Permit to drill in Gulf
As oil prices rise in response to Middle East unrest, the oil company Noble Energy has been granted permission by the US Interior Department to resume drilling in 2000 metres of water off the coast of Louisiana. It鈥檚 the first new deep-water drilling permit for the Gulf of Mexico since the BP spill last year.
Under pressure
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Every can of sugary drink consumed in a day raises blood pressure fractionally, possibly by suppressing a chemical that relaxes the linings of blood vessels, a study of 2700 volunteers has found. High blood pressure is linked to heart attack and stroke (Hypertension, ).
Cut prostate errors
New urine test is less likely than existing blood tests to mistake prostate cancer for less threatening conditions, such as benign enlargement. The test looks for a protein called Engrailed-2, made only by prostate cancers (Clinical Cancer Research, in press)
Turing papers go public
Sixteen papers by code-breaker Alan Turing are among those that will go on public display, thanks to funds donated by Google, the UK鈥檚 National Heritage Memorial Fund, a private donor and the general public. The money allowed the Bletchley Park Trust to buy the documents. The collection includes 鈥淥n computable numbers鈥�, which introduces the concept of a Turing machine.
Endeavour will be next
NASA鈥檚 space shuttle Discovery lifted off for the last time on 24 February. Four days later Endeavour, the next of the shuttle fleet to be retired was hauled from its hangar ahead of its launch in April. Endeavour will carry the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle detector, to the International Space Station. The last shuttle to fly will be Atlantis.