Study linking vaccine to autism was fraud

As quoted from AP, the first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research.

The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues was renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected to autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered.

A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.

The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents.

Should social networks release data?

The US government has subpoenaed the social networking site Twitter for personal details of people connected to Wikileaks, court documents show. Should social networks ever disclose such information to governments? and this leaves Wikileaks in a difficult position.

Twitter has been keen to stress that it complies with local laws, says Mr Cellan-Jones, but it has also been eager to promote Twitter's role as "a forum for free expression" in countries like Iran.

Our correspondent asks: "If confidential details of overseas Twitter users are disclosed to the US authorities, how keen will an international audience be to trust this or other American social networks in future?"

Should social networks give up data to help in legal proceedings? Or is it more important for personal details to remain confidential? Will this damage users' trust in social networks?

These Tricks Work: Boost Your Metabolism!

Now that you're hovering around middle age, part of the problem is that your metabolism decreases as a result of other age-related factors, like decrease in muscle mass. However, there's no need to give in to a bigger pant size just yet! Following are several ways to rev up your metabolism and keep those unwanted pounds from your waistline.

Do Intervals
An Australian study found that women who did intervals while they were biking lost three times as much fat as those who worked out at a steady pace. If you’re a walker, simply walk at your normal pace for 1 to 2 minutes, then speed-walk for 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat the sequence 10 to 15 times.

Opt for Caffeine
It’s time to hit Starbucks. A study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior shows that coffee drinkers have a 16 percent higher metabolic rate than those who abstain or drink decaf joe, because caffeine increases your heart rate and stimulates your central nervous system.

Eat a Big Breakfast
It’s time to start your day with a fatty breakfast, including eggs and even a piece of bacon, suggests Molly Bray, PhD, lead author of a recent study showing that a fat-filled morning meal will jumpstart your metabolism for the day faster than a lowfat, low-calorie breakfast.

Drink Green Tea
Researchers found that people who drank the equivalent of three to five cups daily for three months shaved 5 percent off their body weight. Green tea contains ECGC, a plant compound that stimulates your metabolism, says Rania Batayneh, MPH, a nutritionist in private practice in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, and founder of Essential Nutrition consulting.

Build More Muscle
Gaining lean muscle mass boosts your metabolism and makes losing weight much easier, McGee says. If you add just 5 pounds of muscle to your body, you’ll burn up to 150 more calories per day without even working out those muscles. And, you can burn an average of 600 calories per hour during your cardio workout thanks to that extra muscle mass. The key is to challenge all your muscles and do a full-body strength-training workout, hitting your core, arms, legs, back and chest.

Pick Up Heavier Weights
By using heavy weights at a very slow rate—twice as slow as would feel natural—you break down your muscles (you’ll know the weights are heavy enough and the workout slow enough if you start to shake after just a few lifts or squats). Researchers at Wayne State University found that when your body repairs those overworked muscles, it causes your metabolism to increase for up to three days after the workout.

How to Save More Money in 2011

Money-saving goals are resolutions for many people in 2011. Here are some ways you can do to achieve it:

Coupon System

Too often, my newspaper pile becomes a graveyard for coupons. Potential savings die an early death because of clutter. For instance, I have squandered store coupons sporting savings of $1 to $10 due to missed deadlines or misplaced coupons. For 2011, I've begun to store coupons in a side pocket of my purse, which is always with me. Wallets and glove-compartments in cars are also a great place to store coupons.

Unplug Chargers

Even when not used, cell phone chargers, coffee makers, micro-wave ovens and other appliances drain energy when plugged into wall sockets. Conserving cash and energy is my January goal, and I've been teaching my kids to unplug idle appliances. But this step requires organization and constant awareness. When we are running late, we leave the house in a whirlwind of anxiety and fail to take energy-saving steps. An earlier wake-up call will preserve energy and create less stress.

Time-Sensitive

Late fees and other financial penalties are the byproduct of disorganization. To avoid missed deadlines, I plan to raise my financial IQ with my smartphone and laptop. Both devices provide digital calendars that can be programmed with bill reminders and deadline alerts. There are also a variety of online services that offer e-mail notices about approaching deadlines. Online bill-paying programs also add organization and efficiency.

Chores

With better organization some household chores and personal tasks can become money-saving, do-it-yourself projects. For example, if you have the talent and the right tools, you can save money with haircuts, manicures, pedicures and other personal grooming chores. Car-washing, lawn mowing and house-painting duties can also represent frugal home projects. But calculate the cost of your time, and honestly evaluate your skills.

Go green and orange for dinner, red and blue for dessert

Ongoing studies at Tufts University's Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and other institutes show that certain fruits and vegetables are nutritional powerhouses, packed with disease-fighting phytochemicals, with the potential to ward off cancer, protect against heart disease and diabetes, and even slow aging itself at least to some degree.

Blueberries, for example, have been shown to reverse balance, coordination, and memory problems. Cranberries deactivate bacteria and prevent infection. Broccoli made headlines last year when it was shown to ward off prostate cancer in men who were at risk.

How to make this work for you: Anti-aging "superfoods" give themselves away by virtue of their color: The dark green of broccoli and kale; the rich orange of squash, sweet potatoes, and mangos; the deep purple of grapes; and the rich reds, blues, and purples of berries all indicate these foods are essentially medicine in food form. Nutritionists say the best thing to do is "eat a rainbow," choosing brightly colored foods and steering clear of those that are light-colored or colorless. Here's a quick color-coded guide:

Red = lycopene
Orange/yellow = carotenoids
Green = lutein and chlorophyll
Blue/purple = anthocyanins

The exception: White vegetables like garlic and onions contain important phytochemicals too. In addition, cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, which are eaten in "bud" form before they leaf out, have chemicals called indoles that protect against cancer; and leafy greens like spinach are rich in folate, which protects the heart and prevents birth defects and colon cancer.

Thousands of dead birds and fish in Arkansas, why?

Roughly 5,000 red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky over a mile of land near Beebe, a small town in northwest Arkansas, and observers spotted the fish kill near the town of Ozark. Maybe the Mayans were on to something?

That's surely what students of the famed Mayan 2012 prophecy for the end of the world had to be thinking with the news of recent eerie wildlife die-offs in Arkansas.

In a statement Saturday morning, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission quoted staff ornithologist Karen Rowe as saying that such events have happened before around the world: "Test results usually were inconclusive, but the birds showed physical trauma and that the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail."

Because it happened New Year's Eve, some officials suggest that revelers shooting fireworks may have spooked the birds, to the point that they died en masse from stress-induced cardiac arrest.

Meanwhile, wildlife officials say that the estimated 100,000 drum fish discovered by a tugboat captain over a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River appears to be a natural occurrence that isn't tied to the bird kill in any way.

"The fish kill only affected one species of fish," Keith Stephens of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission told CNN. "If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish." He added that fish kills in the area are common, though this one was larger than most.

LED Lighting: Starbucks saves millions on energy bills

When you're talking about retrofitting a large building like the Empire State Building or replacing bulbs in thousands of Starbucks stores, the energy savings can be huge.

That's just what Starbucks has found now that the replacing of incandescent and halogen lights in 7,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada has been completed. The company's Director of Environmental Impact said that the program is on target to cut lighting energy consumption by 80 percent.

The good folks at Greenbiz did the math and figured that each 1,000 square foot store was saving $600 a year and reducing CO2 emissions equivalent to 10 barrels of oil. The lights also cut total store energy consumption by 7 percent.

LEDs were installed in the sitting and beverage areas where the color of the light was most important and CFL bulbs were installed in the rest of the store. The energy and cost savings calculated were for the LED lights alone.

How long can food be kept in deep freeze?

How long will that casserole or whole chicken last in the freezer? According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service, food stored in a freezer set at 0 degrees Fahrenheit will stay safe indefinitely. But that doesn't mean the taste and texture will remain the same.

Here is a guide to how long you can freeze foods before you sacrifice quality. Keep in mind that quality does deteriorate the longer food sits in your freezer, so aim to defrost sooner rather than later.

* Bacon: 1 to 2 months
* Breads: 2 to 3 months
* Casseroles: 2 to 3 months
* Cooked beef and pork: 2 to 3 months
* Cooked poultry: 4 months
* Cookie dough: 3 months
* Fruit: 8 to 12 months
* Frozen dinners: 3 to 4 months
* Hot dogs: 1 to 2 months
* Lunch meats: 1 to 2 months
* Sausage: 1 to 2 months
* Soups and stews: 2 to 3 months
* Uncooked chicken (parts): 9 months
* Uncooked chicken (whole): 1 year
* Uncooked steaks, chops, or roasts: 4 to 12 months
* Uncooked ground meat: 3 to 4 months
* Vegetables: 8 to 12 months

Nasa: Moon's water is useful resource

There are oases of water-rich soil that could sustain astronauts on the Moon, according to Nasa. Scientists studied the full results of an experiment that smashed a rocket and a probe into a lunar crater last year.

The impacts kicked up large amounts of rock and dust, revealing a suite of fascinating chemical compounds and far more water than anyone had imagined.

A Nasa-led team tells Science magazine that about 155kg of water vapour and water-ice were blown out of the crater. The researchers' analysis suggests the lunar regolith, or soil, at the impact site contains 5.6% by weight of water-ice.

Aspirin 'helps protect against bowel cancer'

Aspirins are already widely used to help protect people against strokes and heart problems, although many healthy middle-aged people do not take them because of the risk of side-effects. But researchers said their findings - published by the Lancet - "tipped the balance" in favour of taking them.

They followed up four study groups over a period of 20 years to identify the impact of regular small doses of of the drug - the tablets given for medical reasons are often a quarter of a strength of those used to treat headaches.

They found it reduced the risk of the incidence of bowel cancer by 24% and of dying from the disease by 35%.

And even though regular aspirin use can have side-effects, the researchers said it was still worthwhile as on such low doses these tended to be relatively minor, such as bruising or nose bleeds.

One in 20 people in the UK develops bowel cancer over their lifetime, making it the third most common cancer. About 16,000 people die each year as a result of it.

The findings build on previous research on the issue, and come after the government announced earlier this month it was looking to start a new screening programme for bowel cancer for 55-year-olds.

Facebook, Amazon and Zynga bet on social web

Facebook, Amazon and Zynga will invest in a fund to help entrepreneurs develop applications and services for a new era of the social web. The lion's share of the sFund's $250m (£160m) will come from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Details were announced at an event at Facebook's California headquarters.

"There's going to be an opportunity over the next five years or so to pick any industry and rethink it in a social way," said Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. "We think that every industry is going to be fundamentally re-thought and designed around people."

That was a view backed by KPCB partner John Doerr, best known for investing in Amazon, Google and Netscape.

"These social networks are going to go from a half a billion people to billions of people connected on the planet and so represents an extraordinarily exciting time on the internet," he told BBC News. "Think of it as a quarter-billion-dollar party. The third great wave of the internet is mobile and social together. It's going to be tectonic," added Mr Doerr.

Galaxy Found more than 13 Billion light years away

The oldest and most distant object in the universe - a galaxy so far away that its light has taken 13.1 billion years to reach the Earth has been discovered by Astronomers. The galaxy, which was spotted by Europe's Very Large Telescope in Chile, is the most remote cluster of stars, gas and dust ever measured.

It is so distant, scientists are observing it when the universe was in its infancy - aged just 600 million years old, or four per cent of its present age. Dr Nicole Nesvadba of the Institute of Space Astrophysics in Paris said: 'Measuring the most distant galaxy so far is very exciting in itself, but the astrophysical implications of this detection are even more important.

'This is the first time we know for sure that we are looking at one of the galaxies that cleared out the fog which had filled the very early universe.

The galaxy, named UDFy -38135539, was spotted by the Hubble space telescope last year. Its age has now been confirmed by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere's Very Large Telescope.. The galaxy, which was spotted by Europe's Very Large Telescope in Chile, is the most remote cluster of stars, gas and dust ever measured.

Do My Assets Look Big?

Kim Kardashian has made sure that her curvy derriere was the main attraction as she shopped for a dress for her 30th birthday. The reality TV star was snapped in Las Vegas, checking out her curves in a white Hervé Léger dress in a dressing room mirror. And she made sure that the dress fitted snugly round her bottom and and bosom as she admired herself in the mirror.

But despite the dress fitting the star in all the right places, she settled for a very short and very tight metallic silver dress that did exactly the same thing.

Kim, who turns 30 next Thursday, was in the Nevada city to celebrate her milestone birthday when she and her sister Kourtney hit the shops. They visited a series of high-end stores hours before heading to a party in her honour at the popular TAO nightclub.

Wearing a similar black and white outfit to the one she travelled to Vegas in the day before, Kim visited the pool at the Venetian hotel and was greeted by a crowd of fans and photographers. Later she and Kourtney enjoyed lunch with friends around the pool in one of the hotel's private cabanas.

Shakira Shows off Her Killer Abs

In her new music video Shakira is back to what she does best. The Colombian singer squeezes into a gold bikini top and sequinned trousers, showing off her killer abs as she shakes those famous hips.

The music video was shot on a stunning Barcelona beach. Shakira, 33, duets with British rapper Dizzee Rascal for her latest offering, Loca. It is the first single from her upcoming album, The Sun Comes Out (Sale el Sol), which is due out on October 19.

In the video, Shakira gets up close and personal a male dancer as they put on a sultry routine together. The storyline see the pop star go on a madcap adventure that includes roller-skating, public wardrobe changes, motorbike riding and dancing around in a fountain.

She filmed the video during a visit to the Spanish city in August. It was directed by long-time Shakira collaborator Jaume de Laiguana. According to the New York Post, Barcelona's authorities are considering fining the singer for stopping traffic as she filmed sequences.

Our New Earth?

The chances that future generations will one day colonise the stars have just got higher. Astronomers tonight announced the discovery of the most Earth-like planet ever found - a rocky world three times the size of our own world, orbiting a star 20 light years away..

The planet lies in the star's 'Goldilocks zone' - the region in space where conditions are neither too hot or too cold for liquid water to form oceans, lakes and rivers.

The planet also appears to have an atmosphere, a gravity like our own and could well be capable of life.

The discovery comes three years after astronomers found a similar, slightly less habitable planet around the same star - described by astronomers as being 'in our backyard' in the Milky Way. Researchers say the findings suggest the universe is teeming with world like our own.

'If these are rare, we shouldn't have found one so quickly and so nearby,' Dr Steven Vogt who led the study at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

'The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 per cent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy.'