ADEN (Reuters) ? Thousands of Yemenis began a 50 km (31 mile) march on Saturday to demand an end to a conflict which has forced nearly 100,000 people to flee southern Yemen, residents said, a day after seven militants were killed in fighting there with the army.
Up to 20,000 activists set out from the port city of Aden towards Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province where the army has been battling Islamist militants suspected of having links with al Qaeda, residents said.
The marchers called on both sides to lay down their arms and demanded the government open the Aden-Zinjibar coastal highway, a key trade route which has remained closed during the conflict.
The militants and the Yemen-based regional wing of al Qaeda -- seen by the United States as the group's most dangerous branch -- have thrived during the instability caused by nearly a year of protests against the 33-year rule of outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, which shares U.S. concerns over more instability in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes, has backed a Gulf Arab plan to ease Saleh out of power.
Since Saleh handed over the reins to his deputy under the Gulf peace accord, a new government headed by an opposition leader has been formed. A presidential election is scheduled for February.
But the fighting against the Islamist militants in the south has continued, forcing about 97,000 people to flee. More than 300,000 others have been displaced by a conflict in the north and nearly 200,000 have sought refuge from Somalia, according to U.N. estimates.
FUEL LIFELINE
Separately, Yemen's oil minister said a grant of diesel from neighboring Saudi Arabia would be enough to cover the country's needs for two months, easing some fears about the strife-hit economy.
Industry sources said on Thursday Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco was seeking to buy fuel in order to donate about 500,000 tonnes of products to Yemen in January.
"Yemen's diesel consumption is 260,000 tonnes monthly, worth $280 million ... The Saudi grant will cover Yemen's diesel needs for two months," Oil Minister Hisham Sharaf told Reuters.
It would be the second time in six months Saudi Arabia has thrown a fuel lifeline to its impoverished neighbor, which Saudi officials fear could slip into civil war after a year of protests against outgoing President Saleh.
Sharaf also told Reuters production at the Masila oilfield - now under Yemeni administration after Canada's Nexen had one of its production contracts expire without renewal - was 70,000 barrels per day.
Yemen relied on 3 million barrels of Saudi-donated crude oil to run its refinery in June, when its main pipeline was shut after blasts, causing a fuel shortage.
The pipeline, which was repaired during the summer, was shut again after attacks in October. The lack of crude flow in the pipeline has also forced the Aden refinery, where production mainly meets domestic fuel demand, to halt operations.
(Reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf; Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Khaled Abdullah in Sanaa; Writing by Firouz Sedarat and Joseph Logan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
It seems that as we head into every new year we want to find someone, or something, to blame for all the bad crap that has happened over the last year. After all it can never be us doing anything wrong, right?
Well, New Years Eve is just around the corner and as everyone gets primed up for the hottest party night of the year word has gone out ? fine out who is to blame for everything that went wrong during 2011 and do it quickly.
Thanks to the folks at CableTV.com (not that they aren?t up for some of the blame of course) have managed to slice and dice all the bad stuff and come up with a culprit to blame it all on.
Yes folks, it is Twitter?s fault.
Yup. Twitter.
See, the infographic says so. No shooting this messenger.
Italian Premier Mario Monti speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. Italy saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running on Thursday but the country's new premier said his government had a lot more to do to convince nervous financial markets that it had a plan to deal with its debt mountain. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Italian Premier Mario Monti speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. Italy saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running on Thursday but the country's new premier said his government had a lot more to do to convince nervous financial markets that it had a plan to deal with its debt mountain. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Italian Premier Mario Monti speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. Italy saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running on Thursday but the country's new premier said his government had a lot more to do to convince nervous financial markets that it had a plan to deal with its debt mountain. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Italian Premier Mario Monti shows a graphic as he speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. In another sign that concerns over a default by Italy have eased over the past month, the country saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running as it raised around euro 7 billion ($9.2 billion) in a range of auctions Thursday. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Italian Premier Mario Monti speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. Italy saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running on Thursday but the country's new premier said his government had a lot more to do to convince nervous financial markets that it had a plan to deal with its debt mountain. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
Italian Premier Mario Monti speaks during a news conference in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011. Italy saw its borrowing rates fall for the second day running on Thursday but the country's new premier said his government had a lot more to do to convince nervous financial markets that it had a plan to deal with its debt mountain. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
ROME (AP) ? Italy's borrowing costs fell for a second day Thursday but the country's new premier said his government has more to do before it convinces financial markets it can manage the heavy debts that have made it the focus of the eurozone crisis.
Mario Monti said he was encouraged by bond auctions at which interest costs demanded by bond investors eased. He said his government of technocrats, in office for just a month and a half following the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, was preparing a package of measures to get the Italian economy moving again, including efforts to boost competition and liberalize the labor market.
"We absolutely don't consider the market turbulence to be over," he said at a news conference after the Italian treasury tapped investors for around euro7 billion ($9.2 billion).
The most keenly awaited result from Thursday's batch of auctions was the euro2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) sale of ten-year bonds at an average yield of 6.98 percent.
That's lower than the record 7.56 percent it had to pay at an equivalent auction last month, when investor concerns over the ability of the country to service its massive debts became particularly acute.
However, the country's borrowing rate on the key 10-year bond remains uncomfortably close to the 7 percent level widely considered to be unsustainable in the long run. Greece, Ireland and Portugal all had to request financial bailouts after their 10-year bond yields pushed above 7 percent. In the secondary markets, Italy's yield continues to hover around the 7 percent mark.
The 17 countries that use the euro are struggling with a crisis over heavy levels of government debt in several countries. Fears of default on those debts mean that bond investors demand ever higher interest. If a country can no longer borrow affordably to pay off bonds that are maturing, it winds up needing a bailout or defaulting.
Markets had grown fearful over the past few months over Italy's massive debt burden of euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion). Next year alone, the eurozone's third largest economy has some euro330 billion ($431 bill.
That means Italy has far to go before it convinces markets it will avoid a disastrous default that could cause another banking crisis and sink the European and global economies.
Italy also sold euro2.54 billion ($3.3 billion) of 3 year bonds at an average interest rate of 5.62 percent, far lower than the 7.89 percent rate it had to pay last month. It also raised euro803 million ($1.05 billion) in the 7-year auction at a rate of 7.42 percent and euro1.18 billion ($1.54 billion) in nine-year bonds at a yield of 6.7 percent.
Thursday's results come a day after Italy raised euro10.7 billion ($14 billion) in a pair of auctions, again at sharply lower rates than those it was forced to pay just a month ago.
The sharp decline in Italy's borrowing costs over the past couple of days suggests that commercial banks from the 17 countries that use the euro may have diverted some money they tapped from emergency loans from the European Central Bank last week to buy the bonds of heavily indebted governments.
It may also suggest rising investor confidence in Italy's recent efforts to reduce its long-term debt through tax increases, pension changes and spending cuts.
Monti's technocratic government got parliamentary approval last week for more spending cuts and tax increases intended to save the country from financial disaster. One of the most controversial aspects of the austerity package is reform of Italy's bloated pension system.
Economists say the long term problem is the country's weak growth, since stronger growth both increases tax revenues and shrinks the size of debt relative to the economy. European Central Bank head Mario Draghi has said Italy must undertake deeper economic reforms to improve its economic performance.
___
AP Business Writer David McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany.
Twitter / Cesar Diaz: Project GOAL Teams With Sp ...Project GOAL Teams With SportsCorps/Sport and Development Project at Brown University: Il y a environ 6 heuresvia web
A former Bucky Badger is jumping into the Rose Bowl festivities, looking to put a new spin on an old tradition. House of Pain's "Jump Around" always brings down the house at Camp Randall, and this fan is hoping to organize that same energy in Pasadena, and even attempt to set a Guinness World Record!
Badger alumnus Derek Hildebrandt now lives in Los Angeles, but nobody's questioning his team spirit. "I was Bucky from 1991 to 1993. It was an amazing college experience to do that," Hildebrandt said.
Hildebrandt has been to all four Rose Bowls in the last two decades, including a year ago against TCU. With him are thousands of Badger faithful, traveling to Pasadena, bringing along a taste of Madison tradition. "I remember seeing the silent 'Jump Around,' and thinking it was pretty awesome, but wish they'd play the music," Hildebrandt said.
This week, Hildebrandt opened "Operation Jump Around." He's hoping fans will play the song on their phones, to feel and hear the song this year. "As soon as the clock hits zero at the end of the third quarter, hit play, and turn your volume up high, and jump around," Hildebrandt said.
Hildebrandt says he's even submitting the event for a Guinness World Record - for most people to play a song concurrently on a mobile device.
This year, three astronomers were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering a bizarre aspect of our universe that gave rise to the concept of dark energy.
In 1998, two teams independently discovered that the expansion of the universe was not slowing down or holding steady, as expected, but speeding up. One team was led by Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia and Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and the other was led by Saul Perlmutter of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
To explain this perplexing finding, astronomers conceived an entity called dark energy that's essentially counteracting the force of gravity to pull the universe apart.
SPACE.com spoke to Schmidt after his Nobel win to find out more about the weirdness of our universe, and what it feels like to win the world's most famous science award.
How did you find out you'd won the Nobel Prize?
Well you get a call, in my case, 15 minutes before the announcement. So at 8:30 on Tuesday night here in Australia, I received a call from a woman with an impeccable Swedish accent.
I have graduate students who like to play jokes on me, so I was thinking, wow, they did a pretty good job on this one. But they told me it was a very important phone call and they wanted to make sure it really was Brian Schmidt they were talking to, and then members of the committee come on and read their announcement, and congratulate you.
In my case, I'm a wine-maker, and they asked me about my 2011 vintage of wine, and then they asked me whether or not I'd be willing to go live at their announcement in seven or eight minutes to tell the world what I'd done.
How did you feel?
Well, I kind of went weak in the knees. And I got a little queasy, 'cause it's just so intense, it's so amazing. You're excited, but you're kind of scared at the same time.
How do you think the Nobel Prize will change your work? Will it bring more opportunities?
It certainly does that.
From my perspective, if you're in a country like Australia or the United States, it brings a huge responsibility to ensure that people understand why science is important to society. And Nobel Prizes are just such an amazing opportunity to highlight everything that science brings to our civilization, and how it's taken us to a level of prosperity that I think we all take for granted.
When you began this project back in 90s, did you ever think it might lead to a Nobel prize?
No. We wanted to do a big project, we wanted to measure the ultimate fate of the universe. [Images: Peering Back to the Big Bang]
Although that as a big project, it wasn't one that was going to win a Nobel Prize, no matter what we measured. But it was an important thing to measure, at least from an astronomy point of view, the future of the universe. Was it going to expand forever, or was it going to eventually halt in its expansion?
So, a fundamental question about the universe, but I have to admit the idea of winning a Nobel Prize about it just wasn't on the radar.
When you saw the first indications that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, how long did it take for you to believe your results?
Adam Riess sent me a preliminary preview at the end of 1997, and when I saw it I just assumed we made a mistake and it would go away.
So you know, after six weeks of plotting around, it was pretty clear that the result was not going to go away, and it just sort of slowly sunk in over a period of a couple of months. At some point it kind of sinks in and you're like, 'Oh, geeze. What are we going to do now? No one's going to believe this!' [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]
Was it gratifying that the other team led by Saul Perlmutter found the same thing?
I was surprised because one of the reasons I was so worried back in the end of 1997 was because preliminary results from the Supernova Cosmology Project were saying not that the universe was speeding up, but rather that the universe was slowing down and slowing down quickly.
And so it's one thing to have a crazy result, and it's another thing to completely disagree with the other team doing a very similar experiment. So yeah, it was a little reassuring to see that we were getting the same thing once we found out about each other's results.
Do you think dark energy is the explanation behind this acceleration?
It's definitely hard. We are guessing that the universe is filled with energy, that's our best guess.
We're getting the Nobel Prize, not for dark energy ? we're getting it for seeing the accelerated expansion of the universe. And so while I don?t think we're absolutely sure it's dark energy, I think that's the best explanation. But it could well be something even more exotic.
How do you think the universe will end?
The fate of the universe looks pretty bleak.
The universe is going to expand faster and faster over time and the reality that we see now will eventually fade away from view. It will be so far away that we won't be able to see its light anymore.
And so, while our own galaxy and a couple of other nearby galaxies will sort of merge together to form some super-galaxy, all the stars will eventually die because they run out of nuclear fuel, so we'll have a bunch of burned out embers surrounded by a sea of nothingness.
Do you find that depressing?
It's certainly sobering. It's certainly not the way I would have chosen for the universe to end. But, you know, the universe does what it wants, and I'm just here to figure out what it's doing. I can't judge it.
What inspired you to become an astronomer?
My father was a biologist. My parents had me when they were very young, so I remember my dad starting a PhD., and I remember my dad finishing a PhD. I remember having science around me from a very young age. I always wanted to be a scientist.
I became interested in astronomy when Comet West came by in 1975. That comet made me realize that the sky was interesting to look at. My dad bought me a very inexpensive telescope that I could look through.
You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz.?Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom?and on Facebook.
?They are so fashionable. They are designed ? to appear to be unauthored, as if they were created by a computer,? she explains. But in fact they are created by individuals to prove particular points. ?My maps are the opposite of that. This is personal; this is my opinion,? she says. And looking at her South America, with its sexy colors, hand-painted lettering, and absurdly misplaced islands, there?s no trendy illusion of objectivity.
When you've got a campus with 70,000 students and staff on it, all requiring some form of integrated cloud service, be it for email, scheduling, documents, or what have you, the decision-making process over which service to use is not a trivial one. Fortunately, UC Berkeley considered it not only necessary, but a duty to the public to not just consider the options carefully but to explain those considerations. They've put up a nice detailed comparison of Google and Microsoft's offerings (Apps and Office 365) as they relate to University business. Anyone or any institution thinking of doing a similar deployment may find it interesting reading.
WhatIfSports.com utilizes its NFL simulation engine to present the most comprehensive and unbiased ranking of all 32 teams. We simulated thousands of NFL games and used the winning percentages from those games to evaluate every team. All 32 teams are ranked below with their average points for and against from the simulated games. All rosters and depth charts are up-to-date as of Tuesday of each week.
Teams Ranked by Winning Percentage
(everyone plays everyone 100 times)
?
Team
Change
Win Pct
PS/G
PA/G
1.
San Francisco 49ers
+3
69.5
23.5
16.8
2.
New England Patriots
+3
68.9
28.0
21.2
3.
Green Bay Packers
-
68.4
25.7
19.1
4.
Pittsburgh Steelers
-3
68.2
25.5
18.8
5.
Baltimore Ravens
-3
67.7
23.3
17.1
6.
New Orleans Saints
+1
64.7
28.1
23.0
7.
New York Jets
-1
64.2
24.7
19.3
8.
Dallas Cowboys
-
60.8
24.9
21.0
9.
Atlanta Falcons
+3
57.5
23.5
20.8
10.
Houston Texans
-1
56.8
21.5
19.3
11.
Detroit Lions
-
56.3
23.4
21.3
12.
New York Giants
-2
55.2
23.9
22.0
13.
Oakland Raiders
-
52.5
21.8
20.8
14.
Philadelphia Eagles
-
51.6
23.2
22.4
15.
San Diego Chargers
+1
51.2
24.0
23.2
16.
Miami Dolphins
-1
49.5
21.3
21.5
?
Team
Change
Win Pct
PS/G
PA/G
17.
Kansas City Chiefs
+3
49.3
21.9
22.2
18.
Cincinnati Bengals
-1
49.1
20.6
21.0
19.
Carolina Panthers
-1
46.6
23.1
24.3
20.
Arizona Cardinals
-1
45.8
20.9
22.5
21.
Minnesota Vikings
+1
42.1
19.8
22.8
22.
Denver Broncos
-1
41.8
17.7
20.3
23.
Tennessee Titans
+1
41.7
21.4
23.8
24.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
-1
41.1
22.1
25.4
25.
Buffalo Bills
+1
40.7
21.0
24.5
26.
Washington Redskins
+4
39.1
19.0
22.9
27.
Chicago Bears
-2
37.9
18.4
22.5
28.
Seattle Seahawks
-1
37.6
16.7
20.9
29.
Cleveland Browns
-
36.6
18.7
23.6
30.
Jacksonville Jaguars
+1
32.4
16.1
22.2
31.
St. Louis Rams
-3
27.1
16.9
25.3
32.
Indianapolis Colts
-
25.2
17.6
26.9
Jake Westrich is the Digital Content Coordinator for WhatIfSports.com. He can be reached at jwestrich@whatifsports.com.
Twitter / Steven Raichlen: #Raichlen's top 100: #90 i ...'s top 100: #90 ikura-salmon roe-aka. affordable caviar--we're eating it w my wife's brioche toast points--or on sushi, as in JapanIl y a environ 4 heuresvia TweetDeck
BWH researchers develop a vaccine prototype stronger than traditional vaccinesPublic release date: 28-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Marjorie Montemayor-Quellenberg mmontemayor-quellenberg@partners.org 617-534-2208 Brigham and Women's Hospital
BOSTON, MABrigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) researchers have created a vaccine that is more potent than traditional vaccines available today. The glycoconjugate vaccine prototype is 100 times more effective than traditional glycoconjugate vaccines. Their work is published in the December 2011 issue of Nature Medicine.
A glycoconjugate vaccine is comprised of covalently bound carbohydrate and protein molecules, and is the standard design for many vaccines used to protect against common diseases such as
pneumonia and meningitis.
Researchers designed the vaccine prototype after discovering that immune cells, called T-cells, can recognize a vaccine's carbohydrates, and from that recognition elicit an immune response. This discovery challenges popular assumptions that immune cells only recognize the protein portion of glycoconjugate vaccines.
Proof that T-cells recognize carbohydrates came when researchers immunized mice with different types of glycoconjugate vaccines against the bacteria, group B Streptococcus. One group was immunized with vaccines containing different proteins. Another group was immunized with vaccines with the same proteins. For both groups, the carbohydrate chain in the vaccines was the same.
Researchers saw that mice given the vaccines with different proteins had just as good an immune response as those given vaccines with the same proteinsthe variability in proteins did not change immune response. This told researchers that T-cells were recognizing carbohydrates to generate a consistent immune response. They further investigated the mechanisms responsible for how carbohydrate-containing glycoconjugate vaccines activate protective immunity to a bacterial infection.
"One thing that is tremendously novel here is that we were able to find T-cells within a mouse after immunization with a glycoconjugate [vaccine] that just recognized carbohydrates," said Dennis L. Kasper, MD, director of BWH's Channing Laboratory. "So these may be the first true carbohydrate-specific T-cells found."
The understanding that it was not only proteins, but also carbohydrates that were being recognized by cells led researchers to design a vaccine that yielded many carbohydrate particles when processed by the immune systemin turn creating a vaccine that generated a stronger immune response. Researchers believe that the more effective vaccine prototype they designed may one day assist in protecting high-risk populations susceptible of disease.
"For example, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines are good in children, but are not effective in protecting the elderly," explained Kasper. So we are hopeful that by designing vaccines like this, you'll make better vaccines that will be effective in all the at-risk populations."
Fikri Avci, PhD, lead study author and instructor in the Department of Medicine at BWH and Harvard Medical School adds that the findings on how the body's immune cells interact with carbohydrates will also lead to more effective vaccines in the future.
"Carbohydrates are among the most abundant and structurally diverse molecules in nature," said Avci. "They are extremely important in many biological functions. A better understanding of carbohydrate interaction is crucial. We are hoping that our findings will provide a framework for production of new-generation therapeutics and preventive medicines not only against bacterial infections, but also for cancer and viral diseases."
###
The research was supported by grants from the United States National Institutes of Health.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is the home of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), www.brighamandwomens.org/research, BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 900 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $537 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
BWH researchers develop a vaccine prototype stronger than traditional vaccinesPublic release date: 28-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Marjorie Montemayor-Quellenberg mmontemayor-quellenberg@partners.org 617-534-2208 Brigham and Women's Hospital
BOSTON, MABrigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) researchers have created a vaccine that is more potent than traditional vaccines available today. The glycoconjugate vaccine prototype is 100 times more effective than traditional glycoconjugate vaccines. Their work is published in the December 2011 issue of Nature Medicine.
A glycoconjugate vaccine is comprised of covalently bound carbohydrate and protein molecules, and is the standard design for many vaccines used to protect against common diseases such as
pneumonia and meningitis.
Researchers designed the vaccine prototype after discovering that immune cells, called T-cells, can recognize a vaccine's carbohydrates, and from that recognition elicit an immune response. This discovery challenges popular assumptions that immune cells only recognize the protein portion of glycoconjugate vaccines.
Proof that T-cells recognize carbohydrates came when researchers immunized mice with different types of glycoconjugate vaccines against the bacteria, group B Streptococcus. One group was immunized with vaccines containing different proteins. Another group was immunized with vaccines with the same proteins. For both groups, the carbohydrate chain in the vaccines was the same.
Researchers saw that mice given the vaccines with different proteins had just as good an immune response as those given vaccines with the same proteinsthe variability in proteins did not change immune response. This told researchers that T-cells were recognizing carbohydrates to generate a consistent immune response. They further investigated the mechanisms responsible for how carbohydrate-containing glycoconjugate vaccines activate protective immunity to a bacterial infection.
"One thing that is tremendously novel here is that we were able to find T-cells within a mouse after immunization with a glycoconjugate [vaccine] that just recognized carbohydrates," said Dennis L. Kasper, MD, director of BWH's Channing Laboratory. "So these may be the first true carbohydrate-specific T-cells found."
The understanding that it was not only proteins, but also carbohydrates that were being recognized by cells led researchers to design a vaccine that yielded many carbohydrate particles when processed by the immune systemin turn creating a vaccine that generated a stronger immune response. Researchers believe that the more effective vaccine prototype they designed may one day assist in protecting high-risk populations susceptible of disease.
"For example, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines are good in children, but are not effective in protecting the elderly," explained Kasper. So we are hopeful that by designing vaccines like this, you'll make better vaccines that will be effective in all the at-risk populations."
Fikri Avci, PhD, lead study author and instructor in the Department of Medicine at BWH and Harvard Medical School adds that the findings on how the body's immune cells interact with carbohydrates will also lead to more effective vaccines in the future.
"Carbohydrates are among the most abundant and structurally diverse molecules in nature," said Avci. "They are extremely important in many biological functions. A better understanding of carbohydrate interaction is crucial. We are hoping that our findings will provide a framework for production of new-generation therapeutics and preventive medicines not only against bacterial infections, but also for cancer and viral diseases."
###
The research was supported by grants from the United States National Institutes of Health.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is the home of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), www.brighamandwomens.org/research, BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 900 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $537 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TEHRAN?? Iran denied reports of a blast heard near a key nuclear facility on Tuesday, as new satellite pictures emerged of damage from an earlier explosion that left 17 dead at another location.
"In the afternoon, there was a noise like an explosion," provincial judiciary head Gholamreza Ansari was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency on Monday.
Mohammad-Mahdi Ismaili, Isfahan's deputy governor in political and security affairs, called the reports "sheer lies" on Tuesday, according the Jerusalem Post quoting the IRNA news agency.
An official from the city's fire department also denied that there had been an explosion, the newspaper said.
An important Iranian nuclear facility involved in processing uranium is located near Isfahan city, although Iranian media reports of the incident did not refer to it.
Story: Iranian protesters break into British Embassy in Tehran
A report on the explosion was published on the website of the Iranian news agency Fars on Monday, including a picture showing a thick column of black smoke, but it was removed after the incident was reported in Israel, according to Israeli website Haaretz.
Haaretz reported that Ismaili initially confirmed the blast and said the authorities were investigating the matter before later issuing denials.
Analysts speculated that this or other recent blasts could be the result of sabotage by other countries.
?While it?s impossible to confirm, recent events in Iran raise suspicions,? Gala Riani, a Middle East analyst at London-based forecaster IHS Global Insight told Bloomberg.
She told Bloomberg it was possible that ?foreign powers would want to carry out clandestine activity to sabotage Iran?s nuclear and military progress."
International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the U.N. watchdog was aware of the media reports but had no further information.
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On November 12, a massive explosion at the Bid Kaneh military base 28 miles west of Tehran killed 17 Revolutionary Guards, including the head of the elite force's missile program.
Iran said that explosion, which could be heard as far away as the capital, was caused by an accident while weapons were being moved.
The Washington D.C.-based think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, on Monday published an analysis of commercial satellite imagery of the base.
It said images taken before and after the blast showed most of the buildings on the compound appeared to be extensively damaged while some appeared to have been completely destroyed.
?Some of the destruction seen in the image may have also resulted from subsequent controlled demolition of buildings and removal of debris,? it said.
It said the blast occurred as Iran ?achieved a major milestone in the development of a new missile.?
?Iran was apparently performing a volatile procedure involving a missile engine at the site when the blast occurred,? it said.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? A suicide bomber attacked a military base in the Iraqi town of Taji on Monday, killing at least 19 people, in the latest assault by insurgents trying to undermine the government.
In central Baghdad an explosion in a car park at Iraq's parliament killed at least one person and wounded several others, including a politician, security officials said.
The Taji bombing was the third major attack in the last five days and underscored the fragile state of security as Washington prepares to pull out its remaining 14,500 troops by the end of the year, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
The attacker detonated explosives packed into a minibus at the entrance to the base, which houses a jail holding prisoners from al Qaeda, the Mehdi Army militia and other groups, officials and security sources said. Taji is 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.
"Today was the day for the prisoners to meet their families ... At the entrance, there was a minibus driven by a suicide bomber," said a duty officer at the jail. "It entered from the first checkpoint and before the police finished their search this guy drove quickly inside the base and blew it up."
Baghdad's security operations center said the blast killed 19 people, including 11 jail guards, and wounded 24 others.
Two other people were missing, security sources said.
Violence has dropped sharply since the peak of sectarian slaughter in 2006-07. But Iraqi security forces still struggle to contain daily attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents tied to al Qaeda and rival Shi'ite Muslim militias.
Militants launch scores of bombings and other attacks every month. According to official government figures, 161 civilians were killed in violence in October, the highest toll of the year, along with 97 police and soldiers.
Iraqi and U.S. military officials have said Iraq may see an increase in attacks as American troops depart. Soldiers and police are frequent targets.
The explosion in the parking lot of the Iraqi parliament was caused by a mortar round, said Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi and several other sources. However, at least two sources at parliament said it was a car bomb.
Militants frequently lob mortars and rockets at Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses parliament, ministries and foreign embassies.
Two security sources said the blast killed one person and wounded six others. Two other police sources said three people died and nine were wounded.
Among those hurt was lawmaker Muayad al-Tayyeb, the spokesman for the Kurdish bloc in parliament, one of his colleagues said.
On Saturday attackers struck two areas around the Iraqi capital, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 20 others. In the southern oil hub of Basra on Thursday three bombs exploded in a busy market, killing 21 and wounding 80.
The town of Taji, the site of a major Iraqi military base, was hit by bombers in July, when two blasts in the parking lot of a municipal government building killed at least 28 people and wounded scores of others.
On November 14, seven rockets landed in or near the U.S. military's Kalsu base near Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, wounding two Iraqi civilians living near the base, local police said.
I?ve always been a big fan of Frontier Communications (NYSE:FTR). It?s a quiet little independent telecom company that handles regional services in just a few states like Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Minnesota and New York. It?s the classic under-the-radar play that has done very well for investors over several years ? the kind of play you have to find in a specialized screen and one that also must execute its business well.
Things have gotten tough for the company, though. In its?recent third-quarter?report, the company told of a 30% decline in net income, and an 8% decline in revenue, led by a 12% drop in local and long-distance service revenues. Talk about a hang up! So what?s going on with Frontier and, more importantly, will its 13.7% yield remain intact?
The problem is that, like most other phone companies, Frontier is losing subscribers to cell phone service as folks cut their landlines. Residential customer count fell by 2.3% over the sequential quarter and 10% over the previous year. Business customers fell by almost the same rates. When you lose subscribers like that, you can expect to see revenue and net income get slammed as they did.
What?s hidden in these numbers is that the company bought almost 5 million landline customers from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) several quarters back and, as you might expect, that temporarily boosted revenue and earnings. Now, however, it?s comparison time and the chickens have come home to roost on those telephone wires, so to speak. The company has started new initiatives such as expanding Internet service and satellite TV services by partnering with the big players in that arena.
Still, the problem facing Frontier is that landlines are?going the way of the dodo bird. They won?t disappear entirely, but the company may continue losing customers until this trend abates. We?ve already seen Frontier cut its dividend ? it did so last year when it chopped it from a buck per share to 75 cents. The company?had to do it because?it had some big capital expenditures coming down the pike after buying those Verizon lines. Is there another cut in the company?s future?
I like to look at free cash flow to determine if a company is using too much of its assets to pay shareholders. So far this fiscal year, the company has had FCF of $1.21 billion and has paid out dividends of $560 million. That?s about a 2-1 ratio, so about 50% of free cash flow is going to dividends. That?s a perfectly acceptable ratio.
If Frontier continues to lose customers in large numbers, this dividend could be cut. However, if that happens, I don?t suspect it would be more than 50%, which means it would still pay a healthy dividend of almost 7%. Investors looking for rock-solid safety may want to avoid buying?now since the future is uncertain. Holders of the stock or those watching the company and trying to decide may want to think about holding for the next?two or?three quarters to see what develops.
Lawrence Meyers holds no positions in any stocks mentioned.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh failed to break an impasse on Tuesday, with opposition parties and his own political allies demanding a rollback of a reform allowing foreign supermarket giants to enter the country's $450 billion market.
The deadlock means Singh's Congress party-led coalition faces further opposition disruption of parliament -- which has been adjourned for six days already -- threatening other major bills, such as one on food subsidies for the poor.
The reform, which would allow global chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Carrefour to own up to 51 percent of retail ventures, remains in limbo as talks between the government and political parties failed to make any breakthrough.
With a slender parliamentary majority, the government is dependent on its allies, but does not face any immediate threat of losing power.
Singh has several options.
He could reverse his cabinet's decision -- an unlikely move given it would be a major political set-back and damage India's image with sorely needed foreign investors just as Asia's third-largest economy is showing signs of slowing.
A more likely move would be to postpone the reform. The Hindu newspaper, quoting unnamed government sources, said the prime minister could refer the reform to a group of ministers, a traditional way of Congress kicking problems into the grass.
Or the government could just ignore the opposition and move ahead, risking political uproar.
"We are willing to discuss whatever the opposition wants, but they should allow the House to function," said Rajiv Shukla, junior parliamentary affairs minister.
Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party head who runs the government from behind the scenes, appeared to have been behind a move to water down the new rules and insist that foreign retailers source more goods from small Indian businesses.
That swift reversal showed how Singh's cabinet, many of them in their seventies, could be out of synch with Congress -- the latest sign of how Gandhi and her small team of loyal advisers can put politics first to water down reforms.
But the policy tweak did little to placate opponents.
"The government has implemented the policy of FDI in retail after lobbying of companies in the U.S. and other countries. We are totally against this," Murli Manohar Joshi, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said after the meeting.
A government ally, the Trinamool Congress party, which gives Congress a parliamentary majority, also wants a policy reversal.
INVESTORS WARY
The controversy comes at a bad time for Congress, worried the issue could become a lightning rod for criticism of the government before state elections due next year.
The issue feeds into some deep-seated nationalism of Indian politicians, as well as fears of massive job losses among the millions of small shopkeepers.
Indian shares were subdued on Tuesday as economic concerns came to the fore, and mounting political opposition to reforms unnerved investors.
Kaushik Basu, one of Singh's close advisers, said allowing global chains to open their first stores in India would be one of the most effective ways to help the country deal with food inflation, which stands close to 10 percent.
The economy, which grew at 8.5 percent in 2010/11, is widely expected to grow at around 7 percent this year, slowed by policy paralysis and a gloomy global outlook.
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MIAMI (AP) ? No, the NBA lockout is not over. Not yet, but soon ? once owners and players approve the deal that would have NBA games resume on Christmas Day. Here's a look at some of the most prevalent questions about the state of things in the league right now.
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Q: What happened to get this deal done?
A: As one person involved in the talks told The Associated Press, "sanity prevailed." Neither side was winning. Owners were losing money. Players were losing money. Fans were getting angry. Because Christmas is traditionally the day when the public really start watching NBA games, there was a late push to try and salvage the Dec. 25 schedule.
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Q: So it's done?
A: Well, no. There's still a slew of issues to work through, and then there's the not-so-small matter of having owners and players actually vote on the deal. Though the deal's expected to be approved, it won't be unanimous as there are factions of hard-liners in both camps who will be unhappy with substantive portions of the deal.
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Q: How could union chief Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher "negotiate" with the NBA if the players' union had been disbanded?
A: When players dissolved the union that meant Hunter and Fisher no longer had the power to negotiate and agree to terms for the players. What could happen and what did happen with the NBA, as it did with the NFL this summer, is that lawyers and representatives for both sides can hold discussions under the guise of antitrust settlement talks. Hunter is an attorney. He knew the rules and the risks. Certainly, this could have blown up for the players and risked their antitrust lawsuit in Minnesota.
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Q: What happens to that lawsuit?
A: Barring something crazy, the players will ask that it be dismissed. The league also must dismiss its New York lawsuit about the legality of the lockout.
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Q: When will training camp start?
A: Dec. 9. Free agency is expected to begin then, too, meaning some locker rooms may as well start getting revolving doors installed now.
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Q: And the first games?
A: The league wants three games on Christmas Day, and it's a safe bet the previously scheduled matchups ? Boston at New York, Miami at Dallas in a finals rematch, and Chicago at the Los Angeles Lakers ? will go on as planned. The Dec. 26 schedule and beyond? Get out your erasers. A lot will be changing.
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Q: I don't understand. If there's deal, why is nothing happening for two weeks?
A: Clearly, you're not an attorney. Only the framework of a deal is in place. Now the rules, the language, the nuances, they all must be put to paper by the lawyers who will be charged with actually writing the new collective bargaining agreement. Until that's done, no players can be signed, traded, etc., since there are still no real operating rules by which teams would have to abide.
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Q: How will the schedule work?
A: Still unclear. The easiest way to fill a 66-game schedule would have teams play four games against each divisional opponent (16 games) and two games against every other team in the league (50 games). It would also ensure that every team makes at least one appearance in every league arena, which is what fans would want anyway. A season without Kobe Bryant going to Madison Square Garden? Not happening.
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Q: Will there be preseason games?
A: A person involved with the process tells The AP there will be, but details are still getting hammered out. (A good guess would have teams playing two games, probably against a nearby rival.) It's a strong possibility that those games will have reams of low-priced tickets, a gesture of apologizing to fans for the delay in getting basketball going again.
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Q: What about the players who signed overseas? Can they come home?
A: In most cases, yes. New Jersey guard Deron Williams said on Twitter early Saturday that he would soon be leaving his Turkish club Besiktas. That team will not be thrilled to see him leave ? Williams had a 50-point game a few days ago. Some players who signed deals with Chinese clubs may have to work a bit harder (or, well, pay) to escape those contracts.
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Q: What happens to these scheduled charity games, such as the "Homecoming Tour" featuring LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony, or Mario Chalmers' game in Alaska on Dec. 1?
A: Organizers were working Saturday to salvage at least some of them. Wade said he wanted to use the planned four-game tour he's involved with as a way to play competitive basketball before the season, even though he didn't know at the time when the season will begin. Although most players are in great shape, there's a big difference between that and "game shape." Frankly, a two-week training camp might not be enough time to get them there, either.
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Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds
When you've got a campus with 70,000 students and staff on it, all requiring some form of integrated cloud service, be it for email, scheduling, documents, or what have you, the decision-making process over which service to use is not a trivial one. Fortunately, UC Berkeley considered it not only necessary, but a duty to the public to not just consider the options carefully but to explain those considerations. They've put up 
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Public release date: 28-Nov-2011
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