Science News

Cant lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.

“The potential of using genetic information to achieve this magnitude of weight loss without pharmaceutical intervention would be important in helping to solve the pervasive problem of excessive weight in our society,” Christopher Gardner at Stanford University in California, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

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A spokeswoman for an African satellite television network says one of three sports journalists kidnapped by gunmen in the restive Niger Delta has escaped his captors.

Two other men, a Nigerian and a South African, remain held.

MultiChoice spokeswoman Caroline Creasy says the Nigerian cameraman somehow evaded the gunmen and made it to safety in the days after the Monday kidnapping near Owerri.

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Scientists have uncovered the bones of a dinosaur-like creature that roamed Earth at least 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaur, according to a study published Thursday.

The discovery means that dinosaurs probably appeared much earlier than previously thought, the researchers said.

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U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) introduced legislation Wednesday that would keep NASA flying the space shuttle program two years beyond its planned 2010 retirement.

Hutchisons bill, if enacted, would deal a setback to U.S. President Barack Obamas plan to retire NASAs space shuttle fleet after four more flights and rely on Russia, and eventually commercial U.

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Cityscapes of glass-clad buildings gleaming in the sun make Anna Dyson think about wasted energy.

A prototype gets a real-world tryout after the opening this week of an eco-friendly research building in Syracuse. Researchers at CASE - a collaborative research group involving Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy and the international architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill - call it a step toward exploiting the huge but largely untapped “green” resource of building exteriors.

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A European probe made its closest-ever swing by Mars moon Phobos Wednesday on a quest to learn more about the inner structure of the mysterious Martian satellite.

“Im very happy that its working so well,” Gerhard Schwehm, head of ESAs Solar System Science Operations Division, said after the maneuver.

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Victims of Hurricane Katrina are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed.

“The plaintiffs allege that defendants operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming,” say the documents seen by AFP.

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Entire families are camping out on high ground in cars and makeshift tents too afraid to return to their coastline villages destroyed by giant waves after a huge earthquake struck central Chile.

Townspeople, many who live on fishing and farming, fled to hills and survived but are now refusing to come down despite days dwelling in the woods with little food or water.

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Toyota’s Prius remains the top-selling car in Japan despite the automaker’s global recall woes that included braking problems with the hit hybrid.

The continued popularity of the Prius comes despite Toyota’s recall debacle affecting 8.5 million vehicles around the world, including the third-generation Prius in Japan, recalled for a glitch in antilock braking.

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A tsunami alert sent terrified Chileans running for coastal hills Wednesday, while a surge of troops finally brought order to the quake-hit second city of Concepcion after rampant looting.

Thousands of traumatized earthquake survivors, some still trying to identify loved ones claimed by monster waves, rushed to higher ground as troops ushered them up hillsides.

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