SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal is extending its reach to more physical stores, having signed up 50 merchant acquirers which help process payments but the eBay Inc unit has yet to persuade Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer.
PayPal's expansion into brick-and-mortar stores gives the company access to a market that is roughly ten times the size of the online payments sector where it got its start over a decade ago.
Recent deals for Discover Financial Services, PayPal's offline partner, will help extend PayPal's in-store payment service to more than two million outlets in the United States by the end of 2013.
Total System Services Inc and Heartland Payment Services Inc, two of the largest merchant acquirers, signed up in recent weeks, joining other big players such as Vantiv Inc, WorldPay, Global Payments Inc and First American Payments, according to executives at Discover and PayPal.
Linking up with merchant acquirers is crucial to the PayPal offline push because these companies are important cogs in the payments ecosystem, signing up and underwriting merchants for payment networks including Visa Inc, MasterCard Inc and Discover.
Recent merchant acquirer agreements mean merchants, including fast-food giant Burger King, cosmetics retailer Sephora and gadget seller Brookstone, will accept PayPal in their stores by the end of this year.
Discover also works directly with about 1,500 of the largest retailers in the United States and it has been negotiating with them to accept PayPal in their stores.
Nordstrom Inc, a big department store operator, recently signed up for PayPal in-store payments through a direct relationship with Discover, according to Don Kingsborough, the executive overseeing PayPal's offline expansion.
WAL-MART RELUCTANT
However, Wal-Mart has so far resisted attempts by Discover and PayPal to get PayPal into its big-box stores.
"Walmart does not accept PayPal in-store," Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove wrote in an email to Reuters.
"The added complexity at the point of sale does not justify acceptance of PayPal," he said. Using PayPal often requires more than a basic card swipe. One way to pay is to input a mobile phone number and a four digit PIN.
Hargrove declined to comment further.
Kingsborough said PayPal is focused on removing "friction" and added that the service helps merchants "engage with consumers in innovative ways on top of our core payments infrastructure."
During a mobile payments conference panel in San Francisco in November that included PayPal President David Marcus, an executive from Wal-Mart's e-commerce business, Gibu Thomas, said the retailer had to be careful not to inadvertently introduce another "middle man" into the payment process.
Wal-Mart's goal is to eliminate middle men, which helps keep prices low, he added.
Wal-Mart is working on a rival mobile payment technology called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, with other large retailers including Gap Inc, Lowe's Companies Inc and CVS Caremark Corp.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Edwina Gibbs)
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi martial arts instructor appeared in federal court on Monday to face charges in connection with mailing letters containing the deadly poison ricin to President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials.
Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested on Saturday in Tupelo, Mississippi, after authorities searched his former business and home. He is charged with developing and possessing ricin and attempting to use it as a weapon.
Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, Dutschke responded briefly to a judge's questions at the hearing in Oxford, Mississippi, on whether he understood the charges against him. The judge ordered a preliminary hearing be held on Thursday when prosecutors will present more detailed evidence in the case.
An indictment detailing the charges is under seal but could be made public later on Monday, said George Lucas, Dutschke's court appointed attorney.
Dutschke has denied having any involvement with the ricin letters and said he cooperated with federal officials during their searches.
He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.
Dutschke's arrest came nearly two weeks after suspicious letters intended for Obama and U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi were intercepted in Washington. Tests showed they were tainted with ricin, a highly lethal poison made from castor beans. A separate ricin-lased letter was also sent to a Mississippi judge.
Authorities initially arrested another Mississippi man, Kevin Curtis, in the case but dropped the charges last week after a search of his house failed to turn up any evidence of his involvement.
Dutschke's name surfaced at a court hearing when Curtis' attorney suggested someone framed her client and mentioned a running feud between the two men.
He also faces charges in a separate case related to an April 1 indictment for fondling three children between ages 7 and 16, from 2007 to 2013, according to court records.
The ricin-tainted letters were discovered just days after the bombings of the Boston Marathon and during the massive police manhunt for those responsible, helping to fuel anxiety in the United States, especially in the capital.
The case rekindled memories of the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks that killed five people and puzzled investigators for years. The Justice Department later said that a U.S. scientist who committed suicide was responsible.
(Additional reporting by Kevin Gray in Miami.; Editing by David Adams and Andrew Hay)
Apr. 28, 2013 ? As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki.
The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.
"Plants, by reacting to changes in temperature, also moderate these changes," says IIASA and University of Helsinki researcher Pauli Paasonen, who led the study.
Scientists had known that some aerosols -- particles that float in the atmosphere -- cool the climate as they reflect sunlight and form cloud droplets, which reflect sunlight efficiently. Aerosol particles come from many sources, including human emissions. But the effect of so-called biogenic aerosol -- particulate matter that originates from plants -- had been less well understood. Plants release gases that, after atmospheric oxidation, tend to stick to aerosol particles, growing them into the larger-sized particles that reflect sunlight and also serve as the basis for cloud droplets. The new study showed that as temperatures warm and plants consequently release more of these gases, the concentrations of particles active in cloud formation increase.
"Everyone knows the scent of the forest," says Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher who also worked on the study. "That scent is made up of these gases." While previous research had predicted the feedback effect, until now nobody had been able to prove its existence except for case studies limited to single sites and short time periods. The new study showed that the effect occurs over the long-term in continental size scales.
The effect of enhanced plant gas emissions on climate is small on a global scale -- only countering approximately 1 percent of climate warming, the study suggested. "This does not save us from climate warming," says Paasonen. However, he says, "Aerosol effects on climate are one of the main uncertainties in climate models. Understanding this mechanism could help us reduce those uncertainties and make the models better."
The study also showed that the effect was much larger on a regional scale, counteracting possibly up to 30% of warming in more rural, forested areas where anthropogenic emissions of aerosols were much lower in comparison to the natural aerosols. That means that especially in places like Finland, Siberia, and Canada this feedback loop may reduce warming substantially.
The researchers collected data at 11 different sites around the world, measuring the concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, along with the concentrations of plant gases, the temperature, and reanalysis estimates for the height of the boundary layer, which turned out to be a key variable. The boundary layer refers to the layer of air closest to the Earth, in which gases and particles mix effectively. The height of that layer changes with weather. Paasonen says, "One of the reasons that this phenomenon was not discovered earlier was because these estimates for boundary layer height are very difficult to do. Only recently have the reanalysis estimates been improved to where they can be taken as representative of reality."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Pauli Paasonen, Ari Asmi, Tuukka Pet?j?, Maija K. Kajos, Mikko ?ij?l?, Heikki Junninen, Thomas Holst, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Almut Arneth, Wolfram Birmili, Hugo Denier van der Gon, Amar Hamed, Andr?s Hoffer, Lauri Laakso, Ari Laaksonen, W. Richard Leaitch, Christian Plass-D?lmer, Sara C. Pryor, Petri R?is?nen, Erik Swietlicki, Alfred Wiedensohler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Markku Kulmala. Warming-induced increase in aerosol number concentration likely to moderate climate change. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1800
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Hundreds of personal items, including antiques, artwork and furniture once owned by Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, will be auctioned to benefit a Southern California charity.
The Daily News of Los Angeles reports (http://bit.ly/11tF2Zk) proceeds from the sale Saturday will help the family service center at St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood, where Dolores Hope was a member for 70 years.
The couple's daughter, Linda Hope, says memorabilia from Bob Hope's long show business career will also be up for sale.
Prices will range from $10 to several hundred dollars an item.
An auction of additional property from the couple's Toluca Lake estate will be announced by Julien's Auctions of Beverly Hills later this year.
Dolores Hope died in 2011. Bob Hope died in 2003.
___
Information from: (Los Angeles) Daily News, http://www.dailynews.com
new today, they're focusing on the role their mother played.
michael mccall
today gave the strongest warn about her yet.
>>i think she played a very strong role in the radicalization process. i believe she is a person of interest, if not a subject. i do believe she comes into the
united states
that she will be detained for questioning. so i think there is a connection there.
>>joining mess is
christopher dickey
, the paris bureau chief and editor for theo -- i love this argue in which you describe the three key factors that lead to the development of -- the t.n.t. explain testosterone.
>>you know, most of the people who carry out
terrorist acts
are young men, who have lot a juice, a lot of testosterone, they are ambitious, anxious, they are full of all those characteristics that we associate maybe with a cliched sort of way, not necessarily biologically, but with the presence of a lot of tess toes torino. so we're usually talking about young men. it is second factor, you nay narrative.
>>i think narrative is the most important, rather than ideology or religion, because that demystifies it. what happens is they young men see themselves identifying with some greater cause, usually the cause of some
oppressed people
. it could be the catholics in
northern ireland
, it could be the tamals in
sri lanka
. in this case, they probably saw themselves identifying with the oppressed
chechen people
, the opressed
iraqi people
, the oppressed
afghan people
, even though they -- they see themselves almost like in knights in
white armor
. the key work of the ideology of
al qaeda
is a book called" knights under the prophet's banner" which is the whole idea of terrorism as chivalry. i think that's what you'll see almost universally with these guys.
>>what about the third factor? theater.
>>this is something that's always been a characteristic of terrorists, whether anarchists or islamists. it's become a huge problem in the last 30 years, when terrorists have seen they can carry out actions that will literally resonate around the world. they can do something obviously like 9/11, but even something like the
boston marathon
bombings, where three people are killed and scores injured, but it's not a huge disaster, yet it has resonance in every corner of the globe. that's the kind of theater they want. in fact, if you look at the history of
al qaeda
, you'll see that the leaders used to watch
disaster movies
all the time, because they loved that spectacle. in some ways 9/11 was an effort to replicate the hollywood's spectacle of destruction that they had seen in hollywood movies.
>>>there's a lot of talk, christopher, about
boston
being an
intelligence failure
.
law enforcement
was tipped off. but can anything really be stopped to stop all
terrorist attacks
, or is it just a matter of reduction?
>>well, it is a matter of reduction. i mean, you can keep pushing and keep pushing, you can use intelligence, which really is the most important thing and you have to be careful how to use it. you don't want to be too invasive, but you can't let a tip just sort of drift by the wayside and say these guys are not a priority. but the most important thing is resilience, is building up the nation's ability to weather the kind of storm we saw in
boston
. i think
boston
itself is a great example, the way people have come back quickly from that tragedy, and i think the way the
american people
have come back from the
boston
tragedy. that's where i defeat the terrorists. if you look at britain during the height of the i.r.a. bombing campaign, horrible things would happen in the center of london, and the british would just carry on. i think ultimately that's the way you defeat the terrorists, because they don't get the resonance that they want from the actions that they carry out.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite President Barack Obama's pledge that Syria's use of chemical weapons is a "game changer" for the United States, he is unlikely to turn to military options quickly and would want allies joining him in any intervention.
Possible military choices range from limited one-off missile strikes from ships - one of the less complicated scenarios - to bolder operations like carving out no-fly safe zones.
One of the most politically unpalatable possibilities envisions sending tens of thousands of U.S. forces to help secure Syrian chemical weapons.
Obama has so far opposed limited steps, like arming anti-government rebels, but pressure to deepen U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war has grown since Thursday's White House announcement that President Bashar al-Assad likely used chemical weapons.
After fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is wary of U.S. involvement in Syria. The president's top uniformed military adviser, General Martin Dempsey, said last month he could not see a U.S. military option with an "understandable outcome" there.
"There's a lot of analysis to be done before reaching any major decisions that would push U.S. policy more in the direction of military options," a senior U.S. official told Reuters.
That caution is understandable, given the experience of Iraq where the United States went to war based on bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon has made repeated warnings of the enormous risks and limitations of using American military might in Syria's civil war.
STRIKES, NO-FLY ZONE
One form of military intervention that could to some extent limit U.S. and allied involvement in Syria's war would be one-off strikes on pro-Assad forces or infrastructure tied to chemical weapons use. Given Syria's air defenses, planners may choose to fire missiles from ships at sea.
"The most proportional response (to limited chemical weapons use) would be a strike on the units responsible, whether artillery or airfields," said Jeffrey White, a former senior official at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and a Middle East expert who is now a defense fellow at the Washington Institute For Near East Policy.
"It would demonstrate to Assad that there is a cost to using these weapons - the problem so far is that there's been no cost to the regime from their actions."
It is not clear how the Syrian government would respond and if it would try to retaliate militarily against the U.S. forces in the region. U.S. military involvement would also upset Russia which has a naval facility on Syria's Mediterranean coast.
Another option that the Pentagon has examined involves the creation, ostensibly in support of Turkey and Jordan, of humanitarian safe areas that would also be no-fly zones off limits to the Syrian air force - an option favored by lawmakers including Senator John McCain of Arizona.
This would involve taking down Syrian air defenses and destroying Syrian artillery from a certain distance beyond those zones, to protect them from incoming fire.
Advocates, including in Congress, say a safe zone inside Syria along the Turkish border, for example, would give needed space for rebels and allow the West to increase support for those anti-Assad forces it can vet.
Still, as officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, have warned, once established, a safe zone would tie the United States more closely to Syria's messy conflict. Assad would almost certainly react.
"Once you set up a military no-fly zone or safe zone, you're on a slippery slope, mission creep and before you know it, you have boots on the ground," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution.
"Or you end up like Libya where you don't really have a control mechanism for the end-game, should you end up with chaos."
The U.S. military has also completed planning for going into Syria and securing its chemical weapons under different scenarios, including one in which Assad falls from power and his forces disintegrate, leaving weapons sites vulnerable to pillaging.
The U.S. fears anti-Assad Islamist rebels affiliated to al Qaeda could grab the chemical weapons but a U.S. intervention into Syria to get the arms would require tens of thousands of American troops.
Asked if he was confident the U.S. military could secure Syria's chemical weapons stock, Dempsey told Congress: "Not as I sit here today simply because they have been moving it and the number of sites is quite numerous."
IS THERE A WILLING COALITION?
Obama said on Friday that he would seek to mobilize the international community around Syria, as he attempts to determine whether pro-Assad forces used chemical weapons.
British and French officials have long made it clear their countries might be willing to join in any U.S.-led action under the right circumstances.
But Hagel warned last week that "no international or regional consensus on supporting armed intervention now exists." Once a fervent advocate of foreign intervention in Syria, Turkey has grown frustrated with the fractured opposition to Assad and with international disunity.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has ruled out Western military intervention and U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander, cautioned last month that the alliance would need agreement in the region and among NATO members as well as a U.N. Security Council resolution - something that looks unlikely given probable opposition from Russia and China.
The Pentagon has focused over the past year on synchronizing defense planning on Syria, including with Britain, France and Canada.
It is also enhancing its military presence in Jordan by ordering some 200 Army planners into Jordan to focus on Syria scenarios. That would be a better group to coordinate any military or humanitarian action than the ad-hoc U.S. military team previously in Jordan.
Obama met Jordan's King Abdullah at the White House on Friday and Hagel traveled to Jordan this week, as well as to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
"It seems increasingly clear that the Obama administration is feeling pressure to act," said Mona Yacoubian, a former State Department official and now a Syria expert at the Stimson Center in Washington.
"But they will likely seek two things: conclusive evidence and multilateral support/participation in whatever action (they) choose, which I think would be limited, targeted air strike."
We needed this past week, with its moments of introspection, its reflections on national purpose, its symbols of national concord. Many of them, of course, occurred in Boston, site of terrorism in 2013. One of them occurred in Dallas, site of tragedy in 1963.
The images of what happened in Boston already have been seared into the national psyche. The image of what happened in Dallas Thursday is fresher, and while ceremonial rather than spontaneous, it was a powerful statement about the noblest American values: Duty. Service. Reconciliation. Unity.
It was there, in Dallas, that five presidents -- all the living chief executives -- gathered to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. There is a liturgy to moments like this, carefully intertwined skeins of expressions and omissions: artfully crafted, sometimes stilted, speeches about the burden of office; exhortations of goodwill; eloquent things said and difficult things unsaid. "I like President Bush," Bill Clinton said that morning, and the remark carried the weight of the generous and the genuine.
That was all there, on the campus of Southern Methodist University, on a shiny afternoon when Barack Obama, who for years after his inauguration still pilloried the younger Bush, stood in presidential solidarity with his foil; when the man being honored warmly greeted Clinton, his remarks about how his predecessor had dishonored the White House long forgotten; when Clinton, who ran a tough race against the older Bush, stood beside the wheelchair carrying his 1992 rival, his body language displaying devotion, perhaps even love; and when Clinton and Obama, who cringe every time their names are in the same sentence with Jimmy Carter, nonetheless welcomed the 39th president as one of their own.
Because there, in one stunning Texas tableau, stood most of American history since 1977.
Missing, of course, was Ronald Reagan, who had a gift for conciliation and, despite his age in the White House, a vision sharper than any of those in attendance. In a way he was there as well. You could almost see the smile, which was genuine, and hear the stage laugh, which was not, and the love of country, which all of these men -- even the ones, like Clinton and Obama, who raged against it when young -- came to embrace in the office that Reagan once held.
What we saw there, too, was a portrait of a land locked in economic crisis, wracked with social divisions, jolted by terrorism at a precious regional ritual and saddened by the knowledge that its most precious conviction (social mobility and the sturdy belief that the children will surpass their parents) is in grave danger of becoming a myth.
Because these five men, makers of history but responders to history as well, represent so much of our national character.
Obama will never cease being a national symbol, even if his domestic initiatives are forgotten, if his health care initiative fails and if his legacy, like those of presidents between 1865 and 1893, are lost in a mist of memory. He still will be remembered as a pathfinder -- and a symbol of what a nation that yearns to leave its greatest wrong behind can do when the time comes, in the autumn every four years, to look forward and exercise its greatest right.
The younger Bush remains a historical work in progress, which is why some of Thursday's remarks made awkward swerves around the obstacles of Iraq, "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the economy.
Even so, the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll shows almost the same rate of approval of Bush's two terms (47 percent) as disapproval (50 percent). Two Democratic presidents Thursday saluted him for his commitment to Africa. And no one across this broad country will forget the image of Bush and his bullhorn -- and the moment in September 2001 when he spoke for America and, on a bully pulpit on a pile of New York rubble, symbolized the nation's resolve.
Then there is Clinton, impeached and disgraced, bowed and bloodied but never broken, resolute and resilient, a symbol, or maybe two, in his own right. Despite his riches today -- like Herbert Hoover, his life went from modesty to millions -- he was, and substantially is, the boy from Hope, the Arkansas town whose name in Clinton's 1992 campaign so satisfied an American hunger at a moment of economic distress.
But Clinton's 1996 campaign also offered powerful imagery of a different sort, for he portrayed his re-election bid as a "bridge to the 21st century." Only now, with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the consensus front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, do we see the full span of that bridge.
A moment here for the elder Bush, who spoke movingly of "our son." No longer the hyper-frenetic president but still a master of building coalitions, he now is the consensus elder statesman, the onetime symbol of privilege now an enduring and beloved symbol of the "kinder, gentler" values he spoke of in his 1988 acceptance speech.
And finally, Carter, in sunglasses last week. Hardly anyone contests that his was a fraught presidency, pockmarked by inflation, high interest rates, hostages in Iran, national malaise -- a word the president never used but seemed peculiarly suited to his era. But do not let it be forgotten Carter was an idealist, and he cleansed American politics of the rot of despair after Watergate.
Carter seems immune from revisionism -- the kindly gift from time bestowed on many presidents, Warren G. Harding and Hoover excepted. But like Hoover, Carter is a remarkable ex-president (a role Clinton plays with particular aplomb as well). A symbol of American virtue in hopeless corners of the globe, and a symbol of the ennobling value of democracy in places of tyranny, Carter's post-White House life has been as an ambassador for all seasons, to all continents.
The events marking the opening of the first presidential library of the century began with the Pledge of Allegiance, delivered by a female first lieutenant, herself an Army veteran of Iraq. At the library site are twisted girders from the Sept. 11 attacks. Thursday there were speeches, flags, anthems and patriot dreams, undimmed by human tears -- all a reminder of this: Presidential libraries, like presidents themselves, are not about individuals. They are about us all.
Apr. 26, 2013 ? Scientists from the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have provided insights into how much harm bacteria can cause to the lung of people having the flu. An infection with both the flu and bacteria can be a fatal combination. The results could prompt the development of alternative treatments for flu-related bacterial infections, to improve patient outcome and prevent permanent lung damage.
A potentially fatal combination: the flu and bacteria
The flu is caused by an infection with the influenza virus, which mainly attacks the upper respiratory tract -- the nose, throat and bronchi and rarely also the lungs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around five to 15 percent of the population are affected by upper respiratory tract infections during seasonal flu outbreaks, and between 250 000-500 000 people die of the illness every year. However, a main cause of death in people having the flu is actually a secondary infection with bacteria.
Influenza increases susceptibility to bacterial infection
When we are sick with influenza virus, for many reasons our susceptibility to bacterial infection is increased. One type of bacteria that the immune system usually prevents from spreading and becoming harmful for us is called Legionella pneumophila. However in some circumstances, such as when we're infected with influenza virus, Legionella can cause pneumonia, an inflammatory disease of the lung that if left untreated can leave the lung permanently damaged and even cause death. Amanda Jamieson, the lead author of the report and a research fellow in the Department of Microbiology, Immunobiology and Genetics of the University of Vienna, started to study this phenomenon while working in the laboratory of Ruslan Medzhitov, an immunologist at Yale University School of Medicine, USA, and has continued the project in Vienna in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Decker at the MFPL of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna. "In our model system an infection with influenza and Legionella was fatal. We expected that this would be caused by the bacteria growing and spreading like crazy, but what we actually found was that the number of bacteria didn't change, which was a big surprise," says Amanda Jamieson.
Enhancing tissue repair pathways aids treatment of flu-related bacterial infections
Amanda Jamieson and her collaborators could show now that the damage to the lung tissue caused by a co-infection with flu and Legionella is not properly repaired, as the influenza virus suppresses the body's ability to repair tissue damage. In case of an additional Legionella infection this may lead to fatal pneumonia. However, treatment with drugs that activate tissue repair pathways significantly improved the outcome. This suggests that new treatment options to deal with co-infections of flu and bacteria should be explored. Amanda Jamieson, who will take up an Assistant Professorship at Brown University, USA, in two months, says: "My group will continue to work on tissue repair models and explore different avenues for the treatment of flu/bacterial co-infections.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Vienna.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
A. M. Jamieson, L. Pasman, S. Yu, P. Gamradt, R. J. Homer, T. Decker, R. Medzhitov. Role of Tissue Protection in Lethal Respiratory Viral-Bacterial Coinfection. Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1126/science.1233632
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
* Lewandowski scored four goals against Real Madrid * Poland international refuses contract extension (adds details, background) BERLIN, April 26 (Reuters) - Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund striker Robert Lewandowski have not signed a deal, the newly-crowned champions said on Friday, shooting down widespread speculation of another imminent surprise transfer. "Bayern, as opposed to some reports, has no contract with Robert Lewandowski," the Bavarian Champions League semi-finalists said in a brief statement. ...
Burger King's first-quarter earnings more than doubled even though revenue fell, as the fast-food chain trimmed several restaurant-related expenses.
The Miami-based company had warned earlier this month that sales at established restaurants were expected to fall during the quarter, and they wound up declining 1.4 percent. That includes a 3 percent drop in the United States and Canada.
Burger King Worldwide Inc. said Friday its net income rose to $35.8 million, or 10 cents per share, in the quarter that ended March 31. That's up from $14.3 million, or 4 cents per share, in the previous year's quarter when it was still private.
The company previously said adjusted earnings totaled 17 cents per share in the most recent quarter.
Revenue fell about 42 percent to $327.7 million. Analysts expected $305.8 million, according to FactSet.
Total restaurant expenses, which include things like food costs and payroll expenses, fell nearly 70 percent in the quarter to $108.1 million.
Burger King has been undergoing a revamp since it was purchased and taken private in 2010 by 3G Capital, a private investment firm run by Brazilian billionaires. The company has been selling more restaurants to franchisees, a move that lowers overhead costs. Instead of booking sales from those restaurants, that means Burger King would collect franchise fees instead.
In the first quarter, the company's restaurant revenues tumbled 69 percent to $121.1 million, but its franchise and property revenues rose 19 percent to $206.6 million.
Burger King's selling, general and administrative expenses also fell about 30 percent to $66.7 million in the quarter.
3G Capital also has slashed costs, signed international expansion deals and changed the U.S. menu to appeal to a wider audience. The moves came ahead of the company's return to public trading the New York Stock Exchange last June.
The company also is adjusting its strategy to focus on more menu deals, such as an offer for a $1.29 Jr. Whopper. McDonald's has been particularly aggressive in touting its Dollar Menu to boost traffic at a time when the restaurant industry is barely growing. Wendy's also revamped its value menu recently.
Burger King says its efforts to revamp the brand remain on track. But CEO Bernardo Hees, a 3G partner, is moving on later this year to head Heinz, another 3G investment. Chief Financial Officer Daniel Schwartz, also a 3G partner, will succeed Lees as CEO at Burger King.
Burger King shares finished at $18.06 on Thursday. They have traded between $12.91 to $20.20 since relisting.
"The Company You Keep" ? Robert Redford (who directed) plays a former '60s radical trying to clear his name in this political drama. (Opens April 26)
Movie review: ?The Company You Keep? has Redford considering radicals and regret
"The Company You Keep" has the contours of a chase thriller ? and under another director, it could have been a tense action movie along the lines of director Tony Scott?s "Spy Game" (which, liked this movie, has Robert Redford in the lead).
But Redford also is the director of "The Company You Keep," so this adaptation of Neil Gordon?s novel (by "The Limey" screenwriter Lem Dobbs) is a more thoughtful, introspective drama about the choices of youth and the regrets of old age.
?
HHH
?The Company You Keep?
Director-star Robert Redford constructs a thinking man?s thriller, looking back at antiwar radicalism and the regrets of its practitioners.
Where ? Area theaters.
When ? Opens Friday, April 26
Rating ? R for language.
Running time ? 121 minutes.
In upstate New York, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is arrested by the FBI after living secretly under another name for 30 years ? a fugitive from the Weather Underground, the radical antiwar group that bombed government buildings and robbed banks mostly in the 1970s. Sharon?s arrest draws the attention of Ben Shepard (Shia Labeouf), an eager young reporter in Albany, who starts digging around and finds a link to a local attorney, Jim Grant (played by Redford).
Grant wants nothing to do with Shepard; he wants only to help his clients and care for his 12-year-old daughter, Isabel (Jackie Evancho). But as Ben starts digging deeper, he uncovers Grant?s secret: He?s actually Nick Sloan, another Weather Underground member who?s been in hiding since a Michigan bank robbery that left a security guard dead.
Grant/Sloan goes into action, heading to New York to leave Isabel with his long-estranged brother Daniel (Chris Cooper) before embarking on a cross-country trek ? with the Feds on his tail ? to clear his name. To do so, he must find another fugitive, Mimi (Julie Christie), the only person who could clear him in the bank-robbery case.
During his trek, Grant/Sloan encounters a rogue?s gallery of aged character actors, including Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott, Richard Jenkins and Brendan Gleeson. Meanwhile, Ben gets to meet younger, cuter supporting players ? namely, a young FBI agent (Anna Kendrick) and a police chief?s daughter (Brit Marling).
Redford structures Dobbs? script into a series of dialogues, and from those conversations come the ideas Redford wants to explore. There is banter about the carelessness of modern journalism and the short-sightedness of current politics.
What really gets Redford fired up is a serious examination of how the ideals of his generation of antiwar radicals were right, though their tactics were wrong. It?s a dichotomy that may be too subtle for talk radio ? in fact, many right-wing writers have slagged Redford as an "apologist" for what they label left-wing terrorists. But it?s an uncomfortable idea that builds more tension into "The Company You Keep" than an average car chase could have.
movies@sltrib.com
Twitter: @moviecricket
story continues below
www.facebook.com/seanpmeans
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
GWH News and Notes: April 27 Premier Wrestling Xperience event in Concord, NC
April 27 Premier Wrestling Xperience event in Concord, NC
From Brian Slack:
?
Premier Wrestling Xperience will be at at the Cabarrus Arena in Concord, NC on April 27th. Matches to be added. Tickets are $25 ringside and $10 general admission. Bell time is at 8:00.
Apr. 25, 2013 ? The macroscopic effects of certain nanoparticles on human health have long been clear to the naked eye. What scientists have lacked is the ability to see the detailed movements of individual particles that give rise to those effects.
In a recently published study, scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute invented a technique for imaging nanoparticle dynamics with atomic resolution as these dynamics occur in a liquid environment. The results will allow, for the first time, the imaging of nanoscale processes, such as the engulfment of nanoparticles into cells.
"We were stunned to see the large-ranged mobility in such small objects," said Deborah Kelly, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "We now have a system to watch the behaviors of therapeutic nanoparticles at atomic resolution."
Nanoparticles are made of many materials and come in different shapes and sizes. In the new study, Kelly and her colleagues chose to make rod-shaped gold nanoparticles the stars of their new molecular movies. These nanoparticles, roughly the size of a virus, are used to treat various forms of cancer. Once injected, they accumulate in solid tumors. Infrared radiation is then used to heat them and destroy nearby cancerous cells.
To take an up-close look at the gold nanoparticles in action, the researchers made a vacuum-tight microfluidic chamber by pressing two silicon-nitride semiconductor chips together with a 150-nanometer spacer in between. The microchips contained transparent windows so the beam from a transmission electron microscope could pass through to create an atomic-scale image.
Using the new technique, the scientists created two types of visualizations. The first included pictures of individual nanoparticles' atomic structures at 100,000-times magnification -- the highest resolution images ever taken of nanoparticles in a liquid environment.
The second visualization was a movie captured at 23,000-times magnification that revealed the movements of a group of nanoparticles reacting to an electron beam, which mimics the effects of the infrared radiation used in cancer therapies.
In the movie, the gold nanoparticles can be seen surfing nanoscale tidal waves.
"The nanoparticles behaved like grains of sand being concentrated on a beach by crashing waves," said Kelly. "We think this behavior may be related to why the nanoparticles become concentrated in tumors. Our next experiment will be to insert a cancer cell to study the nanoparticles' therapeutic effects on tumors."
The team is also testing the resolution of the microfluidic system with other reagents and materials, bringing researchers one step closer to viewing live biological mechanisms in action at the highest levels of resolution possible.
The study appeared in the April 14 print edition of Chemical Communications in the article "Visualizing Nanoparticle Mobility in Liquid at Atomic Resolution," by Madeline Dukes, an applications scientist at Protochips Inc. in Raleigh, N.C.; Benjamin Jacobs, an applications scientist at Protochips; David Morgan, assistant manager of the Cryo-Transmission Electron Microscopy Facility at Indiana University Bloomington; Harshad Hegde, a computer scientist at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute; and Kelly, who is also an assistant professor of biological sciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech. The original article was written by Ken Kingery.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Madeline J. Dukes, Benjamin W. Jacobs, David G. Morgan, Harshad Hegde, Deborah F. Kelly. Visualizing nanoparticle mobility in liquid at atomic resolution. Chemical Communications, 2013; 49 (29): 3007 DOI: 10.1039/C3CC41136B
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The Steelers added a young outside linebacker to bolster their pass rush and help replace the departed James Harrison, selecting Georgia?s Jarvis Jones No. 17 overall on Thursday night.
Jones (6-2, 245) notched 14.5 sacks in 2012 for the Bulldogs. If Jones is to push for a starting role as a rookie, it would likely be at the expense of veteran Jason Worilds.
That said, the Steelers generally don?t rush their rookies into the lineup. They have to earn their way onto the field. Maurkice Pouncey played in his rookie season of 2010 because he was too good to sit, and guard David DeCastro looked poised to be a Week One starter before a knee injury last summer.
?Quite honestly, I don?t envision anyone coming in and being an impact in Year One,? Steelers GM Kevin Colbert said this week, according to the club. ?I never do because I think there is always a growing process that has to occur.?
It can take time for Steelers? outside linebackers to master Dick LeBeau?s defense. LaMarr Woodley, it should be noted, did not start as a rookie in 2007. If Jones can at least be a solid situational rusher (a la Woodley as a rookie) and pick up the defense, he will have done well, considering how other rookies have fared with this veteran-laden club.
Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Students develop sophisticated analyses of design problems behind huge disasters
A classroom approach that helps high school seniors analyze engineering disasters as though the students were professional investigators has been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.
"When you compare what the students say and write with what the National Transportation Safety Board has in monographs about these disasters, they're comparable," says Joe Immel, who teaches the course module, called Root Cause Analysis, at Technology High School in Rohnert Park, California. "The students' products are really amazing."
The Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Root Cause Analysis will be published on April 26.
"Improving science education is an important goal for all of us at Science," says editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts. "We hope to help those innovators who have developed outstanding laboratory modules promoting student inquiry to reach a wider audience. Each winning module will be featured in an article in Science that is aimed at guiding science educators from around the world to these valuable free resources."
Immel first got interested in science when he was in junior high. An eighth-grade teacher took him and his classmates through what Immel would later learn was generally taught in college-level invertebrate zoology classes. As a student, he was locked on, and as a future educator, he would look back at the experience and realize that young students are more capable than is often believed.
"When it comes to kids, you can ask them to do something and as long as no one tells them it's impossible, they can do it," Immel says.
Immel went on to earn degrees in biology at the University of California, including a PhD at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He worked as a scientist, then as an engineer. He and his wife, Barbara Kephart Immel, then started a consulting firm for the biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical industries.
At age 50, Immel earned a teaching credential, having discovered he really enjoyed volunteering in schools when his own children were small. He took a job at Technology High School, a public alternative school with a project-based, group-oriented curriculum.
Having seen how a kind of root cause analysis was routinely used as a part of quality control in the pharmaceutical industry, Immel says it occurred to him that the process would provide an interesting approach for students. "I said, 'I bet seniors would like to do that,'" he says.
Immel's curriculum module "Root Cause Analysis: Methodologies and Case Studies" helps students use a systematic approach to analyze engineering failures such as the Titanic disaster and the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. As Immel predicted and has had confirmed, "Spectacular failures interest high-school students greatly."
As the students consider each disaster, they are coached to pursue root causes by persistently asking "why" at least five times, and to keep asking "who, what, when, where, how?" They are encouraged to pursue a course of thought beyond where they would normally go, keeping an open mind as they push through premature conclusions.
"People in general look for an answer, and when they get one, they stop and say, 'This is it,'" Immel says. "We teach the students that we're liable to be fooled by symptoms, we're liable to be fooled by things that are more superficial than we think they are."
The students are asked to find at least two root causes for each disaster case study, and then to explore corrective and preventive actions first in class discussions and then in the "executive summaries" they prepare.
The fifth and final case study is presented in a way that puts the students in the role of real engineers. The students are put into six groups, with each group privy only to what one real-life engineer knew at the time of a disaster, in this case the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Each group goes over the phone calls, memos and documents belonging to that real-life engineer.
One representative from each group speaks at a mission management meeting in a kind of role play. After the meeting, the setting switches to the day of the disaster, and the students as engineers must face the public and the media in a brutal mock press conference.
After the press conference, students are sent off to individually prepare their executive summaries. Unlike with usual term papers or exams, however, they are required to communicate via phone, text, email or even Facebook with their classroom peers from all of the groups, in order to prepare the best analyses. The summaries are due the very next day.
"The members of each group only initially learned one-sixth of the information, so they have to fill in the blanks," Immel says. "We have instant communication, it's the way of the world. So we need to use it."
Students often stay up all night conferring and preparing their summaries. "They are fascinated by the case studies, and they throw themselves into it," Immel says. "That's all they want to do. We have to negotiate with other instructors at the end of the year while this is going on, because the students don't want to do anything else."
Immel says the collaborative aspect of the process is key to the success of the analyses. Melissa McCartney, associate editor at Science, lauds the approach.
"While this module is specific to engineering," McCartney says, "it employs collective intelligence and collaborative learning, both of which are important in any STEM discipline."
The process of figuring out what went wrong in a disaster can be very compelling, Immel says. "It's just immense fun," he says. "It's what piques the intellect of the people on the National Transportation Safety Board." Immel adds that the human tragedy associated with the case study disasters is not overlookedan analysis of the Deepwater Horizon blowout begins with a slide show of the 11 people who died there, for exampleand students develop a profound appreciation for the care that should go into every engineering task.
Students who have experienced the module often report back to Immel that they have continued to use Root Cause Analysis as they move on in their education and training.
Immel believes Root Cause Analysis should be a part of new science education standards, which call for more emphasis on engineering.
"I would love to see a full-semester course with many more case studies," he says. "The more you do it, the better you get."
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
[ | 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.
Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Students develop sophisticated analyses of design problems behind huge disasters
A classroom approach that helps high school seniors analyze engineering disasters as though the students were professional investigators has been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.
"When you compare what the students say and write with what the National Transportation Safety Board has in monographs about these disasters, they're comparable," says Joe Immel, who teaches the course module, called Root Cause Analysis, at Technology High School in Rohnert Park, California. "The students' products are really amazing."
The Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Root Cause Analysis will be published on April 26.
"Improving science education is an important goal for all of us at Science," says editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts. "We hope to help those innovators who have developed outstanding laboratory modules promoting student inquiry to reach a wider audience. Each winning module will be featured in an article in Science that is aimed at guiding science educators from around the world to these valuable free resources."
Immel first got interested in science when he was in junior high. An eighth-grade teacher took him and his classmates through what Immel would later learn was generally taught in college-level invertebrate zoology classes. As a student, he was locked on, and as a future educator, he would look back at the experience and realize that young students are more capable than is often believed.
"When it comes to kids, you can ask them to do something and as long as no one tells them it's impossible, they can do it," Immel says.
Immel went on to earn degrees in biology at the University of California, including a PhD at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He worked as a scientist, then as an engineer. He and his wife, Barbara Kephart Immel, then started a consulting firm for the biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical industries.
At age 50, Immel earned a teaching credential, having discovered he really enjoyed volunteering in schools when his own children were small. He took a job at Technology High School, a public alternative school with a project-based, group-oriented curriculum.
Having seen how a kind of root cause analysis was routinely used as a part of quality control in the pharmaceutical industry, Immel says it occurred to him that the process would provide an interesting approach for students. "I said, 'I bet seniors would like to do that,'" he says.
Immel's curriculum module "Root Cause Analysis: Methodologies and Case Studies" helps students use a systematic approach to analyze engineering failures such as the Titanic disaster and the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. As Immel predicted and has had confirmed, "Spectacular failures interest high-school students greatly."
As the students consider each disaster, they are coached to pursue root causes by persistently asking "why" at least five times, and to keep asking "who, what, when, where, how?" They are encouraged to pursue a course of thought beyond where they would normally go, keeping an open mind as they push through premature conclusions.
"People in general look for an answer, and when they get one, they stop and say, 'This is it,'" Immel says. "We teach the students that we're liable to be fooled by symptoms, we're liable to be fooled by things that are more superficial than we think they are."
The students are asked to find at least two root causes for each disaster case study, and then to explore corrective and preventive actions first in class discussions and then in the "executive summaries" they prepare.
The fifth and final case study is presented in a way that puts the students in the role of real engineers. The students are put into six groups, with each group privy only to what one real-life engineer knew at the time of a disaster, in this case the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Each group goes over the phone calls, memos and documents belonging to that real-life engineer.
One representative from each group speaks at a mission management meeting in a kind of role play. After the meeting, the setting switches to the day of the disaster, and the students as engineers must face the public and the media in a brutal mock press conference.
After the press conference, students are sent off to individually prepare their executive summaries. Unlike with usual term papers or exams, however, they are required to communicate via phone, text, email or even Facebook with their classroom peers from all of the groups, in order to prepare the best analyses. The summaries are due the very next day.
"The members of each group only initially learned one-sixth of the information, so they have to fill in the blanks," Immel says. "We have instant communication, it's the way of the world. So we need to use it."
Students often stay up all night conferring and preparing their summaries. "They are fascinated by the case studies, and they throw themselves into it," Immel says. "That's all they want to do. We have to negotiate with other instructors at the end of the year while this is going on, because the students don't want to do anything else."
Immel says the collaborative aspect of the process is key to the success of the analyses. Melissa McCartney, associate editor at Science, lauds the approach.
"While this module is specific to engineering," McCartney says, "it employs collective intelligence and collaborative learning, both of which are important in any STEM discipline."
The process of figuring out what went wrong in a disaster can be very compelling, Immel says. "It's just immense fun," he says. "It's what piques the intellect of the people on the National Transportation Safety Board." Immel adds that the human tragedy associated with the case study disasters is not overlookedan analysis of the Deepwater Horizon blowout begins with a slide show of the 11 people who died there, for exampleand students develop a profound appreciation for the care that should go into every engineering task.
Students who have experienced the module often report back to Immel that they have continued to use Root Cause Analysis as they move on in their education and training.
Immel believes Root Cause Analysis should be a part of new science education standards, which call for more emphasis on engineering.
"I would love to see a full-semester course with many more case studies," he says. "The more you do it, the better you get."
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
[ | 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.
Wines, spirits tax hike to wipe out benefits for pubs, bars: WSTA Drinks Business Review The increase in wines and spirits tax is set to wipe out the benefits of pubs and bars from the beer tax cut and affect women, who prefer wines and spirits over beer, according to a new analysis by UK-based organization for the wine and spirit industry ?
Simon
... is the owner of The Cyberboozer - a huge directory of pubs and bars, covering 93,000 pubs in 17 countries. He also likes to blog about news, products and pretty much anything else he can think of that's even loosely related to pubs and bars.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Exaggeration over the extent of the malaria parasite's resistance to the 'wonder drugs' artemisinins could jeopardise the fight against the disease, according to a leading expert.
In an opinion article published on World Malaria Day today (25 April 2013) -- online in the journal Trends in Parasitology, Professor Sanjeev Krishna of St George's, University of London argues that much of the evidence of the malaria parasite's resistance to artemisinin has been misinterpreted. He says this has led to the extent of artemisinin resistance being overstated, and that fears of its demise as an effective treatment are premature.
The artemisinin class of drugs are the best anti-malarial treatments available, and are used most effectively with other drugs as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). Recent research has suggested that the malaria parasite is developing resistance to ACTs, particularly in Southeast Asia. Experts fear that if artemisinins became obsolete -- as previous anti-malarials have -- the effect could be devastating, as there are currently no other effective alternatives.
However, Professor Krishna argues that -- despite being accepted as dogma by the malaria research community -- most of the descriptions of artemisinin resistance do not meet the criteria by which resistance to other anti-malarials and drugs for other diseases have been measured.
For true resistance to exist, according to criteria used for other drugs, there needs to be: a significant failure in treatment (by not meeting the World Health Organization's target of a 95 per cent cure rate 28 days after treatment); a reduced sensitivity to the drug when the parasite is examined in the lab; and a visible delay in ridding the patient of parasites.
Currently, Professor Krishna says, it seems to be accepted that artemisinin treatment failure has occurred when a three-day course of ACT does not meet the target cure rate. This has been observed in a number of studies and has been used to try and understand 'artemisinin resistance.'
But other studies of seven-day courses of artemisinin monotherapies -- in which artemisinins are used alone, without partner drugs -- have shown up to 100 per cent cure rates after 28 days.
This, Professor Krishna, says, indicates proof of resistance to ACTs, but that there is no compelling evidence that artemisinins themselves are becoming less effective. He says this resistance will usually "be to a combination of an artemisinin with another drug against which there is usually a high background of resistance already."
"Contending that there is artemisinin resistance when cure of patients relies on the partner drug of an artemisinin is difficult to substantiate without additional studies," writes Professor Krishna. "It is more appropriate to describe the lack of observed efficacy as resistance to an artemisinin combination therapy rather than as being artemisinin resistance."
He adds that "crying wolf" and raising fears of artemisinin resistance when it is not yet proven "will itself have significant costs, so that when the wolf finally turns up, exhausted villagers no longer respond."
To ensure better understanding of when true artemisinin resistance occurs, and to learn how to fight it, Professor Krishna says there needs to be further research into the how the drugs work against the parasite. He also urges the development of molecular markers to predict the failure of the partner drugs used in ACTs, as well as further studies on artemisinin monotherapies.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of St George's London, via AlphaGalileo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
Share ]