Friday, April 29, 2011

Simple Checklist Used By Doctors To Diagnose Autism In Infants

New research is suggesting that a five-minute survey for parents could detect signs of autism spectrum disorders in babies as young as one
New research suggests that a five-minute survey for parents could detect signs of autism spectrum disorders in babies as young as one. Currently, screening methods allow doctors to determine if a child 18 months and older has a disorder.
The survey asks 24 questions that assess babies' movement, sounds and eye focus, among other things. It has so far allowed researchers to diagnose autism spectrum disorders correctly 75 percent of the time.
Click here for more on how the autism checklist came about.
Visit the Brookes Publishing website to download a copy of the checklist.
Below are the categories and questions that are included in the survey developed by Amy M. Wetherby and Barry M. Prizant.
Emotion and Eye Gaze
Do you know when your child is happy and when your child is upset?
When your child plays with toys, does he/she look at you to see if you are watching?
Does your child smile or laugh while looking at you?
When you look at and point to a toy across the room, does your child look at it?
Communication
Does your child let you know that he/she needs help or wants an object out of reach?
When you are not paying attention to your child, does he/she try to get your attention?
Does your child do things to get you to laugh?
Does your child try to get you to notice interesting objects -- just to get you to look at the objects, not to get you to do anything with them? Read More.....

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Sathya Sai Baba's last rites on Wednesday

Sathya Sai Baba's Last Day was Today
HYDERABAD/PUTTAPARTHI: Sathya Sai Baba, who had millions of followers across the world, is no more. Baba's heart stopped beating at 7.28 am on Sunday morning.

The last rites of spiritual leader Sathya Sai Baba will be performed on Wednesday with full state honours. This was announced by Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who rushed to the town after news of the death.

Baba's body will be kept for darshan at Sai Kulwant Hall in Puttaparthi for two days - Monday and Tuesday. About 4 lakh people are expected to come to Puttaparthi, a small town of 25,000 in Andhra Pradesh's Ananatpur district. This includes VVIPs, VIPs and common devotees from across the globe and India.

A pall of gloom descended on this town, 450 km from Hyderabad, as the news of Sai Baba's death spread.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Bipasha - "I depict the fun element of Goa"

'Dum Maaro Dum' has released today. While the film comes with the tagline of 'kya hai kahaani tere paap ki' (what's the story of your wrong doing), it fits in well with the character played by Bipasha - Zoe - as well.
"That's right," says Bipasha, "Everyone has a past to show and something that deserves a punishment. Zoe is not spared either. And then there are two other stories from the past for Abhishek and Prateik. All of them come together to reach a common culmination."
In this film which has dark shades to it, none of the characters is all-white. The same holds good for Zoe too.
"Zoe depicts the fun element of Goa," Bipasha lights up here, "She is someone who is a hippie, is fun loving, a romantic who believes in love and is also quite ambitious. Her life takes a turn for worse when something goes wrong that leads to an all around transformation. In fact she is the very crux of the city."
Bipasha
Well Bipasha, now that the film has released, one waits to see whether audience too shares similar sentiments.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

High bacteria levels in meat at U.S. stores: report

Meat found on grocery store shelves often contains high levels of bacteria
Meat found on grocery store shelves often contains high levels of bacteria, with more than half of the bacteria resistant to multiple types of antibiotics, a study released on Friday said.
The meat is still safe to eat but consumers should take precautions especially in handling and cooking, the chief researcher for the study said.
The Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research group, checked 136 meat samples from 26 grocery stores in Illinois, Florida, California, Arizona and Washington, D.C.
Dr. Lance Price, the head researcher on the study, said high levels of Staphylococcus aureus (S.Aureus) bacteria were found in the meat.
"Staph causes hundreds of thousands of infections in the United States every year," Price said in an interview. "It causes a whole slew of infections ranging from skin infections to really bad respiratory infections like pneumonia." Read More..

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Syria aims to ease unrest with release of detained protesters

Syria aims to ease unrest with release of detained protesters
Syria’s president ordered the release yesterday of hundreds of detainees involved in a month of protests seeking to wrest political freedoms from one of the Middle East’s most repressive governments.
The order, announced by state TV, signaled an attempt by President Bashar Assad to calm weeks of growing protester anger and preempt what is expected to be another day of large demonstrations today.
Protests erupted in Syria a month ago and have steadily increased, with tens of thousands calling for sweeping political reforms from Assad’s authoritarian regime. More than 200 people have been killed in the government’s crackdown, according to Syria’s leading prodemocracy group.
The state TV announcement did not say how many protesters would be released or how many were being held. It said the release order did not apply to those involved in “criminal acts’’ but that most of those taken into custody would be freed.
The country’s new prime minister, meanwhile, revealed his Cabinet two weeks after Assad fired the previous government in an earlier gesture that failed to contain the unrest.
Violence continued yesterday in a major port city where the government has waged a crackdown on several days of protests.
The state-run SANA news agency reported that snipers fired on a Syrian military patrol in Banias, killing one soldier and wounding another.
Syria’s government and its state-run media have sought to cast the unrest as a foreign conspiracy perpetrated by armed gangs targeting security forces and civilians. Reform activists, however, say their movement is peaceful.
Egypt CAIRO — Egypt’s military rulers said yesterday that they were reviewing cases of young protesters jailed in the aftermath of the popular uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and that they also sacked several provincial governors appointed by the former president.
The moves were intended to defuse tensions between the military, which took control of Egypt after Mubarak’s ouster, and the protesters determined to keep up the pressure and demand for sweeping reforms.
The Armed Forces’ Supreme Council — the body of top generals that took over after Mubarak’s ouster on Feb. 11 — said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that cases of the young people recently put on trial will be reconsidered.
Activists complain the military has been acting in ways reminiscent of Mubarak’s regime, detaining scores of people and putting protesters in military prisons, where some were reportedly tortured, or on swift trial before military courts.
This week, a military tribunal slapped a three-year prison term on a blogger for charges of insulting the army and spreading false information, further antagonizing the protest movement.
Many Egyptians say the generals are heavy-handedly dictating the course of Egypt’s transition and that they are not doing enough to ensure that remnants of Mubarak’s regime don’t retain power and thwart hopes for real democracy.
The tensions came to a peak on Saturday, when troops stormed Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 18-day uprising, killing at least one protester and arresting dozens in a predawn operation.
Bahrain MANAMA — Bahrain’s government yesterday ordered the country’s biggest Shi’ite party to be dismantled for “threatening peace’’ in the Gulf kingdom after weeks of Shi’ite-led protests against the Sunni rulers.
The decision against the Al Wefaq party is part of Bahrain’s wide-ranging crackdown on the opposition after government forces crushed a wave of demonstrations by the island nation’s Shi’ite majority demanding equal rights and a constitutional monarchy with an elected government.
Al Wefaq has been the leading political backer of the uprising in this tiny but strategically key Persian Gulf country, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The protesters marched on financial institutions and royal palaces and occupied a main square in the capital Manama for a month during the unprecedented unrest against the country’s minority Sunni rulers.
Justice Minister Khaled bin Ali Al Khalifa said in a statement that a smaller Shi’ite party, Al Amal, had also been ordered disbanded.
The orders still require approval by the courts, which are to review the case within a month, he said. Approval seems likely because judges on Bahrain’s courts are appointed by the king.
The moves are likely to further anger and frustrate Shi’ites, whose bitterness has only grown since troops crushed the protests in Manama’s Pearl Square on March 16.
Bahrain declared martial law to quash the protests and has detained opposition leaders, hundreds of protesters, and leading human rights activists.
Earlier this week, authorities also accused Bahrain’s main opposition newspaper of threatening national security. They said three of its former top editors will face trial for publishing “fabricated news’’ and “false pictures.’

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Shutdown avoided, White House, Congress cheer deal

A last minute budget deal, forged amid bluster and tough bargaining, averted an embarrassing federal shutdown and cut billions in spending -- the first major test of the divided government voters ushered in five months ago.
Working late into the evening Friday, congressional and White House negotiators struck an agreement to pay for government operations through the end of September while trimming $38.5 billion in spending. Lawmakers then approved a days-long stopgap measure to keep the government running while the details of the new spending plan were written into legislation.
Actual approval of the deal would come in mid-week.
"Today Americans of different beliefs came together again," President Barack Obama said from the White House Blue Room, a setting chosen to offer a clear view of the Washington Monument over his right shoulder.
The agreement -- negotiated by the new Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, the president and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid -- came as the administration was poised to shutter federal services, from national parks to tax-season help centers, and to send furlough notices to hundreds of thousands of federal workers. It was a prospect that all sides insisted they wanted to avoid but that at times seemed all but inevitable. Read More

Friday, April 8, 2011

Alcohol can increase cancer risk

small amount of alcohol can increase risks of cancer among women
According to a recent Million Women Study conducted by researchers of University of Oxford daily intake of even a small amount of alcohol can increase risks of cancer among women.

New research shows that drinking more than a pint of beer or a glass of wine a day can substantially increase the risk of some cancers.

In the UK alone alcohol is being blamed for 13,000 cancer cases each year.

A large Europe-wide study, published by the British Medical Journal, found that one-in-10 of all cancers in men and one-in-33 of all cancers in women are caused by past or current alcohol intake.

Doctor Kat Arney from Cancer Research UK spoke to Breakfast News.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Sachin's unforgettable 2011 World Cup moments

Sachin's 2011 World Cup moments
Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar talks about his finest memories of the 2011 World Cup where he finally fulfilled his lifetime dream of lifting the coveted trophy.
Unforgettable dressing room moment:
The moment the winning runs were scored, I jumped. Viru (Sehwag) who was next to me, jumped too. We were sitting in the dressing room and praying.
Unforgettable part of the celebrations:
When we got the trophy in our hands and the popping of champagne. Also, when the team lifted me with the tri-colour in my hand. That was the ultimate feeling.
Unforgettable innings that you played:
I was batting really well against South Africa, but in terms of importance, it's got to be the one against Pakistan.
Unforgettable innings from your teammates:
There were many! The one Viru played in the first game against Bangladesh, Yuvraj Singh played many, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli... all the guys chipped in.
Unforgettable bowling spell:
Zaheer Khan bowled some very important spells. In the semi-final, Ashish Nehra bowled well. Munaf got some important wickets too. Harbhajan Singh and R Ashwin bowled well too. Everyone has chipped in. That is why I call it a thorough team performance. Everyone did their job and somewhere they made an impact.
Unforgettable captaincy move:
We set a 6-3 field against Pakistan at Mohali. Their opening batsman, Mohammad Hafeez tried to play a sweep shot off Munaf Patel and got caught behind. I thought that was the turning point of the match.
Unforgettable catch:
The one Viru caught off Shahid Afridi. The match was very much alive then because Misbah & Afridi were batting and we needed two-three big overs at that stage, so that was an important catch. An easy one, but important.
Unforgettable tense moment:
There were many moments when we were really tense especially in the last three matches....we knew there would be no second chance. There were many moments like that.