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Science is the answer to everything.

The Aznalcóllar mining accident more than 11 years ago, which contaminated part of the Doñana National Park, also damaged reptile habitat there. Now a team of Spanish researchers, who have been studying the reptile community since 2000, have shown, by setting up artificial refuges, that the disappearance of natural refuges had a serious impact on lizard and snake numbers.

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A short time ago, Swedish scientists published a paper suggesting the existence of a genetic disposition to respond to placebo, thus giving rise to debate in the media about a possible “placebo gene.” In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Matthias Breidert and Karl Hofbauer summarize the most recent data about placebos.

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NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has made the first unambiguous detection of high-energy gamma-rays from an enigmatic binary system known as Cygnus X-3. The system pairs a hot, massive star with a compact object — either a neutron star or a black hole — that blasts twin radio-emitting jets of matter into space at more than half the speed of light.

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Researchers at Uppsala University and University Children’s Hospital in Uppsala have devised powerful new tools for typing cells from children with acute lymphatic leukemia and for prediction of how children with leukemia will respond to chemotherapy. The study was recently published in electronic form by the prestigious hematological journal Blood.

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Nida is still holding on to Super Typhoon status in the Western Pacific Ocean, and over the weekend, is forecast to pass east of both Iwo To and Chichi Jima islands. Although the center of Nida will remain at sea, both islands will face heavy surf, gusty winds and heavy rainfall.

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The Image Sharing Demonstration at RSNA 2009 will encompass methods for sharing images, reports and related information for the improvement of patient care in radiology. The demonstration features patient control of documented medical history and imaging examinations through individual accounts in personal health record systems.

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The use of implantable devices for the treatment of heart failure increased “enormously” in Europe between the years 2004 and 2008, but there still remain large differences between countries, according to a study reported today (November 30) in the European Journal of Heart Failure. The findings suggest that there is an underuse of devices in many of the 15 countries surveyed.

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Working for the public sector is good for fertility, according to new Economic and Social Research Council funded research at the University of Oxford. The study, which examined patterns of employment and childbearing decisions for couples over a number of years, found that the decision to have one or more children was intricately bound up with the working patterns of parents.

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Scientists are building a clearer image of the machinery employed by bacteria to spread antibiotic resistance or cause diseases such as whooping cough, peptic stomach ulcers and legionnaires’ disease.

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On bmj.com today two experts debate whether the conflict of interest is unacceptable when drug companies carry out clinical trials on their own medicines.Their views come as new guidance on the standards required for communicating company sponsored medical research is published.

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