Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/313098339?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, June 17, 2013
Testosterone improves verbal learning and memory in postmenopausal women
June 17, 2013 ? Postmenopausal women had better improvement in verbal learning and memory after receiving treatment with testosterone gel, compared with women who received sham treatment with a placebo, a new study found.
Results were presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
"This is the first large, placebo-controlled study of the effects of testosterone on mental skills in postmenopausal women who are not on estrogen therapy," said principal investigator Susan Davis, MBBS (MD), PhD, of Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. "Our study has confirmed our similar findings from two smaller studies in postmenopausal women and suggests that testosterone therapy may protect women against cognitive decline after menopause."
Menopause has been linked with memory decline because of a decrease in levels of the protective hormone estrogen. Yet testosterone also is an important hormone in women because it has a role in sexual desire, bone density and energy while improving mood. In men, studies have shown that testosterone replacement has favorable effects on brain function.
In this new, investigator-initiated study, the Australian researchers randomly assigned 92 healthy postmenopausal women, ages 55 to 65, who were not receiving estrogen therapy, to receive one of two treatments for 26 weeks. The treatments were a testosterone gel (LibiGel, BioSante Pharmaceuticals) applied daily to the upper arm, or a placebo, an identical-appearing gel containing none of the medication. Neither the study participants nor the investigators were aware of which gel the women received.
Before treatment and at 12 and 26 weeks of treatment, subjects underwent comprehensive testing of their cognitive function (mental skills) using a computer-based battery of tests designed for people with normal brain function (CogState). Ninety women completed the study. The investigators found no cognitive differences between groups before the start of treatment.
After 26 weeks, the women who received testosterone therapy had a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in verbal learning and memory -- how well they recalled words from a list, Davis reported. The average test score for the testosterone-treated group was 1.6 points greater than that of the placebo group. No differences between the groups were evident for any other cognitive test.
Women receiving testosterone therapy reported no major side effects related to the gel. Their testosterone levels increased with treatment but remained in the normal female range.
Although further study is needed in more women, Davis said the results are important. "There is no effective treatment to date to prevent memory decline in women, who are higher risk of dementia than men," she said.
No testosterone-only product has yet received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use in women. BioSante provided the study drug and partial funding for this study but had no control over study design or data analysis. CogState Australia provided computation of the cognitive testing, which the researchers then analyzed. Davis reported receiving funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council as a principal research fellow.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/IG0C0YWkojA/130617142043.htm
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Sunday, June 16, 2013
How loony is the Google Loon project?
Google Loon is a project to bring the Internet to forgotten corners of the globe using balloons. Will it fly?
A Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand five days ago. Google is testing the balloons which sail in the stratosphere and beam the Internet to Earth.
(AP Photo/Jon Shenk)
EnlargeGoogle's Project Loon may sound crazy, but it has a lofty mission: To bridge the gap between the Internet haves and have-nots.
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By using balloons. Really.
Google figures that for each person that can get online, there are at least two who can't. That's almost 5 billion people without access to the Internet. And many of those who can't get online are in rural areas where installing fiber-optic cables or accessing the Internet via satellites is prohibitively expensive.
That's why Google Loon was in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday doing their first big test of the concept.
Here's how it works. Large weather-type balloons (49 feet in diameter) are floated at an altitude of 12 miles above the Earth, well above where commercial aircraft fly. A series of stations on the ground (about 60 miles apart) bounce signals off some 300 balloons carrying solar-powered radio transmitters, which also communicate between balloons. The high-altitude balloons circle the globe untethered, riding the winds along the 40th parallel.? The balloons could be steered, somewhat, "by tweaking altitude to find wind currents whooshing in the right direction. Google, which is pretty good at computation, could use the voluminous government data available to accurately simulate wind currents in the stratosphere," according to an article in Wired.
Google calculates that each balloon could provide Internet access to an area twice the size of New York City -? about 1,250 square kilometers.
Is that enough to bridge the digital divide? Probably not. As Richard Bennett, a fellow with the nonprofit Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told the Associated Press, cellphone towers and smartphones are already quickly bridging that divide in developing countries. "I'm really glad that Google is doing this kind of speculative research," he said. "But it remains to be seen how practical any of these things are."
Why the test debut in Christchurch?
This location hints at a less ambitious but more probable use of Project Loon - if it works: To provide Internet access in disaster areas, where an earthquake or storm has knocked out access. In 2011, an earthquake in Christchurch killed 185 people and left thousands without Internet access, some for weeks. "Here in Christchurch, we're well aware of the importance of connectivity in crisis situations, and Project Loon could be of major benefit to aid organizations and disaster-affected governments alike as they help get cities up and running again," said Mayor Bob Parker, according to the New Zealand Herald.
How did the test go? Well, Charles Nimmo, a sheep farmer in the small town of Leeston, New Zealand, reported that thanks to a red Google dish (shaped like a Google Map pin) on his roof, he got Internet access for about 15 minutes before the Google balloon floated out of range Saturday.?
Nimmo, who says he has paid up to $1,000 a month in satellite Internet fees, described the project as "weird. But it's been exciting to be part of something new."
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/5cpUbwJUxbg/How-loony-is-the-Google-Loon-project
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Separate attacks kill 32 people across Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A string of nearly a dozen apparently coordinated bombs and a shooting in cities across Iraq killed at least 32 and wounded dozens Sunday, extending a wave of violence that is raising fears of a return to widespread killing a decade after the U.S.-led invasion.
Violence has spiked sharply in Iraq in recent months, with the death toll rising to levels not seen since 2008. Nearly 2,000 have been killed since the start of April.
Most of the car bombs hit Shiite-majority areas and were the cause of most of the casualties, killing 26. The blasts hit half a dozen cities and towns in the south and center of the country. There was no claim of responsibility for any of the attacks, but they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which uses car bombs, suicide bombers and coordinated attacks to target security forces, members of Iraq's Shiite majority, and others.
The blasts began when a parked car bomb went off early morning in the industrial area of the city of Kut, killing three people and wounding 14 others. That was followed by another car bomb outside the city targeted a gathering of construction workers that killed two and wounded 12, according to police.
In a teahouse hit by the blast, a blood-stained tribal headdress and slippers were strewn on the floor, along with overturned chair and couches. Kut is located 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
In the oil-rich city of Basra by the Gulf coast in southern Iraq, a car bomb exploded in a busy downtown street, police said. As police and rescuers rushed to the scene of the initial blast, the second car exploded. A total of six people were reported killed. Cleaners were seen brushing off debris of the car bomb that damaged nearby cars and shops.
About an hour later, two parked car bombs ripped through two neighborhoods in the southern city of Nasiriyah, 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing one and wounding 17, another police officer said.
And in the town of Mahmoudiya, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a car bomb went off in an open market.
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, a blast struck a produce market, killing eight and wounding 28. Afterwards, watermelons, tomatoes and apples were scattered on the ground where a bulldozer was loading charred and twisted stalls and cars into a lorry.
And in Madain, a roadside bomb and then a car bomb exploded, killing three and wounding 14. Madain is about 20 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
Near Hillah, a car bomb exploded in a parking lot, killing one and wounding nine. Hillah is about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
The shooting happened near the restive northern city of Mosul. Police officials say gunmen attacked police guarding a remote stretch of an oil pipeline, killing four and wounding five. Mosul, some 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, has been the scene of some of the deadliest unrest outside of the Baghdad area in recent weeks.
In the northern city of Tuz Khormato, a roadside bomb targeted a passing police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding another, another police officer said. The town is about 200 kilometers (130 miles) north of Baghdad.
Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't allowed to release the information.
The attacks came a day after the leader of al-Qaida's Iraq arm, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, defiantly rejected an order from the terror network's central command to stop claiming control over the organization's Syria affiliate, according to a message purportedly from him. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's comments reveal his group's determination to link its own fight against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad with the cause of rebels trying to topple the Iran-backed Syrian regime.
___
Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Adam Schreck contributed.
___
Follow Sinan Salaheddin on Twitter at twitter.com/sinansm
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/separate-attacks-kill-32-people-across-iraq-111557848.html
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Kanye West's Yeezus Track List Leaks: You Can't Control Everything
West has tried his hardest to keep Yeezus under wraps, but others haven't quite kept their end of the bargain.
By James Montgomery
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709038/kanye-west-yeezus-track-list-leak.jhtml
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Friday, June 14, 2013
Iran votes for new president, Khamenei slams U.S. doubts
By Yeganeh Torbati and Zahra Hosseinian
DUBAI (Reuters) - Millions of Iranians voted to choose a new president on Friday, urged by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to turn out in force to discredit suggestions by arch foe the United States that the election would be a sham.
The 50 million eligible voters had a choice between six candidates to replace incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Having been vetted by Iran's electoral authorities, none is seen a challenge to the Islamic Republic's 34-year-old system of clerical rule.
Polling stations closed five hours later than planned in the capital Tehran because of what Iranian state media reported were large queues of people waiting to cast their vote. Voting was extended by four hours across the rest of the country.
With authorities estimating a turnout of over 70 percent, final results are unlikely to be announced until Saturday.
The first presidential election since a disputed 2009 contest led to months of unrest is unlikely to change rocky ties between the West and the OPEC nation of 75 million, but it may bring a softening of the antagonistic style favored by Ahmadinejad.
World powers in talks with Iran over its nuclear program are looking for any signs of a recalibration of its negotiating stance after eight years of intransigence.
Voting in the capital Tehran, Khamenei called on Iranians to vote in large numbers and derided Western misgivings about the credibility of the vote.
"I recently heard that someone at the U.S. National Security Council said 'we do not accept this election in Iran'," he said. "We don't give a damn."
On May 24, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry questioned the credibility of the election, criticizing the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access.
All the remaining contenders except current chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have criticized the conduct of diplomacy that has left Iran increasingly isolated and under painful economic sanctions.
REVOLUTIONARY VALUES
After casting his vote, Jalili said: "Everyone should respect the name that comes out of the ballot boxes and the person people choose," according to ISNA news agency.
Hossein, a 27-year-old voter in Tehran who belongs to the hardline Basij volunteer militia, said he would vote for Jalili, 47, Khamenei's national security adviser and a former Revolutionary Guard who lost a leg in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"He is the only one I can trust to respect the values of the revolution ... He feels and cares for the needy," Hossein said.
On the other end of the political spectrum, many liberal-minded Iranians backed Hassan Rohani, the only cleric in the race. Though a moderate conservative, he has courted support from reformists by offering a more progressive policy agenda.
"I am a reformist and at best he is only a moderate but I voted for him because he is the best we have got at this point," said Sara who cast her vote in northern Tehran.
The Guardian Council, a state body that vets all candidates, barred several hopefuls, notably former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the Islamic Republic's founding fathers seen as sympathetic to reform, as well as Ahmadinejad's close ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.
This narrowing of the field prompted concerns of a low turnout which the supreme leader sought to counter.
"What is important is that everyone takes part," Khamenei said. "Our dear nation should come (to vote) with excitement and liveliness, and know that the destiny of the country is in their hands and the happiness of the country depends on them."
INFLEXIBLE STANCE
Of five conservative candidates professing unwavering obedience to Khamenei, only three are thought to stand any chance of winning the vote, or making it through to a second round run-off in a week's time.
Nuclear negotiator Jalili, who advocates maintaining a robust, ideologically-driven foreign policy, is seen as the main conservative contender.
The other two, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former foreign minister Velayati, have pledged never to back away from pursuing Iran's nuclear program but have strongly criticized Jalili's inflexible negotiating stance.
Rohani has also defended Iran's nuclear rights but stressed the importance of working constructively with world powers to alleviate the effects of sanctions.
The opposition Kaleme website said Rohani's campaign headquarters had sent a letter to the Guardian Council urging it to remove the name of Mohammad Reza Aref - a reformist candidate who dropped out this week in favor of Rohani - from ballot papers. The complaint said voting slips in some polling stations carried Aref's name and this could create confusion.
With no reliable opinion polls in Iran, it is hard to gauge the public mood, let alone the extent to which Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards exert their influence over the ballot. But indications pointed to a surge of excitement among voters.
2009 CRACKDOWN
Security has been tight and campaigning subdued compared to the euphoric rallies that preceded the 2009 polls when reformist supporters thought they scented the prospect of change in Iran.
Those hopes were dashed when Ahmadinejad was returned to office by results the reformists said were rigged.
Human rights groups have criticized Iran for further arrests and curbs on activists and journalists ahead of Friday's poll and the disqualification of 678 people registered as candidates.
Iranian officials dispute accusations of human rights abuses and call the charges politically motivated. They also say elections in Iran are free, fair and democratic.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iranians-start-voting-select-successor-ahmadinejad-034531324.html
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Friday, June 7, 2013
Copyright Bullies: Sydney law firm targeting downloaders ...
At the end of last month, it came to light that Sydney-based Marque Lawyers has issued letters to Australian ISPs to ask them to hand over details about the identity of their users who have allegedly used peer to peer Internet file sharing platforms such as BitTorrent in a way that infringes copyrighted content owned by Marque's clients.
The exact identity of Marque's clients is still unknown. Apparently some of the ISPs immediately responded to Marque, refusing to provide the details of their users. In response to that, Marque made known that it was considering applying to a court for a 'preliminary discovery order' to access this information. Ironically, Marque has previously argued that this kind of lawsuit is not entirely appropriate due to the difficulties in associating an IP address with a real person.
In recent years, the use of discovery for copyright owners to find out users' personal details from ISPs has been prevalent in the US. In Australia the use of this process to target suspected Internet pirates was raised in the litigation between iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft. The decision in this case held that iiNet itself had not authorised its users to infringe copyright online, but may have left open the door for rightsholders to pursue ISPs' customers directly.
This is not the first time in Australia that rightsholders have tried to go after Internet users directly. In 2011, the 'Movie Rights Group' tried its hand at mass litigation against Australian Internet users, by contacting all major ISPs seeking the details of users who had allegedly infringed copyright online. However, the MRG does not seem to have be a success since its vice-president left the organisation and its website was shut down later in 2011.
EFA believes that this kind of bullying of Australian Internet users by rightsholders' lawyers is unethical since it scares users, who may not be able to afford legal advice themselves into settling with rightsholders by paying sums of money when what they have done may not actually be infringing copyright. Furthermore, IP addresses used to 'identify' users alleged to be infringing copyright are not a foolproof link to a 'real-life' individual.
In addition, EFA thinks that these rightsholders would be better off spending their time and money on providing legal, timely and reasonably priced distribution models for digital content in Australia rather than overzealously pursuing individual users.
Support EFA's work in promoting digital freedom, access and privacy in Australia by joining or donating today.
Source: https://www.efa.org.au/2013/06/06/law-firm-targeting-downloaders/
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