MARCH 2004

This section features key science stories from The Daily Telegraph's online news service at www.telegraph.co.uk. Click on the links for the full story.

How we extend the limits of human experience
Adam Nieman, a winner of 2003 Visions of Science photographic awards, explains his love of science images.

31 Mar 2004

Imaging beyond imagination
Roger Highfield rounds up the latest photographic news.

31 Mar 2004

Pictures that cast new light on our planet
Last year's dramatic winners of the Visions of Science photo competition made waves far beyond academia, says David Derbyshire.

31 Mar 2004

'I am not sure about the long-term effects'
The Deacon family has mixed feelings about using gene therapy in the womb to treat haemophilia, which causes uncontrolled bleeding.

30 Mar 2004

Methane find gives new clue to life on Mars
The most compelling evidence yet that alien life once lived on Mars - and might still be thriving deep below the surface - has been unearthed by Nasa and European space scientists.

30 Mar 2004

'Safe' virus held the key
To carry out the pioneering gene therapy, the team used a stripped-down Human Immunodeficiency Virus, designed to be safe and to implant corrective genes into the liver of the foetus.

30 Mar 2004

Genetic surgery in the womb moves closer
British scientists lead in the use of HIV to deliver a pre-birth cure after successfully treating blood clotting in foetal mice, reports Roger Highfield.

30 Mar 2004

Researchers shed some light on owls and larks of the workplace
The idea that society will one day split into Morlocks who shun the light and Eloi who like to bask in it, popularised by H G Wells in The Time Machine, may not be so far off the mark.

29 Mar 2004

Nelson's favourite ship found at last
A team of international treasure seekers believes it has pinpointed the resting place of Admiral Horatio Nelson's favourite ship, Agamemnon, which was wrecked off the coast of Uruguay in 1809.

27 Mar 2004

Coogan's TV animal cartoon defended
A professor of ethics has defended Steve Coogan, the comedian who created Alan Partridge, after he was condemned by antivivisectionists over his new cartoon about animal tests.

27 Mar 2004

The truth about an epic tale of love,
war and greed
Homer's epic legend has an enduring grip on the imagination. Aidan Laverty talks to the scientists who say they have proved that a siege really took place.

24 Mar 2004

The roast that's 1.5m years old
Scientists have confirmed that our primitive ancestors were roasting meat up to 1.5 million years ago, marking the oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire.

24 Mar 2004

Isle fungus helps to knock out cancer
A drug isolated from a fungus found on Easter Island can, in combination with another antibiotic, deliver a knock-out punch for cancers that do not respond to current treatments.

22 Mar 2004

Students 'wasting their time and money on sexy science courses'
Thousands of students are wasting their time and money on "sexy" low-grade science degrees which will not lead to employment, says an advisory body to the Government.

22 Mar 2004

Butterfly decline points to sixth mass extinction
An accelerating decline in species, in particular a fall in butterflies, provides the first hard evidence that the Earth is on the verge of a sixth mass extinction.

19 Mar 2004

The earlier extinctions
Cretaceous-Tertiary: 65 million years ago. Due to impact of one or many asteroids, perhaps also volcanic eruptions. Toll: 16 per cent of marine families, 47 per cent of marine genera (the classification above species) and 18 per cent of land vertebrate families, including the dinosaurs.

19 Mar 2004

Cancer patients 'missing out on treatment'
Cancer patients are missing out on life-saving treatment because of staff shortages, postcode prescribing and delays in referrals, says a National Audit Office report.

19 Mar 2004

Budget: £100m boost for medical research
A £100 million boost for medical research was announced by the Chancellor in response to criticisms that ministers had diverted millions of pounds to solve short-term hospital funding problems.

18 Mar 2004

How the Moon led to life on Earth
Life would never have been created on Earth without the influence of the Moon, according to a British biologist.

18 Mar 2004

Blueprint for a brave new world?
A new investment plan, announced yesterday by the Government, could be wrecked by science's poor image, says Roger Highfield.

17 Mar 2004

'Media-friendly scientists equals science-friendly people'
Since I left Durham University in the 1960s to become a science writer and broadcaster, I've constantly heard the same questions. "Why can't we persuade our best pupils to take science?" "Why do science graduates leave the profession?" And, "Why does science have a poor profile?"

17 Mar 2004

How we can improve science's profile
Sir David King, Chief Scientist

17 Mar 2004

Shiny red clump of rock and ice may be the tenth planet
A red shiny world of rock and ice approaching the size of Pluto has been found in the far reaches of the solar system, surprising scientists and launching an argument over whether it counts as the tenth planet.

16 Mar 2004

Put your feet up in an English GM garden
Science may take the hard work out of horticulture, reports David Derbyshire.

16 Mar 2004

Black Americans use DNA to go back to their roots
David Rennie in Washington reports on a hunt for lost origins.

15 Mar 2004

Scientists are nearer to cure for baldness
Scientists have found the cells that are the source of follicles and hair growth, a discovery that will energise research into treatments for thinning hair and baldness.

15 Mar 2004

Research raises doubt on 'shaken baby' evidence
Babies' brains are far more vulnerable to injury during birth than was previously thought, according to research which raises doubts about the safety of shaken baby syndrome convictions.

12 Mar 2004

Abuse claim mother's fight to keep her injured child
When Rioch Edwards-Brown was summoned into the side room of the hospital ward, she assumed that she would learn why her six-month-old son had suffered a fit earlier that day.

12 Mar 2004

Baffled bumble bee lured out early by changing climate
Bumble bees are emerging from hibernation in December rather than spring as a result of climate change, a study has found.

12 Mar 2004

Don't steady that ladder it's more dangerous
The age-old practice of getting a friend, spouse or bored child to hold the bottom of a ladder while cleaning windows, changing lightbulbs or painting the ceiling may cause more accidents than it prevents, according to a new study.

11 Mar 2004

Scientists discover 'the point' of grannies
Scientists have discovered the point of grandmothers and why women, unlike other females in the animal kingdom, tend to live long after they can no longer have children.

11 Mar 2004

Scientists find a way to beat the menopause
Scientists believe they have discovered a new way to defy the menopause which raises the prospect of extending childbearing years and offers a more natural alternative to HRT.

11 Mar 2004

A wet world teeming with tiny Martians?
There is new evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars... and that could point to the existence of aliens. Roger Highfield explains.

10 Mar 2004

Original Beagle found in Essex mud
British scientists have located the Beagle. Not the one lost on Mars, but its inspirational namesake, HMS Beagle, the 19th-century ship in which Charles Darwin circumnavigated the world.

10 Mar 2004

2,000 French scientists quit in funding row
More than 2,000 French scientific researchers have resigned from their posts in protest at the government's rejection of their demands for more money.

10 Mar 2004

Baby hopes for cancer patients
Scientists have succeeded for the first time in creating an embryo from the ovarian tissue of a young woman made infertile through cancer treatments six years earlier.

09 Mar 2004

New pill could put paid to Delhi Belly
The end of Delhi Belly, Gyppy Tummy and Montezuma's Revenge is in sight with the creation of a pill that protects against the commonest form of travellers' diarrhoea.

08 Mar 2004

Downing St 'gags chief adviser on global warming'
The Prime Minister has told his chief scientist to avoid talking to journalists about climate change in an attempt to calm the Bush administration's concerns over the adviser's outspoken criticisms of the US Government.

08 Mar 2004

Fury at EU call for 'needless' chemical tests on animals
Thousands of animals face laboratory tests involving industrial chemicals because of new European Union legislation.

07 Mar 2004

Volunteers test new anthrax vaccine
A new vaccine designed to combat anthrax attacks by bioterrorists is being tested on humans.

05 Mar 2004

Ministers pave way for farmers to grow GM maize
The Cabinet has paved the way for genetically modified crops to be grown commercially.

05 Mar 2004

Teeth clue to earliest human ancestors
Six fossil teeth found in Ethiopia have been dated at six million years old and belonged to the earliest known human ancestors, scientists say.

05 Mar 2004

Free radicals are 'innocent'
Millions may have been wasted chasing the wrong cause of Alzheimer's and other diseases. Roger Highfield reports.

04 Mar 20004

Space probe Rosetta blasts off on 10-year comet-chasing mission
One of the most ambitious space missions ever attempted got underway when Europe's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft blasted off.

03 Mar 2004

Rover finds clue to water on Mars
The first direct chemical and geological clues that show water once flowed on Mars have been found by Nasa's Opportunity rover.

03 Mar 2004

10-year plan to boost science
The Government is to launch a 10-year investment plan this summer to boost the country's scientific base so that the nation remains competitive.

03 Mar 2004

Dinosaur death theory 'just a myth'
Scientists have questioned the popular belief that a vast crater near Mexico is the scar left by an asteroid which wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

02 Mar 2004

'Geography affects levels of pollution'
A country's geography could have a significant impact on the amount of carbon dioxide it produces, new research suggests.

01 Mar 2004

Some drinkers are born to suffer
The reason some drinkers can handle sake and others cannot, suffering dreadful hangovers or losing control, is being studied by a British project.

01 Mar 2004

Britain 'should join man-on-Mars race'
Britain should join the race to put a man on Mars, according to a survey that shows that the Beagle Two mission to the red planet, although a failure, has galvanised public interest in space exploration.

01 Mar 2004