NEW YORK — Gas prices hit $3.60 a gallon and oil futures rose to their own new record near $120 a barrel on Monday as labor actions overseas threatened crude supplies. Oil prices later retreated to alternate between gains and losses as the dollar stabilized against foreign currencies. At the pump, the national average price Americans pay to gas up rose 0.4 cent overnight to a record $3.603 a gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. While prices are 66 cents higher than a year ago, their rate of increase has slowed some since last week, when prices jumped more than 2 cents a day several times. That could suggest that a price peak is near, analysts said. ‘I’ve got to think we’re close to the end on increases,’ said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. However, Lynch thinks prices could rise another 10 cents to 15 cents before they reach that peak and begin falling. Gas prices are rising in part because refiners are making the seasonal switch-over from making winter-grade gasoline to the more expensive, but less polluting, […]
The monthly discomfort many women see as a curse could pay off someday as Japanese researchers say menstrual blood can be used to repair heart damage. Scientists obtained menstrual blood from nine women and cultivated it for about a month, focusing on a kind of cell that can act like stem cells. Some 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously about three days after being put together in vitro with cells from the hearts of rats. The cells from menstrual blood eventually formed sheet-like heart-muscle tissue. The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow, according to Shunichiro Miyoshi, a cardiologist at Keio University’s school of medicine, who is involved in the research. Separate in-vivo experiments showed that the condition of rats who had suffered heart attacks improved after they received the cells derived from menstrual blood. Miyoshi said women may eventually be able to use their own menstrual blood. ‘There may be a system in the near future that allows women to use it for their own treatment,’ Miyoshi told AFP on Thursday. Using one’s own blood could solve a major […]
You’ve heard the frightening statistics, seen the riots, and watched the food lines grow across the world. Have we entered some kind of permanent Malthusian trap? Or is there a way out of the global food crisis? Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, says the situation is dire, but eminently solvable. Josette Sheeran: ‘This is a silent tsunami, and one that’s virtually hitting every developing nation on the earth.’ Foreign Policy: It seems like attention to the global food crisis hadn’t really reached critical mass until the past few weeks and months. Why is that? Josette Sheeran: The World Food Program is like the canary in the coal mine. Because we’re dealing with food supply for the world’s most vulnerable, we felt it earlier on. Some institutions, like the International Food Policy Research Institute, have been warning that the dynamics of world food supply were getting very precarious. But I don’t think it was until June, when prices went into an aggressive pattern of increase, that it started to get the world’s attention. And food riots that have broken out in 34 countries have certainly helped raise political awareness. Agriculture has not been […]
A 17-year-old whose sight was failing has had his vision improved in a pioneering operation carried out by doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital. The London researchers used gene therapy to regenerate the dying cells in Stephen Howarth’s right eye. As a result he can now confidently walk alone in darkened rooms and streets for the first time. Stephen is the third person to have the operation, and the researchers expect even better results in future cases. Before the procedure, he could hardly see at all at night and in time he would have lost his sight completely. Confidence His condition was due to a faulty gene that meant that the light-detecting cells at the back of his eye were damaged and slowly degenerating further. But, in a delicate operation, surgeons at Moorfields injected working copies of the gene into the back of Stephen’s eye. After a few months, doctors detected some improvements. But Stephen did not notice these changes until he confidently strode through a dimly-lit maze designed to test his vision. Until then he had kept walking into walls – and it would take him nearly a minute to […]
When Larry Massa says he likes to travel light, he means it. No need for a jacket and tie at dinner, a pristine set of tennis whites when he hits the court, or even a bathrobe to wear when heading from his hotel room to the pool or the spa. For when Mr. Massa, 74, a retired Navy commander and computer science engineer from Virginia Beach, and his wife, Darlene, go on vacation, they do it in the nude. ‘If you haven’t tried it, there’s no way I can tell you what a fun thing it is, what an added dimension to a vacation it can be’ said Mr. Massa, who has been taking ‘clothing-optional’ vacations since 2001 and whose most recent trip was to an all-nude resort in Mexico. ‘I’ll never forget the day,’ said Mr. Massa, recalling the couple’s first nudist vacation at a Caribbean resort. ‘The place was full. We went to the far end of the pool and Dar said, ‘I’m going to take my top off.’ I thought I’m not going to wear these stupid swim trunks in the pool. So I jumped in naked. She looked down at me and dropped her bottoms […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
