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[Feb. 8th, 2006|09:39 am] |
...discovery goes some way to resolving the enigma of whether motor commands or receptors in the skin, joints and muscles are more important for creating a feeling of movement.
Gandevia's team studied eight volunteers, by either anaesthetising their forearm and hand, or restricting the flow of blood to the limb. Both techniques deadened sensation to the extent that the volunteers felt they had a "phantom" hand with fingers clenched, though in fact their fingers were fully extended. When they were asked to flex or extend their wrists, they consistently reported that the position of their hand had changed, in the direction of their efforts, even though it did not move. When they were asked to increase their efforts, the perceived change also increased.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18925375.000 |
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[Feb. 8th, 2006|09:46 am] |
The H5N1 flu virus has been circulating continuously in poultry in south-eastern China for a decade, scientists have found. A massive genetic analysis shows the virus has mainly been spread by poultry, but also that wild birds carried it from southeast China to Turkey.
Robert Webster of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, US, a co-author of the paper, says this shows the virus originated in those provinces, and has been circulating in the region ever since, long enough to evolve divergent strains.
These strains then “colonised” neighbouring areas. Viruses from Vietnam and Thailand match Guangdong viruses, while Indonesia has its own related cluster. Genes from Vietnamese viruses reveal repeated introductions from Guangxi, most recently in 2005. This contrasts with past insistence by Chinese officials that H5N1 exists only in isolated cases in China, and did not necessarily originate there.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8686 |
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[Feb. 8th, 2006|09:51 am] |
NYTimes
February 8, 2006
Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."
( Read more... ) |
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