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Martian twin study

NASA’s Martian rover Spirit left its operators puzzled after rebooting its computer twice last week. One explanation could be a bug in on-board software that was upgraded last month to add new capabilities for the mission. However, its twin Mars rover, Opportunity, received the same upgrade and has shown no problems so far.

One-child aftermath

The effect of China’s one-child policy on gender ratios is becoming clear. In 2005 there were 32 million more males aged under 20 than females (BMJ, ). The gap was widest in the 1-4 age group, where there were 124 boys for every 100 girls. Gender-specific abortions are blamed for the skewed ratio.

Autistic and skilful

Savant-like skills such as perfect pitch or the ability to multiply high numbers together may be more common among people with autism than thought. Almost one-third have skills that stand out compared with both their other abilities and those of the general population (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, ).

Future’s orang-utans

There are more orang-utans in the wild than conservationists dared to hope. Researchers found 219 nests in the Indonesian rainforest. The discovery could add 5 per cent to estimates of the global population.

Reason to bee cheerful

All it took was some antibiotics. Two honeybee colonies were successfully treated after it was determined that the parasite Nosema ceranae was responsible for their collapse (Environmental Microbiology Reports, vol 1, p 110). This is the first time N. ceranae has been found responsible for the collapse of a colony. Colonies in Europe and the US are suffering from numerous, mostly poorly understood, pathogens.