Wachovia Corp.’s top 10 executives would be eligible for a total of $98.1 million in severance pay after the bank is acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. next month. (WFC) (WB) (C)

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The Greater Atlanta McDonald's Operators Association will give away one small coffee to customers between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. at all participating stores in Metro Atlanta.

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Calspan Corp. has signed a $4.6 million contract to build two full-scale crash-test facilities in India.

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Obesity gradually numbs the taste sensation of rats to sweet foods and drives them to consume larger and ever-sweeter meals, according to neuroscientists. Findings from the Penn State study could uncover a critical link between taste and body weight, and reveal how flab hooks the brain on sugary food.
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Fishery experts have known for years that shrimp trawling operations in the Gulf of Mexico are contributing to sharp declines in the ranks of Red Snapper, one of the most delicious and popular marine fish on the seafood menu.
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A comprehensive mouse model of inherited prion disease exhibits cognitive, motor, and neurophysiological deficits that bear a striking resemblance to the symptoms experienced by patients with the human version of “mad cow disease,” Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
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In a novel study appearing this week in Neuron, Brandeis researchers identify for the first time a specific set of wake-promoting neurons in fruit flies that are analogous to cells in the much more complex sleep circuit in humans. The study demonstrates that in flies, as in mammals, the sleep circuit is intimately linked to the circadian clock and that the brain’s strategies to govern sleep are evolutionarily ancient.
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A very small fraction of our genetic material–about 2%– performs the crucial task scientists once thought was the sole purpose of the genome: to serve as a blueprint for the production of proteins, the molecules that make cells work and sustain life. This 2% of human DNA is converted into intermediary molecules called RNAs, which in turn carry instructions within cells for protein manufacture.
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In breast tissue, cells lining the breast’s ducts have a certain shape that is required to maintain both organ structure and function. All breast cancers display a loss of this characteristic organization, but very little is known about the molecules and pathways that regulate tissue structure and the role they play during cancer.
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Like our current financial crisis, the aging process might also be a product of excessive deregulation. Researchers have discovered that DNA damage decreases a cell’s ability to regulate which genes are turned on and off in particular settings. This mechanism, which applies both to fungus and to us, might represent a universal culprit for aging.
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