LONDON, March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Foundation is pleased to support the licensed use of VIDAZA in the United Kingdom and Ireland to treat a subset of patients with intermediate-2 and higher-risk MDS, chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia (CMML) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML with 20-30% blasts).

LONDON, March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The granting by EMEA of full marketing authorisation for Celgene's VIDAZA will bring new hope to MDS patients, particularly those with high risk forms of these diseases that historically have been associated with a bleak outlook.

Patients who are ineligible for stem cell transplant therapy are often subjected to the discomfort, inconvenience and complications that can be associated with essential, regular blood transfusions, a life saving procedure which remains the mainstay of MDS treatment.

Below is a detailed response to my latest post, which Ken graciously sent me for publication here. After that, you will find a few additional notes from yours truly.

Dear Massimo,

Thanks, of course, for the very kind comments about my presentation at Brown. At your invitation, I’m writing a few comments to clarify and correct what I think are some mistaken impressions and also to point out a few areas of genuine disagreement. You wrote:

Titan's vast dune fields, which may act like weather vanes to determine general wind direction on Saturn's biggest moon, have been mapped by scientists who compiled four years of radar data collected by the Cassini spacecraft. 

Titan's rippled dunes are generally oriented east-west. Surprisingly, their orientation and characteristics indicate that near the surface, Titan's winds blow toward the east instead of toward the west. This means that Titan's surface winds blow opposite the direction suggested by previous global circulation models of Titan. 

A study in the March 1 issue of  SLEEP suggests the presence of an intrinsic sleep problem specific to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and supports the idea that children with ADHD may be chronically sleep deprived and have abnormal REM sleep. 

Results show that children with ADHD have a total sleep time that is significantly shorter than that of controls. Children in the ADHD group had an average total sleep time of eight hours, 19 minutes; this was 33 minutes less than the average sleep time of eight hours, 52 minutes, in controls. Children with ADHD also had an average rapid eye movement (REM) sleep time that was significantly reduced by 16 minutes. 

Puny Crayfish may have big claws for show but they can't really use them - their muscles are actually weaker than females with smaller claws.

So why does it work?  A group of scientists writing in The Journal of Experimental Biology set out to discover the answer.

Slender crayfish are aggressive territorial creatures, explains ecologist Robbie Wilson of the University of Queensland, Australia. When two crayfish catch sight of one another, they size each other up in a ritualistic display, which can quickly escalate from careful tapping of their opponent's chelae (enlarged front claws) to a full-blown fight.  

"Psychedelica" seems the perfect name for a species of fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren, says University of Washington’s Ted Pietsch, first to describe the new species in the scientific literature and therefore got to select the name.

Psychedelica is perhaps even more apt given the cockamamie way the fish swim, some with so little control they look intoxicated and should be cited for DUI.

What use is half a wing?

When Charles Darwin unleashed his revolutionary theory of evolution in the mid-1800s, one of the first questions doubters nailed him with went something like ; you have the four limbs of a reptile and then a beautiful flying bird. What are the intermediary steps? Darwin, what use is half a wing?

There wasn’t much the esteemed naturalist could say with the data he had available and, during the next 150 years, scientists were largely divided into two theoretical camps regarding the evolution of flight.

An immune system response that is critical to the first stages of fighting off viruses and harmful bacteria comes from an entirely different direction than most scientists had thought, according to a finding by researchers at the Duke University Medical Center. 

Type 1 helper (TH1) T cell immune responses are critical for the control of viruses and certain bacteria. Immunologists have generally believed that TH1 responses are induced by rare immune cells, called dendritic cells. When activated by infection or vaccination, the dendritic cells were thought to move from peripheral tissues into lymph nodes to stimulate T cell responses. 

LONDON, February 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to guidance issued today by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), advising that cough and cold treatments should not be used for children under 6 years of age, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) has issued the following advice to parents.

RPSGB's Director of Policy, David Pruce, says:

In view of the MHRA's new guidance, the RPSGB considers it good practice to restrict the use of some over-the-counter (OTC) products for the treatment of cough and cold symptoms in children under 6 years of age.

For children under 6 who have uncomplicated coughs and colds, the following medicines are suitable for use: