Save Our Libraries Day

Libraries are in one of their most perilous conditions for decades, with closures planned throughout the country and a cutting back of services. The Isle of White, for example, will be losing nine of its eleven public libraries.

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals have organised, for tomorrow, a Save Our Libraries Day, so that people who love books and love libraries can gather together in libraries and online to as they say "bring greater attention to the cuts and closures facing many public libraries".

Suggestions how you can become involved are at their website, from tweets to letters to borrowing something you're in the mood for. If you need more convincing, here's video of Lauren Laverne in polemical mood on last night's 10 O'Clock Show.

Solar-powered cardboard oven targets developing countries

The winner of a contest to find the world's greenest invention is a solar-powered oven made from cardboard. The Kyoto Box oven - which costs just £3.50 to make - can cook casseroles, boil water and bake bread and is the brainchild of Kenya-based entrepreneur Jon Bøhmer. The oven is targeted at the three billion people who use firewood to cook in developing countries. Mr Bøhmer says: "We're saving lives and saving trees." Read more...

Wherever you go, there you are

Google Street Maps has launched in the UK and now features much of Liverpool. So, here we are!


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Piggy-backing Vaccine

The Medical Research Council have discovered a new way of providing a malaria vaccine which utilises cold and pox viruses. As the report explains:

"The new method has proved completely protective in mice and has been shown to reduce the growth of human malaria in laboratory tests by between 70 and 85 percent, depending on the strain. It involves using two viruses, an optimised adenovirus (the common cold) and 8 weeks later the pox virus (used to eradicate smallpox and in many vaccines since), both of which are genetically engineered to express a malaria protein."

The original research paper: Effective induction of high-titer antibodies by viral vector vaccines by SJ Draper et al is published in the journal Nature Medicine, and can be read online here.