Washington News
No evidence North Korean leader dead: US official
Washington, Feb 11 - The US intelligence has found no evidence to suggest that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was dead, an official said following web posts in China that claimed Kim was assassinated in Beijing.
US intelligence officials have been looking into such rumours for more than a week, the official told CNN.
"With that society, you can never be 100 percent sure, but we just don't see any evidence of it. It's a closed society, but at this point we do not believe it's true," he said.
New survey shows Santorum trails Obama by just four percent in White House race
Washington, Feb 11 : Former US Senator Rick Santorum could give President Barack Obama tough competition in the White House if he is elected as the Republican presidential nominee, a new poll has suggested.
According to a Rasmussen survey, Santorum trails Obama by just four percent in a potential head-to-head matchup.
The poll, that covered 1500 likely voters, showed that Obama would get 46 percent of the vote compared to Santorum’s 42 percent, The New York Daily News reports.
Google privacy policy does not violate settlement with US regulators
Washington, Feb 11 : Internet search giant Google has claimed that the upcoming changes in its privacy policy do not violate a settlement it struck with US consumer protection agency last year.
Google told the Federal Trade Commission in a self-assessment report that the new policy is fully in compliance with the company’s settlement with the federal government.
The report, obtained by Politico Friday, said that Google has gone to “exceptional lengths” to tell its users what data it harvests and what it does with it, The Los Angeles Times reports.
US military trying to upgrade 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb
Washington, Feb 11: The US military''s 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator requires an "urgent" upgrade, Pentagon officials have said.
US officials are trying to ensure that 20 of the bombs are battle-ready though they have been tight-lipped on potential targets, Fox News reports.
The bomb has been developed by the air force in conjunction with Boeing to attack concrete bunkers and tunnel facilities, and the Pentagon has requested 81 million dollar in reallocated funds from Congress to get it ready for use.
Blocking DNA repair enzyme could eventually lead to cancer therapy
Washington, Feb 11 : Scientists have shed light on what happens in cells when DNA is damaged.
The research group in the Faculty of Medicine `n' Dentistry at the University of Alberta hopes that their latest discovery could one day be used to develop new therapies that target certain types of cancers.
Mark Glover, his graduate student Zahra Havali-Shahriari and post-doctoral fellow Nicolas Coquelle solved the structure of a DNA repair enzyme called polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase, or PNKP.
This allows them to see what is happening when this enzyme is repairing DNA.
Venus could be shifting gears
Washington, Feb 11 : A spacecraft orbiting Venus has revealed that Earth's cloud-covered neighbour is rotating a little slower than previously measured.
Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the ESA's Venus Express spacecraft found surface features were not quite where they should be.
Using the VIRTIS instrument at infrared wavelengths to penetrate the thick cloud cover, scientists studied surface features and discovered that some were displaced by up to 20 km from where they should be given the accepted rotation rate as measured by NASA's Magellan orbiter in the early 1990s.
Power of estrogen turns male snakes into gay charmers
Washington, Feb 11 : Boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes triggers them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turns them into just about the sexiest reptile on the block - attracting dozens of other males keen to mate.
This experiment in the famed garter snake caverns of Manitoba, Canada, was one of the first in a field setting to ever quantify the effects of estrogen as a stimulant of pheromones, scientists said.
This estrogen, they said, is the same exact chemical found in many animal species, ranging from snakes to amphibians, fish, mammals and humans.
US Navy to name littoral combat ship after former congresswoman Giffords
Washington, Feb 11 : US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has announced that the next Independence variant littoral combat ship will be named after former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt last year.
Giffords was shot in the head in January 2011 by a gunman outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona.
"I am pleased to honor Gabrielle Giffords and the people of Arizona with the naming of this ship," The Los Angeles Times quoted Secreatary Mabus, as saying.
Phosphate additives used in fast food ‘pose risk to health’
Washington, Feb 11 : Excessive consumption of phosphate is damaging to health due to which food products containing its additives should be labelled, researchers have recommended.
Eberhard Ritz and his co-authors selectively reviewed the literature on the subject, which documents the fact that ex-cessive phosphate consumption elevates mortality in patients with renal disease.
Recent studies have also shown that phosphate apparently damages blood vessels and induces aging pro-cesses. Free phosphate, the type found in food additives, is entirely resorbed in the gastroin-testinal tract.
Awlaki directed ‘underwear bomber’ to carry out Christmas Day terror plot
Washington, Feb 11 : Slain America-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki personally directed a terror plot to take down a plane over Detroit, which a Nigerian man tried to carry out on Christmas Day in 2009, a memo has revealed.
A Justice Department memo released ahead of the sentencing next week of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as the "underwear bomber," described how Awlaki tested the Nigerian's commitment to jihad, arranged for him to meet a bomb-maker, and told him to get on a US airliner and detonate his explosives over America.
High school kids perform best with 7 hours sleep
Washington, Feb 11 : 16-18 year olds perform better academically when they shave about two hours off from 9 hours of sleep recommended for them by federal guidelines, a new study has claimed.
The new study by Eric Eide and Mark Showalter from Brigham Young University is the first in a series of studies where they examine sleep and its impact on our health and education.
"We're not talking about sleep deprivation," Eide, the study author said.
"The data simply says that seven hours is optimal at that age," he said.
U.S. hoping to utilize ‘once in a decade’ chance to augment ties with China
Washington, Feb 11 : The US is gearing for a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become the country''s next leader, and use the once in a decade opportunity to augment its ties with Beijing.
The move comes in the wake of a heated White House race that is exerting pressure on US President Barack Obama to adopt a tough stance towards China.
The White House administration said it expects to zero in on some of the most contentious issues during a meeting between Obama and Jinping, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Michelle Obama judges ‘Top Chef’ to promote healthy eating
Washington, Feb 11 : Michelle Obama judged a `Top Chef' cooking competition in Dallas on Friday as part of her three-day national tour to celebrate the second anniversary of her Let's Move campaign.
Obama joined White House chef Sam Kass and `Top Chef' host Tom Colicchio as judges in a televised competition that paired child sous-chefs with professional chef - all former contestants on the Bravo television show. Fabio Viviani, Jennifer Carroll and Spike Mendelsohn were the celebrity chef contestants.
Before the event started, Obama asked the kids `Are you fired enough?'
Costa Concordia to be salvaged by US firm
Washington, Feb 11 : An American company is likely to salvage the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio in late January.
The Costa Concordia's insurance company has invited Bisso Marine, a fifth-generation family business in New Orleans and Houston that has salvaged some of the world's biggest shipwrecks since 1980, to the ship's wreckage.
"This barge averages 300 days a year doing salvage work. With enough time and money you can do any job," CBS News quoted Bisso Marine's head Beau Bisso, as saying.
Rheumatoid arthritis drug halts organ damage in inflammatory genetic disorder
Washington, Feb 11 : Kineret (anakinra), a medication approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, effectively blocks progression of organ damage in people with neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease (NOMID), a new study has revealed.
This rare and debilitating genetic disorder causes persistent inflammation and ongoing tissue damage.
Both maternal and paternal age behind autism
Washington, Feb 11 : Older maternal and paternal ages are together associated with having a child with autism, a new study has revealed.
Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) compared 68 age- and sex-matched, case-control pairs from their research in Jamaica, where UTHealth has been studying autism in collaboration with The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica.
How planets outside our solar system evolved
Washington, Feb 11 : Using high-powered lasers, scientists have found that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly transforming to a more dense liquid with increasing pressure.
The research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators provides insight into planet formation.
"Phase changes between different types of melts have not been taken into account in planetary evolution models," said lead scientist Dylan Spaulding, a University of California, Berkeley graduate student who conducted most of his thesis work at the Laboratory's Jupiter Laser Facility.
Human cognitive performance declines after natural disasters
Washington, Feb 11 : Besides stress and anxiety, victims of natural disasters also become prone to making more serious errors than usual in their daily lives, a new study has revealed.
In their upcoming article, researchers William S. Helton and James Head from the University of Canterbury explore how cognitive performance can decline after earthquakes and other natural disasters.
CIA website hacked
Washington, Feb 11 - Hacker group Anonymous Friday night took down the website of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), media reports said Saturday.
Citing online publication PC Magazine, RIA Novosti said the website was still offline.
"CIA TANGO DOWN: https://www. cia. gov/ #Anonymous," the hacker group wrote on Twitter.
Anonymous did not make public any details about the hacking, but the group's hackers normally use distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to knock their targets offline.
"We are aware of the problems accessing our website, and are working to resolve them," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood told CNN Friday night.
Uzbek man admits to plotting to kill Obama
Washington, Feb 11 : A 22-year-old Uzbek man has admitted to plotting to kill US President Barack Obama.
Ulugbek Kodirov, who was arrested last July and charged with threatening to kill Obama, possessing an automatic weapon and providing material support to terrorists, could face 30 years in jail.
According to the plea agreement, in July 2011 Kodirov came into communication with a man known as "the Emir", who he believed was a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Kodirov and "the Emir" discussed ways to kill Obama, including by a sniper rifle from long distance, The BBC reports.