Thursday 27 October 2011

CT Scans May Pick Up COPD Early in Smokers (HealthDay)

TUESDAY, Oct. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Men with a history of heavy smoking who have a CT scan to look for lung cancer could benefit from a simultaneous check for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Dutch researchers suggest.

It's estimated that smoking will cause more than 8 million deaths a year around the world in the coming decades. In addition to cardiovascular disease and cancer, COPD is a major cause of death in heavy smokers. Yet, it is under-diagnosed, and deaths from it are increasing, the researchers noted.

CT-based lung cancer screening "may provide an opportunity to detect individuals with COPD at an early stage," said study author Dr. Pim A. de Jong, a radiologist at the University Medical Center Utrecht.

"Early cessation of smoking can prevent COPD progression, underscoring the importance of early detection," de Jong said. "This CT-based detection may provide a possibility to enhance the cost-effectiveness of lung cancer screening with CT."

The report was published in the Oct. 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, de Jong's team looked for COPD in more than 1,000 men who took part in an ongoing lung cancer screening trial using CT scans that ran from July 2007 to September 2008. The men also underwent lung function tests that are standard screens for diagnosing COPD.

Based on lung function tests, the researchers found 38 percent of the men had COPD.

Using CT scans, de Jong's group looked for emphysema, a common form of COPD characterized by air trapped in the lungs. They also took into account the patient's weight and how many cigarettes each patient smoked a day and whether he had quit or still smoked.

Using this criteria, they identified about 275 men with COPD and 85 with false-positive results, meaning they did not actually have the condition. That means the CT test was able to correctly predict COPD 76 percent of the time, the researchers reported.

This included men with mild, moderate and severe COPD, they noted.

"Among men who were current or former heavy smokers, undergoing lung cancer screening with CT scanning identified a substantial proportion who had COPD, suggesting that this method may be helpful as an additional tool in detecting COPD," de Jong said.

Dr. Neil Schachter, medical director of the respiratory care department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said heavy smokers should be screened for COPD.

"The question is, is CT a useful way to screen for COPD," he said. "On the one hand, you are using an expensive tool to make a diagnosis that you could make with a simpler, cheaper tool, namely spirometry."

However, with CT scans becoming a standard screen for diagnosing lung cancer, it might make sense to also use it to diagnose COPD, he said.

A study in the June 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that annual low-dose CT scans cut the death rate from lung cancer by 20 percent in heavy smokers and formerly heavy smokers, compared with those who get annual chest X-rays.

"Lung cancer [detection] with CT scans is poised to take off. It may take off like a flash or it may crash and burn, we don't know that yet," he said. "If people are going to have this test anyway, then it would make sense that they be screened for COPD," Schachter said. "But there are a lot of ifs here."

Schachter noted that COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States, and of the 25 million with the condition only half know they have it. Diagnosing COPD early means earlier treatment and better outcomes, he said.

More information

For more on COPD, visit the U.S. Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111026/hl_hsn/ctscansmaypickupcopdearlyinsmokers

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Wednesday 26 October 2011

Transfers to fuel Cyclones in 2011-12 (AP)

AMES, Iowa ? Iowa State is set to pose a fascinating question to the rest of college basketball.

Can a team made up almost entirely of transfers win anything?

Their starting backcourt features players from Marquette, Michigan State and Penn State, and their top post player, Big 12 preseason newcomer of the year Royce White, was once a Golden Gopher.

This is all part of a grand experiment by second-year coach Fred Hoiberg, who is as homegrown as they come.

Hoiberg has adopted an unorthodox rebuilding strategy the league will be keeping a close eye on as he welcomes guards Chris Allen and Chris Babb and forwards White and Anthony Booker, who all sat out last year. Iowa State, which finished 16-16 in 2010-11, opens against Lehigh on Nov. 12.

"I can't even explain to you how excited I am to get this season under way," Hoiberg said. "There's been a lot of excitement about this team, with getting the four guys that sat out, getting those guys eligible. Very excited to have those guys on board."

On paper, Iowa State's got enough talent to make a serious move in the Big 12.

The three-man backcourt is made up of players who've already proven themselves on the major college level.

Allen, the former Spartan, has played in as many NCAA tournament games as Iowa State has in nearly 20 years ? and he's got something to prove both to his new team and NBA scouts in his final college season.

Babb, who averaged 9.3 points a game for Penn State in 2009-10, is also expected to start. Junior college star Tyrus McGee, who hit nearly 50 percent of his 3-point shots a year ago, should be the first guard off the bench.

The ringleader will be senior Scott Christopherson, who transferred from Marquette to play for former coach Greg McDermott and averaged a career-high 13.7 points a game in 2010-11.

The Cyclones have a lot to sort out with all the new faces

"I talk to our guys all the time, just about having that chemistry," Hoiberg said. "It doesn't matter how talented you are. If you don't have chemistry, you're not going to achieve your goals. I understand where certain people have questions about this team. I still have questions about this team."

White has already been hailed as the Big 12's best newcomer by the league's coaches without ever playing a game in college. The 6-foot-8, 270-pound White, who spent a lost season at Minnesota, is one of the strongest players the program's ever had, and Hoiberg said he's never seen someone as big as White pass as well as he can.

Melvin Ejim, who along with Christopherson is the only starter back from last year's team, must figure out how to thrive once league play begins. Ejim's Big 12 slump was symptomatic of Iowa State's struggles as the depth-challenged Cyclones stumbled to a 3-13 mark.

White and Ejim should have help from freshman Percy Gibson and Booker, who transferred from Southern Illinois.

"We will get up and down. We'll take a lot of threes again this year. But we will have more options on the block," Hoiberg said. "We'll have some options this year."

Iowa State was picked to finish eighth in the 10-team Big 12 this season, an understandable slot for a team few can put their fingers on.

The Cyclones could finish first and they could finish last, though somewhere in the middle seems about right.

Either way, Iowa State figures to be one of the league's most interesting teams.

"I'm excited about the expectations. We had zero expectations last season," Hoiberg said. "Expectations are high, and that's what we want. We want to be in a position where we're competing for a Big 12 championship."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111024/ap_on_sp_co_ne/bkc_iowa_st_preview

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Lisa Mirza Grotts: Family Etiquette (Huffington post)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/152380118?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Tuesday 25 October 2011

New NY Times Executive Editor: Conservatives Rule Our World (OliverWillisLikeKryptoniteToStupid)

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More Protests Staged Across Europe as Finance Ministers Meet ...

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(BRUSSELS) -- More protests were staged across Europe as finance ministers meet in Brussels.

As European finance ministers reportedly made progress on a plan to keep Europe from default and protect investors, demonstrators protesting against the powers of big banks took to the street in Germany.?

In Berlin there were clashes with police by the Brandenburg Gate. In Madrid teachers and parents protested against education cuts.

As one placard in Madrid read, "Our hopes for the future were never more gloomy."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio?

Source: http://abcnewsradioonline.com/world-news/more-protests-staged-across-europe-as-finance-ministers-meet.html

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Monday 24 October 2011

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says Hirai [Playstation]

PlayStation Games "Not Just For Sony Devices" Says HiraiSony's looking to expand its PlayStation game offerings to other mobile devices, Sony Computer Entertainment chief Kaz Hirai told a conference in Hong Kong on Friday.

"This isn't an ecosystem where we want to keep everything within the Sony family," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "This is not just for Sony devices."

Hirai didn't elaborate with which device makers Sony is interested in partnering.

Sony's own Xperia Play plays original PlayStation games, served over the Android marketplace. The device requires the PlayStation Suite to play the games; to be certified for PlayStation Suite, a smartphone, tablet or other device has to pass certain hardware specifications.

Of course, there are also those working on emulators that will play .ISO files from original PlayStation discs. Hirai's talking about officially spreading around the PlayStation Suite

The Xperia Play, available in the U.S. on the Verizon and AT&T mobile services, hasn't caught fire, and sales of PlayStation Games on the Android marketplace, at the U.S. launch, were low, attributed to few titles being offered and lack of consumer awareness.

Sony Seeks to Add Its Games to More Devices [The Wall Street Journal (subscription)]


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/excerpts/~3/xRcZwu8Tjs8/playstation-games-not-just-for-sony-devices-says-hirai

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Sunday 23 October 2011

Lindsay Lohan Arrives Late to First Day of Morgue Duty (omg!)

DirecTV says may pull the plug on Fox TV shows Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore - Reuters - 9 hours ago

(Reuters) - A dispute has broken out between News Corp owned Fox Networks and DirecTV Group, the largest U.S. satellite TV provider, over carriage fees that could potentially?? More??DirecTV says may pull the plug on Fox TV shows

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/http___omg_yahoo_com_news75121/43340082/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/lindsay-lohan-arrives-late-to-first-day-of-morgue-duty/75121

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Worms Crazy Golf tops iPhone Games of the Week (Appolicious)

The strategy game series Worms is generally about big explosions and cartoonish wars, but the earthworm battle atmosphere is pretty well translated to golf with Worms Crazy Golf. A worthy title for the Games of the Week, it heads up a great list of titles that includes multiplayer, puzzle and action titles. Check them out below.

Worms manages to hit a stride similar to Super Stickman Golf ? a side-scrolling golfing game with crazy environments ? and takes it up a notch. First is the Worms license, which adds a humorous and cartoonish bent to the game. Then, the game expands on the simplicity of its golf undertones by throwing in things like the ability to choose what club to use or add spin to the ball after it lands. There are also obstacles like groundskeepers and sheep with which to deal, resulting in a fairly deep golf experience that?s also light-hearted and fun. It has pass-and-play multiplayer, so it?s great for a party as well as alone.

Finally, Death Rally has multiplayer! The racing-and-shooting title has been great for a long time and has only gotten better as developer Remedy added more and more content with each of its six updates. But with this seventh update, the game finally hits its stride by adding online multiplayer for as many as four players. Death Rally has always felt like a perfect multiplayer game, what with mixing racing fast cars on beautiful courses with shooting missiles at your opponents. The missing multiplayer aspect was a serious disappointment ? up until now. Given that the game is as fun as it is alone, it?s even better with friends. Fortunately, now you and your buddies can enjoy blowing up each other?s vehicles.

It?s hard to argue with a lot of content without having to pay a lot of money, and that?s what?s available in the Corona Indie Bundle. It?s five games for the price of one, and the titles contained within are pretty decent. Just two or three of these games would be nice, but having all five is quite a bit of content, and worthy of picking up for any mobile gaming fan. All are notable indie titles, but The Secret of Grisly Manor is worth the price of entry on its own. Throw in the other addictive titles (Chicken?s Quest, Walkabout, Robot 99 and Float) and this one becomes a great deal.

It?s hard to deny the highly addictive nature of Fruit Ninja. But the game hasn?t been changed too much since its release. With the movie tie-in title Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, players get some new challenges to put their fruit-dicing skills to the test. One half of the game is much like the Fruit Ninja of old, but the Challenge mode is where the real fun is at. Colorful fruits fly in formations that have to be quickly diced, or appear from behind doors only to disappear quickly again. Some are even covered by huge bombs. They?re all obstacles you have to deal with in the Challenge mode. Even the various stages are slightly different in this game mode, with fruits bouncing off walls and hitting floors to change how they move. It successfully takes all that time you put into Fruit Ninja and forces you to apply those skills in a new way.

A side-scrolling 2-D running title, Zombie Parkour has a great art style, lots of fast-twitch action, and zombies. The game requires quite a bit of attention to be paid to it to rack-up high scores, but in general it?s just addictive to try to time your taps on the screen to leap, vault and slide under various obstacles throughout the course of the game. Zombie Parkour is weirdly hypnotic and it?s generally possible to replay levels to increase your high score. The game has enough of a hook to keep players coming back, and features 24 levels to keep you occupied. But more than anything, finding the collectibles and the challenge of executing levels perfectly is what will keep players coming back.

*Full disclosure: Zombie Parkour Runner is made by Up Up Down Down Games, a subsidiary of Break Media, which owns GameFront.com, for whom I write about video games. My affiliation with Break is how I found out about the game, but that?s all the interaction I?ve had with anyone from Break regarding it. I paid for it and enjoyed it, which is why it?s included here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/videogames/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_appolicious_com_articles9966_worms_crazy_golf_tops_iphone_games_of_the_week/43332687/SIG=12vijivtn/*http%3A//www.appolicious.com/games/articles/9966-worms-crazy-golf-tops-iphone-games-of-the-week

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Saturday 22 October 2011

5 great `Sesame Street' celebrity appearances (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? The documentary "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey" opens this week, about every toddler's favorite red monster and the man who brings him to life, Kevin Clash.

One of the joys of watching Clash in action ? besides marveling at how effortless he makes it all look ? is seeing how seamlessly he relates to both children and adults. And the segments he does with celebrities, as Elmo learns a lesson or explains a new word, are among his best. So here's a look at five of the greatest celebrity appearances over the four-plus decades "Sesame Street" has been on air. As the mother of a 2-year-old son, compiling this week's list was one of the most enjoyable yet.

? Stevie Wonder performs "Superstition" (1973): This sort of thing doesn't happen on "Sesame Street" anymore. Sure, they have plenty of top artists perform all the time. But this is young Wonder at his thrilling best, singing one of his most enduring songs with a full band behind him, and the energy is just incredible. Check out the little kids playing maracas on the stairs and rocking out on the fire escapes. Plus, the clip is nearly 7 minutes long ? which would be unheard of today on any type of TV show ? and it even features a shout-out to Cookie Monster. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v_ul7X5js1vE)

? Ricky Gervais sings a lullaby to Elmo (2009): A great example of how Clash skillfully straddles the line between appealing to kids through Elmo's innate sweetness and making adults laugh with more knowing, playful humor. When Elmo's having trouble falling asleep at night, Gervais shows up with a guitar to sing him a lullaby about the letter N. The song starts out with harmless words like nice, nuzzle and nightcap, but it eventually gets noisy as Gervais cranks it up for the chorus. He is, as always, hilarious. But also be sure to notice the variety of expressions Clash coaxes out of Elmo's furry, red noggin. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?vJc20vMz0V7Q). Also check out a clip from the interview The Associated Press did with Gervais and Elmo during that shoot. It's hysterical: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?vKr9_5uZn6ds).

? Lena Horne sings "Bein' Green" with Kermit the Frog (1974): This clip is so lovely, so delicate and yet so powerful, it makes me want to cry every time. It's a classic "Sesame Street" song with its poignant message of self-acceptance. But here, Horne sympathizes with Kermit, who looks so lonely and forlorn at the beginning of the song in Jim Henson's masterful hands. By the end, he's singing along with her, having taking the lyrics to heart: "It's beautiful, and I think it's what I want to be." Horne made several appearances on "Sesame Street," and this performance exemplifies her beauty and grace. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?vmPvZR6DTbq8).

? Johnny Cash sings "Nasty Dan" to Oscar the Grouch (1974): Can you imagine a more perfect collaboration than this? With a knock of his black guitar on Oscar's rusty, dented trash can, Cash sings a song that's music to the grouch's ears. Oscar is transfixed by such lyrics as: "He'd growl and yell and I heard tell he never took a bath." At the end of the song, Cash deadpans, "Have a rotten day," and he's off with the same quiet cool he had when he arrived. Cash showed up a few times on "Sesame Street" but this one stands out because it's quirky and strangely sweet. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?vH75eQX006jA)

? Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts explain the word "exchange" with Elmo (2011): This is a recent one ? from the current season, actually ? but it cracked me up so I had to include it. Schreiber, Watts and Elmo have various toys to trade with each other, but the running gag is that Schreiber keeps getting nudged out, and he becomes increasingly exasperated. It's funny because Schreiber and Watts, who are a couple with kids in real life, are just so cute together ? he's 6 feet and 3 inches and she's petite and they have this fuzzy, red puppet bopping around in between them ? but also because these are serious actors doing a scene involving purple balls and stuffed ducks. ( http://www.youtube.com/user/SesameStreet?blend1&ob4#p/search/0/q1v6Cj_12DM)

___

Think of any other examples? Share them with AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111020/ap_en_tv/us_film_five_most

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Friday 21 October 2011

Pentagon weighing how to respond to cyberattacks

(AP) ? The Defense Department is finalizing policies that will determine what the military can do in the event of a cyberattack as the government figures out who should have the power to shut down computer networks seized by an enemy nation, terrorist group or criminal hacker.

Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads U.S. Cyber Command, said Thursday that attacks against critical systems are increasingly carrying destructive viruses or malware that can hinder or destroy routers or networks. Alexander, who also is director of the National Security Agency, said the Pentagon and intelligence agencies must do more to protect their computer systems and coordinate with private companies to safeguard public networks.

Government cybersecurity officials say cyberattackers are using the Internet to steal money, ferret out classified secrets and technology, and disturb or destroy important infrastructure, from the electrical grid and telecommunications networks to nuclear power plants and transportation systems.

The Defense Department has set up a trial program to share cyberthreat data with some large military contractors in order to prevent intrusions. The Department of Homeland Security is looking at that model.

Alexander said that effort may need government action, but that Homeland Security must lead it, with reviews to ensure the protections of civil liberties and privacy.

He said it's no longer good enough to try to monitor all networks at the Pentagon or across the government and then block the intrusions as they are detected. Cybersecurity experts note that it can sometimes take months to detect that someone has gotten in.

Instead, Alexander said the Defense Department is planning a drastic reduction in the number of routes into the network, so they can be better monitored and intrusions can be blocked in real time.

He also said defense and intelligence agencies will move to cloud computing, which would use highly secure, encrypted banks of remote computers to store data ? much like people store photos or email in popular online programs.

Doing that, said Alexander, will allow officials to better see and block any threats trying to get into government systems. He also noted that commanders used cloud computing in Iraq, which allowed the military in intelligence officials to more quickly share and disseminate information to troops on the front lines who needed it.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-10-20-Pentagon-Cyberattacks/id-ddc7097ecbb84460868298f4ebeffc34

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Netflix Android app adds support for Honeycomb tablets, extends reach to Canada and Latin America

Honeycomb tablet owners have already been able to use Netflix unofficially thanks to some .APKs that have been floating about, but the company has now finally updated the app with some official support for Android 3.x tablets beyond those that shipped with it pre-installed. What's more, the latest version of the app also brings with it support for Netflix users in Canada and Latin America, who can likewise enjoy some some streaming video on both their Android phones and tablets without the need for a workaround. Hit the Android Market link below to send the app straight to your device.

Netflix Android app adds support for Honeycomb tablets, extends reach to Canada and Latin America originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAndroid Market, Netflix Blog  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/19/netflix-android-app-adds-support-for-honeycomb-tablets-extends/

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Thursday 20 October 2011

Sexy women coax passwords out of hackers

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Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Levitation

24811530 story
Transportation Science

Posted by samzenpus
from the floating-around dept.

UnknownSoldier writes "Wired reports that researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered you can 'lock' a magnetic field into place with a superconductor. They have a very cool demonstration of a frozen puck and some of the neat things you can do with it while its orientation remains locked but its location is movable. Might we someday see high speed trains that will be 'impossible' to tip over, or a new generation of batteries with this technology?"

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/vWPaMN8i9aU/researchers-demonstrate-quantum-levitation

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Wednesday 19 October 2011

Penn researchers demonstrate efficacy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccine

Penn researchers demonstrate efficacy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccine [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Oct-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Evan Lerner
elerner@upenn.edu
215-573-6604
University of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA An experimental vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine is the first veterinary cancer vaccine of its kind that shows an increase in survival time for dogs with spontaneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The work shows for the first time the feasibility and therapeutic efficacy of this alternative cell-based vaccine, which could be employed in the treatment of a number of different cancer types.

The research was conducted by Nicola Mason, assistant professor of medicine at Penn Vet; Robert H. Vonderheide, associate professor of hematology and oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine; and Karin U. Sorenmo, associate professor of oncology at Penn Vet. Erika Krick, Beth Overley and Thomas P. Gregor of Penn Vet and Christina M. Coughlin of the School of Medicine also contributed to the research.

Their work was published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The team recruited dogs that were brought to Penn's Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital with newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to receive the experimental vaccine following standard induction chemotherapy and confirmation of clinical remission. The goal of the study was to determine whether the vaccine would prevent or prolong time to a relapse, a common scenario in both humans and dogs with NHL.

"We vaccinated dogs, which were in clinical remission following chemotherapy, three times," Mason said. "We then tracked them over several years to see if the vaccine would prevent relapse and would prolong overall survival.

"We found that, although the vaccinated dogs still relapsed with clinical disease when they were treated with rescue chemotherapy, they had significantly increased overall survival times when compared to an unvaccinated control group. Some of these dogs are still alive and cancer free more than three years later.

"The results with these dogs indicate that our immunotherapy and rescue chemotherapy appear to act synergistically to prevent a second relapse a phenomenon that has been previously recognized in human patients treated with other types of immunotherapy," she said.

Previous cell based vaccines have utilized genetically engineering dendritic cells which are part of the immune system to stimulate immune responses against cancers. Similar to using weakened viruses in traditional vaccines, scientists load these cells with tumor proteins and inject the cells back into the patient's body. Such cell-based vaccines are already being used to treat prostate cancer in humans, but engineering these cells is expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, patients must also endure long, leukapheresis sessions in which the necessary dendritic cells are harvested from their blood.

The Penn team hypothesized that another kind of immune cell, B-cells, could work just as well under the right conditions. Unlike dendritic cells, many B-cells can be grown from a small blood sample, removing the requirement for leukapheresis.

Mason's team made the vaccine by culturing B-cells from the blood taken from the dogs with NHL. These cells were then loaded with RNA that had been isolated from the patient's own tumor.

The results were impressive.

"Though vaccinated and unvaccinated dogs relapsed with clinical disease at the same time, 40 percent of vaccinated dogs that relapsed experienced long-term survival after a second round of chemotherapy; only 7 percent of unvaccinated dogs that relapsed and were treated with the same rescue chemotherapy protocol survived long term," Mason said. "Furthermore, when the vaccinated long-term survivors did eventually die, they showed no evidence of lymphoma on full necropsy."

While the molecular mechanisms responsible for these observed synergistic effects are currently unknown, Mason believes that the vaccine-primed immune system may be boosted by the effects of rescue chemotherapy leading to long term second remissions.

Though the increases in long-term survival are already unprecedented and the proof-of-concept for B-cell-based cancer vaccines represents a step forward in cell-based vaccine development, future research could have even more exciting results.

"These dogs just received three doses of vaccine, three weeks apart. If we kept boosting the immune system in this way by vaccination, perhaps the dogs would not relapse in the first place" Mason said.

Work is now underway to streamline B-cell vaccine generation and initiate further clinical trials aimed at optimizing this novel cell-based approach.

###

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, Onyx and Breezy Foundation, Barry and Savannah Poodle Memorial Fund, Mari Lowe Comparative Oncology Center, Immunobiology Program of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Oncology Research Fund at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.


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Penn researchers demonstrate efficacy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccine [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Oct-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Evan Lerner
elerner@upenn.edu
215-573-6604
University of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA An experimental vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine is the first veterinary cancer vaccine of its kind that shows an increase in survival time for dogs with spontaneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The work shows for the first time the feasibility and therapeutic efficacy of this alternative cell-based vaccine, which could be employed in the treatment of a number of different cancer types.

The research was conducted by Nicola Mason, assistant professor of medicine at Penn Vet; Robert H. Vonderheide, associate professor of hematology and oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine; and Karin U. Sorenmo, associate professor of oncology at Penn Vet. Erika Krick, Beth Overley and Thomas P. Gregor of Penn Vet and Christina M. Coughlin of the School of Medicine also contributed to the research.

Their work was published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The team recruited dogs that were brought to Penn's Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital with newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to receive the experimental vaccine following standard induction chemotherapy and confirmation of clinical remission. The goal of the study was to determine whether the vaccine would prevent or prolong time to a relapse, a common scenario in both humans and dogs with NHL.

"We vaccinated dogs, which were in clinical remission following chemotherapy, three times," Mason said. "We then tracked them over several years to see if the vaccine would prevent relapse and would prolong overall survival.

"We found that, although the vaccinated dogs still relapsed with clinical disease when they were treated with rescue chemotherapy, they had significantly increased overall survival times when compared to an unvaccinated control group. Some of these dogs are still alive and cancer free more than three years later.

"The results with these dogs indicate that our immunotherapy and rescue chemotherapy appear to act synergistically to prevent a second relapse a phenomenon that has been previously recognized in human patients treated with other types of immunotherapy," she said.

Previous cell based vaccines have utilized genetically engineering dendritic cells which are part of the immune system to stimulate immune responses against cancers. Similar to using weakened viruses in traditional vaccines, scientists load these cells with tumor proteins and inject the cells back into the patient's body. Such cell-based vaccines are already being used to treat prostate cancer in humans, but engineering these cells is expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, patients must also endure long, leukapheresis sessions in which the necessary dendritic cells are harvested from their blood.

The Penn team hypothesized that another kind of immune cell, B-cells, could work just as well under the right conditions. Unlike dendritic cells, many B-cells can be grown from a small blood sample, removing the requirement for leukapheresis.

Mason's team made the vaccine by culturing B-cells from the blood taken from the dogs with NHL. These cells were then loaded with RNA that had been isolated from the patient's own tumor.

The results were impressive.

"Though vaccinated and unvaccinated dogs relapsed with clinical disease at the same time, 40 percent of vaccinated dogs that relapsed experienced long-term survival after a second round of chemotherapy; only 7 percent of unvaccinated dogs that relapsed and were treated with the same rescue chemotherapy protocol survived long term," Mason said. "Furthermore, when the vaccinated long-term survivors did eventually die, they showed no evidence of lymphoma on full necropsy."

While the molecular mechanisms responsible for these observed synergistic effects are currently unknown, Mason believes that the vaccine-primed immune system may be boosted by the effects of rescue chemotherapy leading to long term second remissions.

Though the increases in long-term survival are already unprecedented and the proof-of-concept for B-cell-based cancer vaccines represents a step forward in cell-based vaccine development, future research could have even more exciting results.

"These dogs just received three doses of vaccine, three weeks apart. If we kept boosting the immune system in this way by vaccination, perhaps the dogs would not relapse in the first place" Mason said.

Work is now underway to streamline B-cell vaccine generation and initiate further clinical trials aimed at optimizing this novel cell-based approach.

###

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, Onyx and Breezy Foundation, Barry and Savannah Poodle Memorial Fund, Mari Lowe Comparative Oncology Center, Immunobiology Program of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Oncology Research Fund at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.


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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uop-prd101811.php

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Tuesday 18 October 2011

Stocks turn positive despite Europe worries

By Chuck Mikolajczak, Reuters

Stocks rose Tuesday, led by financials, as better-than-expected bank earnings overshadowed new worries about the crisis in Europe fueled by a warning over France's credit rating.

The three major indexes spent the early part of the session in negative territory before banks led the way higher. The KBW bank index advanced nearly 4 percent.

Volatility was still evident as U.S. stocks suffered their worst loss in two weeks on Monday on the heels of its first two-week rally since July.

Bank of America Corp jumped 5.8 percent to $6.38 after it reported a third-quarter profit boosted by accounting gains and asset sales.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc added 1.9 percent to $98.78 after reporting a rare loss but said it was moving to cut costs, including employee pay.

State Street Corp climbed 6.6 percent to $36.11 after its net income rose, lifted by tax benefits and double-digit gains from servicing and investment management fees.

"Part of the reason financials are acting better than people were largely expecting ... is because though earnings are by historic standards very, very disappointing, they are not as bad as a lot of the naysayers were expecting them to be," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"There was some genuine panic the banks, the financials, were going to start reporting earnings that were going to just undermine any shred of confidence and any kind of sustainable rebound and really the earnings haven't done that."

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 66.26 points, or 0.58 percent, to 11,463.26. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 10.79 points, or 0.90 percent, to 1,211.65. The Nasdaq Composite Indexclimbed 18.94 points, or 0.72 percent, to 2,633.86.

But International Business Machines Corpfell about nearly 5 percent to $177.40 after Big Blue's earnings beat failed to stem worries about a slowdown in technology spending.

Gains were kept in check after Moody's cautioned it may slap a negative outlook on France's Aaa credit rating in the next three months if costs from helping to bail out banks and other euro zone members stretch its budget too thin.

Another negative was data showing China's growth slowed in the third quarter to its weakest pace since early 2009. Gross domestic product rose 9.1 percent in the quarter from a year earlier, but was down from 9.5 percent in the previous period.

"China slowing and now Moody's is possibly warning on France, add that to the list of the European countries," said John Papa, President of Diversified Planning Strategies in Caldwell, New Jersey.

"The news is not great, that is dragging down the markets, which you have to expect is going to happen."

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/18/8382266-stocks-turn-positive-despite-europe-worries

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Monday 17 October 2011

Gamecube-free Wii refresh heads to North America, competes with more versatile predecessor

Usually when a hardware refresh axes a major feature, it gets a comparable price drop. Not for Nintendo's waggle star, however -- the gamecube-free Wii refresh we've seen advertised for Europe is heading to North America for the same price as its backwards-compatible kin. $150 will get you a black console designed to lay on its side and streamlined to play only Wii software, a Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack and a copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. All well and good, except that Nintendo's press release (which you'll find after the break) also promises that the existing Wii bundle will stick around, packing Mario Kart Wii, a Wii Wheel, backwards compatibility for Gamecube games and the very same $150 price tag as the downgraded redesign. Mark your Christmas wishlists carefully folks, this one's a doozy.

Continue reading Gamecube-free Wii refresh heads to North America, competes with more versatile predecessor

Gamecube-free Wii refresh heads to North America, competes with more versatile predecessor originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/16/gamecube-free-wii-refresh-heads-to-north-america-competes-with/

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Sunday 16 October 2011

Shop the new Sony 15.5? Full HD VAIO S Series Laptop. Up to 14 hours of battery life with optional sheet battery at Store.Sony.com

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CouponShoebox/~3/Ly78JK3Wxag/

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G20 ministers back big bank capital surcharge (Reuters)

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) ? Finance ministers and central bankers from the world's top economies backed on Saturday a mandatory capital surcharge on big lenders of up to 2.5 percent to be phased in from 2016, dealing a blow to banks hoping for a rethink or delay.

The communique from a meeting of G20 finance chiefs endorsed a 1-2.5 percent capital surcharge on top banks like Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

The aim is to make sure they have enough capital to withstand market turbulence so that taxpayers won't have to rescue banks again in the next crisis.

A summit of the G20 leaders in Cannes, France in early November is set to give final approval to the surcharge plan and name the banks affected, known as global systemically important financial institution or G-SIFIs, G20 sources said.

"Now that the framework applicable to G-SIFIs is agreed, we urge the Financial Stability Board to define the modalities to extend expeditiously the framework to all SIFIs," the communique said.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has called the surcharge anti-American while insurers are battling against being saddled with one too, as are second tier banks.

The charge -- which will be in addition to a "Basel III" 7 percent minimum core capital buffer being phased in for all banks from 2013 -- is part of a wider package the G20 ministers endorsed on Saturday.

They also reaffirmed the timeline for Basel III in another blow to banks wanting a delay, saying they will crimp lending.

Banks will welcome confirmation from Germany's finance minister there is no chance of a global tax on financial transactions, though he urged Europe to push ahead with its own, a step Britain opposes.

Other elements backed on Saturday included common "tools" for supervisors to wind up ailing banks, compulsory "living wills" or resolution plans for every big bank, and more intensive supervision for large lenders.

The FSB, which formulates and coordinates financial regulation on behalf of the G20, has already drawn up criteria to determine which banks face a surcharge.

It has said 28 banks would be affected if the regime was introduced immediately but G20 sources said the Cannes summit may name up to 50 lenders. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said there was no official list yet and he did not expect any Canadian banks to be on it.

FSB Chairman Mario Draghi steps down as chairman this month to become president of the European Central Bank. Asked if he was the lead candidate to replace him, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney told reporters: "I hope so."

COMMODITIES

The FSB won G20 backing for its workplan to define the so-called shadow banking sector before thrashing out recommendations next year to regulate it.

Supervisors fear that as banks face tougher rules, risky activities could migrate to other parts of the financial system such as money market funds and special vehicles.

G20 presidency France lost its battle to introduce tough curbs on what it sees as speculation in food and energy commodity markets by imposing limits on the size of positions a trader can hold at any given time.

G20 ministers said recommendations from the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), which groups national market watchdogs, on more transparency in commodity derivatives markets should be implemented by the end of 2012.

The IOSCO report falls short of mandating commodity position limits in the way the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to do next week.

Ministers also asked IOSCO to make recommendations to "improve the functioning and oversight of price reporting agencies for mid-2012."

They also want to make it easier to track traders.

"We underscored our support for a global legal entity identifier system which uniquely identifies parties to financial transactions with an appropriate governance structure representing public interest," their communique said.

IMPLEMENTATION

The Paris communique marked a turning point as the G20 begins to shift its focus from rulemaking to implementation of the welter of rules it set in train.

Its main tool will be a beefed up FSB.

"To ensure that the FSB keeps pace with our ambitious financial regulation agenda, we commit to strengthen its capacity, resources and governance building on its Chair's preliminary proposals and call for first steps to be implemented by the end of this year, the communique said.

The ministers agreed to coordinate monitoring of Basel III, set up peer reviews of how the capital surcharge is introduced, and better coordinate their derivatives reforms which threaten to miss the end of 2012 deadline.

Draghi proposed more members from emerging markets and developing countries on the FSB's agenda-setting steering committee, G20 sources said.

He also wants representatives of finance ministries on the FSB steering committee to add political clout, sources said.

G20 ministers backed an FSB report on financial consumer protection principles authored by the OECD but called for further work on "implementation issues."

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn and Randall Palmer in Paris, editing by Mike Peacock)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111015/bs_nm/us_g20_regulation

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Saturday 15 October 2011

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's prescient fiction

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami uses his novels to peel back the layered chaos of an uncertain world.

In Haruki Murakami's world, fish fall from the sky near a Tokyo train station, backyard wells lead to personal and political violence, and a giant frog tells a businessman how to save Tokyo from its next major earthquake. The mundane mingles with the absurd, but neither offers solutions in a universe bent toward chaos.

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Mr. Murakami cites Franz Kafka as one of his major influences, yet he warms Kafka's chilly detachment with Japanese earnestness, producing novels that anticipate apocalypse without succumbing to easy cynicism. In Murakami's world, chaos is softened by empathy ? a quality in sorrowfully short supply, in fiction or in reality, in our 21st century.

"Everything is uncertain," muses Tengo, the male protagonist of Murakami's forthcoming novel, "1Q84," "and ultimately ambiguous." In Murakami's world, uncertainty is the norm. But once you accept it, his stories suggest, you can live and love accordingly.

Murakami's native land, Japan, has honed apocalyptic narratives by necessity. The only nation to have been victimized by the atomic bomb in 1945 is an archipelago slightly smaller than the state of California, subject to typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis ? the latter of which recently destroyed the homes and livelihoods of much of its northeastern population. The brutal irony of the nation's embrace of nuclear power after its World War II blasts was summarized by Murakami himself during an awards speech in Barcelona this spring: "The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is the second major nuclear detriment that the Japanese people have experienced," he said. "However, this time it was not a bomb being dropped upon us, but a mistake committed by our very own hands.

"Yet those who questioned nuclear power were marginalized as being 'unrealistic dreamers.' "

Murakami may well have been talking about himself. Throughout his career, he has been marginalized by his generation, Japan's "boomers," many of whom abandoned political causes when the country's economic juggernaut seemed a sure thing. Living abroad, he heard a lot about his country's wealth and technology but nothing about its culture. "[My generation] was arrogant," he says now. "We believed that the future would always be better, but that's not true."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cmRLR8jpUPo/Japanese-writer-Haruki-Murakami-s-prescient-fiction

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Friday 14 October 2011

Four Dangers Every Personal Trainer Needs to Know When ...

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has had 47 complaints from people that have received fractures or bruises from using their stability balls. Due to these complaints, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has sent out a voluntary recall of over 3,000,000 stability balls. These stability balls were made by EB Brands and were under the brand names of Bally Total Fitness, Everlast, Valeo and Body Fit Fitness Balls. The Consumer Product Safety Division of Health Canada has not made any warning or voluntary recall of these common fitness brands as seen at Winners and Zellers. Here are four dangers that every personal trainer needs to know when training their clients on a stability ball:

Keep it Under 330 Pounds ? Many stability balls will only hold 330 lbs of force. When you train your client with exercises that involve bouncing on the stability ball, it creates more force than most stability balls can handle. The increased force, increases the risk of the stability ball bursting. When training your client on the stability ball make sure they do not bounce; in order to get maximum benefit from the exercise and decrease the risk of the ball bursting and injuring your client.

Don?t Use Weights ? Many stability balls do not recommend using additional weight. For example; dumbbells or medicine balls. Additional weight increases the force on the ball and increase the risk of it bursting. When training your client use the stability ball for bodyweight exercises like squats and ab crunches.

Fill it to the Recommended Height ? The main reason why stability balls burst on people is they are over inflated. People will fill them up. They will use them for a while and the rubber will stretch. Since the rubber has stretched, the ball becomes flat or softer, so they pump it up with more air so it feels firmer. This thins out the rubber of the ball and leads to greater risk of popping. Pump up the stability ball once to the recommended height using a tape measure and wall. If you like a firmer stability ball that will hold its shape, ask your local fitness equipment store for options.

Make Sure the Temperature is Right ? Check to see what temperature the manufacturer recommends the ball be inflated at. Many times they will recommend pumping up your stability ball in an environment that is between 32? C and 18? C. This is because stability balls shrink and expand at different temperatures. Check what is recommended and fill up the stability ball at those temperatures in order to be safe.

These are four tips on the dangers that every fitness professional needs to know when training their client with a stability ball. In order to be safe and get maximum results for your client, avoid exercises that involve a lot of bouncing, don?t use weights on a stability ball, fill the stability ball to the recommended height, and make sure you fill your stability ball in the right temperature.

Source: http://fitness-personal-training.chailit.com/four-dangers-every-personal-trainer-needs-to-know-when-training-their-clients-on-a-stability-ball.html

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FBI Arrests the Scarlett Johansson Phone Hacker [Hacking]

The FBI arrested a suspect today who they believe not only hacked Scarlett Johansson's phone, but the phones of 50 other people in showbiz as well. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/HLUxbepBB_g/fbi-arrests-the-scarlett-johansson-phone-hacker

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