A gene that makes bugs highly resistant to almost all known antibiotics has been found in bacteria in water supplies in New Delhi used by local people for drinking, washing and cooking, scientists said on Thursday.
The NDM 1 gene, which creates what some experts describe as "super superbugs," has spread to germs that cause cholera and dysentery, and is circulating freely in other bacteria in the Indian city capital of 14 million people, the researchers said.
"The inhabitants of New Delhi are continually being exposed to multidrug-resistant and NDM 1-positive bacteria," said Mark Toleman of Britain's Cardiff University School of Medicine, who published the findings in a study on Thursday.
A "substantial number" of them are consuming such bacteria on a daily basis, he told a briefing in London. "We believe we have discovered a very significant underlying source of NDM 1 in the capital city of India," he said.
NDM 1, or New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1, makes bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class, called carbapenems.
It first emerged in India three years ago and has now spread across the world. It has been found in a wide variety of bugs, including familiar pathogens like Escherichia coli, or E. coli.
No new drugs are on the horizon for at least 5-6 years to tackle it and experts are concerned that only a few major drug companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, still have strong antibiotic development programmes.
Toleman's study, carried out with Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, investigated how common NDM 1-producing bacteria are in community waste seepage -- such as water pools or rivulets in streets -- and tap water in urban New Delhi.
The researchers collected 171 swabs from seepage water and 50 public tap water samples from sites within a 12 kilometer radius of central New Delhi between September and October 2010.
The NDM 1 gene was found in two of the drinking-water samples and 51 of seepage samples, the researchers said, and bacteria positive for NDM 1 were grown from two drinking-water samples and 12 seepage samples.
"We would expect that perhaps as many as half a million people are carrying NDM 1-producing bacteria as normal (gut) flora in New Dehli alone," Toleman said.
Experts say the spread of superbugs threatens whole swathes of modern medicine, which cannot be practiced if doctors have no effective antibiotics to ward off infections during surgery, intensive care or cancer treatments like chemotherapy.
In a commentary about Walsh and Toleman's findings, Mohd Shahid from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India, said global action was needed.
"The potential for wider international spread of ... NDM 1 is real and should not be ignored," he wrote.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated April 7 as World Health Day and under the slogan "No action today, no cure tomorrow" it is campaigning about the risks of life-saving antibiotics losing their healing power.
"We are at a critical point in time where antibiotic resistance is reaching unprecedented levels," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO's regional director for Europe.
"Given the growth of travel and trade in Europe and across the world, people should be aware that until all countries tackle this, no country alone can be safe."
Japan a robot power everywhere except at nuclear plant
Japan may build robots to play the violin, run marathons and preside over weddings, but it has not deployed any of the machines to help repair its crippled reactors.
While robots are commonplace in the nuclear power industry, with EU engineers building one that can climb walls through radioactive fields, the electric power company running Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has not deployed any for the nuclear emergency.
Instead, its skeleton team has been given the unenviable and perhaps deadly task of cooling reactors and spent nuclear fuel on their own, only taking breaks to avoid over-exposure.
A science ministry official said a robot used to detect radiation levels is at the site of the accident in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, but nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said: "We have no reports of any robots being used."
That robot would have come in handy early on Thursday when workers monitoring radiation had to back away from the plant because it was becoming too hot.
While Japan is renowned for its cutting edge technology, it also maintains an anachronistic element in its society that relies on humans for tasks that have given way to automation in many other parts of the world, such as operating elevators and warning motorists of road construction.
In one of Japan's worst nuclear accidents, two workers were killed in September 1999, when workers at a nuclear facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, set off an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction by using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a lab.
Japan is a world leader in robots, using them to automate the most complicated manufacturing processes and to sift through rubble to look for victims in earthquakes.
Robots were also used after two infamous nuclear disasters -- Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and will almost certainly be used at Fukushima for work in highly radioactive areas.
Kim Seungho, a nuclear official who engineered robots for South Korea's atomic power plants, said: "You have to design emergency robots for plants when they are being built so they can navigate corridors, steps and close valves."
The Fukushima plant was built in the 1970s, well before robots were able to work on sophisticated tasks.
Robots are in place in many nuclear plants for structured situations such as monitoring pipes and simple maintenance.
Kim, a deputy director in nuclear technology for the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, said budget constraints and denial have kept emergency robots out of many plants in his country and around the world.
"Nuclear plant operators don't liked to think about serious situations that are beyond human control," he said by telephone.
While robots are commonplace in the nuclear power industry, with EU engineers building one that can climb walls through radioactive fields, the electric power company running Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has not deployed any for the nuclear emergency.
Instead, its skeleton team has been given the unenviable and perhaps deadly task of cooling reactors and spent nuclear fuel on their own, only taking breaks to avoid over-exposure.
A science ministry official said a robot used to detect radiation levels is at the site of the accident in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, but nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said: "We have no reports of any robots being used."
That robot would have come in handy early on Thursday when workers monitoring radiation had to back away from the plant because it was becoming too hot.
While Japan is renowned for its cutting edge technology, it also maintains an anachronistic element in its society that relies on humans for tasks that have given way to automation in many other parts of the world, such as operating elevators and warning motorists of road construction.
In one of Japan's worst nuclear accidents, two workers were killed in September 1999, when workers at a nuclear facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, set off an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction by using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a lab.
Japan is a world leader in robots, using them to automate the most complicated manufacturing processes and to sift through rubble to look for victims in earthquakes.
Robots were also used after two infamous nuclear disasters -- Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and will almost certainly be used at Fukushima for work in highly radioactive areas.
Kim Seungho, a nuclear official who engineered robots for South Korea's atomic power plants, said: "You have to design emergency robots for plants when they are being built so they can navigate corridors, steps and close valves."
The Fukushima plant was built in the 1970s, well before robots were able to work on sophisticated tasks.
Robots are in place in many nuclear plants for structured situations such as monitoring pipes and simple maintenance.
Kim, a deputy director in nuclear technology for the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, said budget constraints and denial have kept emergency robots out of many plants in his country and around the world.
"Nuclear plant operators don't liked to think about serious situations that are beyond human control," he said by telephone.
Apple pitches $499 iPad, takes on Amazon
Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off a sleek tablet that it called the iPad, pitching the new gadget at a surprisingly low price to bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops.
A buoyant Jobs took the stage at a packed theatre on Wednesday to show off the 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet, which looks like a large iPhone, and to introduce a new iBook electronic reader service that will compete with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle.
The iPad is Apple's biggest bet on a new product since the iPhone three years ago, and seeks to tap an unproven market for tablets. Analysts, while impressed by the iPad's seamless functionality, also pointed out that consumers already have smartphones and laptops for their mobile computing needs.
Jobs described the iPad as a "third category" of devices, a do-everything media gadget that can surf the Web, and play movies and video games. He also left little doubt that Apple was going after the e-book market that Amazon had popularized.
"If there's going to be a third category of device, it's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone; otherwise it has no reason for being," said Jobs, who still appeared thin following his liver transplant last year.
"Now Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this functionality with their Kindle. And we're going to stand on their shoulders and go a bit further," he said.
Famous for his skills as a pitchman, Jobs, dressed in his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck, created plenty of drama as he waited until late in the event to discuss the cost of the iPad, which analysts had expected to be up to $1,000.
Apple elected to price it for as little as $499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, starting in late March. An extra $130 is needed to equip the iPad with third-generation (3G) wireless capability. Higher-capacity models will sell for $599 and $699.
"Pricing is very aggressive, so it's pretty positive from a mass adoption perspective," said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Broadpoint Amtech.
Research group IDC said it expects Apple to ship 4 million iPad units in 2010, with about 2 million in the United States.
Shares of Apple rose to as high as $210.58 after the pricing news, up 5.5 percent from their session low. The stock closed up 0.94 percent at $207.88 on Nasdaq, within reach of its all-time high of $215.59 logged on Jan 5.
For a live blog, click here
For Reuters Insider coverage, click link.reuters.com/ges85h
For a graphic, click link.reuters.com/faj85h
For an online poll, click here
The half-inch thick, 1.5-pound iPad features Apple's own processor and 10 hours of battery life. It runs a version of the iPhone's operating system and can use virtually all of the 140,000 apps currently available for the smartphone.
"What once occupied half your living room can now be dropped in a bag," said Outsell Inc analyst Ned May. "It's pulling together a variety of needs (in) a universal entertainment device."
Apple announced a data plan deal with AT&T Inc, which appeared to have beaten out Verizon Wireless. AT&T will offer two monthly data plans for the iPad, a limited one for $14.99 and an unlimited one for $29.99.
IPHONE-LIKE ANTICIPATION
Other technology companies, including Microsoft Corp and Toshiba Corp, have launched tablets that failed to take off in recent years.
But analysts said they were impressed with the technology that Apple showed off. The iPad has a near life-size touch keyboard, and comes with all the expected features, including a calendar, an address book and maps.
"One thing Apple has proven is that they can consumerist new concepts, new technologies," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm. "That will probably be their claim to fame again with this."
However, some also mentioned potential cannibalization of other Apple products.
"If it's doing all these things and does it better than a notebook then they'd have to tell me why I'd want a MacBook," said NPD analyst Steve Baker.
Some industry watchers said the iPad, with its multimedia bells and whistles, will be a tough competitor for Amazon's Kindle. The iBooks store will let users buy from publishers including Pearson Plc's Penguin, News Corp's HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group.
But other analysts noted that the Kindle costs less -- $259 for the cheapest version -- and was more tailored for long-form reading, at least for now.
"This is not an e-reader -- this is a device that can be used to read books," Cowen & Co analyst James Friedland said of the iPad. "This doesn't change the game -- at the same time, Apple is a formidable competitor and our view is that over time, Apple and Amazon will emerge as the two largest players" in e-books.
Shares of Amazon took a brief hit but recovered to end 2.7 percent higher at $122.75 on Nasdaq.
In an online poll on reuters.com before Wednesday's media event, 37 percent of more than 1,000 respondents said they would pay $500-$699 for the tablet. Nearly 30 percent weren't interested, while 20 percent said they would pay $700-$899.
A buoyant Jobs took the stage at a packed theatre on Wednesday to show off the 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet, which looks like a large iPhone, and to introduce a new iBook electronic reader service that will compete with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle.
The iPad is Apple's biggest bet on a new product since the iPhone three years ago, and seeks to tap an unproven market for tablets. Analysts, while impressed by the iPad's seamless functionality, also pointed out that consumers already have smartphones and laptops for their mobile computing needs.
Jobs described the iPad as a "third category" of devices, a do-everything media gadget that can surf the Web, and play movies and video games. He also left little doubt that Apple was going after the e-book market that Amazon had popularized.
"If there's going to be a third category of device, it's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone; otherwise it has no reason for being," said Jobs, who still appeared thin following his liver transplant last year.
"Now Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this functionality with their Kindle. And we're going to stand on their shoulders and go a bit further," he said.
Famous for his skills as a pitchman, Jobs, dressed in his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck, created plenty of drama as he waited until late in the event to discuss the cost of the iPad, which analysts had expected to be up to $1,000.
Apple elected to price it for as little as $499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, starting in late March. An extra $130 is needed to equip the iPad with third-generation (3G) wireless capability. Higher-capacity models will sell for $599 and $699.
"Pricing is very aggressive, so it's pretty positive from a mass adoption perspective," said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Broadpoint Amtech.
Research group IDC said it expects Apple to ship 4 million iPad units in 2010, with about 2 million in the United States.
Shares of Apple rose to as high as $210.58 after the pricing news, up 5.5 percent from their session low. The stock closed up 0.94 percent at $207.88 on Nasdaq, within reach of its all-time high of $215.59 logged on Jan 5.
For a live blog, click here
For Reuters Insider coverage, click link.reuters.com/ges85h
For a graphic, click link.reuters.com/faj85h
For an online poll, click here
The half-inch thick, 1.5-pound iPad features Apple's own processor and 10 hours of battery life. It runs a version of the iPhone's operating system and can use virtually all of the 140,000 apps currently available for the smartphone.
"What once occupied half your living room can now be dropped in a bag," said Outsell Inc analyst Ned May. "It's pulling together a variety of needs (in) a universal entertainment device."
Apple announced a data plan deal with AT&T Inc, which appeared to have beaten out Verizon Wireless. AT&T will offer two monthly data plans for the iPad, a limited one for $14.99 and an unlimited one for $29.99.
IPHONE-LIKE ANTICIPATION
Other technology companies, including Microsoft Corp and Toshiba Corp, have launched tablets that failed to take off in recent years.
But analysts said they were impressed with the technology that Apple showed off. The iPad has a near life-size touch keyboard, and comes with all the expected features, including a calendar, an address book and maps.
"One thing Apple has proven is that they can consumerist new concepts, new technologies," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm. "That will probably be their claim to fame again with this."
However, some also mentioned potential cannibalization of other Apple products.
"If it's doing all these things and does it better than a notebook then they'd have to tell me why I'd want a MacBook," said NPD analyst Steve Baker.
Some industry watchers said the iPad, with its multimedia bells and whistles, will be a tough competitor for Amazon's Kindle. The iBooks store will let users buy from publishers including Pearson Plc's Penguin, News Corp's HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group.
But other analysts noted that the Kindle costs less -- $259 for the cheapest version -- and was more tailored for long-form reading, at least for now.
"This is not an e-reader -- this is a device that can be used to read books," Cowen & Co analyst James Friedland said of the iPad. "This doesn't change the game -- at the same time, Apple is a formidable competitor and our view is that over time, Apple and Amazon will emerge as the two largest players" in e-books.
Shares of Amazon took a brief hit but recovered to end 2.7 percent higher at $122.75 on Nasdaq.
In an online poll on reuters.com before Wednesday's media event, 37 percent of more than 1,000 respondents said they would pay $500-$699 for the tablet. Nearly 30 percent weren't interested, while 20 percent said they would pay $700-$899.
Scientists find way to block fearful memories
US researchers have found a drug-free way to block fearful memories, opening up the possibility of new treatment approaches for problems such as post traumatic stress disorder, they reported on Wednesday.
The findings in people build on studies in rats that showed that reactivating a memory -- by showing people objects that stimulate the fearful memory -- opens up a specific time window in which the memory can be edited before it is stored again.
"Before memories are stored, there is a period where they are susceptible to being disrupted," said Elizabeth Phelps of New York University, whose study appears in the journal Nature.
Earlier studies have shown that drugs can be used to block fearful memories, but the results were not long lasting.
Phelps and colleagues based their studies on findings in rats that showed that old memories can be changed or reconsolidated, but only during a specific window time after the rat is reminded of the fearful memory.
That window of susceptibility is typically between 10 minutes after re-exposure to the object to 6 hours later, when the memory stored once again in the brain.
The researchers applied these findings to people in a lab setting. First, they created a fearful memory by showing the volunteers a blue square, and then delivering a mild shock.
Once they had created the fear memory, they simply showed a blue square, which reminded them of the fear memory.
The team waited 10 minutes and then started a training period where the volunteers were repeatedly exposed to the blue square without a shock.
Phelps said simply delaying the exposure training so that it falls within a period during which the memory is susceptible to being edited made a lasting difference in the ability to block the fear memory.
A second group that was exposed to the blue square without the 10-minute waiting period, continued to show fear when exposed to the blue square.
When they brought people back a year later, the group that got the training showed no fear response -- tracked by changes in the skin -- when exposed to the blue square, while other volunteers continued to have a fear response.
Phelps said the important aspect of the study is the time window.
"What we think is happening is because we did it at the right time, you are restoring the memory as safe as opposed to just creating a new memory that competes with the old memory," Phelps said.
She said the findings are the first of their type in humans, and she cautioned that the findings cannot be immediately applied to people with severe anxiety problems, such as post traumatic stress disorder.
"We did a blue square with a mild shock," she said. "Normal fear memories are way more complex than that."
But she said, the findings do open up the possibility of new training methods that can be studied to help people overcome difficult memories.
"It's really exciting for the potential of treating these disorders. It's just a ways away," Phelps said.
The study was supported through a grant by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health
The findings in people build on studies in rats that showed that reactivating a memory -- by showing people objects that stimulate the fearful memory -- opens up a specific time window in which the memory can be edited before it is stored again.
"Before memories are stored, there is a period where they are susceptible to being disrupted," said Elizabeth Phelps of New York University, whose study appears in the journal Nature.
Earlier studies have shown that drugs can be used to block fearful memories, but the results were not long lasting.
Phelps and colleagues based their studies on findings in rats that showed that old memories can be changed or reconsolidated, but only during a specific window time after the rat is reminded of the fearful memory.
That window of susceptibility is typically between 10 minutes after re-exposure to the object to 6 hours later, when the memory stored once again in the brain.
The researchers applied these findings to people in a lab setting. First, they created a fearful memory by showing the volunteers a blue square, and then delivering a mild shock.
Once they had created the fear memory, they simply showed a blue square, which reminded them of the fear memory.
The team waited 10 minutes and then started a training period where the volunteers were repeatedly exposed to the blue square without a shock.
Phelps said simply delaying the exposure training so that it falls within a period during which the memory is susceptible to being edited made a lasting difference in the ability to block the fear memory.
A second group that was exposed to the blue square without the 10-minute waiting period, continued to show fear when exposed to the blue square.
When they brought people back a year later, the group that got the training showed no fear response -- tracked by changes in the skin -- when exposed to the blue square, while other volunteers continued to have a fear response.
Phelps said the important aspect of the study is the time window.
"What we think is happening is because we did it at the right time, you are restoring the memory as safe as opposed to just creating a new memory that competes with the old memory," Phelps said.
She said the findings are the first of their type in humans, and she cautioned that the findings cannot be immediately applied to people with severe anxiety problems, such as post traumatic stress disorder.
"We did a blue square with a mild shock," she said. "Normal fear memories are way more complex than that."
But she said, the findings do open up the possibility of new training methods that can be studied to help people overcome difficult memories.
"It's really exciting for the potential of treating these disorders. It's just a ways away," Phelps said.
The study was supported through a grant by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health
"Big Bang" collider sets particle beam record
The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN near Geneva scored a world record on Monday by accelerating beams to the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider, the research center announced.
Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the achievement marked a major milestone on the way to tests next year which they hope will unlock secrets of the origins and make-up of the universe.
The energy of the twin beams circulated around 27-km tunnels deep underground went, at 1.18 trillion electric volts (TeV), well past the previous highest -- just under 1 TeV -- in a collider at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
The achievement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came 10 days after the world's largest scientific experiment was restarted following an accident soon after its launch in September 2008.
"We are still coming to terms with just how smooth the LHC commissioning is going," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer as the record was announced. "It is fantastic."
The beam energy now achieved in the LHC -- a vast complex of huge magnets, electronics and computers costing some $10 billion underground on the Franco-Swiss border -- leaves some way to go before the real "Big Bang" experiments can begin.
The object of these is to smash particles together at a force of some 7 TeV and create conditions one billionth of a second after the explosion 13.7 billion years ago that shaped the universe and everything in it.
Data gathered when those collisions occur will be recorded and analyzed by a network of 10,000 researchers not just at CERN at the foot of the French Jura mountains but also in some 30 countries around the world.
Scientists hope to learn how matter, and what is called anti-matter, was created and whether the so-called "Higgs Boson" -- which Scottish physicist Peter Higgs suggests helped matter come together -- actually exists.
But despite the rapid and seamless progress since the first beams were injected into the repaired LHC on November 20, leaders of the project remained cautious about the moment when they will start what they call "first physics."
Said Heuer: "We are continuing to take it step by step, and there is a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."
Over the next few weeks, scientists will move into a commissioning phase aimed at slowly increasing the beam intensity and producing good quality collision data that the monitoring machines can test their capacities on.
The first major collisions at 7 TeV are due to take place some time in the first quarter of next year, CERN says.
Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the achievement marked a major milestone on the way to tests next year which they hope will unlock secrets of the origins and make-up of the universe.
The energy of the twin beams circulated around 27-km tunnels deep underground went, at 1.18 trillion electric volts (TeV), well past the previous highest -- just under 1 TeV -- in a collider at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
The achievement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came 10 days after the world's largest scientific experiment was restarted following an accident soon after its launch in September 2008.
"We are still coming to terms with just how smooth the LHC commissioning is going," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer as the record was announced. "It is fantastic."
The beam energy now achieved in the LHC -- a vast complex of huge magnets, electronics and computers costing some $10 billion underground on the Franco-Swiss border -- leaves some way to go before the real "Big Bang" experiments can begin.
The object of these is to smash particles together at a force of some 7 TeV and create conditions one billionth of a second after the explosion 13.7 billion years ago that shaped the universe and everything in it.
Data gathered when those collisions occur will be recorded and analyzed by a network of 10,000 researchers not just at CERN at the foot of the French Jura mountains but also in some 30 countries around the world.
Scientists hope to learn how matter, and what is called anti-matter, was created and whether the so-called "Higgs Boson" -- which Scottish physicist Peter Higgs suggests helped matter come together -- actually exists.
But despite the rapid and seamless progress since the first beams were injected into the repaired LHC on November 20, leaders of the project remained cautious about the moment when they will start what they call "first physics."
Said Heuer: "We are continuing to take it step by step, and there is a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."
Over the next few weeks, scientists will move into a commissioning phase aimed at slowly increasing the beam intensity and producing good quality collision data that the monitoring machines can test their capacities on.
The first major collisions at 7 TeV are due to take place some time in the first quarter of next year, CERN says.
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