Surplus of Intergalactic Material May Be Young Supercluster Observations with ESO`s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have enabled an international group of astronomers to study in unprecedented detail the surroundings of a very remote galaxy, almost 12 billion light-years distant. The corresponding light travel time means that it is seen at a moment only about 3 billion years after the Big Bang. This galaxy is designated MS 1512-cB58 and is the brightest known at such a large distance and

The best way to conserve many of the world’s forests — and alleviate poverty in some of its poorest countries — is to allow rural communities to generate income by selling forest products, rather than tightly regulating forest use, according to a report released on 7 March.

Forests are vital to one quarter of the world’s poorest people, who depend on forest resources for their subsistence, the report says. It adds that improving the lives of these people through commercial forestry is esse

A robot submarine expedition under the Antarctic sea ice has discovered a major food reserve in the Southern Ocean. The findings, reported this week in SCIENCE, show a dense band of the shrimp-like krill under the ice, five times more concentrated than in open water. The importance of sea ice as a nursery for krill – key food for penguins, whales and fish – has long been suspected, but these are the first large scale measurements.

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, the Open Univer

A molecular pump that helps to keep cells flush with energy has been visualised by scientists at Imperial College, London.

The structure of the pump, a key enzyme in bacterial respiration, reveals for the first time one of the molecular mechanisms that underpins cellular respiration, and confirms a Nobel Prize-winning theory proposed over 40 years ago by Briton Peter Mitchell.

Professor So Iwata and colleagues from the Laboratory of Membrane Protein Crystallography, Imperial Colleg

pparently credible websites may not necessarily provide higher levels of accurate health information, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.

Researchers examined the relation between credibility features and accuracy of contents of 121 websites that provided information on five common health topic: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ankle sprain, emergency contraception, menorrhagia, and female sterilisation.

The entire contents of the selected websites were assessed for three credib

Most smokers are disenchanted with smoking and would not smoke if they had their time again, according to a letter in this week’s BMJ. It also shows that smokers’ expectations of how soon they will quit greatly exceed rates of quitting observed in recent history.

A national sample of 893 smokers were asked: “If you had your time again would you start smoking?” Over 80% said that they would not (79% men, 87% women). Those aged 45 to 64 were most regretful, with 90% saying that they would not