Scientists from The University of Manchester are playing a key role in a major Europe-wide study – believed to be the largest of its kind – of cancers of the mouth, pharynx and larynx (throat) and oesophagus (gullet). Incidences of these cancers are increasing faster in the UK than almost anywhere else in western Europe.

Every year, cancers of the upper aero-digestive tract kill approximately 10,000 in the UK alone. Alarmingly, these cancers are affecting younger people and are on the increa

Psychologists and human behaviorists are being enlisted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a pioneering new initiative to save the planet.

Experts believe that the traditional messages from governments and green groups, urging the public to adopt environmentally-friendly life-styles and purchasing habitats, need to be overhauled.

There is concern that many of these messages are too ‘guilt-laden’ and disapproving and instead of ‘turning people on’ to the env

Tequila is the national drink of Mexico and is also hugely popular worldwide. Now a Mexican student has come to England to study the unusual properties of tequila plants.

Postgraduate student Ivan Saldana Oyarzabal, from Guadalajara, which is 50km from the town of Tequila, is studying Agave tequilana and its unusual behaviour at the University of Sussex.

“These agave plants grow in extreme environments and they have a very particular behaviour,” says Ivan. “They are important plants

’Best laid plans of mice and men’

Using both the mouse and human genomes, a computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and international collaborators have developed a method for predicting novel genes in both genomes. With the method the scientists have discovered 1,019 novel genes that are found in both man and mouse. The breakthrough is expected to speed up discovery of genes in both genomes as well as those of other mammals. Because it is efficient and cost

A new drug that is biologically linked to Thalidomide destroys cancerous cells by forcing them to commit suicide according to research by a team at St George’s Hospital Medical School, Tooting, London. This work, published today in the journal Cancer Research, adds to the recent study by the same team showing how similar drugs can reduce new blood vessel development, starving growing tumours of nutrients. Both results suggest these new compounds could be powerful anti-cancer agents.

By attem

New research examines why African-American infants are at greater risk

Why is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome more common among African-American infants than in babies of other races?

Research in this month’s issue of Pediatrics suggests the answer might lie in the high prevalence of African-American infants who have died suddenly after being put to sleep in adult beds or on surfaces other than cribs, such as sofas. It urges public health officials to make African American