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As we always say here "science is the answer". So what does science tell us about how to tackle the spread of bovine TB and the role of infected badgers?

The short answer is it tells us we need to have more science before we can make a decision.

For those new to the problem you can find a comprehensive guide to bovine TB and the role badgers play . But for those outside farming perhaps the most important fact is that the disease costs us £108m a year and even more in lost agricultural business.

In these financially difficult times it's worth noting that both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats promised to introduce some form of badger control to tackle the spread of bovine TB in their election manifestos.

However the science doesn't appear to support culling badgers. As reported at the time it seems killing badgers actually increases the incidence of bovine TB. It's one reason ministers have been reluctant to authorise a .

While culling reduces the incidence of TB breakdown in cattle herds inside the cull zone, infected badgers who escape then wander off to find a new set which they then infect. And so the bovine TB outside the cull zone actually increases.

And there's more as researchers from Imperial College note in a later ;

"Our findings show that the reductions in cattle TB incidence achieved by repeated badger culling were not sustained in the long term after culling ended and did not offset the financial costs of culling. These results, combined with evaluation of alternative culling methods, suggest that badger culling is unlikely to contribute effectively to the control of cattle TB in Britain."

Eleven thousand badgers were killed as part of the trial which has now finished. Some of the trial took place here in the Midlands. Since it ended those scientists have continued to monitor the health of cattle in and around the various culling areas. And something has changed.

Where once they said culling made things worse, the latest update based on the latest data says something very ;

"These latest results are consistent with a constant benefit of proactive culling continuing through this latest period. However, the effects observed outside trial areas are consistent with no ongoing effects of proactive culling in these areas."

In other words culling would be an effective option to control TB based on this data and a cull wouldn't spread the disease as originally thought.

So now we are left with science that says two conflicting things. Either culling spreads TB or it helps control it, but which is it? The scientists say they need to monitor the impact of this cull for much longer to see which of these two apparently conflicting ideas is correct.

Interestingly both badger groups and farmers say the science is the only basis on which to proceed. And obviously this research supported first one side of the argument and now the other. Eventually it will settle as we gather more data because in the end science is the answer.

Except economics triumphs over science in the political arena. The Government has just decided to scale back a badger vaccination trial to save just £6m over five years. That pales into insignificance next to the £500m we'll spend on compensating farmers for bovine TB over the same period. In the end tackling bovine TB may be less about badgers, farming and science. And more about saving taxpayers money.

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So once again we've gone through the beeding season with no chicks from our peregrine falcon family on the BT Tower in Birmingham. But we're not downhearted. And you can read why . In the meantime we'll be trying again next year and to make sure you don't miss anything sign up to alerts from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Falcons on Twitter and keep checking this blog for the first details of their next attempt at a family in 2011.

And here's my favourite shot of one of our pair. Right down the barrell of the camera lens. Such a pro!

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So I'm doing a few days as "Cuts Correspondent" (or "Savings Correspondent" depending on your point of view). I'll be back on the Science beat soon. But in the meantime is there anything science can teach us about the abilities of coalition governments when it comes to tackling debt? As we like to say here "science is the answer."

Well perhaps. This graph comes from the blog via the . Along the x-axis at the bottom is the size of the largest political party and up the y-axis on the side is the size of government debt. It looks like the nice blue line shows that there's a link between the two and that countries with one large political party have the largest debt.

Which of course would seem to indicate that our new coalition government has a good chance of tackling our deficit.

Well I'm indebted to Ben Goldacre who writes the Bad Science blog for bringing this interesting fact to our attention. Although I should also say commentators there give the idea the thumbs down! Read their entertaining discussion .

Science is always the answer. But with this graph perhaps we're asking the wrong question?

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A "Hack Day" is a fairly geeky event where everyone gets together and thrashes around with some computer code, electronics or even machines. They originated at Yahoo and the end result is "cool stuff" and obviously on a more practical level they work as a bonding exercise and may well solve some problem facing the company organising things. Indeed the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has run "hack days" in the past.

But I'd never heard of a musical hack day. But they exist and here's one rather excellent result. By creating computer code that takes any song and stretches the first part of the beat and compresses the second half all while keeping the pitch the same. The end result is you give any song a swing beat. If you click you can listen to some results. "Sweet Child O' Mine" is absolutely brilliant.

The project was created by from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is working on a PhD in the "hyperinstruments group". I have no idea. But it sounds much more interesting than my PhD looking at "charge transfer studies on semiconductors".

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So far over three hundred people have completed the University of Birmingham survey into feeding garden birds. If you want to take part as well then please click .

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To round off our Springwatch coverage you can meet me at the Springwatch Wild Day Out in Sandwell Valley this Sunday. I'll be giving some top tips for wildlife film makers of all ages. But if that's not enough to tempt you, well there's plenty of other stuff to do at this free family event. Details .

If you can't make it to Sandwell then there are plenty of other Springwatch events, you can find a full list here.

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"Science is the answer" is the motto of this blog. Often that means throwing common sense out of the window. But then common sense is really just the label we apply to our personal prejudices.

So common sense tells us feeding birds during a harsh winter must be a good thing. New research from the University of Birmingham however tells us that it's a bit more complicated than that.

After three years studying blue tits and great tits in Chaddesley Woods near Bromsgrove the researchers discovered supplementary feeding of peanut cake had "multiple significant effects". Including fewer eggs which in turn lead to smaller numbers of offspring.

On top of all this the blue tits had significantly lower hatching success. According to the paper these are "novel and concerning findings".

But speaking to the researchers they are very clear you should not abandon feeding garden birds just yet. While clearly surprised by some of these findings they say we should wait as they carry out further studies. The eventual aim is to provide us with better information about what to feed our garden birds and the best time to do it.

All this isn't just about what's best for blue tits and great tits. Although our report and the research has focused on these common garden birds you will also find supplementary feeding being used to try and save endangered species. So it's vital for scientists to understand just what sort of impact it is having.

So with the aim of learning more about feeding wild birds the University of Birmingham researchers have created a simple survey. You can fill it in online or there's a version you can print out and then send in to them via the post. Ideal for a family member or friend who isn't online. We'll let you know what the results are. In the meantime to take the survey online or to print out a paper copy just click .

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Two visitors to the same garden in Ironbridge in Shropshire. But as you can see the badger on the left is very different. This is an erythristic badger, not quite albino but half way there! Because badgers are nocturnal it's very hard to spot an erythristic badger. It's usually too dark to tell them apart from their black and white cousins. But these the owner of this garden encourages badgers into visit by feeding them and so they are used to the bright house lights. And that means there's enough illumination for us to spot the difference.

Springwatch has also captured an erythristic badger on tape in the past and you can find their film here. And the wildlife cameraman who captured our shots has some badger filming tips .

Of course not everyone likes having badgers in their gardens. In Wolverhampton we tried to capture on film some hooligan urban badgers. But as you can see they took a dislike to our gnomecam and attacked it, knocking him flat. If you don't want a badger set in your garden your options are pretty limited and we'll be returning to this topic in the future on Midlands Today.

Update: Thanks for your responses so far. Gnomecam meanwhile is becoming quite the .

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