China: Four more have H7N9 bird flu

3 April 2013 Last updated at 13:16 ET

A further four cases of a bird flu virus not previously seen in humans have been reported by authorities in China.

Three women aged 32, 45 and 48, and an 83-year-old man were diagnosed between 19 and 21 March and are critically ill.

There have now been seven confirmed cases of the H7N9 virus, the World Health Organization said. Two people have died.

But the WHO says there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

However more than 160 people who have had contact with the individuals are being closely monitored.

So far, none has developed symptoms.

The latest cases were seen in the Jiangsu province while the earlier cases were in the Shanghai and Anhui provinces.

Two contacts of one of the Shanghai cases who developed symptoms are being retrospectively investigated.

One died and the other recovered, but as yet there has been no laboratory confirmation of whether they were infected with H7N9.

Hygiene measures

The Chinese government has increased disease surveillance, infection prevention and control and communication between human and animal health and industry sectors.

Continue reading the main story

By identifying the source of infection measures can be taken to reduce human exposure?

End Quote Dr John McCauley MRC National Institute for Medical Research

It has advised the population to maintain good personal hygiene, including frequent hand-washing and avoiding direct contact with sick or dead animals.

The WHO is not recommending any travel or trade restrictions.

Dr John McCauley, Director of WHO Collaborating Centre on Influenza at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, said: "The virus belongs to the A(H7N9) sub-type, a sub-type that has not previously infected humans, and has emerged from the reservoir of avian influenza viruses.

"It is not known how the virus was transmitted.

"By identifying the source of infection, measures can be taken to reduce human exposure.

"The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether there has been any human-to-human transmission."

Tests suggest the virus could be treated with the anti-influenza drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22016945#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Artist's signs bring hip-hop back to NYC streets

Jason Shelowitz

Kanye West's lyric quoted on a sign at 106 St. and Park Ave in New York.

By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor

No matter where you live, city signs are everywhere: No Parking, No Loitering, Hospital Zone, Tow Away Zone. But one New York City artist decided in March that maybe there weren?t quite enough. Since then, Jay Shells has been hanging up dozens of red-and-white signs emblazoned with quotes from rap songs, quotes that specifically reference the corners he?s hanging them up on.

"New York is full of history and it?s the birthplace of hip-hop," explains the 33-year-old. "So many places have been mentioned in great songs, and deserve to be marked in some way. Any fan of the music who knows these lyrics and catches themselves rapping along with them, it memorializes (the artist and the song)."

Jason Shelowitz

A sign with a quote from rapper Heavy D near the 4th Street Park in New York.

Shells has immersed himself in rap lyrics for some time; he and his brother share a Twitter account where they send out lyrics they admire and credit the rapper, so the project is a natural outgrowth. But this project seems to have hit a nerve; Shells says he's heard from rappers including Big Daddy Kane, MC Serch and Prodigy, thanking him for memorializing their lyrics.?

(Note: Video contains some vulgar language.)

"It?s a public conversation with the community," Shells says. "I?ve never done something where people got super jazzed and wanted to contribute.?

Alas, the signs are temporary -- and don't blame The Man for that. Fans are appropriating them. "People who are going out to steal them are writing me and saying, 'I went to take it and it?s gone,'" he chuckles. "I?m going to keep doing them anyway."

Jason Shelowitz

A sign with a quote from rapper Jay-Z in New York.

And the theft has a silver lining: The signs aren't up long enough for the city to get irritated, which means he's so far avoided getting a cease-and-desist order from the city. "Because they?re disappearing, they don?t exist," Shells says. "I could get in trouble if I was seen putting them, up, but really -- what?s the big deal? I hope the city has better things to worry about."

Shells' good nature doesn?t mean he's smiling about every aspect of the project -- so far he estimates he's spent about $1,000 on the sign project, and is considering setting up a Kickstarter project or putting a PayPal link on his website for donations. He can?t sell the signs or make merchandise using the lyrics, which would risk a copyright infringement lawsuit.

For now, he?s just happy to keep quoting and posting, keeping that conversation with the community going.?

"I?d love it to not cost me any money," he says. "I?m getting married in a few months and trying to save money. But this is too much fun of a project to stop. It?s tricky ground. I?ll do this forever if I don?t have to pay for it."

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/02/17567025-artist-turns-rap-lyrics-into-site-specific-new-york-city-signs?lite

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Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel production could revolutionize alternative energy market

Apr. 3, 2013 ? A team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant, a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost, environmentally friendly fuel source to the world.

"Our new process could help end our dependence on fossil fuels," said Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering. "Hydrogen is one of the most important biofuels of the future."

Zhang and his team have succeeded in using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory. Zhang's method can be performed using any source of biomass.

The discovery is a featured editor's choice in an online version of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

This new environmentally friendly method of producing hydrogen utilizes renewable natural resources, releases almost no zero greenhouse gasses, and does not require costly or heavy metals. Previous methods to produce hydrogen are expensive and create greenhouse gases.

The U.S. Department of Energy says that hydrogen fuel has the potential to dramatically reduce reliance of fossil fuels and automobile manufactures are aggressively trying to develop vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells. Unlike gas-powered engines that spew out pollutants, the only byproduct of hydrogen fuel is water. Zhang's discovery opens the door to an inexpensive, renewable source of hydrogen.

Jonathan R. Mielenz, group leader of the bioscience and technology biosciences division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who is familiar with Zhang's work but not affiliated with this project, said this discovery has the potential to have a major impact on alternative energy production.

"The key to this exciting development is that Zhang is using the second most prevalent sugar in plants to produce this hydrogen," he said. "This amounts to a significant additional benefit to hydrogen production and it reduces the overall cost of producing hydrogen from biomass."

Mielenz said Zhang's process could find its way to the marketplace as quickly as three years if the technology is available. Zhang said when it does become commercially available, it has the possibility of making an enormous impact.

"The potential for profit and environmental benefits are why so many automobile, oil, and energy companies are working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as the transportation of the future," Zhang said. "Many people believe we will enter the hydrogen economy soon, with a market capacity of at least $1 trillion in the United States alone."

Obstacles to commercial production of hydrogen gas from biomass previously included the high cost of the processes used and the relatively low quantity of the end product.

But Zhang thinks he has found the answers to those problems.

For seven years, Zhang's team has been focused on finding non-traditional ways to produce high-yield hydrogen at low cost, specifically researching enzyme combinations, discovering novel enzymes, and engineering enzymes with desirable properties.

The team liberates the high-purity hydrogen under mild reaction conditions at 122 degree Fahrenheit and normal atmospheric pressure. The biocatalysts used to release the hydrogen are a group of enzymes artificially isolated from different microorganisms that thrive at extreme temperatures, some of which could grow at around the boiling point of water.

The researchers chose to use xylose, which comprises as much as 30 percent of plant cell walls. Despite its abundance, the use of xylose for releasing hydrogen has been limited. The natural or engineered microorganisms that most scientists use in their experiments cannot produce hydrogen in high yield because these microorganisms grow and reproduce instead of splitting water molecules to yield pure hydrogen.

To liberate the hydrogen, Virginia Tech scientists separated a number of enzymes from their native microorganisms to create a customized enzyme cocktail that does not occur in nature. The enzymes, when combined with xylose and a polyphosphate, liberate the unprecedentedly high volume of hydrogen from xylose, resulting in the production of about three times as much hydrogen as other hydrogen-producing microorganisms.

The energy stored in xylose splits water molecules, yielding high-purity hydrogen that can be directly utilized by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. Even more appealing, this reaction occurs at low temperatures, generating hydrogen energy that is greater than the chemical energy stored in xylose and the polyphosphate. This results in an energy efficiency of more than 100 percent -- a net energy gain. That means that low-temperature waste heat can be used to produce high-quality chemical energy hydrogen for the first time. Other processes that convert sugar into biofuels such as ethanol and butanol always have energy efficiencies of less than 100 percent, resulting in an energy penalty.

In his previous research, Zhang used enzymes to produce hydrogen from starch, but the reaction required a food source that made the process too costly for mass production.

The commercial market for hydrogen gas is now around $100 billion for hydrogen produced from natural gas, which is expensive to manufacture and generates a large amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Industry most often uses hydrogen to manufacture ammonia for fertilizers and to refine petrochemicals, but an inexpensive, plentiful green hydrogen source can rapidly change that market.

"It really doesn't make sense to use non-renewable natural resources to produce hydrogen," Zhang said. "We think this discovery is a game-changer in the world of alternative energy."

Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Additional resources were contributed by the Shell GameChanger Program, the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy BioEnergy Science Center, along with the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of Energy. The lead author of the article, Julia S. Martin Del Campo, who works in Zhang's lab, received her Ph.D. grant from the Mexican Council of Science and Technology.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Julia S. Mart?n del Campo, Joseph Rollin, Suwan Myung, You Chun, Sanjeev Chandrayan, Rodrigo Pati?o, Michael WW Adams, Y.-H. Percival Zhang. High-Yield Production of Dihydrogen from Xylose by Using a Synthetic Enzyme Cascade in a Cell-Free System. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201300766

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/FcqkmYfwq6o/130403104104.htm

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WrestleMania Diary: AJ Lee, Day 1

UP AND AT ?EM, 9:02 a.m.

Shaking off the last remnants of sleep as Washington does the same, AJ Lee hurriedly navigates her bustling hotel lobby, pausing only briefly to snap a photo with a Dolph Ziggler fan donning the teal-and-yellow tee of her favorite Showoff. She tosses her bags into the cavernous trunk of a rented Ford Edge, all-too-aware that her four-hour New Jersey odyssey was missing an essential ingredient.

?Never trust anyone who doesn?t drink coffee,? AJ quips en route to one of D.C.?s all-too-numerous Starbucks locations, dispensaries of what AJ fondly calls her ?comfort blanket? while she?s traveling. This java journey gives the WrestleMania-ready Diva a rare opportunity to explore the District of Columbia, which she still fondly remembers for? playing host to one of her first-ever WWE television appearances on the Sept. 9 edition of ?WWE Superstars? in 2010.

Caffeinated, AJ then locks in some familiar GPS coordinates, peering through dark-rimmed glasses at the road ahead.

ROAD WARRIOR AJ, 12:49 p.m.

?Sorry in advance, guys,? are never reassuring words, especially coming from a driver. But amid talk of her aspirations to one day write a book and what it was really like to try on her Raw 1,000 wedding dress (it gave her ?goosebumps?), AJ offers fair warning to the WWE.com crew as her GPS drones that her old Union City stomping grounds were drawing near ? streets she never had the privilege to drive upon even as a teenager.

?I started driving two years ago, technically,? explains AJ, whose family could not afford to get her a car when she reached the legal driving age of 16. ?I don?t know how to drive in my hometown, since I either walked everywhere or took public transportation.? Pulled over at a rest area, AJ opts to relinquish the steering wheel for this final portion of the ride, content with re-entering her past, at least for now, from the passenger?s seat.

View Comments

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemania/29/wrestlemania-diary-aj-lee/day-one

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Expanding hallowed ground at West Point cemetery

The U.S. Military Academy Band performs during a burial service at the West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. The service was for Maj. Gen. Robert Strong and wife Virginia Strong. Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

The U.S. Military Academy Band performs during a burial service at the West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. The service was for Maj. Gen. Robert Strong and wife Virginia Strong. Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Honor Guard members fold a flag during a burial service at the West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. The service was for Maj. Gen. Robert Strong and wife Virginia Strong. Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

The U.S. Military Academy Band performs during a burial service at the West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. The service was for Maj. Gen. Robert Strong and wife Virginia Strong. Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Maj. Gen. George Custer's grave is seen at the West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

U.S. Military Academy Band members are reflected in a mace during a burial ceremony at West Point Cemetery on Friday, March 22, 2013, in West Point, N.Y. The service was for Maj. Gen. Robert Strong and wife Virginia Strong.Graves of soldiers from every U.S. war make this small plot of the land the most hallowed ground on the nation's the most venerable military academy. And after 196 years and more than 8,000 souls, it's close to full. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) ? The West Point Cemetery has taken in graduates of the Long Gray Line from the age of the cavalry charge to the dawn of drone strikes. Headstones etched with names like Custer and Westmoreland stand near plots with freshly turned earth.

And after almost two centuries, the 12-acre cemetery is close to full.

The U.S. Military Academy and its graduates are taking steps to make more room with new niches for cremated remains and an eventual expansion of the burial grounds. The work will update a resting place for more than 8,000 people ? the most hallowed ground at the nation's the most venerable military academy.

"I would challenge you to find more valor in a smaller amount of space," says cemetery administrator Kathleen Silvia, who notes that 16 Medal of Honor recipients lie here.

Marquee names here include Lt. Col. George Custer, U.S. commander in Vietnam Gen. William Westmoreland and ? buried just this winter ? Gulf War commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. But it's the rows of graves of never-famous soldiers that give the cemetery its quiet dignity.

Walking among the headstones recently, Silvia ? who was among the first female West Point graduates in 1980 ? points out Revolutionary War-era dead and stoops down to tidy the marker for a recently deceased colonel she admired.

Though a military cemetery since 1817, not all the graves are uniform. A few older ones are extravagant. The headstone of celebrated Army football coach Earl "Red" Blaik is shaped like a football ready to be kicked off. Egbert Viele, a Civil War veteran, rests in a two-story pyramid guarded by two stone sphinxes. It is said that his fear of being entombed alive was so great that his mausoleum was rigged with a buzzer.

There is no record of it being used.

The grounds on a tree-sheltered promontory near New York's Hudson River are reserved for West Point graduates and cadets, soldiers who die while assigned to the academy, and immediate family members. While graves of famous alumni like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses Grant, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur are elsewhere, some 140 to 200 people are laid to rest here each year.

Some are old soldiers whose feelings for West Point never faded away. Vietnam veteran and retired Lt. Col. Freed Lowrey, a 1967 graduate, says he will be buried here among the historic figures and his classmates who were killed in that war.

"I want to be among soldiers. I want to be among people of my own kind who have served and done so much for the nation and have sacrificed so much," Lowrey says. "I could be in Arlington, I could be in any national cemetery, but this is ? and I'm not a religious person ? I mean, West Point's almost my soul."

Mourners at Schwarzkopf's service in February were told how crucial the academy was to his life and values. On a recent chilly Friday, the cremated remains of Air Force Maj. Gen. William Strong and his wife, Virginia, were buried here amid rifle volleys and a plaintive playing of taps. Strong, Class of 1940, had a distinguished career in the Air Force. Still, he and his wife decided to be buried near his father and brothers at West Point.

Lowrey, who returned to live in nearby Fishkill, now works for the West Point Association of Graduates, which has raised more than $1.5 million for a double-sided wall with niches for cremated remains. While a space beneath the cemetery's Old Cadet Chapel has enough room to handle additional cremated remains for about a decade, plots for outdoor interments of cremated remains are expected to be depleted in about two years.

Silvia expects the first sections of the wall, which will follow a circular walkway in the center of the cemetery, will be in place by that time.

Farther down the road is a plan to expand the burial ground to a patch of adjacent land, since that option could be depleted within five years. Silvia figures that would allow another decade of burials.

Silvia says the situation boils down to basic math. Academy graduating classes can now number around 1,000, much larger than generations ago. About two-dozen of the more than 90 graduates who have died in the decade-plus of conflict since the Sept. 11 attacks are interred here.

Silvia expects construction on the cremation niche wall to begin this spring. She also is enthused about plans for a smartphone app that will allow people to punch in the name of a person buried here and locate their grave.

"These are lifelong friends of ours, and it's a very special honor for me to provide the final salute," she says.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-03-West%20Point%20Cemetery/id-5858688d6e484058af7c9a883307c621

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The Real Housewives of Orange County Season 8 Premiere Recap: Drama, Babies, Blondes, Etc.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/the-real-housewives-of-orange-county-premiere/

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It's Confirmed! Jimmy Fallon Will Replace Jay Leno

Get ready for a younger, sillier Tonight Show! On April 3, NBC confirmed that the rumors are true: Jimmy Fallon is replacing Jay Leno. Starting in Spring 2014, viewers will see younger-skewing, weirder and much less predictable comedy on that iconic talk show. If Fallon stays true to his own proclivities, that is.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/jimmy-fallon-takes-over-tonight-show-will-it-work/1-a-529301?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ajimmy-fallon-takes-over-tonight-show-will-it-work-529301

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