What the scientists are saying…

Did humans evolve in Europe? Some 12 million years ago, Europe was an apes’ paradise, says New Scientist. But the climatic conditions then deteriorated, and the apes began to die out – leaving the creatures largely confined to Africa. So it was in Africa that they then split into gorillas, chimps and humans. That’s the conventional wisdom, at any rate. But now Africa’s reputation as the birthplace of mankind is being challenged by researchers who claim to have found fossil evidence that one species of ape clung on in southeastern Europe; moreover, they claim that Graecopithecus was no ordinary ape, but a hominin that had developed human-like features 200,000 years before the earliest known hominins in Africa. The fossils – a lower jaw found in Greece in 1944, and a premolar more recently uncovered in Bulgaria – are about 7.2 million years old, and show that the creature’s teeth had a characteristic unusual in apes: fused roots. “This condition is so far only known to occur regularly in hominins – pre-humans and humans,” says Professor Nikolai Spassov, of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. “It is extremely rare in recent chimps.” If he is right, it would suggest our last common ancestor was a European. However, other scientists are sceptical: they argue that one distinct characteristic, established from two fossils, is not enough to prove Graecopithecus was a hominin.

The dark side of scented candles Lighting candles is, as the Danes put it, very hygge. But even if it’s good for your soul, it may not be good for your lungs: a study in the US has found evidence that candles are a significant source of airborne pollution. The research, by a team at San Diego State University, found that burning candles – whether scented or unscented – raised indoor pollution levels by around 30%, and opening doors and windows didn’t do much to help. Other major sources of indoor pollution include frying food in oil. However, the study – based on analysis of pollution levels in 300 homes, and published in the journal PLOS ONE – suggests that smoking cigarettes remains the main contributor to such pollution.

Try poppy seed oil before IVF Women struggling to conceive should try having their fallopian tubes flushed out with poppy seed oil. For years, fertility doctors looking for blockages in women’s fallopian tubes have injected them with poppy seed oil because it contains iodine, which shows up on X-ray scans. Doctors have noted that many women fall pregnant soon after such scans, raising speculation that this investigative technique may itself clear the way for eggs travelling from the ovaries to the uterus. Now a team at the University of Adelaide have tested the theory, in a study involving 1,119 women. They found that 40% of those who had their fallopian tubes flushed with poppy seed oil conceived within six months, compared with just 29% of those whose tubes were flushed with water and iodine. “This is an important outcome for women who would have had no other course of action other than to seek IVF treatment,” said Professor Ben Mol, who led the study.

Britain: polluted and boozy Pollution kills twice as many people in Britain than in the US – and 64 times as many as in Sweden, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). In the UK, 25.7 deaths per 100,000 of the population are attributable to pollution, compared with 12.1 in the US, and 0.4 in Sweden. In Spain, there are 14.7 deaths per 100,000, in France, 17.2. Eleven other European countries also had lower mortality rates than the UK. However, the UK has a lower rate than any country in Africa except for Mauritius – possibly because of people cooking indoors on open fires. Levels of fine particulate matter in the air are more than twice as high in the UK as in Sweden, at 12.4 micrograms per cubic metre, on average – but far lower than in Poland, at 25.4mcg. The WHO’S annual World Health Statistics report also reveals that Britons drink heavily, consuming almost double the global average each year. Worldwide, the average person aged over 15 drinks the equivalent of 6.4 litres of pure alcohol a year: in the UK, it’s 12.3 litres. Only 11 nations were found to have higher per capita consumption rates: Belgium, Russia, Romania, Lithuania, Moldova, Belarus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Estonia and Bulgaria.