Europe
LONDON – The United Kingdom’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has launched a public consultation to gauge attitudes toward controversial new medical procedures aimed at preventing the transmission of incurable diseases that result from mutations of cell structures called mitochondria. Supporters of such research are framing criticism of it as opposition to saving children’s lives and an impediment to scientific development. But this view neglects a crucial factor in the debate: the techniques being developed involve permanent genetic alterations passed on to future generations.
The Royal Society has today announced that its world-famous historical journal archive – which includes the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal – has been made permanently free to access online.
Whole-genome sequencing and crowdsourced analyses proved a powerful adjunct to traditional typing in the recent Escherichia coli outbreak.
SAN DIEGO – Not long ago, autism was among the rarest of disorders, afflicting only one child in every 2,000-5,000. This changed dramatically with the publication in 1994 of DSM IV (the manual of psychiatric diagnosis widely used around the world). Soon, rates exploded to about 1 per 100. And a large study in South Korea recently reported a further jump to 1 in 38 – an astounding 3% of the general population was labeled autistic. What is causing this epidemic and where are we headed?
The idea of deliberately manipulating the climate of a planet is a familiar theme in science fiction. Known as ‘terraforming’, cold planets, such as Mars or even the Moon, would be warmed by the addition of atmospheric greenhouse gases, while excessively hot planets such as Venus would be cooled by reducing the strength of solar radiation via space-based “sunshades”
Two German radar satellites are now flying in tight formation as they prepare to make the most detailed ever 3D map of the Earth's entire surface. TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X have moved to just 350m of each other as they sweep around the planet at 7km/s.
Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, a UK-led international team of astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date, one which at birth had more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, twice as much as the currently accepted limit.
The competition to find the next great European space mission has seen three ideas move to the front of the field. 
