| Business News |
Wall Street tumbles, led by financials
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Stocks tumbled more than 2 percent on
Thursday after a report showing yet another drop in U.S. home
sales prompted investors to take profits in financial shares,
which had rallied over the past week.
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Microsoft CEO backs Web spending, "done" with Yahoo
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Chief Executive Steve
Ballmer on Thursday defended Microsoft Corp's need to
make heavy investments in its Internet businesses but said the
company was "done," for now, with pursuing Yahoo Inc .
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Wachovia CFO Wurtz to leave
(Reuters)
Reuters - Wachovia Corp , which posted a
record $8.86 billion second-quarter loss Tuesday, said Chief
Financial Officer Thomas Wurtz will resign from the
fourth-largest U.S. bank after a successor is named.
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Home sales at 10-year low, jobless claims jump
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Jobless claims jumped and the pace
of existing home sales tumbled to a 10-year low as slowing
growth hit hiring and a glut of unsold houses weighed on real
estate, data released on Thursday showed.
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Morgan Stanley aggressively recruiting brokers
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Morgan Stanley said on Thursday
it is poaching brokers from Merrill Lynch and other
rivals, accelerating the expansion of its global wealth
management business during a period of turbulence on Wall
Street.
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Jobless claims jump as housing market gets weaker
(AP)
 AP - Two cornerstones of the economy — jobs and housing — sank to new depths Thursday, with unemployment claims bolting higher and home prices recording one of their steepest drops on record.
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| Researchers find neuroblastoma genes - 08, May 2008 |
By Gene Emery
BOSTON (Reuters) - An international team of researchers said they have pinpointed three variants of the genetic code that appear to set the stage for aggressive neuroblastoma, the deadliest solid tumor in early childhood.
The finding is not expected to immediately change the way doctors treat the cancer, diagnosed in 700 children in the United States alone each year, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
However, it may lead to new therapies for the tumor, which kills more than 60 percent of its high-risk victims because the cancer often remains undetected until it has spread widely.
Because the chance is less than 1 percent that a neuroblastoma will reappear in a family, there is little point in doing genetic screening for the risk, Drs. Brian Kushner and Nai-Kong Cheung of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York wrote in a Journal commentary.
The research team, led by Dr. John Maris of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, pinpointed the genetic defects by screening samples from 1,032 affected children and 2,043 seemingly healthy controls.
They checked their results by looking for the same abnormal code sequence in three independent groups with and without neuroblastoma, including 720 additional patients.
The researchers said little is known about the healthy function of the three genes, all of which appear on the sixth largest chromosome.
"Ultimately, they probably cause subtle changes in gene expression during early development, interacting with other genes yet to be discovered. This suggests that neuroblastoma has complex causes, in which a series of genetic changes may occur at different sites to combine into a 'perfect storm' that results in cancer," Maris said in a statement.
(c) 2008 Reuters
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| Other news from Science category: |
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new, highly efficient material that converts heat into electricity may one day help cars get the most out of a gallon of gas, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cocktails of HIV drugs help patients live an average of 13 years longer -- if they are lucky enough to get them, researchers reported on Thursday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The multicolored aurora borealis and aurora australis -- the Northern Lights and Southern Lights -- represent some of Earth's most dazzling natural displays.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's top food safety agency said on Thursday cloned animal products may not be safe and further study was needed.
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MILAN (Reuters) - The amount of a controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) found in baby bottles is tiny and cannot harm human health, the European Union's top food safety body said on Wednesday reacting to recent health concerns.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People infected with parasitic worms may be much more susceptible to the AIDS virus, according to a study published on Tuesday that may help explain why HIV has hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday.
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MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season is already a month ahead of schedule, portending a rough year for tropical storms for the United States, Caribbean and Central America although most likely not a repeat of the devastating 2005 season.
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ATHENS (Reuters) - German archaeologists using radar technology believe they may have discovered the ancient horse racing track at Olympia where Roman Emperor Nero bribed his way to Olympic laurels.
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