Being Human

Queen's University Belfast academics have helped develop an antioxidant supplement which may slow down sight loss in elderly people.

The supplement may help those affected by the leading cause of blindness in the Western World, a five-year research programme has found.

Jennifer Clack, a member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology since 1980 and a world expert in the evolution of early land-dwelling animals, has been named a Fellow in the Royal Society of London. This is the highest academic award in the United Kingdom, equivalent to becoming a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S.

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake’s head to flee instead of turning away.

Well-heeled donors, private corporations and average citizens sending money to their favorite charities are changing the landscape of global health funding, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

PROVIDENCE, RI -- A letter to the editor by Rhode Island Hospital infectious diseases specialist Leonard Mermel, DO, identifies characteristics of the outbreak of H1N1 in 1977 and speculates its impact on this pandemic. His letter is published in the June 20 edition of the journal the Lancet 2009 (vol 373 p2108-09).

Having partnered last year with an international team that surveyed the genomes of 12,000 individuals to find a genetic cause for gout, Johns Hopkins scientists now have shown that the malfunctioning gene they helped uncover can lead to high concentrations of blood urate that forms crystals in joint tissue, causing inflammation and pain -- the hallmark of this disease.

PITTSBURGH -- New evidence underscores the theory of human origin that suggests humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science.

The British Climate Act is flawed and comprised of unrealistic and unobtainable targets, writes US academic Roger A Pielke Jr, in a journal paper published today, 18 June, 2009, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters.

CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. (June 19, 2009) -- Inspired by the behavior of the human eye, Boston College computer scientists have developed a technique that lets computers see objects as fleeting as a butterfly or tropical fish with nearly double the accuracy and 10 times the speed of earlier methods.

The controversial Iranian election outcome has turned a social network portal into a news portal.

A radically different approach to choosing the best treatment options for early breast cancer has been proposed by an international panel of experts in a report from the 11th St Gallen conference.

RENO, Nev. -- The Seismological Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno is finishing the first phase of seismic surveying through downtown as part of a $1 million U.S. Geological Survey study to create an earthquake hazard map in the Reno-Carson City urban corridor.

Washington, DC -- June 12, 2009 -- In public comments given today before the Secretary of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS), the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) addressed three areas: Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), evidence for coverage of genetic and genomic tests, and gene patents.

Washington, DC -- June 12, 2009 -- The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) today released the text of a comment letter it has provided to the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) in which AMP sets forth its recommendations for priority areas on which to focus CER activities.

A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Some video games can make children kinder and more likely to help---not hurt---other people.

That's the conclusion of new research published in the current (June 2009) issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a top-tier, peer-reviewed academic journal.

Scientists have discovered a unique beaked, plant-eating dinosaur in China. The finding, they say, demonstrates that theropod, or bird-footed, dinosaurs were more ecologically diverse in the Jurassic period than previously thought, and offers important evidence about how the three-fingered hand of birds evolved from the hand of dinosaurs.

Sonoma Chicken Coop Almaden the best Almaden restaurant in San Jose and Almaden. There are a bunch of reasons and I will try here to enumerate. The first reason is that kids ten and under eats free Monday through Thursday.

June 17, 2009, Cambridge, UK -- The saying "Knowing is half the battle" is never more true than when discussing early treatment of disease. Muscular dystrophy is one such disease where patients can benefit from early treatment. Now, new research is moving doctors and scientists closer to disease diagnosis in advance of patient symptoms.