Test 'predicts breast cancer resistance'

A genetic test could one day spot breast cancer patients most at risk of relapsing after treatment with a commonly used powerful chemotherapy.

The find could spare patients the side-effects of a drug destined to fail.

US researchers tested tumours for activity from two genes which appeared to cut the effectiveness of a class of cancer drugs.

UK cancer experts said it was another step towards "personalised" cancer treatment.

The fact that a drug may be highly effective in some patients, but not others, cannot be easily explained.

Scientists now believe that the molecular properties of patients and their tumours may be the key to understanding this - and choosing the right type of treatment.

The team from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, Massachusetts, scanned the genetic code of tumours taken from women who had undergone treatment, looking for differences which could account for differences in outcome, focusing on a single class of drugs called anthracyclines.

They found a small region on a single chromosome, and within it two genes which seemed to be unusually active in drug-resistant tumours.

When checks were made on samples from 85 other women, those with high levels of activity from these two genes were those who did worst when treated with anthracyclines.

They believe that by checking tumours in advance, treatment regimes could be changed to those involving alternative drug types.

'Appropriate treatment'

Dr Eric Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at Dana-Farber, said: "While this work remains preliminary, it may ultimately help us use the anthracyclines in a much more thoughtful manner and allow us greater ability to personalise our breast cancer treatments to the tumour and the patient."

UK cancer charities welcomed the research, although they cautioned that it could be some time before the results were confirmed and any test developed.

Meg McArthur, from Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "This research is a step towards discovering why some patients benefit more than others from a common form of chemotherapy.

"Research like this is important for identifying the appropriate treatment for individual patients."

Oliver Childs, from Cancer Research UK, said: "Finding ways to predict how patients will respond to chemotherapy is important to help them benefit as much as possible from their cancer treatment.

"It is too early to say whether this research will lead to a predictive test, but work like this inches us a little closer towards an age of personalised cancer treatment."

'Super-fast broadband' in UK homes by 2017 - Tories

The Conservatives have unveiled plans to deliver a "nationwide super-fast broadband", part of which could be funded from the BBC licence fee.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said a Tory government would deliver speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to the "majority" of homes by 2017.

He said cabling in rural areas could be paid for by private investors or by part of the licence fee.

But Labour said the Tories had opposed plans to improve broadband.

The government has set a target that homes should have access to speeds of 2Mbps by 2012.

'Thousands of jobs'

Mr Osborne told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "In the 19th Century we built the railways. In the 20th Century we built the motorways.

"In the 21st Century let's build the super-fast broadband network that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain."

The Tories said money from private investors would pay for better cabling.

But it was added that it might not be attractive for private companies to install broadband cabling in some rural areas, in which case a proportion of the BBC licence fee could be used.

The Conservatives said the BBC could continue to set aside 3.5% of its licence fee - which currently goes to the digital switchover - to fund broadband expansion.

For Labour, Treasury Minister Stephen Timms said: "On broadband it's not Britain but the Tories that are playing catch-up.

"Labour have already announced measures for rolling out broadband across the country - and the Tories have opposed the plans to make that happen. "

'Fantasy economics'

The Liberal Democrats accused the Tories of operating "fantasy world economics".

"Anyone can promise the earth - what matters is how you pay for it," culture, media and sport spokesman Don Foster said.

"All independent research shows that the market simply cannot provide high-speed broadband in all parts of the country in the short term without investment.

"Hints that the license fee payer will be hit are the closest the Tories come to explaining how they intend to pay for this."

A government report on the UK's digital future - dubbed Digital Britain - was published in June 2009.

The action plan included universal access to broadband by 2012.

The wide-ranging report also tackled internet regulation and public service broadcasting.

Shrewd stars make music add up

When unknown singers pen personalised songs for their biggest fans and top stars let people mess around with their hits, they have one thing in common.

They are both finding new ways to make money from their music that do not rely on the old-fashioned ways of simply selling records and gig tickets.

With music sales declining, artists, record labels and even opera houses are being more inventive in order to encourage fans to fork out.

Known as "monetisation" in business speak, that was the main theme at the largest music industry gathering of the year, the Midem conference in Cannes. And some of the best ideas are below.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

When American singer-songwriter Allison Weiss from Athens, Georgia, wanted to make a new EP, she turned to her fans to raise the money she needed.

But rather than just asking for donations, she sold personalised products and experiences that she thought her fans would love.

Forty dollars (£25) got a signed copy of the EP, $100 (£62) got a hand-written thank you letter and $300 (£185) got a CD-R of Weiss performing five acoustic songs of your choice. For $500 (£310), two people got songs written especially for them about subjects they chose. ("Nothing explicit, sorry guys," she warned.)

The singer did this via the website Kickstarter, which helps raise funds for all types of creative projects with the proviso that the backers must get some kind of reward.

"Alison let her small fanbase on Twitter and Tumblr know that she was doing this project, trying to raise this money, and within 10 hours she had raised her full $2,000 (£1,240) goal and she ended up raising four times that by the time it was over," says Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler.

Another musician charged fans $40 to come round to his house for a meal, while someone else asked supporters for $70 (£43) to spend a day in the recording studio and contribute handclaps to her album.

BANDS MEET BRANDS

Bands that took the corporate buck may once have been accused of selling out, but commercial sponsorship is now often seen as a smart way to fund your music.

Hal Ritson sings with Young Punx and is Dizzee Rascal's live musical director

So UK dance act The Young Punx accepted sponsorship from beer company Warsteiner, which wanted to raise its profile among clubbers in Germany.

Warsteiner put on club nights where The Young Punx DJ'd and performed live, the company gave away their music, used it in its MTV ads and the band featured the drink in their podcasts.

"They were paying to have us associated with their brand," says Young Punx singer and Dizzee Rascal's live musical director Hal Ritson. "We were happy to be associated with their brand since our brand is basically having a few drinks and having a good time."

During last year's promotion, according to Facebook statistics, the number of Young Punx fans in Germany shot up and Germany went from being "a territory of no relevance" to third on the list behind the UK and USA.

"That's a fanbase that came through one year without us maybe selling many records, but with many, many people hearing our music. And we got paid, so everyone's happy."

FAT LADY, BIG SCREEN

When Peter Gelb took over New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2006, he was faced with an ageing, dwindling audience.

The Met broadcasts on more than 60 screens

The Met had broadcast its productions on radio for almost 80 years, so Gelb decided to see whether he could bring in a new audience - and new money - by offering the "full blown visual experience" in cinemas as well.

The live broadcasts started on 60 screens but are now shown in more than 1,000 cinemas around the world, with typical ticket prices around $20 (£12) in the US.

"We approach them very much like a sports broadcast," Gelb says, with backstage cameras capturing the action in the "locker room" and an off-duty star such as Renee Fleming or Placido Domingo acting as a reporter and interviewing singers as they come off stage.

The Met keeps half of the box office takings, he says. "That 50%, when there are hundreds of thousands - which is the average attending these transmissions - more than covers the incremental costs of producing them in high definition.

"And it actually provides a profit stream which helps us cover our other costs, which are extremely high."

GIG MEMENTOES

Kiss fans who saw the rock band on their 2009 US tour had the chance to take the show home with them in their back pockets when they walked out of the venue.

Kiss have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from instant USB recordings

"We do a multi-track recording of each night and make the recording available on a USB drive right at the end of the show," says Gerrit Schumann from German company Music Networx, which makes the recordings.

"We have USB duplicators that do it pretty much automatically at the venue. We stop recording about half an hour before the end of the show and include a download code, with which the fan can then download the encores and remaining 30 minutes online."

Each stick cost about $20 and an artist will get anywhere between 20-50% of the price, he says. With around 1,000 sticks sold a night at 58 dates last year, that adds up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for Kiss.

They will do it all again for their European tour this year, where they will also introduce an instant download-to-mobile option.

Kiss, already the masters of music merchandise, are also selling meet-and-greet gig packages for £905 per person in the UK.

MIX IT UP

Letting fans remix, re-record and generally mess around with songs by established artists has given those songs a lucrative new lease of life.

Michael Jackson songs were available to remix as part of an album promotion

I Am T-Pain is an iPhone app that lets users record themselves singing along to songs by the US rapper with the help of AutoTune, and post their recordings to Facebook and other sites. Costing $3 (£1.85) - three times the cost of an average song on iTunes - the app sold more than 600,000 copies in two months.

French company MXP4 provides technology that lets fans loose on songs by the likes of Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and David Guetta in a similar way, both online and on the iPhone.

Users can remix tracks and buy their mixes - at a premium price - or record their own vocals and share the results with friends, who may then discover the originals.

In the next 10 years, the music experience will be revitalised in the same way that 3D has revitalised movies and innovations like the Wii and Rock Band have revitalised gaming, says MXP4 chief executive Albin Serviant.

"Our vision is about having a 3D music experience, where you can not only play and listen to music but play with it, remix it, get the lyrics on the fly, share with friends and record your own version."

Shoes may have changed how we run

Wearing cushioned running shoes may have changed the way in which many of us run, new research suggests.

Using slow-motion footage, scientists have discovered that experienced barefoot runners land very differently from runners who wear shoes.

The researchers showed that runners who have trained barefoot tend to strike the ground with their forefoot or mid-foot, rather than their heel.

The team described their findings in the journal Nature.

Barefoot runners, the scientists say, may be at less risk of certain types of injury than those who wear cushioned running shoes.

Cushioned landing

The question of how best to support and protect a runner's feet is something that has intrigued both scientists and sports shoe designers.

This analysis, the researchers said, took an evolutionary approach to that question.

The research team used a combination of highly sensitive scales, high speed cameras, and 3-D motion analysis to compare barefoot runners to those wearing running shoes.

Their results showed that "shod" runners tended to strike the ground with their heel first.

"This creates an impact; it's like someone hitting your heel with a hammer with up to three times your body weight," said the lead researcher, Dr Daniel Lieberman from Harvard University in the US.

"Those collision forces have been implicated, by several studies, in certain kinds of repetitive stress injuries.

"Shoes work because they cushion much of that force - slowing it down, mostly."

But experienced barefoot runners appear to have developed a different way to prevent the pain, striking the ground with the forefoot or mid-foot.

"By forefoot or mid-foot striking correctly, one can almost completely eliminate that collision, making barefoot running comfortable," said Dr Lieberman.

He explained that the style adopted by barefoot runners may, in some respects, be less damaging.

Dr Lieberman's footage also demonstrated the specialised anatomy of the human foot, and caused him and his colleagues to propose that modern sports footwear may have altered how people run.

Minimal shoes

The results could be of interest to sports shoe designers

Many successful distance runners have competed barefoot, including the South African-born athlete Zola Budd.

This has caused researchers to question whether barefoot running might well be more efficient.

Dr William Jungers, an anatomical scientist from Stony Brook University in New York, who was not involved in this study, said that the findings had "potentially useful and thought-provoking implications for sports medicine and running shoe design".

He explained, in an accompanying article in Nature, that by striking the ground with their forefoot, a barefoot runner could take fuller advantage of energy stored in the ankle and in the arch of the foot.

But, as Professor Lieberman explained, "there are tradeoffs."

"Barefoot runners have to use their calf muscles and Achilles tendon much more to control ankle flexion. So people who switch to this style of running are much more likely to develop calf problems if they don't do so slowly, carefully and with a lot of stretching."

Dr Jay Stock, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Cambridge in the UK, told BBC News: "This provides compelling evidence that modern footwear may change the way in which people run, and in turn, cause greater stress on our bodies."

He said that it was also very interesting that "many of the world's best athletes run with a forefoot strike".

Dr Jungers concluded: "An evidence-based approach is badly needed to assess the competing claims as to what, if anything, is the best cover for a runner's foot."

World's most famous 'unseen' diamond

The room was dimly lit. Armed guards stood at both entrances and enormous ironclad doors were slid shut to seal the gallery.

Nobody spoke above a whisper as we waited for the first glimpse in half a century of one of the world's most extraordinary gems.

The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond was last seen in public at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels. After that, it disappeared and its whereabouts remained a mystery until Laurence Graff, a billionaire diamond dealer, bought it at auction in 2008, appending his surname.

He and his son Francois were in the gallery of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC as the blue stone, was brought up from a secret vault and finally revealed.

Flawless beauty

"I've been privileged over the years to own some of the world's most important and famous diamonds, but I would say that the Wittelsbach-Graff is the most valuable and the most beautiful," he said.

Under ultraviolet light, the diamond has an orange hue

Sitting unadorned on a silken white cloth, it glittered grey and blue in the low light. Classed as "internally flawless" it is said to have exceptional colour and becomes intense orange when viewed under ultraviolet light.

"When I saw this stone, I knew it was a stone we had to have," said Laurence Graff. "I had the opportunity to examine and value it in my own offices, and I came to the conclusion it was one of the rarest stones I'd ever seen."

'True perfection'

Initially valued at around $15m, Mr Graff paid more than $25m. In a controversial move he had it re-cut and polished, reducing it from 35.5 carats to little over 31 carats. Critics say the act compromised the historical integrity of the stone, but Mr Graff disagrees.

"I decided that to create beauty, or acts of beauty, is not a sin. All we did was remove the blemishes and now it's true perfection. It's the most wonderful diamond to hold in your hand. It's got the most incredible feel to it - a magical feel. We have managed to bring out the true colour of the stone without changing the faceting or the shape.

"The true rarity of the diamond, whatever its history, is the diamond itself. The history will continue. Every diamond that was ever mined, every diamond that was ever polished and cut, is still with us. Who knows the story that this stone will tell in a thousand years time. I'm sure it will gather very romantic stories, mysterious stories, intriguing stories, but at the end of the day the true beauty of the stone will remain. That will always be the best story."

Francois Graff compared the decision to restoring a priceless painting. "If you discovered a Leonardo da Vinci with a tear in it and covered in mud, you would want to repair it. We have similarly cleaned up the diamond and repaired damage caused over the years."

Distant cousins

The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond originated in India. In 1664, Philip IV of Spain gave it to his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa to celebrate her engagement to Emperor Leopold of Austria.

In 1772, it acquired its name by passing to the Wittelsbach family of the House of Bavaria. After World War I, Bavaria became a republic and the Crown Jewels, including the diamond were sold.

For the next hundred years it was rarely seen in public.

"It's probably the most famous diamond the world has never seen," said Jeffrey Post, curator of the Smithsonian National Gem Collection. "It's always been lurking out there - but we've never seen it."

The Wittelsbach-Graff was secretly transported to the museum in the dead of night, a week before it was due to go on display.

The Hope and the Wittelsbach are believed to be in a class by themselves

Mr Post and some of the nation's leading diamond experts locked themselves in the vault to spend the time examining it and comparing it to the legendary Hope - the world's largest blue diamond at 45.52 carats - which is the star of the National Gem Collection.

It was thought that the two may once have been part of the same crystal, but tests proved negative. Although they share significant similarities and come from the same place, the Hope and the Wittelsbach-Graff are more like distant cousins than siblings.

"We had this confluence of history with two of the world's great diamonds," said Mr Post, "and an unparalleled opportunity to examine them. Diamonds have been mined for hundreds of years but in all that time these two stand in a class by themselves unlike any other diamond found."

Diamonds are typically formed about 100 miles underground and are billions of years old. They can tell scientists much about the history of the planet.

The Wittelsbach-Graff will be displayed alongside the Hope at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History until August. After that, its future is uncertain.

Laurence Graff says it may move to London's Natural History Museum - but it could also be sold. If that happens, it could disappear for another hundred years.

Vaccine 'could cut HIV TB deaths'

A vaccine could cut tuberculosis cases among HIV-positive Africans by almost two-fifths, a US study suggests.

The lung infection is the most common cause of death among HIV patients in the continent.

Journal Aids reports that Dartmouth Medical School research involving 2,000 people found significantly fewer TB cases in vaccinated patients.

An expert said the jab could be a cheaper option for countries struggling to find money for extra anti-HIV drugs.

HIV patients are particularly vulnerable to TB because their immune systems are compromised.

The vaccine works by boosting the immune responses of patients who have already been given the BCG vaccine earlier in life.

In itself, the BCG jab may offer some protection against TB, but this is far from certain, and protection may only last a few years after immunisation.

The researchers from Dartmouth Medical School in the US tested it among 2,000 HIV positive patients in Tanzania over a seven-year period.

The number of confirmed TB cases was 39% lower in the vaccinated group.

First vaccine

Professor Ford von Reyn, who led the study, said it was a "significant milestone".

One theory now suggests that patients could be given the booster jab as soon as they are diagnosed with HIV, before antiretroviral drugs are needed.

Alvaro Bermejo, executive director at the International HIV/Aids Alliance, said that the other way of fighting TB in HIV patients might be to give them antiretrovirals earlier, an expensive option compared with a vaccination programme.

He said: "This is a very important finding - it is the first time we are going to have a vaccine which is influential in preventing opportunistic infections in HIV patients.

"TB is a massive problem - a third of people living with HIV in Africa are infected with it.

"The reduction of 39% seen in Tanzania, although not fabulous, is a good result."

Overweight elderly 'live longer'

Moderately overweight elderly people may live longer than those of normal weight, an Australian study suggests.

But being very overweight or being underweight shortened lives.

The report, which was published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, said dieting may not be beneficial in this age group.

But the study of 9,200 over-70s also found that regardless of weight, sedentary lifestyles shortened lives, particularly for women.

The study by the University of Western Australia set out to find out what level of body mass index (BMI) was associated with the lowest risk of death in the elderly.

For younger people, there is a well established health risk from being overweight or obese.

Overweight best

The team tracked the number of deaths over 10 years among volunteers who were aged 70 - 75 at the start of the study.

It found that those with a BMI which classed them as overweight not only had the lowest overall risk of dying, they also had the lowest risk of dying from specific diseases: cardiovascular disease, cancer and chronic respiratory disease.

The overall death rate among the obese group was similar to that among those of normal weight.

But those who were very obese had a greater risk of dying during the 10 year period.

Lead researcher, Professor Leon Flicker said: "Concerns have been raised about encouraging apparently overweight older people to lose weight.

"Our study suggests that those people who survive to age 70 in reasonable health have a different set of risks and benefits associated with the amount of body fat to younger people."

The conclusion of this study, that being overweight may be less harmful for elderly people, corroborates the findings of previous research.

Staying still

Sedentary lifestyles shortened lives across all weight groups, doubling the risk of mortality for women over the period studied, and increasing it by 25% for men.

Physical exercise "really matters", said Professor Flicker.

As well as helping to build muscle mass, it has broader health benefits for elderly people, he said.

The authors believe BMI may give a poor reflection of fatty mass in elderly people.

"It may be time to review the BMI classification for older adults," says Professor Flicker.

Professor Kay-Tee Khaw from Cambridge University agreed, noting that optimal weight appears to be higher in older age groups.

"This is important since under-nutrition is an important problem in older people.

"Waist circumference, which assesses abdominal obesity, appears to be a better indicator of health consequences of obesity" she said.

Obituary: JD Salinger

The son of a well-to-do Jewish businessman and Scots-Irish mother, Jerome David Salinger was born in New York in 1919 and grew up in uptown Manhattan.

The relationship with his father was cold and his conflict about his being half-Jewish affected him deeply.

He began writing stories when he was thrust into the harsh world of a military academy at Valley Forge in rural Pennsylvania.

He had been sent there after dropping out of the exclusive McBurney School on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

JD Salinger enjoyed early success in the 1940s with the publication of numerous short stories in magazines, among them the New Yorker.

But when the United States entered World War II, Salinger, whose cynicism was a talking-point among his relatives, surprised them by his eagerness to join the Services.

'Catcher'

He worked in army counter-intelligence and the bloody fighting he witnessed at close quarters during the Normandy landing and in the Battle of the Bulge was to have a great impact on his life.

According to his daughter Peggy, he witnessed the horrors of the German concentration camps. He suffered something approaching a nervous breakdown and, while convalescing in France, he met and married a French doctor, but they were divorced after eight months.

When The Catcher In The Rye first appeared in 1951, chronicling 48 hours in the life of a teenage rebel, Holden Caulfield, as he wanders the streets of New York in a state of mental collapse, it enjoyed early, but modest success.

But within a few years, it had become a bible of teenage dissent in America and a staple of high school and freshman college English courses.

A study of adolescence -- at once tender and harshly honest -- it spoke for millions of young people who didn't want to be "phoney" in a commercial, materialistic world.

Caulfield became a cult figure comparable with James Dean, but it seems the novel also had an undesirable influence on Mark David Chapman, who said he killed John Lennon to promote Salinger's work, and the man who shot and wounded Ronald Reagan, John Hinckley.

Almost immediately after Catcher In The Rye was published, Salinger became disillusioned with publishing.

He hated interviews and contact with the public and in 1953, increasingly fed up with publishing and the public, he bought a house at Cornish, New Hampshire, and retreated into a seclusion that was to last for the rest of his life.

Court ruling

His subsequent books - only three more were published - were all best-sellers. Perhaps the most interesting was Franny and Zooey, but critics felt they all lacked the freshness and drive of Catcher.

No new Salinger fiction has appeared since 1965 and Salinger has done everything possible to try to thwart the efforts of biographers.

In 1987, the US Supreme Court upheld a claim by Salinger that his copyright had been violated by a critic of the The Sunday Times who drew on unpublished letters from Salinger for an unauthorised biography he published of him.

Throughout his life, Salinger befriended women younger than himself. He married Claire Douglas, aged 19, when he was 35 in 1954. They had two children and then divorced in 1967.

For nearly 30 years he lived with a woman called Colleen O'Neill (who may or may not have been his wife).

He called himself "a failed Zen Buddhist", walked about in a mechanic's blue uniform, and when he went to local restaurants, ate in the kitchen to avoid people.

Although many years have passed since the publication of any work by Salinger, friends and visitors to his home have revealed that he has a large safe containing at least 15 completed manuscripts.

It is thought they all feature the Glass family, about whom Salinger wrote in Franny and Zooey. It was thought that at Salinger's death, they could be published posthumously, or destroyed.

Some critics feel Salinger's attitude was best expressed in the opening lines of The Catcher In The Rye.

"If you really want to hear about it the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born. What my lousy childhood was like. And how my parents were occupied and all before they had me. And all that David Copperfield kind of crap. But I don't feel like going into it, if you really want to know the truth".

How to whip up the perfect frothy frog 'meringue' nest

Scientists have revealed how frogs perform the architectural feat of building floating foam nests.

These meringue-like structures, which help the amphibians protect their young, are renowned for their stability under the harshest of conditions.

Now, by filming Tungara frogs, researchers have found that they are built using a meticulously timed, three-stage construction process.

The research is published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters.

The team says that knowing more about how the foam is created could help scientists create "bio-foams" for use in medical applications, such as treating injuries at the scenes of accidents.

Floating fortresses

Tungara frogs, like many frogs species, create foam nests to protect their young as they mature from eggs to tadpoles.

But while these floating refuges look delicate, as if they could collapse into the pond they sit upon at any moment, they are in fact remarkably sturdy.

The nests are surprisingly tough despite their delicate appearance

Malcolm Kennedy, an author of the paper, from the University of Glasgow, said: "These are exposed to full sunlight, high temperatures, all kinds of infections, including parasitic ones, and yet they survive for four days without any damage, until the tadpoles leave - or if there aren't any eggs, they'll last for two weeks.

"And unlike other foams, they do not damage the membranes of eggs and sperm. They are a remarkable biological material.

"But until now, we did not now quite how the frogs used these material and made the foams."

To find out more, the research team went to Trinidad in the West Indies to train their cameras on amorous pairs of Tungara frogs (Engystomops pustulous).

The Tungara frogs were caught on camera in Trinidad

By studying the footage, frame by frame, the researchers found that the small brown amphibians whipped up their nests in several phases.

Professor Kennedy explained: "In order to begin, the male sits on the back of the female, and puts his legs underneath her legs, to collect a foam-precursor fluid."

The male frog then begins to whip this up, mixing in air bubbles by vigorously kicking his legs. He does this in short bursts, gradually increasing this "mixing" duration each time.

"This overcomes some of the biophysical problems; if he mixes for too long in the beginning, then this would disperse the fluid and it wouldn't make a foam at all," said Professor Kennedy.

Like clockwork

In this first phase, this frothy bubble raft contains no eggs. But as the male moves on to stage two of construction, he gradually begins to blend in eggs, provided by the female, who is all the while sitting beneath him. He carefully manoeuvres the eggs into the centre of the foam.

As the male does this, the length of time that he spends mixing and resting remains exactly the same.

Professor Kennedy says: "They do this about 200 times - they are a bit like clockwork at this stage.

"Eventually they build this 'meringue'."

Finally, in the "termination stage", the frog starts to slow down; the period between each mixing session gradually increases until finally the nest is complete.

The team believes that understanding this nest building process could help us to create a similar foam in the laboratory.

Professor Kennedy said: "This material is resistant to bacterial and microbial damage - and if you could make a spray can that could produce this, it could potentially be used on burn victims, for example, because it would prevent them from infection, but it doesn't damage cells."

The rise of the web's digital elites

Ahead of a major series on the BBC about the impact of the web, presenter, social scientist and journalist Aleks Krotoski asks whether the web has already missed its greatest chance.

The web is an extraordinary innovation, with the greatest potential to usher in social change since the invention of the printing press or the steam engine.

Built upon a technology that is apolitical, unregulated and decentralised, it empowers everyone - men, women, children - to be creators of information, rather than passive consumers.

It is also an enormous library of global consciousness, a digital collection of human knowledge from the past and the present and presented in an easy-to-access format.

As a result, we now have the unprecedented power to create our own truth, and share it with everyone in the world. It has ushered in an equality of access that we have never seen before.

But has its potential as a great leveller for the whole world already passed?

'Utopian society'

Twenty years ago, the web was colonised by a group of early adopters who believed that the ideal society was equal - every person had a right to get involved, there should be no hierarchy, and rules would be mutually determined for the common good.

People like American writer Stewart Brand, critic Howard Rheingold, and the Grateful Dead's John Perry Barlow believed the sanctity of the individual was superior to that of the nation state, and that contact with people from across the globe would be enough to solve the world's ills.

Howard Rheingold was an early adopter of the web

These people, many of whom we tracked down for the series in the idealistic haven of San Francisco, had spent more than a decade playing around with alternative, non-physical communities in cyberspace on the proto-internet.

The early communities they established, like the online forum the Well had parallels with other Free Towns in the "real" world, many of which had suffered when the reality of poorly-defined regulations degenerated into exploitation and lawlessness.

But the idealistic web pioneers maintained that the new digital frontier would provide a fertile, intellectual ground on which to create a freer, utopian society.

But as we found as we were speaking to many of these pioneers, history has had a different plan for the web.

The pioneers' loose approach to social behaviour online has clashed with the essential features of our nature - our desire to take control, to own and to profit.

Implicit inequalities emerged early, but once the Web became a space for commercial gain in the mid-1990s and its population exploded, being at the top of the pile - translated as holding the first position in Google's search results - became the benchmark for offline financial returns.

The exponential increase in content on the web during the late 1990s and throughout the last decade has meant that reliable, trustworthy and credible information is increasingly difficult to pin down.

Net hope

At an individual level, we rely on friends and family for what to trust and what to believe, but we also look to experts and other people with high social status to point us in the right direction.

Tim Berners-Lee on the road in Ghana

Jimmy Wales, founder of the online-user generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia, admits that despite being the current poster child of information levelling, Wikipedia has explicit hierarchies that determine whose knowledge is more worthy than others'.

It seems that, for all its talk as a great leveller, the web is as unequal as we are.

Indeed, what we social scientists are discovering when we observe the web as a platform of social interaction is that, despite the medium, human beings seek hierarchies to help us make sense of our world.

It turns out that this is as relevant online as offline. After all, we can only bring to this digital tabula rasa what we already know and what we have gained from our existing experiences.

Despite this, people like former US Vice-President Al Gore is an online optimist.

When we spoke with him, he insisted that the global nature of the world wide web has the potential to change this, as different societies bring their different perspectives to bear on the web community.

Human medium

Indeed, when I joined the inventor of the web - Tim Berner's Lee - in Ghana as he was travelling to remote villages to try to understand what could happen when the African continent, parts of which have only recently been physically connected to the rest of the web with high-speed broadband access, makes its contribution to the international dialogue.

The author believes the web is a reflection of humanity

However, what I realised on this trip is that the imprint that most people in the African states will develop in their first experiences of the web will be based on what non-Africans have created.

Our two decades of shaping this maturing technology his has led us to a tool that has been crafted in our image.

When the Virtual Revolution team went to Abiriw, a rural village in the mountains outside Ghana's capital Accra, I was struck by how the kids in the local community centre used the web - they saw the world of information through the window of Google.

The search engine works on a principle of the "madness" or "wisdom" of crowds, basing its results on which websites receive the most links to their pages.

The majority of the crowd to date has been non-Africans, and so the window that these kids are using for information is non-African. What kind of dogma does that transmit?

And how does this reinforce the inequalities that exist between the developed and the developing world?

Ultimately, the web is a reflection of humanity, not a humanity-changer. We bring to it all of our other human foibles, warts and all.

Putting names to the lost soldiers of Fromelles

The first of the remains of 250 World War I soldiers found in France are being reburied with military honours after painstaking efforts to identify them. How do you put the right name on a headstone after so long?

When the first chipped and battle-scarred bones were excavated from a muddy field in northern France last May, the story of the forgotten battle of Fromelles began to emerge.

The remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers had lain undiscovered for 93 years since falling on the Western Front.

Boots, purses, toothbrushes and other personal artefacts lay amongst the twisted skeletons at Pheasant Wood, offering partial clues about the men's identities.

But it is the unique genetic codes within these remains that offer the best chance of putting names to each unknown soldier.

So far, more than 800 UK families who think they may have lost a relative at Fromelles have given DNA samples, but many will be disappointed.

The man whose job it is to help identify the soldiers says it is like finding a needle in a haystack, albeit with a very good metal detector.

"The problem with DNA that's been in the ground for 90 years is it degrades in quality and quantity," says molecular geneticist Dr Peter Jones.

"If it's a very acidic site, there's no chance of DNA at all because acids attack DNA rapidly. If it's dry and arid like in a desert, you get good DNA. If it's wet, less good."

The remains extracted from Fromelle's muddy burial pits have produced small but workable amounts of DNA, says Dr Jones. The teeth, which preserve well because they are encased in enamel, give by far the best samples.

"The hardest part is finding the right families and getting them to come forward... you can have good DNA profiles, but no family to match it up to."

Tracing family DNA An individual's genetic code is carried by the DNA inside every cell of the body. A unique DNA profile and sequence can be made by extracting DNA from remains of the dead or mouth swabs of the living. DNA from Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA is then analysed. Families will share similar DNA traits. Family trees help establish paternal and maternal lines to trace who is alive today to provide DNA samples to match against those taken from the remains of the Fromelles soldiers. As long as a relative is on either the paternal or maternal line, then a match to a soldier should be possible. Clues to the soldier's identity would lie with his sons or grandsons, if he had any, as the male Y chromosome DNA is passed from father to son. If he did not have children, as in the example above, DNA from his brother's grandsons or great grandsons may do. On the soldier's maternal side, his sister's grandchildren or his sister's grandaughters' children will have inherited the same mitochondrial DNA he got from his mother. If there are no surviving members on one branch of the family, then going back generations to find another line is also valid. BACK 1 of 4 NEXT Although 250 bodies have been recovered from the graves, it's thought about 1,500 British and 5,500 Australian troops fell in the battle, making it all the harder to match. And when it comes to matching DNA samples across several generations, Dr Jones says the methods are far from perfect. Unlike the seven "markers" used for more exact matches on the National DNA Database, he only has two at his disposal - the Y (paternal) and mitrochondrial (maternal) profiles. IN PICTURES: THE ARTEFACTS Boots, bibles and tobacco pouches "If we had the children of the soldiers, we could use the same markers as the DNA database. But because we are three generations away, the markers get diluted out through each mother and father." Families searching for their ancestors have been asked to give maternal and paternal samples - preferably two each - using a simple cheek swab. The DNA results will be added to the anthropological, archaeological and historical information to try to get positive identifications. Families will be told sometime after March, once the remains of all 250 soldiers have been buried. Their final resting place will be a new war cemetery nearby, the first to be built in 50 years. The £3m project, funded by the British and Australian governments, is overseen by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Waiting for news will be Richard Parker, 47, who has spent 25 years trying to retrace the footsteps of his ancestor Leonard Twamley. His father's uncle was just 19 when he volunteered for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Six months later, the 20-year-old died at Fromelles. "He was an ordinary working class lad from Coventry working in a cycle factory, who gave his life because it was considered his patriotic duty to do so." Although interested in Len's story since his 20s, Mr Parker did not know he was killed at Fromelles until an amateur historian contacted him last year. Leonard Twamley's mother put this poignant notice in the Coventry Herald Since then he has made a pilgrimage to the French village with his father, who supplied DNA, along with Len's surviving nephews and nieces. "Even if his body isn't found, in some respects his memory is even more alive now. By researching what sort of person he was, we now know much more about him," Mr Parker says. "My grandmother died without knowing where Len was buried... this would bring proper closure to a family tragedy that goes back 95 years." Unknown soldiers The bodies that remain untraceable will be buried with a headstone marked simply "Known Unto God". Dr Jones fears many will suffer this fate. He estimates the final number identified to be up to 100, but more likely tens. THE BATTLE OF FROMELLES 19-20 July 1916, 19 days after Somme Campaign Intended as diversion to stop German soldiers going to Somme Troops of 5th Australian and 61st British divisions led attack at 6pm Within 11 hours, 5,533 Australians killed, wounded or taken prisoner and 1,547 similar British losses Soldiers from Gloucestershire, Bristol, Warwickshire and Worcestershire heavily involved Worst 24 hours in Australia's military history, considered a national tragedy Forces believed to have included the then 27-year-old Adolf Hitler Even if there is a DNA match, it may not necessarily be the right family because some DNA profiles are relatively common. Adoptions, women who married and changed names, and paternity issues can also throw a spanner in the works. Other families simply die out. But a match can be made through cousins, nephews or nieces on the family line. So if a family is missing a paternal link, they can trace the soldier's father, grandfather or brother, then locate their living relatives. Dr Jones says one family went back seven generations on the maternal side then came forward five to find a suitable relative. Forensic anthropologist Professor Margaret Cox says the team is so reliant on DNA matches as 90% of British enlistment records were destroyed in the Blitz. And the painstaking methods of extracting and cataloguing remains have been refined at the scenes of genocide and war crimes in Rwanda, the Balkans and Iraq. As at those sites, the bodies recovered gave clues to their fate - in this case, fractured bones showing damage from machine guns, rifles, mortar shells and shrapnel. But they were buried in deep graves with order and respect. "You try not to imagine what it was like, it makes it difficult to do our work," she says, adding that this is easier said than done at times. What brought the tragedy home were the artefacts - the inscribed bibles and lucky charms. For her, the two most poignant came from Australian soldiers. The first was a small lucky charm in the shape of a boomerang, to symbolise returning home. The other was the return half of a railway ticket from Freemantle to Perth, intended for the soldier's journey home to his family.

New species of Papua New Guinea frog changes colour

A new species of frog undergoes a remarkable transformation as it grows into an adult, report scientists.

Shiny black juvenile frogs with yellow spots dramatically change into peach coloured adults with bright blue eyes.

Scientists discovered the unique frog in a remote part of south-eastern Papua New Guinea.

The bright pattern of the young frog could act as a warning to predators, they say, but it is a mystery why the adult then loses this colour.

The scientists from Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, US, report their findings in the journal Copeia.

Amphibian species come in a range of colours and patterns, from the brightly patterned poison dart frogs to the plainer greens of the common toad.

After metamorphosising from a tadpole, some frogs change in colour as they get older.

However, it is unknown for juveniles and adults of a species to have strikingly different colour and pattern schemes.

The research team came across the new species of frog Oreophryne ezra while on a expedition to find new species on Sudest Island, Louisiade Archipelago, off the south-eastern tip of New Guinea.

Of the new species they found, the frog particularly caught their attention.

Consisting of more than 5,000 species described, frogs are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates Populations of certain frog species are declining significantly, due to habitat loss, climate change and the spread of an infectious fungus There is increasing evidence that some frogs around the world synchronise their mating activity by the full Moon

"It's always exciting to discover a species you know to be new. However, the obviously unusual biology of this frog made its discovery especially exciting," says Dr Fred Kraus who along with Dr Allen Allison undertook the study.

"The remarkable thing about this frog is the drastic nature of its change in colour pattern as it matures from a tiny froglet into adulthood," Dr Kraus says.

As a juvenile the frog is dark black with yellow spots and black eyes but then switches to a uniform peach colour with blues eyes.

"This raises the question of what possible function the striking colours of the juveniles might serve," says Dr Kraus.

Juveniles closely resemble the general appearance of some of the poison dart frogs from the tropics.

Like these frogs, the colouration could serve as a warning to potential predators.

Although untested, the frog may also have harmful toxins in its skin like those present in poison dart frogs.

Poison dart frogs have skin that contains harmful alkaloids acting as a chemical defence against predation.

"If this is the case this would make this species another instance of the independent evolution of such a system," says Dr Kraus.

The behaviour of the frog also points to the idea that its colour advertises that it is toxic.

The researchers write how the juvenile frogs perch in conspicuous places during daylight hours and also demonstrated a lack of a well developed escape behaviour, indicating that they have another form of defence.

One aspect that cannot be explained is if the colour offers protection to the juvenile, why does the frog then change its colour scheme as it ages to one that offers no protection.

For now this poses further questions for the researchers.

"No other such instance is known in frogs," Dr Kraus says.

"If it does serve as protective warning colouration, the reason for its loss remains a mystery."