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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Iran denies link to group arrested for spying in Saudi Arabia
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran denied on Wednesday any link to members of a spying ring detained by its Sunni Muslim regional rival Saudi Arabia, according to Iranian media.
Saudi state media reported on Tuesday that officials had detained 10 people accused of spying for Iran after arresting 18 people in the same case in March.
Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, accuses the Islamic Republic of stirring up unrest among minority Saudi Shi'ites. Tehran rejects that charge and has repeatedly denied any involvement in espionage in Saudi Arabia.
Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi repeated that denial on Wednesday, in comments to the ISNA news agency.
"We expect the Saudi government to pursue the issue through correct channels rather than creating an atmosphere through the media," Araqchi said, according to ISNA.
Saudi officials said the 10 most recently arrested included eight Saudis, a Turk and a Lebanese citizen. Those arrested in March included 16 Saudis and an Iranian.
Araqchi said Iran had requested consular access to the Iranian for the past two months but that "unfortunately there has been no response" from Saudi officials.
Saudi Arabia also accuses Iran of fomenting unrest in Sunni-ruled Bahrain, where majority Shi'ites have led pro-democracy protests. Iran denies this.
(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Jon Hemming)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-denies-group-arrested-spying-saudi-arabia-120441156.html
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Chinese premier visits India, talks up trade and trust
Premier Li Keqiang arrived this weekend in New Delhi on his first foreign trip. India has become China's biggest?market?for infrastructure contracts, but the two countries remain wary neighbors.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pose for photographers before a meeting New Delhi, India, Monday, May 20, 2013.
Saurabh Das/AP
EnlargeChina?s leaders never tire of saying it: Asian giants India and China, the two most populous nations in the world, have so much in common that neighborly relations should be natural and fruitful.
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But if Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has this week chosen New Delhi as his first foreign destination since taking office in March, it is because such neighborly relations are proving stubbornly difficult to establish.
?India is a very, very significant country for China,? says Hu Shisheng, head of South Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing. ?But we suffer from a strategic trust deficit.?
Mr. Li arrived in Delhi on Sunday at the start of a three day trip designed to rectify that shortfall. ?I want this visit to show the whole world that the mutual political trust between China and India is rising, practical cooperation is expanding, and there are more common interests than differences,? he told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
What China wants
China is keen to improve its relations with India at the moment?for a couple of reasons. First, Beijing does not want to see India align itself more closely with the US and China's other Pacific rivals like Japan. And India represents a major new market for Chinese infrastructure companies.
The trip has been shadowed, though, by a recent three week standoff between Indian and Chinese troops on their disputed Himalayan border, in an incident that underlined the two countries? traditional rivalry.
Home to more than one third of humanity, China and India are more than just neighbors; both are rising global powers that are still developing countries and which have become strategic partners on many international issues.
Delhi and Beijing find themselves on the same side in global arguments over such questions as climate change, for example, or the reform of the international financial system.
The two sides have also found there is a lot of room to boost their trade, which last year stood at a rather lackluster $66 billion. They have set themselves the target of increasing that to $100 billion by 2015, and of encouraging more cross-border investment. India wants to trade China more pharmaceuticals and information technology. China, meanwhile, has seen?India emerge as its biggest market?for infrastructure contracts ? already worth $35 billion and with $16 billion of deals in the pipeline.?With warmer bilateral ties, Beijing hopes, that figure could rise significantly.
But their good intentions are persistently dogged by worries on both sides over security questions.
Before Li left Beijing, the ruling Communist Party?s official mouthpiece, the People?s Daily, published a commentary in its overseas edition saying China and India had agreed to ?separate the boundary issue from overall China-India relations and ensure the relevant differences do not affect the development of bilateral ties.?
Future of flare-ups?
But that is easier said than done, suggests Lora Saalman, an expert on Sino-Indian relations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beijing. ?Putting strategic issues aside to focus only on economic ties means that such flare-ups will continue to erupt,? she warns.
India and China fought a brief border war in 1962; China?s victory still smarts in India and the two sides have never been able to agree where the nearly 2,500 mile border actually lies. The frontier has remained generally quiet ? no shots have been fired for more than half a century ? but tense standoffs occasionally blow up and sour bilateral relations.
No resolution of the dispute seems in sight. As both nations rise on the international scene, so do nationalist sentiments in each country. Neither government will find it easy to make the sort of concessions required for a deal.
?The territorial issue is politically highly risky,? says Professor Hu. ?Neither party has the guts to find a solution.?
Beijing and Delhi have also yet to overcome historical differences born of the cold war, when India was friendly with the Soviet Union while her bitter enemy, Pakistan, found arms and diplomatic aid in China.
That history complicates current geopolitical frictions, as China and India discover they have overlapping interests.
India today is increasingly close to Washington, a posture that alarms Beijing, and India is rubbing up against China in the South China Sea, where a state owned Indian oil company has signed an exploration deal with Vietnam in waters that China claims as hers.
The Indian navy, an admiral warned late last year, is prepared to deploy to the area to defend Indian interests.
China, meanwhile, has unnerved some Indian strategists with its activities in the Indian Ocean. A Chinese company now operates the Chinese-built port at Gwadar, in Pakistan?s Balochistan Province; the Chinese navy has re-fueling rights in the Seychelles, and a Chinese-built port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, is due to open next month.
As China courts India with visions of an economic partnership that could strengthen Asia?s sway over the world economy, Beijing must be careful not to upset Pakistan, to whom it has always been an ?all weather friend? in the two allies? diplomatic parlance.
Li will travel to Pakistan after his Indian visit, dancing a delicate diplomatic minuet as he seeks to strike a better balance between China?s relationships with its two southern neighbors without alarming old friends.
While it is important for China to reassure Pakistan that their ?time tested strategic partnership? is not at risk, says Zhang Li, a South Asian specialist at Sichuan University in the southwestern city of Chengdu, ?we have to make Pakistan understand that it is a strategic necessity for China to have balanced relations in South Asia.
?We need credible working relations with India,? Professor Zhang adds. ?For that we need to give substance to our partnership, and the first task is to promote mutual trust and confidence.?
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Gay Fla. teen charged for underage girlfriend
In this photo made available by the Hunt family, Kaitlyn Hunt and her father Steve in Vero Beach, Fla., Monday May 20, 2013. Kaitlyn, 18, was expelled from school for dating and having sex with her 14-year-old girlfriend, who was a fellow player on her basketball team. Hunt was arrested and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 to 16 years. (AP Photo/Hunt Family, HO)
In this photo made available by the Hunt family, Kaitlyn Hunt and her father Steve in Vero Beach, Fla., Monday May 20, 2013. Kaitlyn, 18, was expelled from school for dating and having sex with her 14-year-old girlfriend, who was a fellow player on her basketball team. Hunt was arrested and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 to 16 years. (AP Photo/Hunt Family, HO)
MIAMI (AP) ? An 18-year-old Florida cheerleader is facing felony charges that she had sexual contact with her underage, 14-year-old girlfriend, leading gay rights advocates to say the teen is being unfairly targeted for a common high school romance because she's gay.
The criminal case against Kaitlyn Hunt is unusual because it involves two females, not an older male and a younger female. But advocates say older high schoolers dating their younger counterparts is an innocuous, everyday occurrence that is not prosecuted ? regardless of sexual orientation ? and not a crime on par with predatory sex offenses.
Hunt played on the basketball team with her younger girlfriend and shared the same circle of friends, said Hunt's mother, Kelley Hunt Smith. The two had a consenting relationship that began soon after Kaitlyn Hunt turned 18, and Hunt Smith said she assumed the younger girl's parents knew that.
But Hunt was kicked off the basketball team near the end of last year after the coach learned of the relationship because players were not allowed to date each other, her parents said. Then, in February, she was charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 to 16. The day before she was arrested, police and the younger girl's parents secretly recorded a phone conversation in which the two girls discussed kissing in the school bathroom, said Hunt's father, Steve Hunt.
"It's horrible. For my daughter's sexual preferences, she's getting two felony charges. It could possibly ruin her future," Steve Hunt told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday.
The alleged victim is identified only by her initials in court documents, and her parents have not been publicly identified. The AP does not identify alleged victims of sex crimes.
Kaitlyn Hunt, who hopes to become a nurse, declined to be interviewed and is scared, her father said. However, the family has received support from all over the world, with messages coming from as far away as New Zealand, the Netherlands and Canada, Steve Hunt said. He said he reads them to her to keep her spirits up, but she feels like she has let everyone down, he said through tears.
Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to Kaitlyn Hunt that would allow her to avoid registering as a sex offender if she pleads guilty to lesser charges of child abuse. State Attorney Bruce Colton said he would recommend two years of house arrest followed by one year probation if she takes the deal.
If she is found guilty, it's also possible that Hunt could apply to not have to register as a sex offender under a "Romeo and Juliet" law because the girls were no more than four years apart in age, Colton said.
Colton said the victim's family is not pushing for prison but wants Kaitlyn Hunt to be held responsible in some way. However, the Hunt family said they would accept a plea deal only if the charges are dropped to a misdemeanor.
"One of the reasons this case has gotten people's attention is because it's being publicized as a person being persecuted because she's gay, and that has nothing to do with the case, nothing to do with the law, nothing to do with the sheriff's office filing the charges," Colton said. He said the law is designed to protect younger children from older children who might be more aggressive in starting a relationship.
"The law doesn't make any differentiation. It doesn't matter if it's two girls or two boys, or an older boy and a younger girl or an older girl and a younger boy. Whatever the combination, it doesn't matter."
However, gay rights advocates aren't buying that. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said Kaitlyn Hunt is being criminalized for behavior that "occurs every day in tens of thousands of high schools across the country, yet those other students are not facing felony convictions ... and potential lifelong branding as sex offenders."
Her support extends beyond the ACLU. A "Free Kate" Facebook page has generated more than 30,000 followers so far, and an online petition urging that the charges be dropped crashed at one point because it got so much traffic. It now has more than 100,000 signatures. And during a press conference Monday, dozens of supporters showed up outside of the Indian River Sheriff's Department, many wearing T-Shirts that read "Stop the Hate, Free Kate" with rainbow hearts.
"It's very difficult under these circumstances when the defendant and the victim do not see what they're doing as a crime, but understandably the law is very clear that when someone is more than four years older than the victim and the victim is under the age of 16, then they cannot give legal consent," said New Jersey defense attorney Gregory Gianforcaro, who has represented victims and defendants on both sides of this issue.
Gianforcaro said that Hunt's case is clearly not a predatory situation and that prosecutors should consider that when they look at sentencing and plea bargains.
"This is a very uncommon situation because of the fact there are two women. However, if it were a man and a woman and there was more than four years of an age difference, it's very possible that that kind of situation would be pursued criminally as well," Gianforcaro said.
The family said Kaitlyn Hunt had been demonized by some, and they disabled her personal Facebook account to protect her from negative comments. At school in February, her 17-year-old sister spent a half-hour cleaning a mirror where someone had written a slur against women and other words including "rapist" and "disgusting," Steve Hunt said.
In the meantime, Kaitlyn Hunt has been attending an alternative school since her expulsion and will be allowed to walk with her class at graduation in June. Her mother said she was expelled by the school board even though a judge ruled she could stay.
Sebastian River High School's principal and assistant principal did not immediately respond to emails sent Tuesday.
Associated PressSteve Mariotti: The Best and the Brightest -- My Favorite Book
Everyone has a favorite book. I read The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam over and over again, at least once a year. Sometimes, I will pick it up to touch and feel it, reading just a page or two, knowing by heart whole sections.
It took three years for David to research and another two years to write. Finally published in 1972, it tells the tale of the Vietnam tragedy of how the United States went from 15,000 troops in 1962 to over 500,000 soldiers by 1968, spending trillions of dollars in the process and losing over 50,000 American lives.
Arguably, Vietnam was the biggest tragedy for the U.S. since the Civil War. Halberstam was fascinated by Vietnam having won a Pulitzer for his writings on the war early on in '62. So irritated with his questioning of our policy, President Kennedy called Sulzberger, the owner of the New York Times, to ask that the young David be reassigned.
David began his masterpiece with a trip to Saigon in 1967 to cover the escalating war for Harper's. Given the opportunity to write as much as he wanted with an unlimited time limit, he eventually turned the article into a 652 page book -- perhaps the greatest non-fiction political analysis ever written. In my opinion, David Halberstam is the greatest journalist of the last 100 years.
Writing and researching 10 hours a day, David finally finished and the book became an instant best seller with awesome critical reviews as well. I first read the book in 1977 when I had just fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a part of Ford Finance Staff, the legendary group that ran Ford Motor Company and had been created by Bob McNamara, the main character in Halberstam's book. Ford Finance was located on the 10th and 11th floors of Ford World Headquarters located in Dearborn, Michigan, and my office was on the 10th floor in Room 1036, the area of international finance.
Ford Finance staff produced more CEOs of Fortune 500 firms than any other organization other than Harvard Business School. It was clearly the greatest finance department in American business and had done so much to build modern management techniques. It had been developed by the Whiz Kids -- a group of elite Air Force officers who were brought to Ford by Henry Ford in 1946 to help save the company by bringing in advance management techniques.
I highly recommend the book The Whiz Kids for background on this interesting story. The Whiz Kids were spectacularly successful in turning around Ford and much of their success was because of Bob McNamara and my own boss, Edward J. Lundy, the Senior Vice President of Finance.
Bob had become president of Ford in 1960 before being named by President Kennedy to head up the Department of Defense -- becoming the foolish protagonist in Halberstams book.
Halberstam had written over 10 pages on Ford Finance Staff, capturing our culture brilliantly; and in my second year firmly entranced as the treasury analyst of Ford South Africa and Ford Aerospace, Ford Venezuala and Ford Mexico, I made 40 copies of the 10 pages and distributed them to senior finance staff members.
Everyone was quite pleased as Halberstam had brilliantly captured how we felt about ourselves -- The Best and the Brightest. The legendary Lundy called me himself -- by then, I was called "Stevie Wonder" -- to say: "Awesome job, Steve. Great for morale. Although, I felt Bob got a bad rap on Vietnam. It was those generals that gave him bad advice." Not wanting to express my own opinion, I said, "Yes sir, Mr. Lundy, there was a lot of blame to go around."
At Ford, we used tape recordings in our personal meetings. We taped and then listened to people talk in what was called 'face offs.' It was part of our culture and we were proud of it. Finance staff faceoffs were daily through out world headquarters -- like massive therapy sessions, everyone voice was heard literally. Not only was listening and analyzing conversations part of our culture, but we made a lot of the equipment for suvailance at our division, Ford Aerospace, for which I was the financial analyst in the Treasurers Department.
As I was the analyst for both Ford Aroespace and Ford South Africa, I would review the agreement to sell surveillance equipment to places like the South African government.
I though that it was immoral to be helping a totalitarian racist regime and began under the tutelage of Reverend Sullivan, a legendary African-American political activist, to change Ford policy, coming up with guidelines on who we could sell to, prohibiting us from selling to corrupt governments. But that is a story for later so back to my tale of meeting Halberstam...
After I left Ford, I moved to New York City seeking fame and fortune. My plan was to call all the people I had read about in Michigan and go see them. My first call was to Halberstam.
"I think your book is brilliant. I was at Ford and we loved it." I said eagerly.
"Thank you Steve. Any feedback?" he asked. I could not resist." I was curious as to why you never mentioned anything about the use of surveillance at the company. We made all the equipment and sold it around the world, but it was always first tested at Ford world headquarters by Henry himself."
I could see him through the phone, aghast. He thought I was a kook. Feeling uncomfortable, he quickly got off the phone, and I was deeply hurt and embarrassed.
But time and truth were on my side. In 1982, Lee Iacocca published his book, Iacocca. Brilliantly written, it became a bestseller, and everyone was reading it. Sure enough, on page 117, Lee wrote about what I had seen, took part in and told David Halberstam about -- the use of surveillance equipment at Ford.
Lee wrote openly that we made the equipment and Henry Ford himself would test it by seeing if he could hear what was going on in Lee Iacocca's office when he went out to lunch about a mile a way.
Vindicated, I got a copy of the book, marked page 117, and sent a note on top to Mr. Halberstam saying, "here is some investigative research on the issue of surveillance at Ford motor company which we discussed." Probably not one of my finer moments, but it made me feel better to set the history straight. Soon after my phone rang and I picked up.
"Steve Mariotti, it is David Halberstam. You were right about the tapes and I wish I had written about it. How about lunch?"
The very next day in 1982, we feasted at his favorite place, the Harvard Club, and he told me in great detail about writing the first draft of The Best and the Brightest. It was the funniest lunch I have ever had.
We stayed friends for the next 15 years until his tragic auto accident in California.
David Halberstam truly was one of The Best and the Brightest.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-mariotti/the-best-and-the-brightes_1_b_3309299.html
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U.S. charges 3 NYU researchers in Chinese bribery case
By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities brought criminal charges against three New York University researchers on Monday, alleging they conspired to take bribes from Chinese medical and research outfits for details about NYU research into magnetic resonance imaging technology.
A criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan charged Yudong Zhu, 44, Xing Yang, 31, and Ye Li, 31, with commercial bribery conspiracy in connection with NYU research financed by the U.S. government.
Federal prosecutors and the FBI said the three conspired to receive payments from a Chinese medical imaging company, United Imaging Healthcare, and a research institution supported by the Chinese government.
In exchange, prosecutors said, the defendants turned over confidential information about NYU research into MRI technology, which provides detailed views of the human body.
"As alleged, this is a case of inviting and paying for foxes in the henhouse," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. The alleged theft of research "is a serious crime and will not be tolerated by this office."
In addition to the bribery conspiracy count, Zhu was also charged with falsifying records in connection with a grant from the National Institutes of Health that a prosecutor said was worth $4 million.
Prosecutors said Zhu and Yang were arrested at their homes in New York on Sunday, while they said Li is believed to have flown to China on May 10 before charges were brought. Li could not immediately be located for comment.
NYU was not named in the complaint, which says the three individuals worked at a New York-based university research medical center. But a spokeswoman for the university confirmed the three defendants worked at the NYU Langone Medical Center.
"NYULMC is deeply disappointed by the news of the alleged conduct by its employees," Kathy Lewis, a university spokeswoman, said in a statement.
All three individuals have been suspended from NYU, Lewis said. The university is cooperating with the investigation, she said.
CHINESE CASES
The case comes amid heightened concern of Chinese theft of U.S. trade secrets. Prosecutors have brought several criminal cases against defendants accused of stealing trade secrets from the likes of Motorola Inc, General Motors Co and Dow Chemical Co and then providing them to Chinese companies.
Zhu, a Chinese citizen, was an associate professor in radiology at NYU; he was hired to teach about innovations in the MRI field in 2008, according to the complaint.
Richard Baum, a lawyer for Zhu, said at a hearing on Monday that by the time he joined NYU from General Electric Co, he was already "one of the world's renowned experts in MRI technology."
In 2010, Zhu applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health. After starting research under the multimillion-dollar grant, prosecutors said Zhu recruited Yang and Li to work with him.
At that time, Zhu also arranged to receive financial benefits from an unnamed executive with United Imaging Healthcare, the complaint said.
The executive agreed to pay for Yang's graduate school tuition and Li's rent for his apartment, the complaint said. The executive also agreed to pay for their travel between China and New York, the complaint said.
Prosecutors said Yang also shared research results of his work with individuals at United Imaging.
Zhu, meanwhile, had been working with the United Imaging executive leading a similar MRI research project funded by the Chinese government, the complaint said.
Some of the defendants also had undisclosed connections to Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SAIT), a Chinese government-backed research institute also studying MRI technology, according to the complaint.
As part of an internal investigation NYU launched in connection with the case, Li allegedly told the university he had as of January 2013 been a research associate professor at SAIT.
Zhu, meanwhile, had worked with the unidentified United Imaging executive as part of the same MRI research team at the institute, the complaint said.
At a hearing to determine the defendants' bail, a U.S. prosecutor said the government had also since learned even more details about the crime not described in the complaint.
Zachary Feingold, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Zhu had told investigators that he received at least $400,000 from the Chinese company. The money was deposited in a bank account in the name of a company owned by his mother, Feingold said.
A call to United Imaging after business hours in China was not answered, nor was an email to the company. SAIT did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
PATENT AT ISSUE
Beyond the money from the Chinese company, the complaint also accused Zhu of intentionally failing to disclose an October 2008 patent application he filed for technology related to radio frequency coils used in MRI scanners.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the patent in November 2012. Prosecutors said the patent's value would be affected by the NIH grant research.
At Monday's hearing, Baum, Zhu's lawyer, disputed that NYU didn't know about the patent, which he applied for before joining the university. He already had several other patents at the time, Baum said.
"Whether it's a conflict instead of a crime is a different issue," he said.
Zhu was released on $200,000 bond to be secured by $20,000 cash. Yang was released on $100,000 bond to be secured by $5,000 cash and will be subject to home confinement.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Martha Graybow, David Gregorio and Jan Paschal)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-charges-three-nyu-researchers-chinese-bribery-case-201316267.html
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Building Xbox One: An inside look at Microsoft's play for the next generation of gaming
The engineers in Microsoft's windowless next-gen Xbox silicon lab are rattled. And understandably so. We're in their office, after all, and we have a mess of cameras in the one place you're not allowed to have cameras (or even cellphones). We're obviously outsiders on Microsoft's multi-building, security-heavy Mountain View campus, especially given our quartet of esteemed escorts: Todd Holmdahl, Ilan Spillinger, Nick Baker and Greg Williams. These four gentlemen are leading the charge on both Microsoft's next big thing and, perhaps more importantly, a major effort to internalize silicon architecture at the traditionally software-focused megacorp.
The skittish engineers aren't worried we'll film the mess of 24-inch LCD screens running video-compression tests, or the rows of desks with water hose stations used for temperature stress tests, or even the sea of circuit boards in various states of disrepair -- that's all standard for any Silicon Valley computer lab. It's really just a single chip that's causing concern: a custom-built Microsoft SoC that sits at the heart of the Xbox One. It's this SoC that has us in Mountain View, Calif. -- in Silicon Valley, literally down the road from Google -- a mere five days before Microsoft will unveil its next game console to the world. Over six hours last Friday, we learned not just about that SoC, but also how the company plans to utilize it in the new console. We spoke with its four lead hardware architects. We toured the labs where they are testing the silicon, and where the next-generation Kinect was born. What follows is more than a look behind the silicon that drives the next Xbox -- it's a deep dive into the changing approach Microsoft's taking to creating devices.
Gallery: Where the Xbox was built: An inside look at Microsoft's play for the next generation of gaming
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
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Egypt: Security beefed up in Sinai after abduction
CAIRO (AP) ? Egyptian officials say dozens of military and police armored vehicles have crossed into Sinai, beefing up the security presence in the volatile peninsula five days after suspected militants kidnapped six policemen and a border guard there.
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi said all options are open to free the seven men. Officials have said mediators were in touch with the captors.
Security officials said 17 military and more than 20 police armored vehicles were deployed in northern Sinai Monday as a response to the kidnapping. It was not clear if they were there as a prelude to a rescue attempt.
The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-security-beefed-sinai-abduction-110155713.html
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Israel gunman shoots 4 dead at bank, kills self
JERUSALEM (AP) ? A gunman stormed into a bank in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba Monday, killing four people in a gunfight and taking a hostage before killing himself, police said.
Police initially suspected a bungled bank robbery but later changed their assessment.
They identified the gunman as a former military officer who fell on hard times financially. The 40-year-old man arrived at the bank to withdraw money and settle a debt, police said. He reportedly got into an argument with the bank manager and came back an hour later with a handgun that was licensed to him and opened fire.
The dead included the bank manager, his deputy and two clients. Four other people were wounded, one seriously.
After the shooting rampage, the man then took a woman hostage and held her for an hour in the bathroom before turning the gun on himself.
"He kept one hand on my mouth and said 'shut up or I'll kill you,' and the other hand held the gun in front of me," recounted the hostage, Miriam Cohen, in an interview with Israel's Channel 10 TV. "Then he put the gun in his mouth ... and I heard a gunshot."
"The murderer came in with an intention to shoot," national police chief Yohanan Danino told reporters.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-gunman-shoots-4-dead-bank-kills-self-134224670.html
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Shanzhai Biennial: Dark Optimism
This song, like the dress and the woman wearing it, is the sincerest form of flattery. In that they're all shameless knockoffs.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lCQCHcNqBeU/shanzhai-biennial-dark-optimism-508958890
Amazon River exhales virtually all carbon taken up by rainforest
May 20, 2013 ? The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen. Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall.
Until recently, people believed much of the rain forest's carbon floated down the Amazon River and ended up deep in the ocean. University of Washington research showed a decade ago that rivers exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide -- though left open the question of how that was possible, since bark and stems were thought to be too tough for river bacteria to digest.
A study published this week in Nature Geoscience resolves the conundrum, proving that woody plant matter is almost completely digested by bacteria living in the Amazon River, and that this tough stuff plays a major part in fueling the river's breath.
The finding has implications for global carbon models, and for the ecology of the Amazon and the world's other rivers.
"People thought this was one of the components that just got dumped into the ocean," said first author Nick Ward, a UW doctoral student in oceanography. "We've found that terrestrial carbon is respired and basically turned into carbon dioxide as it travels down the river."
Tough lignin, which helps form the main part of woody tissue, is the second most common component of terrestrial plants. Scientists believed that much of it got buried on the seafloor to stay there for centuries or millennia. The new paper shows river bacteria break it down within two weeks, and that just 5 percent of the Amazon rainforest's carbon ever reaches the ocean.
"Rivers were once thought of as passive pipes," said co-author Jeffrey Richey, a UW professor of oceanography. "This shows they're more like metabolic hotspots."
When previous research showed how much carbon dioxide was outgassing from rivers, scientists knew it didn't add up. They speculated there might be some unknown, short-lived carbon source that freshwater bacteria could turn into carbon dioxide.
"The fact that lignin is proving to be this metabolically active is a big surprise," Richey said. "It's a mechanism for the rivers' role in the global carbon cycle -- it's the food for the river breath."
The Amazon alone discharges about one-fifth of the world's freshwater and plays a large role in global processes, but it also serves as a test bed for natural river ecosystems.
Richey and his collaborators have studied the Amazon River for more than three decades. Earlier research took place more than 500 miles upstream. This time the U.S. and Brazilian team sought to understand the connection between the river and ocean, which meant working at the mouth of the world's largest river -- a treacherous study site.
"There's a reason that no one's really studied in this area," Ward said. "Pulling it off has been quite a challenge. It's a humongous, sloppy piece of water."
The team used flat-bottomed boats to traverse the three river mouths, each so wide that you cannot see land, in water so rich with sediment that it looks like chocolate milk. Tides raise the ocean by 30 feet, reversing the flow of freshwater at the river mouth, and winds blow at up to 35 mph.
Under these conditions, Ward collected river water samples in all four seasons. He compared the original samples with ones left to sit for up to a week at river temperatures. Back at the UW, he used newly developed techniques to scan the samples for some 100 compounds, covering 95 percent of all plant-based lignin. Previous techniques could identify only 1 percent of the plant-based carbon in the water.
Based on the results, the authors estimate that about 45 percent of the Amazon's lignin breaks down in soils, 55 percent breaks down in the river system, and 5 percent reaches the ocean, where it may break down or sink to the ocean floor.
"People had just assumed, 'Well, it's not energetically feasible for an organism to break lignin apart, so why would they?'" Ward said. "We're thinking that as rain falls over the land it's taking with it these lignin compounds, but it's also taking with it the bacterial community that's really good at eating the lignin."
The research was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Research Council for the State of S?o Paulo. Co-authors are Richard Keil at the UW; Patricia Medeiros and Patricia Yager at the University of Georgia; Daimio Brito and Alan Cunha at the Federal University of Amap in Brazil; Thorsten Dittmar at Carl von Ossietzky University in Germany; and Alex Krusche at University of S?o Paulo in Brazil.
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Dijit unveils NextGuide Web with Facebook-sourced TV recommendations
Dijit Media just launched a closed beta of its browser-based service, NextGuide Web, which expands on the features of the NextGuide iPad app. NextGuide's interface will be familiar to Pinterest fans, with a scrolling feed through which you can browse your buddies' favorites and bookmark shows for later viewing. If you have a North American cable or satellite provider, you can sign up to receive e-mail reminders for live TV showings while Comcast and DirectTV subscribers can also use NextGuide to schedule DVR recordings.
If live TV isn't your thing, NextGuide provides a universal search of Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and iTunes for your online viewing pleasure. The social aspect of the service -- along with its Facebook integration -- is arguably the most interesting as it makes it easier to discover programs based on recommendations pulled from your friends' activity. NextGuide's web service is currently invitation-only, but users of the iPad app and Dijit Remote will be able to log on immediately. Since Dijit acquired Miso back in February, users of Miso's TV app will also be granted access sometime within the next month.
Source: Dijit Media
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/2bb_yUivg7g/
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Tea party looks to take advantage of moment
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Is the tea party getting its groove back? Shouts of vindication from around the country suggest the movement's leaders certainly think so.
They say the IRS acknowledgement that it had targeted their groups for extra scrutiny ? a claim that tea party activists had made for years ? is helping pump new energy into the coalition. And they are trying to use that development, along with the ongoing controversy over the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attacks and the Justice Department's secret seizure of journalists' phone records, to recruit new activists incensed about government overreach.
"This is the defining moment to say 'I told you so,' " said Katrina Pierson, a Dallas-based tea party leader, who traveled to Washington last week as the three political headaches for President Barack Obama unfolded.
Luke Rogonjich, a tea party leader in Phoenix, called the trio of controversies a powerful confluence that bolsters the GOP's case against big government. "Suddenly, there are a lot of things pressing on the dam," said Rogonjich.
It's unclear whether a movement made up of disparate grassroots groups with no central body can take advantage of the moment and leverage it to grow stronger after a sub-par showing in last fall's election had called into question the movement's lasting impact. Republicans and Democrats alike say the tea party runs the risk of going too far in its criticism, which could once again open the door to Democratic efforts to paint it as an extreme arm of the GOP.
At the very least, furor over the IRS in particular is giving the tea party more visibility than it has had in months, and it's providing a new rallying cry for tea party organizers starting to plot how to influence the 2014 congressional elections.
The tax-agency scandal ? it has led to the acting IRS commissioner's ouster, a criminal investigation and Capitol Hill hearings ? seems to validate the tea party's long-held belief among supporters that government was trampling on them specifically, a claim dismissed by ousted commissioner Steven T. Miller. He has called the targeting "a mistake and not an act of partisanship."
Nevertheless, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., elected in 2010 with tea party backing, said the IRS scandal "confirms many of the feelings that led to the tea party movement in the first place."
"What's happened here is a reminder of, this is what happens when you expand government," he said. "That and the disaster that is Obamacare is going to be a real catalyst in 2014 and beyond."
Tea party activists hope they also can drive support ahead of the elections by stoking widespread suspicions that the Obama administration and State Department are hiding key details about the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The seizure of Associated Press phone records also plays into their argument that government is too intrusive.
Tea party activists have tried to take advantage of the issues that have put some of their central tenets ? limited government and civil liberties ? in the spotlight.
From around the country last week, they headed Washington to hold a news conference on the Capitol steps and meet with members of Congress. Those who stayed home jammed House and Senate phone lines with calls urging congressional action as the IRS saga unfolded. An email from Teaparty.org that was sent to activists proclaimed: "We've worked so hard these past few years and it's paying off! We're witnessing the unraveling of a presidency at an unprecedented rate."
Freedomworks, a national tea party group, spent the week circulating petitions for congressional hearings and encouraging leaders of local groups who believe they have been targeted by the IRS to include their story on a national database to build the case against the agency.
"Perhaps all this attention will break something loose," said Jim Chiodo, an activist from Holland, Mich.
It wasn't long ago that the tea party was the hot new political kid on the block, bursting onto the national scene during the contentious summer debate over health care in 2009. Over the next few years, the loosely affiliated conservatives and civil libertarians would leave their mark on the 2010 elections by helping Republican candidates win Senate races in Florida, Kentucky, Utah and Wisconsin and scores of House races.
Those victories resulted in House and Senate Republican caucuses getting pushed to the right in legislative battles, making life difficult for Obama and his Democrats in an era of divided government.
But the movement's success was muted in 2012 when Republicans nominated the establishment-backed Mitt Romney for president, though he did little to inspire the tea party. He lost, and so did many tea party-backed House and Senate candidates.
Now, tea party activists say they are emboldened and won't be afraid to recruit candidates to run in Republican primaries against incumbents who appear to go easy on the Obama administration, particularly in light of the IRS scandal.
"It's one of those issues we should just raise hell about," said Nashville Tea Party leader Ben Cunningham.
Some say they're now even more suspicious of government than before.
"I personally feel so vindicated," said Mark Falzon, a New Jersey tea party leader. But he added: "What's scaring me now is what's going on below the water line that we're not seeing."
Republicans say that the tea party will have an opportunity come 2014 to make its mark again, particularly with Obama not at the top of the ticket. Also, they say that with Obama's health care law going into effect and with the slew of latest controversies, they now have concrete issues to point to when arguing against government overreach.
"Suddenly, this is a very real demonstration of too much power ceded to government bureaucrats," said Matt Kibbe, president of Freedomworks. "This is no longer theoretical."
___
Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Boston and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Follow Thomas Beaumont on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Tom_Beaumont
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tea-party-looks-advantage-moment-131128674.html
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Monday, May 20, 2013
It Takes An Earworm To Memorize The Periodic Table
Fair warning, this video is an illustrated version of the periodic table set to The Can-Can. There are consequences to watching. But hopefully one of them is that you learn all the chemical elements in order without even trying. Which would be a convenient, if incredibly nerdy, bar trick to bust out sometime.
| |
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The first Jolla phone: 4.5-inch display, Android app compliant, 399 euros
Jolla's heavily teased launch day in Finland has already spilled some major news: pricing and specs for the first Sailfish OS handset. The phone seems to be called "The Other Half" -- or at least that's the working title for now -- and judging from Jolla's Facebook page it consists of a colorful plastic case, available in various shades including orange or green, which hooks onto the main chassis containing a 4.5-inch display (of unknown resolution), dual-core processor, microSD expansion with 16GB onboard, a "4G" modem, user replaceable battery and an 8MP rear camera. The chassis recognizes which case is attached and adapts the visual theme of the OS to match, creating "your other half, exactly as you want it to be."
Perhaps more usefully, the Sailfish operating system will also be Android app compliant out of the box, and we're currently on the ground in Helsinki trying to discover exactly how developers and users will be able to put that feature to work (while also chasing down the rest of the specs). Meanwhile, there's an emphatic video message from Jolla co-founder Marc Dillon after the break, seeking the world's assistance in taking the heritage of MeeGo into a new era.
Update: We now hear that the phone will simply be called the "Jolla."
Update #2: Jolla has just clarified that 4G means LTE. The display resolution has been vaguely described as "HD," which to our minds suggests 720p. Furthermore, it sounds like the way the "other half" interfaces with the main body of the device allows for much deeper functionality beyond just personalization. We've just added our own video tour with more information.
[Thanks, Toni]
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Jolla
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/8x-kqFi1q0M/
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Car bombs in Baghdad Shiite districts kill 16
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi officials say five car bombs have gone off in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 75.
Police officials say the blasts struck bus stations and outdoor markets on Monday morning. Hospital officials confirmed the casualty tolls. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
Earlier in the day, two car bombings in the southern city of Basra killed at least 10 people and wounded 27.
Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week.
The bloodshed has raised fears of a return to the widespread sectarian violence of 2006-2007 that brought the country to the edge of civil war.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-bombs-baghdad-shiite-districts-kill-16-071622662.html
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Study finds that sleep apnea and Alzheimer's are linked
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 19-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Nathaniel Dunford
ndunford@thoracic.org
American Thoracic Society
ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA?A new study looking at sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and neuroimaging adds to the growing body of research linking the two.
But this latest study also poses an interesting question: Could AD in its "preclinical stages" also lead to SDB and explain the increased prevalence of SDB in the elderly?
The study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference.
"It's really a chicken and egg story," said Ricardo S. Osorio, MD, a research assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine who led the study. "Our study did not determine the direction of the causality, and, in fact, didn't uncover a significant association between the two, until we broke out the data on lean and obese patients."
When the researchers did consider body mass, they found that lean patients (defined as having a body mass index 25), glucose hypometabolism was also found in the medial temporal lobe, but was not significant in other AD-vulnerable regions.
"We know that about 10 to 20 percent of middle-aged adults in the United States have SDB [defined as an apnea-hypopnea index greater than 5] and that the number jumps dramatically in those over the age of 65," said Dr. Osorio, noting that studies put the percentage of people over the age of 65 with SDB between 30 and 60 percent. "We don't know why it becomes so prevalent, but one factor may be that some of these patients are in the earliest preclinical stages of AD."
According to Dr. Osorio, the biochemical harbingers of AD are present 15 to 20 years before any of its currently recognized symptoms become apparent.
The NYU study enrolled 68 cognitively normal elderly patients (mean age 71.45.6, range 64-87) who underwent two nights of home monitoring for SDB and were tested for at least one diagnostic indicator of AD. The researchers looked at P-Tau, T-Tau and A?42 in CSF, FDG-PET (to measure glucose metabolism), Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) PET to measure amyloid load, and/or structural MRI to measure hippocampal volume. Reduced glucose metabolism in AD-vulnerable regions, decreased hippocampal volume, changes in P-Tau, T-Tau and A?42, and increased binding of PiB-PET are recognized as markers of risk for AD and have been reported to be abnormal in healthy subjects before the disease onset.
Biomarkers for AD risk were found only among lean study participants with SDB. These patients showed a linear association between the severity of SDB and CSF levels of the biomarker P-Tau (F = 5.83, t=2.41, ?=0.47; p
Dr. Osorio and his colleagues are planning to test their hypothesis that very early stage preclinical AD brain injury that associates with these biomarkers can lead to SDB. They have proposed a two-year longitudinal study that would enroll 200 cognitively normal subjects, include AD biomarkers and treat those patients with moderate to severe SDB with continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, over time.
The purpose of the new study would be to determine the "direction" of causality between SDB and preclinical AD in elderly patients. After an initial assessment, the patients would be given CPAP to treat their sleep apnea. After six months, they would be evaluated again for biomarker evidence of AD.
"If the biomarkers change, it may indicate that SDB is causing AD," explained Dr. Osorio. "If they don't change, the probable conclusion is that these patients are going to develop AD with or without CPAP, and that AD may either be causing the apneas or may simply coexist with SDB as part of aging."
Either way, Dr. Osorio believes the relationship between SDB and AD deserves further study.
"Sleep apnea skyrockets in the elderly, and this fact hasn't been given the attention it deserves by the sleep world or the Alzheimer's world," Dr. Osorio said. "Sleep particularly suffers from an outmoded perception that it is an inactive physiological process, when, in reality, it is a very active part of the day for the brain."
###
* Please note that numbers in this release may differ slightly from those in the abstract. Many of these investigations are ongoing; the release represents the most up-to-date data available at press time.
Abstract 38456
Sleep-Disordered Breathing, Aging And Risk For Alzheimer's Disease In Cognitively Normal Subjects
Type: Scientific Abstract
Category: 16.04 - Sleep Disordered Breathing: Epidemiology, Genetics and Outcomes (SRN)
Authors: R.S. Osorio1, J. Mantua2, I. Ayappa2, A.M. Mooney2, Z. Taxin2, J. Murray1, M. Biagioni1, C. Randall1, Y. Li1, M. Cummings1, N. Spector1, A. Rejon1, H. Lau1, L. Glodzik1, D.M. Rapoport2, M.J. De Leon1; 1Center for Brain Health, New York University - New York, NY/US, 2Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, New York University Medical Center - New York, NY/US; Sleep and Aging Laboratory
Abstract Body
RATIONALE: Previous studies have shown that sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) may be a risk factor for developing Alzheimers disease (AD). Current evidence shows that a preclinical stage of AD may be recognized using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) PET, Pittsburgh-Compound-B (PiB) PET, and structural MRI neuroimaging. The purpose of our study was to investigate whether known CSF and neuroimaging biomarkers for AD (decreased CSF A?42, increased CSF P-Tau or T-Tau, region specific brain glucose hypometabolism, increased brain amyloid load, or reduced hippocampal volume) were found in cognitively normal elderly subjects with SDB.
METHODS: Sixty-eight subjects (mean age 71.45.6, range 64-87) underwent comprehensive clinical exams, neuropsychological testing, two nights of home monitoring of SDB, and at least one of the following AD-research diagnostic procedures: CSF A?42, P-Tau and T-Tau; FDG-PET, PiB-PET; or structural MRI. SDB was classified based on the Apnea Hypopnea Index with hypopneas restricted to respiratory events associated with 4% desaturation (AHI4%), with normal breathing defined as AHI4%15.
RESULTS: Of the 68 subjects, 18 (26.5%) had normal breathing, 33 (48.5%) mild SDB, and 17 (25%) moderate-severe SDB. There were no neuropsychological or clinical differences between the SDB groups except for higher BMI in the moderate-severe group (p
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 19-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Nathaniel Dunford
ndunford@thoracic.org
American Thoracic Society
ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA?A new study looking at sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and neuroimaging adds to the growing body of research linking the two.
But this latest study also poses an interesting question: Could AD in its "preclinical stages" also lead to SDB and explain the increased prevalence of SDB in the elderly?
The study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference.
"It's really a chicken and egg story," said Ricardo S. Osorio, MD, a research assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine who led the study. "Our study did not determine the direction of the causality, and, in fact, didn't uncover a significant association between the two, until we broke out the data on lean and obese patients."
When the researchers did consider body mass, they found that lean patients (defined as having a body mass index 25), glucose hypometabolism was also found in the medial temporal lobe, but was not significant in other AD-vulnerable regions.
"We know that about 10 to 20 percent of middle-aged adults in the United States have SDB [defined as an apnea-hypopnea index greater than 5] and that the number jumps dramatically in those over the age of 65," said Dr. Osorio, noting that studies put the percentage of people over the age of 65 with SDB between 30 and 60 percent. "We don't know why it becomes so prevalent, but one factor may be that some of these patients are in the earliest preclinical stages of AD."
According to Dr. Osorio, the biochemical harbingers of AD are present 15 to 20 years before any of its currently recognized symptoms become apparent.
The NYU study enrolled 68 cognitively normal elderly patients (mean age 71.45.6, range 64-87) who underwent two nights of home monitoring for SDB and were tested for at least one diagnostic indicator of AD. The researchers looked at P-Tau, T-Tau and A?42 in CSF, FDG-PET (to measure glucose metabolism), Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) PET to measure amyloid load, and/or structural MRI to measure hippocampal volume. Reduced glucose metabolism in AD-vulnerable regions, decreased hippocampal volume, changes in P-Tau, T-Tau and A?42, and increased binding of PiB-PET are recognized as markers of risk for AD and have been reported to be abnormal in healthy subjects before the disease onset.
Biomarkers for AD risk were found only among lean study participants with SDB. These patients showed a linear association between the severity of SDB and CSF levels of the biomarker P-Tau (F = 5.83, t=2.41, ?=0.47; p
Dr. Osorio and his colleagues are planning to test their hypothesis that very early stage preclinical AD brain injury that associates with these biomarkers can lead to SDB. They have proposed a two-year longitudinal study that would enroll 200 cognitively normal subjects, include AD biomarkers and treat those patients with moderate to severe SDB with continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, over time.
The purpose of the new study would be to determine the "direction" of causality between SDB and preclinical AD in elderly patients. After an initial assessment, the patients would be given CPAP to treat their sleep apnea. After six months, they would be evaluated again for biomarker evidence of AD.
"If the biomarkers change, it may indicate that SDB is causing AD," explained Dr. Osorio. "If they don't change, the probable conclusion is that these patients are going to develop AD with or without CPAP, and that AD may either be causing the apneas or may simply coexist with SDB as part of aging."
Either way, Dr. Osorio believes the relationship between SDB and AD deserves further study.
"Sleep apnea skyrockets in the elderly, and this fact hasn't been given the attention it deserves by the sleep world or the Alzheimer's world," Dr. Osorio said. "Sleep particularly suffers from an outmoded perception that it is an inactive physiological process, when, in reality, it is a very active part of the day for the brain."
###
* Please note that numbers in this release may differ slightly from those in the abstract. Many of these investigations are ongoing; the release represents the most up-to-date data available at press time.
Abstract 38456
Sleep-Disordered Breathing, Aging And Risk For Alzheimer's Disease In Cognitively Normal Subjects
Type: Scientific Abstract
Category: 16.04 - Sleep Disordered Breathing: Epidemiology, Genetics and Outcomes (SRN)
Authors: R.S. Osorio1, J. Mantua2, I. Ayappa2, A.M. Mooney2, Z. Taxin2, J. Murray1, M. Biagioni1, C. Randall1, Y. Li1, M. Cummings1, N. Spector1, A. Rejon1, H. Lau1, L. Glodzik1, D.M. Rapoport2, M.J. De Leon1; 1Center for Brain Health, New York University - New York, NY/US, 2Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, New York University Medical Center - New York, NY/US; Sleep and Aging Laboratory
Abstract Body
RATIONALE: Previous studies have shown that sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) may be a risk factor for developing Alzheimers disease (AD). Current evidence shows that a preclinical stage of AD may be recognized using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) PET, Pittsburgh-Compound-B (PiB) PET, and structural MRI neuroimaging. The purpose of our study was to investigate whether known CSF and neuroimaging biomarkers for AD (decreased CSF A?42, increased CSF P-Tau or T-Tau, region specific brain glucose hypometabolism, increased brain amyloid load, or reduced hippocampal volume) were found in cognitively normal elderly subjects with SDB.
METHODS: Sixty-eight subjects (mean age 71.45.6, range 64-87) underwent comprehensive clinical exams, neuropsychological testing, two nights of home monitoring of SDB, and at least one of the following AD-research diagnostic procedures: CSF A?42, P-Tau and T-Tau; FDG-PET, PiB-PET; or structural MRI. SDB was classified based on the Apnea Hypopnea Index with hypopneas restricted to respiratory events associated with 4% desaturation (AHI4%), with normal breathing defined as AHI4%15.
RESULTS: Of the 68 subjects, 18 (26.5%) had normal breathing, 33 (48.5%) mild SDB, and 17 (25%) moderate-severe SDB. There were no neuropsychological or clinical differences between the SDB groups except for higher BMI in the moderate-severe group (p
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/ats-sft051413.php
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