Wrong again on TB
Robert Daniels, a US citizen kept in solitary confinement in Arizona for almost a year after being diagnosed with extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB, turns out to have the less serious multi-drug-resistant (MDR) form. The finding overturns a diagnosis by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also misdiagnosed Andrew Speaker as having XDR TB and banned him from flying home for treatment. He also had MDR TB.
Let鈥檚 call it Frank
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Images from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft have revealed that Saturn has yet another moon 鈥� its sixtieth. For the time being the 2-kilometre-wide chunk of rock and ice has been named Frank. An official name will be bestowed later by the International Astronomical Union.
More drinkers hospitalised
The number of people being kept in hospital overnight for alcohol-related problems has more than trebled since the UK relaxed its licensing laws, according to a study in the Emergency Medicine Journal (vol 24, p 532). It compared emergency visits to an inner-London hospital across two separate months before and after the law changed in November 2005, allowing alcohol to be sold round the clock.
El Ni帽o by numbers
Hurricanes and tornadoes are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, and now warm El Ni帽o and cool La Ni帽a events will be too. The warming of tropical Pacific waters will be rated from W1 to W5, while a cool episode will be rated from C1 to C5. The scale was created by the US government鈥檚 Climate Prediction Center in Maryland.
Chinese flood
While hundreds of thousands have been affected by floods in England, flooding has affected 100 million people in central China, with 500 dead. Levees broke as rain swelled the Huai river in Anhui province. The forecast is for more rain.