New Delhi, Apr 8: United States Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke met Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) chief mentor Tarun Das here on Wednesday.

The Chairman of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was also present.

The meeting assumed significance in view of the top US officials huddling with India strategy group of CII over Indo-US cooperation in reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Holbrooke, along with Mullen, are expected to meet Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan later in the day.

Washington, April 8 : Fractions are often considered a major stumbling block in math education, but the adult brain encodes them automatically without conscious thought, says a new study.

The study, conducted by researchers Simon Jacob, MD, and Andreas Nieder, PhD, at the University of Tübingen in Germany, has shown that cells in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the prefrontal cortex - brain regions important for processing whole numbers - are tuned to respond to particular fractions.

Washington, April 8 : Use of oral contraceptives is associated with an increased risk of autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus, a new study has shown.

The study found that the risk was mostly limited to current users, those who had just started using contraception, and those using older first- and second-generation oral contraceptives instead of third-generation ones.

Led by Dr. Samy Suissa of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at Jewish General Hospital of McGill University in Montreal, researchers obtained data on more than 1.7 million women ages 18-45 from the U. K. General Practice Research Database, which contains more than 6 million people.

Washington, Apr 8 : After US P

Washington, Apr 8 : Researchers from Oregon State University suggest a classroom-based intervention program that has been found to significantly reduce the amount of violent TV that children watch.

The study showed that special classroom curriculum could reduce violent TV viewing among first- through fourth-grade children by nearly 18 pct.

It could also reduce students'' identification with superheroes compared to children in a control group.

Washington, April 8 : A research team, including an Indian-origin boffin, has shed light on why people with diabetes have high blood glucose levels.

Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have shown for the first time that insulin plays a significant role in suppressing levels of glucagon, a hormone involved in carbohydrate metabolism and regulating blood glucose levels.

According to researchers, the new findings could lead to development of a drug aimed at targeting glucagon levels.