Eradication of Guinea worm disease is near

Eradication of a disease near

Health workers are on the verge of eradicating Guinea worm disease in what would be just the second time in history that a disease has been wiped from the planet, the Carter Center said Friday.

Cheap interventions such as hygiene education, using larvicides to kill the worm and distributing inexpensive cloths to help filter parasites from drinking water have cut the infection rate by 99%, the center said.

Fewer than 5,000 cases of Guinea worm disease, also known as dracunculiasis, remain in Mali, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia, the Atlanta-based center said. There were about 3.5 million cases in 1986 when the global effort to get rid of the disease began.

Stalagmite offers clue to history

An analysis of rings on a stalagmite from a cave near Jerusalem reveals a drier climate in the region when the Roman and Byzantine empires were in decline, scientists reported.

University of Wisconsin geologists analyzed the composition of rings as small as one-hundredth of a millimeter across that formed the stalagmite growing from the floor of the Soreq Cave near Jerusalem between 200 BC and AD 1100.

Geologists John Valley and Ian Orland concluded that the climate was drier in the eastern Mediterranean between AD 100 and 700, with steep declines in rainfall around 100 and 400, and they speculated that it helped bring about the end of the two empires. Their findings will be reported in the journal Quaternary Research.

Ancient insect made its mark

U.S. researchers said this week that they have discovered what appears to be the oldest imprint of a prehistoric insect, made while the dragonfly-like creature was still alive.

The imprint found at a rocky outcrop near a large shopping center in North Attleboro, Mass., is believed to have been made by a 3-inch-long insect as it stood on mud about 312 million years ago.

The imprint shows the thorax and abdomen, along with six legs, two of which may have moved slightly to create drag marks that hardened into burgundy-colored stone.

Hubble repair mission is set

NASA has set a May date for its space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope for a final time.

The space agency announced Thursday that it plans to launch the shuttle Atlantis on May 12 for what is to be an 11-day repair and upgrade mission to the $10-billion space telescope.