Vaccine success
A vaccine against rotavirus, which kills 500,000 children each year, could halve the number of infections, trials in Africa and Asia have shown. In Asia, vaccine recipients halved their chances of infection compared with those given a placebo, while in Africa infections were reduced by more than a third (The Lancet, .
Flu pandemic is over
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The world is no longer experiencing a global influenza pandemic, says a World Health Organization committee, which assessed reports from several countries experiencing H1N1 flu. Although we are now entering a 鈥減ost-pandemic period鈥�, the H1N1 virus is expected to circulate for some years to come.
Space-fix failure
Astronauts on a space-walk outside the International Space Station on 7 August failed to fix a broken cooling pump when toxic ammonia started to leak from a hose connector. They are hoping to have solved the problem after another space-walk on 11 August.
Hunt the frog
It鈥檚 a treasure hunt like no other. Over the next few months, teams of researchers will scour 15 countries on four continents for 30 species of amphibians that have not been seen in more than a decade. Conservation International, which is running the search, is confident that at least one of the 30 will be rediscovered.
Arctic鈥檚 largest iceberg
A 260-square-kilometre chunk of ice has broken off the Petermann glacier in north-west Greenland. The iceberg is the largest seen in the Arctic since 1962. Climate change is thought to be behind the acceleration of Greenland鈥檚 glaciers towards the ocean, but it鈥檚 unclear whether it can be blamed for this latest event.