Another library goes online
Google鈥檚 book-scanning project has added a princely feather to its cap. Princeton University is to open up 1 million of its books, making it the 12th institution to join the project.
Multicoloured snow
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It wasn鈥檛 quite walking in a winter wonderland, but people in the Russian provinces of Omsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk did get yellow, green and orange snow over more than 40 square kilometres on 31 January. The colours were probably caused by dust and soil blown in from neighbouring Kazakhstan, the government said.
Beating botulinum
Potential antidotes have been found to botulinum neurotoxin A, the most toxic protein known and a feared bioweapon. Kim Janda and colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, say they have found two promising compounds 鈥� one of which saved 16 per cent of exposed mice. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0611213104).
Virgin banks on cells
Virgin has launched a service allowing parents in the UK to bank stem cells from their baby鈥檚 umbilical cord in return for a 拢1500 fee. There is a small chance that such cells could one day be used to cure diseases such as Parkinson鈥檚, and the service may also benefit people suffering from serious blood diseases, as half of the cord blood collected will be donated to the British National Blood Service.
Gene pioneer jailed
William French Anderson, who pioneered gene therapy at the University of Southern California in the early 1990s, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on 2 February for repeatedly molesting an under-age girl. 鈥淏ecause of intellectual arrogance, he persisted and he got away with as much as he could,鈥� declared Los Angeles superior court judge Michael Pastor.