ACCRA, Ghana (AP) ? Authorities say 17 people are dead after an accident at a gold mine in central Ghana.
Local official Peter KofiOwusu-Ashia told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 20 others had been rescued Monday afternoon.
Owusu-Ashia said authorities did not believe that anyone remained trapped inside the area but he said efforts would resume Tuesday at the site.
The deaths happened in Kyekyiwere, in the Upper Denkyira district in Ghana's central region.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, and police promised to launch an investigation. Authorities have said that the miners were working there illegally at the time.
49 cellphones were confiscated from South African police officers who had taken pictures of the famed Olympic athlete. Of the 49, four were 'official' phones and the rest were private cellphones.
By Gerald Imray,?Associated Press / April 16, 2013
Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius stands during his bail hearing at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 21. Pistorius is awaiting trial on a murder charge. 49 cellphones were confiscated from police officers who had used them to take pictures of Pistorius.
Themba Hadebe / AP / File
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STELLENBOSCH, South Africa
Even police officers clamored to get photos of Oscar Pistorius on their cellphones after the famed Olympic athlete was arrested for the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, South Africa's minister of police said in a written response to a question in parliament.
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Police minister Nathi Mthethwa said 49 cellphones were confiscated from officers at Boschkop police station in Pretoria after they were used to take photographs of Pistorius when he was being transferred between court and the station soon after his arrest. Mthethwa made the revelation in a reply to parliament on Monday and it was seen by The AP on Tuesday.
"This action was necessary after it came to light that photos were taken of a high profile individual who had been arrested," Mthethwa wrote in the reply to a question by South Africa's opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.
The minister said four "official" cellphones and 45 private phones were taken from the officers on Feb. 20, six days after Pistorius' arrest. They could be used as evidence in possible disciplinary proceedings against the police officers, Mthethwa said. Mthethwa did not reveal how many officers had taken photos of Pistorius or how many ? if any ? are facing disciplinary action.
The former lead police investigator in the case also told The Associated Press that he had fears that reporters were trying to buy pictures of key pieces of evidence from officers in the first few days after the shooting, including the toilet door through which Pistorius fired the shots that killed Steenkamp inside the athlete's home in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day.
The door was then taken from inside the bathroom in Pistorius' house and put in "a body bag" and moved to a senior policeman's office, former detective Hilton Botha said.
Pistorius was initially held at Boschkop, a station close to his home in suburban Pretoria, after being arrested on Feb. 14 following the killing of Steenkamp at his house. The Olympian was later moved to another police station for his bail hearing at Pretoria Magistrate's Court.
Contact: Mark Couch mark.couch@ucdenver.edu 303-724-5377 University of Colorado Denver
AURORA, Colo. (April 15, 2013) A newly published study of patients with pulmonary fibrosis has discovered multiple genetic variations that should help with future efforts to treat the disease.
Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition where lung tissue becomes thickened, stiff and scarred. Currently in the United States, there are no drugs approved for use in cases of the condition's most common and severe form, which is known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) because the cause of the disease is not known. In those cases, the median survival time after diagnosis is two to three years and lung transplants are the only intervention known to prolong life.
This new study found evidence that common genetic variation is an important contributor to the risk of developing IPF, accounting for approximately one-third of the risk of developing disease. The study identified seven novel genetic risk loci that include genes involved in host defense, cell-cell adhesion, and DNA repair. These findings suggest that the disease is primarily initiated by defects in the lung's ability to defend against internal and environmental challenges.
This international collaborative research was led by scientists at the University of Colorado.
"The insightful leadership of Tasha Fingerlin, extraordinary contributions of Elissa Murphy, and active participation of many others ensured the success of this research and, in aggregate, we have established the scientific basis for early recognition and have identified novel therapeutic targets for this untreatable disease," says David A. Schwartz, MD, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and senior author of the study. "These findings will change the way we think about pulmonary fibrosis and should eventually enhance the diagnostic and therapeutic options for our patients."
Fingerlin, PhD, and Murphy, MS, also authors of the study, are researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health and the CU School of Medicine.
The study, published in the April 14 edition of the journal Nature Genetics, is the first study to map out genes associated with IPF risk on a genome-wide scale. Three previously known genetic links were confirmed and seven novel loci were identified by studying the entire genome in this progressive incurable disease.
The work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). "In addition to expanding the library of genetic changes that can underlie pulmonary fibrosis, this study's findings demonstrate that both rare and common genetic variants contribute significantly to pulmonary fibrosis risk," says James Kiley, PhD, Director of NHLBI's Division of Lung Diseases. "A key next step for research is figuring out how these genetic variants work with environmental factors in the development of the disease."
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Faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine work to advance science and improve care. These faculty members include physicians, educators and scientists at University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, Denver Health, National Jewish Health, and the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The school is located on the Anschutz Medical Campus, one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. To learn more about the medical school's care, education, research and community engagement, please visit its web site. For additional news and information, please visit the University of Colorado Denver newsroom.
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Contact: Mark Couch mark.couch@ucdenver.edu 303-724-5377 University of Colorado Denver
AURORA, Colo. (April 15, 2013) A newly published study of patients with pulmonary fibrosis has discovered multiple genetic variations that should help with future efforts to treat the disease.
Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition where lung tissue becomes thickened, stiff and scarred. Currently in the United States, there are no drugs approved for use in cases of the condition's most common and severe form, which is known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) because the cause of the disease is not known. In those cases, the median survival time after diagnosis is two to three years and lung transplants are the only intervention known to prolong life.
This new study found evidence that common genetic variation is an important contributor to the risk of developing IPF, accounting for approximately one-third of the risk of developing disease. The study identified seven novel genetic risk loci that include genes involved in host defense, cell-cell adhesion, and DNA repair. These findings suggest that the disease is primarily initiated by defects in the lung's ability to defend against internal and environmental challenges.
This international collaborative research was led by scientists at the University of Colorado.
"The insightful leadership of Tasha Fingerlin, extraordinary contributions of Elissa Murphy, and active participation of many others ensured the success of this research and, in aggregate, we have established the scientific basis for early recognition and have identified novel therapeutic targets for this untreatable disease," says David A. Schwartz, MD, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and senior author of the study. "These findings will change the way we think about pulmonary fibrosis and should eventually enhance the diagnostic and therapeutic options for our patients."
Fingerlin, PhD, and Murphy, MS, also authors of the study, are researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health and the CU School of Medicine.
The study, published in the April 14 edition of the journal Nature Genetics, is the first study to map out genes associated with IPF risk on a genome-wide scale. Three previously known genetic links were confirmed and seven novel loci were identified by studying the entire genome in this progressive incurable disease.
The work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). "In addition to expanding the library of genetic changes that can underlie pulmonary fibrosis, this study's findings demonstrate that both rare and common genetic variants contribute significantly to pulmonary fibrosis risk," says James Kiley, PhD, Director of NHLBI's Division of Lung Diseases. "A key next step for research is figuring out how these genetic variants work with environmental factors in the development of the disease."
###
Faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine work to advance science and improve care. These faculty members include physicians, educators and scientists at University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, Denver Health, National Jewish Health, and the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The school is located on the Anschutz Medical Campus, one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. To learn more about the medical school's care, education, research and community engagement, please visit its web site. For additional news and information, please visit the University of Colorado Denver newsroom.
Keep up with the medical school and healthcare news on Facebook.
[ | 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.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday signaled reluctance to issue too broad a ruling about patents on human genes, and some indicated they might seek a compromise distinguishing between types of genetic material.
The biotechnology industry has warned that an expansive ruling against Myriad Genetics Inc could threaten billions of dollars of investment.
In weighing the question of whether any human genes can ever be patented - meaning the holders have exclusive rights to their intellectual property for a defined period - the nine justices asked tough questions about isolated genes that Myriad holds patents for.
But the justices also appeared to be inclined to draw a line between synthetically produced genetic material and natural genes.
A court ruling along those lines, suggested by the Obama administration, would have less impact on Myriad. Some of the latest research using human genes involves a synthetic form of DNA called recombinant DNA, or rDNA.
Shares of Myriad were up $1.43 or 5.4 percent at $27.53 on midday trading on the Nasdaq. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1 percent.
The Myriad patents in dispute will all expire by 2015. A ruling is due by the end of June this year.
In probing the limits of what can be patented, the justices cited a wide range of products in raising hypothetical questions, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.
A group of medical researchers, associations and patients say human genes, including synthetically produced material, should not be patented. They sued in 2009, challenging seven patents owned by or licensed to Myriad on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. A federal judge said the patents were invalid. An appeals court overruled that decision, and the case landed at the Supreme Court.
Under the federal Patent Act, an inventor can obtain a patent on various new processes and products but "laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas" are not patentable. The broad legal question is whether the genes Myriad patented, called BRCA1 and BRCA2, are a product of nature. The appeals court said they were not.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents on at least 4,000 human genes to companies, universities and others that have discovered and decoded them.
CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND BASEBALL BATS
Lawyers from both sides and the Obama administration probed the limits of what can be patented. Justices cited examples of more familiar products, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.
It was Sotomayor who brought up the chocolate-chip cookies, wondering whether if it was possible to get a patent on an isolated human gene, it would be possible to do the same for salt, eggs and other cookie ingredients.
Separately, both Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts seized upon the suggestion made by Myriad lawyer Gregory Castanias that a baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from the tree.
Roberts said a baseball bat was "quite different" because "you have to invent it" and not just "cut it off" from the tree.
Alito raised an even more extreme hypothetical question by asking whether a baseball bat that was naturally crafted after a piece of wood was tossed about in the ocean before washing up on shore could then be patented.
Several of the justices also ruminated at length on another colorful hypothetical question, also offered by Alito, concerning under what circumstances a company could claim a patent on material from a plant found in the Amazon jungle that can help treat cancer.
Others on the bench, such as Justice Elena Kagan, indicated concerns about the impact a broad ruling could have on companies that invest in such research.
"Why shouldn't we worry that Myriad or companies like it will just say, 'well, you know, we're not going to do this work anymore'?" she asked Christopher Hansen, the lawyer representing the challengers.
Alito appeared most concerned about the court issuing a sweeping ruling on what he described as a "very difficult" question.
"Why should we do that?" he asked.
POSSIBLE COMPROMISE?
Hansen sought to defuse concerns among the justices that he was asking for too broad a ruling. He said he was not asking for patents on rDNA to be invalidated, something industry groups had raised concerns about.
"Recombinant DNA is in fact what all the major innovations in the industry are doing these days," he said. "There is nothing in our position that would prevent recombinant DNA from being patented."
The Obama administration, which intervened in the case in support of neither side, has urged a compromise position, which several justices probed during the hour-long argument.
Government lawyers say that "synthesized genetic materials" can be patented because they are human-made inventions. But simply removing, or isolating, human DNA does not substantively change it and so it should not be eligible for a patent, the administration says.
If the court were to adopt that approach, which neither the plaintiffs nor Myriad accept, some of Myriad's patents, concerning synthetic molecules called cDNA, could survive, although the parties disagree on that point as well.
A majority appeared inclined to find that cDNA could be patented.
Emphasizing a need to tread carefully, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that patent law often involves "uneasy compromises."
Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Castanias directly whether a ruling based on the government position would give industry "sufficient protection" relating to innovation and research.
"I can't tell you for a certainty whether it would hurt the industry," Castanias said.
The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-398.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, John Wallace and Sofina Mirza-Reid)
Books written by professors who teach at universities in Spain and Italy are the first winners of the Centesimus Annus - Pro Pontifice Foundation?s ?economy and society? book award.
Ciudadania, migraciones y religion: Un dialogo etico desde la fe cristiana (Citizenship, Migration, and Religion: Ethical Dialogue from the Christian Faith) was written by Father Julio Luis Mart?nez, SJ, rector of Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid; L'economia del bene comune (The Economy of the Common Good) was written by Stefano Zamagni of the University of Bologna.
Named after Blessed John Paul II?s 1991 social encyclical and founded by the same Pope two years later, the foundation exists to promote Catholic social teaching.
The first book, said Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See,
highlights the fact that in the context of waning national sovereignty immigration calls for a new understanding of both the concept of citizenship and the relationship between religion and politics. Citizenship, belonging to a country, is traditionally part of one?s identity. But what does citizenship mean in a multicultural society, made up of people from widely different backgrounds? How can one reach out to the "stranger" without jeopardizing one?s identity? How can one relate to this stranger, his religion ? which is often not the host country?s ? without falling into relativism? Fr. Mart?nez is convinced that the Social Doctrine of the Church can provide real help, actually an indispensable contribution, towards an adequate answer to these questions.
Cardinal Calcagno, who oversees the activity of the foundation, stated that the second book
suggests we need to widen the range of fundamental categories that allow us to understand economic activity. Against a dominant model which considers market and State the only major economic players, Zamagni presents a third sphere of values (solidarity, entrepreneurship, sympathy) which neither efficiency nor a search for justice can fulfill. He is convinced that without these values of fraternity and reciprocity market and State cannot function. He believes in the need to make room for an economic space within the market (not outside or against it) where players are inspired by the principle of solidarity.
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LOME, Togo (AP) ? Over 20,000 school children from primary, secondary and high schools marched on Thursday in the capital of Togo in support of teachers who are on strike to seek better working conditions.
"Education is the key to development," said one of the placards held by the students, who marched toward government offices in Lome, capital of the West African nation.
"I want the government to understand that teachers are playing a key role in the development of our country. So they deserve better working conditions," said Tengue Ahoefa, a student.
On Wednesday, Togolese trade unions started a three-day protest. The unions are under the umbrella of the "Togolese Workers Synergy" or " Synergie des Travailleurs Togolais."
Last week, hundreds of medical workers in the main central hospital of Lom?, the Sylvanus Olympio Hospital, also laid down their tools while the central mortuary of Lom? remained functioning only few hours.
The public service workers are asking for a review of their official general status and the adoption of a new minimum wage.
BERLIN, April 11 (Reuters) - Bayern Munich have received more than 200,000 ticket requests for their Champions League semi-final game in Munich, thousands of which were made before they advanced against Juventus, the club said on Thursday. "We have been updating the figure constantly and at the moment it stands at 200,000 ticket requests for the semi-final home leg," a Bayern Munich official told Reuters. Bayern's stadium fits only 69,000 and that includes the 39,500 ticket holders and any fans travelling with their opponents. ...
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Public release date: 15-Apr-2013
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