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Girls as young as 13 can get the Pill without seeing a doctor for the first time. Teenagers below the legal age of consent will be able to walk into their local pharmacist and get the contraceptive tablets over the counter. The scheme, which is being introduced in a bid to reduce soaring underage pregnancy rates, will mean young girls can go on the Pill without informing their parents. But critics warn that it is effectively giving teenagers a license to have more sex, so will just encourage greater promiscuity.

SNIPPET: "Algiers, 11 Feb. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda has launched a new campaign to recruit university students, scientists and IT specialists in Algeria. "We appeal to undergraduates, chemists, doctors and IT specialists to join our ranks," the terror network said in a statement published on jihadist websites on Thursday. "Remember the massacres that take place every day in Palestine, in Cechyna, Iraq and Afghanistan," said the statement signed by 'Abu Muslim al-Jazairi'. Al-Qaeda is seeking new bomb-makers and medics who can help treat fighters wounded in clashes with Algerian security forces, according to daily El-Nahar. Currently, 80 pecent of young people...

" chemist who led to the invention of the birth control pill says he regrets the demographic catastrophe that has resulted from people using the contraceptive device to separate reproduction from sexuality, reports Baptist Press. Carl Djerassi, the 85-year-old Austrian chemist who was one of three whose formulation of synthetic hormones paved the way for the pill, wrote an opinion piece in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard lamenting the way the pill has been used. Austria's population now includes more people over age 65 than under 15, and Djerassi said the country soon will face an "impossible situation" as the...

Unnatural success Aimee Cunningham Chemists report the first synthesis of a promising antibiotic that other researchers recently discovered in nature. With the recipe in hand, scientists can pursue modifications that might make the compound more effective. Earlier this year, a team from Merck Research Laboratories announced the discovery of platensimycin, a small molecule produced by the bacterium Streptomyces platensis (SN: 5/20/06, p. 307: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060520/fob1.asp). Platensimycin killed certain drug-resistant pathogens by disrupting their synthesis of fatty acids. After seeing that "exciting report," K. C. Nicolaou of Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., says, he and his colleagues devised a strategy...

Contact: Ann Marie Menting or Cory Hatch amenting@bu.edu 617-358-1240 Boston University Boston University chemists probe secrets in ancient textile dyes from China, PeruChemists journey to Gobi region for samples, discover novel dye in textiles from Peru (Boston) -- Although searching for 3,000-year-old mummy textiles in tombs under the blazing sun of a western Chinese desert may seem more Indiana Jones than analytical chemist, two Boston University researchers recently did just that. Traveling along the ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang Province on their quest, they found the ancient fabrics – and hit upon a research adventure that combined chemistry, archaeology, anthropology,...

Death of worker at treatment plant ruled a homicide The Associated Press PATERSON, N.J. - A woman whose body was found in a tank at a water treatment plant drowned and her death has been ruled a homicide, the Passaic County prosecutor said Monday. Geetha Angara had been doing water quality tests Wednesday when she disappeared. A search found her body about 100 feet from where she was working, but her two-way radio and clipboard were found directly below the work area, which had a protective grate to prevent falls, Prosecutor James F. Avigliano said. "That was where we think...

Who budged a heavy steel grate that covered an opening to a utility's water tank? And after divers found a missing woman dead in that tank, how would the public know if it was getting safe drinking water? Those two questions marked a perplexing Thursday for authorities investigating the death of chemist Geetha Angara at a water utility in Totowa, and for frazzled officials and residents waking up to a boil-water order. As police focused on the 43-year-old water tester's last moments, Passaic Valley Water Commission customers in 17 North Jersey towns were affected in the aftermath of Angara's mysterious...