Growing old may not be mandatory after all. Failing eyesight, loosened teeth and greying hair could be driven by regulatory genes that determine when it is time to shuffle off our mortal coil, rather than being indicators of the ravages of age.
American scientists have challenged the conventional view that ageing is caused by wear and tear – like rust on an old car. Instead, they suggest specific genetic instructions drive the process. If they are right, science might one day find ways of switching the signals off and halting or even reversing ageing.
read full story
Internet users could face an annual charge of up to £30 to download music, under plans to be unveiled today that aim to tackle illegal file-sharing.
Ministers are backing proposals that would enable millions of broadband users to pay an annual levy which would allow them to copy as much – previously illegal – music from the internet as they wanted. The money raised would be channelled back to the rights-holders, with artists responsible for the most popular songs receiving a bigger slice of the cash.
read full story
A hundred years after Alzheimer's disease was discovered, a cure for the degenerative condition that strips sufferers of their memory and personality remains a dream. The main advances have been in drugs to control symptoms such as agitation and restlessness. Restoring memory and cognitive ability has proved much harder.
read full story
On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.
'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.
read full story
Gordon Brown is to launch the biggest revolution in the way Britons drive since the development of the internal combustion engine. He will meet manufacturers this week to try to persuade them to mass-produce electric cars, and is considering a remarkable plan to sell the cars cheap, together with their fuel, that is modelled on mobile-phone contracts.
read full story
If you've spent the past few weeks desperately scouring holiday websites or Teletext for a cheap last-minute deal to somewhere sunny, look away now. A luxurious seven-star hotel yesterday unveiled the world's first US$1m (£500,000) holiday.
Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace Hotel is offering an eye-wateringly expensive seven-day break for two people in what is being billed as the "ultimate holiday experience".
read full story
What happens when myths turn out to be true? I'm talking about the "myth" of the German army's atrocities in little Belgium in 1914, the raped nuns and the babies spitted on Prussian bayonets. "Hun barbarism" was the powerful propaganda tool to send the British Tommies and the French poilus – literally, "the hairy ones" – off to the killing fields of the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele and Verdun. But now, thanks to the analytical, brilliant, horrifying work of Alan Kramer, a history professor at my own alma mater of Trinity College, Dublin, it all turns out to be – well, let's speak frankly – true.
read full story
Men and women show differences in behaviour because their brains are physically distinct organs, new research suggests. Male and female brains appear to be constructed from markedly different genetic blueprints.
The differences in the circuitry that wires them up and the chemicals that transmit messages inside them are so great as to point to the conclusion that there is not just one kind of human brain, but two, according to recent neurological studies.
read full story
It didn't matter what was wrong with me, be it a stomach upset or a rogue spot, the remedy prescribed by Senegalese friends was always the same. Baobab fruit – and lots of it.
Usually it was administered in the form of a Senegalese smoothie, the fruit pulp mixed with water to make what is known in the local Wolof language as bouye. The white drink delivered hints of velvety yoghurt with a flick of tart sherbet to the tongue. And it was not only mighty tasty, it left Western anti-diarrhoea fixes, such as Imodium, lagging and was soon an ever-present item in my fridge.
read full story
If you think that men can safely ignore their biological clock, think again. New research shows that men's fertility is just as susceptible to the effects of time as women's. The quality of sperm begins to deteriorate in the mid-thirties, according to a new French study. And by the time a man is 45, one in three pregnancies ends in miscarriage, regardless of the age of the mother.
The report has left experts arguing about how far modern lifestyles are to blame for failing sperm. And it's not just the ability to have children that may or may not be affected by environmental factors.
read full story
Foreign mercenaries have joined so-called "war veterans" and militiamen attacking opposition supporters in rural parts of Zimbabwe, human rights workers have confirmed.
Eyewitnesses say the men are more vicious than their Zimbabwean counterparts, with the marauding gangs attacking suspected members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), forcing them to renounce the party.
read full story
Unesco, the world cultural body, has threatened to humiliate France by placing the Lascaux caves – known as the "Sistine Chapel of prehistory" – on its list of endangered sites of universal importance.
The Unesco world heritage committee, meeting this week in Quebec, has given the French government six months to report on the success of its efforts to save the Lascaux cave paintings in Dordogne from an ugly, and potentially destructive, invasion of grey and black fungi.
read full story
A group of islands with the potential to develop into a tourist paradise has been named as the country least equipped to withstand the effects of climate change.
The Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, between Mozambique and Madagascar, are a small nation of sparkling blue lagoons and picture-postcard beaches. But the country is politically unstable and a report published today says it is the world's most vulnerable country to the future impacts of global warming such as increased storms, rising sea levels and agricultural failure.
read full story
Adopting elements of a Mediterranean-style diet, which is high in fruit and vegetables and low on red meat and dairy produce, can reduce the risk of cancer by almost a quarter, according to a major study of people's eating habits.
It has been thought for some time that making dietary changes such as eating more olive oil and less butter could lead to a significantly lower incidence of heart disease, and now comes detailed evidence of how it can dramatically cut the chances of all types of cancer developing.
read full story
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
read full story