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Sept. 26 (UPI) -- 3-D avatar may help doctors improve care ZURICH, Switzerland, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- IBM scientists have created software that allows physicians to use an avatar to obtain medical data in the same manner in which they interact with patients.

The prototype technology, created at IBM's Zurich, Switzerland, research center, uses an avatar -- a 3-D representation of the human body -- to allow physicians to visualize patient medical records in an entirely new way.

Called the Anatomic and Symbolic Mapper Engine, ASME allows a doctor to click with a computer mouse on a particular part of the avatar's body to trigger a search of medical records to retrieve relevant information.

"It's like Google Earth for the body," said IBM Researcher Andre Elisseeff, who led the project. "In hopes of speeding the move toward electronic healthcare records, we've tried to make information easily accessible for healthcare providers by combining medical data with visual representation, making it as simple as possible to interact with data that can improve patient care."

IBM said its researchers are now exploring integrating speech technology into ASME.

ISS crew prepares for visitors HOUSTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- The Expedition 15 crew aboard the International Space Station is preparing for several arrivals and departures that are scheduled for the coming weeks.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration controllers in Houston said the ISS crew Tuesday worked with Russian flight controllers to review procedures to be implemented Thursday during the relocation of the docked Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft. The crew will move the Soyuz to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, thereby freeing the Zarya nadir, or Earth-facing, port for the Oct. 12 arrival of Expedition 16.

ISS Cmdr. Fyodor Yurchikhin and cosmonaut Oleg Kotov conducted a motion control system test on the Soyuz, while astronaut Clay Anderson checked the seals on the hatches of the U.S. segment of the station. Those hatches will be closed during Thursday's Soyuz move to protect against depressurization.

On Monday the Zvezda service module's engines were fired for about 2 minutes to raise the space station's altitude by an average of about 5.3 nautical miles, NASA said. That took the station into the correct position for the October Soyuz TMA-11 and Discovery dockings.

Greenland snow melting at record pace BALTIMORE, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A U.S. study shows an overall rise in the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, with high altitude snows melting at 150 percent more than average.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-supported research showed the amount of snow that has melted this year over Greenland could cover the surface size of the United States more than twice.

Marco Tedesco of NASA's Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology at the University of Maryland used satellite data to compare average snow melting from 1988-2006 with this summer's conditions. He found that in areas more than 1.2 miles above sea level, melting occurred 25-30 days longer this year than the observed average during the previous 19 years.

"When snow melts at those high altitudes and then refreezes, it can absorb up to four times more energy than fresh, unthawed snow," said Tedesco. "This can affect Earth's energy budget by changing how much radiation from the sun is absorbed by the Earth versus that reflected back into the atmosphere.

Tedesco's findings appear in the Sept. 25 issue of Eos, the American Geophysical Union's newspaper.

Genetic mutation may cause ovarian cancer OPORTO, Portugal, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Portuguese medical scientists have determined a specific mutation of the COX2 gene might increase a woman's susceptibility to developing ovarian cancer.

Researchers led by Dr. Ana Carina Pereira of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology said the discovery raises the possibility of using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen to prevent ovarian cancer developing in women with the COX2 mutation.

"Although the causes of ovarian cancer are not fully understood yet, inflammation is known to play an important role in the onset of both ovarian and invasive cervical cancer," said Pereira. "COX-2 has an important role in the inflammatory process, as well as in key steps in tumor development."

Pereira presented the study Tuesday in Barcelona, Spain, during the 14th European Cancer Conference.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

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