Life | Page 95 of 133 | SpiritIndia.com

Rich :: Richest 2 percent own half world wealth

The richest 2 percent of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER). “World Distribution of Household Wealth,” is the first study of its kind to cover all countries in the world and all major components of household wealth, including financial assets and debts, land, buildings and other tangible property.

Space Shuttle :: CU-Boulder space station experiments to involve k-12 students around the globe

A high-flying K-12 education effort by the University of Colorado at Boulder will feature two science investigations launching on a NASA space shuttle this week and continuing on for extended stays aboard the International Space Station.

Gene :: Tearing down the fungal cell wall

Scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and Duke University Medical Center have pinpointed a fungal gene that appears to play an important role in the development and virulence of Alternaria brassicicola, a destructive fungal pathogen that results in considerable leaf loss in many economically important crops worldwide, including canola, cabbage and broccoli.

Parkinson’s Disease :: Transplanted brain cells hold promise for Parkinson’s disease

Transplanted neural stem cells hold promise for reducing the destruction of dopaminergic cells that occurs in Parkinson’s disease and for replacing cells lost to the disease, scientists say.

Psychiatry :: New anti-psychotic drugs no better than older, cheaper ones

A study led by the University of Manchester’s Division of Psychiatry has found that schizophrenia patients respond just as well — and perhaps even better — to older psychiatric drugs as newer, costlier alternatives.

Weighty viruses

A team led by Huan-Cheng Chang (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) has developed a new concept to determine the masses of viruses within one percent.

Gene :: New clues to how sex evolves

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have found clues to part of the complex question of how sex evolves, through ongoing studies of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. They have identified a key family of genes that code for closely related zinc-finger proteins that help bring C. elegans chromosomes together during meiosis, the specialized cell division that produces gametes, or sex cells.

Bulimia :: City life linked to bulimia risk

Living in big cities raises the risk of suffering from the eating disorder bulimia but not anorexia nervosa, especially in women, revealed by Dutch psychologists. Women, in cities, were five times more likely to have the binge-and-purge illness than those who live in villages.

Geology :: December Geology and GSA Today media highlights

Topics include: impact of melting glaciers on near-shore ecosystems; discovery of intact egg clusters from a Middle Cambrian oceanic invertebrate; biotic recovery from the End-Permian mass extinction; fossil evidence of unusual animal foraging behavior; dating the destruction of Herod the Great’s harbor at Caesarea; El Ni?o-related landslides along the Big Sur coastline, and evidence of flowing water at Mars’ Erebus crater. The GSA Today science article describes dynamics of ice sheet recession in East Antarctica.

Dementia :: Caregiver support key to improved health, fewer nursing home placements

Helping caregivers take care of themselves is key to enabling them to better deal with family members with dementia, a recent study by Thomas Jefferson University researchers shows. In fact, those caregivers who were provided extra, individualized support had less depression and were able to keep family members in adult day services — and out of nursing homes — much longer than those who did not get the extra attention.