'Yummy mummy' worms feed their skin to offspring

An amphibious wormlike creature has been found in Kenya whose young feed on their mother’s skin. The creature may constitute a missing evolutionary link between external egg-hatchings to the live births seen in modern mammals, the researchers believe.

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All the pleasures of alcohol, with no downsides

CASUAL drinkers are unlikely to have raised their glass to the news last month that most people who suffer severe alcohol-induced liver disease are social drinkers not alcoholics. Nor to the finding that moderate drinking might not, after all, help prevent heart disease.

There may, however, just be a solution to our drinking woes - one that will allow us to go to a bar and drink as much as we want; get merry, not legless; wake without a hangover; and never have to worry that one of our favourite pastimes may be killing us. It's a cocktail of drugs that mimics the pleasurable effects of alcohol without the downsides. The idea is only on the drawing board, but there is no scientific reason why it could not be made right now ...