Alzheimer鈥檚 transparency
The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides which drugs the UK鈥檚 National Health Service pays for, must reveal its economic decision-making process, a UK court has ruled. Drug firms brought the case after NICE prevented the Alzheimer鈥檚 drug Aricept from being prescribed to people with mild forms of the disease.
Many moons ago
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Earth鈥檚 moon may once have been part of a family. According to researchers at NASA and the Carnegie Institution, the extra moons would have stuck around for as many as several million years at the points where the Earth and moon鈥檚 gravity are equal. Later, they would have been tugged out of their orbits by the gravity of the other planets (Icarus, ).
Fat cell count in kids鈥� hands
Kids, be careful what you eat: those fries will make it harder to shed weight later on. A team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has found that although new fat cells constantly spring up and old ones perish, an adult鈥檚 total number is determined in childhood. This might explain why some people struggle to keep weight off after a diet (Nature, ).
Bean there, done that
A controversial patent on a common yellow bean eaten in Latin America for more than a century was revoked on 2 May by the US Patent and Trademark Office. CIAT, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, invalidated the patent by proving that identical varieties existed prior to 1999, when the 鈥渆nola bean鈥� patent was awarded.
Death march
Want a heads-up that bird flu is creeping towards your neck of the woods? Now you can see on a world map how diseases transmitted by wildlife are spreading. Compiled by the US Geological Survey and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the map is at .