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A BBC-funded excavation at Stonehenge may have uncovered the original reason for the site's existence say archaeologists. The breakthrough discovery occurred when the team dug through a layer of ground at the site containing sockets which once held bluestones, smaller stones which formed the structure of the original Stonehenge site. Professor Tim Darvill, of Bournemouth University, who is leading the excavation work along with Professor Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries, said the bluestones had been transported 250km from the Preseli Hills in Wales to the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, where taken to the site because people believed they had magical healing powers. Professor Geoffrey Wainwright theorised the original Stonehenge was a "Neolithic Lourdes".

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Sitting in her hospital room in Marion, Ill., 17-year-old Kassie Hopkins knew something was wrong when she looked at the newborn officials told her she had given birth to a day before. Mary Jo Bathon had the same feeling but left Heartland Regional Medical Center with the hospital's assurance that the baby she had was her son. She headed home to Pinckeyville, an hour away, making a stop to buy baby supplies. But in fact, hospital workers had inadvertently switched the babies. They sent Bathon home with Hopkins' son, leaving 17-year-old Hopkins in her hospital room, worried about her son's whereabouts, attorney John Womick said Friday after suing on the women's behalf in Williamson County Court. "Kassie, she's having trouble communicating how she feels," Womick said Friday. "All she can do pretty much is cry. She's now paranoid. She's very concerned about something happening to her baby." The hospital realized the mix-up and called Bathon at home the same day, March 28, and left a message on her answering machine asking her to return to Marion to retrieve her real son, Womick said.

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Researchers in New York have demonstrated that an experimental drug protected monkeys and mice from the damaging effects of radiation. The drug protected the animals’ bone marrow and gastrointestinal cells from being destroyed by radiation without reducing the radiation’s ability to fight cancer, researchers reported Thursday. The finding could someday lead to better emergency treatments for radiation exposure and less toxic cancer treatments. "These tissues fail because these cells choose to commit suicide. Our idea was to block these suicidal intentions," said Andrei Gudkov of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. Gudkov also serves as chief scientific officer at Cleveland BioLabs Inc., the company developing the drug. He explained that radiation triggers cells to undergo a type of programmed cell death know as apoptosis, the body’s way of ridding itself of defective cells. However, tumors have figured out how to block this suicide function.

Source: LifeNews -- Read Full Story

A trio of economists have released the results of a new study disproving the supposed link between the legalization of abortion and a reduction in crime. John Donohue and Steven Levitt first introduced the repeatedly-criticized theory in 2001 and another report shows it's untrue. Three economists -- Cal State University economics professor Leo Kahane, Nottingham University Business School professor David Paton and Rob Simmons of Lancaster University -- review the hypothesis using both American and British data. The three focused on England because abortions have been legal there longer (1969 versus 1973 for the United States) and because the British health system requires all abortions be reported to the government, unlike in the U.S. "As a result, data on (legal) abortions are complete and of high quality," the trio wrote in their report on the VoxEU web site. The economists evaluated both violent and nonviolent (property) crimes in the U.S. and England and found violent crimes in the UK increasing steadily over the years following legalized abortion.

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Climate experts are forecasting a drop in global temperatures this year. But the world is also facing more dramatic rain storm events such as the flooding which hit Britain last summer, scientists warn. Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, said temperatures in 2008 are likely to be cooler because of the effects of the La Nina in the central and eastern Pacific. He said it was likely that the La Nina phenomenon would continue into the summer. If his forecast is right it would mean temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world. La Nina (the little girl) and El Nino (the little boy) are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects can be felt worldwide. Recently La Nina caused one of the coldest winters in memory in China, Canada and the Arctic and brought torrential rains to Australia.

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An alarming outbreak of the mumps two years ago has raised questions about whether an additional vaccination is needed. A report in The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday tracks the 2006 epidemic, the largest outbreak in two decades. Mumps had virtually disappeared in America since the 1990s, when doctors began using a second dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine among schoolchildren. But most of those who became infected in 2006 were college students who had received the double-vaccination, raising questions about whether a third dose may be needed.

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Two British pro-life groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the two licenses awarded by the government to scientists allowing them to create hybrid human clones. Comment on Reproductive Ethics and the Christian Legal Centre are behind the suit to revoke the licenses for the grisly practice. Earlier this month, the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne science team announced it has successful created “admixed embryos” -- hybrid clones featuring both human and animal parts. The scientists had received licenses from the British government for the human cloning even though the British parliament has yet to approve the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill officially legally allowing their work. Josephine Quintavalle of CORE told LifeNews.com late Tuesday that the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority never should have granted authority to the research team and scientists at King’s College, London to engage in human cloning.

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The Food and Drug Administration has tripled the number of deaths it attributes to side effects of the blood thinner heparin, which triggered a massive recall earlier this year. The agency has been investigating contamination of heparin made by the manufacturer Baxter International Inc., which it linked to 19 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions. After reviewing adverse events back to January 2007, FDA said Tuesday it uncovered 103 reports of patients who died while taking heparin. Of those deaths, 62 involved allergic reactions or hypotension, a type of dangerously low blood pressure. Those are the same side effects that caused Baxter's to pull all U.S. heparin injections from the market by February. The agency's month-by-month figures include deaths of patients taking heparin made by various manufacturers, not just Baxter's. FDA received 55 reports of death with the blood thinner in 2006, but only three were due to allergic reactions.

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A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut and two cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, en route to the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-12 craft lifted off on time, roaring into the evening skies over Kazakhstan's barren steppes before turning down range and entering its preliminary orbit about 10 minutes later. South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, 29, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov will spend two days in the cramped capsule before docking at the orbiting station. Live footage broadcast from inside the capsule showed the South Korean smiling and waving and giving the thumbs-up sign. Hundreds of Korean, Russian and American officials, relatives and other onlookers watched mostly silently as the rocket climbed slowly over the launch pad. Yi's mother, Jung Kum-suk, screamed, then collapsed into the arms of her husband, and four medics in jumpsuits rushed to help her.

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Call it a case of gator aid. New research suggests that alligator blood could serve as the basis for new antibiotics targeting infections caused by ulcers, burns and even drug-resistant "superbugs." The research is in its early stages -- extracts of alligator blood have only been tested in the laboratory -- and there's no guarantee that it will work in humans. Still, the findings are promising, researchers said. "We need new antibiotics. Anything like this is a step forward," said Dr. Stuart Levy, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, who's an expert in antibiotic-resistant infections and is familiar with the new study. "But there are hurdles that this kind of antibiotic poses that others might not." The study authors, from McNeese State University and Louisiana State University, said their research is the first to take an in-depth look at alligator blood's prospects as an antibiotic source. According to the researchers, alligators can automatically fight germs such as bacteria and viruses without having been exposed to them before launching a defense.