Death-defying drug
Around 100,000 lives could be saved each year if heavily bleeding trauma patients were given infusions of a cheap clotting agent called tranexamic acid (TXA). In a trial involving 20,000 patients in 40 countries, TXA reduced the risk of bleeding to death by about a sixth (The Lancet, . No harmful side effects were reported.
Sail away
Advertisement
Japan鈥檚 IKAROS solar sail has successfully unfurled in space, and its solar cells are generating power. In the next few weeks, it will start to move using the momentum of photons, becoming the first spacecraft fully propelled by sunlight.
Creationism in Russia
A senior cleric in the Russian Orthodox church last week called for creationism to be taught alongside evolution, echoing repeated calls from creationists in the US. Reuters reports Hilarion Alfeyev saying during a lecture in Moscow on 9 June that he wants to end 鈥渢he monopoly of Darwinism鈥� in schools.
Biodiversity monitor
Eat your heart out, IPCC. Governments have given a green light to the creation of a body that will do for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate 鈥� and it鈥檚 got an even longer name: the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES for short.
Genome of darkness
First Craig Venter and James Watson鈥� now Ozzy Osbourne. The 鈥淧rince of Darkness鈥� is to have his genome mapped, apparently to figure out how he has survived years of drug and alcohol abuse. , the Massachusetts-based genomics company behind the stunt, claims it will help reveal why some people can tolerate substance abuse more readily than others.