鈥淭he bureaucratic equivalent of saying that the dog ate your homework.鈥�
Edward Markey of the US House Select Committee on Global Warming criticises the Bush administration for rejecting a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to limit CO2 emissions. To make matters worse, the next day the EPA backtracked, saying the law was 鈥渋ll-suited鈥� to regulate climate change (CNN, 12 July)
鈥淲hen I was growing up, they would ask things like: how do you fit in a test tube?鈥�
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The world鈥檚 first 鈥渢est-tube baby鈥�, Louise Brown, celebrated her 30th birthday last week (BBC News, 14 July)
鈥淵ou might as well be tagging a unicorn for the amount of information we know about these fellas.鈥�
Jon Houghton from Queen鈥檚 University in Belfast discusses plans to tag jellyfish off the Welsh and Irish coasts to study their mysterious lives (BBC News, 11 July)
鈥淭hey are not good at diagnosis and they operate on things they don鈥檛 understand.鈥�
British GPs are no experts at treating patients with skin cancer, according to David Shuttleworth of the British Association of Dermatologists. He says GPs are being discouraged from referring patients to specialists to save money (The Times, London, 14 July)
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just the crazy cat lady. Marketers and all of this consumer advertising have made it okay to spend tons of money on your pet.鈥�
David Lummis, who analyses the pet industry for market research firm Packaged Facts, on a trend for owners to give their pets 鈥渓ifestyle鈥� drugs, to help them deal with separation anxiety, say (The New York Times Magazine, 13 July)