Malaria: GM mosquitoes offer new hope for millions

(Source: Guardian) Controversial strategy would mean releasing laboratory-created insects into wild.

The multimillion-dollar effort to eradicate one of the world's deadliest diseases received a significant but controversial boost yesterday when scientists announced the creation of genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot pass on malaria. Trials revealed that the GM mosquitoes could quickly establish themselves in the wild and drive out natural malaria-carrying insects, thereby breaking the route through which humans are infected.

The strategy is likely to prove contentious as it would require the unprecedented release of tens of thousands of GM organisms into the wild. But it has raised hopes among scientists, some of whom believe it may be powerful enough to finally bring under control a disease which strikes 300 million people a year and causes more than 1 million deaths, mostly of children in sub-Saharan Africa.

(UK): Explosion kills submariners under Arctic ice cap

(Source: The Guardian) A story reminiscent of a movie I saw as a kid called Ice Station Zebra:

Two British sailors were killed yesterday by an explosion aboard HMS Tireless, a nuclear submarine on exercise with US vessels under the Arctic north of Alaska, the Ministry of Defence said last night. In an emergency procedure, the vessel broke through the ice to surface following the blast.

Robert Fisk on Lebanon and Civil War

(Source: The Guardian) Robert Fisk writes a sobering article on why Lebanon might be headed for civil war again.

Know your left from your right ?

(Source: The Guardian) Hilarious extract from a book about growing up in a politically conscious household..... has some interesting points to consider..... here is a sample:

In the early Seventies, my mother searched the supermarkets for politically reputable citrus fruit. She couldn't buy Seville oranges without indirectly subsidising General Francisco Franco, Spain's fascist dictator. Algarve oranges were no good either, because the slightly less gruesome but equally right-wing dictatorship of Antonio Salazar ruled Portugal. She boycotted the piles of Outspan from South Africa as a protest against apartheid, and although neither America nor Israel was a dictatorship, she wouldn't have Florida or Jaffa oranges in the house because she had no time for then President Richard Nixon or the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. My sisters and I did not know it, but when Franco fell ill in 1975, we were in a race to the death. Either he died of Parkinson's disease or we died of scurvy. Luckily for us and the peoples of Spain, the dictator went first, although he took an unconscionably long time about it.

Read on ! :) - with a cuppa or a glass of wine. (Click on the title link above.)

Beards are back

(Source: The Guardian) For years, beards were shorthand for sandal-wearing hippies of a certain age. But no more! It's time to throw away your razor, writes hairy-chinned Charlie Porter