New Dinosour Found in Texas

New dinosaur species found in Texas

Washington: Scientists have discovered a new plant-eating species of bony-skulled dinosaur, as big as a medium sized dog, in Texas.

        The species with a softball sized hump of solid bone on top of its skull had lived 70 to 80 million years ago.

        Paleontologists led by Nicholas Longrich of Yale found two skull fragments in Big Bend National Park in Texas in 2008. They compared them to fossils from related species in Canada and Montana before confirming that the fossils represented a new genus of pachycephalosaur, a group of bipedal, thick skulled dinosaurs.

          The researchers named the new species Texacephale loangstoni. 'Texacephale' means 'Texas head' and 'langstoni' is in honour of Wann Langston, a fellow paleontologist. The new species is one of about a dozen known to have solid lumps of bone on top of their skulls, which Longrich speculates was probably used to ram one another head on in a manner similar to modern-day musk oxen and cape buffalo.

         the discovery of the new species lends further weight to the idea, which has gained popularity in recent years, that dinosaurs found in Canada and the northern States were distinct from their southern neighbours.

         Because fossils from the Big Bend region are rare and tend to be poorly preserved, scientists do not have a complete picture of the different species that once inhabited the area, Longrich said.

        But the team may have uncovered an important piece of the puzzle with their discovery. They found that this particular group of dinosaurs, which was previously thought to have originated in Asia, likely evolved in north America.

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Smokers Cancer - WONDER DRUG

Type 2 diabetes drug may prevent cancer in smokers

Los Angeles: Metformin, a safe and inexpensive drug widely used to lower blood glucose in Type 2 diabetics, may have a variety of other uses, researchers are finding. The newest is to prevent lung cancer in smokers.

             Metformin inhibits a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-1, or IGF-1, which explains its anti-diabetes activity. But IGF-1 also plays a crucial role in cancer development, and a variety of observational studies have hinted that, by blocking its activity, metformin may inhibit cancer. Studies have shown diabetic women being treated for breast cancer and taking merformin have a threefold better response to their chemotherapy.

           Dr Cristiano Ferrario of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, reported that metformin could inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells in the laboratory -- albeit by inhibiting a different receptor.

            Some studies have suggested that smokers who are diabetic and taking metformin are less likely to develop lung cancer. Dr Phillip A Dennis of the National Cancer Institute tested that kdea by giving metformin to mice exposed to a tobacco carcinogen known as nicotine-derived nitrosamine, which normally induces tumours in experimental animals quite easily. He reported that administering the drug orally reduced tumour burden by 40% to 50% Injecting it reduced the burden by 72%. The levels of metformin used in the mice are easily achievable in humans and are not associated with significant side effects, he said.

             Some other studies have suggested that metformin may also reduce cardiovascular disease not directly related to diabetes. The problem with all these studies is that metformin is now a generic drug, so there is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to launch an expensive clinical trial to demonstrate the drug's utility when they would not be the exclusive beneficiary of their findings. 

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Making False Promise?

Making False Promise? Brain

Scan can Catch liars in the Act

London: It might be possible to decide soon whether a criminal has reformed or the risk of his relapse is too high with the help of brain imaging , which scientists say can be used in the justice system.

        Scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland found that breaking a promise is a complex neurobiological event and a brain scan can predict those who are planning to break their word.

        Using fMRI scans, the experts scanned the brains of participants playing an investment game and were able to predict whether a volunteer is making true pledges or false. They said, promise breakers had more activity in certain brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, an indication that planning and self-control were involved in suppressing an honest response, and the amygdala, perhaps a sign of conflicting and aversive emotions such as guilt and rear.

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