‘Designer babies’ to save siblings get UK go-ahead — ‘The production of babies genetically selected to save the lives of their seriously ill siblings is now permitted in the UK. The controversial procedure, which has led to claims of the creation of “designer babies”, is already legal in the US.’ New Scientist

Lifting the lid on jar problem: Dutch scientists have finally solved that age-old problem, by finding the optimal torque to apply to a jar lid to close it to the maximum tightness that everyone can open. New Scientist

Did Noah really need the ark? Doubts cast on 1997 findings of a cataclysmic Bosporus flood around 7000 BC that may have been the historical basis of the Deluge myth. Globe and Mail

Are men emotional mummies? Psychologists line up across a great divide over ‘normative male alexithymia’. APA Monitor

Brain links pain with pleasure. New research suggests that areas of the brain that react to pleasure also respond to pain. Surprising finding only to Western dichotomists. BBC

France debates right not to be born Christian Science Monitor

Underwater phonebooth??

The tailor who created the emperor’s new clothes: ‘Artists have been challenging what we perceive to be art for nearly a century, from Marcel Duchamp’s provocative placement of a signed urinal in an open-submission exhibition in 1917, to Yves Klein’s empty white gallery exhibited as The Void in 1958. Perhaps we should be grateful that in Creed’s Turner Prize artwork, the lights go on and off every five seconds – in 1966, Arte Povera artist Alighiero e Boetti unveiled his Yearly Lamp, which flickered into life on only one unspecified day per year.’ Charlotte Mullins, former editor of Art Review and anti-minimalist, on the Turner Prize. Independent UK

Mobiles meet primal urge to gossip: ‘A study into the evolution and effects of gossip found that it was an inherent need in order to maintain our social, psychological and physical well-being and that the mobile phone was the primary way of satisfying that need.’ Telegraph UK

When It Comes to Romance, Listen to Your Friends — ‘When it comes to predicting whether or not a heterosexual romantic relationship is going to last, the female partner’s friends seem to be particularly astute, according to new study findings.’ Reuters Health

September 11 research claims ‘evidence’ of global consciousness: “Researchers say computers set up to generate random numbers produced a mysterious pattern on September 11.

They say it may be evidence of a global consciousness which affected the world around us.” Ananova

Human Life Span Will Continue to Increase, Researchers Suggest

— ‘University of California, Davis researchers propose that, among humans and other social species, a long life span is a desirable trait that has developed through the evolutionary process. In fact, their model of longevity suggests that long life spans among social species offer benefits conducive to even longer life spans in successive generations. Extension of the life span is a “self-reinforcing” process, they propose.’

Anti-Taliban Commanders Issue a New Ultimatum. Lessee, the deadline’s Tuesday, no, the deadline’s Thursday, no, we’ll go on fighting them, no ultimatum… LA Times

New York Times editorial: The bin Laden Tapes: “Having discouraged American

television news organizations from

broadcasting videotapes made by

Osama bin Laden, the White House now

finds itself in the awkward position of weighing what to do with a new

recording that it obviously wants the world to see. It should make the tape

public, as it seems inclined to do. The White House never should have

gotten into the news management business in the first place…

When

information is not to the government’s liking, discouraging broadcast and

publication may seem enticing to officials. But the tables can quickly be

turned, as the White House is now learning. That’s just one of the reasons

why the initiative was misguided. There are other, more important reasons

as well, including an implicit lack of faith in the press freedoms that help

sustain American democracy. News organizations can make their own

judgments about the value of bin Laden tapes. The American people can

certainly handle whatever he has to say. “