A new holiday destination has arrived on the map: Ascension Island, formerly one of the Cold War's most secret and remote outposts.

From the moment the human sperm mingles with the egg, the cells there can divide 100 times over. But eventually, even if we aren't hit by a bus or fall ill, everyone dies. Last Friday, a team of American scientists announced that they had found a way to make human cells in a test tube divide about another 20 times, the equivalent of living roughly one-fifth longer.

The big, amorphous blob which caused such a stir when it was washed up on a Tasmanian beach turned out to be whale blubber. Now a genuine, entire monster of the deep has come ashore on the Suffolk coastline. And there is no doubting what it is - a quarter of a tonne of very recently deceased leatherback turtle, measuring more than two metres from nose to tail.

Restaurants specialising in turtle soup may have do do without their main ingredient after Greek forestry officials freed 423 restaurant- bound tortoises near the northern city of Salonica.

There are constant warnings about the dangers posed to the environment by global warming. But one danger that seems to have been overlooked until now is the threat of a terrapin population explosion.

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 97

Satellite technology, originally developed to plot the activities of potential enemies, is now being used to monitor various migrating animals. SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY HAS ALSO BROUGHT AN UNEXPECTED FINDING: MORE THAN HALF OF THE TURTLES' TRANSMITTERS WERE DESTROYED BY VIGOROUS LOVE-MAKING

Tourists jetting off in search of unspoilt beaches may be unwittingly playing a part in the demise of the turtle. The World Society for the Protection of Animals claims the turtles' habitats on tropical beaches are being destroyed by coastal development.

ENVIRONMENT

Take it easy. It could be the fastest way to the really intelligent answer

Sir: Your supplement on primary school league tables was illuminating. Who would have thought that among Bolton schools, Top-of-the-Brow would have been beaten by Plodder Lane?

An alliance of 33 tortoise-loving MPs has protested to the Swedish authorities after they froze 1,000 illegally imported specimens to death. The animals were destroyed despite offers from both the British-based Tortoise Trust and the SAS airline to cover the cost of returning them to Tadjikistan.

Edward O Wilson is not your usual scientist. On the question of biodiversity, he's more pragmatist than preacher. Hugh Aldersley-Williams explains

Sir: I sit down for a moment's quiet read, feeling exhausted, sick and 19 weeks pregnant, after a morning running around after my 16- month tornado. Tomorrow I'm off for my ultrasound scan - modern technology with no side-effects - and what am I faced with in today's Independent (13 August)? An expose on the safety of ultrasound scans.