Hair sample may provide breast cancer diagnosis

NEW YORK, Feb 16: Hair from women with breast cancer can be distinguished from hair obtained from women without the disease, researchers in Australia report.

When hair is exposed to X-rays, the radiation is diffracted in a distinctive pattern by the alpha-keratin that forms hair, the researchers explain in the International Journal of Cancer. Dr Gary L Corino and Dr Peter W French, based at Fermiscan Ltd in Sydney, used the technique to look at samples of hair from 13 patients diagnosed with breast cancer and 20 healthy subjects.

Hair was cut as close to the skin as possible to obtain samples of the most recent hair growth. The investigators ''successfully and consistently generated the basic alpha-keratin X-ray diffraction pattern in every hair sample.''

Hair from the breast cancer patients produced the same features ''with the only difference being the superimposition of a new feature.'' This was a distinctive low-intensity ring.

This ring sign was fairly accurate in identifying breast cancer. It missed one of the breast cancer patients, and showed up as a false-positive in three of the healthy subject.

The researchers went on to study a length of hair representing 6 months' growth from a breast cancer patient whose hair fell out following chemotherapy. X-ray diffraction at three points along the hair showed clear evidence of the ring at the position furthest from the hair root, a fainter ring at the middle point, and complete absence of the ring close to the root.

''This progressive reduction in the intensity of the ring appears to correlate with the patient's course of treatment and possibly indicates the eradication of the cancer as a result of that treatment,'' Corino and French suggest.

As for the reason for the ring pattern, they suggest it may represent ''incorporation of extraneous lipid material into the fiber as a result of the presence of a tumor.'' It may also be that the disease affects hair follicles in some way.

Further testing is needed to establish the accuracy of this methodology as a diagnostic test for breast cancer, they conclude. (AGENCIES)

Singing soldiers herald Kim's birthday in North Korea

MOUNT KUMGANG, NORTH KOREA, Feb 16: Synchronised swimmers and singing soldiers marked the birthday today of the man dubbed North Korea's ''outstanding thinker'' by state media, but mystery still surrounded the leader's choice of successor.

The communist world's first dynastic leader, Kim Jong-il, turned 66 as the head of state in a land that treats him like a deity, although his destitute country has fallen more deeply into poverty in his years in power.

''Only victory and glory are in store for the army and people of the DPRK (North Korea) as long as they have Kim Jong-il,'' the North's official KCNA news agency said in one of several commentaries lauding Kim.

Kim usually is conspicuously absent from the celebrations the North's propaganda machine calls ''the most auspicious day of the nation''.

But that did not stop thousands from dancing in the streets of Pyongyang, acrobats from tumbling in his honour or synchronised swimmers performing a choreographed routine to the tune ''Our General is Best''.

Kim suffers from chronic illness and although he has boasted about his fitness, attention is focused on which of his three known sons may succeed him.

North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung was 62 when he tipped Kim Jong-il as his successor, giving his son decades to build trust with the country's powerful military.

Dongseo University professor Brian Myers, a specialist in North Korea's political ideology, said time may be running out for Kim to anoint a successor given the years it takes to build a cult of personality fit for a leader of North Korea.

''I am inclining to the view that Kim Jong-il is not all that concerned what is going to happen after his death,'' Myers said.

''He might well believe that his children would be better off with a lot of money and no political baggage in a unified Korea under Seoul than they would be having the baton handed off to them and having them fight to defend it.''

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE

Kim has tested the patience of the world for years through nuclear arms brinkmanship.

Without nuclear arms, North Korea is just a poor country with failed economic policies that cannot produce enough food to feed its people, analysts said.

With them, it gets a seat at the table with powers including the United States -- the nation it argues is trying to topple it and causes to maintain a military first policy that strains its beleaguered economy to put 1.2 million troops in service.

North Korea conducted a nuclear test in October 2006, worrying US allies Japan and South Korea which could be targets for Pyongyang.

Under an agreement between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, North Korea has committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives.

A key sticking point in the ''six-party'' process has been North Korea's failure to meet a December 31 deadline to provide a complete

Declaration of its nuclear programs -- a step expected to lead to the removal of some US sanctions.

LEGENDARY STATUS

Outside of North Korea, Kim is seen as man with a bouffant hair-do, drab jumpsuit and platform shoes who has done little to help his starving people and let the country's industry stagnate.

At home, North Korea's state propaganda has created a legend.

It tells tales of wonder about a man who has penned operas, produced movies and accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf, shooting 11 holes-in-one during the first round he ever played.

North Korea's official media has said flowers come into bloom when he appears and rainbows fill the sky on his birthday. He is, it is said, a man who pilots jet fighters -- even though he travels by land for his infrequent trips abroad.

''The DPRK led by Kim Jong-il is a country with a rosy future as it is making a leaping advance towards a great prosperous powerful nation full of immense vigour and dynamism,'' KCNA said. (AGENCIES)

Atlantis astronauts wrap up spacewalk

HOUSTON, Feb 16: Two shuttle Atlantis astronauts wrapped up a spacewalk to install a solar observatory and a science experiment on Europe's space lab.

The Columbus module, the European Space Agency's 1.9 billion dollars permanent space laboratory, was launched aboard NASA's Atlantis last week and connected to the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday.

As preparations began for the shuttle's return on Wednesday, NASA said it was readying its landing sites at both the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The US military is eager to land the shuttle by Wednesday so it can proceed with a planned attempt to shoot down a disabled spy satellite with a missile.

NASA prefers to land the shuttle at Kennedy, its home port and launch site, because of the high cost of transporting the spacecraft from California. The agency often does not open Edwards until the second day of landing opportunities if weather prevents a Florida landing on the first day.

During yesterday's third and final outside excursion of Atlantis' nine-day visit to the space station, lead spacewalker Rex Walheim and partner Stanley Love picked up a broken gyroscope and did some inspection work on a hand rail outside the airlock.

They did not have time during the nearly 7 1/2-hour spacewalk to examine a contaminated solar wing joint that has mired station operations since October. It has been inspected on previous outings.

NASA needs to fix the joint so the station can reach full power before the arrival of a large Japanese laboratory, known as Kibo, later this year. Replacing the faulty equipment will require four to five spacewalks on later missions.

The solar observatory installed on this mission contains instruments that will, among other things, measure aspects of the sun's energy and help scientists decipher the impact of solar activity on Earth's climate.

The other facility attached to Columbus' hull will be used to conduct a range of space-related experiments. These include exposing lichen and fungi to space conditions for about 1 1/2 years to test the limits of their survival.

Another will evaluate the effects of space on different materials that may be used on spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

''The aim is to improve components and materials for spacecraft design,'' Alan Thirkettle, the ISS program manager for the European Space Agency, told Reuters.

He later told a news briefing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston that they would start getting data from the solar observatory before the end of February.

The agency has nine construction missions remaining to complete the 100 billion dollars outpost and two resupply flights planned before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. (AGENCIES)

Bird flu kills one man, infects poultry in Vietnam

HANOI, Feb 16: Bird flu has killed a second man in Vietnam this week, infected a child and poultry in two provinces and a health official warned more people would fall sick of the virus, the government and state media said today.

The 27-year-old man died on Thursday night at a Hanoi hospital after he was taken there from the northern province of Ninh Binh on Tuesday with serious pneumonia, the official Vietnam News Agency reported.

On Jan 31 he slaughtered two sick chickens and fell ill two days later with pneumonia symptoms, the Health Ministry has said. His death is Vietnam's third this year from bird flu.

Doctors also confirmed a 7-year-old child from the northern province of Hai Duong had the H5N1 virus and was being treated at a paediatric hospital in Hanoi, the Vietnam News Agency said without disclosing the gender or details of the infection.

Hai Duong is home to a 40-year-old man who died from bird flu on Tuesday, the 49th fatality of Vietnam's 103 confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, citing tests performed by Vietnamese health authorities.

Both provinces of Ninh Binh and Hai Duong are not on the government's bird flu watchlist, but health officials said more human infections could emerge as chicken is a popular dish at this time of the year.

''Now it is the start of spring, parties using chicken are numerous,'' Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Health Ministry's Preventive Medicine Department, said in an interview with the VNExpress e-newspaper (www.Vnexpress.Net).

''Many patients will be found in the coming days,'' he said, criticising poor communication as people failed to report dead poultry to the authorities.

Several people suspected of having bird flu were now being treated in Hanoi, the Vietnam News Agency said without elaborating.

The Agriculture Ministry's Animal Health Department also reported cases in the past week at two poultry farms in the northern province of Quang Ninh on the border with China and in the southern province of Long An.

Bird flu killed 855 birds in Mong Cai town and another district in Quang Ninh province on Feb 12-14, prompting the authorities to slaughter 800 more birds, the department said.

''In Mong Cai town the poultry smuggling originated from China still takes place and it's difficult to control,'' the department said in its daily report.

Bird flu also killed 150 one-month-old ducklings in Long An province on Feb. 9, it said, bringing to four the number of provinces on the government's bird flu watchlist.

H5N1 remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, possibly killing millions.

Not including the death on Thursday, bird flu has killed 227 people among the 361 known cases. Most of the deaths have been in Indonesia and Vietnam, WHO figures show. (AGENCIES)

Lung transplant wait seen favoring whites

NEW YORK, Feb 16: Blacks with chronic lung disease on the waiting list for lung transplantation before 2005 were more likely to die or be removed from the list than were white patients, according to New York investigators.

The researchers suggest that new guidelines, aimed at prioritizing lung transplant candidates based on the expected survival benefit of transplantation, may help reverse this trend.

Dr David J Lederer and colleagues at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons compared outcomes for all non-Hispanic black and white patients 40 years or older with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) placed on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) list between 1995 and 2004.

During the study period, organs were allocated based on waiting time. Since 2005, candidate recipients receive priority based on their risk of dying before and after transplantation.

The study included 280 black patients and 5,272 white patients.

Over a five-year period, 62 per cent of blacks and 68 per cent of whites received a transplant, the team reports in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

While on the waiting list, 17 per cent of blacks and 15 per cent of whites died. More blacks than whites were also removed from the waiting list, at 14 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

Lederer's group points out that a similar study will be needed after sufficient experience under the new allocation system, to see if it results in more equitable outcomes for black patients awaiting lung transplantation.

(AGENCIES)

Thailand sees rising rubber output despite weather

SINGAPORE, Feb 16: Thailand's rubber production may rise 4.8 percent to 3.25 million tonnes in 2009 despite erratic weather and separatist violence in the country's southern provinces, a senior industry official said.

''In 2010, production should be above 3.3 million tonnes because of new plants,'' Thai Rubber Association president Luckchai Kittipol told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry gathering late on Friday.

''I think it's possible that production will reach 3.1 million tonnes in 2008. We hope but it depends on the weather,'' said Kittipol, adding that there were additional 120,000 hectares of plantations from 2005 to 2007 under a government project.

Thailand, the world's largest producer, made 3.0 million tonnes of rubber in 2007, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

Thailand has seen rubber acreage grow 26 percent between 1997 and 2006. It has also opened new plantations, mostly in the northeast, which are expected to start production in a few years.

''We have areas increasing in the northeast and the east but in the south, they are decreasing year by year because of a shortage in labour,'' said Kittipol.

Some farmers have also shifted to growing palm oil, whose prices roared to record high above $1,000 a tonne, but new plantations were likely to prevent rubber output from falling, he said.

Thailand's rubber production has been hit by both heavy rains and dry spells, labour shortages and separatist violence in the three provinces in the south, which produce nearly 10 percent of output.

More than 2,800 people have been killed in four years of separatist insurgency.

Thailand mainly exports rubber to China, which is the world's largest consumer. Rubber is used in making tyres, gloves and condoms.

Kittipol said Thailand's rubber exports could increase to 2.95 million tonnes in 2008, up only slightly from the 2.90 million tonnes estimated in 2007 because of an increase in domestic consumption and as local tyre makers boosted output.

''(Domestic) consumption was about 350,000 tonnes in 2007. We forecast, this year's should be about 400,000 tonnes,'' he said.

Global rubber consumption is forecast to grow 2.7 percent this year after rising 5.7 percent in 2007 -- the fastest in three years on growing demand in key markets, the International Rubber Study Group earlier this month.

Global synthetic rubber consumption was estimated to have increased by 6 percent to 13.19 million tonnes in 2007, while natural rubber consumption rose by 5.4 percent to 9.71 million tonnes.

(AGENCIES)

Youth too lost, scared to rebel say '68 veterans

BERLIN, Feb 16: Forty years after Dany Cohn-Bendit's flaming red hair and infectious smile became a symbol of idealised rebellion across Europe in 1968, today's students face a more fragmented fight.

Cohn-Bendit, now 62 and in the European parliament, says the difference between students then and now is simple.

''We had a much more positive feeling towards the future. This makes the social movement different from the ones you see today. Now there is more anxiety and fear.''

The 1968 generation wanted to revolutionise society, battle against authoritarianism and demolish what they saw as the old social order. In the United States, demonstrations against the Vietnam War triggered massive peace marches worldwide.

Forty years on, those involved in the protests of 1968 say modern activist campaigns lack the force and scope of the movement which helped give birth to them.

Campaigns today may back a cause, they say, but they do not aspire to change the world in the way the '68ers sought to. Then young people, seeing authority embodied by monolithic institutions, envisaged a radically different social order based -- according to taste -- on Marxism, anarchism, or free love, with slogans such as ''Be realistic, demand the impossible''.

Where protesters in Paris 1968 lifted paving stones to build barricades and hurl at police, today market economics in its many forms reigns virtually unchallenged in a globalised world, and some from the 1968 generation argue that consumerism has dulled students' rebellious spirit.

Students face much tougher competition for jobs and much greater pressure to conform: for some, even the tame rebellion of self-expression through social networking sites on the Internet is a peril, risking rejection from future employers.

''Although the student movement may talk about cultural change, it nevertheless has precise goals -- to protest against job contract reforms or fight against university selection,'' said Juliette Griffond, spokeswoman for the French national students' union.

The jobless rate in Germany and France is above 8 per cent. At the end of the 1960s, it was below 2 per cent in France and West Germany.

Students have to focus on competing for jobs, Griffond said, because the French university population has grown -- seven-fold since the 1960s according to government data.

In Germany, many students have had to give up on changing society, said Anna Menge, an Oxford University researcher on 1960s-70s Germany.

(AGENCIES)

Lawyer seeks to move Britney Spears case to federal court

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16: An attorney who claims to represent Britney Spears has filed papers to move her conservatorship case from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to federal court, but legal experts question whether his legal strategy is viable and whether he can represent the troubled pop star at all.

In a document filed on Thursday in US District Court in Los Angeles, attorney Jon Eardley writes that Spears has not "received the benefit of a single hearing before the court," and "is being confined by the conservator to the private prison of her own home," in violation of her civil rights.

After more than a year of bizarre behaviour and two stints in a psychiatric hospital this year, Spears was placed under a conservatorship by a Superior Court commissioner at the beginning of February. Conservatorships are established when a court determines someone cannot take care of themselves or their affairs.

In his federal court filing, Eardley asks "whether an adult child may be subjected by her parents to their complete and total control" and claims her conservators - her father, James Spears, and attorney Andrew Wallet - control what prescription medications she takes.

Calls for comment to Eardley's phone numbers in Washington, DC, Jericho, New York, and Whittier, California. were not returned on Thursday or yesterday.

Commissioner Reva Goetz has found that under the terms of the conservatorship, Britney Spears lacks the capacity to hire her own lawyer without the approval of her conservators. (AGENCIES)

Bilawal asks Pakistanis to vote for PPP...

ISLAMABAD, Feb 16: Slain former premier Benazir Bhutto’s teenage son Bilawal may not be in the country to canvass for PPP, but is urging Pakistanis through campaign advertisements to vote for the party and fulfill his mother’s dreams of a democratic set up.

With his mother and grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s many portraits forming the perfect backdrop, the 19-year-old newly appointed chairman of the PPP says in a 30-second TV campaign of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) -- "Zinda hai BB, Zinda Hai" (Benazir is still alive).

The PPP advertisements with Bilawal first went on air about three days ago. Before that it was Bhutto’s last speech at the historic Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi, just a few minutes before she was assassinated in December, that was being played to garner support for the party.

In another advertisement, Bilawal, who is studying history at Oxford University, exhorts people to vote for his mother and fulfil her dreams of a democratic Pakistan.

He signs off with "Jamhooriyat hamara intiqaam hain" or "democracy is the best revenge" a line he first used when he was appointed the PPP Chairman three days after his mother’s assassination.

Bilawal’s father Asif Ali Zardari, who is co-chairman of the PPP, launched his campaign after Bhutto’s "chehlum" or the end of a 40-day period of mourning on February 8.

Bilawal, a health freak and sports enthusiast, became Britain’s most high-profile terrorist target after being named chairman of PPP. The cost of providing a 24-hour armed guard for Bilawal is said to be about one million pounds annually, a fact that Britain’s taxpayers are cribbing about. (PTI)

Computers 'to match human brains by 2030'

LONDON, Feb 16: Artificial intelligence portrayed in Hollywood movies like 'The Terminator' and 'Blade Runner' could be a reality in the next two decades.

A leading scientific "futurologist" has predicted that computer power will match the intelligence of human beings by 2030 because of the accelerating speed at which technology is advancing worldwide, 'The Independent' reported today.

According to computer guru Dr Ray Kurzweil, there will be 32 times more technical progress during the next half century than there was in the entire 20th century, and one of the outcomes is that artificial intelligence could be on a par with human intellect in the next 20 years.

He said that machines will rapidly overtake humans in their intellectual abilities and will soon be able to solve some of the most intractable problems of the 21st century.

Computers have so far been based on two-dimensional chips made from silicon, but there are developments already well advanced to make three-dimensional chips with vastly improved performances, and even to construct them out of biological molecules.

"Three-dimensional, molecular computing will provide the hardware for human-level 'strong artificial intelligence' by the 2020s. The more important software insights will be gained in part from the reverse engineering of the human brain, a process well under way.

"Already, two dozen regions of the human brain have been modelled and simulated," the British newspaper quoted Dr Kurzweil as saying. (PTI)

British unmanned Moon probe wins UK-NASA backing...

LONDON, Feb 16: A plan for the first British-led mission to the Moon won the backing of an Anglo-American space committee yesterday.

The Joint Working Group on lunar exploration named the proposed unmanned MoonLITE launch as its primary mission for collaboration.

The 100 million pound launch would fire three or four darts carrying measuring instruments into the surface of the moon from an orbiting satellite.

Scientific data recorded by the darts would be transmitted up to the satellite and relayed back to Earth.

The working group brings together experts from America's NASA and Britain's space authority, the British National Space Centre (BNSC).

The recommendation was contained in the group's first report since its creation at a meeting in Washington last April.

The group aims to foster collaboration in space exploration between Britain and the United States.

''This joint report represents a milestone in our co-operation with NASA,'' said Professor Keith Mason, the chairman of the UK Space Board, the BNSC's governing body.

''The proposed missions provide an opportunity to harness the UK's world-class expertise in small satellite, communication and robotic technologies focused on exploration of the Moon.''

MoonLITE, proposed for launch by 2012, would be largely built by British firms, with NASA assisting and providing navigation equipment.

The mission has been devised by a British team including Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL), an offshoot of the University of Surrey which has already sent 27 satellites into space.

MoonLITE would be able to reach areas of the moon not accessed by the Apollo launches of the 1960s and 1970s, said SSTL System Engineer Andy Phipps, a member of the working group.

''The Apollo landers all landed in equatorial regions on the near side, for safety. With this kind of mission you can attempt more scientifically interesting missions,'' he said.

Potential targets for the MoonLITE probes include the Moon's far side, permanently facing away from Earth, and its two shadowed polar regions.

A peer review of the scientific research proposed by the mission will now be conducted, along with a technical study to examine the costs and infrastructure required for the launch. (AGENCIES)

Indian models in UK fashion industry are rare

LONDON, Feb 16: Britain's fashion industry finds it difficult to recruit models from the Indian community because parents of Indian-origin do not approve of their children entering the glamour industry.

Carole White, co-founder of a model management agency, said on the last day of the London Fashion week yesterday that parental disapproval affected recruiting models from the Indian and Pakistan communities in Britain.

White also regretted that clients such as magazines and fashion designers were reluctant to use models of Asian or Afro-Caribbean origin because of their non-white colour.

It was difficult to find work in the fashion industry for non-white models, White added.

"Sadly we are in the business where you stock your shelves with what sells. According to magazines, black models don't sell. People don't tend to talk about it," White said.

Model management companies here have been reportedly told by clients that they did not want any "ethnic minority" models to work on their projects.

White's comments are expected to reopen one of the most sensitive debates within the fashion industry, where the presence of racism has been a cause of fierce resentment in the past, 'The Independent' reported today.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said it was a misconception that black models were less versatile.

Nick Knight, a fashion photographer, said the lack of non-white girls in the British fashion industry was "a pitiful reflection on the industry. But it's not just fashion, I work in film and advertising and it's the same level of racism".

Knight said that he had heard of editors not using black models on their covers because they believed they did not meet readers' expectations. (PTI)

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