Most people whose faith depends on biblical scripture believe that divination is a sin condemned by God. So are the Russian orthodox churchgoers. But how strange it might sound, Russians believe that the divination is not sin, if it is done from 6th to 19th January. This period is called ‘Sviatki’.

Nowadays we live in a dense sea of electro-magnetic energy waves, called electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) which are estimated to be 100-200 million times greater than they were a hundred years ago!

As cell phones conquer consumer minds and markets, scientists have discovered that cell phone transmissions disrupt the brain sites for memory and learning, causing forgetfulness and sudden confusion. Also, its electromagnetic signals reduce the ability to concentrate, calculate and coordinate complicated activities such as driving a car. “Hands-free” mobile speaker-phones cause even more crashes because they typically emit 10-times more brainwave interference than handheld units.

The amount of radiation is based largely on how close the device is to your head during calls, the number of phone calls you make, and how long your calls last.

Unfortunately, sleeping in a room in which we are surrounded by all our favorite devices like cell phones or cordless, digital clocks, CD/radio players, computers and televisions can seriously suppress our nightly melatonin production. Much like a boxer taking repeated blows to the head, rapidly pulsing cell phones signal permanent brain damage.

Different studies have been done that link this radiation to brain tumors, cancer, and other health conditions. In fact, in one study done with mice, the incidence of cancer and tumors was higher when the mice were exposed to electromagnetic radiation than when they were not. Many other studies have been done, and they all point to the fact that cell phone radiation causes cancer and other problems with our bodies.

The interesting thing to note is that when you hold the phone to your ear, the electromagnetic radiation can reach up to the middle of your brain. This puts your brain at risk! This is why there have been numerous brain tumors that are present on the side of the brain that gets exposed. That is scary news.

You have become accustomed to using your cell for everything from business to staying in touch with the people you love. You are not going to give it up very easily. On the other hand, you don't want brain tumors either. If you must pack a cell phone, treat it like a loaded pistol. Keep it turned off. Don’t carry it near ovaries, testicles, or the heart. For partial protection, buy an antenna shield. Limit calls to one-minute, six to 10 minutes a month. Never fire off a cell phone with children anywhere in sight.

P.S. A better bet is to facilitate the growth of organic telephone networks with lots of fiber. Instead of more microwave towers.

The fact that women usually outlive men is the subject of study for centuries not only years.
According to the researches power of the male heart is less for 20-25% between the ages 18-70. But the data shows that in the case of women health women’s heart at the age of 70 can function like the heart of 20 years-old.

LJMU research studied 250 healthy men women between the ages of 18-80. The main purpose of choosing only healthy candidates was determined by the fact that it would have been easier to make decisions and conclusions about the study that reveals the results giving opportunities to evaluate the data.

Professor Goldspink says: "By simultaneously studying both men and women we have been able to look for either similarities or differences between the two sexes as we get older. We now have a much clearer holistic picture of changes that take place in the human body throughout our life cycle."

Research finds that men can improve the indicators of the results by increasing regular exercising as it is clear with the veterans that their heart condition at the age of 50-70 is like it was in their 20-ies.

· Each volunteer taking part in the ageing and cardiovascular system research underwent five hours of non-invasive tests, focusing on three key aspects of our cardiovascular system.

· First, Tom Reilly, Director of LJMU’s Research Institute for Sports & Exercise Sciences, and his team measured body composition to establish bone density, muscle mass and the amount and distribution of body fat in each individual.

· Then Professor Goldspink’s team measured blood pressure, how fit each person was and in particular how powerful their hearts were at rest and when exercising to their limits on a treadmill.

· During the final phase of tests, heart performance was measured. Dr Keith George used ultrasound to measure the size of the chambers of the heart, the thickness of its muscular walls and its filling and emptying actions. Professor Tim Cable’s team studied the movement of blood out of the heart through the arteries to the muscles and skin of the limbs.

· The resulting information has produced a very detailed picture on the changes that occur in the cardiovascular system as we age naturally and shows that men and women experience a lot of similar changes as they get older:

o Most men and women become less active and less fit as they grow older, reducing muscle mass and increasing the amount of body fat.

o Blood pressure increases both at rest and during exercise, because the large arteries become stiffer and less elastic as we age.

o Blood flow to the muscles and skin of limbs also progressively decrease. These changes in the structure of blood vessels occur earlier in men, but women soon catch up after the menopause.

According to Science Daily, Kruger and co-author Randolph Nesse, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program, argue that the difference in life expectancy stems from the biological imperative of attracting mates. "This whole pattern is a result of sexual selection and the roles that males and females play in reproduction," Kruger said, "Females generally invest more in offspring than males and are more limited in offspring quantity, thus males typically compete with each other to attract and retain female partners." Scientists think that determining impact has the social status of a man, too.

But except serious findings of the research there are some funny approaches to this issue. The photos say why men live less than women. You can have a fun.

Unlike MS-Excel users, it doesn’t require the user to have previous experience in financial modeling and to spend many hours on formulating complicated tables and formulas. The user has simply to enter the data and the planning results are prepared without having to build any formula.

Geldman Computers Systems Inc. announced it’s nomination as exclusive distributor of Planium’s Business Planner software in Canada,

Business Planner is an advanced multi-purpose business planning software for businesses of all kinds and sizes. It aims to help managers and business people to make more informed business decisions. Business Planner was developed by a team of business consultants and software experts with the ideal of creating a tool that will enable its user to plan the future of a new or existing business analyze various business scenarios and come to the right decisions before investments are done and real money spent.

The dynamic business environment of today requires every business to prepare for changes and to use its resources as efficiently as possible. Business Planner is already used by thousands of managers, entrepreneurs, business people, investors, accountants and consultants around the world. It is also used in a number of universities and business schools as a training tool in business planning courses.

Business Planner enables it’s users to perform the following functions: Business Plan; Cash Flow Forecast; Profitability Analysis; Marketing plan; Feasibility Study; Business Value Estimation;

Budget Planning and Controlling.

Business Planner is easy to use and quick to learn with the on-line wizards, samples, guides and help functions that assist the new user in learning the use of the software. Business Planner is a very powerful tool for business planning. Business people and managers will find it a crucial assistant in planning the future of their business and arriving at the correct decisions.

Geldman Computer Systems Inc. was established in 1986 and is a software development firm that specializes in database business applications for all company sizes. They also distribute and support other products that complement ours and add value to our customers.

Planium Software Ltd. Is an Israeli hi-tech software development company specializing in Business Planning software. The main product of Planium is the Business Planner which is being sold in many countries world wide.

Every day we witness thousands of innovations in the technology world. These innovations comprise nearly each field factually developed. But the one, University of Arizona Professor Jerzy Rozenblit has received a $2.2 million grant to design computer software that will analyze volatile political and military situations for, is absolutely unique.

The software will predict the actions of paramilitary groups, ethnic factions, terrorists and criminal groups, while aiding commanders in devising strategies for stabilizing areas before, during and after conflicts. That is not limit of its capabilities It will have many civilian applications in finance, law enforcement, epidemiology and the aftermath of natural disasters, such as hurricane Katrina, too.

Rozenblit, who holds the Raymond J. Oglethorpe Endowed Chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the UA admits that ATRAP - The Asymmetric Threat Response and Analysis Project is a massively complex set of computer algorithms (mathematical procedures) that sift through millions of pieces of data, considering many factors including social, political, cultural, military and media influences.

For accomplishment the work ATRAP will use sophisticated computational methods based on:
game theory,
co-evolution
genetic development models

Genetic algorithms analyze situations in an evolutionary context, where actions with the highest “fitness factor” gravitate toward one another, produce offspring and eventually rise to the top.

The algorithms will recognize links and patterns within the data and to find connections.“The computer can look at very, very complex data sets that as an individual or even as a group of individuals, you could never analyze,” said Brian Ten Eyck, ATRAP project manager and associate director for research support in ECE. “The computer can bring the patterns and connections to the surface and can predict scenarios that might never occur to human analysts.”

According to the “Inside Arizona Business” Deep Blue, the first computer program to beat a world chess champion, is not exact but a good example of how ATRAP can respond to changing factors, Ten Eyck explained. “Every time its opponent made a move, Deep Blue recalculated all the possibilities and likely courses of action, eventually settling on the fittest move that would achieve its goal of winning the game.”

Rozenblit said: In unstable areas, winning often means establishing an environment in which the factions co-exist in a win-win situation or at least in an equilibrium in which there are no rewards, and some penalties, for disturbing the status quo.
Ultimately, the software program will be designed to display data in graphical, 3-D and other forms that can be quickly grasped, allowing decision makers to rapidly respond to changing situations, Rozenblit said.

The goal is to handle conflict areas in a manner that leads to stability and support so war is not necessary,” Rozenblit said. “That’s the philosophy behind much of the ATRAP effort.”
Conflicts like Kosovo and Somalia that need quick response emphasizes the need for the high quality harnessing in order to react very rapidly. Parallel computing is the best way to response to the situation timely.

The benefit of the software relates to the Students and Local Contractors, too.
As Rozenblit said “There is a dire need for engineers with expertise in this area and our graduate students and undergraduates are in great demand.” The evidence to this statement is that one student who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree after doing research related to ATRAP was hired at an annual starting salary of $90,000.

This article has been featured on MediaPath

It is a sobering fact that the suicide rate among teenagers has shot up in the past 40 years. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds, after auto accidents.

It's common for teens to think about death to some degree. Teens' thinking capabilities have matured in a way that allows them to think more deeply - about their existence in the world, the meaning of life, and other profound questions and ideas.

There are many reasons why a young person may think about or actually carry out a suicide. The most common underlying problem is depression. Depression in teens does not always look like sadness; sometimes it appears as a loss of interest in activities, falling grades, or irritability blowing up for no reason at all. "In others, depression may hide behind a mask of humor" or an "I don't care" attitude.

A suicide survivor said in his interview: "I did many things to try to die. It was truly hell on earth".

Teen girls and boys are both at risk for suicide. Teenage boys are four to five times more likely to die by suicide than girls, although girls actually attempt suicide four times more frequently. Boys may be more inclined to take impulsive action. Girls may use suicide attempts such as swallowing pills (where there is often time for others to intervene) as a way to call out for help. Boys may feel that asking for help even in such a dramatic way is unmanly or babyish. So they choose suicide actions that are more surefire. Over half of teen suicide deaths are inflicted by guns.

Many suicide attempts occur when a teen is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol and drugs have depressive effects on the brain. Misuse of these substances can bring on serious depression, especially in teens prone to depression because of their biology, family history, or other life stressors.

The primary care physician should refer most patients with persistent suicidal thoughts to a psychiatrist skilled in psychotherapy. Patients who do not begin to improve in 4 to 6 weeks should be referred to a psychiatrist, who may recommend a higher dosage, a different medication, and a shift in psychotherapy approach, hospitalization, electroconvulsive therapy, or other treatment.

Dealing with teenagers can be very difficult at the best of times. If you are aware of a young person who seems constantly unhappy or bad tempered, don't be afraid to ask them about how they are feeling. Often just knowing that someone cares is enough to let them unburden their problems, and may prevent tragedy.

“Miracle Chair” makes miracles, that is absolutely logical but absolute miracle, too. Judging about Earth miracles one can say definitely that the “guarantee” miracle to happen is to believe in it.

And if one believes, an ordinary armchair under a worn blanket in Naples will make childless families happy. The gift of the miracle is nothing but the child.

The “miracle chair” is close to Speranzella. The street name suggests hope -- in the picturesque Spanish Quarter of Naples. And at this place Saint Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Jesus is asked for a miracle.

This place became one of the mostly visited by the religious tourists and especially by the childless families.

The phrase visitors can hear the first is “The saint is waiting for you.” That is Sister Elisa who says that to the men and women. After worshippers finish praying they are led to a steep staircase and along a narrow corridor into the flat where the saint, born Anna Maria Rosa Nicoletta Gallo, spent half her life in chastity and mystical suffering until her death in 1791 at the age of 76.

Reminding about “voluntary penance” are the hair shirts and whip in the room. Judging through the name of the first saint woman in Naples, she was the carrier of the wounds of Jesus.

According to The World Wide Religious News (WWRN), we are able to be acquainted with the letter of a very interesting content that is signed by Dejan and Jasmina Bogdanovic, and this is not the only letter that assures in the reality of “Chair Miracle.”

The research shows that visit to “miracle chair” should be intensified if consider the statistics about young couples’ behavior and the decisions that are made for the last years.

In the eight years since the California-based SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) thought of embedding software in people's screen savers that would help sift through radio noise from space for possible signals from alien civilizations, some 40 research groups have launched projects based on the same principle. Hundreds of thousands of computers have been enlisted to study how proteins fold, to search for new prime numbers and to simulate climate change, among other efforts.

Tapping the unused processing capacity of a network of individual PCs offers the power of an expensive supercomputer Latest News about supercomputer at a fraction of the cost and allows researchers to cut the lag time for some calculations from years to days.

Such "volunteer computing" studies have also spawned a quirky global subculture of home enthusiasts who are bringing their personal passion and the collaborative power of the Internet over 800,000 High Quality Domains Available for Your Business. Many volunteers are computer programmers or scientists, but others have no link to the projects aside from their own enthusiasm.

To join the projects, computer owners download a program that lets their PCs work on small pieces of a larger research problem. When a PC finishes a chunk of the calculation, it sends it off to be double-checked and plugged into the big data set.

One initiative has wooed gamers who use the Sony PlayStation 3 Latest News about PlayStation 3 console, which contains a speedy graphics processor. A Stanford University protein study called "Folding@home" now gets the majority of its processing work from the consoles.

"I donate to other causes, and I just considered this a donation to society and science," said Cory Parker, a product assurance technician from Inverness who runs Folding@home software on his four Sony game consoles. He said he uses only one PlayStation for gaming; the other three are damaged units that he bought at a discount just to further the study.

Strength in Numbers

The sheer number of people needed to make such projects worthwhile can be daunting, researchers said. Folding@home, which began in 2000 and is one of the largest undertakings, uses about 250,000 computers at any given moment.

Professor Benjamin Wandelt, director of Cosmology@home wanted to test how minor changes to initial conditions after the Big Bang could have affected how our cosmos would look billions of years later.

To address that question, Wandelt's team runs thousands of computer simulations of cosmological evolution and tinkers with the initial conditions, such as the speed of the universe's expansion or the amounts of certain fundamental particles.

However, he realized that the initial set of simulations would take about 300,000 hours of computer time -- about 30 years using an ordinary home computer. By distributing the computing chore among 2,800 users from 78 countries, Wandelt's team has amassed more than 300,000 hours of work in just six months' time.

Advancing Science

Programs such as Folding@home provide the most demanding tests of a PC's performance, many users say. Amassing an impressive processing record is a mark of achievement, and it earns users "points" -- statistics that are worthless except as tokens of a user's computing prowess.

To rack up more points, many volunteers buy computers solely to use on the projects. Michael McCord, a retired anesthesiologist from Beaumont, Texas, said he has seven PCs running the Folding@home software full-time -- and many users devote even more computers to the cause.

"The competition and camaraderie got me interested," McCord said. "I'm blessed that I can afford the electricity bill."

Intriguing Work

So far, volunteer computing has not changed how physicists think about the universe or led to any concrete cures for diseases, but researchers say they've published intriguing work stemming from the approach. Wandelt of Illinois said his team has just submitted its first paper based on results from Cosmology@home. He said he's found a way to distill his data so other cosmologists can run more speedy simulations of the early universe.

Vijay Pande, director of Folding@home, said his team has published 54 studies based on its protein-folding simulations. Proteins must fold into precise shapes in order to function properly, and many diseases can be traced to errors in folding, including Alzheimer's disease and ALS. Pande's work is designed to offer insights into that process and aid the design of drugs that could help crucial proteins fold correctly.

Yet not every scientific question lends itself to being solved by thousands of computers, each working on one tiny piece of the problem, "Some problems can't be divided,” says Vijay Pande.

The Earth that moves round the Sun, changing position once in several hours by replacing day by night and night by day, changes itself, too. And the disease of the Earth is called “Global Warming.” What are the changes the Earth underwent and what are the threats the inhabitants might face are analyzed in the data obtained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

• Record-low Arctic sea ice extent, which led to first recorded opening of the Canadian Northwest Passage;
• The relatively small Antarctic Ozone Hole;
• Development of La Niña in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific;
• Devastating floods, drought and storms in many places around the world.

Data shows that the winter and spring is ranked 4°C higher than the long-term monthly averages for January and April. In contrast to Bulgaria, the South of the United States, in August, where the highest temperature was fixed, Australia recorded its coldest ever June with the mean temperature dropping to 1.5°C below normal. South America experienced an unusually cold winter, bringing winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to various provinces with temperatures falling to -22°C/-7.6°F in Argentina and -18°C/-0.4°F in Chile in early July.

The joint press release also indicates the results and consequences about sea level. It continued to rise at rates substantially above the average for the 20th century of about 1.7 mm per year. global averaged sea level by 2007 is about 20 cm higher than the 1870 estimate. Modern satellite measurements show that since 1993 global averaged sea level has been rising at about 3 mm per year.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 4th Assessment (Synthesis) Report, 2007, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”

Two posts were already covered on global warming at Blogvasion:
Green Ethernet Technology To Solve Global Problems,
Global Warming Effects and Ways of Informing Society.

The last one got two comments, that show the importance and actuality of the issue on the global arena of problems. The representative of Right Democrat: A Mainstream Populist Voice indicated in the comment that “the best way to slow global warming would be to expand nuclear power,” and asked me to visit the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiE3Ldc8hM . I think that Video on You Tube “Dr. Patrick Moore on Nuclear Energy and Low CO2 Emissions” will be informative and productive for the Blogvasion readers, too.

Israeli scientists have inscribed the entire Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible onto a space less than half the size of a grain of sugar. They have succeeded in putting a version of the Bible on a chip smaller than a pinhead.

Its 300,000 words in Hebrew were inscribed on a silicon surface at the Haifa Institute of Technology. Scientists say the aim of the project is to increase young people's interest in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The record for the smallest copy is held by a Bible measuring 2.8x3.4x1cm (1.1x1.3x0.4in), weighing 11.75g (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages.

The 0.5sq-mm (0.01sq-in) nano-Bible was written on a silicon surface covered with a thin layer of gold (20nanometres thick - 0.0002mm).

It was written using a device called Focused Ion Beam (Fib). The Technion's microscopic Bible was created by blasting tiny particles called gallium ions at an object that then rebounded, causing an etching effect.

"When we send the particle beam toward a point on the surface, the gold atoms bounce off of this point, thus exposing the silicon layer underneath," - Ohad Zohar, one of the project's managers at Technion, said.

"By sending a particle beam towards various points on the substrate, we can etch any pattern of points, especially one that represents text."

The next step for Technion researchers is photographing the Bible and displaying it on a giant wall within the Faculty of Physics.

Users of Internet spend several hours in front of the monitor sending short messages – user messages in order to get a new contact. And we wait for answers to those messages in quiver, no matter where we do it. We all desire to meet the person who interested us by an unusual smiley and manner of writing in real life. Plus you can even get his/her photo. And if you are lucky this photo will truly display the person who has sent it. Then impressed with his/her appearance and such an unusual deep inner world you finally make the first step and offer him/her to meet. Set up story is the beginning of our sleepless nights and thinks about our looking.

You shouldn’t forget that acquaintance via the internet is always the communication under a mask. It’s always easier to talk with someone who does not see you and may never do. That’s why acquaintance via the internet happens much easier than in the real life.

The first sign of disappointment, doleful phrase: “Well, you do not look like your photos in the internet at all.” These words can have two meanings. In one way he/she may be disappointed with the new acquaintance and in the other surprised because his/her date looks better than on photos. If the person is nice or at least polite, he/she will surely add: “You look much better!”

Truly the history still remembers such cases when a couple has found each other via internet. As an example we may review popular movie of 1998 year - “you’ve got mail”, when man (Tom Hanks) and woman (Meg Ryan) communicate via e-mail, make marvelous acquaintance and to the end they are much happier then the beginning of the story.

Get married in Second Life? A Gartner analyst is predicting that 2% of U.S. citizens will get married in virtual worlds by 2015 to people they have never met, and may never meet even after they are married. These online virtual marriages will carry all the same legal implications of marriages that take place in the "offline" world, the Gartner analyst claims.

Nowadays when technologies in parallel with human development rises, notwithstanding of these virtual vs. realistic stories, chats, blogs and other communicators keep the internet overcrowded and the relationship history is still under its way.

Dear Blogvasion.com readers,

All of us at Blogvasion.com wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

May new ideas are introduced, may those ideas are implemented successfully and may everything, what you do, bring joy. May peace, love, joy and prosperity be yours during this holiday season and the coming New Year!

In the previous post I wrote about traditional Christmas dinner in different countries. Now I have added more countries' Christmas dinner traditions. Some of you may find interesting some of the traditional meals I have written and add them to your Christmas dinner menu. Enjoy!


Christmas Dinner in Ethiopia
Food served at Christmas usually includes injera, a sourdough pancake like bread. Injera serves as both plate and fork. Doro wat, a spicy chicken stew might be the main meal. A piece of the injera is used to scoop up the wat.

People4Charity, the mission of that is to create a sophisticated online business-to-business marketplace for the Buyers and Sellers of contracting and consultancy services across all industries and job types, reveals the results of the research: The Most Generous Professionals.

The research shows that the Management consultants and HR specialists are the most ‘giving’ when it comes to supporting charities through their professional skills.

The research studied 9,000 freelance professionals. According to the results 4 in 10 freelance management and HR specialists are prepared to cut the rates by around 15 % for the charity sector. As for the Lawyers they are by around 14.9 ,and the IT specialists are around 14.7 %.

Through the information provided by the SourceWire, Duncan Taylor of people4charity.comsays that “In this season of goodwill, it is interesting to see that management consultants are confounding their stereotype, while HR professionals are perhaps living up to theirs.”

According to Duncan Taylor’s evaluations and analyses the research shows that initiative for charity encreases and 35% of independent professionals “will now work for the third sector at a discount that averages out at 14 percent.”

European leaders celebrated Friday as the borders of nine countries along a Cold War frontier melted away, allowing a huge expansion to the EU's passport-free travel zone.

In Zittau, on Germany's eastern fringe — where the country meets Poland and the Czech Republic — Chancellor Angela Merkel, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso raised a border gate as children set loose dozens of blue balloons covered by stars — symbolizing the EU flag. "We are all quite happy to be able to celebrate this truly historic moment together," - Merkel said.

Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta joined the EU in 2004, but could not be part of the Schengen frontier-free zone until now because their police and border guards were not considered in line with EU norms.

"It would have been better to wait a year or two longer to abolish the border controls," said Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of the German state of Bavaria, which borders the Czech Republic.

Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said Friday his country will be ready to join the Schengen zone by 2011. "It depends, of course, on how prepared Romania will be, since it would be strange for Bulgaria to join, but to have a Schengen border with Romania." - Kalfin said

On the Polish side, in Porajow, Tusk said the day was "exceptional" for the Poles, Germans and Czechs who came of age in a divided Europe.

Hours before the controls ended at midnight Thursday, Polish and German officials gathered at the Frankfurt an der Oder border crossing, east of Berlin, cutting a symbolic ribbon.

But the move has also forced the EU to tighten controls on its new eastern borders to prevent infiltration by criminal gangs, illegal immigrants and even terrorists.

The EU's front line in the fight against illegal immigration remains to the south where thousands of poor Africans make a hazardous sea journey to the coasts of Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece, while would-be migrants from the Middle East and Asia take the overland route through Turkey and the Balkans.

Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer dismissed concerns that the expansion would aid criminals or illegal immigrants as he symbolically joined Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico to saw through a barrier on the countries' border. "Schengen is not crime, not insecurity, not fear," Gusenbauer said. "Schengen stands for freedom, security and stability."

The Schengen agreement is named after the village in Luxembourg where it was signed in 1985 by France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to allow citizens to travel freely between them. Since then, they have been joined by Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, as well as non-EU nations Norway and Iceland.

Beginning Friday, Serbian citizens need the EU's Schengen visas to travel to neighboring Hungary, or even to Slovenia — the country they shared the old six-republics Yugoslav federation with until 1991.

Serbia's pro-Western officials hope that Serbia could by 2009 be placed on the so-called "white Schengen list" that would allow its citizens to travel visa-free.

But because of its perennial political instability, and fears that Serbs would flee en masse to the West if the visas were lifted, the EU has kept the requirement — although some categories, such as students, researchers, business people and journalists will be able to obtain visas to the EU more quickly as of Jan. 1.

Tom and Jerry just wouldn't have been the same if it had featured one of Ko Kobayakawa's mice. The age-old animosity between cats and mice could be a thing of the past.

New genetically engineered mice show no fear of cats, according to the Japanese scientists who created the rodents. The modified mice may also shed new light on mammal behavior.

Scientists at the University of Tokyo say they have used genetic engineering to successfully switch off a mouse's instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats - evidence that fear may be genetically hardwired and not learned through experience, as commonly believed.

Kobayakawa developed the fearless mice by shutting down receptors in their olfactory bulb - the area of the brain that processes information about smells - which would normally induce panic as soon as they get so much as a whiff of a cat.

"Mice are naturally terrified of cats and usually panic or flee at the smell of one. But mice with certain nasal cells removed through genetic engineering didn't display any fear," - research leader Ko Kobayakawa said.

Rather than flee or freeze when confronted with their feline enemy, the mice sniffed and even played with them, blissfully unaware of the potential dangers.

"The mice approached the cat, even snuggled up to it and played with it. The discovery that fear is genetically determined and not learned after birth is very interesting and goes against what was previously thought," - Ko Kobayakawa said.

According to him, the findings suggest that the human aversion to dangerous smells like that of rotten food, for example, could also be genetically predetermined.

Kobayakawa said his findings, published in the science journal Nature last month, should help researchers shed further light on how the brain processes information about the outside world.

"Once removing innate elements by which mice fear cats from them, we are able to make mice who can get along with cats. So by applying this theory to other mammals, we will probably be able to make other animals that are not afraid of their natural enemies," - he said.

Also, according to the researchers, even the modified mice froze in fear whenever the cats miaowed.

Scientists could be on the verge of a new treatment for autism, if the results of animal research hold up in people. A study in mice suggests that several drugs, including one that is poised to enter trials in human patients as soon as next year, could improve brain function and reverse the symptoms of some autistic patients.

So far, the research indicates the drugs will only be effective for one form of autism that is caused by a mutation of a gene on the X chromosome, a condition known as fragile X syndrome.

The exact cause of the disorder remains elusive but it has been linked to a variety of genes, including the fragile X mutation that can lead to both mental retardation and autism. The mutation is thought to lead to mental problems because it causes hyperactivity of a brain protein called metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) that normally plays a role in learning and memory.

A team led by Bear wondered if reducing levels of mGluR5 protein could restore normal brain function. The researchers used a combination of genetic engineering and selective breeding to produce a line of mice that had both the fragile X mutation and toned down levels of the mGluR5 protein in their brain. The intent was to get an idea of what would happen when the protein was suppressed using a drug in human patients.

In a finding that the researchers described as “remarkable” the mice — which should have had mental retardation and autism-like symptoms due to the fragile X mutation — instead showed near-normal brain function and memory.

Pill in the works

That was exciting in and of it, because it indicated that blocking the mGluR5 protein could lead to improvements in some forms of autism and mental retardation. But Bear said the even more provocative implication is that a compound that does just that already exists. A few years ago, he founded Seaside Therapeutics, a small pharmaceutical firm in Cambridge, Mass., that is developing a mGluR5-blocking drug called STX107. The agent, which would be taken as a pill, has passed all the safety studies required for beginning studies in people.

Randall Carpenter, Seaside's president and chief executive officer, said he's “cautiously optimistic,” about STX107's potential to reverse autism symptoms in people. “These are really exciting findings, but we really don't know how helpful it's going to be until we test it in humans,” he said.

Outside researchers also were enthusiastic about the potential of the compound.

“It seems very promising indeed,” said Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at Cornell University's Department of Human Development. He said the study in mice suggests that drugs that suppress mGluR5 can restore brain function without causing any other ill effects. That bodes well for human trials, Belmonte said, but he noted that suppressing a gene in an animal study is not the same as using a drug in people so there could be unforeseen risks that may turn up.

Not everyone is on board, however. Sophia Colamarino, a neurobiologist and vice president of research for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, which helped fund Bear's research, said the finding “give us hope” that this could be a viable strategy for treating autism, but she added that it's too early to tell whether STX107 will improve autistic behaviors in people. The drug could reduce mGluR5 levels, but autism is such a complex disease, this may not be enough to restore normal behavior in patients, Colamarino said.

Two other drugs in the works

If the drug does fail, there still may be hope for patients and their families. The Fragile X Research Foundation (FRAXA), which co-funded STX107 research, is supporting investigations involving two other drugs that block the same protein Lithium, Fenobam.

“We believe that drugs which block mGluR5 have enormous potential for the treatment of fragile X and related developmental disorders, including many cases of autism,” said Katie Clapp, president and executive director of FRAXA.

History covers everything and everybody in the world, even things that were the most confidential and secret ones. The only way information was reached to the present days and the only way we could ever read were the printed versions. Some unique writings, and manuscripts are kept at the world museums, they are protected by several guards, technologies that keep them save. Museums host the oldest books, largest ones, historic, love letters... But ... There is no statement without “But”. But in the world of high technology, computerization... the question is what will be the forms we will keep the most interesting, or romantic letters in? Are the mails expected to be of the same popularity, confidentiality, and the future?

Anyway, nobody is going to write a letter on the stone or with ink as in the early centuries. Everything we do nowadays are kept in the small box, that becomes smaller and smaller, and is called laptop, PC. Every day we write something to someone, leave messages, deal with business documentations. And what happens when your laptop disappears, and somebody just steals it.

Well, that is the problem but... hardly unsolved one. Absolute Software Corporation (TSX: ABT) found this problem the serious one worth to plan to work on it, in order to make consumers feel safer. Nowadays Absolute Software Corporation is the leader in Computer Theft Recovery, Data Protection and Secure Asset Tracking™ solutions. Absolute Software provides individuals and organizations of all types and sizes with solutions to manage regulatory compliance, data protection and theft recovery.

The software helps not only the individuals and organizations but the police, too. According to the SourceWire, the police were able to track the laptop after the student raised the alarm and the laptop called ‘home’ via the Internet once the thief tried to use it. Once located, both the laptop and the dissertation contained on it were retrieved and returned to the student. The recovery also led to the police making an arrest, as well as the discovery of what is believed to be 20 other stolen computers.The ComputraceOne software with the features to quickly respond to the action is being one of the most significant reasons it to be used increasingly in the UK by organisations to manage and protect their mobile assets.

General Manager of Association of Chief Police Officers Crime Prevention Initiatives’ (ACPO CPI), Alan McInnes, said: “As well as helping police to tackle crime, this software addresses the ACPO and Home Office desire that valuable consumer goods should have crime prevention measures incorporated in the design and manufacture. This is why the police are very pleased to award the Secured by Design accreditation to this innovative product.”

According to the AbsoluteSoftware the ComputraceOne application is loaded on the hard drive of a computer while support for the ComputraceOne agent is embedded in the BIOS or firmware. If the hard drive is reformatted or replaced, the ComputraceOne Agent support in the BIOS rebuilds the necessary application files on the hard drive as required by the customer.
Among the unique features of Computrace Technology Platform are:

Automatic & Reliable
Secure Communications
Small Footprint & Low Bandwidth
Easy Installation
Frequent, Scheduled Calls
Scalable

PersistenceWilliam Pound, senior director, international operations, Absolute Software, said: “Imagine having spent the time working on a dissertation, only for it to be stolen. This is exactly why we developed ComputraceOne, so that the actual device can be tracked and retrieved, or if required, important and sensitive data can be deleted. Working with police has yielded another positive result, and really demonstrates the power of our end point security solution."

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, homes are usually filled with mouth-watering aromas from baking holiday goodies. From cakes, candies to cookies, many of these treats are packaged in baskets or cookie tins for holiday gifts.

A new species of spitting cobra - now the largest in the world has been named by researchers in Kenya and the United Kingdom.

The newly anointed Ashe's spitting cobra, or large brown spitting cobra (Naja ashei), can reach lengths of more than 9 feet (274 centimeters) and is believed to deliver more venom with a single bite than any other cobra on the planet.

The aggressive reptile was previously identified as a brown-colored variant of the black-necked spitting cobra, though researchers had long suspected that it merited its own species. Now blood and tissue analysis have confirmed this theory to be true.

The snake dwells in the dry lowlands of north and east Kenya, as well as in Uganda and Ethiopia. It is named after James "Jimmy" Ashe, a prominent herpetologist who founded the Bio-Ken snake farm and research center in Watamu, Kenya, where the snake is commonly found. Bio-Ken milks snakes for their venom and sends it to labs to develop antivenin.

The findings were first published earlier this year in the animal taxonomy magazine Zootaxa by researchers at the University of Wales and the Biodiversity Foundation for Africa in Buluwayo, Zimbabwe.

But they gained wider notice on Friday when the researchers announced the new species through the nonprofit conservation group WildlifeDirect.

Spitting cobras eat eggs, carrion, snakes, lizards, and birds. Their venom has two uses: to kill prey and for defense. The reptiles can spray venom several yards and usually aim for the attacker's eyes, giving the snake the best chance for escape.

A Healthy Appetite

Snake experts had long believed that the brown spitting cobra was fundamentally different from the black-necked spitting cobra. Other variants of the black-necked spitting cobra fought harder when handled and took longer to settle down in captivity. Once in their cages, they were picky eaters. But the Ashe's cobra was less resistant to handling, generally less alert, and less picky. And they were bigger. Ashe's cobras are not the only kinds of snakes that get lumped together.

Researchers suspect that many different species of snake, such as the highly venomous puff adders, have been grouped into species that need greater differentiation.

Ineffective Antivenin

The greatest significance of the new finding may be for residents along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, who are at risk of being bitten by the new cobra. Its venom is similar to the species it was previously grouped with, but it can deliver about twice the amount of venom with a single bite.

That means that doctors previously treating bites from what turned out to be Ashe's cobras were only administering half the necessary dose of antivenin to victims. New developments in antivenin may be made from studying the chemical makeup of the new cobra's venom, researchers add.

"The fact that this is a separate species raises a question of the efficacy of existing antivenins," said David Warrell, a herpetologist at the University of Oxford, who was not among the co-authors.

"It hasn't been studied at all, so that's a complete mystery."