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France’s Souleymane M’Baye clinched the WBA welterweight title by beating Canadian Antonin Decarie with a unanimous points decision in Levallois-Perret, France on Friday.
M’Baye, a former WBA light welterweight champion, now 39-3-1 with 21 knockouts, handed Decarie his first defeat in 24 bouts.
The 35-year-old M’Baye won 116-113 116-112 116-113.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; editing by Pritha Sarkar; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
TOKYO (AP) Grand champion Hakuho defeated Mongolian compatriot Harumafuji on Sunday to finish the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament with a perfect record from 15 bouts. Hakuho, who wrapped up his 14th Emperor’s Cup on Friday, got a grip of Harumafuji’s belt and lifted his opponent out to stay undefeated on the final day of the 15-day meet at Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Hakuho is the sole grand champion competing in sumo after the retirement of Mongolian Asashoryu in February. Veteran Kaio defeated fellow ozeki Kotooshu of Bulgaria to improve to 9-6 and pick up his 1,000th career win.
Only former grand champion Chiyonofuji has more wins with 1,045. Estonian Baruto, making his debut at the second-highest rank of ozeki, lost to Kotomitsuki on Sunday to finish with a 10-5 record.
Washington, May 21 (ANI): Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Yale University have identified two genes that appear to regulate meal sizes and frequency in fruit flies.
Both genes, the leucokinin neuropeptide and the leucokinin receptor, have mammalian counterparts that seem to play a similar role in food intake, indicating that the steps that control meal size and meal frequency are not just behaviorally similar but are controlled by the same genes throughout the animal kingdom.
In animals, food intake is regulated to keep body weight constant over a long period of time. Most animals consume food in discrete bouts-that is, in meals.
“Identifying the genes and molecules that regulate meal-related parameters is essential for understanding the relationships between body weight and caloric intake,” says Bader Al-Anzi, a research scientist at Caltech and the lead author of the Current Biology study.
Al-Anzi and his colleagues developed an assay to examine feeding behavior in the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In this assay, genetically normal flies were starved for one day and then transferred into a vial containing sugar meal mixed with red food dye. Invariably, the flies became satiated during their exposure to red food, and their small abdomens turned red. Next, the researchers performed the same experiment using mutant fly strains.
“Our hope was that if flies contained mutations in genes involved in meal regulation, those flies would eat excessive amounts of red food, making them visibly bloated with red abdomens,” says Al-Anzi,
Two mutant fly strains produced notable results. One strain contained a mutation in the gene encoding the leucokinin neuropeptide (a peptide initially identified for its ability to induce insect gut contraction), and the second strain contained mutated versions of the receptor that binds to leucokinin. In the assay, both types of fly mutants ate to such excess that they became visibly bloated, with their crops-food storage organs-stretched to the limit with red-dyed food.
Surprisingly, Al-Anzi says, “although in the short term these flies tend to overeat, in the long run they consume a similar amount of food as normal flies. This was largely due to the fact that they are compensating for the large increase in meal size by reducing the number of times they eat.” Whereas mutant flies consumed four or five large meals in a single day, normal flies ate seven or eight small meals.
In additional experiments, Al-Anzi and his colleagues found that although the leucokinin neuropeptide is found exclusively in the brain, the leucokinin receptor is found in neurons located in both the brain and the foregut-an area of the gut that contains stretch receptors known to be responsible for monitoring meal size in other insects.
The researchers also found that introducing a normal copy of the leucokinin neuropeptide or of the leucokinin receptor gene to these neurons in their corresponding mutant flies fully restored normal feeding behavior.
Furthermore, when these same neurons were destroyed in normal, nonmutant flies, the flies began to consume abnormally large meals, just like mutants.
“This proves that we identified the right genes responsible for the flies”” bingeing as well as the fly brain center that regulates meal size and frequency,” Al-Anzi says.
The study will appear in the June 8 issue of the journal Current Biology. (ANI)
No one asked how disappointed she was, no one cared. The crowds stayed away as Alka Tomar let the advantage slip and slid towards a bronze medal in the freestyle event of women’s wrestling on the third day of the Senior Asian Wrestling Championship on Friday.
But disappointment was writ large on Tomar’s face when she met the media after accepting the bronze medal in the 59kg category.
Chief coach Pyara Ram Sondhi had by then given the team members a piece of his mind for showing little intensity, and the Meerut wrestler agreed that a lot was needed to improve the standards.
Losing the semi-final to China’s Liu Fegming in three rounds, Tomar said the result could have been different, but for a rush of blood. “I had the upper hand and could have beaten her but I rushed it,” Tomar said. “Gold nikal gaya.” (“The gold slipped away.”)
Tomar took bronze after winning her repechage bout over Kazakstan’s Miruert Dynbayeva.
Sondhi, a former member of the men’s staff under whom Sushil Kumar won the bronze in Beijing Olympics, has already chalked out plans for a new training regime for the women, who won two bronze, though they were in the running for six — all through repechage bouts. “We learnt our lessons today,” he said. “Our girls will be put under a severe training regimen.”
He said the team members are not mentally tough enough. “A combination of counselling and hard practice is the need of the hour,” he said. “A couple of them could have played in the finals, but for foolish mistakes.”
Result-wise, the hosts repeated the medal haul from the 2009 event.
Suman Kundu beat Kazakhstan’s Olga Kalinina in the 63kg category to secure the second bronze for India, her first Asian championship medal.
Four others, including Babita Kumari, who stretched her Japanese opponent Sakurai Hiromi till the end, missed out on a medal. Nirmala Devi lost to Sim-Hyang So of North Korea in the 48kg category, while Geetika Jakhar lost to China’s Chen Ying in the 67kg category. Anmol was later beaten comprehensively by Inoue Yoshiko of Japan in 72kg.
Chinese women dominated the proceedings on Day Three, winning four of the seven gold medals.
Zhao Shasha defeated Mimura Fuyuko of Japan in the 48-kg category; North Korea’s So Sim Hyang and Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Lua took bronze.
In the 51kg category, China’s Hui beat Zhuldyz Eshimova of Kazakhstan for the gold. Sakurai Hiromi of Japan and Han Kum Ok of North Korea settled for the bronze.
Yang Senlia won the third gold for China in the 55kg category, beating Japan’s Matsukawa Chikako. Choe Hungyong of North Korea and Mongolia’s S Byambatseren bagged the bronze.
China’s Liu Fengming got the fourth gold for China — she beat Mongolia’s S Battsetseg in the 59kg category.
In other results, Korea’s Sang Eun beat Cui Haili of China for the 63kg gold, and Japan’s Iijima Chiaki beat Mongolia’s B Oyunsuren in 67kg category. Kazakhstan Guzel Guzel Manyurova won a gold defeating G Naranchimeg of Mongolia.
Bhopal, Apr 24 (ANI): The Indian women boxers are preparing for the ensuing Asian Games and the World Cup at the national training camp held at Bhopal.
This camp, which commenced on April 15, will continue till May 21.
The Indian Women Boxing Team chief coach, Anup Kumar, said every woman is trained individually in this camp and that the team is going to perform well in both the Asian Games and World Cup.
“We also emphasise on the defence part…defence…punch…which is going on nowadays…the defence which is done as a reaction to an attack…a counter attack which is done, is the best defence, more attention is laid on that. We do first attack as well,” Kumar said.
“Nowadays, there is computer scoring, which has changed a lot in scoring. Earlier…in manual scoring, it was easier, but today, if the chin does not go up, the punch is not considered strong enough, which means if the body weight is entirely on the punch, then it will earn a point,” he added.
Kumar further said that the Indian Boxing Federation (IBF) has chosen a capable team of senior as well as junior players for the camp.
The government of India has suggested an additional foreign coach to add to their experience.
M C Marykom, the four times world champion, said that all boxers at the camp are working hard and that they are much impressed by Kumar”s training, and another coach would supplement their skills.
“I think our Indian boxers have performed well. Anup Sir has given us good training and all the national coaches are doing good training with us. So…I mean…it is fine…if Russian coaches come, we will learn some techniques used there. I think we will benefit,” said Marykom.
She added that one or two from every country can give a good competition at the championship but China is the toughest competitor as of now.
After the camps in Patiala, Bangalore and Kolkata, the fourth one in Bhopal has witnessed more number of women, since it is centrally located.
Kumar is assisted by eight other coaches in the Bhopal camp. (ANI)
Four people have been killed and six others wounded in a mass shooting in one of Washington DC’s poor south-east neighbourhoods, media reports say.
According to witness accounts, the drive-by shooting, one of the capital’s worst bouts of gun violence in 15 years, turned a street into a war zone.
A gunman was “spraying [bullets] into a crowd” gathered outside an apartment block, police chief Cathy Lanier was quoted as saying in the Washington Post.
“All I saw was bodies dropping. It was like Vietnam,” a witness told the daily.
Washington NBC said that an AK47-type weapon was thrown from a fleeing car as police chased suspects through the city.
Chief Lanier later said three people were in custody after the shooting, but no charges had been filed, according to the Post report, adding that four police officers had been injured in the subsequent car chase.
- AFP
Washington, March 16 (ANI): A new research has shown that obesity limits the body’s ability to develop immunity to influenza viruses, particularly secondary infections, by inhibiting the immune system’s ability to “remember” how it fought off previous similar bouts of illness.
In the study, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that obese mice were not able to develop protective influenza-specific memory T cells.
These cells are generated by the body during an initial influenza infection. They help protect against a second infection by targeting internal proteins common among most strains of influenza viruses.
Leaner mice were able to develop the infection-fighting T cells and ward off a second bout of influenza.
“Our work suggests that obese people should be considered at high risk for infection,” said Erik Karlsson, doctoral candidate in nutrition and lead author of the study.
The researchers infected lean and obese mice with a mild influenza virus. The lean mice had been fed a low-fat diet, and obese mice had been fed a high-fat diet. When the mice recovered from the first bout of flu, they were infected a second time, with a larger dose of a more lethal influenza strain.
“We lost none of the lean mice, but 25 percent of obese mice died,” Karlsson said.
The study has been published in the March 15, 2010, issue of The Journal of Immunology. (ANI)
Washington, Mar 13 (ANI): The secret to staying fit is doing less exercise. Shocked? Well, a new study says short but intensive bursts of exercise lasting ten minutes are as effective as good as hours of training in fighting flab.
Boffins who have been studying interval training have found that it not only takes less time than what is typically recommended, but the regimen does not have to be “all out” to be effective in helping reduce the risk of such diseases at Type 2 diabetes.
The study appears in the March issue of The Journal of Physiology.
“What we”ve been able to show is that interval training does not have to be ”all out” in order to be effective and time-efficient,” says Martin Gibala, professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. “While still a very demanding form of training, the exercise might be more achievable by the general public—not just elite athletes—and it certainly doesn”t require the use of specialized laboratory equipment.”
Since Gibala”s first study on interval training was published five years ago, a growing body of research has zeroed in on this particular style of exercise in which you train hard but for less time.
Previous research by the McMaster group involved 30 seconds of maximal pedaling on a special bike followed by four minutes of recovery, and repeated 4-6 times. The new study involves eight to 12 one-minute bouts of exercise on a standard stationary bicycle at a relatively lower intensity with rest intervals of 75 seconds, for a total of 20-25 minutes per session. The workload was still above most people”s comfort zone —about 95percent of maximal heart rate — but only about half of what can be achieved when people sprint at an all-out pace.
“That is the trade-off for the relatively lower intensity,” says Gibala. “There is no free lunch; duration must increase as intensity decreases.”
While the total amount of exercise performed was higher than in Gibala”s previous interval training studies, the overall time commitment was still lower than what is typically recommended by public health agencies.
Subjects used in the study performed six training sessions over 14 days. (ANI)
Washington, Sept 2 (ANI): Hollywood starlet Megan Fox has revealed that she suffers “bouts of schizophrenia.”
The stunner, who starred in The Transformers, has confessed that she has struggled with mental health problems since her youth, and, although she hasn’t been officially diagnosed, she is convinced she shows symptoms of the psychiatric condition.
And the condition torments her in the form of auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions and social dysfunction.
The 23 year old also revealed that she has been following the life and death of Marilyn Monroe – who died of a drug overdose at the age of 36 – because she fears her end would be similar to hers.
She tells Wonderland magazine, “I basically read every book ever written about Marilyn Monroe. I could end up like that because I constantly struggle with the idea that I think I’m a borderline personality – or that I have bouts of mild schizophrenia.
“I definitely have some kind of mental problem and I haven’t pinpointed what it is.” (ANI)
London, August 30 (ANI): Jordan’s new lover Alex Reid has admitted that he snorted cocaine to relax after bouts.
The cage fighter, who was reportedly at the receiving end after a string of rows with the glamour girl over his part in violent hardcore porn film, alleged “every fighter needs to break the rules completely” and that sportsmen like him needed some “pharmaceuticals to get you high”.
The 34-year-old made the confession to the author of forthcoming ‘Warriors of the Cage’, published by Pennant Books, saying he used so much of the Class A drug that it took a toll on his health.
“I’ve done cocaine once too often, say like once every month or after a fight and that’s not good,” the News of the World quoted Reid as saying.
“It’s not good for a fighter because it’s taken vital years off my longevity in my health to come back,” he added.
The revelation may fuel the wrath of Peter Andre as he battles for custody of his children from Jordan, a.k.a Katie Price.
A source close to Andre said: “As far as Peter is concerned, Reid is not an ideal father figure and shouldn’t be responsible for another man’s children.
“Now that he’s admitted taking cocaine, it will send Peter through the roof knowing that this man is anywhere near his kids.” (ANI)
Washington, August 21 (ANI): A new study has found that young muskoxen conserve heat almost as well as adults, a finding that runs contrary to a longstanding assumption among scientists that young animals should be more vulnerable in extreme cold.
Biologist Adam Munn from the University of Sydney, Australia, carried out the study.
Surviving freezing winters is tough for any animal, but it is generally assumed to be tougher on the young.
Young animals theoretically should have a harder time holding heat because they have larger ratios of surface area to body volume, meaning more of their body mass is directly exposed to the cold.
That theory appeared to hold true for muskoxen-shaggy vegetarians that look a bit like buffalo, but are actually more closely related to sheep.
Scientists have previously reported high death rates for muskox calves during especially cold winters in their arctic habitats.
But, in measuring heat loss in adult and young muskoxen, Munn and his research team found that the cold itself might not be the culprit.
“To our surprise, we found that the smaller calves were not more thermally stressed than larger adults,” said Munn.
Munn and his team observed a population of muskoxen at the University of Alaska’s R.G. White Large Animal Research Facility in Fairbanks.
They used infrared sensing equipment to measure heat loss from the body surface of animals in contact with cold air and the frozen ground.
Munn tested the muskoxen during winter foraging, when the animals were the most directly exposed to the cold.
The researchers found that both calves and adults sacrificed only two to six percent of their daily energy intake to heat loss during foraging bouts, even when temperatures dipped to minus 50 Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit).
“This suggests that any thermoregulatory constraints associated with a small body size may not be as important for calf survival as previously thought,” Munn said.
“This is important because calf mortality in muskoxen and other large arctic herbivores has been variously linked with severe winters, which are expected to increase in number and severity with current climate trends,” he added.
“However, we present evidence that thermal costs per se may not be driving calf mortalities in muskoxen,” he said.
Muskoxen have a variety of ways to fight heat loss. They are insulated by thick fur called qiviut, and they likely have the ability to direct blood away from their extremities in cold weather. (ANI)
London, August 19 (ANI): Michael Jackson intentionally hurt himself in a desperate bid to feed his drug addiction, according to reports.
The King of Pop allegedly turned to “self-harm” in the weeks before his death on June 25 to persuade his personal physician Dr Conrad Murray to give him painkillers, including strong anaesthetic Demerol.
The singer, who reportedly spent 30,000-pounds a month on prescription drugs, purportedly went to extreme measures as part of his drug hell.
His drug induced side-effects reportedly included shaking fits, violent outbursts, hallucinations and bouts of wailing during the night.
“LAPD detectives have interviewed some 30-35 witnesses so far, and it has come to light that Michael was prone to self-harming,” the Mirror quoted a source close to the police investigation as saying.
“He’d bang his head against the wall, hit his fists and arms against furniture, anything to cause a cut or bruise.
“He wanted to convince his doctors that he’d had an accident and was in a lot of pain – a legitimate reason to ask for painkillers.
“This came up as part of the investigation into Michael’s drug-taking. So far there’s no evidence to prove or disprove the claims,” the source added.
A Jackson family source claimed that the music legend at times invented pain or hurt himself and craved attention when he fell ill.
The source said: “Staff had their suspicions that he sometimes invented pain or hurt himself to get attention.
The source added: “Michael self-harmed mainly as an attention-seeking mechanism or to gain sympathy. He enjoyed being cared for. It was a huge cry for help.” (ANI)
London, July 11 (ANI): Athletes and soldiers who carry large amounts of water on long journeys to reimburse fluid loss due to sweating can now take it easy, for scientists now suggest that the volume of sweat they produce is much less than what is generally believed.
For a long time, soldiers and athletes have relied on an equation to predict how much water they will need to drink during long bouts of exercise, given the temperature and expected level of exertion
However, recent studies have defied the equation claiming that it over-estimates sweat volumes.
For further probing, Michael Sawka and colleagues, at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, ran 101 volunteers through a gamut of exercises in a wide range of temperatures and humidity levels, both inside and outside.
They specifically monitored participants during eight hours of exercise, as compared to past measurements, which were taken after just two hours.
It was found that over time, people didn’t simply keep producing more sweat.
On the other hand, volumes levelled out, perhaps because sweat glands were depleted.
Thus, the researchers concluded that the total perspiration over a long period was less than expected.
Sawka’s team used the findings to create a new equation, which predicted sweat volume accurately 95 per cent of the time.
“There was a great need to improve that prediction equation, for both the military and public health and safety and disaster relief,” New Scientist magazine quoted him as saying.
He added: “They make [the equation] quite user-friendly,” said Ollie Jay, a professor of human kinetics at the University of Ottawa. “It’s a very significant contribution to the field.”
In fact, the researchers are now developing an iPhone application that would calculate personalised water needs for athletes. (ANI)
London, July 05 (ANI): The credit for Hugh Jackman’s muscular look in his recent film ‘X-men Origins: Wolverine’ goes to his personal trainer Michael Ryan.
However, it did not come cheap, the expert charged 350 dollars an hour for sharpening the star’s body.
“Wolverine’s producers thanked me and said I was a cheap investment because the film took 80 million dollars in its first weekend, but it wasn’t the film people remember, it was how good Hugh’s body looked,” the Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying.
In fact, the trainer is now on high demand among film stars; he has already worked with Lara Bingle.
And he makes his big customers work hard to attain the desired shape.
Jackman’s bouts included 3am starts, cold showers, 100kg weight squats and 280kg leg presses.
He said: “Obviously I have the secrets that got Hugh to look like he does, which is one aspect.
“But it’s based on demand, and I’m in a position where I have a profile and don’t have a lot of time.”
Michael is also a long time friend of Jackman whom he met while working as a personal trainer at The Physical Factory, on Sydney’s north shore, when he was a university student.
Hugh had promised to hire him when he became a big actor. (ANI)
Lancashire, June 14 : Olympic Boxing silver medallist Amir Khan is planning a gala boxing event among the firefighting crew of ‘999′ in order to raise funds for fellow firefighter Steve Morris, who was severely burned while trying to save a family in an arson attack.
“We want to raise money for Steve Morris who suffered terrible burns saving an Asian family trapped in a house fire. It is a great thing for us to be able to do, bringing the community together after such a tragic event. The local police and firefighters have been training down at Amir’s gym for some time now,” the Daily Star quoted Amir’s manager Asif Vali, as saying.
Steve had sustained horrific burns as he tried to escape from a house in Great Lever, Bolton in June 2008.
Billed as the “Battle of the Badges” it will be held at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium on July 4 and will comprise several individual bouts under full Amateur Boxing Association rules.
Captain of the fire-fighters team, Simon Wood, revealed that the competition for the event is fierce among the crew.
Simon has been training for the event despite breaking his nose and a rib in an early session.
“It’s been difficult but really enjoyable. Everyone has grasped it and taken everything on board,” Simaon said. (ANI)
London, May 25 (ANI): Music mogul Simon Cowell may have a successful career, but he still suffers from constant ‘dark moods,’ which make him feel ‘totally miserable’.
Cowell, who has 180-million dollar fortune, has enjoyed success with his hit shows including ‘American Idol’, ‘America’s Got Talent’ and ‘The X Factor’.
However, he has admitted to having bouts of depression and irritability that lead him to locking out all the people closest to him.
“If I went to a psychiatrist, it would be a long session. I’ve always thought that I do have a number of issues that probably need dealing with, because I am quite odd in some ways. I get very dark moods for no reason. Nothing in particular brings it on. You can be having the best time of your life and yet you’re utterly and totally miserable. I get very anti-social, depressed and irritable with people. I don’t have time for them. I can’t make phone calls and stuff. I just sit on my own for days,” The Daily Star quoted Cowell, as saying.
Despite having everything, Cowell says he has a tendency to torture himself.
“I’m not sitting in a darkened room rocking. Things might have gone really well and then I torture myself. I cannot believe it. I have to find something to make me miserable. I get to points in my life where I sometimes think I’m never going to be happy. Someone said to me recently, ‘You’re like a human buffet table.
Everyone comes and takes something from you and, at the end, there’s nothing left,” Cowell added. (ANI)
Phagwara/Jalandhar/Patiala/Amritsar, May 25 (ANI): Several parts of Punjab are experiencing and witnessing heavy bouts of violence in protest of a shooting incident that took place on Sunday in Austrian capital Vienna inside a Sikh Gurdwara.
Thousands of agitated protestors came onto the roads on Sunday and Monday, creating a law and order probelem in Patiala, Jalandhar, Phagwara and Amritsar. Protestors also indulged in sloganering.
Some of them smashed vehicles, damaged shops, burnt buses and forced shop owners to down shutters of their outlets.
In Patiala, shopowners were asked down the shutters of their business establishments. Protesters burnt tyres on roads to block movement of traffic.
In Jalandhar, a curfew had to be imposed after various incidents of violence.
Nearly 20 kilometres of road between Jalandhar to Phagwara were blocked and damaged by protesters despite the presence of heavy security.
The Indian Army’s help has been sought to bring the situation under control in the city. At some places, mediapersons have also been attacked.
In Phagwara, a large number of protestors blocked traffic.
At least three bogies of Kanyakumari-Jammu Tavi Express were set on fire and another train near Phagwara was attacked by agitated protestors on Monday morning.
The authorities have closed down the Jalandhar-Phagwara road to prevent an escalation of violence.
In Amritsar, protests were taking place in several parts. The Delhi-Ambala Highway was blocked.
According to railway authorities, rail services have been disrupted or suspended due to violence in Jalandhar, Phagwara and other parts of the State.
“Today, a Kanyakumari-Jammu Tawi Express train was attacked by protestors in which one AC and two general bogies of the train were torched.
No one has been injured in the incident. Rail services have been disrupted due to ongoing violence,” said Rajesh Khare, the Northern Railways PRO.
On Sunday evening, Jalandhar witnessed protests over the shooting incident in Vienna in which at least 11 people were reportedly injured in the afternoon.
Tension gripped Jalandhar as soon as news about the shooting on Sant Niranjan Dass, the head of Dera Sachkhand Ballan, reached the city.
Agitated followers turned violent and torched several vehicles.
Local authorities and witnesses initially said the assailants were from two feuding families, but later they said, it involved members of several rival Sikh temple in Vienna who had been at odds for several years.
According the Vienna police, it all started when six people burst into the temple in Vienna’s Rudolfsheim district during a religious service and attacked the preacher and other worshippers. One of the assailants was firing a gun and others wielding knives. In the ensuing violence, at least 11 people suffered gunshot and stab wounds before the assailants were subdued.
Meanwhile, the State government while expressing concern over the Vienna incident, has blamed miscreants behind the ongoing violence in Punjab.
“The Vienna incident is quite an upsetting incident. I don’t have words to express how tragic it felt to me. But various miscreants are behind the violence, which has been erupted here. These people do not want peace to prevail in the State,” said Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal to a TV channel. (ANI)
Madrid (Spain), May 22 (ANI): A Spanish great-grandmother who billed herself as the “world’s oldest blogger” has died at the age of 97.
Maria Amelia Lopez began blogging two and a half years ago when her grandson introduced her to the Internet on her 95th birthday.
“Today it’s my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog,” she wrote on her first post on amis95.blogspot.com on December 23, 2006.
Her musings on life in old age, Spanish politics and even international relations quickly earned her followers from across the world and she clocked up more than 1.5 million visitors to her blog, reports The Telegraph.
Born in 1911, she wrote from her seaside home on the Galician coast, touching on personal health problems, from trips to the doctor to bouts of dizziness, to her opinion on current events and modern day life. Using a mix of humour and nostalgia she shared her experiences of getting old and enlightened readers about life during the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
She blogged sporadically, sometimes once a week, sometimes daily with the aid of her grandson because cataracts impaired her vision and in recent months posted video messages on her blog instead of written texts.
After discovering Facebook earlier this year she enthused: “The internet amazes me more and more” and promptly set up a group on the social networking site to defend old people’s rights. (ANI)
Washington, May 21 (ANI): Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have for the first time shown how bacteria measure temperature, and thereby cause intestinal infection.
The HZI researchers at Braunschweig and the Braunschweig Technical University have found that bacteria of the Yersinia genus have a unique protein thermometer – the protein RovA – that helps them in the infection process. ovA is a multi-functional sensor that measures both the temperature of its host and the host’s metabolic activity and nutrients.
If these are suitable for the survival of the bacteria, the RovA protein activates genes for the infection process to begin.
Yersinia is known for triggering various different diseases, one of the well-known diseases is the Yersinia pestis type which caused the Plague in medieval times, leading to the death of around a third of Europe’s population.
The Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis species cause an inflammation of the intestines following food poisoning.
The Yersinia bacteria contain invasin as a surface protein to help them penetrate the intestinal cells, leading to heavy bouts of diarrhoea.
Led by Petra Dersch, the researchers have now identified how the RovA protein plays a key role in the various stages of Yersinia infection.
The protein reads the temperature for the bacteria, on the basis of which it either contains the factors required for the infection to begin or else adapts to life within the host.
“The functioning of RovA in this way is unique among bacteria,” said Dersch.
If inhabiting an environment of around 25 degree Celsius, the protein RovA ensures that the Yersinia bacteria form invasin as a surface protein, which ensures that the bacteria can penetrate the intestinal cells immediately upon reaching the 37 degree Celsius intestine via food.
The warm environment enables RovA to alter its form and de-activates the gene for invasin production.
Without invasin on their surface, the Yersinia bacteria are invisible to the body’s immune system, thus making it possible for RovA to now activate other genes in the bacteria to adapt the Yersinia metabolism with that of the host.
“We have long been searching for the mechanisms which regulate RovA activity. It was therefore all the more surprising to discover that RovA controls various processes by acting as a thermometer and as such is self-regulating,” said Dersch.
The results have been published in the current online edition of the PLoS Pathogens science magazine. (ANI)
London, May 16 (ANI): English singer Will Young is said to be struggling to sing after undergoing an operation to have his tonsils removed.
Young, 30, who had been suffering from recurring bouts of tonsillitis, told his friends that he was having trouble with his vocal cords after the operation, and that he had to go back to basics and relearn how to sing.
“Will was worried about the effects of the operation before he had it because it’s a big deal for someone who makes a living out of their voice,” the Sun quoted a source as saying.
“He’s concerned his singing might not be the same again. He has had a croak and his range has been affected. But he’s got a top vocal coach helping him out and he is improving every day.
“Everyone is confident he will sound as great as ever by the time the Isle Of Wight festival comes around,” the source stated.
The Pop Idol winner, who has been struggling with the high notes, is due to perform at the Isle of Wight festival in less than a month.
A spokesman for Young has revealed that everyone around the singer is confident that his operation will not have any effect on any of his summer live engagements.
He insisted that every time the singer heads out on the road, he has singing lessons to make sure his voice is in tip-top condition. (ANI)
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