Vatican City - The Vatican's top health issues official reiterated Tuesday the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to embryonic stem cell research - a field of study supported by US president-elect Barack Obama.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said stem cells taken from human embryos and involving the destruction of the embryos, "served no purpose with no health cure to date" resulting from such scientific research.

The Church instead championed research on adult stem cells that, Barragan said, have been shown to have "positive value."

Washington, Nov 11 : A biological reaction within human cells which is essential to life can take almost 2.3 billion years - about half the age of the Earth – to complete if there’s no enzyme to speed up the process.

All biological reactions within human cells depend on enzymes. Their power as catalysts enables biological reactions to occur usually in milliseconds.

London, Nov 11 : University of Liverpool scientists have devised a new therapy programme that will help depressed new mums in developing countries beat the blues.

Professor Atif Rahman from the School of Population, Community and Behavioural Sciences was the one who developed the therapy programme while working as a Wellcome Trust Career Fellow in Tropical Medicine in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

"Depression is one of the leading causes of mental illness in the world and when the condition affects mothers with newborn babies, it can lead to serious consequences" Lancet quoted him as saying.

Washington, Nov 11 : A new study from Cornell University sheds light on how cells help wipe out ‘biological waste’ from the body, which if accumulates can lead to many diseases, including Alzheimer''s, cystic fibrosis and developmental disorders.

The researchers revealed that cells have developed complex systems for recycling, reusing and disposing of damaged, non-functional waste proteins.

When such systems malfunction and these proteins accumulate, they can become toxic, resulting in many diseases.

Washington, Nov 11 : Bypass surgery in children with less complex heart defects doesn’t lead to low IQ levels, say researchers from the Children''s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The study involving 41 patients, aged five to 18 showed that the use of cardiopulmonary bypass does not cause short-term neurological problems in children and teenagers after surgery.

OSA is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep and it occurs when throat muscles relax and block the airway.

A large number of studies have identified OSA as an independent risk factor for the development of several medical conditions, like high blood pressure, which are related to impairments or alterations in a person''s vascular (circulatory) system.

And eyes, with their own complex and sensitive vascular system, can sometimes signal and be affected by systemic vascular problems.