DUBAI, United Arab Emirates ? Amnesty International says an Iranian appeals court has overturned the lashing sentence against an actress who appeared in a film critical of the Islamic republic's hard-line policies.
Amnesty's website says Marzieh Vafamehr was released from prison earlier this week after her sentence of one year in prison and 90 lashes was overturned on appeal.
There was no report on Saturday on Vafamehr's case in Iranian media.
Vafamehr appeared in the Australian-backed film "My Tehran for Sale," which was shot in the Iranian capital. It tells the story of a young actress whose stage work is banned by authorities.
It premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2009, but is banned in Iran.
Well, that's the end of that. HP CEO Meg Whitman says "HP is committed to [Personal Systems Group, HP's computer arm], and together we are stronger." There you have it. HP will keep making computers as usual. More »
Researchers Build Logic Gates from Bacteria [Science]
Finally, E. coli is good for something other than making you regret not washing that lettuce better. Boffins at the Imperial College London have employed the bacteria as living Boolean logic gates—potential building blocks for bio-computers of the future. More »
Older men with higher testosterone levels lose less muscle mass as they age
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2011) ? A recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) found that higher levels of testosterone were associated with reduced loss of lean muscle mass in older men, especially in those who were losing weight. In these men, higher testosterone levels were also associated with less loss of lower body strength.
Loss of muscle mass and strength contribute to frailty and are associated with falls, mobility limitations and fractures. Men lose more muscle mass and strength than women as they age, suggesting that sex steroids, and testosterone in particular, may contribute to body composition and physical function changes. This study sought to better understand the relationship between testosterone levels and healthy aging in older men and found that higher testosterone levels may help older men preserve muscle mass and delay frailty as they age.
"Our study finds that men, aged 65 years and older, with higher testosterone levels lost less muscle mass, especially in their arms and legs, than men this age who had lower testosterone levels," said Erin LeBlanc, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Northwest in Portland, OR and lead author of the study. "Men who had higher testosterone levels before they lost weight also lost less leg function and could stand up more easily from a chair than men who had lower testosterone levels before they lost weight."
In this study, researchers used data from 1,183 men aged 65 years or older and tested the hypothesis that higher baseline measures of sex steroids are associated with lesser declines in lean mass and maintenance of physical performance over an average follow-up of 4.5 years. Body composition was measured using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans and physical performance was measured through a series of exercises that assessed grip strength, lower extremity power, walking speed and the ability to rise from a chair without the use of arms.
"The amount of testosterone men have in their bodies may contribute to how much muscle and strength they lose as they get older," said LeBlanc. "Our study adds evidence to the growing body of literature that suggest higher levels of endogenous testosterone may be favorably associated with some key components of healthy aging in men."
Other researchers working on the study include: Patty Wang, Christine Lee, Lynn Marshall and Eric Orwoll of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland; Elizabeth Barrett-Connor and Gail Laughlin of the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, CA; Jane Cauley of the University of Pittsburgh in PA; and Andrew Hoffman of Stanford University in CA.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Endocrine Society.
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Journal Reference:
E. S. LeBlanc, P. Y. Wang, C. G. Lee, E. Barrett-Connor, J. A. Cauley, A. R. Hoffman, G. A. Laughlin, L. M. Marshall, E. S. Orwoll. Higher Testosterone Levels Are Associated with Less Loss of Lean Body Mass in Older Men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2011; DOI: 10.1210/jc.2011-0312
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Intestinal stem cells respond to food by supersizing the gut
Intestinal stem cells respond to food by supersizing the gutPublic release date: 27-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
Locally released insulin activates stem cells to produce more gut and stem cells
A new study from University of California, Berkeley, researchers demonstrates that adult stem cells can reshape our organs in response to changes in the body and the environment, a finding that could have implications for diabetes and obesity.
Current thinking has been that, once embryonic stem cells mature into adult stem cells, they sit quietly in our tissues, replacing cells that die or are injured but doing little else.
But in working with fruit flies, the researchers found that intestinal stem cells responded to increased food intake by producing more intestinal cells, expanding the size of the intestines as long as the food keeps flowing.
"When flies start to eat, the intestinal stem cells go into overdrive, and the gut expands," said UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Lucy O'Brien. "Four days later, the gut is four times bigger than before, but when food is taken away, the gut slims down."
Just as in humans and other mammals, O'Brien added, the fly intestine secretes its own insulin. In flies, intestinal insulin seems to be the signal that makes stem cells "supersize the gut."
"Because of the many similarities between the fruit fly and the human, the discovery may hold a key to understanding how human organs adapt to environmental change," said David Bilder, UC-Berkeley associate professor of molecular and cell biology.
The research will be published in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Cell.
Stem cells key to adaptability
Many tissues grow or shrink with usage, including muscle, liver and intestine. Human intestines, for example, regrow after portions have been surgically removed because of cancer or injury, and hibernating animals see their intestines shrink to one-third their normal size during winter.
"One strategy animals use to deal with environmental variability is to tune the workings of their organ systems to match the conditions at hand," O'Brien said. "How exactly this 'organ adaptation' happens, particularly in adult animals that are no longer growing, has long been a mystery."
Following the surprising discovery of stem cells in the intestines of fruit flies five years ago, O'Brien and Bilder decided to investigate the role of adult stem cells in normal intestinal growth in hopes of finding clues to their role in vertebrates like us.
"I looked at stained stem cells in the fruit fly intestine, and they are studded throughout like jewels. The tissues were so beautiful, I knew I had to study them," O'Brien said.
O'Brien, Bilder and their colleagues discovered that when fruit flies feed, their intestines secrete insulin locally, which stimulates intestinal stem cells to divide and produce more intestinal cells.
"The real surprise was that the fruit fly intestine is capable of secreting its own insulin," BIlder said. "This intestinal insulin spikes immediately after feeding and talks directly to stem cells, so the intestine controls its own adaptation."
Stem cells can divide either asymmetrically, producing one stem cell and one intestinal cell, or symmetrically, producing two stem cells. The team found that, in response to food, intestinal stem cells underwent symmetric division more frequently than asymmetric division, which had the effect of maintaining the proportion of stem cells to intestinal cells, and is a more efficient way of ramping up the total number of cells, O'Brien said.
"Adaptive resizing of the intestine makes sense from the standpoint of physiological fitness," she said. "Upkeep of the intestinal lining is metabolically expensive, consuming up to 30 percent of the body's energy resources. By minimizing intestinal size when food is scarce, and maximizing digestive capacity when food is abundant, adaptive intestinal resizing by stem cells helps animals survive in constantly changing environments."
###
Bilder and O'Brien's coauthors on the Cell paper are UC Berkeley staff researchers Sarah S. Soliman and Xinghua Li.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and, for O'Brien, by a Genentech Foundation Fellowship of the Life Sciences Research Foundation.
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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.
Intestinal stem cells respond to food by supersizing the gutPublic release date: 27-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
Locally released insulin activates stem cells to produce more gut and stem cells
A new study from University of California, Berkeley, researchers demonstrates that adult stem cells can reshape our organs in response to changes in the body and the environment, a finding that could have implications for diabetes and obesity.
Current thinking has been that, once embryonic stem cells mature into adult stem cells, they sit quietly in our tissues, replacing cells that die or are injured but doing little else.
But in working with fruit flies, the researchers found that intestinal stem cells responded to increased food intake by producing more intestinal cells, expanding the size of the intestines as long as the food keeps flowing.
"When flies start to eat, the intestinal stem cells go into overdrive, and the gut expands," said UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Lucy O'Brien. "Four days later, the gut is four times bigger than before, but when food is taken away, the gut slims down."
Just as in humans and other mammals, O'Brien added, the fly intestine secretes its own insulin. In flies, intestinal insulin seems to be the signal that makes stem cells "supersize the gut."
"Because of the many similarities between the fruit fly and the human, the discovery may hold a key to understanding how human organs adapt to environmental change," said David Bilder, UC-Berkeley associate professor of molecular and cell biology.
The research will be published in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Cell.
Stem cells key to adaptability
Many tissues grow or shrink with usage, including muscle, liver and intestine. Human intestines, for example, regrow after portions have been surgically removed because of cancer or injury, and hibernating animals see their intestines shrink to one-third their normal size during winter.
"One strategy animals use to deal with environmental variability is to tune the workings of their organ systems to match the conditions at hand," O'Brien said. "How exactly this 'organ adaptation' happens, particularly in adult animals that are no longer growing, has long been a mystery."
Following the surprising discovery of stem cells in the intestines of fruit flies five years ago, O'Brien and Bilder decided to investigate the role of adult stem cells in normal intestinal growth in hopes of finding clues to their role in vertebrates like us.
"I looked at stained stem cells in the fruit fly intestine, and they are studded throughout like jewels. The tissues were so beautiful, I knew I had to study them," O'Brien said.
O'Brien, Bilder and their colleagues discovered that when fruit flies feed, their intestines secrete insulin locally, which stimulates intestinal stem cells to divide and produce more intestinal cells.
"The real surprise was that the fruit fly intestine is capable of secreting its own insulin," BIlder said. "This intestinal insulin spikes immediately after feeding and talks directly to stem cells, so the intestine controls its own adaptation."
Stem cells can divide either asymmetrically, producing one stem cell and one intestinal cell, or symmetrically, producing two stem cells. The team found that, in response to food, intestinal stem cells underwent symmetric division more frequently than asymmetric division, which had the effect of maintaining the proportion of stem cells to intestinal cells, and is a more efficient way of ramping up the total number of cells, O'Brien said.
"Adaptive resizing of the intestine makes sense from the standpoint of physiological fitness," she said. "Upkeep of the intestinal lining is metabolically expensive, consuming up to 30 percent of the body's energy resources. By minimizing intestinal size when food is scarce, and maximizing digestive capacity when food is abundant, adaptive intestinal resizing by stem cells helps animals survive in constantly changing environments."
###
Bilder and O'Brien's coauthors on the Cell paper are UC Berkeley staff researchers Sarah S. Soliman and Xinghua Li.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and, for O'Brien, by a Genentech Foundation Fellowship of the Life Sciences Research Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay ? Uruguay's Congress has approved a measure revoking amnesty for officials charged with human rights abuses during a period of military dictatorship.
Thursday's pre-dawn vote meets a demand by human rights groups that people who kidnapped, tortured and killed in the name of the state should be punished.
Opponents say it violates the constitution and overturns a popular vote in favor of the amnesty. Some military leaders vow to push for prosecution of crimes committed by former guerrillas if their own colleagues are brought to court.
Dozens of suspected leftists were kidnapped and killed during the dictatorship of 1973 to 1985.
Uruguay's Supreme Court will decide whether lifting the amnesty is constitutional.
Cond? Nast publications increase subscriptions by 268 percent with Newsstand?s help
(Appolicious)
Back when Apple rolled out iOS 5, the latest iteration of its mobile operating system, it also included a new piece of software called Newsstand.
Though it looks like just a simple folder, Newsstand is more of an app. Newsstand gathers every publication you subscribe to and places them in one spot. And using Apple?s iCloud services, you?re able to read a publication on one device, stop midway, and pick it up where you left off on another.
The addition of Newsstand was Apple?s way of strengthening its subscription offerings on its mobile devices, and for at least one company, that fortification seems to be helping quite a bit. Magazine publisher Cond? Nast, the company behind Wired, Golf Digest, The New Yorker and Glamour, has seen a big increase in subscriptions ? more than 268 percent since the release of Newsstand. The company is also experiencing an uptick of 142 percent in single-publication sales of its nine magazines offered on iTunes, according to a report from GigaOM.
Apple?s history with subscription-based publications has been a bit of a bumpy one. After the release of the iPad, Apple quickly found that a lot of publications were offering iPad versions of their newspapers and magazines, and these versions were drawing in quite a bit of money. Publishers wanted a way to offer subscriptions through iTunes. When Apple rolled out that ability, it also took a 30 percent cut of subscriptions bought through apps. Apple reasoned it was the iPad that was helping bring in those subscriptions. There were a few other troubles with the rules, namely that Apple tried to control the prices of subscriptions sold outside its apps and iTunes, but eventually Apple relented and publishers began to adopt the subscription policy as well as pay Apple its agreed-upon cut.
Since then, publications have reportedly been doing pretty well under the system, but the release of Newsstand brings a whole new level of organization to the iOS publication experience. Users no longer have to deal with individual apps for each of their magazines or newspapers, allowing for a cleaner home screen and the ability to find new content in one place. Newsstand also serves as an entry point for people searching for publications to which they can subscribe.
One has to wonder if other publications are seeing the big boosts that Cond? Nast is enjoying, although it seems as though they may be. According to a report from paidcontent.org, Exact Editions, a publisher that says it is responsible for about 10 percent of the publications found in Newsstand, has seen a sales increase of about 150 percent for some of its magazines. Future, a consumer magazine, reported it had sold more copies in the four days after Newsstand?s release than it did in a typical month before the launch of iOS 5. And that story was published about a week ago.
We?ll probably need to wait for Apple to release some numbers to see what kind of effect Newsstand is having in a broader way. But if the Cond? Nast effect is true elsewhere, it demonstrates that reading publications on mobile devices, or more specifically, tablets, is something that users are very interested in doing. It also shows that they?re willing to pay for (at least some of) that content.
SAN FRANCISCO?? Netflix jolted its already shell-shocked shareholders with a third-quarter financial report that portrayed a company in crisis.
Netflix's blooper reel, released Monday, included an even larger customer exodus than the company had foreseen after announcing an unpopular price increase in July. What's worse, the report contained a forecast calling for more defections from the largest U.S. video subscription service.
The backlash will deprive Netflix Inc. of some the revenue that management had been counting on to finance the company's expansion plans while it pays higher fees for Internet video streaming rights. The result: Netflix expects to post losses next year when it starts selling its steaming service in Britain and Ireland. The company didn't offer further specifics.
None of the developments pleased Wall Street as Netflix lost more than a quarter of its value after the bad news came out. If that sharp decline holds in Tuesday's trading, it will mark the first time Netflix's stock price has fallen below $100 in nearly 14 months.
Netflix shares shed $31.19, or more than 26 percent, to $87.35 in Monday's extended trading.
It's the latest setback for a former stock market darling whose shares topped $300 just 4 ? months ago. Netflix's market value had already plunged by about 60 percent, or nearly $9 billion, before Monday's late sell-off.
Netflix lost its luster among consumers and investors by raising prices as much as 60 percent in the U.S. and bungling an attempt to spin off its DVD-by-mail rental service.
The company, which is based in Los Gatos, California, ended September with 23.8 million U.S. subscribers, down about 800,000 from June. Netflix had predicted it would lose about 600,000 U.S. subscribers in a forecast released last month.
Management expects to gain U.S. subscribers in the current quarter, although Netflix didn't set a specific target. But a substantial number of Netflix's customers are expected to choose between renting DVDs through the mail or streaming video over high-speed Internet connections ?instead of paying for both services.
The biggest hit is expected on the DVD side, a service that Netflix has been de-emphasizing to save money on mailing costs as its spends more to license movies and TV shows for its Internet video library. The company expects its DVD subscribers to fall from 13.9 million as of Sept. 30 to as low as 10.3 million at the end of December. Streaming subscriptions in the U.S. may rise by as much as 100,000 subscribers in the quarter, according to the company's projections.
The outlook looks even grimmer, considering that Netflix consistently added 1 million to 2 million subscribers per quarter leading up to the price increases.
From a financial perspective, Netflix did better than analysts expected in the July-September period.
The company earned $62.5 million, or $1.16, per share, in the third quarter. That compared to income of $38 million, or 70 cents per share, at the same time last year.
The performance topped the average earnings estimate of 96 cents per share among analysts polled by FactSet.
Netflix's revenue climbed 49 percent from the same time last year to nearly $822 million ? about $9 million above analyst estimates.
Netflix's downfall leaves CEO Reed Hastings in a precarious position.
Once regarded as one of the savviest leaders in technology and entertainment, Hastings has turned into a punching bag for frustrated Netflix customers and shareholders. Many of them are still befuddled by his recent decision making.
After Netflix's higher prices kicked in on Sept. 1, Hastings amplified the outrage by outlining a plan to toss the DVD rental business onto a separate website called Qwikster. The split from the Internet streaming service got panned so badly that Hastings reversed course in less than three weeks.
"We've hurt our hard-earned reputation and stalled our domestic growth," Hastings wrote in a letter accompanying Monday's third-quarter report. "But our long-term streaming opportunity is as compelling as ever and we are moving as quickly as we can to repair our reputation and return to growth."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Drinking copious amounts of coffee may reduce the risk of the most common type of skin cancer, a new study finds. Women in the study who drank more than three cups of coffee a day were 20 percent less likely to develop basal cell carcinoma.
Yohan Cabaye fired home an 80th-minute winner as Newcastle stretched their unbeaten Barclays Premier League start to nine matches with a 1-0 victory over Wigan.
Cabaye finished off a knock-back by substitute Sylvain Marveaux to end the brave resistance of Roberto Martinez's men, who have now lost six in a row.
The visitors were brighter in the first half with Victor Moses having a fifth-minute shot saved by Tim Krul and Hugo Rodallega firing wide.
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Pressure on for Nevada GOP to change caucus date
(AP)
LAS VEGAS ? Nevada Republicans are under national pressure to delay the state's presidential nomination contest.
More than 200 members of the state party planned to decide at a meeting Saturday in Las Vegas when Nevada's caucuses should be held.
New Hampshire's secretary of state, Bill Gardner, has threatened to hold his state's primary in early December to avoid wedging it between the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the Nevada vote, currently set for Jan. 14.
Several Republican presidential candidates, including former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and businessman Herman Cain, have pledged their support to New Hampshire and boycott Nevada's contest if it isn't pushed back. That led the Republican National Committee to suggest that Nevada move to Feb. 4.
Nevada GOP leaders have indicated that they support the change. But it's not clear whether rank-and-file members will go along.
The Nevada Republican Party's central committee is a diverse group that in the past has refused to heed the GOP's mainstream leadership.
The state party's executive director, David Gallagher, told The Associated Press on Friday that GOP leaders will commit to whatever decision comes from the meeting.
Nevada, Iowa and South Carolina moved their contests into January after Florida said it would violate national party rules and hold its primary on Jan. 31.
But only Nevada was subject to boycott threats Nevada Republicans initially laughed it off, but reconsidered after the national chairman, Reince Priebus, began calling for a compromise this week.
If Nevada moves to Feb. 4, it would no longer be third in nomination calendar and could be overshadowed by Florida's vote. But shifting the date would allow the state to keep all of its delegates when national Republicans convene in Tampa, Fla., next year to name their nominee.
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Public release date: 27-Oct-2011
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Back when Apple rolled out iOS 5, the latest iteration of its mobile operating system, it also included a new piece of software called Newsstand.