BERLIN: Volkswagen AG's Audi is poised to purchase Italian motorcycle maker Ducati Motor Holding from owner Investindustrial for about 860 million ($1.1 billion) including debt, a person familiar with the matter said.

Audi has reached an agreement with Investindustrial to buy the Bologna, Italy-based maker of luxury motorbikes, with VW's supervisory board set to approve the deal on Wednesday, said the person, who declined to be identified. Audi and Investindustrial declined to comment.

The deal, minus debt, would value Ducati at about seven times last year's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Ducati's total liabilities are less than 200 million, buyout firm Investindustrial said last month.

Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech, who turned 75 today, has long coveted the brand, publicly expressing interest in buying Ducati in April 2008 before eventually losing out to Investindustrial. The purchase will make Ducati the 11th brand in VW's portfolio, alongside super-car marques Lamborghini and Bugatti and heavy-duty truck manufacturers Scania AB and MAN SE.

"Ducati is one of the finest machines you can buy but strategically it's insignificant for Volkswagen," said Christoph Stuermer, a Frankfurt-based analyst with IHS Automotive. "Its revenue is more than Lamborghini's and Bugatti's combined, but to the automotive operations, it's a mere accessory."

BMW Competition

Ducati would complement Audi's luxury-car lineup with products such as the $28,000 Superbike 1199 Panigale S Tricolore and expand the brand's competition with Bayerische Motoren Werke, which makes BMW and Husqvarna motorcycles. Ducati, which last year sold about 42,000 motor bikes, had revenue for 2011 of 480 million.

For Volkswagen, the deal would mean an entry into the motorcycle business and gaining another asset in Italy after buying Lamborghini and Italdesign Giugiaro SpA. Piech has also expressed interest in the past in Fiat's Alfa Romeo brand.

Hero MotoCorp had also expressed interest in Ducati after Investindustrial made it known in February that it planned to sell the company.

Grozny - Geologists in Russia's volatile Chechnya region have discovered what they believe to be fossilised dinosaur eggs laid by one of the huge extinct reptiles that roamed the Earth more than 60 million years ago. 

"We've found about 40 eggs so far, the exact number has not been established," said Said-Emin D zhabrailov, a geologist at the Chechen State University. 

"There could be many more laying under the ground." 

The find was uncovered when a construction crew was blasting through a hillside to build a road near the region's border with former Soviet Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains. 

A team of geologists stumbled across the smooth, oval rock-like forms, which range from 25cm to 1m coincidentally on a recent trip to the area, said Dz habrailov. 

He said palaeontologists were needed to determine which species of dinosaur had laid them. 

Dzhabrailov said that the regional Chechen government, which is eager to shed the region's reputation for violence, is considering turning the area into a nature preserve and seeking to attract tourists. 

Federal forces fought two separatists wars between 1994-2001 in Chechnya, and an Islamist insurgency persists in the mostly Muslim region an d surrounding provinces of Russia's North Caucasus. 

However, violence has declined under the strong-arm rule of Ramzan Kadyrov, whose multi-million dollar construction projects are aimed at raising the region's profile and boosting the tourism potential of the troubled area.

1. Eggs are great for the eyes. According to one study, an egg a day may prevent macular degeneration due to the carotenoid content, specifically lutein and zeaxanthin. Both nutrients are more readily available to our bodies from eggs than from other sources.

2. In another study, researchers found that people who eat eggs every day lower their risk of developing cataracts, also because of the lutein and zeaxanthin in eggs.

3. One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality protein and all 9 essential amino acids.

4. According to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health, there is no significant link between egg consumption and heart disease. In fact, according to one study, regular consumption of eggs may help prevent blood clots, stroke, and heart attacks.

5. They are a good source of choline. One egg yolk has about 300 micrograms of choline. Choline is an important nutrient that helps regulate the brain, nervous system, and cardiovascular system.

6. They contain the right kind of fat. One egg contains just 5 grams of fat and only 1.5 grams of that is saturated fat.

7. New research shows that, contrary to previous belief, moderate consumption of eggs does not have a negative impact on cholesterol. In fact, recent studies have shown that regular consumption of two eggs per day does not affect a person's lipid profile and may, in fact, improve it. Research suggests that it is saturated fat that raises cholesterol rather than dietary cholesterol.

8. Eggs are one of the only foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D.

9. Eggs may prevent breast cancer. In one study, women who consumed at least 6 eggs per week lowered their risk of breast cancer by 44%.

10.Eggs promote healthy hair and nails because of their high sulphur content and wide array of vitamins and minerals. Many people find their hair growing faster after adding eggs to their diet, especially if they were previously deficient in foods containing sulphur or B12.

As with any season, summer can present particular challenges to maintaining your appearance. Here are a few tips to help keep you looking your best.

The high humidity of summer can really affect a hair style, but instead of fighting it, try embracing it. Wavy or curly styles are a great fit for the summer season. You can also keep frizz down with a variety of products.

Saltwater can actually serve as a great styling tool because of its ability to give fine or thin hair more volume. Salt sticks to hair and gives it more texture. Just don’t overexpose it, as salt can eventually dry hair out.

Colored hair, even if it’s just highlights, can change in the bright sun. Make sure to find a product that protects it. If you study to become a cosmetologist you can find out what kind of products work best.

To keep your neck cool, tie you hair back with headbands, ponytails, or in a loose bun. All these styles look great for the summer.

During the summer, foundation can feel cakey and seem like it's melting off your face in the heat. Instead, try a tinted moisturizer, which is lighter while still covering flaws.

For those that still want to use foundation, go for a shade darker than what you would normally wear in the winter. You can also find foundations with SPF as well.

Warm weather can also be the cause of eyeshadow melting into the eyelid crease. Use a primer or an eyeshadow base which keeps your eye makeup from smudging.

Bad self tanners are notorious for giving awful, streaky orange looks to skin. Thankfully there are a lot of great tanners to choose from these days. If you’re not sure about the tanner you have, test it out on a small area inside your elbow or the top of your foot. If it leaves an orangey color or causes you to break out, move on to another product.

Most women are diligent when it comes to applying sunscreen to their face, but neglect the rest of their body. Don’t forget to apply sunscreen liberally to your neck, shoulders, chest, and hands. Also be sure to apply more than once a day; most sunscreens only last a few hours.

A bright, summery matching color for your nails is a great touch. Bright oranges and pinks are popular for this year. Also, take into account the color of your sandals when choosing a color.

For those that are interested in learning something new over the summer check out these online bachelor degrees.

beauty.about.com

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Ah, finals. A monotonous, stressful rite of passage for high school and college students around the world. Controversies regarding their ultimate efficacy have resulted in schools as notable as Harvard purging final exams from the curriculum altogether. But educators still need a way to ensure the material sinks into their pupils’ brains, and the more innovative ones out there have whipped up some viable alternatives. Many prove far more applicable to the syllabus than a mere test, making it far easier for students to visualize exactly how everything works. Check out some of the following when searching for inspiration about creative ways to wrap everything up without lessons unsticking.

2. Advanced Newsweek

Journalism students at University of Gloucestershire spend their last week of class applying their lessons to real-world problems rather than rehashing them out through essays and exams. Advanced Newsweek challenges them to operate their very own news conglomerate, with online, television, and radio branches - and all the stressors that entails. One can easily see how this final exam alternative benefits soon-to-be graduates in the long run!

Wednesday's Indonesia earthquake was similar in magnitude to the devastating 2004 quake, but there was no tsunami. The difference? Location. 

A powerful earthquake and aftershock struck the Indian Ocean off of northern Indonesia Wednesday, triggering tsunami watches and evacuations throughout the Indian Ocean basin, from Australia to Kenya.

The first temblor, a magnitude 8.6 quake, struck at 2:38 p.m. local time, along a segment of a fault on the sea floor some 269 miles southwest of the coastal city of Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province. A second, 8.2 magnitude quake struck two hours later roughly 120 miles south of the first quake's epicenter.

Both quakes occurred at relatively shallow depths – 14 miles and 10 miles – beneath the sea floor, according to data gathered by the US Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

So far, the quakes appear to have done little damage and caused no fatalities, although people felt the shaking as far away as the east coast of India. In Banda Aceh, many residents streamed into the streets when the shaking began, according to press reports from the city.

Memories of the disastrous December 2004 earthquake and tsunami remain fresh. The event left 230,000 dead throughout the Indian Ocean basin as the tsunami in some locations reached heights of up to 90 feet.

Though both of Wednesday's large quakes join the magnitude 9.1 event in 2004 event as “great” earthquakes – the strongest of six categories – the initial temblor Wednesday reportedly pushed only a 30-inch-high surge of water onto Indonesia's west coast.

In addition, the 2004 event released nearly six times as much energy as the first quake that struck on Wednesday and some 22 times more energy than the second.

The difference? Location, suggests Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center.

The 2004 rupture occurred along the northern reaches of a subduction zone that hugs the west coast of Indonesia and defines the arc of Indonesia's islands.

The quake occurred in a section of the zone where a vast patch of crust known as the Indian plate is sliding beneath the much smaller Burma plate. Quakes along such subduction zones tend to generate the planet's most violent temblors because the surface areas sliding past each other are large.

Researchers estimate that the patch of the subduction zone affected in the 2004 quake covered an area roughly the size of California. The amount of slip along the length of this patch was 50 feet.

Along the deep-sea trench that marks the subduction zone, the quake lifted the overlying crust several yards. The sudden upward shove along the length of the rupture zone generated the enormous tsunamis the region experienced.

Today's quakes occurred farther offshore and on a different type of fault, Ms. Vaughan explains.

The faults involved Wednesday are so-called strike-slip faults that sit squarely on the Australian plate, another of the plates forming the subduction zone off Indonesia. Strike-slip faults tend to be vertical cracks in the crust. This means that the plates usually slide by each other without radically altering the height of the sea floor.

By contrast, the thrust faults along a subduction zone run diagonally downward from the sea floor as one plate slips under the other. This increases the possibility of disturbing the height of the sea floor. It also means the area of the surfaces sliding past each other is much greater than during a strike-slip rupture.

“We've had a series of these occur since 2004,” Vaughan says, referring to undersea quakes on the Australian plate. The most recent occurred in January – a magnitude 7.2 quake whose epicenter was only about 13 miles from that of the 8.6 quake on Wednesday.

The faults involved in Wednesday's quakes are oriented in the same direction as the general direction of travel the Australian plate itself is following, suggesting that the ruptures are tied to the plate's movement, although to some degree the event also may represent the crust's continued adjustment to the major change the 2004 event brought to the region, Vaughan says.

Study abroad isn’t just a luxury, these days it’s a rite of passage for many students around the world. While more and more students in Asia and the U.S. are venturing overseas, a recent survey shows that just 57.2% of Japanese students, once the prototypical image of expat learners during the bubble, are interested in an overseas academic experience.

The survey, published by the Japan Youth Research Institute, polled over 8,000 students from China, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in 2011. Even though 58.1% of Japanese students had been abroad, they ranked lowest of the four countries in terms of interest in a study abroad experience. In comparison, 82.4% in South Korea and 62.5% in China and were interested.

So why has enthusiasm waned in Japan? It’s not economic reasons, as only 19.5% of Japanese said that money was a barrier. And it’s not because they’ll miss home – only 10.3% said that was a consideration, compared with 30.4% of Chinese, 54.2% of Koreans and 58.1% of Americans.

The biggest reason that Japanese students cited for not wanting to study abroad was that life in their home country was easier at 53.2%, followed by “language barrier” and “lack of confidence in living alone” with 48.1% and 42.7% respectively, three criteria that the other students also ranked highly.

It could be due to apathy among Japanese boys. Some 20.4% of Japanese high school boys surveyed said they had no interest at all in study abroad, the highest of any of the countries surveyed. In comparison, 65.9% of Japanese girls said they were very or somewhat interested.

The lukewarm enthusiasm for study abroad in Japan is not a surprise given other recent data. Up from a low in 1986 of only 14,297 students, the number of Japanese study abroad students has been declining since it hit a peak of 82,945 in 2004, according to the OECD. In recent years, their Asian counterparts seeking an academic experience abroad have surged, and 2.25 million Chinese studied abroad in 2011.

The survey gives some indication of why this might be so when it breaks down the reasons that students do want to study abroad. While all of the 42.1% of Japanese students who wanted to study abroad said they one day wanted to work in an international setting, only 14.4% said going abroad would help them get a job. That’s much different from the goals of Chinese students, many of whom gave better academics abroad and better chances of being hired as incentives for leaving home.

Most Japanese companies have fixed hiring schedules and only accept graduates immediately after they have left school. The rigid system could be a deterrent to Japanese students, compared with their Chinese, Korean and U.S. peers who don’t face such strict hiring practices and might be more flexible to study abroad while at university.

It's becoming more and more popular these days to back up your data to the cloud. Your iPhone does it. Your tablet does it. And one day, perhaps soon, your doctor could be able to send a backup of you to the cloud.

The concept sounds far fetched, but that's exactly what Amazon and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are up to. The collaborative effort is called the 1000 Genomes Project, and has already compiled 1,700 human genomes - essentially, the recipe for making 1,700 different people. Previously, this kind of data was only available to researchers by mailing data disks back and forth. The Amazon initiative now makes all that data available to genetic researchers via the Amazon cloud.

Already, the project has amassed 200 terabytes worth of data on human DNA, and is on track to add another 100 terabytes' worth of data soon. Researchers believe that by having so much data on human genetics readily available, they'll be better able to home in on the role genes play on disease. According to Matt Wood, head of the project at Amazon, "This is the seed to create a tree of data."

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.