- Email: [email protected]
Pirates gain in Iceland
Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images
Upfront
Pirates gain in Iceland ICELAND’S Pirate Party tripled its seats in parliament in elections held last Saturday. The party, which is led by Birgitta Jónsdóttir and is known for its anti-establishment views and focus on technology issues, now has 10 seats out of 63. It shares second place with Iceland’s Left-Green Movement. While not as large as some polls suggested, it’s a big win for the Pirates. The first Pirate Party was established in Sweden in 2006 with the main intention of reforming copyright law, but political groups acting under the Pirate banner now have a presence in many countries. Iceland’s Pirate Party advocates for direct democracy, personal privacy and government transparency. It has also proposed making bitcoin legal
tender and offering citizenship to whistle-blower Edward Snowden. “We’re still that group of nerdy tech enthusiasts,” says Björn Leví Gunnarsson, a Pirate Party candidate who won his seat in the weekend’s elections. “But we’re unique in the political landscape with the issues we are discussing.” As New Scientist went to press, complex negotiations were under way to determine the Pirates’ role in Iceland’s government. The governing Independence Party dominates with 21 seats in parliament but will need to join forces with at least two parties to form a majority. Meanwhile, the opposition Left-Green Movement has touted a five-party coalition that would include the Pirate Party.
Whale of a deal
Mexican government to enforce gill-net bans in the vaquita’s range. Efforts will also be strengthened to eliminate trade in totoaba swim bladders and increase funding for vaquita-monitoring programmes. “It’s not too late for the vaquita, but it’s going to be close,” says Matt Collis from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The IWC also agreed to subject Japan’s controversial “scientific whaling” to independent oversight and acknowledged that rather than depleting fisheries, whales boost them through the recycling of nutrients in their dung.
–A pirate’s life for me–
Male contraception
they were satisfied with the injection and would continue to use it if it were available (The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, doi.org/bsdq). “Although the injections were effective, the combination of hormones needs to be studied more to consider a good balance between efficacy and safety,” says Mario Festin at the World Health Organization. The combined oral contraceptive pill for women is over 99 per cent effective, but has been associated with blood clots, breast cancer and depression.
AN INJECTED male contraceptive has been found to be almost 96 per cent effective in a trial involving 320 men – but the study was cut short after many experienced side effects.
The injection is designed to reduce sperm production using the hormone progestogen. But over the year-long trial, muscle pain, acne, increased libido, and depression and other mood disorders were all reported as side effects, causing 20 men to drop out. There was also one case of intentional paracetamol overdose and another of an irregular heart rate, both of which may have been related to the injection. An external panel of reviewers decided that the risks to the study participants outweighed the potential benefits, and the trial was discontinued. But more than 75 per cent of the volunteers said 6 | NewScientist | 5 November 2016
Li Changxiang/Xinhua/Eyevine
“The injections reduced the rate of pregnancy, but the contraceptive needs to be safer”
THE world’s smallest porpoise may have a fighting chance. The vaquita might be saved from extinction by an agreement at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Portoroz, Slovenia, last week. Unique to the Gulf of California, the vaquita has seen its numbers collapse to 59 in 2015. They are often accidentally drowned in gill nets used to illegally catch totoaba fish, whose swim bladders are prized in Chinese medicine. Fresh measures will oblige the
Colder winters link FREEZING winters in the UK and US may be caused indirectly by climate change, a study suggests. Warming in the Arctic could be influencing the jet stream, a highaltitude corridor of fast-moving air, leading to severe cold snaps. It may have been behind record snowfall in New York in 2014/15, and unusually cold winters in the UK in 2009/10 and 2010/11 (Nature Climate Change, doi.org/bsjg). –Blame it on the jet stream– When the jet stream follows a
Upfront
Pirates gain in Iceland ICELAND’S Pirate Party tripled its seats in parliament in elections held last Saturday. The party, which is led by Birgitta Jónsdóttir and is known for its anti-establishment views and focus on technology issues, now has 10 seats out of 63. It shares second place with Iceland’s Left-Green Movement. While not as large as some polls suggested, it’s a big win for the Pirates. The first Pirate Party was established in Sweden in 2006 with the main intention of reforming copyright law, but political groups acting under the Pirate banner now have a presence in many countries. Iceland’s Pirate Party advocates for direct democracy, personal privacy and government transparency. It has also proposed making bitcoin legal
tender and offering citizenship to whistle-blower Edward Snowden. “We’re still that group of nerdy tech enthusiasts,” says Björn Leví Gunnarsson, a Pirate Party candidate who won his seat in the weekend’s elections. “But we’re unique in the political landscape with the issues we are discussing.” As New Scientist went to press, complex negotiations were under way to determine the Pirates’ role in Iceland’s government. The governing Independence Party dominates with 21 seats in parliament but will need to join forces with at least two parties to form a majority. Meanwhile, the opposition Left-Green Movement has touted a five-party coalition that would include the Pirate Party.
Whale of a deal
Mexican government to enforce gill-net bans in the vaquita’s range. Efforts will also be strengthened to eliminate trade in totoaba swim bladders and increase funding for vaquita-monitoring programmes. “It’s not too late for the vaquita, but it’s going to be close,” says Matt Collis from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The IWC also agreed to subject Japan’s controversial “scientific whaling” to independent oversight and acknowledged that rather than depleting fisheries, whales boost them through the recycling of nutrients in their dung.
–A pirate’s life for me–
Male contraception
they were satisfied with the injection and would continue to use it if it were available (The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, doi.org/bsdq). “Although the injections were effective, the combination of hormones needs to be studied more to consider a good balance between efficacy and safety,” says Mario Festin at the World Health Organization. The combined oral contraceptive pill for women is over 99 per cent effective, but has been associated with blood clots, breast cancer and depression.
AN INJECTED male contraceptive has been found to be almost 96 per cent effective in a trial involving 320 men – but the study was cut short after many experienced side effects.
The injection is designed to reduce sperm production using the hormone progestogen. But over the year-long trial, muscle pain, acne, increased libido, and depression and other mood disorders were all reported as side effects, causing 20 men to drop out. There was also one case of intentional paracetamol overdose and another of an irregular heart rate, both of which may have been related to the injection. An external panel of reviewers decided that the risks to the study participants outweighed the potential benefits, and the trial was discontinued. But more than 75 per cent of the volunteers said 6 | NewScientist | 5 November 2016
Li Changxiang/Xinhua/Eyevine
“The injections reduced the rate of pregnancy, but the contraceptive needs to be safer”
THE world’s smallest porpoise may have a fighting chance. The vaquita might be saved from extinction by an agreement at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Portoroz, Slovenia, last week. Unique to the Gulf of California, the vaquita has seen its numbers collapse to 59 in 2015. They are often accidentally drowned in gill nets used to illegally catch totoaba fish, whose swim bladders are prized in Chinese medicine. Fresh measures will oblige the
Colder winters link FREEZING winters in the UK and US may be caused indirectly by climate change, a study suggests. Warming in the Arctic could be influencing the jet stream, a highaltitude corridor of fast-moving air, leading to severe cold snaps. It may have been behind record snowfall in New York in 2014/15, and unusually cold winters in the UK in 2009/10 and 2010/11 (Nature Climate Change, doi.org/bsjg). –Blame it on the jet stream– When the jet stream follows a