Project on sequencing genome of giant Panda launched

BEIJING, Mar 7: Scientists from China, the US and other countries have joined hands to sequence the genome of the giant panda under a project that would help protect one of the world's most endangered species.

The sequencing and assembling of a draft sequence would be completed in six months and the results would help in understanding the genetic and biological underpinnings of the giant panda, the scientists associated with the project said.

Often called a living fossil and a symbol of China, where its only natural habitat is found, the giant Panda has been a subject for many research projects but little relating to its DNA.

About 1,590 of them live in the wild, mostly in the mountains of southwestern region.

Oliver Ryder of the San Diego Zoo's Centre for Conservation and Research for Endagered Species said the "most noteworthy" aspect of the project was it was the first genome project to specifically gather information for conservation efforts for an endangered species.

"The giant panda is a global conservation symbol and deserves such an effort," he was quoted as saying by official Xinhua news agency.

The project would help scientists understand the genetic basis for the giant panda's adaptation to its special diet and behavioral style and reveal the history of their population isolation and migration, Zhang Yaping, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, said. (PTI)

UNSC fails to agree on statement condemning Jerusalem attack

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 7: Libya and it allies today blocked the UN Security Council from issuing a US-drafted statement condemning the deadly attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish school in Jerusalem as "terrorist action", drawing a furious reaction from Israel.

Within hours of the attack, the deadliest in four years, which left at least eight students dead, the 15-member Council met in an emergency session and Washington had hoped for a quick statement condemning the attack.

Libya wanted the statement to also condemn the recent Israeli action Gaza in which some 120 Palestinian were killed but American UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad rejected the demand, arguing that the two situations were quite different.

A statement, which is considered a step below a resolution, requires consent of all 15 UNSC members while a resolution can be adopted by nine affirmative votes provided there is no veto by a permanent member.

An angry Israeli Ambassador to UN Dan Gillerman lashed out at Libya following the deadlock describing it as a "terrorist country".

"Unfortunately this is what happens when the Security Council is infiltrated by terrorists. It brings into question the legitimacy of such a country not just being in the Security Council but being a member of the United Nations," he said.

Libya's deputy UN representative Ibrahim al-Dabbashi said his country did not need "a certificate of good conduct from the Israeli terrorist regime". (PTI)

UN condemns attack on Jewish seminary

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 7: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned in "strongest terms" the "savage attack" on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem and "deliberate killing and injuring" of civilians.

The Secretary General in a statement said, he was "deeply concerned" at the "potential for continued acts of violence and terrorism to undermine the political process."

Ban further said yesterday, he believed the "process" must be pursued to achieve a secure and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians based on two-state solution.

At least eight students were killed when a Palestinian gunman managed entry into the religious school in West Jerusalem and opened indiscriminate fire. (PTI)

China to finance 105 MW hydro projects in Nepal

KATHMANDU, Mar 7: China has assurred Nepal of soft loan for two power projects worth USD 186 million aimed for domestic consumption in the hilly country.

A 9-member Chinese delegation that visited Nepal this week led by Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs He Yafei affirmed Nepalese authorities, soft loan by China's Commerce Ministry for two projects.

The money is part of a USD 200 million concessional credit committed to Nepal by China's state-owned Export-Import Bank in September 2006, Uttar Kumar Shrestha, an officer in the Nepal Electricity Authority said.

The feasibility study for the power projects, 61 MW Upper Trishuli 3'A' has started while study for 44 MW Upper Trishuli 3'B' will start after the completion of the first, Shrestha said.

The construction work on the projects will start in next financial year and they will start generating electricity from 2011-12, he added. (PTI)

Picture this: Children's book art gains mainstream acclaim

AMHERST, Mar 7: They're not the "Mona Lisa" or "Whistler's Mother," but images such as the Cat in the Hat, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and other icons of illustrated children's books are gaining respect in highbrow art circles.

Once seen as fun but forgettable, the genre is now being featured in mainstream museums and dissected in college art courses.

And as respect for children's book art grows, the money follows. Buyers are purchasing the illustrations as investments and philanthropists are stepping up, as in the case of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, which recently received a USD 1 million gift, its largest donation since it opened in 2002.

Some experts say the reason is simple: More art lovers are recognizing that whimsy and significance aren't mutually exclusive.

"It's undervalued as an art form. The great children's book artists are drawing from art history and the trends of their times," said H Nichols B Clark, director of the Carle Museum, which features numerous artists and houses pieces from Carle's decades-long career, including his signature Hungry Caterpillar.

"What is especially wonderful about these illustrations is that in this art form, the playing field is leveled. Sometimes the child has more to say about the image than the adult," he said.

Money can be a touchy subject among art enthusiasts, some of whom question whether inspiration can be tarnished by commercialization. (AGENCIES)

Dirham fall deters Indians from pursuing jobs in UAE

DUBAI, Mar 7: Rising cost of living and the declining dirham have resulted in UAE losing its charm among Indian jobseekers, who no longer find the Gulf country an attractive destination.

"The problem was more important than inflation in deterring workers coming to Dubai," said Samir Khosla, managing director of US-based Dynamic Staffing Services.

"The construction workers coming here don't have any savings and just have to survive on pay cheque," said Khosla, speaking at MEED's Dubai Mega Projects conference.

Khosla said that five years ago, an Indian construction worker coming to Dubai would expect four times more earning than in India and save up to 250 per cent more, MEED magazine quoted him as saying.

Based on a November 2007 case study, the currency change has reduced the pay differential to 40 per cent.

There has been a shifting in hiring policies in the Indian construction industry, which means they are being appointed to company payrolls, which makes them entitled to sick pay.

"Indian employers are now providing them with Dubai-style accommodation and competitive holiday. As a result, it is becoming difficult for Middle East companies to hire. Workers are sending their families back because they can no longer afford to keep them in the country." (PTI)

'Indian doctors denied dues by Kuwait ministry'

DUBAI, Mar 7: Indian doctors in Kuwait have alleged that they were being denied their end-of-service benefits by the government after they quit their jobs owing to lack of promotion opportunities and unsatisfactory pay packages.

"Fourteen Indian doctors who recently resigned from the Ministry of Health, have been told that they will have to forgo their end-of-service benefits as their academic degrees have not been evaluated by concerned Indian universities", an Indian doctor was quoted as saying by Arab Times.

The ministry has described the 14 Indian doctors as 'illegals' given the non-evaluation of their degrees, he said.

The doctor further alleged that they are being made to pay the price of a mistake committed by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Higher Education.

"It was the duty of these ministries to have our degrees evaluated at the time of recruitment, but they chose not to do so. How on earth can they now hold us accountable for something which is beyond our control?" he asked.

"Indian doctors are shocked by this attitude of the ministry, and some have even left the country without taking their indemnity, but most of the 14 doctors who have spend many years here can't afford to do so," the doctor, who had served the ministry for eight years, added.

The report further said that the concerned ministries are willing to have degrees evaluated, especially of those doctors who have recently resigned, but it is a daunting task and the entire process takes as many as eight months.

"We are also planning to approach the Indian Doctors Forum, in Kuwait to see if they can open a channel of communication with the health authorities in India in an effort to put an early end to our problems," the doctor added. (PTI)

Evidence points to ring around Saturn moon:Study

LONDON, Mar 7: Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea may have a small ring around it -- the first time a moon has been found to have a ring, an international team of researchers reported.

The findings from the Cassini spacecraft, published in the journal Science, will help scientists better understand how planets form, said Geraint Jones, who worked on the study while at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

The four largest planets in the solar system -- Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus -- all have rings and Earth probably had one as well at some point billions of years ago, before its moon even existed, Jones said in a telephone interview.

''All planets when they were forming probably had rings at various times,'' he said. ''It is fascinating to find one possibly around a small body like Rhea, which is still with us today.''

The Cassini spacecraft was launched in 1997 to examine Saturn. Last month scientists said evidence from the joint European-US mission pointed to the presence of water beneath the frozen surface of another of Saturn's moons, Enceladus.

The researchers believe the latest data point to a ring because when Cassini recently flew past Rhea they detected a surprising lack of electrons surrounding the moon.

Rhea lies within a magnetised bubble that surrounds Saturn and contains trapped ions and electrons. Because of this, the researchers expected to see electrons trailing off closer to the surface as the moon absorbed them.

Instead, the electrons disappeared much sooner -- as if something was blocking them -- leaving a ring of debris as the most likely explanation, Jones said.

''There is evidence something is absorbing electrons around this moon,'' he said. ''A debris disk around the moon is the simplest explanation we can come up with that fits with the data we have.''

The ring probably formed when a smaller body smashed into Rhea and sent out a stream of debris that began orbiting the moon, said Iannis Dandouras, a planetary scientist at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France who also worked on the study.

The evidence of a ring is also interesting because it shows that the material was not incorporated into Rhea but was ejected into orbit, Dandouras added.

''It is the first time we found a system of planetary rings around a satellite of a planet,'' Dandouras said. ''A planetary ring tells us the story about the historical formation of moons and planets.''

(AGENCIES)

Telling smokers "age" of lungs helps them quit:Study

LONDON, Mar 7: Smokers are more likely to kick the habit if they are told how ''old'' their lungs are, a British study found today.

The concept of lung age -- measured by comparing a smoker's lungs to the age of a healthy person whose lungs function the same -- has helped patients better understand how smoking damages health, researchers had already found.

But that information is also effective in convincing smokers to quit, said Gary Parkes, a family physician in Hertfordshire outside London, who led the study published in the British Medical Journal.

''Telling smokers their lung age significantly improves the likelihood of them quitting smoking,'' Parkes and his colleagues wrote.

Smoking kills about four million people each year, according to the World Health Organisation. Tobacco is highly addictive and the leading preventable cause of both cancer and heart disease.

The study in five general medical practices outside London involved 561 long-term smokers older than 35 and began with a simple test to record the volume and rate at which the volunteers exhaled air from the lungs.

One group received no detailed information about their results while the other people were given their lung age, shown a diagram of how smoking ages the lungs and told that quitting would slow the rate of damage.

Everyone was also strongly encouraged to quit and offered help to do so. One year later, saliva tests showed that 13 per cent of the smokers told their lung age had quit while only 6 per cent of people in the other group had stopped.

''Anybody who had good, understandable information seemed more inclined to give up,'' Parkes said. ''The reason may be people had dreaded the worst and realized it was still worthwhile giving up.''

The study counters research showing such health information does not prod them to quit and underscores the benefits of early screening because 16 per cent of the people in the study had undiagnosed emphysema, Parkes said.

Giving people this kind of information could represent a cheap and easy way to get people to stop smoking and reduce smoking-related health problems that are putting pressure on health systems to treat.

''The cost, if you like, is certainly within the economic framework of a good deal,'' Parkes said. (AGENCIES)

Hundreds evacuated in Calif university bomb scare

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 7: More than 450 students were evacuated from dormitories at University of California Davis and spent the night in a cafeteria after police found explosive materials in a student's room, officials said.

Police arrested Mark Christopher Woods, 19, an economics major from Torrance, California, on charges of possessing chemicals to make explosives and having explosive materials on school grounds, police and school officials said.

Terrorism was not suspected.

''We evacuated students as a precaution. We do not expect further disruption to the university,'' Fred Wood, vice chancellor for student affairs, said in a statement.

''We are confident that university police and other local law enforcement agencies have the situation contained.''

The university said it evacuated 455 first-year students at around 9 pm on Wednesday (1030 hrs IST) yesterday after police got a telephone tip about the suspected explosive materials.

The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a statement a search began about 5 am and continued through the day. The ATF forensic laboratory will analyze the evidence.

Davis is located between the state capital, Sacramento, and San Francisco.

(AGENCIES)

US soldiers show mental strain from combat tours

WASHINGTON, Mar 7: More than a quarter of US soldiers on their third or fourth tours in Iraq suffer mental health problems partly because troops are not getting enough time at home between deployments, the Army said.

Overall, about 17.9 per cent of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had mental health problems in 2007, according to an annual Army survey revealed yesterday. That is slightly below the 2006 figure of 19.1 per cent but relatively consistent with previous years.

But the incidence of mental health problems for soldiers in war zones climbs significantly among troops returning for a third and fourth combat tour, the survey showed.

Among noncommissioned officers, for example, 27.2 per cent on their third and fourth tours suffered mental health problems in 2007. That compares with 18.5 per cent for those low-ranking officers on their second tours and 11.9 per cent of those on their first tours, the Army said.

''Soldiers are not resetting entirely before they get back into theater,'' said Lt Col Paul Bliese, who led the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team survey for 2007.

By ''resetting'' Bliese meant soldiers are not getting enough time to recover from the trauma of duty in a war zone.

''They're not having the opportunity, and we bring this up in the report, to completely recover from previous deployment and then go back into theater.''

Bliese attributed the problem to the relatively short ''dwell time'' -- the period a soldier has at home between deployments.

Soldiers now have only 12 months at home before their next deployment. The Army's goal is to give soldiers three years at home for every one year deployed, but officials admit that is not realistic given current combat requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Short dwell times helped the Pentagon execute President George W Bush's troop ''surge'' last year that boosted troop levels in Iraq to 160,000 and keep about 28,000 troops in Afghanistan.

It also allowed the Pentagon to extend all Army deployments in the West Asia to 15 months from 12, a move needed to sustain that ''surge'' of forces in Iraq last year.

While those steps helped improve security in Iraq, the survey shows they also increased stress on an already strained force and seemed to contribute to work and personal problems.

''We see this multiple deployment effect for the mental health problems. We see a similar pattern for morale. We see some of the same reporting for job-related problems,'' Bliese said.

The military has struggled to meet troops' medical needs -- both mental and physical. The Pentagon has been trying to reform the health system since a Washington Post report last year that wounded troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan faced neglect at Walter Reed, the premier military hospital.

The 2007 Army mental health study surveyed 2,295 soldiers in Iraq and 699 in Afghanistan.

Soldiers in 2007 reported more difficulty accessing behavioral health services than in previous years despite the Army's year-long effort to hire more health professionals.

Part of the problem is linked to higher troop numbers in the war zones, said Col Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist and consultant to the Army Surgeon General.

In 2007, there was one practitioner for every 734 soldiers compared with one per 658 soldiers in 2006, Ritchie said.

The problem is also related to the US military's decision to push its soldiers farther away from bases, where many medical services are housed, so that they can work with local security personnel and interact with the community.

The Army is trying to hire 275 additional mental health professionals from the civilian sector in the United States plus others in Europe and Korea. A tight labor market and difficulty getting civilian practitioners into the war zones has hurt the effort, Ritchie said.

(AGENCIES)

Surgery may cure Type 2 diabetes: Study

WASHINGTON, Mar 7: Diabetics can now take heart as new research shows that Type 2 Diabetes cam be effectively cured by surgery as it may be disorder of uppes intestive.

The study's author, Dr Francesco Rubino, professor in the Department of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, pointed to the small bowel as the possible site of critical mechanisms for the development of diabetes.

Clinical studies have shown that procedures that restrict the stomach's size ie, gastric banding improve diabetes only by inducing massive weight loss.

By studying diabetes in animals, Dr Rubino has provided scientific evidence that gastrointestinal bypass operations involving rerouting the gastrointestinal tract (ie, gastric bypass) can cause diabetes remission independently of any weight loss, and even in subjects that are not obese.

''By answering the question of how diabetes surgery works, we may be answering the question of how diabetes itself works,'' Sciencedaily quoted him as saying.

''When we bypass the duodenum and jejunum, we are bypassing what may be the source of the problem,'' said Dr Rubino, who is heading the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell's Diabetes Surgery Center.

In fact, it has become increasingly evident that the gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in energy regulation, and that many gut hormones are involved in the regulation of sugar metabolism.

''It should not surprise anyone that surgically altering the bowel's anatomy affects the mechanisms that regulate blood sugar levels, eventually influencing diabetes,'' Dr Rubino said.

''When performed in subjects who were not diabetic, the bypass of the upper intestine may even impair the mechanisms that regulate blood levels of glucose,'' he added.

In striking contrast, when nutrients' passage is diverted from the upper intestine of diabetic patients, diabetes resolves, he pointed out.

This, he explained, implies that the upper intestine of diabetic patients may be the site where an abnormal signal is produced, causing, or at least favoring, the development of the disease.

''In healthy patients, a correct balance between incretin and anti-incretin factors maintains normal excursions of sugar levels in the bloodstream,'' he further explained.

''In some individuals, the duodenum and jejunum may be producing too much of this anti-incretin, thereby reducing insulin secretion and blocking the action of insulin, ultimately resulting in Type 2 diabetes,'' he added.

(UNI)