Drinking lots of coffee doesn't harm heart: study...

Health-Reuters.com

Tue Apr 25, 2006. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee -- or third, or fourth. A study published on Monday shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.

The study, which followed 128,000 men and women for as long as 20 years, showed that drinking filtered coffee -- not espresso or French-style brews -- did not raise the risk of heart disease.

Heavy coffee drinkers did tend to smoke and drink alcohol more often and those two factors clearly do raise heart risk, the researchers report in the journal Circulation.

"We believe this study clearly shows there is no association between filtered coffee consumption and coronary heart disease," said Esther Lopez-Garcia, an instructor in the School of Medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, who worked on the study.

"This lack of effect is good news, because coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world."

Researchers also found no link between heart disease and how much caffeine, tea or decaffeinated coffee people drank.

But this does not mean that everyone can overload on coffee with impunity, said Rob van Dam of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

"We can't exclude the association between coffee consumption and the risk of (heart disease) in small groups of people," Van Dam said in a statement.

In March, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people with a "slow" version of a particular liver enzyme gene had a higher risk of heart disease if they drank more coffee, compared to those with a fast-metabolizing version. Liver enzymes metabolize coffee and many other compounds.

And several studies have shown a link with heart disease and copious drinking of French press coffee, made using a mesh filter instead of a paper drip filter, or perked coffee.

The Harvard and Madrid teams used data from two ongoing studies -- the all-male Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which began in 1986, and the all-female Nurses' Health Study, which started in 1976.

Volunteers in both studies fill out periodic questionnaires about their diet, exercise and other health habits and undergo regular physical exams.

The researchers found more than half the women and 30 percent of men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day were also more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and use aspirin, and were less likely to drink tea, exercise or take vitamin supplements.

But once these factors were accounted for, there was no difference in heart attack risks between the very light and heavy coffee drinkers.

A study published last November found no link between coffee drinking and high blood pressure, but an apparent association with drinking caffeinated sodas.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Official arrested for chewing gum at ceremony...

Reuters.com

Tue Apr 25, 2006.ANKARA (Reuters) - An official in Turkey's ruling party has been arrested for chewing gum while laying a wreath at a monument to the country's revered founder Kemal Ataturk, the state Anatolian news agency said Monday.

Veysel Dalci, head of the local branch of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Black Sea town of Fatsa, was charged with insulting Ataturk's memory during Sunday's ceremony marking Turkey's National Sovereignty Day.

CNN Turk television quoted Dalci, a 38-year-old pharmacist and father of two, as saying he chewed gum to hide the smell of garlic which he had eaten the previous evening.

"After laying a wreath at the monument, I noticed I had gum in my mouth. I am very sorry," CNN Turk quoted him as saying.

Anatolian said Dalci was arrested after a local army garrison commander complained to state prosecutors. It was not immediately clear what kind of penalty Dalci would face.

Showing disrespect to Ataturk, the soldier-statesman who founded the modern Turkish Republic on the ashes of the old Ottoman Empire in 1923, is a crime in the European Union candidate nation. Ataturk died in 1938.

Secularists especially revere Ataturk as the leader who banished religion from political life and modeled Turkey's state institutions on those of Europe, especially France.

The secularists, who dominate Turkey's military and judiciary, deeply distrust the AKP on account of its roots in political Islam. The AKP denies any Islamist agenda but wants to ease some of Turkey's restrictions on religious expression.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Tempest in a D-cup as bust sizes grow...

Reuters.com

Tue Apr 25, 2006. BEIJING (Reuters) - Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.

"It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub.

"You...never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic."

The report, seen on the daily's Web site Tuesday, said that the Hong Kong-based lingerie firm Embry Group no longer produces A-cups for larger chest circumferences and has increased production of C-, D- and E-cup bras to meet pressing demand.

The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying the average chest circumference of Chinese women has risen by nearly 1 cm (0.4 inch) to 83.53 cm (32.89 inches) since the early 1990s, the daily said.

This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport.

Similar growth in the average height of children prompted a rethink last year in Beijing on the height allowance for free bus rides.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Court: TV show's sex jokes not harassment...

Reuters.com
Fri Apr 21, 2006.SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sexually explicit jokes and off-color language by writers of the hit TV comedy series "Friends" did not create a hostile work environment, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

The ruling by the state's high court upheld a lower court decision throwing out the sexual harassment claim brought by former writer's assistant Amaani Lyle against writers and producers of the NBC sitcom.

Because "Friends" was an "adult-oriented comedy show featuring sexual themes," Lyle should have expected coarse language from writers producing jokes and scripts for the show, the Supreme Court held in its ruling.

While the Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibits conduct that creates a hostile or abusive workplace for women, it does not outlaw "sexually coarse and vulgar language that merely offends," the high court said.

The case raised questions of how far TV comedy writers can go in pushing the boundaries of taste in their private joke-writing sessions, with supporters of the writers and producers arguing that Lyle's suit infringed on their freedom of speech.

The high court declined to address the free-speech issues raised in the case.

"We have no occasion to determine whether liability for such language might infringe on free speech rights," the court held.

The show's writers claimed Lyle was fired because she was a slow typist who often missed the jokes she was supposed to transcribe.

"Friends," which was NBC's top-rated show for several years, ended its 10-season-run in May 2004.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

"Mrs Noisy" gets year in prison...

Reuters.com

Fri Apr 21, 2006.TOKYO (Reuters) - A woman who made herself a minor celebrity in Japan by constantly screaming insults at passers-by and blaring out music while beating bedding on her balcony, was sentenced to a year in jail Friday for causing physical harm.

Miyoko Kawahara, 59, kept up the assault on her neighbors' eardrums daily over a period of two and a half years, forcing at least one nearby resident to seek treatment for insomnia and headaches.

A court in the western Japanese city of Nara sentenced the woman who became known nationally as "Mrs Noisy" to a year in prison, saying she had shown no repentance for her actions, domestic media said.

Kawahara is likely to be released in about three months, after consideration for time already served.

"I am worried about what will happen when she comes back," one neighbor told reporters outside the court.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Retiree flushes fortune down the toilet...

Reuters.com

Thu Apr 20, 2006. BERLIN (Reuters) - A German pensioner flushed bundles of old banknotes worth a small fortune down the toilet because he thought they were now worthless, police in the northern city of Kiel said Thursday.

"He flushed the cash down the loo because he didn't think it was worth anything," said police spokesman Uwe Voigt.

Police said he dumped some 60,000 deutschemarks -- which the euro replaced in 2002 -- into the bowl, unaware they could still be exchanged for about 30,000 euros ($37,000).

Sewage workers recovered about half the sodden currency from the 64-year-old's plumbing. The remaining notes created a bottleneck in local sewers, where most were fished out.

"There may have been more cash that got away," said Voigt.

Police said the man lived in "spartan" circumstances and had dried out the notes and taken them to a bank. It was unclear if he had laundered the money first.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Phony doctor gives free breast exams...

Reuters.com

Thu Apr 20, 2006. MIAMI (Reuters) - A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday.

One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said.

The woman then phoned the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the suspect fled. He was arrested at another woman's apartment in the same Lauderdale Lakes neighborhood on Wednesday, a sheriff's spokesman said.

The white-haired suspect, Philip Winikoff, carried a black bag and claimed to be visiting on behalf of a local hospital.

"He told the woman that he was in the neighborhood offering free breast exams," sheriff's spokesman Hugh Graf said in a statement.

At least two women, both in their 30s, let him into their homes and he fondled and sexually assaulted them, the investigators said.

Winikoff was not a doctor, Graf said. He worked as a shuttle driver for an auto dealership.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Global sex survey: guess who's satisfied

Reuters.com By Andrew Stern

Wed Apr 19, 2006. CHICAGO (Reuters) - Around the world, middle-aged and elderly men tend to be more satisfied with their sex lives than women in the same age group, a survey released on Wednesday said.

Substantial majorities of people who are married or who have a partner remain sexually active throughout the second half of their lives, according to a survey of 27,500 people aged 40 to 80 in 29 countries.

"There was very little effect of age on sexual well-being," though other factors such as health problems or depression had a substantial impact, said lead researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago in a telephone interview.
The survey published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looked at how they viewed their sex lives, their health, and their happiness.

It found that a greater proportion of people in Europe, North America, and Australia, where men and women have more or less equal relations, enjoyed sex physically and emotionally, Laumann said.

A smaller percentage of people reported satisfying sex lives in male-dominated cultures in poorer countries, the research showed.

But the gender gap persisted around the world.

"There's a systematic disparity between men and women, where men are on the average substantially -- or about 10 points -- higher in their levels of satisfaction as women in that country," he said.

Most of those surveyed at random were married, though there was an obvious bias toward participants who were willing to talk about sex, and toward urban populations in less-developed nations.

"Pleasure is not part of the story" in sexually conservative cultures in the Far East -- China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, Laumann said. "Procreation is the rationale for sex. Many women ... characterize sex as dirty, as a duty, something they endure" -- and often stop having it after age 50.

But roughly two-thirds of adults in Western nations reported their sex lives were very to extremely satisfying -- though some countries appeared happier than others.

Roughly four out of five middle-aged to older Austrians, for instance, rated their sex lives highly, while considerably fewer adults in France and Sweden shared that sentiment.

In the United States, about three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women reported they were very satisfied with the physical and emotional aspects of their sex lives.

In Japan, by contrast, just 18 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women answered positively about their sex lives. And in Taiwan, only 7 percent of the women said sex was very important in their lives.

Satisfying sex is not the same as a satisfying sexual relationship, Laumann said the survey showed.

"People who are dating have higher levels of sexual satisfaction than (married) couples ... but when they think the relationship is temporary, they're not going to feel as positive about sex," he said.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Fotocamera zonder toeters en bellen...

Eindhovens Dagblad Door MIEL TIMMERS
EINDHOVEN – Woensdag 19 April 2006. Fabrikanten van elektronica nemen de mens niet serieus. Dat stelt TU/e-onderzoeker Joep Frens van de faculteit Industrial Design.

<--- TU/e-onderzoeker Joep Frens met zijn digitale camera die heel eenvoudig is te bedienen. Foto Ton van de Meulenhof

De 31-jarige Rotterdammer promoveert vanmiddag op een digitale fotocamera die heel eenvoudig te bedienen is. „Door te priegelen op kleine toetsen voel ik me ernstig tekort gedaan. Van die kleine vingerbewegingen krijgen we enge ziekten, zoals rsi.“.

Frens ontwierp een digitale fotocamera waarbij de interactie tussen mens en apparaat ’natuurlijker’ verloopt. Elke functie heeft een andere bedieningswijze en in één keer is zichtbaar in welke toestand de camera zich bevindt.

De klep op de lens fungeert als aan/uit-knop. Door een druk met de duim op de afdrukknop maak je een foto. Op dat moment schiet de display van de lens met daarop de geschoten plaat. Door het scherm naar de geheugenkaart van het toestel te schuiven, sla je een foto op.

Het ideaalbeeld van Frens zijn apparaten waarbij vorm, gebruik en functie met elkaar zijn verenigd. Bijvoorbeeld een plastic bekertje. Zelfs een holbewoner ziet meteen dat je hieruit kunt drinken. Of een hamer, mes of potlood. Maar hoe complexer een gebruiksvoorwerp hoe meer vorm, gebruik en functie uit elkaar komen te liggen, constateert Frens.

Frens spreekt van esthetische interactie tussen mens en apparaat. „Door specifieke functies te gebruiken, weet je expliciet welk product je bedient. Daarbij raakt de gebruiker meer betrokken bij het apparaat.“

Met navigatieknoppen en een menu is de meeste elektronische apparatuur van nu gestandaardiseerd. Frens: „Uit gebruiksgemak, zal de industrie zeggen. Onzin. Hetzelfde systeem toepassen in verschillende apparaten is vooral makkelijk en goedkoop voor fabrikanten zelf.“

De bedrijven bij wie Frens zijn vinding heeft gepresenteerd, hebben zich volgens de jonge onderzoeker enthousiast getoond. De promovendus voorziet niet alleen daarom volop kansen voor zijn ontwerp. „Deze techniek werkt even effectief en efficiënt als de conventionele.“

Bescheiden benadrukt Frens dat zijn camera nog maar slechts een prototype is. „Ontwerpers moet de vrijheid worden gegund om functie, vorm en bedieningswijze optimaal te integreren.“

Chernobyl death toll underestimated says Greenpeace...

Health News Reuters.com

Tue Apr 18, 2006. LONDON (Reuters) - The death toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago could be far higher than official estimates, with up to 93,000 extra cancer deaths worldwide, environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday.

Based on research by the Balarus National Academy of Sciences, the report said that of the two billion people globally who got touched by the Chernobyl fallout, 270,000 will develop cancers as a result, of which 93,000 will prove fatal.

The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) estimates that 4,000 people died as a result of the explosion in reactor number four at the power plant in the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.

The explosion sent a plume of radioactive dust across northern and western Europe and as far as the eastern United States.

"It is appalling that the IAEA is whitewashing the impacts of the most serious nuclear accident in human history," said Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaigner Ivan Blokov.

The Greenpeace report further extrapolates that in total some 200,000 people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus could have already died as a result of medical conditions -- such as cardiovascular diseases -- attributable to the disaster.

"Our problem is that there is no accepted methodology to calculate the numbers of people who might have died from such diseases," Greenpeace campaigner Jan van de Putte told Reuters.

"The only methodology that is accepted is for calculating fatal cancers," he said.

The report said the incidence of cancer in Belarus jumped 40 percent between 1990 and 2000, with children not even born at the time now showing a massive 88.5-fold increase in thyroid cancers.

Leukemia is also reported to be on the increase, as are cases of intestinal, rectal, breast, bladder, kidney and lung cancers.

Dislocation due to relocation of hundreds of thousands of people as a result of the explosion has put further strains on the population, the report said.

"The Chernobyl accident disrupted whole societies in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia," Greenpeace concluded.

"A complex interaction between factors such as poor health, increased costs of health systems, relocation of people, loss of agricultural territories and contamination of foodstuffs, economic crisis, the costs of remediation to the states, political problems, a weakened workforce ... creates a general crisis."

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Sex expert says German cannibal had no urge to kill...

Reuters.com By John O'Donnell

Tue Apr 18, 2006. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A sex expert at the retrial of a German cannibal jailed for killing a man and feeding on his flesh said Tuesday the defendant had not been motivated by a desire to kill but by his victim's wish to be eaten.

Armin Meiwes, who was jailed two years ago for killing a computer engineer who had begged to be eaten, is standing trial for the second time after Germany's top criminal court ruled that his eight-year sentence for manslaughter was too lenient.

Prosecutors, hoping to secure a murder conviction, need to show that Meiwes killed his victim to fulfill his own sexual desire or that he planned to distribute for profit part of the videotape he made of the crime.

Meiwes's defense hinges on his victim's request to be eaten and that he was simply fulfilling this desire, a view backed up by a sex psychologist who addressed the court in Frankfurt.

"He (Meiwes) was convinced that he wanted it and that he would live on within him," Klaus Beier told the court. "His motivation was not to kill."

Beier described Meiwes as an affable, self-confident and positive man, who apart from his crime would have done little to attract attention.

He told the crowded court how Meiwes had searched the Internet for a suitable partner, trawling through advertisements including one from a 26-year-old who was looking for "a likeable, older gentleman to read me my death sentence."

His search had been fruitless, however, until he met Bernd-Juergen Brandes, who had advertised for someone to "obliterate his life and leave no trace."

VIDEOTAPED KILLING
Of the handful of men he met, Meiwes had said, only Brandes had been a truly willing victim. "He never had to doubt Brandes's willingness," Beier told the court Tuesday.

Beier said that Meiwes's fantasy had its roots in his father's departure from the family home and a domineering and embittered mother. His desire to eat someone stemmed from his wish to find a partner who would not abandon him.

At an earlier hearing in January, Meiwes told judges how he had severed Brandes's penis and that both had tried to eat it, without success, although Meiwes later ate flesh from the body.
After heavy bleeding, Brandes finally fell unconscious. Believing his victim to be dead Meiwes laid his victim out on a bench and plunged a knife into his neck.

He said that only when he later saw his videotape of killing did he realize that Brandes had still been faintly breathing.

Germany's top criminal court said the first trial court had ignored the fact that Meiwes had filmed the slaying for later sexual gratification.

Meiwes's lawyers, however, have said that he had released four potential victims who had changed their minds at the last minute and initially driven Brandes homeward after he appeared to lose his nerve.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

FUTURE SEX: GIZMOS, ROBOTS...

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THAT'S A PRETTY BIG CURSE...

Reuters.com

Mon Apr 17, 2006. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police are looking for two mystics who persuaded a student to part with more than $160,000 in exchange for lifting a curse, RIA news agency reported Sunday.

"Two unknown women, on the pretext of lifting a curse, stole $150,000 and some jewelry by means of deception. The total amount stolen is estimated at 4.48 million roubles ($161,800)," the agency quoted a police source as saying.

The victim is a female student at Moscow's elite State Institute for International Affairs, RIA said. Many Russians are highly superstitious. They spend huge sums each year on faith healers and alternative medicine.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Tom Cruise bereidt zich voor op baby

15 April, 2006. (Novum/AP) - Tom Cruise neemt de aankomende geboorte van zijn kind heel serieus. De acteur houdt familiebijeenkomsten waarin hij en zijn kinderen zich voorbereiden op de komst van de baby. Dat vertelt hij in het meinummer van het Amerikaanse tijdschrift GQ.

"Het is een leuke manier van leren geworden", zegt Cruise. "We proberen te begrijpen hoe we moeten omgaan met een zwangere vrouw, wat er na de geboorte gebeurt en hoe we voor de baby moeten zorgen."

Zijn kinderen uit zijn eerdere huwelijk met Nicole Kidman gaan volgens de 43-jarige acteur ook meehelpen bij de verzorging van de baby. De 11-jarige Connor en 13-jarige Isabella zullen 'verschillende verantwoordelijkheden en taken' hebben.

Cruise en zijn verloofde Katie Holmes hebben nog niet besloten of de bevalling thuis of in het ziekenhuis zal plaatsvinden. "Waarschijnlijk thuis, maar we denken er nog steeds over na", vertelt Cruise.

Holmes wil in stilte bevallen van hun eerste kind, een regel die de scientology-kerk voorschrijft. Dat houdt in dat de moeder en alle omstanders tijdens de bevalling zo min mogelijk geluid maken. Dit wordt gezien als een teken van 'respect naar de moeder'.

Holmes en Cruise zijn sinds juni verloofd. In oktober maakten ze bekend een kind te verwachten.

Every 10-year-old kid knows that...

Reuters.com

Thu Apr 13, 2006. JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - It's a "factual reality" that beans make you break wind, says South Africa's advertising watchdog.

A TV advert for sweet onions showed a rugby player eating beans that made him smell "stinky." The advert claims that "with sweet onions there are no tears, no burn and definitely no stink."

The country's Dry Bean Producers Organization complained about the advert on the basis that the "stinky" charge was untrue but the Advertising Standards Authority threw out the charge and said it was widely known that beans produce gas.

"It plays on an objectively determinable factual reality which cannot be denied..." the ASA said on its Web site.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Jakarta police want Playboy to put off next issue...

Reuters.com By Telly Nathalia

Thu Apr 13, 2006. JAKARTA (Reuters) - Jakarta's police chief said Thursday that the Indonesia publishers of Playboy magazine should put off their next issue after attacks on their offices.

About 300 hardline Islamists vandalized the building housing Playboy's offices Wednesday in a protest against its publication in the world's most-populous Muslim nation.

The protesters threw rocks at the front lobby, breaking windows of the building in the south of Jakarta several days after the magazine hit Indonesian news-stands for the first time.

Police made some efforts to stop the attackers but did not arrest anyone.

"It would be better if there were a deal to postpone the second edition," Jakarta police chief Firman Gani told reporters.

He said he planned to ask the publishers to meet with police to discuss the matter, but would appeal to higher authorities for support of a postponement if Playboy did not voluntarily comply.

The postponement would allow police time to investigate whether Playboy's first issue had violated any laws, Gani said.

Protesters showed up at the building Thursday as well, but in smaller numbers and without any incidents of violence. They included women and children, while Wednesday's violent demonstrators were exclusively male.

A building manager told reporters that Playboy had actually already vacated its offices on the premises, moving out overnight, and showed journalists the emptied space.

Despite widespread controversy, most observers say Indonesia Playboy's first issue, which bared little more flesh than newspaper lingerie ads, went no further -- or if anything was tamer -- than foreign and domestic competitors already commonly on sale in Indonesia.

Asked why those magazines were not being asked to pull their issues, Gani said that steps would be taken if they also "caused public restlessness."

However, a speaker at Thursday's anti-Playboy demonstration said protesters would act themselves to "sweep" other magazines they consider pornographic off the shelves.

Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), the hardline group that organized the earlier demonstration that turned violent, are known for taking the law into their own hands, for example by attacking massage parlors, and bars selling alcohol during the Muslim fasting period.

In February, they beat on the U.S. embassy gate in Jakarta with sticks and pelted the embassy complex with tomatoes, eggs and stones, breaking windows as outnumbered police looked on.

Some groups have criticized police in the past for selective law enforcement that effectively encourages militant violence, but Gani said police have arrested FPI members on various occasions and were protecting Playboy staff members.

About 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslims. Most are moderates, but militant groups have been increasingly vocal in recent years.

Several deadly bombing attacks in Indonesia have been blamed on the al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asia militant network Jemaah Islamiah, including blasts in Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people.

Founded in 1953, U.S.-based Playboy has about 20 editions around the world that cater to local tastes.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Girl's heart restarted after donor organ removed...

Health News--Reuters.com By Michael Holden

Thu Apr 13, 2006. LONDON (Reuters) - A British girl is thought to have become the first heart transplant patient in the UK and possibly the world to have had her donor organ removed and her own heart re-started, a London hospital said on Thursday.

Hannah Clark from south Wales had a heterotopic transplant operation -- known as a "piggyback" because the donor heart is placed next to the original organ -- 10 years ago.

However, complications arose after her body recently started reacting badly to the drugs she had to take to stop her body rejecting the new heart and surgeons took the decision to remove the donor organ.

"We discovered that actually her old heart was now working quite well," said a spokesman from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

"So we removed the transplant heart, we were able to take her off the anti-rejection drugs and reconnected her old heart back up again and it worked. She's doing very well."

He added: "We would be surprised if anybody came up with another case. Maybe it's a world first."

Sir Magdi Yacoub, the Egyptian-born surgeon who performed Clark's original transplant, advised surgeons during the February 20 operation. He said he was delighted that the girl's heart had recovered so well.

"Her (original) heart recovered almost completely," he told BBC Radio. "It is now a normal heart. This is a very happy ending."

Medical experts said the operation was an important development in treating people suffering from cardiomyopathy, whereby the heart becomes inflamed and functions poorly.

"Surgeons like Magdi Yacoub have thought for some time that if a heart is failing because of acute inflammation, it might be able to recover if rested," said Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation.

"This seems to be exactly what has happened in this case. The piggyback heart allowed the patient's own heart to take a rest."

He said the modern approach to Clark's problem would be to install a temporary mechanical device which could be removed after a few months, but that such a method had not been available 10 years ago.

"This is a great example of how a pioneering and novel approach to a medical problem can lead to surprising results that tell us a lot about how some heart diseases progress," he said.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Here come the rat-tailed maggot?

Reuters.com

Wed Apr 12, 2006. 09:47 AM ET CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Rat-tailed maggots, every bit as ugly as they sound, have been popping out of basins, toilets and taps across Cape Town, sparking a citywide panic that health officials tried Wednesday to calm.

Ivan Toms, director of health for the South African tourist mecca, said the risk the water supply was infested was slim.

"The water is chlorinated and filtered and comes from dams in the mountains where it is extremely unlikely that this maggot would be found," he said in a statement.

The body of the aquatic brownish larva can grow up to 2.5 cm (an inch) long, with a rat-like tail that can be twice that length and in fact serves as a breathing tube.

It later metamorphosises into the brightly colored drone fly, which looks like a honey bee and feeds on pollen.

The maggots are usually found in stagnant water and the drone fly -- possibly on the increase in the city -- may have laid its eggs inside hand-basin pipes, Toms said.

If swallowed, the cylindrical, crush-resistant grub-like body was unlikely to cause major health problems, he said.

"Since the rat tailed maggot is quite large and clearly visible to the naked eye, it is highly unlikely that it would be ingested in the first place," he added.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Eight brides for eight sailors...

Reuters.com By Jane Sutton.

Wed Apr 12, 2006. MIAMI (Reuters) - Eight U.S. sailors at a Florida naval station fraudulently married Polish and Romanian women in order to collect extra housing allowances, according to federal charges filed on Tuesday.

The women did not live with their Navy husbands, but used the sham marriages to apply for U.S. citizenship, U.S. Attorney Paul Perez said in a news release.

The sailors, seven of whom are still in the Navy, were all stationed at the Mayport naval station in northeast Florida.

They were charged with conspiracy, marriage fraud and making false claims to the government to collect $35,000 worth of extra housing allowances.

The tax-free allowances for off-base housing are based partly on marital status and number of dependents.

"They only married them so they could collect that money," said Steve Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The women were also charged with marriage fraud and authorities were investigating whether they violated immigration laws, he said.

A federal probe began in September when a sailor told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that another sailor offered him the extra housing allowance in exchange for marrying a Polish woman. He said the sailor who acted as matchmaker collected $6,000 from the bride.

The sailors were assigned to the USS John F. Kennedy, an aircraft carrier, and the USS Simpson, a frigate. Five assigned to the Kennedy were in custody on Tuesday and arrest warrants were issued for the others. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison on each count.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Employer's joke dashes maid's Playboy hopes...

Reuters.com

Wed Apr 12, 2006. KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - An Indonesian maid posed in her underwear for pictures her female employer promised would appear in the Indonesian version of Playboy, but complained after receiving no payment, a Malaysian social group said Wednesday.

Playboy magazine caused a stir at its launch in Indonesia last week, despite having less skin on display than U.S. issues of 50 years ago.
Although banned in Malaysia, it became big news because the center spread featured a top Malaysian model named Amber Chia.

In exchange for a promise of 1,000 ringgit ($272) and the use of her connections with the magazine to get the pictures printed, the woman took pictures of her 25-year-old maid in seductive postures while her family was away, the Star newspaper said.

"It was a joke by the employer, but the maid took it seriously," said M. Ganesha, head of a complaints bureau run by the Malaysian Indian Youth Council, to which the maid turned for help in getting payment.

He told Reuters he would settle the dispute within two days and get the photographs returned, but declined to elaborate.

"In Malaysia posing for nude photographs or taking nude photographs is illegal, so if the maid complains to the police, both of them will face charges," said L. Krishnan, an official in southwestern Negeri Sembilan state, where the incident occurred.

Indonesians account for 96 percent of the 320,000 licensed foreign housemaids in Malaysia.

($1=3.6736 ringgit)

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Microsoft warns of three "critical" security flaws...

Reuters.com

Tue Apr 11, 2006. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.(MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday warned of three "critical" security flaws in its Windows operating system that could allow attackers to take control of a computer.

Microsoft, the world's top software company whose Windows operating system runs on 90 percent of the world's computers, issued patches to fix the problems as part of its monthly security bulletin.

One of the critical vulnerabilities appears in some versions of Internet Explorer that could make it possible for an attacker to use the Web browser to take total control of a PC.

The other two "critical" vulnerabilities were in the Windows operating system.

The company defines a flaw as "critical" when the vulnerability could allow a damaging Internet worm to replicate without the user doing anything to the machine.

The company also issued another security warning it rated at its second-highest level of "important" for Microsoft Windows as well as one it gave a severity rating of "moderate."

A vulnerability defined as "important" is one where an outsider could break into a machine and gain access to confidential data but not replicate itself to other computers, Microsoft said.

Microsoft has been working for more than three years to improve the security and reliability of its software as more and more malicious software targets weaknesses in Windows and other Microsoft software.

The latest patches can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/security.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

SHOP WORKER FINDS COCAINE INSTEAD OF BANANAS...

Reuters.com

Tue Apr 11, 2006. MUNICH (Reuters) - A supermarket worker's discovery of 20 kilograms (44 lb) of cocaine hidden in a case of fruit had German police going bananas.

A spokesman for Bavarian state police said officers dug through 4,600 cartons of bananas after a man working at a Munich grocery store found the drugs in a shipment of fruit from Colombia.

"A worker unloading a case saw that there weren't any bananas under the first layer," a spokesman for Bavarian state police said Monday. In their place, he said was 20 kilograms of drugs.

Around 30 police officers were set to search through the remainder of the shipment but found no more suspicious packages.

The bananas originally came from Colombia and were shipped through the Belgian port of Antwerp before being trucked into Germany. The investigation is under way.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

"MR SWITZERLAND" TO ENTICE WOMEN DURING WORLD CUP SOCCER...

Reuters.com

Tue Apr 11, 2006.. GENEVA (Reuters) - For women bored at the thought of this summer's World Cup soccer finals in Germany, neighbor Switzerland is offering an alternative packed with beefcake.

A cow-milking 'Mr. Switzerland' and other handsome men are featured in a new advertising campaign seeking to entice soccer widows to leave their sports-obsessed men behind.

"Dear girls," starts the television spot, to run in France, Germany and Switzerland beginning in May.

"Why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football, and more time on you?," the advertisement, says over images of a strapping farmhand, a sexy train conductor, a fit mountain climber, a dapper ferryman and a brawny lumberjack.

It ends with Renzo Blumenthal, Mr. Switzerland 2005, milking and then leaning up against a cow.

The clip -- also on www.myswitzerland.com -- is meant to lure women to Switzerland during the tournament that starts on June 9, Swiss Tourism spokeswoman Veronique Kanel said.

"It was kind of a funny way to attract people, and of course mostly women, who are not interested in football to come to Switzerland while the men are watching the World Cup on television," she said in a telephone interview.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

SMOKING INCREASES RISK OF CERVICAL CANCER...

Health-Reuters.com

Fri Apr 7, 2006. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cigarette smoking increases a woman's risk of developing cancer of the cervix, and the risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and with the younger the age at which smoking began, according to a new report.

Researchers with the International Collaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer evaluated data from 23 studies on the effects of smoking on cervical cancer risk, involving 23,017 women who were initially free of cervical cancer.

Dr. Amy Berrington de Gonzales, of Cancer Research UK in Oxford, and colleagues report in the International Journal of Cancer that current smokers have a 60 percent greater risk of cervical cancer than women who never smoked.

The analysis found no association between smoking duration and risk of cervical cancer, but did show a correlation with age of starting smoking.

"It is not clear why this association was present," Berrington said in an interview with Reuters Health. "One possible explanation is that duration of smoking was reported less accurately than age at starting smoking, and age at starting smoking is acting as a surrogate for duration of smoking, i.e. earlier age at starting smoking is a marker of longer duration."

Eight of the 23 studies included data on cervical infection with human papilloma virus or HPV, which has been linked to most cases of cervical cancer. In these studies, women who tested positive for HPV had a risk of cervical cancer almost two-fold higher than HPV-negative women.

These results confirm that smoking is a risk factor for cervical cancer, Berrington noted, "as the association was present also in women who were HPV-positive, strongly suggesting that the association is not just due to confounding between sexual behavior and smoking."

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, March 15, 2006.

BEST, WORST PLACES TO LIVE?

Reuters.com

Mon Apr 10, 2006. LONDON (Reuters) - Zurich is the city with the highest quality of life in 2006, while Baghdad, for the third year running, has the lowest, a survey published Monday shows.

Geneva and Vancouver made the top three in the list compiled by human resource company Mercer while Bangui in the Central African Republic and Brazzaville, the capital of Congo Republic, joined Baghdad in the bottom three.

The top three cities in the list are all unchanged from last year.

Chicago is one of the biggest climbers in the rankings since 2005, rising to 41st from 52nd due to reduced crime rates, while Cairo is one of the biggest fallers, sliding nine places to 131st out of 215 cities.

"(This was) due to political turmoil and terrorist attacks in the city and surrounding area," Mercer said.

Mercer bases its annual survey on 39 quality-of-life factors, from political stability to schools, bars, restaurants and the environment.

The full list is available at www.imercer.com/qol.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

BARE BUTTOCKS CAUSE STIR...

Reuters.com

Mon Apr 10, 2006. NICOSIA (Reuters) - Bare buttocks plastered on billboards in Nicosia are the talk of the town in the Cypriot capital, but officials see no need to cover them up. Complaints have poured in to local councils over the advert for a clothes chain showing a close-up of a woman's bottom, bare except for a tan-colored thong.

One member of parliament, Maria Kyriakou, from the opposition Democratic Rally party, told Reuters it could even be a "potential distraction for drivers."

But local authorities say they have no say on the content of adverts, police say they've seen worse, and the media watchdog says billboards are beyond its standard remit.

"Regardless of that, we have to look at the matter because a complaint was filed. If it was clearly pornographic we could possibly intervene, but sometimes you see even more explicit pictures in family magazines," said Petros Petrides, secretary of the Media Complaints Commission.

That view was echoed by a police spokesman, who said: "It's not considered obscene. Magazines show worse things."

The poster takes its place among a sea of posters advertising candidates for parliamentary elections on May 21.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Dutch broadens Australia with broadband experiences...

PC World By Howard Dahdah.

10/04/2006 Being geographically compact, having a government that fosters a competitive Telco environment and home to a major transcontinental Internet exchange is what makes the Netherlands the number one broadband nation in Europe, members of an official Dutch delegation told Australian counterparts last week.

The Dutch have broadband Internet penetration somewhere between 55%-60%, making it the number one European country with broadband. On the world stage, the Netherlands only lags behind South Korea. Australia in comparison has roughly 20% or 3 million of its population with broadband.

Members of the Dutch government, including its Prime Minister Dr Jan Peter Balkenende, and Telco industry along with Australia's Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Helen Coonan gathered for the Netherlands-Australian Broadband Roundtable.

The event was part of the celebrations around the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Dutch East-India Company ship, Duyfken, near the Australian town of Weipa.

Clemence Ross van Dorp, the Acting Minister for Foreign Trade, said the national strategy for broadband -- the Dutch don't count under 1MBs as broadband, she said - does not stop at fast speeds. "You must be able to do things with it. And we would like to explore that market."

"Broadband is important for economic growth and service oriented economy," said Guus Broesterhuizen, the Netherlands' deputy director, General Energy and Telecom.

The Dutch have got to this high level of broadband due to the country abiding by an EU regulation that forced markets to be open. As a result of increased companies, 95% of the population now have access to high-speed cable.

"Australia has challenges that are difficult to overcome," Broesterhuizen said. The Netherlands' geography -- when compared with Australia -- has no rural areas, which works in their favour.

Their geography also works in its favour in another aspect. The Transatlantic cable which connects mainland Europe and North America pops up in Amsterdam. This enables many of the ICT companies and providers to tap into this fast connection and deliver services to residents.

Amsterdam also featured in the roundtable talks. They are home to a new Fibre, The Home project called Citynet. The city has invested in a public-private partnership to deliver end users with symmetric speeds of 100MBps. Presently 40,000 homes are in the process of being connected with 400,000 when the project is completed.

The goal is to bring next generation services to peoples living rooms, said Hans Tijl, a speaker for the Development Corporation of the City of Amsterdam.

Tijl said the network was designed to be open, "everyone has access to it."

Having the symmetric pipes was the key as he suspected all the new services would utilise triple play -- video, images and audio. "It is very important to upload at speed."

Although it won't be completed for another five years, the project will allow for innovative service providers to ply their trade and deliver next generation services such as education or healthcare, he said.

In the meantime, the healthcare industry is already utilising broadband.

Matthijs Almekinders, CEO of Sensire, talked about how his company, a non-profit home healthcare, is utilising broadband to allow elderly patients to contact nurses via their television sets. All the elderly patients need is a broadband connection, TV and set top box. By communicating over the Internet, the patients can get nursing advice without needing a nurse to be present.

Almekinders said the service, called Telesens, stimulates self-care and increases the self-confidence of the patients. The project which is already tolled out to over 200 aged persons is important for the economy.

"Most Western societies face an ageing population and this will lead to an increase in demand for healthcare in the coming decades. We already face a shortage of care givers and the gap is growing between required care, and available care," he said.

Because Telesens makes use of existing technology via the TV set, Almekinders said the patients did not suffer from any technophobia.

IT Minister Helen Coonan detailed the Australian government initiatives to boost broadband, particularly its schemes to boost regional broadband.

She spoke of how the government had set up Broadband Connect, a new scheme to provide registered Internet service providers with incentive payments to supply competitively priced higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.

"We need to think big about what we can do to provide something innovative and different in rural Australia," she said.

She also acknowledged the Austar and Soul alliance, announced a fortnight ago, will deliver WiMax to 25 regional Australian locations by the end of 2007.

On the competition front, she said competitive pressures deliver best outcomes.

Dutch born Australian Telco analyst, and organiser of the event, Paul Budde, pushed this further, "We need a stronger regulatory regime as there is no competition here," he said.

AMERICA'S EIGHT BODIES FOUND AT CANADA FARM...

BBC NEWS

Sunday, 9 April 2006. Police were alerted to the bodies in remote woodland. The bodies of eight men have been found in several vehicles in woodland on a farm in Canada, police say.

The grim discovery was made by a farmer on his land in Elgin County, Ontario.

Police have launched a murder hunt and say it is possible more bodies will be found. They say all the men were white but have given few other details.

"We are not in a position to release any information about the persons, the motive or the cause of death," said Ontario Police Sergeant Dave Rektor.

The farm is near the village of Shedden, about 20km (12 miles) from the city of St Thomas, south-west of Toronto.

"It's a pretty isolated area. It doesn't get much traffic, especially after dark," Constable Doug Graham told Reuters news agency.

Police say the bodies were found in three cars and a tow truck.

Sgt Rektor refused to confirm media speculation that all eight men had gunshot wounds.

Officers say the murder probe is at a very early stage, but say the farmer who reported the discovery of the bodies is not considered a suspect.