Oil rich Abu Dhabi
announces $ 2.2 million Future Energy Prize
DUBAI, Jan 22: Abu Dhabi, sitting on one
tenth of world’s oil, has announced that
work on their major environment initiative,
Masdar city-the world’s first carbon neutral
city-will start next month.
General Shaikh
Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu
Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE
Armed Forces, told delegates at a major
conference in the UAE capital that the Masdar
initiave launched in April 2006 enhances Abu
Dhabi’s existing record of environmental
stewardship and contribution to the global
community.
Shaikh Mohammad
also announced the establishment of Zayed Future
Energy Prize, which is designed to recognise and
reward achievements in energy innovation.
"Each year, those recognised by Zayed Awards
will share in a prize pool of 2.2 million
dollars," he said.
"Abu Dhabi
has reliably provided the world with energy for
several decades. Global demand for energy
continues to increase ever rapidly. As an energy
provider, we have the responsibility to continue
to meet that demand," Shaikh Mohammad said.
"The evidence
is overwhelming that our responsibility must now
be balanced by a duty to find new sources of
energy, protect the world in which we live and to
provide the right legacy for future generations.
The Masdar initiative represents the government
of Abu Dhabi’s commitment to achieve that
balance."
ADFEC will also
ensure that Masdar further enhances Abu
Dhabi’s existing record of environmental
stewardship and contribution to the global
community.
Masdar’s
chief executive officer Dr Sultan Ahmad Al Jaber
said Masdar is planning the world’s largest
hydrogen power plant, which will provide 500 MW
of clean power. This is in addition to their
first 100 MW concentrated solar power project.
"Masdar will
continue to build a unique mix of resources,
collaboration and expertise that does not
currently exist anywhere in the world," said
Al Jaber.
He also said
Masdar is founding, in collaboration with MIT, a
graduate university for future energy studies,
which will open its doors next year.
The UAE also plans
to develop a nationwide network of carbon capture
and storage projects to pump greenhouse gases
into oilfields, reducing emissions while boosting
oil output.
Abu Dhabi has said
it will invest 15 billion US dollars in
implementing an ambitious alternative energy
project to develop environmentally-friendly
future sources of energy. (UNI)
Workout some
mental muscle for achieving fitness goals ...
SYDNEY,
Jan 22: Want to get that six pack abs,
workout some
mental muscle.
Repeated failure
to keep up with your resolution to get in shape
has nothing to do with the way you workout but
the way you think, experts say.
Counselling
techniques, so far used in other areas like
quitting smoking and sports performance are being
effectively used by personal trainers. It
encourages the belief that you are already living
a healthy life rather than being on the way to
one.
But, using scare
tactics, research found, was the least effective
strategy in instigating healthy behaviour
changes. What worked was setting goals, using
self-talk, behavioural contracts and regular
monitoring.
"Exercise
itself isn’t rocket science. It’s
getting people to enjoy it and stick with it in
the long term that’s the real
challenge," Pete Cohen, a health and
wellbeing coach trained in human psychology and
behaviour, was quoted by The Age as saying.
"Many people
embark on exercise with no goals at all or just
vaguely formulated ideas such as ‘tone
up’ or ‘get fitter’," Cohen
said.
In many ways,
exercise is seen as punitive; as soon as you
start telling yourself you have to lose weight,
it is all about negative emotions, he added.
Research on
‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’
styles of motivation suggests it does. Studies
show that extrinsic factors, such as losing
weight for wedding or holiday, are associated
with short-term commitment. Intrinsic factors
like the sense of accomplishment one feel from
getting fitter or the enjoyment of playing a
sport are associated with long-term adherence.
(UNI)
Teen risk
factors for schizophrenia identified....
NEW
YORK, Jan 22: Five key factors can help predict
whether at-risk young people will go on to
develop schizophrenia, researchers have found.
The findings show
that it is ''feasible'' to identify a person's
risk of schizophrenia as accurately as gauging
his or her risk of heart disease or diabetes, and
raise the possibility of preventing psychotic
illness, Dr Tyrone D Cannon of the University of
California, Los Angeles and colleagues say.
The earlier
schizophrenia is identified and treated, the less
damaging its course, they note in the Archives of
General Psychiatry. However, current methods
designed to predict schizophrenia risk are
imprecise, they point out.
Cannon and his
team followed 291 teenagers considered to be at
high risk for developing schizophrenia for
two-and-a-half years to look for a more accurate
predictive technique. All of the study
participants had been diagnosed with prodromal
syndrome for schizophrenia, meaning they had
non-specific symptoms such as paranoia,
disorganised communication, and unusual thoughts
that could signal the onset of full-blown
disease.
Thirty-five per
cent of the study participants developed
schizophrenia during the study. Five
characteristics identified at the study's outset
sharply increased the likelihood that a teen
would develop the disease: a genetic risk for
schizophrenia combined with recent decline in
function; higher levels of unusual thought
content; more suspicion/paranoia; more social
impairment; and past or current substance abuse.
Among people with
two or three of these characteristics, 68 percent
to 80 percent developed schizophrenia during the
course of the study, the researchers report.
Cannon and his
colleagues caution that the people in their study
were seeking treatment, so the results can't be
applied to the general population. Nevertheless,
they say their findings suggest that the first
two-and-a-half years after a diagnosis of
prodromal syndrome offer ''a critical window of
opportunity'' for identifying brain changes that
may lead to psychosis, and for intervening to
slow or even prevent the development of psychosis
and disability.
In an editorial
accompanying the study, Dr Patrick D McGorry of
the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
and colleagues write that large clinical trials
are now needed to investigate early treatment of
schizophrenia. ''While there are risks in the
endeavor to reshape the early course of
schizophrenia and related psychoses, it is now
within our grasp,'' they conclude.
(AGENCIES)
Sip the coffee,
lick the cream and keep
ovarian cancer at bay
NEW YORK, Jan 22: Addicted to caffeine and
tired of hearing its negative impact on your
health from those around you.
Its time for you
to hit back at all those who said excessive
amounts of coffee caused anxiety, sleeplessness
and palpitations as new research claims that
three cups of coffee a day could help prevent
ovarian cancer.
The study found
that caffeine lowered a woman’s chances of
developing the disease by a fifth. The risk was
even less for women who do not take the Pill or
do not use hormone replacement therapy but
smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol had a
negative effect, it found.
The report
published in American Medical Journal Cancer
compared the diets of more than 80,000 women with
the incidence of ovarian cancer. Out of them 737
of the women developed ovarian cancer.
Women who had at
least three cups of coffee a day were 20 per cent
less likely to develop ovarian cancer than those
who drank none.
Among women who
had never taken the Pill, coffee drinking cut the
risk of ovarian cancer by 35 per cent. And for
those who had not had hormone replacement
therapy, the risk was 43 per cent less.
"We observed
a significant inverse trend of ovarian cancer
risk with caffeine intake," Dr Shelley
Tworoger said.
The reasons why
caffeine protects against ovarian cancer is not
clear and further studies were being carried
carried out. The benefits and risks of drinking
coffee continue to be the subject of much debate.
Some studies have
shown caffeine can reduce the risk of
Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s
disease, gallstones, diabetes and gout.
The most recent
study published yesterday, however, blamed coffee
for increasing the risk of miscarriages. (UNI)
Pregnancy-- a
pharma free wasteland....
SYDNEY,
Jan 22: Lack of safe medication for unborn
babies is forcing expecting mothers to take
potentially dangerous drugs leading to a mounting
number of maternal and pre-natal deaths, experts
warn.
A major review of
international drug development has labelled
pregnancy ''a pharma-free wasteland, with
virtually no new drugs on the horizon''.
Lead researcher
Nicholas Fisk blamed the drug dearth on the
expense of reproductive trials and major
disasters like thalidomide, a German drug
responsible for severe deformities in 10,000
babies born during '50s and '60s.
There are over
half a million maternal and seven million
perinatal deaths annually, 99 per cent of which
are in the developing world.
The study
published in PLoS Medicine journal revealed that
women needing drugs for pregnancy, labour or
abortion resorted to ''off-licence medications''
that have not been officially tested for the use.
''The market has
failed pregnant women,'' Dr Fisk said, adding
seventy five per cent of pregnant women were
taking at least one drug for which safety data
were not available.
The shocking
researching found that only 17 of the 37,000
drugs under development worldwide since 1981 were
for maternal health indications.
The problem
stemmed from failures in the pharmaceutical
market's push and pull mechanisms, whereby
funding to encourage investment from universities
and companies is balanced by funding to purchase
drugs once they are on the market.
''Between the pull
and the push, the international donor agencies
have forgotten these women,'' the researcher
said.
Pharmaceutical
companies were reluctant to test and develop
drugs in pregnancy because of the risk of birth
defects and litigation costs that come with it,
the specialists said. (UNI)
|
