U.N. makes shocking estimate of deaths in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) ? New United Nations figures suggest at least 60,000 people have died in Syria's 22-month conflict.

The toll is far higher than the figure of 45,000 given by activists opposed to the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The U.N.'s human rights office in Geneva says experts compared death reports from seven different sources including the government and came up with a list of 59,648 individuals killed between the start of the uprising on March 15, 2011, and Nov. 30, 2012.

In each case, the victim's first and last name, the date and the location of their death were known.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement Wednesday that because the fighting continues "we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-analysis-suggests-60-000-plus-killed-syria-144431921.html

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Space may accelerate Alzheimer's in astronauts

Radiation in space might harm the brains of astronauts in deep space by accelerating the development of Alzheimer's disease, a new study on mice suggests.

The research reveals another risk that manned deep-space missions to places such as Mars or the asteroids could pose, scientists added.

"This study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease," study author Kerry O'Banion, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a statement.

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    4. Space may accelerate Alzheimer's in astronauts

Space is filled with radiation that can harm people. While Earth's magnetic field generally protects the planet, once astronauts venture beyond low-Earth orbit, they are constantly bombarded by a shower of dangerous particles known as cosmic rays. The longer an astronaut is in deep space, the greater the risk, which is especially of concern given NASA plans for manned missions to an asteroid in 2025 and to Mars by about 2035 ? the round trip to the Red Planet alone could take at least two years.

For more than 25 years, NASA has funded studies to see what the potential dangers of space travel might be. For instance, past research analyzed the potential impact of cosmic rays on the risk for cancer and potential problems with the cardiovascular or musculoskeletal systems.

Now scientists have for the first time examined the effects space radiation might have on neurodegeneration ? in particular, the biological processes in the brain linked with the development of Alzheimer's disease, which typically involves progressive mental decline over several years. They found "galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts," O'Banion said. [ Inside the Brain: Photo Journey Through Time ]

Perils of space radiation
O'Banion and his colleaguesinvestigated a specific kind of space radiation known as high-mass, high-charged (or HZE) particles. These particles zip through space at very high speeds, likely the result of exploding stars and other deep-space catastrophes from elsewhere in the galaxy. Unlike cosmic rays consisting just of hydrogen nuclei, which solar flares generate, the mass and speed of HZE particles allow them to punch through solid objects such as a spacecraft, or any astronauts inside.

"Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop, it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them," O'Banion said. "One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a 6-foot block of lead or concrete."

The scientists focused on the impact of iron HZE particles generated by particle accelerators at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Mice were dosed throughout their body with levels of radiation comparable to what astronauts might receive during a mission to Mars.

The mental function of the mice was tested with a series of experiments ? for instance, they had to recognize places linked with unpleasant electric shocks to their feet ? and rodents dosed with radiation were far more likely to fail at these tasks. The brains of the mice also showed signs of inflamed blood vessels, and possessed abnormally high levels of beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates as one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease.

"These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease," O'Banion said. "This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions."

Space radiation vs. astronaut
It remains uncertain why these HZE particles might have this effect on the brain.

"This is, of course, the $10 million question," O'Banion told SPACE.com. The fact the researchers saw a blood vessel response, but not clear evidence of brain inflammation "suggests the possibility that the radiation effects are actually in the body of the mice, and that changes there might be affecting amyloid deposition."

O'Banion did caution "we gave the radiation all at once ? the mice experienced over a few minutes what astronauts will experience over three years. We have no idea whether the biological effects of HZE particles will be the same when given at low dose rates. Many would argue that ours is a worse-case scenario, and that the changes are likely to be entirely different since the body might adapt to small chronic dosing."

In the future, O'Banion and his colleagues will examine the effects the brain experiences from exposure to radiation elsewhere in the body. They also plan to see whether space radiation might influence development of Parkinson's disease.

"I would add that there are at least three other laboratories pursuing similar studies," O'Banion said. "The nice thing about this is that we will soon know if our results hold up in other labs."

The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 31 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50334586/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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LINDSAY LOHAN MAKES 2013 PREDICTIONS | Weekly World News

Lindsay Lohan is starting her new career as a psychic and has these predictions for 2013!

Lindsay Lohan is starting her new career as a psychic and has these predictions for 2013!

WWN has learned that Lindsay Lohan spent much of 2012 reading the works of Edgar Cayce and preparing her ?mind and soul? to be a psychic. ?On January 1, 2013 she offered her first predictions based after meeting with famous?psychic Vicki Monroe and after many hours ?in deep contact with the universe.?

lohan_predictionsF

So Lindsay offers these predictions for 2013:

Celebrities:

? Christina Aguilera will go on a retreat to New Mexico and lose a lot of weight. ??She?ll get back down t0 110 pounds,? Lohan told WWN

? Kanye West and Kim Kardashian will get married, have their baby, and be divorced by December. ??It?ll be another big year for the Kardashians and they want to keep up the drama so that their ratings remain high.?

? Justin Bieber. ?He will fade away ? slowly. ?He will also be sued by a number of people including his family. ?And there will be a number of arrests. ??He will be a lot like I was in 2012.?

Political affairs:

? ? President Obama will successfully turn many Republicans in Congress into Democrats. ??Many current Republican congressmen ? especially from the South ? will convert to Democrats.

? President Obama will announce that he will be seeking a third term as President.

? Congress will ban all guns, throw out the 2nd Amendment.

? John Boehner will announce that he has skin cancer.

? Harry Reid will announced that he is gay.

? Nancy Pelosi?s gets a face lift that leaves her badly scarred.

? Paul Ryan loses all his hair, but ?his abs will still be fantastic.?

? Lindsay Lohan will announce her intention to be the next Governor of California.

lohan_predictionsE


Weather

? ?There will be a terrible snowstorm in Miami.

? Global warming will cause a lot of housecats to die in the Northeast.

? There will be earthquake in Bayonne, New Jersey.

? Wildfires will break out in downtown Chicago.

? Temperatures in Nevada will hit 140 this summer.

? Alaska will freeze over.

lohan_predictionsC

Sports

? ?Seattle Seahawks will win Super Bowl.

? Notre Dame will win National Championship and go undefeated again in 2013.

? Chicago Cubs will win World Series.

? New York Knicks will win NBA title.

?

Hollywood

? ?Kelly Clarkson will be happy and have the biggest hit of 2013.

? Justin Bieber will do movies. ?They will all, eventually, flop.

? Tom Cruise will get married and divorced in 2013.

? ?Academy Awards for Bradley Cooper, Sally Field, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman. ??Lindsay Lohan will get a lifetime achievement award,? Lindsay Lohan said.

Exclusive... Lindsay Lohan Showing Off Her Best Fur Coat

In general, Lindsay says to expect 2013 to be a year of transition. ?That is always a good thing when we?re moving in a better direction.? ?Lohan said that her life will be ?a miracle? in 2013. ?That?s good news because in 2012 this is what happened to her.

? a car crash

? 3 fresh criminal charges for lying to cops

? getting her probation in the jewelry heist case revoked

? arrested in NYC for assault

? arrested in NYC for hit and run

? calling cops after epic fight in NYC with Dina

? huge tax problems

? Liz and Dick

?

lohan_predictionsB

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Source: http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/53690/lindsay-lohan-makes-2013-predictions/

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Surprising cave-dwelling plants discovered

One might not expect flowering plants with pinkish petals to be flourishing on the floor of a dark cave, but that's exactly where researchers discovered such a species in southern China.

Botanist Alex Monro, of London's Natural History Museum, said he thought his Chinese colleague must have been mistranslating a word when he first mentioned the cave-dwelling plants. But then Monro saw the flora for himself.

"When we stepped into our first cave, Yangzi cave, I was spellbound. It had an eerie moonscape look to it and all I could see were clumps of plants in the nettle family growing in very dark condition[s]," Monro said in a statement.

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The newly described plant was dubbed Pilea cavernicola. While it doesn't grow in total darkness, it survives with levels of light as low as 0.04 percent of full sunlight in caves in China's Guangxi province, the researchers said.

The team also found two other nettle species in gorges in the region. One plant (Pilea guizhouensis) was discovered in petaloid travertines at Malinghe Gorge. These unusual rock formations are created by limestone deposits from mineral springs that over time form large petals of rock, which, in this case, cling to the vertical walls of the canyon. The other nettle (Pilea shizongensis) has deep pink flowers and grows on the shaded floors of the Feng Huang Gu gorge.

The Pilea genus of nettles is believed to include over 700 species worldwide, up to one-third of which are thought to be awaiting description.

The new species were described online on Dec. 28 in the journal PhytoKeys.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50334613/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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C. African Republic leader faces rebel threat

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) ? After troops under Francois Bozize seized the capital of Central African Republic in 2003 amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, he dissolved the constitution and parliament. Now a decade later it is Bozize who himself could be ousted from power with rebels having seized more than half the country and made their way to the doorstep of the capital in less than a month.

In a bid to avoid being overthrown, he's promising to form a coalition government with rebels and to negotiate without conditions. It's a sign of how serious a threat is now being posed by the rebel groups who call themselves Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language.

But Bozize says there's one point not up for negotiation: him leaving office before his term ends in 2016.

"We can't destroy the country. I don't think that a transition is a good solution for the rebels, for Central African Republic or for the international community," said Cyriaque Gonda, a spokesman for the political coalition behind Bozize.

But mediators for the government and others note the rebels ? an alphabet soup of acronyms in French, UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK ? want Bozize gone. And that's the only issue the disparate group seem unified on. Seleka is a shaky alliance that lumps together former enemies.

In September 2011, fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead in the town of Bria and more than 700 homes destroyed.

"Even if they show unity in the military action, we know that they are politically very disunited, the only thing that holds them together is the opposition to the current president," said Roland Marchal, a Paris-based expert on Central African Republic. "If they take control of the capital I think that divisions would appear quickly."

Gonda, who has negotiated on behalf of the government with the rebels, says some of them couldn't even accept sitting together as recently as 2008.

Meanwhile in some parts of this city of 700,000 life continued as normal, while in others the military buildup was evident.

Trucks full of soldiers bounced on rutted roads dotted with shacks where people can charge mobile phones. Police officers stopped vehicles at intersections. Troops from neighboring nations have arrived including about 120 soldiers from Republic of Congo to help stabilize the area between rebel and the government forces.

In the Bimbo neighborhood, traders went about their business, selling everything from leafy greens to meat at roadside stands.

"We don't support what the rebels are doing," said banana farmer Narcisse Ngo, as a young boy played nearby with a monkey corpse for sale along with other meat. "They should be at the table negotiating without weapons. We are all Central Africans."

Bozize, who seized power while the democratically elected president was traveling outside the country. managed to win elections in 2005 but in the years since he has faced multiple low-level rebellions that have shattered security across the norther part of this large but desperately poor country. He won the 2011 election with more than 64 percent of the vote, though the U.S. says the voting was "widely viewed as severely flawed."

The most prominent among the rebels groups in Seleka is the UFDR, or Union of Democratic Forces for Unity.

Human Rights Watch, which has documented abuses by both government forces and rebel groups operating in the country's north, says the UFDR rebellion "has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped."

The rebels, though, also have included some of Bozize's former fighters who helped bring him to power in 2003 but later accused him of failing to properly pay them, among other grievances, Human Rights Watch says.

___

Associated Press writer Oleg Cetinic in Paris contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/c-african-republic-leader-faces-rebel-threat-090419046.html

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Dems want House vote on Senate-passed 'cliff' deal

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, walks down a staircase on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, to a Democratic caucus meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans began deciding their next move Tuesday after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, walks down a staircase on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, to a Democratic caucus meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans began deciding their next move Tuesday after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

(AP) ? House Democratic leaders are pressing Speaker John Boehner to let the House vote on the Senate-approved bipartisan compromise that would avert much of the impact of the so-called fiscal cliff.

Following a nearly three-hour private meeting Tuesday between Vice President Joe Biden and House Democratic lawmakers, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats expected Boehner to allow the House to vote on the accord.

Boehner has said the House will vote on the Senate measure or vote to amend it. He and House GOP lawmakers were also meeting Tuesday, and some Republicans expressed concerns that the measure needed more spending cuts.

The Senate passed the measure early Tuesday on an 89-8 vote.

The compromise would allow tax increases on the nation's highest earners but prevent tax boosts from everyone else.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-01-Fiscal%20Cliff-Democrats/id-5cef4352a7874967953ef5da5bff5dcd

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar ? for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal ? even though they contain the same amount of calories ? because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues ? it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk ? and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher ? Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ? painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brain-image-study-fructose-may-spur-overeating-210254342.html

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Observatory: Same Grapes Can Vary by Location in Vineyard

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The surfaces of grapes may harbor different species of yeast microbes, which could be related to variances in sun exposure and temperature.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/science/same-grapes-can-vary-by-location-in-vineyard.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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