Washington, Nov 6 : A new study has shown that climate change may be responsible for shrinking lemming populations in Norway.

Lemming populations throughout Scandinavia tend to explode naturally every three to five years, causing huge numbers to go in search of food.

Occasionally, this leads the rodents to jump into water and swim to new pastures, which is how the myth of lemmings committing mass suicide originated.

New Delhi, Nov 6: Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and the champion of global health issues such as AIDS, said he hopes that the US President-elect Barack Obama will be able to deliver on Washington''s healthcare commitments.

Gates, who is on a visit to New Delhi, was optimistic about Obama''s efforts to tackle global health issues, saying he has "shown a lot of interest" and would "drive improvements in those areas".

Islamabad, Nov 6: US Central Command chief General David Petraeus, whose Pakistan visit ended yesterday, said that Pakistan was fighting its own war on terror because it faced an “existential threat from the situation in the Tribal Areas.”

Giving an account of his talks with Pakistani leadership, Petraeus said: “In general there is mutual agreement on the nature of the threat in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a threat that they increasingly see as a threat to Pakistan’s existence.”

Washington, Nov 6 : Pregnant women who have a smoking habit are more than twice as likely to have children with a cleft palate or lip birth defect, a new study has found.

The findings were based on the measurement of cotinine level, a metabolite of nicotine, in the blood from about 500 pregnant women.

Washington, Nov 6 : Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery have identified a new therapeutic target that can be used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

The research team found that manipulating a protein involved in two molecular pathways linked to inflammation could offer new therapies for rheumatoid arthritis.

They said that manipulating a protein called RBP-J involved in two molecular pathways the Notch and Toll-like receptor can lead to new therapies.

Islamabad, Nov 6: US ambassador in Islamabad Anne Patterson has reportedly said that the new US President-elect Barack Obama was “deeply interested” in promoting bilateral socio-economic relations with Pakistan.

After winning the Nov 4 presidential election, Obama was in a “better position” to support the country, the Daily Times quoted her as saying.

She also called the nomination and election of a young African-American as US president “the beauty of a transparent democratic process”.