WE’VE had diamonds made from the ashes of dead relatives. Get ready for more body parts as mementoes of loved ones. Bio-Bling — lab-grown human bone tissue fused with precious metals — is being launched by researchers from the Royal College of Art and King’s College London. Expect bones through noses in 2007.

Obesity backlash

WE’VE had diamonds made from the ashes of dead relatives. Get ready for more body parts as mementoes of loved ones. Bio-Bling — lab-grown human bone tissue fused with precious metals — is being launched by researchers from the Royal College of Art and King’s College London. Expect bones through noses in 2007.

Cure on a plate

HOSPITAL food will be put under the same scrutiny as school food, subjected this year to a television overhaul by the chef Jamie Oliver. There are already signs that it is happening. In London, the Hospital Food Project, run by London Food Link, is increasing the proportion of local and organic food in four NHS hospitals. “It is now being accepted that food plays a significant role in repairing the damage to diseased bodies and speeding recovery,” says Patrick Holden, the director of the Soil Association, who hopes that we’ll give up our obsession with low-cost food. But is it pie in the sky?

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Embryo hat trick

BRITAIN’S first embryo with three genetic parents could be created in 2006. A team at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University will attempt a controversial procedure called mitochondrial transfer. Designed to prevent diseases caused by DNA defects in mitochondria — structures inside cells — it involves taking an egg from a prospective mother with these defects, fertilising it in-vitro with her partner’s sperm, then removing the embryo’s genetic material and placing it into a donated egg with healthy mitochondria. The embryo will then have genetic contributions from mother, father and donor.

No sex, we're moral

PORN actors are celebrities, once-taboo images are aired on the mainstream media and sex sells magazines like never before. But the New Moralists are already hitting back at fleshy trends in America, and the advertising agency J Walter Thompson (JWT) believes it will happen here, too. The British New Moralists, they say, are teenagers and parents who are pushing back against openly sexual mores and saying: “virginity is cool”. “It’s urban, suburban and rural, something that bubbles up in a community and spreads girl-to-girl,” says Marian Salzman, for JWT. “There are people wanting to opt out of 2006 sexual mores.”

Any alternative?

COMPLEMENTARY therapies are set to grab the headlines, as dozens of trials are due to produce results. But don’t expect to be any the wiser. Some will show a treatment works, others will reveal it’s bunk. Reams of contradictory data will result in some highly un-complementary advice.

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