The naturally occurring virus does not infect people
US scientists have produced a wholly artificial virus using a method they claim could lead to new lifeforms.
These synthetic organisms – on the scale of bacteria – could be engineered to produce clean energy or mop up pollution, the researchers say.
It is only the second [...]

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US fossil spins web of intrigue
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online
The ancient cousins of modern spiders could have been spinning webs 55 million years before the reign of the dinosaurs, a scientist says.
What appear to be silk-spinning structures have been found on the body of an ancient arachnid fossil.
The 300-million-year-old creature, [...]

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Mice with transplanted wombs have given birth to healthy pups – the first time that live offspring have been produced from a surgically implanted uterus.
Researchers hope the technique will benefit women who currently cannot bear children because their wombs are damaged or missing.
“A woman could receive a donor uterus from a relative – a [...]

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Protesters against genetically modified crops could find themselves left out of a national debate on the issue.
All of the 150 tickets available for a public meeting in Glasgow on Wednesday night have been snapped up but many more people are expected to turn up hoping to take part.
Organisers of the event, an independent steering [...]

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Poor facilities in maternity units mean women are less likely to have a natural birth, campaigners have suggested.
The National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which surveyed new mothers, found women who felt they did not have the space, privacy and control that they needed were more likely to have emergency Caesareans than those who felt they did. [...]

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An independent report has raised serious doubts over government efforts to modernise the NHS.
The Audit Commission assessed every trust in England to see if they are meeting targets set out in The NHS Plan, published in July 2000.
It found that while progress was being made in some areas, particularly patient waiting times, trusts were [...]

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New figures show a large rise in the number of sexually transmitted infections in Scotland.The statistics were announced by Scotland’s chief medical officer.
The rise is partly due to more screening, but also because of increasingly risky sexual behaviour.
Cases of chlamydia have doubled across Scotland in the last four years.
New advert
According to Health [...]

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Mass medication by the nanny state or sound public health? David Derbyshire looks at plans to add more chemicals to your waterIt might be clear, odourless and if you’re lucky, tasteless, but the water dripping from your kitchen tap is far from pure.
There’s chlorine for a start, added to kill bacteria. Then there are the [...]

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SCO Group chief executive Darl McBride said a published report that his company may take legal action against Linux founder Linus Torvalds was overstated.
Responding to a portion of a Wednesday story by CBS Marketwatch that has generated intense criticism from the Linux community, McBride said that targeting Torvalds is unlikely.
“Virtually we see no reason [...]

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Researchers from University Hospital Gronigan in the Netherlands conducted a study of 570 children from group of over 3,000 born at a Dutch hospital between 1975 and 1978.
Data on the smoking habits of the mothers was collected and results from maths, spelling and reading tests taken by the children at the age of nine [...]

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Russian Soyuz rockets could soon be launching from the European spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana.
The proposal is part of a package of measures designed to restructure the European launch business and rescue it from its current parlous financial state.
On Tuesday, ministers from the European Space Agency’s (Esa) member states must consider the plans [...]

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There were more people on waiting lists at 53 hospital trusts in England in 2003 than there were in 2000, the Tories have said.

The Conservatives said the figures showed how overall waiting list figures for the NHS could disguise significant failures within the service.
The Tories looked at the total inpatient lists for each trust [...]

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CANCER is now the biggest killer of men in Britain, with deaths overtaking those from heart disease for the first time, according to new figures. Cancer Research UK said the death rates for heart disease, excluding strokes, dropped by 30 per cent over the past decade. Death rates from cancer fell by just 15 per [...]

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LONDON (AFP) – Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson vowed to keep trying to get hold of Concorde, after the British government said it would not help him to buy and fly the supersonic jets.
British Airways, in a decision with fellow Concorde operator Air France, has said it would be taking the sleek but aging [...]

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ANDREW Gunn, 28, was a child when he became infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products while receiving treatment for haemophilia on the NHS.
Mr Gunn is now fighting to find answers as to why the Factor 8 clotting agent he received was never properly screened, why his family was not told [...]

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A NEW suspected case of Sars emerged in Scotland yesterday as one of the world’s leading scientific journals rushed to publish the genetic structure of the virus to help experts treat the deadly illness.
As the desperate search for a vaccine continued, it emerged that tests were being carried out on a man in North Ayrshire.
After [...]

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Job applicants who use ‘wacky’ email addresses are far less likely to get the job according to research that polled UK human resources managers.
Yahoo! Mail discovered the majority of HR managers will just disregard an application if it comes from an address that casts the applicant in a less than serious light. Two of [...]

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