A powerful snowstorm affects U.S. east coast – video and news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A powerful storm approached on Friday the U.S. east coast, threatening to record levels of snow in a region heavily dependent on supplies of oil and natural gas to keep operating the heating in homes.

Predictions are that fall between 50 and 76 inches of snow and blizzard conditions are expected from Virginia to southern New Jersey, which led to government offices in Washington to close its doors four hours earlier.

President Barack Obama, who previously made fun of reactions in Washington to drop small amounts of snow, now is not taking the storm lightly.

“I think even a person who moved from Hawaii to Chicago has enough respect for a prognosis of two feet (61 centimeters) of snow,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

“And being from Alabama, I’m happy to report that I will be off the road and observe all trying to drive,” Gibbs joked with reporters.

The national museums and the zoo will be closed on Saturday in Washington.

The news of the storm led to the closure of schools and created long lines at supermarkets as residents stocked up on food and other products ahead of the traditional weekend of the Superbowl.

Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia declared snow emergencies. The declarations allow states to turn to the bodies of emergency, such as the National Guard to prepare for winter front and deal with its results.

The huge wrap frontal system to the cities of Baltimore, Washington DC and Philadelphia in an intense blizzard with snow, while rainfall will lead to parts of the Southeast, including North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Cold weather helped boost the natural gas market in New York to its highest levels of the season, where prices reached about $ 11.50 per million British thermal units, more than $ 4 price on Thursday.

Low temperatures were set in the wake of the storm over the northwestern United States, the biggest heating oil market in the world and the Midwest, a huge shopping in natural gas demand.

The airlines began to cancel their flights planned for Friday evening to Saturday’s three major air terminals of the Washington-Baltimore area.

Medical delivers new light on the death predicting cat

SYDNEY (Reuters) – When doctors and officials realized that a cat who lives in a nursing home in America could feel when someone was going to die, the cat “Oscar” was seen as an angel of death on all fours or a furry parka.

Dr. David Dosa, who spread the news about the ability of an Oscar in a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, said he never intended to show the cat as dark or upon arrival at a bed had a negative view .

Dosa said he hopes his new book, “Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat”, provide a more favorable view of the feline and serve as a helpful book for those with a loved one suffering from a terminal illness.

“After the article in the New England Journal has the feeling that if Oscar is in your bed, you’re dead, but really did not see what happened to their relatives,” said Dosa, assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

“I wanted to write a book that went beyond the specifics of Oscar, tell why it is important for family members and specialists who have been with him at the end of his life,” he said.

Dosa said Oscar’s story is fascinating on many levels.

Oscar was adopted as a child from a shelter cat to be trained as a therapy in the nursing home Steere and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, which serves people with severe dementia and in the final stages of disease.

When Oscar was about six months, staff noticed that he began to sleep with patients who were near death.

So far it has accurately predicted some 50 deaths.

Dosa recalls an opportunity where staff were convinced of the imminent death of a patient, but Oscar refused to sit with them, preferring to another inmate’s bed in the ward. Oscar was right, the person who sat died first, surprising nurses and doctors.

The doctor said there was no evidence to explain the capabilities of Oscar, but he believes that perhaps the cat responds to a pheromone or odor that humans simply do not recognize.

Dosa said his main interest is not ramble on about the capabilities of the cat, but to use Oscar to tell a story about terminal illnesses, which are their primary workspace.

“There is much to tell about what Oscar does, but much to say on a human level about what the family pass at the end of life, when struggling with a loved one in a nursing or advanced dementia,” he said.

“Perhaps the book is a little more accessible because there’s a cat in it. We really know very little about nursing homes and try to dispel the myth that they are horrible factories where people go to die,” he said.

Report: 40% of all cancers are preventable

LONDON (AP) – 40% of cancers could be avoided if people stop smoking and overeating, limiting alcohol consumption, exercise regularly and make the vaccination against cancer-causing diseases, experts said.

To mark Thursday’s World Cancer Day, the directors of the International Union Against Cancer, released a report focusing on measures that governments and the public can take to avoid illness

According to the World Health Organization, cancer accounts for one in eight deaths worldwide _ more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. It also warned that without major changes, global deaths from cancer will increase from 7.6 million this year to 17 million by 2030.

The report of the International Union Against Cancer, the researchers said that 21% of all cancers are due to infections such as human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, and liver infections, which cause cancers of the stomach and liver.

Although Western countries have vaccines against these cancers, are almost nonexistent in the developing world. Almost 80% of HPV cancers occur in poor countries, according to the agency.

“Politicians around the world have the opportunity and obligation to use their vaccines to save lives and educate their communities to reduce the risk of getting cancer,” he said in a statement Gary Adams, director general of the International Union Against Cancer.

In Western nations, experts argue that many of the most common cancers _ including lung, breast and colon _ could be avoided if people change their habits. To reduce the risk, the agency recommended that people stop smoking, limit alcohol, avoid excess sun and maintain proper weight through diet and exercise.

Study links excessive Internet use with depression

LONDON (Reuters) – People who spend much time surfing the Internet is more likely to show symptoms of depression, British scientists said on Wednesday.

However, it is unclear whether the Internet causes depression or whether depressed people is dragged into the net.

Psychologists at Leeds University found what they described as “impressive” evidence that some avid Internet users develop compulsive habits that replace the social interaction in real life with the chats and social networking sites.

“The study reinforces the public speculation that participation in web pages that serve to replace normal social functions could be related to psychological disorders like depression and addiction,” said Catriona Morrison, leader of the study published in Psychopathology.

“This kind of addictive Internet surfing can have a serious impact on mental health,” he added.

In the first large study of young Westerners to look at this problem, researchers analyzed Internet use and depression levels of 1319 Britons aged between 16 and 51 years.

Of this total, 1.2 percent were “addicted to internet” they concluded.

This group spent proportionately more time searching for sexual gratification in websites and using online games and social networks, said Morrison.

The “internet addicts” also had a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression that normal users.

“The excessive Internet use is associated with depression, but we do not know is which comes first: depressed people is dragged to the Internet or is the internet what causes depression?” Asked Morrison.

“What is clear is that a small subset of people, excessive Internet use could be a warning sign of depressive tendencies,” he said.

Morrison said that while those classified as “addicts” make up just 1.2 percent, the figure is higher than the incidence of persons addicted to gambling in Great Britain, which is about 0.6 percent.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Raquel Castillo in Madrid Writing, editing by Paul Casciato Spanish)

Study reveals how mosquitoes smell humans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Researchers have identified some of the tools that mosquitoes use to smell her human prey and said Wednesday that their findings could help find better ways of repellents or catch or kill pests.

The researchers found 50 genes other than the mosquito Anopheles gambiae to human uses to smell delicious, and characterized how each responded differently to human scents only, including those that are known to attract mosquitoes.

Their analysis, published in the journal Nature, could improve the methods in great shape to repel mosquitoes, a field dominated by a few compounds.

Each gene controls a receptor, a molecular passage in this case attached to a molecule of human scent.

John Carlson of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues transferred the 50 genes inside the nerve cells of a type of fruit fly called Drosophila.

The fruit flies are well understood and do not try to smell humans, so any mosquito gene that produces a response to human scent is probably one used by mosquitoes to be guided to their carnivorous food.

“The results could have implications for the control of malaria, one of the world’s most devastating diseases,” wrote the team of Carlson.

Malaria, caused by a parasite, is spread by female mosquitoes that are in search of human blood. The disease kills about one million people annually, mostly children and most of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

Mosquitoes also carry other varieties of human diseases, including dengue, West Nile virus, yellow fever and several different viruses that cause encephalitis, a brain inflammation that is often lethal.

In two other studies of the same journal, researchers said they have found a special protein called the plasmepsin V malaria parasite uses for entry into human red blood cells.

The experts added that blocking this protein could lead to better remedies against malaria

Stair climbing, exercise to lower the risk of brain damage

But when we talk fitness, the idea is not to stop living in a gym, not a marathon a year. To climb stairs, carry the shopping bags, bend or stoop regularly enough to get to that fitness. The fact that you can only perform these activities smoothly past the quarantine is also a sign of health.

“Poor physical function may serve to identify those persons who are at high risk of stroke and who can be helped with preventive strategies, such as reducing blood pressure. It could also be encouraged to adopt a lifestyle associated with a lower risk of stroke, reducing sodium intake and increasing physical activity, “says Phyo K. Myint, Clinical Gerontology Unit, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom).

Myint and his team reached their conclusions after reviewing data from more than 13,600 Britons who were participating in a cancer study. None of them had had a myocardial infarction, stroke or tumor. At the start of monitoring (between 1993 and 1997) underwent, between different tests, a test to check your fitness. In 2005, the authors found that 244 volunteers had suffered a stroke.

But the risk was lower by 50% among the most agile, compared with those who had scored worse in physical function test. For every 10 point increase on this scale, the odds of suffering a stroke decreased by 19% among men and 29% among women.

The authors would particularly striking that this trend will continue regardless of other risk factors: snuff, physical activity levels, age and cholesterol levels.

From this test, Myint and his team are “investigating in detail the reasons why a bad shape can predict an increased risk of stroke. Do not know exactly what is the explanation for this.”

He adds: “The physical function may be a good marker for lifestyles that may influence the risk of stroke or indicator of physiological processes such as inflammation or atrial fibrillation or other general or degenerative biological processes such as atherosclerosis , that may relate to stroke risk.

The world’s most beautiful cities

Narrow streets, a well-known university, parks and playgrounds are the predominant elements of Cambridge, England. This city, north of London, includes among its attractions the River Cam and a fusion of ancient and modern buildings like the historic chapel of King’s College and the modern Center of Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge.

But there are larger cities that can be just as beautiful. Tokyo, where traditional buildings of 50 floors and traditional mansions, is one of the favorite cities Amanda Reynolds, a member of the Urban Design Group of the UK, an organization of architects, landscape architects and town planners. However, Tokyo’s beauty lies not only in its architecture. The city conveys a sense of structure and order, with the smiles and greetings slight inclinations of its inhabitants. However, after nightfall the streets are lit with neon lights and the latent energy of the city emerges strongly.

In pictures:
The world’s most beautiful cities
The world’s smartest cities
The cities with the highest wages
The world’s happiest cities
Airports with more delays in the world

Both have entered our list of the most beautiful cities in the world, which also includes the following cities: Paris, Vancouver, Sydney, Florence and Venice.

Beauty is subjective, so we consulted specialists in cities from different areas such as urban planning, architecture and sustainable development. Among the participants there are names like Amanda Reynolds and Michael Kaufman, the architect of Goettsch Partners architectural firm (based in Chicago), Raymond Levitt, program director of construction in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, Tony McGuirk, urban designer , architect and president of BDP, London; J. Hugh O’Donnell, the study of urban engineering MMM International, and Ken Drucker, design director of HOK architectural firm in New York.

The city of light
Paris has received many favorable reviews for its large and leafy boulevards, life with its streets and iconic structures like the Grand Palais, and by its contrast with English architecture, which promotes individuality and eccentricity. The aesthetic qualities of Paris are influenced by the nineteenth-century Haussmann plan, which styled the facades of buildings.

Amanda Reynolds explains: “The strength of the homogeneity of Paris allows this beautiful city easily absorbed unique pieces such as the controversial (at the time) Eiffel Tower, the brash and modern Pompidou Center (English and Italian architects) and the innovative original and the Arab World Institute. Furthermore, the height restrictions have been applied to the city throughout history have prevented the construction of buildings too high. As Kaufman explains: “In most parts of the city do not have the feeling of walking in the shadows all the time”.

But in Paris it should be recognized structures and designs to the extent of man in Vancouver what stands out is its natural beauty. In this coastal city parks abound, from the western campus of the University of British Columbia to the huge Stanley Park, near the center of the city. In addition, the snow-capped coastal mountains and the Pacific Ocean are a beautiful backdrop for the city, and the diversity of cultures and cuisines on offer are no doubt a factor as enjoyable and memorable.

Green spaces also make Cape Town is a very special capital, says Levitt. The famous English navigator Sir Francis Drake went on to say that Cape Town was the most beautiful place in the world. The city is the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and from the top of Table Mountain (about 1000 meters above sea level) you can enjoy stunning views over the city. Levitt, an environmental engineer, praised the small footprint of the city, which blames its “manageable size”.

Sydney also received praise for its natural beauty, especially the deep-water harbor that can be seen from virtually anywhere in the downtown irregular. In addition, Sydney is one of those cities that rarely is dark, cold and depressing, but his best time is the time when flowers bloom.

“Sydney’s most beautiful moments live in October and November, when millions of jacaranda trees that decorate many of the city streets burst with purple flowers and completely transformed into the street ugliest remote suburb,” says Reynolds.

Italian Beads
The Italian cities of Florence and Venice have also found a gap in our list. Florence gives off a sense of architectural history, with its gothic church Santa Maria del Fiore and the Uffizi … It is also a city where walking is easy, allowing tourists to discover its beauty for a walk. Florence is a city of wide spaces, with plenty of cafes and surrounded by beautiful buildings like the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria. According to McGuirk, “No other place in the world has few places with such greatness.”

Venice, a city on the water, full of history (it was formerly a republic) and many speak of it as a “Disneyland for adults.” “The old buildings and prepared [Venice] seem comfortable with their varying stages of decrepitude: faded colors, complex stonework around the door jambs and windows that open onto the canals and medieval ways to add touches of mystery a place already seductive, “says Reynolds.

National figures
There are also some U.S. cities that have succeeded in gaining recognition from the experts: San Francisco has been praised for its bridges, hills, trams and the natural beauty of the surrounding waters. Chicago, meanwhile, has won points for having added new greenery and flowers to public spaces, with elements such as Millennium Park.

The city of New York also offers a great architectural beauty that can not be ignored. As an example, serve the line of buildings silhouetted against the sky in Manhattan or the historic buildings that contrast with modern structures like the tower of Bank of America, in the heart of the city. Some experts, like Levitt, even praised the Big Apple for its atmosphere. Recognizes that 20 years ago would not have included the city in a list like this, but today Levitt argues that the reduction of crime has enabled many people to go out and experience more of life itself on the streets of this city.

Finally, London was a city inevitable. If Paris is the city of beauty structured, London is just the opposite. In the words of McGuirk, is as “a beautiful patchwork quilt” The city has been growing for several centuries, which has fostered a lack of overall structure and architectural form “irregular and diverse”, which is attractive to McGuirk .

These attributes can differentiate a city from the rest, but during a recession may fail to encourage low-budget tourists, especially when there is such competition to take the upper hand. A summer 2009 study conducted by market research firm International, Euromonitor, heralded a growth in the travel industry and tourism in general (which in 2008 was valued at 944 000 million U.S. dollars, according to the World Tourism Organization), although this growth would be slightly slower than usual.

U.S. experts find new clue to sudden infant death

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Babies who die from the syndrome of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS by its initials in English) generate small amounts of the brain chemical serotonin, which is essential for regulating sleep, breathing and heart rate, U.S. researchers said.

The results of the study, published in Journal of the American Medical Association, could help identify babies at risk for SIDS, which each year kills more than 2,300 infants before their first birthday.

The team said they have abnormal levels of serotonin may interfere with the breathing of babies, especially in difficult situations, and inspire too much carbon dioxide as they sleep upside down.

“We have known for years that babies sleep on your back is the most effective way to reduce the risk of SIDS,” said Dr. Alan Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study.

“The current findings provide important clues to the biological basis of SIDS and could ultimately allow to identify infants at risk, as are additional strategies to reduce the risk of SIDS in all children,” Guttmacher said in a statement.

In the study, to Dr. Hannah Kinney of Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston, examined brain tissue of babies who died of SIDS and other causes.

The tissue came from the bone, a region at the base of the brain that regulates basic functions such as body temperature, respiration, blood pressure and heart rate.

Kinney’s team found that serotonin levels were 26 percent lower in the tissue of babies who died of SIDS than those who died of other causes.

They also found low amounts of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase, which is needed to make serotonin.

The results suggest that some babies have an underlying vulnerability to SIDS, which can be fatal if combined with an external disturbance such as sleeping face down, especially during the first year of life.

“Our research suggests that sleep triggers the brain defect,” Kinney said in a statement.

“When a baby is breathing on his stomach, could not be receiving enough oxygen. A baby with a normal brainstem flip over his head and wake up. But a child with an intrinsic abnormality may not respond to that stressor,” he added.

The team hopes its study will lead to the creation of a test to measure serotonin levels of infants, allowing to identify children at greatest risk of SIDS.