A heard of grieving elephants gathers round the lifeless body of Lola, a three-month-old calf, after she died of a heart defect.
Lola was due to receive groundbreaking surgery for her condition but passed away during a preliminary scan.
Keepers at Munich’s Hellabrunn Zoo decided to return Lola’s body to the enclosure so mother Panang, 22, could say her goodbyes in peace.
Afterwards the rest of the herd gently nuzzled her body with their trunks before taking their leave of her.
Zoo director and veterinarian Dr. Andreas Knieriem explained how baby Lola died after three days of treatment by experts.
“Considering the pathology, it has to be said it’s a miracle that she lived as long as she did,” said Dr. Andreas Knieriem.
“Her arteries were so blocked that blood couldn’t flow through her lungs anymore.”
A heard of grieving elephants gathers round the lifeless body of Lola, a three-month-old calf, after she died of a heart defect
Elephants are widely believed to mourn the deaths of members of their herd, and even pay homage to long-dead elephants.
A 2005 study in the UK found the creatures displayed traits similar to humans and, coming across the remains of an elephant, would gently touch the skull and tusks with their trunks and feet.
They are also believed to display a ritual around death, with several elephants travelling to visit a dead body and touching the corpse with their trunks.
Some elephants have been seen to weep and others make sounds associated with grief as they cover the body with leaves and branches before keeping a silent vigil.
McDonald’s became the subject of an outburst of vitriolic hatred on Twitter when critics hijacked a promotional hash-tag created by the fast-food giant.
The critics accused McDonald’s of making customers vomit, serving pig meat from gestation crates and dishing up a burger containing a finger nail.
One fierce opponent claimed he would rather eat his own diarrhea than visit the famous Golden Arches.
Jumping on the social media bandwagon, McDonald’s last week launched a campaign featuring paid-for tweets, which would appear at the top of search results.
An initial hashtag, “#MeetTheFarmers”, meant to promote the corporation’s guarantee of fresh produce, concentrated on wholesome stories about farmers.
McDonald’s tweeted: “Meet Dirk Giannini, McDonald’s lettuce supplier, as he shows u his life on the farm #MeetTheFarmers http://mcd.to/AyvF4M”
All was humdrum until 2:00 p.m. last Wednesday when the global chain sent out two tweets with the more general hash-tag “#McDStories”.
Some marketing whizzkid proclaimed: “When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,” – “McD potato supplier #McDStories http://t.co/HaPM5G9F”
But within minutes the tweets began to go radically off message, as the hash-tag took on a life of its own.
McDonald's became the subject of an outburst of vitriolic hatred on Twitter when critics hijacked a promotional hash-tag created by the fast-food giant
Detractors seized on “#McDStories” as an opportunity to document their alleged horror stories at the Golden Arches.
@jfsmith23 wrote: “Watching a classmate projectile vomit his food all over the restaurant during a 6th grade trip. #McDStories”
One of the worst was @MuzzaFuzza who wrote: “I haven’t been to McDonalds in years, because I’d rather eat my own diarrhea.”
Followers chimed in including @nelo_taylor who wrote: “These #McDStories never get old, kinda like a box of McDonald’s 10 piece”
Social media director Rick Wion told paidcontent.org: “Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned,
“It was negative enough that we set about a change of course.”
However the campaign wasn’t a complete failure.
The “#meetthefarmers” hashtag, which escaped the battering, stimulating mostly positive tweets, has stayed put.
Specialists announce that the sun is today bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm in almost seven years, with more to come from the fast-moving eruption.
The solar storm occurred at about 11: 00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times.
The biggest issue is radiation, which is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-travelling aeroplanes, experts said.
Radiation from Sunday’s flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will probably continue through until Wednesday, experts say. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe.
There are two higher levels of radiation on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s storm scale of “severe” and “extreme”, space weather centre physicist Doug Biesecker said.
This storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005. The radiation – in the form of protons – came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour.
“The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don’t get rid of them like that,” Doug Biesecker said, explaining why the effects will stick around for a couple of days.
Radiation from Sunday's flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will probably continue through until Wednesday
NASA’s flight surgeons and solar experts examined the solar flare’s expected effects.
They decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to do anything to protect themselves from the radiation, spokesman Rob Navias said.
A solar eruption is followed by a one-two-three punch, said Antti Pulkkinen, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Catholic University.
First comes electromagnetic radiation, followed by radiation in the form of protons. Then, finally the coronal mass ejection – that’s the plasma from the sun itself – hits.
Usually that travels at about 1 or 2 million miles per hour, but this storm is particularly speedy and is shooting out at 4 million miles per hour, Doug Biesecker said.
Plasma causes much of the noticeable problems on Earth, such as electrical grid outages. In 1989, a solar storm caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It can also pull the northern lights further south.
But this coronal mass ejection seems likely to be only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong, Doug Biesecker said. The worst of the storm is likely to go north of Earth.
And unlike last October, when a freak solar storm caused auroras to be seen as far south as Alabama, the northern lights aren’t likely to dip too far south this time, Doug Biesecker said.
Parts of New England, upstate New York, northern Michigan, Montana and the Pacific Northwest could see an aurora but not until Tuesday evening, he said.
For the past several years the sun had been quiet. Part of that was the normal calm part of the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity.
Last year, scientists started to speculate that the sun was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen maybe once a century or so.
Now that super-quiet cycle doesn’t seem as likely, Doug Biesecker said. Scientists watching the sun with a new NASA satellite launched in 2010 – during the sun’s quiet period – are excited.
“We haven’t had anything like this for a number of years,” Antti Pulkkinen said. “It’s kind of special.”
Researchers say that interacting within a group, such as taking part in jury deliberations or mingling at a cocktail party, can lower your intelligence, with women being particularly susceptible.
Scientists at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.
In other words, whether “feeling” less intelligent than others can affect your decision-making.
“You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the institute, who led the study.
Researchers say that interacting within a group, such as taking part in jury deliberations or mingling at a cocktail party, can lower your intelligence
Read Montague explained that when volunteers in a group were told how the others performed, it lowered their problem-solving abilities.
He said: “We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ.
“Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.”
What’s more, a pattern emerged along gender lines.
The women and men both had the same baseline IQ scores, but more women fell into the lower performing group.
Lead author Kenneth Kishida added: “Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning.
“And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit.”
Co-author Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech, said: “The idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other.”
The research appears in the January 23, 2012 issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Recent studies emphasized the negative influence exerted by obesity on the risk to develop prostate cancer, the diagnostic and the recovery after surgical treatment.
A meta-analysis of 25 prostate cancer studies over a 14 years period detailed the association between body mass index (BMI) and prostate cancer risk. For every 5-point BMI increase, the risk to develop an aggressive form of prostate cancer is elevated with 9%. In the same time, for every 5-point BMI increase the risk to develop a less aggressive form of prostate cancer diminished with 6%. The study was published this month in the Annals of Oncology.
Body mass index shows the relation between how many kilograms has a person and his/her height (body weight in kilograms divided by the square of his/her height in meters). A normal BMI ranges from 18.5 to 25. For children there is another calculation that implies age and sex. A person under 20 with a BMI between the 85th and 95th percentile is overweight.
Another study showed that obesity multiplied the risk of metastases by 5 and prostate cancer grew 3 times faster in obese patients. The study was presented in 2011 at the American Urological Association annual meeting.
Other research reports the risk of death from prostate cancer is 25% higher for overweight men and to obese men the risk may be double than of normal-weight men.
Obesity raises the risk to develop prostate cancer.
There are reactions in the medical field: prostate cancer screening is increasing in obese men, according to the Journal of Obesity.
“This is good news. Physicians recognize increased risk factors in their obese patients and are encouraging vigilance when it comes to prostate cancer PSA testing,” said Dr. David Samadi, Chief of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center.
An obese patient requires a much careful analysis of treatment options, because the common surgical complications can be more frequent and more severe in patients with high BMI. During the surgery, extended surgical time and increased hemorrhage (bleeding) are the main concerns regarding men with obesity.
The age of the patient and his general health combined with the experience and the skills of the surgeon have a great influence on prostate cancer outcomes.
“There’s so much we can’t yet control about our medical path, particularly in the area of cancers, but what we can do is optimize our general wellness. Maintaining a healthier weight, eating better, getting active, those are all places to start… Many health issues can be avoided through wellness, and for those that can’t, well, healthier men are certainly better equipped to withstand the rigors of prostate cancer treatment and recovery, if necessary,” said Dr. David Samadi.
Generally, prostate cancer causes no symptoms in the early stage.
In some cases, may occur frequent urination, nocturia (increased urination at night), difficulty starting and maintaining a steady stream of urine, hematuria (blood in the urine), dysuria (painful urination), difficulty achieving erection or painful ejaculation.
Prostate cancer screening is performed by two methods: the digital rectal examination (DRE), and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test.
A lot of prostate cancers are indolent and would never progress to a clinically meaningful stage, but there are other prostate cancers potentially lethal.
Prostate cancer screening is performed by two methods: the digital rectal examination (DRE), and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test.
Prostate test screening is controversial. The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concluded in 2011 that “prostate-specific antigen–based screening results in small or no reduction in prostate cancer–specific mortality and is associated with harms related to subsequent evaluation and treatments, some of which may be unnecessary.”
“Research has not yet proven that the potential benefits of testing outweigh the harms of testing and treatment. The American Cancer Society believes that men should not be tested without learning about what we know and don’t know about the risks and possible benefits of testing and treatment. Starting at age 50, (45 if African American or brother or father suffered from condition before age 65) talk to your doctor about the pros and cons of testing so you can decide if testing is the right choice for you.“
The diagnosis of prostate cancer can be confirm only by a biopsy.
During life time one in six Americans will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, it is estimated. One in three U.S. men are considered obese. Obesity is the second leading risk factor for developing cancer.
For the first time, Kim Kardashian spoke up publicly about her divorce from Kris Humphries, as she stepped in to perform co-hosting duties on Live with Kelly in New York City.
Kim Kardashian, 31, who wore a figure-hugging lace red dress, said: “It’s been a hard couple of months.”
The reality star hit back at claims the wedding was just a publicity stunt.
“If you really think about it, if this was a business decision and I really made all that money that everyone was claiming that we made off this wedding, and if the wedding was fake and just for TV, I’m a smart businesswoman, I would have stayed married longer.”
Kim Kardashian added: “I really didn’t think following my heart would create this much backlash.”
She insisted she “tried everythin” to make the relationship work, adding: “I want that forever love, and if I feel in my heart this isn’t right, then why wait years to have the same results?”
Kim Kardashian spoke up publicly about her divorce from Kris Humphries, as she stepped in to perform co-hosting duties on Live with Kelly in New York City
Kim Kardashian revealed that after the split, she packed “two pairs of sweatpants and a pair of pyjamas” and moved in with her mother, Kris Jenner, to do “some soul searching”.
The self-proclaimed “hopeless romantic” hasn’t give up on love though, adding: “I think I just learned that I need to rewrite my fairytale.”
Kim Kardashian was certainly excited about being asked to join Kelly Ripa on the show.
She tweeted today: “Up early glamming for @LiveKelly! Tune in this morning! Xo.”
Kim Kardashian later added: “Going live with @LiveKelly tun into ABC east coast!”
Kelly Ripa – who recently signed a new five-year deal to stay with the show – has had a succession of guest hosts since Regis Philbin’s departure in November. No full-time replacement has been appointed.
Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian has admitted that she broke down in tears while watching last night’s emotional episode of Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
Kim Kardashian – who filed for divorce from in October after just 72 days of marriage – has been seen constantly arguing with the basketball star during the current season of the reality show.
Researchers say that early results from the world’s first human trial using embryonic stem cells to treat diseases of the eye suggest the method is safe.
US firm Advanced Cell Technology told The Lancet how two patients who had received the retinal implants were doing well, four months on.
Trials of the same technique have also started at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital.
But experts say it will be years before these treatments are proven.
The aim of these first human studies is to establish that the treatment is safe to use.
The treatment takes healthy immature cells from a human embryo, which are then manipulated to grow into the cells that line the back of the eye – the retina.
Experts hope that by injecting these cells into a diseased eye, they will be able to restore vision for people with currently incurable conditions such as Stargardt’s disease – one of the main causes of blindness in young people.
Advanced Cell Technology, along with the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, are reporting their first experiences with this treatment in human trials.
The study involved one elderly patient in her 70’s with dry age-related macular degeneration – the leading cause of blindness in the developed world – and another female patient in her 50’s with Stargardt’s disease.
Both had very poor vision and were registered blind.
Each patient was given an injection containing 50,000 of the retinal pigment epithelium cells into one of their diseased eyes.
After surgery, structural evidence confirmed the cells had attached to the eye’s membrane as hoped, and continued to survive throughout the next 16 weeks of the study.
Furthermore, the procedure appeared to be safe, causing no signs of rejection or abnormal cell growth.
Although this study is not designed to see if the procedure actually works, the researchers say their results do suggest that their patients’ vision has improved slightly.
But they say it is still too soon to make any firm conclusions and that many more years of investigation will be needed to confirm that the treatment is both safe and effective.
The researchers told The Lancet: “The ultimate therapeutic goal will be to treat patients earlier in the disease processes, potentially increasing the likelihood of photoreceptor and central visual rescue.”
But even if this does become possible, such treatments would face stiff opposition by critics who say it is ethically wrong to use human embryonic tissue.
Dr. Dusko Ilic, Senior Lecturer in Stem Cell Science at Kings College London, said that these early findings did not necessarily hint towards a viable treatment.
“We should keep in mind that people are not rats.
“The number one priority of initial clinical trial is always patient safety. If everyone expects that the blind patients will see after being treated with human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium, even if the treatment ends up being safe (which is what Advanced Cell Technology are trying to determine in this trial), they risk being unnecessarily disappointed.”
A huge dome of freshwater that is developing in the western Arctic Ocean has been detected by British scientists.
The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15 cm since 2002.
The scientists think it may be the result of strong winds whipping up a great clockwise current in the northern polar region called the Beaufort Gyre.
This would force the water together, raising sea surface height, the group tells the journal Nature Geoscience.
“In the western Arctic, the Beaufort Gyre is driven by a permanent anti-cyclonic wind circulation. It drives the water, forcing it to pile up in the centre of gyre, and this domes the sea surface,” explained lead author Dr. Katharine Giles from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at University College London.
“In our data, we see the trend being biggest in the centre of the gyre and less around the edges,” said Dr. Katharine Giles.
Dr. Katharine Giles and colleagues made their discovery using radar satellites belonging to the European Space Agency (Esa).
These spacecraft can measure sea-surface height even when there is widespread ice cover because they are adept at picking out the cracks, or leads, that frequently appear in the frozen floes.
The data (1995-2010) indicates a significant swelling of water in the Beaufort Gyre, particularly since the early part of the 2000s. The rising trend has been running at 2 cm per year.
A lot of research from buoys and other in-situ sampling had already indicated that water in this region of the Arctic had been freshening.
This freshwater is coming in large part from the rivers running off the Eurasian (Russian) side of the Arctic basin.
Winds and currents have transported this freshwater around the ocean until it has been pulled into the gyre. The volume currently held in the circulation probably represents about 10% of all the freshwater in the Arctic.
Of interest to future observations is what might happen if the anticyclonic winds, which have been whipping up the bulge, change behavior.
“What we seen occurring is precisely what the climate models had predicted,” said Dr. Katharine Giles.
“When you have clockwise rotation – the freshwater is stored. If the wind goes the other way – and that has happened in the past – then the freshwater can be pushed to the margins of the Arctic Ocean.
“If the spin-up starts to spin down, the freshwater could be released. It could go to the rest of the Arctic Ocean or even leave the Arctic Ocean.”
If the freshwater were to enter the North Atlantic in large volumes, the concern would be that it might disturb the currents that have such a great influence on European weather patterns. These currents draw warm waters up from the tropics, maintaining milder temperatures in winter than would ordinarily be expected at northern European latitudes.
The creation of the Beaufort Gyre bulge is not a continuous development throughout the 15-year data-set, and only becomes a dominant feature in the latter half of the study period.
This may indicate a change in the relationship between the wind and the ocean in the Arctic brought about by the recent rapid decline in sea-ice cover, the CPOM team argues in its Nature Geoscience paper.
It is possible that the wind is now imparting momentum to the water in ways that were not possible when the sea-ice was thicker and more extensive.
“The ice is now much freer to move around,” said Dr. Katharine Giles.
“So, as the wind acts on the ice, it’s able to pull the water around with it. Depending on how ridged the surface of ice is or how smooth the bottom of the ice is – this will all affect the drag on the water. If you have more leads, this also might provide more vertical ice surfaces for the wind to blow against.”
One consequence of less sea-ice in the region is the possibility that winds could now initiate greater mixing of the different layers in the Arctic Ocean.
Scientists are aware that there is a lot of warm water at depth.
At present, this deep water’s energy is unable to influence the sea-ice because of a buffer of colder, less dense water lying between it and the floes above.
But if this warm water were made to well up because of wind-driven changes at the surface, it could further accelerate the loss of seasonal ice cover.
The CPOM team is now investigating the likelihood of this happening with Cryosat-2, Esa’s first radar satellite dedicated to the study of the Polar Regions.
“We now have the means to measure not only the ice thickness but also to monitor how the ocean under the ice is changing,” says Dr. Seymour Laxon, director of CPOM and co-author of the study, “and with CryoSat-2, we can now do so over the entire Arctic Ocean.”
Ankle has the most satisfying spot to scratch, according to researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina.
In a study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, healthy volunteers were made to itch on the forearm, ankle and back by rubbing them with cowhage, a plant with tiny hairs that irritate the skin.
For five minutes they were banned from scratching, and asked to record how itchy they felt at each spot.
After scratching participants awarded marks out of ten for how pleasurable the sensation had been.
Fashion changes may mean the ankle is now more often exposed to itch-inducing insects and germs.
Relieving an itch on your back is one of life’s simple pleasures but now scientists have found that the ankle is the most satisfying spot to scratch.
Professor Francis McGlone, a member of the International Forum for the Study of Itch, said: “It was interesting that the ankle was the itchiest site and that the most pleasure came from scratching it, because the back has been well-known as a preferred site for scratching.”
Scientists believe the ankle has evolved as an itch-prone area because it comes into contact with insects and germs, which can be removed through scratching.
Powerful storms hit Alabama early this morning in an area that has not yet fully recovered from tornadoes that left the community in despair last year.
At least two people were killed and heavy damage was reported just hours after tornadoes struck portions of Arkansas, downing trees and power lines and leaving thousands without electricity there.
The predawn storms struck the Birmingham area, with the towns of Center Point and Trussville just to the northeast of the city being particularly hard hit, emergency management officials said.
The devastation prompted Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to declare a state of emergency for the entire state.
Fatalities were reported in the towns of Oak Grove and Clay, but those weren’t the only towns affected.
“Center Point was hit pretty badly,” Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency spokesman Mark Kelly said.
An emergency management spokesman told the Associated Press that more than 100 people have been injured in central Alabama by the line of storms.
Homes were flattened, windows were blown out of cars and roofs were peeled back in the middle of the night in the community of Oak Grove near Birmingham. As dawn broke, residents surveyed the damage and officials used chainsaws to clear fallen trees.
Powerful storms hit Alabama early this morning in an area that has not yet fully recovered from tornadoes that left the community in despair last year
Chief Deputy Randy Christian told the Birmingham News: “The hardest hit area at this time includes Oak Grove and Center Point through Clay and Trussville. Several homes are reported destroyed and numerous reports of injuries have come in to our call center.”
Jefferson County EMA official, Bob Ammons said: “We have major, major damage.”
Chief Deputy Coroner Pat Curry told The Birmingham News that those killed in the storms were identified as 16-year-old Christina Nicole Heichelbech of Clay, and 83-year-old Bobby Frank Sims of Oak Grove.
The Birmingham News reported that Christina Nicole Heichelbech’s body was found among debris next to her family’s pool after her house was destroyed.
Bobby Frank Sims was found dead after his entire home was flung about 200 feet away from its foundation by the force of the storms.
Oak Grove was hit hard in April when tornadoes ravaged Alabama, killing about 240 people, though officials said none of the same neighborhoods were struck again. Officials had to reschedule a meeting Monday to receive a study on Alabama’s response to the spring tornadoes.
Yasamie Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said: “Some roads are impassable, there are a number of county roads where you have either debris down, trees down, damage from homes.”
Stevie Sanders woke up around 3:30 a.m. and realized bad weather was on the way. She, her parents and sister hid in the laundry room of their brick home as the wind howled and trees started cracking outside.
“You could feel the walls shaking and you could hear a loud crash. After that it got quiet, and the tree had fallen through my sister’s roof,” said Stevie Sanders.
The family was OK, and her father, Greg Sanders, spent the next hours raking his roof and pulling away pieces of broken lumber.
“It could have been so much worse,” he said.
“It’s like they say, we were just blessed.”
In Clanton, about 50 miles south of Birmingham, rescuers were responding to reports of a trailer turned over with people trapped, City Clerk Debbie Orange said.
In Mississippi, the National Weather Service was tracking a thunderstorm to the southwest of Hattiesburg that was producing wind gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour.
These were the latest in a series of powerful January storms to have torn through the Southeast.
On Sunday, twisters downed trees and power lines in Arkansas leaving thousands without power.
A tornado tore into an area outside of Fordyce, some 70 miles south of state capital Little Rock, damaging houses and felling trees and power lines as it moved, according to Accuweather.com.
Accuweather carried reports of five other twisters touching the ground in Arkansas, which was pelted by soft-ball sized hailstones and buffeted by winds gusting up to 70 miles per hour.
As of late Sunday, roughly 13,400 homes were without power across Arkansas as the storms intensified, according to utility provider Entergy Arkansas, Inc.
Chemotherapy added to radiation therapy almost doubled the median survival time in patients with a rare form of brain tumor (oligodendroglioma) that carries a chromosomal abnormality (the 1p19q co-deletion), a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group showed.
The clinical trial was led by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) with the participation of the North Central Cancer Treatment Group, the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, and SWOG (formerly the Southwest Oncology Group).
The study enrolled 286 patients with aggressive brain tumors, oligodendrogliomas, who were randomly and equally assigned to receive radiotherapy alone or radiotherapy plus PCV chemotherapy (with drugs procarbazine, lomustine and vincristine). Before and after around half of the patients had been followed for over 11 years, genetic analyses were performed.
The median overall survival time was similar for patients receiving radiotherapy alone or radiotherapy plus PCV chemotherapy.
The good news comes when it is about the patients with the rare form of brain tumor, 1p19q co-deleted tumors.
The 126 patients with co-deletion lived more (a median survival rate of 8.7 years) than the 135 patients with tumors without the co-deletion (2.7 years).
The 59 patients with co-deletion tumors who received PCV chemotherapy plus radiotherapy lived much longer, double time (14.7 years) than the 67 patients with co-deletion who received radiotherapy alone (median survival rate 7.3 years).
Where the tumors did not have the chromosomal abnormality, no improvement in survival from the addition of chemotherapy was found.
“The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group and other participating cooperative groups are to be congratulated for conducting this randomized clinical trial in a rare form of brain tumor that took many years. Their persistence and dedication was rewarded as this genetic abnormality has a powerful effect on survival, and the results will change how patients with this disease are treated. This clinical trial also highlights the necessity for collecting tumor tissue for genetic studies to define more precisely the patients who benefit most from specific therapies,” said Jeffrey Abrams, M.D., associate director, Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, NCI.
“That’s remarkable when most new cancer therapies offer only a few more weeks or months of survival,” said Dr. Bhupinder Mann, National Cancer Institute scientist.
“It’s very gratifying and good news for the patients diagnosed with these types of tumors. But they are, unfortunately a minority,” said Dr. Steven Rosenfeld head of the brain tumor center at the Cleveland Clinic.
Radiation therapy alone has been the most common treatment used in brain tumor. Now the personalized medicine shows a benefit from adding chemotherapy in certain type of brain cancer.
The average age at diagnosis for this type of brain tumor, anaplastic oligodendroglioma, is 35.
These tumors represents 9.4% of all primary brain and central nervous system tumors.
Around 1,000 Americans a year develop oligodendrogliomas and co-deletion is found in around half of the cases.
Radiotherapy alone has been the common treatment used for oligodendrogliomas.
“This tumor hits people in their 30s and 40s, in the prime of life. It really highlights the importance of personalized medicine. We know these tumors are not all the same,” said Dr. David Reardon, clinical director of neuro-oncology at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Although this combination of therapies does not cure brain cancer, it gives a hope to young persons with certain brain tumor.
Mayo Clinic and Exact Sciences, Inc. have worked together to develop a non-invasive stool DNA screening test that can detect with high accuracy early-stage malignancies and precancerous tumors (adenomas) leading to an earlier identification of colorectal cancer.
Two studies have investigated this DNA screening test and the results will be published in Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
The Mayo Clinic has licensed intellectual property to and is a minor equity investor in Exact Sciences. Dr. David Ahlquist is one of the inventors and a scientific adviser to Exact Sciences.
Stool DNA tests target multiple markers to achieve high detection rates (DNA changes may differ between colorectal cancers) and very sensitive tests are required (DNA markers may be present in only trace quantities in stool).
This type of test has been shown to be more effective than fecal occult blood tests at detecting colon cancer and precancerous polyps.
The first study was a large blinded investigation and found out that stool DNA test detects with accuracy multiple markers for colorectal cancer. Among 400 people it detected 87 percent of curable-stage cancers and the test identified most of large precancerous polyps. It has a good sensitivity and could detect 64% of polyps larger than 1 centimeter (cm); 77% of polyps larger than 2 cm; and 92% of polyps larger than 4 cm.
The second study compared a plasma test for methylated Septin 9 (SEPT9) and the stool DNA test. SEPT9 detected 14 percent and the stool DNA test identified 82% of precancerous polyps. SEPT9’s detected 60% of cancers at any stage, while the stool DNA test identified 87%. SEPT9 identified 50% of curable stage (stage I-III) cancers and the stool DNA test detected 91%. SEPT9 had 27% false-positives results and the DNA stool test had 7%.
A false-positive result is a positive test for cancer when there is no cancer. The presence of tumors above the colon (intestinal, gastric cancers) or a problem with the test may lead to false-positive results. When the stool DNA test result is positive but a follow-up colonoscopy is normal, the doctor recommends evaluation of upper gastrointestinal tract, another stool DNA test, or another colonoscopy or a combination of these.
“Cancerous and pre-cancer cells are shed into the stool and detected by the stool DNA test long before tumors progress to invade the bloodstream for later detection by the plasma SEPT9 screening test,” said David Ahlquist, M.D., of Mayo Clinic, principal investigator of both studies.
“Along with its high accuracy, this test approach could improve participation rates due to its patient-friendly features… The test is non-invasive; requires no bowel preparation, medication restriction, or diet change; and can be performed on mailed-in samples without the need, expense, or inconvenience of a health care visit,” said Dr. David Ahlquist in a news release by the Mayo Clinic.
“This test appears to uniquely represent an accurate noninvasive approach to large polyp detection, which offers the promise of actually preventing cancers from developing,” said Stephen Thibodeau, Ph.D., genetics researcher at Mayo Clinic, co-investigator.
Colorectal cancer (bowel cancer) is an uncontrolled malignant growth of the glands of the colon, appendix, rectum (cancer of the anus is a separate entity).
The majority if colorectal cancers develops over a long period (years). They start from small benign growths, polyps or adenomas.
Common symptoms are worsening constipation, rectal bleeding (blood in the stool), anemia, weight loss, fever, changes in bowel habits, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting. If the person is over 50, these signs are very alarming.
Fecal occult blood testing, flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy are the three main screening tests for colorectal cancer. The stool DNA test is a method to detect precancerous polyps and colorectal cancers in the early stages.
It is recommended that every person to start undergoing colonoscopy at the age of 50 for colorectal cancer screening and to continue it until the age of 75 (sigmoidoscopy every 5 years and colonoscopy every 10 years). Unfortunately, this is often ignored and the disease is identified at later, severe stages.
Older age, male gender and heredity are the risk factors for colorectal cancer that cannot be changed. However, obesity, red meat, a high fat or high alcohol intake (more than a drink per day) can be controlled. As well as smoking and a lack of physical exercise.
Increasing the consumption of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and reducing the intake of red meat are recommended for colorectal cancer prevention. Physical activity can moderately reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.
Apparently the acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) and celecoxib decrease the risk of colorectal cancer in those at high risk, but they are not recommended in those at average risk. While vitamin D intake and blood levels are associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer, there was some evidence for calcium supplementation but it is not sufficient to make a recommendation.
According to the American Cancer Society the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer is one out of every twenty Americans. This there will be over 140,000 new cases of colorectal cancer, and around 50,000 deaths, it is estimated.
Italian divers have found the bodies of two women on the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, bringing the confirmed death toll of the disaster to 15.
Italian authorities say the pumping of fuel from the stricken Costa Concordia can proceed in tandem with the search of the wreck.
Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan coast on 13 January with 4,200 people on board.
It is carrying about 1.9 million litres of fuel in 13 tanks.
An Italian naval vessel is on standby in case of oil leaks.
The bodies of the two women were found near the internet cafe, on the fourth deck.
The women’s families have been notified, officials say.
There is no decision yet on when fuel pumping will begin but the civil protection agency has said it is likely to start within the next 24 hours.
Italian divers have found the bodies of two women on the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, bringing the confirmed death toll of the disaster to 15
Civil protection official Franco Gabrielli told reporters on Giglio there was no risk the Costa Concordia would drop down to a lower seabed.
“We are ready to go,” an official from the Dutch salvage company Smit said.
“As soon as we get the green light, we start the work”.
The salvagers must first attach steel moorings to the front of the ship. They will not want to start pumping in the dark, she says, so work is likely to begin on Tuesday.
Although there has been no leak so far, the civil protection agency says there is pollution in the water from solvents and disinfectants which were on board the vessel.
Search and rescue work has been suspended several times owing to poor weather.
Coastguard and navy divers have been blasting their way into submerged areas of the vessel using explosives in an effort to find those unaccounted for.
Emergency officials said on Saturday they would not end the search until the whole ship had been examined.
The captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, is being detained under house arrest while his actions are investigated.
Francesco Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated. He denies the allegations.
Last night, viewers of Kourtney and Kim take New York saw the moment Kim Kardashian admitted her marriage to Kris Humphries wasn’t working.
Kourtney and Kim Take New York’s season finale part one kicked off with a bang as the newly wed Kim Kardashian came to terms with her feelings and her relationship status.
After meeting with a medium John Edwards, who claimed he was communicating with their late father, Kim Kardashian burst into tears and told her sister: “I don’t want to be married anymore.”
During the session John Edwards asked if either of the sisters were divorced.
Kim Kardashian replied: “I’m divorced, I am I mean I was married now but I was divorced before.”
The medium asked Kim Kardashian if she had learnt from her divorce, claiming that is what her father wanted to know.
It was this line of questioning which upset Kim Kardashian and she confided in her sister Kourtney after the session about how she felt in her relationship.
Kim Kardashian explained: “What was so crazy about that was when he was talking about the divorce stuff.
“I honestly feel like I can’t do this anymore with Kris. I feel like I got into this way too fast. You know I’m not happy.”
John Edwards seemed to know his stuff. Before they barely even had time to get going on the session, John Edwards announced: “OK, I’m going to jump right in.”
After meeting with a medium John Edwards, who claimed he was communicating with their late father, Kim Kardashian burst into tears
During the intense time slot John Edwards also predicted Kourtney Kardashian’s upcoming pregnancy.
“I know you just got married [Kim] and I have to say this. Is somebody pregnant now?”
The star shook her head to suggest there is no baby on the way and the pair seemed shocked when he told them he had a feeling two people are going to be pregnant within the same space of each other.
“I’m seeing twins, so it’s either that or the sign of Gemini in there somewhere. I’m seeing platinum blonde…”
The two eventually come to the suggestion that their younger sibling Khloe Kardashian –who has been trying for a child with NBA star Lamar Odom for some time and used to have lighter locks – will be the one to become a new mum, an idea which John confirms is correct.
During a stroll through New York with older sister Kourtney Kardashian, she suggested they go to see a medium as they reminisced about the tourist locations they used to visit in the past with their late father Robert Kardashian.
The pair decided to visit a psychic to find out what advice their dad would give to them if he were alive, although Kourtney Kardashian wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know I’m just against it. I don’t think you should do it.”
However, Kim Kardashian was obviously in search of some direction for her failing marriage and indirectly that’s just what she got.
The episode was inevitably geared to towards Kim Kardashian’s second revelation that she wanted to split from Kris Humphries.
Throughout the show, which screened on Sunday in the United States, Kim Kardashian couldn’t help but be agitated by the mere sound of her husband’s voice, and when he announced that his sister Kayla is coming to town, the star was angered by the 26-year-old’s failure to communicate with her on the matter.
When she told him she didn’t know she would be coming from their home town of Minnesota and that she’s busy, he snapped: “Maybe you should take the ten minutes you spend with me and spend it with her instead,” to which she nonchalantly replied, “OK”.
Even in last week’s episode she told mother Kris Jenner that she wasn’t excited about getting home to her basketball player husband after a trip to Dubai with the matriarch.
On the other hand, Kourtney Kardashian and her husband Scott Disick were making the effort to socialize more and embarked on a walk around the Big Apple where they got cartoon-style portraits drawn by a street artist.
The outing is one of many which the couple take to spice up their relationship and when they decide to create a more tasteful piece of art, the mother-of-one told the painter: “He’s fun, he’s very over the top, he’s a good dad…”
While Scott Disick gushed: “I think I fell in love with her because she was cute and down to earth. I knew she had a good heart.”
The loved up pair had the right idea while Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries bickered over their different personalities.
As the brunette tried to avoid greeting her sister-in-law, insisting that she be allowed to run off to bed, speaking to camera, her other half confesses: “I’m happy to have one of my family members around for a change.”
But in post-production Kim Kardashian explains her actions: “I’m having such a rough time with him that it’s hard to let another one of his family members into my heart.
“It’s better for all of us if I keep my distance from Kayla so she doesn’t catch wind that there’s tension.”
Her arrangements clearly aren’t putting her on the good side of her new family, with aspiring plus size model Kayla telling her sibling: “I wish Kim had more time to spend with us,” as they leave the Gansevort Hotel where they have residence to have lunch.
In an effort to get back at his new wife, her brother tells waiting photographers of her whereabouts and encourages them not to follow him: “Kim’s leaving in like two minutes, you might want to stay over there buddy,” prompting the close brother and sister to laugh.
As the two sat down to eat, Kris Humphries opened up to Kayla about her demanding schedule versus starting a family: “I don’t know she’s going to be willing to make the sacrifices.”
“Speaking of Kim is she mad at me? I’d really like to get to know her and hang out with her,” to which he replied, “we can arrange that”.
Eventually, Kayla resorts to hanging out with Scott Disick, complaining about the lack of attention she is getting while in the city.
He drops the bombshell that Kim Kardashian didn’t even know that she was coming. As her face drops he reassures her: “I wouldn’t worry about it that much” but to camera he describes the events as “crazy”.
After Kayla leaves town in a huff, the businesswoman begins to feel bad about her approach but Kris Humphries isn’t sympathetic.
“Kim you could’ve at least made more of an effort,” but when Kim Kardashian develops her concerns about their blossoming friendship he somewhat comforts her by saying: “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you but she’s probably just over your ‘I’m too busy for anyone attitude.”
As tensions build she does find some light relief in Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick’s light spat about a portrait gone wrong.
After the eldest Kardashian arranges it so the artist creates the look of a unibrow on her beau with the help of black tape, the entrepreneur is less than impressed and storms off into their bedroom.
Kris Humphries is more than happy to provide relationship advice for his sister in law, telling her that her partner only wants to know she appreciated the gesture.
The petite fashion designer agrees, “true dat”.
The pair then go on to fix the rough patch by letting Kim Kardashian direct an adorable photo shoot for them on a rooftop.
Next week’s show looks set to be a powerful one with the preview showing Kris Humphries telling a friend in the back of a car: “Kim’s been acting weird and distant. I’m just over her.”
Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, the founder of file-sharing website Megaupload has appeared in a New Zealand court seeking bail.
German national Kim Dotcom was arrested with three others in Auckland on Friday in a raid requested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Kim Schmitz has been accused of internet piracy and money laundering.
Prosecutors say he is a flight risk. The court later delayed a decision on bail.
“Given the breadth of issues covered in this bail application and the seriousness of the issues, I am going to reserve my decision,” said Judge David McNaughton.
Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, the founder of file-sharing website Megaupload has appeared in a New Zealand court seeking bail
US authorities want to extradite Kim Dotcom. Federal prosecutors have accused Megaupload – one of the internet’s largest file-sharing sites – of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue.
Megaupload, on the other hand, said it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.
Kim Dotcom holds German and Finnish passports, and is a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand.
“Mr. Dotcom emphatically denies any criminal misconduct or wrongdoing,” Kim Dotcom’s lawyer, Paul Davison, said.
Prosecutor Anne Toohey, however, said that Kim Dotcom was a significant flight risk, citing his multiple passports, financial resources and previous criminal convictions for hacking and insider trading.
Explorer Felicity Aston from UK has reached Antarctica’s Hercules Inlet, becoming the first woman to cross the continent alone.
Felicity Aston, 33, tweeted late on Sunday night:
“Congratulations to the 1st female to traverse Antarctica SOLO.V proud.”
AP news agency reported Felicity Aston was also the first person to make the crossing using only her own strength to ski the 1,084 miles (1,744km).
An expedition spokeswoman confirmed Felicity Aston had crossed Antarctica.
Explorer Felicity Aston from UK has reached Antarctica's Hercules Inlet, becoming the first woman to cross the continent alone
The expedition took Felicity Aston 59 days, beginning at Leverett Glacier.
Tweeting from her @felicity_aston account, Felicity Aston, from Kent, said she was sitting in her tent waiting for a plane to pick her up.
“I’ve been promised red wine and a hot shower,” Felicity Aston wrote.
Later she added: “Foiled by bad weather yet again! No plane tonight but I have my last Beef and Ale Stew to enjoy for my final evening alone – yum!”
In a podcast, Felicity Aston said her last day had been “amazing”, with an icy eight miles to cross.
“It’s all a little bit overwhelming after days and days of counting the time and the distance to get here. I seem to have got here all of a rush all of a sudden and I don’t really feel prepared for it. I mean it feels amazing to be finished and yet overwhelmingly sad that it’s over at the same time,” Felicity Aston said.
Felicity Aston said her journey had been “an amazing privilege”.
Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, is a serial womanizer who once made a pass at Princess Diana while she was on holiday with Prince Charles, a new book has claimed.
“The Solitude of the Queen” by Pilar Eyre also alleges that King Juan Carlos is a “professional seducer” who has had numerous affairs and has not shared a bed with his wife for the past 35 years.
The book reveals that age has not stopped King Juan Carlos, 74, with the monarch regularly receiving vitamin injections and anti-ageing treatments.
“The Solitude of the Queen”, which is likely to prove controversial in the Catholic country, claims the king made a “tactile” advance to Diana while she and Charles were on holiday in Majorca in the 1980’s.
It follows much-derided allegations made in 2004 by Lady Colin Campbell that the princess had a fling with Juan Carlos while on a cruise in August 1986 and then again the following April.
“The Solitude of the Queen” by Pilar Eyre claims King Juan Carlos made a “tactile” advance to Diana while she and Charles were on holiday in Majorca in the 1980's
During a 1987 visit, in which Charles and Diana went to Madrid, King Juan Carlos was pictured smiling as he kissed the princess on the hand – a gesture which left Diana looking embarrassed.
Pilar Eyre’s book also alleges that Queen Sofia has not slept in the marital bed since 1976 and only remains in the marriage out of “a sense of duty”.
The writer even claims the queen stumbled upon her husband with one of his alleged lovers, the Spanish film star Sara Montiel, at a friend’s country house in Toledo in 1976.
Queen Sofia, now 73, was forced to attend a football match the day afterwards “as protocol demanded”, before storming out of the Zarzuela Palace, their official residence, with her children.
Advised to stay with her husband, Queen Sofia was told a break-up would mean she would “end up being paid to liven up the parties of the newly rich”.
Pilar Eyre added: “The role of the queen is sad, she is the loneliest woman in Spain.”
The writer also told Spanish gossip magazine Vanitatis: “Queen Sofia is a woman betrayed and hurt with a married life that has been a real tragedy. The king’s closest friends I have spoken to say they don’t like her.”
And she alleges that, as recently as last year, when the monarch was recovering from the removal of a benign lung tumour, he was seeing a 25-year-old German translator.
After writing the book, Pilar Eyre was informed she would no longer appear on Spanish TV channel Telecinco.
Pilar Eyre said she was told: “The station has banned talk about your book and does not allow you to continue working. You are banned, Pilar, we are sorry.”
Falling asleep straight after sex shows that you and your partner are truly in love, a new study has shown.
Research by evolutionary psychologists at the University of Michigan and Albright College in Pennsylvania, found the tendency to drop off to sleep first after sex is associated with greater partner desire for bonding and affection.
Daniel Kruger, a research fellow at the University of Michigan, and lead author of the study, said: “The more one’s partner was likely to fall asleep after sex, the stronger the desire for bonding.”
The study was published in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology.
The research team examined 456 participants, who completed anonymous online surveys assessing experiences and desires with one’s partner after sex.
Participants then indicated “who falls asleep after sex?” and “who falls asleep first when going to bed not after sex”.
Participants whose partners nodded off immediately after sex had stronger desires for post-coital cuddling and chatting.
“Falling asleep before one’s partner may be a non-conscious way to foreclose on any commitment conversation after sex,” says co-author Susan Hughes, associate professor of psychology at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania.
The study also looked at who were more likely – men or women – to fall asleep first.
Despite the common stereotype, the researchers did not find it more common for men to fall asleep first after sex. Women, however, were more likely to fall asleep first when sex hadn’t taken place.
“Perhaps men stay awake longer as an artifact of mate guarding – making sure the woman doesn’t leave them for another partner,” says Susan Hughes.
“Men may also stay awake longer in an attempt to entice their partner into having sex.”
Research on post-coital behaviors are few, the study authors say.
“The vast majority of the research on the evolutionary psychology of human reproduction focuses on what’s before and leading up to sexual intercourse,” says Susan Hughes.
“But reproductive strategies don’t end with intercourse; they may influence specific behaviors directly following sex.”
A new Nature Genetics report says that scientists may be closer to understanding how genes can influence serious heart conditions.
The failure to turn off a specific gene at the right time in an embryo’s development could mean illness later in life.
Mice in which the gene was left active were born apparently healthy, but suffered heart muscle problems later.
A heart charity said it might one day be possible to fix the genetic switch.
The science of “epigenetics”, which places importance not just on the genes you carry, but also how well they are working, is a relatively new area.
The scientists from the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco focused on two genes, and their role in cardiomyopathy, a enlarging and weakening of the heart muscle which is a feature in life-threatening heart defects in children and adults
There is increasing evidence that suggests that while you carry the same set of genes for life, environmental factors, such as diet or even your mother’s health while you are in the womb, could affect their activity, and your chances of certain illnesses later in life.
The scientists from the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco focused on two genes, and their role in cardiomyopathy, a enlarging and weakening of the heart muscle which is a feature in life-threatening heart defects in children and adults.
One of the genes, called Six1, appears to play an important role in embryonic heart development, while the other, Ezh2, seems to have the job of switching off genes, including Six1, when they are no longer needed.
The scientists tested the precise relationship by stopping Ezh2 from working in the embryo and foetus at various points during pregnancy, thereby allowing Six1 to go on working for longer than usual.
They found that while the mice were born apparently normal and healthy, they then started to develop the signs of cardiomyopathy.
This suggested that although leaving Six1 switched on in humans might produce a seemingly healthy baby, it could be storing up heart problems for later in life.
Analysis of the results revealed that, in a healthy pregnancy, Six1 should only normally be switched on briefly during heart development.
Dr. Paul Delgado-Olguin, one of the team, said: “When Six1 remains active for too long in Ezh2-deficient mice, it boosts the activity of other genes that shouldn’t be activated in heart muscle cells – such as genes that make skeletal muscle.
“The enlargement and thickening of the mice’s hearts over time eventually led to heart failure.”
They are hopeful that further work will reveal more about the roots of congenital heart problems in early life.
Heidi Klum and Seal have released an official joint statement confirming the end of their seven-year marriage.
Reports emerged on Saturday that the pair were to divorce amid claims Heidi Klum was fed up with Seal’s “hard partying”.
In the official statement, the couple blamed their split on “growing apart”.
Heidi Klum and Seal’ statement read: “While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate.
“We have had the deepest respect for one another throughout our relationship and continue to love each other very much, but we have grown apart.
“This is an amicable process and protecting the well-being of our children remains our top priority, especially during this time of transition.
“We thank our family, friends, and fans for their kind words of support. And for our children’s sake, we appreciate you respecting our privacy.”
After marrying at his beachfront home in Mexico in 2005, Seal and Heidi Klum kept their promise to renew their vows every year on their anniversary with their close friends and family.
Heidi Klum and Seal have three children together – Henry, 6, Johan, 5, and Lou, 2 – as well as Heidi’s daughter Leni, 7, from a previous relationship with Italian businessman Flavio Briatore.
The tension in their relationship is believed to have started when the pair holidayed with their three children in Ibiza in August.
A source told the Sunday Mirror: “They were always the couple everybody strived to be but lately it all started to change. Seal seems to have been partying a lot more often than usual.
“When they had their holiday in Ibiza last summer, Seal hit it hard, was out at clubs and with his friends a lot and Heidi was left with their kids trying to enjoy herself. The cracks were appearing and everybody was talking during that trip. He seemed off the rails.”
The source added: “They’ve spent a lot of time apart too on work assignments and that hasn’t helped matters.
“Then when Seal came back to the UK to do promotional work for his next album, he seemed sleepy and not with it on shows like Loose Women, when he was very late for his appearance.”
Another source told The Sun today: “The marriage ended months ago in reality. They rarely saw each other and it wouldn’t be unusual for them to go months without spending any real quality time together. Ships that pass in the night would be an overstatement.”
38-year-old German-born Heidi Klum is reportedly expected to file papers at Los Angeles’ County Superior Court this week citing “irreconcilable differences”.
48-year-old Seal – real name Seal Henry Samuel – left a cryptic message posted on his Twitter page on Friday that read: “The End.”
The message was attached to a picture that appeared to show the star’s forearm bearing an imprint of a set of wings – a possible reference to Heidi Klum’s role as a Victoria’s Secret winged “Angel” model.
On December 26, Heidi Klum posted a picture on Twitter of the couple on the slopes in Aspen
The split paves the way for a multi-million-dollar divorce battle between the golden couple.
Heidi Klum, one of the world’s most in-demand models, is reported to have earned more than $18 million in the past year alone.
Seal, who is best known for his Kiss From A Rose single, has sold more than 20 million albums and won three Brit Awards and three Grammys in a career spanning 20 years.
The couple owns a home in Mexico and an $13 million mansion in Los Angeles. Yesterday there was no sign of them at the LA house, which is set in an exclusive gated community in Mandeville Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills.
Their neighbours include Hollywood actor Ben Affleck and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
On Wednesday, Seal was in London to pre-record a performance of his new single Backstabbers for Jonathan Ross’s ITV chat show, which was broadcast on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, Heidi Klum was alone as she attended the Golden Globes awards in Hollywood last Sunday.
News of the split comes just weeks after the couple posed, apparently happily, for a photo on a skiing holiday in Colorado.
On December 26, Heidi Klum posted a picture on Twitter of the couple on the slopes in Aspen with the caption “Sun and Snow and @Seal”. Heidi Klum divorced her first husband, stylist Ric Pipino after five years together in 2002 and met Seal a year later in 2003.
At the time she had just split from Formula 1 billionaire Flavio Briatore.
Fujifilm is moving into the beauty market by launching its own range of anti-ageing creams, Astalift.
The Japanese photography company has harnessed its expertise with collagen and antioxidants – used to fix emulsion to film and prevent the image fading – to produce a compound that protects the skin from harmful ultra-violet sun rays.
According to Fujifilm, the new Astalift products help to boost skin tone and contain an antioxidant called astaxanthin – a pink pigment found in shellfish and salmon.
Scientists from research groups in Europe, America and Asia have recognized astaxanthin as more effective at reducing the damage caused by ultraviolet rays than CoQ10 – the antioxidant co-enzyme that is commonly used in anti-ageing treatments.
Andrzej Brylak, director of Fujifilm’s European beauty and health division, said: “Collagen only started being used by the cosmetics industry relatively recently.
“It is a key ingredient in film emulsion and we have a very long history of research in this area. Preventing oxidization from light exposure is also a big issue in protecting film and a similarly big issue in preventing skin damage.”
Fujifilm is moving into the beauty market by launching its own range of anti-ageing creams, Astalift
The transition into the beauty market comes when rival, Kodak, is filing for bankruptcy protection in the United States.
The popularity of digital cameras has begun to kill of traditional photographic companies.
Rachel Watson, a senior lecturer in aesthetic dermatology at Manchester University told the Sunday Times: “Proving this Astalift product has a benefit will be the key issue.
“There is now a lot of research on antioxidants and we are making headway with products that make a difference but the question with this new formulation will be whether it really has an effect.”
How Astalift anti-ageing creams work?
Fujifilm says a special collagen call Pico-Collagen can penetrate the skin through gaps between cells. It is believed to work from inside the skin to restore the skin’s youthful suppleness and elasticity.
Collagen is also used in photography to stop old photographic images fading.
The natural ingredient in the product is astaxanthin and is believed to protect the skin from ultraviolet light.
Catherine Mok, a thoroughly modern working mother, decided to give birth during 2012, the Year of the Dragon, which is considered to be one of the most expensive years for having a baby.
Like many ethnic Chinese around the world, Catherine Mok believes the mythical dragon is the most auspicious sign in the traditional 12-year zodiac cycle.
“The dragon is special,” said the Hong Kong native, who works as a makeup artist.
“Of course, I am not willing to wait 12 years for a dragon baby, but I was willing to wait one or two years.”
Catherine Mok is due to deliver her second child, another daughter, in early February.
In part because of greater demand for maternity services, Catherine Mok plans to spend 100,000 Hong Kong dollars ($12,820) for medical care alone.
That is 50% more than the amount spent on the birth of her first child, Ashley, just three years ago during the Year of the Rat, a less auspicious year.
Many couples across Asia are making extra efforts to give birth to so-called “dragon babies” in 2012.
The trend is expected to trigger a temporary fertility boom and place a strain on public services in certain cities, as well as cause some families to go on spending sprees.
In Hong Kong, the government expects 5% more births in 2012, compared with 2011. Doctors and academics believe the figure may be as high 10%.
Companies selling infant formula milk, nappies and prams are expected to cash in, as well as specialist service providers.
Many couples across Asia are making extra efforts to give birth to so-called "dragon babies" in 2012
According to Chinese tradition, a woman’s body is at its most vulnerable after birth.
If possible, she should enter a period of confinement at home for one month after birth, to ensure her long-term recovery.
BBcare, a Hong Kong agency that provides pre- and postnatal services, expects 20% growth in revenues in 2012, compared with 2011, due to the dragon baby trend.
The largest part of its business is referring postnatal care nurses to expectant families.
Average hourly rates have already risen 15%, according to Wendy Lam, an experienced nurse at BBcare.
The agency says enquiries have jumped 25%, and it is forecasting more successful referrals than in previous years.
With so many mothers giving birth in Hong Kong, the company believes there will be a shortage of postnatal care workers.
The dragon baby boom is also expected to give a boost to property markets in some Asian cities.
In a recent research note, analysts at Citi investment bank argued there would be more births and marriages in the new lunar year, leading to an increase in property transactions in Hong Kong.
It explains that the Western calendar has 365 days, whilst the lunar year has 354 days.
The extra days add up to one month every three years, creating a “leap year” in the Year of Dragon.
Citi property analyst Ken Yeung cites data showing the number of marriages grew by 12% in good years, compared to just 1% in other years.
“These new marriages provide a good source of potential home buyers,” he writes. “This should drive structural demand for homes in 2012, while new supply will remain tight in the near term.”
Property prices in mainland China and Hong Kong have fallen because of Beijing’s efforts to cool economic growth.
The fact that the Year of the Dragon is a lucky time to give birth is widely accepted in the Chinese-speaking world, from Taiwan to Indonesia.
But giving birth this year is especially expensive, compared with other times, and not everyone is jumping into the fray.
Charlie Chen, China consumer analyst at BNP Paribas, says other factors are at work when it comes to deciding when to have a baby.
Like others in the financial industry, his salary and bonus are, in part, determined by the performance of global markets.
With so much uncertainty in Europe and the US, Charlie Chen says he has no choice but to pass on the dragon.
“I am married,” he says.
“Personally, I would like to have a baby in the Year of the Dragon, but I’ve got to postpone it because of market turmoil.”
The death toll of Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster is raised to 13 after divers have found the body of a woman in the wreck of vessel.
Italian fire service divers found the woman’s body on deck seven of the vessel, about 10 m below the water line, Italy’s Civil Protection Authority said.
Rescue workers are still looking for 20 people who are believed to be missing.
The ship sank on 13 January after hitting rocks near the island of Giglio, off Tuscany.
The death toll of Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster is raised to 13 after divers have found the body of a woman in the wreck of vessel
The woman who has now been found was wearing a life-jacket, officials say. Her body is being removed from the ship.
Only eight of the 13 bodies discovered have so far been identified.
Four of the victims were French, one was Italian, one Hungarian, one Spanish and one German, officials say.
The identity of a woman whose body was found on Saturday has yet to be established, along with those of three men discovered previously.
The head of the Civil Protection Agency, Franco Gabrielli, said the woman may be a Hungarian who was reported missing but was not on the ship’s embarkation list.
There could have been more “illegals” on board, he said, referring to people who were not registered to be on the vessel.
There were known to be 4,200 people on the cruise ship when it got into trouble.
Costa Concordia captain, Francesco Schettino, is being detained under house arrest while his actions are investigated.
Francesco Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated. He denies the allegations.
Prosecutors say Francesco Schettino was sailing too close to Giglio on an unauthorised course in order to perform a “salute” – a greeting to islanders.
The Italian media have released a new recording in which Captain Francesco Schettino appears to say he will be the last to leave the ship.
In a previously released tape an official is heard repeatedly ordering him back on board.
Coastguard and navy divers have been blasting their way into submerged areas of the vessel using explosives in an effort to find those unaccounted for.
Emergency officials said on Saturday they would not end the search until the whole ship had been examined.
Work has been suspended several times due to poor weather.
On Saturday rescuers halted their search of the submerged parts of the ship due to rough sea conditions, but they were allowed back in on Sunday.
More than 600 members of the Italian emergency services are working on the search operation.
One official said swift action was needed to remove the fuel. An Italian naval vessel is on standby as a precaution should there be an oil leak.
Although there has been no leak so far, the civil protection agency says there is pollution in the water from solvents and disinfectants which were on board the vessel.
Andy Atkins, his wife Jenny and their four-year-old son Logan miraculously escaped unscathed after their plane plunged into the sea – and doctors passing by in a boat jumped in to save them.
The Texas family was on a sightseeing flight along the coast of Roatan, off Honduras, when the plane’s engine cut out and the craft plummeted into the sea.
There was panic as the plane was sucked under the surface, with Andy Atkins and the pilot desperately scrambling to save his wife and child.
“I dove back under looking for them, came back, got air, went immediately back down,” Andy Atkins, an attorney from Dallas, told NBCDFW.com.
“I came up and I had Logan in my arms and, by the time I got to the surface, Jenny was also at the surface with the pilot holding her.”
But he added: “We were all still in shock at that point.
“We knew that we had survived the initial crash but we didn’t know where it was going to go from there.”
The Texas family was on a sightseeing flight along the coast of Roatan, off Honduras, when the plane's engine cut out and the craft plummeted into the sea
Miraculously, a boat happened to be passing and several people jumped into the water to save them.
Several people on a nearby boat jumped in to save them.
Among the divers were a U.S. Navy doctor and another physician who immediately started treating Jenny Atkins and the boy, NBCDPW reported.
“They screamed that there’s two doctors on board,” Andy Atkins said.
“They got both of them on the back of that boat to give them oxygen and treated them with all their skill.”
The family members were later treated at hospital.
The Atkins family is planning another trip to Roatan this summer – and said the accident brought them closer to the island and the people there.
”It reaffirms your faith in people and humanity that so many people stepped in to help that didn’t have to,” Andy Atkins said.
“We appreciate that we feel like we’ve been given a second chance.”
An unnamed researcher secretly filmed more than 100 young single women from behind using a camera in his buttonhole when he examined the alluring sway of women’s hips when they walk.
The covert footage was viewed by two other men – who were asked to judge each wiggle on an attractiveness scale of one to five.
Their research revealed that women at the peak of their fertility cycles walk more slowly and seductively than those who are not.
This subtle change in behaviour is subconscious but has clear evolutionary benefits – as it makes a woman appear more attractive just at the time when she is most likely to fall pregnant, the research showed.
The women were unaware of the nature of the study and were asked for a saliva sample to test for the presence of a hormone.
Levels of the hormone indicated whether they were approaching the most fertile time of the month.
The secret of the wiggle, well known for leaving men smitten when demonstrated by attractive women such as the singer Beyonce, was confirmed when the researcher compared the hormone test with the ratings from the judging panel.
Professor Nicolas Gueguen led the study at the behavioural sciences unit of the University of Bretagne-Sud in France.
And it is not the first time Prof. Nicolas Gueguen has studied the female form. His previous research has examined whether a woman’s bust size affects her ability to hitchhike and whether a woman’s hair colour affects her success as a charity worker.
The secret of the wiggle, well known for leaving men smitten when demonstrated by attractive women such as the singer Beyonce, was confirmed when the researcher compared the hormone test with the ratings from the judging panel
He is currently studying whether women wear shoes with higher heels when they are fertile.
For the “wiggle test”, Prof. Nicolas Gueguen recruited 103 young women who were undergraduate business and social science students at his university – telling them he was conducting an experiment to test their word choices.
All were single, heterosexual and aged between 18 and 22.
Prof. Nicolas Gueguen had already ruled out any who were using the contraceptive pill in case the hormones affected the experiment.
Each woman was individually asked to sit in a room and wait. After a short time, an attractive man entered and sat with them. The man was asked to smile at them and engage them in friendly conversation.
Unknown to the women, the man had been pre-selected for his attractiveness by a separate group of 31 women who had awarded him an average of 7.28 on a scale of 1 to 9.
The man then accompanied the women down a corridor to the laboratory, where they were told the study would take place. But without their knowledge, the man deliberately walked behind to film them. Once they reached the room, the women’s saliva was tested.
They were also then told the purpose of the experiment and asked for their permission to use the video footage. All gave their consent.
The results showed women at the peak of their fertility cycles were rated an average of 2.96 on the scale for sexiness, compared with 2.31 for those at the least fertile point.
The most fertile women also took about three seconds longer on average to complete the same short walk. Prof. Nicolas Gueguen and his researchers concluded: “We found that women near ovulation spent more time walking down a long hallway and their gaits were perceived to be sexier by males.
“Such results confirm that subtle behavioural cues are influenced by menstrual cycle.”
In his research Prof. Nicolas Gueguen is keen to point out other studies that have observed female behaviour, including one which involved watching women while they were seated in university cafeterias, bars or nightclubs.
“The women used subtle nonverbal behaviours such as nodding, leaning forward, self-touching, hair-flipping and hair-tossing in courtship and flirting relationships”, it says.
A study at speed-dating events found women who mimicked the behaviour of the men they were talking to were deemed more attractive than the other participants. And another found women with slightly enlarged pupils were considered more feminine.
