31 July 2010 | NewScientist | 5

(Human Reproduction, DOI: 10.1093/humrep/deq155).

The documents also reveal that IVF pioneers Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist then based in Oldham, UK, and Robert Edwards, at the time a medically unqualified physiologist at the University of Cambridge, were not seen as part of the medical establishment (see photo; Steptoe is right, Edwards holding the baby).

The MRC’s funding referees had ethical concerns, including the possibility that babies born through IVF would be abnormal. Edwards and Steptoe obtained private funding.

Climate data galoreCLIMATE-change sceptics who clamoured for raw data are to get all their Christmases at once.

The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK, recently at the centre of the hacked emails controversy, is launching a pilot study into how best to make public three major temperature data sets and detailed records of how they are processed. They will include data repeatedly requested by climate sceptics under freedom of information legislation.

It is not always obvious how complicated data sets – gathered from thousands of temperature monitoring stations around the world, for example – are turned into chronological descriptions of global warming, says Tim Osborn of UEA. The independent Muir Russell review, published this month, said the difficulties of integrating information from emails and on the servers of different institutions contributed to the accusations of malpractice at the centre of last November’s climategate storm. The pilot is a response to these allegations.

It will not be as simple as putting the numbers online, as the data sets are frequently updated, and the steps leading to updates will also be made clear.

Vaccines warningMISLEADING and inaccurate claims published by an Australian anti-vaccines group pose a risk to public health, a government watchdog has ruled.

The Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), a New South Wales government body based in Sydney, issued the public warning on Monday over information presented on the website of the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN). The HCCC said the AVN site “quotes selectively from research to suggest vaccination to be dangerous” and “contains

information that is incorrect and misleading”. For example, the AVN’s website says measles is a “non-threatening illness”, despite it having caused an estimated 733,000 deaths worldwide in 2000.

The pressure group Stop the

Australian Vaccination Network is to seek a court order to force the AVN to state on its website that its claims do not constitute medical advice, as requested by the HCCC.

“The website quotes selectively from research to suggest vaccination to be dangerous”

THE International Space Station will soon host the most accurate clock ever sent into space. It will allow for better synchronisation of clocks on Earth and also probe exotic physics.

The experiment, called Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES), will be built by EADS Astrium and is scheduled to fly to the space station in 2014, the European Space Agency announced last week. It will keep track of time by measuring the frequency of microwaves absorbed by cooled caesium atoms.

On Earth, the accuracy of caesium clocks is limited by gravity. The atoms are cooled by using lasers to slow them down, then tossed upwards into a cavity where measurements are made to determine the precise

frequency of microwave radiation that they absorb and emit. In microgravity, the atoms linger in the cavity, allowing for longer and more accurate measurements, explains John Prestage of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who is not involved in the project.

ACES should be at least 100 times as accurate as the clocks on GPS satellites, adds Prestage.

Using the space-station clock as a common point of reference, ground-based atomic clocks could be more accurately compared with one another. What’s more, variations between atomic clocks could reveal if a physical constant called alpha – which governs the electromagnetic force – is not constant after all.

Space station to host super-clock

–Ticks in space…–

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Higgs window narrows Dear Higgs boson: we are getting closer. A Higgs between the masses of 158 and 175 gigaelectronvolts has been ruled out with 95 per cent certainty, according to data from the Tevatron collider in the US presented at the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Paris, France. Nearly a quarter of the possible mass range for the Higgs has now been eliminated.

Giant rat foundThe remains of the largest rat ever found have been unearthed in a cave in East Timor. The monster rodent, part of the genus Coryphomys, weighed 6 kilograms, and was found alongside 12 other species of large rodent. It died out 2000 years ago (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol 341, p 1).

Beer good for arthritisFrequent drinking of alcohol may ease arthritis. In a study of 873 people with arthritis, those who drank on more than 10 days per month had less damage to joints and 30 per cent less pain and inflammation than teetotal people. Alcohol may act as a mild analgesic and dampen the immune system (Rheumatology, DOI: 10.1093/rheumatology/keq202).

Cold-water venomMost venoms become less potent below 25 °C, which poses a problem for octopuses in freezing waters. However, a recent survey reveals that the venom of 14 Antarctic octopus species is more toxic at 0 °C than at 37 °C (Toxicon, DOI: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2010.06.013). Why this is remains a mystery.

Gulf well to be sealedBP has for the first time set a date to permanently seal off the Deepwater Horizon leak. On 2 August it plans to pump mud and cement into the top of the well head. Five days later, it will repeat the operation, this time targeting the bottom of the well.

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