SCIENCE BOND

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The total amount of groundwater on the planet is estimated to be 23 million cubic km

If this volume is hard to visualise, imagine the Earth's entire land surface covered in a layer some 180m deep. The new calculation comes from a Canadian-led team and is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Significantly, little of this water - just 6% - is the kind of bankable resource that is most useful to people. That small fraction is referred to as "modern" groundwater: it is extractable because it is near the surface, and can be used to supplement above-ground resources in rivers and lakes. It's the groundwater that is the most quickly renewed - on the scale of human lifetimes," explained study leader Tom Gleeson from the University of Victoria. And yet this modern groundwater is also the most sensitive to climate change and to human contamination. So, it's a vital resource that we need to manage better."To quantify just how much water is stored in the top 2km of the Earth's surface, Dr Gleeson's team had to combine larg...

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...

Scientists unravelled a child who was sacrificed in a ritual ceremony by the Inca civilisation 500 years ago

The boy's mummified remains were discovered on an Argentinean mountain. Analysis of his mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child, showed that the boy's closest living relatives are in Peru and Bolivia. He belonged to a population of native South Americans that almost disappeared after the Spanish conquest. Researchers in Spain were given permission to extract mitochondrial DNA from the seven-year-old boy to study part of his genome. By comparing his genetic code with hundreds of thousands of samples held in genetic databases, they found his genetic profile was very rare. One match was to DNA from an individual belonging to the ancient Wari Empire, which ruled the Andes long before the Incas. And three were to modern-day people living in Peru and Bolivia. Lead researcher Antonio Salas, a geneticist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said the data suggested that the boy's genetic line is nearly extinct in modern-day peopl...

Pregnancy related deaths fallen by almost half in the past 25 years

Around 303,000 women died of complications during pregnancy or up to six weeks after giving birth in 2015 - down from 532,000 in 1990. Officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the results showed "huge progress". However, only nine countries hit targets set by the UN. This report will show that by the end of 2015 maternal mortality will have dropped by 44% from its levels from 1990," said Dr Lale Say, coordinator for reproductive health and research at the WHO. But she warned that the progress was "uneven" - with 99% of deaths happening in developing countries. While 39 countries reported "significant progress" in reducing pregnancy-related deaths, only nine countries achieved their targets. Many countries with high maternal death rates will make little progress, or will fall behind, over the next 15 years if we don't improve the current number of available midwives and other health workers with midwifery skills," ...

Ebola affected nurse Pauline Cafferkey full recovery

Pauline Cafferkey initially contracted Ebola while working at a treatment centre in Sierra Leone last year. She was successfully treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London, but was taken there again in October after the virus caused her to develop meningitis. The hospital said Ms Cafferkey had now been discharged. In a statement, it said that the 39-year-old nurse was no longer infectious, was well enough to return to Scotland, and had been transferred to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. A statement from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde added: "We can confirm that Pauline Cafferkey was transferred back to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to complete her hospital treatment. Her condition is stable. "All the appropriate arrangements for Pauline's admission to the hospital and continued treatment have been followed. "Ms Cafferkey said she was "forever thankful for the amazing care" she had received at the Royal Free,...

A Google self-drive car pulled over by police in Mountain View, for driving too slowly

No action was taken but it does raise questions about whether the cars, in their current form, are too cautious. In a post on Google+, the net giant joked: "Bet humans don't get pulled over for that too often." An accident report recently filed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles described a Google automated car as "over-cautious". In a blogpost about this week's incident, the Mountain View police department said an officer "noticed traffic backing up behind a slow-moving car in the eastbound lane". "The officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how it was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic," it added. The car was travelling at 24mph in a 35mph zone. In its own post about the incident, Google said: "We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons. We want them to feel friendly an...

The world's biggest crystal structure model - a 3D chemical illustration made from little balls and sticks

It replicates the repeating lattice of sodium and chloride ions found in a crystal of salt (NaCl). Standing more than 3m tall, the model was built by Dr Robert Krickl from nearly 40,000 balls and 10km of sticks. The world record attempt will be adjudicated by the Guinness Book of Records on 23 November. It will be on public display until 30 November, and has already been commemorated on an Austrian postage stamp.Because of the regular pattern it is built up from, which causes hundreds of the "ions" to form precise lines from multiple angles, the huge model has a rather dazzling appearance. It also has particular significance this week, Dr Krickl said. "This week it's the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize for discovering what I show with this model: the arrangement of atoms in crystals." The British father-and-son team of William and Lawrence Bragg won the physics Nobel in 1915 for originating the technique that is now known as X-ray crystallog...