Showbiz News

Richard Who?

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is to follow in the acting footsteps of Derek Jacobi and Kylie Minogue — not to mention his wife, Lalla Ward — by making a guest appearance on the legendary British sci-fi series Doctor Who. His late friend Douglas Adams, a Who script editor, would have been delighted.

Scorecard

Brazilian contraception

The government aims to safeguard the Amazon by marketing condoms made from sustainably harvested rubber trees in the forest.

US health information

A US government-funded health-information search engine called Popline last week blocked all hits relating to the search term 'abortion', only reinstating them after a public outcry.

On the Record

“It was a big bit of gear and it got pretty warm.”

Hafsteinn Jonsson, one of the Swedish team that helped to create the world's first ever 40-gigabit-per-second Internet connection, explains why its recipient, the mother of a colleague, used it to dry her laundry.

Zoo News

Credit: M. THOMAS

Strong bond

A loggerhead turtle, badly injured when it washed up on a British beach, has been saved … by a dentist. The turtle, nicknamed James Bond after his official stranding number (007), damaged his shell on rocks thousands of kilometres from his warmer home waters, and was patched up using a compound more commonly used to protect delicate dental work.

Sources: The Independent, BBC, Wired blogs, The Local, The Times