“We can tell within 30 seconds whether it’s going to be a big or small quake. We can sense the scale and how much damage it’s likely to cause.”

Wu Yih-min, of the National Taiwan University Department of Geosciences, says his group has invented a cheap device that can give crucial warnings just before earthquakes (Reuters).

“We need our top scientific minds on this. Get me India on the phone!”

Writers on the children’s movie Monsters vs Aliens have slipped a science policy joke into the mouth of their cartoon US president (movie, see also: SAJA blog).

“Although there is a long way to go, methods that can induce a pleasurable scratch sensation without damaging the skin, via mechanical stimuli or drugs that can inhibit these neurons, could be developed to treat chronic itch.”

Gil Yosipovitch, of Wake Forest University in North Carolina, discusses research that identifies neurons which appear to be blocked by scratching (BBC).

“The Canadian Press moved a story April 3 that erroneously reported The Wilkins Ice Shelf was originally part of Jamaica. In fact the Ice Shelf, located on the western side of the Antarctic was originally the size of Jamaica.”

The Regret the Error blog highlights a scientific example of that moment every journalist dreads: the mistake.