Impaired sense of smell occurs in the earliest stages of Parkinson's disease and there is mounting evidence that it may precede motor symptoms by several years.
Using visible and infrared data collected from telescopes on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, astronomers have identified three asteroids that appear to be among our solar system's oldest objects.
When it comes to what we eat, men and women really are different according to scientific research. In general, men are more likely to report eating meat and poultry items and women are more likely to report eating fruits and vegetables.
A method of creating selective terminable transgenic rice has been developed. Unintended spreading of transgenic rice by pollen and seed dispersal is a major concern for planting transgenic rice, especially transgenic rice expressing pharmaceutical or industrial proteins.
A new project will test how people respond to extreme social situations - particularly the 'bystander effect' - using an immersive virtual environment like Second Life where real people interact with each other socially through lifelike animated characters. The bystander effect suggests that the more witnesses there are to an emergency, the less likely an individual bystander is to intervene. This phenomenon was identified as a particular consequence of the assault and murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in 1964 which was witnessed by some 38 people, all of whom remained bystanders and failed to come to Kitty's aid.
One of the more intriguing workhorses of the cell, a protein conglomerate called telomerase, has in its short history been implicated in some critical areas of medicine including cancer, aging and keeping stem cells healthy.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday that its private-label Great Value milk is now being sourced only from cows that have not been treated with artificial growth hormones, such as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST).
Researchers report that full-body PET/CT scanning detected unsuspected, treatable tumors in 3 of 15 patients with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic cancer syndrome for which no screening tests have been recommended. They caution, however, that further, larger studies are needed to determine whether PET/CT screening is beneficial in LFS patients, who are highly susceptible to a variety of cancers from an early age because of an inborn gene mutation.
For statues, stress injuries come from standing in place for hundreds of years. Using a novel technique, researchers have now developed a way to predict such fracturing, applying the procedure to Michelangelo's David in an analysis that proved simpler, faster and more accurate than previous methods. In applying the technique to other objects -- including human bones -- the researchers are also gaining new perspective on how these structures are likely to fail.
Researchers have used nanotechnology to achieve a major increase in thermoelectric efficiency, a milestone that paves the way for a new generation of products -- from semiconductors and air conditioners to car exhaust systems and solar power technology -- that run cleaner. The team's low-cost approach, detailed in Science, involves building tiny alloy nanostructures that can serve as micro-coolers and power generators.
Scientists have found that people with a form of inherited motor neuron disease have abnormalities in the same gene that appears to be affected in people who suffer nerve damage after exposure to harmful amounts of organophosphates. The results raise the possibility that healthy people may have gene variants that make them vulnerable to nerve damage if exposed to the chemicals, which include common insecticides and have been linked to Gulf War illness.
The arrival of European settlers triggered a dramatic shift in the genetic profile of South America's population, a study says. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 21 Mar 2008 | 10:43 am
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A pair of astronauts ended a spacewalk late on Thursday in which they tested a repair procedure for the heat shields on the space shuttle fleet -- a technique NASA hopes it never needs to use.
Europe is still committed to ambitious cuts in CO2 emissions, the EU environment chief tells the BBC. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:09 am
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sexual reproduction may be nearly as old as animal life itself, according to researchers who discovered a new species of organism that lived 540 million years ago.
LONDON (Reuters) - Terminally-ill patients in the Netherlands increasingly receive drugs to render them unconscious until death, according to a study that suggests people are substituting deep sedation for legal euthanasia.
LONDON (Reuters) - People with a genetic variation that slows down HIV may also be causing a mutation to the AIDS virus that makes it less potent if transmitted to others, researchers said on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A vast ocean of water and ammonia may lurk deep beneath the surface of Titan, the intriguing, orange moon of Saturn already known for its blanket of clouds and dense atmosphere, scientists said on Thursday.
Saturn's moon Titan may have a deep, hidden ocean, according to new data from the Cassini space probe. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2008 | 7:41 pm
Mars appears to be dusted with the salt from huge dried up lakes, new evidence suggests. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2008 | 7:00 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - Gas-belching volcanoes may be to blame for a series of mass extinctions over the last 545 million years, including that of the dinosaurs, new evidence suggested on Thursday.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than a decade after the launch of clot-buster Activase, the Genentech Inc drug remains the only option for stroke victims despite high-profile research aimed at improving the odds of recovery from the No. 3 cause of death in the United States.
Two timid lions are hesitant about making a public debut at Twycross Zoo, in Leicestershire. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2008 | 4:43 pm
As climate change and pollution threaten coral reefs, fish may be vital to their survival, scientists say. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2008 | 2:31 pm
