Nick Clegg's diary is in chaos this week. His one-year-old son Miguel developed breathing difficulties on Sunday night. The next morning Mr Clegg and his Spanish wife, Miriam, took him to their GP, who said he should go immediately to Chelsea and Westminster hospital. The initial treatment did not work and he was kept in for two nights. Although now back at home, he is still a bit wheezy.

It has taken eight years, a great deal of heartache and not a little shame, but Dwain Chambers has finally made a completely clean break from his drugs-tainted past. The fastest man in Europe begins his chase for World Indoor Championship gold in Doha tomorrow with the full blessing of UK Athletics rather than as the curse of the domestic governing body of track and field. The reason? Chambers has severed all contact with Victor Conte, the Californian chemist who fuelled him with a]]> Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:14:45 +0000 http://hotfeeder.com/world/80_rare_butterflies_released_to_spend_their_short_lives_in_the_wild_2412109

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Until the 20th century, the Palos Verdes peninsula—a small spit of land south of Los Angeles—was the only home of the blue butterfly Glaucopsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis. Unchecked development, however, eroded this small habitat and nearly caused the extinction of the fickle butterfly. After years of work rebuilding the degraded ecosystem, conservationists released 80 Palos Verdes blue b...Read the full story on TreeHugger

The first Freakonomics book was a lot of fun; the second less so, as it sort of devolved into "if the scientific consensus and/or coast-hugging liberal elite are for it, we are against it" type of thing. Hence Freakonomics Watch; or perhaps it should be called James McWilliams Watch, since he appears to be the contributor to their blog with the most attitude about anything green. Now he is on about The Persistence of the Primitive Food Movement, where "Bicycles are losing gears, runners are ]]> Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:14:45 +0000