Also, the brain begins shrinking relatively late in the progression of the disease, so MRI isn't as good at detecting the disease in its early stages when treatments are most effective.

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Starbucks will test growing methods for eradicating a fungal disease known as coffee rust, which is shrinking Central American coffee harvests 25 percent on average this year, sending shock waves throughout the industry.

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Just under a year ago, he appeared at a public lecture in a wheelchair to announce that he was suffering from a variant of motor-neurone disease, in which the body succumbs to inexorable paralysis: like being imprisoned in a shrinking cell, he said.

ECONOMIST: Tony Judt