There is more to travel than just jumping on a plane. The experience can be thrilling. There are a ton of travel options and a wide variety of adventures to take. Are you ready to have some fun? Following are some travel tips that can help you to get started.
Before you settle on a destination, be sure to consider the influence that the weather can have on your trip. Check the forecast for your destination. Freezing rain on a Florida beach, or unseasonal sunshine on an Aspen ski trip, will ruin the best laid travel plans.
You can save money by waiting until you reach your final destination to change currencies. If you know there won't be a place to easily exchange currency once you land in your destination country, exchange a limited amount before you leave and then look for a better exchange rate once you arrive in-country.
If there is hotel room available on a floor that is higher, you should request that one. It is easier for thieves to break into rooms that are close to the ground. If you can, request a hotel room that has only windows and no sliding glass doors. Rooms such as this can be broken into easier.
If you have a long travel time you should ensure that you give yourself some time to stretch, even if you are getting up for no reason. Sitting for too long reduces blood flow and can lead to blood clots.
Use caution when you get an email about great deals in travel. If you have signed up for a travel newsletter, you can trust these emails; avoid all others, though.
Whenever you go camping, but most importantly when you go hiking, you must carry local maps along with you. A GPS and compass will come in handy also in the event that you become lost or disoriented in the woods.
Don't wait until you are on the cruise ship to discover that you get seasick. This could ruin your entire trip and make you very dreadful. You will be bedridden, recovering from the seasickness, and not having fun. If you can, get a prescription for a sea sickness medication and take it with you.
This will enable you to hook your laptop up to the hotel tv. This allows you to watch Netflix and similar streaming services instead of expensive hotel movies.
Attach a label with your name and contact information to your luggage and place another one on the inside. This is good in the event the bag is lost, since it will help pinpoint who the owner is. Remember that your luggage and its contents are at risk whenever they leave your sight.
Research local laws and customs prior to traveling. Failure to do so can result in people being angry with you, or even jail time over something you wouldn't have expected to be a problem. Be respectful of local laws, customs, and authorities while traveling, and you should be fine.
If your travels include multiple countries, ensure that your visas are appropriate and up-to-date. It is important to understand that getting a visa doesn't automatically give you the power to get inside a country. There are different kinds of visas that you need to know about. A great place to find out the requirements is your travel agency. If you don't have a travel agency, you can consult the embassy of each country you are visiting.
The article shows you some ideas on how to make travel easier. Many people can be confused about all the decisions they have to make when traveling. That said, if you have great travel advice, you can easily plan a trip. Use the tips from this article and start making better travel plans today.
The maxim, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do' also applies to non-human primates, as scientists discover that wild monkeys have an ability to imitate the social eating behavior of other groups of monkeys. ?
By Mai Ng?c Ch?u,?Contributor / April 26, 2013
Vervet monkeys eat bread on a lawn near some tourist bungalows in Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Melanie Stetson Freeman / The Christian Science Monitor.
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The tendency to adapt to cultural behaviors in a new place is not unique to us, a new study suggests.
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A study led by psychologists of the University of St Andrews in Scotland finds that vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) in South Africa prefer food that those around them are eating.
The researchers dyed corn pink or blue and trained groups of monkeys to eat corn of one color and avoid the other. When young males migrated from one group to a group that preferred the opposite color, most of them immediately switched to the local preference.
Leading primate experts call this research?evidence of "cultural transmission"?in wild primates, which could also help to explain the evolution of our human desire to search for "local knowledge" when traveling to a new culture.
In a press release from St Andrews, noted primatologist?Frans de Waal?called the research "ione of the few successful field experiments on cultural transmission to date.? De Waal did not participate in the study.?
Carel van Schaik, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Zurich, was also impressed. "Culture was thought to be something only humans had? he told the New York Times. "If you define culture as socially transmitted knowledge, skills and information, it turns out we see some of that in animals. Now this experiment comes along and I must say it really blew me away.?
According to the study's?authors, the discovery demonstrates that social learning and cultural conformity play an important role in the behavior of animals as well as humans.?
"As the saying goes, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do,'" said co-author Andrew Whiten in the St Andrews press release. "Our findings suggest that a willingness to conform to what all those around you are doing when you visit a different culture is a disposition share by other primates."?
The study was published on April 25 by the journal Science.
Whiten and his colleagues conducted field experiments at the Inkawu Vervet Project in the Mawana private game reserve in South Africa. At first, they induced conformity in four groups of wild vervet monkeys with 109 animals in total.
The team fed the first two groups of monkeys with a box of corn dyed blue and another dyed pink. The blue corn was soaked in bitter aloe leaves and to be made distasteful to the monkeys, so they soon ate only pink corn. For two other groups, pink corn was made bitter, and the monkeys learned to prefer blue corn. Once the monkeys were trained, the researchers stopped adding the aloe to the corn.?
Four months later, 27 infants were born. When they were able to eat solid food, the researchers supplied baby and adult monkeys with blue and pink corn. The adult animals stuck to their favorite color, and 26 of the infants ate only the corn the adult?monkeys liked.?
During the mating season, 10 male monkeys joined other groups that ate corn with a color different from the one their native group did. What surprised the researchers was that seven migrants quickly took up the locally-preferred corn, suggesting that they conformed to the cultural norm of their new group. With no higher ranking monkey present, the other two soon followed suit.
Researchers said the single monkey who continued to choose the same color as in his original group was perhaps taking the top rank in his new group, a factor that might explain his nonconformist behavior.
?The willingness of the immigrant males to adopt the local preference of their new groups surprised us all," said co-author Erica van de Waal, in the press release. "The copying behaviour of both the new, na?ve infants and the migrating males reveals the potency and importance of social learning in these wild primates, extending even to the conformity we know so well in humans.?
She said the study was?one of the very few successful controlled experiments in the wild, which "hints at a level of conformism most of us, until now, held not possible."
The cultural learning ability discovered in vervet monkeys is reminiscent of a well-known study of Japanese macaques?in the 1950s, in which one monkey was observed washing her food, a practice that spread throughout the troop and was passed on to subsequent generations. ?
Monkeys aren't the only animals observed transmitting cultural information. Another study conducted by a different group of scientists at the University of St Andrews found that whales learned feeding techniques?from their peers. Through analysis of a 27-year database on whale behavior collected in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the researchers find that?lobtail feeding had spread to 37 percent of the whale's population.?
Susan Perry, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, finds the whale study to be "a highly convincing case for a foraging tradition in a cetacean."
Apr. 29, 2013 ? A debilitating mental illness, schizophrenia can be difficult to diagnose. Because physiological evidence confirming the disease can only be gathered from the brain during an autopsy, mental health professionals have had to rely on a battery of psychological evaluations to diagnose their patients.
Now, Dr. Noam Shomron and Prof. Ruth Navon of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, together with PhD student Eyal Mor from Dr. Shomron's lab and Prof. Akira Sawa of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, have discovered a method for physical diagnosis -- by collecting tissue from the nose through a simple biopsy. Surprisingly, collecting and sequencing neurons from the nose may lead to "more sure-fire" diagnostic capabilities than ever before, Dr. Shomron says.
This finding, which was reported in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, could not only lead to a more accurate diagnosis, it may also permit the crucial, early detection of the disease, giving rise to vastly improved treatment overall.
From the nose to diagnosis
Until now, biomarkers for schizophrenia had only been found in the neuron cells of the brain, which can't be collected before death. By that point it's obviously too late to do the patient any good, says Dr. Shomron. Instead, psychiatrists depend on psychological evaluations for diagnosis, including interviews with the patient and reports by family and friends.
For a solution to this diagnostic dilemma, the researchers turned to the olfactory system, which includes neurons located on the upper part of the inner nose. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University collected samples of olfactory neurons from patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and a control group of non-affected individuals, then sent them to Dr. Shomron's TAU lab.
Dr. Shomron and his fellow researchers applied a high-throughput technology to these samples, studying the microRNA of the olfactory neurons. Within these molecules, which help to regulate our genetic code, they were able to identify a microRNA which is highly elevated in those with schizophrenia, compared to individuals who do not have the disease.
"We were able to narrow down the microRNA to a differentially expressed set, and from there down to a specific microRNA which is elevated in individuals with the disease compared to healthy individuals," explains Dr. Shomron. Further research revealed that this particular microRNA controls genes associated with the generation of neurons.
In practice, material for biopsy could be collected through a quick and easy outpatient procedure, using a local anesthetic, says Dr. Shomron. And with microRNA profiling results ready in a matter of hours, this method could evolve into a relatively simple and accurate test to diagnose a very complicated illness.
Early detection, early intervention
Though there is much more to investigate, Dr. Shomron has high hopes for this diagnostic method. It's important to determine whether this alteration in microRNA expression begins before schizophrenic symptoms begin to exhibit themselves, or only after the disease fully develops, he says. If this change comes near the beginning of the timeline, it could be invaluable for early diagnostics. This would mean early intervention, better treatment, and possibly even the postponement of symptoms.
If, for example, a person has a family history of schizophrenia, this test could reveal whether they too suffer from the disease. And while such advanced warning doesn't mean a cure is on the horizon, it will help both patient and doctor identify and prepare for the challenges ahead.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University.
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Journal Reference:
Eyal Mor, Shin-Ichi Kano, Carlo Colantuoni, Akira Sawa, Ruth Navon, Noam Shomron. MicroRNA-382 expression is elevated in the olfactory neuroepithelium of schizophrenia patients. Neurobiology of Disease, 2013; 55: 1 DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2013.03.011
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
While the prospect of new smart watches from every corner is terribly exciting, few people seem to spent much time working out how to make them, you know, useful. But a researcher from Carnegie Mellon University has, fortunately, been trying to work out if an on-screen keyboard could work on a smart watch?and the here's his solution.
Called Zoomboard, the idea is that a small screen can contain a full QWERTY keyboard by smartly zooming as you type. Press down on part of the keyboard, and it zooms to show keys in just that area; pressing again types a letter. It also uses swipes to help you edit: swipe right to insert a space, left to delete, or up to see symbols.
It's not a complicated bit of technology, but it's neatly executed and could at least allow you to type a short message on your wrist. It better be short, though: in tests, students managed a fairly paltry 9.3 words per minute on the keyboard.
But that's OK, because this is a first step. Smart watches won't be perfect at first, but it's nice to know that people are at least thinking about how to make them work. The software will be presented at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Paris this week, and the source code will be made freely available, too. [Zoomboard via Technology Review]
Bill Gates triggered a media uproar with a 'disrespectful' one-handed shake upon meeting the new South Korean president. What should Bill Gates have done?
By David Clark Scott,?Staff writer / April 23, 2013
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, shakes hands with Microsoft founder Bill Gates before their meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, April 22, 2013. Gates has his left hand in his pocket.
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
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Global etiquette can be tricky. Just ask Bill Gates.
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David Clark Scott leads a small team at CSMonitor.com that?s part Skunkworks, part tech-training, part journalism.
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The Microsoft chairman (who is also co-chair of one of the world's biggest charitable organizations)? is no stranger to international travel or meeting heads of state. But, on Monday, when he shook hands with South Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, Gates made a serious faux pas, which resulted in a cultural kerfuffle.
Gates shook her hand with just one hand. In South Korea, and much of Asia, that's only done in casual settings, with good friends. To top it off, Gates had his left hand in his pocket, signaling his superiority.
"How rude!" was the response in South Korea media. Almost every news organizations carried the photo on the front page.
The proper way to show respect would have been for Gates to clasp the South Korean leader's hand with both of his hands.
Was Gates sending a blunt signal of political disapproval to the new government leader? Was Gates ignorant of Asian etiquette??
There was enough media buzz that the South Korean president's office felt it needed to issue an official statement on the matter: "Bill Gates took a similar pose for a picture when he met former President Lee Myung-bak five years ago. Just think of it as an American style of greeting," according to Dong.com, the website of Dong-a Ilbo, a leading newspaper in Korea with daily circulation of more than 1.2 million.?
[Editor's note: Since publication, the president's office contacted The Christian Science Monitor to say that it had issued no official statement about the Bill Gates handshake.]
The first part of that statement is true. In fact, the Atlantic Wire compiled a series of Bill Gates One-Hand Shaking, One-Hand-in-Pocket photos from previous meetings with other world dignitaries, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, China's President Xi Jinping, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Apparently Gates is consistently casual about his handshakes ? with whomever he meets.
While the one-handed Western handshake has become more common in Asia, business etiquette also suggests that one never looks directly in the eyes of the person you're meeting. An exception to that rule is the Philippines. And in many places, a bow is also part of the greeting.
In Cambodia, for example, if you meet a prominent businessman, the proper way to show respect is to place your palms together at chest height and bow at your waist.
There's also a culturally correct way to exchange business cards in Asia, too. Each card should be in English on one side, and the recipient's native language on the other. You present your card with both hands, native language side up and readable to the recipient. When you receive a card, it's also a two-handed affair. Look at it, thank the person, and put in gently in a coat pocket.
For more tips on global etiquette, check out The Christian Science Monitor's quiz on the globally savvy traveler.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congress hurried to approve legislation Friday that will end the furloughs of air traffic controllers that have delayed hundreds of flights daily, infuriating travelers and causing political headaches for lawmakers.
The House approved the measure on a 361-41 vote, a day after the Senate agreed to the bill. Friday's vote came as lawmakers prepared to leave town for a weeklong spring recess, a break that would have been less pleasant if they were confronted by constituents upset over travel delays.
Republicans accused the Obama administration of purposely furloughing controllers to pressure Congress to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts ? known as the sequester ? that took effect last month at government agencies.
"The administration has played shameful politics with the sequester at the cost of hard-working American families," said Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa.
The White House and Democrats have argued that by law, the administration has little room to decide where the cuts fall. They want Congress to work on legislation lifting all of the cuts, which lawmakers noted have also caused reductions in Head Start preschool programs, benefits for the long-term unemployed and medical research.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president would sign the new bill, but he added, "The problem is this is just a Band-Aid solution."
During House debate, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a similar complaint.
"How can we sit there and say, 'Four million Meals on Wheels for seniors, gone, but that's not important. Over 70,000 children off Head Start, but that's not important," Pelosi said.
The Federal Aviation Administration has furloughed the controllers as part of the government-wide reductions. The bill would let the FAA use up to $253 million from airport improvement and other accounts to end the furloughs through the Sept. 30 end of the federal fiscal year.
In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, the available funds can be used for other FAA operations, including preventing the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA had said it would shut the facilities to meet its share of the spending cuts.
The FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."
Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."
Senate approval Thursday night followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.
For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.
The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.
In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.
The airlines, too, had pressed Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.
In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, said, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."
In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.
Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.
Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and an additional $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.
___
Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.
BOSTON (AP) ? Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from a hospital to a federal prison medical center while FBI agents shifted the focus of their investigation to how the deadly plot was pulled off and searched for evidence Friday in a landfill near the college he attended.
Tsarnaev, 19, was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was recovering from a throat wound and other injuries suffered during an attempt to elude police last week, and was transferred to the Federal Medical Center Devens, about 40 miles from Boston, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The facility, at a former Army base, treats federal prisoners.
"It's where he should be; he doesn't need to be here anymore," said Beth Israel patient Linda Zamansky, who thought his absence could reduce stress on bombing victims who have been recovering at the hospital under tight security.
The FBI's investigation of the April 15 bombing has turned from identification and apprehension of suspects to piecing together details of the plot, including how long the planning took, how it was carried out and whether anyone else knew or was involved.
A federal law enforcement official not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity on Friday that the FBI was gathering evidence regarding "everything imaginable."
FBI agents picked through a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was a sophomore. FBI spokesman Jim Martin would not say what investigators were looking for.
An aerial photo in Friday's Boston Globe showed a line of more than 20 investigators, all dressed in white overalls and yellow boots, picking over the garbage with shovels or rakes.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, said that the bombing suspects' mother had been added to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the deadly attack ? a disclosure that deepens the mystery around the Tsarnaev family and marks the first time American authorities have acknowledged that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was under investigation before the tragedy.
The news is certain to fuel questions about whether President Barack Obama's administration missed opportunities to thwart the marathon bombing, which killed three people and wounded more than 260.
Tsarnaev is charged with joining with his older brother, now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents. Investigators have said it appears that the brothers were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the CIA had Zubeidat Tsarnaeva's name added to the terror database along with that of her son Tamerlan Tsarnaev after Russia contacted the agency in 2011 with concerns that the two were religious militants.
About six months earlier, the FBI investigated mother and son, also at Russia's request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism. Previously U.S. officials had said only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
In an interview from Russia, Tsarnaeva said Friday that she has never been linked to terrorism.
"It's all lies and hypocrisy," she said from Dagestan. "I'm sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I've never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism."
Tsarnaeva faces shoplifting charges in the U.S. over the theft of more than $1,624 worth of women's clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick in 2012.
Earlier this week, she said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested if she traveled to the U.S., but she said she was still deciding whether to go. The suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said that he would leave Russia soon for the United States to visit one son and lay the other to rest.
A team of investigators from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has questioned both parents in Russia this week, spending many hours with the mother in particular over two days.
Meanwhile, New York's police commissioner said the FBI was too slow to inform the city that the Boston Marathon suspects had been planning to bomb Times Square days after the attack at the race.
Federal investigators learned about the short-lived scheme from a hospitalized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during a bedside interrogation that began Sunday night and extended into Monday morning, officials said. The information didn't reach the New York Police Department until Wednesday night.
"We did express our concerns over the lag," said police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who with Mayor Michael Bloomberg had announced the findings on Thursday.
The FBI had no comment Friday.
___
Sullivan reported from Washington. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi in Boston, Colleen Long in New York and Pete Yost and Julie Pace in Washington.
With Tim quite literally up in the air this week, Brian and Peter will be joined by Dana this time out to discuss all of the week's happenings. You can join along, too, after the break.
All Critics (88) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (6)
It's a harrowing walk through the heart of darkness.
Saskia Rosendahl gives an impressively poised performance as the beautiful teenager, whose determination to protect her remaining family coincides with her growing revulsion toward her parents.
"Lore" is not a pretty story, but it is a good and sadly believable one.
"Lore" is not a love story, nor the story of a friendship. Rather, it's a story of healing and of how breaking, sometimes painfully, is often necessary before that process can begin.
A fiercely poetic portrait of a young woman staggering beyond innocence and denial, it's about the wars that rage within after the wars outside are lost.
Full of surprises, the movie draws a thin line between pity and revulsion - how would you feel if you had discovered your whole life had been based on lies?
Proves that there is always room for another [World War II] story if it can be presented in an original and unexpected fashion.
Texture and detail embellish a provocative story
Child of Nazi parents faces an uncertain future
[Director Cate] Shortland directs with an almost hypnotic focus, favoring Lore's immediate experience over the big picture.
Rosendahl's performance is raw and compelling, as Lore fights for her siblings' survival and grows up in a hurry.
Lore and her siblings make a harrowing journey across Germany
Worthwhile, but so subtle that it's frustrating.
The Australian-German co-production takes an unconventional tale and turns it into a challenging, visually stunning and emotionally turbulent film experience.
Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go. Except this ain't no fairy tale... unless it is, perhaps, a hint of the beginnings of a new mythology of ... scary childhood and even scarier adolescence...
With a child's perspective on war, "Lore" deserves comparisons with "Empire of the Sun" and "Hope and Glory," and with a feisty female protagonist it stands virtually alone.
Rosendahl...provides both narrative and emotional continuity to a film whose deliberate pace and fragmented presentation of reality might otherwise prove exasperating.
A burning portrait of consciousness and endurance, gracefully acted and strikingly realized, producing an honest sense of emotional disruption, while concluding on a powerful note of cultural and familial rejection.
Although there are moments that push the story a bit beyond credulity, Shortland has created something remarkable by forcing us to find within ourselves sympathy for this would-be Aryan princess.
Stunning, admirable and indelible - truthfully chronicling the triumph of the human spirit - in a class with Michael Haneke's 'The White Ribbon.'
Can we spare some sympathy or hope for the children of villains, even if they too show signs of their parents' evil? Lore provides no easy answers.
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Apr. 25, 2013 ? Exaggeration over the extent of the malaria parasite's resistance to the 'wonder drugs' artemisinins could jeopardise the fight against the disease, according to a leading expert.
In an opinion article published on World Malaria Day today (25 April 2013) -- online in the journal Trends in Parasitology, Professor Sanjeev Krishna of St George's, University of London argues that much of the evidence of the malaria parasite's resistance to artemisinin has been misinterpreted. He says this has led to the extent of artemisinin resistance being overstated, and that fears of its demise as an effective treatment are premature.
The artemisinin class of drugs are the best anti-malarial treatments available, and are used most effectively with other drugs as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). Recent research has suggested that the malaria parasite is developing resistance to ACTs, particularly in Southeast Asia. Experts fear that if artemisinins became obsolete -- as previous anti-malarials have -- the effect could be devastating, as there are currently no other effective alternatives.
However, Professor Krishna argues that -- despite being accepted as dogma by the malaria research community -- most of the descriptions of artemisinin resistance do not meet the criteria by which resistance to other anti-malarials and drugs for other diseases have been measured.
For true resistance to exist, according to criteria used for other drugs, there needs to be: a significant failure in treatment (by not meeting the World Health Organization's target of a 95 per cent cure rate 28 days after treatment); a reduced sensitivity to the drug when the parasite is examined in the lab; and a visible delay in ridding the patient of parasites.
Currently, Professor Krishna says, it seems to be accepted that artemisinin treatment failure has occurred when a three-day course of ACT does not meet the target cure rate. This has been observed in a number of studies and has been used to try and understand 'artemisinin resistance.'
But other studies of seven-day courses of artemisinin monotherapies -- in which artemisinins are used alone, without partner drugs -- have shown up to 100 per cent cure rates after 28 days.
This, Professor Krishna, says, indicates proof of resistance to ACTs, but that there is no compelling evidence that artemisinins themselves are becoming less effective. He says this resistance will usually "be to a combination of an artemisinin with another drug against which there is usually a high background of resistance already."
"Contending that there is artemisinin resistance when cure of patients relies on the partner drug of an artemisinin is difficult to substantiate without additional studies," writes Professor Krishna. "It is more appropriate to describe the lack of observed efficacy as resistance to an artemisinin combination therapy rather than as being artemisinin resistance."
He adds that "crying wolf" and raising fears of artemisinin resistance when it is not yet proven "will itself have significant costs, so that when the wolf finally turns up, exhausted villagers no longer respond."
To ensure better understanding of when true artemisinin resistance occurs, and to learn how to fight it, Professor Krishna says there needs to be further research into the how the drugs work against the parasite. He also urges the development of molecular markers to predict the failure of the partner drugs used in ACTs, as well as further studies on artemisinin monotherapies.
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Are you still scratching your head over what a particle accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider actually does? Don't feel bad, the LHC is the most complicated piece of scientific equipment mankind has ever built. And unless you're a physicist, you'll probably never understand its intricacies. But if you're curious, take a few minutes to watch this animated Particle Accelerator 101 by Don Lincoln. You won't be applying for a job at CERN afterwards, but you should at least get the gist of what's going on at the LHC. [YouTube via Geekosystem] More »
Biogeographic barrier that protects Australia from avian flu does not stop Nipah virusPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Souri Somphanith onepress@plos.org 41-562-412-17199 Public Library of Science
Researchers identify Nipah, related viruses in fruit bats on both sides of Wallace's line
An invisible barrier separates land animals in Australia from those in south-east Asia may also restrict the spillover of animal-borne diseases like avian flu, but researchers have found that fruit bats on either side of this line can carry Nipah virus, a pathogen that causes severe human disease. The findings are published April 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Andrew Breed from the University of Queensland, Australia and colleagues from other institutions.
Previous studies have suggested that this biogeographic boundary, named Wallace's line, may have played a role in protecting Australia from the spread of the avian flu H5N1. In the current study, researchers assessed whether this boundary could restrict the distribution of Nipah virus, which has caused severe outbreaks of human and domestic animal disease in the past.
"We found evidence that Nipah Virus occurs on the eastern side of Wallace's Line and much closer to Australia than previously recognized," says Breed. "We also found that the epidemiology of Nipah virus, and related viruses, is complex and these viruses are not restricted to flying-foxes (Pteropus bats) in this region."
They found that fruit bats from regions on both sides of the line tested positive for Nipah virus and other related viruses called henipaviruses. Only certain species of fruit bats carried Nipah virus but even in their absence, other bat species could still carry these related viruses. Henipaviruses were also detected in some species not previously known to carry these viruses. Based on these results, the authors conclude that Wallace's line is not a restricting factor for the transmission of Nipah virus. Their results also extend the known regions where Nipah virus has been detected by over 2500 km, to the island of Timor.
###
Citation: Breed AC, Meers J, Sendow I, Bossart KN, Barr JA, et al. (2013) The Distribution of Henipaviruses in Southeast Asia and Australasia: Is Wallace's Line a Barrier to Nipah Virus? PLoS ONE 8(4): e61316. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061316
Financial Disclosure: The authors acknowledge support from the Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease; the Henipavirus Ecology Research Group (HERG), funded in part by an National Institutes of Health/National Science Foundation ''Ecology of Infectious Diseases'' award from the John E. Fogarty International Center R01-TW05869; and the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme under ANTIGONE with project number 278976. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061316
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLOS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLOS ONE:PLOS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLOS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLOS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately availableto read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise usewithout cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLOS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
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Biogeographic barrier that protects Australia from avian flu does not stop Nipah virusPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Souri Somphanith onepress@plos.org 41-562-412-17199 Public Library of Science
Researchers identify Nipah, related viruses in fruit bats on both sides of Wallace's line
An invisible barrier separates land animals in Australia from those in south-east Asia may also restrict the spillover of animal-borne diseases like avian flu, but researchers have found that fruit bats on either side of this line can carry Nipah virus, a pathogen that causes severe human disease. The findings are published April 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Andrew Breed from the University of Queensland, Australia and colleagues from other institutions.
Previous studies have suggested that this biogeographic boundary, named Wallace's line, may have played a role in protecting Australia from the spread of the avian flu H5N1. In the current study, researchers assessed whether this boundary could restrict the distribution of Nipah virus, which has caused severe outbreaks of human and domestic animal disease in the past.
"We found evidence that Nipah Virus occurs on the eastern side of Wallace's Line and much closer to Australia than previously recognized," says Breed. "We also found that the epidemiology of Nipah virus, and related viruses, is complex and these viruses are not restricted to flying-foxes (Pteropus bats) in this region."
They found that fruit bats from regions on both sides of the line tested positive for Nipah virus and other related viruses called henipaviruses. Only certain species of fruit bats carried Nipah virus but even in their absence, other bat species could still carry these related viruses. Henipaviruses were also detected in some species not previously known to carry these viruses. Based on these results, the authors conclude that Wallace's line is not a restricting factor for the transmission of Nipah virus. Their results also extend the known regions where Nipah virus has been detected by over 2500 km, to the island of Timor.
###
Citation: Breed AC, Meers J, Sendow I, Bossart KN, Barr JA, et al. (2013) The Distribution of Henipaviruses in Southeast Asia and Australasia: Is Wallace's Line a Barrier to Nipah Virus? PLoS ONE 8(4): e61316. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061316
Financial Disclosure: The authors acknowledge support from the Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease; the Henipavirus Ecology Research Group (HERG), funded in part by an National Institutes of Health/National Science Foundation ''Ecology of Infectious Diseases'' award from the John E. Fogarty International Center R01-TW05869; and the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme under ANTIGONE with project number 278976. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061316
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLOS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLOS ONE:PLOS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLOS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLOS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately availableto read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise usewithout cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLOS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LONDON (AP) ? A millionaire businessman who sold fake bomb detectors that were based on a novelty golf ball finder to countries including Iraq was convicted Tuesday of fraud in a British court.
Police investigators said the bogus devices put people's safety at risk.
James McCormick, 56, is said to have made an estimated 50 million pounds ($76 million) from sales of his detectors, which claimed to be able to find explosives, drugs and people from planes, under water, underground and through walls. They could purportedly detect at distance and bypass "all known forms of concealment."
But experts said the hand-held devices, which were sold for up to 27,000 pounds ($41,000) each, in fact lacked "any grounding in science" and were "completely ineffectual as a piece of detection equipment."
"The devices did not work, and he knew they did not work," prosecutor Richard Whittam said. One of the earlier models McCormick sold was based on a novelty machine for finding golf balls that could be bought in the U.S. for less than $20, he added.
The detectors were sold to military and police forces around the world, including Iraq, Niger, Georgia, Egypt and Thailand.
Nigel Rock, an investigating officer with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary ? the police force that arrested McCormick in 2010 ? said the businessman sold 6,000 devices to Iraq for more than $40 million between 2008 and 2010.
"The devices were used at numerous checkpoints within Iraq during this period. It is clear that both civilians and armed forces personnel were put at significant risk in relying upon this equipment," Rock said.
McCormick was found guilty of three counts of fraud at London's Central Criminal Court. He will be sentenced on May 2.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The computer network on the U.S. Navy's newest class of coastal warships showed vulnerabilities in Navy cybersecurity tests, but the issues were not severe enough to prevent an eight-month deployment to Singapore, a Navy official said on Tuesday.
A Navy team of computer hacking experts found some deficiencies when assigned to try to penetrate the network of the USS Freedom, the lead vessel in the $37 billion Littoral Combat Ship program, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Freedom arrived in Singapore last week for an eight-month stay, which its builder, Lockheed Martin Corp., hopes will stimulate Asian demand for the fast, agile and stealthy ships.
"We do these types of inspections across the fleet to find individual vulnerabilities, as well as fleet-wide trends," said the official.
Cybersecurity is a major priority for the Navy, which relies heavily on communications and satellite networks for its weapons systems and situational awareness.
Defense Department spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said the Pentagon's chief weapons test agency addressed "information assurance vulnerabilities" for the Littoral Combat Ship in an assessment provided to the Navy.
"The details of that assessment are classified," Elzea said.
Lockheed spokesman Keith Little said the company was working with the Navy to ensure that USS Freedom's networks were secure during the deployment.
The Navy plans to buy 52 of the new LCS warships in coming years, including some of Lockheed's steel monohull design and some of an aluminum-hulled LCS trimaran design built by Australia's Austal. The ships are designed for combat and other missions in shallower waters close to shore.
Freedom's first operational deployment was in the Caribbean Sea in 2010, where the ship participated in four drug transport busts and captured a total of five tons of cocaine.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Eric Beech and Stephen Coates)
Twitter shouldn?t have to make sure everything crossing its servers is factual or true, but it?s in Twitter?s interest to fix this or risk a reputation as cesspool of untruth. Twitter needs a way to reel bad information back in. ...
LUSHAN, China (Reuters) - Rescuers struggled to reach a remote, rural corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the toll of the dead and missing from the country's worst earthquake in three years climbed to 208 with almost 1,000 serious injuries.
The 6.6 magnitude quake struck in Lushan county, near the city of Ya'an in the southwestern province of Sichuan, close to where a devastating 7.9 quake hit in May 2008, killing 70,000.
Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, a short drive up the valley from Ya'an, but rescuers' progress was hampered by the narrowness of the road and landslides, as well as government controls restricting access to avoid traffic jams.
"The Lushan county center is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way."
In Ya'an, relief workers from across China expressed frustration with gaining access to Lushan and the villages beyond, up in the mountains.
"We're in a hurry. There are people that need help and we have supplies in the back (of the car)," said one man from the Shandong Province Earthquake Emergency Response Team, who declined to give his name.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs put the number of dead at 184 and missing at 24, with more than 11,800 injured.
Hundreds of armed police were blocked from using roads that were wrecked by landslides and marched in single file with shovels en route to Baoxing, one of the hardest hit areas. Xinhua news agency said 18,000 troops were in the area.
The Foreign Ministry thanked foreign governments for offers of help, but said the country was able to cope.
In Lushan, doctors and nurses tended to people in the open or under tents in the grounds of the main hospital, surrounded by shattered glass, plaster and concrete. Water and electricity were cut off by the quake, but the spring weather is warm.
"I was scared. I've never seen an earthquake this big before," said farmer Chen Tianxiong, 37, lying on a stretcher between tents, his family looking on.
In another tent, Zhou Lin sat tending to his wife and three-day-old son who were evacuated from a Lushan hospital soon after the quake struck on Saturday.
"I was worried the child or his mother would be hurt. The buildings were all shaking. I was extremely scared. But now I don't feel afraid any more," said Zhou, looking at his child who was wrapped in a blanket on a makeshift bed.
Premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone by helicopter to comfort the injured and displaced, chatting to rescuers and clambering over rubble.
"Treat and heal your wounds with peace of mind," Xinhua quoted Li as telling patients at a hospital. "The government will take care of all the costs for those severely wounded."
Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters on Saturday that the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.
Already poor, many of the earthquake victims said the government was their only hope.
Cao Bangying, 36, whose family had set up mattresses and makeshift cots under a dump truck, said her house had been destroyed.
"Being without a home while having a child of this age is difficult," Cao said, cradling her nine-month-old baby. "We can only rely on the government to help us."
No schools had collapsed, unlike in 2008 when many poorly constructed schools crumpled causing huge public anger, prompting a nationwide campaign of re-building.
Ya'an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China's main centers for protecting the giant panda.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard, Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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