Do it yourself

Credit: T. EISNER

Ecologist Thomas Eisner is a photographer as well as a researcher. But the effects of Parkinson's disease have led him to explore a new way to capture images, using a colour photocopier. Eisner lays objects such as flowers and shells (as shown here) on the photocopier stage, covered with a black cloth — ideal for anyone with limited mobility, he suggests.

On the Record

“Science should claw back its nineteenth-century glamour.”

Columnist Simon Jenkins argues on The Guardian's Comment is Free website that specialist science education is not for the masses.

“How depressing to see ignorance championed in this way.”

Response to Jenkins's article from an anonymous poster.

Scorecard

Mushrooms

After spinach and then lettuce were withdrawn in the United States owing to fear of bacterial contamination, one online betting site has made mushrooms the favourite to be the next foodstuff to be recalled, at 6/1.

Cloned cats

Genetic Savings & Clone, a biotechnology company that sold cloned pets, is to close due to lack of demand. Since the company opened in 2000 it has created five cloned cats but sold just two.

Number Crunch

2–3 hurricanes were estimated to make landfall in the United States this hurricane season.

0 hurricanes have made landfall so far.

$6.5 billion has been lost by hedge fund Amaranth, which had bet on hurricanes hitting US oil depots and forcing up fuel prices.

Sources: New York Times, NOAA