What the scientists are saying…
The agony going undiagnosed Doctors are failing to diagnose a condition that can leave women in crippling pain, and lead to infertility, the NHS watchdog has warned. As many as one in ten women of reproductive age suffer from endometriosis: in some cases the pain is so acute, they cannot work. Yet many are told it is “normal”, and on average, patients wait seven or eight years before they get a diagnosis, during which time the condition can become harder to treat, according to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice). “The condition is difficult to diagnose as symptoms vary and are often unspecific,” said Professor Mark Baker, of Nice. “However, once it has been diagnosed there are effective treatments that can ease [the] symptoms.” Nice’s new guidelines state that GPS should refer women for scans if they suffer from one of a list of symptoms that includes pelvic pain, severe period pain, pain during sex, and chronic tiredness; and that even if the scans come back normal, they should not rule out the condition. Delayed diagnosis of endometriosis – which is caused when tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts appearing elsewhere in the body – is believed to be a worldwide problem.
The bold Bronze Age travellers The idea of independent women striking out in the world, while men stay at home, might be thought to be a relatively modern one, says The Daily Telegraph. But new archaeological research has suggested that during the Bronze Age, women were great travellers, spreading ideas and culture, whereas men tended to stay where they were. A team from Munich examined the remains of 84 people buried in what is now the Lech Valley, in Germany, between 2500BC and 1650BC. By examining chemical signatures in their teeth, they established that although they had been buried according to local custom, two thirds of the group of women had travelled a considerable distance from their place of birth – between 180 and 300 miles. By contrast, the men appeared to have lived and died in that region. According to study leader Professor Philipp Stockhammer, the findings cast new light on human mobility in the late Stone Age and early Bronze Age. “It appears that at least part of what was believed to be migration by groups was based on an institutionalised form of individual mobility,” he said.
Wild dogs sneeze to vote Democracy isn’t only for humans. African hunting dogs also make decisions as a group – with sneezes acting as votes, a study has found. Scientists have in the past observed that the highly sociable animals sneeze a lot, but assumed they were merely clearing their airways. But when a team monitored them more closely, in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, they noticed that when the dogs gather for rituals known as “social rallies”, they appear to decide whether to go hunting – or simply to go back to sleep in the shade – on the basis of how many of them sneeze. They found that the more sneezes there were, the more likely the dogs were to go off and hunt for impala. However, the number of sneezes required to trigger the decision seemed to depend on whether or not the top dogs had initiated the rally. “When the dominant male and female were involved, the pack only had to sneeze a few times before they would move off,” said Reena Walker of Brown University. “However, if the dominant pair were not engaged, more sneezes were needed – approximately ten – before the pack would move off.” That they have a quorum is particularly interesting as, in other respects, the dogs seem to live under an autocracy: the top dogs eat first, and the dominant female’s puppies – fed and babysat by subordinate dogs – are the only ones allowed to survive until adulthood.
Sick notes for stress and anxiety One in three “sick notes” handed out by GPS are now for mental health problems, an NHS report has shown. That makes psychiatric ill-health the most common reason for people taking time off work, ahead of back pain and other musculoskeletal problems. There was a 14% rise in fit notes (as sick notes are now called) for anxiety and stressrelated conditions between 2015-16 and 2016-17, from 503,000 to 573,000. More than one in five psychiatric sick notes were issued for longer than 12 weeks.