Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are one gene closer to understanding schizophrenia and related disorders.

Schizophrenia is a varied condition with a number of symptoms not shared by all affected. This could be one reason why it's been difficult to identify genes that contribute to the condition. 

To address this, the team first rigorously separated the 73 different symptoms into nine distinct factors associated with the condition—prodromal, negative, delusion, affective, scholastic, adolescent sociability, disorganization, disability, hallucination.

Green tea products have become regarded as a valuable health supplement and studies have shown evidence of its benefit against a variety of diseases, including cancer.   In animal studies, an antioxidant compound in green tea called the EGCG polyphenol (epigallocatechin gallate) has been shown to be a potent anticancer agent, with effects demonstrated against leukemia, as well as lung, prostate, colon, and breast cancer. Among other properties, EGCG binds to a common protein in tumors called GRP78 (which is responsible for preventing cell death) and inhibits its function, thereby assisting in the death of tumor cells. 

Gardening can offer enough moderate physical activity to keep older adults in shape but Kansas State researchers writing in the journal HortScience say that among the other health benefits of gardening is keeping older hands strong and nimble.

"One of the things we found is that older adults who are gardeners have better hand strength and pinch force, which is a big concern as you age," said Candice Shoemaker, K-State professor of horticulture.

A study reveals that the severity of learning disorders may depend not only on the child's environment but also on the mother's environment when she was young.

The researchers studied the brain function of pre-adolescent mice with a genetically-created defect in memory. When these young mice were enriched by exposure to a stimulating environment – including novel objects, opportunities for social interaction and voluntary exercise – for two weeks, the memory defect was reversed. The work showed that this enhancement was remarkably long-lasting because it was passed on to the offspring even though the offspring had the same genetic mutation and were never exposed to an enriched environment. 

A new testosterone patch, designed to pep up a woman's flagging sex drive after womb and ovary removal, may not work, and its long term safety is not proven, says the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB).

Intrinsa was recently licensed in the UK for the treatment of women, who have gone through the menopause as a result of womb and ovary removal, and who are subsequently experiencing a drop in sex drive.  The condition is referred to as hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD for short.

There is some evidence to suggest that a fall in sex drive after the menopause might be linked to low levels of circulating testosterone.

I should be able to get this Hollywood movie made in two paragraphs.  

*****

A likable rogue-ish historian ( Hank Campbell, only in tweed, we might describe him, Harrison Ford being a little long in the tooth for action films these days) is poring over antique tomes, including an original draft copy of  On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life when he notices a very faint trace of eraser markings on the title page.    He does some kind of magic chemical stuff (whatever - it's a movie) and discovers it is a number.    

Show Me The Science Month Day 7

The birth of new species always involves a barrier to cross-breeding between two different groups of the same species. This barrier may start out as a geographical barrier (two raccoon populations on different sides of a mountain never encounter each other and thus fail to interbreed), but however it starts, reporductive barriers always turn into a genetic barrier. To form new species, two populations of organisms have to drift apart genetically.

The genetic split can happen in a variety of ways, as scientists are discovering in the their quest to find 'speciation genes.' It can happen because a selfish gene fails to be shut down in the offspring of cross-breeding flies, and it can happen because one mouse gene doesn't work right when it encounters genetic variants from another subspecies.

A report in Science describes one more speciation gene, this time in two sub-species of thale cress plants. In this case, the barrier to reproduction is the result of faulty gene copying.

STOCKHOLM, February 3 /PRNewswire/ -- As a part of the Honeywell Nobel Initiative, Nobelprize.org announces the launch of Star Stories, a new educational multimedia production for high school and undergraduate students that shows how Nobel Prizes awarded for advances in cosmology and astrophysics have helped to bring us closer to the stars.

Star Stories explores the life and death of stars using a multimedia approach that incorporates images, animation, video and text. In this interactive production, you can discover:

COLOGNE, Germany, February 3 /PRNewswire/ --

- Annual Report Shows More Than 77 Million USD in Domain Name Sales

Sedo, the leading online marketplace for buying and selling domain names, today announced the findings of its annual Secondary Domain Market Study, which revealed continued growth in demand for premium domains in 2008. Valuable online real estate yielded 77 million USD in revenue, and resulted in an overall eight percent sales increase over the 2007 total of 72 million USD.

Sedo's complete report can be found online at: http://www.sedo.com/press/domainmarketstudy2008-us.pdf

Telnic Limited (http://www.telnic.org), the Registry Operator for the new .tel top level domain (TLD) today announced that Landrush - the period where anyone can purchase any available .tel domain name with no auctions and no extensive reserve list - opens at 3.00 p.m. GMT, enabling people to invest in the quickest way to monetize the internet ever.