On the Record

“The only thing different about me is that I can't breast-feed my baby.”

Thomas Beatie's comment after he gave birth to a healthy daughter. Beatie, from Bend, Oregon, had a partial sex change and is legally a man. Nurses at the hospital reported that it was a 'natural' birth.

Scorecard

Mercury rising

NASA's Messenger mission has resolved a mystery about the planet closest to the Sun: its flat plains were formed by volcanic activity.

Mercury falling

Messenger also found that the radius of the 4-billion-year-old planet has shrunk by several kilometres as Mercury's core has cooled.

Number Crunch

10,000 people have been called in to help rid Chinese waters of an algal bloom threatening the Olympic sailing site.

285,000 tonnes of the blue-green algae have been removed from the water so far.

430 kilometres is the distance from Beijing of a potentially devastating swarm of locusts.

1 month remains until the Olympic Games begin.

Credit: P. J. BARHAM

Zoo news

Spot the difference

A system has been developed to identify and monitor individual penguins by analysing the tiny spots on their white chests. The researchers aim to use the system on other animals too; it should work on leopards because they can't change their spots either.

Sources: People, Science, Xinhua News, http://www.spotthepenguin.com