Archive for August, 2008

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Report: Feds target relatives of Bonds’ trainer

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

ederal prosecutors are considering charging the wife and mother-in-law of Barry Bonds‘ personal trainer in an effort to pressure Greg Anderson to testify against the slugger during his perjury trial, The New York Times reported.

A lawyer representing Anderson’s wife, Nicole Gestas, and others familiar with the matter told the newspaper that prosecutors are considering charging her and her mother, Madeleine Gestas, with tax-related crimes.

“There are violations that both Nicole and Madeleine are worried about,” Nicole Gestas’s attorney, Charles J. Smith of Redwood City, Calif., told the Times.

“They are matters that I don’t believe would rise to the level they would prosecute under the current standards of the U.S. Attorney’s office. But in this circumstance, perhaps they’ll ignore their own standards to prosecute Madeleine or her daughter to get what they want.”

The newspaper reported in June that Nicole received a “target letter” from federal prosecutors in November, shortly after Bonds was indicted on perjury charges for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Anderson spent three months in prison after pleading guilty to steroids distribution as part of the investigation into a sports doping ring at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, known as BALCO.

Anderson also spent more than a year in prison after refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury. Prosecutors told a judge that Anderson’s testimony about Bonds’ alleged drug use was vital to their perjury case and asked that he be jailed to coerce him to talk.

He was released the same day Bonds was indicted and has vowed to keep his silence, even if ordered to testify at Bonds’ trial.

Anderson could be sent back to prison if he resists a government order to testify.

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Half of Australia still wilderness

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Scientists have found that the continent of Australia has been largely untouched by humans, and stands as one of the world’s top five wilderness havens, ranking alongside the Amazon forest and the Sahara desert.

A report by two conservation groups, the Pew Environment Group and the Nature Conservancy, found that forty percent of Australia qualifies as wilderness.

The two conservation groups have hired scientists to scan the globe for the last remaining areas of wilderness and the report, the Wild Australia Program Study, put Australia towards the top of the list.

“As the world’s last great wilderness areas disappear under pressure from human impact, to have a continent with this much remaining wilderness intact is unusual and globally significant,” said co-author Barry Traill.

The report identified 12 regions of Australia, which remain largely undamaged by humans, ranging from the Nullarbor plains to the rainforests of Cape York peninsula.

But, it warns Australia has the worst rate of species extinction and wilderness areas are under threat from feral animals such as pigs, buffaloes and weeds.

“Wild areas needed to be actively managed for the future,” said Traill.

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NASA Studies Shuttle Program Extension, Fall Launch Delay

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

NASA is taking a look at what might be required to postpone the retirement of its three space shuttles until their Orion capsule replacement begins operational flight in 2015, but only as a preparatory measure for Congress and the incoming president, agency officials said Friday.

The study, called for by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, is aimed at preparing for inquiries on how the agency intends to fill the gap between the shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2010 and the first flights of Orion, said John Yembrick, a spokesperson for spaceflight operations at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“The Administrator asked the program managers to evaluate this potential of flying through 2015,” Yembrick told SPACE.com, stressing that the agency currently is not planning to fly shuttles beyond 2010. “We’re doing the analysis so we can gather the data, and so when we’re asked we can give some smart, timely answers.”

Yembrick said NASA officials hope to complete the study by the end of September. It was spurred in part by a recent letter by presidential candidate John McCain (R- Ariz.) and other senators that beseeched President George W. Bush to avoid actions that would prevent NASA from being able to continue flying space shuttles beyond 2010. Presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has also pledged support for NASA’s Constellation program, which includes Orion development, and said in the past that adding additional shuttle flights to close the gap between Orion and shuttle retirement was a possibility.

NASA currently has a deal with Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station aboard Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft through 2011, but would have to seek new approvals from Congress to extend the agreement beyond that deadline.

An internal e-mail discussing the new study was posted to the Web site of the Florida newspaper the Orlando Sentinel on Friday.

NASA plans to launch 10 more shuttle missions by 2010 to complete construction of the International Space Station and overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. The shuttle’s successor, the Orion Crew Launch Vehicle and its Ares I rocket, are not expected to begin crewed flights until 2015 at the latest, though NASA is working toward an internal 2014 target for the first operational missions.

Fall launch date under review

Meanwhile, NASA mission managers are discussing whether to push back the planned Oct. 8 launch of the shuttle Atlantis on the final flight overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope due processing delays spawned the recent Tropical Storm Fay.

Fay passed over NASA’s Kennedy Space Center spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Fla., last week, forcing the center to close for several days until the weather cleared. Challenges readying the new instruments and replacement parts to launch toward Hubble aboard Atlantis could delay the mission by two days or so, but NASA will continue to work toward an Oct. 8 liftoff as long as possible, Yembrick said.

“Because of Fay, the payload is going to be delayed getting out on the launch pad,” he added. “If that happens, we’ll have to reassess launch dates accordingly.”

Atlantis’ seven-astronaut crew will haul new science instruments and spare parts to Hubble for the fifth and final service mission to the iconic orbital observatory. That equipment was slated to be delivered to the launch pad by Sept. 17, but may now arrive two days late due to Fay-related delays, Yembrick said.

NASA is also tracking two more storms, Hurricane Gustav in the Caribbean and Tropical Storm Hannah in the Atlantic Ocean and their possible impact to space center activities.

As of 5:00 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), Gustav was nearing hurricane strength as it moved west-northwest toward the Cayman Islands. The storm was about 100 miles (160 km) to the east of Grand Cayman and moving northwest at about 12 mph (19 kph) with maximum sustained winds reaching speeds of nearly 75 mph (120 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center.

The center’s three-day projections predict Gustav will pass over Cuba and reach the coast of Louisiana early next week. NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, which builds the external fuel tanks used for space shuttle launches, is based in New Orleans, while the agency’s Stennis Space Center that tests shuttle main engines is based in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Yembrick said both the Michoud and Stennis centers will be closed after the Labor Day holiday on Monday, though employees should call in on Tuesday to be sure.

Tropical Storm Hannah, meanwhile, was passing about 215 miles (345 km) north of the Leeward Islands and moving about 12 mph (19 kph) with maximum sustained winds of about 50 mph (85 kph). Current forecasts for Hannah predict the storm will turn west toward the Bahamas over the next several days, according to a National Hurricane Center chart.

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Iran: new strides in uranium enrichment

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Iran has increased the number of operating centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant to 4,000, a top official said Friday, pushing ahead with the nuclear program despite threats of new U.N. sanctions.

The number was up from the 3,000 centrifuges that Iran announced in November that it was operating at its plant in the central city of Natanz. Still, it is well below the 6,000 it said last year it would operate by summer 2008, suggesting the program may be behind schedule.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, who visited Natanz last week, said Friday that Iran was preparing to install even more centrifuges, though he did not offer a timeframe.

“Right now, nearly 4,000 centrifuges are operating at Natanz,” Attar told the state news agency IRNA. “Currently, 3,000 other centrifuges are being installed.”

The U.N. has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze its enrichment program, which can be used to produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed for a nuclear warhead.

In the process, uranium gas is spun in a series of centrifuges known as “cascades” to purify it. Lower levels of enrichment produce reactor fuel — which Iran says is the sole purpose of the program — but higher grades can build a weapon.

The United States and its allies are likely to press the U.N. later this year for a new round of sanctions after Iran did not accept a package of economic and technological incentives in return for suspending enrichment. But they could face strong resistance from Russia after this month’s crisis in Georgia deeply damaged ties between Washington and Moscow.

Russia, which has close ties to Tehran, has long been reluctant to impose harsh sanctions — though it backed the past three rounds of limited financial sanctions.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon, a claim Iran denies. Tehran insists it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop reactor fuel using enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, declined to comment on the latest Iranian announcement.

By reaching 4,000 centrifuges, the program is moving into an industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

Experts, however, say Iran would need to change the way the centrifuges are operating to enrich uranium to high, weapons-grade levels, something that would be difficult since the Natanz facility is under IAEA video surveillance.

Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran possesses 6,000 centrifuges, though he did not specify how many were operating. He also suggested that negotiations with the U.N. had raised a possible compromise whereby the enrichment program could continue as long as it was not expanded beyond 6,000 centrifuges. However, the IAEA and the countries involved in the nuclear issue — the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia — have not shown any public sign that such a compromise was on the table.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented Iran with the incentives offer in June. Iran finally sent a reply in August, but the U.S. and its allies said the response did not directly address the offer and considered it a rejection.

The workhorse of Iran’s enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge, which can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.

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Researchers turn living cells into insulin-makers

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Researchers have transformed ordinary cells into insulin-producing cells in a living mouse, improving symptoms of diabetes in a major step towards regenerative medicine.

The technique, called direct reprogramming, bypasses the need for stem cells — the body’s master cells which, until now, have been indispensable to efforts to custom-make tissue and organ transplants.

The researchers used three genes carried by an ordinary virus to transform mouse exocrine cells, which make up about 95 percent of the pancreas, into the scarce insulin-producing beta cells that are destroyed in type 1 or juvenile diabetes.

In theory, the same is possible using abundant human cells such as liver, skin or fat cells, Dr. Douglas Melton and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston reported.

“It was easier than one might have thought,” Melton, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher and one of the world’s top stem cell experts, said in a telephone interview.

“These cells are very stable and live for the life of the mouse.”

Scientists had been counting on stem cells to show them how to regenerate tissues and organs — in the case of juvenile diabetes, to regenerate the pancreatic cells that are mistakenly destroyed by the body’s immune system.

“I wake up every day thinking about how to make beta cells,” said Melton, whose two children have type 1 diabetes.

The most malleable and promising stem cells have been embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos. But U.S. federal law strictly limits funding for such research and they are not easy to create.

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Google Map Maker made by Indians

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Hyderabad: Google has launched “Google Map Maker”, a global product developed by the Indian engineering team, which allows users to add or edit features, such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings and localities.

With Google Map Maker tools, users can add detailed information about these locations and this user-created geographical content is updated and made visible immediately to all other users, a Google statement said on Thursday.

Understanding that people know their neighbourhoods bets, Google Map Maker empowers this user-expertise to improve the breadth and depth of available mapping data. The product introduces peer moderation allowing users to review the data their peers have entered to ensure map quality and accuracy.

“Google Map Maker solves an inherent need especially for countries such as ours where maps data in sparse. This product embodies our passion to empower people everywhere, to share knowledge of the places they know best by creating maps”, Dr Lalitesh Katragadda, software engineer and creator of Google Map Maker said.

“This is a great achievement for our engineering team,” said Dr Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D.

This launch is the reinforcement of our commitment to bring more useful information to people around the world and especially in hyper-growth countries like India where maps are changing on a daily basis given the rapid pace of infrastructure development”, he added.

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Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8 released

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Microsoft Corp released on Wednesday a second test version of Internet Explorer 8, delivering a feature-complete upgrade to the world’s most widely used Web browser.

The world’s largest software maker said the latest version — beta 2 — of Internet Explorer, which has a market share of about 75 percent, comes with new features to enhance privacy, ease-of-use, and security.

Microsoft first released a test — or beta 1 — version of IE 8 in March, but that was aimed at letting Web developers take a first look at the new browser. This latest version is aimed at a broader consumer audience.

The company would not disclose when it planned to officially launch IE 8 nor how many people are expected to download the test version of the new browser. It released Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006.

Microsoft has pledged to deliver more regular updates of Internet Explorer, whose lead has been chipped away by Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

The latest version of Internet Explorer replicates features found in Firefox 3, the latest version of that Web browser, including a “smart” address bar that remembers and redirects user to website addresses they have visited before.

Internet Explorer 8 also offers a mode called “InPrivate Browsing,” which ensures that history, temporary Internet files and cookies are not recorded on a user’s PC.

There is also a security feature that allows a user to block content coming from third-parties trying to track and aggregate the user’s online behavior.

Microsoft also updated already announced features such as “Activities,” which allows a user to use information found on one page, such as an address, in conjunction with an online service such as mapping without leaving the original site.

The latest test release of Internet Explorer 8 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/ie8.

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Keep taking statins after heart attack: study

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

People who are tempted to quit taking their statin medication because it failed to prevent a heart attack should think twice, Canadian researchers said on Wednesday.

They said heart attack survivors who stopped taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs were more likely to die during the following year than those who had never been on the drugs.

The findings, published in the European Heart Journal, underscore the effectiveness of the drugs, which not only reduce levels of low-density lipoprotein or LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, but may also reduce inflammation.

Dr. Stella Daskalopoulou and colleagues at McGill University studied data on British patients who had survived a heart attack and were still alive three months later.

“Patients who used statins before an AMI (heart attack) and continued to take them after were 16 percent less likely to die over the next year than those who never used them,” Daskalopoulou said in a statement.

“So even if it appears that the statins failed to prevent your (heart attack), it is beneficial to continue taking them and potentially quite harmful to stop,” she said.

The researchers found that about 30 percent of patients who are prescribed a statin stop taking it within the first year.

“Because statins are preventative drugs, patients may not feel the immediate benefit of taking them and sometimes stop. However, it looks like this might be quite a dangerous practice after an AMI,” she said.

Statins, the world’s top-selling drugs, are highly effective at cutting the risk of heart attack and stroke, but they also have other benefits, such as lowering the risk of death from influenza, pneumonia and the effects of smoking.

Daskalopoulou said it is not clear why those who continued taking their statins fared better.

“Regardless of the mechanism or explanation, physicians should be careful when assessing each patient’s medication needs,” Dr. Daskalopoulou said.

Statins include atorvastatin, made by Pfizer under the brand name Lipitor; pravastatin or Pravachol, made by Bristol Myers Squibb; fluvastatin, made by Novartis under the brand name Lescol, and several others.

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McCain hits Obama on confidence in America

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

Republican John McCain on Tuesday questioned rival Barack Obama’s belief in American leadership in world affairs with two days to go before the Democratic senator accepts his party’s nomination for U.S. president.

McCain, 71, suggested Obama, 47, had failed to express confidence in America as “the greatest force for good on this earth” when he gave a speech in Berlin last month before more than 100,000 people.

“He was the picture of confidence. But in some ways confidence itself and confidence in one’s country are not the same,” McCain he told a group of American war veterans.

McCain and Obama are vying to succeed Republican President George W. Bush, who must step aside in January after eight years in office. McCain’s campaign insists it does not question Obama’s patriotism but merely his judgment.

Previous assertions by McCain that Obama cares more about political positions than issues of substance such as winning the Iraq war have angered the Democratic candidate, who has told his opponent not to question his patriotism.

McCain, himself a war veteran imprisoned for more than five years in Vietnam, accused Obama of appearing to link the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to Russian military action in Georgia in recent weeks.

Obama last week condemned Moscow’s actions in Georgia and said Russia could not “charge into other countries” but he also said: “Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point.”

His remarks were widely seen as a criticism of the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed. McCain used the comments to raise broader questions about Obama, suggesting he lacked the clarity and vision to lead America and the world.

“If he really thinks that by liberating Iraq from a dangerous tyrant, America somehow set a bad example that invited Russia to invade a small, peaceful and democratic nation, then he should state it outright because that is a debate I welcome,” McCain declared.

“Confusion about such questions only invites more trouble, violence and aggression,” said McCain, who as a senator has specialized in defense and foreign affairs issues and has put national security at the center of his campaign.

He and Obama are running neck-and-neck in opinion polls.

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Indonesia cancels tsunami warning

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

Indonesia cancelled the tsunami warning it issued after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck parts of the western tip of Java and southern Sumatra province of Lampung Tuesday morning.

“The tsunami warning had been cancelled 40 minutes later, after no tidal wave took place following the quake,” said Taufik, the head of Indonesia’s National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).

According to the BMG, the quake’s epicentre was in the Indian Ocean, about 125-km northwest of Ujungkulon in the southwestern tip of Java, about 630 km southwest of Jakarta. It occurred at 10:07 a.m., about 20 kilometres beneath the seabed.

Taufik added that there were no immediate reports of injury or structural damage from the quake, the latest in a series to rattle the country in recent days.

But the agency was closely monitoring nearby coastal areas for possible structural damage or injury from the quake.

The quake triggered panic among thousands of people occupying high-rise buildings in the capital Jakarta, many of whom ran out of their offices, detik.com online news portal reported.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval. A major earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck on Dec 26, 2004, leaving more than 170,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia’s Aceh province and left half a million homeless.

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