Astrophysicists say may be one step closer to understanding how new planets form. A circumstellar disk with telltale signs of planet formation around the star AB Aurigae could be a new planet in the works.

Ben R. Oppenheimer, assistant curator in the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Astrophysics, and colleagues have used the Lyot Project coronograph attached to a U.S. Air Force telescope on Maui, Hawaii, to construct an image of material that seems to be coalescing into a body from the gas and dust cloud surrounding AB Aurigae, a well-studied star.

The body is either a planet or a brown dwarf - something with mass between a star or a planet. Brown dwarfs have been found orbiting stars since a team that included Oppenheimer first discovered one in 1995.

Scientists have reconstructed changes in Earth’s ancient ocean chemistry from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago and say that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth for nearly 2 billion years.

This research was motivated by a review article published in Science in 2002 by Ariel Anbar, one of the authors of the study and an associate professor at Arizona State University with joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Andy Knoll, a colleague at Harvard University. Knoll was perplexed by the fact that eukaryotes didn’t dominate the world until around 0.7 billion years ago, even though they seemed to have evolved before 2.7 billion years ago.

BASINGSTOKE, England and PHILADELPHIA, March 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Forms One of the Largest Sales Teams Promoting a 5-ASA Medicine

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announced today a co-promotion agreement with TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. for LIALDA(TM) (mesalamine) with MMX(R) technology, indicated for the induction of remission in patients with active, mild to moderate ulcerative colitis (UC). This three year agreement is for the U.S. only and will add more than 500 additional sales representatives from TAP to increase the reach and frequency of the Shire sales force, which consists of 120 representatives who are currently detailing LIALDA primarily to gastroenterologists.

The brain can sense the calories in food, independent of the taste mechanism, researchers have found in studies with mice. Their finding that the brain’s reward system is switched on by this “sixth sense” machinery could have implications for understanding the causes of obesity.

For example, the findings suggest why high-fructose corn syrup, widely used as a sweetener in foods, might contribute to obesity.

In their experiments, Ivan de Araujo and colleagues genetically altered mice to make them “sweet-blind,” lacking a key component of taste receptor cells that enabled them to detect the sweet taste.

Nearly ten years ago an article published in Science [Lockless SW, Ranganathan R (1999) Science 286:295–299] got a lot of attention. It described a method of demonstrating signal transfer in proteins by comparing their amino acid sequence.

The authors recorded a statistical method of showing how certain parts of proteins change together through evolution, i.e. if a change had taken place in one part a change simultaneously took place in another part of the protein. They found a network of parts that seemed to belong together and, within this network, signal transfer was deemed to take place.

In a new PNAS article, Uppsala researchers present results of experiments they say contradicts that theory.

STAMFORD, Connecticut, March 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Reuters Shareholders Also Approve Acquisition; Transaction Expected to Close on April 17, 2008

The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), a leading provider of information solutions to business and professional customers worldwide, today announced that its shareholders overwhelmingly approved the proposed acquisition of Reuters Group PLC at a special meeting held today in Toronto.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020227/NYW014LOGO )

A new study in the April issue of Psychological Science sought to examine whether individuals are motivated to increase their level of anger when they expect to complete a confrontational task, where anger might enhance performance.

Psychologists Maya Tamir and Christopher Mitchell of Boston College, and James Gross of Stanford University told the study participants that they will either play a computer game that is confrontational (“Soldier of Fortune” – a first person shooter game where killing enemies is your primary goal) or one that is not confrontational (“Diner Dash”—a game in which players guide a waitress serving customers). They were then asked to rate the extent to which they would like to engage in different activities before playing the game.

March 19,2008 marked the brightest ever cosmic explosion observed from Earth ( see Georg von Hippel's article here and the news article here). The outburst denoted as GRB 080319B was probably the death of a massive star leading to the creation of a black hole.

For the first time the birth of a black hole has been filmed. Cameras of the "Pi of the Sky" project recorded this remarkable event with a 4 minutes sequence of 10-second images. In under 20 seconds the object became so bright that it was visible with the naked eye. Then it began fading and in 4 minutes was 100 times fainter. At that time the observation was taken over by larger telescopes.

SAN JOSE, California, March 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Global messaging leader to automate, streamline compensation management process with Xactly Incent Managed Service

Xactly Corporation, the leader in on-demand sales performance management, today announced that Acision, the messaging and charging company of choice for over 300 network operators and service providers worldwide, has selected the Xactly Incent(TM) Managed Service for sales compensation management. Xactly Incent Managed Service will provide Acision -- which enabled the TV show "American Idol" to interact with a record-breaking 60 million voters -- with an outsourced, on-demand service for automating and improving the incentive-compensation process for more than 100 employees.

LONDON, March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- NHS Choices (http://www.nhs.uk), the digital 'front door' to the NHS, launches a new Live well package aimed at men aged 40 to 60.

Based on NHS accredited information, the Men 40-60 bundle (http://www.nhs.uk/LiveWell/Men4060/Pages/Men4060home.aspx) enables users to get health tips in seconds and provides them with clinically approved guidance to help them improve their health and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The Men 40-60 bundle is the latest addition to the NHS Choices' extensive Live well section.

"We hope that the Men's health Live well package will become a hub for quality health and lifestyle advice for men seeking to improve anything from diet and fitness to mental health," said a spokesman.

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