Fresh angle on the sun
The first 3D images of the sun were released by NASA on Monday. They were created using pictures taken simultaneously by the satellite duo called Stereo, launched in October 2006. Stereo captured holes in the sun鈥檚 corona and magnetic loops rising from particularly turbulent parts.
Gorillas on the up
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The number of mountain gorillas living in Uganda鈥檚 Bwindi Impenetrable Forest has increased by 6 per cent since 2002. For the first time, the survey by conservation agencies used genetic sampling to avoid counting the same individual twice. Bwindi鈥檚 gorillas now number 340, up from 320 in 2002, and 300 in 1997.
The billionth seed
The UK鈥檚 Millennium Seed Bank, part of the Royal Botanic Gardens and home to the world鈥檚 largest collection of wild seeds, has banked its billionth seed. It is from an African bamboo, Oxytenanthera abyssinica, collected in Mali, and will be banked in a ceremony next month.
Evolving for climate change
A study of mosquito chromosomes, to be published in Genetics, has highlighted regions that are apparently evolving in response to climate change. University of Oregon biologists identified areas on three chromosomes that respond to day length. Other researchers are looking at the same regions in other organisms to better understand the genetic response to rapid climate change.
To her daughter, a sister
A Canadian woman is freezing her eggs for possible future use by her 7-year-old daughter. The procedure could make it possible for the daughter, who has Turner鈥檚 syndrome, to give birth to her own half-sister. While there have been several cases of daughters donating fresh eggs to their ageing mothers, this is the first in which a mother has offered to bank eggs for her daughter.