BERLIN (AP) ? German police are warning rail travelers to be wary when using Deutsche Bahn's automatic ticket machines because criminals attempting to break into them may have left them filled with explosive gas.
Hesse state police spokesmanUdo Buehler says since April criminals have successfully blown open 10 ticket machines by taping closed all holes, filling them with gas and igniting it. They then steal the money and blank train tickets.
But in six cases the attempts have failed, leaving the explosive gas inside, most recently Tuesday in a train station in the town of Karben, near Frankfurt.
Buehler warns the gas could potentially ignite when an unsuspecting customer uses the machine though so far it has not.
He says incidents have also been reported in neighboring states Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Two threatening letters containing traces of the deadly poison ricin were sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and his gun-control group in Washington, police said Wednesday.
The anonymous letters were opened in New York on Friday at the city's mail facility in Manhattan and in Washington on Sunday at an office used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, police said.
Chief New York Police spokesman Paul Browne said preliminary testing indicted the presence of ricin in both letters but that more testing would be done. He said the threats contained references to the debate on gun laws and an oily pinkish-orange substance.
The billionaire mayor has emerged as one of the country's most potent gun-control advocates, able to press his case with both his public position and his private money.
The people who initially came into contact with the letters showed no symptoms of exposure to the poison, but three officers who later examined the New York letter experienced minor symptoms that have since abated, police said.
Browne would not comment on what specific threats were made or where the letters were postmarked. He also wouldn't say whether they were handwritten or typed and whether investigators believe they were sent by the same person.
The letters were the latest in a string of toxin-laced missives. In Washington state, a 37-year-old was charged last week with threatening to kill a federal judge in a letter that contained ricin. About a month earlier, letters containing the substance were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man was arrested in that case.
Federal officials and NYPD were investigating. Browne would not say whether the letters were believed to be linked to any other recent ricin cases.
Police said the letter in Washington, D.C., was opened by Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He was working out of the offices of The Raben Group, a Washington lobbying firm where he keeps an office. Glaze happened to open the letter while sitting outside over the Memorial Day weekend, said the firm's founder, Robert Raben.
"I'm very concerned about our employees and co-workers and clients. I'm sorry that we live in a world in which people do such awful things. Thank God, right now, everybody's physically fine," Raben said by phone Wednesday, adding that the firm would do whatever needed to ensure safety.
A mayor's spokesman also speaking for the nonprofit said he had no comment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. Symptoms can include difficulty breathing, vomiting and redness on the skin depending on how the affected person comes into contact with the poison.
Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which now counts more than 700 mayors nationwide as members. It lobbies federal and state lawmakers, and it aired a spate of television ads this year urging Congress to expand background checks and pass other gun-control measures after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The background check proposal failed in a Senate vote in April, and other measures gun-control advocates wanted ? including a ban on sales of military-style assault weapons ? went by the wayside.
Separately, Bloomberg also has made political donations to candidates who share his desire for tougher gun restrictions. His super PAC, Independence USA, put $2.2 million into a Democratic primary this winter for a congressional seat in Illinois, for example. Bloomberg's choice, former state lawmaker Robin Kelly, won the primary and the seat.
___
Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
Defend Yourself against a Personal Injury Lawsuit By Denver Burke
?
Accidents do happen, and sometimes, the injured party can point the finger at you. And because no-one wants to find themselves with a lawsuit on their hands, it?s good to be prepared. You can dramatically reduce your risk of being forced to pay out vast sums of money by soliciting advice from a personal injury lawyer. However, we?ve compiled some tips for you:
Take Pictures
Even if you don?t take your camera with you everywhere, most people have a lens on their phone. Always take pictures of the scene where the accident took place. This is singularly important if you?re involved in a motor-related incident, otherwise you may be accused of something that wasn?t your fault, with no solid evidence to show your innocence.
Err On The Cautious Side
Particularly when it comes to car accidents, you better hope that your vehicle is up-to-date on all its safety checks and is 100% road worthy. If you?re involved in a motor accident and your car isn?t up-to-scratch, you may be accused of liability. With a properly maintained vehicle and sensible driving, you?re very unlikely to get suckered into a personal injury lawsuit, but nevertheless it should still act as a strong deterrent against careless or even wreckless driving. ?
?Get In Touch With Your Insurance Company
?When you?ve been in a traffic accident, you should get in contact with your insurance company as soon as possible. Insurance normally covers your legal fees too. Being quick about reporting the incident always works in your favour.?
Due Diligence
If you are responsible for others, then sticking to the health and safety guidelines is a must. Keeping everyone secure should be your main priority, as it could end up reflecting badly on you in a court of law, if you didn?t do everything humanly possible to keep your charges out of harm?s reach.
Around the workplace, this may mean teaching employees how to lift objects safely, clearing up mess, and making sure everyone knows where the fire exits are. Without taking these precautions, you could be found liable for their injuries. If you?re in any doubt about which health and safety guidelines you have to adhere to, contact solicitors in Ellesmere Portfor further information.
Personal Property
Possibly one of the most unbelievable ways someone can take you to court is if they injure themselves on your personal property. You can avoid this by having a routine inspection of your grounds for any legal hazards. Better yet, make sure that your personal property is insured against such events. Or you can just build an impenetrable fortress around your land.?
Emergency Services
If you find someone injured, always call emergency services, even if the person doesn?t appear to be too harmed, or at least offer to find a way to transport them to the hospital. It?s better to be safe than sorry. If you are shown to have done everything possibly to make sure the injured party received medical attention, it always counts in your favour. Be the nice guy/gal.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - E! has picked up syndicated entertainment news show "Access Hollywood Live," TheWrap has learned exclusively.
Hosted by Billy Bush and Kit Hoover, the "Access Hollywood" daytime spinoff will begin airing daily starting June 10 on the cable channel at 3 p.m./2c, an E! representative told TheWrap.
Produced in Los Angeles by KNBC-TV and distributed by NBC Universal Domestic Television, "Access Hollywood Live's" airings on E! represent some synergy between the sister NBCU companies.
An insider said that there has been some talk internally at NBCU about ways to join "Access Hollywood Live," currently in its third season, and E!'s resources in the entertainment news space. This move would seem like a step toward that goal.
"Access Hollywood" executive producer Rob K. Silverstein also leads the senior production team responsible for "Access Hollywood Live."
"Access Hollywood Live" debuted in September 2010. It was initially seen only on NBC owned-and-operated stations in six markets and Fox owned-and-operated stations in six other major markets, all on stations that already carried the flagship series. The program is now distributed to non-network owned stations nationwide.
Attorney General Eric Holder (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
A growing number of news organizations invited to meet this week with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Justice Department's guidelines governing security leak investigations that involve reporters are refusing the invitation citing the meetings' off-the-record status.
A Justice Department official said on Wednesday that meetings with select bureau chiefs will be off the record to "best facilitate the candid, free-flowing discussions we hope to have in order to bring about meaningful engagement."
Holder called the meetings this week as part of a department review directed by President Barack Obama after controversy over the secret seizure of Associated Press reporters' and editors' phone records and secret monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen.
But by Thursday afternoon, Reuters, Fox News, CNN, McClatchy and Huffington Post had joined the Associated Press and The New York Times in deciding to boycott the meetings due to their off-the-record status.
"I told folks that I'd be happy to participate if the meeting were on the record. And I offered to bring our First Amendment lawyer with me," McClatchy's Washington bureau chief James Asher wrote in an email to Yahoo News. "So far, no response."
"We would welcome the opportunity to hear the attorney general's explanation for the Department of Justice's handling of subpoenas to journalists, and his thoughts about improving the protections afforded to media organizations in responding to government investigations, but believe firmly that his comments should be for publication," Reuters spokesperson Barb Burg said on Thursday.
"CNN will decline the invitation for an off-the-record meeting," the cable news outlet noted in its coverage of the meeting on Thursday. "A CNN spokesperson says if the meeting with the attorney general is on the record, CNN would plan to participate."
Erin Madigan White, the AP's media relations manager, said in a widely circulated statement on Wednesday that "if it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter."
"It isn't appropriate for us to attend an off-the-record meeting with the attorney general," New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson said in a statement.
Asked Thursday if the White House supports holding the meetings off the record, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, during a Q&A with pool reporters aboard Air Force One, referred questions on the ground rules for the meeting to the Justice Department. "They're the ones who are conducting the review. But we are hopeful that media organizations will take advantage of the opportunity to constructively contribute to this process," Earnest said.
When asked a question suggesting that holding these meetings off the record is hypocritical, he said, "No, I don?t actually see that."
So, who is going to the meetings?
Jerry Seib, Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, wrote in an email to Yahoo News late Thursday afternoon that "at this point, I?m planning to attend." He declined to comment on the boycott.
Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune Washington, D.C., bureau chief David Lauter will also attend, a spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday to Yahoo News.
ABC News, a partner of Yahoo News, confirmed its decision to send a representative, but said it will "press for that conversation to be put on the record." (Yahoo News was not invited to participate.)
Representatives for the The Washington Post have told news outlets they will attend.
And Politico is also rejecting the boycott. "As editor in chief, I routinely have off-the-record conversations with people who have questions or grievances about our coverage or our news gathering practices," John Harris wrote in an email. "I feel anyone?whether an official or ordinary reader?should be able to have an unguarded conversation with someone in a position of accountability for a news organization when there is good reason."
The Justice Department did not respond to Yahoo News' request for comment on Thursday on the boycott.
May 29, 2013 ? Researchers at Griffith University's Centre for Quantum Dynamics have demonstrated that, contrary to what the Heisenberg uncertainty relation may suggest, particle properties such as position and momentum can be measured simultaneously with high precision.
But it comes at a cost.
The findings have been published in Experimental Test of Universal Complementarity Relations in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Co-author Dr Michael Hall said the work represents an important advance in the quantitative understanding and experimental verification of complementarity; arguably the most important foundational principle of quantum mechanics.
"Quantum mechanics is often thought to imply that you can estimate precisely how fast an electron is moving, or exactly where it is, but not both at the same time," Dr Hall said.
"The argument is that properties such as speed and position require physically incompatible or 'complementary' devices for their precise measurement and therefore, any device used to make a simultaneous measurement will give inherently imprecise estimates," he said.
"This argument was challenged by Einstein in 1935, who gave an example where the position and speed could be measured accurately at the same time, by exploiting quantum correlations with a second particle."
Professor Geoff Pryde, co-author and leader of the experimental team, said it is important to note that this is not in direct conflict with the well-known Heisenberg uncertainty relation, which requires only that the position and speed cannot both be predicted accurately beforehand, but it does leave open the important question of whether any quantum restrictions apply to simultaneous measurements.
"We have verified experimentally that Einstein was correct by using polarisation properties of photons rather than position and speed," Professor Pryde said.
"But we have also shown that a high degree of joint precision does not come for free; it is possible only if the measurement outcomes are sufficiently unpredictable, as quantified by a new generalisation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation.
"As the uncertainty principle underlies many aspects of quantum information technology, ranging from entanglement verification to random number generation to the security of quantum cryptography, our work could have implications in all these areas."
AAA??May. 29, 2013?1:11 AM ET Soyuz capsule docks with space station AP
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-09M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-09M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
In a photo provided by NASA Expedition 36/37 Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, top, Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency, center, and Karen Nyberg of NASA, wave as they board the Soyuz rocket ahead of their launch to the International Space Station, early Wednesday, May 29, 2013, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Yurchikhin, Nyberg, and, Parmitano, will remain aboard the station until mid-November. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls)
Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, top, and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, bottom, crew members of the mission to the International Space Station (ISS), gesture prior to the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. (AP Photo/ Kiril Kudryavtsev, Pool)
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-09M space ship with a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, stands at the launch pad of the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. The Russian rocket will carries U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. (AP Photo/ Kiril Kudryavtsev, Pool)
In this picture taken through a safety glass, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, crew member of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, waves a hand during the last preparations prior the launch of their Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, May 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
MOSCOW (AP) ? A Soyuz capsule carrying an American, Russian and Italian successfully docked Wednesday with the International Space Station, where the new crew will spend six months conducting a variety of experiments.
The docking took place at 8:10 a.m. (0210 GMT, 10:10 p.m. EDT) less than six hours after the Russian spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia leases in Kazakhstan.
Live footage provided by NASA TV showed it soaring into the clear night sky. About four minutes later, the announcer said the Soyuz was traveling at 4,700 miles per hour (about 7,500 kilometers per hour).
The cramped capsule carrying NASA's Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and Italy's Luca Parmitano orbited the Earth four times before docking with the space station.
After docking, two hours passed before pressure equalized between the capsule and the station, allowing safe entry.
The three new arrivals were greeted by NASA's Chris Cassidy and Russians Alexander Misurkin and the station's commander Pavel Vinogradov, who have been aboard the space station since late March.
"It was a pretty cool ride," Nyberg said upon arrival.
Cassidy had shaved his head clean to match Parmitano's look and got a thumbs-up from the Italian.
Yurchikhin, 54, is a veteran of three previous spaceflights, while the 36-year-old Parmitano, a former test pilot, is making his first trip into space. Nyberg, 43, spent two weeks in space in 2008 as part of a U.S. space shuttle crew.
Shortly after their arrival, the incoming team spoke via video link with relatives and officials back in Baikonur. Parmitano's mother wept throughout the chat with her son.
Four spacewalks are planned during the expedition, including what NASA said would be the first by an Italian.
The International Space Station is the biggest orbiting outpost ever built and can sometimes be seen from Earth with the naked eye. It consists of more than a dozen modules built by the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency.
Associated Press People, Places and Companies: Russia
The so-called "Hot Dog Hooker' was boiling mad at her recent court appearance after being arrested again for alleged prostitution.
Catherine Scalia, 47, earned her moniker after she was arrested in 2012 for allegedly selling more than just hot dogs out of her food truck in Long Island, N.Y. At her arraignment on Saturday, Scalia unleashed an angry tirade against police for targeting her, according to the New York Post.
?They keep framing me!? she told Judge Colin O?Donnell. ?There was no money exchanged! I did it for free. I?m broke, I?m jobless.?
Scalia's bail was set at $10,000.
MyFox New York reports that Scalia allegedly, "drove her vending truck to a hotel in East Garden City on Friday where she offered to engage in a sexual act with an undercover officer."
The amount of money purportedly agreed to was not disclosed, according to the station.
Scalia was arrested in May last year and pleaded guilty to prostitution charges, CBS New York reports. Despite her plea, she insisted she was just stripping for men as well as selling hot dogs.
?To the mothers and children out there, I will be selling the hot dogs in my bikini," Scalia said at the time of her 2012 arrest. "To all the guys, I?m gonna wiggle those weiners, we?re gonna have a good time."
John Hammons, who grew up during the Depression, built some 200 hotels and donated millions of dollars to hospitals, colleges, and public television, mostly in and around Springfield, Mo. Most have 'John Q. Hammons' in their name, prompting jokes that Springfield should be renamed 'Hammonsville.'
By Alan Scher Zagier,?Associated Press / May 27, 2013
John Q. Hammons, a prominent hotel developer and philanthropist, died May 26 at a nursing home in Springfield, Mo., said Sheri Davidson Smith, a spokeswoman for John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts.
Courtesy of John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts / AP
Enlarge
John Q.?Hammons, a prominent hotel developer and southwest Missouri philanthropist who rose from a poor Depression-era childhood to build a national real estate empire, has died. He was 94.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Hammons, who actively led his company well into his 80s, died peacefully Sunday at a nursing home in Springfield, said Sheri Davidson Smith, a spokeswoman for John Q.?Hammons?Hotels & Resorts.
Hammons' first business ? a company that sold mortar-less bricks ? went bust in the late 1940s, saddling him with debt. He paid off that debt after two years and recovered to build housing subdivisions in southwest Missouri over the next decade before purchasing 10 Holiday Inn franchises with a partner in 1958 from the company's founder.
He went on to build 200 hotels nationwide, including Embassy Suites, Marriotts, Radissons, and Holiday Inns. Hammons?also developed an expansive real estate portfolio associated with those hotels of golf courses, restaurants, convention centers, a casino, and riverboat gambling. He avoided big-city locations in favor of properties in college towns and state capitals.
"He would say, 'The kids will always go to school, and you can't fire the damn politicians,'" former company executive Scott Tarwater said in a March 2011 interview.
Along the way, he donated millions of dollars to local hospitals, colleges, and public television. His name graces so many buildings and streets in Springfield ? from the basketball arena at Missouri State University to the city's tallest building ? that comedian Bob Hope once joked that the city should change its name to "Hammonsville."
He regularly appeared on Forbes magazine's list of the wealthiest Americans and estimated his personal wealth several years ago at $1 billion. He took his company public in 1994 before returning it to private ownership a decade later. During his career, according to the company,?Hammons?developed 210 hotel properties in 40 states.
"He has made such a major, significant difference to this community," Jim Anderson, president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said in a 2007 interview. "Some people may not see the way he has put us on the map."
But?Hammons's recent years were shrouded in secrecy and controversy. In March 2011, a group of friends asked Greene County probate court to appoint?Hammons?a public guardian.
The friends' lawsuit said they weren't being allowed to visit him at a Springfield nursing home or even talk to him on the phone after Jacqueline Dowdy, whom?Hammons?gave power of attorney several years ago, took control of the John Q.?Hammons?Hotels & Resorts in October 2010, purged most of its top officials and placed Hammons?in "involuntary seclusion."
The court appointed a Springfield doctor in May 2011 to serve as?Hammons's temporary guardian. The doctor allowed supervised visits with?Hammons, though that didn't alleviate the feud. Dowdy, a former administrative assistant and accountant, became CEO after nearly 40 years of working alongside?Hammons.
The CLOCKSS Archive is pleased to announce the participation of ACSESS, Inc.; the Canadian Young Scientist Journal; Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information; Southeastern Surgical Congress; UniBio Press; Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society and Zoo Outreach Organization.
ACSESS, Inc.
ACSESS is an umbrella organization representing three prominent international scientific societies (American Society for Agronomy; Crop Science Society of America; Soil Science Society of America). Society members are dedicated to the conservation and wise use of natural resources to produce food, feed, and fiber crops while maintaining and improving the environment. https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/
Canadian Young Scientist Journal
The Canadian Young Scientist Journal is a unique, peer-reviewed scientific publication entirely dedicated to original high-school and undergraduate student research. It attracts independent thinkers and introduces them to the professional and academic communities. Since 2008, our non-profit organization has provided students with an opportunity to publish innovative ideas in various science and engineering fields. http://www.cysjournal.ca
Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information
Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information (ZPID) is the psychology information center for the German-speaking countries, creating electronic databases on literature, tests, research data, audiovisual media, and Web resources to meet the information needs of scientists and psychology professionals. http://www.zpid.de/en/
Southeastern Surgical Congress
SESC was founded to provide opportunities for surgeons and surgeons in training to come together for educational, scientific, and social purposes to promote and advance the study and practice of surgery. http://www.sesc.org/
UniBio Press
UniBio Press is a medium intended to collectively provide the academic journals of Japanese biological societies to domestic and international research institutes in electronic form. http://www.unibiopress.org/
Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society
W.I.L.D. Society was founded in 1999 to promote conservation and research by networking field biologists and other experts and enthusiasts. WILD?S focus is scientific solution-driven projects. WILD aims to be a conservation actioner for in situ conservation. http://threatenedtaxa.org
Zoo Outreach Organization
Zoo Outreach Organization is an exceptionally unique, dynamic and productive conservation, research, education, and welfare NGO. http://www.zooreach.org
About CLOCKSS
The CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) Archive is a not-for-profit joint venture between the world's leading scholarly publishers and research libraries whose mission is to build a sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive with which to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly publications for the benefit of the greater global research community. http://www.clockss.org
Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine
Metabolic activity enhanced by ShK-186 synthetic compound, may work on other obesity induced disease manifestations
Irvine, CA & Seattle, WA Scientists at UC Irvine reported this week that a synthetic compound ShK-186, originally derived from a sea anemone toxin, has been found to enhance metabolic activity and shows potential as a treatment for obesity and insulin resistance.
The findings published the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal that ShK-186 selectively blocks the activity of a protein that promotes inflammation through the Kv1.3 potassium channel. The study presents the first evidence that the drug candidate which in March showed positive results in a Phase 1 safety clinical trial may also work in an anti-obesity capacity.
UC Irvine licensed ShK-186 to Kineta Inc., a Seattle based biotechnology company in 2009; it is the company's lead drug candidate. Kineta is developing this compound to treat autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, psoriatic arthritis and lupus. It has also licensed the use of ShK-186 for the treatment of metabolic syndrome and obesity.
Potassium channels regulate cell membrane potential and control a variety of cellular processes.
Earlier studies using mice that lack Kv1.3, a potassium channel gene, suggested that Kv1.3 regulated body weight and the basal metabolic rate.
In the present study, Dr. George Chandy and his colleagues evaluated ShK-186 because it has high selectivity for the Kv1.3 target, a favorable pharmacokinetic profile, and meets the qualities of an industry-standard drug. In tests on obese mice that ate a high-fat, high-sugar diet, ShK-186 therapy reduced weight gain, white fat deposits, fatty liver, blood cholesterol and blood sugar by activating calorie-burning brown fat, suppressing inflammation of white fat and augmenting liver function. The compound had no effect on mice that ate a standard chow diet, suggesting that the obesity-causing diet triggers the expression of the Kv1.3 target.
"This is a new twist in a sustained journey of discovery made over the 30 years that charts the course for expeditious translation to humans who suffer from potentially lethal consequences of metabolic syndrome and autoimmune diseases," said Chandy, professor of physiology & biophysics at UC Irvine and a Kineta scientific advisor. "We evaluated ShK-186 in an obesity model because it has high selectivity for the Kv1.3 target, a favorable pharmacokinetic profile, and meets the qualities of an industry-standard drug."
"These data are quite exciting and strongly support the notion that inhibition of the Kv1.3 channel provides a highly effective method for managing obesity and its associated metabolic abnormalities. The results obtained with ShK-186 are consistent with what one would expect to see with a potent inhibitor of this channel. While additional studies are needed, the potential clinical relevance of this work is enormous, since a significant number of people are afflicted with obesity and its associated complications, and no Kv1.3 inhibitor, as a drug candidate for obesity, has reached the clinic until now," said Dr. Gary V. Desir, professor of medicine at Yale University, and an expert on the Kv1.3 channel's role in renal potassium secretion and glucose metabolism. Dr. Desir was not involved with the study.
"Knowing that ShK-186's unique mechanism of action may have broad utilization across multiple therapeutic disciplines, such as autoimmune diseases and now obesity, further adds to the potential of this compound. This study also shows how medical progress can be made through academic and private sector partnerships," added Charles Magness, Ph.D., President and CEO of Kineta.
According to the World Health Organization (March 2013), obesity worldwide has nearly doubled since 1980. In 2008, more than 200 million men and nearly 300 million women, or 11 percent, were obese. Diabetes is expected to affect roughly 300 million humans by 2030 with an economic cost of $260 billion annually.
Sanjeev Kumar Upadhyay, Kristin Eckel-Mahan, M. Reza Mirbolooki, Indra Tjong, Galina Schmunk, Briac Halbout, Brian Pedersen, Emiliana Borrelli, Ping H. Wang, Jogeshwar Mukherjee, and Paolo Sassone-Corsi with UC Irvine; Amanda Koehne and Stephen M. Griffey with UC Davis; and Shawn Iadonato with Kineta contributed to the study, which received support from the National Institutes of Health, a UC Irvine bridge grant, and the Ko Family Foundation.
###
About Kv1.3 Research at UCI
Dr. Chandy and his UC Irvine colleague Michael Cahalan discovered Kv1.3 in 1984, and since then they have characterized the role of this channel in immune cells. In the 1990s, Chandy and colleagues found that ShK, a peptide from sun anemone venom, blocks Kv1.3 with high potency. They created a synthetic version, ShK-186, and demonstrated its usefulness in treating autoimmune diseases in animal models. ShK-186 is now under pharmaceutical development at Kineta.
About ShK-186
Kineta's lead clinical stage program, ShK-186, is a selective and potent blocker of the voltage-gated Kv1.3 potassium channel. Originally developed from the toxic tentacles of the sun anemone, Stichodactyla helianthus, ShK-186 is a synthetic peptide with a novel mechanism of action that targets autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, without broadly suppressing the immune system. ShK-186 was the first Kv1.3-specific inhibitor advanced into the clinic and was well tolerated in a Phase I clinical study that was completed in March 2013.
About UCI
Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC Irvine is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,400 staff. Orange County's second-largest employer, UC Irvine contributes an annual economic impact of $4.3 billion. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu.
About Kineta, Inc.
Kineta is a Seattle-based privately held biotechnology company specializing in clinical advancement of novel drug candidates derived from leading edge scientific research. Our world class scientists are pioneers in developing life-changing classes of new drugs designed to be more effective and safer than current medicines. Kineta seeks to improve the lives of millions of people suffering from autoimmune and viral diseases and from severe pain. Our progressive business model focuses on targeting unmet medical needs and rapid achievement of important clinical milestones. For more information on Kineta, Inc. visit our website, http://www.Kinetabio.com
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine
Metabolic activity enhanced by ShK-186 synthetic compound, may work on other obesity induced disease manifestations
Irvine, CA & Seattle, WA Scientists at UC Irvine reported this week that a synthetic compound ShK-186, originally derived from a sea anemone toxin, has been found to enhance metabolic activity and shows potential as a treatment for obesity and insulin resistance.
The findings published the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal that ShK-186 selectively blocks the activity of a protein that promotes inflammation through the Kv1.3 potassium channel. The study presents the first evidence that the drug candidate which in March showed positive results in a Phase 1 safety clinical trial may also work in an anti-obesity capacity.
UC Irvine licensed ShK-186 to Kineta Inc., a Seattle based biotechnology company in 2009; it is the company's lead drug candidate. Kineta is developing this compound to treat autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, psoriatic arthritis and lupus. It has also licensed the use of ShK-186 for the treatment of metabolic syndrome and obesity.
Potassium channels regulate cell membrane potential and control a variety of cellular processes.
Earlier studies using mice that lack Kv1.3, a potassium channel gene, suggested that Kv1.3 regulated body weight and the basal metabolic rate.
In the present study, Dr. George Chandy and his colleagues evaluated ShK-186 because it has high selectivity for the Kv1.3 target, a favorable pharmacokinetic profile, and meets the qualities of an industry-standard drug. In tests on obese mice that ate a high-fat, high-sugar diet, ShK-186 therapy reduced weight gain, white fat deposits, fatty liver, blood cholesterol and blood sugar by activating calorie-burning brown fat, suppressing inflammation of white fat and augmenting liver function. The compound had no effect on mice that ate a standard chow diet, suggesting that the obesity-causing diet triggers the expression of the Kv1.3 target.
"This is a new twist in a sustained journey of discovery made over the 30 years that charts the course for expeditious translation to humans who suffer from potentially lethal consequences of metabolic syndrome and autoimmune diseases," said Chandy, professor of physiology & biophysics at UC Irvine and a Kineta scientific advisor. "We evaluated ShK-186 in an obesity model because it has high selectivity for the Kv1.3 target, a favorable pharmacokinetic profile, and meets the qualities of an industry-standard drug."
"These data are quite exciting and strongly support the notion that inhibition of the Kv1.3 channel provides a highly effective method for managing obesity and its associated metabolic abnormalities. The results obtained with ShK-186 are consistent with what one would expect to see with a potent inhibitor of this channel. While additional studies are needed, the potential clinical relevance of this work is enormous, since a significant number of people are afflicted with obesity and its associated complications, and no Kv1.3 inhibitor, as a drug candidate for obesity, has reached the clinic until now," said Dr. Gary V. Desir, professor of medicine at Yale University, and an expert on the Kv1.3 channel's role in renal potassium secretion and glucose metabolism. Dr. Desir was not involved with the study.
"Knowing that ShK-186's unique mechanism of action may have broad utilization across multiple therapeutic disciplines, such as autoimmune diseases and now obesity, further adds to the potential of this compound. This study also shows how medical progress can be made through academic and private sector partnerships," added Charles Magness, Ph.D., President and CEO of Kineta.
According to the World Health Organization (March 2013), obesity worldwide has nearly doubled since 1980. In 2008, more than 200 million men and nearly 300 million women, or 11 percent, were obese. Diabetes is expected to affect roughly 300 million humans by 2030 with an economic cost of $260 billion annually.
Sanjeev Kumar Upadhyay, Kristin Eckel-Mahan, M. Reza Mirbolooki, Indra Tjong, Galina Schmunk, Briac Halbout, Brian Pedersen, Emiliana Borrelli, Ping H. Wang, Jogeshwar Mukherjee, and Paolo Sassone-Corsi with UC Irvine; Amanda Koehne and Stephen M. Griffey with UC Davis; and Shawn Iadonato with Kineta contributed to the study, which received support from the National Institutes of Health, a UC Irvine bridge grant, and the Ko Family Foundation.
###
About Kv1.3 Research at UCI
Dr. Chandy and his UC Irvine colleague Michael Cahalan discovered Kv1.3 in 1984, and since then they have characterized the role of this channel in immune cells. In the 1990s, Chandy and colleagues found that ShK, a peptide from sun anemone venom, blocks Kv1.3 with high potency. They created a synthetic version, ShK-186, and demonstrated its usefulness in treating autoimmune diseases in animal models. ShK-186 is now under pharmaceutical development at Kineta.
About ShK-186
Kineta's lead clinical stage program, ShK-186, is a selective and potent blocker of the voltage-gated Kv1.3 potassium channel. Originally developed from the toxic tentacles of the sun anemone, Stichodactyla helianthus, ShK-186 is a synthetic peptide with a novel mechanism of action that targets autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, without broadly suppressing the immune system. ShK-186 was the first Kv1.3-specific inhibitor advanced into the clinic and was well tolerated in a Phase I clinical study that was completed in March 2013.
About UCI
Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC Irvine is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,400 staff. Orange County's second-largest employer, UC Irvine contributes an annual economic impact of $4.3 billion. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu.
About Kineta, Inc.
Kineta is a Seattle-based privately held biotechnology company specializing in clinical advancement of novel drug candidates derived from leading edge scientific research. Our world class scientists are pioneers in developing life-changing classes of new drugs designed to be more effective and safer than current medicines. Kineta seeks to improve the lives of millions of people suffering from autoimmune and viral diseases and from severe pain. Our progressive business model focuses on targeting unmet medical needs and rapid achievement of important clinical milestones. For more information on Kineta, Inc. visit our website, http://www.Kinetabio.com
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Q-BA-MAZE kits are a collection of plastic interconnecting building blocks that you can use to build cool marble maze sculptures. The blocks are made of translucent colored plastic and when combined with other blocks, create tracks and runs for marbles to slide through. They are designed for anyone… adults and kids ages 5 and up. [...]
CANNES, France (AP) ? Roman Polanski says the birth control pill has had a "masculinizing" effect on women and that the leveling of the sexes is "idiotic"
The director made the comments Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he came to premiere "Venus in Fur," a film adapted from the David Ives play which stars Polanski's wife and toys with the subject of gender.
Polanski said the pill has "changed the place of women in our times" while talking to reporters. He further lamented that "offering flowers to a lady" has become "indecent."
The 79-year-old Polanski was famously convicted of having sex with a minor in a 1977 case. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy, but pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.
Polanski, whose past films include "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby," fled the United States after a Los Angeles judge threatened further sanctions.
He's restricted by an Interpol warrant in effect in 188 countries, but he moves freely between Switzerland and France. He was freed from Swiss house arrest in 2010 after the government refused to deport him to the United States.
Polanski's new film stars his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Mathieu Amalric as an actress and theater director rehearsing an adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novella, "Venus in Furs." The film features Seigner as a strong, feminine actress who comes to dominate her director.
"Venus in Fur" is in competition for the Palme d'Or, Cannes' top honor, which is to be announced Sunday.
CONCORD, N.C. (AP) ? Charlotte Motor Speedway said 10 fans were injured Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 and three of them were taken to the hospital after a nylon rope supporting a Fox Sports overhead television camera fell from the grandstands and landed on the track surface.
According to CMS spokeswoman Danielle Frye the three people taken to the hospital had "minor injuries that are not life threatening." She said seven people were treated with "minor cuts and scrapes" on site and released.
Fox Sports released a statement Sunday night saying it hasn't determined the cause of the accident and it is suspending use of the camera system indefinitely.
"Our immediate concern is with the injured fans," Fox said in the statement.
Fox said the camera system consists of three ropes ? a drive rope that moves the camera back and forth, and two guide ropes on either side. Fox said it was the drive rope that failed near the first-turn connection and fell to the track.
"The camera itself did not come down because guide ropes acted as designed," Fox said in the statement. "A full investigation is planned, and use of the camera is suspended indefinitely."
Fox said it has used the camera system at the Daytona 500, at last week's NASCAR Sprint All-Star race and other major sporting events.
"We certainly regret that the system failure affected tonight's event, we apologize to the racers whose cars were damaged, and our immediate concern is for the race fans," Fox said in the statement. "We also offer a sincere thank you to the staff at CMS for attending to the injuries and keeping us informed on this developing situation."
The incident occurred on lap 121 of the 400-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
The race was delayed for 27 minutes while crews repaired damage to their cars.
Kyle Busch, going for a sweep at Charlotte Motor Speedway after winning the Nationwide and Truck series races, was leading when he incurred damage to the right front wheel well of his No. 18 Toyota.
Marcos Ambrose and Mark Martin also reported damage.
No drivers were injured.
The cars were initially brought along pit row as workers cleared the ropes from the track.
NASCAR first threw a caution flag before two red flags came out. It eventually allowed the cars to come into the pits, giving crews 15 minutes to work on their cars.
During the break, Busch's crew frantically worked to repair a number of problems to the right front wheel well. After completing repairs to the car, the crew slapped high-fives after getting the car back on the track.
Busch remained competitive and was running in the top five at the midpoint of the race. But his night ended in frustration when his engine blew up on lap 253.
"I commend NASCAR for taking the initiative and letting us repair our damaged cars from the issue we had," Busch said.
Busch said he never saw the nylon rope.
"I just heard a big thunk on the right-front side tire and thought the right-front tire blew out," Busch said. "That's how hard it felt... It did have an effect slowing my car down and I could feel it like, 'Whoa, that's weird.' I don't know that anybody has ever seen that. Maybe now we can get rid of that thing."
He has never won a Sprint Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway and has suffered his share of bad luck at the track.
Prior to the restart, Ambrose was made to run five laps on his own to make up for the laps missed when he pulled into pit row and the rest of the field was under caution.
In May of 2000, more than 100 fans were injured outside of the CMS when an 80-foot section of the walkway fell an estimated 25 feet onto a highway below. Fans were crossing the bridge to a parking lot following the completion of the NASCAR All-Star race.
Religious leaders are suggesting that religious Boy Scouts leave the organization after its leadership voted to welcome gay boys. Others aren't so sure that the status quo will change.
By Patrik Jonsson,?Staff writer / May 25, 2013
Boy Scout Pascal Tessier is congratulated by Justin Buckford of Scouts for Equality, after hearing that the Boy Scouts of America had passed a resolution allowing openly gay scouts. Tessier is a Life scout who was unable to become an Eagle scout unless the resolution passed.
Brad Loper/The Dallas Morning News/AP
Enlarge
The decision by the Boy Scouts of America to stop seeing homosexuality as a moral failing and accept gay boys raises an important question for troops from Sheboygan to Atlanta: Will Cub scouts and Eagle scouts exodus en masse, and, if so, to where?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The wrenched decision by an organization founded in 1910 on quasi-military and Christian values came after months of debate and member polling, and the final vote looked much like America's general feeling on gay rights: Sixty percent supported the decision, which does not extend to gay adults. But the minority 40 percent may have stronger feelings, fueling a potential search for a new "character" organization for boys.
That debate had already begun this weekend in places like northern Virginia, where the Arlington Catholic Diocese is "prayerfully considering" leaving the Boy Scouts, as Bishop Paul Loverde told the Washington Post.
Boy Scout troops are sponsored by third party groups, the majority of which are churches. About 110 million Americans have been Boy Scouts since the organization was founded as part of the international Scout movement. In the 1980s, the organization went through a series of sex abuse scandals, and last year it was forced to release 20,000 pages of internal documentation of some 1,200 sex abuse cases that took place between 1965 and 1985.
That background explains in large part why the Boy Scouts of America has struggled to repair its image, and why the organization voted to continue excluding gay leaders.
But that concession isn't enough for some critics of the decision, including some in Baptist churches, which sponsor over 100,000 of the Boy Scouts' current 2.6 million members.
?Frankly, I can?t imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules,? Richard Land, a senior Southern Baptist Conference official, said Friday in an interview with the Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news agency.
The Assemblies of God says that its own Royal Rangers youth group could be a "positive alternative" to the Boy Scouts under the new rule. The Royal Rangers, which have a similar skill-testing program as the Boy Scouts, has a stated purpose to "evangelize, equip and empower the next generation of Christlike men and lifelong servant leaders."
That push by some to leave the Boy Scouts ? which, if it happens, will be felt when the policy takes effect at the beginning of 2014 ? reveals a paradox of the long-awaited decision: By becoming more accepting, will membership be hurt or bolstered?
And that question seemed to undergird the internal debate, given that Boy Scouts membership under the old policy had fallen 27 percent since 1997. And the Boy Scouts aren't alone among religious and conservative organizations pushing back against past injustices. In order to stem membership dips, the Southern Baptist Convention last year elected its first black leader, the Rev. Fred Luter, in a major move for an organization that once backed segregation.
Some observers suggest the fallout may be milder than the rhetoric that preceded Friday's vote.
"I'm sure many [Scout] units will have meetings to decide what this means for them," Aaron Chusic, a spokesman for the National Capital Area Council of Scouts, told the Washington Post, but added that so far he had not heard from any group that has decided to leave.
The drive to allow gay boys came from deep within the organization itself, especially given that the Boy Scouts had the full legal right to say no. In 2000, the US Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scout policy, saying private organizations don't need to accept members or leaders in violation of their own moral creed, specifically a line in its bylaws that says that gay people should be excluded because they are not "morally straight."
Indeed, a deeper look at the Boy Scouts, which are highly decentralized into near-autonomous "units," is that the de facto acceptance of gay boys or gay families is a quiet fact in many troops, from rural Wyoming to the suburbs of Atlanta.
"I don't think it's going to impact scouting because there are already gay members," Melanie Mork, the mother of Alex Mork in Wyoming's Troop 101, told the Wyoming News on Friday. "Young men have come out and said, ?I am gay and I?m a Scout,? and it didn?t impact their ability to become an Eagle Scout. And I think we?ll hear more of those types of stories as they become free to do that under this change.?
The phenomenon of shifting baselines means that each generation fails to realize how much worse the oceans are getting
By Andy Sharpless and Suzannah Evans
Image: Flickr / sludgegulper
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More??
From The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover's Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World, by Andy Sharpless and Suzannah Evans. Rodale Books. Copyright ? 2013, by Oceana.
TRAWLING REVOLUTIONIZED FISHING. For millennia, humans had been catching fish by net, trap, spear, and hook. The first bottom trawls were 20-foot nets weighted by stones and lead in the closed "cod" end. The front end of the net was held open by a wooden or steel beam. Pulled by a sailboat going with the wind and tide, the trawl raked the seafloor and scared flatfishes like flounder, halibut, and sole into the net.
The first mention of a bottom trawl in historic literature, dug up by Callum Roberts for his definitive history of fishing impacts on the oceans, The Unnatural History of the Sea, was prescient: It was a complaint. In 1376, English fishers wrote to King Edward III to request his intervention in the use of the "wondyrechaun," a weighted net dragged along the seafloor to snatch up anything in its path.
And that the great and long iron of the wondryechaun runs so heavily and hardly over the ground when fishing that it destroys the flowers of the land below water there, and also the spat of oysters, mussels and other fish upon which the great fish are accustomed to be fed and nourished. By which instrument in many places, the fishermen take such quantity of small fish that they do not know what to do with them; and that they feed and fat their pigs with them, to the great damage of the commons of the realm and the destruction of the fisheries, and they pray for a remedy.
The bottom trawl was so unpopular among hook-and-line fishers in Europe that they succeeded in staving off the new and damaging technology for centuries. Its use was banned in several countries and even made a capital offense in France in the 16th century. But as Roberts theorizes in his book, there may have been another reason why the trawl didn't catch on: It caught such volumes of fish--sometimes making the net so heavy it could not be hauled up onto the boat--that the fishers couldn't sell the catch before it spoiled. It wasn't until the advent of railroads and the widespread exportation of ice from Northern Europe that the enormous bounties realized by trawling could actually be utilized. By the 1860s, just 30 years after the world's first steam passenger service started, more than 100,000 pounds of fish were transported by rail in England each year. With a new market of seafood consumers beyond the coasts now reachable, the number of British trawlers increased sixfold in 2 short decades, to more than 800 in the early 1860s.
By the numbers alone, the era when fishermen resisted the advent of the trawl was over. But many still complained that, by ripping up the seafloor and crushing the oyster beds and rocky expanses that were the homes and sources of sustenance for fish, the trawls were killing the goose that laid the golden egg. They clamored so loudly that a royal commission was set up by the British government in 1863 to investigate the complaints. But the commissioners rejected the fishermen's concerns outright, instead claiming--contrary to the facts--that the trawls actually fostered life by furrowing the seabed like a plow turning dirt in a field of wheat.
One of the members of the royal commission was Thomas Henry Huxley. A biologist sporting voluminous sideburns, Huxley had earned prominence as one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of Darwin's views on evolution. But during two royal commission investigations into trawling (the second one undertaken in 1883), Huxley embraced the role of skeptic. He sneered at the fishermen's complaints about dropping catches and dismissed their on-the-water accounts.
Have you ever been on holiday where there has been intense anticipation before you go, which ultimately ends being an anti-climax as your holiday did not turn out as planned for whatever reason? This can be very annoying. If you are travelling somewhere new, this can easily happen.
With the amount of information available on the internet though, you can help avoid this situation to make sure that you find your perfect holiday and have the time of your life whilst you are away. It really is quite easy to do some research and find the best location for your holiday to help ensure that everything goes smoothly on your holiday in the sun.
Choosing the location
Choosing the country that you want to visit is only half of it. When you have decided on the country that you are going to visit, you then need to find somewhere that you want to go. There are plenty of travel-related websites out there that you can use to get users reviews of the accommodation that they stayed in. This can be very handy when looking for something to cater for children or even if you are looking to party all the time.
Location?
Amenities?
Excursions?
Close to the Beach?
Food?
Service?
Ease of Transport?
All of these issues can be addressed when you go through all of the reviews that are available. This information can be invaluable when trying to make an informed decision of where to go on holiday, and it can help you to narrow down the possibilities immensely. Of course, you do need to realize that what one person likes, someone else may not. So, you do have to work the reviews and take them with a pinch of salt sometimes. One person may have had one bad experience, so his or her entire review is very one sided and condemning.
When to go?
When you decide to go on holiday, it can have an effect on the amount of time you enjoy your holiday. When travelling during school holidays or public holidays such as Christmas, you need to be aware that not only will prices increase, but your chosen destination may be very busy with tourists as well.
If you are looking for a quieter time away, then you should look to go during the low season. This does not mean you will not get the sun though as many holiday resorts in areas such as Spain, Turkey, Asia and South America are year round resorts offering great weather pretty much all year round. Going away in low season will also help you save some money.
What to do when you are there?
Just as with all of the resort and hotel reviews that you can find on the internet, you can also get reviews of excursions and attractions that are on offer locally.
Museums?
Amusement Parks?
Water Parks?
Activities such as Scuba Diving?
Historical Monuments and Architecture?
Restaurants?
Clubs and Discos?
You will be able to find information on all of these if you look on the internet. Trip Advisor is a great website to get lots of different information on things on offer in the location you are going, and this website covers the entire world. Again the users leave their reviews of the things they have seen and done, and you can use this information to see whether you would want to add this to your itinerary.? You may find yourself a lovely little restaurant, overlooking the beach where you can enjoy a meal and also drinks whilst you watch the sun setting in a peaceful and relaxing environment, if that is what you want. You could also find the busiest bar and club, which is open till the sun comes up. It all depends on what you want to do on your holiday. If you do like to party though, just make sure you get out and explore a bit as well as you do not want to spend most of your holiday in bed nursing a hangover, do you?
By-Line:
Ted Hunter has travelled all over the world and commented on his trips in the blogs and articles that he writes. Ted loves to explore new places and always uses the internet to research new areas that he has never been to before. When going away on a trip for cheap holidays abroad, Ted always uses the services of Travel Republic for all of his travel needs.
Only 11 out of 58 countries rich in natural resources can effectively manage their wealth, according to the first of its kind report from the Revenue Watch Institute, a think tank which specializes in effective management of natural resources.
A quarter of all independent countries on planet are resource rich. The 58 states produce 85% of world?s petroleum, 90% of the diamonds and 80% of copper with total profits from their extractive sector totaling more than $2.6 trillion.
According to the Resource Governance Index (RGI), in 41 countries out of the group the extractive sector contributes a third of their GDP. And the future of these countries heavily depends on how effective they govern their resources.
Norway takes the top ranking followed by the United States and the United Kingdom, all three majoring in hydrocarbon extraction. Russia comes 22 in the ranking, dragging behind its neighbor Kazakhstan and major South American energy states. Among the countries with the worst natural resource governance are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkmenistan, and Myanmar concludes the ranking.? The Index shows a striking governance deficit in natural resources management worldwide with only 11 countries on the list scoring satisfactory.?
The RGI evaluates four key components of resources governance in each country: institutional and legal setting, reporting practices, safeguards and quality controls and enabling environment.?It also takes into account data from the World bank, advocacy groups, including? Transparency International and various ecology watchdogs.
The Index is based on the assertion that a good governance of natural resources provides successful development of country and is designed to serve as a tool to help identify good practices as well as governing failure.
The Revenue Watch Institute is a unique organization of its kind exclusively dedicated to address the problems of countries that are rich in natural resources.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-May-2013
Share ] 
Choosing the country that you want to visit is only half of it. When you have decided on the country that you are going to visit, you then need to find somewhere that you want to go. There are plenty of travel-related websites out there that you can use to get users reviews of the accommodation that they stayed in. This can be very handy when looking for something to cater for children or even if you are looking to party all the time.