The first chart shows the yield on the Swedish 5-year bond.
As you can see, it's absolutely plummeting right now.
Now here's a look at its neighbor, Finland, and the yields on its 5-year bond.
Basically they look identical all through the year up until November and then BAM. Finnish yields are exploding higher, right as Swedish yields are blasting lower.
The only obvious difference between the two: Finland is part of the Eurozone, meaning it can't print its own money. Sweden has no such risk.
This is a narrow version of something that much of the media picks up on earlier last week that UK gilts were trading with a lower yield that German bonds, a reflection of the same principle: In UK the government can print. In Germany, it can't.
Right now, this is what investors demand, and if you don't have your own central bank that can pay off your debts, you're in trouble.
There's one other point here, which is that the spike in Finnish yields stands on its own as being remarkable. Clearly November will go down as the month when sovereign debt fears in Europe stopped being a peripheral issues, but rather an issue for everyone, including Northern states that you'd figure are bastions of stability.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is forced to research and clarify her late grandfather's immigration status. Marco Rubio, Florida's GOP Senator, is accused of embellishing his family's immigrant story. A Republican congressional candidate in California puts on his website that he is the great-grandson of an illegal immigrant.
As more Latino Republicans seek and win elected office, their families' backgrounds are becoming subject to increased scrutiny from some Latino activists, a reaction experts say is a result of Latino Republicans' conservative views on immigration. It's a new phenomenon that experts say Latino Democrats rarely faced, and could be a recurring feature in elections as the Republican Party seeks to recruit more Latino candidates.
"It's a trend and we are seeing more of it," said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.
For years, most Latino elected officials were largely Democrats, except in Florida, where Cuban Americans tended to vote Republican. But recently, a new generation of Latino Republicans has won seats in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California and even Idaho. Those politicians have come under fire from some Latino activists for pushing for laws targeting illegal immigrants and for opposing efforts for comprehensive immigration reform - views that are in line with most Republicans.
And the immigrant advocates are pointing to the GOP Latino elected leaders' own family histories in an effort to paint them as hypocrites. Ignacio Garcia, a history professor at Brigham Young University, said it comes from a long tradition by liberal activists of portraying Latino Republicans as "vendidos," or sellouts, since the majority of Latino voters tend to vote Democratic.
For example, Martinez tried twice in the New Mexico state legislature to overturn a state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain state drivers' licenses. Then earlier this year, various media outlets reported that a grandfather of Martinez may have been an illegal immigrant. The reports sparked immigrant advocates to protests outside the state Capitol with poster-size photos of Martinez on drivers' licenses.
Martinez, a Republican and the nation's only Latina governor, ordered her political organization to research her family's background and found documents that suggested that her grandfather legally entered the country and had various work permits.
The episode drew criticism, even from those who opposed Martinez' efforts on state driver's licenses. "This has nothing to do with her views and how she governs," said Michael A. Olivas, an immigration law professor at the University of Houston who also is aiding in a lawsuit against a Martinez's administration probe over the license fight. "I don't think it's fair for people to dig around in her family's past."
In Florida, Rubio's official Senate website until recently described his parents as having fled Cuba following Fidel Castro's takeover. But media organizations reported last month that Rubio's parents and his maternal grandfather emigrated for economic reasons more than two years before the Cuban Revolution.
Somos Republicans, a group dedicated to increasing Latino Republican voting numbers, immediately attacked Rubio over the discrepancy and for holding harsh views on immigration. "We believe it is time to find out the complete history of his parents' immigration history," the group said in a statement. "It is also time for Rubio to be a leader and help Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) fix the broken immigration system."
The rippling banners, and marchers with signs have filled Tahrir Square to the brim. Diverse swarms of families have joined them, as have the political and religious leaders with bullhorns; and there are the tea and koshari vendors; and even the cotton candy man, his enormous pink cloud of sugar visible from across the sea of thousands.
Eight days into the most dramatic mass protest to hit Egypt since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last winter, the crowd in Cairo's central square on Friday reached its largest number since the demonstrations began a week ago, with tens of thousands pressed to Tahrir's limits. Clashes between protesters and Egypt's central security forces have left nearly 40 people dead. But with signs and chants still calling for the downfall of military rule, and rejecting the ruling generals' latest concession ? the appointment of a new Prime Minister ? the revolution's latest incarnation shows no signs of flagging. (See pictures of police and protesters clashing in Cairo.)
But while the crowd in the square appears to be a single unit, the enormity of the throng camouflages deep divisions on the way forward just days ahead of parliamentary elections. There are splits in opinion among the protesters that have splintered party coalitions ahead of the historic vote. Within the square, demonstrators are at odds over the prioritization of their revolutionary demands, and over the optimal end-all: a timetable for the military's transition to civilian rule versus an immediate transfer of power.
Rejecting the newest Prime Minister, Kamal al-Ganzoury, as yet another member of Mubarak's old guard, some members of the protest movement have proposed that the military council immediately choose an interim leader from a list of five prominent opposition leaders selected by Tahrir's activists. "These five people represent the revolution, and there is a consensus," reasons Adil Fathi, a lawyer. The names range from popular Islamist Abdel Monem Abul Fotouh to liberal Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei ? both presidential candidates ? but the idea is unlikely to sell with the majority of Egyptians who aren't in Tahrir.
Indeed, as big as the crowds are in the square and its counterpart protests in other major cities, Egypt's population of 85 million is even bigger and more divided. And that is a huge problem for the revolutionaries. In the poor and densely populated Cairo district of Abbassiya on Friday, a large crowd of Egyptians held a simultaneous protest of the opposite nature: in support of the military. "[The Abbassiya protesters] are demanding respectfully and politely that these people [in Tahrir] go back home and let the military council and the government do their job," said Osama Hosni, a fence-sitter who had decided to visit both demonstrations before making up his mind. The people in Abbassiya want stability, he added ? something Egypt desperately needs. But he said that should come as a product of democracy. "Once the people's assembly is formed, that will help bring stability back to Egypt," he said. "Now people are protesting freely, but we also need stability, and that comes with elections." (See how Egypt chose its new prime minister.)
On Friday, the military announced that the country's parliamentary vote, set to begin on Monday, would extend over two days, rather than one ? an amendment meant to encourage voter turnout, but likely to further confuse an already bewildered populace of eligible voters. Whether to proceed with the election or not, given the past week's violent confrontations between protesters and Egypt's security forces, is already a question that has fractured political coalitions and voters alike. "I've changed my mind because of what happened," said Hamid Mohamed, a protester. "I was going to vote. But because of what happened last week, I'm not going to." He carried a sign that said, "Hey pyramid, you're making me blind" and which depicted a blind man with a cane feeling his way toward a figure representing Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who appears to be making away with the Egyptian flag. Accusations that the military was trying to blind Egyptians, literally and figuratively, to their actions was a common theme in Tahrir on the day the ruling council affirmed that the vote would not be postponed.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, widely predicted to capture a sizeable chunk of the seats in Monday's vote, opted to sit the protest out ? a move that earned it condemnation from liberal parties and many of its own supporters, and led others to allege that the leadership of the Brotherhood was conspiring with the military. "I think the Muslim Brotherhood is waiting to see what the political atmosphere is, and they think there are people here who want to postpone the elections," said Hosni.
Others argue that the protesters could have it both ways: "We want elections to be held on time, and at the same time we are demanding the rights of our colleagues and friends," said Tareq Ramadan, a protestor who wore an eye patch in solidarity with those who have lost their eyes to rubber bullets in recent days. (See why confusion is marring Egypt's impending vote.)
Even so, many protesters say the continued presence of a mass movement in Cairo and in other major cities will seriously challenge the credibility of any election next week, no matter how many turn out to vote. If the violence declines, the protesters and the military may also settle into a contest of wills. "This was our experience with Mubarak ? staying here to force change," said one protester, Ashraf Shendi. But most in Tahrir says this time will be harder than the last. The winter uprising lasted 18 days and toppled a dictator, they say. This time demonstrators seek to topple the powerful military leaders he left behind. Whether the latter is possible without serious violence, or at least greater numbers remains to be seen. "In every revolution, only 15% of the population participates. There is no 100%," says Adil Fathi, the lawyer. "But we hope that more people will join. We need more pressure."
Others are more cynical. "The truce is not going to last very long," predicted Mohamed Rageb, a Brotherhood supporter, of the relative calm in the square. Like other Brotherhood supporters who disagreed with the leadership's abstention, he had decided to join the protest and had seen the violence unleashed on the protesters. The junta is "just testing the people," he says. "They're waiting for people to get frustrated and desperate. They're waiting to see how it affects the people here, and the general public and the media ? whether more people will join or whether people will disperse." By late Friday night, Tahrir Square was as packed as ever, and the clashes between protesters and police on its side street front lines had resumed.
See TIME's special report "The Middle East in Revolt."
Who should be TIME's Person of the Year 2011? Vote for your choice here.
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday named Slovak diplomat Jan Kubis as his next special envoy to Afghanistan, a challenging post that will be changing hands for the third time in four years.
Kubis will replace Staffan de Mistura of Sweden, whose tenure expires on December 31.
Kubis, 59, who speaks five languages and graduated from a Moscow international relations institute, is a former Slovakian foreign minister who also has had a lengthy career as an international official.
Most recently he has been head of the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.
The United Nations has no peacekeepers in Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO troops are battling Taliban insurgents. The U.N. mission, known as UNAMA, engages in political support and aid work, compiling closely watched reports on civilian casualty figures from the Afghan conflict.
The U.N. announcement of Kubis's appointment described the Afghanistan job as "one of the most challenging duty stations." Seven U.N. staff were killed in April in an attack on the U.N. compound in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The post also has been politically controversial. De Mistura's predecessor, Kai Eide of Norway, became involved in a dispute with his U.S. deputy Peter Galbraith over the conduct of elections in Afghanistan, which ended with Galbraith being fired.
Eide's predecessor, Tom Koenigs of Germany, was criticized by some Western diplomats at the United Nations as ineffectual. De Mistura has largely avoided controversy since taking over the job in March of last year.
(Reporting by Patrick Worsnip; editing by Bill Trott)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michelle Williams takes on the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe in the indie film "My Week with Marilyn." Currently in theaters, the film is based on Colin Clark's book of the same name and chronicles his time spent working with Monroe while she was in England shooting the romantic comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl" in 1956.
Williams sat down with Reuters to talk about portraying Monroe, the film, shooting her current role of Glinda the good witch in Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful" and her six-year-old daughter Matilda with late actor Heath Ledger.
Q: Did you have an awareness of Marilyn Monroe and her starpower when you were younger?
A: "I was interested in her, but then I kind of lost track of her over the last 10 years or so. I had a poster of her up in my room. It wasn't a picture of her as the icon, it was a picture of her looking like an ordinary joyful girl. So I definitely had some kind of connection. (Working on this film) reignited whatever initial, sort of, attraction I had to her when I was a teenager."
Q: Did you do your own singing in the film?
A: "Yes and my mother is going to be so excited when she sees this. She always wanted me to sing and dance. I had so much fun doing that!"
Q: So doing a musical could be in the cards for you?
A: "I would love to. What's so liberating about singing and dancing is that it turns your head off. You coast on this wave of muscle memory. You literally can't think while you're performing. There's a kind of transcendence to it. I think maybe that's why Marilyn was so especially talented at it. Her singing and dancing are unparalleled and her musical numbers are just breathtaking."
Q: The film used many of the same locations in shooting "Prince and the Showgirl." Did that add to the production?
A: "There was a lot of synchronicity. We shot in the actual Parkside house (that Marilyn lived in). My dressing room at Pinewood was Marilyn's actual dressing room. That was so special. The stage where she shot that song and dance number was the stage where I shot mine. So many of the props in our movie were in the original 'Prince and the Showgirl' movie."
Q: Did it ever feel ghostly?
A: "Well, it's all energy. And it's what you make of it. I like to make things out of nothing! (laughs) I like to spin things out of thin air, so that stuff works for me."
Q: Did you wear wigs for the part, or grow out your hair?
A: "I wore wigs, but I had to keep my hair really bleached underneath because it would show through the wigs. My eyebrows had to be dark and they were reshaped. You go through so many grotesque phases making movies (laughs). I never really feel quite like myself. I just feel like a mutant -- always halfway in between some other person and myself. I don't know what belongs to me and what doesn't!"
Q: After filming ended was it hard to let go of Marilyn?
A: "I think when you work in a way that really gets under your skin, its not an easy break. You make a little extra room for these people that you play and then they leave. You're left with this hollow space. I wish I could play her again."
Q: Does your daughter Matilda come to set?
A: "She comes with me everywhere."
Q: How do you balance getting into character and then going home at the end of the day to be a mom?
A: "What works for me is to have a commute from where we live to where I work. So that in the morning, I leave the house behind and walk clean and fresh into my professional life. And then the same thing on the way home. I find that a 20 or 30 minute commute makes a kind of passageway for me that I need."
Q: You're currently shooting "OZ," playing Glinda. Matilda must love coming to that set.
A: "It's the best thing professionally that's happened to us. It has brought her on board my work in a way that wasn't possible in a movie like 'Marilyn' or 'Blue Valentine.' On those, there was no space for a kid to come visit and be a kid. (With 'Oz') she comes every single day after school because it's like a playground. She says, 'There's only one good witch and it's my mom.' She's very excited about it."
Q: It's interesting that you said the project was the best thing to happen professionally to "us" not "me."
A: "Definitely. Every choice that I make is about how it's going to affect our life -- where it films, how long it is, what else is going on in her year, what's the last job I did, how much time I've had off in between, how much time we had to really deeply connect and how long can we sustain a period of time where I'm working. So when 'Oz' came along, it was very clear to me that it was the right decision for us."
Seattle?s Big Fish Games scored a bit of a coup this week by being the first app developer to get a subscription-based game app into the iTunes App Store. But, the bubble has burst, at least for now: Apple has removed Play Instantly from the iTunes App Store.
Play Instantly was the first iPad app to offer subscription access to games: for $4.99 a month, subscribers could play any available titlle as much as they liked, without having to purchase a separate copy of the game app. Play Instantly?s operation is similar to the OnLive PC gaming service: instead of downloading versions of the app, users connect to gamed via the cloud (which means Play Instantly only worked via a solid Wi-Fi connection: 3G doesn?t cut it).
Big Fish has expressed surprise over the removal, telling Bloomberg the company was trying to contact Apple to find out why the app had been pulled. Big Fish Games was very public about the release of the Play Instantly app and its revenue model: the $4.99/month subscription price included access to ?dozens? of Big Fish premium casual games, and the company anticipated that Play Instantly would expand to ?several hundred? titles for iOS, Android, and PCs in 2012?that would also come with a higher subscription price of $6.99/month.
Play Instantly may be the first game service to use Apple?s subscription model, but numerous publishers have been using it since the launch of the original iPad. Like app sales and in-app purchasing, Apple takes a 30 percent cut of subscription fees, leaving 70 percent for developers. Apple?s high share of subscription fees has led some publishers (like the Financial Times) to eschew Apple?s subscription technology in favor of iPad/iOS-optimized Web services.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memoriesPublic release date: 23-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yasmin Anwar yanwar@berkeley.edu 510-643-7944 University of California - Berkeley
UC Berkeley researchers have found that stress chemicals shut down and the brain processes emotional experiences during the REM dream phase of sleep
They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.
UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories.
The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream.
"The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences," said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study to be published this Wednesday, Nov. 23, in the journal Current Biology.
For people with PTSD, Walker said, this overnight therapy may not be working effectively, so when a "flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep."
The results offer some of the first insights into the emotional function of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which typically takes up 20 percent of a healthy human's sleeping hours. Previous brain studies indicate that sleep patterns are disrupted in people with mood disorders such as PTSD and depression.
While humans spend one-third of their lives sleeping, there is no scientific consensus on the function of sleep. However, Walker and his research team have unlocked many of these mysteries linking sleep to learning, memory and mood regulation. The latest study shows the importance of the REM dream state.
"During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed," said Els van der Helm, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.
Thirtyfive healthy young adults participated in the study. They were divided into two groups, each of whose members viewed 150 emotional images, twice and 12 hours apart, while an MRI scanner measured their brain activity.
Half of the participants viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening, staying awake between the two viewings. The remaining half viewed the images in the evening and again the next morning after a full night of sleep.
Those who slept in between image viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to the images. In addition, MRI scans showed a dramatic reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, allowing the brain's "rational" prefrontal cortex to regain control of the participants' emotional reactions.
In addition, the researchers recorded the electrical brain activity of the participants while they slept, using electroencephalograms. They found that during REM dream sleep, certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day's experiences.
"We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress," Walker said. "By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope."
Walker said he was tipped off to the possible beneficial effects of REM sleep on PTSD patients when a physician at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Seattle area told him of a blood pressure drug that was inadvertently preventing reoccurring nightmares in PTSD patients.
It turns out that the generic blood pressure drug had a side effect of suppressing norepinephrine in the brain, thereby creating a more stress-free brain during REM, reducing nightmares and promoting a better quality of sleep. This suggested a link between PTSD and REM sleep, Walker said.
"This study can help explain the mysteries of why these medications help some PTSD patients and their symptoms as well as their sleep," Walker said. "It may also unlock new treatment avenues regarding sleep and mental illness."
###
Other co-authors of the study are UC Berkeley sleep researchers Justin Yao, Shubir Dutt, Vikram Rao and Jared Saletin.
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Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memoriesPublic release date: 23-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yasmin Anwar yanwar@berkeley.edu 510-643-7944 University of California - Berkeley
UC Berkeley researchers have found that stress chemicals shut down and the brain processes emotional experiences during the REM dream phase of sleep
They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.
UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories.
The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream.
"The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences," said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study to be published this Wednesday, Nov. 23, in the journal Current Biology.
For people with PTSD, Walker said, this overnight therapy may not be working effectively, so when a "flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep."
The results offer some of the first insights into the emotional function of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which typically takes up 20 percent of a healthy human's sleeping hours. Previous brain studies indicate that sleep patterns are disrupted in people with mood disorders such as PTSD and depression.
While humans spend one-third of their lives sleeping, there is no scientific consensus on the function of sleep. However, Walker and his research team have unlocked many of these mysteries linking sleep to learning, memory and mood regulation. The latest study shows the importance of the REM dream state.
"During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed," said Els van der Helm, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.
Thirtyfive healthy young adults participated in the study. They were divided into two groups, each of whose members viewed 150 emotional images, twice and 12 hours apart, while an MRI scanner measured their brain activity.
Half of the participants viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening, staying awake between the two viewings. The remaining half viewed the images in the evening and again the next morning after a full night of sleep.
Those who slept in between image viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to the images. In addition, MRI scans showed a dramatic reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, allowing the brain's "rational" prefrontal cortex to regain control of the participants' emotional reactions.
In addition, the researchers recorded the electrical brain activity of the participants while they slept, using electroencephalograms. They found that during REM dream sleep, certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day's experiences.
"We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress," Walker said. "By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope."
Walker said he was tipped off to the possible beneficial effects of REM sleep on PTSD patients when a physician at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Seattle area told him of a blood pressure drug that was inadvertently preventing reoccurring nightmares in PTSD patients.
It turns out that the generic blood pressure drug had a side effect of suppressing norepinephrine in the brain, thereby creating a more stress-free brain during REM, reducing nightmares and promoting a better quality of sleep. This suggested a link between PTSD and REM sleep, Walker said.
"This study can help explain the mysteries of why these medications help some PTSD patients and their symptoms as well as their sleep," Walker said. "It may also unlock new treatment avenues regarding sleep and mental illness."
###
Other co-authors of the study are UC Berkeley sleep researchers Justin Yao, Shubir Dutt, Vikram Rao and Jared Saletin.
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By Rick Nauert PhDSenior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 23, 2011
Psychiatric disorders are believed to be a barrier for appropriate and timely medical care among vulnerable populations.
A new investigation studied if pre-existing depression (with and without anxiety) would influence the time to diagnostically resolve an abnormal mammogram and/or Pap test.
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) discovered suffering from depression was not associated with a prolonged time to diagnostic resolution in a vulnerable population of urban women.
Cancer outcomes are influenced by the time to treatment after an abnormal cancer screen. Some studies have found that women with psychiatric disorders are less likely to receive cancer screening and may also have delays in diagnostic resolution after an abnormal screening test.
Vulnerable populations of women, as defined by low income or with racial/ethnic minority status, are less likely to receive standard preventive health care, which contributes to worse breast and cervical cancer outcomes.
Depression is prevalent in these populations, and may lead to worse health care outcomes.
In recognition of these variables, researchers conducted a retrospective chart review of electronic medical records to identify women who had a diagnosis of depression or anxiety in the year prior to the abnormal mammogram or Pap test.
They used time-to-event analysis to analyze the outcome of time to resolution after abnormal cancer screening.
Of the women with abnormal mammogram and Pap tests, the researchers found 19 percent and 16 percent, respectively, suffered with depression.
The time to resolution for the abnormal mammograms and for the abnormal Pap tests were similar for depressed and non-depressed women (median time of 27 days for mammograms and 85 days for Pap tests).
As a result, researchers believe documented mood disorders are not an additional barrier to resolution after an abnormal cancer screening test in this vulnerable population of women who already had barriers to receiving health care.
?Although we found delays in diagnostic resolution after abnormal cancer screening, women with a depression diagnosis did not have increased delays compared to those who were not depressed,? explained lead author Andrea Kronman, M.D., M.Sc.
?Pre-screening the electronic medical records of women for mood disorders may not be the most reliable approach to identify a group of patients at higher risk of delayed diagnostic resolution of abnormal cancer screening tests in a vulnerable population,? added Kronman.
These findings currently appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Source: Boston University Medical Center
Mammogram photo by shutterstock.
APA Reference Nauert PhD, R. (2011). Mood Disorders May Not Hinder Cancer Diagnosis. Psych Central. Retrieved on November 24, 2011, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/11/23/mood-disorders-may-not-hinder-cancer-diagnosis/31816.html
BERLIN ? A recent wave of spam flooding Facebook users' pages with graphic pictures depicting sex and violence has mostly been stopped, but the social networking site said Wednesday that people need to remain vigilant to keep their accounts from being hijacked.
Facebook in Germany said the latest attack tricked users into pasting and executing malicious JavaScript in their browser URL bar, exploiting a browser vulnerability that caused them to unknowingly share the content, according to a statement to news agency dapd.
"Our team responded quickly and we have eliminated most of the spam caused by this attack," the statement said. "We are now working to improve our systems to better defend against similar attacks in the future."
According to Facebook, no user data or accounts were compromised during the attack.
Facebook said it built enforcement mechanisms to quickly shut down the malicious pages and accounts that attempt to exploit the vulnerability.
"Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us," Facebook said.
Meantime, Facebook warned users to never cut and paste unknown code into a browser's address bar, and to always use an up-to-date browser, as well as to flag and report any suspicious content.
Contact: Deborah Wing dwing@nsf.gov 703-292-5344 National Science Foundation
Multiple ancient tectonic events may have formed youthful looking mountain range
National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers may have at last answered a 50 year-old conundrum. They may now know how Antarctica's Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains were formed, which has been a question for scientists since their discovery in 1958.
Researchers involved in a highly complex research deployment to the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, a centerpiece of the 2007-2009 International Polar Year (IPY), conclude the mountains formed as a result of multiple tectonic events, rather than a single event.
This week's journal Nature reports the findings.
According to the researchers a remarkably long geological history explains the formation of the mountain range buried beneath the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the least explored frontier on Earth, where the Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed.
By analyzing the new geophysical data that sharpened the view of the mountains, the researchers describe processes-which took place over the past billion years-that created and preserved a root beneath the mountains and the East Antarctic rift system--a 3,000-kilometer-long long fracture in the earth's surface that extends from East Antarctica across the ocean to India.
One billion years ago, before animals and plants evolved on Earth, several continents (or micro-continents) collided, pushing up a mountain range and forming a thick crustal root. While the mountain range eroded away, the root was preserved. Over time, events rejuvenated the roots and rifting allowed more uplift to reform the mountains and the ice sheet preserved them.
Around 250-100 million years ago--when dinosaurs walked the Earth--rifting paved the way for the supercontinent Gondwana to break apart, which included Antarctica, causing the old crustal root to warm. This rejuvenated crustal root, together with the East Antarctic Rift forced the land upwards again reforming the mountains. Rivers and glaciers carved deep valleys and this helped uplift the peaks to create the spectacular landscape of the Gamburtsevs, which resemble the European Alps. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which formed 34 million years ago and covers 10 million square kilometers of our planet, an area the size of Canada, protected the mountains from erosion.
NSF led the multi-national effort and was the lead U.S. agency for the IPY, a concentrated deployment by scientists of 60 nations to the Polar Regions. NSF's Office of Polar Programs also manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, though which it coordinates all U.S. research and logistical support for science on the southernmost continent and its surrounding oceans.
During IPY, a seven nation team made up the Antarctica's Gamburstev Province (AGAP) project, consisting of scientists from Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Team members explored the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, which are buried beneath up to three kilometers of ice, by using two twin-engine aircraft equipped with ice penetrating radars, gravity meters and magnetometers.
"Resolving the contradiction of the Gamburtsev high elevation and youthful Alpine topography but location on the East Antarctic craton by piecing together the billion year history of the region was exciting and challenging," said Carol Finn, of the U.S. Geological Survey, a co-author on the paper. "We are accustomed to thinking that mountain building relates to a single tectonic event, rather than sequences of events. The lesson we learned about multiple events forming the Gamburtsevs may inform studies of the history of other mountain belts. The youthful look of any mountain range may mask a hidden past."
Scientists noted that the results have a special significance in a year that marks the centennial of the achievement of the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Historians acknowledged that his rival in the quest for the Pole, Briton Robert F. Scott, and his party helped lay the foundations for modern Antarctic science in their trek by making systematic scientific observations of various phenomena. Although Scott and his men perished en route back from the Pole, they did not abandon fossils and rocks gathered on their journey as a legacy to scientific exploration.
"It is very fitting that the initial results of the AGAP project are coming out 100 years after the great explorers raced to the South Pole," said Alexandra Isern, Antarctic Earth sciences program director in NSF's Office of Polar Programs, "The scientific explorers of the AGAP project worked in harsh conditions to collect the data and detailed images of this major mountain range under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The results of their work will guide research in this region for many years to come."
Robin Bell, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, U.S. AGAP co-leader, noted that another scientific challenge lying ahead in piecing together the Gamburtsev's story will be to actually sample the materials that form the mountains.
"The next steps will be to assemble a team to drill through the ice into the mountains to obtain the first rock samples from the Gamburtsevs, she said. "We have samples of the moon, but none of the Gamburtsevs. With these rock samples we will be able to constrain when this ancient piece of crust was rejuvenated and grew to a magnificent mountain range."
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Deborah Wing dwing@nsf.gov 703-292-5344 National Science Foundation
Multiple ancient tectonic events may have formed youthful looking mountain range
National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers may have at last answered a 50 year-old conundrum. They may now know how Antarctica's Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains were formed, which has been a question for scientists since their discovery in 1958.
Researchers involved in a highly complex research deployment to the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, a centerpiece of the 2007-2009 International Polar Year (IPY), conclude the mountains formed as a result of multiple tectonic events, rather than a single event.
This week's journal Nature reports the findings.
According to the researchers a remarkably long geological history explains the formation of the mountain range buried beneath the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the least explored frontier on Earth, where the Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed.
By analyzing the new geophysical data that sharpened the view of the mountains, the researchers describe processes-which took place over the past billion years-that created and preserved a root beneath the mountains and the East Antarctic rift system--a 3,000-kilometer-long long fracture in the earth's surface that extends from East Antarctica across the ocean to India.
One billion years ago, before animals and plants evolved on Earth, several continents (or micro-continents) collided, pushing up a mountain range and forming a thick crustal root. While the mountain range eroded away, the root was preserved. Over time, events rejuvenated the roots and rifting allowed more uplift to reform the mountains and the ice sheet preserved them.
Around 250-100 million years ago--when dinosaurs walked the Earth--rifting paved the way for the supercontinent Gondwana to break apart, which included Antarctica, causing the old crustal root to warm. This rejuvenated crustal root, together with the East Antarctic Rift forced the land upwards again reforming the mountains. Rivers and glaciers carved deep valleys and this helped uplift the peaks to create the spectacular landscape of the Gamburtsevs, which resemble the European Alps. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which formed 34 million years ago and covers 10 million square kilometers of our planet, an area the size of Canada, protected the mountains from erosion.
NSF led the multi-national effort and was the lead U.S. agency for the IPY, a concentrated deployment by scientists of 60 nations to the Polar Regions. NSF's Office of Polar Programs also manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, though which it coordinates all U.S. research and logistical support for science on the southernmost continent and its surrounding oceans.
During IPY, a seven nation team made up the Antarctica's Gamburstev Province (AGAP) project, consisting of scientists from Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Team members explored the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, which are buried beneath up to three kilometers of ice, by using two twin-engine aircraft equipped with ice penetrating radars, gravity meters and magnetometers.
"Resolving the contradiction of the Gamburtsev high elevation and youthful Alpine topography but location on the East Antarctic craton by piecing together the billion year history of the region was exciting and challenging," said Carol Finn, of the U.S. Geological Survey, a co-author on the paper. "We are accustomed to thinking that mountain building relates to a single tectonic event, rather than sequences of events. The lesson we learned about multiple events forming the Gamburtsevs may inform studies of the history of other mountain belts. The youthful look of any mountain range may mask a hidden past."
Scientists noted that the results have a special significance in a year that marks the centennial of the achievement of the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Historians acknowledged that his rival in the quest for the Pole, Briton Robert F. Scott, and his party helped lay the foundations for modern Antarctic science in their trek by making systematic scientific observations of various phenomena. Although Scott and his men perished en route back from the Pole, they did not abandon fossils and rocks gathered on their journey as a legacy to scientific exploration.
"It is very fitting that the initial results of the AGAP project are coming out 100 years after the great explorers raced to the South Pole," said Alexandra Isern, Antarctic Earth sciences program director in NSF's Office of Polar Programs, "The scientific explorers of the AGAP project worked in harsh conditions to collect the data and detailed images of this major mountain range under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The results of their work will guide research in this region for many years to come."
Robin Bell, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, U.S. AGAP co-leader, noted that another scientific challenge lying ahead in piecing together the Gamburtsev's story will be to actually sample the materials that form the mountains.
"The next steps will be to assemble a team to drill through the ice into the mountains to obtain the first rock samples from the Gamburtsevs, she said. "We have samples of the moon, but none of the Gamburtsevs. With these rock samples we will be able to constrain when this ancient piece of crust was rejuvenated and grew to a magnificent mountain range."
###
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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) ? Pfizer Inc's Lipitor and AstraZeneca's Crestor cholesterol drugs, taken at their highest dose, safely reduced artery-clogging plaque in heart patients, according to data from a clinical trial presented on Tuesday.
Crestor outperformed Lipitor by some measures in the two-year study, but it is unclear whether the results will help AstraZeneca's sales force convince doctors and payers to use its drug as it competes with much cheaper generic versions of top-selling Lipitor.
"The differences between the two drugs were modest," said Dr. Stephen Nicholls, the primary investigator of the Saturn study who presented the data at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Orlando.
Crestor has become AstraZeneca's biggest product, with annual sales on pace to exceed of $6 billion this year, but its growth and pricing are sure to be pressured by generic Lipitor, or atorvastatin.
AstraZeneca, which previously said its drug failed to show a statistically significant advantage in the study's primary plaque regression goal, was looking for a clear edge to differentiate Crestor from its chief rival before Pfizer loses U.S. exclusivity for Lipitor at the end of the month.
The results of the Saturn study may instead position Crestor as more of a niche product for high-risk patients unable to lower their cholesterol enough with other drugs.
"Clearly, generics have an important place, but there is an important place also for Crestor as well," AstraZeneca Chief Medical Officer Howard Hutchinson said.
While AstraZeneca's calculated bet to stand out when compared with Lipitor may not pay off, the data was good news for patients as both drugs reversed progression of heart disease, and at the highest doses, from which doctors often shy away over toxicity fears, proved to be safe taken for two years.
"What this study shows is that you can actually reverse the buildup of plaque in a majority of patients with coronary disease if you treat them very intensively with either of these two powerful drugs," said Dr. Steven Nissen, chief of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic and the study's chairman.
Researchers found the safety seen with prolonged use of the drugs at the highest dose to be particularly reassuring.
The rate of heart attacks, strokes and other major adverse heart events were low for the patient population and nearly identical for the two drugs -- 7.1 percent for Lipitor and 7.5 percent for Crestor.
"In these patients in whom you're seeing a lot of regression they're not having events," Nicholls said.
"We were very struck by the fact that we could give over 1,000 patients the top doses of the most powerful statins and basically we didn't hurt anybody," Nissen added.
The 24-month study completed by 1,039 heart patients taking either 80 milligrams of Lipitor or 40 mgs of Crestor used intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) to measure changes in atheroma volume, or plaque buildup, inside a diseased artery.
The primary end point of the study was percentage change in atheroma volume, which Crestor reduced by 1.22 percent and Lipitor by 0.99 percent.
Researchers considered reductions from both drugs to be clinically significant. But the difference between the two medicines was not statistically significant and thus considered a failure by Crestor to prove superiority.
In a secondary goal measuring total atheroma volume Crestor did show a statistically significant advantage, reducing it by 6.4 cubic millimeters compared with a reduction of 4.4 cubic millimeters for Lipitor.
By one measure between 65 percent and 71 percent of patients in the study had plaque shrinkage.
"There were a lot of individuals who had regression of disease and the degree of regression was quite profound," Nicholls said.
In terms of cholesterol levels, Crestor lowered bad LDL to an average of 62.6 and raised good HDL to 50.4, while Lipitor lowered LDL to 70.2 and raised HDL to 48.6. Current guidelines call for LDL of 100 or lower and HDL of 40 or higher.
Crestor bested Lipitor on one safety measure with a statistically significant advantage in liver enzyme elevation of 0.7 percent versus 2 percent for Lipitor.
No serious muscle problems were observed with either drug, researchers said.
"This notion that high dose statin therapy being administered for 24 months was basically toxic to peoples' muscles was not the case," Nicholls said.
AstraZeneca shares, which fell about 4 percent when the initial result was announced in September, were up 0.3 percent in London on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Bill Berkrot and Lewis Krauskopf; editing by John Wallace and Maureen Bavdek)
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa ? Newt Gingrich is conceding that he made mistakes early in his campaign for the Republican nomination for president, but says his debate performances are leading voters to take another look at him.
The former House speaker has risen in national polls in the past week as former businessman Herman Cain has slipped. A new CNN poll Monday shows Gingrich almost even with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Cain is battling allegations of sexual harassment against women.
Gingrich spoke in Iowa at a Des Moines-area insurance company.
He's spending a few days in the state this week and expects to name an Iowa campaign team and open offices. He hasn't had either since a national and Iowa staff revolt last June.
Russian engineers are still trying to communicate with a wayward Mars moon probe, and they have until early December to fix the spacecraft and send it on its way, according to news reports.
Russia's unmanned Phobos-Grunt spacecraft launched Nov. 8 on a mission to the Martian moon Phobos. The probe reached Earth orbit as planned, but its thrusters never fired to propel it toward the Red Planet. While all attempts to contact Phobos-Grunt since then have failed, the mission team hasn't given up hope, according to Russian news service Ria Novosti.
"We estimate that the Phobos-Grunt will fly until January, and to make it perform its mission we still have time until the beginning of December," said Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (known as Roscosmos), according to Ria Novosti.
Changing the signal
Phobos-Grunt is currently zipping around Earth at an altitude of about 124 miles (200 kilometers). First contact with the probe was originally planned to be made at a much higher altitude, so engineers have scaled back the strength of the signal sent to the spacecraft, according to Ria Novosti.?
Phobos-Grunt weighs about 14.5 tons, and much of that weight is highly toxic hydrazine fuel. Some analysts have expressed concern that this fuel ? as well as pieces of the probe itself ? could pose a danger to people on the ground if Phobos-Grunt ends up crashing to Earth in a month or two.
But Popovkin downplayed those worries.
"There are 7.5 metric tons of fuel in the aluminum tanks on board. We have no doubts that they will explode [and destroy the probe] upon re-entry," Ria Novosti quoted Popovkin as saying. "It is highly unlikely that its parts would reach Earth."
Another Russian Mars failure?
The $163 million Phobos-Grunt mission aimed to land a probe on Phobos, scoop up some dirt and rock samples and send them back to Earth by 2014 ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian). The spacecraft is also carrying China's first Mars orbiter, a small satellite called Yinghuo 1, which was supposed to be deployed after Phobos-Grunt reached Mars in a year or so. [Photos: Russia's Mars Moon Mission]
Phobos-Grunt is Russia's first attempt at a planetary mission since 1996, when the Mars 96 spacecraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean. If Phobos-Grunt cannot be saved, it would continue Russia's long string of Mars failures. The nation has launched 18 other spacecraft toward the Red Planet since 1960, and not one of them achieved full mission success.
If Phobos-Grunt falls back to Earth, it would also mark the third such uncontrolled spacecraft re-entry in the last few months.
In October, a dead German satellite known as ROSAT fell over the Bay of Bengal after orbiting Earth for 21 years. And in late September, a defunct NASA Earth-observing spacecraft called UARS burned up over the southern Pacific Ocean. No one was hurt in either case.
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
ROME ? Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday after parliament's lower chamber passed European-demanded reforms, ending a 17-year political era and setting in motion a transition aimed at bringing the country back from the brink of economic crisis.
A chorus of Handel's "Alleluia," performed by a few dozen singers and classical musicians, rang out in front of the president's palace as thousands of Italians poured into downtown Rome to rejoice at the end of Berlusconi's scandal-marred reign.
Hecklers shouted "Buffoon, Buffoon!" as Berlusconi's motorcade entered and exited the presidential palace, where he tendered his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano, the palace said in a statement.
Respected former European commissioner Mario Monti remained the top choice to try to steer the country out of its debt woes as the head of a transitional government, but Berlusconi's allies remained split over whether to support him.
Their opposition wasn't expected to scuttle Napolitano's plans to ask Monti to try to form an interim government once Berlusconi resigns, but it could make Monti's job more difficult.
Napolitano is expected to hold consultations Sunday with all of Italy's political forces before proceeding with his expected nomination of Monti. Late Saturday, Berlusconi's party said it would support Monti, albeit with conditions.
Berlusconi's resignation was set in motion after the Chamber of Deputies, with a vote Saturday of 380-26 with two abstentions, approved economic reforms which include increasing the retirement age starting in 2026 but do nothing to open up Italy's inflexible labor market.
The Senate approved it a day earlier and Napolitano signed the legislation Saturday afternoon, paving the way for Berlusconi to leave office as he promised to do after losing his parliamentary majority earlier in the week. He chaired his final Cabinet meeting Saturday evening.
Berlusconi stood as lawmakers applauded him in the parliament chamber immediately after the vote. But outside his office and in front of government palazzos across town, hundreds of curiosity-seekers massing to witness the final hours of his government heckled him and his ministers.
"Shame!" and "Get Out!" the crowds yelled, many toting "Bye Bye Silvio Party" posters as they marched through downtown Rome in a festive indication that for many Italians, like financial markets, the time had come for Berlusconi to go.
Berlusconi supporters were also out in force, some singing the national anthem, but they were outnumbered.
Earlier in the day, Berlusconi lunched with Monti in a clear sign the political transition was already under way, news reports said.
While the euroskeptic Northern League remained opposed to Monti's nomination, some lawmakers suggested they could support a Monti-led government for a few months to enact the additional EU-demanded reforms before elections are held in early 2012.
In a statement issued late Saturday, Berlusconi's Peoples of Liberty party said its members would support Monti, but added that they would also ensure that Monti's Cabinet, legislative agenda and the timeframe of his government meets their requirements.
Napolitano appealed for lawmakers to put the good of the country ahead of short-term, local interests ? an indirect appeal to members of Berlusconi's party and the allied Northern League to work with the new government.
"All political forces must act with a sense of responsibility," he said.
It was an ignoble end for the 75-year-old billionaire media mogul, who came to power for the first time in 1994 using a soccer chant "Let's Go Italy" as the name of his political party and selling Italians on a dream of prosperity with his own personal story of transformation from cruise-ship crooner to Italy's richest man.
While he became Italy's longest-serving post-war premier, Berlusconi's three stints as premier were tainted by corruption trials and accusations that he used his political power to help his business interests.
His last term has been marred by sex scandals, "bunga bunga" parties and criminal charges he paid a 17-year-old girl to have sex ? accusations he denies.
Italy is under intense pressure to quickly put in place a new and effective government to replace him, one that can push through even more painful reforms and austerity measures to deal with its staggering debts, which stand at euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion), or a huge 120 percent of economic output. Italy has to roll over a little more than euro300 billion ($410 billion) of its debts next year alone.
Markets battered Italy this past week amid uncertainty that Berlusconi would really leave and questions over whether Italy's notoriously paralyzed parliament could rally around a replacement. But Italy's borrowing rates pulled back after Napolitano made clear he intended to tap the politically neutral economist Monti to try to head an interim government to push the reforms through.
The yield on benchmark Italian 10-year bonds fell to 6.48 percent Friday, safely below the crisis level of 7 percent reached earlier this week.
Greece, Ireland and Portugal all required international bailouts after their own borrowing rates passed 7 percent. The Italian economy would not be so easy to save. It totals $2 trillion, twice as much as the other three countries combined.
An Italian default could tear apart the coalition of 17 countries that use the euro as a common currency and deal a strong blow to the economies of Europe and the United States, both trying to avoid recessions.
The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said Saturday that Italy's political transition over the next few days should send a "clear sign of clarification and of credibility" that the country is now on the right path to get its finances back in order.
Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Lagarde had high praise for Monti, saying she had great esteem for the "quality" economist with whom she had long enjoyed a "extremely warm" and effective relationship.
The IMF has a key role to play over the next few months in overseeing Italy's efforts to pull itself back from a Greek-style economic disaster, monitoring how it implements reforms to rein in debt and spur growth, which is projected at a scant 0.6 percent this year and 0.3 percent next year.
Amid market turmoil last week, Berlusconi was forced to ask for IMF monitoring of Italy's finances, a humiliating prospect for the eurozone's third-largest economy and an embarrassment for the long-defiant Berlusconi.
The premier, however, received a warm sendoff from one of his closest pals, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who called Berlusconi "one of the last Mohicans of European politics" who had brought political stability to Italy.
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Public release date: 23-Nov-2011
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Psychiatric disorders are believed to be a barrier for appropriate and timely medical care among vulnerable populations.
