Planarians have fascinated centuries of biologists by their amazing powers of regeneration. If you decapitate a planarian, the body can grow a new head, and the head can grow a new body. In fact, if you cut out a very tiny chunk from the side of a planarian, that chunk will be able to regenerate a new, complete organism. How do these strange critters manage this? What genes do they have that we don't have? As it turns out, most planarian genes are shared with humans, and several groups of scientists are using the latest tools of genomics and molecular biology to figure out just what it is that gives planarians their remarkable powers of regeneration. These researchers hope that planarians will ultimately teach us how to regenerate human injuries.

 

Happy New Year to all of you that are regular readers of this blog and to those of you who might be coming to it the first time.  May 2008 be a happy year for everyone.  I can promise that it will be another year of upheaval and change, probably exceeding 2007 in that regard.  I will submit to you my annual predictions, both general and specific, for the year within the next two weeks.  Right now I would like to take a quick look at several late in the year developments of 2007 that provide indication as to where we are going and what will lay ahead for us in 2008.

LAS VEGAS, January 4 /PRNewswire/ --

Vanguard Integrity Professionals CEO, CTO and founder, Ronn Bailey, expressed his "devastation" and "significant disappointment" in light of today's announcement that, for the first time in 30 years, the Dakar race has been cancelled. The decision to call off the race was due to direct security threats made by Al Qaeda to attack the race from Portugal to Senegal.

WASHINGTON, January 4 /PRNewswire/ --

The following is a statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

It is great news for global health that 2008 has started with accelerated efforts around the world to enact strong smoke-free air laws that protect all workers and the public from the serious health hazards of secondhand smoke. Already in 2008, Turkey's parliament has passed a strong smoke-free law that will apply to enclosed public places, including restaurants, bars and teahouses; France has fully implemented its smoke-free law to include bars and cafes; and eight more German states have implemented smoke-free laws.

Helius to Enhance Hughes' Business IPTV and Managed Network Service Offerings

Hughes Communications, Inc. (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite network solutions and a leading broadband managed network services provider, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Helius, Inc., a portfolio company of Canopy Ventures.

The acquisition is expected to be completed on or about February 4, 2008.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Helius will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes and will operate closely with Hughes' North America and International enterprise businesses.

Many people pay silly amounts of money to wear a particular logo or a designer brand. A designer outfit doesn't keep you any warmer or dryer than an unbranded one, but functionality is only part of the story. Designer products say something about you – you are a trendy, sexy or sophisticated person. Brands help us to express who we think we are and who we want to be.

Big name brands are an integral part of our lives, says Davide Ravasi, associate professor in the Institute of Strategic Management of Bocconi University, Italy. Whether its Levi jeans, BMW cars or Nokia phones, we know the brands we like.

Should a rural, sparsely populated and predominantly white conservative state be the initial battleground for presidential nominations?

Well, someone has to go first but Steven S. Smith, the Kate M. Gregg Professor of Social Sciences Washington University in St. Louis, says it's time for Iowa to just go.

Smith says he has nothing against Iowa or New Hampshire, but he has serious misgivings about their special role as the first in the nation to select nominees. Iowa, he says, is far from representative of the nation — its population is too rural and too white to play such a critical role in choosing the nominee.

For the past 40 years, light-emitting diodes have been successfully employed wherever small amounts of light are needed. Present-day applications include car indicators, reversing and brake lights. However, the efficiency and luminosity of LEDs have never yet been sufficient to achieve a major breakthrough.

Thanks to new technologies for chip manufacturing, structural design and beam shaping developed by scientists at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors the light output of LEDs has been vastly improved. In Berlin on December 6, President Horst Köhler presented the team of OSRAM and Fraunhofer researchers with the prestigious German President’s award for technology and innovation, worth 250,000 euros, in recognition of their achievement.

Poor water supply remains a key problem in large parts of Africa and Asia.

A study carried out by researchers from the Department of Radiology and Physical Medicine of the University of Granada found that 100% of Spaniards analyzed had at least one kind of persistent organic compound (POC´s), substances internationally classified as potentially harmful to one’s health, in their bodies. These substances enter the body through food, water or even air. All of them tend to accumulate in human adipose tissue and easily enter into the organism through the aforementioned mediums.

The study, conceived by Juan Pedro Arrebola Moreno and directed by professors Piedad Martín Olmedo, Nicolás Olea Serrano and Mariana F.