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Sunday, November 3, 2013

A mimic of 'good cholesterol' could someday treat cardiovascular and other diseases

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

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Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society

A new type of "good cholesterol," made in the lab, could one day deliver drugs to where they are needed in the body to treat disease or be used in medical imaging, according to scientists. Their report on the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) mimic, which is easy to make in large amounts, appears in the journal ACS Nano.

Zahi A. Fayad, Robert Langer, YongTae (Tony) Kim, Francois Fay, Willem Mulder and colleagues explain that HDL is a natural nanoparticle that carries cholesterol throughout the body. Because it acts like a scavenger, collecting cholesterol and taking it to the liver for breakdown, HDL has emerged from being simply a marker for cardiovascular disease the number one killer of men and women in America to being a therapeutic agent. Clinical trials are testing its potential to combat atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaques in blood vessels that can lead to heart attacks or strokes. Scientists are also exploring new ways to use it for drug delivery. But HDL is complex and comes in many varieties. It takes several labor-intensive steps to get a uniform collection of these particles with current methods, which aren't easily scaled up for clinical applications. That's why Fayad and Langer's groups devised a new and improved method for making HDL-like particles.

The scientists showed that microfluidics the same technology that enabled the invention of inkjet printers allowed them to make material called HDL that looks and acts like HDL in a single, rapid step. Not only does this material offer a possible, easy new way to treat cardiovascular disease, but the researchers also attached drug compounds, as well as dyes and nanocrystals used in medical imaging (such as those used for MRIs and CT scans), to the particles.

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The authors acknowledge funding from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the American Heart Association.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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A mimic of 'good cholesterol' could someday treat cardiovascular and other diseases

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

[

| E-mail

]

Share
Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society

A new type of "good cholesterol," made in the lab, could one day deliver drugs to where they are needed in the body to treat disease or be used in medical imaging, according to scientists. Their report on the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) mimic, which is easy to make in large amounts, appears in the journal ACS Nano.

Zahi A. Fayad, Robert Langer, YongTae (Tony) Kim, Francois Fay, Willem Mulder and colleagues explain that HDL is a natural nanoparticle that carries cholesterol throughout the body. Because it acts like a scavenger, collecting cholesterol and taking it to the liver for breakdown, HDL has emerged from being simply a marker for cardiovascular disease the number one killer of men and women in America to being a therapeutic agent. Clinical trials are testing its potential to combat atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaques in blood vessels that can lead to heart attacks or strokes. Scientists are also exploring new ways to use it for drug delivery. But HDL is complex and comes in many varieties. It takes several labor-intensive steps to get a uniform collection of these particles with current methods, which aren't easily scaled up for clinical applications. That's why Fayad and Langer's groups devised a new and improved method for making HDL-like particles.

The scientists showed that microfluidics the same technology that enabled the invention of inkjet printers allowed them to make material called HDL that looks and acts like HDL in a single, rapid step. Not only does this material offer a possible, easy new way to treat cardiovascular disease, but the researchers also attached drug compounds, as well as dyes and nanocrystals used in medical imaging (such as those used for MRIs and CT scans), to the particles.

###
The authors acknowledge funding from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the American Heart Association.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Follow us: Twitter Facebook

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| E-mail

Share

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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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/acs-amo103013.php
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Social Security benefits to go up by 1.5 percent

This undated handout image provided by the Social Security Administration shows a prepaid MasterCard debit card that Social Security and Supplemental Security Income recipients who do not have bank accounts have the option of getting with their benefits instead of a paper check. The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure of inflation that will be released Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Social Security Administration)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security benefits for nearly 58 million people will increase by 1.5 percent next year, the government announced Wednesday.

The increase is among the smallest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. It is small because consumer prices haven't gone up much in the past year.

The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure of inflation that was released Wednesday morning.

The COLA affects benefits for more than one-fifth of the country. In addition to Social Security payments, it affects benefits for millions of disabled veterans, federal retirees and people who get Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor.

The amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes is also going up. Social Security is funded by a 12.4 percent tax on the first $113,700 in wages earned by a worker, with half paid by employers and the other half withheld from workers' pay.

The wage threshold will increase to $117,000 next year, the Social Security Administration said. Wages above the threshold are not subject to Social Security taxes.

Social Security pays retired workers an average of $1,272 a month. A 1.5 percent raise comes to about $19.

"By providing protection against inflation, the COLA helps beneficiaries of all ages maintain their standard of living, keeping many from falling into poverty," said AARP executive vice president Nancy LeaMond. "The COLA announced today is vital to millions, but at an average of just $19 per month, it will quickly be consumed by the rising costs of basic needs like food, utilities and health care."

The COLA announcement had been scheduled for two weeks ago. It was delayed because the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not issue the inflation report for September during the partial government shutdown.

Since 1975, annual Social Security raises have averaged just over 4 percent. Next year will mark only the seventh time the COLA has been less than 2 percent, including three of the past five years. This year's increase was 1.7 percent. There was no COLA in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low.

In some years, part of COLA has been erased by an increase in Medicare Part B premiums, which are deducted automatically from Social Security payments. But Medicare announced Monday that Part B premiums, which cover doctor visits, will stay the same in 2014, at $104.90 a month for most seniors.

By law, the cost-of-living adjustment is based on the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.

The COLA is calculated by comparing consumer prices in July, August and September each year to prices in the same three months from the previous year. If prices go up over the course of the year, benefits go up, starting with payments delivered in January.

Lower prices for gasoline are helping keep inflation low, said Polina Vlasenko, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has dropped over the past year from $3.53 to about $3.28, according to the automotive club AAA.

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Associated Press reporter Christopher S. Rugaber contributed to this report.

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter at http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-30-Social%20Security-COLA/id-6d9f547bde0149ab9916b2c2f13fcd34
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As Olympics Near, Bobsledder Still Fighting For A Spot

With just a hundred days to go before the Winter Olympic Games open in Russia, even many gold medalists are still fighting for a place on Team USA. Justin Olsen, a bobsledder from San Antonio, Texas, helped the U.S. win a historic gold medal four years ago in Vancouver, but he's struggled to overcome injuries in the lead-up to Sochi.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/29/241548524/as-olympics-near-bobsledder-still-fighting-for-a-spot?ft=1&f=3
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Big Bird, Elmo to encourage kids to eat produce

WASHINGTON (AP) — A trip down the grocery store produce aisle could soon feel like a stroll down "Sesame Street."

Michelle Obama announced Wednesday that the nonprofit organization behind the popular children's educational TV program will let the produce industry use Elmo, Big Bird and Sesame Street's other furry characters free of charge to market fruits and veggies to kids.

The goal is to get children who often turn up their noses at the sight of produce to eat more of it.

Under the arrangement, Sesame Workshop is waiving the licensing fee for its Muppet characters for two years.

As soon as next spring, shoppers and children accompanying them can expect to see their favorite Sesame Street characters on stand-alone signs and on stickers and labels on all types of produce regardless of whether it comes in a bag, a carton or just its skin.

An "unprecedented step," Mrs. Obama said of the agreement. "And they're doing this free of charge. Yes!" she said as she pumped her fists in the air before an audience seated in the State Dining Room of the White House.

The first lady cited a study published last fall in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in which Cornell University researchers gave more than 200 boys and girls ages 8 to 11 the choice of eating an apple, a cookie or both. Most kids went for the cookie. Asked to choose again after researchers put Elmo stickers on the apples, nearly double the number of kids chose the fruit, she said.

"Just imagine what will happen when we take our kids to the grocery store, and they see Elmo and Rosita and the other Sesame Street Muppets they love up and down the produce aisle," Mrs. Obama said. "Imagine what it will be like to have our kids begging us to buy them fruits and vegetables instead of cookies, candy and chips."

The agreement between Sesame Workshop and the Produce Marketing Association is the latest step by the private sector to support "Let's Move," the first lady's nearly 4-year-old campaign to reduce childhood obesity rates in the U.S.

It also is the first announcement since a summit on food marketing to children that Mrs. Obama convened at the White House last month, where she urged a broad range of companies to do more, faster, to promote foods with less salt, fat and sugar to youngsters.

Sesame Street characters Elmo and Rosita, who also speaks Spanish, joined her for the announcement.

Afterward, Mrs. Obama joined the Muppets at her garden on the South Lawn for the annual fall harvest. White House staff helped students from elementary schools in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia with the harvest. The group, including the first lady, also prepared — and ate — turkey veggie wraps made using some of the freshly picked cucumbers and tomatoes.

Sam Kass, the "Let's Move" executive director, said it was a big step for Sesame Workshop to waive its licensing fee, which is a major source of income for the nonprofit.

"For them to step in and do this is a really big thing," said Kass, who also is an assistant White House chef.

Sherrie Westin, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Sesame Workshop, said waiving the fee is not normal practice and that it's too early to say how much revenue would be lost. But she said the deal gives the company another way to use the characters to pitch to children and families the healthier-eating messages that are part of its TV show.

"It would be a shame not to use them to that end," she said of the Muppets.

Larry Soler, president and chief executive of the Partnership for a Healthier America, said kids younger than 5 don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, and that it gets worse as children grow up.

He said the agreement hopefully will "drive excitement" and interest in eating fruits and vegetables that might not otherwise exist. The partnership is a nonprofit organization that supports the first lady's campaign.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

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Online:

Sesame Workshop: http://www.sesameworkshop.org

Produce Marketing Association: http://www.pma.com

Let's Move: http://www.letsmove.gov

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/big-bird-elmo-encourage-kids-eat-produce-170929422--politics.html
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Bloomberg Businessweek's Obamacare Cover Is Perfect

In case you haven't noticed, it's been kind of a rough year in Washington. And it's especially rough for one guy in particular. Freshly inaugurated and Instagram-friendly, President Obama promised a new, tech-savvy future for America. The latest cover of Bloomberg Businessweek pretty much sums up how that's working out.

Red ink runs at Sony again, cuts profit forecast

A man walks by a discount electronics shop displaying Panasonic products in Tokyo Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Panasonic said its quarterly profit improved to 63.3 billion yen ($644 million) from a 698.6 billion yen loss the year before. Panasonic, like Sony, has benefited from weaker yen. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A man stands by a huge advertisement board of Panasonic at a train station in Tokyo Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Panasonic said its quarterly profit improved to 63.3 billion yen ($644 million) from a 698.6 billion yen loss the year before. Panasonic, like Sony, has benefited from weaker yen. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

TOKYO (AP) — The "White House Down" flop added to earnings woes at Sony Corp. in the latest quarter, dragging the entertainment and electronics giant to a 19.3 billion yen ($196 million) loss.

The action movie's lackluster box office, especially compared with last year's releases of "21 Jump Street" and "The Amazing Spider Man," contributed to a 17.8 billion yen ($181 million) operating loss for Sony's pictures division, the company said Thursday.

The company slashed its profit forecast for the fiscal year ending in March to 30 billion yen from 50 billion yen, reflecting deep-seated problems in its electronics business, televisions in particular, and the disappointing performance at Sony Pictures.

"White House Down" starred Jamie Foxx as President of the United States and Channing Tatum as a Capitol police officer who ends up as the president's impromptu bodyguard while touring the executive residence with his daughter just as a band of rogue former soldiers and government employees attack. Milder in its violence, it appeared to suffer from comparisons with "Olympus Has Fallen," a slightly earlier release featuring a former North Korean terrorist who takes the president hostage.

Sony's sales for the July-September quarter rose 10.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.78 trillion yen ($18.1 billion), thanks mainly to the favorable impact of the yen's decline against the U.S. dollar. Adjusted for the 20 percent drop in the value of the yen, revenue fell 9 percent.

The company's sales of digital cameras and video cameras fell while its television, music and smartphone businesses improved. Sales of its Xperia Z smartphone helped and are expected to remain strong, the company said.

Although sales of televisions and personal computers improved slightly from earlier in the year, they were lower than the same quarter of 2012.

"The electronics business is declining beyond expectations" due to shrinking sales of televisions and other audio-visual equipment, along with slowing growth in major emerging markets such as China, the company said in its presentation.

"Sony expects its business environment to continue to be severe in the second half of the fiscal year," it said.

Sony said it is striving to improve profitability at its troubled television division by focusing on sales of higher cost products such as its 4K LCD TVs.

The company, which has suffered declining fortunes for several years, is also gearing up for the launch of its PlayStation 4 game machine.

But it still faces fierce competition from Apple Inc's iPad and iPhone as well as from powerful South Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co.

Sony sank to record losses for the fiscal year ended March 2012, reporting the worst result in the company's six decade history.

Still, its loss for April to September narrowed to 15.8 billion yen ($161 million) from 40 billion yen in the first half of the previous fiscal year.

Rival Panasonic, meanwhile, said its quarterly profit improved to 63.3 billion yen ($644 million) from a 698.6 billion yen loss the year before.

Panasonic, like Sony, has benefited from weaker yen. While its domestic sales fell 4 percent, sales overseas climbed 11 percent. Total revenue of 1.88 trillion yen ($19.1 billion) was up 3 percent from a year earlier after taking a hit from the sale of Sanyo businesses carried out in the current fiscal year.

Panasonic raised its sales forecast to 7.4 trillion yen ($75.3 billion) and doubled its profit forecast for the fiscal year to 100 billion yen ($1 billion).

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-31-Japan-Earns-Sony/id-bc6751b9c6eb49a5a6b78c1d9f721663
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Warming report sees violent, sicker, poorer future

WASHINGTON (AP) — Starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease already lead to human tragedies. They're likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change, a leaked draft of an international scientific report forecasts.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue a report next March on how global warming is already affecting the way people live and what will happen in the future, including a worldwide drop in income. A leaked copy of a draft of the summary of the report appeared online Friday on a climate skeptic's website. Governments will spend the next few months making comments about the draft.

"We've seen a lot of impacts and they've had consequences," Carnegie Institution climate scientist Chris Field, who heads the report, told The Associated Press on Saturday. "And we will see more in the future."

Cities, where most of the world now lives, have the highest vulnerability, as do the globe's poorest people.

"Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger," the report says. "Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low- and lower-middle income countries and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries with increasing inequality."

For people living in poverty, the report says, "climate-related hazards constitute an additional burden."

The report says scientists have high confidence especially in what it calls certain "key risks":

—People dying from warming- and sea rise-related flooding, especially in big cities.

—Famine because of temperature and rain changes, especially for poorer nations.

—Farmers going broke because of lack of water.

—Infrastructure failures because of extreme weather.

—Dangerous and deadly heat waves worsening.

—Certain land and marine ecosystems failing.

"Human interface with the climate system is occurring and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems," the 29-page summary says.

None of the harms talked about in the report is solely due to global warming nor is climate change even the No. 1 cause, the scientists say. But a warmer world, with bursts of heavy rain and prolonged drought, will worsen some of these existing effects, they say.

For example, in disease, the report says until about 2050 "climate change will impact human health mainly by exacerbating health problems that already exist" and then it will lead to worse health compared to a future with no futher warming.

If emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and gas continue at current trajectories, "the combination of high temperature and humidity in some areas for parts of the year will compromise normal human activities including growing food or working outdoors," the report says.

Scientists say the global economy may continue to grow, but once the global temperature hits about 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than now, it could lead to worldwide economic losses between 0.2 and 2.0 percent of income.

One of the more controversial sections of the report involves climate change and war.

"Climate change indirectly increases risks from violent conflict in the form of civil war, inter-group violence and violent protests by exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks," the report says.

Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the international study team, told the AP that the report's summary confirms what researchers have known for a long time: "Climate change threatens our health, land, food and water security."

The summary went through each continent detailing risks and possible ways that countries can adapt to them.

For North America, the highest risks over the long term are from wildfires, heat waves and flooding. Water — too much and too little — and heat are the biggest risks for Europe, South America and Asia, with South America and Asia having to deal with drought-related food shortages. Africa gets those risks and more: starvation, pests and disease. Australia and New Zealand get the unique risk of losing their coral reef ecosystems, and small island nations have to be worried about being inundated by rising seas.

Field said experts paint a dramatic contrast of possible futures, but because countries can lessen some of the harms through reduced fossil fuel emissions and systems to cope with other changes, he said he doesn't find working on the report depressing.

"The reason I'm not depressed is because I see the difference between a world in which we don't do anything and a world in which we try hard to get our arms around the problem," he said.

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Online:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/

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Seth Borenstein be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/warming-report-sees-violent-sicker-poorer-future-202323412--politics.html
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