VANCOUVER - NORTH American and German researchers announced a breakthrough on Friday toward a cheap, fast blood test for BSE, or so-called 'mad cow disease' in livestock.

The research paves the way for a simple blood test 'to eliminate infected animals from the human food chain, even before the onset of clinical signs,' said the report, published this month in the Oxford Journal Nucleic Acids Research.

YANGSHE (China) - IN THE remote village of Yangshe on the banks of the Yellow River, Chinese archaeologists are little by little bringing an ancient culture back to life after nearly 3,000 years.

The vast cemetery they are excavating belonged to the rulers of the Jin state, which is finally emerging in all its remarkable diversity in what is now north China's Shanxi province.

LOS ANGELES - DELL Inc is planning a foray into the cellphone market as early as next month, hoping to revitalise a business walloped by crumbling PC sales but potentially pitting the firm against Apple , the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The world's No. 2 maker of PCs, which has been designing prototypes for over a year, is focusing on smartphones - the class of devices that encompasses Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's Blackberry, the newspaper cited people familiar with the matter as saying.