In case you thought that octopuses were smart only in guessing the outcome of soccer matches (remember the late Paul the octopus in Germany who picked all the right winners in last year's world cup matches in Johannesburg?), scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have now shown that not only are they smart, they can make some pretty good moves as well.
Octopuses are among the most developed invertebrates. They have large brains and are fast learners. With eight arms and no rigid skeleton, they perform many tasks like crawling, swimming, mating and hunting. And unlike most animals such as humans -- who are restricted in their movements by a rigid skeleton which helps in determining the position of their limbs -- octopuses have limitless flexibility.
But because they have no such rigid structure, it was believed that the octopuses have only limited control over their eight flexible limbs. However, the Hebrew University researchers have shown otherwise. They developed a three-choice, transparent, plexiglass maze that required the octopus to use a single arm and direct it to a visually marked compartment outside of its tank of water that contained a food reward.
Every living cell, whether it is of animal or of plant origin, contains genes on their chromosomes inside the nucleus which is the heart of this basic unit of life. These arrays of genes are arranged on the chromosomes in such a way that they take positions in different places of the three dimensional space within the nucleus. Surprisingly, the genes can move! They are in a state of dynamism, so they are highly organized as well as very finely tuned at any given time and condition. The genes change their positions in response to the metabolic state of the cell and outside environment and the activity and function of genes are highly influenced by this.
Although human genome sequencing helped us to move into a new era of molecular biology, yet only the sequence of information cannot help us move much further. Recent work took advantage of the genome-wide localization of molecular marks on chromosomes to analyze their linear distributions at different length scales. The genome cell biology aided by 3-D imaging technology has created the possibility for the analysis of the internal spatial organization of the chromosomes. It has revealed that there are preferred positions for the chromosomes according to the level of activity of their genes and also they have suitable neighborhoods to interact with. Actually, each chromosome occupies a distinct, well defined area of the nucleus known as “chromosome territories”. Although this term was used by Theodor Boveri, the experimental evidence came from two German brothers, Thomas and Christoph Cremer, when they developed a method for visualizing chromosome in a small region of the nucleus which was perfected few years later by the development of another method called chromosome painting. Researchers have found that the position of chromosomes seems to influence the switching on or off of the genes and the genes change their positions according to their level of activity keeping their active copies at the central region of the nucleus and the inactive ones at the periphery of the nucleus. This is because; the nuclear periphery is lined with heterochromatin, the highly condensed state of chromatin, where the genes remain inactive. The core of the nucleus is full of transcriptional activity with a large number of genes being transcribed together, was first proposed by the Oxford University scientist Peter Cook. The genome cell biologists have learned that the positioning of the genes has implications with the formation of diseases and even the chromosomal position changes during the normal embryonic development.
In case of stem cells, the genes are more or less active as they lack the large heterochromatin regions. After getting a signal, the nuclear structure changes with the formation of lamin proteins which sequester the inactive genes in the peripheral regions of the nucleus leaving the active genes in the core to have the sufficient access to the transcription factories.
The concept was further enhanced from the observation that chromosomal positioning has implications with translocations which ultimately might lead to cancer where the chromosomes fuse only with the nearby chromosomes. To reveal the question of what actually determines the positioning of the genes and chromosomes, Tom Misteli suggests that the positioning of the chromosomes in the nucleus is self organizing where arrival of signal in the nucleus triggers chromatin remodeling and the inactive gene comes to the core from the periphery and gets access to the transcription factors and in this way the activity of the gene itself actually determines its position. With a better insight in this matter, hopefully, will enable early prediction of cancers and other diseases simply by observing the positioning of the genes and chromosomes in the cellular house they reside in.
Yahoo Inc. is giving its popular email service a long-promised facelift in an attempt to make it more appealing to people who are increasingly using Facebook, Twitter, Google and other online alternatives to communicate.
The changes announced Tuesday build upon a redesigned email format that Yahoo began testing seven months ago. The estimated 277 million users of Yahoo's free email service will be switched to the new version during the next few weeks.
The overhaul will enable updates to Facebook and Twitter accounts to be posted from within Yahoo's email boxes. The revamped service is supposed to be two times faster and capable of sending attachments of up to 100 megabytes. Other tools include better junk-mail controls and the ability to chat with friends and family logged into Facebook.
Yahoo is counting on the changes to help attract and retain email users at a time when more people are flocking to the rival Gmail service run by Internet search leader Google Inc.
Although Yahoo's service remains larger than Gmail, it has been losing ground in the past year. Through April, Yahoo boasted 277 million email users worldwide, a drop of about 3 million, or 1 percent, from the same time last year, according to the research firm comScore Inc. Meanwhile, Gmail had grown to 220 million wordwide users, up 43 million, or 24 percent during the past year.
Most of Gmail's gains appear to be coming at the expense of Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail service, which remained the global leader with 327 million users, according to comScore. But that figure was down 27 million, or 8 percent, from last year.
Cultivating loyal email users is important because they tend to be frequent visitors and they often remain logged in when using other online services run by the email providers. The return trips and logged-in activity creates more opportunities to show Internet ads, the main way that both Yahoo and Google make money.
Yahoo, though, hasn't been luring as many advertisers as Google for years, a problem that has weighed on Yahoo's stock.
The email upgrade is expected to be among the signs of progress that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz emphasizes Wednesday when she and other top company executives are scheduled to update analysts on their turnaround plan.
When you find your child making his first call, fiddling with your mobile phone, or tapping illegibly on your computer keyboard for the first time, all grown-ups around start to swoon and giggle and talk about him becoming a great computer expert or a prodigy. But jokes apart, there have been quite many children who actually grew out from mobile and computer fiddlers to real geniuses who work for or run big companies at ages such as 13 or 14.
There are a good number of teenagers all over the world who are currently doing high-profile jobs in companies like Google and IBM. Many have gained scholarships and are pursuing their studies in reputed universities like Harvard and Oxford. Still more are running their own big businesses.
History has brought into light time and time again such child prodigies who have found their ways into our everyday life and chores. Names such as Bill Gates, Shawn Fanning and Mark Zuckerberg have become household. But to think these sensations once had themselves started out as teenage computer enthusiasts puts a whole new meaning to the widely disliked word 'geek'.
These rare breeds usually start off using computers for fun. Many begin exploring their interests and expertise through small time hacking programs. But in the end, a prodigy cannot be hidden for long and their expertise usually does come out in the open for all to notice. Most former teenage hackers end up working as security consultants for big firms, as they tend to have a better idea of the loopholes in the company's 'secure' programs and applications.
IT legend Bill Gates developing an early interest in computer science began studying computers in the seventh grade at Seattle's Lakeside School. He immediately realised the potential of the young computer industry. Gates's early experiences with computers included debugging programs for the Computer Center Corporation's PDP-10, helping to computerise electric power grids for the Bonneville Power Administration, and founding a firm called Traf-O-Data while still in high school. Their small company earned them twenty thousand dollars in fees for analysing local traffic patterns. From then on, there was no looking back. He went on to become the world's richest man.
Napster mastermind Shawn Fanning also began designing the peer-to-peer file sharing platform while still in high school. After graduating from high school, he dropped out of university to launch his brainchild.
By the age of 20, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard -- where he was a programming prodigy -- and launched what is now the world's preeminent social networking site, Facebook. Within two years, he was the world's youngest billionaire. By age 26, he was Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
A new prodigy joining the masterminds has his roots in our very own Bangladesh. Young Salman Khan, a.k.a. Sal, is founder of the Khan Academy, a free online education platform and not-for-profit organisation. He has produced over 2,200 videos elucidating a wide spectrum of concepts, mainly focusing on mathematics and the sciences, in his home. His official channel, 'Khan Academy' has, as of May 2011, attracted more than 53 million views. While at MIT, Sal was the recipient of the Eloranta Fellowship, which he used to develop web-based math software for children with ADHD. He was also an MCAT instructor for the Princeton Review and volunteered teaching gifted 4th and 7th graders at the Devotion School in Brookline, MA.
Google recently awarded Khan Academy $2 million to support the creation of more courses and to enable translation of its core library into the world's most widely spoken languages. In October 2010, Khan was tied for #34 in Fortune's annual '40 Under 40', a list recognising business's hottest rising stars. The Khan Academy website has numerous student followers worldwide, and one of Khan's fans is none other than Bill Gates himself. In March 2011, Salman Khan was invited to speak at TED by Bill Gates who claims to use the Khan Academy Exercise Software to teach his own children. “Part of the beauty of what he does is his consistency," says Gates. "I kind of envy him," he tells Fortune.
For parents of born prodigies, the task of raising these children is a big responsibility. Parents should be able to identify the hidden whiz kid in their child and be able to encourage and guide them in the right direction, so that their talents are not wasted. They should also be counseled and steered away from using their talent in the wrong way. In most of our South Asian countries, parents tend to discourage children from touching their computers and mobile phones for fear of them ruining or breaking them. But sitting with the child and helping him learn will help the parent to gauge their child's talent and interest.
Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan, under fire for his handling of the response to the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, faces the threat of a no-confidence motion this week.
Although Kan's opponents have only a slim chance of rallying enough support for a successful motion in the Diet legislature, the move would be a fresh headache for the PM, who has been in office for less than a year.
A French junior minister accused of sexual harassment resigned yesterday, two weeks after former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on sex crime charges.
Civil service minister Georges Tron, accused of sexually harassing staff at the town hall where he is mayor, said in his letter of resignation to President Nicolas Sarkozy that he would continue the fight to prove his innocence.
Prosecutors this week launched a preliminary investigation after a lawyer for two former municipal employees in the Paris suburb of Draveil accused Tron of harassment.
The resignation was announced in a statement by the prime minister which praised Tron for his "courage" in taking a decision which was in the "general interest" and did not in any way affect the outcome of the probe.
Tron said in his resignation letter that he would disprove the "vindictive" accusations against him by two women, one of whom he said was sacked for fraud and the other for "undignified behaviour."
US President Barack Obama may face his first big scandal pretty soon, according to a leading political scientist.
Based on his mathematical formula, Brendan Nyhan of Michigan University has predicted in his report to 'Centre for Politics' website yesterday that President Obama's administration is set to be rocked by a major controversy soon.
The political scientist defines scandal as the "elite perception of misbehaviour whose occurrence is also influenced by political and media context".
And, according to him, the likelihood of a scandal hitting America's first black President may unfold before the 2012 presidential election, rising between 95 and 100 per cent by June of next year, the Daily Mail reported.
"Obama has been extremely fortunate: My research on presidential scandals shows that few presidents avoid scandal for as long as he has," says his report based on interpretation of data from presidential scandals between 1977 and 2008.
Nyhan says his research is supported by the lack of support among Republicans for the Obama administration, and predicts the US President will follow "a similar trajectory to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (who both suffered significant first-term scandals)."
He noted discontent among Republicans could contribute to encourage "opposition legislators and members of the news media to promote allegations of misconduct" against President Obama who has been in office for a little over 24 months.
An al-Qaeda group tightened its grip on a Yemeni coastal town while in the capital Sanaa a truce was holding yesterday between President Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces and armed rebels, hours after it was agreed.
Armed men believed to be from al-Qaeda appeared to have full control of the coastal city of Zinjibar in the flashpoint province of Abyan.
"About 300 Islamic militants and al-Qaeda men came into Zinjibar and took over everything on Friday," a resident said. The army had withdrawn from Zinjibar after a battle with militants in March, but later regained control.
Opposition groups have accused Saleh of using the al-Qaeda threat to win aid from regional powers seeking his government's help in battling the militants. The groups have said they could do a better job of containing al-Qaeda than the president.
Dissident Yemeni generals yesterday accused embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh of surrendering the southern province of Abyan to "terrorists" and called for more troops to defect.
In a statement, the generals, who are led by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, accused Saleh of "surrendering Abyan to an armed terrorist group" and called "on the forces of the army to join the peaceful popular revolution."
They also called on the army to fight the "terrorists" in Abyan.
Meanwhile, five civilians were killed yesterday in an artillery duel between the Yemeni army and suspected al-Qaeda militants in the southern city of Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, a medic said.
The medic added that Al-Razi hospital in nearby Jaar had received 15 wounded civilians.
In Sanaa, pedestrians and cars returned to streets where pitched battles during nearly a week of fighting killed at least 115 people.
The violence heightened fears that the country perched beside a vital oil shipping lane might descend into civil war.
The latest violence, pitting Saleh's forces against members of the powerful Hashed tribe led by Sadeq al-Ahmar, was the bloodiest since pro-democracy unrest erupted in January and was sparked by Saleh's refusal to sign a power transfer deal.
The ceasefire deal included a withdrawal of armed tribesmen from government buildings and moves to normalize life in the Hasaba district of Sanaa, where fighting with machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars prompted thousands of residents to flee the city.
Fighters loyal to a powerful opposition tribal chief have already begun surrendering government buildings in Sanaa, a mediator said yesterday.
British High Commissioner in Dhaka Stephen Evans yesterday said the biggest threat to Bangladesh is not climate change but political violence and instability.
"The biggest threat is not climate change…biggest threat is violence and instability. Political mistrust and the threat of confrontation run deep. The country can not afford to return to the politics of deep-seated division and violence of the past,” he said in a statement during talks with Diplomatic Correspondents' Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) at the Jatiya Press Club.
Stephen Evans said he has repeatedly conveyed to all political parties over the past three years strongly encouraging the government and the opposition to engage in constructive politics and resolve issues through dialogue.
The outgoing British high commissioner said security, sustainable democracy and prosperity are essential for Bangladesh to achieve middle income status by the next decade.
However, he said, "Corruption and misuse of funds remain a major threat and strongly impede the country's social and economic development." In this context, he said corruption is a significant problem here and it needs to be addressed.
When asked about the controversy over the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) reforms, Evans said corruption cases should be dealt in even-handed way on evidence-based approach.
Replying to a series of questions on debate over Rab, Stephen Evans for the first time admitted that the Rapid Action Battalion is not always respectful to human rights.
When asked whether the British government will continue funding for training of this force, he said the British government conducted training course for Rab to improve its understating and respect for human rights and the outcome of the training is being evaluated.
But he did not say precisely whether they would reopen such training.
Asked about human rights conditions in Bangladesh, he said more work has to be done to improve the situation.
When asked about Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia's recent visit to the UK, Stephen Evans said "It was a good visit as she has witnessed how the British parliament functions working with the opposition.”
He hoped Khaleda Zia, on her return, would join the parliament session and play effective role by engaging herself in parliamentary debates, scrutinise government policies and make constructive criticisms.
On foreign governments' intervention in internal politics of Bangladesh, he claimed there was no interference from the heads of the foreign missions here during 2006-07 and history was badly distorted. “We only support development here through our development programmes to improve the government capacity for welfare of the people."
About the caretaker system controversy, he said the government, people and civil society would decide about the fate of the provision. However, he hoped the next elections would be fair and peaceful like that of 2008.
Evans said Bangladesh so far has been on the positive track as economic growth exceeds population growth, but significant energy shortages and poor infrastructure, as well as bureaucratic barriers to the investment climate and private sector, continue to hamper economic growth.
“To achieve security and prosperity, Bangladesh needs to have strong independent institutions and a functioning parliament at the centre of political debate,” he added.
On aid for fighting poverty in the country, he said the UK government is deciding to almost double its aid in the next four years. "Our spending here will help more than 15 million Bangladeshis out of poverty, but will be extremely carefully managed and wholly contingent upon value for money, guaranteeing transparency and achieving results," he added.
DCAB President Raheed Ejaz presided over the interactions while its General Secretary Abdul Majid made welcome address.
Thousands of people have protested in Serbia's capital Belgrade against the arrest of ex-Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic.
They hailed Gen Mladic as a hero and said he should not be handed over the UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
There were clashes with police as the demonstration ended.
Gen Mladic faces extradition to The Hague on charges of war crimes including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 7,500 Muslim men and boys.
His son, Darko Mladic, said earlier on Sunday that despite the tribunal's indictment, his father had told him he was not responsible for the killings, committed after his troops overran the city.
"He said that whatever was done in Srebrenica, he had nothing to do with it," he said after visiting Gen Mladic in detention at Serbia's war crimes court. Treason'
At least 7,000 supporters of Gen Mladic gathered in central Belgrade to hear speeches from nationalist politicians and decry Mr Mladic's arrest.
"Cooperation with The Hague tribunal represents treason," said Lidija Vukicevic of the Serbian Radical Party.
"This is a protest against the shameful arrest of the Serbian hero."
The demonstrators also denounced Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic.
The killing of General Mohammad Daud Daud, the police commander for northern Afghanistan, on Saturday by a suicide bomber who infiltrated security wearing a police uniform, highlights a recent change in Taliban tactics, says the BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul.
Attacks by rogue soldiers or police and Taliban infiltrators have increased in frequency and ambition in recent months, say Afghan officials, and have sparked panic among President Hamid Karzai and his government.
A week before his death, Gen Daud said that militants had tried to infiltrate his security. He had had warnings about a threat to his life.
"The Haqqanis [Pakistan-based militant network] and Taliban groups tried to offer money to some of my police, some of my guards," Gen Daud told me in his heavily armoured convoy as he travelled to a meeting with visiting US Senator John Kerry in Mazar-e-Sharif.
"I am very vigilant. I have made a lot of changes in my movements, and keep a close eye on who guards the front and rear of my headquarters, but I have to travel all over northern Afghanistan, to different provinces. It is becoming tiresome."
He said the success of Nato's International Security Assistance Force and their Afghan partners was playing a role in the shift of Taliban tactics.
"They are not able to achieve any big victory in clashes with the security forces, so they have turned to rogue soldiers. Such attacks create mistrust within security agencies and demoralise them."
Fifa has provisionally suspended executive committee members Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner after a meeting of its ethics committee on Sunday.
Football's governing body will now open a full investigation into allegations that financial incentives were offered to members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).
CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester have also been suspended.
But Fifa president Sepp Blatter was found to have no case to answer.
Petrus Damaseb, deputy chairman of the ethics committee, said of Bin Hammam and Warner: "We are satisfied that there is a case to be answered."
However, Fifa insists that they are innocent until proven guilty.
If found guilty, they could be expelled from the organisation and banned from all football activity.
Bin Hammam was the only candidate due to oppose Blatter in the forthcoming election for the Fifa presidency but he withdrew in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke confirmed that Wednesday's election would go ahead unless three-quarters of the 208 delegates voted to change the agenda.
Click to play
Bin Hammam's suspension is announced
It leaves Blatter clear to seek a fourth term in charge of the organisation, which he has run since 1998, unopposed.
"I am not Fifa, I can't change the agenda," Valcke said. "It is up to the delegates - they have the final say."
"I don't see what is wrong with this election with Mr Sepp Blatter.
"I think the most important thing is a commitment from all the members of the Fifa ExCo with the president to support a change within Fifa and in his last mandate make sure that Fifa is stronger and cleaner than it was.
"Maybe we can have the top guys around the world come to put things in place to stop these things from happening again."
The Qatari and his colleague, Fifa vice-president Warner, were forced to answer charges of bribery over allegations from executive committee member Chuck Blazer in Zurich on Sunday.
It was alleged that they offered bribes at a meeting of the CFU on 10 and 11 May.
Fifa had hoped today's hearings would draw a line under this taudry affair. But with the investigation now set to drag on into the summer, world football's problems don't look like going away anytime soon.
David BondBBC sports editor
A file of evidence claimed bundles of cash of up to $40,000 (£24,200) were handed over to members of the CFU at the meeting in Trinidad.
The payments were allegedly made to secure votes for Bin Hammam in his campaign to challenge Blatter for the presidency.
In turn, Bin Hammam effectively claimed Blatter was aware of some wrongdoing but did not report it, in itself a breach of Fifa's ethics code.
But Damaseb said the committee took the view that the obligation to report did not arise because at that stage no wrongdoing had occurred.
After the meeting, Blatter said in a statement: "The Fifa ethics committee has reached its decisions.
"I do not wish to comment in detail. But simply to say that I regret what has happened in the last few days and weeks.
There's no doubt that what's happened over the past few days and indeed weeks has been hugely damaging to the image and reputation of Fifa. But of course damage had already done. What's going to happen now? Maybe there is coming into view a new dawn for Fifa.
David DaviesFormer executive director of FA
"Fifa's image has suffered a great deal as a result, much to the disappointment of Fifa itself and all football fans."
Warner said he was shocked and surprised by the decision to provisionally suspend him.
"I will vigorously defend my reputation as well as the reputation of the rest of the Caribbean members," he said in a lengthy statement.
Asked if this was the lowest point in Fifa's 107-year history, Valcke replied: "The reputation of Fifa? Maybe it's not at the highest, that's clear. It's sad.
"Definitely, there is a need for change. I'm not the Fifa president so he is the one who must decide what he wants to do and Fifa must make the necessary changes so that the institution has systems in place to avoid something like this happening again.
"This is the pattern of the work which we have to do very quickly in the next few months."
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Mars formed in record time, growing to its present size in a mere three million years, much quicker than scientists previously thought.
Its rapid formation could explain why the Red Planet is about one tenth the mass of Earth.
The study supports a 20-year-old theory that Mars remained small because it avoided collisions with planetary building material.
The new finding is published in the journal Nature.
In our early Solar System, well before planets had formed, a frisbee-shaped cloud of gas and dust encircled the Sun.
Scientists believe that the planets grew from material pulled together by electrostatic charges - the same force that's behind the "dust bunnies" under your bed.
These proto-planetary dust balls grew and grew until they formed what scientists term "embryo" planets.
These rocky masses were large enough to exert a considerable gravitational force on surrounding material, including other nascent planets.
Nudging each other with their gravitational fields, the embryos were often thrown from their regular orbits, sometimes into the path of another large rocky mass.
If collisions occurred, these nascent planets were either expelled from the Solar System or shattered into pieces. These pieces were often combined to form a larger planet. In fact, the Earth's Moon is thought to be the result of an embryo planet colliding with our own planet.
By modelling this process, astro-physicists can determine the size of planets they expect to form at a given distance from the Sun. Mars is an outlier; it should have grown to around the size of the Earth, but remains about one-tenth its size.
Because of Mars' small size, many scientists have long suspected that the Red Planet avoided the collisions that allowed other neighbouring planets to increase their girth. Red Runt
By studying the chemical composition of meteorites, geochemist Dr Nicholas Dauphas of the University of Chicago in Illinois and Dr Ali Pourmand of the University of Miami in Florida joined forces to try to confirm this.
By measuring the concentration of elements Thorium and Hafnium in 44 space-rocks Dr Pourmand and Dauphas have come up with the most precise estimate of the time it took Mars to form.
Between 2 and 3 million years they suspect; short compared to the Earth, which is thought to have taken tens of millions of years to grow to its current size.
"We were pleasantly surprised because now we have precise evidence in support of the idea… that Mars is a stranded planetary embryo", Dr Pourmand told BBC News.
He thinks that Mars was around more or less in its current size when the Earth was beginning to form.
Given this, Mars could not have experienced the same type of growth as the Earth and Venus, says Dr Pourmand.
It's likely that Mars remains small because it deftly avoided colliding with other planets.
"The fact that Mars appears to have been left unscathed could just be down to luck," says astrophysicist Dr Duncan Forgan of the University of Edinburgh, UK.
He explains that while it is unlikely that a planet could escape collisions for such long periods, statistically one expects it to happen from time to time.
When modelling planetary dynamics, researchers find it easier to predict what happens in general, he says, but it is much more difficult to determine what happens in specific solar systems, or in specific cases like Mars.
