Downer for dads
Fathers get baby blues too, and more often than you might think. Between 10 and 30 per cent of women get postpartum depression. Now a review of 43 studies carried out in 13 countries concludes that on average 10 per cent of fathers get the blues in the year after a child is born (JAMA, vol 303, p 1961).
Mexico spill inquiry
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The US government鈥檚 relationship with oil firms is under close scrutiny in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill. To investigate the causes, President Barack Obama is creating an independent commission, which will resemble those that looked into the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Challenger disaster.
Blooming desert
Turning a desert into arable land sounds impossible, but that鈥檚 what the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency is suggesting. A survey found areas with underground water sources that could be used to convert over 200,000 hectares of land to agriculture, Reuters reported.
Rising from the ashes?
Can the Phoenix Mars Lander live up to its name? NASA is due to try and contact the solar-powered lander, after losing touch in November 2008. It confirmed the presence of water ice near the planet鈥檚 poles but was not built for winter. Phoenix鈥檚 best chance of reviving is now, following the Martian summer solstice.
Shark cosmetics
It is now possible to work out if the oils used in cosmetics and vaccines come from endangered sharks, by measuring carbon isotope ratios. The European Union sets a limit on the number of deep-sea sharks that can be fished, but there was no way to tell if their oil was ending up in cosmetics (Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, ).