Health & Science

• Friday, September 24th 2010 - 03:08 UTC

  Argentine Patagonia fossil reveals the origin of sunflower

  

  Sunflowers are likely to have sprung up about 50 million years ago in Argentine Patagonia, suggests a fossil report according to an article in the current edition of Science magazine.

• Sunday, September 12th 2010 - 06:57 UTC

  Glow of eyes could help detect mad cow disease, says Iowa university report

  

  Cattle infected with mad cow disease give off a tell-tale glow in their eyes, according to new research published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. In future, the discovery could lead to a long-sought test to detect infection with the agent that causes mad cow disease, preventing it from spreading throughout the food supply for humans.

• Sunday, September 12th 2010 - 06:39 UTC

  Ex Argentine president Kirchner undergoes emergency angioplasty

  

  Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner is back in the Los Arcos hospital with heart trouble. There were no immediate announcements from the government, but according to the local Noticias Argentinas news agency, the husband of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Fernandez underwent an angioplasty after he was rushed to a clinic in the capital late Saturday night with numbness in his legs.

• Friday, September 10th 2010 - 03:28 UTC

  Invasive “killer shrimp” discovered at water reservoirs in England

  

  A killer shrimp has been found for the first time in the UK at an Anglian Water reservoir in Cambridgeshire, England. Two anglers spotted the shrimp, which can be as small as three mm, at Grafham Water near St Neots on Friday September 3 and sent samples to the Environment Agency for identification.

• Thursday, September 9th 2010 - 00:53 UTC

  Cambridge knocks Harvard off the top of QS World university ratings

  

  The University of Cambridge has knocked Harvard University off the top of the QS World University Ratings, as the U.K. establishment’s number of academic citations rose.

• Wednesday, September 8th 2010 - 01:53 UTC

  Paraguay vaccinating against FMD; fears about Bolivia’s cattle sanitary condition

  

  Paraguay has already vaccinated 74% of its cattle heard against foot and mouth disease FMD, which is considered very positive, but there are lingering doubts about the sanitary situation in Bolivia that remains a threat for Mercosur, the world’s leading exporter of beef.

• Friday, September 3rd 2010 - 05:03 UTC

  Sweet busting: eleven indicted for biggest food smuggling case in US history.

  

  US authorities have indicted 11 German and Chinese executives for conspiring to illegally import 40 million US dollars of honey from China. The executives were accused of being part of an operation which mislabelled honey and tainted it with antibiotics in an attempt to avoid import duties.

• Thursday, September 2nd 2010 - 06:31 UTC

  Tiny marine animals reveal a possible ancient sea passage in Antarctica

  

  Scientists have found evidence for an ancient sea passage linking currently isolated areas of Antarctica. The evidence comes from a study of tiny marine animals living either side of the 2km thick Western Antarctic ice sheet.

• Monday, August 30th 2010 - 06:59 UTC

  UK scientists decode wheat genome; vital to help feed growing population

  

  British scientists have released draft sequences of the wheat genome, which they think could make a vital contribution to securing global food supplies. The researchers say their efforts could help British farmers to develop new strains with greater yields.

• Friday, August 27th 2010 - 07:59 UTC

  European Southern Observatory In Chile Discovers New Solar System

  

  Some 127 light years away in the constellation of Hydrus, a new solar system has been discovered by a team of astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on Cerro La Silla in Chile’s Coquimbo Region (IV).