Newswise — BREAKING THE CYCLE OF DRUGS AND CRIMEOver 1 million prison inmates in the US meet clinical criteria for drug or alcohol dependence. Even worse, most criminals end up going back into society with the same problems that led them to crime in the first place. This week, however, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) released a guide detailing long-term treatments which studies have shown can help convicted criminals overcome their problems. Pages 6-7
ERADICATING POLIO LEAVES PEOPLE DEFENCELESSMore and more people are becoming vulnerable to polio infection in areas where it has been eliminated. The warning comes as an outbreak of polio hits Namibia. Unusually, the people affected were mainly adults, who probably missed childhood vaccination and had not developed a natural immunity by being exposed to wild forms of the virus. Levels of the wild virus have plummeted since vaccination began in the country, leaving Namibians defenceless. Page 8
ON THE CATWALKS IN SPACEIt's the hottest new design in space wear: A spacesuit made of a fabric that can generate electricity from sunlight, detect and mend any holes, and protect the astronaut from germs and radiation. The multilayer suit was developed for NASA by a team in Delaware, US. Page 25
DEVELOPING DISEASES IN INDIACardiovascular disease is becoming the biggest killer in rural India " and the healthcare system is not geared up to dealing with it. The Australian researchers who carried out the study blame the change on villagers eating a more westernised diet and smoking more. Page 4
MEDICAL CANNABIS IS A BLUNT TOOLThere may be anecdotal evidence of cannabis as a wonder drug, but according to the latest studies, the way our bodies deal with cannabis is extremely complex. Evidence suggests that while compounds in cannabis can help sufferers with conditions such as MS and epilepsy, it can also produce completely opposite effects on the body. This could explain why the medical benefits have been so hard to harness. Page 17
SCHIZOPHRENIA DIAGNOSISA computer program that can probe the regions of the brain affected by schizophrenia could lead to earlier diagnosis of people with the disorder. The US researchers found they were able to diagnose the condition using levels of the amino acid N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the thalamus region of the brain. They trained their software on measurements of NAA to teach it which of the data corresponded to schizophrenia and which did not. Page 28
BATS BABBLE TOOA team in Germany has recorded the first example of infant babbling in non-primate mammals. Sac-winged bat pubs uttered renditions of all known adult vocalisations, including barks, chatters and screeches. Short story Page 18
TAKE ONE SMALL BLACK HOLEPhysicists have so far failed to detect the hypothetical particle, the Higgs boson, which is supposed to give all other particles their mass. Chances of finding Higgs when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) starts running at CERN, in Geneva, are pretty slim. So, physicists in the US have come up with an alternative plan for detecting Higgs " to look in a place which itself may or may not exist. Their calculations show that far more Higgs boson particles will be produced by mini black holes, which may be created inside the LHC. Page 12
FOR MY NEXT TRICK, I WILL HUNT YOU BLINDFOLDEDPIT vipers and boid snakes strike at prey with uncanny accuracy even when blindfolded, a feat that's been hard to explain, given the crude nature of their heat-sensing organs. German researchers say that it's all down to some rather spectacular processing before the image hits their heat-sensors. Page 9
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DICING WITH DEATHThere's a good chance that the pills your doctor prescribed have not been approved for the condition from which you are suffering, and may even harm you. "Off label" treatment is where a drug, which has been tried and tested against one condition, has been prescribed for another condition, without adequate evidence that it actually works. There are also cases where drugs have been clinically tested to work against a very severe form of a disease, but have been prescribed for use against milder forms without knowing if it will have the same effect. So why do so many doctors persist in prescribing off-label drugs? Pages 38-41
A MONUMENTAL COLLAPSE?The historic self-destruction of Easter Island has become a tale of infighting between rival clans, cannibalism and deforestation. Is this a warning of the possible fate to our own modern world or just mythology? When researchers started to search Easter Island for factual archaeological evidence they found nothing to support the theory that the society had destroyed itself. Pages 30-34
POWER ON TAPImagine being able to run your car with nothing more than water in the tank. It would be the ultimate zero-emissions vehicle. It's hydrogen that's the key element for a green fuel, but producing hydrogen by industrial means has already proved too expensive and inefficient. And there are also problems with storing and transporting. Now, however, researchers in Israel have come up with a system for producing hydrogen on demand inside the vehicle " and all you need is water and the element boron. Pages 35-37
EINSTEIN FOR TOURISTSIf you've ever wondered if there's a more scientific method to boarding a plane, you'd be right. With a little help from Einstein's theory of relativity we should be able to work out how to get onto a plane more speedily and efficiently, without the usual crush and shuffling to get to our seats. Pages 42-45
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