Asustek says two-thirds of Eee PCs will have Windows XP
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Asustek Computer (2357.TW), the world’s top maker of computer motherboards, said nearly two-thirds of its Eee PCs shipped this year will be Windows-based as consumers embrace the company’s low-cost laptop models.

Security card chip can be hacked
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Dutch interior affairs minister says a technology being used in up to a billion security cards around the world can easily be hacked.

Bill Gates urges more visas for tech workers
More investment in math and science education and a more liberal policy toward skilled foreign workers are crucial if America is to avoid losing its competitive edge in the world, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday.
OF COURSE he does.  He wants more cheap workers.

Teens Spending Too Much Screen Time
Girls in poor neighborhoods most likely to watch TVs or computers, study finds

U.S. Syphilis Rate Grows for 7th Year in Row
Increase largely driven by new cases among gay, bisexual men, CDC reports

New Potential Treatment For Muscular Dystrophy Appears To Be Safe
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — Myostatin, a protein that blocks muscle growth, has shown promising results as a potential therapeutic target for treating muscular dystrophy in animal studies, where its inhibition led to increased muscle mass and strength. A new study, the first to evaluate a myostatin inhibitor in patients, assessed its safety in adults with muscular dystrophy and found that it was well-tolerated.

Genetic Markers May Predict Lung Cancer Recurrence
DNA evidence in lymph nodes could alter treatment approach, study suggests

Protein That Stimulates Fat Formation Discovered
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — Scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered a protein that plays a fundamental part in the formation of new fat cells. The protein has a potential use in the treatment of obesity and cachexia (morbid weight loss).

Obesity Associated With Clear Changes In Gene-networks And Dysfunction Of Mitochondria
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — The machinery responsible for energy production in fat cells is working poorly as a result of obesity. Finnish research done at the University of Helsinki and the National Public Health Institute shows that this may aggravate and work to maintain the obese state in humans.

Caring for Heart Patients Can Strain Hearts
Caregivers were stressed, ate poorly, study found

Aspirin Reduces Asthma Risk Among Older Women
Study found 10 percent fewer new cases over a decade.

New Longevity Genes Identified: Yeast, Worms And People May Age By Similar Mechanisms
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — Scientists at the University of Washington and other institutions have identified 25 genes regulating lifespan in two organisms separated by about 1.5 billion years in evolutionary change. At least 15 of those genes have very similar versions in humans, suggesting that scientists may be able to target those genes to help slow down the aging process and treat age-related conditions.

Native American DNA Links to 6 ‘Founding Mothers’
NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly all of today’s Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests. Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.

Meteor Videotaped Plunging to Earth Meteor Videotaped Plunging to Earth
Shooting stars are by nature fleeting, and it’s rare one is videotaped while falling to Earth. But on the evening of March 5 (at 10:59 p.m. EST, to be exact), the University of Western Ontario’s network of all-sky cameras captured video of a large fireball, said university researcher Peter Brown… “Most meteoroids burn up by the time they hit an altitude of 60 or 70 kilometers [37 or 43 miles] from Earth,” said Edwards. “We tracked this one to an altitude of about 24 kilometers [15 miles] so we are pretty sure there are at least one, and possibly many, meteorites that made it to the ground.”

Docking in space (video)
Mar. 13 - The space shuttle Endeavour has linked up with the International Space Station. 

Shuttle and station crews meet, greet and get to work
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts from space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station greeted one another with hugs and smiles on Thursday to begin a joint 12-day mission to install a Japanese laboratory and Canadian robotic system. 

Wanted: Student Experiment for Space Tourist’s Trek
Space tourist-to-be Richard Garriott is calling on the ingenuity of British students to come up with a science experiment for his upcoming flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

Mysterious Craters Seen on Mercury Mysterious Craters Seen on Mercury
Craters come in all shapes and sizes, some more bizarre than others. Recent photos of Mercury have revealed two new categories of crater that scientists are puzzling over how to explain. When NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew by the planet Jan. 14 it snapped pictures of several craters with strange dark halos and one crater with a spectacularly shiny bottom.

Spacecraft zips over Saturn’s geyser-spurting moon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spacecraft whizzed past Saturn’s moon Enceladus on Wednesday and through a huge geyser spurting from its south pole, collected samples of ice and gas shooting about 500 miles into space.

The End of Cosmology?
An accelerating universe wipes out traces of its own origins