Brazil jet crash - 41 body recovered from the ocean

The Blackhawk helicopter skimmed over the sea before flying between green hills and coming to rest amid the ­puddles on the tarmac at Fernando de Noronha. On this island 400 miles off Brazil, eight days after the worst disaster in Air France's ­history, a ­solemn ­procession of the dead of flight 447 began.

For a moment helicopter and ground crew dressed in army fatigues and ­surgical masks stood, their heads bowed. Then the first small green bag was lifted onto a ­waiting stretcher and fastened into place. Over the next 30 minutes, eight ­body bags were passed hand to hand from the helicopter and transported to two waiting refrigeration units, pulled by lorry onto the runway.

The exercise was carried out in silence only punctuated by the snapping ­cameras of photographers. No families were present to receive the bodies.

But outside, local people in T-shirts and flip-flops ­gathered on the roadside.

The island paradise of Fernando de Noronha could not be a more ­incongruous setting for the sight of body bags being unloaded into the sunshine. The island is in mourning for those who perished so close to its shores.

Only 3,000 people live here, proud of the island's glorious white sand beaches and clear seas. Many are ­distraught that their home has been turned into what amounts to a makeshift morgue born of a terrible tragedy.

"I wanted to come here to pay my respects," said Rosanna Silva, who runs a tourist restaurant on the island. "The island has never seen anything like this before. It is such a peaceful place. To think all those people died so close.

"We just want the bodies to be given back to their families and this nightmare to be over."

By the time the second helicopter, a Super Puma, returned to the island hours later, heavy rain had returned. It blew in sheets across the runway, buffeting the helicopter as it attempted to land. This time there was no ceremonial atmosphere as stretcher bearers slipped and struggled in the wind whipped up by the rotors to unload eight more body bags.

Inside the refrigeration units, police unzipped the bags one by one and started the grisly process of trying to identify the remains.

The team of investigators who arrived with the refrigeration units on Monday are hoping to identify them using ­dental records and fingerprints. This, they hope, may end the anguish for at least a few of the families of the 228 people who lost loved ones last week.

Police in Rio de Janeiro have been ­visiting families to collect genetic material hair, blood, cheek swabs to help identify the corpses.

The authorities want to transport the bodies to the Brazilian mainland as soon as possible, and by afternoon officials were already preparing a C-130 ­aircraft for this purpose. There they were due to met by a delegation of ­family ­officials. The dead come from 33 ­countries and Interpol said an international effort would be required in the identification process.

Ronald Noble, the organisation's secretary general, said: "Since the victims from this tragedy came from all parts of the globe, international collaboration will be essential." Even as the identification ­process got under way the investigation into the cause of flight 447's crash appeared to be focusing on the possibility that ­external speed sensors called pitot tubes may have given false readings to the plane's computers during a storm.

Unions representing Air France pilots reported that the airline had decided to replace sensors on all of its Airbus A330 and A340 jets.

Pilots had previously reported several incidents in which the sensors had iced up leading to loss of airspeed information. AF447 had not had its sensors replaced.

"What we know is that other planes that have experienced incorrect airspeed indications have had the same pitots. And planes with the new pitot tubes have never had such problems," said Air France pilot Eric Derivry, a spokesman for the SNPL pilots union.

Meanwhile the French nuclear ­submarine Émeraude is due to arrive later this week to aid the search for the cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

The urgency of the search has been underlined by the 30-day time limit within which the acoustic beacons on the black boxes can operate. The US navy is also providing devices capable of picking up the beacons to a depth of almost four miles.

As that search continues in the Atlantic, Recife – one of Brazil's most violent cities with one of the highest murder rates in the world – is working to clear its already overcrowded morgue in preparation for the arrival of the bodies from Fernando de Noronha.

Seventeen more were pulled from the sea yesterday, bringing the number recovered to 41.

Many of the families of the victims have been waiting for news in Rio. Others who initially flew to Brazil in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy have returned home.

"People are trying to carry on in as ­normal a way as they possibly can," said Marteen van Sluijs, the brother of one of the missing Air France passengers, outside the central Rio hotel where some family members are now staying.

For Isa Furtado, whose daughter was also on the flight, the daily discoveries are too much to bear.

"I just want them to leave my daughter where she is," she said. "This rescue is so painful".

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/09/air-france-crash-victims-brazil

Survey: Most firms unaware of Web domain changes

LONDON (Reuters) - Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey.

The change would let the likes of Nike or Microsoft control their own domain and better exploit their brands, and also counter cyber-squatters who use variations of brands on the 280 or so existing domain extensions.

"If you have '.nike', for example, you can create real and specific branded Websites, like 'running.nike' or 'runlondon.nike'," Joe White, chief operating officer of domain registrar Gandi.net, told Reuters in an interview.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees domain names, is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains early next year, said Future Laboratory, which conducted the research.

But the move is not on the radar of a majority of companies, the survey for Gandi.net found.

"Companies are generally completely unaware of this change coming down the line," said White. "This change has not yet permeated into the mainstream for businesses or consumers."

"However, those businesses which are aware actually see the prospect as being quite exciting," he said.

The price of $185,000 will initially limit applications to the largest corporations and organizations, said Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory.

ICANN is expecting 300-500 applications when it opens its doors in the first quarter of next year, he said.

"You'll see the big global corporations getting there early to own more of their online space," he said.

"(Owning their domain) could secure a higher level of credibility and recognition."

Smaller businesses will be able to use more specific extensions to match their business sector or geography such as ".london" or ".paris," he said.

The Future Laboratory surveyed 100 e-commerce managers; 50 from high-street companies and 50 from small and medium businesses online.

source: http://www2.canada.com/topics/technology/news/gizmos/story.html?id=708d29c4-4a8a-442c-a959-5ea11c237a6b

Brazil Finds 3 More Bodies Near Jet Crash Site in ocean

Three more bodies were found Sunday in the ocean near the spot where an Air France jet is believed to have crashed a week ago, bringing the total number of recovered bodies to five, Brazil's military said.

Acer announces Android netbooks

The Android netbooks recently announced by Acer will actually ship as dual-boot systems with both Android and Windows, according Acer chairman JT Wang.

Wang pointed out that the dual-OS strategy is much safer for Acer since consumer acceptance of the Android platform is unclear for the time being.

Acer will cooperate with telecom providers to sell the netbooks and expects shipments to reach an average scale in 2-3 years, Wang noted.

Wang also noted that Acer will not rule out the possibility of launching Android-only models if there is enough demand from telecom providers.

The new details will come as a blow to GNU/Linux enthusiasts who took Acer's announcement earlier in the week as signs of a resurgence in support for open source software in the consumer space. The dual-OS compromise is unlikely to win support from die-hard alternative operating system supporters who will continue to cry foul of what they see as a "Windows tax" on their purchases.

For mainstream consumers, the addition of Android will have a limited effect as it will not translate to cheaper products as some market watchers anticipated. In fact, the second operating system increases the complexity of the netbook and my lead to increased support costs which Acer will need to account for in the purchase price. On the other hand, Acer will be able to promote Android as a value-added feature, similar to Asustek Computer's Express Gate, to account for any price premium.

In other news, Wang has estimated that Acer's notebook shipments in the second half of 2009 will grow 30-40% compared to the first.

source :http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090604PD215.html

Pfizer announces first Cancer drug for dogs approved

NEW YORK - PFIZER Inc's efforts to develop new cancer drugs have yielded a breakthrough - for dogs.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first cancer treatment specifically designed to treat dogs, Pfizer and the agency announced on Wednesday.

The drug Palladia was approved to treat canine mast cell tumours, a potentially serious type of cancer that accounts for about 20 per cent of canine skin tumours, and one that can spread to other parts of the body, including lymph nodes, if not treated.

All cancer drugs now used in veterinary medicine originally were developed for use in humans and are not specifically approved for use in animals, the FDA said.

"This cancer drug approval for dogs is an important step forward for veterinary medicine," Bernadette Dunham, director of FDA's Centre for Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. 'Prior to this approval, veterinarians had to rely on human oncology drugs without knowledge of how safe or effective they would be for dogs,' she said.

Pfizer said it would begin selling Palladia in early 2010, but will make the oral drug available to certain veterinary oncology specialists prior to that.

Palladia works by killing tumour cells and by cutting off the blood supply to the tumour. The pill must be taken every other day and the dog will likely have to be on the therapy for several months or longer, depending on tumour response, Pfizer said.

Pfizer declined to divulge the cost of the treatment or to forecast what annual Palladia sales might be. The world's biggest drugmaker said it will likely announce the price of the drug sometime this summer.

Treatment with new cancer drugs for humans tends to cost tens of thousands of dollars per patient, and the majority of pet owners do not have health insurance for their dogs.

In clinical trials, some 60 per cent of dogs treated with Palladia, known chemically as toceranib, had their tumours disappear, shrink or stop growing, Pfizer said. -- REUTERS

Source:http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_385743.html

Novel Therapies To Treat Breast & Lymph Cancer Developed

Research unveiled at a major cancer conference says, new therapies have developed following groundbreaking clinical trials appear to effectively target breast cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The first therapy targeting the capacity of cancer cells to repair themselves shows promise in treating breast cancer, according to results of two small clinical trials.

The new agent, especially adept at targeting cancers that are most difficult to cure, neutralizes an enzyme called PARP (poly-ADP-ribose-polymerase) and prevents it from playing its usual role in repairing the DNA of damaged cells.

Like healthy cells, cancerous cells employ PARP to regenerate themselves after they have been damaged by chemo-therapy treatments.

The studies examined whether breast cancers are more susceptible to chemotherapy when the PARP enzymes have been neutralized.

The first clinical trial was conducted with 116 women suffering from so-called triple negative breast cancer.

These involve fast-spreading tumors that account for 15 percent of the 170,000 annual cases worldwide of breast cancer.

Some of the cases were treated with chemotherapy and a PARP inhibitor called BSI-201 made by the firm BiPar Sciences, a US affiliate of the French-owned laboratory Sanofi-Aventis.

The rest of the group was treated only with chemotherapy.

After six months, about 62 percent of the patients treated with BSI-201 combined with chemotherapy showed a comparative clinical improvement of 21 percent over the control group, said Joyce O'Shaughnessy, of the Baylor-Charles Sammons cancer center in Dallas, Texas.

She presented the results of the study at a conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology this weekend in Orlando, Florida.

The women treated with BSI-201 survived 9.2 months on average, including 6.9 months in which the cancer did not spread, compared to an average survival of 6.9 months and 3.3 months in which the cancer was in check for those who were treated solely with chemotherapy.

The second clinical study involved 54 women suffering from advanced breast cancer linked to the gene mutation BRCA1 or BRCA2. They were treated with the PARP blocker Olaparib made by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical AstraZenica. There was no control group.

The test showed that 40 percent of the patients who took the drug experienced a reduction in their tumors, said Andrew Tutt, a cancer specialist at Kings College in London.

In another study presented here researchers examined a vaccine on patients over eight years that targeted follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a particularly aggressive form of lymphatic cancer.

The study found that patients who received the BiovaxID vaccine experienced on average disease-free survival of approximately 44 months, compared to about 30 months for patients who received a control vaccine, an increase of 47 percent.

The BiovaxID vaccine is patient-specific, in that each dose must be individually manufactured from tissue obtained from a patient's own cancerous tumor.

"With this vaccine, we've now moved into an era where we can safely use a patient's immune system to effectively fight follicular lymphoma and enhance the response to conventional chemotherapy" said lead study author Stephen Schuster.

"Because this vaccine uniquely recruits the patient's immune system to seek and destroy only tumor B-cells, this approach may be applicable to the treatment of other B-cell lymphomas," Schuster added.

Source-http://www.medindia.net/news/Novel-Therapies-To-Treat-Breast-And-Lymph-Cancer-Developed-52245-2.htm

Seas turning acidic

If current rates of carbon emissions continue until 2050, 'the oceans will be more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years'

BONN (Germany) - CLIMATE change is turning the oceans more acid in a trend that could endanger everything from clams to coral and be irreversible for thousands of years, national science academies said on Monday.

Seventy academies from around the world urged governments meeting in Bonn for climate talks from June 1-12 to take more account of risks to the oceans in a new UN treaty for fighting global warming due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

The academies said rising amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted mainly by human use of fossil fuels, were being absorbed by the oceans and making it harder for creatures to build protective body parts.

The shift disrupts ocean chemistry and attacks the 'building blocks needed by many marine organisms, such as corals and shellfish, to produce their skeletons, shells and other hard structures', it said.

On some projections, levels of acidification in 80 per cent of Arctic seas would be corrosive to clams that are vital to the food web by 2060, it said.

And 'coral reefs may be dissolving globally', it said, if atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were to rise to 550 parts per million (ppm) from a current 387 ppm. Corals are home to many species of fish.

The warning was issued by the Inter-Academy Panel, representing science academies of countries from Albania to Zimbabwe and including those of Australia, Britain, France, Japan and the United States.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, the British science academy, said there may be an 'underwater catastrophe'.

The academies' statement said that, if current rates of carbon emissions continue until 2050, computer models indicate that 'the oceans will be more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years'.

It also urged actions to reduce other pressures on the oceans, such as pollution and over-fishing.

source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_384300.html