Charles urges war on climate change

The Prince of Wales urged the international community to wage war against “the doomsday clock of climate change” yesterday and to adopt “courageous and revolutionary” measures against the threat (Rory Watson writes).

Speaking in the European Parliament, the Prince called for a new public-private partnership involving pension funds, banks and insurance companies and financial institutions to tackle global environmental challenges such as deforestation.

“Some of the world’s best known and most powerful corporate leaders are now ahead – in some cases way ahead – of many political leaders in this debate,” he said.

New toxicity testing could save lab animals

New technology could soon allow thousands of laboratory animals to be replaced by cell models for testing pesticides and other chemicals.

Three US government agencies are collaborating to develop methods of screening chemicals for toxicity with computer models and human cells. If successful, the project could speed up safety testing for products such as household cleaners and agricultural sprays, as well as reduce the number of animals that are used for testing.

The partnership between the National Toxicology Programme, the National Human Genome Research Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency was announced at the conference. A paper describing the new approach to toxicity testing was also published in the journal Science.

Although there is no European equivalent to the initiative, it could have implications for reducing animal testing outside the US.

Living corals are as old as Stonehenge

Some living corals are as old as Stonehenge, according to research that suggests conservation strategies may have to be altered to account for their slow growth rates.

New radiocarbon dating studies have shown that some reefs have been alive for at least 4,000 years, meaning that they had started growing when the standing stones of the prehistoric monument were erected about 2200BC.

The findings, from a team led by Brendan Roark, of Stanford University in California, suggest both the age and growth rates of some types of coral have been seriously underestimated. Growth rates are important to fishery management plans, which aim to minimise damage from trawling to levels from which reefs can recover.

The oldest corals found belonged to the deepwater black coral species, Leiopathes glaberrima, off the coast of Hawaii.

Why we follow the masses like sheep

For all that human beings are held up as the pinnacle of intellectual achievement in the animal world they have an innate capacity to behave like sheep, a study has shown (Lewis Smith writes).

People are just as capable as birds and sheep at following a crowd unthinkingly and need someone to take the lead if they are to get to their destination.

Only 5 per cent of people in a crowd need to know where they are going for all the rest of them to follow their example. When fewer than 5 per cent of the crowd know where they want to go, everybody ends up wandering in circles. Furthermore, when they do manage to get from A to B they are often unable to explain how they got there, a study led by researchers at the University of Leeds found.

The findings are thought to have implications for crowd management at events such as the 2012 Olympics.

The study, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, was reported in the journal Animal Behaviour Journal.

Patient data laptop stolen

A laptop computer with the medical records of more than 5,000 patients has been stolen from a hospital. The Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook was taken from the outpatient department at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, West Midlands, on January 8. It contains a database with information on 5,123 patients from a clinic that treats blood-thinning problems. A username and password were required for the computer, and separate details for the database. Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust said there was no evidence that the patient information had been accessed.

Ten-year-old gangsters

Children as young as 10 are becoming members of criminal gangs, according to police. Intelligence officers said at a conference on gang crime held in Lambeth, South London, that children aged between 10 and 12, nicknamed “tinies”, were becoming junior gang members. The conference was held to mark the first anniversary of the death of Billy Cox, 15, who was shot dead on his doorstep in Clapham. Police said that there could be more than 40 gangs with members aged between 10 and their early 20s, and that gang violence was increasing as gun prices fell.

Suicide rates drop

Suicides among young men have fallen to the lowest level since the 1970s, and rates among young women are also falling, experts report in British Medical Journal online. In 2005 the suicide rate in men aged 15 to 24 fell below 10 per 100,000 per year. It had risen to over 15 per 100,000 during the early 1990s.

Your pupils need you

Servicemen and women retiring from the Armed Forces should be retrained as teachers to help to instil discipline and respect in high-poverty, violent, inner-city schools, a report by the Centre for Policy Studies said. Such a scheme, Troops to Teachers, had worked successfully in the United States, it said.

Prostate advice

A single test taken before the age of 50 can predict advanced prostate cancer up to 25 years later, a study has shown. Researchers in Sweden and New York suggest that men in their 40s should undergo a prostate-specific antigen test, after a they showed that few of those tested would need operations.

Rain getting heavier

Downpours of rain during the winter and spring are far more frequent than they were at the beginning of the 20th century, scientists said. Persistent drizzle, however, features much less in Britain during winter than it did 100 years ago. The findings were published in the International Journal of Climatology.

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