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Some of mankind’s most devastating inherited diseases appear to be declining, and a few have nearly disappeared, because more people are using genetic testing to decide whether to have children.

Births of babies with cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and other less familiar disorders seem to have dropped since testing came into wider use, The Associated Press found from interviews with numerous geneticists and other experts and a review of the limited research available.

Many of these diseases are little known and few statistics are kept. But their effects — ranging from blood disorders to muscle decline — can be disabling and often fatal during childhood.

Now, more women are being tested as part of routine prenatal care, and many end pregnancies when diseases are found. One study in California found that prenatal screening reduced by half the number of babies born with the severest form of cystic fibrosis because many parents chose abortion.

More couples with no family history of inherited diseases are getting tested before starting families to see if they carry mutations that put a baby at risk. And a growing number are screening embryos and using only those without problem genes.

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A scientist has come up with a new method to reconfigure the way solar panels are connected, which could lead to solar arrays in the future that are more energy efficient and reliable. According to Dr Jonathan Kimball, an assistant professor of electrical…

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Typhoon Mirinae is moving west and away from the Northern Marianas Islands on a track to a landfall in the Philippines by the weekend. As Mirinae has moved west, NASA’s infrared and microwave satellite imagery have seen high, strong thunderstorm development, and a developing eye. Typhoon Mirinae’s…

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Urbanisation has long been at odds with wildlife.

However, scientists have found a turtle that does better in a suburban habitat than it does in nature reserves.

Eastern long-necked turtles living in the suburbs of Australia have larger home ranges and cope better with periods of drought.

The reptiles also appear to grow and survive better, suggesting suburban environments may sometimes be superior places to live than natural ones.

Scientists have published the findings in the journal Biological Conservation.

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An international seed bank has reached its target of collecting 10% of the world’s wild plants, with seeds of a pink banana among its latest entries.

The wild banana, Musa itinerans, is a favourite of wild Asian elephants.

Seeds from the plant, which is under threat from agriculture, join 1.7 billion already stored by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership.

The project has been described as an "insurance strategy" against future biodiversity losses.

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Without fanfare or ceremony, the most celebrated scientist in the country, Stephen Hawking, quietly stepped down this week from the most prestigious post in British physics.

Hawking’s successor as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University will be decided by committee this month, but as he moves on, leading physicists warn that Britain risks losing the next generation of great minds.

Government pressure on universities is diverting researchers away from purely intellectual problems and on to sure-fire money-making projects, physicists say. The university’s role of pulling in and nurturing deep thinkers will be sidelined in favour of people who can turn profits by making better widgets.

The shift from "blue skies research" to more practical problems will turn gifted students with the potential to be the next Hawking or Sir Isaac Newton off science for good, physicists claim.

Read more on guardian.co.uk

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You might not be surprised to hear that the demographics of video-game characters don’t quite match up with those of real populations. But the first "virtual census" of the human characters that inhabit US video games exposes just how much they diverge from reality.

The survey reveals that males, adults and white people are over-represented in games. Females, black people, children and the elderly are correspondingly under-represented.

Dmitri Williams at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, carried out the study with colleagues at Indiana University, Ohio University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He told New Scientist that the mismatch between real-world and videogame populations could be excluding some groups of potential players from games.

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A European spacecraft will begin its quest this week to make the most detailed global map of the Earth’s gravity field.

The arrow-shaped Goce satellite can sense tiny variations in the planet’s tug as it sweeps around the world at the very low altitude of just 255km.

The map will help scientists understand better how the oceans move.

It should also give them a universal reference to compare heights anywhere across the globe.

Goce was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia in March.

Engineers have since commissioned the spacecraft, satisfying themselves that all its systems are working properly.

But the satellite has had to wait until now for the right conditions to start its science campaign.

"We’ve been in the so-called eclipse mode where the Sun doesn’t shine fully on the solar panels, but now we are entering the measurement mode," said Dr Volker Liebig, the director of Earth observation at the European Space Agency (Esa).

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The climate deal planned for Copenhagen in 10 weeks’ time is in grave danger of failure, the prime minister has said.

Gordon Brown has become the first world leader to offer to go to the Danish capital to help seal the deal.

He told Newsweek magazine there was no second chance to undo "catastrophic damage" to the environment if "we miss the opportunity to protect the planet".

This year’s talks are vital as they aim to produce a successor to the Kyoto Climate Protocol on global warming.

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A forensic officer photographs an area of land on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham, after remains were discovered in 2008. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Police contracts that put pressure on forensic scientists to deliver low-cost investigations within tight timescales risk jeopardising quality and could lead to a miscarriage of justice, experts have warned.

Police forces have changed the way they obtain forensic science services for criminal investigations and now pick laboratories through competitive tendering.

That has led to forces typically employing firms that offer the lowest cost or quickest turnaround time for testing evidence, according to Clare Stangoe, principal scientist at Forensic Access, a leading provider of forensics services. The murder and sex crimes specialist said that whereas before scientists were given "the time they need", they might now have to deliver results within three days, with the laboratory facing a fine if they are late.

Read more on guardian.co.uk

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