INDIANA University is a hotbed of illegality. The outlaws reside in the university’s Bloomington Drosophila Stock Centre, one of the world’s premier breeding grounds for mutant fruitflies and home to an astonishing 20,000 varieties.

It is on these flies’ fragile shoulders — do flies have shoulders? — that the future of genetics largely rests. The short-lived, swiftly reproducing insects, Drosophila melanogaster, are a convenient testing ground for theories about genetic mutations and have become sought-after by laboratories all over the globe.

But each time biologists send the creatures abroad — whether as insects, eggs or larvae — they are breaking international postal laws. Those rules, imposed by the Universal Postal Union, allow for the international exchange of “live bees, leeches and silkworms” and “parasites and predators of injurious insects”, but not fruitflies. The rules apply to 190 nations.

Bloomington’s bloomer was discovered only two years ago, when postal inspectors returned a shipment of flies destined for overseas. Kevin Cook, the co-director of the facility, realised that he had been flouting the law. Since then he has been trying to persuade the Universal Postal Union, based in Switzerland, to loosen its strictures.

Success may be on the horizon. Cook has drafted an amendment that permits the posting of live fruitflies between nations; it will be discussed at a UPU meeting this month. For now, though, Cook and his dozen staff, who mail well over 100,000 samples each year, remain lawbreakers. “We can't stop supplying scientists with the things they need to do their research. At the same time, we don't want to be in violation of the law,” he says. The amendment is expected to come into force on June 1, by which time a relieved Cook will no longer be a fugitive.

• HYPNOSIS CAN lessen the stress and trauma associated with medical examinations, according to a study from Stanford University Medical Centre. The technique might also cut treatment times.

  Dr David Spiegel looked at 44 children undergoing a painful catheterisation to check kidney function. Patients cannot be sedated during the procedure, called voiding cysto-urethrogram (VCUG), because they have to empty their bladder once the catheter is in place. Before the examination, half the children were given routine care, which included breathing techniques. The other half were coached in self-hypnosis, which included them visualising being attached to a balloon that could take them anywhere they wanted.

  Spiegel reports in Paediatrics that VCUG took an average of 35 minutes for the hypnosis group, compared with 50 minutes for the other group. Parents accompanying the children in the hypnosis group reported that their offspring appeared to be less distressed, even though all 44 children reported similar levels of pain and fear. Researchers suggest that the children themselves may still report the episode as very painful in order to discourage future examinations.

• IT IS amazing to see that, a century after his annus mirabilis, Einstein is still holding off the opposition. Recently, astronomers reported that they had found blobs of plasma screaming through space at 99.9 per cent the speed of light. The blobs lie inside jets of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies. Accelerating a bowling ball to such speeds would require the world’s entire energy output for a week. A separate paper at the same American Astronomical Society meeting revealed cosmic rays travelling at 99.99999999999999999999 per cent of light-speed.

  In his Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein said that nothing could go faster than light. Violating this, he said, would result in nonsensical happenings, such as arriving somewhere before leaving. So far, the universe is obeying the cosmic speed limit.

• TALKING OF which, there are still a few weeks to enter the poetry competition launched to commemorate Einstein Year. About half an hour before I was due to go on Radio Five Live last week I was asked to come up with a ditty. Here goes (it refers to the odd consequences of relativity theory, by the way):

  If I were to travel at light speed, I’d stay young but get awesomely fat, So, should I be smooth and incredibly huge, Or wrinkled and thin as a slat? I beg you to come up with something better. More details at www.the-ba.net/universe.

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