HIV+ maid had sex with 100 men: Doc

MUMBAI: A doctor treating HIV-positive patients has claimed that one of his patients has indulged in sexual relations with more than 100 partners "to take revenge" for her condition.

Dr I S Gilada, who heads an AIDS clinic at Grant Road, told TOI that a 29-year-old woman from the Western suburbs has been visiting him since the past two months.

While counselling her, the doctor learnt that she not only has multiple partners, but hunts for them with a vengeance to spread the virus she contracted through her husband.

"She was brought to us by her sister, who herself is HIV positive," said Gilada. "We found out that she had learnt of her husband's HIV-positive status in 2005, and that he had transmitted the disease to her as well. Although she divorced him, she couldn't come to terms with the fact that he had knowingly passed on the virus to her," he said.

Gilada said that during the counselling sessions, the woman, who works as a maid, claimed she has had more than 300 sexual encounters with 100 men over the past three years.

"She admitted to frequent encounters with men ranging from her employers and their relatives, to the liftman and students - all of whom have had unprotected sex with her," said Gilada.

When asked about the case, Dr S S Kudalkar, president at the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society ( MDACS), said the organization would investigate the matter.

"We will talk to the clinic and investigate the case. If it is true, then we will counsel the woman," he said. "HIV is not just a disease of the virus, it is also a disease of human behaviour. The National AIDS Control Organisation ( NACO) has mandated pre-test and post-test counselling to curb patients from forging sexual contacts with multiple partners," said Dr Kudalkar.

Ancient Human DNA Extracted From Yucca Leaves Spat Out

Source: Harvard University


Science Daily In a groundbreaking study, two Harvard scientists have for the first time extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times.

Before this, archaeologists could only get ancient DNA from relics of the human body itself, including prehistoric teeth, bones, fossilized feces, or — rarely — preserved flesh. Such sources of DNA are hard to find, poorly preserved, or unavailable because of cultural and legal barriers.

By contrast, the genetic material used in the Harvard study came from two types of artifacts — 800 to 2,400 years old — that are found by the hundreds at archaeological sites in the American Southwest.

“Quids” — small fibrous bundles of stripped yucca leaves — are the spit-out remnants of a kind of ancient chewing gum. Cells from long-dried saliva yield usable DNA. And “aprons” were thong-like woven garments worn by women. They are stained with traces of apparent menstrual blood, a source of DNA.

The Harvard study, featured in the summer 2007 issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology, “opens up the possibility of utilizing a much larger variety of human-handled artifacts” for DNA evidence, said project co-director Steven LeBlanc, director of collections at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Among the likely future sources of ancient DNA, he said, are “sandals, textiles, and cane cigarettes,” a reedlike smoke favored by early humans. LeBlanc’s co-director in the project was Thomas Benjamin, a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School.

LeBlanc and others sampled 48 quids from four Southwestern archaeological sites — some of them on Harvard museum shelves for nearly 100 years — and 18 aprons found in Canyon de Chelly, a National Park Service site in Arizona still occupied by the Navajo Nation.

Aprons, and especially quids, are very common in archaeological collections, and are recovered from rock shelters or caves in the Southwest, Utah, Texas, California, and central Mexico. The DNA is preserved by the extreme dryness of such sites.

The Harvard study brings other good news for historians of ancient times. LeBlanc said the DNA captured from quids and aprons shows — in a preliminary way — that early farming populations in the Southwest descended from farmers in what is now central Mexico. That helps answer an old question among those who study the ancient Southwest: Was the idea of farming imported, or was it adopted by indigenous populations?

More broadly, archaeologists interested in migration patterns anywhere now have a new source for the DNA that can be used to track the movement of ancient people — though LeBlanc cautioned that the methods have to be retested and refined.

The origins of the earliest North American farmers are still officially a puzzle, and center on a now-lost tribe known as the Western Basketmakers. More than 2,000 years ago, these indigenous Americans started growing corn in what is now southeastern Utah and northern Arizona.

In what is now a boon to archaeologists who look at DNA, early farmers rested in the shade of rock formations, and spit out quids of chewed yucca leaves.

“The team was as surprised as everyone else that we could learn something about a possible migration over 2,000 years ago from ancient spit,” said LeBlanc. “Every artifact that we recover from such ancient sites now needs to be thought of in a new light, and handled in new ways, to ensure we preserve this DNA for future studies.”

To make sure the DNA was from ancient farmers and not from modern handlers, samples were taken from the cores of the quids and not from their surfaces.

Peabody Museum experts say future studies of ancient DNA from quids, aprons, and other appropriate artifacts are needed to test and refine Harvard’s preliminary findings.

The study was a collaborative project. Harvard researchers worked with genetic anthropologist Shawn W. Carlyle at the University of Utah; pathologist Lori S. Cobb Kreisman at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; curator Anna N. Dhody at the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; anthropologist Brian M. Kemp at Vanderbilt University; and Francis E. Smiley, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University. Ancient DNA expert David Glenn Smith offered his advice and the use of his laboratory at the University of California, Davis.

Some of the artifacts used in the DNA analysis were from collections at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Southwest Museum, and Northern Arizona University.

The study was supported by the Provost’s Fund for Interfaculty Collaboration at Harvard University and by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Harvard University.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Harvard University.

Courtney Love Has Droopy Boobs

She was spotted at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill for the British Film Institute benefit. Her dress revealed a little of her boobs.
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Dark, but Light: Smallest Galaxies Ever Seen Help Solve a Big Problem

Source: W. M. Keck Observatory

DescriptionScientists have studied a population of the darkest, most lightweight galaxies known, each containing 99% dark matter. The findings suggest a major puzzle known as the “Missing Dwarf Galaxy” problem is not as severe as previously thought, and may have been solved completely

Scientists may have solved a discrepancy between the number of extremely small, faint galaxies predicted to exist near the Milky Way and the number actually observed. In an attempt to resolve the “Missing Dwarf Galaxy” problem, two astronomers used the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to study a population of the darkest, most lightweight galaxies known, each containing 99% dark matter. The findings suggest the “Missing Dwarf Galaxy” problem is not as severe as previously thought, and may have been solved completely.

“It seems that very small, ultra-faint galaxies are far more plentiful than we thought,” said Dr. Marla Geha, co-author of the study and a Plaskett Research Fellow at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada. “If you asked me last year whether galaxies this small and this dark existed, I would have said no. I’m astonished that so many tiny, dark matter-dominated galaxies have now been discovered.”


The Missing Dwarf Galaxy puzzle comes from a prediction of the “Cold Dark Matter” model, which explains the growth and evolution of the universe. It predicts large galaxies like the Milky Way should be surrounded by a swarm of up to several hundred smaller galaxies known as “dwarf galaxies.” However, until recently, only 11 such companions were known to be orbiting the Milky Way. To explain this large discrepancy, theorists suggested that while hundreds of dwarf galaxies near the Milky Way may indeed exist, the majority might have few, if any, stars. If so, the galaxies would be comprised almost entirely of dark matter—a mysterious type of matter that has gravitational effects on ordinary atoms, but which does not produce any light. But proving the existence of a large number of nearly invisible galaxies seemed problematic, until now.

10th Planet Discovered.

Astronomers have found a new planet in the outer reaches of the solar system

July 29, 2005: "It's definitely bigger than Pluto." So says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system.

The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet, was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It is currently about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 97 Astronomical Units (AU). For comparison, Pluto is 40 AU from the sun.

Right: An artist's concept of the new planet. [More]

This places the new planet more or less in the Kuiper Belt, a dark realm beyond Neptune where thousands of small icy bodies orbit the sun. The planet appears to be typical of Kuiper Belt objects--only much bigger. Its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet itself, Brown says.

Backyard astronomers with large telescopes can see the new planet. But don't expect to be impressed: It looks like a dim speck of light, visual magnitude 19, moving very slowly against the starry background. "It is currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky in the constellation Cetus," notes Brown.

The planet was discovered by, in addition to Brown, Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. They first photographed the new planet with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. The object was so far away, however, that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data in January of this year. In the last seven months, the scientists have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions.

"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown adds.


Right: The new planet, circled in white, moves across a field of stars on Oct. 21, 2003. The three photos were taken about 90 minutes apart. Image credit: Samuel Oschin Telescope, Palomar Observatory. [More]

Telescopes have not yet revealed the planet's disk. To estimate how big it is, the astronomers must rely on measurements of the planet's brightness. Like all planets, this new one presumably shines by reflecting sunlight. The bigger the planet, generally speaking, the bigger the reflection. The reflectance, the fraction of light that bounces off the planet, is not yet known. Nevertheless, it is possible to set limits on the planet's diameter:

"Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still be as big as Pluto," says Brown. Pluto is 1400 miles (2300 km) wide. "I'd say it's probably [about] one and a half times the size of Pluto, but we're not sure."

The planet's temporary name is 2003 UB313. A permanent name has been proposed by the discoverers to the International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing the name. Stay tuned!

Menopause may cause Obesity

It has been demonstrated that major weight increases occur during menopause,in that time in a woman's body stopped cyclic ovarian function and the ovarian hormones progesterone and estrogen slowly decries.

Researcher Judy Cameron, of Oregon Health & Science University, and her colleagues studied 47 adult female monkeys. Nineteen of the monkeys had their ovaries surgically removed. That resulted in a decline in estrogen and progesterone levels, much like menopause. The other 28 monkeys were the control group.

"What we witnessed was that the absence of these hormones resulted in a 67 percent jump in food intake and a 5 percent jump in weight in a matter of weeks," Cameron says.

"We would expect weight gain to continue over time. Additionally, we noted an increase of the hormone leptin, which is produced by fat cells and has been shown to play a role in food intake," she says.

The study noted a relationship between the loss of ovaries in the monkeys and a change in metabolism. Cameron and her colleagues plan to do more research in this area to better understand metabolism changes through life related to menopause and other factors.

Menopausal weight gain also increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and has been strongly linked to increased incidence of breast and other hormone-related cancers post menopause. These healthcare concerns have led to the conception of specific products that target menopausal weight gain.

First Beehives In Ancient Near East Discovered

Science Daily Archaeological proof of the Biblical description of Israel really as "the land of milk and honey" (or at least the latter) has been uncovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology.

Amihai Mazar, Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, revealed that the first apiary (beehive colony) dating from the Biblical period has been found in excavations he directed this summer at Tel Rehov in Israel's Beth Shean Valley. This is the earliest apiary to be revealed to date in an archaeological excavation anywhere in the ancient Near East, said Prof. Mazar. It dates from the 10th to early 9th centuries B.C.E.
Tel Rehov is believed to have been one of the most important cities of Israel during the Israelite monarchy. The beehives there were found in the center of a built-up area there that has been excavated since 1997 by Dr. Nava Panitz-Cohen of the Hebrew University. Three rows of beehives were found in the apiary, containing more than 30 hives. It is estimated, however, based on excavations to date, that in all the total area would have contained some 100 beehives.
Each row contained at least three tiers of hives, each of which is a cylinder composed of unbaked clay and dry straw, around 80 centimeters long and 40 centimeters in diameter.
One end of the cylinder was closed and had a small hole in it, which allowed for the entry and exit of the bees. The opposite end was covered with a clay lid that could be removed when the beekeeper extracted the honeycombs. Experienced beekeepers and scholars who visited the site estimated that as much as half a ton of honey could be culled each year from these hives.
Prof. Mazar emphasizes the uniqueness of this latest find by pointing out that actual beehives have never been discovered at any site in the ancient Near East. While fired ceramic vessels that served as beehives are known in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, none were found in situ, and beekeeping on an industrial level such as the apiary at Tel Rehov is hitherto unknown in the archaeological record. Pictorial depictions of apiaries are known from Pharaonic Egypt, showing extraction of honey from stacked cylinders which are very similar to those found at Tel Rehov.
Cylindrical clay beehives placed in horizontal rows, similar to those found at Tel Rehov, are well-known in numerous contemporary traditional cultures in Arab villages in Israel, as well as throughout the Mediterranean. The various products of beehives are put to diverse use: the honey is, of course, a delicacy, but is also known for its medicinal and cultic value. Beeswax was also utilized in the metal and leather industries, as well as for writing material when coated on wooden tablets.
The term "honey" appears 55 times in the Bible, 16 of which as part of the image of Israel as "the land of milk and honey". It is commonly believed that the term refers to honey produced from fruits such as dates and figs. Bees' honey, on the other hand, is mentioned explicitly only twice, both related to wild bees. The first instance is how Samson culled bees' honey from inside the corpse of the lion in the Soreq Valley (Judges 14: 8-9). The second case is the story of Jonathan, King Saul's son, who dipped his hand into a honeycomb during the battle of Mikhmash (Samuel I 14:27).
While the Bible tells us nothing about beekeeping in Israel at that time, the discovery of the apiary at Tel Rehov indicates that beekeeping and the extraction of bees' honey and honeycomb was a highly developed industry as early as the First Temple period. Thus, it is possible that the term "honey" in the Bible indeed pertains to bees' honey.
Cultic objects were also found in the apiary, including a four-horned altar adorned with figures of naked fertility goddesses, as well as an elaborately painted chalice. This could be evidence of deviant cultic practices by the ancient Israelites related to the production of honey and beeswax.
Study of the beehives found at Tel Rehov is being conducted with the participation of various researchers. Dr. Guy Bloch of the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences of the Hebrew University is studying the biological aspects of the finds; he already discovered parts of bees' bodies in the remains of honeycomb extracted from inside the hives. Dr. Dvori Namdar of the Weizmann Institute of Science succeeded in identifying beeswax molecules from the walls of the beehives, and Prof. Mina Evron from Haifa University is analyzing the pollen remains in the hives.
Dating of the beehives was done by measuring the decaying of the 14C isotope in organic materials, using grains of wheat found next to the beehives. This grain was dated at the laboratory of Groningen University in Holland to the period between the mid-10th century B.C.E. until the early 9th century B.C.E. This is the time period attributed to the reign of King Solomon and the first kings of the northern Kingdom of Israel following the division of the monarchy. The city of Rehov is indeed mentioned in an Egyptian inscription dating to the time of the Pharaoh Shoshenq I (Biblical Shishak), whom the Bible notes as the contemporary of King Solomon and who invaded Israel following that monarch's death.
A particularly fascinating find at the site is an inscription on a ceramic storage jar found near the beehives that reads "To nmsh". This name was also found inscribed on another storage jar from a slightly later occupation level at Tel Rehov, dated to the time of the Omride Dynasty in the 9th century BCE. Moreover, this same name was found on a contemporary jar from nearby Tel Amal, situated in the Gan HaShelosha National Park (Sachne).
The name "Nimshi" is known in the Bible as the name of the father and in several verses the grandfather of Israelite King Jehu, the founder of the dynasty that usurped power from the Omrides (II Kings: 9-12). It is possible that the discovery of three inscriptions bearing this name in the same region and dating to the same period indicates that Jehu's family originated from the Beth Shean Valley and possibly even from the large city located at Tel Rehov. The large apiary discovered at the site might have belonged to this illustrious local clan.
The excavations at Tel Rehov were supported by John Camp from Minneapolis in the U.S. with the participation of archaeological students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and numerous volunteers.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Science and Biotechnology Blog: news

Science and Biotechnology Blog: news

The bacteria that cause brucellosis can sense light and use the information to regulate their virulence, according to a study in the August 24 issue of the journal Science. The discovery comes after 120 years of research into the disease, which causes abortions in livestock and fevers in humans. Researchers found that two other bacteria, including a species that attacks plants, sense light using the same type of protein structure, and at least 94 more species possess the code for it in their DNA.
"These bacteria have been very well studied for years, and no one knew they could sense light," said lead author Trevor Swartz, who initiated the study as a research scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "Now it seems like it's a common thing rather than being an anomaly."
The ubiquity of the structure suggests that light may play a much more important role in bacterial life than has previously been recognized. And because the recurrent structure can be paired with a variety of signaling proteins, it gives organisms immense versatility in the ways they use light, Swartz said.
"We have bumped into an entirely new family of light receptors in nature," said coauthor Roberto Bogomolni, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSC.
The receptor molecule contains a light-sensing region known as an LOV domain because it resembles similar units in other proteins that sense light, oxygen, or voltage, said coauthor and longtime collaborator Winslow Briggs, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The structure crops up in a variety of proteins, where it lends its light-sensing ability to the whole molecule. The light-sensing structure is very different from either the light-harvesting molecules of photosynthesis or the light-gathering pigments in our own eyes.
Full article here

Nora Amile in Sexy Bikini Paparazzi Candids (HQ)

Heroes hottie Hayden Panettiere is in NYC for the Larry King Live show, and protecting that crotch from the paparazzi lens is definitely something she’s been practicing. Exiting the vehicle gracefully wearing a black dress, Hayden made sure to cover up between those legs to deny us all the infamous upskirt shot. At this point in her career, a nipple slip is all she needs to provide until at least season 3 of the show. After all, flashing your crotch can only look good on a resume!
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Jessica Simpson shows her bra with boobs

What is the bird flu?

Bird flu (also known as avian influenza) has led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of wild and domestic birds and to a small number of human deaths. Right now, however, bird flu remains difficult for humans to contract. Most people who have developed symptoms have had close contact with sick birds, though in a few cases, bird flu has passed from one person to another.

Health officials are concerned that a major bird flu outbreak could occur in humans if the virus mutates into a form that can spread more easily from person to person. protect people in the event of a bird flu pandemic.The grimmest scenario would be a global outbreak to rival the flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919, which claimed millions of lives worldwide. For now, researchers are trying to develop a vaccine that would

• Bird flu refers to strains of influenza that primarily affect wild and domesticated birds.
• Bird flu is also known as avian flu or avian influenza.
• Although bird flu is contagious and spreads easily among birds, it is uncommon for it to be transmitted to humans.
• In the late 1990s, a new strain of bird flu arose which was unusually severe ("highly pathogenic"), resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions of birds, including poultry.
• Risk factors include association with birds and poultry farms and bird feces.
• Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, nausea; symptoms often progress to severe breathing problems, pneumonia that can result in death.
• Definitive diagnosis requires identification of the viral strain by immunological tests.
• Treatment may include antiviral medication and often requires intensive supportive care.
• Control efforts, including culling infected flocks and vaccinating healthy birds, have limited the spread of highly pathogenic bird flu strains.
• In 2011, a mutated strain of highly pathogenic bird flu appeared, H5N1, which is concerning because the existing poultry vaccines are not very effective against the H5N1 strain; in 2013, a new strain, H7N9, appeared in China.
• Human infection with highly pathogenic strains of bird flu is uncommon, with about 622 cases reported as of March 2013 since 1997.
• Human infection occurs primarily in people who have close contact with sick poultry in countries where the virus is found; there have been isolated cases of human-to-human transmission.
• There is no commercially available vaccine for humans against bird flu strains; human infection with bird flu is fatal in approximately 60% of infected humans, but only a small number of humans have become infected since 1997.
• Bird flu from the highly pathogenic strains (for example H5N1) is not found in the United States at this time in birds or humans.

 

Ancient 'Escape Tunnel' Discovered In Israel

Source: Israel Antiquities Authority
Date: September 10, 2007

Science daily.... In excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the City of David in order to expose the main road of Jerusalem from the time of the Second Temple period, the city’s main drainage channel was discovered. According to the writings of Josephus Flavius, the residents of the city fled to this channel at the time of the revolt in order to hide from the Romans.

In excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is jointly carrying out with the Elad Association in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park, approximately 70 meters of Jerusalem’s main drainage channel from the time of the Second Temple period have been exposed so far. The channel is located along the route from the Temple Mount to the Shiloah Pool. The channel, which passes beneath the main road of the city and apparently continues to Nahal Kidron on its way to the Dead Sea, drained the rainfall of ancient Jerusalem; the Jewish quarter, the western region of the City of David and the Temple Mount.

The channel is built of ashlar stones and is covered with heavy stone slabs that are actually the paving stones of the street. In some places the channel reaches a height of about 3 meters and is one meter wide, so that it is possible to walk in it comfortably.

According to the excavation directors, Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in the last two thousand years the valley has become blocked with thick layers of alluvium and collapse. Therefore the Israel Antiquities Authority was asked to excavate some 10 meters for the purpose of uncovering the main road of Jerusalem and the channel below it.

“There is evidence in the writings of Josephus Flavius, the historian who described the revolt, the conquest and the destruction of Jerusalem, that numerous people took shelter in the channel and even lived in it for a period until they succeeded to flee the city through its southern end”, they added.

Pottery shards, fragments of vessels, and coins from the end of the Second Temple period, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 CE, were discovered inside the channel.

The northern part of the channel, which is still unexcavated, apparently reaches the area of the Western Wall where in the past a large drainage channel was found that is the continuation of the channel that was exposed in the southern part of the City of David. The construction of the channel is characterized by its advanced technology. The further south one goes in the channel the deeper it is below the surface level so as to allow the rainwater to flow to Nahal Kidron.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Israel Antiquities Authority.

Scientists discover 'fat gene'

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

Last Updated: 7:01am BST 05/09/2007

Scientists have identified a genetic “master switch” that tells the body whether to store or burn fat.

The discovery of the function of the adipose gene could lead to the development of new treatments to fight obesity. US researchers, whose work is published in the journal Cell Metabolism, showed animals created with greater adipose activity were thinner and less likely to suffer diabetes than average.

Lead author Dr. Jonathan Graff, associate professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at UT Southwestern, said: “From worms to mammals, this gene controls fat formation.

“It could explain why so many people struggle to lose weight and suggests an entirely new direction for developing medical treatments that address the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity.

“People who want to fit in their jeans might someday be able to overcome their genes.”

The adipose gene was first discovered in fat fruit flies more than 50 years ago, but the way it worked has remained unknown.

In the new study the researchers manipulated adipose in worms and genetically mice, turning the gene on and off at different stages in the animals’ lives and in various parts of their bodies.

They found the gene, which is also present in humans, is like a master switch that tells the body whether to accumulate or burn fat.


Mice created with increased adipose activity ate as much as normal mice, but were thinner, had diabetes-resistant fat cells, and were better able to control insulin and blood-sugar metabolism.

Animals engineered to have reduced adipose activity were fatter, less healthy and had diabetes.

The researchers’ work on flies showed that the gene is “dose-sensitive” – meaning various combinations of the gene’s variants led to a range of body types from slim to medium to obese.

Dr Graff added: “This is good news for potential obesity treatments, because it’s like a volume control instead of a light switch. It can be turned up or down, not just on or off. Eventually, of course, the idea is to develop drugs to target this system.”

Gigantoraptor discovered in the Gobi Desert

Xu Xing, a Chinese paleontologist, puzzled over the thigh bone of a monstrous new dinosaur he and his partners had discovered in the rich fossil beds of the Gobi Desert.

The bone was so big, he said in an e-mail to The Chronicle, that he thought he and his colleagues had merely found another of those familiar plant-eating, long-necked, semi-aquatic creatures called sauropods, well known in the evolutionary past of the dinosaur world.

Then he thought the bone most likely had come from a tyrannosaur -- perhaps the voracious and towering T. rex, the prime predator of fright movies.

But no, it wasn't T. rex at all; it was a fossil from the largest birdlike creature ever seen, Xu said. More than 26 feet long and 16 1/2 feet tall, it was a young adult that must have weighed at least a ton and a half when it was alive more than 70 million years ago, he said. It thrived in the late Cretaceous period only a few million years before all the dinosaurs on Earth became extinct.

Mr.Xu Xing describe the Bird dinosaur(Gigantoraptor) as "gigantic chicken!' "

The journal Nature report says discovery of a creature Xu's team has named Gigantoraptor erlianensis, a giant birdlike dinosaur from the Gobi's Erlian basin, long known to science for its famous fossils and to prospectors for its vast oil reserves.
From the fossil record, the world's leading paleontologists are now sure that all modern birds are descended from the dinosaurs; in fact, the scientists often term birds "modern dinosaurs." And paleontologists, studying the fossils marking the evolution of birds during the age of dinosaurs, have observed that as the birdlike dinosaurs approached birdness, they seem to have evolved into smaller and smaller types.
What's an enormous beast like Gigantoraptor doing among the avian world's ancestors?

It's a curious twist in the long up-and-down saga of evolution that has intrigued science ever since the Cambrian explosion of 500 million years ago, when the ancestors of countless familiar life forms emerged -- in the short span of 10 million years.

It's a curious twist in the long up-and-down saga of evolution that has intrigued science ever since the Cambrian explosion of 500 million years ago, when the ancestors of countless familiar life forms emerged -- in the short span of 10 million years.

Said UC Berkeley's Kevin Padian, a leading expert on dinosaur evolution and curator of the university's Museum of Paleontology who has seen the report from Xu and Tan:

"We have dwarf sauropods, so why not giant oviraptors (the term means 'egg thief')? If resources are available, all animals will take the opportunity to increase their size. Dinosaurs can get small, and dinosaurs can get big, and the bigger ones grow faster than the little ones, because getting bigger fast can reduce the number of predators around.

"It all goes to show that when it comes to the diversity of dinosaurs, we're still just scratching the surface."

The details in the report by Xu and Tan are fascinating: "Growth lines" in one bone showed that the creature grew to adult size in only seven years -- faster than most other two-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs and "probably died in the eleventh year of life."

The animal had no teeth in its beak so its diet is a mystery, Xu said, because it had the relatively small head and long neck typical of plant-eaters, and the sharp claws of many meat-eaters.

And while the fossil-hunters found no evidence of feathers -- as many dinosaur species show -- the beast could well have had feathered arms and feathers on its tail, most likely for sexual display.

Finally, although most two-footed dinosaurs had stout legs to carry their weight, and short arms, Gigantoraptor's legs were relatively long and slender, and its arms were unusually long -- "more birdlike than its small relatives in many features," Xu said.

Mark Norell at the American Museum of Natural History has hunted dinosaur fossils with Xu in the Gobi Desert in the past but was not involved in this discovery. He studied the Gigantoraptor's fossil bones last year at Xu's Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

"It was really a surprise when I first saw it," Norell said in a telephone conversation. As dinosaurs evolved toward birds, they got smaller and smaller, their fossils show; until now, birdlike dinosaurs were at most 10 or 11 feet long -- certainly not 26 feet.

Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago who read the report, called it "a big find, really exciting -- a class act."

Source:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/14/MNGUTQESS41.DTL&type=science

'Kitchen science' reveals dinosaurs died in agony

A dinosaur mystery that puzzled paleontologists for nearly a century has been solved by a pound of beef tendons from a butcher, a collection of dead hawks and a brace of frozen quail, two investigative scientists in Berkeley and Idaho say.

The puzzle: Why were fossils of those ancient creatures so often discovered buried with their heads, necks and feet arched bizarrely backward into a distorted posture unlike anything seen alive?

The answer: Kevin Padian, a noted dinosaur expert and curator of the Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley, and Cynthia Marshall Faux, a veterinarian and paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., say the beasts were suffering in violent death throes as they perished -- asphyxiated by volcanic gases or ash falls, poisoned by unknown toxins or drowned in swamps or deepwater lakes.

It was knowledge of animals in veterinary clinics plus a few "kitchen science" experiments that led to this conclusion, say the researchers, and it should provide a new understanding of the dinosaurs' environments millions of years ago. It also adds support for the once-controversial claim that the ancient dinosaurs were all warm-blooded just as modern birds are, and unlike the ancestral crocodiles and lizards whose blood still runs cold today.

When paleontologists years ago were struck by the peculiar posture of most fossil dinosaur skeletons, they offered many explanations in their reports: The skeletons always developed that way after death, they said -- strong currents must have bent the bodies that way before sediments could bury them; or their necks were broken backward as a result of diving or falling into mud; or salts in evaporated water stiffened them into position after death; or dry air shriveled the tendons in their dead bodies until the skeletons bent; or it was all an example of rigor mortis -- the stiffening of any body that follows quickly after death.

It was Faux (pronounced Fox) who devised the experiments that solved the problem, Padian said. She is a vet turned paleontologist who also affiliated with Yale University's famed Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Based on her experience in animal clinics, she reasoned that the deformed posture of the dinosaurs seemed clearly due to damage to their central nervous systems before death, and she set about to test whether the idea held up for dinosaurs as well as modern animals.

Faux is a large-animal specialist who lives near Lewiston, Idaho, and at a nearby butcher's shop she bought a few pounds of beef tendons, dried some, salted some, soaked some, and showed that none shrank in any way that could possibly have distorted an animal skeleton.

For two months she dried the bodies of two red-tailed hawks euthanized at the Raptor Conservation Center in Bozeman and found no post-mortem movement at all. She immobilized the bodies of badly injured barn owls and falcons from the raptor center, and their muscles and tendons didn't move.

Finally, she bought two frozen quail from a commercial quail farm, thawed them, soaked them in a heavy salt solution, and observed their decomposing bodies for as long as two weeks. Their bones never took on that bizarre distorted posture like the fossil dinosaurs -- known in medicine as opisthotonus.

Opisthotonus during death occurs only in warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals today, but not in cold-blooded creatures, Padian said -- so this work offers new support for the idea that dinosaurs must have been warm-blooded too, he said.

Faux's detailed experimentation was truly persistent research, Padian said. It was, he said, "powerful kitchen science."

"The prevalent idea has been that these animals distorted posture occurred only after death with no scavenging of their bones, and then were somehow buried by currents of water and mud," Padian said. "Our study suggests that many of these animals died instead in places that were already inundated, and that they maintained their death postures as they were quickly buried."

And because many paleontologists have based inferences about dinosaur environments on the state of their skeletons in the rock layers where they are found, Padian said, some traditional views of "paleoenvironments" will now need some new thinking.

The work by Faux and Padian was published in the current issue of the journal Paleobiology.

E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Don't Bite the Dust food.polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

Science News included a report that certain cat foods, especially fish-flavored canned entries, deliver substantial quantities of brominated flame retardants to the pets' diets. The finding helps explain why blood concentrations of these ubiquitous chemicals—known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

Several studies show that both children and adults can accumulate substantial amounts of these hormone-perturbing agents. Certain foods can deliver significant quantities, especially fish, chicken livers, and certain sausages. Moreover, recent studies have found that mothers typically pass PBDEs along to their baby—both in the womb and during breastfeeding.

In general, manufacturers add PBDEs to plastics and foam products to reduce the likelihood they will catch fire. However, treated products can shed the chemicals into air, water, and dust. Through exposure routes that remain somewhat sketchy, PBDEs have been entering in food supply.

What's emerging as an apparently far greater source of human exposure is ingestion of PBDE-laced house dust. That puts toddlers at greatest risk of accumulating the chemicals because of the time they spend crawling on carpets and mouthing toys and other items that are indoor-dust magnets.

Indeed, authors of the new cat study argue in an upcoming issue of Environmental Science & Technology that house cats "may serve as sentinels to better assess human exposure and adverse health outcomes related to low-level but chronic PBDE exposure."

What are those risks?

Studies have shown that at least in young animals, brief, early PBDE exposures can mildly impair learning and reduce thyroid-hormone concentrations in blood. Exposures later in life can delay puberty in male rodents, and adult exposures can block the activity of cellular receptors for male sex hormones. Then there's the new cat study. PBDE exposures can bring a potentially lethal thyroid disease.

No one knows whether these flame retardants pose similar risks to people—and if so, what concentrations might be harmful. The data just aren't in. Until they are, the animal data suggest that cautious parents might want to vacuum frequently and limit their small children's intake of certain foods.

The role of dust

Both the new study of house cats PBDE contamination in supermarket foods present a conundrum.Toxicologist with the Environmental Protection Agency both studies, explains that the two sets of data indicate that food doesn't account for much of the amount of flame-retardants found in either people or pets.

Indeed, her team has calculated a likely daily PBDE intake from the foods and found it unimpressive. The total intake would probably lead to blood-PBDE values of less than 10 ppb, the researchers note. Yet the average blood value exceeds 30 ppb in U.S. residents, and 5 percent of people have blood-PBDE values 10 to 100 times that amount.

Such numbers "suggest that house dust is an important source [of PBDEs], Supporting that suspicion are data from a study published in the March 1 Environmental Science & Technology. Thomas F. Webster of Boston University and his colleagues showed that among new mothers in the Boston area, PBDE concentrations "in breast milk and house dust were strongly and positively correlated."

Overall, breast milk from women whose homes contained house dust rich in flame-retardant residues had PBDE concentrations 2.6 times those of milk from women whose homes had low PBDE concentrations in dust.

Birnbaum and her collaborators say that because house cats may occupy the same environmental niche around the home as young children—both crawling around and getting dirt in their mouths— a better understanding of how cats become exposed to flame retardants and the hormonal impacts of those exposures "may have public health ramifications for both veterinary and human patients alike."

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Hubble Captures Uranus's Rings on Edge

The images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows how the ring system around the planet Uranus appears at ever more oblique tilts as viewed from Earth - culminating in the rings being seen edge-on in three observing opportunities in 2007. The best of these events appears in the far right image taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on August 14, 2007.
The edge-on rings appear as two spikes above and below the planet. The rings cannot be seen running fully across the face of the planet because the bright glare of the planet has been blocked out in the Hubble photo (a small amount of residual glare appears as a fan- shaped image artifact). A much shorter color exposure of the planet has been photo- composited to show its size and position relative to the ring plane.

The rings were discovered in 1977, so this is the first time for a Uranus ring crossing to be observed from Earth. Earth's orbit around the Sun permits three opportunities to view the rings edge-on: Uranus made its first ring crossing as seen from Earth on May 3; it made its second crossing on August 16; and will cross for the third time on February 20, 2008. Though the last ring crossing relative to Earth will be hidden behind the Sun, most of Earth's premier telescopes, including Keck, Hubble, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar, plan to focus on the planet again in the days following December 7, 2007. On December 7 the rings will be perfectly edge-on to the Sun.

For additional information, contact:

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-4514
villard@stsci.edu

New insights into common knee injuries

August 30, 2007 - DURHAM, N.C. - The sort of swelling that occurs when a joint is damaged by injury or degeneration is normally essential to the healing process, but when it comes to the knee, that inflammation can actually interfere with healing.

These findings in experiments with pigs may lead to treatments for injuries or osteoarthritis in the knee, according to Duke University Medical Center orthopedic researchers. There are drugs that can block the action of these immune system proteins that trigger joint inflammation.

The Duke researchers report in the September issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism that two immune system proteins, interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), block the healing of the damaged pig meniscus, an important layer of buffering tissue within the joint. When agents that counteract the effects of these two proteins were administered directly to the damaged meniscus, the repair process resumed.

new reserch suggest that Sons of fat moms are less fertile'

LONDON: Sons of obese women can be less fertile and may have sperm of poorer quality, according to a recent study.

Obesity is believed to affect a woman’s chances of pregnancy and the new study is the first to find a link between overweight and the fertility of the next generation.

A team from Aarhus University in Denmark tracked the health of more than 300 women and their sons. Although the majority of the women were of normal weight when they became pregnant, 25 had body mass indexes classed as overweight or obese.

Tests showed their sons tended to have slightly lower concentrations of sperm, as well as fewer mobile sperms, the online edition of Daily Mail reported.

It was possible that higher levels of the hormone oestrogen, associated with being overweight, might harm the development of male foetus reproductive organs, the scientists said.

However, the differences were so small that the researchers could not be sure they were not due to chance. The researchers said further studies should be carried out.

Meanwhile, an Australian scientist says that she has discovered scientific evidence that obesity is a key factor in infertility because of how it affects a woman’s eggs.


to increase fertility click hare

a unique bionic hand luchd

A highly functional bionic hand which was invented by Scottish NHS worker has been lunched in to market



the thumb & other finger can move a grip just like a human hand the bionic hand are controlled by the patients mind and muscles
it was invented by David GROW and was designed and built by Torch Bionics,which is based in LIVINGSTON
The technology has been tested by a number of people,including US Soldiers who lost limbs in the Iraq war

COMMENT: It is the first hand that actually has bending fingers just like a real hand

Dr David Gow, who pioneered the research at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Edinburgh in the 1970s and 1980s, said: "If you don't get the children very young, and fit them once they are able to crawl, they are not going to get much use out of it later in life.

Hands
The hands are capable of intricate tasks
"This is the starting point to try to make this available on the NHS. It is like nothing else in the world - Britain leads the field."

One patient who has received a Prodigit hand, Jeremy, said that the new prosthesis was "brilliant".

"It helps me do a lot of things - I can open doors, hold a book and turn the pages, and hold a bag of crisps."

His mother Margaret said the powered prosthetic had made a huge impact on her son.

Brain signals

"He used to have one hand now he has got two and that is just wonderful for him and us," she said.

"I am delighted he was able to take part in the clinical trials."

The two motors that operate the hand are contained entirely in the thumb and forefinger. This allows the hand to be fitted to patients who have half a hand.

The unit is operated by signals from the brain. The user sends a signal to move a muscle in the forearm, and electrodes detect this and pass the message on to the motors.

The team now plans to build bigger versions of the hand for use in adult patients. So far, five children, aged between two and 11, have been fitted with the Prodigit hands at Nottingham.

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