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A Belgian French-language daily has issued what is thought to be Europe’s first 3D newspaper – complete with cardboard viewing glasses. All the photos and ads in La Derniere Heure’s (DH) special edition were given a three-dimensional effect, but the text remained the same. DH’s editor said there were no further 3D plans due to the costs involved. Reviewers in France saluted the paper’s “bold initiative” but called the overall result “far from perfect”. ‘3D challenge’ Editor Hubert Leclercq said it took two months to prepare the special edition, which had a higher than normal print run of 115,000 copies for the newsstands. “We hear about 3D cinema, television and video games, so we took up the challenge,” Mr Leclercq told the AFP news agency. According to PC World’s French edition, readers could obtain the best results by holding the paper 50cm (20in) from the eyes in a well-lit area. “It takes a few minutes to get used to pictures in 3D,” it said, noting the limited quality of the disposable viewing lenses. It said some of the pictures – notably some ads – had a good 3D relief effect, but that other pictures were blurry or difficult to focus on.

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Leaping off the page – Belgian paper prints 3D edition

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, The Woodlands, Texas Deforestation has revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say. The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade. Italian researchers considered other origins for the ring, but say these are unlikely. They presented their findings at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, US. The ring shape is clearly visible in the satellite image by TerraMetrics Inc reproduced on this page. Only about terrestrial 25 impact craters are of comparable size or larger, according to the web-based Earth Impact Database. Giovanni Monegato, from the University of Padova, said the feature was revealed only after trees were cleared from the area over the last decade. The Unia River flows around the ring structure, underlining its round shape. The central part of the Wembo-Nyama feature is irregular and about 550m in elevation. This is about 50-60m higher than the depression where the river flows. Although this might sound counter-intuitive, experts say that impact craters can sometimes lift up dense rocks. The surrounding rocks may subsequently erode, leaving a dome. Confirmation needed The putative crater lacks a well-defined outer ridge, though the University of Padova team says this could be explained by deep weathering and erosion in the tropical climate. They add that the drainage pattern in the ring is very similar to those found in large impact craters in humid environments. LARGEST IMPACT CRATERS The Chicxulub crater is buried under Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula Vredefort: S Africa, 300km-wide, 2 billion years old Sudbury: Canada, 250km-wide, 1.8 billion years old Chicxulub: Mexico, 170km-wide, 65 million years old Popigai: Russia, 100km-wide, 35.7 million years old Manicouagan: Canada, 100km-wide, 214 million years old Mr Monegato said the team would now have to travel to the region to carry out field studies. Researchers would examine rocks from the site for tell-tale signs associated with space impacts. These might include shocked quartz – a form of the mineral which occurs where rocks have been hit suddenly by a massive force. It is found only at nuclear explosion sites and at asteroid impact sites. Finding such evidence will be crucial to confirm an impact origin over other processes which might explain the structure. The researchers have considered whether volcanism or salt diapirism (a process where evaporite minerals intrude vertically into surrounding rock, forming dome-like structures on the surface) could be responsible for the annulus. But Mr Monegato and his colleagues say the known geology of the region – along with other features of the structure (for example, no known salt diapirs reach such a great size) – appear to rule out such explanations. “I am quite optimistic about an impact crater origin for this ring,” Mr Monegato told BBC News. If it is an impact structure, the scientists estimate it could have been punched into the crust by a space rock measuring about 2km across. Further studies will be required to accurately determine an age for the ring, but it appears to post-date the Jurassic Period. Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Ring may be giant ‘impact crater’

More schools are being judged inadequate under a new inspection regime, figures from England’s schools watchdog are expected to show. Ofsted introduced a new framework in September 2009 which requires schools to achieve higher results to be rated as good or outstanding. The watchdog has insisted its new-style inspections would “raise the bar” on its expectations of schools. Data on schools’ performance under the system will be released on Wednesday. Last week the Times Educational Supplement said the new regime had seen a near doubling in the proportion of schools judged “inadequate”, while the proportion rated “outstanding” was less than half of what it used to be. But inspectors said they now had “higher expectations on behalf of pupils and parents”. ” It is no surprise if there is a rise in inadequate schools – it just reflects the fact that the bar has been raised ” Department for Children, Schools and Families A spokesman for Ofsted said: “We have made it clear that every time an inspection framework is revised, expectations are raised too.” Ofsted said the reaction from schools had been “overwhelmingly positive”, with nine out of 10 who had responded to feedback surveys saying they were satisfied with the way inspection was carried out. A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “We made clear in the schools White Paper last June that inspection from September would be more challenging. “It is no surprise if there is a rise in inadequate schools – it just reflects the fact that the bar has been raised and weaker schools are being inspected earlier in the cycle.” New regime Under the new arrangements, outstanding and good schools are only inspected once within a five-year period – previously it was every three years. Satisfactory schools are inspected every three years and inadequate schools are visited regularly until they make the improvements necessary. The new regime sees inspectors assess twice as many lessons and more emphasis is put on questionnaires filled out by parents and pupils. Inspectors put more emphasis on pupil attainment – a point which has caused controversy, particularly for schools in challenging areas – rather than on improvement. Schools are given two days’ warning of an inspection and the inspections lasts for two days. Ofsted said the new format was introduced in response to teachers’ concerns inspections focused too much on schools data and inspectors did not assess enough lessons. The watchdog said more than 2,000 inspections had been carried out under the new system between September and December last year. Chris Richardson, head teacher at the Kings of Wessex School in Somerset, said the new inspection framework brought “significant improvements”, particularly a sharper focus on student achievement. “A new self-evaluation form meant we felt well prepared for inspection and it gave the inspectors a good overview of the school. “Our students valued the opportunities to engage with the inspectors and give their perspective on the school.” But John Fairhurst, head of Shenfield High School in Essex, said the new inspection framework had downgraded his school from good with outstanding features to satisfactory, simply because the school’s GCSE results in 2008 were weak. “It’s become a rather skimpy inspection with an altered agenda – heavily data driven,” he said. “The framework proved, in our case, superficial and underestimated the good work of the school.” The Association for School and College Leaders and the National Association of Head Teachers are also critical of the regime, saying it puts too much emphasis on raw attainment.

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More schools likely to be failed

Rules to improve child protection in the wake of the Baby P case may leave children more at risk, council leaders have warned. Lord Laming’s report last year included a series of recommendations to make children in England safer. But social workers say they are being overworked because of a huge increase in paperwork, research for the Local Government Association suggests. The LGA is calling for reduced bureaucracy to focus instead on care. The Loughborough University study said social workers had seen their workloads increase significantly since the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly. This rise was said to be partly due to a rise in referrals and new regulations. ” Children who are at risk, and families which are struggling, will benefit more from additional time with experienced social workers than they will from an increase in the number of forms filled in about them ” Shireen Ritchie, LGA Lord Laming’s recommendation that every child protection referral to councils from other professionals should lead to a “formal initial assessment” was particularly focused on by the study. Researchers found that around 2,000 extra social workers would be needed at a cost of

Foreign Secretary David Miliband is to call on the Afghan government to work harder to find a political solution to the conflict with the Taliban. At a lecture in the US, he is expected to urge President Hamid Karzai to work harder to match international military and development effort in his country. He is set to say a political settlement involving dialogue with the Taliban is as important as the military effort. President Karzai is to hold a council of Afghan leaders next month. In a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Mr Miliband is expected to say: “Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort. “The political settlement needs to be external as well as internal, involving all of Afghanistan’s neighbours as well as those parts of the insurgency willing permanently to sever ties with al-Qaeda, give up their armed struggle and live within the Afghan constitutional framework.” ‘Political engagement’ The foreign secretary will tell his audience that while some insurgents are committed to al-Qaeda’s violent extremist agenda and will never be reconciled, the majority are not. He is expected to say: “They share conservative Islamic beliefs and, linked to that, strong views about what is a just social order. “Their rallying cry is the expulsion of international forces. But they are also motivated by their intense dissatisfaction with the Afghan government and Afghan politics – which they see as corrupt and incompetent. “The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement. It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.” Military deaths The BBC’s James Robbins said officials worry that President Karzai is “dragging his feet over drawing as many Afghan leaders as possible into the peace jirga, or grand council, which he is convening next month. Our correspondent went on: “The success of that meeting is crucial to the far wider strategy, which includes the current military surge, designed to offer Taliban fighters a clear choice between future involvement in peaceful politics or the increased risk of being killed. “In short, London and Washington worry that President Karzai’s political push may not match their military push, which would make it harder to make the case for the sacrifice of soldiers’ lives.” Mr Miliband’s speech comes amidst a backdrop of mounting casualties among British troops. Six UK soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan’s Sangin area since 1 March, and 272 UK service personnel have died in the country since operations began in 2001.

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UK seeks Afghan political drive

By Nick Triggle Health reporter, BBC News Hopes of reaching a cross-party deal on funding social care appear to be dead in the water. The three main parties are due to take part in talks hosted by the merged Age Concern and Help the Aged charity. But despite pleas from council chiefs for unity, fresh rows about policy differences have erupted. The Tories, who have dubbed one of the government’s proposals a death tax, also ruled out relaxing their position so a compromise deal can be reached. The latest talks were organised on the back of a Department of Health summit three weeks ago which was boycotted by the Tories. The meeting, which will involve senior local government officials, charities and older people, is likely to be the last opportunity for the parties to meet on the issue before the expected start of an election campaign next month. WHERE THE PARTIES STAND Labour – Put forward three proposals – all of which involve the state providing a basic level of care which would be topped up by either personal contributions, a voluntary insurance scheme or compulsory levy. The third option – dubbed a death tax – is said to be favoured by ministers Tories – Proposed an

There is no evidence acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine increase the chance of getting pregnant through IVF, fertility experts say in new guidance. The methods are increasingly offered as a way of boosting the chances of a baby, but the British Fertility Society suggests couples may be wasting money. They analysed 14 trials involving 2,670 people before issuing the new guidance. But a leading practitioner said that better designed trials would show that the methods could help some couples. All the trials involved acupuncture, in which needles were inserted into different areas of the body at different stages in the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycle. No matter at what stage of the process acupuncture was used, it had no impact on the pregnancy or live birth rate, the BFS researchers found. ” “Fertility focused acupuncture treatment has been found to help increase blood flow to the reproductive organs, balance hormone levels, regulate the menstrual cycle and help improve the lining of the uterus and quality of eggs released ” British Acupuncture Council They did however also find it caused no harm, with no difference in miscarriage rates. There were no published trials on the use of Chinese herbs which were rigorous enough for inclusion, so the team concluded that there was “currently no evidence to support the use of this in fertility treatments”. As more couples seek IVF, there has been a growth in accompanying complementary therapies, and acupuncture has benefited. It is the most popular option for patients because it is thought to improve blood flow and increase the chance of an embryo implanting. Trial and error But this sometimes comes at a cost which could buy a couple a further cycle of IVF. Professor Adam Balen, head of BFS’s policy and practice committee, said patients needed to be aware of the lack of evidence on acupuncture and herbs before signing up to a course of treatment. There was a “a great deal of discrepancy”, he added, in the way in which the trials were designed and the type of acupuncture used. “Any future randomised controlled trials in this area need to ensure that they use a standardised acupuncture method, have a large sample size and include adequate controls to account for any placebo effects.” ” Infertile women have been misled for some time now to think that traditional Chinese medicine can help them getting pregnant ” Professor Edzard Ernst Pensinsula Medical School One high-profile practitioner, Dr Xiao-Ping Zhai, of The Zhai Fertility Treatment Clinic, said there were indeed problems with the way in which these trials were designed and that different analysis would show the benefits. “Certainly for those with unexplained fertility problems in particular, we know acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine can be beneficial. What matters is both the expertise and experience of the practitioner, but most of all the treatment of the patient as an individual. It is the tailored treatment which is key. “We need clinical trials that take this into account.” A statement from the British Acupuncture Council noted: “Fertility focused acupuncture treatment has been found to help increase blood flow to the reproductive organs, balance hormone levels, regulate the menstrual cycle and help improve the lining of the uterus and quality of eggs released. “BACC practitioners recognise that there are many factors which may cause infertility such as stress, irregular hormone levels and disrupted menstrual cycles. As a holistic therapy, acupuncture helps to identify underlying health issues which may cause disruption to the body’s natural balance, resulting in symptoms such as infertility.” But one of the country’s leading experts on the efficacy of complementary medicine, Professor Edzard Ernst of Pensinsula Medical School, described the new guidelines as “long overdue clarification”. “Infertile women have been misled for some time now to think that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can help them getting pregnant. This analysis shows two things very clearly: the totality of the acupuncture trials does not support this notion, and for Chinese herbs, we have no evidence at all. “This will help infertile women not to waste their money or get disappointed by TCM practitioners who behave less than responsibly when recommending these treatments.”

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‘No proof’ IVF aided by acupuncture

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Three men have been arrested in connection with the theft of the corpse of Cyprus’s ex-President Tassos Papadopoulos, officials say. Police said they had arrested two Greek Cypriots and a foreign national on suspicion of involvement in the theft. One of the Greek Cypriots was already serving a prison sentence for other offences, a spokesman said. The body was stolen three months ago and found in a cemetery in Nicosia late on Monday after an anonymous tip-off. DNA tests confirmed it was that of Mr Papadopoulos. Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos told the AP news agency that the suspects will appear in court on Wednesday. He said police will request they be kept in custody pending further investigations. Another report said the foreign national under arrest was an Indian. ‘Ransom demand’ Earlier, Justice Minister Loucas Louca said the thieves had made a ransom demand, although no money was paid. “There was no political motive,” he added. However, spokesmen for the Papadopoulos family denied that any ransom demand was made to them. Cypriot media said the body snatchers had demanded 300,000 euros ($400,000;

Children with behavioural problems are twice as likely to suffer chronic pain as adults than others, say researchers. Scientists at Aberdeen University, who followed the lives of more than 19,000 children, think faulty hormone signals in the brain may play a key role. Bad early life experiences may harm this brain system, causing both behavioural problems in childhood and chronic widespread pain in adulthood. The findings, spanning 45 years, are published in the journal Rheumatology. All of the children in the study were born in 1958, and mostly in the UK. ” It is becoming clear that events that happen early in childhood are important ” Dr John McBeth of Manchester University Throughout the study, up until the age of 16, parents and teachers assessed the children’s behaviour looking for any “problem” signs such as poor ability to make friends, disobedience, stealing, thumb sucking and nail biting, lying, bullying and truanting. When the children had grown up and reached the age of 42 they completed a questionnaire asking about psychological distress. At the age of 45 they completed another one about pain. From this the researchers found that children with severe behavioural problems had double the risk of chronic widespread pain. Dr Dong Pang, lead author of the work and a researcher at the University of Aberdeen, said: “We know already that severe adverse events in childhood such as hospitalisation after a road traffic accident and separation from mothers are linked to chronic widespread pain in adulthood.” But, until now, it was unknown whether maladjusted behaviour in children was a long-term marker for this type of pain. “Our study shows that it is,” he said. Abnormal stress response The researchers say that it is not just chronic widespread pain that is associated with bad behaviour in childhood. Other adult problems associated with childhood behavioural problems include long-term psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse. They say that all these problems may be outcomes of the chain of events set in motion by the dysfunctioning “hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal” or HPA axis – the system in the brain that controls hormones to help regulate the body’s response to stressful situations. If further research proves this to be the case, then it might be possible to intervene in early life to prevent these problems occurring later. Professor Gary Macfarlane, who also worked on the study, said changing a person’s lifestyle may help alter the pattern, including increasing the amount of exercise someone takes as well as watching out for signs of psychological distress and behavioural problems in childhood. Dr John McBeth, a pain expert at Manchester University, said: “While the factors associated with developing chronic widespread pain are slowly being revealed, it is becoming clear that events that happen early in childhood are important. He said the next challenge was to determine if problems with stress response system were operating in children. “If the answer is yes, these studies offer exciting opportunities to develop early interventions to alleviate symptoms including chronic pain disorders in adulthood.”

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‘Problem kids’ risk future pain