Guess what the deadliest mental sickness is. Schizophrenia? Depression? Nope. It's anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which the sufferer does not eat correctly, due to an obsessive fear of gaining weight. The disease has been linked to some trends in the fashion community. The sufferers have an irrational desire to be very thin, thinking only then will they become happy or normal.

We're not sure why the disease hasn't been given much attention. It's been said that only 10 percent of anorexics get help. And of all anorexic sufferers, 15 percent are sure to die. They say that the reason why there are so many anorexics who die is because anorexia is very difficult to diagnose and the victims are not often aware of how gravely ill they already are.

In this regard, the UK government decided to release UK£ 2M (US$ 3.9M) to fund a research project that will help anorexia victims in the country. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry say that they're going to use the money to find ways of diagnosing and treating victims before the disease takes hold. The study will also develop new forms of cure aimed for victims with special needs, including mothers, and women with reproductive problems.

The fund has been given to the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, in partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and eating disorder charity Beat. Researchers hope that the study to be funded by this grant will enable to have new treatments for anorexia in five years.

Sometimes it's nice to spend some alone time in the company of the sail, the sea and the surf. But could you actually survive alone time of 1,000 days at sea? This is a goal that New York artist and sailor Reid Stowe would like to achieve.

Stowe would not exactly sail alone. He will be accompanied by mate Soanya Ahmad in his quest to spend 1,000 days aboard Schooner Anne. For a thousand nights, they will not land, take on supplies, nor refuel. They plan on setting sail April 21st, and they hope to break the record set by Australian Jon Sanders, who spent 657 days circumnavigating the globe three times during 1986-1988.

Because of the the isolation and physical challenges that this sailing plan presents, the duo dubs their project as "The Mars Ocean Odyssey". Stowe says that sailing like he plans has some analogies to a lengthy space mission.

They will have a 3-year supply of food on board, to be augmented by rainwater and fish caught, as well as sprouts grown on deck. Mate Ahmad says that they will have a garden on board just to remind themselves of land.

The course of Schooner Anne on "The Mars Ocean Odyssey" will be across the North Atlantic Ocean, south past the equator then west to the coast of Brazil. The sailors would even sail in a heart shape pattern as an artistic statement. They will record this 1,000-day voyage, hoping that their example will influence people in extending possibilities of what is achievable.

There is no cure for cancer. It can only be treated by a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and even those can't cure you 100%. After treatment, it's not uncommon for tumor cells to still spread. Doctors say it's because of the compound TGF-beta, caused by radiotherapy. TGF-beta makes possible the spread of tumor cells.

Going on this line of thinking, doctors developed an antibody to combat TGF-beta from cancer treatment. They experimented with mice. The doctors exposed mice infected with breast cancer cells under radiotherapy. This brought a high level of TGF-beta in their blood. So the doctors treated the mice with an antibody-suppressing TGF-beta. The spread of tumor cells stopped.

It's like this, cancer treatment brings in TGF-beta and TGF-beta encourages cancer spread. So suppressing TGF-beta, a cancer treatment, will suppress cancer spread. There must be something essential here, and scientists are trying to figure this out. There may be other chemicals involved with cancer spread, and the researchers are doing their best to study them. Figuring out TGF-beta is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sometimes, nature heals better naturally. Consider Ian Malcolm from the Jurassic Park novel: he pointed out that the earth has been around much longer than we have. Certainly it has means of healing itself and adapting to times better than we do. In the case of forests destroyed by wildfires, this applies too.

A study done by an Oregon State University team found out that in the aftermath of wildfires, even the those that experienced great fires manage to sprout seedling even without the humans doing anything, within five to ten years. Natural regeneration of forests after a wildfire may take longer, but it creates a more diversified forest.

In this regard, wildfires are seen both as an agent of destruction and renewal. The Hindus understand this better with their goddess Kali, the goddess of destruction as well as rebirth. Sometimes it could be better to let forests regenerate on their own after a wildfire; they may have better coping mechanisms than we could ever provide them.

The Oregon study found hundreds of trees per acre in various types of forests, equal to or greater than the density of most older forests, even 19 years after the fire. The researchers even saw a lot of seedlings far away from the surviving trees that could still provide them. How did the seedlings ever get there? Nature must have her own ways...

The Amphitheatre in Epidaurus on the Peloponnese in Greece lets sounds from the actors to be heard all over the area, even when the structure can seat up to 14,000 people.

Created around the 4th century BC by Polykleitos the Younger, the renowned Ampitheatre is made of 55 semi-circular rows that go up from the area where the actors perform. What makes this place remarkable is that even without a microphone, the actors' voices could be heard clearly.

It's always been thought that the place has been mathematically made to amplify voices. But Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Nico Declercq says nay to this theory and shows his findings about the acoustics of the intriguing building. He says that it's not the shape of the structure itself, but the material it's made of, which deserves credit for the Amphitheatre's amazing acoustics. Limestone has an ability to filter out low frequencies of voices, minimizing background noise and enhancing sound quality in the theatre.

Nico says that the rows of limestone seats also reflect high-frequency sounds back towards the audience, enhancing the sound effect. Now who would have thought of that before? Maybe next time our present-day architects may take the cue of their ancient Greek counterparts. And then, rock music could be better heard on limestone seats.

Big dogs, small dogs - they all belong to one species of the animal kingdom: Canis lupus familiaris. How come there are dogs that are barely the size of human heads, and there are dogs that are as big as an adolescent human? The answer lies in a study made by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Those NHGRI folks saw that the differences in dog size depends on the versions of the gene that encodes for insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). Insulin-what? Sounds like a crazy experiment, but IGF1 is just a substance that determines size among animals. The team found out that single nucleotide polymorphisms, or variations in the DNA, located near IGF1 correlates with body size.

Testing a number of dogs great and small, the scientists discovered that IGF1 polymorphisms are a common factor in determining size. They found out that small dogs are much likely to contain two different versions of IGF1 compared to large dogs. In the studies conducted to mice and humans, and here, in dogs, the findings are similar: creatures with less IGF1 are more likely of normal size.

Now how would this affect you? Scientists would like to use this finding to probably control the body sizes of dog species. Anyone want a gigantic chihuahua? Or a miniscule Saint Bernard? The differences in sizes all lie in the presence of IGF1 in dog genes. Now if only they could find out the other genetic markers that determine dog cuteness, or attitude ... imagine being able to customize your dog.

Fear, the ever-powerful unpleasant feeling of real or imagined risk or danger, can be controlled by a certain substance: cat's pee. Well, not exactly cat's pee, but the parasite that thrives in it.

This parasite, known as Toxoplasma gondii, is a parasitic germ whose primary hosts are cats. The parasite may also thrive in most warm-blooded animals, and even humans. It's been estimated that half of the world population is infected by this parasite, altering human fears and even determining human culture.

Neuroscientists from the Stanford University found out that this very same parasite can target certain fears very accurately. For example, rats have an instinctive fear of cat's pee. When infected with the T. gondii parasite, however, rats begin to develop a liking for cat's pee so much that the rodents start hanging out on areas that smell of kitty's wee-wee, making them easy kitty lunch.

The explanation is that the parasites like cat hosts better, because only in cats can they reproduce sexually. The parasites reproduce asexually in other species. Living in cats' brains will make the parasites start their sexual stage in life.

The scientists believe that if they unlock the secrets of the T. gondii parasite, they may be able to use it to favor humanity, being able to modify human fears and phobias. The parasites are known to thrive in the amygdala, a region of the human brain related to fears.

Now the question is, what if we start liking what we fear? That would be like, creepy ... in a likeable way.

I only know France for - you know, museums, cafes, Napoleon, kissing and fries (yeah, you can call me culturally ignorant). But only recently, France has set a record for having the world's speediest train ride on conventional rails. The French train V150 buzzed off to a record speed of 357.2 mph, breaking the record of another conventional rail train that buzzed off to a speed of 320.2 mph, set by - why, another French train.

The speedy train ride has been made possible by Alstom Transports. France, Germany and Japan are competing for contracts on China's plans for building more than 7,500 miles of high-speed railways in coming years, at the cost of more than US$ 250 billion. The ride was a demonstration by France, to show how they excel in research, innovation and technology.

The V150 record fell short of another record made by the fastest train in the world, though, to be found in Japan. But the Japanese did not use conventional rails. Instead, the fastest train ride made by Japan, set at the record of 361 mph, has been made possible by another technology: the magnetically levitated train.

French President Jacques Chirac praised France's newest achievement as a magnificent demonstration of France's formidable capacities in research and innovation. The record-breaking trip made by V150 blasted off from Preny, east of Paris to Champagne at an impressive 15 minutes. Operator Eric Pieczac is very happy, feeling a mixture of pride and honor to be able to reach such speed.

In 2005, 15 million people died of heart disease and by 2010, an estimated 600,000 hearts are needed to save lives. This is why scientists are hard pressed to find an answer to the growing demand for hearts ready for implanting to those who need them.

Dr. Magdi Yacoub and his team at the Harefield Hospital in London has been working on finding the answer for the demand for hearts. They've been at it for a long time now - more than ten years, actually - and recently, they've done something which brought them closer to their goal. They have successfully artificially created a human heart valve.

The human heart valve tissue made are small 3-cm wide discs constructed by Doctors Adrian Chester and Patricia Taylor. Dr. Chester and Dr. Taylor extracted stem cells from bone marrow, put them into scaffolds made of collagen, and grew them into heart valve cells. The newly constructed tissue will be implanted into pigs and sheeps to be tested. If successful, the technology of growing heart valve tissue for implanting into humans may be available in three to five years.

Dr. Yacoub is very optimistic about the work that his team has achieved so far. He believes that the common pathway of death and suffering is human heart failure. According to him, reversing this could have a big impact.

More than a month ago, we covered a story about bees disappearing for a yet unknown reason. The hypotheses presented on this mysterious disappearance of bees called Colony Collapse Disorder, were the following: pesticides, mites, and/or poor management of the bee farmers.

But in a study made by Barbara Shipman, mathematician and daughter of a bee researcher, a different reason for the disappearance of bees was given: sunspots. A sunspot is a region on the Sun's surface that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and intense magnetic activity. Sunspots follow an estimated 11-year cycle, corresponding to increases in solar activity.

Whatever have sunspots to do with honeybees? Shipman studied the complex dance that honeybees do when signaling pollen sources to their colony. As a mathematician, Shipman analyzed that this complex bee-dance is influenced by things such as polarization of the light of the sun and local variations of the earth's magnetic field.

Shipman's studies suggest that bees are sensitive to quantum-mechanical effects such as magnetic fields and electromagnetic waves. In the bee disappearance case, it may be no coincidence that the predicted next solar maximum in 2010 could be the most intense ever. This view suggests that because of the coming sunspot peak, the quantum field to which bees may be sensitive could have been disturbed.

Let's put it this way: because of Shipman's views, scientists are suggesting that the Colony Collapse Disorder may have been caused by bees losing their navigation skills because of the disturbed magnetic activity. They may have flown skyward, attempting to keep up with the rapidly moving target of home in six dimensions. Or, hyperdimentsional bee-eaters could have emerged from the sunspot, phasing the bees out of existence on contact.

Sounds weird now, but someday maybe we'll understand it better. As physicist David Hathaway puts it, "We don't know why this works. The underlying physics is a mystery. But it does work."