Cattle drugs could fuel climate change, study suggests

Dung contaminated with the drugs released 1.8 times more methane



Dosing farm animals with antibiotics increases greenhouse gas emissions from cow dung, research suggests.

Scientists say the drugs boost methane production in cowpats - apparently by favouring antibiotic-resistant, methane-producing organisms in the gut.

Sentinel satellite pictures a 'clear skies' Africa

COPERNICUS2016/ESA/BROCKMANN CONSULT/UCL



Africa undressed: the continent pictured with no clouds in the sky.

This is not a natural state, of course; there is always a weather system bubbling up somewhere.

Kew report makes new tally for number of world's plants

Researchers have counted how many plant species are known to science



Scientists have estimated that there are 390,900 plants known to science.

Solar Impulse completes Pacific crossing

 The plane gets all its energy from the sun 
 

The solar-powered aeroplane, Solar Impulse, has completed a three-day flight over the Pacific Ocean.

It flew over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday evening as it prepared to land in California.

Hawking backs interstellar travel project

   This generic artist's concept shows how a solar sail might work
 

Stephen Hawking is backing a project to send tiny spacecraft to another star system within a generation.

Promising lab-grown skin sprouts hair and grows glands

 Image caption The transplanted skin cells, labelled here with a green protein, successfully sprouted hairs

Scientists in Japan have successfully transplanted mice with lab-grown skin that has more of the organ's working parts in place than ever before.

Starting with stem cells made from a mouse's gums, they managed to craft skin with multiple layers - as well as hair follicles and glands.
When implanted into a "nude mouse" with a suppressed immune system, it integrated well and sprouted hairs.
Researchers say this success will take 5-10 years to translate into humans.
But eventually, the team hopes their system will lead to perfectly functioning, lab-grown skin that can be grown from the cells of burns victims and transplanted back on to them.

Personalised organs

This would be vastly superior to the culturing and grafting techniques that are currently available, which produce skin without many of the the biological components and functionality that we are used to.
The technique could also be adapted to manufacture realistic skin samples that drug or cosmetics companies could use to test their products - instead of using animals.
The findings, reported in the journal Science Advances, have been greeted with enthusiasm by other scientists working in this field.
Takashi Tsuji is the paper's senior author. He said the dream of re-growing personalised organs was beginning to materialise:
"Up until now, artificial skin development has been hampered by the fact that the skin lacked the important organs, such as hair follicles and exocrine glands, which allow the skin to play its important role in regulation.
"With this new technique, we have successfully grown skin that replicates the function of normal tissue.
"We are coming ever closer to the dream of being able to recreate actual organs in the lab for transplantation."

Image caption The researchers saw the transplanted skin going through normal hair growth cycles

Dr Tsuji, from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, conducted the research with colleagues in Tokyo, Sagamihara and Sendai.
They began their experiments by taking cells from the gums of a mouse and converting them into "induced pluripotent stem cells" or iPSCs.

It's recapitulating normal skin architecture

Prof John Mcgrath, King's College London

This is a popular and promising technique in stem cell research, discovered in 2006, which bathes the cells in chemicals to "wind back the clock". The resulting is cells, like those of an embryo, which can divide again and again and turn into nearly any other type of cell in the body.
But the team's mastery came in coaxing these cells to form the different layers and structures of deeply layered skin - the "integumentary organ" that protects our bodies, senses touch, regulates heat and does myriad other jobs as well.

'Whole box of stuff'

John McGrath, a professor of molecular dermatology at King's College London, said this study was one that researchers in his field had been looking out for - and it was a substantial step forward.
He told BBC News that the new system took us "over the halfway mark" towards growing functional skin for human patients - where previous efforts had stumbled at much earlier stages.
"It's recapitulating normal skin architecture," Prof McGrath said. "So rather than having isolated bits of skin... here we've actually got a whole box of stuff.
"To give you a football analogy: anybody can have Wayne Rooney, but now we've got Manchester United. There's a whole team on the pitch, of interacting players."
And that means there is hope, he added, for lifelike, lab-grown skin.
"[The current options] function, but they don't really look like or behave like skin. If you don't have the hair follicles and you don't have the sweat glands and things, it's not going to function as skin."
Prof McGrath also said that many other laboratories would now be trying to reproduce these findings - and to adapt them for different purposes, such as recreating skin diseases in a dish and trying out treatments.
"There will be lots of benefits for immediate use, as well as for translational science,'" he said.

Dinosaur find resolves T-Rex mystery

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Media captionMeet the newly discovered dinosaur that could hold the evolutionary key to how T-rex became such a giant

A newly discovered species of Tyrannosaur - the group of meat-eating dinosaurs to which the infamous T-Rex belongs - could hold the key to how these creatures grew so huge.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh, along with US and Russian colleagues, discovered the fossilised remains of the animal in Uzbekistan.

Mars TGO mission heads for Red Planet on methane quest

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Media captionThe Proton rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

Europe and Russia have launched a joint mission to the Red Planet.

The satellite, called the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), lifted off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 09:31 GMT.
The probe will investigate whether the methane in the world's atmosphere is coming from a geological source or is being produced by microbes.

Total eclipse: Indonesia witnesses totality as Sun is blocked by the Moon

Image caption Belitung in Indonesia was the best place to witness the total solar eclipse

Millions of people across Indonesia and the Pacific have experienced a total solar eclipse, with parts of the region falling into complete darkness.

Total eclipse: Indonesia witnesses totality as Sun is blocked by the Moon

Image caption Belitung in Indonesia was the best place to witness the total solar eclipse

Millions of people across Indonesia and the Pacific have experienced a total solar eclipse, with parts of the region falling into complete darkness.