TEHRAN (Reuters) ? European companies owed oil by Iran could lose out if Tehran imposes a ban on crude exports to the European Union next week, the head of Iran's state oil company said on Saturday.
Iran's parliament is due to debate a bill on Sunday that would cut off oil supplies to the EU in a matter of days, in revenge for a decision last Monday by the 27 EU member states to stop importing crude from Iran as of July 1.
"Generally, the parties to incur damage from the EU's recent decision will be European companies with pending contracts with Iran," Ahmad Qalebani, head of the National Iranian Oil Co. told the ISNA news agency.
"The European companies will have to abide by the provisions of the buyback contracts," he said. "If they act otherwise, they will be the parties to incur the relevant losses and will subject the repatriation of their capital to problems."
By turning the sanctions back on the EU, Iranian lawmakers hope to deny Europe the six-month window it had planned to give those countries most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile - time to adapt.
The EU banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran's nuclear development programme.
Under buyback contracts, a common feature of the Iranian oil industry, investments in oil field projects are paid back in oil, often over many years.
Italy's Eni says it is owed $1.4-1.5 billion in oil for contracts in Iran dating from 2000 and 2001 and has been assured by EU policymakers its buyback contracts will not be part of the European embargo but the prospect of Iran acting first may put that into doubt.
The EU accounted for 25 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the third quarter of 2011.
(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by David Stamp)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death is asking a judge to release him from jail pending his appeal.
Dr. Conrad Murray said in a motion filed Friday that he should be released either on his own recognizance or on bail with electronic monitoring. He said he is not a danger to society.
Murray, who is serving a four-year sentence, said he would try to find employment to contribute to the support of his seven children.
His lawyer said Murray is being held in solitary confinement and is chained to a table when he meets with his lawyers. He said the sentence and confinement are extremely severe for a man with no prior criminal history and that Murray is extremely sorrowful about Jackson's death.
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NEW YORK ? Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.
It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics ? in a barrage of tweets ? proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.
"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"
In China, where activists have embraced Twitter even though it's blocked inside the country, artist and activist Ai Weiwei tweeted in response to the news: "If Twitter censors, I'll stop tweeting."
One often-relayed tweet bore the headline of a Forbes magazine technology blog item: "Twitter Commits Social Suicide"
San Francisco-based Twitter, founded in 2006, depicted the new system as a step forward. Previously, when Twitter erased a tweet, it vanished throughout the world. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.
Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.
The critics are jumping to the wrong conclusions, said Alexander Macgilliviray, Twitter's general counsel.
"This is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency and accountability," he said. "This launch is about us keeping content up whenever we can and to be extremely transparent with the world when we don't. I would hope people realize our philosophy hasn't changed."
Some defenders of Internet free expression came to Twitter's defense.
"Twitter is being pilloried for being honest about something that all Internet platforms have to wrestle with," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "As long as this censorship happens in a secret way, we're all losers."
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland credited Twitter with being upfront about the potential for censorship and said some other companies are not as forthright.
As for whether the new policy would be harmful, Nuland said that wouldn't be known until after it's implemented.
Reporters Without Borders, which advocates globally for press freedom, sent a letter to Twitter's executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, urging that the censorship policy be ditched immediately.
"By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization," the letter said. "Twitter's position that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is unacceptable."
Reporters Without Borders noted that Twitter was earning praise from free-speech advocates a year ago for enabling Egyptian dissidents to continue tweeting after the Internet was disconnected.
"We are very disappointed by this U-turn now," it said.
Twitter said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal. No message will be removed until an internal review determines there is a legal problem, according to Macgilliviray.
"It's a thing of last resort," he said. "The first thing we do is we try to make sure content doesn't get withheld anywhere. But if we feel like we have to withhold it, then we are transparent and we will withhold it narrowly."
Macgilliviray said the new policy has nothing to do with a recent $300 million investment by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Mac or any other financial contribution.
In its brief existence, Twitter has established itself as one of the world's most powerful megaphones. Streams of tweets have played pivotal roles in political protests throughout the world, including the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Syria.
Indeed, many of the tweets calling for a boycott of Twitter on Saturday ? using the hashtag (hash)TwitterBlackout ? came from the Middle East.
"This decision is really worrying," said Larbi Hilali, a pro-democracy blogger and tweeter from Morocco. "If it is applied, there will be a Twitter for democratic countries and a Twitter for the others."
In Cuba, opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez said she would protest Saturday with a one-day personal boycott of Twitter.
"Twitter will remove messages at the request of governments," she tweeted. "It is we citizens who will end up losing with these new rules ... ."
In the wake of the announcement, cyberspace was abuzz with suggestions for how any future country-specific censorship could be circumvented. Some Twitter users said this could be done by employing tips from Twitter's own help center to alter one's "Country" setting. Other Twitter users were skeptical that this would work.
While Twitter has embraced its role as a catalyst for free speech, it also wants to expand its audience from about 100 million active users now to more than 1 billion. Doing so may require it to engage with more governments and possibly to face more pressure to censor tweets; if it defies a law in a country where it has employees, those people could be arrested.
Theoretically, such arrests could occur even in democracies ? for example, if a tweet violated Britain's strict libel laws or the prohibitions in France and Germany against certain pro-Nazi expressions.
"It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there," said Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices Online, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists. "We'll have to see how it plays out ? how it is and isn't used."
MacKinnon said some other major social networks already employ geo-filtering along the lines of Twitter's new policy ? blocking content in a specific jurisdiction for legal reasons while making it available elsewhere.
Many of the critics assailing the new policy suggested that it was devised as part of a long-term plan for Twitter to enter China, where its service is currently blocked.
China's Communist Party remains highly sensitive to any organized challenge to its rule and responded sharply to the Arab Spring, cracking down last year after calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China. Many Chinese nonetheless find ways around the so-called Great Firewall that has blocked social networking sites such as Facebook.
Google for several years agreed to censor its search results in China to gain better access to the country's vast population, but stopped that practice two years after engaging in a high-profile showdown with Chain's government. Google now routes its Chinese search results through Hong Kong, where the censorship rules are less restrictive.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt declined to comment on Twitter's action and instead limited his comments to his own company.
"I can assure you we will apply our universally tough principles against censorship on all Google products," he told reporters in Davos, Switzerland.
Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said it was a matter of trying to adhere to different local laws.
"I think what they (Twitter officials) are wrestling with is what all of us wrestle with ? and everyone wants to focus on China, but it is actually a global issue ? which is laws in these different countries vary," Drummond said.
"Americans tend to think copyright is a real bad problem, so we have to regulate that on the Internet. In France and Germany, they care about Nazis' issues and so forth," he added. "In China, there are other issues that we call censorship. And so how you respect all the laws or follow all the laws to the extent you think they should be followed while still allowing people to get the content elsewhere?"
Craig Newman, a New York lawyer and former journalist who has advised Internet companies on censorship issues, said Twitter's new policy and the subsequent backlash are both understandable, given the difficult ethical issues at stake.
On one hand, he said, Twitter could put its employees in peril if it was deemed to be breaking local laws.
"On the other hand, Twitter has become this huge social force and people view it as some sort of digital town square, where people can say whatever they want," he said. "Twitter could have taken a stand and refused to enter any countries with the most restrictive laws against free speech."
___
Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco, Michael Liedtke in San Francisco, Peter Orsi in Havana, Cuba, Cara Anna in New York and Ben Hubbard in Cairo contributed to this story.
NEW YORK - The days of big, brash talk by Rex Ryan could be over.
The New York Jets coach told WFAN Radio on Friday that he'll remain confident but might tone down his comments after his Super Bowl guarantees and bravado might have hurt his team this season. Ryan, who has promised big things for the Jets since taking over as coach in 2009, predicted a Super Bowl victory this season during the NFL combine last February.
"My thing about, 'I'll guarantee that we get it done this year,' I thought the bull's-eye was going on my back, and that's fine," Ryan said. "I was trying to put pressure on myself. So that's something that obviously I have to learn from."
The Jets lost their last three games to finish 8-8 and out of the playoffs. Ryan said he drove by MetLife Stadium during the Giants' playoff-opening win against Atlanta two weeks ago to see it "in all blue" to motivate himself to get the Jets back on track.
"Clearly, when you have a team that went to back-to-back championship games, what else is there to go for?" Ryan said. "It's Super Bowl or bust. Well, we busted."
Recent comments by LaDainian Tomlinson about Ryan's bravado and a conversation with former 49ers quarterback Steve Young, now an ESPN analyst, about his style got the coach thinking about tweaking his approach.
"I've got to look at the entire dynamic of what I say," Ryan said, "and how it doesn't just affect me."
Despite being done playing for nearly three weeks, the Jets have still made news ? with players taking swipes at quarterback Mark Sanchez and revealing a troublesome locker room environment. On Showtime's "Inside The NFL" on Wednesday night, Tomlinson said the Jets' locker room was "as bad as I've ever been around."
As owner Woody Johnson did on Thursday, Ryan disputed that by saying he thought the running back might have overstated the amount of tension. Most notably, Sanchez and wide receiver Santonio Holmes had a rocky relationship throughout the season.
"I think it was an isolated incident," Ryan said. "I don't think it was pervasive throughout the locker room. It's not everybody in the locker room. We certainly had a couple of guys, and it had a huge negative impact on our football team, so there's no question about that."
Ryan acknowledged a few times after the season that he never had his finger fully on the pulse of the team, something he insists will change.
"I want to be a great head coach," he said. "I want to be. Am I there yet? No, I'm absolutely not there yet, but I am willing to work to get there."
In a conference call with season ticket holders earlier Friday, Ryan said the confusing terminology of former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer's system caused him to not be as involved in working with the offense.
"Quite honestly, the verbiage we had last season was probably a little much," Ryan said.
Ryan and general manager Mike Tannenbaum both insisted Sanchez will be the Jets' starting quarterback next season and will benefit from new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano's run-first system.
Ryan isn't totally done making guarantees, though. During his interview with WFAN, the coach predicted the Giants and Baltimore Ravens would make it to the Super Bowl.
"I think the Giants are going to take this game," he said. "Eli (Manning) is hot. I like the fact that both of their running backs are healthy. I think you could be looking at a Ravens-Giants rematch."
He also raved about the Ravens' defense ? a unit he once coached ? and how it could neutralize Tom Brady.
"But the Ravens' offense has to show up," he said. "They've got to protect the football. I think they can move on the ball, no question. Let's face it, I'm cheering for the Ravens."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
There's good news and less-good news about AMD's new A8-3870K Accelerated Processing Unit (or APU). The good news is that it surpasses its predecessor, the A8-3850, in every way (if only slightly), and provides overclocking features and performance potential beyond what you may think you can expect from a chip with a $135 (list) price?whether from AMD or Intel. But for all the strides AMD has made since it released the previous APU this past summer, the A8-3870K still can't replace a solid CPU?discrete video card combo for even quasi-serious gamers. But it shows that AMD is taking its Fusion product seriously, and thus hints at more good things to come.
Like the A8-3850, the A8-3870K is based on a 32nm production process and contains four CPU cores and a DirectX 11 (DX11)?supporting Radeon HD 6550D GPU with 400 GPU cores (in roughly the middle budget range of AMD's video products, judging by the previous generation's naming scheme). There's 128KB of L1 cache and 1MB of L2 cache available per core, and the APU supports dual-channel DDR3 memory at speeds of up to 1,866MHz. The A8-3870K of course also requires a motherboard that uses the (relatively) new FM1 socket, based on either AMD's A75 (with enhanced USB 3.0 and SATA III support) or A55 (USB 2.0 and SATA II) chipsets.
One important reminder about the graphics system on the APU: If you have a discrete video card installed, the APU will by default function as the boot-up video adapter, meaning any displays connected to a video card won't work until Windows loads the proper video drivers. This can be annoying if you only have one display, but you can toggle this "feature" in the motherboard's BIOS or UEFI settings. Second, the APU lets you access AMD's new Dual Graphics technology to "combine" the power of a discrete GPU with the integrated graphics; but this only works if both your hardware (the video card must be relatively low-end, and if you're only using one DIMM of memory, the whole thing might not work) and software (you'll need the AMD Vision Engine Control Center running) is correctly configured. Make sure your PC meets all the requirements before trying it out.
The biggest difference between the A8-3850 and the A8-3870K is in terms of the clocks. The CPU core on the newer chip has been bumped up from 2.9GHz to 3GHz, though the GPU clock remains unchanged at 600MHz?but both are now unlocked. This means you may overclock them to your heart's (and your PC's thermal) content, independently of each other, to get as much new performance as you can muster. It's also one of the first genuinely compelling reasons we've seen for enthusiasts (or just wannabes) to consider an APU that, by the broader standards of AMD's product line, is not an exceptional performer.
As we said when we reviewed the A8-3850 last year, Intel doesn't have any products that directly compare with AMD's new APUs in terms of overall capabilities. But if you care about raw processing more than graphics, an Intel platform based on chips like the lower-end Core i3-2100 or the considerably more powerful Core i5-2500K will serve you better. At its stock clock speeds, the A8-3870K represents only a tiny increase over the A8-3850; its multicore CineBench R11.5 score rose from 3.46 to 3.55, it took only six seconds less (5 minutes 12 seconds versus 5 minutes 18 seconds) to apply 12 filters in Adobe Photoshop CS5, cryptography throughput in TrueCrypt 7.0 raised from 106MBps to 109MBps, and its score in our full-system Futuremark PCMark 7 benchmark was functionally unchanged.
Video tests showed similarly small increases, with scores rising from 1,024 to 1,026 in 3DMark 11, frame rates increasing from 6.3 frames per second (fps) to 6.4fps in Lost Planet 2, and frame rates not improving at all in the Heaven Benchmark 2.5 (it remained at 5.5fps both times). These were all at basic resolutions, by the way?the Performance (1,280 by 720) preset for 3DMark 11, and 1,280 by 1,024 for the other two?though we maxed up all the details. By reducing the titles' resolutions or turning down the visual effects, you'll be able to get something much closer to playable frame rates, but you'll be making quite a few sacrifices.
This is where the overclocking comes in, right? Theoretically. We're happy to report that overclocking (when the APU was installed in the Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H motherboard) was a breeze, and being able to separately focus on the CPU and GPU was an enormous frustration reducer. We had very little trouble nudging the GPU clock up from 600MHz to 900MHz and the CPU clock from 3GHz to 3.5GHz, using just a basic air cooler?and AMD tells us that, with more aggressive cooling and fine tuning of voltages, a combo rate of 960MHz/3.8GHz is possible. The A8-3870K offers you a lot of leeway.
But is it worth it? That depends on your point of view. The 3DMark 11 score rose from 1,026 to 1,244, CineBench from 0.90 to 1.04, the Heaven Benchmark from 5.5fps to 6.4fps, Lost Planet 2 from 6.4fps to 7.5fps, PCMark 11 from 2,509 to 2,691, Photoshop times down from 5:12 to 4:36, and TrueCrypt throughput up from 109MBps to 119MBps. (Predictably, load power rose as well, from 134.6 watts to 142.3 watts.) These aren't poor jumps by any stretch of the imagination. But except for those who might be really excited to overclock with such an inexpensive chip, we're not sure they're dazzling enough to set many hearts racing.
Still, the AMD A8-3870K is a fascinating part that shows how serious AMD continues to take the mainstream processor race. Our conclusion with this APU remains the same as with the A8-3850: Though you'll want a standalone video card for any real gaming purposes, AMD's blending of processing and video performance delivers a balance you just can't get from Intel right now. This may change when Intel ships its Ivy Bridge CPUs, which will support advanced DX11 graphics rather than Sandy Bridge's DX10, in a few months. But for now, AMD's Fusion approach is generating the most comforting heat in the midrange market.
More Chipsets & Processors Stories: ??? Intel Roars to Record 2011, Sets Sights on Ultrabooks, Tablets in 2012 ??? AMD A8-3870K ??? Rumor: iPad 3 to Sport Quad-Core Chip, LTE, HD Display ??? AMD Positions Lightning Bolt to Take on Intel's Thunderbolt ??? Apple Makes Rare Hardware Acquisition With Israel-Based Anobit ?? more
Thank goodness for the companies that have figured out a way to let us easily access our home computer files even when we're not in front of our machine. Dropbox, the first name in file-synchronization and an Editors' Choice, may be synonymous in some people's minds with this access-anywhere solution, but it's not the only player. Security company TrendMicro is in the game now, too, with a service called SafeSync for Home (from $23.95 per year for 20GB). As the name and company history suggests, SafeSync puts the safety of your data first using 256-bit AES Bank level encryption to protect your files whenever they are flying through thin air to reach your devices, and TrendMicro's own SecureCloud encryption when they're at rest.
Storage and Price While TrendMicro's SafeSync for Home is a good, reliable, and secure service, it's probably not all that enticing to home users because it doesn't have a free option, while all the other major providers do. Dropbox gives away 2GB of space to anyone who signs up, while SugarSync (4.5 stars and also an Editors' Choice) hands you 5GB for free. And a lesser-known service called CX (4 stars) gives away a whopping 10GB. SafeSync's first tier of service is 20GB for $23.95 per year. You can try SafeSync for 30 days free (you don't even have to enter a credit card number), but I think most people prefer getting a few GB storage for nothing at all and seeing how it works out for them before upgrading to a paid option, as SugarSync, Dropbox, and CX let you do.
Without a free option, SafeSync probably won't make much headway with home users, although that's not its core market. TrendMicro does indeed have a more competitive product for businesses, appropriately called SafeSync for Business (3.5 stars) that caters better to that crowd with its advanced security and some additional collaboration tools. If you're looking for a product for a business, it's worth considering. But the home version just isn't priced as competitively as Dropbox, SugarSync, and CX.com.
Supported Systems Support for a variety of operating systems couldn't be more pertinent to a discussion of file syncing, as the whole point of the service is to give you access to your files anywhere. SafeSync hits the big four: Windows, Mac, iOS (3.0 and later), and Android (2.1 and later). It does not support BlackBerry or Windows Mobile, though. If you rely on those platforms, or even Symbian (unlikely) or Linux (slightly more likely), stick with SugarSync, which has apps for them all.
The supported systems I just mentioned let you run SafeSync as a local program, but there's also a website where you can log in to access your files from any Web-enabled machine. SafeSync's? Web interface looks drab and business-y compared to others', especially the sleek and sexy design on CX.com. But remember, TrendMicro touts less visible advantages, like the fact that it owns its data center and thus can guarantee 99.9 percent service availability. What you lose in looks you might gain back in a feeling of assurance.
Setting Up SafeSync and Features Once you've purchased a plan and are ready to set up SafeSync (or take up the 30-day trial), the first thing you'll do is install the software on your primary computer. You can install apps on your mobile devices or other computers at any time.
After installing the software, SafeSync asks you sign in again before giving you access to the file directory, as an added layer of security.
When it comes to features, SafeSync doesn't wow customers with any interesting bells, whistles, or designs. The tools are straightforward and pretty much do what all other file-syncing services do.
You'll get a special Trend Micro SafeSync folder (equivalent to Dropbox's " Dropbox folder," SugarSync's "Magic Briefcase," CX's "CX Sync" folder, etc.). Any files that go into the SafeSync folder will always automatically back-up and synchronize to your cloud storage space until you delete them or remove them from the folder. On any computer where SafeSync is installed and running, you can also right-click to mark a folder to be synced, although I wasn't able to sync individual files?just folders.
Sharing features are built into SafeSync's online dashboard. Click on any file, and options appear to get a link to the document to share, as well as disable the link to the document if you ever want to revoke privileges from someone with whom you've shared the file. You can also delete, rename, move, and download the file, as well as retrieve or restore up to 10 previous versions. With SafeSync, when looking through version history of a file, there's an option to select any time-stamped iteration and hit "restore" to turn back the clock and revert to a previous version.
An advanced feature (which runs on a Java applet) lets you quickly open a file in the program in which it was saved so you can edit it quickly without downloading. When I tried this feature, it worked, but it ran slowly.
SafeSync for Home in Light of the Competition TrendMicro's SafeSync for Home offers a good and secure synchronizing service for your files, so long as you need at least 20GB of storage and are willing to pay for it. For free services, CX gives away the most space (10GB) although it doesn't support all the platforms you might need. SugarSync, which offers 5GB free, does support every major platform and offers a clean and easy-to-learn experience. But if security is your primary concern and you need a lot of space, TrendMicro may be a good fit.
More Utilities Software Reviews: ??? TuneUp Utilities 2012 ??? SafeSync for Home ??? SafeSync for Business ??? SugarSync ??? Syncplicity (Personal Edition) ?? more
Researchers quantify the damage of alcohol by timing and exposure during pregnancyPublic release date: 16-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Haruna Sawada Feldman, Ph.D., MPH, CHES
sawada@ucsd.edu
619-692-3539
University of California, San Diego
Philip A. May, Ph.D.
philip_may@unc.edu
704-250-5002
The University of North Carolina
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
Prenatal exposure to alcohol is associated with a spectrum of abnormalities in the offspring.
A new study has examined patterns of drinking specific to timing of exposure during pregnancy, collecting the information while the mother was still pregnant instead of after delivery.
Numerous specific associations were found, the most significant ones during the second half of the first trimester of pregnancy.
Prenatal exposure to alcohol is associated with a spectrum of abnormalities, referred to as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. Physical features of the more serious Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) include smooth philtrum, thin vermillion border, short palpebral fissures, microcephaly, and growth deficiencies in weight and height. A new study has specified how specific quantities of alcohol exposure, patterns of drinking, and timing of exposure can have an impact on each of these features.
Results will be published in the April 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
"This study was designed to address two challenges in FAS studies," said Haruna Sawada Feldman, a post-doctoral student in the department of pediatrics under the mentorship of professor Christina Chambers at the University of California, San Diego. "The first challenge concerned obtaining accurate alcohol exposure history from maternal reports that might involve social stigma and recall bias. This study collected information during pregnancy when women were unaware of their pregnancy outcome. The data were also collected by trained counseling specialists who had built a rapport with the woman and guaranteed confidentiality while collecting sensitive information. Finally, data were collected with specific details about timing in gestation, dose and pattern."
The second challenge concerned the quality of information on specific physical features of FAS. "These alcohol-related features are often subtle, and a non-expert examiner may miss or misclassify features, and/or can be biased by subjectivity, especially if he/she suspects or knows about prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE)," said Feldman. "This study used an exposure-blinded expert dysmorphologist to look for these features. Furthermore, potential bias due to subjectivity was reduced because these examinations were conducted in the context of a larger study of more than 70 agents of interest, only one of which was alcohol."
"Research that links the quantity, frequency and timing of alcohol consumption during pregnancy among humans is virtually non-existent," added Philip A. May, a research professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina. "While animal data exist, studies like this one in humans are greatly needed, because extrapolation of concepts from animal models to humans is fraught with complications and problems of translation."
Feldman and her colleagues used data gathered on 992 women and their singleton infants in California between 1978 and 2005, examining patterns of drinking and timing of alcohol exposure in relation to selected FAS features. Structural features were assessed by a dysmorphologist who performed a blinded physical examination of all infants. Patterns of drinking were evaluated by drinks per day, number of binge episodes, and maximum number of drinks. Timing of exposure was evaluated zero to six weeks post-conception, six to 12 weeks post-conception, and during the first, second, and third trimesters.
"Higher PAE in every pattern we examined was significantly associated with an increased risk for having an infant born with reduced birth length or weight or having a smooth philtrum or thin vermillion border or microcephaly," said Feldman. "The most significant associations were seen during the second half of the first trimester; for every one drink increase in the average number of drinks consumed daily, there was a 25 percent increased risk for smooth philtrum, a 22 percent increased risk for thin vermillion border, a 12 percent increased risk for microcephaly, a 16 percent increased risk for reduced birth weight, and an 18 percent increased risk for reduced birth length."
"This paper clearly illustrates that drinking alcohol, especially binge drinking, during the first seven to 12 weeks of gestation is associated with four of the most important facial features characteristic of FAS as well as reductions in birth length and weight that are also characteristic of infants and children with FAS," said May. "This study also illustrates clearly that there is no threshold that triggers these features of FAS. Instead there is variability from woman to woman in the level of drinking that produces these features."
Feldman added that the lack of associations found during first-half of the first trimester between alcohol and outcomes should not be interpreted to mean that alcohol consumption during this time period is somehow safe. "Due to the study design, we were only able to include women who gave birth to live infants," she said. "Therefore, we did not include women who may have had miscarriages or stillbirths. It is important to know that alcohol-exposed infants who would have exhibited alcohol-related minor malformations might also be more likely to be lost to miscarriage following exposure during the first six-week window."
Both Feldman and May believe these findings reinforce the warning that there is no "safe" level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. "Clinicians should continue to follow the recommendations to encourage women who are planning a pregnancy or have the potential to become pregnant to avoid alcohol, and to advise women who become pregnant to stop alcohol consumption," said Sawada. "These new findings can also help clinicians quantify the importance of discontinuing alcohol as early as possible."
###
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, "Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Patterns and Alcohol-Related Birth Defects and Growth Deficiencies: A Prospective Study," were: Kenneth Lyons Jones, Kelly Kao, and Smriti Rao of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego; Suzanne Lindsay and Donald Slymen of the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University; Hillary Klonoff-Cohen of the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine, University of California, San Diego; and Christina Chambers of the Departments of Pediatrics, and Family and Preventative Medicine, at the University of California, San Diego. This release is supported by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network at http://www.ATTCnetwork.org.
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Researchers quantify the damage of alcohol by timing and exposure during pregnancyPublic release date: 16-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Haruna Sawada Feldman, Ph.D., MPH, CHES
sawada@ucsd.edu
619-692-3539
University of California, San Diego
Philip A. May, Ph.D.
philip_may@unc.edu
704-250-5002
The University of North Carolina
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
Prenatal exposure to alcohol is associated with a spectrum of abnormalities in the offspring.
A new study has examined patterns of drinking specific to timing of exposure during pregnancy, collecting the information while the mother was still pregnant instead of after delivery.
Numerous specific associations were found, the most significant ones during the second half of the first trimester of pregnancy.
Prenatal exposure to alcohol is associated with a spectrum of abnormalities, referred to as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. Physical features of the more serious Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) include smooth philtrum, thin vermillion border, short palpebral fissures, microcephaly, and growth deficiencies in weight and height. A new study has specified how specific quantities of alcohol exposure, patterns of drinking, and timing of exposure can have an impact on each of these features.
Results will be published in the April 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
"This study was designed to address two challenges in FAS studies," said Haruna Sawada Feldman, a post-doctoral student in the department of pediatrics under the mentorship of professor Christina Chambers at the University of California, San Diego. "The first challenge concerned obtaining accurate alcohol exposure history from maternal reports that might involve social stigma and recall bias. This study collected information during pregnancy when women were unaware of their pregnancy outcome. The data were also collected by trained counseling specialists who had built a rapport with the woman and guaranteed confidentiality while collecting sensitive information. Finally, data were collected with specific details about timing in gestation, dose and pattern."
The second challenge concerned the quality of information on specific physical features of FAS. "These alcohol-related features are often subtle, and a non-expert examiner may miss or misclassify features, and/or can be biased by subjectivity, especially if he/she suspects or knows about prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE)," said Feldman. "This study used an exposure-blinded expert dysmorphologist to look for these features. Furthermore, potential bias due to subjectivity was reduced because these examinations were conducted in the context of a larger study of more than 70 agents of interest, only one of which was alcohol."
"Research that links the quantity, frequency and timing of alcohol consumption during pregnancy among humans is virtually non-existent," added Philip A. May, a research professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina. "While animal data exist, studies like this one in humans are greatly needed, because extrapolation of concepts from animal models to humans is fraught with complications and problems of translation."
Feldman and her colleagues used data gathered on 992 women and their singleton infants in California between 1978 and 2005, examining patterns of drinking and timing of alcohol exposure in relation to selected FAS features. Structural features were assessed by a dysmorphologist who performed a blinded physical examination of all infants. Patterns of drinking were evaluated by drinks per day, number of binge episodes, and maximum number of drinks. Timing of exposure was evaluated zero to six weeks post-conception, six to 12 weeks post-conception, and during the first, second, and third trimesters.
"Higher PAE in every pattern we examined was significantly associated with an increased risk for having an infant born with reduced birth length or weight or having a smooth philtrum or thin vermillion border or microcephaly," said Feldman. "The most significant associations were seen during the second half of the first trimester; for every one drink increase in the average number of drinks consumed daily, there was a 25 percent increased risk for smooth philtrum, a 22 percent increased risk for thin vermillion border, a 12 percent increased risk for microcephaly, a 16 percent increased risk for reduced birth weight, and an 18 percent increased risk for reduced birth length."
"This paper clearly illustrates that drinking alcohol, especially binge drinking, during the first seven to 12 weeks of gestation is associated with four of the most important facial features characteristic of FAS as well as reductions in birth length and weight that are also characteristic of infants and children with FAS," said May. "This study also illustrates clearly that there is no threshold that triggers these features of FAS. Instead there is variability from woman to woman in the level of drinking that produces these features."
Feldman added that the lack of associations found during first-half of the first trimester between alcohol and outcomes should not be interpreted to mean that alcohol consumption during this time period is somehow safe. "Due to the study design, we were only able to include women who gave birth to live infants," she said. "Therefore, we did not include women who may have had miscarriages or stillbirths. It is important to know that alcohol-exposed infants who would have exhibited alcohol-related minor malformations might also be more likely to be lost to miscarriage following exposure during the first six-week window."
Both Feldman and May believe these findings reinforce the warning that there is no "safe" level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. "Clinicians should continue to follow the recommendations to encourage women who are planning a pregnancy or have the potential to become pregnant to avoid alcohol, and to advise women who become pregnant to stop alcohol consumption," said Sawada. "These new findings can also help clinicians quantify the importance of discontinuing alcohol as early as possible."
###
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, "Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Patterns and Alcohol-Related Birth Defects and Growth Deficiencies: A Prospective Study," were: Kenneth Lyons Jones, Kelly Kao, and Smriti Rao of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego; Suzanne Lindsay and Donald Slymen of the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University; Hillary Klonoff-Cohen of the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine, University of California, San Diego; and Christina Chambers of the Departments of Pediatrics, and Family and Preventative Medicine, at the University of California, San Diego. This release is supported by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network at http://www.ATTCnetwork.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TOKYO ? Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda replaced five Cabinet members Friday in a bid to win more cooperation from the opposition and voters to raise the sales tax and rein in the bulging fiscal deficit.
The new Cabinet is meant to create "the best and strongest lineup to steadily tackle the issues that we must achieve without running away or putting off," Noda told a news conference. "I chose people who can move ahead and make a breakthrough."
Two of the removed ministers had been censured by the opposition, including former Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa, who claimed he was unaware of the details of a 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen on the island of Okinawa ? a crime that continues to deeply impact local support for the large American troop presence there.
The opposition, which controls the less powerful upper house of parliament, had threatened to reject any discussion about key tax legislation unless Ichikawa was fired.
Twelve posts were unchanged, including finance and foreign minister. The 17-member Cabinet was formally installed Friday in a ceremony with the emperor.
Noda, who took office in September, says Japan urgently needs to reduce its debt burden as the nation ages and its labor force shrinks, putting a greater burden on the social security and tax systems. He has promised to submit a bill by the end of March to raise the 5 percent sales tax in two stages, to 8 percent in 2014 and to 10 percent by 2015.
"It's not time for politics that is only pleasing to your ears. It's painful for us to ask (for higher taxes), and it may hurt our election results. This is a test of whether we can gain understanding for tough policies in Japan," Noda said.
The reshuffle will "strengthen our government to tackle the major policy goal of social security and tax reforms," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said in announcing the new lineup.
Noda named Katsuya Okada, a former foreign minister, as deputy prime minister to spearhead those efforts.
Noda's public approval rating has slid below 40 percent amid resistance to raising the sales tax and a general lack of confidence in political leadership in Japan, which has seen a new prime minister every year for the past six years.
Japan's divided parliament makes it difficult for Noda to pass legislation. The tax issue has also divided the ruling Democratic party, with powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa and his supporters arguing that raising taxes would hurt the already weak economy.
Noda has said his government's priorities also include leading reconstruction efforts after last March's devastating tsunami and bringing "rebirth" to the area around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. The government declared a month ago that the plant is essentially stable despite widespread skepticism, with experts warning it remains vulnerable to earthquakes.
The new defense minister, Naoki Tanaka, is a relative of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, one of Japan's most powerful politicians who was felled by a corruption scandal. He is replacing Ichikawa, who had boasted that his lack of experience with security issues would allow him to view them with a fresh perspective.
Ichikawa's claim of ignorance about the Okinawa rape case complicated already-stalled efforts to move an important U.S. Marine base which is a key element in Washington's plans to restructure its forces in Asia.
Jin Matsubara will replace consumer affairs minister Kenji Yamaoka, who was censured for making comments in support of a pyramid marketing scheme, perceived as shady in Japan. He was also criticized for reportedly comparing the collapse of the euro to the tsunami, which was deemed insensitive to the victims of that disaster.
A Kyodo News agency poll on Jan. 7-8 showed public support for Noda's Cabinet fell to 35.7 percent from 44.6 percent in December, with three-quarters of respondents citing an insufficient explanation of the tax hike plan. However, some experts say such polls ? and by extension the media ? wield too much influence in determining a prime minister's longevity.
They say the absolute nature of the polls' top question ? do you approve of the Cabinet's performance, yes or no ? makes it very hard for leaders to stay popular. If people are the least bit dissatisfied with the government, it's easy to respond in the negative, they say.
___
Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi and Eric Talmadge contributed to this report.
Internal Homeland Security documents describing specifications for border-crossing scanners, which emit gamma or X-ray radiation to probe vehicles and their occupants, are raising new health and privacy concerns, CNET has learned.
Even though a public outcry has prompted Homeland Security to move away from adding X-ray machines to airports--it purchased 300 body scanners last year that used alternative technology instead--it appears to be embracing them at U.S.-Mexico land border crossings as an efficient way to detect drugs, currency, and explosives.
The Z Portal scanner in use at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing uses high energy X-ray radiation to probe the interior of vehicles. Homeland Security says it's safe for humans, but some biophysicists disagree.
(Credit: AS&E)
A 63-page set of specifications (PDF), heavily redacted, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, says the scanners must "be based on X-Ray or gamma technology," which use potentially dangerous ionizing radiation at high energies, and "shall be capable of scanning cars, SUVs, motorcycles and busses."
"Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this," John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.
The specifications do not say how Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, will notify people crossing the border about the radiation emitted by the devices, how frequently the devices will be tested to ensure they're operating properly, or whether travelers will be presented with a choice of declining the scan, which is an option at airport body scanners that use X-rays.
X-ray scanners made by American Science and Engineering are already in use at the busy San Ysidro, Calif., checkpoint. CBP, which says the level of radiation emitted falls within commonly accepted norms, is planning to announce details about the next round of scanner purchases on February 1.
Unlike, say, radio waves, ionizing radiation is dangerous because it can damage living tissue, rearrange chromosomes, and raise cancer risks. Whether the radiation is harmful depends on the dose: ionizing radiation at very low doses is ubiquitous in the environment, including from cosmic radiation, radon, and high-altitude air travel. Pregnant women are especially sensitive to high doses of ionizing radiation.
"This seems to be a massive escalation in the use of these systems," says Peter Rez, a professor of physics at Arizona State University who has studied the way the X-ray scanners work.
This scanner uses X-rays to probe the interior of vehicles. It's called the Z Portal and is in use at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing. (Click for larger image)
(Credit: AS&E)
Rez says the name that Homeland Security has picked for its border scanners--"Low Energy Drive Through Portal Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems"--is highly misleading. "To call anything based on high energy X-rays 'low energy' is worse than 1984 doublespeak" because radiation emitted by the scanners "goes right through the person" sitting in a vehicle, he says. (High energy X-rays can penetrate not only human flesh, but steel plates that are multiple centimeters thick.)
For its part, Homeland Security says the dose is safe and based on commonly accepted government standards (PDF) established by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, which would permit 2,500 scans a year for each person. CBP's specifications also require the manufacturer to "perform an evaluation of the potential effect of radiation exposure on public safety on the proposed system." In addition, a CBP representative told CNET that the machines are currently only used in secondary inspections (most people go through just the primary inspection).
But Homeland Security did not respond, citing insufficient time, to a list of questions that CNET posed on Wednesday evening asking about independent testing that has been performed on the scanners that would measure the actual dose of radiation emitted. In the case of its airport scanners, Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration initially promised to conduct such an analysis, but then backtracked, prompting criticism last fall from Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
The dispute about radiation during border scans generally parallels the one about airport X-ray scanners, with Homeland Security saying they're safe, and researchers raising concerns that no independent testing has been done. A letter (PDF) that UCSF's Sedat and others sent the Department of Health and Human Services last year says that independent tests have not "been adequately performed for X-ray scanners, leaving us in a situation where a major untested technology is being used on a large segment of our population, and where any damage may not be apparent immediately, or recognized to be caused by the extra radiation exposure--an unprecedented state of affairs."
And the privacy concerns, too, are similar. Homeland Security's TSA says it "takes all measures to ensure passenger privacy" at airports. Its new "advanced imaging" millimeter wave machines at airports, which don't use ionizing radiation, do not display body outlines.
"They're potentially the same kind of images as people in airports," Ginger McCall, director of EPIC's open government program, says of the border scanners. They're also "capturing images of people essentially naked," she says.
The origin of the scanners can be traced back to a not-so-obvious source: President Obama's signature American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus bill. That awarded a $27.3 million contract to American Science and Engineering, or AS&E, to build 35 scanners, according to a description at Recovery.gov. Soon afterward, X-ray scanners appeared at the San Ysidro, Calif., checkpoint, sometimes called the world's busiest land crossing; other locations listed in the specification include El Paso, Texas, Columbus, N.M., and Nogales, Ariz.
Now Homeland Security wants more. The U.S. government convened a "pre-solicitation conference" in Washington, D.C., on November 29, 2011, according to a public procurement document. Another document says "Customs and Border Protection is very appreciative of all the responses received" and plans to publish a formal request for proposals for the next purchase on February 1.
AS&E, a publicly-traded company based in Billerica, Mass., boasts on its Web site that its Z Portal vehicle screening system can conduct "imaging from three sides simultaneously," and that "one scan is equivalent to flying one minute at altitude on an airplane."
Sedat, the biophysicist, says that the estimates of X-ray radiation dosage from AS&E and CBP are likely to be in error by several orders of magnitude because of the equipment they're using. He says: "If you have a laser pointer that you use for slides, it's a very bright beam. It's very hard to measure because it overwhelms a normal detector. You'll saturate the detector and you'll get the wrong answer. It could well come up with zero, or close to zero. And that's not right. It's not designed for handling that. The same is true for the ionization chambers they're using (as detectors)."
Rez, the physics professor, says the problem with X-ray scanners is that as the resolution increases, the corresponding dose leaps upward as well--and that AS&E's resolution has increased to approximately 5 millimeters. Another problem, he says, is failures: because the scan is conducted by having the vehicle move, if it stops in mid-scan, the radiation concentrated on one place would be above acceptable limits. "The energies are about three times the average energy in CT," he says, meaning an X-ray computed tomography scan.
A paper that (PDF) Rez and two-co-authors published in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry concludes that "serious consideration should be given to the possibility of unintended and unnecessary doses to passengers due to malfunctioning equipment."
Google?s Android Market now has over 400,000 apps available, thanks in large part to its status as the largest provider of free apps for mobile tech consumers.
The report on Google?s app milestone was released this week by app analytical firm Distimo, and though it took the company longer to hit the 400,000 mark than Apple?s App Store ? it took Google 31 months to reach the mark, and Apple only 22 months ? Google?s growth from 300,000 to 400,000 apps (and from 200,000 to 300,000 apps) occurred in less time than it did for Apple.
In contrast, Apple?s App Store now features over 500,000 active apps, though the two stores differ greatly in terms of revenue.
More than 68 percent of the Android Market apps are free, and the store generates the bulk of its revenue from the ?freemium? model ? in which users pay for additional content beyond what?s provided in the basic, free app. Less than half of Apple?s revenue comes from free apps, and the store relies more on paid apps for revenue.
Overall, Apple collects almost four times as much revenue from its App Store as Google receives from the Android Market.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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How do you get around the government potentially censoring the Internet?
Launch a bunch of satellites and start your own Internet.
Yes, seriously. That's what a bunch of hackers are planning on doing, the BBC reports. They outlined their schemes at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
The project's organizers, who intend to build a "Hackerspace Global Grid," also plan on building ground stations to track and communicate with those satellites, according to the report. Here are the highlights:
Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.
The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.
"The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said.
He cited the proposed?Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)?in the United States as an example of the kind of threat facing online freedom. If passed, the act would allow for some sites to be blocked on copyright grounds.
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Public release date: 16-Jan-2012
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Google?s Android Market now has over 400,000 apps available, thanks in large part to its status as the largest provider of free apps for mobile tech consumers.