Gut worms protect against allergy

Parasitic gut worms, such as hookworm, might aid the development of new treatments for asthma and other allergies, a study in Vietnam suggests.

old people and their muscles:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090930/...ngmusclesresearchersclaim

Using Synthetic Evolution to Study the Brain:...Model Key Part of Neurons


The human brain has evolved over millions of years to become a vast network of billions of neurons and synaptic connections. Understanding it is one of humankind’s greatest pursuits.

But to understand how the brain processes information, researchers must first understand the very basics of neurons — even down to how proteins inside the neurons act to change the neuron’s voltage.

To do so requires a balance of experimentation and computer modeling — a partnership across disciplines traversed by Bill Kath, professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Nelson Spruston, professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

The two have worked together for more than a decade, with Spruston designing experiments and Kath developing computer models that explain the results that Spruston found. (It also works the other way: Kath’s models have provided Spruston with ideas to test experimentally.)

Technique can pinpoint tinnitus

It is possible to pinpoint the area of the brain that is activated when a person suffers from tinnitus, according to US doctors.
Tinnitus is a condition where sounds are heard in one or both ears when there is no external source.
While doctors had thought tinnitus was generated by ear problems, they now believe it is generated in the brain..,.

Study isolates virus in chronic fatigue sufferers

WASHINGTON - A virus linked to prostate cancer also appears to play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to research that could lead to the first drug treatments for a mysterious disorder that affects 17 million people worldwide.
Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported on Thursday in the journal Science.
Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic emphasized that the finding only shows a link between the virus and chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, and does not prove that the pathogen causes the disorder.....