Without formalized sign language instruction, deaf children in families develop their own language using simple gestures that become more complex over time.     Unless they are gather in large groups, those specific deaf languages can result in thousands of dialects, called 'homesigns' by researchers.

There may be thousands of homesigners in a given society.    Marie Coppola, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Illinois, says her work with four Nicaraguan homesigners shows how such individual gesture systems likely provided the raw materials for the language that emerged in a school for the deaf there.

 A research review published recently in Nutrition Today(1) says that the high-quality protein in eggs makes a valuable contribution to muscle strength, provides a source of sustained energy and promotes satiety. High-quality protein is an important nutrient for active individuals at all life stages, they say, and while most Americans consume the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein, additional research suggests that some Americans are not consuming enough high-quality protein to achieve and maintain optimal health.(2,3,4)

Study Findings

CALI, Colombia, February 16 /PRNewswire/ --

PARIS, February 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Orange today announces new and easy ways for customers to get more from their mobile, widening access to mobile content via simple widget services and exciting multimedia applications.

Orange's brand new widgets

Orange is launching a new range of mobile widgets, giving customers instant access to useful information via their Orange Homescreens. It is bringing a selection of simple, connected mobile widgets, such as weather updates and news alerts to its entire Signature customer base, as part of Orange's new mobile multimedia strategy to help customers do more with their phone.

BARCELONA, Spain, February 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Nielsen survey of over 50,000 consumers reveals mobile operators' issues and opportunities

Mobile World Congress (MWC) -- The first major survey of European and U.S. mobile users conducted during the economic slump gives the telecom industry reasons to be optimistic. Consumers intend to dramatically increase use of mobile data services over the next two years -- with a significant ramp-up in the next 12 months.

The Tellabs-commissioned survey shows that up to 71% of consumers anticipate daily use of services such as mobile Internet. Yet mobile users continue to raise concerns about cost, speed and quality of service.

BARCELONA, Spain, February 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- 60 Operators and Vendors Back Initiative; GSMA Releases First RCS Specification

The GSMA today reported significant progress in the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) Initiative, a service providing interoperable, enriched communication capabilities such as in-call multimedia sharing, conversational messaging and presence-enhanced contact management, all accessible through a user's mobile phone contact list. The initiative has generated considerable momentum across a number of fronts since the GSMA brought RCS into its work programme in September 2008, including the delivery of the RCS Release 1 specification, the addition of new programme participants and the successful completion of interoperability tests.

Sunday Science Book Club, February 15 2009

Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul
by Edward Humes
HarperCollins, 2007





It is rare for the world to see born on one day two towering individuals whose imprint on history is strong enough to be noted around the world 200 years later. Abraham Lincoln successfully saw the United States through a near-fatal convulsion, whose early symptoms had been palliated but not cured at the nation’s founding; the after-effects have reached all around the world. Charles Darwin, more than anyone else in the 19th century, put biology on its modern scientific footing, and his ideas play a critical role in the genome sciences at the very forefront of 21st century biology.

We celebrate their achievements this week, but both Lincoln and Darwin have left legacies of divisiveness, and in fact these legacies intertwine. The contours of the rift that initiated the Civil War still shape American politics, from Nixon’s influential Southern Strategy to the Red State-Blue State divide in the 111th Congress. Evolution is a poster child for culture war. It may not be a top issue on the national political agenda, but it is a culture war conflict that penetrates just as deeply and personally than any other, as Edward Humes vividly describes in Monkey Girl, the best book about the nation’s first court trial over Intelligent Design in public schools.

STOCKHOLM, February 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today announced the launch of an innovative social networking portfolio for mobile network operators, the Pixl8r initiative and the Social Media Portal. The technologies together offer simplified sharing of user-generated content between friends across diverse networks.

The Pixl8r initiative is an open-standard solution that allows photo sharing sites to interact in real time. With Pixl8r, mobile subscribers can easily share social media across different operator portals and receive SMS notification of friends' activities regardless of network. Pixl8r creates a federation of community portals that can connect the world's about four billion mobile users.

A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.

According to a recent study, diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids protect the liver from damage caused by obesity and the insulin resistance it provokes. This research should give doctors and nutritionists valuable information when recommending and formulating weight-loss diets and help explain why some obese patients are more likely to suffer some complications associated with obesity. Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in canola oil and fish.