UK government backs three-person IVF

By  ANAS TAJ Health and science reporter, IEN News
 

The UK looks set to become the first country to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people, after the government backed the IVF technique.

It will produce draft regulations later this year and the procedure could be offered within two years.
Experts say three-person IVF could eliminate debilitating and potentially fatal mitochondrial diseases that are passed on from mother to child.
Opponents say it is unethical and could set the UK on a "slippery slope".
They also argue that affected couples could adopt or use egg donors instead.
Mitochondria are the tiny, biological "power stations" that give the body energy. They are passed from a mother, through the egg, to her child.
Defective mitochondria affect one in every 6,500 babies. This can leave them starved of energy, resulting in muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death in the most extreme cases.

Research suggests that using mitochondria from a donor egg can prevent the diseases.

It is envisaged that up to 10 couples a year would benefit from the treatment.
However, it would result in babies having DNA from two parents and a tiny amount from a third donor as the mitochondria themselves have their own DNA.
'Clearly sensitive' Earlier this year, a public consultation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) concluded there was "general support" for the idea and that there was no evidence that the advanced form of IVF was unsafe.
The chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, said: "Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these disease being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them.
"It's only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can."
She said there were "clearly some sensitive issues here" but said she was "personally very comfortable" with altering mitochondria.
Scientists have devised two techniques that allow them to take the genetic information from the mother and place it into the egg of a donor with healthy mitochondria.

1) Two eggs are fertilised with sperm, creating an embryo from the intended parents and another from the donors 2) The pronuclei, which contain genetic information, are removed from both embryos but only the parents' is kept 3) A healthy embryo is created by adding the parents' pronuclei to the donor embryo, which is finally implanted into the womb

 

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Rating Alternative Diets for Seniors

Quick Take

• Offers a loosely knit support system of TOPS chapters
• Meetings vary from chapter to chapter throughout the country
• Provides no official diet plan
• Lets dieters develop the approach that works best for them

This Diet Is Best For

People who prefer to go solo while still having a support group to fall back on

Who Should Not Try This Diet

Dieters who know from experience that they need more clear-cut menus and day-to-day guidance on what they should eat and how they should change their eating behaviors

The Premise

Founded in Milwaukee more than 55 years ago, the nonprofit organization has none of the traditional diet plan offerings: There's no official diet, no prepackaged foods, no supplements, and no counseling.
But for $24 a year plus local chapter dues, members can attend weekly support meetings at one of about 10,000 local TOPS chapters, where they will weigh themselves, discuss problems, and even exchange recipes. Chapter leaders are volunteers from the TOPS membership. In addition to weekly support meetings, the national organization offers incentives for weight loss.
Once you become a member, you'll receive TOPS News, a monthly magazine that offers contests, weight-loss incentive plans, self-help articles, and recipes. TOPS members who reach their goal weight, which is supposed to be set with the help of a health care professional when you join, are eligible for maintenance membership in KOPS (Keep Off Pounds Sensibly).
Though TOPS membership is generally comprised of older adults, kids and teens are welcome, too. TOPS now has online help, too, at www.tops.org. The cost of joining TOPS online is $25.50 a year, and you will also receive TOPS News.

The Rationale

For people who feel more comfortable figuring out their own path to weight loss, TOPS offers a loose system of support but little more. Exactly what kind of support you'll get from your local chapter is impossible to predict, since chapters vary quite a bit from one to another. In fact, the organization prides itself on the individuality of its chapters.
TOPS weekly meetings always begin with a confidential weigh-in, which is followed by a program that sometimes includes presentations by health professionals who volunteer their time to speak. Through group support and some weight-loss competitions, TOPS provides incentives for weight loss. There are national contests as well as local chapter contests. Participants compete only within their own age category and weight class.

Eating on the TOPS Diet

Because there is no official diet plan or even preset calorie intakes, there are no typical meals. TOPS recommends that its members go to a health care professional for personalized diet and physical activity plans.
In addition, the organization does offer an optional diet planning book called The Choice Is Yours, which contains simple guidelines for planning diets of 1,200, 1,500, and 1,800 calories a day, based on the USDA Food Guide Pyramid and the diabetic exchange list, and it offers a sample 28-day menu and exercise guide.

What the Experts Say

Because there is no single TOPS program or diet plan, experts say it's hard to make any kind of judgment as to its safety or effectiveness. However, there's nothing to indicate that the program is unsafe, and for some people, it could be helpful. Just keep in mind that there is no counseling offered and group leaders are untrained volunteers who are also TOPS members.
With no set TOPS diet and everyone pretty much on their own in planning their diets, it's hard to say how much you might lose or how quickly you can expect to lose it. Neither the TOPS organization nor the individual chapters make any claims about an expected rate of weight loss. The organization leaves this up to the discretion of each dieter and his or her physician.
While this freedom may work well for some people, it carries some risks as well. It could lead some ill-informed dieters to unwittingly cut back too far on calories or to follow an unbalanced diet. However, if you stick with the sample plan provided in TOPS's The Choice Is Yours booklet, you should meet most of your nutrient needs while lowering blood cholesterol and controlling blood sugar.
It's still a good idea, however, to take a calcium and vitamin D supplement, since it's tough to include enough calcium-rich dairy foods in a 1,200- or 1,500-calorie diet. Though physical activity is recommended and some local chapters incorporate group walks into their weekly meetings, exercise could be emphasized more.
Calorie quota: There is no calorie quota provided, though the optional booklet TOPS offers gives guidance for 1,200-, 1,500-, and 1,800-calorie-a-day diets, using standard food exchange lists.
Yes: Attendance at meetings
No: None, since no uniform guidance is provided
Other similar diets: Overeaters Anonymous
On the next and final page of this article, read about Volumetrics for Seniors and learn how it works.

 

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Posted in BEAUTYI tips, Info

A hail and farewell to AltaVista

It once was the best of the bunch, in the era before Internet search meant Google and three guys named Moe. Ancient history by now.

This is what happens after a series of bumbling owners fail to keep a once terrific product relevant in a dynamic market: You get a cold PR send-off that doesn't even fill the screen.
"Please visit Yahoo! Search for all of your searching needs."
That's all Yahoo wrote Friday afternoon as it lumped in the news that it was killing off AltaVista on July 8 with word that it will also ax 11 other products that no longer matter to the company.
Jay Rossiter, the vice president in charge of platforms, said the moves will free Yahoo to streamline its efforts and thus "continue to focus on creating beautiful products that are essential to you every day."
Fair enough. Yahoo needs to husband its resources and devote them to projects that matter. Truth be told, AltaVista, once the best of the bunch in the era before Internet search meant Google and three guys named Moe, has unfortunately been irrelevant for quite some time. In fact, the biggest news about its date with the guillotine may be that it was still alive after all these years. On Twitter, most folks reacted the way Mitch Kapor did when he wrote "Yahoo shutting down AltaVista. I, for one, profoundly surprised it was still alive. Ave atque vale." (That's Latin for "hail and farewell." Hey, Mitch is a Yalie, after all.)
Danny Sullivan, the doyen of digital search, nicely chronicled the history of a search engine that most owners seemingly couldn't wait to unload after acquiring it. The list included the likes of Digital Equipment, Compaq, CMGI, Overture, and Yahoo. Hardly a harbinger of success when your corporate parent's name changes faster than the identity of the person sitting in the White House.
That always puzzled me. It was a damned good product for its time -- better than anything else in its field. Of course, AltaVista's heyday unfortunately coincided with the Internet bubble when search advertising was still in its infancy. Companies had bigger ambitions (hoo boy, I'm sure more than a few wish they could have a do-over). But the game of hot potato took a toll. Eventually, an unknown called Google began to siphon away loyal AltaVista users, me included. Sullivan rightly recalls that the refrain "I used to use AltaVista, but now I use Google" became increasingly common. We know how the rest of the story unfolded, leading to today's denouement.
Perhaps if someone had had the right vision back then? Maybe. But of course, hindsight is always 20-20. File this one away as yet more fodder for future barroom debates.

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Posted in Info, News

Emily Ratajkowski does Paris watch online.

Emily Ratajkowski does Paris

Both stunning and super-sweet; Fashionising.com caught up with model Emily Ratajkowski after today’s Ann Demeulemeester showing at Paris fashion week.
The first photo we snapped of Emily captured her beauty; after the break you’ll see how we snapped her outfit.

 

 

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Posted in Info, News, PICTURES

Netflix cues up 2nd round of 'Orange' before 1st season airs

In a show of confidence, Netflix greenlights another season of prison dramedy "Orange Is the New Black" before subscribers have seen it.

 

 

Netflix's next original series to premiere, "Orange Is the New Black," is already set to come back next year before the company's subscribers have a chance to see the first go-round.
The renewal of the show, which is about a woman who must put her comfortable New York life on hold to serve a 15-month prison sentence, is clearly a display of confidence in the program, but it's not unprecedented. Netflix ordered two seasons of "House of Cards" sight unseen, before it had any assurances it would become the home run that it did.
But "Orange Is the New Black" and "House of Cards" are in the same sweet spot. Both fit the mold of HBO or Showtime programming, which buttresses Netflix's goal to grow beyond a catalog of older movies and television shows into a must-visit destination for the stuff of water cooler chatter that ultimately drives subscriptions.
The coming program also gets its bona fides in that realm from creator and executive producer Jenji Kohan, the creator Showtime's hit "Weeds."
Original shows and films are the rage now, with tech outfits spanning Amazon, Microsoft's Halo franchise and AOL investing in exclusive programs.
The company's head of content, Ted Sarandos, has said the budget for original programming will as much as triple over the next couple years, from less than 5 percent of the total content budget now.

Of its homegrown series the public has already seen, "Arrested Development" is the only one without the go-ahead for an encore. Last week, Netflix ordered up a second season of horror thriller "Hemlock Grove." And "Lilyhammer," about a New York gangster starting over in Norway, has a return season in production.
The most high-profile of Netflix's programming endeavors after "House of Cards," "Arrested Development" lacked the same response as that series, though the Herculean effort it took to produce the new episodes of the dark comedy are likely the larger factor, as Netflix has heralded the show's reception.
Netflix has a couple other original shows on its marquee for the back half of the year: "Derek," a comedic look at life in a senior center from Ricky Gervais and "Turbo: F.A.S.T.," a children's program in collaboration with DreamWorks Animation. Next year brings science fiction thriller "Sense8" from the Wachowski siblings, who created the Matrix trilogy.

Topics:

Media

Tags:

Netlfix

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Posted in Info, News

Android 4.3 allegedly caught on Google Play Galaxy S4

New screenshots reportedly show an early build of Android 4.3 taken from the Google Play Edition of the Galaxy S4, says blog site Sammobile.

 

 

Google's next version of Android may have taken its latest bow courtesy of a batch of leaked screenshots.
Images obtained and posted by Sammobile purport to reveal an early Android 4.3 build running on the Google Play Edition Galaxy S4. The screenshots clearly display the Android version number as 4.3, while the model number of GT-i9505G refers to Google's new "pure" version of the Galaxy S4.
Another screenshot shows that Google is apparently sticking with the Jelly Bean moniker for Android 4.3.
This isn't the first time Android 4.3 has surfaced in the wild. In May, photos found on the xdadevelopers forum allegedly showed a Nexus 4 phone equipped with the next Android OS update.
So when should Android users expect a dose of 4.3?
Earlier rumors claimed Google might announce the latest update at its I/O conference on May 15. But the conference came and went without any such unveiling. The latest reports from several Android blog sites now say Android 4.3 could pop up in July.

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Gripe and ye shall receive: Google fixes Gmail for Android

The delete button that Google had removed from the Android e-mail app is back. IEN NEWS's Stephen Shankland, though an ardent fan of Gmail's archive feature, is happy to see it.

Google has come to its senses with its Gmail app for Android.
A June Gmail overhaul dropped the delete button by default from the e-mail software, a move judged to be silly by me and by 88 percent of the CNET readers who responded to our poll.
Plenty of other people didn't give a fig, the button's absence wasn't a showstopper, and it could be restored by changing the settings, but I thought it a departure for a company that today is supposed to be fanatical about crafting a great experience for users.

Well, happily, it's back. An update to the Gmail app for Android on Thursday restored it by default. Those who don't want it can disable it.
When it's time to change software, Google walks a fine line between guiding its users toward a better future and alienating them. A significant fraction of people don't like change. I'm generally more comfortable with change than most people, if not a novophiliac, but even I can get frustrated when updates break things or when I don't have time to learn some new process.
The vanished Gmail delete button might have signaled Google's desire to shift people more toward Gmail's archiving philosophy, in which messages vanish from your inbox but remain in storage so you can find them again through search or other means. A large archive of e-mail dovetails well with Google's attempts to make your personal information more useful -- figuring out who's important in your social graph, for example, or suggesting that an e-mail addressed to your mother might also be sent to other relatives.
That's OK with me, leaving aside the issues of NSA peeping and court subpoenas, and I'm an avid user of the archive tool. But I wasn't ready to delete the delete button, and I'm glad Google agrees.

Topics:

Apps,

Android,

Personal communications

Tags:

Android,

user interface,

user experience,

Gmail,

UI,

archive,

UX

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Google Now comes closer to Chrome, shares TV show info

 The Android version of Google's notification system can reveal background about TV you're watching, and Google is wiring Now up to Chrome, too

 

Chrome prompts users if they want to receive Google Now updates through their browser. On a Mac, the prompt is through a menu-bar icon; on Windows, through a status bar icon.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) Google Now notifications are expanding from Android to Chrome, and now the service can show information on TV shows you're watching and sales offers you've signaled interest in.
Chrome and Chrome OS have had a flag that lets people enable Google Now for weeks, but it hasn't been connected to an actual Google server. But a notification now appears that asks, "Enable Google Now Cards -- Would you like to be shown Google Now cards?"

On Windows, Chrome lets you configure the list of apps you want to let use the notifications service.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

I got the prompt to enable Google Now for Chrome through a menu bar item on OS X 10.8 and a status bar item on Windows 8. Though it's not yet clear if notifications are actually active, the fact that Chrome is asking people to enable the service shows Google is making steady progress toward that goal.
On Windows, there's also a control panel for setting which Web apps and extensions are permitted to send me notifications. Along with Google Now, options on my machine include Google+ Photos, Google Documents, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Gmail, Tweetdeck, Amazon Cloud Reader, and The New York Times.
The Chrome expansion means many more people could get access to the notification technology. Google Now is designed to prompt people to find information before they actively ask for it -- for example, navigation instructions for a location they searched for on Google Maps or sports scores for a game.
Google Now is an ambitious project that holds the potential to change Google from a company that reacts to what people search for into one that actively anticipates what they need or want. It's well on its way to becoming the interface for a digital assistant -- at least for people who have lots of personal data stored in Gmail messages, Google Calendar appointments, address book entries, Google Maps saved map locations, and other Google services.
On the flip side, there's a risk that for a lot of people, notifications on PCs and mobile devices could become just another overloaded communication channel. The more often we're pestered by buzzing phones and pop-up alerts, the less attention we pay to the and the more likely it is that high-priority updates will be overlooked amid the noise. So it's good that Google offers Chrome users a way to permit or deny notifications from Web apps and on Android to enable or disable various Google Now alert channels.
Google is steadily adding new notification channels to Google Now, and Wednesday night, it announced two more for the Google Search for Android app: TV and Google Offers. Google described the features thus:

TV Cards: If you have an internet-connected TV, Google Now can help unlock more information about what you're watching. Just connect your Android device to the same network that your TV is on and tap "Listen for a TV show" in Google Now. We will show you information, like where you've seen an actor in the cast before, or more information about the people mentioned in the show. So if you were watching Nik Wallenda cross the Grand Canyon this weekend, with Google Now, you could learn that the "King of the Wire" in fact holds seven Guinness World Records, including highest bike ride on a high-wire.
Google Offers: Now you can get reminders for your saved offers when you're near the store -- right when you need it. Google Now will pull up the offer so you can use it quickly and easily.

Google Offers is a service that lets people sign up for discounts from retailers. The Google Offers app for Android and iOS already could be used to alert people when they got near a store for which they'd signed up for an offer.

To use Google Now in Chrome, you have to open the "about:flags" Web page and enable the feature then restart the browser.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google Now cards, such as these stock prices, appear underneath the search box on Android, accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Topics:

Google

Tags:

search,

Google Now,

Google,

Chrome

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Apple's ads failing, says firm that called Surface ads effective

 

Ace Metrix, a company that likes to think it knows how to measure TV ad effectiveness, says Apple's new ads are not a success with consumers.

 

 

Once you put a number on something, that's it, isn't it?
Your height, your shoe size, your IQ, they all define you.
Some companies like to put a number on ads. Why wallow in thinking about the emotional impact of an ad, when you can just give it a number -- pass or fail?
I was moved to utter stasis, therefore, when Bloomberg offered me the pulsating news that Apple's latest ad -- the one introducing the line "Designed by Apple in California" was a mere 489.
A 489 is about the level of, oh, a Jay Leno joke or an Ann Taylor dress. Yes, the industry average is 542. So this ad is dancing topless in the Mediocrity Lounge. (Other recent Apple ads are scoring at 560 and 537, so they're not exactly Ginger Rogers either.)
As I shed a large, lugubrious tear for Cupertino, I suddenly remembered where I'd heard about Ace Metrix before.

This is the company that declared Microsoft's original Surface ads demolished Apple's work in terms of effectiveness.
Yes, that snappy, unforgettable opus with teenagers in little skirts, cavorting with Surfaces, scored a 674.
The only odd lack of correlation was between this score and the numbers recorded by Microsoft's sales department.
I am sure that Ace Metrix has wonderful metrics. After all, it surveys "at least" 500 people before raising its scorecard like Bruno Tonioli on "Dancing With The Stars."
Yet I fear that, as with every survey ever created, there are tiny snags, considerable inefficiencies.

Still, it doesn't mean that -- given the fine numerical law of averages -- Ace Metrix might not have lucked out on some truths here.
It claims its respondents moan that the new ad is both too sad and too long.
I don't have that problem. What's troubling is Apple's lurching into talking about itself, in rather labored terms.
Even when it created the "Here's To The Crazy Ones" ad, it never talked of itself. It simply added its logo to a sentiment.
This time, we hear of "the experience of a product." We hear about a product: "Does it deserve to exist?", as we see a tourist ignoring the locals because he's too busy playing with his iPad.
There's a lot of "we" in the voiceover.
I'd like to tell you a secret: this ad was originally conceived without all the we-ing. The voiceover was added at a later stage.
That is a pity.

Topics:

Music,

Media,

Random,

Social networking,

Advertising

Tags:

Technically Incorrect,

Apple

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Posted in ads, Info

NEW 2013 PAKISTANI AND INDIAN BRIDAL DRESSES

NEW 2013 PAKISTANI AND INDIAN BRIDAL DRESSES

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Posted in PICTURES