The High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA’s Mars Express obtained images of the Tyrrhena Terra region on Mars. Tyrrhena Terra is part of the ancient, heavily cratered southern Martian highlands. The region is located north of Hellas Planitia, the largest impact basin on Mars. The image scene exhibits three impact craters, located at the eastern border of Tyrrhena Terra with Hesperia Planum.
- Article Source

The hearing precision that lets common barn owls find prey is helping researchers fine tune their quest to diagnose a variety of problems rooted in the human brain, not only with hearing but also with behavior and potentially damaged areas.
- Article Source

Reading specialists have often pitted phonics against holistic word recognition and whole language approaches in the war over how to teach children to read. However, a new study shows that the three reading processes do not conflict, but, rather work together to determine speed.
- Article Source

In a study that demonstrates the promise of cell-based therapies for diseases that have proved intractable to modern medicine, scientists have shown it is possible to rescue the dying neurons characteristic of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal neuromuscular disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
- Article Source

Researchers are using an understanding of the special cells that line the bladder, urothelial cells, to develop ways of restoring continence to patients with serious bladder conditions, including cancer. Scientists have found that if the bladder is damaged, these cells are able to rapidly regrow to repair the wound. The researchers hope to harness this property to engineer new bladders.
- Article Source

A new study shows that loss or chemical inhibition of a protein, known as acid sensing ion channel protein, reduces innate fear behavior in lab animals, making normally timid mice relatively fearless. The findings might provide useful insight into anxiety disorders, and may even point the way to a new therapeutic target.
- Article Source

The major active component of marijuana could aid the Kaposi’s sarcoma virus in infecting cells and multiplying, according researchers at Harvard Medical School. They report that low doses of THC, equivalent to that in the bloodstream of an average marijuana smoker, could be enough to facilitate infection of skin cells and could even foster malignancy.
- Article Source

According to a new study an individual’s body weight depends not just on physiology and economic circumstances, but also on average body weight of the population at large. The study is the first to quantitatively model body weight distribution based on the combined outcome of economic, biological and social influences.
- Article Source

A new study on the relationship between coffee drinking and the risk of liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) confirmed that there is an inverse association between coffee consumption and HCC, although the reasons for this relationship are still unresolved. There was a 41 percent reduction of HCC risk among coffee drinkers compared to those who never drank coffee.
- Article Source

Cognitive impairment is one of the neurological effects in patients with hepatic encephalopathy (abnormal brain function due to severe liver disease). For the first time, a new study showed that treatment with an anti-inflammatory improves cognitive function in rats induced with chronic liver failure.
- Article Source