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Leading international experts on healthcare communication are meeting in Hong Kong to examine ways of improving communication between doctors and patients, particularly in hospitals.

It is hoped that the Hamzah Sendut Library (PHS) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will be a unique repository and centre for dissemination of knowledge, second to none in Malaysia.

Professor Tadashi Otsuka charts the nascent field of environmental law in Japan.

Now, a few days after the Great Tohoku Earthquake that occurred off the North East Coast of Honshu Island, Japan, the damage estimates are emerging. The effectiveness of the warning systems in place and the lessons to learn from the disaster can begin to be seen.

Singapore, 16 March 2011 – The China Wireless Personal Area Network (CWPAN) standards meeting, that has traditionally been held within China for the past five years, will be held in Singapore for the first time.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are highly regarded for their ability to give rise to the full range of cellular lineages found in the adult body, but left to their own devices ESCs tend to differentiate into neural lineages. Researchers from RIKEN have revealed how the nuclear protein Zfp521 is key to the default neural fate.

Computational search algorithms take the guesswork out of understanding complex, multi-molecule transformations

A common industrial magnet exhibits rare and potentially useful qualities when its composition is slightly altered

Two genes that affect Caucasians and a variant of the inflammatory gene interleukin-6 affect the abundance of a marker of systemic inflammation in the Japanese

Summaries of newsworthy papers: Drought worsens dilemma for African maize

Summaries of newsworthy papers- Methods: A wearable PET scanner; Medicine: Understanding resistance to therapy in cancer; Geoscience: Progressive continental breakup in Ethiopia; Genetics: Exome sequencing acute monocytic leukemia

First reports indicate that the early warning systems worked and the years of training citizens to respond appropriately yielded results. Yet the losses of life in Sendai, the city most affected by the local tsunami, indicate that more can be done.

Researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have identified a novel transcription factor controlling how plants dedifferentiate cells in response to wounding.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Comment: Vaccinate for the next H2N2 pandemic now; Palaeoclimate: El Niño variability in the Pliocene warm period; Neuroscience: Making sense of function and connection; Physics: The strongly coupled beat of a quantum drum; And finally… How the penis lost its spines

Enables Smaller, Faster, Lighter and More Thermally-efficient Multi-chip Modules for High Performance Wireless Applications

Singapore, 9 March 2011 - Global experts in nanoformulation will be gathering in Singapore for the first time to exchange ideas and foster collaborations with international partners in NanoFormulation2011, the 2nd of three international events organised under an EU-funded programme called InForm (Integrating Nanomaterials in Formulations).

By Veena Ravichandran The International Development Research Centre has been funding research to study promising innovations that can help disadvantaged women improve their lives and livelihoods.

Some molecules have a single, highly specific function in physiology, while others have a much broader remit. Kinases in the IKK family are of the latter sort, playing a variety of roles. A new report from RIKEN shows that this factor regulates shuttling of endosomes in the tips of growing mechanosensory bristles.

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a cluster of genetically determined eye disorders that cause visual defects such as night blindness and narrowing of the field of vision, due to progressive loss of rod photoreceptors. New work by Zi-Bing Jin and colleagues looks to add a set of powerful new tools for those searching for treatments for RP.

A great many cellular processes are switched on or off by the modification of a given enzyme or other protein by addition of a phosphate molecule, known as phosphorylation. In a new study, researchers at RIKEN have shown that phosphorylation of the protein HP1α boosts its ability to bind to heterochromatin resulting in stabilization of chromosomes

Professor Tatsunori Matsui of the Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University, looks at the concept of 'career design' and its realization in higher education.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Medicine: Minimally invasive diagnosis of Down syndrome; Genetics: Variants associated with heart disease; Methods: A simple pluripotency test for human stem cells; Chemical Biology: TB in view; Genetics: Variant associated with high risk of sick sinus syndrome; And finally…Biotechnology: Biofuels from proteins

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is proud to announce today (4 March) the opening of the expanded Samsung Digital Lab for Hospitality Technology and the new premises for its School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) in the former site of staff quarters in Tsimshatsui East.

The structure of a greenhouse gas-producing bacterial enzyme may yield insights into the evolution of our earliest oxygen-breathing ancestors

Calculations can now predict when and how spins of electrons and ions arrange in one-dimensional multiferroic materials

An analysis of the interactions of a gene-reading enzyme with an inhibitor protein provides surprising insights

Seafood is known to often contain small quantities of mercury. A team of researchers from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have been investigating the impacts of long term exposure to mercury on the brain, determining its effect on protein expression.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) will host the fifth International Functional Food Symposium, which is themed on “Promoting Good Health and Developing a Sustainable Environment”, on its campus from 10 to 11 March 2011.

Sulaiman Mohd Dom of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA has created "MyRabbitBurrow" to calm rabbits in the lab.

Researchers have measured the genetic diversity of saline tolerant rice from across India. This analysis is used to predict which genotypes should be used to develop higher yields in difficult, salt rich soil conditions, and the work is published in the February edition of Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science (JTAS).