Health & Science

• Thursday, May 16th 2013 - 03:28 UTC

  Communist Germany allowed Western pharmaceutical firms testes new drugs in hospital patients

  

  Western pharmaceutical firms allegedly conducted drug tests on unwitting patients in communist East Germany. The lucrative clinical trials enabled the GDR government to bring much needed hard currency according to a report from Deutsche Welle.

• Tuesday, May 14th 2013 - 18:32 UTC

  Monsanto wins leading soybean seed replicating case to the relief of biotechnology industry

  

  In a decision that drew sighs of relief from the biotechnology industry, the US Supreme Court ruled that an Indiana farmer violated agribusiness company Monsanto Co’s patent for a type of soybean. The court agreed unanimously with Monsanto that Vernon Bowman, 75, had performed an end-run around the law when he used the company’s patented soybean seeds without seeking a licence.

• Tuesday, May 14th 2013 - 05:35 UTC

  Falklands’ linked scientist who helped identify ozone layer hole has died

  

  The British Antarctic Survey scientist Joe Farman, who helped identify the “hole” in the ozone layer over the southern pole, has died. Dr Farman who was also a scientific officer at the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, published the discovery with Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin in the Journal Nature in 1985.

• Saturday, May 11th 2013 - 10:26 UTC

  HMS Protector back in Portsmouth after a successful nine-month Antarctica deployment

  

  HMS Protector, the Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol Ship, has returned to Portsmouth at the end of a nine-month deployment to the ‘Frozen Continent’. Operating in the British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands throughout the Austral Summer, the ship conducted three intensive work periods in the ice, and a fourth work period in the waters surrounding South Georgia.

• Friday, May 10th 2013 - 03:22 UTC

  With ‘gene-editing’ scientists have produced a disease resistant piglet

  

  A disease-resistant piglet has been produced using new genetic engineering described as ‘gene-editing’. The piglet was born four months ago at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, and is known as ‘Pig 26’.

• Thursday, May 9th 2013 - 12:26 UTC

  Outbreak of mice-vector hemorrhagic fever in Argentina; attacks in rural areas

  

  A 31-yeaar old farm hand died and a 12-year old adolescent has been hospitalized in the province of Santa Fe following an outbreak of Argentine hemorrhagic fever (FHA) caused by the viral agent Junin and transmitted by camp mice.

• Wednesday, May 8th 2013 - 09:08 UTC

  “Possible submerged continent” found in the Atlantic off the coast of Brazil

  

  A large mass of granite has been found on the seabed off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, suggesting that a continent may have existed in the Atlantic Ocean, a Japanese agency and the Brazilian government announced this week.

• Tuesday, May 7th 2013 - 09:11 UTC

  Winning design to replace Brazil’s destroyed Antarctic base was presented in Rio

  

  The Brazilian Navy announced in Rio the winning proposal for the new Antarctic research base Comandante Ferraz which in February last year was destroyed by fire with the loss of two lives and damages in excess of 12 million dollars.

• Tuesday, May 7th 2013 - 08:54 UTC

  Cuban doctors to Brazil hinterland in exchange for infrastructure works

  

  Brazil said Monday it was negotiating with Havana the possibility of hiring and bringing in around 6,000 Cuban doctors to work in areas where they are needed in the fifth largest country of the world and with a population of 200 million.

• Monday, April 29th 2013 - 06:20 UTC

  The Lancet Oncology says Latam new life-style creating a cancer epidemic

  

  Latin America's growing prosperity is fuelling a cancer epidemic that threatens to overwhelm the region unless governments take urgent preventive action, a study warned.