Aging gene found to govern lifespan, immunity and resilience

A nematode worm that has a bacterial infection (highlighted in green). Copyright: Dr Robin May, University of Birmingham

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the University of Birmingham have discovered that a gene called DAF-16 is strongly involved in determining the rate of ageing and average lifespan of the laboratory worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and its close evolutionary cousins. DAF-16 is found in many other animals, including humans. It is possible that this knowledge could open up new avenues for altering ageing, immunity and resistance to stresses in humans. The research is published today (01 April) in PLoS ONE.

Dr Robin May, who led the research said: "Ageing is a process that all organisms experience, but at very different rates. We know that, even between closely related species, average lifespans can vary enormously.

"We wanted to find out how normal ageing is being governed by genes and what effect these genes have on other traits, such as immunity. To do that, we looked at a gene that we already knew to be involved in the ageing process, called DAF-16, to see how it may determine the different rates of ageing in different species."

Dr May and colleagues compared longevity, stress resistance and immunity in four related species of worm (see notes for details). They also looked for differences in the activity of DAF-16 in each of the four species and found that they were all quite distinct in this respect. And, importantly, the differences in DAF-16 corresponded to differences in longevity, stress resistance and immunity between the four species - in general higher levels of DAF-16 activity correlated with longer life, increased stress resistance and better immunity against some infections.
Dr May continued: "DAF-16 is part of a group of genes that drive the biological processes involved in ageing, immunity and responses to physical or environmental stresses. The fact that subtle differences in DAF-16 between species seem to have such an impact on ageing and health is very interesting and may explain how differences in lifespan and related traits have arisen during evolution."

The research in Birmingham is now moving on to look at the way in which DAF-16 coordinates a complex network of genes in order to balance the differing needs of an individual's immune system over time.

Professor Douglas Kell said: "Research using model organisms that uncovers the biology underpinning ageing gives us the opportunity to understand some of the mechanisms that determine how humans age in a healthy, or at least normal, way. It is very important to develop a good understanding of healthy ageing if we are to appreciate what happens to an older person's physiology when they become unwell or experience difficulties with everyday tasks such as recalling memories or moving around. Improving the healthspan to mirror increases in the lifespan is an important subject of BBSRC research."

Provided by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (news : web

Source: http://newscri.be/link/1060843

Irish banks on verge of collapse,

Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending 

By Dara Doyle and Colm Heatley

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s banks need $43 billion in new capital after “appalling” lending decisions left the country’s financial system on the brink of collapse.
The fund-raising requirement was announced after the National Asset Management Agency said it will apply an average discount of 47 percent on the first block of loans it is buying from lenders as part of a plan to revive the financial system. The central bank set new capital buffers for Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc and gave them 30 days to say how they will raise the funds.

“Our worst fears have been surpassed,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said in the parliament in Dublin yesterday. “Irish banking made appalling lending decisions that will cost the taxpayer dearly for years to come.”

Dublin-based Allied Irish needs to raise 7.4 billion euros to meet the capital targets, while cross-town rival Bank of Ireland will need 2.66 billion euros. Anglo Irish Bank Corp., nationalized last year, may need as much 18.3 billion euros. Customer-owned lenders Irish Nationwide and EBS will need 2.6 billion euros and 875 million euros, respectively.

‘Truly Shocking’

The asset agency aims to cleanse banks of toxic loans, the legacy of plunging real-estate prices and the country’s deepest recession. In all, it will buy loans with a book value of 80 billion euros ($107 billion), about half the size of the economy. Lenihan said the information from NAMA on the banks was “truly shocking.”
“The regulator is taking the bank system by the scruff of the neck,” said James Forbes, senior equity strategist at Irish Life Investment Managers in Dublin. “Allied Irish has a lot of work to do to avoid majority state ownership, Bank of Ireland less so.”

Allied Irish rose 10 percent to 1.37 euros as of 9:06 a.m. in Dublin. Bank of Ireland surged 26 percent to 1.62 euros. Credit-default swaps insuring both banks’ debts declined.

Allied Irish will sell its stakes in banks in the U.S. and Poland and said late yesterday this will meet a “substantial part” of its capital needs. It also plans a share sale.

Bank of Ireland said today it’s working to fill the capital deficit after posting a net loss of 1.46 billion euros in the nine months through December 2009. The lender expects to be able to raise most of the new capital privately, Chief Executive Officer Richie Boucher said.

Capital Target

Lenders must have an 8 percent core Tier 1 capital ratio, a key measure of financial strength, by the end of the year, according to the regulator. The equity core Tier 1 capital must increase to 7 percent.

AIB’s equity core tier 1 ratio stood at 5 percent at the end of 2009 and Bank of Ireland’s at 5.3 percent. Those ratios exclude a government investment of 3.5 billion euros in each bank, made at the start of 2009.
“The banks are undergoing major surgery via NAMA,” financial regulator Matthew Elderfield said at a press conference in Dublin. “They need a transfusion now to speed their recovery and that of the economy.”

Credit-default swaps insuring Allied Irish Bank’s debt against default fell 6.5 basis points to 195.5, according to CMA DataVision prices at 8:45 a.m. Contracts protecting Bank of Ireland’s debt fell 7 basis points to 191 and swaps linked to Anglo Irish Bank’s bonds were down 3.5 basis points at 347.5.

Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a company fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A decline signals improving perceptions of credit quality.

State Aid

If Allied Irish can’t raise enough funds privately, the state will step in with aid, Lenihan said. It is “probable” the government will then end up with a majority stake, he said.

The banks “are in a better position today, but we also have to be cautious about thinking we are done and dusted here,” Forbes said.

Ireland may not be able to afford to pump more money into the banks. The budget deficit widened to 11.7 percent of gross domestic product last year, almost four times the European Union limit, and the government spent the past year trying to convince investors the state is in control of its finances.

The premium investors charge to hold Irish 10-year debt over the German equivalent was at 139 basis points today compared with 284 basis points in March 2009, a 16-year high.

Ireland’s debt agency said it doesn’t envisage additional borrowing this year related to the bank recapitalization. It is sticking to its 2010 bond issuance forecast of about 20 billion euros, head of funding Oliver Whelan said in an interview.

“The bank losses, awful as they are, represent a one-off hit. It’s water under the bridge,” said Ciaran O’Hagan, a Paris-based fixed-income strategist at Societe Generale SA. “What’s of more concern for investors in government bonds is the budget deficit. Slashing the chronic overspending and raising taxation by the Irish state is vital.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net; Colm Heatley in Belfast at cheatley@bloomberg.net

Computer Scientists Develop a Comfortable and Secure Login Method

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2010) — As most internet users know, it is often hard to remember or keep apart all the passwords and login names for one's different online accounts.

---

Dr. Bernd Borchert, together with stu-dents at the Computer Science Department of Tübingen University, has tackled this issue. They developed a new method that saves the users not only the trouble of memorizing the passwords and login names, but also of typing them. All of this is managed by the user's smartphone.

Moreover, the new approach solves a common problem which many internet users choose to ignore: passwords can be tapped by so-called keyloggers, i.e. trojans on the computer a password is entered into, and could later be misused for criminal purposes. As Dr. Borchert's method does not rely on permanent passwords anymore, the problem of tap-ping becomes obsolete.

The new method was filed for patent application.

From the user's point of view, Borchert's approach works as follows: The user downloads the method's application software to his smartphone. For each account he wants to be managed by the app, he needs to go through a short initialization process on the smartphone. In order to access an account, the user can open the respective login page in a browser window on any computer. He will then be shown a 2D-code that he must scan with the smartphone's camera. After the data is processed by the app, the smartphone contacts the account server via internet. The server checks the data received, connects to the browser window on the computer and opens the user's account. Thus, the user gets into his account almost by magic -- he only has to scan the 2D-code. In order to prevent unauthorized persons from logging in to an account, e.g. in case the smartphone is stolen, the user may protect his most important accounts with an additional tap-proof password query.

A prototype of the new application software was programmed by computer science students -- the link below refers to the demonstration web page which also contains a short demo video. Appropriate apps already exist for some types of smartphone. The project team is currently looking for account providers willing to implement the method in order to offer it to their users.

Demonstration web page containing more information and links: http://www2-fs.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/~borchert/Troja/Open-Sesame/index.php?lang=en

Source: http://newscri.be/link/1058800

What is new in Malaysia’s New Economic Model?

Prime Minister Najib has announced the broad outline of the proposed New Economic Model (NEM) at the Invest Malaysia conference.

 
Malaysia's New Economic Model proposes a number of strategic reforms.

The objective of the NEM is for Malaysia to join the ranks of the high-income economies, but not at all costs. The growth process needs to be both inclusive and sustainable. Inclusive growth enables the benefits to be broadly shared across all communities. Sustainable growth augments the wealth of current generations in a way that does not come at the expense of future generations.

A number of strategic reform initiatives have been proposed. These are aimed at greater private initiative, better skills, more competition, a leaner public sector, pro-growth affirmative action, a better knowledge base and infrastructure, the selective promotion of sectors, and environmental as well as fiscal sustainability.

The next step of the process will be a public consultation to gather feedback on the key principles and afterwards the key recommendations will be translated into actionable policies.
The NEM represents a shift of emphasis in several dimensions:

• Refocusing from quantity to quality-driven growth. Mere accumulation of capital and labor quantities is insufficient for sustained long-term growth. To boost productivity, Malaysia needs to refocus on quality investment in physical and human capital.
   
• Relying more on private sector initiative. This involves rolling back the government’s presence in some areas, promoting competition and exposing all commercial activities (including that of GLCs) to the same rules of the game.
   
• Making decisions bottom-up rather than top-down. Bottom-up approaches involve decentralized and participative processes that rest on local autonomy and accountability —often a source of healthy competition at the subnational level, as China’s case illustrates.
   
• Allowing for unbalanced regional growth. Growth accelerates if economic activity is geographically concentrated rather than spread out. Malaysia needs to promote clustered growth, but also ensure good connectivity between where people live and work.
   
• Providing selective, smart incentives. Transformation of industrial policies into smart innovation and technology policies will enable Malaysia to concentrate scarce public resources on activities that are most likely to catalyze value.
   
• Reorienting horizons towards emerging markets. Malaysia can take advantage of emerging market growth by leveraging on its diverse workforce and by strengthening linkages with Asia and the Middle East.
   
• Welcoming foreign talent including the diaspora. As Malaysia improves the pool of talent domestically, foreign skilled labor can fill the gap in the meantime. Foreign talent does not substract from local opportunities--on the contrary, it generates positive spill-over effects to the benefit of everyone.

 Overall, the New Economic Model demonstrates the clear recognition that Malaysia needs to introduce deep-reaching structural reforms to boost growth. The proposed measures represent a significant and welcome step in this direction. What will matter most now is the translation of proposed principles into actionable policies and the strong and multi-year commitment to implement them.

Source: http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/node/2887
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Malaysia' ‘New Economic Model’

KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today unveiled a raft of economic measures that he said would propel this Southeast Asian country to developed nation status by 2020.
Following are some of the highlights of what he announced:
•    State investor Khazanah to sell 32 percent stake in Pos Malaysia.
•    To list stakes in two Petronas units.
•    Facilitate foreign direct and domestic direct investments in emerging industries/sectors.
•    Remove distortions in regulation and licensing, including replacement of Approved Permit system with a negative list of imports.
•    Reduce direct state participation in the economy.
•    Divest GLCs in industries where the private sector is operating effectively.
•    Strengthen the competitive environment by introducing fair trade legislation.
•    Set up an Equal Opportunity Commission to cover discriminatory and unfair practices.
•    Review remaining entry restrictions in products and services sectors.
•    Phase out price controls and subsidies that distort markets for goods and services
•    Apply government savings to a wider social safety net for the bottom 40 per cent of households, prior to subsidy removal.
•    Have zero tolerance for corruption
•    Create a transformation fund to assist distressed firms during the refom period.
•    Easing entry and exit of firms as well as high skilled workers.
•    Simplify bankruptcy laws pertaining to companies and individuals to promoteo vibrant entrepreneurship.
•    Improve access to specialised skills.
•    Use appropriate pricing, regulatory and strategic policies to manage non-renewable resources sustainably.
•    Develop a comprehensive energy policy.
•    Develop banking capacity to assess credit approvals for green investment using non-collateral based criteria.
•    Liberalise entry of foreign experts specialising in financial analysis of viability of green technology projects.
•    Reduce wastage and avoid cost overrun by better controlling expenditure.
•    Establish open, efficient and transparent government procurement process.
•    Adopt international best practices on fiscal transparency. — Reuters

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/business/58004-malaysias-new-economic-model
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related articles:

Malaysia Star

Malaysia must act now to retain competitiveness

‎

Malaysia Star - 10 hours ago The NEM report said that half a century after independence, these figures provided a sobering reminder of how far Malaysia still had to go before it could ... CORRECTED-BREAKINGVIEWS-Malaysia needs to get out of its economy's way‎ - Interactive Investor The leap that Malaysia must make‎ - Business Times (subscription) Income inequality remains difficult to overcome‎ - Malaysia Star all 5 news articles »

Apple Sued Over iPad Patent Infringement

By Dan Hope, TechNewsDaily Staff Writer 

With the public release of the Apple iPad looming, Elan Microelectronics, a Taiwanese chipmaker, is suing Apple, claiming many Apple products infringe on its multitouch patents. 

Elan has asked the International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban imports of the iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook, Magic Mouse and even the yet-to-be-released iPad.

"We have taken the step of filing the ITC complaint as a continuation of our efforts to enforce our patent rights against Apple's ongoing infringement. A proceeding in the ITC offers a quick and effective way for Elan to enforce its patent," the company said in a statement.

Elan says it owns patents covering "touch-sensitive input devices with the ability to detect the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers," which is exactly what these Apple products do. Apple has not released a formal response to the lawsuit yet.

This isn't the first time Elan has sued over its mutltitouch patent. Two years ago it sued Synaptics in a similar case. Synaptics ended up entering a licensing deal with Elan, but it's not a foregone conclusion that Apple will do the same thing since Apple is no stranger to prolonged legal battles.

There is also an element of irony in Apple being sued for multitouch patent infringement because the company recently brought a similar suit against smartphone maker HTC. Apple said HTC phones with the Android operating system infringed on over 20 Apple patents, including some that had to do with multitouch interfaces.
The lawsuit won't affect sales of pre-ordered iPads slated to go on sale this Saturday, many of which have already shipped.

Source:  http://newscri.be/link/1058559

• Will the iPad be a Hit with Businesses?
• Behind the iPad: 4 Decades of Clever Technology
• iPad Preorders Compared to Other Popular Tech Devices  

Better media links help China, India

BEIJING - Strengthened media cooperation between India and China will help improve understanding and promote more beneficial bilateral ties between the two countries, officials from both sides proposed on Tuesday. 

"China and India are enjoying a relationship which is deepening and broadening," S. Jaishankar, the Indian ambassador to China, said at the 2010 India-China Development Forum in Beijing. Jaishankar noted in his speech that both nations had witnessed some controversial and negative media coverage about each other last year, but said it was "no use blaming each other". 

Jaishankar proposed a shift in China's focus from various media debates in India to the evaluation of the result brought about by these voices. 

"Our media coverage will be more positive if we promote our relationship, and of course, a more efficient interpretation and dialogue is needed for such progress." Wang Chen, minister of the State Council Information Office, also noted the importance of the media, as direct communication between the two peoples was limited. 

"China and India together account for almost half of the world's populationmore intensified media coverage by both countries about our progress and efforts is much needed," he said. Wang proposed that both countries report in a more positive and all-round manner, as well as cover mutual achievements. 

"We hope the media will become the window of understanding for both sides," Wang said. 

"Although both Chinese and Indian media have made great strides in recent years, the Western media still had the upper hand. China and India get to know each other through Western media outlets such as CNN and BBC, which somehow lead to misunderstanding. The media cooperation should be enhanced between the two countries." A media cooperation committee was also proposed during the forum. 

Zeng Jianhua, executive director of the Department of Asian, African and Latin American Affairs at the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs said such a panel would help China and India put aside differences due to their different political and cultural backgrounds, and seek a common ground for mutual development.

By Hu Haiyan and Ai Yang (China Daily)  Updated: 2010-03-31 07:48

Source: http://newscri.be/link/1058551

Greenpeace: Cloud Computing Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Triple

BY Ariel Schwartz

As cloud computing-fueled devices like the iPad grow in popularity, so will associated greenhouse gas emissions, according to Greenpeace's "Make IT Green" report. The report, which dubs 2010 the Year of the Cloud, offers up a disturbing statistic: Cloud computing greenhouse gas emissions will triple by 2020.

The increase in emissions makes sense. As we increasingly rely on the cloud to store our movies, music, and documents, cloud providers will continue to build more data centers--many of which are powered by coal. Facebook, for example, recently announced that is building a data center in Oregon that will be powered mostly by coal-fired power stations, much to the chagrin of groups like Greenpeace.

The solution to the cloud computing problem is fairly obvious. Greenpeace explains in its report, "Companies like Facebook, Google, and other large players in the cloud computing market must advocate for policy change at the local, national, and international levels to ensure that, as their appetite for energy increases, so does the supply of renewable energy." As we've noted before, companies like IBM, Google, and HP have already begun to make strides in cutting data center energy use. But there is still plenty of work to be done--as it stands, the cloud will use 1,963.74 billion kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020.

Source: http://newscri.be/link/1058493