Immune tribe ‘indicates CJD hope’ (BBC News) Darwinian natural selection could help halt human "mad cow disease", experts say after finding a tribe impervious to a related fatal brain disorder. [News Source]

Immune tribe ‘indicates CJD hope’ (BBC News) Darwinian natural selection could help halt human "mad cow disease", experts say after finding a tribe impervious to a related fatal brain disorder. [News Source]

Gene protects brain-eaters from mad cow-type disease (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Villagers in the highlands of Papua New Guinea who ritualistically ate human brains but did not die of a brain disease called kuru have a genetic mutation that protects them, researchers said Wednesday. [News Source]

Gene protects brain-eaters from mad cow-type disease (AlertNet) Source: Reuters * Mutation stops bad prions from infecting good ones * Cannibalistic practices wiped out generations of women * Aids understanding of mad cow disease By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor ... [News Source]

Brain-eating tribe enriches understanding of mad cow disease (Times Online) A cannibalistic ritual in which the brains of dead tribespeople were eaten by their relatives has triggered one of the most striking examples of rapid human evolution on record, scientists have discovered. [News Source]

The protein Srebp2 drives cholesterol formation in prion-infected neuronal cells (PhysOrg) Prions are causing fatal and infectious diseases of the nervous system, such as the mad cow disease (BSE), scrapie in sheep or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and Technische Universität München, Germany, have now succeeded in elucidating another disease mechanism of prion diseases: The prion-infected cell changes its gene expression and produces ... [News Source]

DA lifts import ban on US meat, bone meal (Manila Bulletin) The Department of Agriculture (DA) has lifted the temporary ban on meat and bone meal imports from the United States following official confirmation from global health authorities on the controlled-risk status of the mad cow disease in that country. [News Source]