Bill Gates says fame not goal in aid work

Google – AFP, Sebastian Smith (AFP), 30 January 2013 

Bill Gates speaks during an interview January 30, 2013 in New York 

(AFP, Stan Honda)

NEW YORK — Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men and highest profile aid donors, says he doesn't care if he's forgotten after his death -- as long as polio and other major diseases have been eradicated.

"I don't need to be remembered at all," the co-founder of Microsoft, 57, told AFP in New York.

Gates has a fortune estimated by Forbes at $66 billion, second only to Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim, and the satisfaction of knowing that Microsoft products are at the heart of computers in every corner of the world.

But he says that since quitting the running of Microsoft and focusing on his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it's the world's poorest that have his attention.

"None of the people who are at risk of polio know anything about me, nor should they. They are dealing with day to day life and the fact that their child might get crippled," Gates said in an interview at a posh Manhattan hotel.

Already the foundation has paid out $25 billion to projects fighting disease and extreme poverty. There's currently about $36 billion left in the pot -- and it's all going to go.

"My wife and I have decided that our foundation will spend all its money within 20 years of when neither of us are around, so we're not trying to create some perpetual thing," Gates said.

Target number one is polio, which has now been eradicated in India. Gates says a worldwide end to the crippling childhood disease is feasible, with only Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan the trouble spots.

"Within my lifetime, polio's not the only disease we should be able to eradicate. Even malaria -- although that's more like a several decades effort -- should be within reach," he said.

Gates said that traditional government aid packages from rich countries to poor countries have been inefficient, or worse. "A lot of that was about buying friendship and almost shouldn't be labeled aid," he said, referring to the Cold War era, when Western and Soviet programs fought for influence in Africa and elsewhere.

The way forward, Gates said, is to take a page from the corporate playbook and tie aid to specific goals, with close monitoring of progress.

"Business is always focused on measurements and if they get it wrong, they don't get capital and in extreme cases the company goes out of business," he said.

"Government and philanthropy don't naturally do the same thing," he said.

Gates expressed optimism about the ability of aid to do good, citing "the most rapid improvement ever in history" in reducing child mortality and the resurgence of countries such as Ethiopia that were not so long ago considered basket cases.

"It's not the normal cynical view," he said.

However, Gates warned of growing pitfalls, including one close to home: the often appalling state of the US school system.

Asian schools "have gone way past us in quality," Gates said, and that's because they apply a businesslike approach to monitoring the performance of their teachers.

"The idea of measuring and giving feedback, that's what we're missing," he said. "Feedback is how you drive that excellence. In some areas, like baseball, we measure, we know your batting average -- we're serious about baseball. But education is also worth being serious about."

Gates' views on the need for bringing corporate efficiency to the aid world are laid out in detail in his "annual letter," which he released Wednesday at: http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/

Families face battle with GSK over dangerous diabetes drug

Exclusive: Pharmaceutical giant resists claims despite settlement with victims in US

The Guardian, Sarah Boseley, health editor, Tuesday 29 January 2013

GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to payouts in US lawsuits alleging Avandia pills
could cause heart attacks. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Thousands of families in the UK could be deprived of compensation for the death or harm of a relative caused by the diabetes drug Avandia, even though the British maker has agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle similar claims in the US.

The licence for Avandia was revoked in Europe, in September 2010, because of evidence that it could cause heart failure and heart attacks. The drug can still be prescribed in the US, but not to patients at risk of heart problems.

A scientist with the Food and Drug Administration estimated that Avandia could have been responsible for 100,000 heart attacks in the US.

The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, has admitted concealing data about the damaging side-effects of the drug, and there is evidence of the drug's harmful effects. But, despite this, GSK is not prepared to settle claims in the UK without a court fight.

The history of drug litigation in the UK suggests that families might not easily get  compensation.

Daniel Slade, with the Express company of solicitors in Manchester, has 19 cases on his books and has begun proceedings against GSK in four of them.

The pharmaceutical firm has told the solicitors that it will contest the cases. In just one of the cases it has indicated a willingness to spend £600,000 on its defence, which, the solicitor says, would be a fraction of what the claim is worth.

"It is very disappointing," said Slade. "We anticipate that these claims do have a good prospect of success, but they still have to prove their case in the UK with suitable evidence. They are tasked with having to produce that evidence, including medical expert opinion. It is a burden one would have thought they might not have to go through."

He expected that, if GSK fought in the courts rather than settled outside, as it had done in the US, it would take years for bereaved relatives, or those who have been harmed, to get any sort of payment.

A spokesman for GSK said: "We have every sympathy for people with complications associated with diabetes and those who care for them, but unfortunately we are unable to comment on individual legal cases. We continue to believe that the company acted appropriately and responsibly in its management of Avandia."

Liz Thomas, policy manager at the patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents, said it had "become increasingly difficult in the UK to challenge large corporations such as pharmaceutical companies, an incredibly expensive form of litigation".

Corporations have a vast amount of money at their disposal to contest legal cases, but legal aid is about to cease for medical negligence cases.

The Avandia cases in Manchester will be fought on a "no win, no fee" basis by Express solicitors.

The cases in the US were settled by GSK extremely quickly, said Thomas. "I would hope they would not take advantage [in Britain] of the inequality of arms."

Avandia was first introduced in the NHS in July 2000. It was given to people with type 2 diabetes whose glucose levels were no longer being properly controlled by the standard drugs – metformin and a sulphonylurea drug. Avandia could be prescribed with those drugs or on its own.

The drug, which generically is known as rosiglitazone, was designed to lessen the body's resistance to insulin. It was available as a standalone drug – Avandia – or in a combination with metformin, and known as Avandamet.

When both drugs were withdrawn by the European Medicines Agency, there were about 90,000 people taking them in the UK.

The first warnings of trouble with Avandia came in 2007, when a prominent US scientist, Steve Nissen, published data from a review of 42 clinical trials which had been carried out on the drug. The trials involved 28,000 patients, and showed that Avandia could cause heart attacks. Further trials, the results of which were published in 2010, found people on Avandia were 27% more likely to have a stroke, 25% more likely to have heart failure, and 14% more likely to die, than patients on an alternative diabetes drug.

Potentially yet more damaging for GSK was its guilty plea to federal charges of concealing data about the drug's side effects. Most of the data on the drug comes from GSK's own trials. In November 2011 GSK agreed to pay $3bn to the US government over the Avandia issue and to end investigations into its marketing of the antidepressants Paxil (Seroxat in the UK) and Wellbutrin.

"This is a significant step toward resolving difficult, long-standing matters which do not reflect the company that we are today," Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, said at the time.

GSK is also still defending cases in the UK from people who claim to have been badly affected by Seroxat. A group action, involving people who say they suffered severe withdrawal problems when they tried to stop the drug, has been going on for years though many claims have been settled in the US.

The same is true of Vioxx, made by Merck, the painkiller that was withdrawn after it emerged eight years ago that it doubled the risk of a heart attack.

Related Articles:

GlaxoSmithKline settles healthcare fraud case for $3 billion

Drug giants fined $11bn for criminal wrongdoing


"The Recalibration of Dark & Light" – Feb 25, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Big pharma [the drug companies of America] are going to have to change very soon or collapse. When you have an industry that keeps people sick for money, it cannot survive in the new consciousness., Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version) 

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)(Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.)

Cell scientists aim to rebuild hearts with reprogrammed tissue

Researchers in Oxford and California experiment with medical technology that could make transplants unnecessary

The Guardian, Alok Jha, science correspondent, Monday 28 January 2013

Embryonic cells under the microscope. Scientists on both sides of the Atlantic
 are working on ways of adapting cells to help repair damage from heart attack.
Photograph: Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

Every two minutes someone in the UK has a heart attack. Every six minutes, someone dies from heart failure. During an attack, the heart remodels itself and dilates around the site of the injury to try to compensate, but these repairs are rarely effective. If the attack does not kill you, heart failure later frequently will.

"No matter what other clinical interventions are available, heart transplantation is the only genuine cure for this," says Paul Riley, professor of regenerative medicine at Oxford University. "The problem is there is a dearth of heart donors."

Transplants have their own problems – successful operations require patients to remain on toxic, immune-suppressing drugs for life and their subsequent life expectancies are not usually longer than 20 years.

The solution, emerging from the laboratories of several groups of scientists around the world, is to work out how to rebuild damaged hearts. Their weapons of choice are reprogrammed stem cells.

These researchers have rejected the more traditional path of cell therapy that you may have read about over the past decade of hope around stem cells – the idea that stem cells could be used to create batches of functioning tissue (heart or brain or whatever else) for transplant into the damaged part of the body. Instead, these scientists are trying to understand what the chemical and genetic switches are that turn something into a heart cell or muscle cell. Using that information, they hope to programme cells at will, and help the body make repairs.

It is an exciting time for a technology that no one thought possible a few years ago. In 2007, Shinya Yamanaka showed it was possible to turn adult skin cells into embryonic-like stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), using just a few chemical factors. His technique radically advanced stem cell biology, sweeping aside years of blockages due to the ethical objections about using stem cells from embryos. He won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for his work in October. Researchers have taken this a step further – directly turning one mature cell type to another without going through a stem cell phase.

And politicians are taking notice. At the Royal Society in November, in his first major speech on the Treasury's ambitions for science and technology, the chancellor, George Osborne, identified regenerative medicine as one of eight areas of technology in which he wanted the UK to become a world leader. Earlier last year, the Lords science and technology committee launched an inquiry into the potential of regenerative medicine in the UK – not only the science but what regulatory obstacles there might be to turning the knowledge into medical applications.

At Oxford, Riley has spent almost a year setting up a £2.5m lab, funded as part of the British Heart Foundation's Mending Broken Hearts appeal, to work out how to get heart muscle to repair itself. The idea is to expand the scope of the work that got Riley into the headlines last year after a high-profile paper published in the journal Nature in which he showed a means of repairing cells damaged during a heart attack in mice. That work involved in effect turning the clock back in a layer of cells on the outside of the heart, called the epicardium, making adult cells think they were embryos again and thereby restarting their ability to repair.

During the development of the embryo, the epicardium turns into the many types of cells seen in the heart and surrounding blood vessels. After the baby is born this layer of cells loses its ability to transform. By infusing the epicardium with the protein thymosin β4 (Tβ4), Riley's team found the once-dormant layer of cells was able to produce new, functioning heart cells. Overall, the treatment led to a 25% improvement in the mouse heart's ability to pump blood after a month compared with mice that had not received the treatment.

Riley says finding ways to replace damaged cells via transplantation, the dominant research idea for more than a decade, has faltered. Scientists have tried out a variety of adult stem cells – derived from areas such as bone marrow, muscle and fat – turned them into heart cells and transplanted them into animal models, which initially showed good results.

But those results could never be repeated in humans with the same degree of success. "In humans, moving into clinical trials, the actual benefit, from a meta-analysis just on bone-marrow-derived cells, is a meagre 3% improvement," he says. "That's barely detectable clinically and unfortunately isn't going to make a vast amount of difference to your overall quality of life."

The original impression from rodent studies was that the transplanted cells would become new muscle and contribute to improving damaged areas, but Riley says that idea has fallen out of favour. "All they do, if anything at all, is to secrete factors that will help the heart sustain the injury, rather than necessarily offer long-term regeneration."

That is where the reprogrammers get going. Find the chemical factors that will make a cell (a skin cell, say, or a piece of scar tissue) think it is in the womb, so it switches certain genes on and others off and becomes a new heart cell, and you can avoid the large-scale transplant altogether. All you need is an infusion of the right drugs and resident cells will do all the required repair work.

The process requires an understanding of how an embryo develops and what cues nature uses to grow all the body's cell types from just a sperm and an egg. This ability to regenerate does not quite stop at birth: injure a one-day-old mouse's heart, for example, and it will completely regenerate. Injure it again after a week and the heart will scar. "Within seven days, it goes from completely repairable to the adult wound-healing default position," says Riley. "We want to understand what happens during that window."

Many scientists believe the secrets of how to regenerate tissue are linked with an understanding of how to reverse the ageing process. Saul Villeda, of the University of California, San Francisco, presented work at the recent annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans where he showed that blood from young mice reversed some of the effects of ageing in older mice, improving learning and memory to a level comparable with much younger animals. Older mice had an increased number of stem cells in their brains and there was a 20% increase in connections between brain cells.

Though his work is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, Villeda speculated the young blood was likely to be working in the older mice by increasing levels of chemical factors that tend to decline as animals get older. Bring these back, he says, and "all of a sudden you have all of these plasticity and learning and memory-related genes that are coming back".

At the Gladstone Institute in California, Prof Deepak Srivastava has already transformed scar-forming cardiac cells in mice into beating heart cells, inside living animals, using a set of chemical factors. His results were published last April in Nature.

"We've redeployed nature's own toolkit in these cells to convert non-muscle cells that are in the heart into new muscle. More than half of the cells in the heart are not muscle [but] architectural cells called fibroblasts that are meant to support the muscle," he says.

"We had the idea that if we could somehow fool those cells into thinking that they should become muscle, then we have a vast reservoir of cells that already exist within the organ that might be able to be called upon to regenerate the heart from within."

He injected three chemical factors – called Gata4, Mef2c and Tbx5, collectively known as GMT – into the damaged region of a heart and, within a month, the non-beating cells that normally ended up becoming scar tissue had become functioning heart cells that had integrated with their neighbours. "The factors get taken up by the fibroblasts and the non-muscle population of cells and they initiate a genome-wide switch of the programme of the cells so that it now begins to activate thousands of muscle-specific genes and it turns off thousands of fibroblast genes."

Srivastava directs cardiovascular and stem cell research at Gladstone, the institute where Yamanaka carried out his Nobel-prize-winning work. Srivastava's direct reprogramming technique takes Yamanaka's work further because it allows scientists to turn one type of cell into another without having to go through a stem cell phase in between, thus reducing the risk that any future therapy might induce cancer.

The method has been proven to work, so far only in Petri dishes, for blood, liver and brain cells. "Ultimately, as we learn enough about each cell type, it's likely we might be able to make most cell types in the body with this direct reprogramming approach," he says.

The tough task for all these scientists – from those working specifically on the heart such as Riley to those working more generally on all cell types such as Srivastava – is to identify and catalogue the thousands of chemical factors that are at work in the various stages of cell development, and that are the keys to the transformation of one cell into another. Riley's team is working with Shoumo Bhattacharya at the BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Target Discovery at Oxford, led by Shoumo Bhattacharya, to screen thousands of small molecules in the lab that could, in combination or isolation, predict a certain type of cell behaviour in a living heart.

Meanwhile, the Gladstone team have started experimenting with their direct reprogramming technique in pigs, as a preclinical trial before trying it out in humans. "We're trying to do the same experiments we did in the heart in the pig's heart because it is very similar in size and physiology to human hearts. If it works there and it is safe, then we'd be ready for a human clinical trial," says Srivastava.

He has not entirely abandoned investigating cell transplantation, using muscle cells derived from embryonic stem cells. But he is clear which would make the simpler therapy.

"We're testing both head to head – let's say both works, then I think the direct reprogramming method will be a lot easier."

And the relative simplicity of direct reprogramming, discovered by Yamanaka just five years ago, still surprises him. "It's phenomenal," he says. "We never thought it would be this way."

Related Articles:

Japan team create liver from stem cells: report

Stem cells being made from blood

Life created from eggs made from skin cells


Quantum biology: Do weird physics effects abound in nature?

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"..... Cell Division - a Static process ? 

Let me take you to the cellular division process. We've said this before, but you need to hear this to understand how it works. A cell is ready to divide. The Human body is designed to rejuvenate... all tissue. You've been told that there's some tissue that does not rejuvenate, but that is incorrect. It all rejuvenates at different speeds at different times and in different ways. It rejuvenates. So now you know that the Human body is designed to live a long time. Unfortunately, the energy that you have created on this planet and what you've gone through, has beat it up. You don't live much more than 80 years. That was not the design.

The Biblical personalities were sometimes prophets and sometimes masters and sometimes just there... and lived for hundreds of years. Did they really? Or perhaps this is that just a metaphor? Did they get that right in the Bible without a error in transcription? I'm going to tell you the truth. It's very accurate. Thousands of years ago you lived a very long time, Lemurian. If you knew your lifespan, you'd gasp. But not anymore. Instructions have been given over time to DNA, literally, by the energy of the planet... en energy that you have created through consciousness.

A cell divides. Right before it divides, it needs the blueprint to clone itself. The blueprint is available from the stem cell. The stem cell gets its information from the quantum part of the DNA, which has never changed since you were born. It's remained static, since nothing has ever changed it... and the fact that you don't believe it's changeable and have just accepted aging. There's not a conscious effort to do anything with it, and it just lays there like it always did.

The diving cell "talks" to the stem cell and says, "Do the same thing you always did? Change anything?" And the stem cell talks to the cell that is dividing, saying, "Make another one just the same." Then you rejuvenate just like the last one, accepting everything you received when you were born. ..."

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

”… There are several things that are going to happen in mainstream science. First, you're going to find some secrets of DNA and they're going to be embryonic. Start watching scientists discover the embryonic cells and the magic within them. You already know that unusual stem cells exist in the placenta. You also know that the pre-programmed adult stem cells are still there in the body. But what about the DNA of the unborn? (Intellectuals, please keep reading, for to stop now will create unrest.) Second, your work today Yawee, will represent "the perfect template" without using what you did in Lemuria. That's why you're the Human who will do this. It's an extension of why you came here, and is perfect for 2012 and beyond.

These embryonic cells of the unborn are untouchable by society, and they might as well be on Mars, for no science is going to try to use these cells in a 3D manner, which is all you know how to do at this point. If they try, it won't work anyway. There are quantum processes you are learning about that are not only non-invasive, but actually helpful and that can transfer attributes from one biological cell to another and from one Human to another. Think "wireless" [Kryon human again]. What you thought would take wires over 1,000 miles long is now done with satellites. It's an analogy that shows you that you are moving into totally new understandings of the transfer of energy. Let's discuss the mother in that temple for a moment. …”


"... I want to define life for you - not biological life, but spiritual life. So for all those intellectuals, just hold on, for many won't like this. Spiritual life, as measured by Spirit, is when a Human has free choice. When is that? It's when they take their first breath. Not in utero. There will be those who will say, "That's wrong, that's wrong. The soul in the woman's body is alive!" Just wait. I'm talking about spiritually. That which Spirit sees, and it's when you come from the other side of the veil and take your first breath.

A child with the mother has no free choice. That child is linked to the choice of the mother until it is born. It is, indeed, a soul in preparation for free choice, and there are many attributes that are spiritual that we have discussed before about how that soul reacts. But now I'm discussing life with polarity [duality], free choice.

But let's discuss that "child inside" for a moment, for there is a process I want you to know about. I want to talk about 240 days into the pregnancy. At about that time, the child has perfect DNA. It hasn't taken its first breath. The DNA hasn't measured the energy of the planet yet, since it is contained. Did you realize that? Inside the womb is a perfect child. The child's DNA has all the attributes of the Akash and also the parent, but it's different in a way you have not been told. The DNA is 100% as designed.

The quantum instructions within the DNA are all talking to the biology of the child,, getting ready for the first breath. ..."

'Quantum smell' idea gains ground

BBC News, Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter

Related Stories

• Are birds hijacking quantum physics?
• Smell 'is quantum physics effect'

Smell remains the least-understood of
 our senses but pleasing it supports a
billion-dollar industry

A controversial theory that the way we smell involves a quantum physics effect has received a boost, following experiments with human subjects.

It challenges the notion that our sense of smell depends only on the shapes of molecules we sniff in the air.

Instead, it suggests that the molecules' vibrations are responsible.

A way to test it is with two molecules of the same shape, but with different vibrations. A report in PLOS ONE shows that humans can distinguish the two.

Tantalisingly, the idea hints at quantum effects occurring in biological systems - an idea that is itself driving a new field of science, as the BBC feature article Are birds hijacking quantum physics? points out.

But the theory - first put forward by Luca Turin, now of the Fleming Biomedical Research Sciences Centre in Greece - remains contested and divisive.

The idea that molecules' shapes are the only link to their smell is well entrenched, but Dr Turin said there were holes in the idea.

He gave the example of molecules that include sulphur and hydrogen atoms bonded together - they may take a wide range of shapes, but all of them smell of rotten eggs.

"If you look from the [traditional] standpoint... it's really hard to explain," Dr Turin told BBC News.

"If you look from the standpoint of an alternative theory - that what determines the smell of a molecule is the vibrations - the sulphur-hydrogen mystery becomes absolutely clear."

Molecules can be viewed as a collection of atoms on springs, so the atoms can move relative to one another. Energy of just the right frequency - a quantum - can cause the "springs" to vibrate, and in a 1996 paper in Chemical Senses Dr Turin said it was these vibrations that explained smell.

The mechanism, he added, was "inelastic electron tunnelling": in the presence of a specific "smelly" molecule, an electron within a smell receptor in your nose can "jump" - or tunnel - across it and dump a quantum of energy into one of the molecule's bonds - setting the "spring" vibrating.

But the established smell science community has from the start argued that there is little proof of this.

Of horses and unicorns

One way to test the idea was to prepare two molecules of identical shape but with different vibrations - done by replacing a molecule's hydrogen atoms with their heavier cousins called deuterium.

Leslie Vosshall of The Rockefeller University set out in 2004 to disprove Dr Turin's idea with a molecule called acetophenone and its "deuterated" twin.

The work in Nature Neuroscience suggested that human participants could not distinguish between the two, and thus that vibrations played no role in what we smell.

But in 2011, Dr Turin and colleagues published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that fruit flies can distinguish between the heavier and lighter versions of the same molecule.

A repeat of the test with humans in the new paper finds that, as in Prof Vosshall's work, the subjects could not tell the two apart. But the team then developed a brand new, far larger pair of molecules - cyclopentadecanone - with more hydrogen or deuterium bonds to amplify the purported effect.

In double-blind tests, in which neither the experimenter nor the participant knew which sample was which, subjects were able to distinguish between the two versions.

Still, Prof Vosshall believes the vibrational theory to be no more than fanciful.

The new experiments hinged on making
 a brand-new molecule - in "heavy" and
"light" versions

"I like to think of the vibration theory of olfaction and its proponents as unicorns. The rest of us studying olfaction are horses," she told BBC News.

"The problem is that proving that a unicorn exists or does not exist is impossible. This debate on the vibration theory or the existence of unicorns will never end, but the very important underlying question of why things smell the way they do will continue to be answered by the horses among us."

Tim Jacob, a smell researcher at the University of Cardiff, said the work was "supportive but not conclusive".

"But the fact is that nobody has been able to unequivocally contradict [Dr Turin]," he told BBC News.

"There are many, many problems with the shape theory of smell - many things it doesn't explain that the vibrational theory does."

And although many more scientists are taking the vibrational theory seriously than back in 1996, it remains an extraordinarily polarised debate.

"He's had some peripheral support, but... people don't want to line up behind Luca," Prof Jacob said. "It's scientific suicide."

Columbia University's Richard Axel, whose work on mapping the genes and receptors of our sense of smell garnered the 2004 Nobel prize for physiology, said the kinds of experiments revealed this week would not resolve the debate - only a microscopic look at the receptors in the nose would finally show what is at work.

"Until somebody really sits down and seriously addresses the mechanism and not inferences from the mechanism... it doesn't seem a useful endeavour to use behavioural responses as an argument," he told BBC News.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing off this theory, but I need data and it hasn't been presented."

Related Articles:

Quantum biology: Do weird physics effects abound in nature?


"THE NEXT 18 YEARS"–  Dec 2, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: You are looking  at a Quantum event, clearing a filter - Portal pineal , Higher self to step forward and communicate to You, Still remains in 3D but exposure to multi dimensions, Evolution of humanity, Intent, Mayan Calendar, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, 26.000 Years, Milky Way, Nostradamus, 1987, Beginning to a New Time, Channellers/Teachers, Center of Galaxy – Black hole, Bridge of Swords, Pleiadians, Children, Inventions – The discoveries (e.g. : Airplanes - Medicines – Radio ...): These new Discoveries were given all over the planet when Human consciousness was ready for it, New Inventions are coming, the timing depends on how the middle East problems are solved, Biology reaction of quantum energy; new radio of the future, seeing quantum energy, when it is revealed all science books will have to be rewritten, This will be an AHA moment – be possible to communicate with the rest of Galaxy, NASA, Church/religion will be effected the most by these discoveries, The quantum discovery will see the grid, life, gardens and will redefine life, DNA (3 billion pieces) evolving piece DNA are chancing, Gaia/Humanity are linked, new instruments will start to reveal the DNA variance, Evolution revealed: Autistic children have born with the removal of their 3D structure in the brain, Gaia/Spirit are testing these quantum beings  (Evolved DNA), Universe central clock = Rifs,  Globally there will be only 5 currencies, Wars on earth will be declared barbaric, Middle East, Global Unity, .. etc.)

Israel issues rules on contraceptives for immigrants

The Daily Star, AFP, January 28, 2013

Picture taken on January 2, 2013 in Lille of third-generation contraceptive pills.
AFP PHOTO PHILIPPE HUGUEN

                             

JERUSALEM: Israel's health ministry has warned that immigrants must not be given contraceptives without their proper consent, after allegations that Ethiopian women were coerced into taking contraceptive jabs.

The allegations surfaced in December, when an investigative news programme looking into the declining birth rate of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel uncovered claims that would-be migrants were told they would be refused entry to the Jewish state if they did not take Depo Provera contraceptive injections.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel followed up on the allegations with the health ministry, which this week released a carefully-worded response, warning that contraceptives should not be administered without explicit consent.

The ministry says it is issuing the letter "without taking a position or determining facts regarding the claims that have arisen in this regard."

But it requests doctors "not to renew prescriptions for Depo Provera for women of Ethiopian origin or other women about whom for whatever reason there is concern that they did not understand the implications of the treatment."

It asks doctors to determine with patients "why contraception is being used in general and this one in particular, and if she is asking of her own free will to prevent pregnancy, and if she understands the side-effects."

"Of course this should be done in a culturally appropriate way and if necessary through Ethiopian intermediaries or through medical translation services," it adds.

While the letter contains no admission that Depo Provera was administered without consent, ACRI said it considered the ministry's response an important acknowledgement.

"The way that ACRI regards this letter from the ministry of health is as an important recognition that the phenomenon was indeed occurring," ACRI spokesman Marc Grey told AFP.

According to Israeli media, the birth rate among Israel's Ethiopian immigrant population has fallen by nearly 20 percent in the past decade.

One woman interviewed in the original December television investigation said Ethiopians awaiting transfer to Israel were told those who refused the contraceptive shots would be denied entry, as well as aid and medical care.

"We were afraid... We didn't have a choice. Without them and their aid, we couldn't leave there," Haaretz newspaper quoted the woman as saying.

More than 120,000 Jews of Ethiopian origin live in Israel.

For centuries, Jews in Ethiopia were largely cut off from other Jewish communities, and Israel's religious authorities only belatedly recognised them as members of the faith.

The move sparked two waves of immigration to Israel, in 1984 and 1991, but Ethiopian immigrants have struggled to integrate into Israeli society, despite massive government aid.

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“… No person shall be forced into marriage against his or her will. No woman shall be forced to bear or not bear children, against her will. No person shall be forced to hold or not hold views or worship in a manner contrary to his or her choice. Nothing vital to existence shall be withheld from another if it is within the community’s power to give. …”

Burger King drops Irish supplier over horse meat scare

Google – AFP, 24 January 2013 

Burger King has decided to replace its beef supplier after the horsemeat

scare (AFP/File, Paul J. Richards)

LONDON — Burger King has ditched an Irish supplier of beef that is at the centre of a food scare after horse meat was discovered in beefburgers sold in Britain and Ireland, where it is deemed to be a taboo.

The US fast-food giant said Wednesday it has decided to replace all Silvercrest beef products in Britain and Ireland with those from another supplier.

"This is a voluntary and precautionary measure," Burger King said in a statement.

"We are working diligently to identify suppliers that can produce 100 percent pure Irish and British beef products that meet our high quality standards."

It added: "We take this matter seriously and will continue with our investigations to determine how this situation occurred and what lessons can be learned."

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) had last week revealed that up to 29 percent of the meat content of some beefburgers was in fact horse, while they also found pig DNA.

The frozen burgers were on sale in high-street supermarket chains Tesco and Iceland in both Britain and Ireland, and in Irish branches of Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes Stores. Tesco is Britain's biggest retailer.

The FSAI said the burgers had been made at two processing plants in Ireland and one in northern England.

Simon Coveney, Ireland's agriculture and food minister, said the source of the problem appeared to be products imported from the Netherlands and Spain.

Horse meat is a common sight in central Asia, China, Latin America and parts of Europe.

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Japan researchers grow kidney tissue from stem cells

Google – AFP, 23 January 2013 

TOKYO — Researchers in Japan said Wednesday they have succeeded in growing human kidney tissue from stem cells for the first time in a potential breakthrough for millions with damaged organs who are dependent on dialysis.

Kidneys have a complex structure that is not easily repaired once damaged, but the latest findings put scientists on the road to helping a diseased or distressed organ fix itself.

Kenji Osafune of Kyoto University said his team had managed to take stem cells -- the "blank slates" capable of being programmed to become any kind of cell in the body -- and nudge them specifically in the direction of kidney tissue.

"It was a very significant step," he told AFP.

Osafune said they had succeeded in generating intermediate mesoderm tissue from the stem cells, a middle point between the blank slate and the finished kidney tissue.

"There are about 200 types of cells in the human body, but this tissue grows into only three types of cells," namely adrenal cells, reproductive gland cells and kidney cells, he said, adding that as much as 90 percent of cultures in their research developed into viable mesoderm tissue.

This embryonic intermediary can be grown either in test tubes or in a living host into specific kidney cells.

Osafune and his team created part of a urinary tubule, a small tube in the kidney that is used in the production of urine.

While the research is not aimed at growing an entire working kidney, he said the method his team had developed would help scientists learn more about intermediate mesoderm development and may provide a source of cells for regenerative therapy.

"I would say that we have arrived at the preliminary step on the road to the clinical level," he said.

Osafune's research is published in online science journal Nature Communications.

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

EU freezes approval of GM crops to 2014

Google – AFP, 22 January 2013 

Genetically modified corn cobs are seen at a field, west of Cairo, on

September 21, 2008 (AFP/File, Khaled Desouki)

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has decided to freeze the approval process for genetically modified food crops through the end of its mandate next year while it works towards an agreement with EU member states.

"The Commission, if it wants, could launch a procedure to authorise the farming of one GM soya and six corn strains... but it won't do so," said Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.

"The authorisations for farming are frozen," he added.

Vincent said the priority of Borg, who only recently took up the post of health commissioner, was to relaunch discussions with member states.

The Commission's approval of GM crops has poisoned relations with a number of the 27 EU members.

Eight countries -- Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland -- have adopted provisions that allow them to block the cultivation of GM crops on their territory.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has not forced the countries to lift their safeguards.

In 14 years, the EU has approved the cultivation of just two types of genetically altered food crops for humans, the Amflora potato developed by German group BASF and MON810 maize developed by global seeds giant Monsanto.

The Amflora potato was a commercial flop, while the renewal of the authorisation of MON810 has been dragging along since 2007.

Vincent said renewal of MON810 was being held up by the Commission's freeze.

However the MON810 can continue to be cultivated in states which allow it until the Commission takes a decision.

Some 50 different genetically modified crops for animal consumption have been approved for use in the EU.