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Published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the findings center around one gene variation that blocks a receptor from being expressed on the surface of red blood cells. Scientists had previously studied this genetic variant - found almost exclusively in Africans and their descendants - because it also conferred protection against an early form of malaria. (The malaria parasite needed the receptor to infect blood cells; without the receptor, the parasite starved and died.) More than 90% of sub-Saharan Africans lack the red-blood-cell receptor, along with two-thirds of African-Americans. But the variant that once saved its carriers...
...Congress politicians will be drawing the public's attention to Singh's unpopular nuclear deal. The vote is expected to be close. Singh plugged the hole in his coalition created by the withdrawal of the leftist parties by teaming up with the democratic socialist Samajwadi Party, whose 39 seats almost make up for votes lost to the left. (One Samajwadi Party leader, Amar Singh, is a pro-American industrialist who has a framed picture of the Brooklyn Bridge hanging in his office.) With about a dozen lawmakers undecided, the Prime Minister can probably swing enough votes by making...
...from appreciating too much against the dollar, emerging nations continue to buy increasingly large amounts of U.S. debt. This provides the U.S. with an indirect funding source to prop up its banks and brokerages, but it's a compromised solution. After all, the willingness of central banks to lend almost without limit to America helped create this mess. Cheap money from abroad suppressed U.S. long-term interest rates, helping to set the stage for the housing bubble and its catastrophic collapse. Continuing such inappropriate monetary and exchange-rate policies feeds more asset bubbles in emerging economies as well as global...
...terrace under an almost moon, the black swans have vanished into the lake. David Diefenderfer has slipped outside for a cigarette; he's a leathery South Dakotan in a big black cowboy hat, and he hands over his card. HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL: BREEDER SERVICE, it says, with a picture of a syringe. He's in the cattle-reproduction business. He's also the father of nine children by seven women...
That reality has been vividly illustrated in recent months as the authorities made final preparations for the Games. Instead of ushering in the new openness the Olympics were supposed to foster, the government has clamped down on almost every aspect of life in the name of security. Thousands of foreigners living in China have been unable to renew their visas; many would-be tourists have been equally unlucky, leaving hotels that had expected to be bursting at the seams with occupancy rates under 50%. Organizers have been told unofficially that all outdoor gatherings in the months before the Games...