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The Ebola virus is leaving an indelible mark on survivors. Emerging findings, amassed by tracking unprecedented numbers of people who recovered from the disease in west Africa, suggest it causes joint pain in about half of Ebola survivors and often leads to vision problems. Meanwhile other research indicates that survivors who were pregnant when they were infected can pass the virus to the fetus. The virus has also been detected in the placenta....

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a chicken that has been genetically engineered to produce a drug in its eggs. The drug, Kanuma (sebelipase alfa), is a recombinant human enzyme marketed by Alexion Pharmaceuticals. It replaces a faulty enzyme in people with a rare, inherited condition that prevents the body from breaking down fatty molecules in cells. Following its approval by the FDA on 8 December, Kanuma joins a small group of ‘farmaceuticals’ on the US market....

Henderson Island, a tiny, unpopulated coral atoll in the South Pacific, could scarcely be more remote. The nearest city of any size lies some 5,000 kilometers away. Yet when Jennifer Lavers, a marine biologist at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Tasmania, ventured there two years ago to study invasive rodent-eradication efforts, she found the once pristine UNESCO World Heritage Site inundated with trash—17.6 metric tons of it, she conservatively estimates—pretty much all of it plastic....

LONDON (Reuters) - This winter has already been the wettest for almost 250 years in England and Wales, Britain’s national weather service the Met Office said on Thursday. Around 435 millimeters (17 inches) of rain was recorded up to February 24 in England and Wales, making it their wettest winter since 1766. “New records have been set for many parts of the UK, with southeast and central southern England having seen well over double the rainfall expected in a normal winter,” the Met Office said in a statement....

After a six-year effort, biologists say they have for the first time managed to rid a wild toad species of a lethal fungal disease that threatens amphibians around the world. Midwife toads on the Spanish island of Mallorca are now free of the chytrid fungusBatrachochytrium dendrobatidis, says Jaime Bosch, an evolutionary biologist at Spain’s National Museum of Natural History in Madrid. His team reported their success in the journal Biology Letters on November 18....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Regarded by the Romans as “fatale monstrum”- a fatal omen, Cleopatra is one of the ancient world’s most popular, though elusive figures. The Egyptian Queen has been immortalized by numerous writers and film-makers, most popularly by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra, and by Hollywood in Cleopatra (1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia were understood as a reality of life just as they were in other civilizations of antiquity. Although the cultures of the various Mesopotamian civilizations differed between c. 5000 BCE-651 CE, the belief in ghosts, and responses to supernatural visitations, remained remarkably similar even when funerary rites or visions of the afterlife changed....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life. Even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks and trees possessed a numen, a belief which no doubt grew out of the early religious practice of animism. There were spirits of a place, of rivers and springs, hills and valleys, the home - and even aspects of the home – as well as those who guarded, or could threaten, the people who lived there....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The 8th November is celebrated as Archangels Day in Greece, but on that November day in 1977 CE something remarkable happened: an excavation team led by Professor Manolis Andronikos were roped down into the eerie gloom of an unlooted Macedonian-styled tomb at Vergina in northern Greece. Dignitaries, police, priests, and swelling ranks of archaeologists watched on in anticipation as the first shafts of light in 2,300 years penetrated its interior....

Meteorites rich in carbon and water fall to Earth once or twice every few decades. But when a truck-size meteorite crashed on frozen Tagish Lake in western Canada in 2000, researchers received a specimen speckled with stardust that promised to offer clues about the chemistry of our early solar system. Now NASA space scientists have isolated organic matter from the Tagish Lake meteorite that is at least as old as the solar system....

In addition to electing Barack Obama president and carrying a wave of Dems to victory in Congress, voters in several states approved ballot initiatives decriminalizing marijuana, lifting limits on embryonic stem cell research, allowing doctor-assisted suicide—and nixed others that would have restricted abortions and provided rebates for fuel-efficient vehicles In Massachusetts voters okayed a measure to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. The new law, set to take effect in 30 days, requires anyone caught with that amount of weed to pay a $100 civil fine....

High-tech battery manufacturer A123 Systems Inc. will go to auction tomorrow as part of bankruptcy proceedings, almost one week after Energy Secretary Steven Chu unveiled an initiative to develop high-performance energy storage to enhance U.S. cars and utilities. A123, which produced lithium iron phosphate batteries and initially received $249 million from the Department of Energy, filed for bankruptcy in October. Speaking last week at a news conference announcing the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), Chu reiterated his contention that faltering startups are typical in an emerging industry and that new research will cement America’s role in the global energy sector....

Valentine’s Day is upon us again and everyone is scrambling to be original. Chocolates and roses are cliché—try stomping your turquoise feet or waving your wings around in a solo dance. The animal kingdom is filled with bizarre courting and mating rituals. Some creatures take a romantic swim together. Others fling “love darts” into a partner to improve their chances of fathering children. Some remain faithful to one partner their entire lives whereas others are more promiscuous....

A new study of chimpanzee populations has shown for the first time that humans’ closest relatives teach new customs to fellow chimps in their own as well as neighboring communities. “Until now, there was no evidence that [nonhuman] primates could spread learned behavior from one group to another,” says Antoine Spiteri, a doctoral candidate at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Spiteri, who works in the lab of Andrew Whiten, a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology, is lead author of the study published in Current Biology....

In her 2006 book Mindset, psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University identified the power of beliefs. “They strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it,” she wrote. “Changing people’s beliefs—even the simplest beliefs—can have profound effects.” She then argued that people who possess “fixed mindsets” believe their intelligence or personality cannot change. They are more likely to focus on performing well on familiar tasks, to shy away from challenge and to be less resilient in the face of failure....

EARLIER THIS YEAR a 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, shot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords through the head near a Tucson supermarket, causing significant damage to Giffords’s brain. In the same shooting spree, Loughner killed or wounded 18 others, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. Information from Loughner’s postings on YouTube and elsewhere online suggests that he is severely mentally ill. Individuals with serious mental illnesses have perpetrated other recent shoot-ings, including the massacre in 2007 at Virginia Tech in which a college senior, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded 17....

By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida’s ban on importing invasive lionfish, the first of its kind in the nation, goes into effect on Friday as wildlife managers look for a way to control the spread of the barbed, red-and-white striped fish. Bringing the fish into the state is now punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and a year in prison. Lionfish, native to the waters off Southeast Asia, are believed to have arrived in the region as pets for aquariums....

The first snapshot of health complications facing Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone presents a dismal picture of their road to recovery. A new study has found that up to four months after blood tests indicated that they were Ebola-free, more than half of survivors continue to suffer from joint pain, headaches or muscle pain. And more than 40 percent of survivors complain of sleeplessness and visual problems. Perhaps most worryingly, almost all the survivors—96 percent—reported being rejected by their communities after they were released from the hospital....

Legislators in Hawaii are trying to ban the sale of sunscreens that contain two UV-filtering chemicals, after studies suggested that they harm coral reefs. On 20 January, Hawaii state senator Will Espero introduced a bill which would ban sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate in Hawaii (except under medical prescription) to the state Congress. Espero argues that a ban is important to preserve the state’s tourism industry, because Hawaii relies heavily on tourists attracted by its coral reefs....

On his farm in Iowa, Matt Peters worked from dawn to dusk planting his 1,500 acres of fields with pesticide-treated seeds. “Every spring I worried about him,” said his wife, Ginnie. “Every spring I was glad when we were done.” In the spring of 2011, Ginnie Peters’ “calm, rational, loving” husband suddenly became depressed and agitated. “He told me ‘I feel paralyzed’,” she said. “He couldn’t sleep or think. Out of nowhere he was depressed....