TOKYO — East Japan Railway Co. is to conduct a test run of the world’s first fuel-cell-powered train in July, the company said Wednesday. The fuel cells, which generate power from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, will help reduce environmental pollution compared to the existing electric and diesel engines, the company said. The new power source would also help improve scenery when Japan’s web of railroads drops electric-power lines. The fuel-cell trains will maintain the same current speed at about 100 km per hour, but the railway company is still developing a system capable of long distance travel.

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When her hairdresser asked her last fall whether she would continue wearing her hair long, Elizabeth Sloan broke down crying. Unbeknown to the hairstylist, Ms. Sloan had recently had a breast tumor removed and was expecting to begin chemotherapy, which would probably mean losing her hair. But later that day, Ms. Sloan received the results of a new $3,500 genetic test, which indicated that her cancer probably would not come back even if she skipped chemotherapy. ‘It was a huge relief,’ said Ms. Sloan, 40, a mother of two young boys who lives in Manhattan. ‘I did not want to napalm-bomb my body with chemicals.’ The test taken by Ms. Sloan, known as Oncotype DX and offered by a company called Genomic Health, is part of a new wave of sophisticated genetic or protein tests that are starting to remake the diagnostics business, both for the technology they use and the way they are developed and sold. Traditionally regarded as a low-profit, poor cousin of prescription drugs, diagnostic tests are emerging as high-profit products in their own right. Test developers are ‘trying to do what pharmaceutical companies have done with their drugs,’ said Jondavid Klipp, managing […]

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WASHINGTON — U.S. President George Bush’s approval rating has hit record lows of 38 and 32 percent in two polls published Tuesday. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, Bush approval fell 3 points to 38 percent, with 47 percent of respondents saying they ‘strongly’ disapprove of Bush’s handling of the presidency — more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. The April 6-9 poll of 1,027 adults nationwide found 40 percent said Bush is doing a good job with the economy, down 8 percentage points in a month. The poll had a 3-point margin of error. In California, a Field Poll published by The Sacramento Bee found Bush’s approval rating had slipped to 32 percent, down from 38 percent in February. An additional 62 percent of those asked said they did not like the job the president was doing, up from 56 percent in February. California residents polled were even less pleased with Congress, with approval ratings dropping to 24 percent, down from 33 percent in August 2004. The number of people polled and a margin of error were not reported.

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US tourism industry leaders and top government officials on Tuesday urged collaboration between the public and private sectors to stem shrinking US market share of international visitors. Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told travel industry leaders at the Global Travel & Tourism Summit held in Washington that government is attempting to balance strong security with welcoming foreign tourists. Story continues below ↓ advertisement ‘We want to have a system that is secure and safe but welcoming to travel across the world,’ said Sec Chertoff. ‘Americans lose when we put up walls and keep people out.’ Business leaders have voiced deep concerns over a decline in international visitors due partly to more bureaucratic US visa policies and a battered image overseas September 11, 2001. US market share of international tourism is at an all-time low, dropping 35 per cent between 1992 and 2004, which translates into $286bn in lost revenue, according to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA). ‘We are using technology to reduce delays to legitimate travellers while raising the bar to keep out those who are not,’ said Sec Chertoff. ‘Pilot programmes already running demonstrate that it is […]

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OTTAWA - Climate change will cause the extinction of tens of thousands of species in coming decades, says a study in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. The study predicts a disastrous thinning of life in the world’s biodiversity ‘hotspots’ - places like the tropical Andes or the Caribbean basin, which contain a disproportionate wealth of species. The authors estimate that 39 to 43 per cent of species in these regions - 56,000 plant species and 3,700 vertebrates - would likely disappear with a doubling of carbon dioxide from pre-industrial levels. ‘These (hotspots) are the crown jewels of the planet’s biodiversity,’ lead author Jay Malcolm of the University of Toronto said in an interview Tuesday. ‘Unless we get our act together soon we’re looking at committing ourselves to this kind of thing.’ Malcolm said the hotspots tend to be found on high mountains, near the edges of continents or on islands, leaving species with few options for migration. For example, mountain species can seek cooler temperatures by going to higher altitudes, but as they climb the land area diminishes. Land species at the ocean’s edge have nowhere to go. Until recently a CO2 doubling […]

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