鈥淚t is dangerously close to intimidation.鈥�
Jeff Jentzen, president of the US National Association of Medical Examiners, comments on Taser International鈥檚 decision to sue medical examiners who it thinks have wrongly cited the use of Taser electroshock guns as a cause-of-death factor in their autopsy reports (The Arizona Republic, 2 May)
鈥淚f you can鈥檛 stop mining at the Grand Canyon, where can you stop it?鈥�
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Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group wants to block an expected 鈥渦ranium rush鈥� (Los Angeles Times, 4 May)
鈥淭he first reaction was 鈥� did someone poison the plants?鈥�
Hawaiian flower farmer Tony Bayaoa recalls one effect of the sulphur dioxide which has been wafting from Kilauea volcano in recent weeks, enveloping the region in a volcanic smog, or 鈥渧og鈥� (Associated Press, 5 May)
鈥淚t could be an emotional thing. It could be a physical thing. Or it could be a hormone or something else in the milk that鈥檚 absorbed by the baby.鈥�
Breastfed children score around 5 per cent higher in IQ tests in the early years of their lives, says Michael Kramer, who carried out a large study at McGill University in Montreal and the Montreal Children鈥檚 Hospital (Reuters, 5 May)
鈥淚f it鈥檚 so great to be smart, why have most animals remained dumb?鈥�
Tadeusz Kawecki, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, reckons that learning may have an evolutionary cost. In experiments on flies, he found that the insects that learned the fastest also died sooner than their more ignorant peers (The New York Times, 6 May)