Cycling: Armstrong "to admit doping" in Oprah interview

LOS ANGELES: Lance Armstrong plans to admit to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that will be taped on Monday at the disgraced cyclist's home in Austin, Texas, USA Today reported.

In an article posted on its website on Friday night, USA Today cited "a person with knowledge of the situation" as saying Armstrong plans to admit for the first time to doping throughout his career, but that he probably will not get into great detail about specific cases and events.

The announcement that Armstrong had agreed to an interview, to air on Winfrey's OWN cable TV network on Thursday, had sparked widespread speculation that he might finally confess to being a drug cheat after years of strenuous denials.

It will be Armstrong's first interview since he was stripped in October of his seven Tour de France titles after the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said he helped orchestrate the most sophisticated doping programme in sports history.

Armstrong's years of dominance in the sport's greatest race raised cycling's profile in the United States to new heights and gave him a unique platform to promote cancer awareness and research.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised almost $500 million (375 million euros) since its creation in 1997.

But in the aftermath of the allegations, several top sponsors dropped Armstrong and the ultimate ignominy came on November 14 when his name was dropped from the charity he founded, which now is known as the Livestrong Foundation.

- AFP/al

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Cameras not entirely out of the picture at CES 2013

The update to the Fujifilm X100, the X100S, was one of the few bright spots in camera announcements.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

LAS VEGAS--It's been an exceptionally busy and newsworthy past 12 months for cameras -- budget full-frame models, 4K action cameras and cinema cameras, full-frame compacts. Unfortunately for CES 2013, most of that happened at Photokina this past Fall. So while this show brought a few nice, potentially ownworthy updates to existing product lines, none of it really stands out as particularly whizzy.

In advanced cameras, the most common update has been to autofocus systems, with combo phase-detection/contrast AF starting to take over in camera lines that have traditionally had rather slow performance -- new models like the Fujifilm X100S and the Samsung NX300. The X100S has the most technologically innovative advancement, debuting a split-screen electronic viewfinder for improved manual focus control. We had a chance to try it and even though we were never fond of that type of viewfinder on film SLRs, it works well in an EVF (because the viewfinder is brighter than on, say, a cheap SLR).

Perhaps the most notable, though notably good or bad we've yet to decide, is Polaroid's entry into the interchangeable-lens camera market with cheap Micro Four Thirds and Nikon CX-size sensors and mounts. The camera's are extremely plasticky and the sensors are built into the lens, but the company will have adapters for other mounts with built-in sensors. We're really curious about the photo quality.

The Olympus Stylus Tough TG-2 iHS, announced at CES 2013, should be a very good camera because it's basically the same as its predecessor.

(Credit:
Joshua Goldman/CNET)

As far as point-and-shoots go,
CES 2013 was a fairly weak show with just one or two interesting cameras launched from each manufacturer. And by interesting we mean that they were mostly refreshes of previously existing cameras with some feature tweaks. Again, that's more an indication of CES' importance as a show for cameras than it is for the state of the category. However, the cameras announced do show where the market is going.

For example, Olympus announced the Stylus Tough TG-2 iHS, an update to itstop-of-the-line rugged compact. It picks up exactly where its predecessor left off, but it can now go 10 feet deeper underwater (up to 50 feet), and it now has aperture priority and enhanced macro modes.

Similarly, Samsung rolled out its second-generation of Smart Cameras loaded with Wi-Fi for fast sharing and backup. But while some of the wireless features are new, such as an option to send every photo directly to a smartphone or
tablet as they're taken, the cameras themselves weren't remarkably different than last year's models. Likewise, Nikon announced the Coolpix S6500, which is basically just a Wi-Fi-enabled version of the Coolpix S6400.

Sony announced nothing but its entry Cyber-shots at CES 2013.

(Credit:
Lori Grunin/CNET)

Sony stuck to entry-level models, though at least it included its entry model with a Sony Exmor R BSI CMOS sensor, the Cyber-shot DSC-WX80, so there's at least some idea of the new features coming to other models this year.

Even Fujifilm backed off on new FinePix models, keeping its typical double-digit list of CES cameras to seven. This included two of the shows point-and-shoot highlights, the hobbyist-targeted HS50EXR and the ultrasupermegazoom SL1000.

Another highlight -- and the only entirely new model announced -- was Canon's PowerShot N. The tiny square camera has a flip-up 2.8-inch touch screen and an 8x wide-angle zoom lens, and does away with a shutter release button and zoom lever, using rings around the lens instead.

The PowerShot N introduces a new Creative Shot mode, too, which will automatically create five different versions of a single shot using different color modes, crops, and styles in addition to saving the original photo. It's an unique option and the camera we tried did the edits fast, so maybe Canon has something here. At least with the mode, I'm not sure about the camera.

So for point-and-shoots this year, it looks like it's just going to be long zooms and rugged cameras from here on out, with a few exceptions like the PowerShot N.

As for camcorders, Sony made the most interesting updates to its lineup, though that's not saying much. And while most manufacturers have cut back on the number of models announced for 2013, Sony still blanketed us with 10 versions.

The POV action camcorder market grew by at least three more as well with two good-looking new models from iON, the Air Pro 2 and Adventure, and the HX-100D from Panasonic, which kind of misses the point of the small action cam market.

Perhaps more interesting was the growing number of accessories for turning an iPhone into more of a point-and-shoot camera, such as the Kickstarter project Snappgrip (available for Galaxy S3, too), Will.i.am's pricey foto.sosho cases, and Olloclip's upcoming case/lens combo.

In the end, CES 2013 wasn't so much a bust for the category, just that it's still not the place camera manufacturers are making huge announcements. But, with CP+ in Japan just weeks away, maybe we'll get some real treats then.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning

The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's weekly flu report. This week, 24 states reported high illness levels, 16 reported moderate levels, five reported low levels and one reported minimal levels, suggesting that the flu season peaked in the last week of December.

"It may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a Friday morning teleconference. "Trends only in the next week or two will show whether we have in fact crossed the peak."

The flu season usually peaks in February or March, not December, said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. He said the season started early with a dominant H3N2 strain, which was last seen a decade ago, in 2002-03. That year, the flu season also ended early.

Click here to see how this flu season stacks up against other years.

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP Photo

Increasing Flu Cases: Best Measures to Ensure Your Family's Health Watch Video

Because of the holiday season, Frieden said the data may have been skewed.

For instance, Connecticut appeared to be having a lighter flu season than other northeastern states at the end of December, but the state said it could have been a result of college winter break. College student health centers account for a large percentage of flu reports in Connecticut, but they've been closed since the fall semester ended, said William Gerrish, a spokesman for the state's department of public health.

The flu season arrived about a month early this year in parts of the South and the East, but it may only just be starting to take hold of states in the West, Frieden said. California is still showing "minimal" flu on the CDC's map, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.

"It's not surprising. Influenza ebbs and flows during the flu season," Frieden said. "The only thing predictable about the flu is that it is unpredictable."

Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said he was expecting California's seeming good luck with the flu to be over this week.

"Flu is fickle, we say," Schaffner said. "Influenza can be spotty. It can be more severe in one community than another for reasons incompletely understood."

Early CDC estimates indicate that this year's flu vaccine is 62 percent effective, meaning people who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to need to see a doctor for flu treatment, Frieden said.

Although the shot has been generally believed to be more effective for children than adults, there's not enough data this year to draw conclusions yet.

"The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it's still by far the best tool we have to prevent flu," Frieden said, adding that most of the 130 million vaccine doses have already been administered. "We're hearing of shortages of the vaccine, so if you haven't been vaccinated and want to be, it's better late than never."

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DNA 'identichip' gives a detailed picture of a suspect

IMAGINE you are trying to solve a burglary, and your sole lead is a cigarette butt. It has enough DNA on it to check against the national DNA database, but this throws up no matches. Running the DNA through machines capable of identifying physical characteristics could help - only there is not enough DNA to deduce more than two traits.

A new all-in-one chip that can identify multiple traits should help. The Identitas v1 Forensic Chip allows investigators to home in on someone's gender, eye colour and hair colour, as well as ancestry - all based on a small sample of DNA such as that from saliva on a cigarette butt.

Developed by VisiGen, a consortium of universities and law enforcement agencies, the chip is the first to provide data on all these traits simultaneously. Other devices can determine at most two at a time - usually eye and hair colour.

The new chip contains hundreds of thousands of short sequences of DNA that bind to different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) - single letter variations in the genetic sequence - in the DNA sample. SNPs are indicative of physical traits, so once we know which SNPs are present in the sample, software can be used to compute likely appearance and ancestry.

The VisiGen team tested the chip on more than 3000 DNA samples collected around the world, and found that it was 99 per cent accurate at predicting gender. The chip also predicted European or East Asian ancestry with an accuracy of 97 per cent, and African ancestry in 88 per cent of cases. However, it was only 63 per cent accurate at predicting blond hair (International Journal of Legal Medicine, doi.org/j5k).

The tool is not accurate enough to secure convictions in court, but team member Aruna Bansal of New York biotech firm Identitas envisages it being useful in focusing investigations or corroborating eyewitness reports, as well as in identifying disaster victims. "It provides you with a starting point," she says. The current chip is ready to be launched and the team is now working towards a chip that can determine even more traits.

Erin Murphy, a professor of law at New York University, is concerned that this technology may encourage "police dragnets", in which anyone matching a profile created with such chips could be questioned. But VisiGen team member Manfred Kayser of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, counters that the authorities "already use all types of information for investigative purposes". With the chip, the only difference is that they will be looking at DNA-derived traits.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Books: Suitable reading with or without 'Unsuitable Men' experience

Though relatively new to the world of women's fiction, Pippa Wright pens a comical read with her latest offering, 'Unsuitable Men'.

Set in London, 29-year-old Rory Carmichael is unwillingly launched back into single-hood after the end of her 11-year relationship.

After years of perceived domestic bliss with Martin, her boring but reliable 'Mr Right', Rory is stunned by the discovery of his infidelity, and is brutally forced to re-evaluate everything she thought of what she wanted in a relationship.

In a bid to revive her love life and lacklustre career at a posh magazine, Rory embarks on a mission to date as many unsuitable men – or 'Mr Wrongs' – as possible and write about them in an online column.

What follows is a series of hilarious encounters as she meets a variety of men, from rich elderly landowners and musicians, to war veterans and office interns.

Thankfully, the story is more than just a string of bad dates.

Rory's experiences take her on a journey of self-discovery, and over time she realises how much wrong she did to herself to accommodate her 'Mr.Right'.

Although fictional, Rory is a believable character you'll grow to like.

Readers can identify with her anxieties and fears as she struggles to find her place in the office, wonders how her relationship went downhill, and ponders her shelf-life while coping with feelings of loneliness.

As the story progresses, it is hard not to root for Rory as she gamely rolls with the punches that come her way.

Aside from the female protagonist, the narrative's supporting characters are also stars in their own right.

Most notable is Rory's colleague, Ticky – the office's self-appointed shoulder to cry on who speaks with a distinct drawl that the writer pens in exactly the way it sounds - from "oh my goouurd" to "raaahlly".

Though funny when spoken aloud, its novelty wears thin after a while and can become a bit grating.

Despite their bizarre personalities and quirks, Wright gives her characters a touch of vulnerability, making them more relatable and less like caricatures.

Overall, the narrative moves quite quickly, and Wright strikes a good balance between the more serious parts of the story and its laugh-out-loud moments.

Although the ending is somewhat predictable, as most books of this genre tend to be, it is still a light-hearted read for those with a couple of hours to spare.

It's clear that Wright was not looking to reinvent the wheel with 'Unsuitable Men', and it should be enjoyed for exactly what it is – a chick lit title with a good dose of British humour.

-CNA/sf

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At CES, two HP laptops do Windows 8 right

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart ultrabook makes Windows 8 a pleasure to use.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

LAS VEGAS--At CES this week, Hewlett-Packard hardware got my attention.

Though the company has been savaged in the media because of dubious acquisition decisions and a falling stock price, its brief exhibition of new
Windows 8 laptops and hybrids at
CES was impressive.

I'll focus on two, the EliteBook Revolve and Spectre XT TouchSmart ultrabook-- both touch-capable Windows 8 laptops. The systems were fleetingly exhibited at CES by HP during an event at the MGM Grand event on Monday night.

I'll start with the Spectre XT TouchSmart because it was also at Intel's CES booth all week -- and available for any attendee to use. For me, it was my go-to laptop when I needed to escape the 11.6-inch screen constraints of my
MacBook Air.

HP calls it an ultrabook, but by ultrabook standards it's palatial, sporting a large 15.6-inch 1,920x1,080 resolution display. Other salient specs include an Intel Core i7-3517U 1.9GHz processor, 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz memory, and a 500 GB HDD with a 32GB solid-state drive cache.

The display is gorgeous -- and made it really hard for me to go back to the Air's cramped 1,366x768 display. The Spectre XT's 1,920x1080 resolution is perfect for a 15-inch class display running Window 8. Windows 8 fonts look smooth, well-resolved but not so small that you can't see them.

And speaking of Windows 8. I've tried my share of Windows 8 touch-screen laptops and this is hands-down the best experience I've had: fluid, fast, fun. No lag here.

And one final thought: though it weighs just under five pounds, I found the weight distribution excellent. That is, it feels lighter than a traditional, thick 5-pound laptop.

HP's 3-pound, 11.6-inch EliteBook Revolve seemed well-built, well-conceived and comes packed with impressive features, like a touch screen, integrated 4G connectivity, and Intel's Ivy Bridge processors.

I spent considerably less time with the EliteBook Revolve but walked away feeling it had a lot potential (it won't ship until March). In fact, if I was to design a Windows 8 road-warrior laptop, it would be pretty much what HP has delivered.

The Revolve is a convertible. That is, it has a touch display that rotates but doesn't detach from the base. But what I like about it is the practicality: it's only a little heavier than my Air but has a touch display and the option for built-in 4G.

I can't overstate the importance of integrated 4G. With my Air, it's more-often-than-not a hassle to connect to my Verizon Mi-Fi or my iPhone 5's hotspot. I'm not going to go into all of the reasons why it's a hassle here but suffice to say it would be nice to have 4G built into the MBA. If Apple can provide an iPad 4 with 4G, why not an 11.6-inch MacBook Air?

But getting back to the Revolve. The other big draw for me is the option for an HP docking station, allowing you to pop the laptop into a dock and instantly connect to all the ports of a typical desktop PC.

If HP can deliver consistent quality on these two laptops, I would say there's still plenty of hope for the world's largest PC company.

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Google and Twitter Help Track Influenza Outbreaks

This flu season could be the longest and worst in years. So far 18 children have died from flu-related symptoms, and 2,257 people have been hospitalized.

Yesterday Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a citywide public health emergency, with roughly 700 confirmed flu cases—ten times the number the city saw last year.

"It arrived five weeks early, and it's shaping up to be a pretty bad flu season," said Lyn Finelli, who heads the Influenza Outbreak Response Team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Boston isn't alone. According to the CDC, 41 states have reported widespread influenza activity, and in the last week of 2012, 5.6 percent of doctor's office visits across the country were for influenza-like illnesses. The severity likely stems from this year's predominant virus: H3N2, a strain known to severely affect children and the elderly. Finelli notes that the 2003-2004 flu season, also dominated by H3N2, produced similar numbers. (See "Are You Prepped? The Influenza Roundup.")

In tracking the flu, physicians and public health officials have a host of new surveillance tools at their disposal thanks to crowdsourcing and social media. Such tools let them get a sense of the flu's reach in real time rather than wait weeks for doctor's offices and state health departments to report in.

Pulling data from online sources "is no different than getting information on over-the-counter medication or thermometer purchases [to track against an outbreak]," said Philip Polgreen, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa.

The most successful of these endeavors, Google Flu Trends, analyzes flu-related Internet search terms like "flu symptoms" or "flu medication" to estimate flu activity in different areas. It tracks flu outbreaks globally.

Another tool, HealthMap, which is sponsored by Boston Children's Hospital, mines online news reports to track outbreaks in real time. Sickweather draws from posts on Twitter and Facebook that mention the flu for its data.

People can be flu-hunters themselves with Flu Near You, a project that asks people to report their symptoms once a week. So far more than 38,000 people have signed up for this crowdsourced virus tracker. And of course, there's an app for that.

Both Finelli, a Flu Near You user, and Polgreen find the new tools exciting but agree that they have limits. "It's not as if we can replace traditional surveillance. It's really just a supplement, but it's timely," said Polgreen.

When people have timely warning that there's flu in the community, they can get vaccinated, and hospitals can plan ahead. According to a 2012 study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, Google Flu Trends has shown promise predicting emergency room flu traffic. Some researchers are even using a combination of the web database and weather data to predict when outbreaks will peak.

As for the current flu season, it's still impossible to predict week-to-week peaks and troughs. "We expect that it will last a few more weeks, but we can never tell how bad it's going to get," said Finelli.

Hospitals are already taking precautionary measures. One Pennsylvania hospital erected a separate emergency room tent for additional flu patients. This week, several Illinois hospitals went on "bypass," alerting local first responders that they're at capacity—due to an uptick in both flu and non-flu cases—so that patients will be taken to alternative facilities, if possible.

In the meantime, the CDC advises vaccination, first and foremost. On the bright side, the flu vaccine being used this year is a good match for the H3N2 strain. Though Finelli cautions, "Sometimes drifted strains pop up toward the end of the season."

It looks like there won't be shortages of seasonal flu vaccine like there have been in past years. HealthMap sports a Flu Vaccine Finder to make it a snap to find a dose nearby. And if the flu-shot line at the neighborhood pharmacy seems overwhelming, more health departments and clinics are offering drive-through options.

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Judge: Holmes Can Face Trial for Aurora Shooting

Jan 10, 2013 8:45pm

(Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo)

In a ruling that comes as little surprise, the judge overseeing the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre has ordered that there is enough evidence against James Holmes to proceed to a trial.

In an order posted late Thursday, Judge William Sylvester wrote that “the People have carried their burden of proof and have established that there is probable cause to believe that Defendant committed the crimes charged.”

The ruling came after a three-day preliminary hearing this week that revealed new details about how Holmes allegedly planned for and carried out the movie theater shooting, including how investigators say he amassed an arsenal of guns and ammunition, how he booby-trapped his apartment to explode, and his bizarre behavior after his arrest.

PHOTOS: Colorado ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Theater Shooting

Holmes is charged with 166 counts, including murder, attempted murder and other charges related to the July 20 shooting that left 12 people dead and 58 wounded by gunfire. An additional 12 people suffered non-gunshot injuries.

One of the next legal steps is an arraignment, at which Holmes will enter a plea. The arraignment was originally expected to take place Friday morning.

Judge Sylvester indicated through a court spokesman that he would allow television and still cameras into the courtroom, providing the outside world the first images of Holmes since a July 23 hearing. Plans for cameras in court, however, were put on hold Thursday afternoon.

“The defense has notified the district attorney that it is not prepared to proceed to arraignment in this case by Friday,” wrote public defenders Daniel King, Tamara Brady and Kristen Nelson Thursday afternoon in a document objecting to cameras in court.

A hearing in the case will still take place Friday morning. In his order, Judge Sylvester said it should technically be considered an arraignment, but noted the defense has requested a continuance.  Legal experts expect the judge will grant the continuance, delaying the arraignment and keeping cameras out of court for now.

Sylvester also ordered that Holmes be held without bail.

Holmes’ attorneys have said in court that the former University of Colorado neuroscience student is mentally ill. The district attorney overseeing the case has not yet announced whether Holmes, now 25, can face the death penalty.

SHOWS: World News

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The jolt we need to take on climate change

If changing temperatures and rainfall patterns kill off coffee, will that finally spur us into action?

THE introduction of coffee into Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries has been proposed as an important contributory factor to the rush of creativity and energy that spawned the scientific and industrial revolutions. How ironic, then, that the world's second favourite liquid after oil is under threat from climate change caused by industrial pollution.

The coffee plant is inordinately fussy about its growing conditions. It needs a "goldilocks" combination of temperature and rainfall to produce the high quality beans that most of us take for granted.

Unfortunately, these conditions are set to vanish from the places where coffee is traditionally grown as the climate changes (see "Coffee dregs: is this the end of coffee?"). Temperatures are set to soar and rainfall patterns will change. The worst case projection is that almost all of the locations where the beans grow well will be unsuitable by 2080.

That seems a long way off, but the effects may already be upon us: coffee yields are at a 35-year low. And the direct effects of climate are being exacerbated by the spread of pests that thrive in warmer conditions.

The demise of coffee is, of course, a minor inconvenience compared with some of the projected effects of dangerous climate change. It is not a staple crop; nobody will starve for lack of it, though 26 million farmers who depend on it for their livelihoods face a precarious future.

But coffee still has the potential to send a powerful message to the world about the reality of what we are doing to the climate. If you wanted to find a commodity whose escalating scarcity and price would cause maximum discomfort to complacent westerners, coffee is about as good as it gets.

Coffee is the world's most popular beverage, with about 500 billion cups drunk every year, fuelling an export industry worth $15 billion. It is also the number one source of caffeine, the world's favourite recreational drug. Billions of people all over the world - and especially in Europe and North America - are hooked on it and would find the prospect of its soaring cost or eventual disappearance very irritating.

It really is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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