New discovery may help treat spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s

NEW YORK, Apr 19: Researchers have discovered that the human nervous system has its "unit burst generator" to control rhythmic movements such as walking, a breakthrough which they claim could soon lead to treatments for spinal cord injuries and Parkinson’s disease.

By studying a simpler model of locomotion, in the medicinal leech, the researchers at University of Minnesota have found where these unit burst generators reside and that each nerve cord segment has a complete generator.

When a neuron fires, it sets off a chain reaction that gives rise to rhythmic movement. Once those circuits are turned on, the body essentially goes on autopilot.

"For most of us, we can chew gum and walk at the same time. We do not have to remind ourselves to place the right leg out first, bring it back and do the same for the other leg. So how does the nervous system control rhythmic behaviours like walking or crawling," lead researcher Karen Mesce said.

The researchers targeted the segmented leech for their study as they have fewer and larger neurons-making them easier to analyse.

Furthermore, and perhaps just as important, the study found that dopamine-a common human hormone-can turn each of these complete generator units on. Since dopamine regulates movements and activates those unit burst generators, the next step will be figuring out how dopamine makes individual neurons more or less active.

"Because dopamine affects movement in many different animals, including humans, our studies may help to identify treatments for Parkinson’s patients and those with spinal cord injury," the ‘ScienceDaily’ quoted Mesce as saying.

The findings of the study have been published in the latest edition of the ‘Journal of Neuroscience’. (PTI)

Hamas bomber killed in attack at Gaza-Israel border

GAZA, Apr 19: A Palestinian suicide bomber struck a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel today, wounding a number of Israeli soldiers, the Hamas militant group and Israeli army said.

A spokesman for the militant group said the bomber, who was driving a car when he blew himself up, was killed in the attack at the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that there had been an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing and that a number of soldiers had been wounded.

Hamas said in an earlier incident that the army killed one of their militants near the fence with Israel in central Gaza. The Israeli army confirmed that a militant had been shot in an air strike in the central Gaza Strip.

(AGENCIES)

Marigolds on moon soon

LONDON, Apr 19: Marigolds could be grown on the moon by around 2015, scientists said.

A Ukrainian team, working with the European Space Agency (ESA) showed that marigolds can grow in crushed rock, very like the lunar surface, and with no need for plant food.

The research was presented at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna by ESA's Dr Bernard Foing, director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group and father of the SMART-1 moon probe.

Dr Foing said it was an important milestone because it does away with the need to bring nutrients and soil from Earth.

His team added different types of bacteria which made the marigolds thrive.

The bacteria appeared to leach elements like potassium from the rock that the plants needed; were able to withstand extremely tough conditions; and so would be an ideal way to fertilise lunar crops.

Dr Foing was pinning his hopes on an ESA proposal for a mission called Moon Next, which would probably deploy a roving vehicle in about 2015, or on a subsequent Lunar Logistics Lander scheduled for 2016-17, the Daily Telegraph reported.

He said tulips, cabbages and arabidopsis (a weed) could also be grown on the moon.

(UNI)

Daimler says to sell Smart car in China from ‘09

BEIJING, Apr 20: Daimler AG will sell its Smart small car in China from next year, head of sales and marketing Klaus Maier said on Saturday.

"By the middle of next year, the Chinese can buy the Smart which is very well suited for this market," he told reporters at the Beijing Auto Show.

(AGENCIES)

Pope to rally Catholic Church leaders in New York

NEW YORK, Apr 19: Pope Benedict today turns his attention to the present and future leaders of the US Roman Catholic Church by celebrating Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral and visiting a seminary near New York City.

With applications to the priesthood falling and inner city Catholic schools closing, the pope will try to rally the spirits of a Church recovering from the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by US priests.

The scandal broke in 2002 and has forced US dioceses to pay more than 2 billion dollar in damages. Five have gone bankrupt.

Benedict, 81, met victims of sexual abuse by priests in Washington in a surprise move on Thursday, and he said on his way to the United States that ''it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.''

He will attend a rally for some 22,000 young Catholics, including 300 seminarians, at St Joseph's Seminary in the city of Yonkers this afternoon.

The number of Catholic priests in the United States has fallen from more than 58,000 in 1965 to just under 41,500 last year, according to the Center for Applied Research into the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

While the number of US Catholics rose from 45.6 million in 1965 to 64.4 million in 2007, the number of graduate-level seminarians fell from 8,325 to 3,274.

At the seminary, the pope will also meet about 50 young people with disabilities and their caregivers.

Earlier today, the pontiff will celebrate Mass at New York's historic St. Patrick's Cathedral, the seat of the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan. Around 3,000 deacons, priests and religious people from dioceses around the United States will attend.

The events will come one day after Pope Benedict addressed the United Nations. He said countries that act unilaterally on the world stage undermine the authority of the United Nations and weaken the broad consensus needed to confront global problems.

The German-born pope is on a six-day visit to the United States, his first as pontiff. He capped three days of events in Washington with the meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse. Three of them later praised him for receiving them and speaking frankly about the scandal.

Tomorrow the pope visits New York's Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on September 11, 2001, and celebrates Mass at Yankee Stadium.

(AGENCIES)

Thousands of ideas debated at summit on Australia's future

ADELAIDE, Apr 19: Australia's prime minister opened a sweeping summit of ideas today, telling the nearly 1,000 delegates that he expects concrete policy suggestions from their two-day brainstorming.

"The old way of governing has long been creaking and groaning," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said at the opening of Australia 2020, a first-time conference meant to involve more Australians in decision making on the nation's future.

The Rudd government set 10 themes for discussion - ranging from health to environment to the arts to Australia's world role - and asked for public input.

Australians obliged, the nation buzzing with ideas in the weeks leading up to the summit. Radio talk shows invited listeners to phone in ideas for discussion, and nearly 9,000 proposals were submitted to the summit's Web site.

Major themes at the summit in the nation's capital, Canberra, are expected to be climate change, tackling Aboriginal discrimination and health.

Following today's opening remarks, the nearly 1,000 delegates - dubbed by Rudd as Australia's "best and brightest" minds - split into 10 panels to cull thousands of ideas and come up with policy proposals to be presented to the federal government.

Early discussions in one session raised support for breaking formal ties with the British monarchy and becoming a republic, an idea supported by Rudd.

It is not clear how much public support such an initiative would garner. In 1999, Australians rejected a proposal to replace the monarchy with a president elected by Parliament. The idea dropped off the national agenda until Rudd, a republican, was elected as prime minister last November, replacing staunch monarchist John Howard. (AGENCIES)

Vietnam blasts into the satellite age

HANOI, Apr 19: Vietnam blasted into the satellite age today when a rocket launch from South America propelled its first orbiter into space, allowing it to beam home telecoms data and television signals.

From a command centre set amid lush rice fields outside the capital Hanoi, scientists tracked the Arianespace rocket as it propelled the Vinasat-1 on its path to hover 36,000 kilometres above the equator.

"This project is politically, economically and socially important," said Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung, soon after the launch, noting that it would help to "raise Vietnam's image on the international stage."

The blast-off may only have been a small step for the European space agency in French Guiana, but it represents one great leap for communist Vietnam, a developing country with patchy phone coverage that only introduced the Internet a decade ago.

War-shattered and largely isolated until the early 1990s, Vietnam has seen a decade of rapid economic growth and is now racing to build the infrastructure to match the rising expectations of investors and its 86 million people.

The satellite project, worth around USD 300 million, "puts Vietnam on the map of the world for using satellite communications," said a visibly proud Deputy Information and Communications Minister Tran Duc Lai.

"Demand for communications is now booming. Ten years ago we had only fixed telephones. Then we introduced mobiles. Since 1997 we started to introduce the Internet," he said.

"Now there is very high demand. We have around 23 per cent of people who can access the Internet. By 2010 the target is to reach 40 per cent." (AGENCIES)

Children from polygamous sect ordered to stay in Texas custody

SAN ANGELO, US, Apr 19: The more than 400 children taken from a ranch run by a polygamous sect will stay in state custody and be subject to genetic testing to sort out family relationships that have confounded welfare authorities, a judge ruled.

State District Judge Barbara Walther heard 21 hours of testimony over two days before ruling yesterday that the children would be kept in custody while the state continues to investigate allegations of abuse stemming from the teachings of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"This is but the beginning," Walther said.

Individual hearings will be set for the children over the next several weeks, and the judge will determine whether they are moved into permanent foster care or can be returned to their parents. All hearings must be held by June 5.

Walther also ordered that all 416 children and parents be given genetic tests. Child welfare officials say they've had difficulty determining how the children and adults are related because of evasive or changing answers.

A mobile genetic lab will take samples on Monday at the main shelter where children are being kept; parents will be able to submit samples Tuesday in Eldorado, closer to the ranch.

The custody case is one of the largest and most convoluted in US history. The ruling capped two days of marathon testimony that sometimes descended into chaos as hundreds of lawyers for the children and parents competed to defend their clients in two large rooms linked by a video feed. (AGENCIES)

Breast cancer checks 'cuts risk by 30 per cent' in elderly

LONDON, Apr 19: Screening elderly woman, particularly those aged 70 and above, for breast cancer could cut their chances of dying from the disease by almost a third, a new study has revealed.

Researchers at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands looked at breast cancer deaths from 2003 and found there was a steady decline in deaths from the disease in women aged 75 to 79 -- the age group where improvements in survival would be seen.

In fact, between 1986 and 1997, the average was 166 deaths per 100,000 women, while in 2006 it was 117 per 100,000 -- a fall of almost 30 per cent.

"The reduction in breast cancer mortality shows that the screening has started to have a statistically significant effect," according to the study's lead author Jacques Fracheboud.

The study also showed that more women aged 70 to 74 were sent for further checks after screening, compared with those aged 50 to 69 -- and a higher proportion of the older age group were confirmed to have breast cancer.

"It is easier to find cancer in older women due to their breast tissue being less dense," the 'BBC News' portal quoted Fracheboud as saying.

But he added: "There is not necessarily an argument for continuing screening beyond 75 because many tumours found at this stage are slow-growing and may never reach the stage of causing a problem."

Welcoming the research, Alexis Willett of Breakthrough Breast Cancer said, "The risk of developing breast cancer increases with age, which is why we encourage all women over 50 to attend breast screening appointments when invited and for women over 70 to request their own appointment." (PTI)

New discovery may help treat spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's

NEW YORK, Apr 19: Researchers have discovered that the human nervous system has its "unit burst generator" to control rhythmic movements such as walking, a breakthrough which they claim could soon lead to treatments for spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease.

By studying a simpler model of locomotion, in the medicinal leech, the researchers at University of Minnesota have found where these unit burst generators reside and that each nerve cord segment has a complete generator.

When a neuron fires, it sets off a chain reaction that gives rise to rhythmic movement. Once those circuits are turned on, the body essentially goes on autopilot.

"For most of us, we can chew gum and walk at the same time. We do not have to remind ourselves to place the right leg out first, bring it back and do the same for the other leg. So how does the nervous system control rhythmic behaviours like walking or crawling," lead researcher Karen Mesce said.

The researchers targeted the segmented leech for their study as they have fewer and larger neurons -- making them easier to analyse.

Furthermore, and perhaps just as important, the study found that dopamine -- a common human hormone -- can turn each of these complete generator units on. Since dopamine regulates movements and activates those unit burst generators, the next step will be figuring out how dopamine makes individual neurons more or less active.

"Because dopamine affects movement in many different animals, including humans, our studies may help to identify treatments for Parkinson's patients and those with spinal cord injury," the 'ScienceDaily' quoted Mesce as saying.

The findings of the study have been published in the latest edition of the 'Journal of Neuroscience'. (PTI)

Eating disorders may be contagious: study

NEW YORK, Apr 19: A study of US high school students provides additional evidence that eating disorders may be contagious.

In a study, researchers found that binging, fasting, diet pill use and other eating disorder symptoms clustered within counties, particularly among female students.

''These findings confirm the strong social influences on female adolescents in the U.S. To be thin, sometimes using unhealthy behaviors to achieve this goal,'' the researchers write in the current issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Research in the 1980s in female college students first suggested that disordered eating behavior spread through ''social contagion,'' demonstrating that binge eating clustered within sororities, Dr Valerie L Forman-Hoffman and Cassie L Cunningham of the VA Iowa City Health Care System note in their report.

In the current study, they looked at whether a similar pattern would be seen among high school students at the county-wide level by analyzing nationally representative data on 15,349 high school students.

There was indeed a small but significant clustering effect, the researchers found. A pair of students from the same county was 4 percent to 10 per cent more likely to share an eating-disordered behavior when compared to pairs in which each person came from a different county.

Severe food intake restriction, dieting, exercising and diet pill use all showed clustering by county, as did any weight control symptom overall or any eating disorder symptom. But no clustering was seen for purging, possibly due to the ''secretive,'' less socially acceptable nature of this behavior, the researchers suggest.

Clustering patterns were the same in rural, suburban and urban counties.

While the study wasn't designed to look at why these behaviors might be clustering in certain counties, the researchers suggest that peer pressure, information sharing or students modeling their behavior on one another are possible mechanisms.

Based on their results, the researchers think it may be more effective to target eating disorder prevention efforts to counties or schools where they are more common, rather than individual students.

(AGENCIES)

India to help build 150-bed hospital

COLOMBO, Apr 19: India will help construct a 150-bed hospital in Sri Lanka and provide vocational training to the people in rural areas of the island nation under the two agreements signed here between the neighbouring countries.

The Sri Lankan Government has provided three acres of land for construction of the district general hospital at Dickoya in Hatton in the Central Province.

The Rs (Sri Lankan) 918 million project will be implemented by the state-owned HSCC (India) Ltd, a company providing consultancy services in healthcare and other social sectors.

Another agreement between the two sides pertains to setting up of facilities at Rural Vocational Training Centre at Nagawillu in North-western Puttalam district. The estimated cost of the project is Rs (Sri Lankan) 55.7 million.

The project is to be implemented by India’s state-owned HMT (International) Ltd., over the next six to eight months.

It will create facilities at the Training Centre by supplying equipment and providing training to carry out short-term, modular and full-time vocational courses for the people in Puttalam. (PTI)