Interesting News Of The Week 03/09/2012

I'm back!

Yeah that's right, I'm back after my little break and ready to get blogging again, the news blogging continues.

Just a little update before I start, I have now officially moved in with my dad and step mum in Essex and I am now a student at Colchester Institute (my first day being on Monday the 10th).

Being in college means I could be in at anything between 15 and 30 hours a week (not including my two buses to travel there and two back), so at this time I am not sure as to whether this blog will continue to post of a Thursday or not, but I will keep you posted on that and let you know as soon as I know.

Anyway enough talking about me, let's get on with the news stories.

Bad sleep means Alzheimer's?

The first story, hooray.

This story is about sleep (sleep patterns) and Problems sleeping may be an early sign of Alzheimer's if a study in mice also applies to people, say researchers.
Here's the story.

For those of you who don't know what Alzheimer's is and what causes it, here's a little description.

Alzheimer's disease or AD (also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease), is the most common form of dementia. Unfortunately ts of the brain will have already been destroyed, making treatment extremely difficult or maybe even impossible.
 

One large area of research is in plaques of beta amyloid which form on the brain.
Levels of the beta amyloid protein naturally rise and fall over 24 hours in both mice and people, suggesting the link that researchers are looking for.

However, the protein forms permanent rather than temporary plaques in Alzheimer's disease making thing even harder.

Experiments at Washington University showed that nocturnal mice slept for 40 minutes during every hour of daylight.
But as soon brain plaques started to form the mice were sleeping for only 30 minutes, a considerable difference in their sleeping patterns.

One of the researchers, Prof David Holtzman, said: "If sleep abnormalities begin this early in the course of human Alzheimer's disease, those changes could provide us with an easily detectable sign of [the disease]."

He followed up by saying "If these sleep problems exist, we don't yet know exactly what form they take, reduced sleep overall or trouble staying asleep or something else entirely."

People do not really show problems with their memory (or clarity of thought) until very late on in the disease. Which means by this point parts of the brain will have already been destroyed, making treatment extremely difficult or maybe even impossible.

One large area of research is in plaques of beta amyloid which form on the brain.
Levels of the beta amyloid protein naturally rise and fall over 24 hours in both mice and people, suggesting the link that researchers are looking for.

However, the protein forms permanent rather than temporary plaques in Alzheimer's disease making thing even harder.

Experiments at Washington University showed that nocturnal mice slept for 40 minutes during every hour of daylight.
But as soon brain plaques started to form the mice were sleeping for only 30 minutes, a considerable difference in their sleeping patterns.

One of the researchers, Prof David Holtzman, said: "If sleep abnormalities begin this early in the course of human Alzheimer's disease, those changes could provide us with an easily detectable sign of [the disease]."

He followed up by saying "If these sleep problems exist, we don't yet know exactly what form they take, reduced sleep overall or trouble staying asleep or something else entirely."
However, findings in mice do not always apply to people as there are many reasons for disrupted sleep (seeing as we are not that close you'd expect that, in fact, we try to get rid of them really).

Dr Marie Janson, from the charity Alzheimer's Research UK, called for more studies in people to see if there was a link between sleeping patterns and Alzheimer's (a bold move).

She added: "There has already been research linking changes in sleep patterns to a decline in thinking skills, but these results suggest that disrupted sleep may also be a warning sign of Alzheimer's.
If research confirms specific sleep changes as a possible early marker of Alzheimer's, it could prove a useful strategy for doctors to identify patients at risk of the disease."

Well that's story one, here's an picture I thought is appropriate from the Alzheimer's association's "Walk to end Alzheimer's" last year:

Bernard Matthews' last wish "Denied"

The second story this week is about Norfolk Turkey tycoon Bernard Matthews and the denial of his last wish before he sadly passed away at the age of 80 on November the 25th 2010.

Here's the story.

Right so what was his last wish? was it something dramatic or deadly?
No not at all the last wish of Norfolk turkey tycoon (turkey as in the meat. not the country) Bernard Matthews was to leave a £12m French villa to the woman he lived with.

So what did he exactly want to do?
Well, he wanted to give Villa Bolinha in the south of France to Odile Marteyn, who had "unfailingly" supported him.

He had hoped his three adopted children and his son would give up legal rights to the villa to grant his last wish but no, the children thwarted (basically ignored) this wish and used a French law giving them a share of the villa.

In a dispute over inheritance tax, deputy High Court judge Nicholas Strauss QC heard that Mr Matthews' wishes had been "disregarded" by the adopted children and Ms Marteyn had been left with less than a half share in the villa.

Mr Matthews and his wife Joyce, who helped him found the turkey business, had lived apart for 35 years despite the fact that they had adopted Kathleen, Jason and Victoria.

He also had a son by Cornelia Elgershuizen called George who inherited much of the estate.

Judge Strauss said Mr Matthews had lived with Ms Marteyn in England and Ramatuelle for about 20 years, meaning that it was fair for her to have the villa, especially as it had Matthews consent.

It was apparent that Mr Matthews had left three wills and in which one he said that the Villa Bolinha was left to Ms Marteyn outright, this was confimed by in a written ruling published on Wednesday following a hearing in July.

The judge said: "He was aware that, by French law, his children were entitled to 75% of Villa Bolinha on his death."

Followed by "He hoped nevertheless that his children would not exercise their rights, and left a letter to that effect. While George respected his wishes, the adopted children did not, with the result that Odile could only inherit 43.75%."

In a letter to the children, Mr Matthews said: "Odile has supported me unfailingly for many years and particularly so during my recent illnesses.
Without such support I might not have been able to continue directing our family company for our mutual benefit, especially since trading conditions have become so difficult.
I wish the French villa to continue to be occupied and enjoyed, and consider Odile would be the best person to take on this responsibility."

The judge said Mr Matthews owned more than £50m worth of property when he died, meaning that the children would have had more than enough value of property to share between them, but still this has happened.

French tax authorities estimated Villa Bolinha to be worth £12m and Mr Matthews' property outside France was worth about £40m.

The adopted children's lawyers had claimed that French inheritance tax liabilities should be paid by the Matthews estate but this was rejected by Judge Strauss, thankfully.

Here's a nice picture of the man himself Mr Bernard Matthews to end with:

Summary of the week

So for my returning week we have "bad sleep" being a possible cause for Alzheimer's and the adopted children of a great food icon denying his last wishes.

Interesting News Of The Week 09/07/2012

A little late tonight but lets get straight on with it,
Here's the stories.

Florence out of Music
Now before anyone panics Florence from "Florence and the Machine" is not out of the music game, shes just been temporally removed by doctors orders.
You'll understand what I mean in a minute.
Here's the story.

The singer Florence Welch from "Florence and the Machine" has had to pull out of two European festivals after losing her voice.

Florence went on Twitter to announce that doctors have told her to rest her voice after she felt something "snap", it is unclear as to whether this was during a performance or in practises.
She followed this by returning to the social networking site to thank fans for their support.

The singer recently performed at Radio 1's Hackney Weekend, which it is speculated to be where things started to go wrong for her.
She has apologised on her website for having to cancel further gigs.

She made a statement to the media saying "I'm so sorry to all the fans, I was desperate to still perform, but was told without question not to, so as not to do permanent damage."

What interests me about this story though is that Florence Welch is not the only singer to have had voice problems within her time in the music industry, never mind recently, last year singer Adele had to cancel numerous appearances due to a haemorrhage on her vocal cords, in simple terms damaging them.

Florence + The Machine are booked to appear at other festivals this summer, including a headline performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago this August, and hopefully Florence will have recovered her voice by then to return to perform the gig.

The band may also get their first number one this Sunday with their single Spectrum after performing well in this weeks midweek charts, so we will see on that one.

Sorry this story is quite short but here's a nice picture of Florence on her way to an event:

O2 Outage
As many people may know O2 the mobile phone company suffered from server problems on Wednesday and continuing on to today, effecting a lot of mobile phone users not only on O2 mobiles but on Tescos and GiffGaff as well, because they all use the same masts.

I've chosen this story because it effected both me and Gemma yesterday and mostly last night.
Here's the story.

O2 has described the recent connection problems as a "Network Fault".
There have been few details have been given about what has caused the issues to so many users.

O2 representatives said "We can confirm that the problem with our mobile service is due to a fault with one of our network systems, which has meant some mobile phone numbers are not registering correctly on our network,", the numbers affected seemed to be mostly the Tescos and GiffGaff users.

It is not clear how many of O2's 23 million customers were hit by the fault but the operator said the problem was not based on geography (a specific place) beacuse across the country some were still able to connect at the same location as others who cannot.

As with most situations both consumers and businesses have sent messages via Twitter to complain about the issue, here's a couple.

Joanne Clarkson from Newcastle said "Being the mother of a child with special needs I need my phone. Until this is fixed I will have to stay home so I can be contacted by my landline if the school needs me,".

Chris Benson, owner of Crystal IT services based in Barry, Wales said "It's a little difficult to direct our workforce, contractors or suppliers when they all have to rely on landlines." meaning it had effected his work and business.

The widespread issues began "at lunchtime" yesterday which meant many lost voice and data services.
In a statement today the firm said: "We can confirm that our 2G network service has now been restored. Customers who were affected should now be able to make and receive calls. Our 3G service is starting to restore and customers should expect to see a gradual return of data services as the day progresses.".

So at the moment services are partially restored, and the company is advising customers still affected by the outage to switch their mobile phones off and on to reset their devices so that they will hopefully connect to their 2G services for the time being.

Having the 2G network back up means that customers should now be able to make and receive calls, and for others can also send and receive texts again, if you think about it its like going back to the old networks for the old black and white display mobile phones.

Customers have been told they can keep track of developments via O2's service status page (put in a link so you can get there from here).

Here's the news coverage from the BBC talking to a representative of Gizmodo.com:

Summary of the week

So this week we have yet more singers in bad conditions resulting in stopping performances and the O2 network having server problems that have effected many customers.

Interesting News Of The Week 02/07/2012

It's Thursday, and today is even more special than any other Thursday because on this day I have been with Miss Gemma Oliver 7 months and hopefully I will continue being with her forever more, but yeah that's just me being all emotional.
Anyway, here's this weeks stories.

Lifeguard Fired For Helping Drowning Man
Yeah that's right this weeks first story is about a lifeguard in Florida that has been fired from his job for helping a drowning man who was not within his section of the beach, sounds stupid, that's why I selected this story and here it is.

Tomas Lopez a 21 year old lifeguard at Hallandale Beach north of Miami was told that a swimmer was in trouble in an unguarded area of the beach, so he rushed to the mans aid and because of that he has now been fired.
"I wasn't going to say no," the lifeguard said, which is completely right, your not going to turn around and say no to a call of help.

But his bosses still fired him and said he had broken company rules and could have put other swimmers at risk, so he was expected to stay and let a man possibly die, this was followed up by at least two colleagues resigning in protests.

"We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," Susan Ellis of lifeguard, provider Jeff Ellis and Associates said.

She added that the stretch of Hallandale Beach that Mr Lopez was supposed to be patrolling on Monday was being protected by other lifeguards who were on the phone to emergency operators at the time, so if there was other lifeguards on duty, then I don't see what the problem is, they could of had it covered.

Mr Lopez who was four months into the job, ran some distance to help the swimmer who had already been pulled out of the water by other beachgoers, showing dedication to his work and the life of the poor man. He and an off-duty nurse then helped the man until paramedics arrived to take him to hospital and that could of made all the difference, perhaps if they weren't there then the man could of died.
Now the unidentified swimmer is said to be in intensive care.

Mr Lopez has no regrets about losing his $8.25 an hour (£5.30; 6.60 euros) job, and neither would I, a mans life is more important than a £5.30 an hour job, besides now he's had publicity he's more than likely to be hired elsewhere.

"I think it's ridiculous, honestly, that a sign is what separates someone from being safe and not safe," Mr Lopez told CBS television, and I'm sure many other people agree with him.

Another colleague, who found out that Lopez had been fired, said he radioed his manager to cover the beach for him and promptly quit, which just shows how much the managements action can and will effect their work force.

Here's a video of the news coverage:

Armed Police Close Down M6 Toll
This news story is extremely new in fact it took place at 08:20 this morning near Litchfield in United Kingdom.
It involves a very serious event investigated as being suspicious on the M6 toll involving a single-decker coach.
Here's the story.

Police said the coach stopped on the hard shoulder "of its own accord" (With no need) at 08:20 BST.
48 passengers on the Megabus Preston to London service were led off the coach and forced to sit apart in a boxed off area on the opposite carriageway, so that police could identify the situation.

The coach left Preston at 05:10 and was due in London at 10:55, but obviously didn't reach its destination, stopping and causing panic to police and our other services.
The fire service and police involved were from the West Midlands and Staffordshire area.

At around 12:00, the passengers were moved on to another coach which remained parked under the canopy of nearby toll booths, presumably under observation.

Eyewitnesses say that the police called into deal with the situation were not standard policemen and women, they arrived in unmarked police cars, helicopters and with sniffer dogs.
A man on scene also said "It all just took off, ambulances left right and centre and armed police in black caps.", suggesting that police were bomb squads rather than standard police as that is they're usual uniform.

Diversions were put in place to send traffic away from the toll road to avoid anything effecting the polices investigations, the Ministry of Defence also confirmed military personnel were assisting police, maybe explaining the described policemen and women in dark or black clothing.

Eventually about four hours after armed officers arrived, police confirmed the scene as safe.
They had spoken to all of the passengers individually one by one from the large group, keeping one passenger separate from everyone else, a possible suspect.

A police spokesman later said "We are also not treating anyone as a suspect." despite keeping the one passenger separate.

The investigation started and was thought to be something to do with terrorists but it has now been made apparent that the sweep was prompted by the discovery of a fake cigarette, 4 hours for that one cigarette.

Here's an interview with a passenger:

Summary Of The Week

Well this week we have unrecognised heroes and fake drugs causing big problems, what is our world coming to?

Oh yeah, we need a nice picture this week, so here it is, our planet (and the moon):

BlogCatalog myLot User Profile

Interesting News Of The Week 18/06/2012

I'm on time this week, so lets get straight into it.
Here's the stories.

Louise Mensch launches rival to Twitter

The first story this week is a link between politics (a politician) and social networking.

Here's a summary of the story in over 140 and 180 words.

Conservative MP Louise Mensch has launched a microblogging site to rival Twitter.

Ms Mensch is a Twitter user with almost 60,000 followers but said she has grown "frustrated" with it.

Yeah, that's right, as you can see from the title a politician has started her own site, to rival Twitter, this could be fun too see how her site goes.
She's named her new site, Menshn (Linked for you to have a look), she aims to keep conversations on topic and allows 180 character posts which is 40 more than Twitter, big difference there, that's more hashtags people.

She also shares the site, she jointly owns it with ex-Labour digital adviser Luke Bozier, the thing is though it's only available in the US but aims to launch in the UK before the London Olympics, which could be a great advantage.

Discussion on Menshn has initially been restricted to the US election, so at the moment it appears to be more of a political site, but Ms Mensch says it will expand to reflect users' interests.

When new members join they gain 100 randomly selected subscribers, equivalent to Twitter followers, so instead of waiting for people to follow you, you get 100 straight away, nice.
Mr Bozier said: "With all the great political forums out there, we noticed that there was no place to talk about politics live.", so it is for politics, I'm getting confused now, seems like a bit of a let down.

She described her site as "A permanent place to go online to talk about the things you're most interested in.", where as Twitter users can organise discussions through the use of hashtags or searching by keyword and choose whose Tweets they read by following or unfollowing other users.

The new site has had a largely hostile reaction from Twitter users so far, with some accusing Ms Mensch of vanity and predicting that the site will flop, which could be expected if she keeps the site to politics, but we will see.

The Corby MP has insisted the site's name is not a pun on her surname, as it is spelt differently, and is, rather, a play on the word "mention", if I'm honest I'm not quite sure if I believe that or not, but it's possible.
Users who type "menschn.com" into web browsers are currently being redirected to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament site, whoops, not exactly what they were looking for.

Ms Mensch, who was a "chick lit" novelist before becoming an MP in 2010, said she hopes the site would attract Twitter users who find the site "frustrating", I wonder how many people besides herself actually find Twitter frustrating.

There's no video for this story so here a picture promoting the site:

New O-level-style exams could replace GCSEs

I've selected this as my second story this week as it applies to not only me but anyone else who has or is taking their GCSE's, so in a way this could become a worldwide story.

In simple terms this story is about the reconstruction or changing of the educational system as we know it.

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove plans to scrap GCSEs for England and return to O-level style exams, so back to the good old days.

It's been said that Mr Gove believes GCSEs "have gone beyond the point of rescue", does that mean they are now pointless?

The proposed changes have been planned to be brought in for pupils from autumn 2014, so for anyone who is currently in year 8 or year 2 of secondary school (depending on the school layout), would see to the biggest change to the exams system for a generation.

Less academic pupils would sit a different "more straightforward" exam, like the old CSE's, well at least they are accounting for the less fortunate of us.
Labour says Mr Gove must explain his changes to teachers and pupils, so he'd have to have one on one meetings with all teachers and then group ones for each set of students all over the country, that could be fun.

GCSEs replaced O-levels and CSEs in the mid-1980s.
Under that system, the more academic (smarter) teenagers took O-levels while others took CSEs (Certificates of Secondary Education).
Now a similar system could return, although the names of the new exams are yet to be decided.

There was a leak to the daily mail just as tens of thousands of teenagers finish their GCSE and A-level exams, meaning that those exams may not be worth as much as the news ones.
As control of education in the UK is devolved, Mr Gove's plans are for England only (at the moment), It will be up to Wales and Northern Ireland to decide whether to follow suit.
In Scotland, pupils take Standard Grades and Highers rather than GCSEs and A-levels, so they would probably not be affected.

The plan is for students to begin studying what the leaked document says will be "tougher" O-level style exams in English, maths and the sciences (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) from September 2014 they would take their exams in 2016, two years later due to students having to stay in education till they are 18.

So, pupils starting their GCSE courses in September 2013 could be the last to take them, and also probably the last to be effected.

Already, the new academy schools (like my secondary school has just become), which are state-funded but semi-independent, do not have to follow the national curriculum.

It is also said the government plans to scrap the traditional benchmark on which secondary schools in England are measured, that being the requirement for pupils to get five good GCSEs (grades A* to C) including maths and English.

Schools would continue to be measured on the government's new benchmark, known as "The English Baccalaureate", which counts how many pupils in a school have good GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, geography, history and a foreign language.
Well I'll tell you what, I'm glad I don't have to do all that.

Their isn't actually a video for this story but here's a video of Mr Gove's speech on ICT and the national curriculum:

Summary of the week

So this week we've got politics and politicians taking the social networking by storm (not) and the national curriculum being changed dramatically, bye bye GCSE's.


Politics blog sites

Interesting News Of The Week - 07/05/2012

Before anyone says it, yes I have put the right title on this post.

You may have noticed a gap in my blog posts as there is no post of the week beginning 30/04/2012, this is mostly because I was busy with many things within my personal life and preparation for exams, so I'm sorry, but i am back this week with two more news stories.

So lets get started shall we?

Curry's ability to fight cancer put to the test

Here's the first interesting news story this week, this story is not really a story set for one place it is more of a story based around general help and within that cancer, so this news story hasn't got a specific place were its happened, so lets say the world.

I chose this story basically because its about curry and from my about me page you can see I love curry.
well anyway, here's a basic summary of what has happened. in my own words.

Chemists/Chemical people were researching curry and they discovered a chemical that will soon be tested for its abilities, which believe it or not it is said that the chemical can be used to kill bowel cancer tumours.

The chemical they found was called "Curcumin", which is found in the spice Turmeric, and it has been said to be linked to a range of health related benefits (except for hotter curry's that just burn your throat).
They've done several studies that have shown that it can beat the cancer cells from some that were grown in and tested against.
They're also benefits that have been suggested in stroke and dementia patients as well.

Now they are going to do trial tests at hospitals all around Leicester will be looking at giving Curcumin alongside other drugs.
Here a bit of statistics, there is about 40,000 people that are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK each year and a lot more in the rest of the world.
If the disease spreads around the body, patients are normally given a collection of three different drugs, but about half will not work.

The cancer is seen as usually 'Difficult to treat'.
Prof William Steward, who is the leader of the tests, said animal tests combining the two were "100 times better" than on their own.

Here's some other quotes of things (some important people) said about the story.
"Once bowel cancer has spread it is very difficult to treat, partly because the side effects of chemotherapy can limit how long patients can have treatment".

"The prospect that Curcumin might increase the sensitivity of cancer cells to chemotherapy is exciting because it could mean giving lower doses, so patients have fewer side effects and can keep having treatment for longer.

"This research is at a very early stage, but investigating the potential of plant chemicals to treat cancer is an intriguing area that we hope could provide clues to developing new drugs in the future."

Joanna Reynolds: "By doing a clinical trial like this, we will find out more about the potential benefits of taking large amounts of Curcumin, as well as any possible side effects this could have for cancer patients."

Now there's no video for this news story so here's a nice picture of curry instead:

 

US 'foils new underwear bomb plot' by al-Qaeda in Yemen

The second interesting news story this week is a United States/Middle Eastern story.

This news story has taken place withing the Middle East just outside Yemen within the past 10 days (of this post).

Here's basically what has happened. in my own words.

Lets start this story with an important quote from US Officials:

"The US has foiled a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate an upgraded version of the failed 2009 "underwear bomb".

So after loosing Osama bin Lardin the al-Qaeda have gone from suicide bombers that hijack planes and other form of transport to strapping deadly weapons and bombs to their underwear?
Sounds like an ultimate plan of mass destruction there.

But anyway the device (bomb) was seized in the Middle East after a CIA operation in Yemen and is now being studied by the FBI (taking a look at some guys dirt underwear, nice).

Reports say no target had been chosen and no plane tickets purchased by the time the plot was ruined for the al-Qaeda.

Officials also say there was never any risk to the public, so there is no need to bring in a law to have to check underwear at airports, fortunately as that would be kind of awkward really.

It is also not clear what has happened to the would-be bomber as he probably ran away as soon as he heard them coming, because he seemed to have some common sense.

Peter King said counter-terrorism officials had told him: "We don't have to worry about him anymore." that's probably because they are now worried about other people trying to strap things to themselves not just the al-Qaeda.

The FBI made a statement saying "As a result of close co-operation with our security and intelligence partners overseas, an improvised explosive device (IED) designed to carry out a terrorist attack has been seized abroad,".

They also said that "Initial exploitation indicates that the device is very similar to IEDs that have been used previously by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in attempted terrorist attacks, including against aircraft and for targeted assassinations," within their statement.

President Barack Obama was said to have been first informed of the plot back in April.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden also said adding the device had not posed a threat to the public.

This news story has two video's attached to it (making up for the curry stories lack of video), the first being the official news coverage:

Here's the second which is a simulation of what would happen if the bomb went off:

Summary for this week

So an overall summary this week shows that curry could be the break through we've all been waiting for to beat cancer meaning anyone who eats enough curry with the spice Turmeric in it could beat cancer and that the al-Qaeda have got to the point of which are using there suicide bombers to carry bombs in there underwear in an attempt to regain their "Fear Factor" (in other words showing no care for their dignities).