NEC to Expand Rugged Laptop Sales Worldwide
Spray them with water, subject them to extreme temperatures or drop them on the ground, NEC’s rugged ShieldPro laptops are made to survive rough treatment. The biggest challenge, however, is about to come: battling more established competitors in the harsh international market.

Paper is passe for tech-savvy South Koreans
SEOUL (Reuters) – Young, tech-savvy South Koreans are making coupon clipping a thing of the past and turning to their mobile phones instead.

Tech tools bring big success for small businesses
Millions of U.S. small-business owners are geeking out in the digital bazaar. As online commerce grows and technology gets cheaper and easier to use, small firms especially mom-and-pop shops that had shied away from technology are using tech tools more than ever to sell goods, market themselves and run their operations. Technology used for years by tech-savvy “early adopters” and big companies now is hitting small businesses on Main Street USA.

Safer alternatives to standard earbuds
With a growing number of  young people plugged into digital music players, hearing loss is a concern. A number of companies have come up with earphones that are safer to use.

Study Offers Clues to Link Between Arrhythmia, Sudden Death
Uncovering molecular underpinnings could lead to new, genetically targeted therapies

‘Dancing’ Hair Cells Are Key To Humans’ Acute Hearing
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — A new study shows how sounds are amplified in the inner ear, a finding that could explain how hearing loss can result from genetic mutation or overdose of drugs… [I]nvestigators have found that an electrically powered amplification mechanism in the cochlea of the ear is critical to the acute hearing of humans and other mammals. The findings will enable better understanding of how hearing loss can result from malfunction of this amplification machinery due to genetic mutation or overdose of drugs such as aspirin.

Nitrates In Vegetables Protect Against Gastric Ulcers, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — Fruits and vegetables that are rich in nitrates protect the stomach from damage. This takes place through conversion of nitrates into nitrites by the bacteria in the oral cavity and subsequent transformation into biologically active nitric oxide in the stomach.

Patients With Chronic Illness Benefit From Telehealth Intervention
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — Telehealth, using telecommunication technology to deliver health care, is increasingly being used to improve the delivery and availability of health care services to patients. A University of Missouri researcher found that patients who received a telehealth intervention from care providers had significantly delayed hospital readmission rates when compared to patients who received traditional care.

Flavonoids May Help Treat Alzheimer’s
Compounds found in fruits and vegetables reduced brain plaques in mouse experiments.

Elderly In Long-term Care Setting Suffer Depression More Than Those Cared For At Home
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — Elderly in a long-term care setting are more likely to be prescribed antidepressants and to self-report depression compared to those in a home-health care setting, according to a study by social work students.

Lost in the Holocaust: experts plumb newly opened archive
BAD AROLSEN, Germany – A mother and child separated. A father’s war wound. An uncle’s name on a list.

Seaweed provides clues to earliest inhabitants of Americas
WASHINGTON (AP) – Remains of meals that included seaweed are helping confirm the date of a settlement in southern Chile that may offer the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas. Researchers date the seaweed found at Monte Verde to more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the well-studied Clovis culture.

Shift From Savannah to Sahara Was Gradual, Research Suggests
By analyzing thousands of layers sediment in a core drilled from the bottom of a lake, a team of scientists has reconstructed the climate of northern Africa.

Space Shuttle Discovery in Good Shape for May Launch
NASA’s shuttle Discovery is on track to ferry seven astronauts and a large Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS) later this month.

John Glenn wants shuttles’ lives extended
For legendary astronaut and former senator John Glenn, the video clips brought back memories of old friends. For the rest of the nation, they provided a glimpse of NASA’s glory days.

Merging Antennae Galaxies Move Closer
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought – 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years.