eerie thing is that we saw something quite similar (temperatures at the North Pole of about 0C in December) almost exactly a year ago," he told BBC News.

The freeze and thaw conditions are already making it difficult for reindeer to find food - as the moss they feed on is covered by hard ice, rather than soft, penetrable snow.

Asked if the conditions on Christmas Eve were likely to affect Santa's all-important journey, Dr Markus said he was confident that his sled would cope with the conditions.

He added: "Santa is most likely overdressed though. Maybe in the future we'll see him in a light jacket or plastic mac."
Follow Victoria on Twitter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve, in what scientists say is a record-breaking heatwave. Climate scientists say these unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change. Temperatures throughout November and December were 5C higher than average.

# data[].attributes.headline
'Phone seismometers' prove their worth - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
'Phone seismometers' prove their worth - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The researchers behind an app that turns a smartphone into an earthquake detector say they have been thrilled by the take-up and performance of their citizen science network.

MyShake was launched for Android devices in February and has now been downloaded over 200,000 times.

Enabled phones have recorded hundreds of quakes all over the globe since then - some as small as magnitude 2.5.

These more sedate tremors were picked up in Oklahoma.

Traditionally, this US state has not been considered earthquake country but seismic activity has increased as a consequence of local oil and gas production.

Prof Richard Allen from the University of California at Berkeley said MyShake had become a useful tool for residents to monitor what was occurring in their region.

"These are induced earthquakes due to wastewater pumping. So there are lots of issues around what might happen, how big these earthquakes might be - and there's been a lot of pushback.

"We want to empower people to understand what the process is," he told BBC News.

The MyShake app relies on a sophisticated algorithm to analyse all the different vibrations picked up by a phone's onboard accelerometer.

This algorithm has been "trained" to distinguish between everyday human motions and those specific to an earthquake.

It works in the background - much like health apps that monitor the fitness activity of the phone user.

Once triggered, MyShake sends a message to a central server over the mobile network. The hub then calculates the location and size of the quake.

"MyShake is performing better than we'd hoped," said Prof Allen.

"We are actually recording very small magnitude earthquakes, down to magnitude 2.5 in places like Oklahoma and California. We're recording the bigger earthquakes - the Ecuador quake in April, M7.8, is the largest so far; and also really deep earthquakes, down to depths of 350km.

"So, from a scientific standpoint, it's starting to produce this incredible dataset and we're just beginning to understand what we can do with it."

Prof Allen was speaking here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

He came to announce a new version of the app that now pushes notifications to users.

This is a key next step because the idea eventually is to use the detections being made by devices to issue alerts.

In a dense network, the phones closest to the epicentre would sense the oncoming shaking and then tell cells further afield of the danger heading their way.

The early warning might only amount to a few seconds, but that would at the very least give people the thinking space to start to adopt the famous safety routine - to "drop, cover and hold on".

MyShake is not there yet.

The notifications now being issued with the new app version are being served from conventional seismic networks, and they arrive some minutes after the event.

But as more and more phones join the MyShake system and the Berkeley team improves its detection algorithm, the big switch to an early warning mode should be possible.

UC Berkeley developer and graduate student Qingkai Kong reported to the AGU meeting on performance of the app.

He showed how phones could readily detect the first seismic waves to arrive at a user's position - the so-called P-waves. These less destructive vibrations run ahead of the far stronger and more damaging S-waves.

Being able to distinguish between the two is at the heart of early warning capability.

"We already have the algorithm to detect the earthquakes running on our server, but we have to make sure it is accurate and stable before we can start issuing warnings, which we hope to do in the near future," said Kong.

The v2 release of MyShake is now available in the Google Play store. An iOS version should be ready for download in springtime.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The researchers behind an app that turns a smartphone into an earthquake detector say they have been thrilled by the take-up and performance of their citizen science network. MyShake was launched for Android devices in February and has now been downloaded over 200,000 times.

# data[].attributes.headline
New spider species resembles Harry Potter 'Sorting Hat' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
New spider species resembles Harry Potter 'Sorting Hat' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A spider bearing an "uncanny" resemblance to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter series has been discovered by scientists in India.

The Eriovixia gryffindori, measuring just 7mm in length, closely resembles the magical artefact in the series.

The spider takes its name from Godric Gryffindor, the fictional owner of the hat.

It was discovered in the mountainous Western Ghats region of south-western India.

"We were searching the area (when) we bumped into the spider," Javed Ahmed, one of three researchers who made the discovery, told the BBC's Five Live.

"When we found it we decided that we were going to name it after the sorting hat," the self-professed fan said.

The spider is an "ode to draw attention to the fascinating, but oft overlooked world of invertebrates,", said the scientists in a paper published by the Indian Journal of Arachnology.

The spider mimics dried foliage in order to hide from its predators.

The find did not go unnoticed by JK Rowling, the author of the wizarding books.

"(Ms Rowling) is absolutely thrilled. She said she was honoured and congratulated us," said Mr Ahmed.

"How many science geeks and nerds get to name a species after their favourite character and actually get congratulated by the author?", he said.

The discovery coincides with the recent release of Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which tells the tale of an animal-loving magic zoologist.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A spider bearing an "uncanny" resemblance to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter series has been discovered by scientists in India. The Eriovixia gryffindori, measuring just 7mm in length, closely resembles the magical artefact in the series. The spider takes its name from Godric Gryffindor, the fictional owner of the hat.

# data[].attributes.headline
Light pollution dampens urban robins' song - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Light pollution dampens urban robins' song - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The song and behaviour of the UK's favourite bird is being affected by light and noise pollution.

That is according to research from Southampton University, which revealed how robins are affected by night-time lighting and road noise in a city park.

They measured how much the quality of robin territory was affected by its proximity to a lit path and a road.

They presented the results at the British Ecological Society meeting in Liverpool.

"Robins are found in almost every city park, so they're ideal for this type of [urban ecology] study," lead researcher Frances Mullany told BBC News.

"Male robins also begin their activity relatively early in the day compared to other species, so they are likely to be sensitive to light pollution."

Because the male birds are aggressive and very vocal in defending good quality territory, and in advertising themselves to potential mates, the researchers were able to construct a bird "dominance hierarchy" to assess how the birds were affected by night-time street lights and road noise.

The scientists used a taxidermy robin and a recording of a robin's song - setting up their fake bird in different robin territories throughout the park.

They then recorded how aggressively each of the birds in the park that responded sang and displayed in response.

The robins that lived closer to lit paths and noisy roads were much lower down this dominance hierarchy - the birds in these territories displayed less aggressively.

"Artificial night-time lighting and more daytime noise resulted in lower quality robin territory," said Ms Mullany.

"So these anthropogenic factors can be just as important as environmental factors [for wildlife habitat] in an urban landscape."

Dr Davide Dominoni, an animal health researcher from the University of Glasgow said the research provided "new insights" into the effect of urban light and noise pollution on birds.

"It would be interesting to figure out whether these results are a consequence of noisy and bright territories being of less quality, or else the birds living there being more stressed and unable to defend their territories with success," he said.

"Likewise, experiments could be designed to disentangle what factor - light or noise - plays a more important role in this process."

The researchers plan to go on to work out how exactly night-time light impacts on the birds' fitness, and hope that these findings can be incorporated into urban planning - so our parks can be created as suitable space for wildlife, as well as for us.

"Perhaps we can take these factors into account when we're thinking about lighting plans and road traffic," said Ms Mullany.
Follow Victoria on Twitter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The song and behaviour of the UK's favourite bird is being affected by light and noise pollution. That is according to research from Southampton University, which revealed how robins are affected by night-time lighting and road noise in a city park.

# data[].attributes.headline
World's hottest borehole nearly complete - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
World's hottest borehole nearly complete - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Geologists say they are close to creating the hottest borehole in the world.

They are drilling into the heart of a volcano in the south-west of Iceland.

They have told the BBC that they should reach 5km down, where temperatures are expected to exceed 500C (932F), in the next couple of weeks.

The researchers want to bring steam from the deep well back up to the surface to provide an important source of energy.

"We hope that this will open new doors for the geothermal industry globally to step into an era of more production," said Asgeir Margeirsson, CEO of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP), a collaboration between scientists, industry and the Icelandic government.

"That's the aim - that's the hope. We have never been this deep before, we have never been into rock this hot before, but we are optimistic."

The project is located on the Reykjanes peninsula, where a volcano last erupted 700 years ago.

A huge rig stands out against the black lava fields; inside a drill has been operating for 24 hours a day since August.

It has now descended nearly 4,500m, and the team expects it to hit its target depth of 5km by the end of the year.

Gudmundur Omar Fridleifsson, from Icelandic energy company HS Orka, is the project's chief geologist.

He shows me thin cores of black basalt rock that have been collected from deep beneath the ground.

"It's getting hotter - and that's what we want," he said.

"We don't expect to drill into magma, but we are drilling into hot rock. And by hot rock, we mean 400 to 500C."

Close to the rig, sulphurous steam is blasting from the ground, blending into the grey sky above.

Iceland, sitting on the boundary between two major tectonic plates, is one of the most volcanically active places in the world.

Harnessing this energy through geothermal technology is already well established here.

"In this area at Reykjanes, we typically drill to 2km or 3km depth to harness the steam, to run power plants and produce clean, renewable electricity," explained Asgeir Margeirsson.

"We want to see if the resources go deeper than that."

When the drill gets to 5km, the team expects to find molten rock mixed with water. But with the extreme heat and immense pressure found at this depth, the water becomes what is known as "supercritical steam".

It is neither a liquid nor a gas, but it holds far more energy than either. And it is this supercritical steam that the team wants to bring back up to the surface to convert into electricity.

They believe its special properties mean it could produce up to 10 times as much energy as the steam from conventional geothermal wells.

Mr Margeirsson said: "If this works, in the future we would need to drill fewer wells to produce the same amount of energy, meaning we would touch less surface, which means less environmental impact and hopefully lower costs.

"But that is if this works. This is full-scale research and development - we don't know what the outcome will be."

And there is a good reason to be cautious. With volcanoes, expect the unexpected.

In 2009, the IDDP team attempted to drill deep down into another volcanic site. But at 2,100m, they accidentally hit a shallow reservoir of magma.

Footage on the internet shows black smoke billowing from the well - and the drill was destroyed. So is it really a good idea to tamper with these complex and destructive forces of nature?

Simon Redfern, professor of mineral physics at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC: "I think the risks are rather minor. The likelihood is that there will be natural eruptions before any that are generated by human activity."

If the drill does hit magma, because it is under pressure, it would be likely to come to the surface rapidly, he explained.

"It would come out rather like lancing a boil or popping a spot. It would cause huge problems for the drilling operation itself, but it is unlikely to cause anything more significant than that."

Despite Iceland having more than 300 volcanoes, Prof Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, says there is still much to learn about them.

"We have many models of what the interior of a volcano looks like, but actually most of these models of active volcanoes are based on indirect observations," he explained.

"We can see seismic waves pass through them, or we can do some geophysical exploration, or we can study ground deformation.

"But actually, we have very few in situ measurements of what the interior of a volcano looks like."

This drilling project, however, would give geologists a unique vantage point, he said.

"There is always some risk... but there is also a risk if we don't do projects like this.

"By this project I think we can really make fundamental discoveries about how volcanoes work, and learn about their properties and conditions - and when magma could erupt to the surface."

The IDDP team says it is currently "drilling blind", which means no rocky debris is coming back up to the surface. Instead, it is somehow being absorbed into the surrounding rocks.

And without being able to examine the rock, it means the geologists really are heading into the unknown.

However, with only a few hundred metres to go, they are optimistic that the world's hottest borehole is now within their sights.

The IDDP project is funded by energy companies (HS Orka, Statoil, Landsvirkjun and Orkuveita Reykjavíkur), Orkustofnun (the National Energy Authority of Iceland), the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the National Science Foundation in the US and EU Horizon 2020.

Follow Rebecca on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World's hottest borehole nearly complete

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Geologists say they are close to creating the hottest borehole in the world. They are drilling into the heart of a volcano in the south-west of Iceland. They have told the BBC that they should reach 5km down, where temperatures are expected to exceed 500C (932F), in the next couple of weeks.

# data[].attributes.headline
100 million year old dinosaur tail is discovered - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
100 million year old dinosaur tail is discovered - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
100 million year old dinosaur tail is discovered

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists have found a 100 million year old dinosaur tail trapped in amber.

# data[].attributes.headline
Babies made from three people approved in UK - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Babies made from three people approved in UK - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's fertility regulator.

The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases.

Doctors in Newcastle - who developed the advanced form of IVF - are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs.

The first such child could be born, at the earliest, by the end of 2017.

Some families have lost multiple children to incurable mitochondrial diseases, which can leave people with insufficient energy to keep their heart beating.

The diseases are passed down from only the mother so a technique using a donor egg as well as the mother's egg and father's sperm has been developed.

The resulting child has a tiny amount of their DNA from the donor, but the procedure is legal and reviews say it is ethical and scientifically ready.

'Historic'

"It is a decision of historic importance," said Sally Cheshire, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

"This is about cautious go ahead, not gung-ho go ahead, and there is a long way to go.

"I'm sure patients will be really pleased by what we've decided today."

But some scientists have questioned the ethics of the technique, saying it could open the door to genetically-modified 'designer' babies.

The HFEA must approve every clinic and every patient before the procedure can take place.

Three-person babies have been allowed only in cases where the risk of a child developing mitochondrial disease is very high.

Clinics can now apply to the HFEA for a licence to conduct three-person IVF.

Donors needed

The team at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University is expected to be the first to be granted a licence.

It aims to help 25 couples every year.

Prof Mary Herbert, from the Newcastle Fertility Centre, said: "It is enormously gratifying that our many years of research in this area can finally be applied to help families affected by these devastating diseases.

"Now that that we are moving forward towards clinical treatments, we will also need donors to donate eggs for use in treatment to prevent affected women transmitting disease to their children."

Prof Sir Doug Turnbull, the director of the Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University, said: "We are delighted by today's decision.

"We will also provide long-term follow up of any children born."

NHS England has agreed to fund the treatment costs of the first trial of three-person IVF for those women who meet the HFEA criteria, as long as they agree to long-term follow up of their children after they are born.

How does it work?

Mitochondrial disease is caused by defective mitochondria - the tiny structures in nearly every cell that convert food into useable energy.

One in 4,300 children are born with such severe symptoms they develop muscle weakness, blindness, deafness, seizures, learning disabilities, diabetes, heart and liver failure. It is often fatal.

The aim of the procedure is to get the healthy mitochondria from the donor.

But mitochondria have their own DNA, which is why resulting children have DNA from three people.

However, everything that defines physical and personality traits still comes from parents.

Robert Meadowcroft, from the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK, said: "This historic decision will open the door to the first licensed treatments being offered.

"We know of many women who have faced heartache and tragedy and the sorrow of stillbirths, while trying to start their own family, and this decision gives them new hope and choice for the first time."

Prof Frances Flinter, professor in clinical genetics at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, called the decision "wonderful news".

She added: "It is infinitely preferable that the early clinical trials should be done in a tightly regulated system in the UK, with long term follow-up of any children born, rather than in countries where there is no regulation or oversight."

Prof Sir Robert Lechler, president of the Academy of Medical Science, said that the decision means "groundbreaking research can now be translated from theory into practice and transform lives in the clinic".

However, the decision is not universally welcome.

Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, said: "This decision opens the door to the world of genetically-modified designer babies.

"Already, bioethicists have started to argue that allowing mitochondrial replacement means that there is no logical basis for resisting GM babies, which is exactly how slippery slopes work."

However, the UK will not be the first country in the world to have children born through the three-person technique.

A Jordanian couple and doctors in New York performed the procedure in Mexico and the resulting baby is understood to be healthy.

Follow James on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's fertility regulator. The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases. Doctors in Newcastle - who developed the advanced form of IVF - are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs.

# data[].attributes.headline
Fossil footprints tell story of human origins - BBC News

# data[].attributes.subject
Fossil footprints tell story of human origins - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Footprints made by early humans millions of years ago have been uncovered in Tanzania close to where similar tracks were found in the 1970s.

The impressions were made when some of our distant relatives walked together across wet volcanic ash.

Their makers, most likely Australopithecus afarensis, appear to have had a wide range of body sizes.

Scientists say this gives clues to how this ancient species of human lived.

Australopithecus afarensis is one of the longest-lived and best-known early human species.

The fossil of "Lucy", a young adult female who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago, is perhaps the most famous individual.

The newly discovered footprints may have been made by a male walking with smaller females.

"This novel evidence, taken as a whole with the previous findings, portrays several early hominins moving as a group through the landscape following a volcanic eruption and subsequent rainfall. But there is more," said lead researcher Prof Giorgio Manzi, director of the archaeological project in Tanzania.

"The footprints of one of the new individuals are astonishingly larger than anyone else's in the group, suggesting that he was a large male member of the species.

"In fact, the 165cm stature indicated by his footprints makes him the largest Australopithecus specimen identified to date."

Gorilla-like lifestyle

In 1976, preserved footprints thought to be made by Australopithecus were discovered at a site in Laetoli, Tanzania.

At 3.66 million years old, they are the oldest documented bipedal footprint trails.

Now, the discovery of a second set of footprints has been revealed in the journal, eLife.

"Now that we've found a new set of footprints it opens up a completely different window and there could be a number of new possibilities to study what is a photograph in time of the everyday life of this species," said Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi of the University of Florence.

The tracks were found during excavations for a museum only 150m south of the original discovery.

The researchers, based in Italy and Tanzania, think the two sets could belong together, giving clues to the lifestyle of Australopithecus.

"A tentative conclusion is that the group consisted of one male, two or three females, and one or two juveniles, which leads us to believe that the male - and therefore other males in the species - had more than one female mate," said Dr Marco Cherin, director of the school of paleoanthropology at the University of Perugia.

The finding of a male perhaps walking with several females could mean their social structure was "closer to a gorilla-like model than to chimpanzees or modern humans".

In gorillas, one male and a number of females form a mating and child-rearing group.

The study also raises questions about how human feet were made for walking.

Bipedal walking

Australopithecus were capable of walking upright on two legs, but we don't know how much they resembled modern humans in the way they walked.

Prof Robin Crompton of the University of Liverpool, who is not connected to the study, said the latest footprints will give more information, once statistical work is done.

"Some people have argued that they have a slightly different gait, but I don't think there's any good evidence for that," he told BBC News.

"If humans have been walking the same way as we do now for more or less 3.65 million years, and human ancestors - in another genus - Australopithecus - then that's really fairly exciting."

Follow Helen on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Footprints made by early humans millions of years ago have been uncovered in Tanzania close to where similar tracks were found in the 1970s. The impressions were made when some of our distant relatives walked together across wet volcanic ash. Their makers, most likely Australopithecus afarensis, appear to have had a wide range of body sizes.