The villas are set in the Sicilian hills, with spectacular views over the Mediterranean. Your future neighbours could be celebrities such as Peter Gabriel, the Genesis singer, and Massimo Moratti, the owner of the Inter Milan football team.

And then there is the price: a tidy one euro apiece.

The catch is that you have just two years to restore the homes, which were abandoned after an earthquake 40 years ago.

Vittorio Sgarbi, the colourful Mayor of Salemi - just 72km from Palermo - hopes to attract buyers who had "both the aesthetic sensitivity and the economic resources to take part in this adventure".

Scientists are set to begin a hunt for the some of the world's rarest frogs in Costa Rica, including the iconic golden toad, last seen some 20 years ago.

A team from Manchester University and Chester Zoo are in Costa Rica to track down the highly endangered creatures.

BBC News will follow their trek deep into the cloud forests of Monteverde.

Amphibian numbers around the world have crashed, in part because of a deadly fungus. Costa Rica has been particularly badly hit.

Expedition leader Andrew Gray, from the University of Manchester's Manchester Museum, said: "Costa Rica's highlands used to be major biodiversity hotspots - but in many areas, amphibian populations have been completely decimated."

They are small and look more like art than innovation. But the mini-windmills built by a British company could soon be on roofs across Europe and the US -- if German energy giant RWE has its way.

 A small wind turbine like this one may be coming soon to a roof near you. They look a bit like attachments for a gigantic hand-held mixer. But at five meters (16 feet) tall and with a diameter of close to three meters, they are certainly too big for a kitchen cabinet. They would, however, definitely fit in backyards and city parks and on the roofs of houses and office buildings.

And if the German power company RWE has its way, there will soon be thousands of the funny-looking rotors installed in the coming months and years -- in Germany, in Europe and even in the US.

It is not, as one might be tempted to believe, a vast, futuristic art project. Rather, the odd-looking, twisting contraptions are the newest generation of high-tech wind turbines. In contrast to their cousins, these windmills are virtually silent, do not require long blades to catch the wind, and spin no matter which direction the wind is blowing. Even better, their modest size and weight mean they can easily be installed on rooftops -- and they can generate up to 10,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, enough to supply two low-energy homes, or a 20 person office, with power.

WAVRE, Belgium: With energy prices rising, François Massau, a local coal merchant-turned-builder who died impoverished and alone in 2002 at the age of 97, is enjoying a small measure of posthumous fame, though not here in his hometown.

In the 1950s, when few people talked about ecology or conserving energy, Massau built what was among the earliest revolving homes. He built it in 1958 for his sickly wife, a schoolteacher, so that she could enjoy sunshine and warmth (there often isn't much of either in Belgium) any time of the day or the year.

Today, as energy prices soar and the need to contain carbon emissions becomes pressing, revolving buildings have arguably become fashionable. In southern Germany, Rolf Disch has built a solar-powered rotating house; in Dubai, David Fisher, an Israeli-born Italian architect, plans an 80-story rotating skyscraper, the Dynamic Tower. Some call it sunflower architecture.

The innovative technology Massau pioneered was so effective that it still works today, and all three of the revolving houses he built remain operational. Yet, on the 50th anniversary of Massau's first house, there will be no ceremonies, no special tours or honors.

It sounds like the perfect excuse for a wandering eye -- a man's tendency to be unfaithful may be influenced by his genes, research suggests.

Men who inherit a genetic variant that affects an important attachment hormone are more likely than usual to have weaker relationships and marital problems, and less likely to be married, according to the research. Their wives and girlfriends are also more likely to be less satisfied with them as partners.

While the study did not look directly at infidelity, the findings suggest that male monogamy might also be influenced by variations in a single gene. The study's authors cautioned that any effect would apply only on average, and that it was impossible to predict whether any individual would be unfaithful or a bad partner on the basis of his genes.

The gene in question affects the receptor for a hormone called vasopressin, which plays an important role in social behaviour, pair-bonding and sexual attachment. Its effects were first characterised by studies of different species of voles. Although the meadow and prairie voles are close cousins, their sexual behaviour is dramatically different.

An Italian museum that barred a Muslim tourist because she was wearing a niqab which covered her face has introduced a "veil room" so visitors can be identified.

The woman, whose nationality was not disclosed, was with her husband and daughter when she was stopped by a security guard from entering Venice's Ca'Rezzonico museum.

He told her that for "security reasons" she could not be allowed in as the niqab exposed only her eyes and Italian law forbids the wearing of face-covering masks or hoods in public because of terrorism fears.

As a result of the outcry that followed the incident, Adriana Augusti, deputy superintendent of Venice Museums, has introduced veil rooms in Ca'Rezzonico as well as the Accademia and Oriental Art Galleries and the Archaeological Museum.

Veiled Muslim visitors are asked to remove their headdress in the presence of a female security guard before then being allowed to enter the gallery or museum.

Ms Augusti dismissed suggestions that the rooms were discriminatory and said: "It is all a question of security. I have given the go ahead following what happened at Ca'Rezzonico.

As Russia and the West warn of a new Cold War after the Georgian conflict, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley in Moscow tries to imagine what it would look like.

A complex network of narrow tunnels broke out into vast, high-ceilinged chambers with the sides curved cylindrically like the hull of a ship

Evgenia Evlenteva strode past a row of old radiation suits hanging on pegs like raincoats.

With a bounce in her step and a torch stuck into her jeans back pocket, she asked: "Right, it's more than 60 metres (200ft) deep so do you want to take the stairs or the lift?

"Oh and by the way, the door weighs three tonnes. It's made of lead and metal, and it still works."

Solar panels are one of the least cost-effective ways of combating climate change and will take 100 years to pay back their installation costs, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) warned yesterday.

In a new guide on energy efficiency, Rics said that roof panels for heating water and generating power are unlikely to save enough from bills to make them financially viable in a householder's lifetime. In the case of solar panels to heat water for baths and showers, the institution estimates the payback time from money saved from electricity and gas bills will take more than 100 years - and up to 166 years in the worst case.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels for power - and domestic, mast-mounted wind turbines - will take between 50 and 100 years to pay back.