LONDON – Scientists have solved the genetic puzzle of how influenza A viruses – including the H5N1 bird flu – replicate inside cells, which could help to speed up the development of new drugs to avert a pandemic. As governments bolster efforts to halt the spread of avian flu which has killed 83 people since 2003, an international team of researchers has discovered that the flu virus infects cells by organizing its genetic material in a set of eight segments. “We’ve found that the influenza virus has a specific mechanism that permits it to package its genetic materials,” said Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, who headed the research team. “All influenza viruses have the same mechanism, including bird flu,” he added in an interview on Wednesday. Influenza A is the family of viruses responsible for seasonal flu as well pandemic strains such as the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. Scientists fear H5N1 could cause the next pandemic if it mutates on its own or mixes with a human virus to form a strain that can spread easily from person to person. So far […]
Newton officials are calling their refusal to allow FBI agents access to library computers without a warrant during a terrorist threat last week “their finest hour.” Law enforcement officials say it’s a “nightmare.” Police rushed to the Newton Free Library after tracing a terrorist threat e-mailed to Brandeis University to a computer at the library. But requests to examine computers Jan. 18 were rebuffed by Newton library Director Kathy Glick-Weil and Mayor David Cohen on the grounds that they did not have a warrant. Cohen, defending the library’s actions, called the legal standoff one of Newton’s “finest hours.” “We showed you can enforce the law – without jeopardizing the privacy of innocent citizens,” the mayor said. It took U.S. attorneys several hours to finally secure a warrant, Glick-Weil said, and they took the computer from the library at about 11:30 that night, after the library had closed. Brandeis received the alleged e-mail threat at about 11 a.m., according to Waltham Lt. Brian Navin. While police reportedly didn’t find anything threatening after evacuating […]
One large group study found that staying mentally active reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia by nearly half by building and maintaining a reserve of stimulation. “It is a case of ‘use it or lose it,’” said study leader Michael Valenzuela from the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “If you increase your brain reserve over your lifetime, you seem to lessen the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.” 46 percent risk reduction The study combined data from 29,000 individuals and 22 studies worldwide. It was detailed in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Medicine. It found that individuals with high mental stimulation had a 46 percent decreased risk of dementia. The protective effect was present even in later life, so long as the individuals engaged in mentally stimulating activities. The findings support the idea that a person’s education, occupation, IQ and mental stimulation play a big role in preventing cognitive decline. In a previous study, Valenzuela showed that after five weeks of memory-based exercise, participants increased brain chemistry markers in a direction that was opposite to that seen in Alzheimer’s. […]
GAZA CITY — Mahmoud Zahar is a relatively well-off thyroid surgeon who wears his thinning gray hair in a comb-over that shakes loose when he is angry, which is often. On his forehead is the dime-size bruise of a devout Muslim, the result of many hours spent praying in the mosque across the dirt street from his house here. He is also among the most obdurate leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and will almost certainly be among those who emerge victorious as Palestinians vote Wednesday for parliament for the first time in a decade. Often described by those who know him as severe and short-tempered, Zahar is ebullient as the movement makes its first bid for power in the Palestinian Legislative Council. “We are feeling victory,” Zahar, 60, said during an interview earlier this week in the sunny courtyard of his home. “The people are going to vote for the project of the resistance. Israel should know that a new political and moral atmosphere is going to appear.” Hamas is projected to win roughly a third of the new parliament’s 132 seats and bring the Islamic movement inside the Palestinian government. Hamas, a party […]
TIKSI, Russia Freed by warming, waters once locked beneath ice are gnawing at coastal settlements around the Arctic Circle. In Bykovsky, a village of 457 on Russia’s northeast coast, the shoreline is collapsing, creeping closer and closer to houses and tanks of heating oil, at a rate of 15 to 18 feet a year. Eventually, homes will be lost, and maybe all of Bykovsky, too, under ever-longer periods of assault by open water. “It is eating up the land,” said Innokenty Koryakin, a member of the Evenk tribe and the captain of a fishing boat. “You cannot do anything about it.” To the east, Fyodor V. Sellyakhov scours a barren island with 16 hired men. Mammoths lived here tens of thousands of years ago, and their carcasses eventually sank deep into sediment that is now offering up a trove of tusks and bones nearly as valuable as elephant ivory. Mr. Sellyakhov, a native Yakut, hauls the fossils to a warehouse here and sells them for $25 to $50 a pound. This summer he collected two tons, making him a wealthy man, for Tiksi. “The sea washes down the coast every year,” he said. “It is practically all […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
