world new news

A baby boy born with six legs has had four of his limbs successfully removed by surgeons in Pakistan, according to reports. Umar Farooq was born with a rare hereditary disorder called polymelia in which an embryo starts as conjoined twins in the womb. One of the twins eventually disintegrates, leaving behind additional limbs that get attached to the remaining foetus. "A team of five experienced doctors have successfully separated the extra legs and limbs from the baby. He is very much safe and secure," Dr Jamal Raza, director of the National Institute of Child Health in Karachi, told Dawn.com. "The extra limbs and legs were the result of a genetic disease which would affect only one in a million or more babies." Dr Raza said that despite being born with extra limbs, Umar "was as normal as other children". "Before surgeons could operate they said they had to work out which of the limbs belonged to the boy and which to his twin," Dr Raza told the I...

A new study finds that rising levels of carbon dioxide drove increasing temperatures at the end of the last ice age. The findings contrast with previous studies, that skeptics of human-triggered global warming said showed that CO2 levels weren't a very important factor. Rising levels of carbon dioxide drove much of the global warming that thawed Earth at the end of the last ice age. That's the conclusion a team of scientists has drawn in a new study examining the factors that closed the door on the last ice age, which ended about 20,000 years ago. The result stands in contrast to previous studies that showed temperatures rising in advance of increases in atmospheric CO2 levels. This has led some skeptics of human-triggered global warming to quarrel that if warming temperatures came first, CO2 wasn't an important factor then and so can't be as significant a factor today as most climate scientists calculate it to be. Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz: The mea...