Pregnancy outcome and characteristics of women who conceive following subfertility treatment remains a subject of great interest. We analyzed these variables among 199 women who delivered a registerable twin birth compared with 1773 women who delivered a naturally conceived twin birth in a population-based obstetric cohort drawn from around Oxford, England. Treatment was restricted to conceptions involving simple ovulation induction only. Treated mothers were of significantly higher social class and older, more likely to deliver girls and to be delivered by cesarean section, and significantly less likely to be smokers at the time of antenatal booking and to have delivered previous pregnancies. Pregnancy outcome was similar between the two groups for most measures, with the exception of birthweight which was lower in treated twins, though not significantly so. Overall the results are reassuring with respect to outcome in twin pregnancies following simple ovulation induction.

In this study we estimate the frequency at which P-element insertion events, as identified by in situ hybridization, generate lethal and mild viability mutations. The frequency of lethal mutations generated per insertion event was 0·004. Viability dropped an average of 1% per insertion event. Our results indicate that it is deletions and rearrangements resulting from the mobilization of P elements already in place and not the insertions per se that cause the drastic effects on viability and fitness observed in most studies of P–M dysgenesis-derived mutations. Elements of five other families (I, copia, 412, B104, and gypsy) were not mobilized in these crosses. Finally, we contrast the density of P elements on the X chromosome with the density on the four autosomal arms in a collection of thirty genomes from an African population. The relative number of P elements on the X chromosome is too high to be explained by either a hemizygous selection or a neutrality model. The possible reasons for the failure to detect selection are discussed.

Data are reported on the relationship between cigarette smoking and other health-related behaviours and time to conception in a population-based sample of women who acted as a control group in a case-control study of twinning. Women who continued to smoke close to the time of conception took significantly longer to become pregnant than women who never smoked or stopped smoking before the year during which they attempted to conceive. A hierarchical regression analysis performed on time-to-conception data in women who continued to smoke in the year before conception provided weak evidence for a dose–response relationship between time to conception and number of cigarettes smoked per day. No significant relationships were found between time to conception and other health-related behaviours.

In one of the earliest issues of Rural History, Jacqueline Simpson urged students of Popular rural culture to examine local legends that centre upon some specific place, Person or object and which are a focus for local pride. Many of these are well-known tales which have been adapted, often in a humorous way, to local circumstances. Thus the seventy-odd stories of dragon-slaying which she has collected for Britain usually depict a local figure, not St George or a knight errant, as the hero. It is normally difficult, if not impossible, to explain how these tales began. The Dragon of Wantley, however, offers some unusual opportunities for delving into the historical context of a ballad that achieved national fame.