Healthcare and Housing
Home foreclosures reach record high
Posted by Manu Alfaro on Friday, September 5, 2008 - 10:36am PTNEW YORK (Reuters) - Home foreclosures and the rate of homes entering foreclosure rose to record highs in the second quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Friday.
"The national foreclosure numbers continue to be driven by the hardest-hit states continuing to get much worse," Jay Brinkmann, the association's chief economist and senior vice president for research and economics, said in a news release.
The increases in foreclosures in California and Florida overwhelmed improvements in states such as Texas, Massachusetts and Maryland, he said.
"It is unsurprising that mortgage delinquencies picked up further in the second quarter," John Ryding, chief economist, and Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist, at RDQ Economics in New York, said in commentary.
"However, the increase in delinquencies and foreclosures up to this point is most likely predominantly the product of poor underwriting standards. Going forward, we have to overlay the weak economy and labor market picture as this more traditional driver of delinquencies will probably become more of a factor," they said. … [Read more]
Enzyme discovery may hold key to cancer treatments
Posted by Manu Alfaro on Monday, September 1, 2008 - 10:05am PTA major discovery could open the door to "one-fits-all" cancer drugs that can tackle many different forms of the disease.
Researchers have started to unmask an enzyme that plays a major role in the development of nearly all human cancers.
The work may lead to drugs that de-activate the enzyme, and prevent the uncontrolled cell division that leads to cancer.
Experts have been trying for more than a decade to devise anti-cancer therapies that target the enzyme, telomerase. But they have been thwarted by lack of knowledge about the molecule's construction.
Researchers have now deciphered the enzyme's active region and worked out the most important part of its structure.
The new findings, published in the online edition of the journal Nature, reveal atomic-level details of telomerase showing how it works to replicate the ends of chromosomes - a process critical both to tumour development and ageing.
