Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Nintendo 3DS XL caught on video, gets manhandled abroad

Nintendo 3DS XL caught on video, gets groped abroad

Nintendo's new 3DS XL was just revealed last week, but we didn't have to wait long for the plus-sized handheld to get put through its paces. Puissance Nintendo got its game on with Nintendo's newest, and if Google's translation is to be believed, the added screen real-estate is, naturally, a welcome addition, and the panel is plenty bright with excellent viewing angles. Also, any negative effects from the bigger pixels present in the display -- it's the same resolution as its baby brother -- have apparently been ameliorated by an anti-aliasing filter of some sort. As for folks concerned about gripping the 3DS XL, fear not, as ergonomics are reportedly spot on, with an even weight distribution that feels no heavier than a standard 3DS. Still not ready to rush out and grab one this August? Head on past the break to see the XL in action, and pop on over to the source link to see if the full French spill will persuade you.

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS XL caught on video, gets manhandled abroad

Nintendo 3DS XL caught on video, gets manhandled abroad originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US Army's Pixellated Camo Uniform Is a $5 Billion Failure [Army]

Whereas pixillation is usually very successful at obscuring images otherwise unfit to be seen, the US Army is $5billion in the hole, with its pixellated camo uniform (introduced in 2004) being dubbed a colossal mistake. More »


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Monday, June 25, 2012

Complex thinking behind the bow and arrow

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2012) ? University of T?bingen and South African researchers have revealed sophisticated design and technology developed by early humans.

The bow and arrow have long been regarded as a possible indicator of culture in prehistoric times. Bows and arrows appear to have been in use for some 64,000 years, given evidence from South Africa. Until recently, their significance in human cognitive ability was unclear. Now two researchers have been able to decode the conceptual foundations of the bow and arrow. The results of the study, by Miriam Haidle of the Heidelberg Academy's ROCEEH project (sponsored by the Senckenberg Research Institute) and the University of T?bingen and Marlize Lombard of the University of Johannesburg, appear in the latest edition of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

Using archaeological finds and ethnological parallels, the two researchers reconstructed the steps needed to make a bow and arrows. These are complimentary tools -- separate, but developed interdependently. The bow is the controlling element, while the arrows can be used more flexibly and are interchangeable. About 2.5 million years ago, humans first used tools to make other tools then to make tools assembled from different parts to make a unit with particular qualities, such as wooden spears with stone spearheads (ca. 200,000-300,000 years ago.) The bow and arrow and other complementary tool sets made it possible for prehistoric humans to greatly increase the flexibility of their reactions.

There are many basic complementary tool sets: needle and thread, fishing rod and line, hammer and chisel. The bow and arrow are a particularly complex example. The reconstruction of the technique shows that no less than ten different tools are needed to manufacture a simple bow and arrows with foreshafts. It takes 22 raw materials and three semi-finished goods (binding materials, multi-component glue) and five production phases to make a bow, and further steps to make the arrows to go with it. The study was able to show a high level of complexity in the use of tools at an early stage in the history of homo sapiens.

The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities project "The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans" (ROCEEH) incorporates archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, palaeobiologists and geographers, working together to find out where the first humans arose, where they moved to in Africa and Eurasia, and why. The project covers the time between three million years ago and the last glacial maximum 20,000 years ago. The focus is on when, where, and in what form a changing climate, evolution and cultural development of early humans enabled them to expand the behavioral niche of a large primate within Africa and to find new roles outside of Africa. The University of T?bingen and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt have been cooperating on this 20-year Heidelberg Academy project since 2008.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universitaet T?bingen, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Lombard, Marlize & Miriam No?l Haidle. Thinking a bow-and-arrow: cognitive implica-tions of Middle Stone Age bow and stone-tipped arrow technology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2012; 22/2, 237-264; in press [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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No evidence of White House cover-up in gun case: lawmaker (reuters)

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Plankton hunting: part art, part science

We?re in a new location now after a few days of steaming around looking for Ehux. Plankton hunting is a science, but I?ve learned that it?s also an art. The team uses really high tech satellite data to point them in the right direction. Satellites can measure chlorophyll content of the water, currents and the height of the ocean. They can generate a picture of the region we?re in, and how much phytoplankton is there (for more on how that works, check out a previous post). On the ground, erm, sea, the boat is equipped with a fluorometer that reads how much chlorophyll is in the water (a rough measure of how many phytoplankton there are). The genetics team on board can sample, and do analyses to see whether Ehux and its virus?s genes are in the water. Other scientists can look under the microscope and identify the coccolithophores that are there.

Here?s the most recent satellite image the scientists have. It shows the big red patch, which they hope is a bloom of Ehux ? and the green labels are where the ship has stopped. It also shows a weird little doughnut hole of low chlorophyll (now officially named ?da hole? by the science team). Yesterday we swooped down to da hole to see what was going on, and now we?re back up at the northernmost green spot there.

But there are limitations to all these methods. The satellite data they?re using is about 24 hours old. By the time we get there, the booming plankton population could be gone. And those big red patches don?t necessarily mean Ehux. They could be a bloom of some other kind of plankton, like diatoms. The fluorometer has the same problem: it tells the scientists how much chlorophyll there is, but chlorophyll is found in all sorts of phytoplankton ? not just Ehux.

The units on the Y-axis there is voltage (measured in mV). The spike in the evening happens almost every night, since the daylight quenches some of the fluorescence of the chlorophyll before it can get to the fluorometer.

There are also less scientific measures. For instance, the water where we?re at today looks far greener than the water did where we were earlier. That?s not such a terrible measure of how many plankton are there. But are they the right plankton?

Our last stopping place (left) compared to this one (right).

And then, when they pause to scope out an area, how much Ehux is enough to stop the boat and spend four days sampling? There?s a fine balance between chasing after the biggest bloom, and settling for a middle-of-the-road level of plankton. Do you spend the whole cruise looking for the perfect spot, or do you stop at a few averages places, and work with what?s there?

So finding the blooms and deciding when to stick around is a big part of the success of this cruise ? but it?s not an entirely scientific process. Gut and intuition play a role too. We?ve just stopped the boat here ? where the northern most green dot is on the satellite map ? for a few days. It?s not a huge bloom, but there are Ehux here and the scientists have decided that it?s better to get some data than keep on chasing plankton waterfalls (which, as TLC explains, is unwise).

?

During this trip, I?ll be answering your questions about the science, this boat, and life onboard. Want to know how we search for plankton, why we?re here, or what the food is like? Just ask me! And if you?re wondering how I got here, check out the groups that made this adventure possible: Mind Open Media and COSEE NOW.

Previously in this series:

All Aboard: how you can be a part of our research blog
You wanted to know: what are these phytoplankton?
You wanted to know: what am I bringing to sea?
Greetings from Ponta Delgada! We set sail tomorrow.
Steaming North: how the scientists are trying to find plankton
The superstar sensor: what is a CTD?
Status Update: Day 3 at the Cyclonic Eddy
You wanted to know: what is this virus that infects the phytoplankton (Part One)
You wanted to know: what is this virus that infects the phytoplankton (Part Two)

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Putin heads to Middle East amid carnage in Syria

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Friday, June 8, 2012

A Scientist's 20-Year Quest To Defeat Dengue Fever

Scott O'Neill wants to rid the world of dengue fever by infecting mosquitoes with bacteria so they can't carry the virus that causes the disease. Benjamin Arthur for NPR

Scott O'Neill wants to rid the world of dengue fever by infecting mosquitoes with bacteria so they can't carry the virus that causes the disease.

First of a two-part series.

This summer, my big idea is to explore the big ideas of science. Instead of just reporting science as results ? the stuff that's published in scientific journals and covered as news ? I want to take you inside the world of the science. I hope I'll make it easier to understand how science works, and just how cool the process of discovery and innovation really is.

A lot of science involves failure, but there are also the brilliant successes, successes that can lead to new inventions, new tools, new drugs ? things that can change the world

That got me thinking that I wanted to dive deeper into the story of an Australian scientist named Scott O'Neill. Scott had come up with what I thought was a clever new way for combating a disease called dengue fever.

Dengue is a terrible disease. It sickens tens of millions and kills tens of thousands. There's no cure, no vaccine and pretty much no way to prevent it. It's one of those diseases transmitted by a mosquito, like malaria.

"Success for me is having a significant impact on dengue disease in communities," says Scott O'Neill, holding a container of mosquitoes. Enlarge Colyn Huber

"Success for me is having a significant impact on dengue disease in communities," says Scott O'Neill, holding a container of mosquitoes.

Colyn Huber

"Success for me is having a significant impact on dengue disease in communities," says Scott O'Neill, holding a container of mosquitoes.

About 20 years ago, a lot of scientists got excited about the idea of genetically modifying mosquitoes so they couldn't transmit these diseases. But I thought genetically modifying mosquitoes would never work. Even if you were able to make these disease blocking mosquitoes in the lab, I didn't see how you would ever get them to survive in the wild, and displace the disease transmitting mosquitoes that were already there. There was also a societal problem with the scheme. Most people probably wouldn't be thrilled about having swarms of genetically modified mosquitoes released in their back yards.

But last summer, when I read about O'Neill's work, it really knocked me out. His big idea was to infect mosquitoes with a naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia. Turns out that by some unknown quirk of biology, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes can't carry the dengue virus.

Let me repeat that, because this is a key point: A mosquito infected with the bacteria called Wolbachia can't transmit the virus that causes dengue. One microbe defeats the other.

When I interviewed by phone O'Neill last year, he told me the idea seemed to be working. He had released his Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into two small communities in northeastern Australia.

"Over a very short period of time, the Wolbachia was able to invade the wild mosquito population until close to 100 percent of all mosquitoes had the Wolbachia infection ? and so we presume, greatly reduced ability to transmit dengue between people," O'Neill told me.

That was enough success for me to do a short news story about O'Neill's work. But I knew there was more. I convinced my editor to let me go to Australia to learn more about Scott and his big idea.

'Incredibly Frustrating Work'

One of the first things I learned when I got to his lab at Monash University in Melbourne was a surprise: It had taken Scott 20 years to get his big idea to work.

"You know, I was incredibly persistent in not wanting to give this idea up," Scott said. "I thought the idea was a good idea, and I don't think you get too many ideas in your life, actually. At least I don't. I'm not smart enough. So I thought this idea was a really good idea."

The problem was that Scott couldn't figure out how to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia. Remember, a Wolbachia infected mosquito can't transmit dengue.

You can't just spread Wolbachia bacteria around and hope the mosquitoes catch it. Instead, you have to puncture a mosquito egg or embryo about the size of a poppy seed with a hair-thin needle containing the bacteria, peering through a microscope the entire time so you can see what you're doing.

"It's incredibly frustrating work," Scott says.

His colleague Tom Walker spends hour after hour, day after day, trying to inject the embryos. Even though he's become an expert at this, Walker can do no more than 500 a day.

Then the scientists have to wait a week until the adult mosquitoes emerge to see any are infected with Wolbachia. Tom says in this latest round of work he's injected 18,000 eggs ? with nothing to show for it. "The success rate is very low," says Tom, in something of an understatement.

"We don't have any windows that can open in this building, so people like Tom can't jump out of them," adds Scott with a laugh. He sounds like he's only half kidding.

The good news is that if you can manage to get the bacteria into even one mosquito, nature will take care of spreading it for you. Because any mommy mosquito that's infected will also infect all her darling offspring, all one hundred or more of them. And when those baby mosquitoes become mature in about 10 days, the new mommies among them will pass Wolbachia to their babies. Pretty soon, everybody who's anybody in that mosquito community is infected.

Success: 'A Significant Impact On Dengue Disease In Communities'

Now as I said, Scott's been pushing this idea of using Wolbachia to control dengue for decades, for a most of that time without any success. I asked Scott what it takes to stick with something for that long.

"I think being obsessive," he replied. "Being maybe a little ill in that regard. And it's just that I seem to have focused my obsession onto Wolbachia instead of on to postage stamps or model trains."

And even though his obsession has brought him to the point where he's shown he can get his Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to spread in the wild, that's not the success he's ultimately after. "Success for me is having a significant impact on dengue disease in communities," he says.

To do that, he'll have to release his mosquitoes in a place where there's a lot of dengue, and then see if that brings down the number of cases of the disease in humans. Those studies are being planned now.

The stakes are high. By some estimates, more than a billion people around the world are at risk for getting dengue. Even if it doesn't kill you, I'm told a case of dengue can make you feel so bad, wish you were dead.

"[It's] pretty much the worst disease I've ever had. It was not fun," says Steven Williams, a tropical disease researcher at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. Williams was bitten by a dengue mosquito while on a trip to French Polynesia. He says for 10 days he had a high fever, horrible headache and terrible pain in his muscles and joints.

One other delightful thing about dengue: there are no specific drugs to treat it. "You basically just have to ride it out," says Williams.

Moments Of Triumph, With Trepidation

With no cure and no vaccine, Scott O'Neill's Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes could make a huge difference. Although proving that is still years off, there have been moments of triumph in the 20-year slog that's brought him this far.

Take the day in 2006, when one of Scott's graduate students told him he thought he'd finally succeed in infecting a dengue mosquito with Wolbachia.

I figured this must have been a red-letter day for Scott, a day of sheer elation. Scott told me looking back on it, it was. But at the time it didn't seem that way.

Releasing Mosquitoes To The Wild

"Because you're so used to failure that you don't believe anything when you see it," he says. "And so you can think back to when there was a Eureka moment, but at the time, you're probably, 'this looks good but I've been burnt thousands of times before. Let's go and do it again, and the do it another time, and check and check and make sure it's actually real.' "

Scott says the day and his team really enjoyed was the day last year when they tested to see if their mosquitoes would take over from the other mosquitoes in the wild.

Scott's colleague Scott Ritchie recorded the event for posterity on his cell phone.

That got me interested in Scott's work last summer. Scott and his colleagues have now completed a second release, and the results are looking promising. But Scott says it's not yet time to celebrate.

"We've got some good preliminary data, and we're on the path. And it's looking good. But you know I am a realist. It could fall over at any day," says Scott.

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LRA rebels attack DR Congo park guards

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Dropbox for Android adds support for Korean language, ICS-only video streaming UI

Dropbox for Android adds support for Korean language, ICS-only video streaming UI

You can't deny Dropbox has been doing a pretty decent job of handing out constant updates to Android users since its beginnings on the platform, and, well, today's no exception. This time the cloud box application -- now in version 2.1.4 -- brings along a couple of fresh bits to powered-by-Google devices. To start with, the free app's finally adding support for Korean language (on its website, too), while Dropboxers running Ice Cream Sandwich will also see a new "custom-tailored" video streaming UI -- you know, to play nice with those fancy virtual buttons. Judging by recent reviews, most of the Android folk seem to be enjoying the minor changes, but in case you've yet to try it yourself, you can do so by grabbing the update from the Play link down there.

Dropbox for Android adds support for Korean language, ICS-only video streaming UI originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 06:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Audie Awards 2012: Tina Fey, Jane Fonda And William Shatner Win Top Honors

NEW YORK (AP) ? Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and William Shatner are now award winners in the book world.

On Tuesday night, Fey received Audie Awards for Audio Book of the Year and best Biography/Memoir for her narration of her million-selling "Bossypants." Fonda won in the Personal Development category as the reader of her own "Prime Time." Shatner was cited in Humor for "Shatner's Rules." An audiobook about the Titanic, "The Watch That Ends the Night," won for Distinguished Achievement in Production.

Hope Davis' narration of Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder" won for literary fiction and Will Patton's reading of James Lee Burke's "Feast Day of Fools" won for mystery. The awards, in more than 25 categories, were sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association.

Contribute to this Story:

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ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube: relive the excitement, the yelling

ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube relive the excitement, the yelling

You think it's easy up there on stage? Then just try shouting "ubiquitous cloud computing era" at the top of your lungs without sounding silly. It's virtually impossible, as ASUS chairman Jonney Shih discovered 45 seconds into the video after the break. Fortunately, he quickly moved onto his company's rather stellar array of Computex reveals, including the dual-booting Transformer AiO (which doubles up as the "world's biggest tablet"), a couple of Windows 8 hybrids and the Taichi swiveller -- not to mention some live performance art ten minutes before the end. If you're the "Home C.I.O." in your family, then it could be professionally negligent to miss this.

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Video: Bernanke Testimony on Capitol Hill, Pt. 2

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke answers questions before the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. In the second round of questioning from Rep. Campbell and Rep. Cummings, Bernanke addresses debt restructuring in Greece, and concerns about Spain ...

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Human remains delivered to 2 Canada schools

The photograph of Luka Rocco Magnotta,is shown during a news conference in Montreal, Tuesday, June 5, 2012. Magnotta told a judge Tuesday he will not fight his extradition from Germany to Canada, Berlin police say. Magnotta is wanted in Canada on several charges, including first-degree murder, in connection with the killing and dismemberment of Chinese national Jun Lin. (AP Photo/Montreal Police Service via The Canadian Press)

The photograph of Luka Rocco Magnotta,is shown during a news conference in Montreal, Tuesday, June 5, 2012. Magnotta told a judge Tuesday he will not fight his extradition from Germany to Canada, Berlin police say. Magnotta is wanted in Canada on several charges, including first-degree murder, in connection with the killing and dismemberment of Chinese national Jun Lin. (AP Photo/Montreal Police Service via The Canadian Press)

This image taken from CCTV obtained by Associated Press video shows Luka Rocco Magnotta entering the Internet cafe in the district of Neukoelln in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 4, 2012, where Kadir Anlayisli, who works in the cafe recognized him. "I looked at him and thought I knew him from somewhere, because I read newspapers every day," Anlayisli said. Luka Rocco Magnotta was apprehended on Monday in an Internet cafe in Berlin after an employee there recognized him and alerted police, Berlin police spokeswoman Kerstin Ziesmer said. The 29-year-old Canadian porn actor is accused of videotaping a killing and mailing the victim's body parts to the country's top political parties. (AP Photo/AP Video)

This image taken from CCTV obtained by Associated Press video shows Luka Rocco Magnotta speaking to Kadir Anlayisli, a cafe worker who recognized him, in the Internet cafe in the district of Neukoelln in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 4, 2012. "I looked at him and thought I knew him from somewhere, because I read newspapers every day," Anlayisli said. Luka Rocco Magnotta was apprehended on Monday in an Internet cafe in Berlin after an employee there recognized him and alerted police, Berlin police spokeswoman Kerstin Ziesmer said. The 29-year-old Canadian porn actor is accused of videotaping a killing and mailing the victim's body parts to the country's top political parties. (AP Photo/AP Video)

This image taken from CCTV obtained by Associated Press video shows Luka Rocco Magnotta, 2nd left, being removed by police from the Internet cafe in the district of Neukoelln in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 4, 2012, where Kadir Anlayisli, who works in the cafe recognized him. "I looked at him and thought I knew him from somewhere, because I read newspapers every day," Anlayisli said. Luka Rocco Magnotta was apprehended on Monday in an Internet cafe in Berlin after an employee there recognized him and alerted police, Berlin police spokeswoman Kerstin Ziesmer said. The 29-year-old Canadian porn actor is accused of videotaping a killing and mailing the victim's body parts to the country's top political parties. (AP Photo/AP Video)

This image provided by Interpol shows an undated photo of Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29 years-old, who is accused of videotaping a gruesome murder before posting it to the internet will be charged with threatening Canada's prime minister after mailing a severed foot to his Conservative party headquarters, police said Saturday June 2, 2012. Magnotta is wanted for first-degree murder, defiling a corpse and using the mail system for delivering "obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous" material. Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said they still believe Magnotta, 29, is in France. (AP Photo/Interpol)

(AP) ? Packages containing a human foot and hand were discovered at two schools in Vancouver on Tuesday, in what could be the latest gruesome twist in the case of a Canadian porn actor suspected of dismembering and eating his former lover.

Police said they could not immediately confirm if the body parts in question were the missing extremities of Chinese student Jun Lin, whose hand and foot were discovered last week when they were mailed to Canada's top political parties.

The suspect, Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, was caught Monday in Berlin, after evading police for days while he partied in Paris. He told German authorities he would not fight extradition to Canada.

Vancouver Deputy Police Chief Warren Lemcke said a package containing what appeared to be a human hand was opened by staff at False Creek Elementary School after 1 p.m. Tuesday. Another package containing what appeared to be a human foot was found by staff at St. George's private school for boys later in the day.

The British Columbia Coroner's Service and the Vancouver police's major crime investigators have been called in.

"There is no indication any student or staff has been targeted at any school," Lemcke said. "This must have been a very traumatic incident for all involved in the schools involved in opening the packages and the Vancouver Police Department will assist any way we can with our victims services section."

Video footage of what authorities believe to be the killing seems to show the suspect eating the body, said police in Montreal, where the death occurred.

Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said that although police have not been able to conclusively confirm it, they suspect Magnotta ate parts of the victim's body.

"As gross and as graphic as it could be, yes, it was seen on the video," Lafreniere said.

Authorities allege Magnotta filmed the slaying in his Montreal studio apartment and posted it online.

A copy of what police believe is the video of the killing, viewed online by AP, shows a man with an ice pick stabbing another naked, bound male. He also dismembers the corpse and performs sexual acts with it.

It did not show anyone eating the body but did show a man using a fork and knife on it. Police suggested Tuesday that they have access to more extensive video of the killing, possibly an unedited version.

"We're keeping some details for ourselves," Lafreniere said.

Shortly after the killing, authorities say, Magnotta flew from Montreal to Paris.

Scores of French police hunting for him were inundated with hundreds of tips and alleged sightings of the suspect, whose photo was splashed in newspaper papers, TV screens and websites worldwide, thanks to an Interpol alert. The suspect monitored news reports about what police knew and took steps to evade authorities.

Witnesses contacted French police with claims of having seen Magnotta partying in the Bastille area of east Paris, said Christophe Crepin, a police union official who shared details about the manhunt in a phone interview with The Associated Press. One tipster said Magnotta drank a late-night Coca-Cola at a bar in the northwestern Batignolles quarter, which police collected for fingerprints. Pornography magazines and an air-sickness bag from the plane he had taken from Montreal to Paris were found in a dingy hotel room where he stayed in Bagnolet, northeast of Paris.

"He needed to be seen, and to party," said Crepin, who relayed information he received from agents in the judicial police unit that tracks fugitives. "Naturally some of the people who saw him broke out into a cold sweat when they recognized him."

Magnotta's refusal to stay low eventually got him caught. He was arrested while reading about himself at an Internet cafe in Berlin after an employee recognized him from a newspaper photo and flagged down a police car.

Magnotta appeared before a German judge in the afternoon and was ordered held pending extradition, police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said. He was then transferred to a Berlin prison from a police detention center.

He will have to go before a German court for an extradition hearing once Canada formally requests that he be returned for trial, Neuendorf said.

"I assume there will be no problems," he said. "According to his statements to prosecutors he will not fight his extradition."

That means Magnotta could be returned to Canada as early as this week, according to authorities. The Canadian Embassy in Berlin declined to comment on when Ottawa may file the official papers seeking extradition.

Cmdr. Denis Mainville, the head investigator of the Montreal police major crimes unit, said investigators will review hundreds of homicide cases over the last 30 years in Montreal and throughout Quebec for any possible links to Magnotta. Mainville said such a review is routine in such cases.

Magnotta arrived in Berlin on Saturday on a bus Paris, said Martin Steltner, a spokesman for Berlin prosecutors.

Crepin said Magnotta had contacts in Paris from a previous visit in 2010.

"He didn't come to Paris by chance. He knew he could get along in Paris, he knew people," he said. Police, for example, trailed a large-framed man who had been in contact with Magnotta, he said. Police questioned another man with whom Magnotta spent two nights. The man didn't immediately realize who his companion was, Crepin said.

At times, French investigators grew frustrated with leaks in the media ? notably a French TV report indicating police had used technology to track Magnotta's mobile phone. As a result, Magnotta turned it off, Crepin said.

"He had closely monitored what we police were doing to concoct his strategy," he said.

Crepin said surveillance camera footage showed Magnotta boarding a bus to Berlin on Friday evening. He said German officials were alerted that Magnotta might be in Berlin at some point before the arrest, but he did not specify when.

The case's full horror emerged on May 29 when a package containing the severed foot was opened at Canada's ruling Conservative Party headquarters and a hand was discovered at a postal facility, addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada. A torso, meanwhile, was found in a suitcase on a garbage dump in Montreal, outside Magnotta's apartment building.

As they unraveled his background, police discovered that Magnotta changed his name from Eric Clinton Newman in 2006 and that he was born in Scarborough, Ontario. He is also known as Vladimir Romanov. Police said he has 70 Facebook accounts under different names.

Montreal police on Tuesday said DNA tests have confirmed that the body parts mailed to the political parties were Lin's remains, and that they have footage of Magnotta mailing the two parcels that were sent to Ottawa.

"The head is still missing," Lafreniere said, hours before the parcels were discovered in Vancouver. "And one hand and one foot is still missing."

Zheng Xu, a press spokesman at the Chinese consulate in Montreal, said Lin's family has been contacted and wants to travel to Canada as soon as possible. He said he was not able to give any further details without the family's approval.

In Vancouver, Kurt Heinrich of the city's school board said no students saw the package at False Creek Elementary.

Larissa Warrington, the chair of the False Creek elementary parent advisory council, said students were in school at the time and police vans were present when she picked up her three kids.

"I came to pick up my children as I usually do and was told there was a suspicious package at the school," an emotional Warrington said.

"It is disturbing. It's awful. Why would anybody do that? It's very unsettling, as you can imagine, having children at this school."

___

David Rising contributed from Berlin. Keaten from Paris, Rob Gillies from Toronto and Phil Couvrette in Ottawa, Ontario also contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Researchers find 'good fat' activated by cold, not ephedrine

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that while a type of "good" fat found in the body can be activated by cold temperatures, it is not able to be activated by the drug ephedrine.

The finding, published in today's issue of PNAS USA Early Edition, may lead to drugs or other methods aimed at activating the good fat, known as brown fat. When activated, brown fat burns calories and can help in the battle against obesity.

"We propose that agents that work similarly to cold in activating brown fat specifically can provide promising approaches to fighting obesity while minimizing other side effects," said Aaron Cypess, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant investigator and staff physician at Joslin and lead author of the paper.

"At the same time, we now know that ephedrine is not the way to do it," he added.

Brown fat is found in humans naturally and consumes calories to generate heat. Prior studies had shown that brown fat can be activated by cold exposure in a process called non-shivering thermogenesis.

Researchers have been working for years to find ways to activate brown fat.

Ephedrine, a decongestant and bronchodilator, has been used as a weight loss drug because it increases the number of calories burned. However, there are side effects.

In this study, the Joslin team tested 10 study subjects in three ways. They were each separately given injections of ephedrine, given injections of saline as a control, and made to wear "cooling vests" that had water cooled to 57 degrees pumped into them. After each intervention, the brown fat activity was measured using PET/CT scans.

The researchers found that brown fat activity was the same following both the ephedrine and saline injections. However, after the subjects wore the cooling vests for two hours, their brown fat activity was stimulated significantly.

Both interventions ? ephedrine injections and the wearing of the cooling vests ? did result in the same number of calories being burned, Dr. Cypess noted.

"But we found that ephedrine was not using brown fat to do it," he said. "This is the first time it has been found that ephedrine does not turn on brown fat."

Both interventions had other effects on the sympathetic nervous system -- which activates the fight or flight response -- such as increased blood pressure, but those associated with brown fat activation were fewer, the study showed.

"Mild cold exposure stimulates (brown fat) energy expenditure with fewer other systemic effects, suggesting that cold activates specific sympathetic pathways," the paper concludes. "Agents that mimic cold activation of (brown fat) could provide a promising approach to treating obesity while minimizing systemic effects."

As a result of the findings, drug companies may find it easier to come up with agents that stimulate brown fat to help people lose weight, Dr. Cypess said.

One method may be simply to design cooling vests that people can wear to help them lose weight. A future study will have subjects wear the vests for several weeks to see what happens, Dr. Cypess said.

"Will they get the same health benefits they would have seen with several weeks of exercise? That's the billion dollar question."

The findings should also be of interest to heart researchers interested in the mechanisms of activation of the sympathetic nervous system, he added.

###

Joslin Diabetes Center: http://www.joslin.org

Thanks to Joslin Diabetes Center for this article.

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