Washington, Feb 18 : Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University have identified a gene that plays key role in regulating liver cancer progression.

According to researchers, the discovery could one day lead to new-targeted therapeutic strategies to fight the highly aggressive disease.

In the study, researchers found that the astrocyte elevated gene-1, AEG-1, plays a key role in regulating Hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC, or liver cancer in series of cellular models.

Washington, Feb 18 : A new market analysis released by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade-monitoring network, has determined that the few surviving elephants in Indo-China are under increasing threat from booming illegal ivory prices in Vietnam.

An assessment of the illegal ivory trade in Viet Nam said Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to 1500 dollars per kg and small, cut pieces selling for up to 1863 dollars per kg.

Most of the raw ivory was said to originate from the Lao Peoples' Democratic Republic, with small amounts from Viet Nam and Cambodia.

Washington, Feb 18 : When you share a kiss with your man, you reveal a lot more than just passion. US scientists have found that modern man uses smooch to pick up traces of estrogen in a woman''s saliva and thus gauge her fertility.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University says that such behaviour may explain why men like wet kisses with more "tongue action".

While at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Fisher said that wet kisses could also be an unconscious attempt to transfer testosterone to the woman, which would stimulate her sexual interest.

"Men see kissing early in a relationship directly as a step to copulation," she said.

Washington, February 18 : Rumours are rife that Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie is planning to shift to New York, for she was spotted checking out a nice building in Manhattan''s uptown Washington Heights neighbourhood Tuesday afternoon.

The report comes just weeks after she signed the lease on a 60 million-dollar Long Island mansion.

"The building had work permits and it seemed like they were probably being remodelled for (buyers'') taste," Us magazine quoted a witness as saying.

The source revealed that Jolie spent around 25 minutes inside the building.

Washington, Feb 18 : Researchers have advised asthma patients to continue their medication for long-term benefits even if they have fewer symptoms.

The study led by researchers in Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) has shown that although patients had fewer symptoms five years after stopping the daily medication, they are primed to an attack if they got a bad cold or during weather change.

During the study, more than 1,000 children age 5-12 were treated for mild to moderate asthma over more than four years and followed up for nearly five years after the end of the trial.

Washington, Feb 18 : A new study has determined that balloon-like air sacs in prehistoric dinosaurs helped reduced the density of their bodies, thus helping them take first flight.

In the Mesozoic Era, 70 million years before birds first conquered the skies, pterosaurs dominated the air with sparrow- to Cessna-sized wingspans.

Researchers suspected that these extinct reptiles sustained flight through flapping, based on fossil evidence from the wings, but had little understanding of how pterosaurs met the energetic demands of active flight.