RCS – Medgenics Inc – Statement re: Share Price Discrepancy

July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Medgenics, Inc.

(‘Medgenics’ or the ‘Company’)

Statement Regarding Share Price Discrepancy

Medgenics (AIM: MEDG and MEDU), the company that has developed a novel technology for the manufacture and delivery of therapeutic proteins continuously in patients using their own tissue, has noted the widening discrepancy between the mid-market price of the MEDU and MEDG quotes for common shares of par value US $0.0001 each in the Company (“Common Shares”).

The Company would like to confirm that all of its issued and outstanding Common Shares, whether trading on the MEDU line or the MEDG line, rank pari passu in all respects and carry equal voting rights and equal rights to dividends. The only difference between the two quotes (MEDU and MEDG) is that the Common Shares trading on the MEDG line were when issued and remain subject to restrictions on transfer under the US Securities Act of 1933 (as amended) (the “US Securities Act”). The MEDG line of Common Shares cannot be settled electronically in the CREST system and, instead, settle in CREST only on a cash basis, with the buyer being responsible for re-registering the certificated holding. Buyers and sellers of the MEDG line of stock are both required to complete a representation letter in connection with a dealing in Common Shares trading on the MEDG line in order to assure compliance with the transfer restrictions and for settlement to be facilitated. A significant number of the Common Shares trading on the MEDG line may now qualify to have the restrictions lifted and for migration to the MEDU line of Common Shares.

Other than the transfer restrictions, the Company confirms that there are no differences in rights between the Common Shares quoted on the MEDU line and those quoted on the MEDG line.

For further information regarding the applicable restrictions on transfer on MEDG quoted Common Shares, the ability to transfer Common Shares from the MEDG line onto the MEDU line, participation in the depository interest arrangements that have been established by the Company and the transfer of Common Shares within CREST, shareholders should refer to the announcement made by the Company on 12 November 2008 or contact the Company directly at investor-relations@medgenics.com.

For further information, contact:

Andrew Pearlman +972 4 902 8900

CEO Medgenics, Inc

Mike Wort / Anna Dunphy +44 207 861 3838

De Facto Communications (PR)

James Pinner / Derek Crowhurst +44 207 444 0800

Religare Capital Markets (Nomad)

Ian Callaway / Alex Mattey +44 207 638 5600

SVS Securities plc (Joint Broker)

Jonathan Senior +44 207 776 1219

Nomura Code (Joint Broker)

Notes to Editors:

About Medgenics:

Medgenics is a commercial -stage biopharmaceutical company developing its unique tissue-based Biopump platform technology to provide sustained-action protein therapy for the treatment of a range of chronic diseases. The first revenue generating commercial deal with a well known multinational pharmaceutical company was negotiated in late 2009.

Biopumps are made using needle biopsies taken from the lower layer of the patient’s skin under local anaesthetic and processed during 10-14 days to become 30 mm long tissue biofactories producing the required protein. The requisite number of Biopumps are injected under the patient’s skin to provide sustained protein production and delivery for many months. The Company is developing the Biopump to provide substantially greater safety and reliability in protein treatment in a more cost effective manner than experienced with the existing injected protein therapies. Medgenics currently has three products in development based on this technology and addressing the indications of:

- Anaemia – using EPODURE, a Biopump producing erythropoietin (EPO)

- Hepatitis-C – using INFRADURE – a Biopump producing interferon-alpha (IFN-a)

- Haemophilia – using a Biopump to produce clotting Factor VIII

The Company’s Phase I/II clinical trial using EPODURE to treat anaemia in patients with chronic kidney disease, has demonstrated proof of concept of the Biopump. Designed to produce and deliver a therapeutic dose of EPO steadily for six months or more, EPODURE Biopumps have already provided effective anaemia treatment in most of these patients for 6-12 months, even at the low administered dose.

Medgenics intends to develop its innovative products and bring them to market via multiple strategic partnerships with major pharmaceutical and/or medical device companies. In addition to treatments for Anaemia, Hepatitis-C, and Haemophilia, Medgenics plans to develop and/or out-license a pipeline of future Biopump products targeting the large and rapidly growing global protein therapy market, which is forecast to reach US $87 billion by the end of 2010. Other potential applications of Biopumps producing various proteins include multiple sclerosis, arthritis, pediatric growth hormone deficiency, obesity, and diabetes.

This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

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Uruguay hoping for a repeat of history

May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Montevideo, May 26 (DPA) After edging Costa Rica in an inter-continental play-off, Uruguay became the 32nd and final team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

One of just seven teams to lift the World Cup trophy, Uruguay have done it twice – albeit those successes are firmly rooted in history: at the inaugural tournament on home soil in 1930 and then again 20 years later when they shocked the hosts in Brazil.

Although they have only qualified for one of the previous four World Cups, Uruguay have an upbeat attitude despite being placed into a difficult group.

They’ve been drawn alongside such renowned powers in world football as 1998 champions France and perennial qualifiers Mexico, not to mention the tricky business of facing off against the South African hosts.

But the players and coach Oscar Tabarez both feel the time is right for Uruguay to reclaim their past majesty.

‘We have a duty to our country’s great footballing history. Some people call it prehistory but they are only saying that because they dont have any history of their own to talk about. We need to have some kind of link with those great champions, at least in terms of our footballing culture and what it means to us,’ Tabarez insisted recently.

In reality, little is expected of Uruguay in the first finals held on African ground as their charge through the South American qualifying competition was stop-start at best.

They won only six matches out of 18 in the marathon South American zone qualifiers, with six draws and six losses and winning only one match out of eight against the other South American teams that went on to qualify for South Africa 2010. This discrepancy speaks to a significant gap between Uruguay of today and her more illustrious neighbours.

In his second stint in charge of the national team, Tabarez has assembled a squad heavy on discipline but short on individual stars.

Diego Forlan remains the teams out-and-out goal threat, with Sebastian Abreu also a likely candidate to chip in with a tally or two in South Africa, despite his being used mostly as an off-the-bench substitute of late.

Hulking centre-back Diego Lugano of Fenerbahce, Luis Suarez, Alvaro Pereira and goalkeeper Fernando Muslera are also likely difference-makers for the bustling South Americans hopefuls.

Opening in Cape Town against the star-studded French, a team known as slow starters in international competition, Uruguay may well just be in a position to spring an early surprise to get their World Cup journey off on the all-important right path from the outset.

In a cautious assessment of their chances, star man Forlan says, ‘we know Uruguay are never going to start as favourites but were there and were not ruling anything out.’

The coach: Tabarez is a coach whose reputation precedes him, and the esteem in which he is held in South American football circles has earned him the nickname El Maestro. Having coached at club level in Colombia, Argentina, Italy, Spain and his native Uruguay, the manager holds the reins of the national team for a second time since his initial stint from 1988 to 1990.

He led Uruguay to their last win in the World Cup – a late 1-0 victory over South Korea at Italia 90 that sent them into the second round. Since taking over three years ago, he has orchestrated a sustainable youth system and marked a path forward for a revival in Uruguayan football.

The star: Diego Forlan, 30, is Uruguays one true star. The former Manchester United, Villarreal and current Atletico Madrid ace has a proven eye for goal at both club and country level. He has already scored on the worlds biggest stage with goals against Japan and Senegal in Uruguays disappointing group stage exit at the finals in Korea/Japan 2002, the last World Cup in which the country participated.

He has won Europe’s Golden Shoe as continental top scorer twice, including at the end of the 2008 season when he scored 32 times for Atletico. With speed, panache and a killer final touch, the blond marksman is a serious threat to his Group A opponents.

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How surfers can evaluate web-based health information better

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 26 (ANI): American researchers have unveiled a new and improved approach that can help surfers to evaluate web-based health information.

A research review conducted by a team from the University of Florida found that 86 per cent of adult patients use the internet to get answers to health-related questions, but only 28 to 41 per cent consult primary healthcare providers about the information they find out.

Dr Bryan A Weber, an associate professor from the University”s College of Nursing, said: “This discrepancy suggests that the majority of users accept web-based health recommendations in lieu of professional advice.

“The internet is a wonderful resource if used properly and there are some very informative and reliable health websites available if patients know what to look for.”

And so the team have come up with an acronym – GATOR (genuine, accurate, trustworthy, origin and readability) – to encourage healthy surfing.

They are also encouraging patients to discuss what they have found on the internet with healthcare professionals, rather than using that information as a substitute for professional medical advice.

Dr Weber said: “Some people use the internet to find out more about medical conditions because they find it more convenient, less embarrassing or it enables them to avoid healthcare costs.

“The big problem is that health sites are not regulated and it is down to the company or individual running the site to determine how accurate, responsible and frequently updated any information is.

“Added to that, the majority of patients don”t have the medical knowledge to evaluate the reliability of the advice they are being given.

“We recognise that it is inevitable that the majority of patients will continue to seek health information online. That”s why we”ve developed the acronym, to help patients to find and evaluate health information while avoiding the negative consequences from trying unsafe recommendations drawn from untrustworthy sites.”

He added: “The GATOR approach to assessing health information websites is an easy to remember strategy that requires few resources to implement and can be taught to patients in just a few minutes.

“We hope that it will encourage safer surfing and encourage patients to use the internet as a starting point for health discussions, rather than as a substitute for professional healthcare advice.”

The approach has been discussed in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. (ANI)

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Childhood cancer survivors 4 times more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): Young adult survivors of childhood cancers are four times more likely to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than their control group siblings, revealed a study.

The Childhood Cancer Survivors Study focused on 6,542 childhood cancer survivors over 18 who were diagnosed with cancer between 1970 and 1986 and 368 of their siblings as a control group.

The study found that 589 survivors, or 9 percent, reported significant functional impairment and clinical distress as well as symptoms consistent with a full diagnosis of PTSD.

On the other hand, eight siblings, or 2 percent, reported impairment, distress and PTSD symptoms.

“Childhood cancer survivors, like others with PTSD, have been exposed to an event that made them feel very frightened or helpless or horrified. This study demonstrates that some of these survivors are suffering many years after successful treatment. Development of PTSD can be quite disabling for cancer survivors. This is treatable and not something they have to just live with,” said Dr. Margaret Stuber, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and first author of the study.

Affected survivors reported symptoms such as increased arousal, phobias, startling easily, being hyper vigilant, avoidance of reminders of their cancer diagnosis and treatment, being on edge and suffering extreme anxiety.

They also reported that the symptoms kept them from functioning normally.

Other studies have looked for PTSD in childhood cancer survivors while they”re still children or adolescents, but the percentage reporting symptoms is far less, about 3 percent, Stuber said.

There could be several reasons for the discrepancy—today”s treatment regimens employ less toxic treatments and rely far less on whole head radiation for brain tumours, causing far less trauma to the young patients.

In addition, the improved supportive care available today could lead to fewer physical and cognitive late effects from treatment.

The survivors in Stuber”s study often underwent far harsher treatment regimens commonly used in the 1970s and early 1980s, and within the group studied, those that underwent the more toxic and damaging therapies reported more cases of PTSD.

Another possible reason that more of the young adults reported PTSD symptoms is because they”re facing the stressful situations typical for people at that age – finding a job, getting married, starting a family.

That stress may exacerbate the PTSD, said Stuber.

And because many of the patients in the study underwent harsh therapies, they often suffer from significant late effects – infertility, cognitive impairment, stunted growth. This adds to stress levels as well.

Those that suffer from cognitive impairment may find it impossible to go to college or to land a good job that earns them an adequate income.

Treatment options such as therapy and medication are available to help the survivors manage their symptoms. But addressing the issue will not be simple, said Stuber.

The study is published in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics. (ANI)

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Russia, U.S. reach deal on new arms pact – Kremlin

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Russia and the United States have reached agreement on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, but the White House said some issues still needed to be worked out.

“All documents for the signing of START have been agreed,” said the Kremlin official, who asked not to be identified. The official said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama would decide when to sign it.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “We are very close to having an agreement on a START treaty, but we won’t have one until President Obama and his counterpart, Mr. Medvedev, have a chance to speak again.”

“There are still some things that need to be worked out,” Gibbs told a daily news briefing, adding he expected the two leaders to speak to each other in the next few days.

Asked later about Gibbs’ statement, a Kremlin official who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “The deal is agreed on the whole, but there are some technical details that still need to be resolved.”

Both sides said the successor to the last major Cold War arms reduction pact would likely be signed in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, a former Soviet satellite now in NATO.

Russian and U.S. negotiators have been trying to hammer out a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I, for almost a year. They missed an initial deadline of Dec. 5, when START I expired.

The new pact is a crucial element of efforts to improve Russian-U.S. relations after years of tension that peaked following Russia’s war with U.S.-supported Georgia in 2008.

It could also strengthen Obama politically, giving him a major foreign policy success and building on the domestic political victory he scored this week when he signed sweeping healthcare reform into law.

“I don’t think the discrepancy (in the statements from Moscow and Washington) is significant in the long term,” said Greg Thielmann, a former State Department analyst and senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington.

“We are on the verge of getting another very significant reduction in nuclear forces that is verifiable and helps put U.S.-Russian arms control back on track,” he said.

In a joint understanding last July, Obama and Medvedev said the treaty would reduce operationally deployed nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 each, with a more specific ceiling to be determined in the negotiations.

COLD WAR TREATY

The most recent treaty to cut the Cold War foes’ nuclear weapons numbers, signed by former Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2002 before ties deteriorated, limited each side to 2,200 warheads each by the end of 2012.

U.S. and Russian officials say they hope further cuts in the world’s largest nuclear arsenals would send a signal to other nations that have or want atomic weapons, helping reduce the threat of armed conflict.

The START successor pact is a key goal for Obama as he seeks to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions and promotes efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He is due to host a summit on nuclear nonproliferation in Washington next month.

The signing of the new pact could take place around the anniversary of Obama’s April 5, 2009, speech in Prague offering his vision for reducing global nuclear arsenals.

“I anticipate that when we have something to sign, it will be in Prague,” Gibbs said. Medvedev is scheduled to visit Bratislava, in neighbouring Slovakia, on April 6 and 7.

Analysts say the treaty is also in the Kremlin’s interests, estimating that Russia’s aging arsenal will drop below 1,500 warheads in less than a decade.

Signing a major arms treaty with the United States could help Russia bolster its image as a global power and improve relations with Washington amid disputes on issues ranging from other weapons to trade and human rights.

But Russian officials — most prominently the powerful prime minister, Putin — repeatedly cast doubt on the chances for a deal by suggesting Moscow might not sign without U.S. concessions on the divisive issue of missile defence.

The Kremlin has expressed concern that further cutting its offensive arsenal without binding the United States to limits on defensive systems could upset the strategic balance in favour of Washington.

Obama last year scrapped a Bush-era plan for missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, which the Kremlin had said was meant to weaken Russia. Moscow has also grumbled about amended plans that could involve Romania.

Any limit on U.S. missile defences in the START successor would jeopardize its chances of ratification in the U.S. Senate.

John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would push for Senate action this year on the treaty once it was finalized.

Last week, the Senate’s two top Republicans — Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl — wrote a letter reminding Obama of a requirement in recent legislation that the administration submit a 10-year plan for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal at the same time it submits the new START deal to the Senate.

Russia’s lower house of parliament, dominated by Putin’s United Russia party, must also ratify the treaty for it to enter force.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Tim Pearce and Peter Cooney)
Denis Dyomkin and Ross Colvin

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Mystery of odd rotating stars solved by scientists

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 18 (ANI): A team of scientists has solved a longstanding mystery about a pair of stars called DI Herculis whose peculiar rotation had remained a mystery for three decades.

The shift in the orbit of DI Herculis was a mystery till now.

Now, MIT (Massachusetts Institute Of Technology) researchers and colleagues have determined that the stars are rotating tipped over on their sides, relative to their orbits around each other.

This produces tidal effects that counteract the expected rate for the orbits to shift orientation over time (called precession), finally explaining the mysterious anomaly.

The discrepancy in the rate of precession had been seen as a possible refutation of Einstein’s theory of relativity, so finding a conventional explanation means that relativity has withstood another possible challenge.

This discovery could also help to shed light on how binary stars (about half of all known stars) are formed and how their rotation and orbits evolve over time.

The mystery was solved by postdoctoral researcher Simon Albrecht and assistant professor of physics Joshua Winn and others, who used a high-resolution spectrograph called Sophie on a 1.93-meter telescope at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France to make highly detailed observations that revealed the unexpected tilt – one of more than 70 degrees from vertical, the other more than 80 degrees – of the stars’ rotation axes.

The team now hopes to study other unusual binary stars to try to determine how unusual this tipped-over configuration is. (ANI)

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Jet stalemate ends after five days

September 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Mumbai, Sep.13 (ANI): Jet Airways pilots ended their five-day-old stir against their management early on Sunday morning with a settlement under which the four sacked pilots would be reinstated and a consultative group made up of the two sides formed to resolve all other issues.

The breakthrough, which came at around 2 a.m. this morning, ends an impasse that began on Tuesday over the sacking of pilots. It was achieved after a meeting here that lasted over ten hours.

Jet Airways Executive Director Saroj Dutta said flight operations of the airline on interantional routes would resume immediately while the domestic services would normalize by noon on Sunday.

Announcing the settlement at a news conference, the pilots union-National Aviators Guild-leader Sam Thomas, flanked by Jet Airways Executive Director Saroj Dutta and NAG President Girish Kaushik, said it has been agreed that the four sacked pilots would be reinstated with immediate effect.

A consultative group would be set up comprising the Jet CEO Hafiz Ali, two directors of the airlines, two representatives of flight operations and five pilots to continue the process of dialogue on all outstanding issues as well those which will come up.

Asked about losses suffered by the ailine during the five days of the agitation, Dutta said no estimates had been done as yet. However, he added that Jet’s daily revenue of eight million dollars “had dropped dramatically” and the number of passengers came down from 23,000 per day to 7,500.

On the contentious issue of the pilots’ right to form a union, Kaushik said there was no question of dissolving the NAG which is already a registered body.

The Registrar of Trade Unions is reviewing the NAG’s registration and if the decision goes against the pilots, they would not pursue it.

“If there is discrepancy, it is left to the Registrar or the law of the land”, Kaushik said.

Thomas added “we will not pursue the matter afresh.”

They said that the Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots, formed about a decade ago, would address welfare issues.

It was made clear that the management would take no punitive action against any one who had participated in the agitation. (ANI)

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Israel’s offensive in Gaza killed 252 children

September 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Sep. 9 (ANI): A startling new report has revealed that 252 children were killed during Israel’s war on Gaza early this year.

The Israeli official figures seriously underestimated the civilian Palestinian death toll, and said that just 59 children under 16 died during their offensive in Gaza.

Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem gathered death certificates, photos, and testimonies relating to all 252 of the children, The Independent reports.

B’Tselem, which said it had carried out “months of meticulous investigation and cross-checks with numerous sources” has, unlike the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), made public the names of all those it said were killed in the war.

The organization noted that since the IDF had refused to reveal its own detailed list, it was impossible to compare the names but that “the blatant discrepancy between the numbers is intolerable.”

The new figures came as the IDF opened a criminal investigation into allegations by Khaled Abed Rabbo that three of his daughters were shot, two fatally, as the family, carrying a white flag, walked from their house in eastern Jabalya on January 7.

B’Tselem’s total Palestinian death toll exceeds by more than 200 the 1,166 cited by the IDF.

The IDF insisted when issuing its own figures that 709 were “Hamas terror operatives” and that a total of 295 “not involved” Palestinians were killed.

By contrast B’Tselem puts the total figure for those who “did not take part in the hostilities” at 773.

The agency repeated calls for an “independent and credible investigation” into the military’s conduct of the war. (ANI)

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Older Oz women going online to meet new sexual partners

September 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Sydney, Sept 7 (ANI): Women aged 40 and above are just as likely as younger women to meet new sexual partners on the internet, according to a new Australian survey.

Nearly 45 per cent of the middle aged women agreed to snaring at least one new lover in a year.

According to study leader Deborah Bateson, a senior medical coordinator at Family Planning NSW, the internet “seems to be a very useful place for them … It’s great that older women are out there meeting new partners.”

She conducted the research to see whether 40-pluses were able to negotiate safe sex as effectively as their younger counterparts.

“Three-quarters [of sexually transmitted infections] are detected in people aged under 29, but there’s also an increase in women aged 40 and above … entering or re-entering the dating market, perhaps after the end of a long-term relationship,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Bateson as saying.

For the survey, an online dating site RSVP, owned by the Herald’s publisher, Fairfax Media, sent an email to female participants, directing them to Bateson’s survey site.

The findings revealed that older women were more forthright in insisting on knowing a new partner’s sexual history.

Nearly 59 per cent of the over-40s would ask about previous partners, versus 43 per cent of the younger women, with a similar discrepancy in willingness to ask about intravenous drug use.

“The older women seemed to benefit from the maturity of years and asked those potentially tricky questions,” said Bateson.

However, 37 per cent of the older women were more likely to agree to sex without a condom, compared to 28 per cent of younger women.

The findings were presented at 2009 Australasian Sexual Health Conference in Brisbane. (ANI)

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‘Noisy’ stars mask planet’s true size

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Sydney, July 10 (ANI): A German study has suggested that astronomers observing exoplanets around other stars may be underestimating their size because of active stars that add ‘noise’ to the observation of exoplanets using the transit method.

The transit method detects exoplanets as they pass in front of their parent star, reducing the amount of light reaching telescopes on, and orbiting, Earth.

Although the transit method isn’t the best method for detecting exoplanets, it provides a reliable estimate of its size and mass.

According to a report by ABC News, PhD student Stefan Czesla of the Hamburg Observatory in Germany, and colleagues, examined the giant exoplanet Corot-2b, using data from the French COROT satellite.

Discovered in 2007, Corot-2b is three and a half times the mass of Jupiter and orbits its star in just 1.74 days.

After closely examining the light curves recorded by COROT, which involved splitting them into their red, green and blue components, the researchers determined that the exoplanet is 3 percent bigger than previously thought.

Czelsa and colleagues believe this discrepancy may be true for other exoplanets around active stars.

“For planets found around active stars, the determination of their exact physical parameters is considerably complicated by stellar activity,” said Czesla.

“Bright and dark spots on the star can modify the transit light curves, something that isn’t accounted for in models currently used to calculate an exoplanet’s size,” he explained.

According to Dr John Greenhill of the University of Tasmania, the research also highlights the limitation of the transit method in detecting exoplanets, particularly those smaller than Jupiter.

“The two techniques that have netted the most planets, the radial velocity technique and the transit method, are limited by the noisiness of stars,” he said.

“In principle, it looks like we won’t be able to detect planets the size of Neptune and Uranus, and even Saturn using these methods because of that limit,” he added. (ANI)

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Iran’s Guardian Council admits presidential vote was flawed, but won’t change results

June 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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London, June 22 (ANI): Iran’s powerful Guardian Council has ruled out changing Iran’s presidential election result, but admitted that the vote was flawed.
/p
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The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. /pp
Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters, but the discrepancy was not sufficient to account for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory, The Telegraph reports. /pp
The admission was made as the main presidential challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, implored supporters to renew street protests in Tehran on Monday and defy the threat of a brutal crackdown by the security forces. /pp
Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday. /pp
The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally./pp
Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 17 people were killed in the Iranian capital. /pp
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal. /pp
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World. (ANI)/p

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Obituary pics in newspapers indicate rising bias against ageing faces

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 14 (ANI): A study on obituary photographs published in one metropolitan newspaper suggests that Americans may have become more biased against ageing faces, particularly of women.

The research hers behind the study revealed that the number of obituary photographs showing the deceased at a much younger age than when he or she died more than doubled between 1967 and 1997.

They also observed that women were more than twice as likely as men to have an obituary photo from when they were much younger.

While about 17 percent of the obituary photographs surveyed in the The Plain Dealer were “age-inappropriate” in 1967, the number had increased to 36 percent by 1997.

“Obituaries and their photographs are one reflection of our society at a particular moment in time. In this case, we can get hints about our views on aging and appearance from the photographs chosen for obituaries. Our findings suggest that we were less accepting of aging in the 1990s than we were back in the 60s,” said Keith Anderson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University.

Working with graduate student Jina Han, Anderson looked at obituary photos in The Plain Dealer – which has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Ohio — in 1967, 1977, 1987, and 1997.

The researchers didn’t examine more recent photos because the newspaper changed the format of its obituary pages, making it impossible to make accurate comparisons after 1997.

Beginning in February of each of those four years, Anderson printed copies of the first 100 obituaries of local residents that had photos, for a total of 400 obituaries in the study.

He separated the text and photos before continuing the analysis.

“Adult children are thinking they want a picture of Dad when he was at his best – and, especially in the late 1990s, that was significantly younger than we he died. And the discrepancy was even larger for women,” Anderson said.

He estimated the ages of the people in the photographs, and compared his estimates to their age at death as listed in the obituary.

If the deceased were more than 15 years older than the estimated age in the photograph, the photos were labelled as “age-inaccurate”.

The study showed that age-inaccurate photos increased steadily each decade: from 17 percent (1967) to 27 percent (1977) to 30 percent (1987) and finally to 36 percent (1997).

The researchers found that each additional year in age at time of death increased the odds of having an age-inaccurate obituary photo, and that women were more than twice as likely as men to have an obituary photograph that was age-inaccurate.

“Aging is a double whammy for women, who get hit with more ageism and sexism,” Anderson said.

The study has been published in Omega-Journal of Death and Dying. (ANI)

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Fast moving satellite galaxies put Newton’s ‘Gravitational Law’ in peril

May 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 6 (ANI): New studies by cosmologists has found that the stars in the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies are moving much faster than predicted by Isaac Newton’s Gravitational Law, which puts the scientist’s famous theory into question.

In these studies, Professor Dr. Pavel Kroupa of Bonn University’s Argelander-Institut fur Astronomie (AIfA) and his team have examined the so-called “satellite galaxies”.

This term is used for dwarf galaxy companions of the Milky Way, some of which contain only a few thousand stars.

According to the best cosmological models, they exist presumably in hundreds around most of the major galaxies.

Up to now, however, only 30 such satellites have been observed around the Milky Way, a discrepancy in numbers which is commonly attributed to the fact that the light emitted from the majority of satellite galaxies is so faint they remain invisible.

A detailed study of these stellar agglomerates has revealed some astonishing phenomena.

“First of all, there is something unusual about their distribution”, Professor Kroupa explained. “The satellites should be uniformly arranged around their mother galaxy, but this is not what we found,” he said.

More precisely, all classical satellites of the Milky Way – the eleven brightest dwarf galaxies – lie more or less in the same plane, they are forming some sort of a disc in the sky.

The research team has also been able to show that most of these satellite galaxies rotate in the same direction around the Milky Way – like the planets revolve around the Sun.

“The stars in the satellites we have observed are moving much faster than predicted by the Gravitational Law. If classical physics holds this can only be attributed to the presence of dark matter,” said Dr. Manuel Metz, a former colleague of Professor Kroupa.

Or one must assume that some basic fundamental principles of physics have hitherto been incorrectly understood.

“The only solution would be to reject Newton´s classical theory of gravitation”, said Pavel Kroupa. “We probably live in a non-Newton universe. If this is true, then our observations could be explained without dark matter,” he added.

The deviations detected in the satellite galaxy data support the hypothesis that in space where extremely weak accelerations predominate, a “modified Newton dynamic” must be adopted.

This conclusion has far-reaching consequences for fundamental physics in general, and also for cosmological theories. (ANI)

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Kashmiri migrants clash with police on polling day in Jammu

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Jammu, Apr 30 (ANI): Violent clashes broke out on Thursday between police and Kashmiri Hindu migrants protesting against not being allowed to vote.

Chanting slogans of ‘We Want Justice’ and ‘We Want Vote’, the protesters gathered outside the polling booth in Jammu to vent their anger at being deprived of their voter identification cards by the Election Commission, thus making them unable to vote.

These people who have a migrant’s status in the region, said their names were not included in the voter’s list as result of which they cannot exercise their franchise in the ongoing elections.

The protesters lamented being left out by the Election Commission from the voter’s list and said out of 1,54,000 Kashmiri pundits registered in the relief commission office, only 22, 818 have been registered in the voter’s list.

The protesters said, they would continue with their protests till the time they are awarded with their right to vote.

“We condemn the elections. We are losing trust in the country’s democracy. But, we will get our demands fulfilled and are ready to pay any price for it. We will continue with our protests till the time we get our right to vote like every other Indian,” said Nana Ji Wattal, a protester.

The migrants had earlier also held protests, outside the office of the Election Commission to protest the discrepancy by the Commission. (ANI)

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Large Hadron Collider may one day discover nature’s fifth force

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 29 (ANI): A group of physicists at the University of Nevada, Reno has analyzed data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that could ultimately prove or disprove the possibility of a fifth force of nature.

The LHC is an enormous particle accelerator whose 17-mile tunnel straddles the borders of France and Switzerland.

In a forthcoming Physical Review Letter article, the University of Nevada, Reno physicists are reporting an analysis of an experiment on violation of mirror symmetry in atoms.

Their refined analysis sets new limits on a hypothesized particle, the extra Z-boson, carving out the lower-energy part of the discovery reach of the LHC.

Andrei Derevianko, an associate professor in the College of Science’s Department of Physics, who has conducted groundbreaking research to improve the time-telling capabilities of the world’s most accurate atomic clocks, is one of the principals behind what is believed to be the most accurate to-date low-energy determination of the strength of the electroweak coupling between atomic electrons and quarks of the nucleus.

Derevianko and his colleagues have determined the coupling strength by combining previous measurements made by Dr. Carl Wieman, a Nobel laureate in physics, with high-precision calculations in a cesium atom.

The original work by Wieman used a table-top apparatus at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Boulder team monitored a “twinge” of weak force in atoms, which are otherwise governed by the electromagnetic force.

The Standard Model of elementary particles, developed in the early 1970s, holds that heavy particles, called Z-bosons, carry this weak force.

In contrast to the electromagnetic force, the weak force violates mirror symmetry: an atom and its mirror image behave differently.

This is known to physicists as “parity violation.”

The Boulder group’s experiment opened the door to new inquiry, according to Derevianko.

“It pointed out a discrepancy, and hinted at a possibility for new physics, in particular, extra Z-bosons,” he said.

In contrast to previous, less accurate interpretations of the Boulder experiment, Derevianko’s group has found a perfect agreement with the prediction of the Standard Model.

This agreement holds important implications for particle physics.

“Atomic parity violation places powerful constraints on new physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles,” Derevianko said. “With this new-found precision, we are doing a better job of ‘listening’ to the atoms,” he added.

By refining and improving the computations, Derevianko said there is potential for a better understanding of hypothetical particles (extra Z-bosons), which could be carriers of a so-far elusive fifth force of nature. (ANI)

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Medical experts sceptical of China’s organ transplantation practices

April 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 23 (ANI): A majority of doctors have expressed concerns over the organ transplantation practices in China.

According to a report, over 95 percent of organ donors in China are prisoners.

Globalization of medical and surgical technology has increased the capacity for countries worldwide to perform organ transplantation.

However, geographic variation in the availability of organs for transplantation and a parallel discrepancy in financial resources for healthcare have increasingly led desperate patients to transplant tourism.

The practice of transplant tourism has been condemned by numerous national and international healthcare organizations, who have cited serious concerns about clandestine international brokers, surreptitious payment, coercion of organ donors (and/ or donor families).

Moreover, substandard medical and surgical practices may lead to lower success rates and higher risk for transmission of infectious disease.

The majority of doctors surveyed said that they would provide post-transplantation care for patients who underwent liver transplantation at another domestic centre, in a foreign country or in China. However, respondents who suspected unethical procurement practices in China were more reluctant to do so.

They have also raised concerns over the unethical use of organs. International ethical guidelines exist to ensure that the donation of organs is voluntary, both in life and after death.

But not all countries adhere to these ethical guidelines. When travelling from one country to another country for organ transplant surgery, patients risk using an organ obtained in an unsafe or unethical manner.

In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the transplantation of 66,000 kidneys, 21,000 livers and 6,000 hearts. Approximately 10 percent of these procedures occurred via transplant tourism.

The leading destination countries for transplant tourism include China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

Transplant tourism to China has been isolated as particularly controversial. Organ procurement from executed prisoners in China has been reported by the U.S. Department of State, non-governmental investigative reports and in medical literature.

“Physicians caring for patients in need of organ transplantation must balance the duty to the individual patient vs. the duty to society,” said Dr. Scott Biggins of the University of California San Francisco, which conducted a survey on healthcare professionals.

“We aim to raise awareness of the need for adherence to international accepted ethical standards for procurement of organs and regulation of transplant tourism by international regulatory and credentialing bodies,” he added.

The report appears in Clinical transplantation. (ANI)

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Medical experts sceptical of China’s organ transplantation practices

April 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 23 (ANI): A majority of doctors have expressed concerns over the organ transplantation practices in China.

According to a report, over 95 percent of organ donors in China are prisoners.

Globalization of medical and surgical technology has increased the capacity for countries worldwide to perform organ transplantation.

However, geographic variation in the availability of organs for transplantation and a parallel discrepancy in financial resources for healthcare have increasingly led desperate patients to transplant tourism.

The practice of transplant tourism has been condemned by numerous national and international healthcare organizations, who have cited serious concerns about clandestine international brokers, surreptitious payment, coercion of organ donors (and/ or donor families).

Moreover, substandard medical and surgical practices may lead to lower success rates and higher risk for transmission of infectious disease.

The majority of doctors surveyed said that they would provide post-transplantation care for patients who underwent liver transplantation at another domestic centre, in a foreign country or in China. However, respondents who suspected unethical procurement practices in China were more reluctant to do so.

They have also raised concerns over the unethical use of organs. International ethical guidelines exist to ensure that the donation of organs is voluntary, both in life and after death.

But not all countries adhere to these ethical guidelines. When travelling from one country to another country for organ transplant surgery, patients risk using an organ obtained in an unsafe or unethical manner.

In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the transplantation of 66,000 kidneys, 21,000 livers and 6,000 hearts. Approximately 10 percent of these procedures occurred via transplant tourism.

The leading destination countries for transplant tourism include China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

Transplant tourism to China has been isolated as particularly controversial. Organ procurement from executed prisoners in China has been reported by the U.S. Department of State, non-governmental investigative reports and in medical literature.

“Physicians caring for patients in need of organ transplantation must balance the duty to the individual patient vs. the duty to society,” said Dr. Scott Biggins of the University of California San Francisco, which conducted a survey on healthcare professionals.

“We aim to raise awareness of the need for adherence to international accepted ethical standards for procurement of organs and regulation of transplant tourism by international regulatory and credentialing bodies,” he added.

The report appears in Clinical transplantation. (ANI)

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Pills, ginger or a nap: Some useful remedies against sea sickness

April 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Berlin – Typical indicators for sea sickness are a dry mouth, cold sweat, dizziness and nausea, sometimes followed by vomiting.

Medically speaking sea sickness is a variation of motion sickness or kinetosis. Though it does not always end up with the affected person “feeding the fishes”, it can however ruin a boat trip. But, with the right medicine and a few useful tips, it can be kept under control.

Kinetosis is caused when “The body experiences difficulty with different and contradictory stimuli,” according to Michael Knappich, a doctor at the Berlin Centre for Travel and Tropical Medicine.

The rocking motion experienced at sea causes a discrepancy between what the eye can see and what our body’s sensory organs are telling our brains.

In the process, the body produces more histamines. According to a new theory by Reinhard Jarisch, an allergist from Vienna, histamines cause the symptoms of sea sickness.

Almost everyone can be affected by sea sickness. However, the degree to which individuals feel sick can vary greatly. “There are people who are very susceptible and those who don’t have any problems at all,” says Knappich.

People also react differently to the degree at which a boat rocks. “Some people feel very sick with just a small amount of movement, while long, rolling movement will cause sea sickness in others,” says Andreas Koch, a doctor at the German navy’s medical institute in Kronshagen near Kiel.

However, on big ships, such movements no longer cause difficulties for passengers.

“The stabilisers built into modern cruise ships have helped make sea sickness easy to deal with,” says Karl Rabe, a doctor aboard the MS Europa.

There are a few things you can do to reduce the chance of feeling sea sick. “You should avoid alcohol and smoking at least a day before commencing your journey,” Knappich advises.

On the day you set sail you should have slept enough and eaten small portions of food. “The stomach should be neither totally empty nor totally full.”

It is also better to stay in midship than at the bow or stern because that is where the sea swell is less pronounced.

If you do feel unwell, the best thing to do is go to the upper deck, get some fresh air and fix your gaze at a point on the horizon. It’s more likely you will fell ill below deck. “That’s where you will be looking at a vertical wall while your sensory organs are telling you the boat is rocking,” says Koch.

Another good tip according to Koch is to, “lie down in your bunk as sleeping lowers your levels of histamines.”

If you already know you are susceptible to sea sickness or the sea will be rough, you should take some medication before beginning the voyage.

“Antihistamines like diphenhydramine or dimenhydrinate are good for dealing with mild to severe symptoms,” says Knappich.

For more severe symptoms, he recommends taking scopolamine or promethazine. If you have not taken anything, and you are hanging over the railing, then the best thing is to take a suppository with diphenhydramine or metoclopramid.

“In acute cases we administer those substances by injection,” says ship’s doctor Rabe.

All of the above can cause drowsiness. In mild cases of sea sickness, sufferers should try some alternative forms of medication.

Ginger is one of the oldest traditional remedies. It appears to help in mild cases although there is no scientific proof. Sometimes vitamin C can be useful. The German navy’s medical institute is checking to see just how effective it is.

As vitamin C is known to break down histamines, it could have the same properties as anti-histamines, but without the associated side effects, said Koch. (dpa)

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Unexpected outcomes key to human learning

March 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 14 (ANI): Psychologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania say that unexpected outcomes play a significant role in human learning.

Describing their study in the journal Science, the researchers revealed that they used a computer-based card game and microelectrodes to observe neuronal activity of the brain.

They said that their study suggested that neurons in the human substantia nigra (SN) play a central role in reward-based learning, modulating learning based on the discrepancy between the expected and the realized outcome.

“This is the first study to directly record neural activity underlying this learning process in humans, confirming the hypothesized role of the basal ganglia, which includes the SN, in models of reinforcement including learning, addiction and other disorders involving reward-seeking behavior,” said lead author Kareem Zaghloul, postdoctoral fellow in neurosurgery at Penn’s School off Medicine.

“By responding to unexpected financial rewards, these cells encode information that seems to help participants maximize reward in the probabilistic learning task,” the researcher added.

Previous studies on animal models suggested that learning occurs when dopaminergic neurons, which drive a larger basal ganglia circuit, are activated in response to unexpected rewards and depressed after the unexpected omission of reward.

The researchers explain this by giving the example that a lucky win is more likely to be retained than a probable loss.

“Similar to an economic theory, where efficient markets respond to unexpected events and expected events have no effect, we found that the dopaminergic system of the human brain seems to be wired in a similar rational manner — tuned to learn whenever anything unexpected happens but not when things are predictable,” said Michael J. Kahana, senior author and professor of psychology at Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences.

Working in collaboration with Associate Professor Gordon Baltuch, Zaghloul and Kahana used microelectrode recordings obtained during deep brain stimulation surgery of Parkinson’s patients to study neuronal activity in the SN, the midbrain structure that plays an important role in movement, as well as reward and addiction.

The researchers said that the patients showed impaired learning from both positive and negative feedback in cognitive tasks due to the degenerative nature of their disease, and the decreased number of dopaminergic neurons.

They analysed the recordings to determine whether responses were affected by reward expectation, and asked the participants to choose between red and blue decks of cards presented on a computer screen, one of which carried a higher probability of yielding a financial reward than the other.

If the draw of a card yielded a reward, a stack of gold coins was displayed along with an audible ring of a cash register and a counter showing accumulated virtual earnings. But where the draw did not yield a reward, or no choice was made, the screen turned blank and participants heard a buzz.

“This new way to measure dopaminergic neuron activity has helped us gain a greater understanding of fundamental cognitive activity,” said Baltuch, director of the Penn Medicine Center for Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery. (ANI)

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