3 August 2013 | NewScientist | 5

spacewalker Christopher Cassidy helped him safely re-enter the ISS.

NASA is investigating the cause of the leak, but in the meantime has sent up a repair kit on an uncrewed Russian Progress supply spacecraft that launched on 27 July.

The kit includes tools and spare parts for the potential fault sources on the portable life-support system that is mounted at the back of NASA’s spacewalk suits. Potential culprits include the unit’s sublimator, the condensate water valve and the water separator, says spokesman Josh Byerly at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Thalidomide rowBIRTH defects in at least 100 Brazilian babies have been blamed on use of the anti-nausea drug thalidomide to treat symptoms of leprosy in pregnant women. However, independent researchers have questioned the claim, saying it is based on unpublished research and lacks proof of thalidomide as the cause.

According to a BBC report on 24 July, Lavinia Schüler-Faccini at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre examined the birth records of 17.5 million babies born between 2005 and 2010 and identified 100 with birth defects consistent with exposure to thalidomide. She found the cases were concentrated in areas with the heaviest use of thalidomide to treat leprosy.

“This is an ecological association, not a proven causation,” says Diana Lockwood of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Association with thalidomide was not demonstrated.”

Lockwood says thalidomide is the most useful treatment for a complication of leprosy called erythema nodosum leprosum, and is widely used for this in India where there is evidence of its value (Australasian Journal of Dermatology, doi.org/bk79q3).

Steady on Kepler...THERE’S life in the old girl yet. Although NASA’s Kepler space telescope is unlikely to return to planet-hunting, the blurry-eyed superstar may have a role in characterising known planets.

Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has revolutionised our view of alien planets and was busy honing the search for an Earth twin – until May, when a second reaction wheel stopped working. It needs three out of four for a gaze steady enough to detect planets.

Now, the Kepler team reports that while both problem wheels

responded to tests, one spins only one way, and both are plagued by friction, which can prevent precise observations.

With just two wheels and its thrusters to stabilise its gaze, the team reckons Kepler may still get

a decent view of solar systems for hours or even days at a time, not clear enough to find new planets, perhaps, but enough to tell us more about ones we already know.

“The superstar space telescope may still get a clear view of solar systems for hours or days at a time”

AH, THE beautiful wilds of western Canada. Rivers, mountains, forests… and out-of-control oil leaks that have already spurted thousands of barrels of toxic bitumen into the environment.

The leaks were caused by an underground blowout at a tar sand project in north-east Alberta run by Canadian Natural Resources that had been certified safe by government regulators. Since May, there have been leaks through surface fissures at four of the firm’s sites in the area, raising questions about how well the safety of tar sands operations can be assessed. The company extracts bitumen by injecting steam into the tar sands at high pressure to melt the bitumen and push it to the surface.

Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, estimates that the method accounts for about 30 per cent of tar sands extraction. “If there are cases like this, it shows things are not as predictable as we might like,” he says.

The spill could fuel opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from this and similar sites. Opponents worry that the pipeline itself has a high risk of leaking, and that increased extraction will exacerbate carbon emissions. US president Barack Obama has said that he will only give the project the green light if it doesn’t add to carbon emissions, and on Saturday he questioned the economic benefits of the pipeline.

Oil spill fuels pipeline worries

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Fracking fracasPlacard-holding protesters declared the village of Balcombe in Sussex, UK, a “frack free zone” this week. Police made at least 23 arrests as people attempted to block the delivery of drilling equipment for Cuadrilla, the company that intends to sink a 900-metre well as a prelude to fracking operations.

Magnet odysseyA giant magnet has completed a month-long trip across land and sea. The 15-metre-wide ring, originally used at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York to measure muons, arrived at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, last Friday after a circuitous 5000-kilometre journey designed to minimise damaging vibrations and prevent its slow speed causing traffic jams.

Tweet abuseTwitter has come under pressure to get tougher on online abuse after a UK politician and a campaigner both received rape threats via the social network. More than 65,000 people signed a petition calling on Twitter to add a “report tweet” button. The site said it will suspend any accounts found to be in breach of its rules.

How to hack carsThe UK High Court has banned a cybersecurity researcher at the University of Birmingham from revealing vulnerabilities in the ignition systems of Porsche and Audi cars built by Volkswagen. With car hacking on the rise, VW argues the paper would be a gift to criminals.

Jellyfish invasionBathers at beaches in the UK have been warned to beware of a surge in jellyfish following the country’s recent hot spell. The most dangerous, the lion’s mane jellyfish, has flourished off the coasts of north Wales and north-west England, with milder-stinging compass jellyfish increasing in the south-west, the UK Marine Conservation Society reports.

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