An international team of scientists has come up with either a surprising or unsurprising finding about whether air pollution increases or decreases rainfall. Their conclusion: a rather frustrating both, depending on local environmental conditions.

In an era of climate change, understanding how rain is impacted by pollution has significant consequences and in an article appearing in Science, the scientific team has published the results of its research untangling the contradictions surrounding the conundrum. They do this by following the energy flow through the atmosphere and the ways it is influenced by aerosol (airborne) particles. This allows the development of more exact predictions of how air pollution affects weather, water resources and future climates.

Even closely related plants produce their own natural chemical cocktails, each set uniquely adapted to the individual plant's specific habitat. Comparing anti-fungals produced by tobacco and henbane, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discovered that only a few mutations in a key enzyme are enough to shift the whole output to an entirely new product mixture. Making fewer changes led to a mixture of henbane and tobacco-specific molecules and even so-called "chemical hybrids," explaining how plants can tinker with their natural chemical factories and adjust their product line to a changing environment without shutting down intracellular chemical factories completely.

The findings not only gave the Salk scientists a glimpse of the plants' evolutionary past, but may help them fine-tune the production of natural and environmentally friendly fungicides and pesticides as well as new flavors and fragrances by turning "enzymatic knobs" in the right direction.

People are more frugal when paying cash than using credit cards or gift certificates. They also spend less when they have to estimate expenses.

The conclusion that cash discourages spending while credit and gift cards encourage it arises from four studies that examined two factors in purchasing behavior: when consumers part with their money (cash versus credit) and the form of payment (cash, cash-like scrip, gift certificate or credit card). The results, wrote the authors: "The more transparent the payment outflow, the greater the aversion to spending, or higher the 'pain of paying.'"

Cash is viewed as the most transparent form of payment.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (The IPCC and Al Gore were joint winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize) is calling on individuals to cut their carbon footprints by transforming their diets at a lecture hosted by Compassion in World Farming lecture in London tomorrow (Monday 8 September 2008).

Current global animal production is responsible for 18 per cent of all human-induced Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, he says, with more than 60 billion farm animals reared each year. Th IPCC projects that figure will double by 2050.

An average household would reduce the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions by more if they halved their meat consumption than if they halved their car usage, he says.

A third of patients have unnecessary tubes (cannulae) inserted when they are in hospital, needlessly exposing them to serious complications such as infection and blood clots, research launched at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester has shown.

Pharmacy researchers from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen also showed that in 71% of patient records there was no documentation of cannula insertion and in 57%, no documentation of cannula removal.

Complications associated with intravenous (IV) cannula use include problems with veins (phlebitis), leakage of drugs into tissues around the site of the tube (extravasations), serious infection and blood clots.

The fight against fake medicines could soon be aided by a small, portable device that quickly measures the hardness of a tablet, revealing whether it is counterfeit, according to research presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester.

The study tested a series of dummy paracetamol tablets made with varying degrees of real medicine, versus lactose (an ingredient used by counterfeiters to replace the active drug). Tests showed that the fake tablets were harder than the tablet with the correct amount of paracetamol, and were more difficult to crush.