Okinawa cuisine
tofu, Spam and root beer
NAHA,
JAPAN, Mar 12: Spam, ''taco rice'' and A&W Root
Beer -- if you're looking to sample authentic
Okinawan cuisine, these are musts for the menu.
Residents of the
southern Japanese island of Okinawa might like
their tofu and other Japanese favourites, but
they are just as likely to tuck into fast food
burgers and other dishes first made familiar by
American troops.
''We've been used
to American food from an early age and people
think it's just as Okinawan as 'chanpuru' (stir
fry),'' said Yasuyuki Takaesu, 38, master chef at
a restaurant in the Okinawa capital of Naha that
serves traditional fare such as crunchy
''mimiga'' (pig ears) and ''rafuti'' (flavoured
stewed pork).
''Lots of people
my age are getting fat, but I just can't stop
eating fried chicken and hamburgers,'' he added
with a grimace.
Okinawa was
occupied by the US military from Japan's 1945
defeat in World War Two until 1972, and remains
host to the bulk of US troops in Japan under a
bilateral security treaty.
Mainland Japanese
often shake their heads at the sweet taste of
A&W's trademark drink, but Americans can find
it comforting to grab a burger, onion rings and
root beer -- refills free in a frosty glass mug
-- at one of the many A&W's dotting the
island.
''It's
nostalgic,'' said US Consul General Kevin Maher.
SPAM AND ''TACO
CURRY''
Such fare is
familiar to the American palate, but Okinawa
dishes that prepare well-known ingredients with a
local twist can cause both mainland Japanese and
Westerners to do a double-take.
Take the selection
of ''onigiri'' -- Japanese rice balls wrapped in
seaweed -- sold in convenience stores.
In Okinawa, large
square ''onigiri'' stuffed with Spam and egg, or
hamburger and cheese nestle next to smaller
traditional triangular versions filled with
salted salmon or pickled plum.
Markets selling
products from pig's feet to colourful fresh fish
also display rows of canned Spam processed meat
-- which can be purchased as souvenirs at shops
frequented by tourists.
''This kind of
food was brought in by the Americans as emergency
aid after the war and we've all eaten it since we
were little, so it's more popular here than on
the mainland,'' said a white-haired woman selling
Spam at a Naha market.
Equally popular
among Okinawans is ''taco rice'', a dish in which
a spicy meat filling usually found inside a taco
is heaped on a mound of rice with lettuce,
tomatoes and cheese.
Variations include
''taco pilaf'' and ''taco curry''.
Decades of an
Americanised diet, Okinawa health officials say,
is partly responsible for making islanders
fatter, more prone to heart disease and likely to
die sooner than either their elders or
compatriots in many parts of the mainland.
The trend comes as
a blow to a prefecture long home to one of the
highest percentages of centenarians in the world.
''Fast food came
to Okinawa relatively early, so people are used
to it. But traditional cuisine also used a lot of
oil ... there are multiple factors,'' said health
official Mitsuyuki Maeda. Okinawans also tendency
to drive rather than use public transport,
another cause of high obesity rates.
Opined Maeda:
''It's the same all over Japan, but the problem
is bigger in Okinawa.''
(AGENCIES)
Lay off China on
climate change - foreign minister
BEIJING,
Mar 12: Criticism of China's high levels of
emissions is unfair and unscientific, the foreign
minister said today, adding the 2008 Olympics
host should not be pushed to take on
responsibilities beyond its capacity.
Climate change was
one of many subjects raised at a news conference
given by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who also
denounced critics of Beijing's right to hold the
Olympics and of its record on human rights.
China is set to
surpass the United States as the world's top
emitter of carbon dioxide, but says it will not
agree to fixed caps on its emissions and that the
burden in fighting climate change should fall on
rich countries.
''Climate change
is mainly attributable to the long-term emissions
by developed countries in the past and their
current high per capita emissions,'' Yang told a
news conference at China's annual session of
parliament.
''It's like there
is one person who eats three slices of bread for
breakfast, and there are three of them who eat
only one slice. Who should be on a diet?''
Yang reiterated
China's support of a hard-won agreement in Bali
late last year to launch negotiations on a new
pact to fight global warming, but warned that in
the coming period, its emissions would
''inevitably increase'' as it grows wealthier.
He also said
''transfer emissions'' -- the environmental costs
of products produced in one country and then
exported to another -- should be considered in
climate change calculations.
''I hope when
people use high-quality, yet inexpensive Chinese
products, they will also remember that China is
under increasing pressure of transfer
emissions,'' Yang said.
''One should not
look only at the aggregate, but not the per
capita level, at the present, not history, or
only production and not consumption, because this
is not fair to anyone and it is not scientific
either.''
China has been the
subject of pressure to take a larger role
diplomatically to match its weight as the world's
fourth-largest economy, but is also the object of
fears about its growing might and hunger for
natural resources.
Yang repeated that
China sticks to a path of peaceful development
and, wary of the use of sanctions or intervention
internationally, urged negotiation and
communication as the basis for resolving
conflicts.
He defended
China's right to host the Olympics, said the air
would be clean for the Games, and denounced those
groups who called for a boycott.
''For those people
who want to tarnish the image of China, they will
never get their way, because what they are doing
is opposed by people in China and people around
the world,'' he said.
(AGENCIES)
Australia roo
cull prompts international protest
CANBERRA,
Mar 12: A British animal protection group is
using the face of former Beatle Paul McCartney in
an international campaign against a planned cull
of hundreds of kangaroos on an Australian
military base.
As demonstrators
today promised human shields to protect the
animals, McCartney appeared on a website set up
by the British animal welfare group Viva! to
condemn the cull of up to 500 animals using
tranquilliser darts and lethal injection.
''There is an
urgent need for action to protect kangaroos from
a barbaric industry which slaughters them for
meat and leather,'' McCartney said in an undated
message.
''Please do all
you can to help Viva! end this shameful
massacre.''
The eastern grey
kangaroos, which feature on Australia's coat of
arms, are living on a military communications
base in the nation's capital Canberra.
Authorities say
the animals, on death row since May last year,
threaten other local species through overgrazing.
Wildlife
Protection Association spokesman Pat O'Brien said
the cull of animals synonymous with Australia
could damage tourism and promised human shields
to protect them, with barricades and
demonstrations to be set up tomorrow.
''I'm sure there
will be people standing in front of the dart
guns,'' O'Brien told Australian radio.
Viva!, or
Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, said
it had launched a Europe-wide campaign against
the cull and by Wednesday had gathered more than
1,300 protest signatures from 36 countries on an
Australian-based web page.
The petition,
which had photographs of kangaroos in rifle
crosshairs, included supporters from Spain,
England, the United States, Switzerland, France,
Canada, South Africa and Germany.
In 2004 there was
an international outcry over the shooting of 900
kangaroos at a dam supplying water to Canberra.
The animals were causing erosion problems through
grazing.
Environment
Minister Peter Garrett, a former head of
Australia's conservation movement, said he would
not intervene.
''Programmes like
this, humanely and properly administered, are
sometimes necessary,'' he told reporters.
The cull, Garrett
said, would not damage Australia's anti-whaling
campaign, which has angered Japan amid
international efforts to close a loophole
permitting scientific whaling.
But Australian
Greens Senator Bob Brown said it would bring
''further notoriety'' for Australia's treatment
of wildlife.
''(Prime Minister)
Kevin Rudd could begin by saving those kangaroos
and making sure they are transported to a safe
haven ... Rather than be given a deadly injection
and left as a heap on the ground,'' he said.
(AGENCIES)
Snakes win in
creepy-crawly arms race: Study
WASHINGTON,
Mar 12: Garter snakes have won out in a
toxic arms race with their favored prey -- newts
--researchers said in study that challenges
conventional thinking on evolution.
They said their
report helps demonstrate how evolution can move
very quickly, and said it could also shed light
on human disease, itself a kind of toxic arms
race.
''These kinds of
arms races are one of the models that we use for
understanding host-parasite evolution and even
viral disease evolution,'' Charles Hanifin of
Utah State University, who led the study, said in
a telephone interview yesterday.
His team studied
rough-skinned newts, a type of salamander, found
on the west coast of the United States and
Canada. They are among the most poisonous known
animals, carrying a lethal load of paralyzing
tetrodotoxin, known as TTX for short.
''Because they
have this toxin, nothing else eats them,''
Hanifin said.
Just a little bit
of TTX can kill thousands of mice, but certain
garter snakes are immune and gobble the newts
with no apparent ill consequences. But not all of
them.
''Both toxicity of
newts and resistance of snakes vary
geographically. Where newts are absent or
nontoxic, T. Sirtalis (garter snakes) are not
resistant to TTX,'' Hanifin's team wrote in their
report, published in the Public Library of
Science journal PLoS Biology.
YOUR DINNER OR
YOUR LIFE
The usual thinking
in evolution is driven by the so-called
''Life-Dinner'' principle. The idea is that prey
animals get a little faster, or in this case a
little more poisonous, to stay one step ahead of
their predators.
''In these kinds
of situations you would expect the prey to evolve
more quickly and strongly than the predator,''
Hanifin said. This is because the prey stands to
lose more.
''If the prey
loses that interaction, the prey is dead. But if
the lion doesn't catch the antelope, then the
lion is not dead but has suffered the loss of a
dinner,'' Hanifin said.
''That obviously
is the complete opposite of what we see here.''
Hanifin's team
found in 10 different places that garter snakes
had evolved immunity to TTX, but the newts never
got poisonous enough to escape the snakes.
This immunity to
TTX boiled down to a small change in a single
gene in the snakes, Hanifin said.
In places where
the newts were not poisonous, the snakes did not
have the genetic change -- showing that it did
evolve in response to the poisonous varieties of
newt. There were no places where the newts were
toxic enough to escape the snakes.
The discovery
shows evolution can make sudden leaps. ''Boom --
all of a sudden there is no arms race any more,''
Hanifin said.
It could explain
other cases of extreme evolution -- such as
hummingbirds that have grown long beaks to reach
deep into flowers for nectar, Hanifin said.
And it would
explain quick cases of evolution -- such as the
emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among
people. (AGENCIES)
If both parents
have Alzheimer's, your risk soars
WASHINGTON,
Mar 12: If both your parents have
Alzheimer's disease, you probably are more much
likely than other people to get it, researchers
said yesterday.
Their study
focused on 111 families in which both parents
were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the most
common form of dementia among the elderly, and
assessed the risk for developing it among the
offspring.
The parents had
297 children who lived into adulthood. Of the 98
men and women who were at least 70 years old, 41
of them -- about 42 percent -- developed
Alzheimer's disease, researchers at the
University of Washington in Seattle found.
''That's greater
than you would expect in the general population
in that age group,'' Dr Thomas Bird, one of the
researchers, said in a telephone interview
yesterday.
In the general
population, risk for the disease begins to rise
at about age 65, with the number of people
developing the disease doubling every five years
beyond that, experts say.
But about
two-thirds of the adult offspring in the study
still had not reached age 70. Counting all 297 of
these adult offspring regardless of age, 23 per
cent already had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease, with the disease diagnosed on average at
age 66, the researchers found.
Bird said that
compares to the roughly one in 10 chance that the
average person will develop the disease.
''I think it
confirms that there's a strong genetic component
in the disease and that's not a surprise,'' said
Bird, whose study was published in the Archives
of Neurology.
Scientists do not
yet fully understand the causes of Alzheimer's
disease, although genetics plays an important
role. There is no cure.
Bird said there is
only one gene, known as ApoE, that is generally
agreed among researchers as a risk factor for the
disease but there likely are many more.
The ApoE gene is
involved in making a substance in the body that
helps carry cholesterol in the bloodstream and
the gene seems to influence the age of onset of
Alzheimer's.
The researchers
have been doing the study for about two decades
and intend to continue for at least another
decade.
''The numbers will
be interesting to follow as they get older and
older,'' Bird said.
Bird said the
study is not examining the Alzheimer's risk for
people who have one but not two parents who
develop the disease.
In order to
confirm that both parents actually had
Alzheimer's, the researchers reviewed the medical
records and in many cases the brain autopsies of
those who had died, and tried to meet in person
to assess those who still living.
In people with
Alzheimer's disease, healthy brain tissue
degenerates, causing an inexorable decline in
memory and mental abilities. The average length
of time from diagnosis to death is about eight
years.
(AGENCIES)
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