its a shameful act!

another blast is shaking our country's root.whatz happening?its not a time for blame game.its not the soul responsiblity of officials only but as a citizen of this country v ought to be alert too.

if u guyz have any suspicion in anybody or is there any newcomer in ur society.juz watch them closely.if u seen something mysterious happening in ur society juz make a phone call to the official.

as for the government officials i, as a citizen of this country to do something effecient that can stop this blasts.

can't camera surveillance be kept in  places that are thought to be bobmprone area.

can't the patrol be much harder in their work?

how many police officials check the citizens who look  like odd one out in that place?

and i seriously condemn this shameful act that is being done by the so called mujahidi's.

no religion allows anyone to kill any innocent people.

blast in gujarat and maharashtra

NEW DELHI: A low intensity blast rocked Modasa in Gujarat, killing two persons and leaving 13 injured. One person was killed in another blast in M

A low intensity blast has rocked Modasa in Gujarat. (Times Now)

alegaon, Maharashtra. (Watch ) 

"There has been an explosion in Modasa town but we are yet to confirm how it took place. The bomb and dog squads have been rushed to the site," District Superintendent of Police R B Bhrambhatt said. 

The injured were being transferred to the nearby hospitals, police said. 

In Malegaon, one person was dead and three were injured in a blast. Reports coming in from Malegaon in Maharashtra said that the blast occurred in the vicinity of a mosque. 

While police officials said that it was a cylinder blast, residents claimed it to be a bomb blast. Details are awaited. 

Home Ministry officials including Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta are in touch with senior officials of the Gujarat government and police authorities following today’s blast in Sabarkantha. They are looking into the matter. People should guard against the rumour, said the ministry. 

Earlier in the day, seventeen crude bombs were found near the Kalupur Darvaza of Ahmedabad. The bombs found were not sophisticated devices but crude explosives. 

Barely two days ago, a low intensity bomb rocked Mehrauli in Delhi, killing two persons and leaving several injured. 

The same comes two weeks after the coordinated bombings in the capital on September 13 that killed 24 people and injured over a 100. 

On July 26, serial bombings in Ahmedabad killed 56 people. In the days following the bombings, 23 low-intensity bombs were recovered from Surat and defu

another bomb shakes the capital of india

An 11-year-old-boy died and more than 18 people were injured when a crude bomb exploded at a crowded flower market at Mehrauli, south Delhi, close to the historic Qutub Minar, at 2.12pm on Saturday, police said. 

The injured have been admitted to AIIMS; 12 of them are at the Trauma Centre. Five of them suffered serious head injuries. Three or four of the injured could be required to be operated upon, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta told reporters. 

Police said that the blast appeared to be similar in nature to the ones that took place near IIT and Lado Sarai in January, February this year. 

Riding a black motorcycle, the two men in black dress and wearing helmets, dropped a black polythene bag containing a tiffin box opposite an electronic goods shop in the flower market in Mehrauli, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H S Dhaliwal told reporters. 

A team of National Security Guard(NSG) reached the spot with sniffer dogs and was examining the blast site. A team of forensic experts have also reached the spot. The national capital has been put on high alert. 

According to eyewitnesses, two men on a motorcycle had dropped a tiffin box at the market, known as Phoolwalon ki Sairwala Market, near Aulia Masjid. When the boy picked up the tiffin box, a loud explosion took place, killing him and injuring many people. The explosion shattered the window panes of several adjacent shops in the market located close to the historic Qutab Minar, which was bustling with shoppers. The market has since been evacuated. 

The explosion comes exactly two weeks after the serial blasts in Delhi, in which about two dozen people were killed. 

World's Most Economically Powerful Cities

LONDON, England
Gross domestic product (2005): $452 billionGDP (2020): $708 billionGrowth rate: 3%MasterCard Ranking: 1Population (2007): 8,567,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 92%
By 2020, London is expected to leapfrog Paris and become Europe's richest city as measured by GDP. London's 3% growth rate is high for a major city in the developed world. London is ranked as the No. 1 city on MasterCard's Centers of Commerce index, owing to the vast volume of its financial markets. It's comparable to New York in equities and commodities trading but is larger in bond and derivatives trading. The downside? It's expensive. The purchasing power of the average Londoner is less than their New York peers.

HONG KONG, China
GDP (2005): $244 billionGDP (2020): $407 billionGrowth rate: 3.5%MasterCard ranking: 6Population (2007): 7,206,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 49%
Hong Kong benefits from its physical proximity to the Chinese mainland and its historical connection to Western markets. MasterCard ranks Hong Kong the best business center in the world, based on a composite of its ports, airports, hotels and commercial real estate development.

TOKYO, Japan
GDP (2005): $1.19 trillionGDP (2020): $1.6 trillionGrowth rate: 2%MasterCard ranking: 3Population: 35,676,000Purchasing power(NYC=100): 96%
Tokyo is the world's most populous city by the U.N.'s reckoning, and it has the largest economy. By PricewaterhouseCoopers' projections, Tokyo will still have the largest economy in 2020, though New York will be getting closer. Tokyo's huge size comes at a price: Of the 151 largest economies, its growth is expected to rank at No. 140.

CHICAGO, III
GDP (2005): $460 billionGDP (2020): $645 billionGrowth rate: 2.3%MasterCard ranking: 5Population (2007): 8,990,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 115%
America's second city faces stern competition from Los Angeles, which now has a larger population and a bigger economy. But Chicago still outranks Los Angeles on MasterCard's Commerce Index. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade give Chicago a role in the global financial markets that Los Angeles (who still remembers the Pacific Exchange?) lacks.

SEOUL, South Korea
GDP (2005): $218 billionGDP (2020): $349 billionGrowth rate: 3.2% MasterCard ranking: 9Population (2007): 9,796,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 56%
Similar to Hong Kong, Seoul benefits from a growing Asia and Western-oriented markets.
PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that by 2020, Seoul will surpass Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston and Miami in GDP.

PARIS, France
GDP (2005): $460 billionGDP (2020): $611 billionGrowth rate: 1.9%MasterCard ranking: 7Population (2007): 9,904,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 88%
Today the economy of Paris is bigger than London's. But sluggish growth in this old-world capital has it slowly losing ground. By 2020 it will have been passed by London. We'll always have Paris, yes, but by 2020 its economy will be little larger than rapidly-growing Mexico City.

LOS ANGELES, Calif.
GDP (2005): $639 billionGDP (2020): $886 billionGrowth rate: 2.2% MasterCard ranking: 17Population (2007): 12,500,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 120%
Los Angeles is on course to become the world's third city with a trillion dollar economy. And while that economy will always be smaller than New York's, those in Los Angeles take solace: According to UBS estimates, the average resident of L.A. has 20% more purchasing power than their counterparts in New York.

SHANGAI, China
GDP (2005): $139 billionGDP (2020): $360 billionGrowth rate: 6.5%MasterCard ranking: 24Population (2007): 14,987,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 36%
With an explosive projected-growth rate of 6.5%, the size of Shanghai's economy would more than double between 2005 and 2020. Shanghai is hardly the only Asian economy with rapid growth--in 15 years this will be a very different list. Indian cities Mumbai and Delhi are projected to grow by around 6%; Jakarta, Indonesia, by 6.5%; Beijing by 6.6%.

TORONTO, Canada
GDP (2005): $209 billionGDP (2020): $327 billionGrowth rate: 3%MasterCard ranking: 13Population (2007): 5,213,000Purchasing power (NYC=100): 113.8%
Toronto only narrowly edged out Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia and Mexico City, Mexico, to hang on at No. 10. Toronto is still the economic heart of one of the world's wealthiest countries, and it's projected to keep humming through 2020. Along with London, Toronto is the fastest growing G7 financial center.

World's Most Economically Powerful Cities

For sovereign nations, it's easy to find measures of almost every variable imaginable--gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, money flows and other metrics. After all, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund all deal with governments at the national level. But for corporations, cities and their economies matter most, since picking the right city will be the key to prosperity in the future.
Corporations, and even individuals, have to weigh the size of a city's economy compared to how it will be in the future and consider the potential growth in the intervening years. For that matter, they have to judge whether it's worth it to settle for a city that has high growth prospects but turns out to be a lousy place to live.
To create our ranking of economic power, we looked at all of these factors to see who's strong across the board.
While Tokyo and New York are far and away the largest economies of today and tomorrow, they are growing much slower than many. Thus it's fast-growing London that tops our list, according to data from MasterCard.
Growth and quality are as important as size in our rankings, so smaller but briskly growing economies like Seoul, South Korea, and Hong Kong also make the list. North America, with relatively lower growth areas, still boasts a number of cities in the current power list, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, the latter of which squeezes past Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia and Mexico City, Mexico. To see the entire list of the top 10 economically powerful cities, click here.
Pinning down the data to compare cities isn't as easy as it sounds, but luckily, several corporations have done detailed studies of the economies of global cities.
The auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers has compiled estimates of the GDP (as measured by purchasing power parity) of the largest urban economies and how fast those economies are growing from 2005 to 2020.
MasterCard has created an annual "centers of commerce" index, which ranks cities on a host of factors, including legal and political framework, economic stability, the ease of doing business, the financial flow, convenience as a business center, information flow and livability.
UBS publishes an estimate of living expenses and earnings in the world's largest cities. This report also includes estimates of how much the earnings of the average worker can actually purchase in the city.
The overarching lesson: Keep looking east. The world's fastest-growing economies, such as Shanghai, China; Beijing, Jakarta, Indonesia; and Mumbai, India, are growing at twice the pace of the Western world.
Cities with enormous populations like Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Mexico City also have economies projected to grow by more than 4% annually. They won't be the size of Tokyo or New York anytime soon, but with business-friendly policies, their economic power can be expected to continue climbing.

whatz happening around us?

friendz'

juz open ur eyez and take a look .from outside it looks like  developing India but when v go 

to depth of it  v can see reality. On one side v see a minor girl of 15 being gang raped by 4 lusty men which happened in Mumbai;

on other side v see a girl who lures men for sex and robs them of their valuables in same Mumbai. 

In political tug of war many young fresher’s of Bengal are suffering from unemployment after the Tata- Singhuri land clash.

Due to this delegates from U.S. have cancelled their visit to India. 

Whoz  suffering from this political war?!!!! 

We ,the dwellers and citizens of this country. 

“Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will have a helicopter for his service 24x7” 

But in Bihar floods v have little access to chopper use.

Why is that so? 

"In a despicable act, an assistant sub-inspector, who was deputed at a flood relief camp, tried to outrage the modesty of a girl evacuee at Bathnaha railway station in Araria district on Saturday evening."   A policeman who has been given the right to take harsh actions against citizens at certain conditions and has to protect public from antisocial elements is himself seen involved in wrongdoings! If such is the case of policemen of Bihar where crime is believed to be at its peak then where will the poor and weak go for protection.  But to look at brighter sideman  huge amount has been sanctioned in Mumbai to fight against Terrorism. By updating to newer techniques, modern weapons, and new computer techniques of tracing, tracking and tackling terrorism is done.  in my point of view India will take a lot more ages to develop but it will surely rise as one of great power. JAI HIND.

Ratan Tata joins US nanotech firm's advisory board

 Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group, has joined the global advisory board of Nanobiosym, a leading nanotechnology company in the US.

Welcoming Tata to the board, the firm's chairman and CEO Anita Goel said: 'I am inspired by his example, which provides us with a practical roadmap for bringing cutting edge technologies into emerging global economies and extending our reach to broad markets at the 'bottom of the pyramid'.'

Tata, who hit international headlines with his Rs.100,000 ($2,500)Nano car, said: 'Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionise the way we tackle key issues facing the world today, and Nanobiosym is working at the forefront of this revolution.'

'Dr. Goel has forged a bold model for driving technological innovation and commercialisation, while maximising global humanitarian impact. I look forward to working closely with her and her team,' Tata, named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, was quoted as saying in a company release.

Goel is a Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-trained physicist and physician as well as a nanotech expert and entrepreneur. She was named one of MIT Technology Review's top 35 science and technology innovators in the world.

Nanobiosym, based in Medford, near Boston in Massachusetts, developed Gene-RADAR, a portable nanotechnology platform that can rapidly and accurately detect genetic fingerprints from any biological organism.

The company aims to give patients worldwide real-time access to their own diagnostic information through low-cost handheld devices that could detect disease from a single drop of blood or saliva.

Alfred Ford, director of the Ford Motor Company Fund and also a member of Nanobiosym's board, said: 'Behind this vision is game-changing technology which can revolutionise healthcare globally. In the face of growing world health crises and transnational epidemics, Dr.Goel and Nanobiosym are redefining the rules in the battle to diagnose disease and save lives.'

Indian American wins nuclear medicine's 'Nobel prize'

An Indian American doctor, Mathew L. Thakur has been conferred the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 2008 Benedict Cassen Prize, often called the 'Nobel' of nuclear medicine.

Thakur, a pioneer in molecular imaging, an emerging technique that helps detect disease at the molecular or cellular level in the human body and thus helps develop personalised medicine, received the biennial $25,000 award during the Society's 55th annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, recently.

He is professor of radiology and radiation oncology/nuclear medicine at the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a member of the Kimmel Cancer Centre at the university.

Thakur has focused on developing and evaluating radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and therapy. He has produced and isolated many medically useful radionuclides and has been instrumental in the preparation of several novel radiopharmaceuticals, noted the society in its press release.

Radionuclides or radiopharmaceuticals, also called tracers, are drugs with small amount of radioactive material that are administered to patients, and the radiation emitted detected or photographed. In most cases, it enables physicians to quickly diagnose conditions like cancer, heart disease, thyroid disorders and bone fractures. Sometimes, this compound is also used to treat the condition.

'Among the many life threatening diseases, cancer remains the most formidable disease for mankind,' Thakur, who holds several patents, was quoted as saying. His current research focuses on finding DNA patches that can help in the early detection of breast and prostate cancer.

At the award ceremony, Thakur delivered the Cassen Lecture on 'Genomic Biomarkers for Molecular Imaging: Predicting the Future.'

The Cassen Award, sponsored by the Society of Nuclear Medicine's Education and Research Foundation, is named after the late physicist Benedict Cassen and only eight other researchers have been awarded the prize so far.

Thakur's career, spanning more than 35 years, has benefited millions of patients worldwide. He has developed widely used radiopharmaceuticals that have improved diagnostic accuracy and patient care, the university said.

He became interested in nuclear medicine and radiopharmaceuticals as an undergraduate at Bombay University, and later as a graduate student at the University of London in the late 1960s.

striving to be #1

Russia successfully tests new ballistic missile

Russia successfully tested its newest Bulava ballistic missile on Thursday, launching it from a nuclear submarine in the White Sea to hit a target in the Far East thousands of miles away, the navy said.

The Dmitry Donskoi heavy strategic submarine fired the missile from underwater from northwestern Russia, sending it to the Kura testing site on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific.

"The parameters of the trajectory worked as planned," the navy said in a statement. It gave no further detail, adding Navy Commander Vladimir Vysotsky "had thanked members of the state testing commission and noted the submarine crew's high skills".

The intercontinental Bulava missile is designed for Russia's new Borei (Arctic Wind) class nuclear submarines. The first submarine of this class, Yuri Dolgoruky, was launched in February.

In the past years, tests of Bulava have been a mixture of failure and success. The Kremlin touts Bulava as a unique weapon able to pierce any air defence.

Woman who went for tubectomy gets urinary bladder cut

my friends,

u might be aware of the incident which happened with our sister in thruvatriyor,when she went to have tubectomy operation done but instead had her urinary bladder cut.If this is the condition of a state capital hospital then what will be the condition of municipality hospitals in suburbs and villages.patients must be consider as gods.After the completion of a M.B.B.S course a doctor takes oath in which he proclaims that he will be proffessional and sincere in his work.but as per our sister gajalakshmi's wordings the staffs were behaving like children cracking jokes in operation theatre.so whatz the point in taking the oath when u don't abide by it.my humble request to all doctors is to be sincere and  attentive in ur work.ur not having any specimen rat our rabbit in ur dissecting table.Its a humanbeing full of life and sensation.so keep in mind when u do any operation;be it a simple suture or a bypass surgery think about them as ur relatives.regarding the doctors who carried out this operation they must be severly condemned and harsh actions must be taken against these fellows.

T-Mobile readies 3G for Dream's arrival

Today T-Mobile announced that its 3G network will be available by mid-October, roughly the same time the HTC Dream Android phone is expected to go on sale.

T-Mobile will be premiering the world's first Android phone in just five days; the 3G device is presently without an official sale date and price. Unofficial reports have placed availability between October 13 and October 21, and though today's announcement from T-Mobile does not provide any further information on dates, its "mid-October" availability of 3G services is in keeping with that timetable.

Twenty-seven major US markets will have T-Mobile 3G by the end of the year, the company said today, and expansion will continue through 2009.Work on the network began in 2006.

Deployment is currently complete in Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, and the New York metropolitan area, just short of the 20 that were expected in the spring, but the German mobile carrier says that Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Seattle will be switched on in October.

A further six markets -- Birmingham, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Memphis, and Tampa -- are expected to be receive UMTS/HSDPA connectivity before 2009.

Aamir's house invaded

Almost a dozen fakirs were driven out of the compound of Marina Apartments last week. Marina Apartments is where actor Aamir Khan resides. According to sources, "A lot of fakirs just gatecrashed into the society saying that they had come there to Aamir Khan's house as his mother often gives them money and food during the ramzan period. The society members probably took objection and the police was called to get them out of the society.'' 

A lot of our filmstars distribute food and donate money to poor people during the ramzan period. Says a close family friend of Khan, `` I have heard about Dilip Kumar, Salman Khan, Akbar Khan and Sanjay Khan giving money and food to the poor but I don't think Aamir Khan's family follows it. Besides, Aamir Khan's mother does not live in Mumbai anymore and I don't think his new wife Kiran follows the tradition if there was any in the family. Besides, in today's time no society will allow people to just gatecrash into the society so it was but natural for them to drive them out.'' 

We do not know the true reason behind this, but certainly a lot of people returned disheartened. 

give bribe!take bribe!!!!

CHENNAI: That poverty makes one weak before authority is known, but a survey of graft patterns shows that the poor are especially vulnerable to the avarice of corrupt officials. 

Families living below the poverty line in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry paid an estimated Rs 97.6 crore as bribes for getting public services in the last year alone, a survey on corruption levels has revealed. 

The astounding figure translates into an average bribe of Rs 477 a household in the state and the union territory, according to the study conducted by Transparency International-India and the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi. Of the BPL households that availed of services, 59% had paid bribes in the past one year, the study found. 

The state report, of which details have been released now, is part of a larger national study, 'TII-CMS India Corruption Study 2007', the results of which were released in June. The survey focussed on BPL households and did not merely cover perception of corruption, but the actual bribe-paying experience of families while availing of 11 selected public services. 

The services were divided into basic (Public Distribution System, hospital, electricity, school education and water supply) and need-based (banking, national rural employment guarantee scheme, forest, land records and registration, housing and police). 

The study was based on a sample of 1,301 BPL households, of which 1,009 were from rural areas, while 292 were in urban areas. The places covered were Chennai, Puducherry and three NREGS districts of Cuddalore, Dindigul and Tiruvannamalai. 

"The findings are in line with the experience of our state chapter in running a regular helpline for corruption-related complaints. We have been receiving and responding to a lot of such complaints," said LM Menezes, convener of TI India's state chapter. 

Tamil Nadu and Puducherry were studied together because of their similar socio-economic profile. Nearly two-thirds of BPL households that interacted with the police had paid bribe to avail of their services, it said. 

Among other need-based services, more than one-third had to grease some palms for services in the housing and land registration sectors. 

The incidence varied across services, with the percentage of respondents reporting actual payment of bribe ranging from 13 (school education) and 45 (water supply). Most of them had paid bribe to avail of services for which they had made three or more visits to the offices concerned. A majority of the recipients were government officials, and very few mentioned payment to local representatives. Agents were used mostly in services related to school education and water supply, while the proportion of use of middlemen was higher in need-based services like housing. 

About 43% of the respondents blamed government officials for corruption, while 37% held the citizens themselves responsible. Only 14 out of 100 respondents put the blame on politicians. 

The national study estimated that BPL households paid about Rs 900 crore a year as bribes to get basic services. The study divided the states by their size and ranked them on levels of corruption into 'alarming', 'very high', 'high' and 'moderate'. 

having constant headache.treat it soon.

Migraine headache sufferers may have a higher risk of developing blood clots in their veins, according to a study published in the September 16, 2008, issue of Neurology.

In the condition, called venous thrombosis or thromboembolism, blood clots form in a vein, which can limit blood flow and cause swelling and pain.

Those clots can then dislodge from the vein and travel to the heart and the lungs, which can be fatal.

For the study, 574 people in Italy age 55 and up were interviewed to determine whether they had a history of migraine or migraine at the time of the evaluation and their medical records were reviewed for cases of venous thrombosis.

The arteries in their necks and thighs were scanned with ultrasounds to check for atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.

Of the participants, 111 people had migraine. A total of 21 people with migraine also had one or more instances of venous thrombosis, or 19 percent. In comparison, 35 people without migraine had the condition, or 8 percent.

Researchers do not know why migraine and venous thrombosis are linked. One theory is that the blood of people with migraine may be more prone to clotting.

The study also found that people with migraine are not more likely to have hardening or narrowing of the arteries, which is contrary to a current theory.

"The thinking has been that because people with migraine are more likely to have strokes and other cardiovascular problems, that they would also have more severe and early atherosclerosis," said study author Stefan Kiechl, MD, of Innsbruck Medical University in Austria.

"This study is the first to use high-resolution ultrasound to examine this theory, and it provides solid evidence to refute it," Stefan added. (ANI)

mantra to be healthy

While it is said that healthy people are happy, a new study suggests that people who're joyful and satisfied with their lives are healthier.

Moreover, the benefit comes with a quick turnaround time, with greater happiness possibly boosting health in as little as three years.

"Everything else being equal, if you are happy and satisfied with your life now, you are more likely to be healthy in the future. Importantly, our results are independent of several factors that impact on health, such as smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption and age," said lead author Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D.

Siahpush is a professor of health promotion at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The study appears in the September/October issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.

The researchers looked at data from two waves of an Australian survey conducted in 2001 and 2004. Nearly 10,000 adults responded to items about health indicators including the presence of long-term, limiting health conditions and physical health.

They used the question, "During the past four weeks, have you been a happy person?" to assess happiness.

They determined satisfaction with life by asking: "All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life?"

"We found strong evidence that both happiness and life satisfaction have an effect on our indicators of health," Siahpush said.

Happiness and life satisfaction at the baseline survey were both associated with (1) excellent, good or very good health; (2) the absence of long-term, limiting health concerns and (3) higher levels of physical health three years later.

In addition, the results suggested that improving happiness or life satisfaction might also result in better future health.

"There are indications that as you become happier and more satisfied with your life, you tend to become healthier as well," Siahpush said. 

lung cancer! no problem!

A team of researchers led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has confirmed the efficacy of a potential 'HIV-test' equivalent for the early detection of lung cancer.

The test relies on immune-system signals, much like an HIV test. It can detect the presence of lung cancer a year prior to diagnosis, long before symptoms appear.

Samir M. Hanash, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the Hutchinson Center and University of Michigan found that just as the immune system reacts to the presence of HIV by producing an antibody response, which indicates a person is HIV positive, it also mounts a response against specific antigens, or proteins, produced by cancerous lung tumours in their early stages of development.

"This kind of immune response won't necessarily kill the tumour, but it can act as a canary in a coal mine, signaling lung cancer at an early stage, before actual symptoms emerge. It is an important step toward developing a biomarker-based blood test for the early detection of lung cancer," said Hanash, head of the Molecular Diagnostic Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

The validation study tested the sensitivity and specificity of three biomarkers linked to early stage, pre-symptomatic disease: two previously identified antigens, known as annexin1 and 14-3-3 theta; as well as a newly identified lung-cancer antigen called LAMR1.

For the study, the researchers conducted a blinded analysis of blood samples from 85 current or former smokers collected within a year of lung-cancer diagnosis and blood samples from 85 current or former smokers who did not go on to develop lung cancer.

When combined, the sensitivity of the three-biomarker panel was 51 percent, meaning that autoantibodies to these antigens were present in the blood of more than half of the people who later developed lung cancer.

The specificity, or 'false-positive,' rate of the biomarker panel was 18 percent, meaning that about one-fifth of the comparison group tested positive for the autoantibodies, even though they did not develop the disease.

"The fact that we got a signal like this with just three biomarkers is very significant. If we can enlarge this panel by adding a few more, we could develop a blood test with sufficient sensitivity and specificity for detecting lung cancer much earlier than current screening methods allow," Hanash said.

The initial goal is to use such a blood test in conjunction with imaging techniques, such as CT scans, to improve the early detection of lung cancer in those at high risk. Hanash envisions such a test could be in clinical use within five years.

sources "IANS"

get rid of anxiety

 A new anti-anxiety drug has been developed that could treat sufferers for up to twice as long as Valium.

European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress in Barcelona, Spain was told on Monday that the drug BNC210 was effective in three different animal species and that it is safe and well tolerated at doses 10,000 times the minimum effective dose.

The data was gained from experiments to test whether BNC210 could decrease the duration of distress-induced vocalisations from guinea pig pups on separation from their mothers.

This model has been validated as a predictor of anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) activity for a broad range of compound classes. Previous findings had shown that BNC210 reduced anxiety in mice and rats exposed to stresses.

'Compared to untreated pups, those given BNC210 uttered distress calls for a shorter time, a clear demonstration of the anxiolytic activity of BNC210,' said Sue O'Connor, project leader for BNC210. 'We were pleased to be able to present our latest findings at such a high calibre scientific meeting.'

The anxiolytic effect of a single dose of BNC210 lasted for at least six hours, whereas the same dose of diazepam was effective for about three hours.

In addition, treatment with BNC210 did not cause the side effects of sedation, memory impairment and addiction that are associated with diazepam treatment.

Ongoing toxicology studies have already shown BNC210 to be safe in both rats and dogs at doses up to 1,000 mg per kg of body weight. Tests of repeated doses of BNC210 have commenced and the results will be included in a submission seeking regulatory approval for human trials of BNC210 next year.

The ECNP Congress is the largest European scientific meeting on neuropsychopharmacology and mental disorders. More than 6,500 international psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, and neuroscience researchers attend to discuss the latest research on disorders of the brain.

Google phone won't be an immediate game changer

Anyone expecting the soon- to-be-launched Google phone to change the market like Apple's iPhone has over the past year will likely be disappointed -- for now.
Industry insiders who have worked on Google Inc's Android mobile operating system say it will struggle in the near term to match the consumer enthusiasm generated by Apple Inc when its iPhone redefined the touch-screen phone market and greatly improved mobile Web surfing.
Instead, Google sees Android as an open-source platform for designing mobile devices, saying it will encourage innovation by allowing outside software developers to tinker with the system and create better mobile programs and services.
But these things take time and the first phone using Android, code-named the Google "Dream" phone, is unlikely to wow consumers. The device is made by Taiwan's HTC Corp. Sources familiar with the plan say Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile plans to introduce it in New York on Sept. 23.
"I'm not sure the consumer experience is significantly better than that of the iPhone," says Rajeev Chand, a wireless analyst at investment bank Rutberg & Co, who has tried out an early version of Android. "When the iPhone came out the experience was several orders of magnitude better than anything that was out there."
Google, its partner carriers and application developers hope the Android platform will drive even more mobile Web surfing than the iPhone, which has helped Web usage rocket in comparison to other smartphones.
But unlike Apple, which keeps a tight grip on the iPhone's hardware and software, Google will have less control as Android will be open to developers to create component technologies in almost any way they can imagine.
Google's engineering-led culture appears content to launch the first Android phones as a kind of science project that will be rapidly improved afterward. Google has produced big hits and plenty of hard-to-remember misses with its strategy of launching new ideas and iterating quickly.
Yet, Google will not have the kind of leverage in mobile that it is used to in the PC world, where it dominates search. Phone carriers have a huge say over how devices are designed and what data services are accessible over their networks.
While Android could offer real promise in terms of technology and usability -- particularly because it is an open platform -- it is unlikely to single-handedly change the restrictive nature of the mobile industry, said John Poisson, founder of Tiny Pictures, a developer partner of Android.
"Carriers in each market will still control how it gets implemented and on which devices and in which form," Poisson said. "Android lives and breathes at the pleasure of the operator."
BRAND AWARENESS
Another problem for Android is how to explain what it is to consumers. Unlike the iPhone, which came on the back of Apple's hugely successful iPod music player, Android is an unknown brand, even though the Google name has plenty of cache.
"People forget these things get to customers through the retail channel and marketing," said Frank Meehan, the global general manager for handsets and applications for Hong Kong telecommunications conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.
"We operators struggle with how to market this phone. There's nothing really unique about it and we can't say it's a Google phone," said Meehan, whose company buys millions of 3G devices year.
Despite the concerns, mobile industry executives say they welcome Google's entrance as its deep pockets will help meet the increasingly high expectations of consumers for mobile services.
From a developer's perspective, Android's advantages over the iPhone or Nokia's Symbian operating system is that it is open source, which means Google is sharing its software code and making it easier for third parties to develop compatible applications.
Apple's second-generation iPhone applied the same strategy and offers more than 3,000 third-party applications through its App Store, but the company still retains some control.
"Android promises to be the most open platform for building mobile phone applications that we've seen to date because it's based on very familiar tools and technologies," said Jason Devitt, co-founder of Skydeck, a new service that will allow users to manage their cell phones over the Web.
Others hope that Google's entrance can galvanize mobile advertising, which is still in nascent stages.
"All these devices are resulting in better usage and that's what advertisers want and they're growing their spend," said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing at AdMob, a marketplace for mobile advertisers.
Google is hoping to generate revenue through its existing search advertising and related services by the addition of mobile to PC.
"Google's power comes from the freedom of choice, in terms of the component technology and services that can be laid on top," said Cheng Wu, founder of Azuki Systems, a mobile Web technology company.
"The only thing they want to control is the kernel of the operating system and the ability to data mine for search and advertising down the road"

Iran claims it can control the Gulf

TEHRAN: Iran has the power to control the Gulf as no vessel can cross the vital seaway without coming in range of its sophisticated weaponry, a top aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday. The comments from General Rahim Yahya Safavi came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency accused Iran of stalling its investigation into the country's nuclear drive. "Responsibility for defending the Persian Gulf has been handed over to the naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps," Yahya Safavi was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA. Their missiles can cover the entire width of the Gulf and "no ship can cross it without being within range," the former commander-in-chief of the Guards told IRNA. "Our armed forces with their defence equipment including missile, air, naval and torpedo capabilities are able to control the Strait of Hormuz." An estimated 40 per cent of the world's oil passes through the narrow channel between Iran and Oman and Iran has warned in the past it could block the waterway if it comes under attack over its nuclear programme. The Guards are also carrying out air defence war games along with the air force of the regular army, a commander was quoted as saying by IRNA on Monday. The Revolutionary Guards form the country's ideological army, with their own ground, navy and air forces operating in parallel with the regular armed forces. They are also responsible for Iran's most significant and advanced ballistic missiles including the Shahab-3, which has Israel and US bases in the Gulf within reach. Of a potential Israeli attack on Iran, Rahim Safavi said: "The Zionist regime does not have the necessary political, economic and social capabilities to wage a great war." He also warned the US military force in the region saying they would face "serious danger" in case of war, but said he belived Washington "will definitely not get involved in a fourth front after the Afghanistan, Iraq and Georgia confrontations." Tensions over Iran's nuclear work rose again on Monday after the IAEA said Tehran was defying international demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that makes nuclear fuel but can be diverted to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb.