Life in the Lake (Discovery Magazine)
A team of explorers recently got samples of water and sediment from Lake Whillans, in Antarctica, which has been under a sheet of ice for millions of years. Could anything be living in there? Maybe. They haven't spotted microbes or anything directly, so far, but they've found traces of DNA in the water.
Crimes against learning (New Scientist)
The Islamist rebels recently evicted from Timbuktu in Mali, by the French, took the opportunity to disgrace themselves in the eyes of people of any faith who love knowledge: they set fire to Ahmed Baba Institute, which housed about 30,000 manuscripts dating back to medieval times -- Islam's golden age of scholarship.
CF pill (Discover Magazine)
Cystic fibrosis is caused by distorted proteins in the mucus linings of the lungs, making the mucus thick. Many different genetic defects can cause CF. A new drug repairs the proteins, relieving the problem nearly at the source. It only works on one of the many forms of CF, but they hope the next effort will help the majority of CF sufferers.
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