Icy moon is hyperactive
Saturn鈥檚 moon Enceladus, long believed to be cold and dead, is alive with ice volcanoes. NASA鈥檚 Cassini spacecraft flew by Enceladus on 14 July and found a cloud of water vapour over its south pole and fissures on the surface where water ice seems to be evaporating. Volcanic heat is the likely cause.
Citizens, test thyselves
Advertisement
In a bid to reduce deaths from a persistent killer, the UK鈥檚 National Health Service is to send men and women aged between 60 and 69 a home testing kit for bowel cancer from April next year. The disease is the second largest cause of cancer deaths in the UK, with 30,000 new cases a year.
Needle match
Inserting acupuncture needles in random places in the body is just as effective as placing them at traditional acupuncture points. So say doctors in Munich who treated 270 tension headache sufferers with either traditional or random needle placement. Both methods reduced headache occurrences by about half (British Medical Journal, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.38512.405440.8F).
Is 鈥減ig bug鈥� what it seems?
Enough vaccine to treat 360,000 pigs has been airlifted to Sichuan province in China, where the normally pig-borne pathogen Streptococcus suis type II has supposedly spread to humans, killing 36 and infecting another 198. However, the high level of infection and its unusual symptoms have led to speculation that it might be caused by a related pathogen.
Mad cow blood warning
Health authorities in the UK have warned 100 blood donors they may be carrying variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) after three transfusion recipients developed the condition. The donors have been told not to give blood or donate organs, though it is uncertain whether any are infected or will go on to develop symptoms.