The nerve connections that keep a fly's gaze stable during complex aerial manoeuvres, enabling it to respond quickly to obstacles in its flight path, are revealed in new detail in research published today.

Scientists from Imperial College London have described the connections between two key sets of nerve cells in a fly's brain that help it process what it sees and fast-track that information to its muscles. This helps it stay agile and respond quickly to its environment while on the move.

The study is an important step towards understanding how nervous systems operate, and could help us improve our knowledge of more complex animals. It could also be used to improve technical control systems in autonomous air vehicles - robots that stay stable in the air without crashing and with no need for remote control.

A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries.

The work in PLoS Biology is by Konstantinos Meletis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Picower Institute, and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Their results could lead to drugs that might restore some degree of mobility to the 30,000 people worldwide afflicted each year with spinal-cord injuries.

In a developing embryo, stem cells differentiate into all the specialized tissues of the body. In adults, stem cells act as a repair system, replenishing specialized cells, but also maintaining the normal turnover of regenerative organs such as blood, skin or intestinal tissues.

An abundant chromosomal protein that binds to damaged DNA prevents cancer development by enhancing DNA repair, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report online this week in PNAS. The protein, HMGB1, was previously hypothesized to block DNA repair, senior author Karen Vasquez, Ph.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Carcinogenesis at the Science Park - Research Division in Smithville, Texas.

Identification and repair of DNA damage is the frontline defense against the birth and reproduction of mutant cells that cause cancer and other illnesses.

Pinpointing HMGB1's role in repair raises a fundamental question about drugs under development to block the protein, Vasquez said. The protein also plays a role in inflammation, so it's being targeted in drugs under development for rheumatoid arthritis and sepsis.

LONDON, July 22 /PRNewswire/ --

A charity for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) is seeking to highlight the fact that despite a commitment made a year ago, the Government has failed to find out the true cost of prescription charges.

This week marks 12 months with no action and now a coalition of charities including the MS Society believes the Government must act urgently to make prescriptions free for people with long-term conditions such as MS.

Ministers promised in July 2007 to consult the public on prescription charges, after launching a review of prescription charges in response to a Health Select Committee report in 2006.

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Oxford Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) proposed that the hypothesis-generating results of the SEAS trial of ezetimibe should be tested by reviewing the combined cancer results from the SHARP and IMPROVE-IT trials of ezetimibe, and reporting on the overall findings to the relevant regulatory authorities, independently of the drug manufacturers.

BOCA RATON, Florida, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Boutique Property Implements Property Management, Sales & Catering Solutions

Agilysys, Inc. (Nasdaq: AGYS), a leading provider of innovative information technology and hospitality software solutions, announced today that Malone Lodge Hotel, Apartments & Suites in Belfast, Northern Ireland has selected the Visual One property management system and Visual One sales & catering solution to increase efficiency and streamline operations at the upscale boutique property.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030915/AGLSLOGO )

PHOENIX, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Infrastructure Facilitates Communications Between Jordan, Baghdad and Basra

Antenna Technology Communications Inc., a provider of commercial satellite communications systems, today announced that it has completed one year operations of an advanced cellular communications system for Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC). MTC offers mobile telephony services in Kuwait and is currently one of the leading mobile operators in the Middle East with over 3.4 million customers across the region in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. MTC is currently known as MTC-Vodafone in Kuwait and Bahrain, Fastlink in Jordan, MTC Atheer in Iraq, MTC Touch in Lebanon and Celtel in Africa (13 countries).

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The SEAS (Simvastatin and Ezetimibe in Aortic Stenosis) study has investigated the effects of intensive cholesterol lowering with the combination of simvastatin (40 mg daily) and ezetimibe (10 mg daily) in patients with aortic stenosis.

A bizarre title, but nothing to do with the fact that I am constitutionally lazy. Rather, it is related to the war I and a colleague are attempting to wage against the way physics is (in the UK at least) treated as a form of applied mathematics. It also has direct application to astrophysics – I know one student who went to study physics at university in 2002, in large part attracted by astronomy, but after a second year including astrophysics was saying "I hate stars." He was quite reasonable at maths, but it is the way that the subject was presented that put him off.

BROOMFIELD, Colorado, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Level 3's CDN Supports High-Volume Traffic Spikes for Multi-player Online Game

Level 3 Communications' Content Markets Group today announced that it has been selected by Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games, to be that company's exclusive provider of content delivery network (CDN) services for the Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures online game launch and ongoing content patching. Level 3's content delivery services enable Funcom to deliver game updates during times of extremely high-traffic volumes.