Zip out cancer WHY are some women with breast cancer more susceptible to developing secondary tumours elsewhere in their body? Wen Jian and his team at University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff have found that vulnerable patients have fewer molecules called "tight junctions", which seal the gaps between neighbouring cells. When tight junctions are in short … 51¶¯Âþ
The word cosmic preservationist Jain monks sweep the path ahead of them to avoid treading on any living creature. Cosmic preservationists go one better on the ethical scale: they believe that even rocks have rights and shouldn't be abused. Environmentalism gone mad? Perhaps. Cosmic preservationists are most concerned about extra-terrestrial rocks. For them, space really is the final frontier … Opinion
Technology A ram for the rebels It was an otherwise unremarkable day in 1883 as the ferry boat St Johns chugged across the Hudson River towards the New Jersey shore, when all of a sudden a monstrous steel porpoise breached the surface nearby before plunging back underwater. The St Johns turned tail and fled back to harbour. Even after the ferry … Features
No free lunches Sex, Drugs and Economics: An unconventional introduction to economics by Diane Coyle, Texere, £16.99, ISBN 1587991470 Naked Economics: Undressing the dismal science by Charles Wheelan, W. W. Norton, £20.95/$25.95, ISBN 0393049825 A SENIOR computer executive once told me that the Internet had altered the basic laws of economics. Amazingly, his company is still in business, … Books & Arts
Feedback THIS week we bring you more winning entries to the Feedback Christmas Competition, in which readers were asked to select a human trait or behaviour and give their own evolutionary explanation for its existence. HOW do we explain the evolutionary trait of "beer goggles", the well-known phenomenon of members of the opposite sex becoming more … Regulars