Travelled the whole day on Saturday (4 AM to 11 PM) to get back to my native Quebec, and I can say I'll miss the sunny weather of Cuernavaca, Mexico (and the people, and the food)! Forecast for tomorrow in Quebec city? Breezy and cold with a couple of showers or snow! Welcome back to Canada! At least the colored leaves are beautiful here; hope they'll stay a little longer. The workshop was an awesome experience; I'll really miss some of the people I met there. There's always email I guess!

The daily news updates should be timely now, as I'm back home with my PC (being in a foreign country with only Macs at my disposition was a very difficult experience!). Gotta get back to the lab tomorrow; I have plenty of new ideas to try, so it should be fun!

- 'Zombie worms' found off Sweden
- Cancer cell image wins top award
- Call to ban destructive fishing
- Cunning rat outsmarts scientists
- Navy sued for sonar blasting whales
- No place for Nazis in medicine
- Bird flu breaking out all over
- Galapagos tortoises unhurt by volcanic lava
- Brazil foot-and-mouth outbreak crosses state lines
- Don't jump to conclusions on bird flu mutation
- Bats passed SARS virus to civet cats

It sounds like science fiction, but New Mexico State University researchers are testing advanced eye-scanning technology on cattle as part of a national tracking system for animal health.

Throughout the animal kingdom, rival males routinely challenge one another for the right to reproduce. From the head-on collisions between bighorn rams to the ritualized wrestling matches of male rattlesnakes, combat is often the key to reproductive success.

Biotech cotton has beaten back pink bollworm eight years running, reports a team of scientists from The University of Arizona in Tucson.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins have discovered the presence of functional ion channels in human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These ion channels act like electrical wires and permit ESCs, versatile cells that possess the unique ability to become all cell types of the body, to conduct and pass along electric currents.

The survival rate of HIV-infected patients in India has risen in response to a 20-fold drop in the price of antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to an article in the Nov. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. The introduction of generic drugs into the country has encouraged people to seek HIV treatment because of the cheaper cost, the article states.

Human activities are degrading the Amazonian forest at twice the rate previously estimated, suggests a new study that adds the effects of logging to those of clear-cutting. The research appears in the 21 October issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.