HONG KONG - RESEARCHERS in China and the United States have identified mutations of two genes which appear to make ethnic Chinese more susceptible to lung cancer, they wrote in the journal Cancer.

Their finding involves two genes, ABCB1 and ABCC1, which were previously thought to be linked to eliminating carcinogens from the lungs and protecting them against inhaled toxins.

A TEAM of scientists has come up with a new definition of seawater which is set to boost the accuracy of projections for oceans and climate.

Oceans help regulate the planet's weather by shifting heat from the equator to the poles. Changes in salinity and temperature are major forces driving global currents as well as circulation patterns from the surface to the seabed.

CHICAGO - US SCIENTISTS have created the first human model for studying a devastating nerve disease, which allows them to watch how the disease develops and could help researchers find a way to treat it.

Using skin cells from a child with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that attacks motor neurons in the spinal cord, researchers grew batches of nerve cells with the same genetic defects. The finding allowed scientists to watch the nerve cells die off.