NEWS

Briton With Artificial Heart 

 A 40-year-old father has become the first person in the UK to receive a total artificial heart enabling him to go home.

Matthew Green had been critically ill, suffering from end-stage failure of both chambers of his heart.

But surgeons at Papworth Hospital successfully replaced Green?s damaged heart with an artificial heart in a six hour operation on June 9.


One dead In US From Salmonella Outbreak In Turkey 

One person has died and 77 people have been sickened in the United States by an outbreak of drug-resistant salmonella that likely originated in ground turkey, US authorities said.

"A total of 77 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Heidelberg have been reported from 26 states between March 1 and August 1, 2011," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement late Monday.

"Eating ground turkey is the likely source of this outbreak."

New Antibody Propels Hunt For Universal Flu Vaccine 

 The first human antibody that can knock out all influenza A viruses has been shown effective in lab mice, an exciting step forward in the hunt for a universal vaccine, researchers said Friday.

The broadly neutralizing antibody, called FI6, could help vaccinate people against the flu without scientists struggling to piece together a new cocktail each season to match the often-changing strains.

Antonio Lanzavecchia, lead author of the study published this week in the US journal Science, described the finding as "significant," but noted it may be five years before it can be made into a widely available treatment.

"The antibody works not only by neutralizing the virus, which we knew, but also by recruiting killer cells to the virus-infected cells," Lanzavecchia, director of Switzerland's Institute for Research in Biomedicine, told AFP in a phone interview.

Report: More Than Half Of Americans Drink Alcohol

 More than half of Americans aged 12 and up drink alcohol, a quarter binge-drank in the past month, and one in 14 teens has used marijuana, a US government agency says in a report on substance abuse.

Around 52 percent of 137,436 Americans interviewed in 2008 and 2009 said they had a tipple in the past month, the report released late last month by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says.



New Duck-Billed Dinosaur Gives Scientists Clues to Evolution of Head Ornamentation and Provinciality

A new genus and species of hadrosaur (duck-billed) dinosaur -- the oldest duck-billed dinosaur known from North America -- has been named by scientists who expect the discovery to shed new light on dinosaur evolution.

The most striking feature of Acristavus gagslarsoni, the name given to the new dinosaur, is that its head lacked the distinctive ornamentation common to later duck-billed relatives. Acristavus means "non-crested grandfather." The genus name is symbolic of the animal's unadorned skull and the fact that it preceded later hadrosaurs.



Trojan Asteroid In Earth's Orbit 

  Earth is not alone in its orbit around the Sun - a small 'Trojan' asteroid sits in front of our planet and leads it, according to British science revue Nature, which published the discovery Thursday.

This diminutive asteroid has a diameter of just 300 metres but is called a Trojan because of its particular position in a stable spot either in front of a planet or behind it. Because the asteroid and planet are constantly on the same orbit, they can never collide.



World Population To Surpass 7 Billion By 2011

Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added -- nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100.



 Scientists Create Glowing Dog

 SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean scientists said on Wednesday they have created a glowing dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Yonhap news agency reported.

A research team from Seoul National University (SNU) said the genetically modified female beagle, named Tegon and born in 2009, has been found to glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic, the report said. 


Memory Formation & Loss

A new study published July 27 in the journal Nature shows the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire less robustly than in youthful ones. Intriguingly, the research suggests that this condition is reversible.

"Age-related cognitive deficits can have a serious impact on our lives in the Information Age as people often need higher cognitive functions to meet even basic needs, such as paying bills or accessing medical care," said Amy Arnsten, Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology and a member of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience. "These abilities are critical for maintaining demanding careers and being able to live independently as we grow older."