JAKARTA—A massive earthquake and strong aftershock rattled Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh on Wednesday, spurring fears of a tsunami in the same region where a 2004 tsunami killed more than 200,000.

The 8.6-magnitude earthquake was felt as far away as Thailand, Malaysia and India. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had issued a tsunami watch Wednesday afternoon in Asia but later canceled it, saying that while a significant tsunami was generated by the quake, the threat for most areas had diminished.

The initial alert said the tsunami watch was in effect from Indonesia to India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

 

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that early reports were that there was limited damage. "There is no tsunami threat," he said Wednesday evening ahead of a news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. "The tsunami early-warning system is working well and at the moment there are no casualties."

India also canceled its tsunami warnings and alerts for several states and territories, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean.

In a statement, India's Home Ministry said it had asked the chief secretaries of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and all east-coast states, to advise fishermen not to venture out to sea and to take other precautions.

Teams from the National Disaster Response Force were placed on standby in case they were needed to carry out emergency relief efforts, the agency said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the powerful quake was centered about 20 miles beneath the ocean floor, about 300 miles from Aceh's provincial capital.

Indonesian television news showed crowded roads as people tried to drive away from the coast.

"It felt like the earthquake back when we had a tsunami in 2004," said driver and Aceh resident Edi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. "Everybody ran around in a panic and we ran up a hill."

People in Banda Aceh screamed "God is great!" as they jumped into cars and onto the backs of motorcycles, clogging streets as they fled to high ground, according to the Associated Press.

Coastal residents in Sri Lanka were told to move to higher ground. Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center issued an evacuation order to residents in six provinces along the country's west coast, including the popular tourist destinations of Phuket, Krabi and Phang-Nga. Thailand later canceled its tsunami warning.

Indonesia sits atop a web of fault lines that makes the sprawling archipelago prone to volcanic and seismic activity. A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.

Indonesia's government has improved its monitoring of earthquake data since then by positioning buoys to take sea-level readings and warn of potential tsunamis. Officials have noted the problem of getting timely information to people who live in remote areas of coastal Sumatra.

Experts said the kind of devastation seen in the 2004 disaster and last year in Japan was caused by a particular type of earthquake. During Wednesday's quake, the tectonic plates were likely shifting sideways rather than up and down, leaving less of a chance for the giant waves, said Susanne Sergeant, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey.

"The earthquake today was different from that in 2004 off Aceh and in Japan," last year, and less likely to create massive water displacement, she said.

India issued a tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the eastern coast on Wednesday after a 8.7 magnitude quake in Indonesia shook major cities, causing panic and sending people fleeing onto the streets.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service issued a red
high-level warning for the islands, and also put out lower alerts for the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

India's tsunami warning center said waves measuring up to 6 metres were expected along parts of its eastern coast, which was heavily hit by the 2004 tsunami. Smaller waves were expected to hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred 33 kilometres beneath the ocean floor around 495 kilometres from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Said, an official at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh

A massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra has triggered a tsumani alert around the Indian Ocean.

Indonesia has issued a tsunami warning after a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.9 hit waters off westernmost Aceh province.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was centered 33km beneath the ocean floor around 495km from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Said, an official at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.

US monitors issued an Indian Ocean-wide tsunami watch but said it was not yet certain a giant wave had been generated.

"Earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean basin," the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarters of them in Aceh.

It turns out that chocolate-especially dark chocolate-reduces body mass, prevents blood clots, improves numeracy, may prevent cancer, and doesn’t ruin your complexion.

A new study suggests that eating chocolate can help you stay thin. Researchers at the University of California-San Diego found that people who frequently eat chocolate have lower body-mass indexes than people who don’t. Other evidence indicates that chocolate can also ward off strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes. So here are 11 reasons to indulge in some s’mores this summer (no word yet on the health benefits of marshmallows) …

1. Chocolate decreases stroke risk

A Swedish study found that eating more than 45 grams of chocolate per week-about two bars worth-led to a 20 percent decrease in stroke risk among women. Chocolate contains flavonoids, whose antioxidant properties help fight strokes, the study’s author, Susanna Larsson, told HealthDay.

2. Chocolate reduces the likelihood of a heart attack

Other studies show that eating chocolate prevents blood clots, which in turn reduces the risk of heart attacks. Blood platelets clump together more slowly in chocolate eaters, the studies say.

3. Chocolate protects against blood inflammation

Eat one Hershey’s dark chocolate bar per week, and your risk of heart disease will decrease, a 2008 study found. About 6.7 grams of dark chocolate per day keeps the blood inflammation-inducing proteins away. Just like your mother always told you.

4. Chocolate helps with math

British psychologists found that flavanols (a class of flavonoids, which are found in chocolate) helped people with their mental math. Study subjects had an easier time counting backwards from a randomly-generated number between 800 and 999 after drinking a cup of hot chocolate than they did without the cocoa. “The findings suggest students who binge on chocolate when revising for exams may gain a real benefit from doing so,” the British Telegraph reported.

5. Chocolate may prevent cancer

Cocoa contains a compound called pentameric procyanidin, or pentamer, which disrupts cancer cells’ ability to spread. When researchers from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University treated cancer cells with pentamer back in 2005, the proteins necessary for cancer growth were suppressed and the cells stopped dividing.

6. Chocolate reduces the risk of diabetes

The Italians know a thing or two about good eating.And a small study from the University of L'Aquila, in Italy, found that eating chocolate increases insulin sensitivity, which reduces the risk of diabetes.

7. Chocolate is good for your skin

“Some people say that I eat too many chocolate bars …” Remember that acne infomercial from the 90s? No? Well, it doesn’t matter. Not only does it not cause breakouts, it’s actually good for your skin! (Well, dark chocolate at least.) Flavonoids found in dark chocolate protect women’s skin from the sun’s UV rays, according to German scientists. But that doesn’t mean you can skip the sunscreen.

8. Chocolate can control coughs

The most delicious way to kick your cough, apparently, is chocolate. One of the sweet’s chemical components, theobromine, seems to reduce the activity of the vagus nerve, the part of the brain that triggers coughing fits. Scientists are even working on a cough-quelling drug that uses theobromine in place of codeine—a narcotic common in cough medicine.

9. Chocolate improves blood flow

In 2008 Harvard scientists forced test subjects to undergo “two weeks of enhanced chocolate intake.” A fortnight of chocolate face-stuffing, they found, sped up blood flow through their subject’s middle cerebral arteries. In other words, more chocolate means more blood to your brain.

10. Chocolate strengthens your brain

Researchers at  the Johns Hopkins University found that dark chocolate shields cells in your brain, and accordingly protects it from damage caused by stroke. Epicatechin, a compound found in chocolate, significantly reduced the brain damage in mice who suffered strokes, they found. Scientists at California's Salk Institute also found that epicatechin improved mice’s memories.

11. Chocolate makes you live longer

Jeanne Louise Calment lived to the age of 122—the oldest anyone has ever lived. She ate two and a half pounds of dark chocolate per week. Harvard researchers found that eating chocolate actually adds two years to your life expectancy.

But don’t just start binging on chocolate! Most of the chocolate you buy in the grocery store is heavily processed, which means that it has lost many of its healthy chemicals. And some of the research supporting chocolate’s healthy characteristics was paid for by chocolate manufacturers.

Here's one equation that leaders can't forget: happy employees = productive employees. Open Forum offers seven easy ways to keep your employees feeling happy and appreciated. For example:

• Recognize when employees are making progress. Pause and highlight milestones that people hit or challenges they have overcome. Ensure that people feel their contributions are rewarded by simply saying "thank you."


• Make employees feel like they belong. To be happy at work, it’s important to feel like “you have a friend.” This gets challenging especially when the company gets busy. People need to feel like they know each other and so time like this yields positive results.

Sleep breathing problems linked with depression

Experiencing breathing problems during sleep may raise your risk of depression, a new study suggests.

Women with sleep apnea, in which breathing becomes shallow or pauses briefly during sleep, were 5.2 times as likely to have depression compared with women without the condition. Men with sleep apnea were 2.4 times as likely to have depression as men without the condition, according to the study from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Participants in the study who had other breathing problems during sleep also had an increased risk of depression. However, the researchers found no increased likelihood of depression among people who snore.

"Snorting, gasping or stopping breathing while asleep was associated with nearly all depression symptoms, including feeling hopeless and feeling like a failure," said study researcher Anne Wheaton, an epidemiologist with the CDC. "We expected persons with sleep-disordered breathing to report trouble sleeping or sleeping too much, or feeling tired and having little energy, but not the other symptoms."

Both depression and breathing problems during sleep are common, and both are underdiagnosed, the researchers wrote. Screening people who have for one disorder for the other could lead to better diagnosis and treatments, they said.

The researchers took into account other factors that might influence the results, such as age, sex and weight. The results are in line with those of the other studies, the researchers said.

The study found an association, not a cause-and-effect link. However, the researchers wrote that evidence from other research suggests that breathing problems during sleep may contribute to the development of depression. For example, one previous study found a link between the severity of breathing problems during sleep and the odds of later developing depression. And other studies have shown that people who received treatment for sleep apnea showed improvement in their depression.

"Mental health professionals often ask about certain sleep problems, such as unrefreshing sleep and insomnia, but likely do not realize that [breathing problems during sleep] may have an impact on their patients' mental health," the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

Although exactly how the link might work is unclear, it could partly be explained by the fact that people with breathing problems experience sleep that is fragmented, or may have low levels of oxygen in the blood during sleep.

The researchers used data collected from 9,714 adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is an ongoing study conducted by the CDC.

Participants were considered to have depression based on their answers to a questionnaire asking about how often they experienced symptoms of depression.

Six percent of men and 3 percent of women in the study reported having physician-diagnosed sleep apnea.

The study was limited in that participants' depression and sleep problems were measured at only one point in time, and in that it relied on self-reported symptoms. People may not be aware they have breathing problems during sleep, and there was no information about whether participants were being treated for depression.

While effective at killing cancer cells, chemotherapy is currently a shotgun approach that can also harm healthy cells and cause serious side effects in patients. The ability to deliver drugs directly into cancer cells would provide a more targeted approach to more effectively treat the disease with lower doses of drugs and less side effects. Researchers at Northwestern University are claiming to be the first to develop gold nanostars that provide a much more precise approach by delivering a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus.

The nanoparticles developed at Northewestern are spiky gold nanostars measuring approximately 25 nanometers wide with five to 10 points. This shape has dual advantages. Not only does it provide a large surface area on which a high concentration of drug molecules can be loaded so less drug would be required than current approaches, but it also changes the shape of the cancer cell nucleus, which improves the effectiveness of the drug release.

In their study of human cervical and ovarian cancer cells, the scientists coated gold nanostars in a single-stranded DNA aptamer. This molecule is attracted to and binds to a protein called nucleolin, which is overexpressed in cancer cells and found within and on the surface of the cell. When released from the nanostar, the DNA aptamer also acts as the drug itself.

Taking advantage of nucleolin’s role as a shuttle within the cancer cell, the gold nanostars hitch a ride to the cell’s nucleus. Once there, the bond attachments between the gold surface and the DNA aptamers are severed by directing ultrafast pulses of light at the cells and the aptamers enter the cell nucleus. Because the gold nanostar doesn’t actually need to pass through the nuclear membrane to deliver the drug, it doesn’t need to be a certain size.

“Our drug-loaded gold nanostars are tiny hitchhikers,” said Teri W. Odom, who led the study. “They are attracted to a protein on the cancer cell’s surface that conveniently shuttles the nanostars to the cell’s nucleus. Then, on the nucleus’ doorstep, the nanostars release the drug, which continues into the nucleus to do its work.”

Using electron microscopy, the scientists found that the gold nanostars deformed the smooth ellipsoid shape of the cancer cell nucleus into an uneven shape with deep folds. Release of the drug at the points of the nanostar occurs easily because the nanostar’s shape also concentrates the ultrafast light pulses at those points.

Because the light source triggering the drug release would be external to the body, the technique would be limited to tumors fairly close to the surface of the skin, such as skin and some breast cancers. Odom says surgeons removing tumors could also use the gold nanostars to deal with any stray cancer cells in surrounding tissue.

Since their initial research on human cervical and ovarian cancer cells, the team has studied the effects of the drug-loaded gold nanostars on 12 other human cancer cell lines and witnessed similar results.

“All cancer cells seem to respond similarly,” Odom said. “This suggests that the shuttling capabilities of the nucleolin protein for functionalized nanoparticles could be a general strategy for nuclear-targeted drug delivery.”

OMG, it turns out that when u r texting, u r not being lazy, u r being creative.

The notion that text-messaging is eroding our language skills is a myth, say researchers from three Canadian universities who have collected and studied thousands of messages.

The text4science project is a collaboration of Simon Fraser University, Universite de Montreal and the University of Ottawa, as part of a larger international project to understand how text-speak is changing the way people communicate.

"In recent years, communication via SMS (text message) has become a social phenomenon," the project website says. "Many scientific studies (in linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication, etc.) have looked into this new medium, but their conclusions remain partial and incomplete."

Researchers asked people to send in - via text, naturally - random messages they'd saved on their phones, with the assurance that any identifying information would be removed.

They have received more than 8,000 since December.

"A lot of people think that language is degrading over time and it's just getting worse, and young people just don't know how to spell anymore," SFU professor Christian Guilbault said on News 1130. "Well, we don't think it's true."

He said the way we use language in texts proves how creative we are and that we can use English in a very specific way appropriate to the context.

For instance, the researchers found people used 10 different ways to express laughter, including three variants of ``LOL,'' and 12 different ways to text OK.

They are still accepting messages for their ongoing study. Find out more at text4science.ca.

Hair thinning is caused by various reasons like medication and illness and often hereditary causes. Most of the times men suffers from this problem. The reasons behind this fact is none other than hormone. Statistics show that most of the men who have reached the age of 50 or are more than that either suffer from baldness or hair thinning. Thankfully there are many treatments that are available to treat hair thinning. The first step involves in consulting a good doctor who will help in identifying the causes of hair thinning and recommend medicines that will address the causes. Focusing on the proper treatment will stop hair thinning.

If you have inherited the problem of hair thinning, then you must be cautious with your hair. You can use either semi-permanent or permanent color to provide the hair a body and add volume to it, which is extremely important. If your are experiencing because of medicinal side effects semi permanent color can be a good option for you. Strong medications contribute in weakening hair that causes in breaking or falling out. A semi permanent hair is free from ammonia or peroxide. It protects the hair and adds great deal of volume and body to the hair. For fine textured hair a permanent or semi permanent color is good if it is applied with proper professional care. This is because colored hair has the tendency to get over-processed that can damage the hair and cause more hair loss .

Another way of combating hair thinning is to use voluming products that are available in the market. The products are made with paraffin, extracted from beeswax . To some extent it is not good for hair because sometimes it gets build up in the hair follicles and causes hair to break. However, you can try those voluming products used in salons as they help to a great extent. The products don't weight your hair and does not damage the hair. For example, you can apply mousse to the root to provide necessary support. In the next step blow-dry the root area for extra support. To hold the hair better you can apply a light finishing spray.

Whenever you feel that your hair is dirty, shampoo your hair and condition your hair from time to time. The dirt and dust of the hair that sticks to your hair tends to make the hair follicles weak and make them fall. Thus, washing your hair from time to time prevents the dirt and dust from accumulating. Use a good quality shampoo and voluming hair conditioner so that the hair is well taken care of.

Find a hairstyle that helps in giving a volume look to your hair. While styling make sure that the hair is not exposed to prolonged heat directly as they will make the hair more brittle and result in thinning. It is advisable not to go for curling irons and flat irons.

Hair loss has become a perennial problem. The amount of hair lost is not supplemented with the number of hair grown. Hence there becomes a problem. Almost all women face a problem with hair loss. A study has said that on a daily basis we lose 100 hairs. The life span of a hair is not more than four years. There can be several reasons for hair loss. The problem can be hereditary, stress or any disease. There is specific treatment for hair loss. But we should not ignore the problem of hair loss. Let us focus on the different causes of hair loss.


The cause can be hereditary

Little disorder in genetic factor can be the reason for hair loss. Once a hair is lost it gets replaced naturally. But a disorder in genetic factors will not let the lost hair get replaced. The gap gets created. Thus it leads to baldness at a very young age too. There are three other factors which affect hair loss; they are age, gender and hormone. Due to age people loose hair and it might lead to baldness. The problem can be related to hormones too. The problem of hair fall affects men more when compared with women.

The problem could be stress

Stress is another reason for hair loss. Physical stress or emotional stress both contribute to hair loss. There can be 2 type of hair loss in this scenario: Telogen effluvium and Alopecia areata. Telogen effluvium is a severe problem. The hair falls and the growth is almost lost. Hence the gap cannot be filled. Alopecia areata happens when the white blood cells attack the follicles of the hair. In this scenario, the body hair also falls. The hair does grow back but intensive treatment is required. The hair will falls in patches.

Side effects of medicines

Few medicines have side effects. The intake of the medicine results in hair fall. The severity of the medicines is the key factor for hair loss. Like after chemotherapy people tend to lose hair. Even after pregnancy there is a chance of hair fall. As there is a hormonal change during pregnancy there is a chance of hair loss. Birth control pills also lead to hair fall.

South Korea's police chief has resigned amid an outcry over the case of a woman who was raped and murdered despite calling police for help.

Cho Hyun-oh said he was stepping down to take full responsibility for what he called the "unpardonable carelessness" of his officers. 

The woman told police where she was being held in a seven-minute call to the emergency number. 

Police only found her dismembered body 13 hours after she called for help.

The incident took place on 2 April in Suwon, south of Seoul.

Local media reports said that the woman described in detail landmarks such as a primary school and a playground around the apartment where she was being attacked, but officers failed to find her in time.

"I express my deepest regret at the police's negligence which had such a horrendous result and attempts to cover it up with lies," said Mr Cho, who is the commissioner of the National Police Agency.

Communication mistakes between emergency operators and officers meant that police were searching the wrong area, police have said. 

When public concern was raised, they also inflated the number of officers who had been sent to search the area, local reports said.

President Lee Myung-bak has accepted Mr Cho's resignation.

A man has been arrested in connection with the case.

A vaccine that can train cancer patients' own bodies to seek out and destroy tumour cells has been developed by scientists. 

The therapy, which targets a molecule found in 90 per cent of all cancers, could provide a universal injection that allows patients' immune systems to fight off common cancers including breast and prostate cancer.

Preliminary results from early clinical trials have shown the vaccine can trigger an immune response in patients and reduce levels of disease. 

The scientists behind the vaccine now hope to conduct larger trials in patients to prove it can be effective against a range of different cancers. 

They believe it could be used to combat small tumours if they are detected early enough or to help prevent the return and spread of disease in patients who have undergone other forms of treatment such as surgery. 

Cancer cells usually evade patient's immune systems because they are not recognised as being a threat. 

While the immune system usually attacks foreign cells such as bacteria, tumours are formed of the patient's own cells that have malfunctioned. 

Scientists have, however, found that a molecule called MUC1, which is found in high amounts on the surface of cancer cells, can be used to help the immune system detect tumours. 

The new vaccine, developed by drug company Vaxil Biotheraputics along with researchers at Tel Aviv University, uses a small section of the molecule to prime the immune system so that it can identify and destroy cancer cells. 

A statement from Vaxil Biotheraputics said: "ImMucin generated a robust and specific immune response in all patients which was observed after only 2-4 doses of the vaccine out of a maximum of 12 doses. 

"In some of the patients, preliminary signs of clinical efficacy were observed." 

The results are still to be formally published but if further trials prove to be successful the vaccine could be available within six years. 

As a therapeutic vaccine it is designed to be given to patients who are already suffering from cancer to help their bodies fight off the disease rather than to prevent disease in the first place. 

Cancer cells contain high levels of MUC1 as it is thought to be involved helping tumours grow. Healthy human cells also contain MUC1, but have levels that are too low to trigger the immune system after vaccination. 

When a vaccinated patient's immune system encounters cancer cells, however, the far larger concentration of MUC1 causes it to attack and kill the tumour. 

As MUC1 is found in 90 per cent of all cancers, the researchers believe it could be used to combat the growth and spread of a wide range of cancers. 

In a safety trial at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem, ten patients suffering from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, have now received the vaccine. 

Seven of the patients have now finished the treatment and Vaxil reported that all of them had greater immunity against cancer cells compared to before they were given the vaccine. 

Vaxil added that three patients are now free of detectable cancer following the treatment. 

The findings support research published in the journal Vaccine, which showed the treatment induced "potent" immunity in mice and increased their survival from cancer. 

Cancer charities have given the vaccine a cautious welcome, but warned further testing was needed before it could be approved for widespread use. 

There are currently a number of other therapeutic vaccines against cancer being tested, but they have met with limited success. 

Dr Kat Arney, science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "There are several groups around the world investigating treatments that target MUC1, as it's a very interesting target involved in several types of cancer. 

"These are very early results that are yet to be fully published, so there's a lot more work to be done to prove that this particular vaccine is safe and effective in cancer patients."

All right, Mac users - the day of reckoning has come. 

Thanks to a well-documented flaw that Apple didn't patch for three months , a nasty piece of malware called Mac Flashback seems to have infected nearly 600,000 Macs worldwide (according to Russian security firm Dr. Web ). 

Here are three things you need to do today: 

- Check to see whether your Mac is infected by Mac Flashback. The social-networking news site Mashable has created a script that will do so for you. The instructions are on the Mashable website.

If the script does find an infection, which can be at either or both of two different places in the Mac OS X file system, removal is a bit complicated. 

You'll have to go into the Terminal app and take the Mac Flashback removal steps detailed by Finnish security firm F-Secure. 

- Update OS X with the latest security patches from Apple. Apple patched OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and OS X Lion earlier this week, but it just updated the patch for Lion Thursday, April 5.

If you're on a PowerPC-chip-based Mac running OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple no longer cares about you (see below). 

- Take a deep breath and say to yourself, "Steve Jobs is dead and my Mac is not immune to malware." Then install a solid anti-virus product. Today, right now, ASAP. 

The weak anti-virus software that Apple bundles into OS X 10.7 Lion doesn't cut it, and neither will the half-hearted Gatekeeper feature in the upcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. 

Take a look at the paid products reviewed by our sister site TopTenReviews, or go to the website of the British security firm Sophos and download and install their free Mac anti-virus software . 

Additionally, there are two things you probably should do: 

- Disable the Java run-time engine, if you're not using it. 

Java, the platform-independent environment used to run Web apps and perform other tasks, has too many flaws to justify its use unless it's absolutely necessary. (Apple tacitly acknowledged this when it didn't bundle Java into OS X 10.7 Lion.) Open the Java Preferences utility in Mac OS X, uncheck all selections and reboot. 

Unfortunately, some software, such as the applications in Adobe's Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, requires that Java be enabled. 

In that case, you'll just have to trust Apple once more, even though it was remarkably late about riding to the rescue in this instance. The Java flaw that Mac Flashback exploited was patched two months ago for Windows and Linux. 

- If you're still using a PowerPC Mac, it's time to move on. 

Apple's excellent hardware means there are millions of perfectly good PowerPC machines still out there and running well, some of them built as recently as 2006. But Apple no longer supports or releases security patches for them. It wants you to upgrade, and now you don't have a choice in the matter. 

source: http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/

Millions at risk as effect of anti-malaria drugs weakens

A deadly form of malaria has developed a resistance to the most powerful drugs used to treat the disease, putting the lives of millions of people around the world at risk. 

Tests by a team of British and Thai scientists over a 10-year period found the most dangerous species of malaria parasites, spread by mosquitoes, are becoming more resistant to the most effective treatments containing artemisinin, a drug derived from the sweet wormwood shrub. 

They discovered that Plasmodium falciparum, which was first reported in 2009 in western Cambodia, is now being found 500 miles (805 kilometers) away on the border of Thailand and Burma. 

The details of their findings and research, published in The Lancet medical journal, showed that between 2001 and 2010, the average time taken to reduce the number of parasites in the blood by half following treatment rose from 2.6 hours to 3.7 hours. 

The proportion of slow-clearing infections increased during the same period from six to 200 out of every 1,000 cases. 

Study leader Professor Francois Nosten, director of Thailand's Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, warned of a "race against time" to halt the spread of the potentially untreatable malaria. 

"We have now seen the emergence of malaria resistant to our best drugs, and these resistant parasites are not confined to western Cambodia," he said.

Climate may have influenced the evolution of humans and other humanlike species

If you were to trace human evolution backward in time and space, you’d eventually end up in Africa. There, millions of years ago, animal species evolved to walk upright on two legs and spend more of their lives on the ground than in the trees. Homo sapiens, the species you belong to if you’re reading this article,had appeared on the continent by 200,000 years ago. Your ancestors weren’t alone: Other upright, humanlike species were also around — at least for a while.

Scientists agree on Africa as a starting place because the oldest human bones have been found there. Eventually, ancient humans and other species moved to every other continent except Antarctica and the Americas. But how they evolved, or changed over time, once they left Africa isn’t entirely clear. Eventually, every cousin in the sprawling human family — except H. sapiens — became extinct. Online-biology-degree.com should be able to help you understand human and non-human primate cognition from the perspective of human evolutionary biology.

Climate may have played an important part in the evolution of ancient people. Two new studies suggest that during ice ages, steep drops in temperature may have sent ancient species moving to more temperate, or mild, areas. As a result, these species would have been isolated from other populations.

One of the new studies looks at bones found in caves in southwestern China. A team of scientists report that the bones came from an ancient species that looked a lot, but not exactly, like H. sapiens. Either this type of H. sapiens looked different than others, or they belonged to a previously unknown humanlike species.

Darren Curnoe, who studied the bones from China, told Science News that he suspects a new species could have formed when early humans left Africa 120,000 years ago and evolved in isolation for tens of thousands of years. Anthropologists study humankind, and Curnoe, an anthropologist from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, studies human evolution.

On the other hand, those bones may represent a new species that arose when two others interbred, Christopher Stringer told Science News. Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, worked on the other study. He suggests the bones came from a group of ancient H. sapiens that moved into the area and reproduced with a humanlike species called the Denisovans.

In their paper, Stringer and ecologist Jon Stewart from the Bournemouth University in England show how changes in climate have controlled the migration of different types of animals. Studies suggest, for example, that polar bears were once brown bears that became isolated in the north and adapted to the cold conditions.

They Stringer and Stewart argue that changes in climate have had a major impact on the evolution and survival of humans and humanlike species, too. Ice age conditions may have driven the H. sapiens in what is now China to live and reproduce with the Denisovans.

Stringer and Stewart also suggest that the Neandertals, another species, may have evolved from an isolated humanlike population in western Asia during ice ages. In addition, the so-called “hobbits,” a short species known to scientists as Homo floresiensis, may also have evolved from other isolated humanlike species.

Not all scientists agree with the idea that dramatic changes in climate drove human migration — and then human evolution — in the way that Stringer and Stewart have outlined. Anthropologist Rick Potts from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., told Science News that ancient species had to handle a wide range of environments. They probably could have adapted to the extremes brought on by the ice age and may not have needed to seek safer areas.

POWER WORDS (adapted from the New Oxford American dictionary)

anthropology The study of humankind.

ecology The branch of science that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their environments.

evolve To change gradually over successive generations.

species A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals.

Neandertal An extinct species of human with a receding forehead and prominent brow ridges that was widely distributed in ice-age Europe between about 120,000 and 35,000 years ago.

ice age A time during a past geological period when temperatures dropped and glaciers formed.

The US Coast Guard has used cannon to sink a crewless Japanese ship that drifted to Alaska after the 2011 tsunami.

The coast guard earlier said they would hold off scuttling the Ryou-Un Maru after a Canadian fishing boat claimed salvage rights.

But a Canadian official later said that the Bernice C had been unable to tow the 200ft (61m) Japanese "ghost ship".

The boat had no lights or power and was viewed as a danger to other ships.

It was thought to be at the vanguard of a stream of tsunami debris that has been drifting east since last year's disaster hit Japan.

Owner contacted

The Ryou-Un Maru was first spotted off the coast of Canadian British Columbia on 23 March.

The vessel was moving at about 1km/h in a maritime transport corridor that separates US and Canadian waters.

It was adrift about 195 miles from Sitka, Alaska, when it was sunk, officials said.

Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow told AP news agency that a cutter was used to fire cannon at the abandoned ship, which burst into flames and took on water.

After a few hours, larger ammunition was used to complete the job, he said.

A Hercules C-130 air crew was ready to participate in the operation, broadcasting to mariners and air traffic to alert them and help clear the surrounding area before the demolition of the ship began.

CPO Wadlow said it would be too expensive to try to salvage the ship, and too dangerous to put anyone on board.

The ship may have carried more than 7,500 litres of diesel fuel, officials said.

The Ryou-Un Maru, a shrimping boat, has been traced to the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Alaskan Senator Mark Begich suggested that the boat's owner had been identified, but the owner did not want the vessel back.

On 11 March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan, triggering a tsunami that swamped a power station, prompting the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Sometimes, a first-time singer just needs a bit of self-confidence to conquer the stage.

But then there was amateur entertainer Jeremy Love: lacking not just self-confidence, but musical competency to boot. Love was the sort of misfit performer who only could have found an audience at Abilene’s curiously named Tony Barker & Meatball Acoustic Jam.

Founded 10 years ago by local musicians Barker and Benny “Meatball” Bartek, the weekly Thursday night jam started as an informal way to get Abilene’s fledgling singers and songwriters up on stage and in front of an audience. No snobbery, no judgment, no stress — just a bunch of players banging out material in a friendly atmosphere.

Love hopped aboard soon after the event’s birth, and immediately put Barker and Bartek’s altruistic principles to the test. Every time he took the stage, the audience would collectively brace itself for an onslaught of flubbed guitar notes, off-key singing and forgotten lyrics.

“Every week for five years, I sucked it up,” Love said, in his typically self-effacing manner. “There were some people who would rather listen to endless karaoke than me.”

So while it pained Bartek to bring down the hammer on such a fragile ego, he pulled Love aside to deliver an ultimatum: either he would shape up within a month or he was barred from the stage. For a musical event founded on a laid-back, “live and let live” philosophy, this was unprecedented.

But a funny thing happened after Bartek deployed the nuclear option: Love finally started taking his playing seriously. It wasn’t just enough to want to entertain, he realized. He had to work to make people want to listen.

So Love got down to rehearsal — serious rehearsal, playing through songs again and again until his fingers were sore. Unexpectedly, he started coming up with his own material for the first time during these sessions, some five or six songs that burst out of him one after the next. Two or three of those songs actually turned out to be pretty good.

Bit by bit, he gained confidence on the stage and off. Normally a strict wallflower, Love began to mix and mingle with the crowds at each of the shows. In so doing, he wound up meeting his future wife. With the help and encouragement of his fellow musicians, he became a solid member of the weekly stage show.

Of course, Love is still just a chubby guy with a guitar. Barker and Bartek’s jams haven’t transformed him into Bruce Springsteen or anything. But still, they’ve given him an artistic outlet and a new bounce to his stride — and he’s not the only one.

Over those 10 years, an entire generation of Abilene musicians has come up through the weekly jam sessions. And last Thursday, that generation reconvened to celebrate.

Reunion

The Barker & Meatball Acoustic Jam currently calls Strawberry’s Bar on South 7th Street its home. The building’s pale, unadorned brick exterior suggests some sort of hidden dive bar seediness, but the room inside has the air of a casual sports bar.

Last Thursday, the jam took over for its semiofficial 10th anniversary party. The packed bar felt like a high school reunion, with gray-haired guys grabbing each other every few paces for hugs and handshakes. Balloons drifted through the air while bands and solo performers took the stage.

Darting around the room were Barker and Bartek, who collectively serve as the night’s talent bookers, technical crew, emcees, guest musicians and hype men. Several times throughout the night, it was Bartek’s hands that sparked the crowd into collective, rhythmic clapping to accompany performances.

Bartek, much like his nickname, brings an unconventional approach to music promotion. On the jam’s first night 10 years back, Bartek focused on recruiting a big crowd but barely bothered with tracking down actual musicians to provide entertainment. Barker, who was already wary about associating himself with a man named “Meatball,” questioned that approach.

“I told him, ‘Hey! Let’s use our brains, let’s do it differently,’ ” Bartek said. “Musicians have got to have a reason to play. They’ve got to have a crowd first, and then they’ll come.”

From there, the event grew and blossomed due to Abilene’s unique musical culture, Barker says.

“What distinguishes us, and what towns like Austin should be envious of, is that we have a very supportive group of local bands,” Barker said. “People borrow things from each other and support each other. I’ve never been part of a scene like the one in this community, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of communities.”

The night’s performers include mail carriers, cops, oil field workers and more. Then there are out-and-out characters like Jackie Johnson, a white-bearded country singer who always arrives dressed in full cowboy get-up. An active part of the Nashville music scene in the 1970s, the Anson native is now semiretired, but continues to sling his guitar to supplement his Social Security checks.

His business card has the word “WANTED” written across the top in an Old West typescript.

“A gypsy once told me that I was going to lead an interesting life,” the 67-year-old Johnson said with a wily smile. “Well, it’s been more interesting than you can imagine.”

Sharing the spotlight

Nearly every musician in the room got his or her start via the Thursday night jam sessions, gaining their first performance time and forming bands through connections made in the audience. Since most of these performers play competing bar shows on the weekends, Thursday is their designated hangout time.

Ric Rogers and his band Three Shades Blue arrived in Abilene in 2003 as outsiders from Fort Worth, but soon found themselves embraced by the Barker and Meatball crowd.

“The only reason we’re known in the Abilene music scene is hanging out at these acoustic jams,” Rogers said. “And most of the musicians here will tell you the same.”

Clyde-based performer Eric Logan credits the jam’s founding duo with creating an incubator for Abilene talent and then having the foresight to step aside. While Barker and Bartek’s and names and fingerprints are all over the event, they act more as facilitators than the stars of the show. Bartek will always play the first set of the night, but only to kill time until someone else is ready to go.

The actual onstage performances can be a bit rough, but the night’s importance goes beyond mere entertainment.

“It might not be the most stellar performance ever, but it’s a place to gain confidence,” Logan said. “For (Barker and Bartek), it wasn’t about the money or the sheer numbers. It was about harnessing the musical talent that Abilene has. ... It wasn’t their time to shine. The thought was, ‘Let’s put the spotlight on other people.’ Abilene owes them for putting up with us all for a decade.”

Launched last year offering 360 degree tours of 17 museums' collections, 46 more institutions have now signed up.

The project uses Google's Street View technology to provide high resolution images of paintings, sculptures and photographs.

More than 30,000 objects can now be seen in detail.

With images larger than a gigapixel (one billion pixels), a zoom-in feature allows viewers to get inside cracks in the parchment and other details that are not visible to the naked eye.

In the UK, new additions to the project include the Victoria And Albert Museum, Royal Collection and Imperial War Museum.

Dulwich Picture Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of London, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool have also signed up.

They join Tate Britain and the National Gallery which are already involved in the project.

Viewers can now also look at the White House in Washington, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, and the Santiniketan Triptych in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, India.

"From now on anyone can visit these great institutions with just the click of a mouse," Google President Margo Georgiadis said. 

"This project breaks down all of the barriers and allows people to study art in a seamless way."

Google has also signed partnerships with 151 other institutions in 40 countries to show objects in their collections.

Train Accident News Updates! In a tragic accident, seven elephants were killed when a goods train hit a herd of about 15 as it was crossing railway tracks in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district.

Five elephants died on the spot, two later. The incident took place at around 11 pm on Wednesday night. The elephants were crossing from the Moraghat to the Reti Bandapani forest via an often used corridor when the train rammed into them.

"One of the elephants got stuck in the cow catcher in front of the train and it was dragged by more than 200 metres along the railway track and I've been told that many of the fishplates and couplings of the track got severely damaged. So you can imagine what was the impact," said AK Raha the Principal conservator of forests, West Bengal.

Among the dead were three female elephants, one male, one juvenile and two calves.

The Forest Department has filed an FIR against the railways alleging the train was running at about 70 km per hour. But the Railways refuse to take the blame.

"We told them two days ago there was a big elephant herd roaming about in the area but they did nothing about it. They should have realized the elephants may come this way," said Sachidanand Singh the District Railways Manager of Alipurduar Northeast Frontier Railways.

Such accidents have been spiraling in the area since 2003 when rail tracks were upgraded from meter gauge to broad gauge and more goods trains diverted on this route. Though, the Forest department wants a speed limit of 20 to 40 km per hour for trains but that hasn't happened.

"We have been told by the DRM in the past that we cannot do it on our own. The instruction for speed limit should come from the Railways board. These are policy decisions. Unless they receive the orders, they cannot do it," added A K Raha.

With no solution available for the problem, elephant herds roaming the area remain vulnerable.

Read more >>