Month: August 2013

Replace the med school interview with fMRI: a modest proposal

By Mette Fraende and Ben Hirschler COPENHAGEN/LONDON (Reuters) – Chinese authorities have visited a site operated by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk A/S , the world’s biggest maker of insulin, in the latest sign of a widening investigation into Western drugmakers. H. Lundbeck A/S , a smaller Danish drugs firm, also said its unit in Beijing had been visited by the authorities, while a Chinese newspaper reported an allegation from an unnamed person that French firm Sanofi SA had paid around 1.7 million yuan ($276,200) in bribes to hundreds of doctors in China in 2007. …

Researchers are narrowing in on the host of factors that can contribute to postpartum depression, from genes to social connections. The latest work focuses on where a new mother lives.

Integrating Left Brain and Right, on a Computer

LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline raised its bet on using electrical signals in the body to target diseases on Thursday with the launch of a $50 million strategic venture capital fund. Britain's biggest drugmaker hopes to have the first medicine that effectively speaks the electrical "language" of the body ready for approval by the end of this decade. GSK said the new fund's first investment would be in SetPoint Medical, a California company working on implantable devices to treat inflammatory diseases. …

By Naomi Tajitsu and Jackie Range WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra insisted that its customers were sticking to their supply contracts with the world's largest dairy exporter for the moment, even as Singapore expanded its recall of milk formula products containing a tainted ingredient produced the company. …

ROME (Reuters) – Global food prices fell nearly 2 percent in July compared to the previous month, driven mainly by lower prices for grains, soy and palm oil, the United Nations' food agency said on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, fell in July for a third month running to 205.9 points compared to 210.1 points in June, reaching its lowest level since June 2012.

By MacDonald Dzirutwe HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday defiantly rejected Western criticism of his disputed re-election and vowed to press ahead with nationalist economic policies transferring majority stakes in foreign-owned firms to blacks. In his first public comments since he was declared winner of a July 31 election that his main rival Morgan Tsvangirai rejects as fraudulent, Mugabe, Africa's oldest leader at 89, said his ZANU-PF party's victory had "dealt the enemy a blow". …

By Theopolis Waters CHICAGO (Reuters) – Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. meat processor, said it would suspend purchases of cattle fed the growth enhancer Zilmax, saying it was worried about cases of cattle with difficulty walking although it did not know the specific cause of problem. Rumors of Tyson’s action sparked a sharp rally in Chicago Mercantile Exchange cattle futures on Wednesday. Removing Zilmax from feed rations would bring down the weight of cattle, resulting in less available beef and likely drive up beef prices. …

By Eric M. Johnson LYNNWOOD, Washington (Reuters) – Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen imprisoned in North Korea for crimes against the state, made a fresh appeal to the U.S. government for help and chronicled his declining health in a letter that reached his family on Wednesday, his sister said. Bae was sentenced in early May to 15 years of hard labor after North Korea's Supreme Court convicted him of state subversion, saying the 45-year-old Christian missionary had used his tourism business to form groups to overthrow the government. …

By Marice Richter DALLAS (Reuters) – Former President George W. Bush was recovering at his home in Dallas on Wednesday, a day after undergoing surgery for a blocked artery, a Bush spokesman said. Bush, 67, is "doing great," his spokesman Freddy Ford said, after a stent, a wire mesh coil used to prop open arteries, was placed in the former president's heart at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Tuesday. The blockage was discovered on Monday during Bush's annual physical at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas. His doctors recommended the stent and Bush agreed to the procedure, Ford said. …

Dolphins can recall the signature whistles of former companions, even after decades of separation. Sophie Bushwick reports.