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A micro-ear could soon help scientists eavesdrop on tiny events just like microscopes make them visible.

Initially, researchers will use it to snoop on cells as they go about their daily business.

It may allow researchers to listen to how a drug disrupts micro-organisms, in the same way as a mechanic might listen to a car's engine to find a fault.

A team from three UK institutions are building the device, which they hope will become standard lab equipment.

Institutions involved include the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford as well as the National Institute of Medical Research at Mill Hill.

Force feedback

The micro-ear is based upon modifying an established technology that uses laser light to create so-called optical tweezers.These are already used to accurately measure tiny forces.

They work by suspending very small glass or plastic beads in a beam of laser light. Measuring the movement of these beads as they are jostled by tiny objects allows measurements of tiny forces that operate at molecular scales.

"We are now using the sensitivity afforded by the optical tweezer as a very sensitive microphone," said Professor Jon Cooper from the University of Glasgow, who is heading the micro-ear project.

"The optical tweezer can measure or manipulate at piconewton forces," said Professor Cooper. A piconewton is a millionth of the force that a grain of salt exerts when resting on a tabletop.

While many researchers use single beams of laser light to trap single beads, the micro-ear team hopes to use several arranged in a ring that will be able to surround and "listen to" an object of interest.

"We can look at a number of objects and watch them wobble," said Prof Miles Padgett. "A wobbling object is like a diaphragm on a microphone."

As such, said Professor Padgett, the wobble can be measured and used to turn the wobbles in the fluid surrounding the subject into sound giving an ear to events on the tiniest of scales.

By surrounding an object, said Professor Padgett, it should be easier to work out whether what that object does is the result of its own actions or something else.

A high-speed camera watches the motion of the ring of beads to determine the source of the motion.

Prof Padgett said work on refining the basic elements of what would become the eventual micro-ear was going well.

"We can trap and hold the beads and can connect the output to a speaker so we can hear them vibrating," he said.

In addition, he said, the team use tiny etched dishes, like a Victorian ear trumpet, to help focus the movements in the fluid surrounding an object and make them easier to pick up.

Already the team has been able to listen to Brownian motion - the restless jostling of the atoms and molecules in a fluid.

Drug trials

Once the device is completed, a team led by Dr Richard Berry, a physicist at the University of Oxford, plans to use it to eavesdrop on flagella - the tiny motor that many bacteria such as E. coli use to move themselves around.

"Because this tech is so new and these guys are exploring what's possible the flagellar motor will be a very good test for the technology," said Dr Berry.

Currently, the movement of flagella are studied by sticking tiny beads to them and watching them whip around with a high-speed camera.

The beads are different to those used in the optical tweezers.

To complicate the process further, scientists must genetically engineer the bacteria to allow them to stick the beads on their tails.

"We have to make them specifically sticky to what we want to stick to them," said Dr Berry. "There's a biological step which can be very hit and miss."

This also means that the bacteria do not necessarily behave in the same way as natural organisms.

"We work on extremely genetically engineered subjects, nothing like you would find in the world," he said.

The micro-ear might mean it is possible to use wild bacteria and many of them to get a much better understanding of what they do.

If the work with bacteria is successful the team is also planning to look at other micro-organisms.

One candidate could be the human trypanosome parasite which moves in the blood using a different sort of flagellar motor.

The parasite is behind sleeping sickness that affects up to 500,000 people a year in sub-Saharan Africa.

By listening to this motor, it may be possible to better understand how it works and ultimately investigate the action of new medicines that might stop its motor.

"Its truly exploratory in that we expect and hope we will hear something interesting but we really don't know," said Dr Berry.

A man who created a website trading in stolen financial information linked to tens of millions of pounds in losses has been jailed for nearly five years.

Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, founded Darkmarket, a "Facebook for fraudsters" where criminals could buy and sell credit card details and bank log-ins.

The site was shut down in 2008 after an FBI agent infiltrated it, leading to more than 60 arrests worldwide.

Subramaniam admitted conspiracy to defraud at Blackfriars Crown Court.

He also pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud.

'One-stop-shop'

Judge John Hillen said: "Criminals should learn from this case that, even in cyberspace, there is no hiding place."

Prosecutor Sandip Patel said the case was "extraordinary" because it was founded and promoted over the internet.

"They were able to utilise modern technology in a way which gave them the capability to commit theft on an unprecedented scale... with no more than a dishonest will, a laptop, a mouse and internet access," he said.

"In short, it was a Facebook for fraudsters."
Suspects linked to the website were arrested in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, France, Turkey and Russia.

It even operated a secure payment system, allowing users to "review" the criminal services on offer - creating a "one-stop-shop for criminals the world over".

Subramaniam, originally from Sri Lanka, was given British citizenship in 2002 and ran Darkmarket from an internet cafe with the username "Jilsi".

He owned three houses but lived nomadically - staying with friends mainly in Wembley, north London and Ilford in Essex.

He was sentenced to 46 months for conspiracy to defraud and 10 months for five counts of mortgage fraud, the terms to run consecutively.

Also sentenced was Darkmarket user John McHugh, 66, of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, who had the sign in "Devilman" and created fake credit cards that were sold through the site.

He was jailed for two years for conspiracy to defraud.

Investigations in the UK were led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

Deputy director Sharon Lemon said: "Subramaniam went to great trouble to hide his activity.

"He seems to have thought that carrying data around on memory sticks and using internet cafes would somehow protect him from scrutiny. He was wrong."

Seventeen Nigerian police officers have been arrested over the alleged extra-judicial killing of members of the Boko Haram religious sect in 2009.

Police spokesman Yemi Ajyai said the arrests had been carried out by members of the police Special Forces Squad.

Al-Jazeera TV last month showed footage of alleged police killings.

Boko Haram attacked a police station in the northern city of Maiduguri, leading to days of clashes and hundreds of deaths - mostly sect members.
Mr Ajyai said the al-Jazeera broadcast had led to the arrests and those detained had been taken to Abuja for questioning, reports the AP news agency.

The footage apparently shows police officers telling a group of young men to lie face down and then shooting them at close range.

The BBC's Jimeh Saleh in Abuja says the police are often accused of extra-judicial killings but they always deny it and arrests are rare.

Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf died in custody after being alive when the army handed him to the police, army officers said.

A few hours later, journalists were shown his bullet-ridden body.

The police said he had been fatally wounded while trying to evade capture.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- He has been called the NBA's greatest player and one of the country's top pitchmen.

Now Michael Jordan is ready for a new title: NBA owner.

With minutes to go until his exclusive negotiating window was to expire, Jordan struck a deal late Friday night to buy controlling interest of the Charlotte Bobcats, putting the six-time NBA champion in charge of the money-losing team in his home state.

Owner Bob Johnson announced in a statement that he's agreed to sell the Bobcats to Jordan, who been a part-owner of since 2006. Jordan has been running the team's basketball operations.

The purchase price and details of Jordan's ownership group - called MJ Basketball Holdings LLC - weren't immediately available. A spokeswoman for Johnson and a spokesman for Jordan said neither man was available for comment early Saturday.

The league's owners must still approve the purchase.

Jordan was in competition with former Houston Rockets executive George Postolos, who also had an ownership group together to buy the team. But Postolos said Jordan had the exclusive right to buy the club until just before midnight Friday night.

Jordan hit another last-second shot - reaching a deal minutes before the deadline.

"I remain committed to becoming an NBA owner, and I'm glad that Michael will continue to bring his talent to the sport and the league," Postolos said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "He's very, very committed."

It will end Johnson's stint as the first black majority owner of a major professional sports team. Jordan becomes another black owner in another milestone for the Hall of Famer, but one that comes with many challenges.

Jordan, a five-time NBA MVP and 14-time All-Star, has made millions lending his name to sneakers, apparel and other items. Now he'll begin a completely different role, trying to make the Bobcats a winner, and the franchise and Charlotte's downtown arena profitable.

After paying $300 million for the expansion team that began play in 2004-05, Johnson has accumulated about $150 million in debt and the team is expected to lose tens of millions this season as they struggle to draw fans and find sponsorships.

Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, shook up management several times before recruiting Jordan to be a minority investor while giving him the final say on all basketball decisions.

Jordan, who turned 47 this month, has had a unique role with the Bobcats. General manager Rod Higgins runs the day-to-day basketball operations and Jordan has rarely attended practices or games, or worked on the marketing side of the operation.

Jordan has had some missteps - drafting the disappointing Adam Morrison No. 3 overall in 2006 - but he was also able to lure Hall of Famer Larry Brown to become coach at the beginning of last season.

Jordan and Brown have made seven trades involving 21 players since the start of last season. The November acquisition of Stephen Jackson from Golden State has helped Charlotte get into playoff contention in the Eastern Conference.

But attendance has still lagged, and Jordan has been criticized in Charlotte for rarely being seen - despite his iconic status in the state.

Jordan grew up in Wilmington, N.C., led North Carolina to the 1982 national championship with a last-second shot, then remained one of the state's favorite sons when he starred with the Bulls.

Jordan's first stint as an NBA executive came with the Washington Wizards, where he was roundly criticized for drafting Kwame Brown with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2001 draft.

He changed roles when he returned briefly as a player, then was fired by owner Abe Pollin in 2003 when he tried to return to his role running the basketball operations.

No one will be able to fire Jordan after he takes control of the Bobcats, and it's likely the team will not change much in the front office.

Jordan's close friend, Fred Whitfield, is team president, and Higgins was Jordan's hire

Home fertility tests aren't just for women anymore.

A new device that looks a lot like those home ovulation and home pregnancy tests but checks sperm count will soon be available in Europe, and is undergoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review for marketing in the US.

The test targets couples who have been trying to get pregnant for a few months, but aren't ready to seek professional help, Dr. John C. Herr of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who helped develop the new test, told Reuters Health.

The test helps couples sort out if the male is a factor in the infertility "and to do that in privacy with some cost savings," he said. "The product will retail for about $25. That's a lot cheaper than going in and having a full semen analysis."

Depending on where you are in the country, he added, semen analysis can cost from around $65 to $250, and may or may not be covered by insurance.

In the journal Human Reproduction, Herr and his team report on a study comparing the accuracy of their SpermCheck Fertility test with standard laboratory sperm count methods, using 225 semen samples. The tests were accurate 96 percent of the time, the researchers found. Ninety-five percent of the time a laboratory professional and a lay person got the same result when reading a single test independently.

Sperm counts of 20 million per milliliter of semen and above are considered normal. The test will tell a man whether or not his sperm count meets this cutoff, and if it doesn't whether he has a severely low sperm count (below 5 million sperm per milliliter). "It basically tells the man how deep the infertility is," Herr explains. "If both strips are negative it's important that they then seek medical treatment for the infertility."

The test works by detecting an antigen found on the surface of the head of a sperm cell known as SP-10, which Herr and his colleagues discovered. "There's a lot of cell biology and molecular biology behind the project," the researcher said, adding that the work of discovering SP-10 and developing the test — much of it funded by the National Institutes of Health — took about 10 years.

While women only need to dip a test stick in their urine to see if they're pregnant or close to ovulation, the SpermCheck Fertility test requires a few more steps.

Users let the semen rest for 20 minutes, collect 100 microliters using a pipette, and mix the semen with a detergent-containing substance known as a buffer, which releases the SP-10 protein from the sperm. Users then put a few drops of this mix into the two sample wells. Within seven minutes, the test results will appear in test windows above the wells.

Excerpt from MSNBC Reuters