Airline bugs
Dangerous levels of coliform bacteria have been found in drinking water aboard 15 per cent of 327 planes tested by the US Environmental Protection Agency at 19 airports. Airlines have now agreed to disinfect water supplies and monitor quality.
Lost on Mars
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NASA has given up the search for its Mars Polar Lander, which disappeared in December 1999 during entry into the planet鈥檚 atmosphere. An image taken by Mars Global Surveyor of the suspected crash site shows no sign of the craft.
Manna from Ethiopia
Cereals used in Ethiopia to make bread could enrich the diets of people everywhere with coeliac disease, who react to the gluten in cereals such as wheat, barley and rye. It was known that tef (Eragrostis tef) did not trigger symptoms, and now research at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands has confirmed that it contains no gluten (The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 353, p 1748).
Spot that gene
More than a million gene variants linked to common diseases should be easier to identify thanks to a new catalogue of human genetic variation. The variants or 鈥渁lleles鈥� are inherited in clumps, called haplotypes, in particular regions of our chromosomes. The 鈥渉apmap鈥� published in Nature (vol 437, p 1299) should help researchers zero in on them without screening the entire genome.
Clean getaway
The launch of Europe鈥檚 Venus Express has been delayed so that it can be given a good clean. The probe had been readied for launch this week when engineers noticed that flakes of insulation from the launcher had fallen onto it. These will have to be removed with tweezers, airbrushes and vacuum cleaners before the launch window closes on 24 November.