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| Pentagon, GSA map out acquisition cybersecurity; tester finds issues remain Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 07:31 PM PST By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department and General Services Administration on Wednesday mapped out six broad reforms to improve the cybersecurity of more than $500 billion in goods and services acquired by the U.S. federal government each year. The guidelines come as the Pentagon's chief weapons tester warned that military missions remained at "moderate to high risk" since local network operators were not always able to defend networks against determined cyberattacks. A report released by the tester on Wednesday said scans of the networks used by weapons still showed missing software "patches" and vulnerabilities that allowed teams of government "hackers" to penetrate and exploit networks. In their guidelines, the Pentagon and GSA underscored the importance of beefing up cybersecurity and cited escalating cyber threats from U.S. adversaries, hackers and criminals, as well as unintentional vulnerabilities and counterfeit parts. Full Story | Top |
| Arizona couple living near polygamous sect sues for discrimination Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 07:13 PM PST By Jennifer Dobner SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - An Arizona jury heard opening arguments on Wednesday that a married couple was denied municipal water services because they were not members of a polygamous church that dominates their community on the Utah-Arizona border. Ron and Jinjer Cooke filed a federal lawsuit against the twin towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, in 2010, claiming a violation of their civil rights in a lawsuit that also named the local water district and power company. Attorneys for the couple contend in court papers that the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints controls the adjoining towns and has ordered city leaders and departments to discriminate against outsiders. A 2012 federal lawsuit made similar allegations. Full Story | Top |
| California weighs giving tax break to space exploration firms Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 04:25 PM PST  By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - For-profit space explorers who make California their headquarters would not have to pay property taxes on their rockets and space stations under a bill that advanced in the state legislature on Wednesday. The move is aimed at stopping an effort by Los Angeles County to collect levies on equipment owned by the privately held SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. It is part of a broader effort by lawmakers to revitalize California's flagging aerospace sector, once among the nation's largest and key to the state's economy. "This bill will create thousands of new, high-paying jobs right here in California," said state Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, the bill's author. Full Story | Top |
| Now for the weather on Luhman: Cloudy with a chance of molten iron rain Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 03:16 PM PST You think the weather is bad on Earth lately. The first weather maps from this dim, gaseous object known as a brown dwarf, show a complex structure of patchy clouds, comprised of liquid iron and other minerals stewing in scorching temperatures, a pair of studies show. Computer models indicate that as a brown dwarfs cools, liquid droplets containing iron and other minerals form in their atmospheres. Brown dwarfs are bigger than Jupiter-sized planets, but too small for nuclear fusion, the signature process that gives a star its shine. Full Story | Top |
| KaloBios Pharma pulls plug on asthma drug, shares plunge Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 03:04 PM PST (Reuters) - Shares of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc fell nearly 50 percent in extended trade after the company said it would stop developing an asthma drug that failed in a mid-stage study. The drug, KB003, failed to bring about a clinically meaningful improvement in the pulmonary function of patients with severe asthma when tested against a placebo in 160 patients. The San Francisco-based company said it would focus on developing other treatments in its pipeline, which include a drug for cancer and another to prevent a common gram negative bacterium. KaloBios shares fell to a low of $2.65 in extended trading. Full Story | Top |
| European bat population bounces back from the brink: study Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 03:01 PM PST Europe's bat population is vulnerable, but conservation policies have boosted it by more than 40 percent after years of decline, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Thursday. European bat populations shrank, particularly during the second half of the 20th century, because of intensive agriculture, disappearing habitats and toxic chemicals used in treating roof timbers where they roost. The new report found conservation policies had helped to reverse the decline, but concluded bats should "still be considered vulnerable". They are also extremely sensitive to environmental change, which means they serve as an early indicator of climate change. Full Story | Top |
| Lilly CEO: 'It's time to go back on offense' Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 01:21 PM PST  After three years of seeing major drugs like Zyprexa for schizophrenia lose patent protection and wipe away billions of dollars in revenue, Eli Lilly and Co Chief Executive Officer John Lechleiter wants to change the game plan. "It's time to go back on offense," Lechleiter said in a recent interview. New treatments for diabetes and cancer now awaiting approval and increased sales of animal-health products and drugs in China and Japan are some of the aggressive moves he has in mind. "We're on the cusp of launching products in cancer and diabetes, two therapeutic areas where we're well established and where we have built out the infrastructure we need," Lechleiter said. Full Story | Top |
| NY governor orders emergency response review for oil rail shipments Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 12:20 PM PST (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday ordered state agencies to review and update emergency response plans for rail shipments of crude oil that pass through the state in the wake of recent derailments out of North Dakota's energy patch. Two other shipments of crude oil have since derailed in the United States, causing explosions that have alarmed regulators, residents and government officials. Some 71 percent of oil produced in North Dakota was transported by rail in November, or around 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to that state's Pipeline Authority. The recent derailments have put shipments of crude under federal scrutiny. Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: Oil trains to keep rumbling through North America's cities Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 11:33 AM PST  By Solarina Ho TORONTO (Reuters) - Mile-long trains carrying crude oil will likely keep chugging through North American cities even after a string of fiery disasters spurred safety officials to urge that railways send risky cargo along less populated routes. Re-routing the crude-by-rail trains that support booming North American oil production would be hugely difficult given the location of major rail lines and lack of alternatives, industry watchers say, adding that skirting major centers carries different types of risks. And so as a consequence, rail transit's the heart of many of our cities and towns," said Brigham McCown, a former chief counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation and former head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The dangers of sending crude by rail due to increasingly clogged pipelines were highlighted last July, when an unmanned, runaway train carrying crude crashed into Lac-Megantic, Quebec, leveling the heart of the small lakeside community and killing 47 people. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan frees seven detainees accused of coup plot Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 11:30 AM PST  By James Macharia and Richard Lough NAIROBI (Reuters) - South Sudan freed seven senior political figures on Wednesday who had been arrested on suspicion of plotting a coup, partially meeting a rebel demand at peace talks focused on ending weeks of fighting. President Salva Kiir accused his former vice president Riek Machar of starting fighting between rival groups of soldiers in the capital Juba in mid December in a bid to seize power - a charge denied my Machar. Authorities detained the 11 men, including former justice minister John Luk Jok, on suspicion of being involved, as clashes between government troops and now rebel fighters loyal to Machar quickly spread, killing thousands. South Sudan's current Justice Minister Paulino Wanawilla Unago had prepared the ground for the release on Tuesday, saying no evidence had been found against the seven. Full Story | Top |
| Scientists hail breakthrough in embryonic-like stem cells Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 11:18 AM PST By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - In experiments that could open a new era in stem cell biology, scientists have found a simple way to reprogram mature animal cells back into an embryonic-like state that allows them to generate many types of tissue. Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London, who was not involved in the work, said its approach in mice was "the most simple, lowest-cost and quickest method" to generate so-called pluripotent cells - able to develop into many different cell types - from mature cells. The researchers took skin and blood cells, let them multiply, then subjected them to stress "almost to the point of death", they explained, by exposing them to various events including trauma, low oxygen levels and acidic environments. Within days, the scientists found that the cells had not only survived but had also recovered by naturally reverting into a state similar to that of an embryonic stem cell. Full Story | Top |
| Modern humans more Neanderthal than once thought, studies suggest Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 11:13 AM PST  Although Neanderthals became extinct 28,000 years ago in Europe, as much as one-fifth of their DNA has survived in human genomes due to interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago, one of the studies found, although any one individual has only about 2 percent of caveman DNA. "The 2 percent of your Neanderthal DNA might be different than my 2 percent of Neanderthal DNA, and it's found at different places in the genome," said geneticist Joshua Akey, who led one of the studies. Put it all together in a study of hundreds of people, and "you can recover a substantial proportion of the Neanderthal genome." Both studies confirmed earlier findings that the genomes of east Asians harbor more Neanderthal DNA than those of Europeans. According to the paper by geneticists at Harvard Medical School, published in Nature, about 1.4 percent of the genomes of Han Chinese in Beijing and south China, as well as Japanese in Tokyo come from Neanderthals, compared to 1.1 percent of the genomes of Europeans. Full Story | Top |
| Antioxidants including vitamin E can promote lung cancer: study Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 11:01 AM PST By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - A decades-old medical mystery - why antioxidants such as vitamin E and beta carotene seemed to accelerate the growth of early lung tumors in high-risk populations such as smokers, rather than protect them from cancer, as theory suggests - may have been solved, according to research published on Wednesday. In essence, "antioxidants allow cancer cells to escape cells' own defense system" against tumors, biologist Per Lindahl of Sweden's University of Gothenburg and a co-author of the study told reporters. The findings imply that "taking extra antioxidants might be harmful and could speed up the growth of (any) tumors," said biologist and co-author Martin Bergo of Gothenburg, adding, "If I had a patient with lung cancer, I would not recommend they take an antioxidant." The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, did not examine whether antioxidants can also initiate lung cancer, rather than accelerate the growth of existing tumors. Full Story | Top |
| Biogen profit rises as new multiple sclerosis drug shines Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 10:05 AM PST  Biogen Idec Inc said on Wednesday its new, high-profile oral multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera had sales of $398 million in the fourth quarter, easily exceeding estimates for a third successive quarter and keeping it on track to top $1 billion in its first year on the market. Biogen said underlying patient demand for the drug represented about $348 million of the U.S. sales, still ahead of analysts' consensus expectations of about $335 million. Biogen provided forecasts for 2014 that were likely to be viewed as a mixed bag, with revenue growth projections ahead of Wall Street expectations but an earnings outlook that fell short of the current analysts' view. The company forecast revenue growth of about 22 percent to 25 percent and earnings of $11 to $11.20 per share, excluding items. Full Story | Top |
| Putin says new Ukraine government needed for full implementation of aid deal Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014 09:33 AM PST MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would wait until Ukraine forms a new government before fully implementing a $15 billion bailout deal for Kiev, but repeated a promise to honor the agreement in full. A day after Ukraine's prime minister resigned, the move could give Russia leverage over Kiev as it struggles with an upheaval brought on by a decision to ditch landmark agreements with the European Union. (Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by David Stamp) Full Story | Top |
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