U.S. centenarians have few regrets, stay active and social: poll

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - America's centenarians are generally content and believe staying active is key to longevity, and some are even using social media and email to stay in touch with family and friends, a survey released on Thursday showed.

The poll that compared the attitudes and lifestyle of baby boomers to centenarians showed the country's oldest citizens were more content than their younger counterparts and put more emphasis on eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep.

"We are seeing clear differences in the generations," said Dr Rhonda Randall, chief medical officer of the healthcare company UnitedHealthcare & Retirement.

Although genetics play a big part, Randall said multiple factors contribute to longevity, including a positive attitude.

"Reflecting fondly and confidently on the choices they've made throughout their lives helps the longest-living Americans maintain a sense of satisfaction and well-being that's vital to healthy aging," she explained.

Census Bureau figures show that in 2010 there were more than 53,000 centenarians in the United States, an increase of 65.8 percent since 1980. By 2050 their numbers are expected to hit 600,000.

The survey of 100 centenarians and 300 baby boomers commissioned by UnitedHealthcare showed half of the elderly would not change a thing in their life, compared to only 29 percent of boomers.

Ten percent of centenarians said they wish they had taken better care of themselves and focused more on relationships. Only 6 percent would have wanted to have more money, compared to 26 percent of baby boomers who said they regretted they had not saved more.

Equal numbers of both generations recognized the importance of keeping active and socially connected and the importance of family.

"Whether it is family, a faith-based organization or friends, feeling connected to others is very important to health and well being," Randall explained.

In a sign of just how important social connections are, more than a third of the elderly said they had kept up a friendship for more than 75 years.

Although a landline is the most common way centenarians keep in touch, nearly half of both groups recognized that cellphones, email and text messages make it easier to stay connected.

Thirty nine percent of centenarians used social media, compared to 56 percent of boomers.

Randall said centenarians' desire to keep up with technology is part of their positive attitude and shows it is never too late to learn.

Nearly half, 45 percent, of the elderly said they were most nostalgic about young adulthood.

When asked about the best thing about reaching 100, more than a third thought it was the ability to spend more time with their children and grandchildren, and 26 percent said it was the opportunity to spend more time traveling.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-centenarians-few-regrets-stay-active-social-poll-120315340.html

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Was Africa the motherland of dinosaur predecessors?

The ancestors of dinosaurs might have established themselves in present-day Tanzania and Zambia, suggest newly discovered fossils.

By Mai Ng?c Ch?u,?Contributor / April 30, 2013

People stand near an 26-foot replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex standing between the 9th green and the 10th tee at the Sunshine Coast resort course in south Queensland, Australia, in 2012.

Dennis Passa/AP/File

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Newly discovered fossils from 10 million years after the world's largest known extinction indicate that dinosaurs' ancestors might have taken hold in present-day Tanzania and Zambia, millions of years before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and much earlier than dinosaur relatives are seen in the fossil record elsewhere.?

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Earlier studies, mostly based on fossil records from Russia and South Africa, led scientists to think that dinosaur predecessors failed to survive after a mass extinction some some?252 million years ago,?which killed off 90 percent of Earth's species.?

"The fossil record from the Karoo of South Africa, for example, is a good representation of four-legged land animals across southern Pangea before the extinction," said Christian Sidor, a paleontologist at the University of Washington, in a press release. "But after the event, animals weren?t as uniformly and widely distributed as before. We had to go looking in some fairly unorthodox places.?

Sidor authored a recent study on dinosaurs' origins, published in?the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Drawing upon fossils unearthed from Tanzania, Zambia, and Antarctica since 2003, and current fossil records, Sidor and his colleagues generated two profiles of animals living about five million years before and 10 million years after the mass extinction.

For example, Dicynodon, a four-legged creature with a body resembling that of a fat lizard and a head resembling a turtle's, dominated the southern region of supercontinent Pangea before the extinction event, an area that comprises present-day Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, and India.

After the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, populations of Dicynodon, along with many other herbivores, decreased dramatically.

The changing climate allowed new creatures to emerge and thrive. Archosaurs were a?group of plant-eating reptiles whose living relatives are birds and crocodilians. In its news release, the National Science Foundation, one of the study's two sponsors, said scientists are interested in archosaurs?because they were believed to be the predecessors of dinosaur-related animals such as Asilisaurus, a dinosaur-like animal, and Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a dog-sized creature with a five-foot tail that may be the earliest dinosaur.

"Early archosaurs being found mainly in Tanzania is an example of how fragmented communities became after the extinction event,? Sidor said in the University of Washington press release.

These findings, according to the co-authors, suggested that "archosaur diversification was more intimately related to recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction than previously suspected.?

In an interview with?Discovery News,?co-author and geologist Sterling Nesbitt of the Field Museum of Natural History said "true dinosaurs first show up about 230 million years ago, from what is now Argentina. We think that dinosaurs first evolved in Gondwanaland ? including Africa, South America, India, Madagascar, Australia, Antarctica." ?

The study also revealed that before the extinction, 35 percent of four-legged species were found in two or more of the five areas studied, with some species' habitats stretching 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers), encompassing the Tanzanian and South African basins.

Ten million years after the extinction, just seven percent of four-legged species were found in two or more regions, suggesting that?there was a geographical clustering of the animals.

"The expeditions by this team of researchers to little-explored Permian and Triassic aged depositional basins in Africa and Antarctica, which form part of the supercontinent Gondwana, has greatly enhanced our understanding of the distribution of land-living vertebrates that lived more than 200 million years ago,"?Bruce Rubidge, a dinosaur specialist at the University of Witwatersrand, told Discovery News.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/YVJe9k5syfY/Was-Africa-the-motherland-of-dinosaur-predecessors

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'Oil for the joints' offers hope for osteoarthritis sufferers

May 2, 2013 ? A team of researchers led by a Boston University Biomedical Engineer has developed a new joint lubricant that could bring longer lasting relief to millions of osteoarthritis sufferers. The new synthetic polymer supplements synovial fluid, the natural lubricant in joints, and works better than comparable treatments currently available.

According to Professor Mark W. Grinstaff (BME, MSE, Chemistry), the best fluid supplement now available offers temporary symptom relief but provides inadequate lubrication to prevent further degradation of the cartilage surfaces that cushion the joint. To achieve both objectives, Grinstaff, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School orthopedic surgeon Brian Snyder and a team of Boston University chemistry and engineering students, fellows and clinicians have advanced the first synthetic synovial fluid. They describe the unique polymer and its performance in Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The most common form of joint disease and a leading cause of disability in the elderly, osteoarthritis (OA) affects about 27 million Americans and 200 million people worldwide. Characterized by pain and swelling, the disease emerges in hand, hip, knee and other commonly used joints where degradation of cartilage and synovial fluid results in bone-on-bone abrasion. Treatments range from anti-inflammatory drugs to total joint replacement. While there's no cure for OA, one treatment -- injection of a polymer to supplement synovial fluid in the joint -- promises to relieve symptoms and slow the disease's progression by reducing wear on cartilage surfaces.

"From our studies, we know our biopolymer is a superior lubricant in the joint, much better than the leading synovial fluid supplement, and similar to healthy synovial fluid," said Grinstaff. "When we used this new polymer, the friction between the two cartilage surfaces was lower, resulting in less wear and surface-to-surface interaction. It's like oil for the joints."

Originally produced last year for another study, the new polymer mimics some of the properties of natural polysaccharides, large compounds that link repetitive sequences of sugar molecules in a chainlike pattern.

"You put it between your fingers, and it's slippery," Grinstaff observed. "Once we made it, we wondered if we could use it as a lubricant and where it would be useful. That's how we thought of using it as a potential treatment for OA."

Another advantage of the biopolymer is its large molecular weight or size, which prevents it from seeping out of the joint, enabling longer lasting cartilage protection. Unlike the leading synovial fluid supplement, which lasts one or two days, the new polymer remains in the joint for more than two weeks.

The research is supported by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and Flex Biomedical, a startup cofounded by Grinstaff and Snyder.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Boston University College of Engineering. The original article was written by Mark Dwortzan.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Eric L. Dane and Mark W. Grinstaff. Poly-amido-saccharides: Synthesis via Anionic Polymerization of a ?-Lactam Sugar Monomer. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013 DOI: 10.1021/ja305900r

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Ihtti-gXYbo/130502185423.htm

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Hagel emphasizes need for close US-Israel ties

JERUSALEM (AP) ? U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that the U.S. and Israel need to ensure that their alliance remains close, as Mideast security challenges grow more complicated.

"This is a difficult and dangerous time," Hagel said before starting a closed-door meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "This is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever."

In his remarks, Netanyahu thanked the Obama administration for deepening ties over the past four years. He said the U.S. and Israel's shared interests and values are especially challenged by "the arming of terrorist groups by Iran with sophisticated weapons, and equally, Iran's attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

"This is a challenge that Israel cannot accept, and as you and President Obama have repeatedly said, Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat," Netanyahu said.

On Monday, Hagel was asked whether he believes it would be advisable for Israel to attack Iran on its own.

"That calculation has to be made by" Israel, he replied after noting, "Israel is a sovereign nation; every sovereign nation has a right to defend itself."

Hagel did not mention a concern that U.S. officials have voiced in the past ? namely, that an Israeli strike would run the risk of igniting a wider war that could draw in the United States.

Hagel wrapped up his three-day trip to Israel by visiting an special forces unit that trains military dogs to find hidden explosives and weapons. He mingled with the soldiers and watched a brief demonstration of the dogs' skills.

The Pentagon chief then headed to Jordan to consult with government officials. Later he was to fly to Saudi Arabia.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hagel-emphasizes-close-us-israel-ties-071241935--politics.html

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FIFA President Blatter's Twitter account hacked

LONDON (Reuters) - FIFA President Sepp Blatter's Twitter account was hacked on Monday with a series of bizarre tweets saying he was stepping down and was involved in corruption.

A statement from FIFA confirmed the account had been hacked, saying: "Some FIFA accounts, incl. @SeppBlatter and @fifaworldcup, have been hacked. If in doubt, please verify any info with FIFA office."

The bogus messages on Blatter's account included a retweet from FIFA World Cup saying: "It was decided that the president Sepp Blatter is to step down due to corruption charges.

Another tweet on Blatter's page said: "So what if I took money from Qatari prince? I am the family's bread earner," before declaring himself unrepentant.

"His excellency the Emir of Qatar has been the most generous figure I have ever met," and "I do not apologize for my decision. I have done the best for Fifa. For almost 15 years I have toiled for this organization."

The official World Cup Twitter account also fell victim to the hackers with several fake messages, including: "Sepp Blatter has been investigated for multiple charges of bribery."

A group calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army, supportive of the country's leader, Bashar Al-Assad, claimed responsibility for hacking the accounts, tweeting: "Syrian Electronic Army Was Here" and "Twitter #Failure... You can't stop us!"

Blatter, 77, has been president of FIFA since 1998 and has not yet announced whether he will be standing for a fifth term when his current mandate ends in 2015.

(Reporting by Mike Collett; Editing by Alison Wildey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fifa-president-blatters-twitter-account-hacked-184536218--sow.html

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Republican Sen. Rand Paul to speak in NH

BOSTON (AP) ? Republican Sen. Rand Paul is set to appear in New Hampshire next month, becoming the first potential presidential candidate to deliver a formal speech in the state likely to host the nation's first presidential primary in 2016.

The New Hampshire Republican Party confirms that the first-term senator from Kentucky will deliver the keynote address at its first Liberty Dinner on May 20. The location has yet to be determined.

Paul is the son of a former presidential candidate and former longtime Texas congressman, Ron Paul. The senator has said he's "seriously considering" running for the White House.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-sen-rand-paul-speak-nh-211015797--politics.html

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Gunmen in Iraq kill Sunni militiaman, his mother

Baghdad (AP) ? Iraqi officials say gunmen have shot dead a member of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni militia along with his mother.

A police official said Yousef Sayhoud was killed on Wednesday in his home in the suburb of Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad.

He said the gunmen also wounded Sayhoud's brother. A health official confirmed the deaths.

They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Sayhoud belonged to the pro-government group known as the Sahwa, which joined U.S. troops in the war against al-Qaida starting in 2005 at the height of the insurgency. Since then, it has been a target for Sunni insurgents still fighting the Shiite-led government, who consider them traitors.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-iraq-kill-sunni-militiaman-mother-101544993.html

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