Washington, Oct 2 (ANI): US President George W Bush today hailed the Senate's approval of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal and said that it would strengthen global efforts to stall the spread of nuclear weapons.

In a statement Bush said, "This legislation will strengthen our global nuclear nonproliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs, and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in a responsible manner."

He also said that he was looking forward to sign the bill into law and continue to strengthen the US-India strategic partnership.

The White House issued the statement shortly after the Senate endorsed the nuclear accord, removing the final legislative hurdle for resumption of civilian nuclear trade between the two countries after three decades.

The US Senate voted 86-13 to give an overwhelming approval to the deal and lifted a ban on civilian nuclear trade imposed after India first conducted a nuclear test explosion at Pokhran in 1974.

The US House of Representatives has already approved the 123 Agreement by a 298-117 vote during the weekend.

The agreement is expected to help provide critical energy to fuel India's booming economy. (ANI)

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Washington, Sept 4 (ANI): Elderly people who have had a stroke or mini-stroke benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs just as much as younger people in the same situation, according to a new research led by an Indian-origin scientist.

The study has been published in the September 3, 2008, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Even though the majority of strokes and heart attacks occur in people who are 65 and older, studies have found that cholesterol-lowering drugs are not prescribed as often for older people as they are for younger people," said study author Seemant Chaturvedi, MD, of Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

"These results show that using these drugs is just as beneficial for people who are over 65 as they are for younger people," Chaturvedi added.

The research involved 4,731 people age 18 and older who had a recent stroke or transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke. The 2,249 people age 65 and older were in one group, with an average age of 72, and the 2,482 people under age 65 made up the other group, with an average age of 54.

Within each group, about half of the people received the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin and about half received a placebo.

The participants were then followed for an average of four and a half years.

LDL, or low-density lipoprotein "bad" cholesterol, was lowered by an average of 61 points during the study for the elderly group, and by 59 points for the younger group. hose in the younger group reduced their risk for another stroke by 26 percent; the risk was reduced by 10 percent in the elderly group.

Chaturvedi said: "We tested to see whether age had any effect on how well the treatment worked, and we did not find any differences between young people and older people.

"It's estimated that 20 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by 2010, so it's important that we identify ways to reduce the burden of strokes and other cerebrovascular diseases in this group. This is a step in that direction." (ANI)

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Washington, September 22 (ANI): The analysis of a newly discovered fossil skeleton has revealed that before it acquired fins, an ancient fish sported something like fingers that were the precursors to our own digits.

According to a report in Live Science, the fossilized skeleton belonged to Panderichthys, a predatory fish that spanned up to 4 feet (130 cm) and likely dwelled in shallow waters, where it inched along the muddy bottom about 385 million years ago.

While the fossil was discovered in the 1990s by chance in a brick quarry in Latvia in northern Europe, scientists only recently analyzed the fins with computed tomography (CT) and found that the right paddle is tipped with four bony extensions.

"It's really the last piece of evidence to say fingers are not new. They were really present in fish," said lead researcher Catherine Boisvert, an evolutionary biologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

If you were to turn back the clocks to the Devonian period when Panderichthys lived and spied the fish, you would not have noticed its "fingers," Boisvert explained.

That's because the bony digit precursors were tucked beneath the fin's skin and bony scales and rays.

The fan-like array of fingers, however, would have made Panderichthys' paddles broader at the ends. The broad fins would have made for stronger supports for the fish to lean on rather than for all-out swimming.

"It was probably using its front fins as supports to be able to look up, kind of doing push-ups at the bottom of the river looking outside with its eyes," Boisvert said, adding that the fish's eyes were on the top of its skull and thus probably good for looking above the mud for fish food.

Though Panderichthys was not made for landlubbing, if the need to hop from the water arose, the fish had the means.

"So, if it was stuck in a pool and it was drying out, the fish would have been able to get itself out to the next water body," Boisvert told LiveScience. "It's doing push-ups on land with its big fins and then its pelvic fins (hind fins) are used for an anchor in the mud," she added.

Basically, Panderichthys would have dragged its body along land.

The fossil finding fills in a gap in the evolution of tetrapods, or four-legged animals. (ANI)

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London, Sep 26 (ANI): Pop band Metallica has dismissed claims that their new album is of poor quality.

It has been claimed that the Metallica CD features tracks are substandard to the versions on the Guitar Hero video game.

However, the band said that the new 'Death Magnetic' album has been a worldwide hit and has been topping the charts around America and U.K.

The band's co-manager Cliff Burnstein stated that the fans' reaction to the disc has been "overwhelmingly positive".

"There's something exciting about the sound of this record that people are responding to," the Daily Express quoted Cliff Burnstein, as telling Wall Street Journal. (ANI)

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