Eye injuries are often the cause for blindness. For humans it is the most feared and tragic loss of a sensory capacitiy because we are highly visual beings. In the US alone 750.000 persons have lost their eyesight due to an eye injury. Some 90% of blindness cases would be avoidable.  Reason enough for international scientists and ophthalmologists to meet in Wuerzbuerg, Germany.

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Modern europeans stem from a very small founder population which some 50.000 years ago consisted of just a small clan which than in the following ten thousands of years developed into what we know today as european peoples. This finding is indeed not new and has been proved by numerous genetic studies on haplotypes which are a clear genealogical measurement of where and when people came to which place.

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Waterbucks in Botswana. Courtesy Forschungsnachrichten.de (photograph: C. Schulz)

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A new study shows that hungry fruit bats eat fruits with a high alcohol content.

Ethanol, the chemical name for drinking alcohol, does not only affect humans but also many other animals. However, unlike humans, animals in general try to avoid alcohol intoxication. This is though not always as easy as one would think. Micro-organisms such as yeast utilize the sugars in fruits as energy and generate waste compounds such as alcohol in the process. As fruits ripen their ethanol content increases. Whereas alcohol in high doses have severe effect on behaviour and motor coordination, alcohol in small doses actually are beneficial as they provide the animal with a source of nutrition. Israeli scientists from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have in a new study examined the Egyptian fruit bats willingness to ingest ethanol rich fruit, when they are hungry and when they are well-fed.

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Smelling, hearing, vision, degustation are sensory systems of the body which usually are considered differently. With the coming congress "Molecular Medicine of Sensory Systems" at the university of Tuebingen, Germany, this will change. Scientists from all over the world will join this meeting from 18 - 20th may 2008 to bring together their findings.

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