In Good Times and (Especially) In Bad
How bad is the global economy? So bad, that couples are actually staying together rather than paying for the divorce.

The number of couples getting divorced has dropped to the lowest rate for 26 years as the credit crunch begins to bite, according to the UK's Office for National Statistics this week. The official figures for 2007 show divorces in England and Wales fell for a third consecutive year, down from 12.2 divorces per 1,000 married men in 2006 to 11.9.

"Experts say falling house prices put pressure on couples to stay together because they will have less equity in their property to share after separation," the Daily Mail reports. Apparently, divorce is the reason behind around six percent of all house sales in the property market.

Then again, the decline in divorces might also be chalked up to fewer couples being able to afford getting married in the first place.

Weird: Cancer Cluster in Northeastern PA
On Monday, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry confirmed an elevated number of cases of polycythemia vera, or PV, in a region 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Residents in the affected 20-mile stretch of area are four times as likely to suffer from PV as residents living in outlying areas, according to the government.

"It remains the first and only cluster of PV ever recorded in the U.S., though the condition became reportable to state cancer registries only in 2001, and officials said it's statistically likely there are others," the Associated Press reports.

This "cancer cluster" in the northeastern Pennsylvania region is home to Superfund sites and a power plant fired by waste coal. But nobody is sure if there's a connection. "We don't want to give the message that there are no connections," said researcher Vince Seaman. "We just don't have the data."

World's Largest Beach Towel
Somehow we managed to miss this bit of world record-setting news, but earlier this summer the world's largest beach towel was rolled out in Protaras, Cyprus.

The beach towel, which measured 64.2 meters (210 ft. 8 in.) in length and 31 meters (101 ft. 9 in.) in width, was made of 100 percent pure cotton thread with 30 million meters of thread used in construction. According to Guinness World Records, it took more than 100 people to put the towel together.

The previous record was set in Hermosa Beach, California, in June 2006 with a towel measuring 48 meters long and 23 meters wide, according to the Cyprus Mail.

Cool: Cancer-Detecting Laser Device
Researchers with expertise in the development of mid-infrared lasers are working on a new tool to detect cancer. From a person's breath. Using lasers.

Led by Dr. Patrick McCann, a small group of internationally known researchers at the University of Oklahoma are at work on creating a sensor to detect biomarker gases exhaled in the breath of a person with cancer.

Evidence in recent years seems to confirm that gas phase molecules are uniquely associated with cancer. Past studies have shown that dogs can detect cancer by sniffing the exhaled breath of cancer patients. Proof-of-concept detection of a suspected lung cancer biomarker in exhaled breath has already been established, as reported by the Oklahoma group in the July 2007 issue of Applied Optics.

Now, "intrigued by the concept of using breath analysis to detect cancer, McCann saw an opportunity to use mid-infrared laser technology to help elucidate the relationship between specific gas phase biomarker molecules and cancer," PhysOrg.com reports:

He believes it is possible to develop easy-to-use detection devices for cancer, particularly for hard-to-detect cancers like lung cancer. McCann says we need sensors that detect these gas phase cancer biomarkers. "A device that measures cancer specific gases in exhaled breath would change medical research, as we know it."

Although McCann is not a cancer researcher, he thinks his research on developing innovative laser technology can benefit sufferers of a late-stage cancer diagnosis. He says the science and technology exist to support the development of a new tool to detect cancer, but the research will take from five to 10 years to get low-cost devices into the clinic.

Pilfering Phone Books
A former employee of Directory Plus, in Las Cruces, NM, "has been indicted for fraud for allegedly stealing company property," according to CFOSnafu.com.

What is she accused of stealing? Not computer equipment or other such tech items. She allegedly took more than 100,000 phone directories over the course of four years.

"Instead of delivering the phone books, she put the goods into three Las Cruces storage units that were taken out in her name. An attentive worker at the storage facility noticed something was a little off and contacted Directory Plus, who came down hard on [the worker]," says CFO Snafu.

The owner of Directory Plus estimates his company lost more than $500,000 from the missing directories.

Genetically Engineered Hairs Can Improve Hearing
Scientists have used gene therapy on mouse embryos to grow hair cells with the potential to reduce hearing loss in adult animals, according to a study published this week in the British journal Nature.

As humans age, their hearing naturally grows less acute because they begin to lose tiny sensory hairs in their inner ears that convert sound waves into neurological signals. Now scientists have determined how to genetically engineer the cells that generate these sensory hairs. Add more sensory hairs to an ear that's in good condition, and you might get someone who is more sensitive to sound.

"The proof-of-concept experiments are a crucial step toward therapies that could one day treat deafness and inner-ear disease in humans," PhysOrg reports.

At birth, humans have about 30,000 hair cells, which can be damaged by infections, aging, genetic diseases, loud noise or treatment with certain drugs. In most cases, damaged hair cells do not regrow in mature humans. But recent research has kindled hope that nerve deafness may one day be curable. A team of scientists led by John Brigande at the Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland showed that implanting a gene known as Atoh1 into the inner ear of a mouse embryo coaxed non-sensory cells to become hair cells.

The authors of the study seem confident that this technique could be used in humans, too, after a reasonable period of testing.

Generations of Stars in W5
"Giant star-forming region W5 is over 200 light-years across and about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia," according to Astronomy Picture of the Day. "W5's sculpted clouds of cold gas and dust seem to form fantastic shapes in this impressive mosaic of infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In fact, the area on the right includes the structures previously dubbed the Mountains of Creation."

Credit Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA

Cheers.