Former couple Katy Perry and her ex-husband Russell Brand were both spotted out at the Los Angeles Lakers/Dallas Mavericks game on Tuesday night in California. [...]
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) ? Ford Motor Co. says its net income dropped 1 percent to $1.63 billion in the third quarter as European losses swamped record North American profits.
Without one-time items, including charges for dealer closures, the company earned 40 cents per share. That far exceeded Wall Street's forecast of 30 cents, according to analysts polled by FactSet.
Ford's revenue fell 3 percent to $32.1 billion, beating Wall Street's forecast of $31.5 billion. Vehicle sales fell slightly to 1.3 million.
The company earned a record $2.3 billion in North America, thanks in part to higher pricing. But it lost $468 million in Europe, where sales have fallen sharply.
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OTTAWA (Reuters) - This weekend's meetings of the Group of 20 leading nations are likely to keep pushing Europe and the United States to confront their debt troubles, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Tuesday.
The Mexico City meetings of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors follow talks in Tokyo more than two weeks ago, which endorsed a checklist of policy reforms aimed at pressuring Europe and the United States to tackle their debt troubles.
"I hope we will continue the discussions that we had in Tokyo to encourage our European colleagues to get on with the structural reform that needs to be accomplished in Europe, including the banking union in Europe," he told reporters.
"I think we'll continue to push on that front," he said, acknowledging some progress in Europe since the Tokyo talks.
He also highlighted acute concern over the so-called fiscal cliff in the United States of huge automatic spending cuts and tax rises set to occur on January 1 if Congress fails to act before then.
"I'm not even sure which American officials are going to be in Mexico City on the weekend, but we want to encourage our American friends to get on the issue of the fiscal cliff as soon as possible after the U.S. election," he said.
In separate parliamentary testimony, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney highlighted Europe's debt crisis as the biggest external risk facing Canada, but the central bank assumes it will be contained.
"The next (risk), in the near term, is the potential resolution or not of the so-called fiscal cliff in the United States," he said.
"If the fiscal cliff were not to be resolved and all the measures were to come into force on the books in the United States, the U.S. would almost certainly be in recession next year with a knock-on effect obviously for Canadian exporters, business investment, etc. We're not predicting that but it is a possibility."
(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Rachel Hutchins, center, participates in WSU?s free fitness?class. (Full-size photo)(All photos)
Clinic?resources
Washington State University?s Health and Fitness Clinic, on the third floor of the Innovate Washington Building, 665 N. Riverpoint Blvd. on the Riverfront Campus in Spokane,?offers:
? Free group exercise?classes.
? Free individual counseling, including nutrition and fitness assessments and?recommendations.
? A group weight-loss program in which participants learn about healthy eating and exercise and track their progress. The $50 fee covers?materials.
Email nep.clinic@wsu.edu or call (509) 368-6710 to sign up or for more?information.
It takes more than muscle tone and stretchy pants to teach an exercise?class.
The instructors leading a class last week at WSU Spokane on the Riverpoint Campus were being observed by their own instructors as they led participants through tai chi and step routines. The students earned approval for their ?cueing? ? warning participants what moves were coming next, while offering adapted exercises based on participants? aches and?pains.
?If you have any lower back issues, you want to be really careful not to go lower than a half-squat,? graduate student Lisa Brown told the class of 10 as they stepped and kicked, bouncy pop music in the background, during the noon hour. ?Keep your back?upright.?
For students in WSU?s growing nutrition and exercise physiology program, the exercise classes offer a lab experience, connecting them with real people seeking to improve their health through exercise and diet. For participants, the class ? along with a one-on-one ?lifestyle coaching? program ? offers free workouts and the chance to create exercise and nutrition plans under the guidance of the next generation of registered dietitians and clinical exercise?specialists.
A third part of the clinic, a group weight-loss program focusing on healthy eating and exercise, costs?$50.
Becky Erickson, a 43-year-old surgery scheduler from Spokane, planned to use everything the clinic has to?offer.
She talked about her health history and how to control food portions during a one-on-one coaching session last week with student Kelsey Kommes, as the clinic kicked off for the semester. This week, Erickson will undergo baseline testing ? doing pushups and sit-ups, stepping onto a treadmill while students track her heart rate and oxygen?rate.
Erickson said she wants to lose weight, but her main goal is to gain energy by getting healthier. The students ?are kind of like little cheerleaders, which is kind of what I need,? she?said.
WSU?s undergraduate nutrition and exercise physiology program started in 2005. It has since added master?s and doctoral degrees, and is growing?fast.
The number of seniors in the program ? who work in the clinic alongside graduate students ? doubled this year, instructor Judy Knuth said. The program?s graduates will work in hospitals and rehab facilities, counseling patients in nutrition and exercise. Others might work in food service, sports nutrition or public?health.
They?ll be in demand, thanks in part to rising diabetes and childhood-obesity rates and aging-related health problems suffered by baby boomers, said Kevin Dolan, another?instructor.
Many people are getting health and nutrition misinformation online, or ?from Muscle & Fitness or their neighbor,? Dolan said. Students who become exercise physiologists will ?work with clients who are anywhere from healthy to high risk and write them an exercise prescription for their?needs.?
After graduation, Brown ? an Air Force veteran ? hopes to do rehab work with wounded veterans, especially those who?ve suffered brain injuries as the result of explosions in?combat.
Researchers have found that resistance training and cardiovascular exercise can regenerate brain cells in injured veterans? brains, Brown?said.
For that kind of work, you can only practice on your classmates ? taking the fictional case histories of pretending to be pregnant or osteoporosis sufferers, for example ? so much, students?said.
?This program provides the opportunity to get outreach into the community and put what we?ve learned into practice,? graduate student Ali McCoy?said.
Expansion of an industry in the competitive world can be a challenging job and it requires much effort and investments. The main purpose of online business is to increase traffic to their websites and to attract the customers by promoting their products and services in various techniques. The majority people who uses internet spend an average of 40 to 50 seconds for any website. Therefore an entrepreneur should attract the client and make the deal in these pr?cised seconds.
If you?re opening a new industry or you?re already in this field and looking to expand your online business there are so many tips that can increase traffic to your web page.
Here are the few smart tips that you can get started:
Search engine optimisation: It is a tool to increase visibility of your webpage on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo etc. This is a good technique that helps to get a higher rank to your blog compared to several millions of other blogs in response to any query and it is followed by many in the industries. Here the content plays a major role for your website; depending on the unique and fresh content you will get the rankings. A good ranking implies more number of customers. This way you can increase your sales by SEO technique.
Planning is the important for any business person. The main advantage of proper planning is that you can achieve your short-term and long-term goals with ease. Select the best time for expanding your enterprises.
Use the latest technique Social media optimisation (SMO) for increasing the visibility and brand value. You can advertise your products on the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. This process is better than SEO for increasing traffic because these days more number of people are using social networking sites.?
Create your own page or account on Facebook and start sharing your services to your friends and their friends. You can also get pros and cons from the customers so that you can update your services according to the client?s choice.
Nowadays customers always look for discounts and offers. Provide necessary discounts and offers on your services in a smart way that your sales can increase with gaining profits. Provide customer care services through the internet so that if a customer visit your website and have queries, they can be sorted out easily with this facility. This way you can appeal the customers from not visiting other sites.
Use your creativity or hire an expert and design your site in an attractive manner. Implement some of the stunning collaterals that ads to gain users' attention. Better to make some videos and advertise on the YouTube.
Opt for cash loans UK if you require immediate cash for meeting your needs. These are short-term loans that can be acquired easily without checking any credit report.
There is another process for internet marketing known as pay per click. This will give the best result on the search engines depending on the keyword. The only drawback of this process is you will get charged for every click by the users.
Author Bio:?
Hello I?m Michelle, a tech writer from Manchester UK. My passion is to write articles on numerous topics for example Finance, technology, and Business. You can catch me @financeport.
'Stack Silver Get Gold' Amazon Kindle Book Launch ? Chicago, IL ? October 27, 2012 Futures trader and precious metals investor Hunter Riley III along with the Get to the Point CERTIFIED publishing team released their new Amazon Kindle book today called 'Stack Silver Get Gold ? How to Buy Gold and Silver Bullion without Getting Ripped Off!' ? The Amazon Kindle book is currently free for just 5 days and available for download on their website at http://www.stacksilvergetgold.com/book ? This book is 'Get to the Point CERTIFIED!' which means it's written in a no fluff, straight to the point way. The book is only 44 pages. In less than an hour the reader will learn all they will ever need to know about low cost and safe silver and gold investing.
In conjunction with the release of the kindle ebook 'Stack Silver Get Gold', anyone who downloads the Kindle book during the free five day promotional period will get entered in a contest to win actual American Eagle Silver coins, will get a free guide on the reasons to start investing in silver and gold and will also receive 'over the shoulder' access to see exactly when Hunter Riley is buying or selling gold and silver bullion. ? You can watch a Youtube video that explains these free promotional bonuses at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DzxbGTAoDM ? ? Silver and Gold Scams Exposed
'Stack Silver Get Gold' is leading a groundbreaking movement to expose all the rip off artists in the gold and silver investing market. Not only will the reader learn how to buy silver and gold safely, but they'll also learn how to start silver and gold investing with very little money. Hunter shows you how to start with just $50 a month. ? For more questions or to schedule an interview about this press release please contact Hunter Riley III, Author of 'Stack Silver Get Gold' at 312-244-3742 or email b24group@gmail.com ? About the Author Hunter Riley III: Hunter Riley worked on the floor in the futures pits of one of the largest financial exchanges in the world, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, for more than seven years. He has been investing in gold and silver for more than a decade. He attended Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois for high school and the University of Colorado for college. In addition to investing, he writes about marketing and psychology and is owner of a Chicago based consulting firm called the B24 Group.
The Amazon Kindle book version of 'Stack Silver Get Gold' is currently free for just 5 days and available for download on their website at http://www.stacksilvergetgold.com/book
Contact: Hunter Riley III Stack Silver Get Gold Phone 312-244-3742 Email: b24group@gmail.com http://www.facebook.com/silverinvesting http://www.stacksilvergetgold.com/book ? ##########
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NEW YORK (AP) ? The young Citigroup analyst was researching Facebook before it went public. He dropped an email to two of his buddies at a popular technology blog, leaking them information about Citigroup's research that was supposed to be private.
When one friend asked if it was OK to publish the information, the analyst responded with an answer that showed he knew he was breaking the rules: "My boss," he wrote back, "would eat me alive."
Friday, Massachusetts' top securities regulator dragged the incident into the spotlight, slapping Citigroup with a consent order and charging the bank $2 million for failing to oversee its employee.
"This penalty," said Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, "should serve as a warning to the industry as a whole."
Citi fired the young research analyst about a month ago, after Galvin's office had started its investigation. The case was unusual compared to some other recent lawsuits and fines against major banks, because Citigroup acknowledged that the events in question did take place.
Citi was part of the team of banks that helped underwrite the deal that made Facebook a public company on May 18. Regulations forbade those banks from sharing any written research about Facebook until 40 days after the company went public. That's supposed to ensure that investors don't have access to insider information that would give them an unfair advantage, just because the investment bank where they are a client has done business with Facebook.
This is the first penalty that Galvin's office has issued over the Facebook public offering, but there could be more. A spokesman for Galvin, Brian McNiff, said the office had also served subpoenas to Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley over similar issues related to leaking information about Facebook. A subpoena is a request for information and doesn't necessarily mean that wrongdoing was committed.
Working on Facebook's public offering was supposed to be a coup for the banks that were chosen, but it's brought a long line of headaches, including lawsuits and regulatory inquiries.
But on May 2, the research analyst sent an email to two employees at the technology website TechCrunch.com, with what was supposed to be confidential information about Citigroup's research on Facebook.
"I am ramping up coverage on FB and thought you guys might like to see how the street is thinking about it (and our estimates)," the analyst wrote to the two TechCrunch writers. "...This, of course is confidential."
One of the TechCrunch writers wrote back: "There's no way I can publish this doc from an anonymous source, right?"
A minute later, the research analyst replied: "My boss would eat me alive."
The analyst and the TechCrunch writers were friends, according to Galvin's office. They all lived in the Bay Area and kept in touch via social media. The analyst and one of the TechCrunch writers had gone to Stanford together and graduated several years ago, according to Galvin's office. The consent order did not name any of them.
Citigroup fired the junior analyst in late September, after Galvin's office started looking into the matter.
The bank told Galvin's office that the junior analyst acted alone. It agreed to review its policies for overseeing analysts' communications, and to strengthen compliance training for the analysts.
"We are pleased to have this matter resolved," bank spokeswoman Sophia Stewart said. "We take our internal policies and procedures very seriously and have taken the appropriate actions."
Separately, Galvin's consent order also brought the downfall of the research analyst's boss, a well-known and influential senior tech analyst named Mark Mahaney.
The consent order didn't name him, but gave enough information to make him easily identifiable.
Mahaney isn't accused of being involved in the research analyst's misconduct. But Galvin's investigation found emails about another damaging incident that happened around the same time.
On April 30, Mahaney answered an email from a reporter for a French business magazine, Capital, about his financial predictions for YouTube. That was problematic because the opinions hadn't previously been published and weren't public information.
Later, when a Citigroup employee told Mahaney he'd need to get approval to talk to the Capital reporter, Mahaney said that he wouldn't respond to the reporter's questions.
Later, after the communications employee learned that Mahaney had already talked to the reporter, Mahaney wrote: "This could get me in trouble. Shoot."
Citigroup confirmed that Mahaney is no longer at the bank. A source familiar with the matter, who wasn't allowed to speak on the record about personnel matters, said Mahaney had been fired because he misled the bank about his communications with the French magazine.
On Friday afternoon, Citigroup sent a note to clients who had subscribed to Mahaney's research. "Mark Mahaney has left Citi," it said, without elaborating. As a result, Citi will discontinue its coverage of Expedia, WebMD and 12 other companies.
AAA??Oct. 27, 2012?4:01 PM ET AP PHOTOS: Images of the East Coast superstorm By The Associated Press??By The Associated Press
Beach goers watch waves generated by Hurricane Sandy along a breezy Coligny Beach Park on Hilton Head Island, S.C., Saturday morning, Oct. 27, 2012. Hurricane Sandy _ upgraded again Saturday just hours after forecasters said it had weakened to a tropical storm _ was barreling north from the Caribbean and was expected to make landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast, then hit two winter weather systems as it moves inland, creating a hybrid monster storm. (AP Photo/The Island Packet, Jay Karr)
Beach goers watch waves generated by Hurricane Sandy along a breezy Coligny Beach Park on Hilton Head Island, S.C., Saturday morning, Oct. 27, 2012. Hurricane Sandy _ upgraded again Saturday just hours after forecasters said it had weakened to a tropical storm _ was barreling north from the Caribbean and was expected to make landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast, then hit two winter weather systems as it moves inland, creating a hybrid monster storm. (AP Photo/The Island Packet, Jay Karr)
A beach goer holds on to her hat as she walks along a breezy Coligny Beach Park on Hilton Head Island, S.C., watching the waves generated by Hurricane Sandy near the time of high tide on Saturday morning, Oct. 27, 2012. Hurricane Sandy _ upgraded again Saturday just hours after forecasters said it had weakened to a tropical storm _ was barreling north from the Caribbean and was expected to make landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast, then hit two winter weather systems as it moves inland, creating a hybrid monster storm. (AP Photo/The Island Packet, Jay Karr)
Another boat waits its turn, as manager Scott Buck watches as a 50-ton lift raises a fishing boat out of the Maurice River at Yank Marine Services marina Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, in Dorchester, N.J., in preparation for Hurricane Sandy. From the lowest lying areas of the Jersey Shore, where residents were already being encouraged to leave, to the state's northern highlands, where sandbags were being filled and cars moved into parking lots on high ground, New Jersey began preparing in earnest for Sandy. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Cars line up for gas at the Sam's Club, in Pleasantville, N.J., as Hurricane Sandy makes its way up the coast Friday Oct. 26, 2012. ahead of Hurricane Sandy. A year after being walloped by Hurricane Irene, residents rushed to put away boats, harvest crops and sandbag boardwalks Friday as the Eastern Seaboard braced for a rare megastorm that experts said would cause much greater havoc. (AP Photo/The Press of Atlantic City, Michael Ein) MANDATORY CREDIT
A sign on N. College Rd. in Wilmington, N.C. notifies motorists of a tropical storm watch as Hurricane Sandy churns over the Atlantic ocean, Friday Oct. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/The Star-News, Paul Stephen)
Hurricane Sandy is kicking up big waves along South Carolina as it heads north, where forecasters say it will likely hit two winter weather systems, creating a hybrid monster storm.
Residents in the storm's path are boarding up windows and stocking up on supplies before Sandy's predicted landfall early Tuesday near the Delaware coast.
Here's a look at AP photos of the storm and preparations so far in the U.S.:
Be careful about approaching your friends and colleagues right now. They might be a bit irritable as they were unable to get a dose of GIFs and Ryan Gosling memes on Tumblr for the better part of Friday morning.?
Yes, the popular blogging service was down for several hours.
According to a note on?the official Tumblr Twitter account?? yes, Tumblr is indeed?on Twitter?? there were "slow loading or intermittent errors on certain pages." The service's staff quickly got to work on setting everything right, according to the same tweet, of course.
Despite the assertion that only some pages were?showing errors or loading slowly, we've found that every single Tumblr blog we've tried to access was affected. Based on the panic which flooded?Twitter, many others were experiencing equally severe issues.
A Tumblr spokesperson offered us the following statement when asked about what's went?on with the service:
Tumblr is experiencing network problems following an issue with one of?our uplink providers. Recovery is moving quickly and we will return to?full service shortly.
Service to appears to have been restored shortly after 2 p.m. ET. Tumblr addicts around the world likely?breathed?a collective sigh of relief.
Want more?tech news or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.
Mitt Romney in Iowa during his 2012 presidential camnpaign (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)AMES, Iowa?Mitt Romney again cast himself as an agent of change who is better equipped than President Barack Obama to turn around the nation's economy.
With just over a week to go before Election Day, Romney aides described the candidate's speech at a rally in this battleground state as his closing argument to voters. He mostly stuck with a stump speech he has been delivering in recent days, one that included a heavy emphasis on change and his ability to be a bipartisan leader in Washington.
Romney, co-opting Obama's 2008 mantra of "change," vowed that if elected he will bring "real change" to a country at an economic turning point. "[Change] requires that we put aside the small and petty and demand the scale of change we deserve. We need real change, big change."
Obama, he added, "spoke to the scale of the times" four years ago, but now "shrinks from it." He accused his opponent of being too focused on attacks instead of working to confront big issues.
"Four years ago, America voted for a post-partisan president, but they have seen the most partisan and political of presidents, and a Washington in gridlock because of it," he said.
As he has done in recent weeks, Romney, speaking to a few thousand people here, repeatedly cast himself as someone who will rise above the partisan rancor in the nation's capital. He pointed to his record of working with Democrats as a Republican governor of Massachusetts and to his leadership as head of the 2002 Winter Olympics and in the private sector.
[Political junkie? Sign up for the Yahoo! News Daily Ticket newsletter today]
Romney's remarks sounded like something Obama would have said during his run four years ago. If elected, the GOP nominee promised to "work tirelessly to bridge the divide between the political parties." He vowed to meet with both Democrats and Republicans regularly and look for "common ground and shared principals."
He also sought to disarm Obama's claim that he inherited a troubled economy by insisting the president didn't do enough with what he had to work with, including a country full of people who have always "risen to the occasion." The country, he insisted, as he has at almost every campaign stop in recent months, can't take "another four years like the last four years."
In response, Lis Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, dismissed Romney's remarks as "dishonest attacks" and empty promises.
"The only change Romney's offering is to take us back to the same failed policies that crashed our economy in the first place," Smith said. "That's not the change we need, and with every 'major speech,' Mitt Romney just reminds voters that's all he's got to offer."
Contact: Aileen Sheehy press.office@sanger.ac.uk 0044-012-234-96928 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Researchers develop cocktail of bacteria that eradicates Clostridium difficile infection
In a new study out today, researchers used mice to identify a combination six naturally occurring bacteria that eradicate a highly contagious form of Clostridium difficile, an infectious bacterium associated with many hospital deaths. Three of the six bacteria have not been described before. This work may have significant implications for future control and treatment approaches.
The researchers found that this strain of C. difficile, known as O27, establishes a persistent, prolonged contagious period, known as supershedding that is very difficult to treat with antibiotics. These contagious 'supershedders' release highly resistant spores for a prolonged period that are very difficult to eradicate from the environment. Similar scenarios are likely in hospitals.
C. difficile can cause bloating, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and is a contributing factor to over 2,000 deaths in the UK in 2011. It lives naturally in the body of some people where other bacteria in the gut suppress its numbers and prevent it from spreading. If a person has been treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as clindamycin, our bodies' natural bacteria can be destroyed and the gut can become overrun by C. difficile. The aggressive strain of C. diff analysed in this study has been responsible for epidemics in Europe, North America and Australia.
"We treated mice infected with this persistent form of C. diff with a range of antibiotics but they consistently relapsed to a high level of shedding or contagiousness," says Dr Trevor Lawley, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "We then attempted treating the mice using faecal transplantation, homogenized faeces from a healthy mouse. This quickly and effectively supressed the disease and supershedding state with no reoccurrence in the vast majority of cases."
"This epidemic caused by C. diff is refractory to antibiotic treatment but can be supressed by faecal transplantation, resolving symptoms of disease and contagiousness."
The team wanted to take this research one step further and isolate the precise bacteria that supressed C. diff. and restored microbial balance of the gut. They cultured a large number of bacteria naturally found in the gut of mice, all from one of four main groups of bacteria found in mammals. They tested many combinations of these bacteria, until they isolated a cocktail of six that worked best to suppress the infection.
"The mixture of six bacterial species effectively and reproducibly suppressed the C. difficile supershedder state in mice, restoring the healthy bacterial diversity of the gut," says Professor Harry Flint, senior author from the University of Aberdeen.
The team then sequenced the genomes of the six bacteria and compared their genetic family tree to more precisely define them. Based on this analysis, the team found that the mixture of six bacteria contained three that have been previously described and three novel species. This mix is genetically diverse and comes from all four main groups of bacteria found in mammals.
These results illustrate the effectiveness of displacing C. diff and the supershedder microbiota with a defined mix of bacteria, naturally found in the gut.
"Our results open the way to reduce the over-use of antibiotic treatment and harness the potential of naturally occurring microbial communities to treat C. difficile infection and transmission, and potentially other diseases associated with microbial imbalances," explains Professor Gordon Dougan, senior author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Faecal transplantation is viewed as an alternative treatment but it is not widely used because of the risk of introducing harmful pathogens as well as general patient aversion. This model encapsulates some of the features of faecal therapy and acts as a basis to develop standardized treatment mixture."
###
Notes to Editors
Publication Details
Trevor D. Lawley, Simon Clare, Alan W. Walker, Mark D. Stares, Thomas R. Connor, Claire Raisen, David Goulding, Roland Rad, Fernanda Schreiber, Cordelia Brandt, Laura J. Deakin, Derek J. Pickard, Sylvia H. Duncan, Harry J. Flint, Taane G. Clark, Julian Parkhill, Gordon Dougan (2012). 'Targeted restoration of the intestinal microbiota with a simple, defined bacteriotherapy resolves relapsing Clostridium difficile disease in mice'
Published in PLOS Pathogens on 25 October DOI: ppat.1002995
Funding
This project was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.
Participating Centres
Bacterial Pathogenesis Laboratory, Microbial Pathogenesis Laboratory, Pathogen Genomics and Mouse Genomics, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK,
Microbial Ecology Group, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, UK,
Departments of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, WC1E 7HT, UK
Selected Websites
For almost 100 years the Medical Research Council has improved the health of people in the UK and around the world by supporting the highest quality science. The MRC invests in world-class scientists. It has produced 29 Nobel Prize winners and sustains a flourishing environment for internationally recognised research. The MRC focuses on making an impact and provides the financial muscle and scientific expertise behind medical breakthroughs, including one of the first antibiotics penicillin, the structure of DNA and the lethal link between smoking and cancer. Today MRC funded scientists tackle research into the major health challenges of the 21st century.
www.mrc.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
http://www.sanger.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
Contact details
Don Powell Media Manager
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
Tel +44 (0)1223 496 928
Mobile +44 (0)7753 7753 97
Email press.office@sanger.ac.uk
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Contact: Aileen Sheehy press.office@sanger.ac.uk 0044-012-234-96928 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Researchers develop cocktail of bacteria that eradicates Clostridium difficile infection
In a new study out today, researchers used mice to identify a combination six naturally occurring bacteria that eradicate a highly contagious form of Clostridium difficile, an infectious bacterium associated with many hospital deaths. Three of the six bacteria have not been described before. This work may have significant implications for future control and treatment approaches.
The researchers found that this strain of C. difficile, known as O27, establishes a persistent, prolonged contagious period, known as supershedding that is very difficult to treat with antibiotics. These contagious 'supershedders' release highly resistant spores for a prolonged period that are very difficult to eradicate from the environment. Similar scenarios are likely in hospitals.
C. difficile can cause bloating, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and is a contributing factor to over 2,000 deaths in the UK in 2011. It lives naturally in the body of some people where other bacteria in the gut suppress its numbers and prevent it from spreading. If a person has been treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as clindamycin, our bodies' natural bacteria can be destroyed and the gut can become overrun by C. difficile. The aggressive strain of C. diff analysed in this study has been responsible for epidemics in Europe, North America and Australia.
"We treated mice infected with this persistent form of C. diff with a range of antibiotics but they consistently relapsed to a high level of shedding or contagiousness," says Dr Trevor Lawley, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "We then attempted treating the mice using faecal transplantation, homogenized faeces from a healthy mouse. This quickly and effectively supressed the disease and supershedding state with no reoccurrence in the vast majority of cases."
"This epidemic caused by C. diff is refractory to antibiotic treatment but can be supressed by faecal transplantation, resolving symptoms of disease and contagiousness."
The team wanted to take this research one step further and isolate the precise bacteria that supressed C. diff. and restored microbial balance of the gut. They cultured a large number of bacteria naturally found in the gut of mice, all from one of four main groups of bacteria found in mammals. They tested many combinations of these bacteria, until they isolated a cocktail of six that worked best to suppress the infection.
"The mixture of six bacterial species effectively and reproducibly suppressed the C. difficile supershedder state in mice, restoring the healthy bacterial diversity of the gut," says Professor Harry Flint, senior author from the University of Aberdeen.
The team then sequenced the genomes of the six bacteria and compared their genetic family tree to more precisely define them. Based on this analysis, the team found that the mixture of six bacteria contained three that have been previously described and three novel species. This mix is genetically diverse and comes from all four main groups of bacteria found in mammals.
These results illustrate the effectiveness of displacing C. diff and the supershedder microbiota with a defined mix of bacteria, naturally found in the gut.
"Our results open the way to reduce the over-use of antibiotic treatment and harness the potential of naturally occurring microbial communities to treat C. difficile infection and transmission, and potentially other diseases associated with microbial imbalances," explains Professor Gordon Dougan, senior author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Faecal transplantation is viewed as an alternative treatment but it is not widely used because of the risk of introducing harmful pathogens as well as general patient aversion. This model encapsulates some of the features of faecal therapy and acts as a basis to develop standardized treatment mixture."
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Notes to Editors
Publication Details
Trevor D. Lawley, Simon Clare, Alan W. Walker, Mark D. Stares, Thomas R. Connor, Claire Raisen, David Goulding, Roland Rad, Fernanda Schreiber, Cordelia Brandt, Laura J. Deakin, Derek J. Pickard, Sylvia H. Duncan, Harry J. Flint, Taane G. Clark, Julian Parkhill, Gordon Dougan (2012). 'Targeted restoration of the intestinal microbiota with a simple, defined bacteriotherapy resolves relapsing Clostridium difficile disease in mice'
Published in PLOS Pathogens on 25 October DOI: ppat.1002995
Funding
This project was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.
Participating Centres
Bacterial Pathogenesis Laboratory, Microbial Pathogenesis Laboratory, Pathogen Genomics and Mouse Genomics, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK,
Microbial Ecology Group, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, UK,
Departments of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, WC1E 7HT, UK
Selected Websites
For almost 100 years the Medical Research Council has improved the health of people in the UK and around the world by supporting the highest quality science. The MRC invests in world-class scientists. It has produced 29 Nobel Prize winners and sustains a flourishing environment for internationally recognised research. The MRC focuses on making an impact and provides the financial muscle and scientific expertise behind medical breakthroughs, including one of the first antibiotics penicillin, the structure of DNA and the lethal link between smoking and cancer. Today MRC funded scientists tackle research into the major health challenges of the 21st century.
www.mrc.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
http://www.sanger.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
Contact details
Don Powell Media Manager
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
Tel +44 (0)1223 496 928
Mobile +44 (0)7753 7753 97
Email press.office@sanger.ac.uk
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According to numerous European readers, the lowest App Store price tier has just changed from ?0.79 to ?0.89 (to put that in rough perspective, imagine the U.S. base price going from $0.99 to $1.09). Whether that reflects updated exchange rates or other factors of doing business in Europe, including taxes and other charges, is unknown at this time.
If you're seeing higher prices in your local App Store, let us know what they are, and what the difference is.
UPDATE: Federico Viticci of MacStories has confirmed price changes in 15 countries, and a switch to local currencies in 8.
I recently responded to a question on the National Journal blog, "What 's holding back electric cars?"
You can read more on the original blog post and other responses at the National Journal.
Here is my response:
We shouldn?t be discouraged about the future of electric vehicles because some early movers are not meeting expectations.
The recent decision by advanced battery maker A123 Systems to seek bankruptcy protection is evidence the company made missteps and perhaps grew faster than it could handle, which is not unusual in high tech. But having a veteran auto industry supplier like Johnson Controls move to acquire A123?s auto battery business sends a strong signal to the market that the technology has long-term viability.
We also shouldn?t lose sight of the transformative opportunity these vehicles present by focusing on the early bumps in the road. The development and introduction of these vehicles will benefit both the economy and the environment by using energy more efficiently. Electric cars also hold great potential to wean us off oil and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.
A car is the second most expensive thing many of us will ever purchase, so we won?t move to entirely new propulsion systems such as electric drive powered by fuel cells or batteries overnight.
We must allow more time for the public and private investments we?ve already made to bear fruit. Early investments by Toyota and others in hybrid-electric drivetrains have paid dividends as automakers distribute this technology across their product line. The same will happen with plug-in electric cars.
Ultimately, market forces must drive sales of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). But for now, public policy plays a critical role.
Washington has already done a lot to support the electric vehicle industry, including tax incentives, loans, and extensive use of the bully pulpit. The new 2025 fuel economy standards are also driving investment in vehicle efficiency technology. But it?s not practical to expect much additional public investment given competing priorities.
To help define the respective roles of government, business and consumers, we convened the PEV Dialogue Group, a group of public and private experts whose recent Action Plan lays out a number of ways to facilitate a real national electric car market. We?re now working with officials in 20 states and the District of Columbia to implement the group?s recommendations.
At the federal level, the group recommends keeping the existing vehicle tax credit, which is essential despite what others have been saying. A vehicle tax credit helped grow sales of hybrid vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius, by nearly 70 percent from 2005 to 2007, and has helped electric cars sell at twice the rate as hybrids when they were at this stage in their history. Policymakers should consider making the credit a direct rebate to encourage government- or nonprofit-operated fleets to switch to electric cars.
As laid out in our Action Plan, electric utilities, other businesses, all levels of government, and NGOs need to work together to make this happen. Most of the steps recommended by the group can be taken outside Washington, at the state and local level. These include:
Facilitate regulatory reform, such as rules that encourage drivers to charge when power is cheapest to produce. The existing electrical grid can support millions of electric cars so long as drivers charge when demand is low, which is also when electricity is cheapest to produce.
Establish and share best practices. Across the country, groups of all kinds have been facilitating the introduction of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in new markets by establishing codes and standards and educating consumers. ?We should collect and share what is being learned to create a consistent and compatible market for these vehicles in all 50 states.
Optimize deployment of charging infrastructure. The PEV Action Plan addresses the ?chicken-and-egg problem? of coordinating the expansion of vehicles and charging infrastructure. But this is much less challenging for electric vehicles than, for example, for hydrogen vehicles since charging at home is relatively straightforward. Existing research and experience indicates a dense, publicly funded infrastructure is not needed to spur vehicle sales. However, home charging, including for those who rely on street parking, is essential. The PEV Action plan includes simple measures, such as having dealers notify electric utilities when new electric vehicles are purchased in their service territories.
Electric cars have suffered from hype from all sides. Automakers, government, and the media touted these cars as a panacea for a struggling domestic auto industry. The true role for electric vehicles is to help us move down the road toward a sustainable transportation system.
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Public release date: 25-Oct-2012
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