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Greek scientists accused of stealing funds
A group of Greek scientists are under investigation for misuse of government funds — no less than 150-200 million euros, in fact.

According to the Greek weekly newspaper Proto Thema (see Google’s translation here), approximately 20 distinguished professors may have siphoned money to themselves by publishing fake studies and creating invoices, then purchasing luxury cars and property.
Johan Wullt, deputy spokesman of the European Anti-Fraud Office, confirmed to Nature that the projects were under investigation, but would not discuss the accusations in detail.

Concerns made “official” in longevity story
Science has issued an official “editorial expression of concern” about a July paper that revealed a select group of genetic markers associated with longevity. The study — which originally claimed to predict a person’s chances of reaching 100 with 77 percent accuracy — has been subject to feverish debate over its validity since it was published, regarding the authors’ possible misuse of gene chips in different testing groups.
The journal has already published a “notice to readers,” in which it announced it was tweaking the wording of the abstract regarding predictions of longevity, and said the authors were reanalyzing their data to check for genotyping errors. (Confused about what all these “notices” mean? Check out our glossary of retraction notices.)

Death toll in Haiti climbs
More than 900 Haitians have died of cholera, including dozens of residents of the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the AFP. The country’s health ministry said nearly 15,000 have been treated in the hospital. The fear is that the disease will spread exponentially if it reaches the massive, unsanitary camps in the capital that now house hundreds of thousands of survivors of the recent earthquake.

Monitoring medicine, from the inside
Novartis is seeking approval for a type of “smart pill” that contains a microchip. The chip is activated by stomach acid and transmits information to a patch on the patient’s skin, which in turn communicates with a smart phone or a doctor via the Web. The first application is in transplant patients, to ensure they take the right drugs at the right time to avoid organ rejection. But Trevor Mundel, global head of development at Novartis, told Reuters he believes the applications won’t stop with transplant patients. “I see the promise as going much beyond that,” he said, perhaps to collecting heart rate and temperature information, or ensuring drugs are working properly. Of course, the company will have to demonstrate how it will protect patients’ medical data if the information becomes transmitted via wireless and Bluetooth. Regulators “want to understand how we are going to solve the data privacy issues,” Mundel noted.

Bug has big…
A bush cricket has testicles that make up 14 percent of its bodyweight, the largest relative size spotted in nature. (In humans, equivalent testicles would weigh 11 pounds each, according to the BBC.) It’s not just for show, the authors report in Biology Letters – the crickets appear to use them to mate with many females.

Related articles:
Longevity’s secret code revealed
[1st July 2010]
Longevity debate: chips to blame?
[14th July 2010]
Glossary of retractions
[March 2007]