Charles Dallara, left and Jean Lemiere from the Institute of International Finance leave Maximos Mansion after meeting Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
Charles Dallara, left and Jean Lemiere from the Institute of International Finance leave Maximos Mansion after meeting Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos leaves Maximos Mansion after a meeting with Greek Prime minister Lucas Papademos, Charles Dallara and Jean Lemiere from the Institute of International Finance in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, left, and Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos leave Maximos Mansion after a meeting Charles Dallara and Jean Lemiere from the Institute of International Finance in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
Charles Dallara, left and Jean Lemiere from the Institute of International Finance leave Maximos Mansion after meeting Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
Charles Dallara managing director of the Institute of International Finance arrives at Maximos Mansion for a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in Athens on Saturday Jan. 28 2012. Talks between Greece and private creditors on halving the country's privately held debt load have ended and a deal is very close, according to the creditors' representatives. (AP Photo)
ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Greece and its private creditors are very close to a deal that will significantly reduce the country's debt and give it more time to repay the rest of what it owes.
After three hours of talks with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Saturday, creditor representatives Charles Dallara and Jean Lemierre issued a statement saying the two sides were "close to the finalization of a voluntary (private sector involvement) ... We expect to conclude next week as discussions on other issues move forward."
The statement also referred to "the framework expressed publicly earlier this week by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in his capacity as Chairman of the Eurogroup."
The reference suggested the creditors had agreed with Juncker's proposal that the new bonds to be issued by Greece in place of the old ones should have an interest rate "clearly below 4 percent." The rate had been the main sticking point in the two-week-long talks as creditors had demanded a higher one.
Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and Lemierre, senior adviser to the chairman, Banque BNP Paribas, represented banks, insurance companies and other private holders of some euro206 billion ($270 billion) in Greek bonds.
While the details are not yet final, it is expected these bondholders will accept a 50 percent writedown in the value of their bondholdings, meaning Greece's debt will be reduced by just over euro100 billion. The maturities in the new bonds will also be longer.
An agreement with private creditors is also seen as a prerequisite for Greece to get a second, euro130 billion bailout from its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund, although there are other issues involved before Greece can get that aid.
The EU and the IMF have already signed off on a euro110 billion aid package, in May 2010, most of which has already been disbursed.
Dallara and Lemierre will leave Greece on Sunday and "will remain in close consultation with Greek and other authorities," the creditors' statement said.
___
Elena Becatoros in Athens and Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels contributed.
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ATHENS (Reuters) ? Greece and its private creditors made progress on Thursday in talks on restructuring its debt, both sides said, and they will continue negotiating on Friday with the aim of sealing an agreement within a few days.
Athens needs a deal quickly to avert a chaotic default when a major bond redemption comes due in March. Greece's creditors are demanding that the European Central Bank contribute to a deal to put the country's messy finances back on track.
"The talks focused on legal and technical issues and progress was made. They will continue on Friday and probably on Saturday too," a senior Greek government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"We aim to conclude the deal very soon."
The Institute of International Finance, which leads talks on behalf of creditors, similarly cited progress and said work would continue Friday. Neither side disclosed any details.
After weeks of wrangling over the coupon, or interest rate, Greece must pay on new bonds it will swap for existing debt, attention has shifted to whether the ECB and other public creditors will follow private bondholders in swallowing losses.
A day after International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said the ECB may need to accept losses on its Greek holdings, the European Union's top economic official also warned more public money will be needed to make up a shortfall in the country's second bailout.
EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told Reuters "there is likely to be some increased need of official sector funding, but not anything dramatic." It was the first time a top EU official had said more public money than a planned 130 billion euro package would be required to rescue Greece.
Private bondholders have added to the pressure by insisting that others who bought bonds, and in particular the ECB, which is Athens' single biggest creditor, take part in the bond swap.
The swap, also known as the Private Sector Involvement, is aimed at slashing Greece's debt by getting creditors to write down their holdings by 50 percent nominally. Real losses are expected to be higher, depending on the terms involved.
"It would be outrageous if the ECB doesn't take part in the PSI as keeping their Greek bonds to maturity would allow them to make a profit, while everybody else is taking 70 percent (losses) or even more," one source close to the talks said.
The IIF wants public sector officials to be more decisive in negotiations over Greek debt, the bank lobby group's chairman and Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann told CNBC.
The ECB, which owns roughly 40 billion euros worth of Greek bonds, is no closer to agreeing on whether or not it will take losses on the Greek bonds it owns after a late night Wednesday meeting, euro zone central bank sources told Reuters.
Either way, a debt deal at the very latest must be clinched a month before 14.5 billion euros of bond redemptions fall due on March 20, the first source said, i.e., in just over three weeks.
If a deal is not reached by then, Greece could sink into an uncontrolled default that would trigger a banking crisis spreading contagion through the euro zone, though the ECB's creation of nearly half a trillion euros of three-year money for the banks in December has tempered that fear.
Debt-laden Italy saw its government bond yields and the cost of insuring against a default fall on Thursday, helped by solid demand for short-term debt at an auction.
COUPON STUMBLE
So far the coupon on the new bonds had been the main stumbling block in the negotiations.
On Monday, euro zone ministers rejected the creditors' offer of a 4 percent coupon on new bonds after Greece and its EU/IMF lenders held out for a 3.5 percent interest rate. They want the lower coupon to ensure the country's debt falls to a target of 120 percent of GDP by 2020, from around 160 percent now.
A second source familiar with the negotiations said the "coupon is parked for current time until we can get closer on detail of the overall package". Asked if that would include the ECB, the source said: "We would expect it to, still to be determined though."
Greek bankers and government officials said they had not heard of any new proposal from creditors, after local media reported they were willing to improve their "final offer" of a 4 percent interest rate on the new bonds to about 3.75 percent.
One Greek daily, Kerdos, said participation of public sector creditors including the ECB in the swap deal was a pre-condition for that offer.
"Until last week, we knew that the steering committee was authorized to concede up to 3.8 percent for the average coupon," one senior Greek banker told Reuters.
"But things are once again up in the air. You have to deal with politicians and 15 different governments asking for different things."
Exact details of Friday's meetings have yet to be scheduled, after IIF chief Charles Dallara left a meeting with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos late on Thursday.
Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the debt swap talks were on a "good path".
Senior EU, IMF and ECB officials are holding talks with the Greek government in parallel with the debt swap talks, to flesh out a new 130-billion euro bailout for Greece. They have warned they need the debt swap to cut Greece's debt substantially in order to go ahead with the new loans.
Talks with the "troika" inspectors on the new bailout program are expected to go well into next week.
A senior German official said Greece was not expected to play a major role at the EU leaders summit on Monday and that Germany does not expect the troika to deliver a report on Greece's progress before the summit.
Greece has made little progress on reforms as it stumbles through its worst post-World War II economic crisis. The task facing the country has been made harder with anger against austerity measures and squabbling politicians running high.
A poll on Thursday showed Greece's conservatives had widened their lead over socialist coalition partners ahead of elections expected in April, but they would not win an absolute majority if elections were held now.
Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted in a German newspaper as saying the euro zone would probably have to support Greece longer than expected -- more than 10 years.
(Additional reporting by Sarah White and Sophie Sassard in London, Paul Taylor and Axel Threlfall in Davos, Harry Papachristou, Tatiana Fragou, Renee Maltezou and Karolina Tagaris in Athens; Writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
WASHINGTON ? The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that a full economic recovery could take nearly three more years, and it went further than ever to assure consumers and businesses that they will be able to borrow cheaply well into the future.
The central bank said it would probably not increase its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 at the earliest ? a year and a half later than it had previously said.
The new timetable showed the Fed is concerned that the recovery remains stubbornly slow. But it also thinks inflation will stay tame enough for rates to remain at record lows without igniting price increases.
Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that late 2014 is merely its "best guess." The Fed can shift that plan if the economic picture changes. But he cast doubt on whether that would be necessary.
"Unless there is a substantial strengthening of the economy in the near term, it's a pretty good guess we will be keeping rates low for some time," he said.
The Fed has kept its key rate at a record low near zero for about three years. Its new time frame suggests the rate will stay there for roughly an additional three years.
The bank's tepid outlook also suggests it's prepared to do more to help the economy. One possibility is a third bond-buying program that would seek to further drive down rates on mortgages and other loans to embolden consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more.
In a statement after a two-day policy meeting, the Fed said it stands ready to adjust its "holdings as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in the context of price stability."
Treasury yields fell after the midday announcement. But yields stopped falling after the bank later issued forecasts for the economy and interest rates. They showed that while some members foresee super-low rates beyond 2014, six of the 17 members forecast a rate increase as early as this year or next.
It was the first time the Fed had released interest-rate forecasts from its committee members. It will now do so four times a year, when it also updates its economic outlook.
The rate forecasts are an effort to provide more explicit clues about the Fed's plans. They also coincide with a broader Fed effort to make its communications with the public more open.
Lower yields on bonds tend to encourage investors to shift money into stocks, which can boost wealth and spur more spending.
Stocks, which had traded lower before the Fed's announcement, quickly recovered their losses. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 12,758.85, its highest close in more than eight months.
Some economists said the new late-2014 target may foreshadow further Fed action to try to invigorate the economy.
Julie Coronado, an economist at BNP Paribas, said she thought the Fed was indicating that it will step up its purchases of bonds and other assets if economic growth fails to accelerate ? even if it doesn't slow.
That is a "very low bar indeed," she wrote in a note to clients.
Other analysts fear that the Fed's longer-term timetable for a rate increase could hamstring it, even though Bernanke stressed the Fed's ability to adjust rates as it sees fit.
Dana Saporta, an economist at Credit Suisse, worried that the much-longer timetable would compromise the Fed's credibility if it must raise rates sooner because of unexpectedly strong growth and inflation.
"It's striking that the Fed would make an implicit commitment for almost three years," Saporta said. "It seems like an awfully long time to make such a statement. Given that no one knows what will happen ... the (Fed) may eventually regret this."
The central bank slightly reduced its outlook for growth this year, from as much as 2.9 percent forecast in November down to 2.7 percent. For the first time, the Fed provided an official target for inflation ? 2 percent ? in a statement of its long-term policy goals.
The bank sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2 percent this year, better than its earlier forecast of 8.5 percent. December's unemployment rate was 8.5 percent.
Those rates are still far higher than normal. The Fed didn't set a formal target for unemployment, but it said a rate between 5.2 percent and 6 percent would be consistent with a healthy economy.
Bernanke noted that the Fed expects only moderate growth over the next year. He pointed to the persistently depressed housing market and continued tight credit for many consumers and companies.
The Fed described inflation as "subdued," a more encouraging assessment than last month.
"This is a fairly clear-cut signal that inflation is not on their radar at this point," Tom Porcelli, an economist at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a research note.
The Fed's statement was approved on a 9-1 vote. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond regional Fed bank, dissented. He objected to the new time frame for a rate increase.
The extended time frame is a shift from the Fed's previous plan to keep the rate low at least until mid-2013.
Beyond the adjusted outlook for interest rates, Wednesday's statement used the same language as before in describing Europe's debt problems and the impact on the world economy.
The threat of a recession in Europe is likely to drag on the global economy. And another year of weak wage gains in the United States could force consumers to pull back on spending, which would slow growth.
But for now, the American economy is looking a little better. Companies are hiring more, the stock market is rising, factories are busy and more people are buying cars. Even the home market is showing slight gains after three dismal years.
The Fed has taken previous steps to strengthen the economy, including purchases of $2 trillion in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to try to cut long-term rates and ease borrowing costs.
Some Fed officials have resisted further bond buying for fear it would raise the risk of high inflation. And many doubt it would help much since Treasury yields are already near historic lows.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ? The black-and-white silent film "The Artist" led the Golden Globes with three wins Sunday at a show that spread Hollywood's love around among a broad range of films, including best drama recipient "The Descendants" and its star, George Clooney.
Wins for "The Artist" included best musical or comedy and best actor in a musical or comedy for Jean Dujardin. Along with best drama, "The Descendants" won the dramatic-actor Globe for Clooney.
The dual best-picture prizes at the Globes could set up a showdown between "The Artist" and "The Descendants" for the top honor at next month's Academy Awards.
Other acting winners were Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, and Octavia Spencer, while Martin Scorsese earned the directing honor.
"I gotta thank everybody in England that let me come and trample over their history," said Streep, earning her eighth Globe, this time as dramatic actress for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Williams won for actress in a musical or comedy as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week With Marilyn," 52 years after Monroe's win for the same prize at the Globes for "Some Like It Hot."
The supporting-acting Globes went to Plummer as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in the father-son drama "Beginners" and Spencer as a brassy housekeeper joining other black maids to share stories about life with their white employers in the 1960s Deep South tale "The Help."
"With regard to domestics in this country, now and then, I think Dr. King said it best: `All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance.' And I thank you for recognizing that with our film," Spencer said.
Scorsese won for the Paris adventure "Hugo." It was the third directing Globe in the last 10 years for Scorsese, who previously won for "Gangs of New York" and "The Departed" and received the show's Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement two years ago.
He won over a field of contenders that included Michel Hazanavicius, who had been considered by many in Hollywood as a favorite for his black-and-white silent film "The Artist."
Williams offered thanks for giving her the same award Monroe once won and joked that her young daughter put up with bedtime stories for six months spoken in Monroe's voice.
"I consider myself a mother first and an actress second, so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl, whose bravery and exuberance is the example I take with me in my work and my life," Williams said.
Dujardin became the first star in a silent film to earn a major Hollywood prize since the early days of film. He won as a silent-era star whose career unravels amid the rise of talking pictures in the late 1920s.
It's a breakout role in Hollywood for Dujardin, a star back home in France but little known to U.S. audiences previously. His French credits include "The Artist" creator Hazanavicius' spy spoofs "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" and "OSS 117: Lost in Rio."
While the musical or comedy categories at the Globes offer recognition for lighter films amid Hollywood's sober-minded awards season, the winners usually are not serious contenders for the Oscars. The last time the winner for best musical or comedy at the Globes went on to claim best-picture at the Oscars was nine years ago with "Chicago."
This time, though, "The Artist" and Dujardin have enough critical mass to compete at the Oscars with dramatic counterparts such as "The Descendants" and Clooney.
Both films have a good mix of laughs and tears. "The Artist" could be called a comedy with strong doses of melodrama, while "The Descendants" might be described as a drama tinged with gently comic moments.
Directed by Alexander Payne ("Sideways"), "The Descendants" provided a more down-to-earth role for Clooney, who's often known for slick, high-rolling characters such as those in his "Ocean's Eleven" heist capers and or the legal saga "Michael Clayton."
Adapted from Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel, "The Descendants" casts Clooney as Matt King, the scion of an aristocratic Hawaiian clan and a neglectful dad suddenly forced to hold together his two spirited daughters after his wife falls into a coma from a boating accident.
Along the way, Matt uncovers a staggering secret about his marriage and comes to reevaluate the principles under which he's lived his life.
Charming audiences since it premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival, "The Artist" tells the story of George Valentin (Dujardin), a big-screen superstar known for adventurous comic capers alongside his adorable dog, who's always at his side on screen and in real life.
As talking pictures take over and the Depression hits, George loses everything ? his career, his marriage, his fortune and his home. Through it all, he has a guardian angel in Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, a supporting-actress Globe nominee and Hazanavicius' real-life romantic partner). A rising talkies star, Peppy got her career going with help from George, and she now aims to repay the favor.
The only time silent films have won best-picture or acting Oscars was in the awards first year, for 1927-28, 16 years before the Golden Globes even started.
At that first Oscar ceremony, when the transition to the sound era was just under way, the silent winners included the war story "Wings" as outstanding picture and the marital betrayal tale "Sunrise" as most unique and artistic picture, the only time that category was used. Janet Gaynor won as best actress for "Sunrise" and two other silent films, while Emil Jannings was picked as best actor for the silent films "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh."
Other than some short silent films and one silent foreign-language nominee in 1983, it's been all talkies among contenders for top honors during Hollywood's awards season in the 83 years since the first Oscars.
"The Artist," which led the Globes with six nominations, also won the musical-score prize for composer Ludovic Bource.
Among its losses was for screenplay, a prize that went to Woody Allen for his romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris," the filmmaker's biggest hit in decades. Never a fan of movie awards, Allen was a no-show at the Globes.
Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" won for best animated film, while the Iranian tale "A Separation" was named the foreign-language winner.
Ricky Gervais, who has ruffled feathers at past shows with sharp wisecracks aimed at Hollywood's elite and the Globes show itself, returned as host for the third-straight year. He started with some slams at the Globes as Hollywood's second-biggest film ceremony, after the Oscars.
Gervais joked that the Globes "are just like the Oscars, but without all that esteem. The Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton. A bit louder, a bit trashier, a bit drunker and more easily bought. Allegedly. Nothing's been proved."
He also needled early winners, saying the show was running long and stars needed to keep their speeches short.
"You don't need to thank everyone you've ever met or members of your family, who have done nothing," Gervais said. "Just the main two. Your agent and God."
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft had stalled in Earth orbit shortly after its launch on Nov. 9, losing a few miles of altitude each day until it fell to Earth.
I must confess that I'm truly baffled by the level of support I'm seeing among my friends for presidential candidate Ron Paul. While the number of Paul fans in my circles is relatively small, he nonetheless enjoys the highest level of support from my LGBT-identified and equality-supporting friends out of all the non-LGBT-friendly candidates. In addition, the Ron Paul supporters I know tend to be passionately, often blindly, devoted to their candidate, steamrolling over any criticisms of Paul, no matter how legitimate, and simply dismissing out of hand those they cannot out-argue.
To many people, Ron Paul's sound bites are very appealing. Smaller government. Individual liberty. Legalization of marijuana and other drugs. (Yes, I think this has a lot to do with the support Paul receives, especially among young people and college students.) Unfortunately, it's been my experience that most supporters of Ron Paul stop there and either don't dig any further or ignore the digging done by others. This alarms me, because Ron Paul's record is very, very anti-gay.
On his best days, Ron Paul supports the so-called "states' rights" position regarding marriage equality. On his worst, he has specifically bragged about his efforts to obstruct and attack LGBT people's civil rights and gone out of his way to slander and mischaracterize LGBT people.
Setting aside the generally disturbing deployment of the "states' rights" argument at all, given its shameful history as a justifier of slavery and Jim Crow laws in this country, I'd like to ask Mr. Paul (as well as those who profess to support both Ron Paul and LGBT equality) why LGBT couples should be the only Americans whose marriages are subject to the "states' rights" standard. Why should only LGBT people, but not straight people, have to seek the approval of our state legislatures and/or citizenry in order to marry the people we love? Why should our marriages be the only ones that dissolve when we cross state lines? And why is this an acceptable state of affairs, especially given the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law to all American citizens?
"Yeah," many of my Paul-supporting friends will say, "but that's just your opinion."
This brings up another point: the difference between opinion and fact. Maybe it's just me, but in this era of false equivalency memes, it appears as though this distinction is being increasingly overlooked. A fact is something that is empirically true and can be supported by evidence, while an opinion is a belief that may or may not be backed up with some type of evidence, usually taking the form of a subjective statement that can be emotionally based or result from a person's individual interpretation of a fact.
FACT: Ron Paul's presidential campaign issued a flyer that boasted about the candidate's efforts to introduce legislation that would remove challenges to the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act from the federal court system.
FACT: Ron Paul's Iowa state director is Mike Heath, a long-term Christian-right activist who formerly served as the board chairman of an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group known as "Americans for Truth About Homosexuality."
FACT: Ron Paul has a long history of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments.
FACT: As state above, Ron Paul supports the so-called "states' rights" approach to marriage, but interestingly, only for LGBT couples.
FACT: Ron Paul said, "If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress' constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage license issued in another state."
FACT: Ron Paul opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers.
Based on the above examples and so many others, there is no way one can honestly characterize Ron Paul's past statements and record as anything other than anti-gay. Of course, LGBTs and supporters of LGBT equality, like all voters, can and should vote for whomever they choose. I am neither disputing that right nor attempting in any way to tell anyone how to vote. What I am saying, however, is that LGBT and pro-LGBT voters should at least acknowledge that a vote for a candidate like Ron Paul is a vote for someone who opposes their rights.
?
Follow John Becker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/freedom2marry
FILE - An undated file family photo released by Marcia Twitty shows Natalee Holloway of Mountain Brook, Ala. Alabama Judge Alan King signed a court order Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 declaring Natalee Holloway legally dead, more than six years after the teenager vanished in Aruba on a high school graduation trip. King took that step after a hearing Thursday requested by the teen's father, David Holloway. The father told the judge in September he believed his daughter had died and he wished to stop paying her medical insurance and use her college fund for her brother. (AP Photo/Family photo, File)
FILE - An undated file family photo released by Marcia Twitty shows Natalee Holloway of Mountain Brook, Ala. Alabama Judge Alan King signed a court order Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 declaring Natalee Holloway legally dead, more than six years after the teenager vanished in Aruba on a high school graduation trip. King took that step after a hearing Thursday requested by the teen's father, David Holloway. The father told the judge in September he believed his daughter had died and he wished to stop paying her medical insurance and use her college fund for her brother. (AP Photo/Family photo, File)
David Holloway, left, talks with his attorney Mark White during a probate hearing in Birmingham, Ala.,Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. An Alabama probate judge disclosed at the hearing that he will sign an order declaring Natalee Holloway dead, more than six years after the teenager vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Beth Holloway is pursued by reporters following a hearing in Birmingham, Ala.,Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. An Alabama probate judge disclosed at the hearing that he will sign an order declaring Natalee Holloway dead, more than six years after the teenager vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
David Holloway, left, looks over papers as he sits with his attorney Mark White during a probate hearing in Birmingham, Ala.,Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. An Alabama probate judge disclosed at the hearing that he will sign an order declaring Natalee Holloway dead, more than six years after the teenager vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Beth Holloway, right, is pursued by reporters following a hearing in Birmingham, Ala.,Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. An Alabama probate judge disclosed at a court hearing Thursday that he will sign an order declaring her daughter, Natalee Holloway, dead more than six years after the teenager vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) ? The parents of Natalee Holloway, the American teenager who disappeared in Aruba in 2005, say their ordeal hasn't ended with a judge declaring their daughter dead. Their lawyers say they hope a young Dutchman seen leaving a bar with Holloway on the last day she was seen alive might ultimately be brought before a U.S. court on charges stemming from the case.
Joran van der Sloot, 24, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Peru to the 2010 slaying of a young woman he had met in a Lima casino. That plea from the Dutchman described as the prime suspect in the Holloway case came hours before Thursday's hearing in a Birmingham court where Dave and Beth Holloway watched the difficult step of a judge ruling their daughter legally dead.
"We've been dealing with her death for the last six and a half years," Dave Holloway said after Thursday's hearing. He said the judge's order closes one chapter in the ordeal, but added: "We've still got a long way to go to get justice."
Thursday's hearing was scheduled before van der Sloot ? who had been questioned in Holloway's disappearance ? pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a 21-year-old Peruvian, Stephany Flores. Flores was slain five years to the day after Holloway, an 18-year-old from the wealthy Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, disappeared.
Dave Holloway said he hopes van der Sloot, who awaits sentencing, gets a 30-year prison term sought by Peruvian prosecutors. Shortly after Flores' death on May 30, 2010, van der Sloot told police he had killed the woman in Peru in a fit of rage after she discovered on his laptop his connection to Holloway's disappearance. Police forensic experts disputed the claim.
"Everybody knows his personality. I believe he is beyond rehabilitation," Dave Holloway said.
Attorneys said both parents spoke of hopes that van der Sloot's next stop will be Birmingham, where he faces federal charges accusing him of extorting $25,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughter's body. Prosecutors said the money was paid, but nothing was disclosed about the missing woman's whereabouts.
Authorities said they believe the tall, garrulous Dutchman used the money to travel to Peru on May 14, 2010, where Flores was killed two weeks later. Van der Sloot is now jailed in Peru.
"I expect to see him in Birmingham," Dave Holloway said of van der Sloot on Thursday, shortly after Probate Judge Alan King declared his daughter dead.
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a high school graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island where van der Sloot grew up. Her body was never found and repeated searches turned up nothing as intense media coverage brought the case worldwide attention.
Investigators have long worked from the assumption that the young woman was dead in Aruba, where the case was classified as a homicide investigation. That investigation remains open, though there has been no recent activity, said Solicitor General Taco Stein, an official with the prosecutor's office in Aruba.
"The team that was acting in that investigation still is functioning as a team and they get together whenever there is information or things are needed in the case or a new tip arrives," Stein said in a phone interview Thursday.
In Birmingham, Natalee Holloway's parents, who have been divorced since 1993, shook hands and talked briefly before Thursday's hearing. During the 10-minute proceeding, they looked on somberly.
Dave Holloway told the judge in September he believed his daughter was dead and wanted to stop payments on her medical insurance and use her $2,000 college fund to help her younger brother. Beth Holloway initially objected, but her lawyer, Charlie DeBardeleben, said she later changed her mind once she understood her husband's intentions.
Beth Holloway sat in the back row in court, staring at her hands as she held them in her lap most of the time. Her attorney said it was difficult for her to witness the judge signing the death declaration.
"She's ready to move on from this," DeBardeleben added.
Mark White, an attorney for Dave Holloway, told the judge before he ruled that there was no indication Holloway was alive ? despite exhaustive searches, reward offers and blanket media coverage at times.
"Despite all that no evidence has been found Natalee Holloway is alive," he told the judge.
King had ruled in September that Dave Holloway had met the legal presumption of death for his daughter and it was up to someone to prove she didn't die on the trip. Thursday's hearing was held after a wait of several months but no one came forward with new information.
Attorneys said they are unaware of any plans for a memorial service.
___
Online:
AP interactive: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/natalee-holloway
Dish Network's curious Blockbuster project appears to be sputtering a bit, now that the company has confirmed that it will shutter more stores than originally anticipated. Speaking to Reuters at CES today, Dish Network CEO Joe Clayton confirmed that his company plans to close all Blockbuster shops that aren't turning a profit, and that some of the remaining stores will be converted into Dish customer service outlets. Back in July, the company announced plans to keep about 1,500 stores open, along with about 90 percent of Blockbuster employees, but those aspirations have since been derailed. "We are committed to keeping the profitable stores open that are generating positive cash flow, but there are ones that aren't going to make it," Clayton explained. "We will close unprofitable stores. We will close additional stores." The exec did not specify how many stores would be closed, nor did he offer any sort of timeline, but spokesman Marc Lumpkin said that the decisions would be made on a "case by case" basis.
(Reuters) ? Seattle Genetics Inc said it found a second instance of a patient on its cancer drug Adcetris developing a deadly brain infection, prompting the company and regulators to include a stronger warning on the drug's label.
There has also been a third suspected but unconfirmed case.
The infection has also been reported in patients taking Biogen Idec's multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri.
A milder warning was included in the original Adcetris label based on a single case reported in a patient who had received four chemotherapy regimens prior to receiving the drug.
Following the occurrence of a second case of the infection, the company began working with U.S. regulators to add a stronger, boxed warning.
The infection, known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), is a rare disease of the central nervous system that often leads to death or severe disability and is believed to be caused by the JC virus.
"Although PML in lymphoma patients can be caused by factors such as underlying disease and prior therapies that affect the immune system, a contributory role of Adcetris cannot be excluded," Chief Medical Officer Thomas C. Reynolds said in a statement.
Adcetris, known chemically as brentuximab vedotin, received accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August 2011 for two types of relatively rare blood cancers -- Hodgkin's lymphoma and anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
The drug links a tumor-targeting antibody to a cancer-killing chemotherapy drug with the goal of limiting side effects.
Of course, Zoellner never really deals with the ultimate nullifier of all arguments about violent crime: In the last few years, as a recession has groaned on and on and Americans have grown more isolated, the crime rate has actually declined. Something must be worse now, right? Zoellner hones in on a few things that have changed rapidly and?from the liberal?s perspective?horrendously. He talks with Jon Justice, a drive-time radio host who used to bully Giffords as socialist or socialist-enabler. ?There is a blanket assurance in talk radio that one?s interests are being looked out for,? writes Zoellner, ?that some brave body is finally calling bullshit and speaking the truth to power.? Well, yes: But in the very next paragraph, Zoellner admits that ?there is nothing new about this in America.? In a book ostensibly about how something new and dark is happening to the country, Zoellner points out that Dallas, before JFK?s final visit, was roiled by right-wing conspiracy theories. ?A report on the social context of Dallas in 1963,? writes Zoellner, ?concluded that a pervasive culture of condoning violence as a way of settling disputes, as well as a competition to make outrageous political statements without shame or challenge, provided a logical arena for the sudden murder of a politician.?
FRIDAY, Jan. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Chronic boredom grips one-fourth of office workers, which may affect their quality of work as well as their physical and mental health, a new study suggests.
British researchers asked 102 office workers if they got bored at work and how they managed that boredom. Of those surveyed, 25 percent said they are chronically bored, and often eat chocolate or drink coffee to cope. The apathetic workers also said they were more likely to drink alcohol at the end of day.
Boredom also affected how well the workers performed their jobs. Nearly 80 percent of those polled said boredom caused them to lose their concentration, and more than half said it caused them to make mistakes. About half of the workers admitted that boredom might force them to leave their job.
"My analysis of the results suggests that the most significant cause of office boredom is an undemanding workload. So managers should look at ways of reducing sources of workplace boredom and at encouraging healthier ways of coping," said Dr. Sandi Mann, from the University of Central Lancashire in a news release. "We also found that some people are far more prone to boredom than others. Managers might consider using boredom-proneness as a tool when they are selecting staff or making decisions about staff development."
The researchers noted that job rotation and other enrichment programs might help reduce boredom in the workplace. Providing workers with healthy snacks and drinks might encourage them to avoid unhealthy indulgences, they said.
The findings are slated for presentation Thursday at a meeting of the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology in Chester, England. Data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on promoting health and well-being of workers.
The particles are called Criegee intermediates, or Criegee biradicals, and are short-lived molecules that form in the Earth?s atmosphere when ozone reacts with alkenes.
Elusive molecules in the Earth?s atmosphere may be helping to cool the planet more efficiently than scientists previously thought, a new study suggests.
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They are called Criegee intermediates, or Criegee biradicals (named after the German chemist Rudolf Criegee), and are short-lived molecules that form in the Earth?s atmosphere when?ozone?reacts with alkenes (a family of organic compounds). While scientists have known about the intermediates for decades, they haven't been able to directly measure how the molecules react with other atmospheric compounds, such as the pollutants nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, until now.
Researchers used a new method to create Criegee intermediates in the lab, and then reacted them with several atmospheric compounds. They found that the reactions with the pollutants could produce aerosols, tiny particles that reflect solar radiation back into space, much more quickly than previously assumed.
Given that 90 percent of the alkenes in the atmosphere that produce these intermediates come from Earth's ecosystems, the results suggest that "the ecosystem is negating climate change more efficiently than we thought it was," said study co-author Carl Percival, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. "The most important message here is that we need to protect the ecosystems we have left." [Gallery: Earth's Unique Ecosystems]
Percival noted that scientists aren't close to being ready to use the intermediates in?geoengineering?to generate more aerosols and proactively cool Earth's climate. The main point, he said, is that we need to preserve the ecosystem so that it can naturally produce more Criegee intermediates.
Measuring the biradicals
In 1949, the chemist Criegee proposed that biradicals ? reactive molecules missing two chemical bonds ??could form when ozone reacts with hydrocarbons like alkenes. These biradicals would presumably play a substantial role in both removing pollutants from the lower atmosphere (a process called oxidation) and producing secondary organic aerosols (primary aerosols come from such sources as sea spray and wind-blown dust, whereas secondary aerosols form from the reactions of atmospheric gases).
Though numerous theoretical studies and indirect measurements have supported the importance of the biradicals, scientists have had much difficulty taking direct measurements of biradicals reacting with key atmospheric compounds.
"The reactions are so extremely rapid that they disappear quite quickly," before scientists can take crucial measurements, Percival told LiveScience.
To get around this issue, Percival and his colleagues determined a new method to create the simplest Criegee intermediate, formaldehyde oxide, in the lab. They shined an intense laser light on the compound diiodomethane, breaking off two bonds and creating a biradical. They then reacted the biradical with?molecular oxygen?to form formaldehyde oxide.
With the Criegee intermediate in hand, the researchers added in some?atmospheric pollutants? nitric dioxide, sulfuric dioxide, water or nitric oxide ? and then measured the reactions with sophisticated instruments. They found that the intermediates reacted with nitric dioxide and sulfuric dioxide unexpectedly fast, showing that the intermediates are better at removing the pollutants from the atmosphere than previous studies suggested.
In the atmosphere, the resulting compounds would react further with molecules to accelerate the formation of radiation-reflecting aerosols, Percival said.
Just the beginning
George Marston, a chemist at the University of Reading in the U.K. who was not involved with the research, was surprised by the speed of the reactions. "The values aren't necessarily what you might expect," Marston told LiveScience. "But the fact is that these [intermediates] haven't been studied before, so it's difficult to know what you would really expect."
Marston, who wrote a perspective piece accompanying the study published in the Jan. 13 issue of the journal Science, said that it?s important that scientists are finally getting a handle on the reactions of the Criegee intermediates, and that the study could have profound implications for understanding atmospheric oxidation, a process that can?remove pollutants?from our atmosphere and could impact?Earth's climate.
But, he said, scientists still have a lot of work to do. "This is very much the beginning of a much more extensive systematic study," he said.
Percival said that future studies would need to look at other Criegee intermediates and measure reactions with other atmospheric compounds at different temperatures. "This was all done at room temperature, but the atmosphere has a huge temperature variation and gets quite cold," he explained.
Despite lifting the New York Giants to a Super Bowl win in 2007, the football world didn't fully accept Eli Manning among the game's elite. In fact, Giants fans were often the first to criticize him for being inconsistent. However, a stellar showing this year has made it increasingly difficult not to count him as one of the top players at his position. An increasingly self-assured Manning even went as far as to proclaim himself Tom Brady's equal this year -- a position that will prove even harder to refute if the Giants knock off the Packers.
In the years since that improbable victory, the younger Manning has been a consistently solid force. He's never missed a start (since taking over in 2004) and has been named to two Pro Bowls. But, he also hasn't won a playoff game since, and last season, he threw 25 interceptions and struggled down the stretch while New York missed the postseason for the second straight year. His almost exaggeratedly boring demeanor during games irritates a passionate fan base that perhaps misinterprets his shrugged shoulders and calmness for disinterest.
After what was by far his best season as a pro and a thrashing of a hot Atlanta team last Sunday though, Eli has proved himself all over again. His three touchdown passes were three more than he'd ever thrown at home in the playoffs before and with the 24-2 win, he also notched his first-ever home playoff victory.
Perhaps it would be just as lofty a statement to compare this current Big Blue team to 2007, but it's hard not to at least acknowledge some of the similarities.
Aside from Manning's greatness, we are witnessing the rebirth of a defensive line that hasn't been this dominant in five years. Back then, Justin Tuck was the new kid on the block emerging as a menacing beast on the outside. He was flanked by Osi Umenyiora and the elder statesman in his final year, Michael Strahan. The new kid on the block now is clearly Jason Pierre-Paul, only in his second season but already an All-Pro selection. While the injury-laden Umenyiora isn't at the level of old, he and Tuck present a formidable pass-rushing presence that tied for second in the league in sacks and helped keep Falcons' quarterback Matt Ryan from ever developing a rhythm in Sunday's win.
The other interesting element to this team right now is the play of Brandon Jacobs, the massive running back who has run more like the Pillsbury Doughboy over the past couple seasons than the bruising force we had grown accustomed to seeing. But over the past month or so, Jacobs has come alive. He is running much harder and attacking defenders as opposed to going down after first contact. Against Atlanta, he amassed 47 yards in such situations, according to ESPN Stats & Information, finishing with 92 yards on just 14 carries. One of Manning's most lethal weapons is the use of play-action; if Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw continue to run effectively, he will have his fair share of shots down the field with Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz.
Speaking of taking downfield shots, no team this season has been more consistently dominant than the Green Bay Packers. At 15-1, they have the best quarterback in the league, excellent receivers, a fantastic pass rush and an all-pro cornerback. Even still, are we safe to assume that no 15-1 team in the history of the game has ever been this vulnerable either?
The Packers -- without injured safety Nick Collins since September -- have the worst pass defense in the NFL, giving up 300 yards per game. They have a pair of young corners in Tramon Williams and Sam Shields who are very talented but equally green and at times undisciplined as well.
For all the talk of home-field advantage at Lambeau Field, this is a Green Bay team that actually is not built to win in super cold weather. Aaron Rodgers will throw upwards of 35 times per game because the rushing tandem of James Starks and Ryan Grant has been ineffective throughout the year, ranking 27th in yards per game. Because neither is a burner, the lack of a home run threat can allow New York to vary more blitz schemes and coverages, something that defensive coordinator Perry Fewell did with great success against the Falcons.
The Packers have been the superior team in either conference this season; there is not an argument that can be made against that. But the Giants are the one team built to beat them at Lambeau because they are so balanced right now on the offensive side of the ball. Rodgers will try early and often to exploit what has been a suspect secondary since Week 1 and he has the tools around him to do so, but if New York can control tempo with the run, they will have a shot to pull off the mammoth upset.
Then, a fully validated Eli Manning can say he beat the NFL's best quarterback ... in his own house.
Email me at jordan.schultz@huffingtonpost.com or ask me questions about anything sports-related @206Child for my upcoming mailbag.
Plus, check out my new HuffPost sports blog, The Schultz Report, for a fresh and daily outlook on all things sports and listen to our new radio show Sports Blitz Now every Wednesday afternoon.
Diet counts: Iron intake in teen years can impact brain in later lifePublic release date: 11-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Wheeler mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu 310-794-2265 University of California - Los Angeles
Iron is a popular topic in health news. Doctors prescribe it for medical reasons, and it's available over the counter as a dietary supplement. And while it's known that too little iron can result in cognitive problems, it's also known that too much promotes neurodegenerative diseases.
Now, researchers at UCLA have found that in addition to causing cognitive problems, a lack of iron early in life can affect the brain's physical structure as well.
UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and his colleagues measured levels of transferrin, a protein that transports iron throughout the body and brain, in adolescents and discovered that these transferrin levels were related to detectable differences in both the brain's macro-structure and micro-structure when the adolescents reached young adulthood.
The researchers also identified a common set of genes that influences both transferrin levels and brain structure. The discovery may shed light on the neural mechanisms by which iron affects cognition, neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration, they said.
Their findings appear in the current online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Iron and the proteins that transport it are critically important for brain function. Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide, causing poor cognitive achievement in school-aged children. Yet later in life, iron overload is associated with damage to the brain, and abnormally high iron concentrations have been found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington diseases.
Since both a deficiency and an excess of iron can negatively impact brain function, the body's regulation of iron transport to the brain is crucial. When iron levels are low, the liver produces more transferrin for increased iron transport. The researchers wanted to know whether brain structure in healthy adults was also dependent on transferrin levels.
"We found that healthy brain wiring in adults depended on having good iron levels in your teenage years," said Thompson, a member of UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "This connection was a lot stronger than we expected, especially as we were looking at people who were young and healthy none of them would be considered iron-deficient.
"We also found a connection with a gene that explains why this is so. The gene itself seems to affect brain wiring, which was a big surprise," he said.
To assess brain volume and integrity, Thompson's team collected brain MRI scans on 615 healthy young-adult twins and siblings, who had an average age of 23. Of these subjects, 574 were also scanned with a type of MRI called a "diffusion scan," which maps the brain's myelin connections and their strength, or integrity. Myelin is the fatty sheath that coats the brain's nerve axons, allowing for efficient conduction of nerve impulses, and iron plays a key role in myelin production.
Eight to 12 years before the current imaging study, researchers measured the subjects' blood transferrin levels. They hoped to determine whether iron availability in the developmentally crucial period of adolescence impacted the organization of the brain later in life.
"Adolescence is a period of high vulnerability to brain insults, and the brain is still very actively developing," Thompson said.
By averaging the subjects' transferrin levels, which had been assessed repeatedly at 12, 14 and 16 years of age the researchers estimated iron availability to the brain during adolescence, he said.
The team discovered that subjects who had elevated transferrin levels a common sign of poor iron levels in a person's diet had structural changes in brain regions that are vulnerable to neurodegeneration. And further analyses of the twins in the study revealed that a common set of genes influences both transferrin levels and brain structure.
One of the genetic links a specific variation in a gene called HFE, which is known to influence blood transferrin levels was associated with reduced brain-fiber integrity, although subjects carrying this gene variant did not yet show any symptoms of disease or cognitive impairment.
"So this is one of the deep secrets of the brain," Thompson said. "You wouldn't think the iron in our diet would affect the brain so much in our teen years. But it turns out that it matters very much. Because myelin speeds your brain's communications, and iron is vital for making myelin, poor iron levels in childhood erode your brain reserves which you need later in life to protect against aging and Alzheimer's.
"This is remarkable, as we were not studying iron deficient people, just around 600 normal healthy people. It underscores the need for a balanced diet in the teenage years, when your brain's command center is still actively maturing. "
The findings, he said, may aid future studies of how iron transport affects brain function, development and the risk of neurodegeneration.
###
Other authors on the study included first author Neda Jahanshad, Omid Kohannim, Derrek P. Hibar, Jason L. Stein and Arthur W. Toga, all of UCLA; Katie L. McMahon and Greig I. de Zubicaray of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia; and Sarah E. Medlande, Grant W. Montgomerye, John B. Whitfielde, Nick G. Martine and Margie J. Wright of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Herston, Australia.
The research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council; the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation; the National Institute of Mental Health; and the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
The UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, which seeks to improve understanding of the brain in health and disease, is a leader in the development of advanced computational algorithms and scientific approaches for the comprehensive and quantitative mapping of brain structure and function. The laboratory is part of the UCLA Department of Neurology, which encompasses more than 20 disease-related research programs, along with large clinical and teaching programs. The department ranked first among its peers nationwide in National Institutes of Health funding (2002-09).
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
Diet counts: Iron intake in teen years can impact brain in later lifePublic release date: 11-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mark Wheeler mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu 310-794-2265 University of California - Los Angeles
Iron is a popular topic in health news. Doctors prescribe it for medical reasons, and it's available over the counter as a dietary supplement. And while it's known that too little iron can result in cognitive problems, it's also known that too much promotes neurodegenerative diseases.
Now, researchers at UCLA have found that in addition to causing cognitive problems, a lack of iron early in life can affect the brain's physical structure as well.
UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and his colleagues measured levels of transferrin, a protein that transports iron throughout the body and brain, in adolescents and discovered that these transferrin levels were related to detectable differences in both the brain's macro-structure and micro-structure when the adolescents reached young adulthood.
The researchers also identified a common set of genes that influences both transferrin levels and brain structure. The discovery may shed light on the neural mechanisms by which iron affects cognition, neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration, they said.
Their findings appear in the current online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Iron and the proteins that transport it are critically important for brain function. Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide, causing poor cognitive achievement in school-aged children. Yet later in life, iron overload is associated with damage to the brain, and abnormally high iron concentrations have been found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington diseases.
Since both a deficiency and an excess of iron can negatively impact brain function, the body's regulation of iron transport to the brain is crucial. When iron levels are low, the liver produces more transferrin for increased iron transport. The researchers wanted to know whether brain structure in healthy adults was also dependent on transferrin levels.
"We found that healthy brain wiring in adults depended on having good iron levels in your teenage years," said Thompson, a member of UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "This connection was a lot stronger than we expected, especially as we were looking at people who were young and healthy none of them would be considered iron-deficient.
"We also found a connection with a gene that explains why this is so. The gene itself seems to affect brain wiring, which was a big surprise," he said.
To assess brain volume and integrity, Thompson's team collected brain MRI scans on 615 healthy young-adult twins and siblings, who had an average age of 23. Of these subjects, 574 were also scanned with a type of MRI called a "diffusion scan," which maps the brain's myelin connections and their strength, or integrity. Myelin is the fatty sheath that coats the brain's nerve axons, allowing for efficient conduction of nerve impulses, and iron plays a key role in myelin production.
Eight to 12 years before the current imaging study, researchers measured the subjects' blood transferrin levels. They hoped to determine whether iron availability in the developmentally crucial period of adolescence impacted the organization of the brain later in life.
"Adolescence is a period of high vulnerability to brain insults, and the brain is still very actively developing," Thompson said.
By averaging the subjects' transferrin levels, which had been assessed repeatedly at 12, 14 and 16 years of age the researchers estimated iron availability to the brain during adolescence, he said.
The team discovered that subjects who had elevated transferrin levels a common sign of poor iron levels in a person's diet had structural changes in brain regions that are vulnerable to neurodegeneration. And further analyses of the twins in the study revealed that a common set of genes influences both transferrin levels and brain structure.
One of the genetic links a specific variation in a gene called HFE, which is known to influence blood transferrin levels was associated with reduced brain-fiber integrity, although subjects carrying this gene variant did not yet show any symptoms of disease or cognitive impairment.
"So this is one of the deep secrets of the brain," Thompson said. "You wouldn't think the iron in our diet would affect the brain so much in our teen years. But it turns out that it matters very much. Because myelin speeds your brain's communications, and iron is vital for making myelin, poor iron levels in childhood erode your brain reserves which you need later in life to protect against aging and Alzheimer's.
"This is remarkable, as we were not studying iron deficient people, just around 600 normal healthy people. It underscores the need for a balanced diet in the teenage years, when your brain's command center is still actively maturing. "
The findings, he said, may aid future studies of how iron transport affects brain function, development and the risk of neurodegeneration.
###
Other authors on the study included first author Neda Jahanshad, Omid Kohannim, Derrek P. Hibar, Jason L. Stein and Arthur W. Toga, all of UCLA; Katie L. McMahon and Greig I. de Zubicaray of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia; and Sarah E. Medlande, Grant W. Montgomerye, John B. Whitfielde, Nick G. Martine and Margie J. Wright of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Herston, Australia.
The research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council; the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation; the National Institute of Mental Health; and the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
The UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, which seeks to improve understanding of the brain in health and disease, is a leader in the development of advanced computational algorithms and scientific approaches for the comprehensive and quantitative mapping of brain structure and function. The laboratory is part of the UCLA Department of Neurology, which encompasses more than 20 disease-related research programs, along with large clinical and teaching programs. The department ranked first among its peers nationwide in National Institutes of Health funding (2002-09).
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
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Public release date: 11-Jan-2012
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