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The global trade in bees is driving a pandemic that threatens hives and wild bees, UK scientists say

A deadly bee disease has spread worldwide through imports of infected honeybees, according to genetic evidence. Stricter controls are needed to protect bees from other emerging diseases, researchers report in Science journal. The virus together with the Varroa mite can kill-off whole hives, putting bee populations at risk. Lead researcher Dr Lena Bayer-Wilfert of the University of Exeter said European bees are at the heart of the global spread of what she calls a "double blow" for colonies. "This is clearly linked to the human movement of honeybee colonies around the globe," she told. "It shows a piece of evidence we can't argue with." The pattern of the spread shows the movement of the virus around the world is manmade rather than natural, say scientists. Co-researcher Prof Roger Butlin of the University of Sheffield said Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) was a major threat to honeybee populations across the world with the epidemic "drive...

UK-based artificial intelligence firm SwiftKey has been acquired by Microsoft, the company has confirmed

The Financial Times reports the deal is worth $250m (£174m). SwiftKey is known for its predictive keyboard, which can be found installed on millions of smartphone devices. The company said it was a "milestone" in its history. "Our mission is to enhance interaction between people and technology. We think these are a perfect match, and we believe joining Microsoft is the right next stage in our journey," said SwiftKey's founders Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock in a blog post. The company, started by the Cambridge University graduates in 2008, is the latest UK artificial intelligence (AI) firm to be bought up by a US tech giant. DeepMind - which began within the University of Oxford - was bought by Google in 2014, for £400m. Another firm, VocalIQ, was bought recently by Apple. As well as the popular smartphone app, SwiftKey is known for being behind the computer software on Prof Stephen Hawking's wheelchair. The deal furthers Microsoft's ne...

Half a million people are expected to take part in an annual UK bird watch this weekend

The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch tracks species such as starlings and song thrushes, which have declined by 80% and 70% since the survey began in 1979. The unusual weather this winter could affect which birds are seen in gardens. The RSPB said it was likely there would be fewer birds because they have been less reliant on garden feeders. December was the warmest and wettest month in the UK in more than a century, before a cold snap was followed by unseasonable warmth in January. The RSPB said it would be interesting to see how this had affected the long tailed tit, which suffers in harsh winters, and if there were lower numbers of species from the continent, including finches and blackbirds. RSPB wildlife adviser Ben Andrew said: "If the UK experiences a continuation of these milder temperatures, those taking part in Big Garden Birdwatch may notice their gardens quieter than in other years. "The milder weather means there is more food available i...

A private UK fertility clinic offering couples a new form of IVF treatment that lets conception occur in the womb rather than in the lab

Doctors hope that making fertilisation more natural will mean healthier pregnancies. The Complete Fertility clinic in Southampton is first in the UK to use the AneVivo device method. It is a tiny tubular capsule that is loaded with the sperm and egg before being placed into the uterus. Prof Nick Macklon, head of the clinic, insisted it was not a gimmick.He told "At this stage we are just offering it to private patients. If the NHS want to use it then they would need to know that it is cost effective. We do not know that yet. "But that doesn't mean new technology like this can't be introduced in a cautious manner. I'm very keen that we study new innovation in IVF."The technique, which costs around £700 per go, has been approved by the UK's fertility watchdog, the HFEA. International trials in around 250 women suggest that it achieves a similar pregnancy rate to conventional IVF, says Prof Macklon. But it reduces how long the growing embryo...

The government creating a marine reserve almost as big as the UK in the Atlantic waters of Ascension Island

Just over half of the protected area will be closed to fishing. The fishery in the other half will be policed under a grant of £300,000 from the Louis Bacon Foundation, a charitable body. It is the latest marine reserve to be declared around remote islands, which will increase marine conservation zones to about 2% of the ocean. That remains a far cry from the 30% recommended by scientists to preserve species and expand fish stocks, but is much more than just a few years ago. Governments have designated marine parks at Palau in the North Pacific, Easter Island and Pitcairn in the South Pacific, and New Zealand's Kermadec islands, in what has become a landmark year for ocean conservation. The latest reserve at Ascension Island is said to hold some of the largest marlin in the world, one of the largest populations of green turtles, big colonies of tropical seabirds and the island's own unique frigate bird.Dr Judith Brown, director of fisheries and marine ...

New advice on limit their drinking issued following the first review of official alcohol guidance in 20 years

Reports suggest the UK's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, will recommend abstaining from alcohol for at least two days a week. The daily maximum intake for men could also be cut to the same as for women. Currently, women are advised to drink no more than 2-3 units a day and men no more than 3-4. According to newspaper reports, the review will stress there is no "safe" alcohol intake and even drinking small amounts could cause diseases such as cancer. Scottish guidelines already advise people to abstain for at least two days a week. 'Low risk' Dame Sally's review was launched in 2013 after the Department of Health said it had heard "sufficient concerns" from experts to suggest a thorough examination of the evidence on alcohol and health risks was needed. Updated guidelines on drinking in pregnancy and for young people were published in 2007 and 2009 respectively, but the last review of the advice as a whole was done in 1995....

Astronaut Tim Peake's concern for UK floods

The former Army pilot took a picture of the UK as he passed overhead, posting it on his Twitter account. Mr Peake also told US radio stations in a link-up that his present on Christmas Day was a small pack of Scottish fudge. In addition, he received some notes and photos from family and friends, the astronaut said. Mr Peake arrived at the space station on 15 December. He is due to spend six months on the orbiting platform, conducting science experiments and pursuing outreach projects with students back on Earth. In the teleconference with American media, the European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut was joined by colleagues Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra. They all spoke about life aboard the station, and were predictably questioned about how they spent Christmas Day and whether they had any plans to celebrate New Year. The trio said that it was Mr Peake who had the most interesting food to share among the crew for their Christmas meal. Mr Kopra revealed: "T...

Three-quarters of the UK's butterflies have declined in the past 40 years, according to a report by the charity Butterfly Conservation

The study, State of the UK's Butterflies 2015, suggests 76% of resident and regular migrant butterflies have declined. Some common species have suffered what the charity calls "major slumps". Thousands of data-gathering volunteers enabled scientists to build up this long-term national picture. And Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), which helped produce this report, encouraged the public to take part in surveys to help monitor trends in UK biodiversity.While the main conclusions suggest a bleak outlook for the insects, the research did reveal some rare species were benefiting from targeted conservation. According to Richard Fox, of Butterfly Conservation, one of the lead researchers, this was thanks to landscape-scale projects - protecting and restoring threatened habitats, such as managed wildflower-rich grasslands and heath-lands. The threatened Duke of Burgundy butterfly, for example, has seen a recent increase i...

UK astronaut Tim Peake is in orbit around the Earth, heading for the International Space Station

Tim Peake Major Tim and fellow crew members Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Tim Kopra, are due to dock with the ISS at 17:24 GMT (23:24 Kazakh time). The former Army pilot is making history as the first official UK astronaut. He was waved off by his wife and two sons at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier on Tuesday. The launch was from the same place where Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961.At blast-off, the rocket generated 422.5 tonnes of thrust - equivalent to 26 million horse power. The launch went with no reported problems and after one minute, the rocket was soaring upwards at 1,000mph (1,600km/h). After two minutes, the four boosters strapped around the rocket were jettisoned. Zero gravity was reached by the Soyuz spacecraft after nine minutes of travel.Working with mission controllers on Earth, the crew will now be nudging the space capsule towards its rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS...

The Russian Space Agency finished assembling the space vehicle

On Saturday, the Soyuz crew module was attached to its rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. We watched as the completed vehicle was loaded onto a flat-bed transporter, ready to be carried to the launch pad. Mr Peake and two other crew members will launch to the International Space Station on Tuesday 15 December. During his seven-month stay on the orbiting outpost, the former Army helicopter pilot will carry out a programme of experiments and educational activities. He will be accompanied on the flight by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Timothy Kopra.The Soyuz spacecraft - which carries the crew to the ISS - and its rocket are assembled at adjacent facilities at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On Friday, the crew module was transported by train from its assembly site - known as Building 254 - to the huge hangar-like facility designated Building 112. More than 40 years ago, Building 112 housed a giant (105m-high) rock...

UK's dung beetle species face extinction, according to scientists

The Dung Beetle UK Mapping Project (Dump) is still in the early stages of its research work, which has included examining beetle sites in Scotland. However, the team said it had already noted an "alarming trend" of decline of some species. Dung beetles play key roles in improving soils and controlling pests. Reasons for the decline in some beetle species include coming into contact with anthelmintics, a type of drug given to livestock to control intestinal worms that prevent the farm animals from thriving.Dump involves Darren Mann, who is head of life collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Steve Lane, Ceri Watkins and Sally-Ann Spence. The project is not funded and the team members have been doing their research in their spare time, while on family holidays and fitting it around their other work. The scientists have been examining well-documented dung beetle sites, including locations in the Cairngorms, and have also been looki...

An atomic-scale fingerprint could boost the security, according to British scientists

The tiny identity tags are essentially tiny imperfections in the building blocks of matter, making them virtually impossible to clone. They could be used as the basis of a robust system for authenticating hardware and software. Details of the work are published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers from the UK universities of Lancaster and Manchester built tiny, layered metallic structures in the lab and incorporated "design flaws" that were unique to the item. "And the interesting thing is that you can't clone them. To clone them, you'd effectively have to measure atom-by-atom. You just can't do it." The fingerprint structures were demonstrated at the nano-scale where the laws of quantum mechanics take over from the ones that predominate at larger scales. But the researchers say it is a proof of principle which could be integrated into existing chip manufacturing processes. "These could be used to authenticate any el...

Puffins are among four UK bird species at risk of extinction, global conservation database

Puffins Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds. This means the number of UK species on the critical list has doubled to eight. Puffins are vulnerable to pollution and declining food sources, ecologists say. Another 14 UK species are considered to be "near threatened". Martin Harper, conservation director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said the "global wave of extinction is now lapping at our shores". "The erosion of the UK's wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale," he said.Although the Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, fewer young birds are surviving to breed. Turtle dove Reasons...

A new plant launched in the UK, could provide farmers with a reliable and profitable crop

Ahi Flower has been bred from a weed, commonly known as gromwell or wheat thief. It's a member of the borage family and has high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. While omega-3 fatty acids play vital roles in the body, the benefits of taking supplements remain unproven in the peer-reviewed literature. Greg Cumberford, vice president at Natures Crops International, which has spent 12 years developing the plant and re-branding it as the trademarked Ahi Flower, says it is an alternative to fish as a source of omega-3s. "Our bodies actually convert (it) to EPA, which is one of the two main omega 3's found in fish oil," he explained. The Ahi Flower has been approved in the US and the EU as a novel food, and its developers are targeting the multi-billion pound global market in dietary supplements. With concerns about the long term sustainability of relying on fish as a source of omega-3s, other sources are being investigated and developed. Phi...

Lindahl, Modrich and Sancar win Chemistry Nobel for DNA repair

Chemisty Nobel prize winner of 2015 Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar were named as the winners on Wednesday morning at a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Their work uncovered the mechanisms used by cells to repair damaged DNA - a fundamental process in living cells and important in cancer. Prof Lindahl is Swedish, but has worked in the UK for more than three decades. The prize money of eight million Swedish kronor (£634,000; $970,000) will be shared among the winners. "It was a surprise. I know that over the years I've occasionally been considered for a prize, but so have hundreds of other people. I feel lucky and proud to be selected today," Tomas Lindahl, from the UK's Francis Crick Institute, told journalists. Claes Gustafsson, from the Nobel Committee, said the recipients had "explained the processes at the molecular level that guard the integrity of our genomes". DNA is open to an onslaught of different phenomen...

UK end-of-life care 'best in world'

End-of-life care in the UK has been ranked as the best in the world with a study praising the quality and availability of services. The study of 80 countries said thanks to the NHS and hospice movement the care provided was "second to none". Rich nations tended to perform the best - with Australia and New Zealand ranked second and third respectively. But the report by the Economist Intelligence Unit praised progress made in some of the poorest countries. For example Mongolia - ranked 28th - has invested in hospice facilities, while Uganda - 35th - has managed to improve access to pain control through a public-private partnership.The rankings were worked out following assessments for the quality of the hospitals and hospice environments, staffing numbers and skills, affordability of care and quality of care. Just 34 out of 80 countries provided what could be classed as good end-of-life care - and these accounted for just 15% of the adult population. ...

UK scientists successfully germinated seeds of endangered Japanese Birch

UK scientists have successfully germinated seeds from the critically endangered Japanese Birch, a species that has just 21 known trees remaining. The seeds were collected last year during an expedition to a remote location in mountains near Tokyo. Experts suggest that the remaining wild population of Betula chichibuensis is too small to sustain itself unaided.The young trees will be shared with other arboretums in an effort to help conserve the threatened species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) forecasts a bleak outlook for the tree species in the wild. In its Red List of Threatened Species, it observes: "The small population and restricted distribution... make it susceptible to natural disaster or disease. The species is also self-incompatible, requiring two individuals to be close enough to cross-pollinate one another, making seed production uncertain in small subpopulations." It adds that there was also evidence of deforestati...

The mystery of people appear to have healthy lungs despite a lifetime of smoking, explained by UK scientists

The examination of more than 50,000 individuals indicated ideal transformations in individuals' DNA-upgraded lung work and conceal the savage effect of smoking. The Medical Research Council researchers say the discoveries could prompt new medications to enhance lung capacity. In any case, not smoking will dependably be the best choice, they say. Numerous, yet not all, smokers will create lung sickness. In any case so too will some who have never touched a cigarette in their lives. The analysts broke down the tremendous sum measure of wellbeing and hereditary information from volunteers to the UK's Biobank project.They took a gander at Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which prompts shortness of breath, hacking and rehash mid-section contaminations. The condition is thought to influence three million individuals in the UK and incorporates illnesses, for example, bronchitis and emphysema. By contrasting smokers and non-smokers and those ...

The UK's premier prize for science books has been won by Gaia Vince

Adventures in the Anthropocene is her record of the people and places she encountered on a huge global tour. The book details how humans are altering the planet, but it also tells the stories of how we are learning to limit and cope with that change. The Royal Society Winton Prize is worth £25,000 to the winner. "Anthropocene" is the word used by many scientists to describe the epoch of humanity's profound influence on the Earth. There are arguments over when our activities started to distort natural processes, but there is no doubting the effects today. Pollution, species loss, over-exploitation of water and mineral resources, and of course climate change. The list goes on. This is "the age we made".Gaia knew all the data from her job as a science reporter, but she wanted to see the impacts first-hand. So, she put on hold the nine-to-five existence and bought a one-way ticket to Kathmandu, to start a personal odyssey and directly sample some of the...