Laboratory work in animals showed limited activity when statins were given to prevent breast cancer, according to a report in the February issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. 

Statins, sold under brand names like Lipitor and Zocor, are primarily given to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, and prominent cardiologists almost universally agree that their use has changed the landscape. 

The use of these drugs in cancer prevention has been more controversial. Results of epidemiology studies, which rely on looking backward rather than forward and thus are subject to confounding factors, have yielded mixed results when examining breast cancer. 

Emergence of black-colored wolves is the direct result of humans raising dogs as pets and beasts of burden, according to new research by a University of Calgary biologist in Science. The dark coloring may also aid the survival of the species as wolf habitat is affected by climate change in the future, the study suggests.

A missing link in the evolution of the front claw of living scorpions and horseshoe crabs was identified with the discovery of a 390 million-year-old fossil by researchers at Yale and the University of Bonn, Germany.

Show Me The Science Month Day 9

In what is now central Pakistan, an eight-and-a-half foot long, pregnant aquatic mammal went belly-up, and sank to the bottom of the shallow coastal waters. 47 million years later, a huckster by the name of Duane Gish denied that such mammals ever existed:

There simply are no transitional forms in the fossil record between the marine mammals and their supposed land mammal ancestors . . . It is quite entertaining, starting with cows, pigs, or buffaloes, to attempt to visualize what the intermediates may have looked like. Starting with a cow, one could even imagine one line of descent which prematurely became extinct, due to what might be called an “udder failure” (Gish DT. Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record. El Cajon (CA): Creation-Life Publishers, 1985 p.78-9, quoted at Talk Origins).

Gish may have found it entertaining to imagine what a half-whale, half-buffalo looked like, but today's scientists don't have to imagine the appearance of land-based ancestors of whales. The fossil series leading up to whales tells a very detailed and remarkable story of how furry, four-legged land mammals eventually gave rise to behemoth marine descendants. A spectacular fossil find, reported yesterday in PLoS One, reveals some amazing details from the evolutionary history of whales.



Figure 5A from Gingerich, et al.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, February 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- Report Sheds Light on Opportunity for Call Centers to Enhance the Customer Experience Through Better Tracking of Customer Satisfaction and Increased Agent Retention

Think Services' International Customer Management Institute (ICMI(R)) (http://www.icmi.com) announced the release of the industry's most comprehensive study of contact center people management and operations. The ICMI 2008 Contact Center Operations Report compiles responses from a critical mass of contact center professionals from around the world.

In physics classes, we are all taught that the acceleration due to gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters/second². For the purpose of basic physics education, this value is fine - it represents the average value of the gravitational attraction every object experiences at sea level, and is always directed straight down toward the center of the planet. However, the actual gravitational attraction an object experiences is influenced by the presence of irregularities in the shape of the Earth, the non-uniform distribution of mass beneath the crust, and even large buildings.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, February 4 /PRNewswire/ --

TAEUS International Corporation, one of the world's leading intellectual property professional services firms, announced today its award by the European Commission of a euro 9M (US$13.2M) contract to its European subsidiary, TAEUS Europe, Ltd., to continue its investigation of Microsoft's interoperability data for communication protocol technology.

The contract was competitively bid and was won by TAEUS Europe, Ltd. As a result of previous work performed by TAEUS, the European Commission, levied fines against Microsoft totaling euro 1.3B for failing to comply with Article 82 of the European Union Treaty.

LONDON, February 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- ATTN: News, Industrial and Political Correspondents

Unite joint general secretary, Derek Simpson said:

The workers involved in the unofficial dispute at the Lindsey Oil refinery will vote on a deal tomorrow morning to end the unofficial walkouts. Unite has assisted in attempting to broker a deal.

We hope this deal will be accepted by the workers at the refinery.

No Italian worker will lose their job as a result of this deal. Unite officials emphasised the importance of this throughout the negotiations.

Lindsey is part of a much wider problem that will not go away if the unofficial strikers go back to work.

LONDON, February 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons last week ordered a month's suspension for a veterinary surgeon from Dolgellau for dishonest certification of bovine tuberculin testing in the Gwynedd area in early 2007.

At a hearing that concluded on Friday [30 January 2009], Iwan Parry, a partner of The Veterinary Surgery, Bala Road, Dolgellau, and an Official Veterinarian, was charged with serious professional misconduct for certifying on eight separate occasions that he had tested and inspected cattle for clinical signs of bovine tuberculosis (TB), when he had not done so. At the outset of the hearing, Mr Parry denied the charges.

My Dear Mr. Darwin,

Happy 200th birthday! I hope you are as well as can expected for someone who has been dead for nearly 130 years. I suppose that your final book, the one about earthworms, has a special significance for you these days. Are the worms of Westminster Abbey superior to the ones you studied so carefully in the grounds of your home at Downe in Kent?   They’ve certainly mulched some distinguished people over the years!