FACT OF THE WEEK :
Research focuses on growing new teeth:
NEW YORK, (Reuters Health):
RESEARCHERS HAVE moved a little bit closer to the day when new teeth can be grown to replace damaged or missing teeth. One set of researchers has succeeded in growing teeth tissue on bio-degradable 'scaffolding' in rats. Another group
has been able to coax stem cells to form tooth
structures in mice.
HMMM!
Lifestyle blamed for rise in
myopia in east Asia
LONDON, (Reuters):
A rise in myopia, or nearsightedness, in east Asia is due to lifestyle changes and not genetics, a science magazine said on Wednesday.
Genetic variations that make people more susceptible to myopia were thought to be the cause of the increase in the vision problem in countries such as Singapore and Japan where cases have risen sharply.
But Ian Morgan, of the Australian National University in Canberra, said there is no evidence to support the genetic theory and added that the rise in myopia is due to lifestyle changes, particularly hours spent indoors reading or in front of a computer or television.
"Children now spend much of their time focusing on close objects, such as books or computers," New Scientist magazine said. "To compensate, the eyeball is thought to grow longer. That way less effort is needed to focus up close, but the elongated eye can no longer focus on distant objects."
People with myopia have difficulty seeing objects at a distance, or reading signs but can do close-up tasks and read.
The magazine said the rate of myopia in India is about 10 per cent but that 70 per cent of 18-year-old men of Indian origin in Singapore have myopia.
Morgan and Kathryn Rose, of the University of Sydney, also cited a study in Israel which found that 80 per cent of teenage boys studying in religious schools that emphasised reading texts had myopia, compared to 30 per cent in state schools.
"As kids spend more time indoors, on computers or watching telly, we are going to become just as myopic," said Morgan.
Peers reject outright ban on
spanking of children
LONDON, (AP):
British lawmakers on Monday voted against imposing an outright ban on parents spanking their children.
Following a three-hour debate in the House of Lords, peers rejected a measure that would have banned smacking by 250 votes to 75.
They were due to vote on a second amendment allowing mild smacking, but making it easier to prosecute parents if a child is harmed physically or mentally.
Britain is out of step on the issue with several European countries, including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Austria, where all physical punishment of children is illegal.
WEIRD NEWS
Mom and daughters suspected
of feeding father to dogs
BERLIN, (Reuters):
A German woman has been charged with helping her two daughters murder their father amid suspicions the family fed his body to their pet Doberman dogs, police said on Monday.
The family reported the dead man, identified as Rudolph R., 52, as missing to the local police in
the southern German town of Neuburg in
October 2001.
Police confirmed press reports that the fiancé of one of the dead man's daughters had already confessed to bludgeoning him with a wooden board, slicing the man's body into pieces and feeding it to the family's seven dogs.
A police spokesman said there were indications, but no concrete proof, that the man's body had been fed to the dogs. He did not provide further details.
Now prosecutors have named the man's 49-year-old widow and her two daughters, aged 17 and 19, as defendants in the case after completing investigations last week, magistrate Sandra Von Dahl told Reuters. The widow and daughters were not identified.
Press reports said the man was killed after an argument broke out and the family joined forces to beat him to death.
Message from the grave
LONDON, (Reuters):
The dead could soon be speaking from the grave if an American inventor's plan becomes reality.
Robert Barrows, of Burlingame, California, has filed a patent application for a video-equipped tombstone that will display a video message from grave's occupant.
"If his patent is granted, Barrows hopes that when people make out their will, they also leave a parting video with their lawyer," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.
The hollow, talking tombstone will include a flat touch screen and will house a computer with a microchip memory or hard disc. It will be powered by electricity from the cemetery's lighting system.
The plan will not be the first electronically enhanced tombstone. An American company has a patent on a gravestone that will display photographs of the deceased and tributes from friends, according to the magazine.
But the Barrows plan will go one further by including contributions actually from the deceased.
"It's history from the horse's mouth," he said.
Giant panda draws a blank in Tokyo tryst
TOKYO, (Reuters):
Ling Ling, Japan's perennially unlucky giant panda, has once again failed to father an
offspring even with the help of science.
Keepers at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo said on Wednesday that attempts to artificially impregnate a female panda on loan from Mexico had failed, ending months of anxious speculation.
When female panda Shuan Shuan was brought to Tokyo in December, it was hoped that she and the Beijing-born Ling Ling might click romantically. Sparks were few, so the zoo turned to artificial insemination.
In spring, Shuan Shuan began showing signs of pregnancy, leading panda watchers to hope for the patter of tiny paws.
But the signs, including changed eating
habits and nest-building, turned out to be a
false pregnancy.
Before Shuan Shuan's Tokyo sojourn, Ling
Ling had made three separate unsuccessful trips to Mexico.
The 18-year-old male is one of eight pandas in Japan, and the only panda living permanently at Ueno Zoo.
There are only an estimated 800 to 1,000 pandas left in the wild, and they are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.
Females come on heat only once a year for a few days, and can be picky about partners.
The news was a disappointment for the Tokyo zoo, the first in Japan to have a panda.
"Pandas are like the symbolic face of the zoo," said spokesman Masanari Ono. "It's a terrible shame that we couldn't breed any this time."
