SciTimes Update: Recent Developments in Science and Health News

NASA

Researchers tracked the movement of carbon monoxide molecules orbiting a black hole within the galaxy NGC 4526 to determine its mass.

Thursday in science, possible advances in cancer diagnosis, weighing black holes, shocking photos from space and good news for a breed of penguins. Check out these and other headlines from around the Web.

How Heavy Is That Black Hole?: Concerned about the weight of black holes? ScienceNews.org reports that astrophysicists associated with the European Southern Observatory have developed a new technique to more accurately measure the masses of supermassive black holes.

A New Cancer Test?: Invasive tests to diagnose cancer could soon be a thing of the past, Scientific American reports. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have been looking at whether RNA fragments, called exosomes, which are shed from cancer tumor cells and can be detected in cerebral spinal fluid, blood and urine, can be analyzed to diagnose cancer types and evaluate the disease’s progression.

False Claims About Flu Relief: Flu sufferers are often desperate for relief, but the Food and Drug Administration is warning that scams abound. USA Today reports that the F.D.A. issued a warning letter about one flu-relief product, GermBullet, accusing its manufacturers of making a “false and misleading promotional statement” by claiming the substance reduces bacteria and viruses.

Tainted Steriods Law Suits: The first lawsuit has been filed in Nashville against a clinic where hundreds of people received spinal injections of a tainted steroid that caused meningitis and other side effects in 693 people nationwide and 45 deaths as of Monday. The Tennessean said that Wayne Reed, who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease and was being cared for by his wife, Diana Reed, is suing the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center and its owners, seeking $12.5 million in damages for Diana’s death from fungal meningitis. Denise Grady wrote about the family in October.

More Baby Penguins: There’s been a baby boom among white-flippered penguins ever since a farming couple in New Zealand turned much of their land into a safe haven for the birds, Scientific American reports. The birds, also known as korora, have nearly doubled their population in the last decade, and credit is being given to the farmers Francis and Shireen Helps.

The Storm From Above: And while strong winds and heavy rains were jolting many people across the eastern United States out of their sleep Wednesday night, a satellite was snapping images of the lightning flashes from the storm. The cool photos were published on LiveScience.

Science With a Side of Fries: Finally, science is alive and well, perhaps at your local bar or restaurant, where Americans are more frequently gathering to hear or join in scientific talks. As Reuters reported on Wednesday: “Want a beer with that biology? Or perhaps a burger with the works to complement the theory of everything?”

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Twitter says it's working to fix problem with accessing the site

Twitter said some users were having trouble accessing its social network Thursday morning. (Twitter)

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Toyota recalls 1 million of its Corollas and Lexus IS sport sedans

Toyota Motor Corp. announced recalls of 1 million vehicles, including some models of its popular Toyota Corolla and its Lexus IS sports sedan.

About 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles are being recalled to fix an air-bag control module that is susceptible to short circuiting that could eventually cause the front air bags and seat belt pretensioners to deploy when they shouldn't.

The recall affects Corollas from the 2003 and 2004 model years. There have been two reported accidents and 18 injuries linked to the problem, said Brian Lyons, a Toyota spokesman.

For years, the Corolla has played a key role in Toyota's sales success in the U.S.  It was the second-best-selling compact car nationally last year with sales of 291,000 vehicles, second only to the Honda Civic, which sold about 318,000.

The Corolla was last redesigned in 2009. Toyota introduced a concept version of what is expected to become the new Corolla at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this month.

Toyota also said it will recall 270,000 IS sport sedans sold by its luxury Lexus division because a nut on the front windshield wiper arms could be insufficiently tight. If movement of the wipers is restricted by an external load, such as a buildup of heavy snow on the windshield, one or both of the wipers could stop working.

The recall includes vehicles from the 2006 model year through the beginning of the 2013 model year. There have been 25 reports of wipers not functioning correctly, but no reports of accidents as a result.

Toyota plans to roll out a new generation of the IS line this year.
 
Owners of vehicles covered by these safety recalls will be notified by mail. Dealers will fix the problems at no cost to the vehicle owner.

Toyota has had a series a large recalls in recent years and has paid record federal fines for not recalling its vehicles fast enough.  But that doesn’t seem to bother buyers.

Toyota’s share of U.S. auto sales rose to 14.4% last year from 12.9% the year before. Globally, it recaptured the position as the world’s biggest auto seller last year, knocking General Motors from the No. 1 spot.

“Despite the flood of recalls, buyers continue to be extremely loyal to Toyota,” said George Cook, professor at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. “Toyota is keenly aware of post-recall challenges and continues to be extremely proactive about announcing even the smallest of problems to ensure a positive consumer response.”

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Follow me on Twitter (@LATimesJerry), Facebook and Google+.

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California police probe stunts that shut down freeways

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California Highway Patrol is investigating two apparently unrelated stunts that jammed freeways over the weekend, including one involving hundreds of motorcyclists celebrating a marriage proposal that inconvenienced motorists east of Los Angeles.

Both events created a flurry of viral Internet videos, fueling concerns about a repeat performance by copycats.

On Interstate 10 east of Los Angeles on Sunday, up to 300 bikers stopped traffic so that one of them could propose to his girlfriend, said Officer Vince Ramirez, a Los Angeles-area spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

Video that surfaced online of the stunt showed some bikers creating a wall of smoke by spinning their tires against the concrete. In the middle of the gathering, pink smoke could be seen wafting into the air.

As they exited the freeway, several bikers were later ticketed for reckless riding unrelated to their possible role in the freeway shutdown, Ramirez said.

He said officers were working with the Los Angeles County District Attorney‘s office to prepare additional charges against some of the bikers.

The stunt did not cause any injuries or collisions, he said.

In Oakland on Saturday, traffic ground to a halt on Interstate 880 near the city’s sports coliseum, as several sports cars did doughnuts, spinning around and filling the air with tire smoke, officials said. Stunned motorists exited their cars and watched.

Several motorists caught in the sudden traffic jam were frightened or angry, according to recordings of calls to authorities released on Tuesday.

“I can’t believe this – I have three kids in the car,” one caller told an Oakland-area dispatcher. “It scares the hell out of me.”

Authorities have not found or identified any of the drivers, said California Highway Patrol Sergeant Diana McDermott.

California Highway Patrol officers said they feared the weekend events’ popularity on social media websites could start a dangerous trend. So far, such stunts have been rare, they said.

“That’s why the investigation is expanding,” Ramirez said.

“If there are any criminal charges that can be filed as a result of this incident, they will be filed,” he said.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Tom Brown and Eric Walsh)

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Lindsay Lohan appears in court, trial delayed

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has delayed Lindsay Lohan's trial on three misdemeanor counts filed after a June car crash.

Lohan appeared in court wearing a black dress and spoke only to confirm that she was changing her attorney.

Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner shook her head when she saw Lohan in her courtroom less than a year after warning the actress to stay out of trouble.

Sautner set a March 18 trial date and a March 1 hearing that Lohan is not required to attend.

Sautner previously sentenced Lohan to jail and house arrest in another case.

However, Sautner is retiring soon and another judge will hear the upcoming trial and any related motions.

Lohan has pleaded not guilty to lying to police, reckless driving and obstructing officers from performing their duties.

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SciTimes Update: Recent Developments in Health and Science News

Charles A. Nelson Lab, University of Minnesota

Studying the infant brain. From the book:  "Raising America: Experts, Parents and a Century of Advice About Children" by Ann Hulbert.

Wednesday in Science, babies who know what’s on your mind, a sinkhole in China, coral reefs in crisis and a soldier who can now talk with his hands. Check out these and other headlines from around the Web.

Baby Mind Readers: Even babies as young as 1 ½ can guess what other people are thinking, LiveScience.com reports. Previously, scientists thought this ability to understand other people’s perspectives emerged much later in children.

Time Wasters: An explosion in technology aimed at helping people manage their time and tasks may actually be making it harder, reports The Wall Street Journal. Many people choose something that doesn’t fit the way they think and work, or they jump from one tool to another, wasting time and energy.

More Housework, Less Sex: Married men who spend more time doing traditionally female chores, like cooking, cleaning and shopping, report having less sex than husbands who don’t do as much, reports The Houston Chronicle. Conversely, men who did more manly chores, such as yard work, paying bills and auto repairs, reported having more sex.

Roman Tag Artists: A facelift of the Colosseum in Rome that began last fall has revealed centuries of graffiti, National Geographic reports.

Sinkhole Swallows Building: An enormous sinkhole opened up under a building complex in China’s southern city of Guangzhou Tuesday, swallowing five shops and one building. Watch the video from The Christian Science Monitor.

Sandwiched Generation: More middle-aged adults are caring for both children and aging parents, reports USA Today. About 15 percent of American adults in their 40s and 50s provided financial support to both an aging parent and a child in 2012, according to a survey of 2,511 adults from the Pew Social and Demographic Trends Project.

Misleading Trials: A rare peek into drug company documents reveals troubling differences between publicly available information and materials the company holds close to its chest, reports ScienceNews.org. In comparing public and private descriptions of drug trials conducted by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, researchers discovered discrepancies,including changes in the number of study participants and inconsistent definitions of protocols and analyses.

Reuters

A diver swam past a healthy colony of Caribbean elkhorn coral near Molasses Reef, Florida, in 2009.

Coral in Crisis: Coral reefs are producing less calcium carbonate and growth rates have slowed dramatically, reports Science News.

Severe Flu Cases Among Chinese: A genetic variant commonly found in Chinese people may help explain why some got seriously ill with swine flu, reports The Boston Globe. The discovery could help pinpoint why flu viruses hit some populations particularly hard and change how they are treated.

Video by AssociatedPress

Double-Arm Transplant Recipient: Feels Amazing

Double-Arm Transplant Soldier Speaks: Brendan Marrocco, a soldier who lost all four limbs in Iraq and then received a double-arm transplant said he hated living without arms. “Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don’t have that, you’re kind of lost for a while,” the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital, reports The Associated Press.

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Boeing says it will find cause of 787 problems, defends batteries

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. said it is confident it will get to the root cause of the battery problems with its problem-plagued 787 Dreamliner passenger jet.

The company's newest plane has been grounded since Jan. 16 by the Federal Aviation Administration after experiencing problems with onboard lithium-ion batteries.

In a conference call announcing Boeing's fourth-quarter earnings, Chief Executive James McNerney said the company is working with customers and the regulatory agencies to get the matter resolved but is not permitted to comment directly on the ongoing investigations.

"I'm confident we will identify the root cause of these incidents," he said. "When we know the answer, we'll know the answer and we'll act on it."

The 787's battery systems were called into question Jan. 7 when a smoldering fire was discovered on the underbelly of the plane operated by Japan Airlines after the 183 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the burnt lithium-ion battery systems, analyzing the chemical and elemental make-up of the areas of internal short circuiting and thermal damage.

In the second incident, which involved All Nippon Airways, smoke was seen swirling from the right side of the cockpit after an emergency landing related to the plane's electrical systems. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated from the aircraft and slid down the 787's emergency slides. Video of the event was captured by an onboard passenger and has been broadcast worldwide.

Neither safety agency has reached a conclusion on the cause of the incidents.

No one has been reported hurt or injured. But the recent events have become a public relations nightmare for the Chicago company, which has long heralded the Dreamliner as a representation of 21st century air travel.

The 787, a twin-aisle aircraft that can seat 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large commercial jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials (carbon fibers meshed together with epoxy) rather than aluminum sheets. It's also the first large commercial aircraft that extensively uses electrically powered systems involving lithium-ion batteries.

Despite the incidents, McNerney said he didn't doubt the decision to use the new technology.

"Nothing we've learned has told us yet that we have made the wrong choice on the battery technology," he said. "We feel good about the battery technology and its fit for the airplane.  We've just got to get to the root cause of these incidents and we'll take a look at the data as it unfolds."

In the quarter, Boeing earned $978 million, or $1.28 per share. That's down 30% from $1.39 billion, or $1.84 per share last year, but that period included a tax benefit.

Boeing's fourth-quarter profit topped analyst estimates of $1.19 a share.

Revenue rose 14% to $22.3 billion.

Boeing expects earnings this year to be $5 to $5.20 per share, with revenue of $82 billion to $85 billion. The company expects “no significant financial impact” from the 787 ongoing grounding.

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Pentagon successful with latest missile-defense test off Pacific 

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Sheriff's response time is longer in unincorporated areas, audit finds

It took Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies a minute longer to respond to emergency calls from unincorporated parts of the county than from cities that contract with the department for police services, according to a county audit.

The finding comes days after Supervisor Gloria Molina accused Sheriff Lee Baca of "stealing" police resources from residents in unincorporated neighborhoods and threatened to hire "independent private patrol cars" to backfill cuts in sheriff's patrols. She has accused Baca of providing better service to contract cities than to unincorporated areas.

According to the audit, which examined the last fiscal year, it took deputies, on average, 4.8 minutes to respond to emergency calls in contract cities compared with 5.8 minutes in unincorporated areas.

Sheriff's officials said the extra minute was because neighborhoods in unincorporated areas are more spread out and have more difficult road conditions.

The audit also found that Baca provided 91% of promised patrol hours to unincorporated areas, compared with 99% for cities and agencies that buy his services. Sheriff's officials blamed the difference on deep budget cuts imposed by the board that caused the department to leave dozens of deputy positions unfilled.

Adjusted for those cuts, the department was much closer to its goal — averaging 98.5% fulfillment of its pledged patrol hours, according to the audit.

The findings by the county's auditor-controller are expected to add more fuel to the ongoing debate between the sheriff and the board about whether the sheriff is shortchanging county residents who live outside city borders.

Baca and his predecessors have long wrangled with supervisors over funding and patrol resources.

Although the board sets the sheriff's budget, Baca, an elected official, has wide discretion on how to spend it. The Sheriff's Department polices about three-fourths of the county. Along with the unincorporated areas, Baca's deputies patrol more than 40 cities within the county that don't have their own police forces. The patrol obligations for those cities are set in contracts with the department, so county budget cuts are more likely to affect unincorporated areas.

On Tuesday, the board is expected to discuss Molina's idea to empower unincorporated neighborhoods to negotiate police contracts with the Sheriff's Department or some other agency — the same way incorporated cities do.

According to the audit, it costs the sheriff about $552 million to provide police services for contract cities and agencies, but the department gets approximately $371 million back. The auditor-controller suggested pursuing changes in state law or board policy to allow the sheriff to recoup more.

State law prohibits sheriffs from billing contract cities for non-patrol services provided countywide. So the department has provided a broad range of services — such as homicide and narcotics detectives, bomb squads and the county crime lab — at no extra charge.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said those rigid agreements — with contract cities, the county's courts, community colleges and public transit lines — limited where the sheriff could slash in the face of county budget woes.

The board has cut the sheriff's budget — now at $2.8 billion — by $128 million in 2010, $96 million in 2011 and $140 million last year, according to Whitmore.

The sheriff has already reassigned about two dozen gang enforcement deputies to patrol in unincorporated areas and has identified more than 90 other deputies to do the same, Whitmore said.

Molina's spokeswoman declined to suggest other areas where sheriff's officials should slash in light of funding cuts from the board but said that services to unincorporated areas should not be one of them.

"We respectfully request they go back to the drawing board," spokeswoman Roxane Márquez said.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

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China may consider ending its decade-long ban on video game consoles

Shares of Sony (SNE) and Nintendo (NTDOY) surged on Monday following a report from China’s official newspaper that claimed the country is considering the lift of a decade-long ban on video game consoles. An unnamed source told the China Daily newspaper that the Ministry of Culture is “reviewing the policy,” and has conducted surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of lifting the ban. An official at the ministry’s cultural market department denied the report in a statement to Reuters, however, claiming it “is not considering lifting the ban.”

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 debuts on Wednesday – strap in for a wild ride]

China banned the sale of video game consoles in 2000 to safeguard children’s mental and physical development. In order for the ban to be lifted, the seven different ministries who issued the ruling must all agree to reverse it.

[More from BGR: Apple releases iOS 6.1 to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users]

Shares of Sony’s stock were up more than 8% in Tokyo on Monday, while Nintendo gained 3.5% on a weaker Nikkei index.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Chris Cuomo leaving ABC News for CNN

NEW YORK (AP) — Chris Cuomo is leaving ABC News to host a new morning show at CNN, where new boss Jeff Zucker is moving fast to try to turn around the cable news pioneer that has fallen on hard times.

Network managing editor Mark Whitaker announced he was quitting Tuesday, officially Zucker's seventh day on the job as CNN Worldwide president. Longtime political consultants and commentators James Carville and Mary Matalin also are leaving.

Cuomo is expected to be paired with current evening anchor Erin Burnett in the mornings. CNN said Tuesday it was discussing other job options with Soledad O'Brien, who will be ending her second stint as morning show co-host.

"Chris is an accomplished anchor who is already an established name in morning television," Zucker said. "What I love about Chris is that he is passionate about every story he tells, never forgets about the viewer and represents the type of journalism that makes CNN great."

In addition to the broadcast morning shows, CNN is competing with two distinctive cable news morning programs in Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Zucker was the "Today" show executive producer as the show began dominating morning television in the mid-1990s, before moving up in the NBC executive suite, and he is expected to work closely in developing the new morning show. He was largely responsible for Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira getting their jobs at "Today."

Cuomo, the "20/20" co-anchor, is the second big defection from ABC to CNN in a little more than a month, the other being Jake Tapper.

Both men found their paths to higher-profile jobs at ABC blocked. Cuomo, who was news anchor at "Good Morning America" from 2006 to 2009, was passed over for George Stephanopoulos as co-host of that show while Tapper twice didn't get a shot at the anchor job on "This Week," first when Stephanopoulos left and then when he returned to the Sunday show.

Both Cuomo and Tapper will have their own daily programs on CNN, which generally runs third in the ratings behind Fox and MSNBC but improves during big news events.

Cuomo wasn't made available for comment. He said in a statement that "this is a fantastic opportunity to do what I value the most and hopefully to do the work that I do best."

CNN was scooped on the announcement of Cuomo's hiring by the newsman's older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who mentioned it during a radio interview Tuesday morning.

ABC News moved quickly to replace Cuomo, appointing correspondent David Muir as Elizabeth Vargas' new co-host on the prime-time newsmagazine.

Whitaker came to CNN in 2011 as senior vice president and managing editor and tried to expand CNN's programming, opening a film division and hiring Morgan Spurlock and Anthony Bourdain for weekend shows that haven't started yet.

With Zucker and "his own forceful ideas" about CNN's direction and programming options, Whitaker said the new chief deserved a chance to build his own management team.

The Cajun commentator Carville, a former Bill Clinton political aide, has delivered opinions on CNN since 2002. His wife, Mary Matalin, came on at the end of the Bush administration in 2009.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y. contributed to this report.

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