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West
Africa Agrees on Regional Plan to Combat Bird Flu
February
24, 2006
West
African states agreed yesterday (23 February) to coordinate their response to
the threat of bird flu with a regional emergency fund and plan of action.
The meeting was convened to set up an
observation network across West Africa to rapidly detect and test sick poultry.
It brought together agriculture and environment ministers from the region.
Source:
SciDev.net
Hope
for Early Alzheimer's Test
February
25, 2006
Experts
have developed a way to track the loss of key receptors in brain tissue caused
by the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease.
The University of California, Los Angeles,
team hopes its work could lead to earlier diagnosis - possibly even before
symptoms become apparent.
Source:
BBC News
Memory
Aided by Meaning
February
26, 2006
Neuroscientists
have discovered that how successfully you form memories depends on your frame of
mind not just during and after the event in question, but also before it.
Source:
Nature.com
NASA
Technology 'Shoots' for Crime Scene Investigations
February
27, 2006
What
do a NASA engineer and a detective have in common? The answer is a new NASA
photographic laser device that helps look for damages on NASA’s Space Shuttle that can also be used to
"shoot" more details in crime scenes.
Engineers at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center (KSC), Kennedy Space Center, Fla., developed the Laser Scaling and
Measurement Device for Photographic Images (LSMDPI) to assist scientists who were unable to determine the
exact scale of hailstorm damages to the Space Shuttle’s external tank by
viewing photographs of the spacecraft on its launch pad.
Source:Sciencedaily.com
Children
at Risk of Early Death as Obesity Rises
February
28, 2006
Today's
children may die sooner than their parents because of the Government's failure
to curb the explosion in obesity, a report warns today.
Obesity reduces life expectancy by an average of nine years, and by more
in smokers, and greatly increases the risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2
diabetes and high blood pressure.
Source:
Independent.co.uk
German
Cat Gets Deadly Bird Flu
February
28, 2006
A
domestic cat in Germany has become the first European Union mammal to die of the
deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The cat was found dead at the weekend on the
Baltic island of Ruegen, where dozens of birds infected with H5N1 have been
found.
Source:
BBC News
Consensus
Grows on Climate Change
March
1, 2006
The
global scientific body on climate change will report soon that only greenhouse
gas emissions can explain freak weather patterns.
Simultaneous changes in sea ice, glaciers,
droughts, floods, ecosystems, ocean acidification and wildlife migration are
taking place.
Source:
BBC News
Chemotherapy
May Help Human Bird Flu Victims
March
2, 2006
Chemotherapy
for an immune system disorder might also be effective in treating people
infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu, scientists suggest.
With
bird flu's 50% mortality rate in humans, the possibility of resistance to
antiviral treatments, no developed human vaccines and the spread bird flu across
the globe, new thinking and treatments are urgently needed, argues a team from
the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden.
Source:
New Scientist.com
Online
Amateurs Crack Nazi Codes
March
2, 2006
Three
German ciphers unsolved since World War II are finally being cracked, helped by
thousands of home computers.
Now one has been solved by running
code-breaking software on a "grid" of internet-linked home computers.
The complex ciphers were encoded in 1942 by a
new version of the German Enigma machine, and led to regular hits on Allied
vessels by German U-boats.
Source:
BBC News
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