HEALTH & LİFE

Space dust reveals clues about Earth's early atmosphere

2016-05-15T02:18:00.000-07:00

A closeup view of an ancient micrometeorite extracted from limestone in Western Australia.

Our world is constantly bombarded by space dust, with most of it burning up in our atmosphere.

However, the micrometeorites that made it safely to Earth may contain ancient information about the planet's early history.

Scientists were able to find some of the oldest micrometeorites and examine them to understand our world's environment. What they discovered is that Earth's present-day upper atmosphere has the same amount of oxygen as it did 2.7 billion years ago, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Earth's atmosphere has four layers that protect the planet from harmful radiation. Our modern atmosphere is divided into the troposphere, where we live, then the stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere. Our atmosphere isn't just oxygen, though. Earth's present-day mix has 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and a few other elements mixed in.

The new findings are surprising because they challenge the common theory about the Earth's upper atmosphere.

"Geologists are generally taught that the atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago contained essentially no oxygen gas," Andrew Tomkins, of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of the study, told CNN.

Theories about Earth's ancient atmosphere originally were based off what scientist know about the gases emitted from volcanoes and the way ultraviolet light breaks down certain molecules.

"Scientists have good evidence that the lower atmosphere contained almost no free oxygen back then, but they haven't had a good way of determining the chemistry of the upper atmosphere," Tomkins said.

The findings are the first time anyone has found a way to sample the chemistry of the upper atmosphere from Earth's past, Tomkins said. The new information will give scientists the opportunity to refine their understanding of Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago.

"This helps us understand how microorganisms evolved and modified our atmosphere throughout Earth's history," he said.

Micrometeorites entering our atmosphere today chemically interact with the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Typically, space debris burns up in our atmosphere and becomes the shooting stars we see at night. But some micrometeorites that entered Earth's atmosphere long ago were traveling incredibly fast, causing them to heat up and react to the air.

The reaction stops quickly, much like how meteors are short-lived in the night sky, and this process essentially fossilized some of the chemistry from Earth's upper atmosphere.

The micrometeorites that were examined were made of iron metal, and no bigger than the width of a strand of human hair -- barely visible to the naked eye. They were unearthed in a region of western Australia, known for having some of the oldest rocks in the world.

Micrometeorites can also be found in Antarctica, Greenland and the deep sea floor.

Originally, Tomkins and his team wanted to study how much space dust entered Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago as opposed to today, but once they discovered the oxidized micrometeorites their focus shifted.

The next step for the team is to examine the micrometeorites closely to find out the chemical make up of Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago.

HTC 10 Owners: First Impressions, Initial Reviews Thread

2016-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

So the HTC 10 has been released in certain regions and currently shipping out in others. I thought I'd start a thread for those who own the HTC 10 to post their first impressions.

Previous Phone: Nexus 6P
Purchased: Carbon Grey, 32gb
Location: Australia

So I picked up my HTC 10 today have set it up and been playing with it for on and off during a 12 hour period and thought I'd give my initial impressions:

Build/Hardware: Extremely good. I've had a long history of Android phones from all different manufacturers, but I've always felt that HTC were best in the business when it came to their hardware design and build and the 10 looks and feels excellent. The metal is smooth, the phone feels super solid, has a great heft to it, the chamfered edge on the back surprisingly gives it a bit of extra grip (the texture of the chamfered edge is ever so slightly different from the rest of the phone). The phone is a really nice size and the curved back makes the phone really comfortable in the hand. Coming from the Nexus 6P, the size of this phone is very welcome as it's very easy to reach all parts of the screen without stretching or having to use two hands. The power button had a really accentuated texture to it so you'll never mistakes it for the volume rocker and all buttons are very clicky, which I love.

Display: Excellent. Love the display more than the 6P's display. The whites are far truer whites (Nexus has a slightly blue hue to it) and colours still pop but aren't oversaturated as I find AMOLED displays to be. Add to that the blacks are extremely deep for an LCD display. The screen looks great. I don't know what makes AMOLED supposedly superior. Maybe people like extremely saturated displays, but I don't. I've ways found the colours too intense on the S6, Note 4 and Nexus 6P I own/owned previously. This is a touch more natural while still looking very vibrant and punchy.

Software/Performance: It's essentially stock Google with a few Sense tweaks. If you like stock Android, then you'll like this. HTC have really pulled back on the software and only made enhancements where the phone benefits such as the camera which looks to be quite powerful with a lot of tools. As far as speed is concerned, the phone flies. I haven't had it hang or stutter on anything just yet. You press something, it loads up, simple as that there's no 1+ second wait for the phone app or multitasker app to fire up (which I've had on previous non-Nexus phones) it just flies through the UI. Love it.

Sound: So HTC have been known for a while about its exceptional sound experience and the HTC 10 mostly lives up to its reputation. The twin external speaker setup the 10 has is good, however the HTC One M8 did sound better with the dual front facing speakers. The 10's speaker setup isn't bad, and hearing bass/low freq sounds from the bottom speaker and the vocals/higher pitched sounds from the tweeter is clever, but it's not a 'woah that's awesome' experience. The little woofer on the bottom is cute, but don't expect substantial bass out of it. This is a phone afterall. The headphones however are 'WOW THAT'S AWESOME'. I wasn't really expecting too much with the 'high res' headphones and the new DAC or whatever they're using. I figured the headphones would just be a little louder and that's it, but no, they sound absolutely amazing. The quality is superb for pack-in headphones. It's a shame the US won't be getting them (I believe they won't be anyway).

So the sound from the speakers are good, sound from the headphones are awesome.

Camera: Of the very few images I've taken, I'm really happy with it. The photos are better than the Nexus 6P with images looking well resolved and colours quite nice. Seems like the 10 goes for a very natural and true-to-life representation of the image rather than over sharpening and oversaturating. I'm currently on the 1.21 software, and I know the 1.30 software update has camera tweaks. I'm already very happy with the current camera, it's very good.

Battery: Too early to make any definitive statements about it, but using it normally, the battery doesn't drain too much. However I will say that quick charge 3.0 is the real deal. It charges SO fast. Just a few minutes on the charge will juice it up substantially. USB type C also helps avoid the hassle of needing to put the cord in the right orientation. It might not sound like a big deal, but it is a nice convenience.

So those are my first impressions of the phone. Overall it does extremely well in all aspects. There doesn't seem to be anything that sticks out that looks like a fault or even as a personal gripe. Hardware is good, software looks great and runs great, great camera, great sound etc. Granted this is still in the honeymoon period where everything looks great so I'll have to revisit this thread in a month or so once it has all sunken in and maybe some negatives start to reveal themselves. But as of now, I think the phone is excellent and HTC have done an excellent job this time round.

IBM's Watson aims to make hospital stays suck a whole lot less

2016-05-11T10:12:00.002-07:00

The supercomputer will work on improving the experience for young patients at a major children's hospital in the UK.

It's not the same as a visit from a clown or a star athlete, but the work of a supercomputer could help make kids' stays in the hospital less dreary and frightful.

IBM on Wednesday announced a three-year partnership with Alder Hey Children's Hospital in the UK that will see its Watson supercomputer harnessed to analyze and improve every aspect of patient care.

Watson became one of the world's most famous artificial intelligence systems after winning the game show "Jeopardy" five year ago and fordesigning Karolina Kurkova's dress for the Met Gala last week. IBM has been putting Watson's supercomputing powers to task in health care since 2011, when it started assisting doctors in making clinical decisions. Its newest challenge will be to turn Alder Hey into a "cognitive hospital," delivering insights about the patient experience through a new platform.

Using feedback from parents and patients, Watson will help the hospital identify anxieties and provide on-demand reassurance and a more-personalized service to young patients, as well as reminding parents about follow-up appointments and aftercare. IBM envisions a variety of other potential applications including matching patients to clinical studies, monitoring admission patterns to help with bed planning and helping manage chronic illnesses through educational applications.

An initial version of the platform will be ready for testing in the hospital at year's end.

Alder Hey is also developing an app that will let patients access pre-admission services before they arrive in hospital.

"Helping our patients and their families prepare properly for coming into [the] hospital will really reduce their anxiety and could mean we can get them better and home faster," Iain Hennessey, a pediatric surgeon and director of innovation at Alder Hey, said in a statement.

Patient feedback is critical to helping Watson fully understand and analyze what's going in on the hospital. For the next few months, Alder Hey will be asking patients a range of questions on topics such as what they think of the parking, what they would like to eat, what their favorite games and films are, and what they want their bedroom to look like. They will also be asked what questions they have about clinical procedures, general anesthetic and surgery.

Watson will be fed these answers so that it can learn to anticipate and respond to patient and family questions, even before they arrive at the hospital.

EE's Jay tablet may be the cheap iPad look-alike you've always wanted

2016-05-11T10:07:00.003-07:00

There's a new cheap tablet from EE looking to give you a solid Android experience for a little bit over £100.

Following the EE Robin – designed specifically for kids with its durable design – and the Harrier Tab, it's the turn of the EE Jay and it's brand new premium design.

The EE Jay looks a little like an iPad with a home key in a similar position at the bottom of the screen and a metal design - this is the most premium looking tablet EE has ever created.

It features a weirdly sized 7.85-inch IPS screen, 1GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and a 3600mAh battery to power it all. EE claims it will last for a full seven hours, but we'll have to test that out.

Swooping in

You get 16GB internal memory and there's microSD support as well but sadly it's only up to 32GB so after the software is installed you're not going to have all that much space for media.

The Jay runs the older Android 5.1 Lollipop software, and EE is yet to reveal whether it'll be treated to an Android Marshmallow upgrade.

There's also a 2MP selfie camera you can use for video calling and a 5MP rear camera is there for those who continue to use their tablet to take pictures.

You can buy the EE Jay outright for £119.99 or buy it on contract with deals starting at £16 a month with a £29.99 upfront cost.

We've asked EE about the future for the Harrier Tab tablet with the release of the Jay, but it seems like the company will continue to stock the EE Robin as it's targeted at a different age group.

iPhone 8 and beyond: Future developments we could see in the world of smartphones, from graphene and lithium-air batteries to holograms and motion charging

2016-05-11T10:01:00.003-07:00

Where is smartphone technology going? What does the future hold? And what will Apple's iPhones look like in 2018, in 2020, in 2030 and beyond? We look ahead to the iPhone 8 and beyond

When will Apple launch the iPhone 8, and how different will it be from today's smartphones? What about the new smartphones Apple launches in 2020 and beyond?

Here at Macworld we spend a lot of time wondering about the next generation of Apple devices (and if you share our curiosity, take a look at our iPhone 7, iPad mini 5and Apple Watch 2 preview articles). But sometimes it pays to take a step back and think about the longer term, and the bigger picture. Where is technology going? What does the future hold? And what will Apple's smartphones look like in 2018, in 2020, in 2030 and beyond?

In this article we'll discuss some of the routes that smartphone technology could take in the coming years, starting with the iPhone 8, which by current trends ought to appear in 2018. As we move further into the future our predictions will by necessity become more and more speculative, and many of these paths will no doubt turn out to be blind alleys. But we're happy to put on our future goggles and make some predictions about trends we're expecting in the next few years. If you want to know what kind of iPhone you'll be brandishing in the future, read on.

iPhone 8 and beyond: Battery & power developments

Again and again the UK Tech Weekly Podcast returns to the topic of 'peak smartphone': the idea that the smartphone's golden period of rapid technological advances and wide experiential differences (between one generation and the next, or between one manufacturer and another) is now over. The smartphone has become commoditised, and there are only small, iterative differences between the phone that just launched and the one you bought last year - hence less incentive to upgrade. Smartphones are now essentially 'good enough'.

Well, maybe. Perhaps the greatest potential growth area - yet, for various counterintuitive reasons, one of the most neglected thus far - is battery life. Battery tech keeps getting better, but smartphone makers (and Apple is guilty of this more than almost anyone) keep cramming in higher-res screens and higher-power processors that use up the extra power just as quickly; or they select a slimmer albeit more efficient battery cell so they can say the phone is thinner than ever before, with the same effect.

In the next few years, we suspect, battery life is going to become more of a priority for phone makers and consumers. Partly this is because phones are now about as slim and fast as anyone could ever want; but partly it's because some cool battery tech developments are starting to come within the reach of mobile consumer budgets.

Stacked battery cells

One persistent rumour holds that Apple will take the battery tech it developed for the original 12-inch MacBook (and retained for the 2016 version) - whereby contoured, layered battery units are stacked inside the chassis in order to take up every possible inch of space - and use these to squeeze more battery capacity inside the fixed or even reduced volume that will be available in future iPhones.

Apple could even, thanks to the new technology, make more radical changes to the overall design of the iPhone, because its engineers would no longer to base their work on a fixed battery shape. Although the smartphone is such a mature market now that it would take a brave manufacturer to change its essential form - a little like a rogue microwave builder coming out with one that's spherical.

Lithium-air batteries

The capacity and efficiency of batteries is sure to increase over the next few years, and may do so dramatically if lithium-oxygen cells (also known as lithium-air) become a reality. As a Nature study (you'll need to pay to read the full article) explains, Li–O2 batteries offer theoretically far higher lifetimes than the lithium-ion equivalents currently favoured in mobile devices - maybe as much as five times as much, although technological issues remain.

But we're still thinking in terms of conventional battery principles: batteries than need to be charged up from a mains supply, and then run down, and then need to be charged up again.

Motion charging

A different approach is offered by technologies such as motion charging, a principle that has been used in numerous watches going back many years and was reportedlyconsidered by Apple when putting together the first Apple Watch. It uses kinetic energy from your own movements to charge up a battery cell - the traditional model would be for a wristwatch to harness the power of your arm swinging back and forth throughout the day, but similar methods have been used by wearable phone chargers that generate sufficient power in this way to give an extra hour of life to the average phone from a mere, er, 5,000 steps.

Okay, so the tech needs improvement to achieve mass-market acceptance,and it would be better still if technology of this kind could be integrated into the body of the phone itself (it's also vital for it to be able to collect a worthwhile amount of power from the smaller-scale movements experienced by a phone in a pocket or handbag rather than on the end of an arm). But it's an appealingly sustainable way of collecting some of that energy you're otherwise wasting on things like 'moving from one place to another' and 'getting fit'.

Solar

A similar technology category that seems likely in the foreseeable future to supplement rather than supplant traditional battery-charging methods is solar power. Sunpartner Technologies has developed a lightweight skin/case that wraps around a mobile device and collects energy from light that falls on it. This is designed to work with both indoor and natural light, but is obviously better with the latter; in the right circumstances the tech could add some 10 to 15 percent to battery life.

Apple, of course, has been committing itself to a greener approach for some time now, and a patent awarded in 2015 demonstrates this strategy in action.

The patent suggests that Apple is planning to build solar cells underneath the touchscreen on smartphones in future. The panel would recharge during the day and you wouldn't need to plug your phone into the socket any more. Good for the planet, convenient for us. And while unlikely to appear as early as 2016's iPhone 7, this could easily be ready for the big reveal when the iPhone 8 takes its bow in 2018.

Energy harvesting

Finally, energy-harvesting technology exists right now that can recapture energy emitted from your phone in the form of radio waves (the wasted ones, not the ones essential to communication) and then feed it back into the battery. This isn't a long-term solution: some energy will inevitably be lost through emitted waves alone, and you've got all the power being used running the internal components and lighting up the screen, among other issues. But it means your battery runs down slower - 25 to 30 percent, the makers say.

These three in their present form - niche, semi-experimental, relatively costly, non-integrated, offering significant but not experience-changing increases to battery life and just generally a bit of a faff - are not enormously appealing to the average smartphone owner. But if we jump ahead 10 years, maybe less, imagine an iPhone with all three (and similar related tech) built discreetly into the case: harvesting energy from your bodily movements, from ambient light, and from the phone's own emitted radio waves. To the extent that battery life ceases to be a concern - to the extent, perhaps, where mobile batteries become self-sustaining. What a thought.

We are indebted for the help we gained when writing the above thoughts to Technology Review's helpful summary of the future of battery technology.

iPhone 8 and beyond: Durable design

iPhones are that lethal combination of expensive and fragile that results in so much consumer heartache. The result is that each iPhone owner has to make their own deal with the devil: either wrapping it in a robust case, thereby masking the handsome design that they paid all that money for in the first place, or risk pavement damage every time they take the thing out of a pocket.

This may not be the case in the future.

Sapphire

iPhone screens are already far tougher than your average piece of glass (they're made of a proprietary material called Gorilla Glass), but they do sometimes crack or even shatter when dropped. Sapphire screens would be more resistant still, and Apple is already using sapphire in the display of the Apple Watch: it's possible that the company is now ready to import this material into its smartphone line-up.

Rumoured plans to rely on an Apple-backed sapphire plant in Arizona (which had the capacity to manufacture 200 million 5-inch iPhone displays per year) fell through. But more recent reports suggest that long-term Apple supplier Foxconn is gearing up to build its own sapphire plant in Taiwan at a cost of $2.6bn.

Project Phire

Corning, the company that makes Gorilla Glass, responded to the looming threat of sapphire glass in early 2015 with the announcement of an ultra-hardened composite material codenamed Project Phire.

James Clappin, president of Corning Glass Technologies, told investors: "We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn't fare well when dropped. So we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire."

Apple never discusses the materials it uses for iPhone screens, but it's great news for consumers that suppliers are jousting to provide the best and most durable screen glass.

Graphene

Sapphire glass is already being used on the non-Sport models of the Apple Watch, and Project Phire appears to be in a reasonably advanced state of development, but we're getting closer to the realms of science-fiction.

Graphite, the material used in standard pencils, is made up of stacks of sheets of carbon, each one only a single atom thick. This is why it's so good for writing: the layers naturally slide off on to the paper.

But graphene is a different matter. Graphene is what you get if you're clever enough to isolate one of the layers in graphite, leaving you with a substance that's effectively two-dimensional. It's the thinnest substance known to man, about a million times thinner than a human hair, and for that matter quite possibly the strongest (it's 100 times stronger than steel) and a phenomenally good electrical conductor - 1,000 times better than copper. Oh, and it's virtually transparent, too.

All of which makes graphene an exciting prospect for tech manufacturers. Most obviously, it would make for a tremendously durable coating material for the screen (and would lend itself to bendable displays, too) or indeed any part of the device; but it could really appear in almost any of the sections of this article. Graphene would be a superior replacement for silicon in processor chips, or could be used to make more efficient batteries and solar cells. It's marvellous stuff.

We're also pleased to report that graphene is British - sort of. It was discovered by the Soviet-born physicist Andre Geim at the University of Manchester, where it continues to be studied. (Entertainingly, Geim is the only scientist so far to be awarded both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel prize.)

If you'd like to read more about graphene, I strongly recommend the New Yorker'sarticle on the subject.

Viscoelastic material

Let's move on from the screen and talk about new durable materials for the rest of the iPhone.

How about a bit of drop-resistance? Based on patent activity, Apple is devising aviscoelastic material that would absorb impacts. The material would cover Apple devices and make them survive drops far better.

This is a patent that could make sense in all of Apple's mobile devices and laptops, but the iPhone is the obvious area to begin.

Flexible iPhone

In January 2015 Apple was awarded a patent that suggests that the company is investigating the idea of a flexible iPhone (and we're not talking about the #Bendgate kind).

The Patent suggests that, by making the iPhone flexible, the user could open a specific application by bending it in a particular way, or even use the flexibility to control a game.

Additionally, by making the iPhone flexible, the device should be more resistant to impacts and therefore more durable. But we'll discuss a key element in the idea of a flexible iPhone - a screen that can bend without breaking - in the screen tech section.

Waterproof components

The materials we've discussed so far and primarily aimed at surviving impact damage, but almost as common a problem for iPhone owners is water damage. One of our most popular articles is a tutorial explaining how to dry out an iPhone that's got wet: it's a distressingly common thing to happen to a device that costs several hundred pounds and contains important data.

For this reason readers and pundits frequently speculate on the possibility that future iPhones will be waterproof. Indeed, the most recent generation of iPhone models are the most waterproof yet; but we still wouldn't be pleased if the iPhone 6s fell in a paddling pool.

Well, iPhones in the near future could be waterproof without sacrificing their looks - as is currently the case, with the best will in the world, when packing a mobile device in a waterproof case.

A patent spotted in March 2015 indicates that Apple is working to make the internal components of the iPhone waterproof using a protective coating, preventing them from being damaged in the event that liquid manages to make its way beneath the chassis.

LIQUID EXPULSION FROM AN ORIFICE

And while we're on the subject of waterproofing...

A patent published on 12 November 2015 suggests a peculiar but rather appealing solution to the waterlogging issue: a mechanism that lets an iPhone dry itself by pumping liquid out through its speaker grills.

Patent application 20150326959, wonderfully, is called LIQUID EXPULSION FROM AN ORIFICE.

"The embodiments described herein are directed to an acoustic module that is configured to remove all or a portion of a liquid that has accumulated within a cavity of the acoustic modules," the patent's summary reads.

The concept is centred around modules within the speaker cavities that can be made hydrophobic to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the charge applied to them: when liquid is detected, charges would be applied across the various modules in such a way that the liquid would be moved across the modules and ultimately expelled from the cavity.

iPhone 8 and beyond: Screen developments

The screen is an iPhone's centrepiece and crowning glory: the medium via which you interact with your phone and your phone tells you about the world. iPhones don't historically tend to have the best screen resolution, but they are solidly sharp and highly responsive - and occasionally Apple evens adds new features, such as 3D Touch and Night Shift.

Here's where we see the iPhone screen heading in the next few years.

3D display...

An iPhone in the near future could come with a 3D display, according to Economic Daily News, which claims that Apple supply chain partner TPK is working on a project that relates to "naked eye 3D screen" - in other words, a 3D screen that doesn't require glasses to see. Having to pop on a pair of 3D specs every time you use the phone would be a buzzkill.

...or hologram cells

But 3D is very 2009, isn't it? We'd like to see Apple go a step beyond and really capture our imagination with a hologram display, able to project the screen image as a three-dimensional hologram you can view from different angles and even interact with. You might have to wait a while for this one.

At the moment about the best you can manage from a consumer smartphone is a 'holographic effect', based on eye-tracking technology. Not quite what we're looking for, but still fun:

Heartburn drugs can damage cells that line blood vessels

2016-05-11T09:33:00.004-07:00

Study suggests explanation for proton pump inhibitors’ link to severe side effects

A popular type of heartburn medicine could hasten wear and tear of blood vessels.

Proton pump inhibitors, or PPIs, gunk up cells that typically line the veins and arteries like a slick coat of Teflon, researchers report May 10 in Circulation Research. Excess cellular junk ages the cells, which could make blood vessels work less smoothly.

The results, though controversial, are the first inkling of evidence that might explain why PPIs have recently been linked to so many different health problems, from heart attacks to dementia.

“The authors present a compelling story,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, a nephrologist at the Veterans Affairs Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri.It begins to outline how using PPIs could spell trouble later on, he says. But Al-Aly notes that the study has one big limitation: It was done in cells, not people.

Gastroenterologist Ian Forgacs from King’s College Hospital in London agrees. Drawing conclusions about humans from cells grown in the lab requires “a huge leap of faith,” he says. So far, scientists have found only correlations between PPIs and their alleged side effects.“We need to know whether these drugs really do cause dementia and coronary disease and renal disease,” he says.

In the last few decades, proton pump inhibitors have emerged as a kind of wonder drug for heartburn. The drugs switch off molecular machines that pump acid into the stomach. So less acid surges up to burn the esophagus.

In 2012, nearly 8 percent of U.S. adults were taking prescription PPIs, according to a survey published last year in JAMA. (Some PPIs are also available over-the-counter.) Many people use PPIs for longer than they’re supposed to, says study coauthor John Cooke, a cardiologist at Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas. “These are very powerful drugs — they’re not Tums,” he says. “They have side effects.”

Several of these side effects are still under debate. And if PPIs do increase the risk of dementia, say, or kidney disease, no one knows how. So Cooke and colleagues explored what chronic exposure to the drugs, which travel through the bloodstream, does to cells lining the blood vessels.

Human cells treated with a PPI called esomeprazole (sold as Nexium) seemed to age faster than untreated cells, the researchers found. The cells lost their youthful shape and instead “looked kind of like a fried egg,” Cooke says. They also lost the ability to split into new cells, among other signs of aging.

Cooke traced the rapid aging to mishaps in acid-filled cellular chambers called lysozymes. These chambers act as tiny garbage disposals; they get rid of junk like broken-down proteins. But PPIs, which work so well at shutting down acid production in the stomach, also seemed to shut down the acidic garbage disposals, too, the researchers found. That caused proteins to pile up, forming “little heaps of rubbish,” Cooke says.

Mucking with blood vessels’ lining could trigger all sorts of problems. For instance, instead of gliding easily through, platelets and white blood cells could get hung up, sticking to vessel walls like Velcro. “That’s how hardening of the arteries starts,” Cooke says.

The next step is to see if similar damage occurs in people. Doctors and regulatory agencies should take a second look at the widespread use of PPIs, too, Cooke says. “There’s enough data now that we have to be very cautious in our use of these agents.”

But some researchers think PPIs are getting a bum rap. “Everybody and their mother now want to hammer PPIs,” says gastroenterologist David Metz of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s unfortunate because they’re spectacular drugs and they save people’s lives.”

The real question, Al-Aly says, is whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

Logitech ZeroTouch review: A pretty good way to go hands-free in your car

2016-05-11T09:30:00.002-07:00

If you just want to safely do the basics in your car, hands-free, ZeroTouch is mostly aces.

One of the most important things you can do with your smartphone is to not use it in your car while you're driving. You're going to ignore that advice, of course. We all have. So the trick is to use your phone as safely as possible. And that means keeping it out of your hands.

There are myriad ways to do this. Android Auto is a good one. (And I've been using it for more than a year.) Various car docks are available, too, so you only have to touch the phone when you need it to do something — or let you use your phone's built-in hands-free options.

Logi (née Logitech) has just unveiled its own option. Dubbed ZeroTouch, it's an excellent system for safely doing four basic things while driving. Let's take a look.

What is Logi ZeroTouch?

There are two parts to ZeroTouch. There's the app on the phone that does things — you canfind it in Google Play here — and there are a couple of ways to mount your phone in your car. The mount triggers the app thanks to a metal tab that you affix to the back of your phone, and you're off and running.

Answer: A mount and an app for more safely using your phone in the car.

The ZeroTouch air vent mount that (wait for it) mounts your phone to your car's air vent. That's not a particularly new phenomenon (Logitech has had that sort of accessory before). But now it works in conjunction with the app. It runs $59.99.

There's also a dash mount that's a bit more beefy but works very well, with a sticky suction cup on the bottom and an articulating head that lets you adjust the angle of your phone between 0 and 90 degrees. The dash mount is $79.99.

Neither of those prices is what we'd call inexpensive. But considering that you're getting the app and the service along with it — and, ya know, a better chance at not killing yourself or someone else because you were previously being really dumb and holding your phone while driving — the price makes a little more sense.

And then there's the metal tab that you stick to your phone. I'm never crazy about this sort of setup. It's ugly. Really ugly. It makes the phone feel funny. It makes me resent whatever reason I had to put it on in the first place. (There's a disk that you can slip inside a case, too, if that works better.) But it is necessary, using low-power Bluetooth to tell your phone it's time to use ZeroTouch — otherwise the hands-free service would be running all the time.

The metal tab scares me, frankly — especially when it comes time to take it off. But I was able to remove the tab from the HTC 10 without too much trouble after slipping a razor blade under it. And I wouldn't use anything else to do that job — unless you want to scratch your phone.

Logi ZeroTouch setup process

The setup process is probably the most important part of mobile accessories. They can get complicated, and they can kill an experience before it ever gets started.

ZeroTouch had one of the best setup processes we've seen.

Logi nailed it on the ZeroTouch. A woman's voice walks you through waking the phone with a "high five" in front of the earpiece, triggering the phone's proximity sensor. She then walks you through the voice commands.

And my favorite part? Setting expectations. "I'm not perfect, and won't always get everything right," ZeroTouch says during the setup process. "But it's easy to change or cancel." Nearly every voice-activated device I've ever used in the car had to have something repeated to it at one time or another. Logi addresses this up front, and in a friendly, human way. That's smart.

After that you'll get to see a whole bunch of warnings about how doing any of this is inherently distracting and dangerous and might actually be illegal where you are so it's up to you to not kill someone in the process of doing all this even though it is really good.

Some things never change, right?

Setup continues with you choosing default apps for three of the four things ZeroTouch tackles — navigation, messaging and music. (Making calls is handled by your phone app, of course.) You can set home and work locations (so you can tell it to navigate to "home" or "work") more easily, though it'll do some basic search as well.

And that's it. After that you're good to go.

SO HOW'S IT WORK?

Using Logi ZeroTouch

So what's all this like to use? It very much depends on where you've mounted your phone. I'm usually against using vent mounts — because I live in Florida and don't want anything to come between me and my air conditioning. But my dashboard is too rounded to mount the phone in a place that's comfortable to reach to do the "high-five" wake gesture.

The vent mount, though, was just about perfect.

Wave, speak, confirm. That's it. And it couldn't be much simpler.

One other alternative for me was on my center console, just in front of the gear shift. (Yes, I'm that old. I still drive stick.) It's not as easy to glance at, but it was easy to gesture at.

From there, Logi's hands-free UI was excellent. It did a great job of hearing and understanding my commands. Occasionally I did have to repeat myself. But, again, because I was warned about that during the setup process, it wasn't that big a shock.

One other thing that will control your experience a good deal is the apps you generally use. ZeroTouch is great with Google Maps, which is what I use, so no real problems there.

Text messages worked pretty well, too. I'm a bad use case for that sort of thing, being a card-carrying member of Project Fi and a Hangouts user. ZeroTouch has options to reply via WhatsApp, Facebook Manager and Hangouts. But I also ended up with messages being routed through the Messages app. Again, not surprising given my setup. (If you're like most folks and just use one phone and one SIM and one phone number, you should be just fine.)

The music options in settings only show me Spotify and Deezer — with big install buttons for both. I don't use either of those, but ZeroTouch was able to control Google Play Music just fine.

And, finally, you can tell ZeroTouch to "Share my location with [insert your favorite person here] ..." ZeroTouch will fire off a temporary Glympse link via SMS. And it's pretty brilliant, showing the recipient where you are, when you were are, and how fast you're moving.

And while that's the gist of it, it's also just the tip of the iceberg. There are a bunch of options for ZeroTouch, including the ability to use your Bluetooth to output audio, use a wave instead of a high-five gesture, and you can set up automatic replies, if you wish.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Should you buy it? Sure

The big question: Is this the best way to safely use your phone in your car? If you don't have something like Android Auto — or a really good Bluetooth-enabled system (and let's face it, so many of those suck) — then Logi's ZeroTouch is a pretty good option.

Again, $60 or $80 seems like a lot of money to throw at a way to stick your phone to your air vent or dash. And it is. But you get a really good hands-free system along with it. Then again you've also got to put a pretty ugly metal tab on the back of your phone.

Or do you? If I were a smart man I'd get myself a simple TPU case for a couple bucks — the kind that you can easily take on and off — and then put the metal tap on that, and not on my phone. The Bluetooth setup means that direct contact between the tab and your phone doesn't matter — it just has to touch the base holder. And the magnetic bond between the tab and the holder is easily strong enough to hold all that together.

All in all, this is a really good product from Logi — and one that's going to make your ride a little easier, and a lot safer.

A study asks: Too much folic acid a cause of autism?

2016-05-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

For decades, pregnant women and women who may become pregnant have been advised to take folic acid to help prevent certain birth defects.

But a new study suggests it may be possible to get too much of a good thing — very high levels of the vitamin in mothers' blood at the time of childbirth was linked to higher risk of their children developing autism years later.

Other research points to an opposite relationship between folic acid and autism, showing that adequate amounts of the vitamin at the time of conception can significantly reduce the risk.

Indeed, some experts raised questions about the new research. They note the findings are preliminary numbers, and based on a small number of families seen at only one hospital.

Also, the analysis is based on measures of the vitamin in mothers' blood at the time of delivery, which may not reveal much about what was going on in the women's body at the time of early fetal brain development.

Even the researchers themselves said there's no cause to change current public health recommendations. "We are not suggesting anyone stop supplementation," said one of the researchers, M. Daniele Fallin of Johns Hopkins University.

But it raises an intriguing question that should be explored in other research, Fallin said. Two outside experts agreed.

"It's a finding that has plausibility," said Dr. Ezra Susser, a Columbia University professor of epidemiology and psychiatry. He said other researchers have wondered whether too much folic acid can cause problems.

The findings were presented Wednesday at an autism research conference in Baltimore.

Folate is a vitamin found in foods that is important in cell growth and development of the nervous system. A synthetic version, folic acid, is used in supplements and is used to fortify flour and cereals.

Autism Spectrum Disorder Overview | HealthGrove

Decades ago, researchers found certain levels of folic acid could prevent major birth defects of the baby's brain and spine. In the early 1990s, U.S. health officials began recommending that all women who might become pregnant should take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily. And in the late 1990s, federal regulations began mandating that folic acid be added to flour, bread and other grain products.

Those steps are considered one of the great public health success stories of the last half-century. Officials estimate that 1,000 birth defects are prevented each year because of it.

The new researchers followed 1,391 children who were born at Boston University Medical Center in 1998 through 2013. About 100 of them were later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

The researchers went back and looked at levels of folate and vitamin B12 in the blood of the children's mothers at the time of childbirth. They found that 16 of them had very high levels of folate, and 15 had extremely high levels of vitamin B12.

Those are very small numbers of cases. But they represent significantly higher proportions than were seen in moms whose children who didn't develop autism.

If both levels are extremely high, there is more than a 17-fold greater risk that a child will develop autism, the researchers said.

Most of the moms in the study said they took multivitamins — which would include folic acid and vitamin B12 — throughout their pregnancy. But the researchers say they don't know why some women had such high levels in their blood.

It may be related to taking too many supplements and eating too many fortified foods. Or there could be a genetic reason that caused some women to absorb more folate than others. Or there could be a combination, they said.

Many studies of autism focus largely on white children in middle- and upper-income families. This one drew mainly from low-income and minority families, the researchers noted.

Can a pan add iron to your diet?

2016-05-11T08:54:00.001-07:00

The Ache: Lack of dietary iron reduces production of the blood protein hemoglobin, resulting in iron-deficiency anemia, a condition marked by extreme fatigue. While iron deficiency is more common in developing countries than in the U.S., women, children, vegetarians and blood donors are at greater risk.

The Claim: Cast-iron pots and pans release iron into your food. Cooking in them is an inexpensive and convenient way to add the mineral to your diet, some scientists say.

The Verdict: It is true that cooking with cast iron can potentially add iron to your food, but the amount transferred and how well the body can absorb it varies widely depending on the acidity of the food and the cooking time, according to scientific studies. Separately, an iron ingot in the shape of a fish, when simmered in soup, was found in a recent study to cut anemia levels in rural Cambodian women, although the researchers say those results don’t apply to cast-iron skillets.

People with an iron deficiency shouldn’t rely on cooking in cast iron, says Sara Haas, a dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, an organization of food and nutrition professionals. But it could be “a good way” to add iron—in addition to eating iron-rich foods— for anyone who is at risk for not getting enough, she says.

Since iron is soluble in acid, it will transfer to food more readily when cooking acidic foods, such as tomatoes or apples, says Fergus Clydesdale, a professor in the Department of Food Science at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cooking in water will result in more iron transfer than frying in oil, he adds.

For this reason, the fish, from Canada’s Lucky Iron Fish Inc., which has sold its fish-shaped ingot on the Web since 2014, is recommended for use in soups or boiled with drinking water. The company also advises adding acids, such as citrus juice or vinegar. In a study of 304 women in three Cambodian villages, published in 2015 in the journal Tropical Medicine & Surgery, use of the fish for a year increased hemoglobin concentration in the blood, compared with a control group that didn’t use the fish, and cut the prevalence of anemia by 46%. The fish costs $25, and for every fish purchased on its site, the company donates one to a needy community

Teen mothers struggle to follow safe infant sleep practices

2016-04-28T05:23:00.001-07:00

(iStock)

Although most teen mothers know that co-sleeping with their baby or putting the baby to sleep with soft bedding or blankets increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), many do so anyway, a small U.S. study suggests.
"I was quite surprised to hear almost all of them admit making deliberate decisions to practice unsafe sleep behaviors despite being aware of SIDS and having been told about the risk factors," said lead author Dr. Michelle Caraballo of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
The medical community is shifting away from the term "SIDS" and toward "Sudden Unexpected Infant Death," or SUID, to emphasize that we still do not know what causes it or how exactly these babies die, Caraballo noted.
"The new term SUID encompasses deaths previously labeled as SIDS but also includes other sleep-related infant deaths, including accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed," she told Reuters Health by email.
Infants of mothers younger than age 20 are at higher risk for sleep-related sudden death than babies of older mothers, the study team notes in The Journal of Pediatrics, April 21.
While rates of death in the SIDS category have leveled off since 1999, rates of infant death from causes like accidental suffocation or strangulation are rising, they point out.
For the new study, they organized seven focus groups with a total of 43 teen mothers at high school daycare centers in Colorado. The groups talked about their knowledge of and adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sleep recommendations.
The mothers said their parenting information largely came from their own parents, teachers and doctors, but when faced with conflicting information, they listened to their own mothers. Almost all had learned about SIDS, usually from a medical provider or teacher, and knew that it could happen to any baby.
Almost all knew the AAP recommends that babies sleep on their back, and only a few said they put their babies to sleep on their stomach anyway. Most also knew that blankets and soft objects should not be in the baby's sleep space, but more than half said they put their baby to sleep covered with a loose blanket so that the baby would not be cold.
Many said that if a baby bedroom set, which may include blankets and crib bumpers, is sold in stores then it must be safe - which, the researchers note, is not the case.
Most of the teen mothers said they owned a crib or playpen but very few said they consistently used a separate sleep space for their infant. Babies often slept in a car seat, swing or their mother's bed.

Some mothers said bed-sharing was safer, helped them bond with their babies, and that babies slept better in bed with them.
"These results fit with a lot of other research that has demonstrated mothers have knowledge of safe infant sleep recommendations, but this knowledge does not necessarily translate to adhering to the recommendations," said Trina C. Salm Ward of the University of Georgia School of Social Work in Athens.
"What I find concerning is that they tend to know that bed-sharing is 'unsafe,' so they engage in practices to try to reduce the risk. Some of these practices, though, such as placing pillows around the infant, actually increase the risk of suffocation," Ward, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health by email.
"Because of the small sample size in our focus group study, I cannot generalize our findings and say that what we found is necessarily true of 'most' or all new mothers," Caraballo said.
Infants should sleep in the same room but not in the same bed with their mother, on a firm sleep surface, she said.
Simply educating mothers on safe sleep practices is not enough to change actual behavior, she said.
"I do not know what it will take to induce behavior change in this high-risk demographic; unfortunately all I can say with certainty is that what we're doing right now isn't working," she said.

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Link between gum disease and dementia is uncertain

2016-04-04T06:43:00.001-07:00

Will better oral health protect an aging brain? The answer isn't clear.

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of studies have been looking for relationships between oral health and cognitive problems in older adults.

A study earlier this year, for example, linked gum disease with faster cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer's disease.

The authors of a more recent review of the evidence say any such link would be important, because many older adults keep their natural teeth and over one third of people over age are cognitively impaired.

"We thought it would be interesting to look at the current state of the findings," lead author Bei Wu, of Duke University's School of Nursing in Durham, North Carolina, told Reuters Health.

As reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Wu's team analyzed 16 studies that had tracked participants over time, plus another 40 studies that only looked at people at one point in time.

Some studies found that markers of oral health, like number of teeth and presence of gum disease, were tied to rate of cognitive decline or dementia risk. But the links weren't stable in every study.

Other studies found no link between oral and brain health.

Also, the idea that both conditions are linked by underlying inflammation was only examined by one study that the researchers found "to be only marginally relevant."

"This field is promising, but we really need to have a more rigorous studies to look into the relationship," said Wu.

Wu said the idea that oral health could affect cognition is appealing, because it's something that people can modify on their own.

"Having this kind of systematic review is extremely helpful for us to know what are the strengths and weaknesses of this area of research and what direction we should go in," she said.

Glaxo's potential cure for 'bubble-boy disease' a step closer

2016-04-04T06:38:00.002-07:00

LONDON—A potential cure for children born with a form of an extremely rare immune-system condition often referred to as “bubble-boy disease” has moved a step closer to approval after receiving the support of a European Union regulatory panel.

The treatment, which involves inserting a new gene into the patient’s stem cells, received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency’s advisory committee on Friday, paving the way for final approval in coming months.

It is aimed at children with a disease known as ADA-SCID, a rare condition in which a single genetic defect prevents sufferers from developing a robust immune system, leaving them very susceptible to infections. Without treatment, they rarely live for more than two years.

Currently, the best available option is a bone-marrow transplant, but success heavily depends on how well matched the donor is. For the one in four babies who have a well matched family member, a transplant can be an effective cure. But for the rest, success rates can be as low as 50%, according to Bobby Gaspar, professor of pediatrics and immunology at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The new therapy, called Strimvelis, was developed by a group of scientists and doctors based in Milan who have used it to treat 22 children over the past 14 years. All are still alive, most without needing any further treatment. In 2010, GlaxoSmithKline PLC struck a licensing deal for the rights to market the therapy.

If approved, it would be only the second gene therapy to be sold in Europe, after UniQure NV’s Glybera for a rare genetic condition in which the body can’t break down fat molecules. No gene therapies are approved for sale in the U.S.

Sugary, Starchy Diet May Raise Chances of Lung Cancer

2016-03-08T23:51:00.002-08:00

People who eat a sugary, starchy diet may be raising their risk of lung cancer, even if they don't smoke, researchers say.

They found that people who recall eating more foods that have a high glycemic index also were more likely to develop lung cancer. Glycemic index is a term that's familiar to people with diabetes. It describes food that raises blood sugar and stimulates production of insulin — think bagels, white rice and some fruits such as melon and pineapple.

It's not the first study to link glycemic index with cancer risk, but it's rare to link it with lung cancer. That may be mostly because lung cancer is so overwhelmingly caused by smoking.

The team at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston studied 1,905 people who had just been diagnosed with lung cancer and compared them to 2,415 people without cancer. They quizzed them about their eating habits, smoking, income and other factors.

People who ate the most foods with a high glycemic index were about 50 percent more likely to be in the lung cancer group than people who reported they ate the fewest high-glycemic foods, the team reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology and Biomarkers.

The link was stronger amongpeople who never smoked; non-smokers were more than twice as likely to have lung cancer if they reported eating a high-glycemic diet.

"The results from this study suggest that, besides maintaining healthy lifestyles, reducing the consumption of foods and beverages with high glycemic index may serve as a means to lower the risk of lung cancer," said Dr. Xifeng Wu, who led the study.

How can this happen? Doctors aren't sure, but there's a theory that high-glycemic foods stimulate the body to make insulin, which in turn affects the growth of cells via compounds called insulin-like growth factors or IGF. Cancer is the uncontrolled proliferation of cells, so it might be that the high-glycemic foods are fueling the growth of tiny tumors.

"IGFs have been shown to play a critical role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation in cancer and there is evidence to suggest that IGFs are elevated in lung cancer patients," Wu's team wrote.

It's a suspect in several types of cancer.

"Previous studies have investigated the association between glycemic index, and the related measure glycemic load, and a variety of cancers including colorectal, stomach, pancreas, endometrial, ovarian, prostate, and thyroid but these studies are limited and results have been largely inconclusive," the researchers wrote.

This study is not conclusive, either. For one thing, the researchers asked their volunteers to remember what they ate. For another, it's an association. People who eat high-glycemic foods may also do something else that also raises their risk of cancer. And this particular study focused only on non-Hispanic white people.

Marji McCullough, an expert in nutritional epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, says it will be important to look at people who don't have cancer now and watch what they eat for years or decades, and see who develops cancer.

Lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer in the U.S., killing more than 150,000 people a year. It causes only vague symptoms at first, so when most people are diagnosed, the cancer has already spread and is then far more likely to be fatal.

Experts know diet and lifestyle can affect cancer. Obesity, lack of exercise, eating red meat and lots of high-fat dairy foods, and eating too few fruits and vegetables can all raise a person's odds of developing cancer.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that people can lower their cancer risk not only by staying away from tobacco and exercising more, but by choosing a healthier diet.

"Aside from not smoking, it's important to follow cancer prevention guidelines that maintain healthy body weight, physical activity, and eating an overall healthy diet rich in vegetables and plant food and lower red and processed meat. Choose foods that help maintain healthy body weight," McCullough said.

According to the American Diabetes Association, low-glycemic foods include:

100 percent stone-ground whole wheat or pumpernickel bread
Oatmeal (rolled or steel-cut), oat bran, muesli
Pasta, converted rice, barley, bulgar
Sweet potato, corn, yam, lima/butter beans, peas, legumes and lentils
Most fruits, non-starchy vegetables and carrots

Medium glycemic index foods include:

Whole wheat, rye and pita bread
Quick oats
Brown, wild or basmati rice, couscous

High glycemic index foods include:

White bread, including bagels
Corn flakes, puffed rice, bran flakes, instant oatmeal
Shortgrain white rice, rice pasta, macaroni and cheese from mix
Russet potato, pumpkin
Pretzels, rice cakes, popcorn, saltine crackers
melons and pineapple

Bill Gates: Apple Could Propose a Balance in FBI Dispute

2016-03-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates answered some questions about Apple's ongoing dispute with the FBI during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" on Tuesday — and stuck solidly to the same neutral position he's maintained in earlier comments.

"I think there needs to be a discussion about when the government should be able to gather information," Gates said in response to one Redditor's question.

"What if we had never had wiretapping? Also the government needs to talk openly about safeguards."

Gates first gave his thoughts on the matter — in which Apple is refusing a court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in San Bernardino — in a Feb. 23 interview with the Financial Times.

The Microsoft co-founder later said that he felt those quotes, which were widely characterized as putting him in the FBI's camp, did not accurately represent his full opinion on the case.

But Gates' answers on Tuesday, much like those he gave in another interview with Bloomberg TV, also didn't do much to clear up where the tech pioneer personally stands on the contentious case. Asked what he would do if he were in Apple's position, Gates said the company could offer a Plan B.

"Maybe they could propose an overall plan for striking the balance between government being able to know things in some cases and having safeguards to make sure those powers are confined to appropriate cases," Gates said. "There is no avoiding this debate and they could contribute to how the balance should be struck."

Gates is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft, which along with nearly every other major tech company has filed a "friend of the court" briefsupporting Apple in the California case.

100-Foot-Wide Asteroid TX68 Safely Flies By Earth

2016-03-08T23:42:00.003-08:00

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. A 100-foot wide asteroid whizzed by the Earth on Monday night and (obviously) avoided a collision with our fair planet.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 made its closest approach to Earth at about 7 p.m. ET Monday, according to Laurie Cantillo, a spokeswoman for NASA.

NASA originally said the yacht-sized asteroid would fly by on March 5, but additional data allowed NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Propulsion Laboratory (CNEOS) to "get a better handle on its orbital path" and predict that it would pass on March 8.

NASA was also able to determine last month that the asteroid would likely be 3 million miles away (about 379 times the Earth's diameter) when it flew past Earth — but said the giant space rock could come as close as 15,000 miles (less than two times the Earth's diameter).

"There is no concern whatsoever regarding this asteroid — unless you were interested in seeing it with a telescope," Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS, assured worried Earthlings in February.

NASA has not yet determined how close TX68 came to Earth, but Rob Landis, a program officer at NASA headquarters, said if the night sky was clear in the west and over Hawaii, NASA should be able to "nail down the orbit."

The asteroid is currently moving away from Earth, Landis told NBC News.

TX68 has zipped by Earth before, about two years ago, at a distance of about 1.3 million miles, NASA reported.

This graphic depicts the orbit of asteroid 2013 TX68.NASA/JPL-Caltech

The asteroid is about 100 feet in diameter, according to NASA. Comparatively, the asteroid that broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, three years ago — damaging buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people — was 65 feet wide. "If an asteroid the size of 2013 TX68 were to enter Earth's atmosphere, it would likely produce an air burst with about twice the energy of the Chelyabinsk event," NASA said.

The asteroid is expected to fly by Earth three more times on Sept. 28, 2017, in 2046 and in 2097. NASA originally said that TX68 "could impact" earth during the 2017 flyby, but additional data observed last month allowed CNEOS to determine that this particular asteroid "cannot impact Earth over the next century."

"The risk — as we understand it right now — is minimal is probably on the order of 1-in-300 million or so," Landis said.

And for further peace of mind: "Right now — we are not tracking any asteroid or comet on a path to strike the Earth," Landis said.

EU Migrant Crisis: Turkey's Refugee Proposal Slammed by Rights Groups

2016-03-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

European leaders hailed a potential "breakthrough" in the migrant crisis after Turkey agreed to take back anyone who'd left its shores — a proposal harshly criticized as unrealistic or worse by rights groups.

The move came as thousands of refugees and migrants camped overnight in freezing conditions along Greece's border with Macedonia, hoping to cross but awaiting news.

Leaders met late into the night on Monday to address the crisis, which has seen nearly 142,000 refugees and migrants arrive in Europe so far this year.

Turkey already had said it would accept the return of migrants who'd made it to Greece.

Refugees and migrants sit in the rain near the gate at the Greek-Macedonian border on Monday. DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP - Getty Images

The country went a step further by offering late Monday to take back anyone — migrant or refugee, Syrian or Algerian — who'd made it to Greece from its shores, according to statements from EU officials following the summit.

Turkey's proposal, though, came with conditions: That the EU would cover the cost of sending those people back and also take in an equivalent number of Syrians — a proposal dubbed "one-for-one" resettlement.

Turkey also requested quicker disbursement of 3 billion euros pledged to help Syrian refugees — and an additional 3 billion euros on top of that until 2018, according to an EU source.

The "one-for-one" resettlement — where EU member states would agree to take in a Syrian from Turkey to offset each Syrian sent back to Turkey under the proposal — is aimed at destroying smuggling networks, according to the source. It would show that paying smugglers for boat rides just results in being returned to Turkey, the source explained.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey's "game-changing position" was "to discourage illegal migration" and "to help people who want to come to Europe through encouraging legal migration in a disciplined and regular manner."

It was not immediately clear how Turkey's plan would be put into practice — European Council President Donald Tusk said he would "work out the details" of the "bold" proposals in the coming weeks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Turkey's offer a potential "breakthrough" that could break a "vicious cycle" of illegal migration — if the plan is realized.

The EU source acknowledged that logistics and details still need to be worked out — but said European leaders were keen to get the crisis under control and Turkey is seen as the key to that.

However, the proposal raised immediate questions over its viability and legality.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees Filippo Grandi said he was "deeply concerned" about any arrangement that would involve the "blanket return" of refugees.

"Turkey is already hosting nearly 3 million refugees and it is important for the international community to share this responsibility more widely," Grandi told European Parliament on Tuesday.

Blanket returns would be "plainly incompatible" with EU obligations, according to Human Rights Watch's Judith Sunderland, who added that she "cannot fathom" how a one-for-one swap would be put into practice.

"I think we're about as close to rock bottom as we've ever been in what has been a year and a half of scrambling by EU leaders to face up to an influx of asylum seekers and migrants," she told NBC News. "What we're seeing really is just the naked desperation by EU leaders to stem the flow and they're willing to throw rights completely overboard in the process."

Doctors Without Borders said the plan to send migrants back to Turkey was "no solution," while Amnesty International called it an "alarmingly short-sighted and inhumane" approach.

"EU and Turkish leaders have today sunk to a new low, effectively horse trading away the rights and dignity of some of the world's most vulnerable people," Amnesty said in a statement that also condemned the one-for-one proposal.

"The idea of bartering refugees for refugees is not only dangerously dehumanizing, but also offers no sustainable long term solution to the ongoing humanitarian crisis," the statement added.

In addition to hearing Turkey's ramped-up proposals, EU leaders also agreed Monday night to end a "wave-through" border policy in order to close the Western Balkans migration route.

Asylum claims are supposed to be registered and processed in the first EU nation an asylum-seeker arrives in — which in this crisis has overwhelmingly meant Greece. However, the influx of migrants and refugees has seen tens of thousands press onward in hopes of reaching richer EU nations such as Germany or Sweden.

Aid organizations warned that closing the Balkans route would strand thousands in Greece and place undue pressure on the already overburdened nation.

More than 12,000 refugees and migrants spent the night at the Greek border with Macedonia under driving rain, waiting to see if they would be allowed to cross.

Pregnant women and children slept on the ground in the cold, according to Amnesty International's Fotis Filippou.

"People slept in freezing mud, they have water in their blankets. Children are getting sick," he told NBC News from the Greek border town of Idomeni. "It's just horrible."

There were an estimated 15,000 people in Idomeni as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Doctors Without Borders — and the people are "just stuck here," Filippou added.

That did little to allay the concerns voiced by organizations such as Human Rights Watch, which said refugees "should not be used as bargaining chips" by Turkey or the EU.

Human Rights Watch said Turkey cannot be considered a "safe country" of asylum for refugees from places such as Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan — and questioned how rights could be protected during "mass expulsions" from Europe.

"Turkey has ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, but is the only country in the world to apply a geographical limitation so that only Europeans can get refugee status there," the organization said in a statement. "It does not provide effective protection for refugees and has repeatedly pushed asylum seekers back to Syria."

Questions about the proposals also are being asked among the thousands of refugees and migrants stuck along the Greek border, according to Amnesty's Filippou.

"Everybody is asking about it.... They hear the rumors they hear that people might be sent back to Turkey," he said. "People are definitely worried. They made it all the way here in search of safety and protection. They know they can't get it here but they also don't see any way out."

Stopping Zika: Here come the mutant mosquitoes

2016-03-08T04:55:00.002-08:00

Imagine a hairy, bug-eyed monster that hides under your bed, in your closet and in your shower, waiting for just the right moment to attack. Her belly grows, glowing bright red, as she sucks your blood to create her babies -- which she produces by the thousands -- leaving a virus to grow inside of you that could harm your babies if you are pregnant.

An Aedes aegypti mosquito digests a blood meal.
No, this is not a B-rated horror movie. It's a Hollywood-style description of one of the craftiest little creatures on the planet, the female Aedes aegypti mosquito. (All male mosquitoes are exonerated because they don't bite.)

Over the centuries, she has adapted to live as close as she can to her favorite prey -- us -- and can breed in receptacles as small as flower vases and shower drains. Forgotten tires and discarded plastics? Even better. In other words, she's perfect for spreading disease in any bustling, overpopulated, tropical city or slum.

While the aegypti transmits the viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya and now Zika, her sister species, the Culex quinquefasciatus, carries West Nile and encephalitis. Another 40 species of mosquitoes, in the genus Anopheles, spread the malaria parasite. The Anopheles is such an efficient bloodsucker that a single female can infect more than 100 people. Together, these ladies have killed and maimed more humans than any other animal on earth, even mankind with all of its wars.

The mosquitoes that changed history
If this was a traditional Hollywood horror flick, there would be a happy ending: All the monsters would be exterminated. But history shows man has tried that again and again with these mosquitoes, often using dangerous pesticides. And like every great villain, they always return.

"And of course in today's world, you and I, along with any mosquito or virus, can hop a plane and get anywhere within less than 24 hours," said Uriel Kitron, chairman of Emory University's Department of Environmental Studies. "I always say the mosquito is not a great flier, but it's a wonderful hitchhiker. So it's very easy to reintroduce."

Which is why a growing number of scientists are touting the need for a "mutant mosquito," a helpful Frankenstein designed to win the fight against these deadly females.

The 'Alien' within: Wolbachia

A researcher carries a container of Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes.
Remember the movie "Alien," where the creature grows in the crewman's belly until it finally rips through his stomach to the outside world? Now imagine a kinder, gentler creature living inside the cells of up to 60% of the insects around us. This creature, a genus of bacteria called Wolbachia, manages to live off its hosts and transform them, but doesn't have to kill them to survive. A nonprofit group out of Australia discovered this helpful alien stops the growth of viruses inside the Aedes aegypti, keeping her from transmitting disease.

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently announced a plan to help Brazil and other countries hard hit by Zika produce sterile "gamma-irradiated" Aedes aegypti mosquitoes for mass release in those countries. Within the next few months, the agency says it will send a cobalt-60 gamma cell irradiator to Brazil in order to create billions of sterilized male mosquitoes that researchers hope will mate with wild females to keep them from reproducing. But unlike their famous gamma-radiated movie cousin, the Hulk, these guys may not have the strength or stamina to do their jobs.

Frankenstein': The GMO mosquito
Meet OX513A, a male Aedes aegypti mosquito genetically engineered to pass along a lethal gene to wild females that makes her offspring die. He's the product of Oxitec, a small biotechnology company launched by Oxford University professors in 2002, now owned by biotech giant Intrexon.

The OX513A mosquito at bottom has a marker, unlike the wild mosquito at top.
This male is created by injecting very small amounts of synthetically made DNA into thousands of mosquito eggs until finally one of the eggs accepts the DNA into its genome, creating two genes. One gene, based on DNA from coral, is used to implant a fluorescent red marker in OX513A so researchers can more easily find and track him. The other gene, artificially modeled after E. coli and the herpes simplex virus, is lethal because it creates a protein called tTAV which interferes with a cell's activity, killing the infected mosquito before it can reach adulthood.

Forget Frankenstein -- this monster's a Chimera
Gene drives are considered the cutting edge of genetics. In labs around the world, enterprising researchers are using new tools such as CRISPR's Cas9 to splice a helpful gene into a mosquito's bloodline, "driving" it into the entire population, at a much higher rate than the standard genetics you learned in school.

"It's forcing those genes into the population," explained molecular biologist Omar S. Akbari. "Instead of a gene being transferred to 50% of the offspring, now it can transfer to 99%, maybe even 100% of their progeny."

Smaller male Aedes aegypti mating larger female.
Before you can "drive" a beneficial gene into a population, you have to create it. That's where genetic engineers can get really clever. Take what University of California-Irvine microbiologist Anthony James and his team did to create a drive against one strain of malaria.

"Frankenstein's not a fair comparison," explains James, "because Frankenstein was made of all human parts. We're making what's called a Chimera, an animal that is made from parts of several creatures."

Read more about this method of stopping Zika.

Will the mutants really succeed?
From Wolbachia to radiated males, from OX513A to gene drives, all of these solutions have significant issues, say critics: expense, proof of disease reduction, environmental impact studies, community support, and especially the need for mosquito control during any outbreak. After all, officials aren't going to let Zika-carrying mosquitoes continue to spread disease while we wait for a takeover by mutants.

A woman walks through a haze of pesticide in El Salvador.
"If you're releasing mosquitoes for doing control and on top of that you have to do mosquito spraying, then in a way you're killing your investment," said Emory University ecologist Gonzalo Vazquez Prokopec. "You're releasing mosquitoes that cost money but at the same time you cannot stop helping people. So how this integration of genetically modified mosquitoes works in the context of ongoing control activity, I think it's still an open question."

Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry disagrees. What's needed, he says, is coordination with local authorities.

"It's a very sensible, logical strategy to go into a town, carry out an insecticide-based campaign and then use our approach," explained Parry. "The only thing you can't do in the same street at the same time is release our mosquitoes with fogging. Because our guys are completely susceptible and they'd all fall down dead. Whereas ironically, the wild ones have quite high levels of insecticide resistance."

"The key is to mobilize the community," agreed Emory's Kitron. "The challenge is that often the community is not into it, or they do not like some of the measures that were applied, or they did not feel that the disease was that important. Zika is different because the potential complication is so severe that I think that on its own will be a major mobilizing force for the community."

But, he adds, it's too soon to determine if the mutant mosquito can truly win the war against man's deadliest enemy.

"I think that the jury is still out on all of these techniques," said Kitron. "I think they will play a role, and I think they will add to the many tools that we already have. But none of them, I don't think, will be a silver bullet."

Feeding kids peanuts prevents allergies long-term, study shows

2016-03-08T04:48:00.001-08:00

A bold and controversial experiment that showed feeding peanuts to babies and young children could protect them from developing allergies later has shown long-term effects, doctors reported Friday. The children were largely protected a year after stopping peanuts.

After avoiding peanuts for a year, just 5 percent of the children who were given peanuts as babies developed a peanut allergy, the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. That compares to nearly 19 percent of children who didn't get peanuts as infants.

The findings reinforce guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups, which recommend giving children small amounts of peanuts to help avert allergies. For children at high risk because of a family history of allergies, or because they have eczema or other allergies, this should only be done under a doctor's supervision.

"This study offers reassurance that eating peanut-containing foods as part of a normal diet--with occasional periods of time without peanut--will be a safe practice for most children following successful tolerance therapy," said Dr. Gerald Nepom of the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason in Seattle.

"The immune system appears to remember and sustain its tolerant state, even without continuous regular exposure to peanuts," added Nepom, who also heads the Immune Tolerance Network, a research group sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"The findings suggest that children who have regularly consumed peanut-containing foods from infancy to age 5 as a peanut allergy prevention strategy can safely switch to consuming peanut as desired as part of a normal diet," said NIAID's Dr. Daniel Rotrosen. "We expect that many will continue to enjoy peanut-containing foods consumed regularly, and others will maintain their non-allergic status with moderate intervals of diminished or no peanut consumption."

Peanut allergy is serious and it's received much attention because rates tripled between 1997 and 2008. In severe cases, children can suffer anaphylaxis, a serious and life-threatening reaction. It can take just a small amount of peanut to cause a reaction in an allergic person.

So some schools are peanut-free zones; the Food and Drug Administration requires clear labeling and separation of peanuts in foods; and children learn to carry epi-pens in case they have a reaction.

The original study found that giving peanuts to high-risk infants lowered rates of allergy by 80 percent compared to babies whose parents kept them carefully away from peanuts.

The study team followed 556 of the original 640 children to see if they had to keep eating peanut constantly to stay protected. They don't.

After 12 months of avoiding peanuts, 4.8 percent of children fed peanuts as babies became allergic to peanuts, compared to 18.6 percent of those who kept away from peanuts from birth.

"The majority of infants did in fact remain protected and that the protection was long-lasting," Dr. Gideon Lack, a pediatric allergist at King's College London who led the study, said in a statement.

"Parents of infants and young children with eczema and/or egg allergy, and so considered high-risk to peanut allergy, should consult with an allergist, pediatrician, or their general practitioner prior to feeding them peanut products."

Major insight into killer pancreatic cancer

2016-02-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

Pancreatic cancer is at least four separate diseases each with a different cause and needing a different treatment, scientists have discovered.
The researchers say the knowledge will lead to new drugs targeting the Achilles' heel of each patients' cancer and that they have already seen some "exceptional" results.
Cancer charities said the findings were "incredibly exciting".
The analysis, published in the journal Nature, looked at 456 patients' cancer.
Tumours are caused by mutations in DNA that make healthy tissue turn cancerous - but there is more than one way to make a cancer.
While all the pancreatic cancers looked similar, there were four classes of genetic error that led to tumour formation.
And these four cancers have been labelled:
squamous-type
pancreatic progenitor
immunogenic
aberrantly differentiated endocrine exocrine
New treatments
One example of how different the cancers are is the average survival time from diagnosis with squamous-type cancers was just four months - roughly half that of the other types.
But crucially, the knowledge could lead to new treatments.
Dr Andrew Biankin, one of the researchers at the University of Glasgow, told the BBC News website: "This is the most comprehensive analysis of the blueprint of pancreatic cancer.
"So this knowledge reveals what makes these cancers tick and which ones may be vulnerable to particular treatments by defining the Achilles' heel of every cancer."
It would be a much needed breakthrough for a type of cancer stubbornly difficult to treat.
Most people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are told they have less than a year to live.
And just 1% of them are alive 10 years after being diagnosed - a survival rate unchanged for four decades.

Meanwhile, dramatic improvements in breast, prostate and colon cancer care mean pancreatic tumours are predicted to kill more people than any other cancer, apart from lung, in some countries.

"It's just a really tough cancer," Dr Biankin said.
But he hopes matching drugs to specific errors in tumours will help patients.
He said: "The fact that we see, through chance, that some patients respond exceptionally to a particular therapy allows us to expand these insights so we can treat more patients with similar cancers at a genetic level."
It is thought the "immunogenic" pancreatic cancers may be vulnerable to a new wave of immunotherapies already transforming cancer, and clinical trials are already under way.
'Incredibly exciting'
Leanne Reynolds, the head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: "The findings of this research are incredibly exciting for anyone affected by pancreatic cancer, as they should mean that in the future the right patients can be given the right treatment at the right time.
"If we can predict more accurately which treatment would be most effective for each patient, we can ensure patients have the best chance of living for as long as possible, as well as possible."
Dr Emma Smith, from Cancer Research UK, said: "Identifying different types of pancreatic cancer and revealing the disease's complexity is an important step towards finding more effective treatments.
"This will help to ensure patients are given the therapies that are most likely to help."

Clashes erupt in north Myanmar over opium poppy fields

2016-02-25T07:17:00.001-08:00

Clashes have erupted in northern Myanmar between farmers and Christian anti-drug vigilantes attempting to destroy opium poppy fields.
The vigilantes had earlier been locked in a stand-off with security forces, who have been monitoring the conflict.
Activists from the Baptist church-connected Pat Jasan group said three were injured in an ambush, and farmers were holding about 30 others.
Myanmar is the world's second largest producer of opium.
Over the past week at least 3,000 activists with the militia-inspired Pat Jasan have been camped out at an army checkpoint in Kachin state demanding to be let through.
Read more: China's drug habit fuels return of the Golden Triangle

Burmese media report that the stand-off ended when authorities finally allowed the activists to clear some poppy fields on Wednesday. The BBC understands the Kachin state government negotiated their passage.
The vigilantes then engaged in skirmishes with farmers who have vowed to protect their fields.
Myanmar has promised to eradicate opium production, but growing and smuggling the drug remains a key source of income for farmers, rebel groups, militia and the Burmese army.

Pat Jasan formed two years ago by powerful Kachin Baptist Church
Boasts 100,000 anti-drugs activists, largely ethnic Kachin
Group says region blighted by drugs use
Carries out patrols apprehending offenders - reports of public floggings of drug dealers, who are taken to faith-based rehabilitation centres or the police
Full-scale village raids carried out by Pat Jasan involving several hundred people wearing camouflage jackets and brandishing batons - authorities want them to wear civilian clothes

Myanmar launched a 15-year plan to stamp out cultivation in 1999 - a deadline since extended to 2019.
In recent years, Myanmar's army has clashed with ethnic minority rebels in Shan and Kachin states where poppy production is widespread.
The army, rebels and militias have been accused of taking a poppy tax from farmers.

Opium has traditionally been used as a medicine to treat diarrhoea, dysentery and other ailments.
But over the last decade commercial poppy production has taken hold in Myanmar, with demand from China, but also Australia and Japan, helping to fuel this trend.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2015 that the opium poppy grown in Myanmar and Laos had been refined into about 73.1 tonnes to 82.3 tonnes of street-quality heroin. It noted that transnational organised crime groups were making huge profits from the product.
Until the end of the 20th Century, Myanmar, which was part of the so-called "Golden Triangle" with neighbouring Laos and Thailand, was the largest supplier of opium. The region was then overtaken by Afghanistan.

Mobile phone sperm warning: An hour chatting a day could leave you INFERTILE

2016-02-22T22:59:00.002-08:00

MEN who talk on their mobile phone for an hour or more a day could risk becoming infertile, scientists have warned today

Researchers revealed that mobile activity can drastically reduce sperm count in men, with those looking to have children being urged to turn off the devices altogether.

Scientists believe that the heat and electromagnetic activity given of by mobiles penetrates the body and “cooks” sperm alive.

And they have warned blokes that keeping your phone in your trouser pocket during the day, or on a bedside table at night, could significantly reduce sperm count.

Chatting for more than an hour daily makes you twice as likely to have low sperm quality, and for those people who talk whilst their phone is charging the risk doubles on top of that.

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

http://kvors.com/click/?s=88377&c=89569&subid=21512

GETTY
Experts have warned men's addiction to their mobiles is lowering sperm counts

The dire warning comes amid a sperm crisis in Western countries, with scientists saying that the quality of sperm amongst men is decreasing alarmingly.

Sperm count is now a factor in an astonishing 40 per cent of all recorded cases in which couples have difficulty conceiving a child.

And the research by Israeli scientists will raise serious concerns about the impact some modern technology is having on our health.

GETTY
Scientists recommend not keeping your phone near your bed at night

Men need to think about their well-being and try to stop being addicted to their phones

Professor Gedis Grudzinskas

The team, who monitored 106 men attending a fertility clinic for a year, found that 47 per cent of men who kept their phones within 20 inches of their groin had sperm levels that were seriously affected, compared with just 11 per cent of the general population.

The findings, published in Reproductive BioMedicine, support a long-feared link between dropping male fertility rates and the prevalence of mobile phones.

Professor Martha Dirnfeld, of the Technion University in Haifa, which carried out the study, said: “The sperm levels were down to a number that would make conception difficult.

“If you are trying for a baby and it doesn’t happen within a year you might want to think of whether it could be your mobile phone habit that is to blame.”

GETTY
They also suggest not keeping your mobile in your pocket

And one British expert warned that too many men becoming “addicted” to their mobiles is partly to blame for the crisis.

Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, a fertility consultant at St George’s Hospital, London, said: “Men need to think about their well-being and try to stop being addicted to their phones.”

According to the Israeli team, the best way to boost fertility is to turn off mobiles while they are charging, and whenever possible keep them at least 20 inches from the groin.

Snack O'Clock: Researchers reveals the three most dangerous times for dieters

2016-02-22T22:50:00.000-08:00

THE three most perilous times of day for dieters have been revealed... and they include the so-hard-to-resist Elevenses.

Experts declared 11.01am, 3.14pm and 9.31pm as “Snack O’Clock”, the key moments peckish slimmers are at their most vulnerable.

And the really bad news is that dieters who give in to temptation at just one or two of these times are likely to tuck away as many as 750 calories, wrecking their dream of losing weight.

Lee Smith, managing director of Forza Supplements which commissioned a study, said: “We are all becoming much more knowledgeable about nutrition and how to eat more healthily at traditional meal times.

“It is at other vulnerable moments during the day – these Snack O’Clocks – when all the damage is done.

GETTY
Experts declared 11.01am, 3.14pm and 9.31pm as key moments dieters are at their most vulnerable

“Dieters can easily add 750 calories to their daily intake by succumbing in one or two of these danger zones when all their good work at meal times is undone.”

The key to a successful diet is avoiding coffee shops

Lee Smith, Forza supplements

Skipping breakfast is singled out as a big mistake as it will make reaching lunchtime without snacking almost impossible for many dieters.

That is why 11.01am is identified as the time hunger pangs typically kick in.

Stress is a factor in the mid-afternoon danger zone of 3.14pm as office workers seek a pick-me-up to get over the post-lunch slump.

The study also revealed “shall I put the kettle on?” is the phrase slimmers should avoid in the evenings because a hot drink is invariably accompanied by a snack.

This means the night-time danger period is 9.31pm – an hour or so before bedtime – as it is when we are most likely to enjoy fatty nibbles in front of the TV.

The nutritionists also named coffee shops as dieters’ enemy number one as a visit there often means tucking into high=calorie drinks and snacks.

GETTY
Skipping breakfast is singled out as a big mistake as it makes reaching lunch without snacking tough

GETTY
New research showed some speciality drinks come with as many as 25 spoonfuls of sugar

Within the last week new research showed some speciality drinks come with as many as 25 spoonfuls of sugar.

Tea or coffee rounds at work are a similar no-no, the research said, as workers face pressure to tuck into communal snacks.

Lee added: “The key to a successful diet is avoiding coffee shops.

“They are like sweet shops to a child, offering all sorts of seemingly innocuous pleasures like lattes which are the enemies of good diets.

“It is pointless coming to work with a low-fat salad in a Tupperware box if you are going to pop out to a coffee shop and wreck all that good work.”

Boris Johnson boosts fight to quit EU: Experts say move electrifies Brexit campaign

2016-02-22T22:44:00.001-08:00

BORIS Johnson’s charge into the referendum debate has massively boosted the chances of Britain quitting the EU, poll experts said last night.

The London mayor’s decision to back Brexit has electrified the campaign and is set to influence millions of voters, according to a snap survey on the so-called “Boris effect”.

City insiders believe the charismatic politician has transformed the prospect of the Leave campaign overnight.

And after Mr Johnson declared his hand, 99 per cent in a Daily Express phone poll said they wanted out.

The findings come just a day after Mr Johnson said he would defy David Cameron by calling for an exit vote in the historic in-out referendum on June 23.

Making his case for an “out” vote, he said: “This is a once in a lifetime chance to vote for real change in Britain’s relations with Europe. This is the only opportunity we will ever have to show that we care about self rule.”

The first evidence of Tory heavyweight BoJo’s impact came in a poll by BMG Research which suggested up to nine per cent of voters are willing to change their minds on Europe on the strength of what he says.

GETTY

After Mr Johnson declared his hand, 99 per cent in a Daily Express phone poll said they wanted out

EU referendum

Sat, February 20, 2016

With an in/out referendum on EU membership set for June 23 this year, we're taking an overview look of David Cameron's two-day visit at EU summit at EU headquarters in Brussels and his return to Downing Street to meet with his cabinet.

PLAY SLIDESHOW

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

1 of 21

British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at Downing Street

Dr Michael Turner, of BMG, said: “The Mayor is directly eating into the ‘Remain’ campaign. It is not direct switching, which I would not expect at this stage, but a significant group that had planned to vote ‘remain’ suddenly becomes undecided.”

Analysis from US-based bank Citi also said Mr Johnson’s influence significantly boosted the chance of a UK exit.

It was yesterday put at 30-40 per cent – up from 20-30 per cent before the weekend.

The support of Mr Johnson and Tory Justice Secretary Michael Gove had been the key factors in the transformation, according to the research.

Citi’s chief UK economist Michael Saunders said: “The Brexit side has lacked heavyweight figures in UK politics. That changed with the backing of Gove and, in particular, Johnson.”

Leading poll expert John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said senior figures would influence the vote outcome.

GETTY

Johnson is the latest senior Tory figure to defy David Cameron by calling for an exit vote

The academic, who came close to predicting the final result of last year’s general election, said: “Personalities matter because they are vehicles for the communication of messages.

“I’m not sure at the end of the day many people are going to vote on the basis of whether they like David Cameron or Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage or Philip Hammond as individuals.

“But they are the people who above all will be trying to persuade us which way to vote. And the effectiveness with which they do so will matter.”

Anti-Brussels campaigners continued to celebrate the recruitment of Mr Johnson to their cause yesterday.

Former Tory chancellor Lord Lawson, chairman of the Vote Leave referendum campaign group, said: “I am delighted he has come out for leaving the EU. He is a superb campaigner and a great asset to the cause.”

Mr Johnson, whose intervention severely rattled Downing Street, stepped up his campaign with a furious attack on Brussels during Mayor’s Question Time at the London Assembly.

Mr Johnson said: “There will always be people who say we should stick with the status quo.

“But the trouble with the status quo is that it is formidably bureaucratic, it is producing more and more legislation over which neither our parliament nor any parliament in Europe has any control.

GETTY

Analysis suggests Johnson’s declaration boosted the Brexit campaign by between 10-20 per cent

“There are people who don’t think Britain could stand on our own two feet. I think that is profoundly wrong.

"I think the people who make these arguments are the same as the people who warned that we shouldn’t leave the ERM, which turned out to be the salvation of the UK economy; and they are the same as the people who said that we had to join the euro, which turned out to be a catastrophic mistake and a very unfortunate enterprise.

I cannot think of any more career-ending move.

Stanley Johnson, Boris' father

“I read plenty of people who think actually that the British economy could prosper outside the European Union, and not just the British economy but London and the City of London too.”

Mr Johnson’s father yesterday claimed his son had taken a “career-ending decision” by snubbing the PM.

Stanley Johnson, a former MEP and chairman of the Environmentalists for Europe campaign group, said his son made “a well-thought-out move... it represents his deep conviction”.

He added: “To say this is a careerist sort of move would be a total travesty. I cannot think of any more career-ending move. If he wanted to get a nice job in the Cabinet this is not the way to do it.”

Asus readies ZenPad M Android tablets that are tailor-made for business

2016-02-22T05:45:00.002-08:00

Will come in 7-inch and 10-inch flavours

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

http://kvors.com/click/?s=88377&c=89569&subid=21226

Asus is hoping to push Android tablets further in the business world with the launch of new ZenPad M slates which will have their own device management software built-in.

Not much has been revealed about these tablets thus far though, save for the fact that they will come in two sizes – a 7-inch slate and a bigger 10-inch version – and they'll also have Wi-Fi and LTE. However, Asus has been making a fair bit of noise concerning the new device management software known as ADAM (Asus Device Admin for Mobile).

ADAM allows for full control over a company's devices locally or remotely, letting the admin lock certain features, or completely lock and remotely wipe a tablet if it has been stolen, or indeed in this case use the front or rear cameras to take images of the thief (which can be sent directly to law enforcement).

ADAM also allows for the easy rolling out of software updates across a number of devices (employing a system that notifies users in advance of the update occurring, and locks the hardware just before that update process kicks in).

Kiosk mode

And if you want to make sure the ZenPad M is only used for a specific work-related task, it's possible to enable kiosk mode which can lock the slate down to using just one single application (ensuring no more peeping at Facebook or similar time wasting activities).

We may well hear more about the new ZenPad M tablets this week at MWC, which has now kicked off over in Barcelona. We'll certainly keep you up-to-date if any fresh news emerges.

Firaxis is "working very furiously" to fix XCOM 2 performance issues

2016-02-22T05:09:00.002-08:00

XCOM 2 is an outstanding game that unfortunately suffers from performance problems, sporadic but some quite serious, that have diminished the experience (and the framerate) for a number of players. Publisher 2K Games said last week that it was aware of the complaints and “gathering more information from users,” and today Lead Designer Jake Solomon told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that developer Firaxis is “working very furiously” to get the game running properly.

Interestingly, Solomon said Firaxis wasn't aware of the problems before the game shipped because they're not “across the board” issues: Some players suffer hitching and framerate drops, even on fairly high-end hardware, while others seem to be doing just fine with it. “Maybe this is damning on me, but I’m sitting here talking to you now on the laptop I use to play it on, and I didn’t see these issues,” he said. “We didn’t catch this stuff in compatibility testing. We’re fully, fully accountable for the product in people’s hands, so we certainly take responsibility.”

Solomon said he's as frustrated with the situation as anyone, and separate from problems with framerates and stuttering, also agrees with complaints that, regardless of whether they're the result of a design decision or a bug, some of the camera pauses after events “take too damn long.” Firaxis is working on changing those as well, and “if things can be sped up, they certainly will be.”

There's no set schedule for updates, but “we're working very furiously,” Solomon said, and will “definitely have fixes coming soon.” For now, you can do away with many of the camera pauses with the aptly-named “Stop Wasting My Time” mod, and if you're feeling lucky, speed up post-mission load times by pressing the caps lock key at the appropriate time. (As we mentioned in that original post, doing so carries with it a certain risk of crashes, so be sure to read before you ENGAGE CAPS MODE.)

HEALTH & LİFE

Space dust reveals clues about Earth's early atmosphere

HTC 10 Owners: First Impressions, Initial Reviews Thread

IBM's Watson aims to make hospital stays suck a whole lot less

EE's Jay tablet may be the cheap iPad look-alike you've always wanted

Swooping in

iPhone 8 and beyond: Future developments we could see in the world of smartphones, from graphene and lithium-air batteries to holograms and motion charging

Where is smartphone technology going? What does the future hold? And what will Apple's iPhones look like in 2018, in 2020, in 2030 and beyond? We look ahead to the iPhone 8 and beyond

CONTENTS

iPhone 8 and beyond: Battery & power developments

Stacked battery cells

Lithium-air batteries

Motion charging

Solar

Energy harvesting

iPhone 8 and beyond: Durable design

Sapphire

Project Phire

Graphene

Viscoelastic material

Flexible iPhone

Waterproof components

LIQUID EXPULSION FROM AN ORIFICE

iPhone 8 and beyond: Screen developments

3D display...

...or hologram cells

Heartburn drugs can damage cells that line blood vessels

Study suggests explanation for proton pump inhibitors’ link to severe side effects

Logitech ZeroTouch review: A pretty good way to go hands-free in your car

What is Logi ZeroTouch?

Logi ZeroTouch setup process

SO HOW'S IT WORK?

Using Logi ZeroTouch

THE BOTTOM LINE

Should you buy it? Sure

A study asks: Too much folic acid a cause of autism?

Can a pan add iron to your diet?

Teen mothers struggle to follow safe infant sleep practices

Link between gum disease and dementia is uncertain

Glaxo's potential cure for 'bubble-boy disease' a step closer

Sugary, Starchy Diet May Raise Chances of Lung Cancer

Bill Gates: Apple Could Propose a Balance in FBI Dispute

100-Foot-Wide Asteroid TX68 Safely Flies By Earth

EU Migrant Crisis: Turkey's Refugee Proposal Slammed by Rights Groups

Stopping Zika: Here come the mutant mosquitoes

Feeding kids peanuts prevents allergies long-term, study shows

Major insight into killer pancreatic cancer

Clashes erupt in north Myanmar over opium poppy fields

Mobile phone sperm warning: An hour chatting a day could leave you INFERTILE

MEN who talk on their mobile phone for an hour or more a day could risk becoming infertile, scientists have warned today

Snack O'Clock: Researchers reveals the three most dangerous times for dieters

THE three most perilous times of day for dieters have been revealed... and they include the so-hard-to-resist Elevenses.

Boris Johnson boosts fight to quit EU: Experts say move electrifies Brexit campaign

BORIS Johnson’s charge into the referendum debate has massively boosted the chances of Britain quitting the EU, poll experts said last night.

Asus readies ZenPad M Android tablets that are tailor-made for business

Will come in 7-inch and 10-inch flavours

Kiosk mode

Firaxis is "working very furiously" to fix XCOM 2 performance issues