Tea and cancer? Depends how Hot

Is there anything left in life that isn't linked in some way to cancer?

Not hot tea apparently. An international group of scientists has now connected it with esophageal cancer. The problem doesn't appear to be the tea itself, but the temperature at which it is consumed, their study found.

Residents of Golestan province in northern Iran have one of the highest rates of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in the world. They don't drink alcohol or smoke -- the two primary risk factors for the disease in the West -- but they do consume tea. Lots of it. Nearly 1.2 liters per day, on average. So local researchers set out looking for a connection.

They recruited 300 esophageal cancer patients who were diagnosed at the only gastrointestinal specialty clinic in the eastern part of Golestan and matched them up with 571 healthy controls who shared their age, gender and place of residence. All but one of them drank tea, and they gave interviewers information about their tea consumption and brewing habits.

Teaming up with investigators from the U.S., England, France and Sweden, the researchers calculated that people who said they drank "hot" tea (149 to 156 degrees Fahrenheit) were more than twice as likely to develop esophageal cancer as people who said they drank the beverage "warm" or "lukewarm" (less than 140 degrees). Those who said they took their tea "very hot" (at least 158 degrees) were more than eight times as likely to get esophageal cancer, according to the study, published online Thursday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal.

The researchers also asked people how long they waited to drink their tea after pouring it. Those who said they waited two to three minutes were nearly 2.5 times more likely to develop the cancer compared with people who said they waited at least four minutes. Impatient tea drinkers who waited less than two minutes were 5.4 times as likely to be diagnosed with esophageal cancer, the study found.

The study didn't assess the mechanism linking hot tea to esophageal cancer, but the researchers said the temperature of the liquid was almost certainly to blame rather than the compounds in the tea itself.

In an editorial accompanying the study, David Whiteman of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, advised tea drinkers to simply exercise some patience before enjoying their favorite beverage.

"It is difficult to imagine any adverse consequences of waiting at least four minutes before drinking a cup of freshly boiled tea, or more generally allowing foods and beverages to cool from 'scalding' to 'tolerable' before swallowing," he wrote.

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Rise in rocket launches may hurt Ozone

Some atmospheric researchers are suggesting that rocket launches may ultimately have to be restricted in number to avoid serious damage to the Earth's protective ozone layer.

Future ozone losses from the increasing number of rocket launches could eventually exceed the damage caused by chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, the chemical compounds banned from use in aerosols, freezers and air conditioners, they conclude in a new study.

"As the rocket launch market grows, so will ozone-destroying rocket emissions," said Darin Toohey, a professor in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "If left unregulated, rocket launches by the year 2050 could result in more ozone destruction than was ever realized by CFCs."

Toohey's research, based on measurements of pollutants emitted by current rocket launches and projections of future launches, in conjunction with authors from the Aerospace Corp. and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, appeared online in March in the journal Astropolitics.

Without Earth's ozone layer, exposure from the sun's harmful radiation would make life on the planet's surface impossible. Several decades ago, scientists began to notice the ozone layer was being eaten away, most famously over Antarctica, due to chemical reactions eventually traced to chlorofluorocarbons. In 1987, CFCs were banned from industrial uses, leading to predictions that the ozone layer would recover by 2040.

Global rocket launches, currently at more than 100 per year, deplete the ozone layer by less than 1% annually, Toohey said. But as the number of launches increases with plans by some nations, including the U.S., to colonize the moon and venture to Mars, the problem could become serious, he said.

Rockets use a variety of propellants -- solids, liquids and hybrids. Little is known about how each affects the ozone layer.

"I am optimistic that we are going to solve this problem, but we are not going to solve it by doing nothing," Toohey said.

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'Baby fat' could make for leaner Adults

Three new studies show that most adults have unexpectedly large and active deposits of a calorie-burning type of fat that biologists once thought disappeared after infancy.

The persistence of brown fat suggests a potential new strategy to fight obesity, which is epidemic in the United States and increasing rapidly in the developing world. In addition to eating less and exercising more, people may one day be able to stimulate their bodies to get rid of stored energy -- in the form of ordinary fat -- purely as heat.It is, in a sense, the discovery of a new organ," said Dr. Sven Enerback, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the lead author of one of three studies appearing today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"This is a tissue whose sole physiological purpose is to expend energy," said Dr. Francesco Celi, a metabolism researcher at the National Institutes of Health, whose commentary accompanies the studies. "That makes it an ideal target" for drugs or other measures designed to make it more active.

At the moment, however, the only safe way of activating brown fat is to stay chilly, right at the verge of shivering, for prolonged periods. That reproduces the conditions that led to the evolution of brown fat -- namely, life-threatening cold in babies and small furry animals that can't put on clothes to keep themselves warm.

Although the new research poses a difficult question -- which would you rather be, thin or warm? -- the goal is to find a more comfortable way exploit this ancient adaptation.

The three studies add to the emerging view that brown fat is involved in the body's complicated energy balance and may play a role in diseases such as Type 2 diabetes that can arise when that balance is thrown off.

For example, leaner people have more detectable brown fat than overweight people. Brown fat also appears to be more active in women than men, even though obesity is more prevalent in women. Studies show that stimulating the production of brown fat in mice -- a species in which it is naturally plentiful -- makes them resistant to gaining weight or to developing diabetes when fed a high-calorie diet.

In humans, it is unclear whether brown fat is more a cause of leanness or a result of it.

Energy lost as heat

Virtually all cells have microscopic power plants called mitochondria, where energy sources such as sugars and fats are burned to produce a compound called ATP, the universal coin of the body's economy. Brown fat cells are loaded with mitochondria, but in them the various enzymes that lead to the production of ATP are uncoupled. The result is that the energy in the glucose and fat is lost as heat, the way the work of a car engine is lost as heat if the car is stuck in a snowbank with its tires spinning.

In one of the new studies, researchers at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands examined 24 young men, about half of them lean and half overweight. Each was kept in a cool room (61 degrees Fahrenheit) for two hours and then given a PET scan, which lights up any tissue that is using a lot of glucose, showing that it is highly active on a metabolic level.

After the men had been kept cold, activated brown fat deposits were seen in 23 of 24 of them. (The one in which there was no activation was the heaviest.) Lean men had about four times as much brown fat activity as the overweight men. When several were retested without first being cold, there was no brown fat activity.

In a second study, the Swedish team led by Enerback kept five volunteers in a cool room for two hours and then PET-scanned them while intermittently putting one foot of each subject in an ice-water bath. Brown fat deposits lighted up each time.

In the third study, Drs. C. Ronald Kahn and Aaron Cypess of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston examined PET scans performed on 1,972 patients for various reasons over a three-year period. What appeared to be active brown fat was visible in 7.5% of the women and 3.1% of the men.

That was a much lower prevalence of detectable brown fat than was found in the other two studies. There are a number of possible reasons.

The Boston researchers did not attempt to induce activity in the brown fat by cold exposure (although PET scans done on days it was cold outside were more likely to light up). The patients also included many elderly, overweight and diabetic patients -- all conditions in which brown fat activity is less likely.

Other studies and extrapolation from animal experiments suggest that brown fat could be responsible for as much as one-fifth of the energy we burn at rest. Fully stimulated, the tissue might be able to burn off 10 pounds in a year.

Research published last summer by Kahn and a colleague at the Joslin Center, Dr. Yu-Hua Tseng, showed that when mice are injected with a growth factor called BMP7, they grow more brown fat. Kahn said he thinks ways will be found to increase brown fat in human beings "a lot, at least in activity if not in amount."

A future pill?

Enerback, the Swedish scientist, agreed that the search for a drug that stimulates brown fat "is definitely something we should pursue." He added, however, that "I don't think there will ever be a pill that substitutes for a fundamental change in lifestyle in the treatment of obesity."

The latest findings highlight once again the extent to which obesity is a consequence of evolution. Homo sapiens evolved in a world marked by barely enough food, constant physical activity and dangerous cold, but now lives amid abundance, leisure and warmth.

"We are living in a very comfortable time," said Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, a physiologist at Maastricht University who led the Dutch study. "But we did not evolve in such a time."

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NASA's Spitzer Telescope casts new light on search for alien life

n the search for alien life, the big question has always been, where to look? After all, the universe is a big place.

In recent years, some experts have argued that we ought to concentrate our search on stars cooler than our sun, where it would be easier to spot nearby planets that might be suitable habitat. But new results from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope raise questions about whether the chemistry on such planets would let life blossom.

A research team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore used the big infrared telescope to search for hydrogen cyanide in the dust and gas swirling around 61 young stars. Hydrogen cyanide is a component of a compound basic to DNA, which is found in every living creature on Earth.

After breaking down the light of these stars with a spectrograph, the researchers found hydrogen cyanide in 30% of the yellow, sun-like stars. They found none around cooler, smaller stars, such as M-dwarfs and brown dwarfs.

"Around cooler stars, there might not be enough hydrogen cyanide" to kick-start the complex chemical reactions necessary to form life, said Ilaria Pascucci of Johns Hopkins, lead author of the research, which is appearing this week in the Astrophysical Journal.

Planet hunters in the U.S. and Europe have found more than 340 planets around stars in the last decade or so, but none is in the so-called zone of habitability, where life could be expected to evolve.

Most are gas giants orbiting so close to the stars that life-forms, at least the kind we know, could not gain a foothold.

In recent years, a number of scientists trying to find extraterrestrial life have suggested concentrating on relatively cool, dim stars.

This is because a key method of finding planets is to observe the dimming of a star's light caused by a planet crossing in front of it, a process known as a transit. The zone of habitability around cool stars would be close to the star, making it easier to spot transits.

In their research, the team focused on young stars from 1 million to 3 million years old, which are surrounded by what are known as "planet-forming disks" of dust and gas. These disks supply the raw material from which the planets are made.

The fact that the disks around cooler stars contain no hydrogen cyanide isn't the first evidence that those stars might not be the right place to look for planets where life can grow. M-dwarfs are prone to extreme magnetic outbursts that could interfere with developing life-forms.

"Although scientists have long been aware that the tumultuous nature of many cool stars might present a significant challenge for the development of life," said a statement by Douglas Hudgins, the Spitzer program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, "this result begs an even more fundamental question: Do cool stars even contain the necessary ingredients for the formation of life?"

Compounding the challenge of finding life elsewhere in the universe is the fact that we don't know for sure how life got started on our own planet.

The possibility that the recipe for life was delivered in a neat package from space is only one theory. Other theories suggest that under the right conditions, the planet itself could cook up its own stew of living organisms.

Before excluding cooler stars from the search for life, Pascucci said, she would like to do more studies of planetary disks to find out how they vary.

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Female mammals may not have finite number of Eggs, study finds

Washington -- Scientists have produced strong new evidence challenging one of the most fundamental assumptions in biology: that female mammals, including women, are born with all the eggs they will ever have.

In a provocative set of experiments involving mice, Chinese researchers have shown for the first time that an adult mammal can harbor primitive cells in her ovaries that can become new eggs and produce healthy offspring, they reported Sunday.

Much more research is needed to confirm and explore the findings, but the work raises the tantalizing possibility that it could someday lead to new ways to fight a woman's biological clock, perhaps by stockpiling her egg-producing cells or by stimulating them to make eggs again.

The findings also could help speed stem cell research by providing scientists with a new source of eggs, which are crucial for producing embryonic stem cell lines tailored to individual patients and diseases but difficult to obtain.

"This is a very big deal," said Roger Gosden, director of reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the research, published online by Nature Cell Biology.

Some species remain fertile through their lives, and men produce sperm daily. But for at least half a century the dominant scientific tenet has been that women and all other female mammals are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and that stock is slowly depleted with age. For women, the belief has been that most of their eggs are gone by the time they reach middle age, prompting menopause and leaving them infertile.

Although several studies in recent years have raised questions about that belief, those claims remained highly controversial. The new research marks the first time scientists have obtained cells from an adult mammal that appear capable of producing new eggs and healthy offspring.

"If you are looking to disprove that females cannot make new eggs, this paper proves it. It's a really significant paper," said Jonathan Tilly, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School who published some of the most controversial research suggesting that women remain capable of producing new eggs.

Other researchers, however, remained cautious, saying the work needed to be repeated more carefully in mice and other species to validate the findings. Even then, it would remain unclear whether there are any practical implications for women, some experts said.

"The aging process of the human egg differs fundamentally from that of the mouse egg," said David Keefe, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida. "Except at Disney World, humans are not large mice."

For the study, Ji Wu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and colleagues removed ovaries from mice and sifted through millions of cells to identify a small number that appeared to have characteristics of female "germ line" stem cells, which theoretically would be able to become eggs.

After identifying those cells, the researchers reported, they coaxed them to multiply in the laboratory. Those obtained from newborn mouse ovaries continued to multiply for more than 15 months and those from adult ovaries for more than six months. A series of tests appeared to confirm that they were indeed precursor cells for eggs, the researchers reported.

They then tagged the cells with a jellyfish protein that would make them glow fluorescent green so they could be traced, and injected them into the ovaries of other mice that had been rendered mostly infertile with chemotherapy.

Some of the ovaries were examined, revealing that at least some of the fluorescent cells had matured into eggs. Other mice that got the cells bred and produced offspring.

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Two Planets identified as most similar to Earth

After locating more than 340 planets orbiting other stars, astronomers have identified two that are the most similar to Earth so far.

The most recently discovered one is almost twice as large as Earth, making it the smallest exoplanet -- for extra-solar planet -- found to date. The second one was found in 2007, but new observations have shown that it is the only exoplanet to date that orbits its star in the so-called habitable zone, where water remains a liquid. Thus, it is the only exoplanet discovered that is likely to have oceans.

Intriguingly, both orbit the same star, a dwarf 20 light-years from Earth called Gliese 581, European researchers said Tuesday.

The identification of the small planet "is a remarkable discovery and bodes well for our eventual discovery of a true Earth-like, habitable planet," astronomer Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington wrote in an e-mail.

It "is the most exciting discovery in exoplanets so far," added astronomer Geoffrey W. Marcy of UC Berkeley via e-mail. "It shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers."

The small planet is the fourth discovered circling Gliese 581 by a team of astronomers working with the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. They identified the planets by detecting and analyzing slight wobbles in the star's path as the planets orbit it.

The small planet, called Gliese 581 e, has an estimated mass equal to 1.9 Earths and orbits its sun every 3.15 days, the team reported at an astronomical meeting at the University of Hertfordshire in Britain. Because it is so close to Gliese 581, it is blisteringly hot, and any gases or liquids that it might have carried have long since dissipated, leaving only uninhabitable rock.

In February, French astronomers said they had discovered an even smaller planet, called CoRoT-Exo-7b, that has an estimated mass equal to 1.7 Earths, circling a different star. But experts said the data for Gliese 581 e is more convincing.

The other three planets in the Gliese system have masses of 16, five and seven Earths. The one with a mass of seven Earths, called Gliese 581 d, was initially thought to have an orbital period of 80 days, which would put it just on the outer edge of the habitable zone.

Recent refinements of the data, however, show that it has an orbit of only 66.8 days, which places it well within the habitable zone, astronomer Stephane Udry of Geneva University told the meeting. Because of its distance from Gliese 581, moreover, it must have a significant amount of water and other gases, he added. It could have oceans thousands of meters deep, he said.

The team is continuing to monitor Gliese 581 in hopes that the orbital planes of the planets will bring them between the star and Earth, which will allow astronomers to learn more about their composition.

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Why is Moon dust sticky? Physicist says he has answer

One of the biggest problems facing America's space agency as it prepares to return to the moon is how to manage lunar dust. It gets into everything. Worse, it's sticky, adhering to spacesuits and posing a potentially serious health hazard to future colonists.

Now, a scientist who has been studying the problem off and on over four decades thinks he may have untangled the mystery of why that dust is so sticky. Brian O'Brien, an Australian physicist who worked on the Apollo program in the 1960s, said the sun's ultraviolet and X-ray radiation gives a positive charge to the dust, making it stick to surfaces such as spacesuits.

This doesn't happen on Earth because our atmosphere screens out much of the sun's harmful radiation.

The moon's atmosphere is so thin that the rays easily reach the surface.

O'Brien's most important finding, at least for NASA's purposes in planning for a return to the moon by 2020, is that the angle of the sun's rays influences the stickiness. The more direct the sunlight, he said, the stickier the dust.

O'Brien's interest in lunar dust dates to 1965, when he was at Houston's Rice University, where he was selected as the lead scientist for seven lunar experiments designed for the Apollo program. He began worrying that lunar dust could clog his devices and ruin the experiments.

Lunar dust is "a bloody nuisance," O'Brien said in a statement.

In 1970, he published a paper showing that lunar dust kicked up by the Apollo 11 lunar module that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin back to space coated the surface of a seismometer left behind on the moon's surface. The ground motion sensor overheated and failed after three years.

More than three decades later, in 2006, O'Brien's fascination with lunar dust was rekindled when he learned that NASA had misplaced the original tapes from his dust-detecting experiments, he said in an e-mail from his home outside Perth, Australia. O'Brien dug up his own collection of 173 tapes and set about trying to understand the behavior of the dust once more.

Now 75 and retired, he traced his desire to unravel the 40-year-old problem to "old-fashioned enduring interest and, I suppose, curiosity."

Over two years of painstaking research, O'Brien tracked the dust accumulating on two solar cells, one horizontal and one vertical, over the course of two lunar days. That may not sound like much time, but a lunar day equals nearly 30 days on Earth.

He found that little dust collected on the horizontal cell in the lunar morning, when the sun's rays were slanted, while more dust adhered to the vertical cell, which more directly faced the rising sun.

The weaker the sun's rays, he found, the weaker the electrostatic forces causing the dust particles to stick, until the dust fell off.

Some scientists believe that one of the greatest challenges for future lunar colonists will be keeping their lungs free of the particles, each thinner than a human hair but sharp as a razor.

Based on his research, which is to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, O'Brien thinks colonists will be able to combat the dust problem with a practical, Earth-tested solution: old-fashioned sunscreen.

There might be other approaches, O'Brien said, but "I leave that stuff to the engineers responsible for the safety of the astronauts."

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the home of the manned spaceflight program, is working on the dust problem too. Several scientists there have been in contact with O'Brien, according to the center's press office. Officials didn't challenge O'Brien's findings nor did they endorse them.

"There are several models that predict how lunar dust behaves on the moon and very little evidence to validate those models," said Josh Byerly, a public affairs officer at Johnson. "We probably will not know its true behavior until we return."

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Family History raises asthma risk up to six times

Asthma risk is up to six times higher for those with a strong family history, says a new study.

"Our findings showed that a family history of asthma is an important risk factor for asthma, and that familial risk assessments for asthma can he

Asthma prevalence increased from 9.4 per cent for people at average risk, to 20.4 per cent for those at moderate risk, to 37.6 per cent for those at high risk. Asthma risk was 2.5 times higher in the moderate-risk group and 5.8 times higher in the high-risk grou

The new study suggests that asthma risk is at least two times higher in people with a moderate family history (for example, one parent or sibling with asthma), and up to six times higher for those with a strong family history (for example, both parents affected).

The researchers have called for more research into the role of family history in diagnosing asthma, and whether this information can help to reduce the disease’s harmful effects.

The study has been reported in the May issue of Genetics in Medicine.

p.

After adjustment for other factors, risk was 2.4 times higher in the moderate-risk group and 4.8 times higher in the high-risk group, compared to people at average risk.

Other asthma risk factors included African American race, low income, obesity, smoking or living with a smoker, and physical inactivity.

Asthma occurred at younger ages in people with a family history. Average age at onset decreased from 22 years in the average-risk group, to 19 years in the medium-risk group, to 17 years in the high-risk group.

lp identify people at highest risk for developing asthma," said lead author Tiebin Liu, MSPH, and colleagues of The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

For the study, the researchers analyzed 1999 to 2004 data on 1,500 adults (20 or older) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) study.

Based on the number and closeness of relatives with asthma, participants were classified as being at high, moderate, or average risk of asthma.

About two per cent of people were at high risk and thirteen per cent at moderate risk; the remaining 85 per cent were at average risk

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Meditation key to treat Depression

People with severe and recurrent depression could benefit from a new form of therapy that combines ancient forms of meditation with modern cognitive behaviour therapy, early-stage research by Oxford University psychologists suggests.

The results of a small-scale randomised trial of the approach, called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), in currently depressed patients are publishe

The therapy included special classes o

The Oxford team, which is currently carrying out a larger study that will compare MBCT with a group form of cognitive therapy to pinpoint the kind of elements of meditation or talking therapies which can help specific patients, will follow up the preliminary evidence from this small-scale study.

It also hopes to do follow up work with patients to reveal whether MBCT can also help reduce the risk of relapse.

According to an estimate, more than one in five people in UK suffer through depression at some point in their lives and about 5000 people in grip of the phenomenon commit suicide each year in the country.

f meditation learning and advice on how best participants can look after themselves when their feelings threaten to overwhelm them.

Professor Mark Williams, who along with his colleagues in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, developed the treatment said, "We are on the brink of discovering really important things about how people can learn to stay well after depression."

"Our aim is to help people to find long-term freedom from the daily battle with their moods," William said.

One way that the treatment benefits people is helping them to live more in the moment, rather than be caught up in upsetting memories from the past or worries about the future, h

d in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy.

In an experiment, 28 people currently suffering from depression,having also had previous episodes of depression and thoughts of suicide, were randomly assigned into two groups.

One group received MBCT in addition to treatment as usual, while the other just received treatment as usual. The result indicated that the number of patients with major depression reduced in the group which received treatment with MBCT while it remained the same in the other group.

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Antioxidant in Berries prevents wrinkles

Worried about harsh summer taking a toll on your skin? Apply berry juice.

Researchers in Korea have found that an antioxidant present in berries helps contain skin damage due to ultraviolet (UV) rays.

"An antioxidant found in berries and nuts can act as potential sun block and shield skin from harmful UV rays," said Ji-Young Bae, lead researcher of the st

Ellagic acid acts as an anti-photoaging agent

The other mice, also exposed to UV light, did not receive ellagic acid.

The mice exposed to UV radiation without the ellagic acid treatment developed wrinkles and thickening of the skin while the exposed mice that received topical application of ellagic acid showed reduced wrinkle formation.

The results of the test were presented at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans

blocking production of MMP (Matrix metalloproteinase enzymes) which breaks down collagen in damaged skin cells and reducing the expression of ICAM (a molecule involved in inflammation) both responsible for skin damage due to UV rays, Bae said.

For the research Bae experimented using both – the in-vitro and in-vivo applications. Bae used skin cells and hairless mice for this research.

For eight weeks, 12 mice were exposed to increasing ultraviolet radiation, such as that found in sunlight, three times a week, beginning at a level sufficient to cause redness or sunburn and increasing to a level that would have definitely caused minor skin damage to human skin.

During these eight weeks, half of the exposed mice were given daily topical applications of ellagic acid on their skin surface, even on the days in which they did not receive UV exposure.

udy conducted at the Hallym University in South Korea.

The antioxidant identified as ellagic acid is a polyphenol ingredient contained in lots of berries and nuts and performs a photoprotective function, Bae said in an email interview.

Found in numerous berries, including raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, pomegranates ellagic acid prevents collagen destruction and inflammatory response, major causes of wrinkles in human skin cells following a continued exposure to sun's skin-damaging ultraviolet radioactive rays.

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TB vaccine enters clinical Trials at Oxford

A promising new tuberculosis vaccine developed by the Oxford University which would protect people from getting the killer disease has reached advanced stage of clinical trials in infants.

More than two billion people are infected with tuberculosis (TB) – approximately one out of every three people on the planet – and 1.8 million die annually from the disease.

Oxford researchers have developed a promising new vaccine against TB. The study will be conducted in South Africa, around 100 km from Cape Town, by the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI).

We believe this is the most exciting advance in the field of TB vaccines for over 80 years and it is a testament to the commitment shown by the partners and funders involved Helen McShane of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, said.

"We have shown that this vaccine is safe and stimulates strong immune responses. This trial will hopefully show that the vaccine can protect people from getting TB and enable the global community to begin to control this devastating disease."

"The search for a new TB vaccine is a complex and challenging process requiring a broad commitment and we are pleased to be collaborating with so many dedicated and talented researchers on this important effort. There is still a long road ahead, but this marks an important milestone toward the goal of a more effective TB vaccine," added Jerald C Sadoff, MD, President & CEO of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation.

The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation is working with the Consortium to develop the vaccine, called MVA85A/AERAS-485, with additional funding from the Wellcome Trust.

The vaccine candidate was originally developed at the University of Oxford by Dr Helen McShane, a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow, working with Dr Sarah Gilbert, a Reader in Vaccinology, and Professor Adrian Hill, a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow.

The vaccine has been awarded orphan drug status by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and is the most clinically advanced of a new generation of tuberculosis vaccine candidates.

he only available vaccine against TB, and provides only variable protection against pulmonary tuberculosis, which accounts for most of the worldwide disease burden.

The trial will enrol 2,784 children less than one year of age, all of whom have received BCG at birth. It is expected that the trial will generate important safety, immunogenicity and preliminary efficacy data about the vaccine candidate.

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Breastfeeding Moms less likely to develop heart attacks

It is well-known that breastfeeding is important for babies' health, but a study has now suggested that it is important for mothers' health as well.

"The longer a mother nurses her baWomen who had breastfed their babies for more than a year were 10 per cent less likely to have had a heart attack, stroke, or developed heart disease than women who had never breastfed.by, the better for both of them," said Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, who lead the study at the University of Pittsburgh in the US.

"Our study provides another good reason for workplace policies to encourage women to breastfeed their infants," underlined Dr Schwarz, assistant professor of medicine, epidemiology, and obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Pittsburgh.

According to the study, published in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, the longer women breastfeed, the lower their risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease.

Postmenopausal women who breastfed for at least one month had lower rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all known to cause heart disease, according to the findings, which were based on 139,681 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative study of chronic disease, initiated in 1994.

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Latest for low slung fans – Bikini jeans

Just when common people thought fashion world couldn't get any weirder, along comes – the bikini jeans!

Priced at 62 pounds, the eye-catching apparel feature a thong sewn into a pair of supremely low-slung jeans.

Brainchild of Japanese clothing company Sanna’s, the booty-cut bottoms were born after a customer said she wanted jeans that sat lower than the hips but did not need to be hoicked up in an unladylike fashion, reports Wales Online.

Designer Sandra Tanimura, who owns a pair of the bikini jeans herself, said: “This was very difficult without the trousers falling down, so I came up with the idea of using the bikini strings.

“They have already taken off in Japan and we

“If you have a pair of jeans that fall down, just wear a belt. To wear these you would have to be stick thin or you would have big bulges coming out the gaps.

“It’s not something I would wear – maybe they would appeal to really young girls but even if they do, I think the attraction will be short-lived.”

believe they will be just as popular in the UK, especially with bold women who like their own bodies.”

However, stylist Wenda James-Rowe said: “They are totally tasteless and terrible – it’s taking things to the extreme.

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Sexual harassment can damage relations among Females

Sexual harassment from males can damage relationships between females, says a new study. Led by the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at the University of Exeter, the study focused on guppies, a popular aquarium fish, in which scientists have previously observed a very high level of sexual harassment from males towards females. The researchers found that male harassment not only breaks down female social structures but also affects females'' ability to recognise one another.

The research provides the first insight into the effect of male sexual harassment on female social networks and social recognition. The findings could have relevance to other species. "Sexual harassment is a burden that females of many species ranging from insects to primates suffer and the results of our work suggest that this harassment may limit the opportunities for female"Those females that were grouped without males were better able to recognise one another and also showed a preference for females from within, rather than outside, the group. The researchers do not know exactly why sexual harassment from males has such a marked effect on female social interaction. However, it is possible that the sheer amount of time spent by females dealing with unwanted male attention prevents them from forming relationships with other females. They believe females from groups with more males may have bonded with females from outside in order to try to establish themselves in a more favourable environment. s to form social bonds across a range of species," lead author Dr Safi Darden of the University of Exeter said. The research team worked with a population of wild guppies in Trinidad, isolating the females and introducing males to change the sex ratio and examining the effect of males on female social behaviour. They conducted a number of experiments on each group to test the females'' ability to recognise their peers and form bonds with other members of the group. The researchers found that, after experiencing a high level of sexual harassment, females were less able to recognise the other females in the group. They were also more likely to form bonds with new females, introduced from outside their network. Co-author Dr Darren Croft of the University of Exeter said: "This is an extremely interesting result as it appears that females that experience sexual harassment actually prefer to avoid other females with whom they associate the negative experience.

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Prevention to lung Cancer

Smokers and former smokers who eat lots of broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables may be less likely than other smokers to develop lung cancer. Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. reported that news recently in Washington, D.C. at an American Association of Cancer Research meeting on cancer prevention. "The first thing to do is to quit smoking," because that is "still the best thing to do to reduce the risk" of developing lung cancer, researcher Li Tang, PhD, says. Besides quitting smoking, Tang recommends smokers and former smokers eat more cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, turnip greens, mustard greens, and collard greens - especially in their raw form. Tang cautions that "nothing is the magic bullet" guaranteed to prevent lung cancer. But there's no downside to eating more vegetables.Exercise: The brain's fountain of youth

Daily physical exercise keeps the brain young, mouse studies suggest. But don't wait too long to start. The brain-boosting effects of exercise diminish rapidly after early middle age, say researchers working in the lab of Yu-Min Kuo, PhD, of Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University Medical College. Kuo's team previously found that young brains create new brain cells and integrate them into existing brain networks. As animals get older, however, this process dramatically slows. And this slowdown in brain cell creation is linked to impaired memory and learning. Mice that started exercise in early middle age did much better than mice that didn't start exercising until later middle age. Interestingly, the brain changes seen in exercising mice weren't caused by a drop in stress hormones, as some studies predicted. Instead, the positive changes came from increased production of signalling molecules that promote brain cell growth and survival.

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Researchers probe Brain's communication infrastructure

Washington University School of Medicine researchers are taking the first direct look at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations": a brain signal that never switches off and may support many cognitive functions. Their findings, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are an important step forward in understanding the functional architecture of the brain.

Functional architecture refers to the metaphorical structures formed by brain processes and interactions among different brain regions. The "foundation" highlighted in the new study is a low-frequency signal created by neuronal activity throughout the brain. This signal doesn't switch off even in dreamless sleep, possibly to help maintain basic structure and facilitate offline housekeeping activities.

"A different, more labile and higher-frequency signal known as the gamma frequency activity has been the focus of much brain research in recent years," says study author Biyu He. "But we found that signal loses its large-scale structure in deep sleep, while the low-frequency signal does not, suggesting that the low-frequency signal may be more fundamental."

"What we've been finding is reorienting the way we think about how the brain works," adds co-researcher Marcus Raichle. "We're starting to see the brain as being in the prediction business, with ongoing, organised carrier frequencies within the systems of the brain that keep them prepared for the work they need to do to perform mental tasks."

Neurologists have spent many years exploring the upper levels of the brain's functional architecture. In these studies, researchers typically ask volunteers to perform specific mental tasks as their brains are scanned using fMRI. Such "goal-oriented" tasks might include looking for or studying a visual stimulus, moving an arm or leg, reading a word or listening for a sound. As the subjects perform these tasks, the scans reveal increases in blood flow to different parts of the brain, which researchers take as indications that the brain areas are contributing to the mental task.

In the past decade, however, scientists have realised that deeper structures underlie goal-oriented mental processes. These underlying brain processes continue to occur even when subjects aren't consciously using their brain to do anything, and the energies that the brain puts into them seem to be much greater than those used for goal-oriented tasks.

"The brain consumes a tremendous amount of the body's energy resources -- it's only two percent of body weight, but it uses about 20 percent of the energy we take in," says Raichle. "When we started to ask where all those resources were being spent, we found that the goal-oriented tasks we had studied previously only accounted for a tiny portion of that energy budget. The rest appears to go into activities and processes that maintain a state of readiness in the brain."

To explore this deeper level of the brain's functional architecture, Raichle and others have been using fMRI to conduct detailed analyses of brain activity in subjects asked to do nothing. However, a nagging question has dogged those and other fMRI studies: Scientists assumed that increased blood flow to a part of the brain indicates that part has contributed to a mental task, but they wanted more direct evidence linking increased blood flow to stepped-up activity in brain cells.

In the new study, the researchers took fMRI scans of five patients with intractable epilepsy. The scans, during which the subjects did nothing, were taken prior to the temporary installation of grids of electrodes on the surfaces of the patients' brains. The level of detail provided by the grids is essential clinically for pinpointing the source of the seizures for possible surgical removal, a last resort employed only when other treatments failed.

The results confirmed that the fMRI data she had gathered earlier reflected changes in brain cell activity exhibited in the gamma frequency signal. But she also noticed the persistent low-frequency signal, which also corresponded to the fMRI data. "When we looked back in the literature, we found that a similar signal had been the subject of a great deal of animal research using implanted electrodes in the 1960s through the 1980s," she says. "There were suggestions, for example, that when this low-frequency signal, which fluctuates persistently, is in a low trough, the brain may handle mental tasks more effectively."

"What we've shown provides a bridge between the fMRI work many scientists are doing now and the earlier work involving electrical recordings from the brain that emphasised slow activity," says he. "Bringing those two fields together may give us some very interesting insights into the brain's organisation and function."

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The cookie diet can entice Dieters!

The cookie diet: What it is

Being hungry and craving sweets are two of the main reasons people fall off their diets. But what if eating cookies and not being hungry was part of your diet plan? The cookie diet uses cookies to entice dieters into easy weight loss. After all, what could be more appealing than losing weight while indulging in one of our favourite treats?

But these are not your grandmother's cookies. Instead they're designed to be meal replacements made with fiber, protein, and other ingredients intended to keep you full. They're not nearly as sweet as grandma's, though they're certainly palatable. They contain no drugs or secret ingredients, other than amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and fiber that act to suppress hunger.

How it works

On the cookie diet, there are no decisions about what to eat, but which flavour cookie to eat, and what to have for dinner. It's a relatively mindless diet strategy that has reportedly helped half a million of patients lose weight.

The cookies contain select amino acids thought to suppress hunger, fiber, and other ingredients that digest slowly to help keep you feeling full. Eating four to six of the cookies a day will give you somewhere around 500 calories.

Dinners are simple: Lean protein and veggies, or a light dinner and a salad. The dinners range from a low of 300 to a high of about 1,000 calories each, meaning the diet has a grand total of 800-1,500 calories per day.

Anyone following 800-calorie per day plan is sure to lose weight, but medical supervision is recommended for people following very low-calorie diets (less than 1,200 per day), as they are likely to be deficient in nutrients. Most of the very low-calorie cookie diet plans recommend a daily multi-vitamin to fill in the nutritional gaps.

"One of the greatest motivators to sticking to a diet is when you manage hunger, decrease cravings, and watch the weight come off, and virtually everyone will lose weight at 800 calories," Siegal says.

Evan Bass, a physician, has been following the cookie diet for more than a year and has lost upto 45 pounds.

"The first two weeks were the hardest," he says. "I was tired with no energy for exercise but once I got used to it, I felt great and could be more physically active while eating cookies daily for breakfast and lunch."

He says he loves the chocolate chip cookies, especially when they're warmed in the microwave, and has not grown tired of eating 6-8 cookies a day.

As a result of being on the diet and checking in regularly, Bass says he has seen his health improve, along with his food choices and his commitment to being physically active.

"To maintain my weight loss, I still eat cookies during the week and allow some indulgences on the weekend," he says. "But I keep a close watch on my weight and when it goes up 5 pounds that is my signal to be more vigilant about what I eat and my activity."

What you can eat

The cookies that replace breakfast, lunch, and snacks range from 90-150 calories each. They come in a variety of flavours, including chocolate, banana, blueberry, oatmeal, and coconut. The cookies are convenient, portable, and don't need refrigeration.

On Siegal's medically supervised cookie diet, you have one meal for dinner, consisting of four to six ounces of lean protein with steamed veggies or raw veggies. The meal contributes about 300 calories. Eight daily glasses of no-calorie coffee, tea, water, or other beverages are allowed, but no alcohol, sweets, fruits, dairy, or other foods are recommended.

Dieters using the online cookie diet plans without medical supervision are directed to eat about 500 calories worth of cookies each day, plus a dinner made up of sensible foods. This approach controls daytime calories, but dinner could be a calorie disaster unless it is chosen wisely.

What the experts say

Dee Sandquist, American Dietetic Association spokeswoman says, "the cookie diet is another version of the meal replacement plan, known to be an effective option for some people. For lots of people, decisions about meals are tough, whether at home or eating out, and when you can drink a shake or, eat a cookie or a bar instead of a meal, it simplifies it and helps some dieters stay in control."She emphasises the importance of making wise food choices when following the cookie diet, and recommends that dieters include lean protein, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and low-fat dairy in the dinner meal, even it if ends up being more than 300 calories.

She also suggests checking the nutrition facts panel to see how many grams of fiber, carbohydrates, protein, and other nutrients are in each cookie, as these numbers vary from plan to plan.

As for the very low-calorie monitored cookie diet plans, critics say 800 calories is below the recommended level for safe and effective weight loss. They say the 800-calorie cookie diet is lacking in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and fiber, all of which should be a part of any healthy weight loss plan. Siegal says that his clinical experience over the last 30 years has shown that fast weight loss is safe under a doctor's care, and that any nutrients lacking in the plan are made up for by the daily multi-vitamin.

The weakness in the cookie diet, experts say, is the lack of an exercise plan. Experts recommend that physical activity should be a regular part of everyone's life.

Food for thought

For people who have trouble controlling what they eat, meal replacement cookies can be an excellent way to control calories and lose weight.

Although the idea of a cookie for a meal sounds like a childhood dream, the truth is that it could get monotonous eating cookies every day. And without regular physical activity and guidance to help you make long-term lifestyle changes, lost weight may creep back.

While you'll most likely to lose quick weight on an 800 calorie a day plan, the cookie diets lack a transitional plan to help dieters get back to eating more normally and to maintain the lost weight.

Dietitians recommend that, once you reach your goal weight, you should increase your intake of healthy foods; especially fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and low fat-dairy for at least two meals a day, and rely on meal replacements for one meal a day.

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‘Pollution killing 55,000 people every Year

KARACHI: We are losing 30,000 children to poor environmental conditions at our houses and 25,000 adults to overall air pollution in the country every year.

This was observed by Minister for Environment Askari Taqvi while speaking at an Earth Day event held at the Wetland Centre of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) at Sandspit, Karachi.

According to him, the industrial effluent and domestic sewage going into the sea through Lyari and Malir rivers have badly polluted the beaches. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has prepared four feasibility reports for effluent treatment plants meant for the four industrial zones in Sindh, he said.

‘Domestic pollution starts from poor quality of water… our people are indulging in unhealthy practices,’ he remarked, and observed that villagers used cow dung, instead of wood and coal, as fuel for cooking food which was a source of innumerable diseases. It was, however, a responsibility of the state to do something about it, he added.

The minister said that cow dung could be utilised in power generation, advising nazims of towns and UCs to look into the possibility of setting up big power generation projects fuelled by dung.

He also attributed vehicle emissions to the increasing air pollution and urged owners of private cars to keep their vehicles in order so that the environment could be saved from getting further polluted.

‘We are trying to have a good number of CNG buses to replace the old ones,’ he said, pointing out that the obsolete and rusty public transport vehicles causing great damage to the environment by their emissions.
He recalled that the auto-rickshaws presently plying in Karachi are another source of environmental pollution and are being phased out. ‘These rickshaws will be replaced by four stroke rickshaws by 2010,’ he added.

Calling for individual efforts by all citizens to keep their own houses and localities neat and clean to improve the overall environment, he said that the ecological system had to be protected and this demanded consistent efforts by all citizens to adopt good habits, refrain from littering the surroundings and keep the environment everywhere clean, especially beaches.

Not enough had been done for the preservation of the country’s coastline, he observed, and pointed out that the long coastal belt was in a poor condition. He hoped that civic agencies and NGOs would continue to put in their efforts in this regard.

The minister appreciated the performance of the youths who had enthusiastically contributed towards the preservation of environment at beaches through different initiatives like the one taken by WWF-P workers and volunteers.

About 500 students of various schools participated in a beach-cleaning activity at the Sandspit marine turtle nesting site on Wednesday to mark the Earth Day. The activity was aimed at ensuring a safe and healthy sanctuary for the endangered marine turtles.

It was observed that thousands of picnickers frequented the beach area on holidays and left the site littered. The beach-cleaning was an initiative to encourage the young generation in keeping the environment clean and healthy for human beings and marine life.

The activity was followed by screening of a documentary on marine turtles and a quiz programme.

The minister gave away prizes to the students who demonstrated best performance in the beach cleaning activity and those who won the quiz programme.

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Train comes to the city of Islamabad finally

ISLAMABAD: Though 40 years late, the train has arrived to Pakistan’s federal capital. The Margalla Railway Station received its first express train on Wednesday.

But regular service of the Margalla Express between Lahore and Islamabad will have to wait for a formal inauguration by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, expected on April 30.

Divisional Superintendent Jalaluddin of Pakistan Railways (PR) at Rawalpindi has said that a recent survey showed that the railway track and service can be extended to Zero Point. He and PR’s General Manager Operations Saeed Akhtar had even identified a site near Zero Point for building a railway station.

In fact the Master Plan of Islamabad provided for a railway station at Zero Point, he told Dawn. ‘But naturally the decision lies with the government.’

Though built long ago, the Margalla Railway Station was only briefly used in 1979 for a shuttle service between Rawalpindi and Islamabad, mainly for the workers of the industrial units in the surrounding area. The public transport mafia however saw to it that the service did not survive for more than a few months.

It remained a desert place for several years until the dry port at Chaklala Railway Station was shifted there. But the track remained idle for three decades as the dry port handled only containers brought there by road for customs examination. Railway officials revisited the Margalla Station 30 years after it was opened in 1979 and decided to revive it. The Federal Board of Revenue, which has been running the dry port there, agreed to vacate half of the station for the PR to run its train services.

Meanwhile, the dry port operations will continue.Although the need for introducing a mass transit system has been growing with the rise in the city population, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) ignored the need under the influence of successive military and civil governments. Urban planners agree the city would not have had to suffer the present transport mess if a rail service up to Pakistan Secretariat had been introduced early.

Local politician Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had tried as railway minister to introduce mass transit between Rawalpindi and Islamabad but his proposal is now rusting in the files of Pakistan Railways and CDA.

If all goes well, the Margalla Express will start running between Lahore and Islamabad via Rawalpindi soon. It will be a daily service, departing Lahore at 7am and arriving Islamabad at noon. On the return journey, the train will leave Margalla Station at 5:25pm and reach Lahore at 22:20pm.

PR’s Divisional Commercial Officer Ashfaq Tabassum said the express train, having the capacity of 628 passengers in economy and air conditioned coaches, will have a special quota for the residents of Islamabad.

At the start the reservation will be manual. E-ticketing may be introduced later, depending on the business.
Passengers travelling from Islamabad will not have to pay additional charge as the fare between Islamabad and Lahore will be the same as in the case of Rawalpindi, the official said.

The Islamabad administration has designated three routes for public transport to facilitate passengers arriving at Margalla Station.

Railway officials were hopeful of the success of the train service as it would very convenient for the students of three universities - Numl, International Islamic University and Iqra University - in addition to the surrounding industrial zone.

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Mom Kicks Kids Out of the Car, Gets arrested

A mom in White Plains, N.Y., was fed up with her daughters' bickering in the car. And so, in a fit of what was likely parental desperation, she kicked the girls, ages 10 and 12, out of the car 3 miles from home.

Is the act one of minor stupidity -- acting properly human -- or child endangerment?

"The 12-year-old chased the car and got back in," reports the New York Times. "The 10-year-old was left alone and was eventually comforted by a passer-by who bought her an ice cream and contacted the police. When Ms. Primoff came to pick up her daughter, she was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, and held in jail overnight. Ms. Primoff, a partner specializing in international finance with the firm Kaye Scholer, is free on $1,500 bail and due back in court on May 21."

Primoff also has been barred from contact with her children, writes the New York Sun.

If it weren't for her arrest -- and even with it, it's likely that Primoff's daughters will believe her next time when she tells them to stop fighting or they can get out of the car. I certainly believed my mother when she said similar statements because I KNEW my mother meant it. And Primoff made that clear with her own children.

I know there are plenty of folks who are and will slam Primoff for endangering her children in what some call a seedy commercial district in White Plains. Others will -- and have -- said they deal with fighting kids in the car by giving them iPods or other electronic toys to turn on or by making them change seats. But none of us were in Primoff's driving shoes in that car. None of us knows the volume the bickering had gotten to or the amount of time the girls had been fighting or how many other times before the girls had fought in that same car. None of us were in her shoes.

What we do know is that some forms of discipline can land us in jail -- and that's a shame. Because, really, when it comes right down to it, the only way our kids will listen to us when we tell preschoolers to keep those seat belts buckled or to stop yelling in the car or any miriad of other annoying behavior, is to enforce our threats. And kicking the kids out of the car is a pretty common threat that comes to many minds.

While I can't say I've ever kicked the kids out of the car miles from home, I have sent them out the front door to run a few laps around the house. And I have pulled over, stopped the car and refused to drive until everyone is acting right.

What troubles me most about this is NOT the fact that Primoff kicked the kids out. It's that she didn't quickly double back to pick up the 10-year-old.

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'Penguins' is doing Swimmingly

One of the most popular characters in "The Penguins of Madagascar" is Julien, a lemur who has somehow deluded himself into believing he is a king, against much evidence to the contrary.

As Hollywood has long known, there can be a jackpot in animals behaving badly. In just a few weeks, the animated "Penguins of Madagascar" has claimed a royal perch at Viacom's Nickelodeon, the cable network famous for "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "iCarly."We knew it was going to be a hit; we didn't know it was going to be quite this big a hit," said Brown Johnson, Nickelodeon's president of animation.

"Penguins of Madagascar" is the latest in a line of penguin-themed entertainment, including the documentary "March of the Penguins," and the animated films "Happy Feet" and "Surf's Up."

Indeed, "Penguins of Madagascar" is shaping up as another powerful weapon in Nickelodeon's ongoing battle with Disney Channel, home of the formidable "Hannah Montana," for the hearts and minds of America's children. At the moment, who's winning depends on how you look at it. Last week, for example, Nickelodeon was the most-watched cable network among total viewers, averaging 2.3 million for the entire day. But Disney was No. 1 in prime time among children 2 to 11.

The key in this case was Nickelodeon's ability to leverage a corporate relationship with DreamWorks Animation, which produced the "Madagascar" movies. The studio has a movie distribution deal with Paramount Pictures, another arm of the Viacom empire, which helped facilitate the Nickelodeon pact, according to a network spokeswoman. "Penguins" could thus be thought of as one of the rare instances in which corporate "synergy" has performed as advertised.

"We got a lot of buzz from the money DreamWorks spent advertising the 'Madagascar' movies," Johnson said.

But she added that she thought audiences were responding to the quality of the series in its own right, and she singled out the writing, which expands what were essentially supporting characters in the films. Another key, as with "SpongeBob," is that the series is plenty silly but still has enough sophisticated humor for parents to want to watch with their children.

Each episode is written and storyboarded in the U.S. but then packed off to India and South Korea for animation work. The entire process takes about 20 months per episode, Johnson said.

It's a gamble that seems to have paid off so far. Underscoring their confidence in the series, executives have ordered 52 episodes, of which 13 have aired, Johnson said. Nickelodeon is also developing a TV series based on DreamWorks' "Kung Fu Panda," although that has not progressed beyond the pilot stage.

As for "Penguins," its franchise could last for a while. DreamWorks is planning another "Madagascar" movie in 2012. But Nickelodeon, meanwhile, isn't taking anything for granted. "There's never a formula for a hit television series," Johnson said.


Spun off from the popular "Madagascar" feature movies, the TV show premiered last month and was the most-watched in Nickelodeon's history, with 6.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. The fact that the premiere aired right after the Kids' Choice Awards didn't hurt. But the ratings have held up well since then, with 4.9 million viewers for Saturday's episode, the first in its regular morning time slot. Season to date, "Penguins of Madagascar" is already the No. 3 show on basic cable among children 2 to 11, tied with "SpongeBob" and Nickelodeon's "Mighty B!"

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Just what is it about Moobs?

The number of men having breast reduction operations in the UK is rising dramatically, but is this really the result of the media spotlighting the physical flaws of male celebrities?

This is an era when glossy magazines and tabloids delight in the most minor flaw of the female celebrity.

The actress with bags under her eyes, the singer with an untrimmed armpit, the model with a sweat patch, all are presented blinking in the paparazzo's flashbulb as their imperfections are chronicled.

All are highlighted with red circles and magnification. And the same process has been applied to male celebrities in recent years.

When both the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and leader of the opposition David Cameron were pictured enjoying the sun in the summer of 2006, newspapers from tabloid to broadsheet passed comment on their "moobs".

Every man has breast tissue, but some have excessive breasts. This ranges from classical cases of gynaecomastia, prompted by a range of causes, to breasts enlarged entirely by deposits of fat over the pectoral muscles. But whatever the cause British men seem to be increasingly concerned over the state of their chests.

The latest figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) seem to bear out this obsession.

Surgeons carried out 323 male breast reduction procedures in 2008, up a staggering 44% from 2007.

It would be easy to assume that the UK is a nation where men are rapidly becoming more obese, and they are taking a surgical shortcut to get rid of male breasts that are merely deposits of fat on top of their pectoral muscles.

But this is not the full picture says consultant plastic surgeon and Baaps member Dalia Nield.

She concedes that anything up to a third of the men seeking breast reductions are simply obese. But she says the rest of the rising numbers of operations are people who are suffering gynaecomastia - excessive breasts - caused by other factors, such as a hormonal imbalance.

Among these, a common type is pubertal gynaecomastia, where boys develop the excessive breast tissue during adolescence.

"Many of those young men if they don't have a very marked gynaecomastia they don't necessarily seek help," says Ms Nield. "But I see many of these pubertal cases later in life when they put on weight and it becomes more obvious."

Genetic disorders like Klinefelter's Syndrome - having an extra "X" chromosome - also account for some cases, and there are a rising number of men suffering from excessive breast tissue as a side effect of drugs prescribed for prostate cancer. Treatment of this type of cancer has improved in recent years, says Mrs Nield, leading to more cases.

But how can one explain the dramatic upwards trajectory for male breast reduction procedures? In 2005, only 22 were performed.

'Tremendous distress'

The effect, Mrs Nield suggests, is that men who might have been suffering in silence for years, realise they are not alone and are spurred on to seek out surgery.

"It is a cause of tremendous distress," says the surgeon.

And there is no doubting that the last few years have seen an increasing attention to this particular physical flaw.

A search of the LexisNexis newspaper databases suggests the word made its debut in a British newspaper in June 2004. Since then it has been used 161 times. There have been more than 350 references to "man boobs" over the same period. "Moobs" clocks up 281,000 hits on Google.

Kerri McPherson, a chartered health psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University and a member of the men's health group, Scotland, is an expert on male body image.

"I would argue that what the media is really discussing is just representing the growing concerns of everyday men. This concern has always been there but they have not been able to articulate it."

And it could be argued that media mockery reinforces the negative body image of the excessive male breast sufferer, it also might free some from isolation and paranoia that they could have been burdened with a decade ago.

Mrs Nield suggests that much of the increase may be due to the media publicising the surgery option.

Many of those pieces mocking the imperfections of the middle-aged celebrity also contain a

The presentation of "moobs" as something suffered by a slew of male celebrities might make life easier for the ordinary bloke sitting in a pub discussing his problem with his mates.

"More and more people are being given a language to talk about concerns about their body," says Dr McPherson.

"Particularly with what is a very feminine [characteristic] if a man was talking about [having] breasts [decades ago] they would have been a source of ridicule."

Paula Singleton, a researcher in the health faculty at Leeds Metropolitan University, is doing a PhD on the attitudes shown by men planning to have breast reduction surgery, entitled "Bruises heal but moobs last forever - men's account of cosmetic surgery for gynaecomastia."

"It seems like you can hardly turn on the telly and open a newspaper without it being mentioned," she saysfactbox that talks about non-obesity gynaecomastia and explains that surgery is an option.

"[Those planning surgery] described feelings of shame, anxiety and embarrassment. They had suffered everything from being shouted at from a bus to teasing from work colleagues… doctors smirking and laughing at them and saying 'get down the gym'."

Of course, it would be wrong to group men with excessive breasts into justifiable "moobs" - ie a hormonal, chemical or genetic cause - and unjustifiable "moobs" - those caused primarily by obesity.

Both sets of men may be suffering psychologically at a time when the male body is under increasing scrutiny.

In the academic world, most of the theorising about body image has traditionally been about women, but now researchers are starting to look at changing attitudes among men.

"Men are starting to feel those appearance pressures more and more," says Ms Singleton.

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How To Install Fonts On Windows XP or Window Vista!

Installing fonts on either Windows XP or Vista is a matter of seconds. It’s not like any program file installation, hence it takes few seconds to get done. But before installing the fonts on windows XP or Vista, you must find some cool fonts to use. There are a loads of cool fonts available to download. You can refer this post fonts for free. After getting done with your font downloads, it’s time to install those fonts on your XP or Vista operating system. Follow these below steps.

1. Open the folder where you have fonts to get installed.

But if you are having a large no of fonts, clicking on each one will take a lots of time. So, you can follow the below steps to quick the process.

1. Open the fonts folder and select all fonts by pressing Ctrl+A
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy all fonts from the folder
3. Navigate to My Computer >> C Drive >> WINDOWS >> Fonts and paste all fonts there. (If you have installed OS on a drive other than ‘C’ drive, move to that drive)
4. You are done with installing new cool fonts on your computer.

It does not matter if you are using XP or Vista, the installing process is almost same everywhere. If you are still having any problems in installing fonts on your computer, then refer to those video tutorial. You may also use the comment section for any help.

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How To Find Hidden games In Windows Vista

Windows Vista is having some hidden games inside it. You can’t find it on the programs >> Games list. Vista makers have hidden this game inside the system files so that no one can get access to it. But I’m not being able to understand the motive behind this. If you want to provide a game to your users, you can do it proudly. Why is this hide and seek? Anyways, lets come back to the topic and find out the hidden games.I am talking about a hidden game called The Lost Point. It’s completely weird. I did not enjoy playing this game, may be you will like it. To locate this hidden game in windows vista, follow the below steps :

1. Open Computer and navigate to C Drive. (If you have installed vista on a drive other than “C”, navigate to that drive)
2. Now move to Windows folder and find the folder The Lost Point.
3. Open the folder and click on the Game icon and the game will start.
4. This game is based on the concept of Jurassic Park.
5. If you love the game, create a shortcut for this on your desktop.

Similarly Vista might have stored few other hidden games for it’s users. Locate all the hidden games if you have plenty of time in hand and start playing them all. Here is the complete step by step video tutorial to find the hidden game “The Lost Point” on Windows Vista.

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Use Window Vista Movie Maker On Window 7

Windows 7 operating system is missing Windows movie maker. Since many of us are habituated with Windows Movie Maker for editing or small movie presentations, working with some another movie editing tool will not be a comfortable idea. Like windows movie maker, Windows 7 is missing several other programs. But here, I am going to tell about Windows movie maker and how to get Windows vista movie maker back on your Widows 7 operating system. We have to use a third party installation package to get back Windows movie maker.

Windows Vista movie maker is far far better than the windows live movie maker. Windows vista movie maker delivers faster effects, improved quality, better sound and cool transition effects. Although this does not support DVD maker files, you can associate any other popular video extension files with it.

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Man 80 years,girl 12 years Marry

12 years old unadult girl named Shabana kidnapped from Karachi and comple her to marry with 80 years old man forcly.it is totally unjustice and not in accordance with the preeches of Islam.

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Why you Should Be Twittering

Last week I engaged in a conversation with a young woman who loftily asserted that Twitter is merely an “ego trip for people who feel the need to let the world know what they are having for breakfast.” It’s a pretty common sentiment among those who have never really used the service. And to be fair, if you peek in on any of the profiles, you may have a hard time figuring out exactly why it can be considered a useful tool. I tried to explain to her exactly why I find it so valuable and I thought I’d expand my thoughts here on the blog as well.

For one thing Twitter is not about YOU, per se. Oh sure, you’re there to engage people and you definitely want to participate. But it is as much about getting information as sending your wisdom out into the ethos. If you’ve been following the news this week you undoubtedly saw the hullaballoo surrounding celebrity Ashton Kutcher and his race with CNN for a million Twitter followers. The biggest critics of this nonsense were Twitter users because they understand better than anyone that it isn’t about getting a bunch of people to follow you and spouting off occasionally. It’s about talking–exchanging information. It’s about communicating.

Using an application like TweetDeck, I am able to keep my followers in categories. I have news services like CNN and NPR in one category sending me real-time news feeds all day. When news breaks, I get it via Twitter. My friends and family are in another category. And I also have different groupings of bloggers and businesses by industry. What this boils down to is a non-stop, highly organized stream of information that is coming at me 24/7. If you’re the kind of person that likes to know things NOW, as they happen; and if your business relies on knowing what is going on in the world you can rely on Twitter to get you news and information before any other source.

The other important reason to Twitter is that you actually make excellent business contacts. It is the equivalent of a business luncheon—part socializing, part networking—you can strike up a conversation about anything from sports to astronomy and once you hit it off with someone they’ll help promote you either directly or indirectly through Twittering. I’ve made some excellent contacts—business and personal—through Twitter. When people get to know your personality, they are more comfortable referring you to others. Obviously, you can tweet regularly about your business. But shameless self-promotion and spamming is a good way to get yourself blocked. Be cool and you’ll be fine.

Finally, Twittering is fun. Fascinating conversations about philosophy, religion, politics, economics, relationships and technology take place at 140 characters at a time. Even the most avid user is not exactly sure why it is so addictive. But anyone who is active on Twitter will tell you that there’s much more to it than just reporting on the minutia of your life. Twitter is about the raw, unadulterated exchange of information. It’s fast, it’s easy and it is a part of the future online. You might as well jump in and start using it now.

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Record For downtown Los Angeles

Eddie Saade said he couldn't stand the 50-degree weather that chilled his home in Hollywood last week, so he turned on the heater. On Sunday, the 25-year-old laughed at that memory as he sat on the beach in Santa Monica, sweltering in Southern California's record-breaking heat.

While beachgoers enjoyed temperatures in the 80s, downtown Los Angeles rose to a toasty 94 degrees, up two degrees from the previous high, which was set in 1914. Other records were broken across the Southland, including in Long Beach (97 degrees), at UCLA (92 degrees) and Los Angeles International Airport (87 degrees), courtesy of unseasonable Santa Ana winds that blew into Southern California from Nevada, said meteorologist David Gomberg of the National Weather Service.

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  Warm weather

"Typically, we get wind coming off the ocean and that's what keeps us so mild," he said. "The reason everything's so dry right now is because the winds are coming from the desert air mass, meaning that it originates over land."

Santa Ana winds are most often associated with the brush fires of the fall and winter months, so their current appearance is unusual.

"Sometimes even if you don't get the winds, you'll feel the effects of the warmth," Gomberg said.

And while Sunday was a scorcher, additional heat records are expected to be broken today, particularly in the warmer inland valleys. Gomberg advised those planning to soak up the sun to stay hydrated and abstain from vigorous outdoor activities between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Those who hope to escape to the sand today may fare better than the hundreds of people Sunday who found themselves caught in gridlock caused by a repaving project that closed streets between the 10 Freeway and the Santa Monica Pier.

For Saade, though, the bumper-to-bumper traffic he endured for 90 minutes was worth the opportunity to sit with friends beside the ocean.

"It feels like a mini vacation," he said.

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