Birth of twin after 3-year gap

Kolkata, Sept 06: Creating medical history of sorts, an embryological twin was born after a gap of three years at a fertility clinic here.

A baby boy was born in the clinic three years after his twin sister was born in 2005.

The baby boy, Vinayak, was born on Wednesday after his twin sister, Ishani was much earlier born on October 3, 2005, according to Dr Siddhartha Chatterjee of the clinic.

The achievement was possible following five years of experiments and research by the doctor after a Kolkata-based couple Debayan Choudhuri and Rubai Choudhuri approached him for help as they were childless even after five years of marriage.

The doctor said “sperm and ovum were taken from the couple and three embryos were formed in the laboratory of the clinic in January, 2005″.

One of them was separated and placed in Rubai’s womb and she gave birth to a female child, Ishani, in October that year, the doctor said.

The other two embryos were preserved in liquid nitrogen in a deep freezer. Three years later, when the couple wanted another child, one of the preserved embryos was taken out of the freezer and inserted in the mother’s womb.

To a question, the doctor said the births even though they took place at an interval of three years could be called that of embryological twins as they were fertilised at the same time in the mother’s womb.

“It is unique in the sense that the two births were separated by three years,” Chatterjee said, adding that such type of births had taken place earlier also.

Scientists warn Pyrenees will melt by 2050

Leading global warming scientists say the 21 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees mountains in Europe will melt by the year 2050.

The researchers say high mountains are particularly sensitive to climate change and there has been a steady increase in temperature since 1890.

Their calculations show that since 1990, a rapid thawing has caused the largest glaciers to shrink by 50 to 60 per cent and the smallest ones have completely disappeared.

The glaciers in Spain were formed during a ‘mini ice age’ which lasted from 1300 to 1860.

Nuclear suppliers hold up U.S.-India deal: diplomats

VIENNA (Reuters) – A U.S. push to lift a global ban on nuclear trade with India stalled on Saturday when a revised proposal failed to win over nations because it did not bind India to refrain from more nuclear bomb tests, diplomats said.

At stake is the survival of a controversial 2005 U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal, a major initiative of President George W. Bush’s administration which risks an uncertain fate if left to his successor, who will take office in January.

To launch the deal, Washington and New Delhi need a one-off waiver of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) rules against exports to India, an atomic weapons state outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which tested bombs in 1974 and 1998.

If Washington cannot secure an NSG exemption within days, the U.S. Congress may run out of time to ratify the deal before it adjourns at the end of September for November elections.

Feverish U.S. efforts to clinch consensus at a two-day NSG meeting on the waiver dragged proceedings well into Friday night but finally stumbled on the testing issue, forcing adjournment in Saturday’s early hours.

“No decision is possible at this time. The meeting is to resume at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) today,” one diplomat said.

Many members of the nuclear cartel, which seeks to prevent the spread of proliferation-prone nuclear fuel and technology, welcomed an Indian pledge rejecting any nuclear arms race and reaffirming a voluntary moratorium on tests.

John Rood, acting U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said India’s gesture had added “positive momentum” to efforts to agree an NSG waiver.

But some in the exclusive nuclear club felt the commitment was not sufficiently binding on New Delhi.

Six NSG nations had been demanding a clause stipulating an automatic cessation of the waiver if India tested another bomb.

After India’s statement, the holdout group splintered as Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland indicated they could accept more limited language, diplomats said.

But Ireland, Austria and New Zealand rejected amended language presented to them individually by U.S. officials on Friday evening as inadequate, several diplomats told Reuters.

They said the meeting broke down when China walked out in support of Ireland, Austria and New Zealand.

“The Americans have bullied them, including with high-level phone calls to their capitals, but they held firm because the U.S. has showed no flexibility on testing,” said one diplomat.

“The (revised text as it stands) gives no clear consequences for India if it tests, only a special meeting if that happens and that does not commit the NSG to take action,” said another.

Decisions by the nuclear export cartel must be unanimous.

Washington says the nuclear cooperation deal with New Delhi would forge a strategic partnership with the world’s largest democracy, help India meet exploding energy demand in an environmentally friendly way and open a nuclear market worth billions of dollars for Western firms.

NSG critics fear India could use access to nuclear material markets indirectly to boost its bomb program and drive nuclear rival and fellow NPT outsider Pakistan into another arms race.

U.S. offers to help Cuban victims of Gustav

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has offered to help Cuban victims of Hurricane Gustav by sending aid through relief organizations instead of the government of President Raul Castro, the State Department said on Friday.

Washington informed the Cuban government two days ago that it was prepared to provide the assistance, but had heard nothing back from Cuban officials, said State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke.

She said the chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had some $100,000 available to help Cubans affected by the storm that caused extensive damage on Saturday.

The Cubans had been told that the Americans were prepared to “work through appropriate non-governmental organizations to deliver relief as quickly and directly as possible to assist Cubans affected by Hurricane Gustav,” Bronke said.

The United States also offered to send an assessment team to Cuba to determine the level of humanitarian need, she said.

In another development, Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, urged President George W. Bush to suspend for 90 days U.S. curbs on visits, remittances and gifts to people in Cuba.

In a letter to Bush, Berman, a California Democrat, said relaxing the rules to allow expanded family-to-family aid would be the most effective way to speed assistance to those upended by Gustav.

The State Department rejected the idea, saying there was room enough under existing regulations for a significant increase by humanitarian organizations or individuals licensed to send money and other assistance.

“We do not believe that at this time it is necessary to loosen the restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba to accomplish the objective of aiding the hurricane victims,” the department said in a written reply to a reporter’s question. “Non-governmental organizations on the ground in Cuba are already mobilizing to provide such assistance.”

Cuba’s state-run media on Thursday highlighted the arrival of Russian aid in the wake of the devastating storm, which former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said hit Cuba like a nuclear bomb and damaged or destroyed 100,000 houses. No deaths were reported.

Bronke said the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had sent a diplomatic note to Cuba’s foreign ministry making the aid offer on Wednesday, and U.S. officials had also communicated it to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.

She said the United States had offered similar assistance to Cuban victims of natural disasters in the past. Officially Washington shuns Cuba, having broken off diplomatic relations with Havana in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro seized power and made Cuba a Soviet ally.

Communications were restored with the opening of low-level missions called interests sections in the late 1970s, but a strict sanctions regime remains in place.

Bush, who tightened the trade and travel restrictions on Cuba, rejects easing them without a transition to democracy.

The State Department said that $100,000 in emergency U.S. funds had been released to help the Jamaican government in hurricane relief efforts, and a flight with relief for storm victims had been sent to Kingston on Thursday.

The same amount had been authorized in U.S. aid for Haiti, and U.S. Agency for International Development personnel were on the ground in both Jamaica and Haiti to assess damage and determine if there are additional needs, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

The United States has also authorized $50,000 to support relief efforts in the Dominican Republic, Wood said.

Haiti finally gets a new government

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis belatedly took office on Friday with a promise to aid those left destitute by recent storms while preparing for looming Hurricane Ike.

“We are ready for the battle,” Pierre-Louis said during her installation ceremony at the National Palace.

“My government will take all necessary measures to deal with the bad weather threatening the country over the next hours and to bring help to the population who fell victim of the past natural disasters.”

Haitian lawmakers finally approved the installation of a new government early on Friday to replace the one dismissed in April after violent food price protests in the impoverished Caribbean country.

Haiti has been battered by a hurricane and two tropical storms in less than a month that together have killed more than 200 people, mostly in flooding and mudslides. Powerful Hurricane Ike was forecast to pass north of Haiti over the weekend, bringing more torrential rains.

Pierre-Louis, who is in her early 60s, concluded the installation ceremony by ordering government ministers to go to their departments and get to work.

FIVE-MONTH IMPASSE

She won final approval during overnight negotiations in the Senate. Initially only 15 senators voted to approve her program, with two abstentions. The economist needed at least 16 favorable votes to get to work.

Government supporters refused to accept the initial result and called a break in the middle of the night to persuade one of the abstainers to change his vote.

The vote ended a five-month impasse that began when senators censured and dismissed the government of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.

Alexis was fired because of soaring food prices that triggered violent protests in which seven people died.

Lawmakers rejected two of President Rene Preval’s suggested replacements as prime minister before voting in favor of Pierre-Louis, head of a foundation that provides libraries, youth education programs and women’s networks.

But Pierre-Louis was required to appear before both legislative chambers in separate sessions to present a detailed policy plan before taking office. That process was delayed by weeks of political infighting and squabbling over positions of power in the new government.

Pierre-Louis has said her priorities will be food production, job creation, security and the establishment of an environment favorable to national and foreign investment.

“The principle axis of my government will be social and economic inclusion and management based on resolve and accountability before Parliament, on dialogue with our institutions and on our economic, social and cultural partners,” she said.

New research may unmask comets posing as asteroids

Washington, Sept 05: A new research is aiming to unmask some Near Earth Objects (NEOs), which are comets posing as asteroids. NEOs are objects whose orbits bring them in close proximity to Earth. Some NEOs could be dying comets, those that have lost most of the volatile materials that create their characteristic tails. Others could be dormant and might again display comet-like features after colliding with another object, according to Paul Abell, a Houston, Texas-based research scientist with the Planetary Science Institute. Abell is using NASA’’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii and the MMT telescope on Mount Hopkins, south of Tucson, Arizona, to uncover observational signatures that separate extinct/dormant comets from near-Earth asteroids. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, dormant comets in near-Earth space could become supply depots to support future exploration activities with water and other materials. Second, like other NEOs, they could pose a threat to Earth if they are on a collision course with our planet. Third, they can provide data on the composition and early evolution of the solar system because they are thought to contain unmodified remnants of the primordial materials that formed the solar system. Low-activity, near-earth comets flashed onto the planetary-science radar screen in 2001, when NEO 2001 OG108 was discovered by the Lowell Observatory Near Earth Asteroid Search telescope. It had an orbit similar to comets coming in from the Oort Cloud and was first thought to be one of the Damocloids, asteroids that have Comet Halley-type orbits, but no cometary tails. Several groups began monitoring 2001 OG108 because it looked suspiciously comet-like. The nuclei of comets are very dark and difficult to observe when they”re far from Earth. When they come closer to Earth, the sun’’s heat vaporizes some of the comet’’s ice, creating the clouds of dust and gas that make up the comet’’s coma and tail, which shroud the nucleus from view. The coma is a bright cloud of dust and gas at the head of the comet, with the tail trailing out away from the Sun. In early 2002, NEO 2001 OG108 lit up with a coma and it was re-classified as C/2001 OG108 (LONEOS). “That’’s what started me on this line of reasoning and scientific investigation,” Abell said. For their investigation, Abell and Faith Vilas, director of the MMT Observatory and an affiliate senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, will be working in the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges. “Hopefully, by combining data from these two wavelength regions, we may be able to find some signal or some observational discriminator that will help us identify whether something is an extinct comet or just an asteroid,” Abell said.

Link Between Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes And Neurodegeneration Found

ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2008) — New research from Rhode Island Hospital found that obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) can contribute to mild neurodegeneration with features common with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) – the first study to show that obesity can cause neurodegeneration.In a study on animal models, lead researcher Suzanne de la Monte, MD, MPH, of Rhode Island Hospital, utilized chronic high fat diets to cause a two-fold increase in mean body weight. In these animal models, there was a marginally reduced mean brain weight and a significantly reduced mean brain weight/body weight ratio, providing evidence that obesity with T2DM is sufficient to cause mild global atrophy in the brain.

De la Monte says, “In essence, the brain shrinks and several biochemical and molecular abnormalities found in patients with AD, including brain insulin resistance, develop with chronic obesity and T2DM. However, the extent of the abnormalities in no way matches AD.” Researchers note that the neuropathological abnormalities were mild and the associated brain insulin resistance could serve as a co-factor in the development and progression of AD.

Overall, the study found that that the effects of obesity and T2DM can essentially aggravate or contribute to the severity or progression of AD, but cannot be the sole cause of the condition. The findings suggest that strategies to reduce obesity and prevent or control T2DM could modify the clinical course of mild cognitive impairment and AD.

De la Monte also notes, “We don’t know yet if these effects of T2DM/obesity are reversible with weight loss. However, we’re fairly sure that the abnormalities are related to the T2DM that accompanies obesity and not just increased weight.”

Spore is More: Build Your Own Alien at Home

“It’s just a video game!” I hear you say. Well, sure, it is. And “Star Trek” was just a television show, too.

Except that it wasn’t. The starship Enterprise sailed an impressive track from weekly entertainment to cult program, to lucrative franchise, to archetypical embodiment of our dreams for the future.

Spore may follow in its wake. The new title from powerhouse video game developer Electronic Arts, hitting the shelves and download sites this week, is an example of art imitating science. The game is the brainchild of Will Wright, the fellow who designed such hot entertainment properties as Sim City and Sim Earth. These games allowed players to do what Julius Caesar had in mind: namely, run a city or build an empire (without the danger of being knifed in the Forum).

In Spore, you create life forms that compete for survival in a sort of “DNA economy,” and seek to extend their influence from a single planet to the galactic realm. One of its more appealing functions — building complex critters that appear in the game — is accomplished in Spore’s Creature Creator. This software accessory gives you the parts and power to quickly design your own aliens, starting with a basic body form and adding appendages, facial features and various skin textures and colors. Even serious scientists can quickly become enamored of this interactive Mr. Alien Potato Head. Here at the SETI Institute, Frank Drake, Jill Tarter and this author have enthusiastically cobbled together our own pet sentients. Will Wright says that his conception of Spore was significantly inspired by the astrobiology work we are doing here (more below).

This is all good fun, and preliminary indications suggest that EA’s creation could soon be the rage of young gamers everywhere. But Spore may, like “Star Trek,” have significant spin-offs.

That’s because something seems to happen to kids between the ages of 8 and 12. Many of them develop a compelling interest in some subject — be it dinosaurs, history, art, astronomy or even human culture. These interests are durable. If you ask biologists how long they’ve been interested in biology, they’ll tell you “forever,” but they usually mean since they were 11 (or thereabouts).

Why this happens is unclear. Maybe nature has found that having “experts” among the population has survival value for the species. That could be just pop physiology claptrap, but irrespective of the actual reason, prepubescent kids are like potting soil, waiting for something exciting to grow.

I asked Frank Drake how he became interested in science. “As a kid, I bicycled to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry every week,” he said. “It was just endlessly interesting, and before long I was building Tesla coils and crystal sets.”

A small toy hooked SETI Institute astrobiologist Mark Showalter: “When I was ten, I got a small prism as a present. Breaking up sunlight into a spectrum … that turned me on to science.”

Peter Backus, a SETI colleague, credits his father for his fascination with the cosmos. “He would take me on fishing trips, and point out the constellations.”

For me, it was movies: sci-fi films that were cheesier than an extra-large pizza margherita. There wasn’t much real science in these potboilers, but that was beside the point. They hooked me emotionally. That was the key. Facts, methods, the relevant mathematics … all that stuff I could learn later.

When you’re young, it’s the inspiration that counts — the emotional appeal.

Spore may be just a video game to most adults — another hi-tech distraction for the kids. Maybe parents will be happy that it doesn’t involve wasting bad guys or stealing cars. But its true import might only become apparent down the road. Twenty years from now, if you ask the folks in the labs, the domes and the field sites how they got there, they just might answer, “Well, it was because of a game I played as a kid … “

Siberian Woolly Mammoths Had North American Blood

Siberia’s last woolly mammoths descended from North American, not Eurasian, stock, according to new research. Scientists studying DNA from the remains of 160 of the animals found the ancient beasts migrated back and forth between Eurasia and Alaska several times over hundreds of thousands of years.

Cousins of present-day elephants (learn more), woolly mammoths are believed to have descended from African mammoths that traveled north through Eurasia and grew “woolly” long hair to survive the harsh climate of Siberia.

They went extinct after the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago.

(Related story: Climate Change, Then Humans, Drove Mammoths Extinct [April 1, 2008])

“The woolly mammoth is not exclusively a Eurasian beast,” said lead study author Regis Debruyne of McMaster University in Canada.

“What happened to the mammoths in North America is part of the story and probably at the core of [woolly mammoth evolution],” he said.

Hendrik Poinar, who helped oversee the research, said people tend to think of migration between Siberia and North America going in one direction.

But the search for food drove the North American animals back to Eurasia, said Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University.

“The grass is greener on either side at some point,” he said.

The study appears today in the current issue of Current Biology. However, some argue the research team is jumping to conclusions based on limited data.

Asian Pollution Likely to Further Warm U.S. Mainland

Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.

These overlooked, shorter-term pollutants — mostly from burning wood and kerosene and from driving trucks and cars — cause more localized warming than once thought, the authors of the report say.

They contend there should be a greater effort to attack this type of pollution for faster results.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com’s Natural Science Center.

For decades, scientists have concentrated on carbon dioxide, the most damaging greenhouse gas because it lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Past studies have barely paid attention to global warming pollution that stays in the air merely for days.

The new report, written by scientists with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, makes a case for tackling the short-term pollutants, while acknowledging that carbon dioxide is still the chief cause of warming.

That concept is also the official policy of the Bush Administration, said assistant secretary of commerce Bill Brennan.

In the United States, this approach would mean cutting car and truck emissions perhaps before restricting coal-burning power plants.

In the developing world, especially Asia, it would mean shifting to cleaner energy sources, more like those used in the Western world. Much of this type of pollution in Asia comes from burning kerosene and biofuels, such as wood and animal dung.

In addition to soot, smog and sulfates, other short-lived pollutants are organic carbon, dust and nitrates. While carbon dioxide is invisible, these are pollutants people can see.

Projected increases in some of these pollutants and decreases in others in Asia will eventually add up to about 20 percent of the already-predicted man-made summer warming in America by 2060, the report said.

“What they do about their pollution can affect our climate,” said study co-author Hiram “Chip” Levy, a senior scientist at NOAA’s fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, N.J.

This pollution will likely create three “hot spots” in the world: the central United States, Europe around the Mediterranean Sea, and Kazakhstan, which borders Russia and China.

In the United States it’s “a big blob in the middle of the country” stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, Levy said.

The same analysis also shows about an inch less of yearly rain in middle America because of Asian emissions by about 2060.

As far as American-produced pollution, smog is the main problem.

Reducing diesel emissions and increasing mass transit would prove a more effective and immediate strategy than would limiting power plants, said study co-author Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The report make sense, but should also include a strategy for man-made methane, a greenhouse gas which lasts 10 years in the atmosphere, said Michael MacCracken, chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

Methane mostly comes from landfills, natural gas use, livestock, coal mining and sewage treatment, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Power of Positive Thinking: Truth or Myth?

You might call Maarten van der Weijden the anti-Lance Armstrong. Last week, the Dutch Olympic long-distance swimming champion and cancer survivor told the British newspaper The Telegraph that he didn’t want to be compared to the American cycling star.

“Armstrong says that positive thinking and doing a lot of sports can save you. I don’t agree,” said van der Weijden. “I even think it’s dangerous because it implies that if you are not a positive thinker all the time you lose … The doctors saved me. I am just lucky.”

Van der Weijden’s comments cut to the heart of an ongoing debate in the medical community. Can patients really improve their chances of survival by staying upbeat and happy? Experts say the American public has largely accepted this as fact. But, scientifically speaking, questions remain regarding whether this works, how it would work, and what such a connection would mean for patients who don’t get better.

Appeal and promise

There certainly is an appeal to believing that you have some level of control over a debilitating illness. “I think it’s part of the American spirit,” said James Coyne, director of the behavioral oncology program at the Abramson Cancer Center and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “There’s this idea that you can succeed and conquer anything, even illness, on the basis of your character.”

And studies showing a possible connection between positive thinking and health are frequently in the news. For instance, work by researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Israel suggested that women who’ve faced several life challenges, such as a death in the family or divorce, are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than peers who’ve had more stable, happy lives. The results were detailed in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal BMC Cancer.

The same study also found that women with cancer were more likely to report that, prior to diagnosis, they had been anxious or depressed and that bad things had happened in their lives.

Ronit Peled, one of the Ben-Gurion University researchers, said this was evidence for a relationship between emotional well-being and the risk of contracting cancer. “The main message from my point of view is that young women who have severe life events at a young age should be considered a risk group for breast cancer and treated accordingly,” she said. “But general feelings of happiness and optimism in one’s life can play a protective role.”

Coyne said the public often takes news like this to mean that positive thinking has been unequivocally proven to be good for your health.

But the truth is a little more complicated.

How do you feel?

In reality, there is no clear-cut answer yet on whether being upbeat can keep you healthy or cure anything, Peled and Coyne both said. Research on the subject is divided between studies like Peled’s and studies like the one Coyne did, detailed in December 2007 in the journal Cancer, which found that emotional well-being wasn’t an accurate predictor of whether or not patients with neck and head cancer survived.

Coyne is particularly skeptical of positive thinking’s power over cancer. “The problem with cancer is that it’s so complex. By the time you’re diagnosed it may have been building for decades,” he said.

For other diseases, though, the scientific outlook is sunnier. Coyne said there’s evidence that mood can predict whether someone who has had one heart attack will have another. And he said there is a biological explanation for why this might be possible.

Little research has been done on the biological basis of positive thinking as a therapeutic treatment for illness, but Coyne said scientists know the brain and the immune system communicate. Given that scientists also know the immune system plays a role in inflammation of the arteries, which can play a role in heart attack, it’s reasonable to think that heart attacks could be tied back to things going on in the brain.

Good, bad

However, when Coyne and other researchers tried to intercede and treat depression among heart attack patients, they found the patient’s moods improved, but the rates of second heart attack didn’t. Ironically, Coyne said, the most evidence for emotion affecting health actually favors negative emotions, not positive ones. For instance, he said, we know anger and depression are correlated with having a second heart attack, however, what’s unproven is whether being positive can reduce the risk.

Another way emotion could affect health, even for complicated illnesses such as cancer, is by affecting the patient’s willingness to stick to the treatment plan. “It could be an indirect effect,” said Anne Harrington, chair of Harvard University’s history of science program and author of “The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine” (W.W. Norton, 2008). “If a person is positive, he or she is more likely to show up for all the treatments to have a better diet to exercise. And if you’re deeply depressed you sleep badly and that’s bad for your health.”

But Harrington and Coyne echoed the concerns of Maarten van der Weijden, saying that findings about emotions and health shouldn’t be used to pressure patients into feeling a certain way.

In fact, Harrington said, that could hurt the patient more than if they’d been left alone. “Misinterpretations of this research can make people afraid to have the feelings they have,” she said. “I have a colleague who’s studied this and it’s very clear from his work that it’s just as stressful to keep up a performance of positivity as it is to [keep up] a bad mood. It’s very stressful to be inauthentically upbeat all the time.”

Wind-powered ‘Ventomobile’ Places First in Race

wind-driven Ventomobile constructed by the InVentus team, a team of some 20 Stuttgart University students of Aerospace Engineering, came in first at the “Aeolus Race” in the Dutch town of Den Helder last Friday.

Racing the extremely stylish and lightweight three-wheeler, the vehicles of five European universities and research centres had difficulties to catch up. For their “innovative design” and public relations work, the InVentus team were also awarded prizes. The ECN-impulse built by the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) came in second. The Flensburg University of Applied Sciences won the third prize with their very solid but slow Headwind Tricycle.

In this first time ever race the participating teams were challenged to drive directly into the wind, without tacking. During the preliminary races, the Stuttgart Ventomobile had already proven to be the most lightweight and most efficient vehicle among the contestants when, with its 130 kg, it succeeded in racing at 64% of the wind speed directly against the wind. From then on it was considered a serious contender for the win.

“Winning this prize was a great reward for our intense construction work during the last few months,“ said a thrilled Alexander Miller. Working with some 20 students, he and Jan Lehmann developed and constructed the vehicle from the summer of 2007 onwards with the support of the Endowed Chair of Wind Energy at the University of Stuttgart.

The students constructed the drive shaft and the rotor blades of the three-wheeler utilising the know-how at the Stuttgart University Department of Composites and Lightweight Construction. The experience of the students and the staff at the Institute of Aero- and Gasdynamics also helped greatly in optimizing the vehicle. The carbon-fibre-built tower can be turned into the wind, and through pitching the blades can be adjusted optimally to the wind speed. Via two bicycle gearboxes and a bicycle chain the power then is transmitted to the axle.

Matthias Schubert, Chief Technical Officer of the main sponsor REpower Systems AG, applauds the integration of this project into the coursework of the students: “The achievement of managing a big team over many months, and even making select construction tasks part of undergraduate teaching cannot be estimated highly enough! The enthusiasm the students show in renewable energies and the development of innovative solutions should serve the industry as an example for the development of new technologies.”

Prof. Martin Kühn, head of the Endowed Chair of Wind Energy and mentor of the InVentus team, is pleased about the success of his students. “The expert knowledge the students acquired during this project constitute an unique experience which will prove extremely helpful in their future careers. The Ventomobile and its competitors represent excellent and creative examples of intelligent uses of wind energy,” he points out, at the same time promoting a better use of renewable energies.

Computer virus goes into orbit

San Francisco, Aug 28: NASA confirmed that a computer virus sneaked aboard the International Space Station only to be tossed into quarantine on July 25 by security software.

A “worm type” virus was found on laptop computers that astronauts use to send and receive email from the station by relaying messages through a mission control center in Texas, according to NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries on Wednesday.

The virus is reported to be malicious software that logs keystrokes in order to steal passwords or other sensitive data by sending the information to hackers via the Internet.

The laptop computers are not linked to any of the space station’s control systems or the Internet.

“The bottom line is it is a nuisance for us,” Humphries said. “The crew is working with teams on the ground to eradicate the virus and look for actions to prevent that from happening in the future.”

The virus had no adverse effect on space station operations, according to Humphries.

The space station orbits Earth once every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 350 kilometers.

NASA is reportedly looking into whether the virus got into the computers by hiding in a memory drive used to store music, video or other digital files.

Humphries said this is not the first computer virus stowaway on the Space Station.

“This is not a frequent occurrence but it has happened before,” Humphries said.

Variations Of Rare Lung Disease Examined

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM, is a rare but serious lung disease that may cause severe respiratory symptoms in patients. The often-fatal disease has no cure.

Researchers say the key to learning more about LAM might lie in better understanding how symptoms differ among LAM patients

University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists are conducting a new research study that examines why symptoms of LAM are different in certain subgroups of people with the goal of finding more successful therapies.

LAM occurs when an unusual type of cell begins to grow out of control and spread to restricted areas in the body, including the lungs, kidneys, lymph nodes and vessels.

A team led by Jean Elwing, MD, an assistant professor in UC’s pulmonary, critical care and sleep division, is enrolling female LAM patients to see if pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary vascular disease may be contributing to their respiratory symptoms.

Pulmonary hypertension is a blood vessel disorder of the lungs in which pressure in the pulmonary artery, the blood vessel that leads from the heart to the lungs, rises above normal levels.

“We plan to evaluate a group of women with LAM who are experiencing shortness of breath for the presence of pulmonary hypertension,” she says. “We will look at participant’s medical history, pulmonary function tests, exercise tolerance, echocardiogram results and previous biopsy samples.

“We are hopeful this information will increase our understanding of how LAM can manifest in the patients it affects. In the future, this information may be useful in developing better management strategies for this disease.”

Elwing says this study will compare LAM patients who also have pulmonary hypertension with those who do not to differentiate between the groups.

“Some participants will be seen once in clinic and undergo testing with an echocardiogram while participating in this study,” she says. “The individuals who have already undergone a clinical pulmonary hypertension evaluation may be able to participate through a review of select medical records and lung biopsy specimens.”

This study is investigator-initiated and is funded by a Rhen Family Grant from the University of Cincinnati.

High Levels Of Uric Acid May Be Associated With High Blood Pressure

Reducing levels of uric acid in blood lowered blood pressure to normal in most teens in a study designed to investigate a possible link between blood pressure and the chemical, a waste product of the body’s normal metabolism, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a recent report.

“If you reduce uric acid, at least in some patients, you may be able to reduce blood pressure,” said Dr. Daniel Feig, associate professor of pediatrics-renal at BCM and chief of the pediatric hypertension clinics at Texas Children’s Hospital. “This could be one way people develop hypertension and may allow us to develop new therapies.”

Understanding how people develop high blood pressure gives scientists new tools for understanding the disorder and developing drugs to prevent and treat it.

Uric acid builds up when the body makes too much of it or fails to excrete it. It is a waste product resulting from the metabolism of food. Too much uric acid can cause gout, which occurs when uric acid crystals accumulate in the joints. In this study, researchers used allopurinol to reduce high uric acid levels. Allopurinol is usually used to treat gout, but Feig said its potential side effects rule it out as a treatment for high blood pressure.

In the JAMA study, Feig and his colleagues treated teens with newly diagnosed high blood pressure and elevated levels of uric acid in their blood with allopurinol. In the study, half of the 30 teen-agers with newly diagnosed high blood pressure and higher than normal levels of uric acid in their blood underwent treatment with allopurinol twice a day for four weeks. The other half received a placebo (an inactive drug) on the same schedule. They then went without either drug for two weeks before receiving the opposite treatment for another four weeks.

The treatment not only reduced uric acid levels, it also reduced blood pressure in most of the teens, said Feig. In fact, he said, blood pressures decreased to normal in 20 of the 30 teens when they were on allopurinol. By contrast, only 1 of the 30 teens had normal blood pressure when receiving placebo.

“This is far from being a reasonable therapeutic intervention for high blood pressure, but these findings indicate a first step in understanding the pathway of the disease,” said Feig. “You cannot prevent a disease until you know the cause. This study is way of finding that out.”

Studies in rats had indicated previously that high levels of uric acid could be associated with the development of high blood pressure through a proven pathway, said Feig. However, he and his colleagues needed to determine if this was true for humans as well.

“The antihypertensive therapies available to patients are well proven and safe,” said Feig. “Currently available antihyperuricemic therapies (treatments that lower uric acid) are not safe enough to be used as first line therapy for most people with high blood pressure.”

Side effects could include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, liver problems and even a very rare, potentially life-threatening reaction known as Steven-Johnson syndrome. While only 1 in 3,000 people develop this problem, the risk is too great to prescribe the drug on a routine basis to people with high blood pressure, a problem that affects 30 to 35 percent of adults.

Currently available therapies are effective but are not solving the problem in everyone. Optimal blood pressures are achieved in only 40 percent of people who are treated for the problem. Understanding the cause of high blood pressure could lead to better treatments and even methods of prevention.

Animal studies indicate that early in the disease, the extra uric acid activates the renin angiotensin system of the body, shrinking key blood vessels and causing high blood pressure. Eventually, however, the small vessels in the kidney are permanently affected, making the blood pressure sensitive to salt or sodium. Too much salt causes the pressure to rise.

Others who took part in this work include Beth Soletsky, RN, also of BCM and Dr. Richard J. Johnson of the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Funding for this work came from the National Institutes of Health.

Secret of newborn`s first words revealed

Washington, Aug 27: Have you ever wondered why “daddy” and “mommy” are often a baby’s first words? Well, a group of researchers has got the answer: the newborn’s brain may simply be hard-wired to recognize certain repeated word patterns.

Using the latest optical brain imaging techniques, University of British Columbia post-doctoral fellow Judit Gervain and a team of researchers from Italy and Chile reviewed brain activities of 22 newborns (2-3 days old) when exposed to recordings of made-up words.

The researchers mixed words that end in repeating syllables– such as “mubaba” and “penana” – with words without repetition – such as “mubage” and “penaku.”

They found increased brain activities in the temporal and left frontal areas of the newborns’ brain whenever the repetitious words were played. Words with non-adjacent repetitions (“bamuba” or “napena”) elicited no distinctive responses from the brain.

“It’s probably no coincidence that many languages around the world have repetitious syllables in their ‘child words’– baby and daddy in English, papa in Italian and tata (grandpa) in Hungarian, for example,” says Gervain from UBC Dept. of Psychology’s Infant Studies Centre.

This is one of the first studies on a newborn infant’s innate ability to decipher structural patterns in language.

“The language centre of most right-handed adults is located on the left side of the brain. This is consistent with our finding with new born babies and supports our belief humans are born with abilities that allow us to perceive and learn our mother tongue systematically and efficiently,” says Gervain.

“The brain areas that are responsible for language in an adult do not ”learn” how to process language during development, but rather, they are specialized – at least in part – to process language from the start,” adds Gervain.

GLAST begins its mission

New York, Aug 27: American space agency NASA’s newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays.

Scientists expect GLAST, space agency’s next generation mission designed to explore the most energetic phenomena of universe, to discover many new pulsars, reveal powerful processes near super-massive black holes at the cores of thousands of active galaxies and enable a search for signs of new physical laws.

The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colours, NASA said.

The agency said GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in honour of Enrico Fermi (1901 – 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics.

“Enrico Fermi was the first person to suggest how cosmic particles could be accelerated to high speeds,” said Paul Hertz, chief scientist for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

“His theory provides the foundation for understanding the new phenomena his namesake telescope will discover.”

For two months following the spacecraft’s June 11 launch, scientists tested and calibrated its two instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM).

The LAT team has unveiled an all-sky image showing the glowing gas of the Milky Way, blinking pulsars, and a flaring galaxy billions of light-years away. The map combines 95 hours of the instrument’s “first light” observations. A similar image, produced by NASA’s now-defunct Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, took years of observations to produce.

The image shows gas and dust in the plane of the Milky Way glowing in gamma rays due to collisions with accelerated nuclei called cosmic rays. The famous Crab Nebula and Vela pulsars also shine brightly at these wavelengths.

These fast-spinning neutron stars, which form when massive stars die, were originally discovered by their radio emissions. The image’s third pulsar, named Geminga and located in Gemini, is not a radio source. It was discovered by an earlier gamma-ray satellite, NASA said.

Consumption Of Nuts, Corn Or Popcorn Not Associated With Increased Risk Of Diverticulosis In Men

common recommendation to avoid eating popcorn, nuts and corn to prevent diverticular complications, a large prospective study of men indicates that the consumption of these foods does not increase the risk of diverticulosis or diverticular complications, according to a new study

Diverticular disease is a common and costly digestive disorder in Western countries. One-third of the U.S. population will develop diverticulosis by the age of 60 years and two-thirds will do so by the age of 85 years, according to background information in the article. Historically, physicians have advised individuals with diverticular disease to avoid eating nuts, corn, seeds and popcorn, even though there is little evidence to support this recommendation. The authors write that the potential health benefits of nut consumption paired with the large number of individuals with diverticulosis makes it timely and important to study this long-held belief.

Lisa L. Strate, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, and colleagues examined the association between nut, corn, and popcorn consumption and diverticular disease in a large study group (The Health Professionals Follow-up Study), a group of men followed up from 1986 to 2004 via self-administered questionnaires about medical (once every two years) and dietary (every 4 years) information. Twenty-seven percent of participants reported eating nuts at least twice per week, and corn and popcorn each were consumed at least twice a week by 15 percent of the participants.

The study included 47,228 men age 40 to 75 years who at baseline were free of diverticulosis or its complications, cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease. During 18 years of follow-up, there were 801 new cases of diverticulitis and 383 new cases of diverticular bleeding.

The researchers found that nut, corn, and popcorn consumption was not associated with an increased risk of new diverticulitis or diverticular complications, but instead inverse relationships were observed between nut and popcorn consumption and the risk of diverticulitis.

After adjustment for other known and potential risk factors for diverticular complications, men with the highest intake of nuts (at least twice per week) had a 20 percent lower risk of diverticulitis compared with men with the lowest intake (less than once per month); men with the highest intake of popcorn had a 28 percent lower risk of diverticulitis compared with men with the lowest intake. No association was seen between corn consumption and diverticulitis, and for diverticular bleeding, there were no significant associations observed for nut, corn, or popcorn consumption.

“In conclusion, our results suggest that nut, corn, and popcorn consumption is not associated with an increased risk of incident diverticulitis or diverticular bleeding and may be protective for the former. These findings refute the pervasive but unproven belief that these foods are associated with diverticular complications and suggest that the recommendation to avoid these foods in diverticular disease should be reconsidered,” the authors write.

High Levels Of Toxic Metals Found In Herbal Medicine Products Sold Online

ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2008) — Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that one fifth of both U.S.-manufactured and Indian-manufactured Ayurvedic medicines purchased via the Internet contain lead, mercury or arsenic.

Ayurveda is a form of medicine that originated in India more than 2,000 years ago and relies heavily on herbal products. In India, an estimated 80 percent of the population practices Ayurveda. In the United States, Ayurvedic remedies have increased in popularity and are available from South Asian markets, health food stores, and on the Internet. Ayurvedic medicines are divided into two major types: herbal only and rasa shastra. Rasa shastra is an ancient practice of deliberately combining herbs with metals, minerals and gems. Ayurvedic experts in India believe that if Rasa Shastra medicines made with metals such as lead and mercury are properly prepared and administered, they will be safe and therapeutic.

Using an Internet search, the researchers identified 25 Web sites featuring 673 Ayurvedic medicines. They randomly selected and purchased 193 products made by 37 different manufacturers for analyses. Overall, 20.7 percent of Ayurvedic medicines contained detectable lead, mercury and/or arsenic. U.S. and Indian manufactured products were equally likely to contain toxic metals. Rasa shastra compared with non-rasa shastra medicines were more than twice as likely to contain metals and had higher concentrations of lead and mercury. Among products containing metals, 95 percent were sold by U.S. Web sites and 75 percent claimed Good Manufacturing Practices or testing for heavy metals. All metal-containing products exceeded one or more standards for acceptable daily intake of toxic metals.

“This study highlights the need for Congress to revisit the way dietary supplements are regulated in the U.S.,” said lead author Robert Saper, MD, MPH, Director of Integrative Medicine in the Family Medicine Department at BUSM. Saper first published on this topic in December, 2004 (JAMA). In that study he and his colleagues found 20% of Ayurvedic medicines produced in South Asia only and available in Boston area stores contained potentially harmful levels of lead, mercury, and/or arsenic. “Our first priority must be the safety of the public. Herbs and supplements with high levels of lead, mercury, and arsenic should not be available for sale on the Internet or elsewhere,” he said.

Saper adds, “We suggest strictly enforced, government mandated daily dose limits for toxic metals in all dietary supplements and requirements that all manufacturers demonstrate compliance through independent third-party testing.”

“The medicines which are supposed to cure sickness should not promote another illness due to the presence of toxic materials such as lead,” said co-author Venkatesh Thuppil, PhD, Director of the National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India, as well as a Professor at St. John’s Medical College in India.

Clownfish uses its nose to find its way home

Canberra, Aug 27: A research by scientists from Australia, France and the US, has revealed that a species of clownfish (Amphiprion percula), uses its nose to help it locate a suitable habitat.

According to a report by ABC News, although previous research has shown clownfish can smell, these new findings identify the scents they are using.

“It’s always been a mystery to us how they find their way back to a suitable habitat,” said Professor Geoff Jones of James Cook University, Townsville. “We’ve actually narrowed down the chemical signals that they may be using to find their home,” he added.

To determine which scents the fish use, researchers collected newly settled juveniles from reefs located in the Kimbe Bay region of New Britain – an island off the east coast of Papua New Guinea.

They placed each fish in a specially designed Y-shaped tank that contained two flowing sources of water. The fish were then observed to see which source they swam towards.

Almost all exhibited a strong preference for water collected from reefs that contained islands.

The researchers then used water that contained the scent of an anemone or leaves from coastal plants such as Xanthostemon.

When given a choice between scented or unscented water the fish spent more than 90% of their time in the scented water.

“We were quite surprised to find that one of the things they were using was a terrestrial cue – leaves falling into the water,” said Jones.

According to Jones, the juvenile clownfish are pre-programmed to head towards the source of the leaf smell to help them find a home.

The researchers said that the results of the study “have important implications for the management of island reef ecosystems.”

“If we’re managing coral reefs, we need to integrate that management with the surrounding forests,” said Jones.

He added that tourism could also impact upon the ability of the clownfish to smell its way home.

“Reefs with islands on them should be targeted by reef management because they become (places) that people use, and there’s usually a limited land area on islands, which quite often is modified,” said Jones.

Jones said that the team is continuing its research into clownfish to identify how far they are swept out to sea when they are larvae, and whether they also use other cues to help them find a home.