BBC NEWS:
Tuesday, 25 September 2007, 07:44 GMT 08:44 UK

Acupuncture is said to release the body's vital energy

Acupuncture - real or sham - is more effective at treating back pain than conventional therapies, research suggests.

A German team found almost half the patients treated with acupuncture felt pain relief.

But the Archives of Internal Medicine study also suggests fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing.

In contrast, only about a quarter who received drugs and other Western therapies felt better.

Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain Dr Heinz Endres Ruhr University Bochum

The researchers, from the Ruhr University Bochum, say their findings suggest that the body may react positively to any thin needle prick - or that acupuncture may simply trigger a placebo effect.

One theory is that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli.

Researcher Dr Heinz Endres said: "Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain.

"Patients experienced not only reduced pain intensity, but also reported improvements in the disability that often results from back pain and therefore in their quality of life."

Needles not manipulated

More than 1,100 patients took part in the study. They were given either conventional therapy, acupuncture or a sham version.

Although needles were used in the sham therapy, they were not inserted as deeply as in standard acupuncture. Neither were they inserted at points thought key to producing a therapeutic effect, or manipulated and rotated once in position.

After six months 47% of patients in the acupuncture group reported a significant improvement in pain symptoms, compared to 44% in the sham group, and just 27% in the group who received conventional therapy.

Dr James Young, of Chicago's Rush University, said: "We don't understand the mechanisms of these so-called alternative treatments, but that doesn't mean they don't work."

Acupuncture is based on the ancient Chinese theory that needles can be used to release the body's vital energy, or qi.

Conventional therapies tested in the study included painkillers, injections, heat therapy and massage.

It is estimated that as many as 85% of the population experiences back pain at some point, and the problem costs the NHS around £500m a year.

When the small Devon town of Modbury became the first in Europe to reject plastic bags in its shops six months ago cynics said traders and the public would soon tire of their experiment and go back to oil-based polyethylene normality.

Anything but. Not only has the self-imposed ban by the 40-odd shopkeepers held firm with the public accepting alternatives, but now 50 other cities, towns and villages are following Modbury and are in the process of ditching the eponymous symbol of the throwaway society.

They range from London, where the 33 boroughs last week proposed a city-wide ban on all throwaway bags starting in 2009, to the islands of Mull, Arran and Guernsey, which are racing to become the first plastic bag-free island in the world.

Some of the initiatives come from individuals, others from councils, and many from shopkeepers themselves. All were inspired by Modbury and Rebecca Hosking, the young wildlife camerawoman whose outrage at the pollution of Pacific ocean marine life by plastic bags led to Modbury changing.

Second after Modbury has come Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, a former mill town in the Pennines, which stopped handing out plastic bags two weeks ago after four women calling themselves the Bag Ladies convinced nearly all the town's 104 traders that plastic was passé.

Britain uses nearly 17bn bags a year, or 300 for every man, woman and child, but the Bag Ladies - an IT consultant, an ambulance technician, a massage therapist and a climate change consultant - found they were pushing an open door. "We could hardly find any opposition at all to people not using plastic. They all said it made sense," said Louise Marix-Evans, one of the women, yesterday. "We sent a leaflet to all 6,000 households in the town, and we talked to all the traders and the Co-op supermarket. We showed them a film about the damage they do and only three were hostile. Since then, one has come round. We said we would be happy if 80% of the town shops changed but it's way more than that."

The switch is taking place gradually, with some shops running down their stocks and others offering a mix of string, corn starch and cotton bags. "Some are asking for a contribution but plastic is definitely on the way out in Hebden Bridge," says Ms Marix -Evans. "It's a no-brainer. They are not greatly loved, sometimes they're useful, but we've all had enough of them. People want to do stuff. "

North Berwick, near Edinburgh, may be next. The seaside town of 7,000 people has sent out questionnaires to households and of the 400 replies 98% approve a switch. "It's very difficult to find anyone opposing a change. They almost want the change from plastic to be imposed on them, they want someone to take the lead," said Robin MacEwen, a retired civil servant in the Scottish Assembly's justice department. "I think the politicians have been slow to detect this and would get a lot of support if they took more action."

Less ambitious, but following the French model where supermarkets have stopped using flimsy plastic bags, is the Amberley stores and post office in West Sussex. Next week Roger Townsend, one of the shop's trustees, will deliver a biodegradeable cotton bag to all 300 households in the area and stop offering plastic. "Frankly, asking everyone whether they approve would be going over the top," he said.

"Let's be bold and take the initiative," said Chris Hogwood, a spokesman for the 33 London councils who last week launched a consultation on whether to ban bags completely, or put a levy on them, as in Ireland. "Lots of people want an outright ban. There's no reason it cannot work in the capital. It's crazy that other cities can do this," he says.

Back in Modbury, Ms Hosking says her small West Country revolution is now complete. "There's no way Modbury is going back. It's been a total success and being plastic bag-free is now very much the norm for us all. To the point that if we go shopping in another town and are offered a plastic bag it's quite a shock to the system.

"But for me the best thing that's happened is news of Modbury in the Guardian made it back to Hawaii and the island of Maui, where I filmed some of the most upsetting footage of plastic bags killing marine animals. In the past three months Maui has been in the process of passing the first stages of a bill to make the island and its 125,000 residents plastic bag-free within three years."

Six easy steps

1 Do it yourself, or with a group. Don't rely on councils or supermarkets.

2 Get the trust of the traders. Approach them directly. A handout is not enough.

3 Gauge public support to encourage supermarkets and multiples to take part.

4 Learn about what plastics are doing to the environment.

5 Research every type of alternative bag on the market.

6 Set a date.

Rebecca Hosking www.plasticbagfree.com

IN HARM'S WAY: Curious hordes of onlookers waiting along Gurney Drive in Penang, apparently to see if a tsunami would hit the coastal area. -- PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

A photo in The Star, a local newspaper, on Thursday showed a large number of people standing along a promenade in the northern resort island of Penang, apparently waiting to witness a tsunami.

The report prompted a minister yesterday to urge people to stay away from the beach.

'Don't gather at the beach when the tsunami alert is issued,' said Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Kong Cho Ha.

'When we tell people to move away from the shore, some people purposely go to the shore to have a look. This is something that the people should not do,' he said.

The promenade was one of the areas struck by the December 2004 tsunami when 3m-high waves pounded the wall. A total of 68 people were killed in Malaysia, most of them on the island of Penang.

Police criticised the onlookers for staying on after the tsunami alert was issued to the coastal states of Penang, Kedah and Perak soon after the 8.4-magnitude quake struck off the west coast of Sumatra island on Wednesday.

A tsunami never materialised, but local police chief Azam Abdul Hamid was quoted by The Star as saying: 'Heed our warning. It is for your own good.

'If a tsunami had really hit that night, those who lingered on could have been seriously injured or even lost their lives.'

He was the director of two of the most critically acclaimed science fiction films, but now Sir Ridley Scott believes that the genre is so tired and unoriginal that it may be dead.

At the Venice Film Festival for a special screening of his seminal noir thriller Blade Runner, Sir Ridley said that science fiction films were going the way the Western once had. “There’s nothing original. We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it,” he said. Asked to pick out examples, he said: “All of them. Yes, all of them.”

The flashy effects of recent block-busters, such as The Matrix, Independence Day and The War of the Worlds, may sell tickets, but Sir Ridley believes that none can beat Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Made at the height of the “space race” between the United States and the USSR, 2001 predicted a world of malevolent computers, routine space travel and extraterrestrial life. Kubrick had such a fastidious eye for detail, he employed Nasa experts in designing the spacecraft.

Sir Ridley said that 2001 was “the best of the best”, in use of lighting, special effects and atmosphere, adding that every sci-fi film since had imitated or referred to it. “There is an overreliance on special effects as well as weak storylines,” he said of modern sci-fi films.

Sir Ridley is one of Britain’s most acclaimed film-makers. His extraordinary number of box-office hits include Alien – another sci-fi classic, best remembered for the scene of an infant creature bursting through John Hurt’s chest – as well as Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. But it is for Blade Runner that sci-fi fans revere him most, regularly voting it one of the best examples of the genre.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its original release, Sir Ridley has produced a new cut of the film, which has its world premiere at the festival.

Apart from its stunning camera work and state-of-the art special effects, Blade Runner was ahead of its time in its treatment of issues such as globalisation, urban decay, global warming, overpopulation and genetic engineering.

The film, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, is a stylish, brooding film noir starring Harrison Ford as a special detective – a “blade runner” – assigned to hunt down a band of killer androids, and Rutger Hauer as the replicant leader. Film fans applaud its exploration of existential questions – What does it mean to be human? Can robots and computers have souls? Sir Ridley was pressurised into altering his original vision for the film after it tested badly with preview audiences. At the behest of the studio he introduced a voiceover narration to explain the story to audiences and tacked on a happy ending.

“There were too many cooks in the kitchen,” he recalled yesterday, suggesting that there continued to be too much reliance on such test screenings.

“We went into preview hell on that,” he said. “Everyone has an opinion. At the end of the day, if you want to be an artist, you have to trust your instincts.” Test screenings should be used more discerningly – “purely as an advisory tool”, he said.

Blade Runnerhas now been restored and remastered with the inclusion of new and extended scenes and improved special effects on a special five-disc DVD set that Warner Brothers will release this autumn.

— Nominate your favourite sci-fi movie and leave your comments below

Zero gravity

The Matrix(1999) Kung-fu mixed with artificial reality. Critics say science behind the fiction was absent

The War of the Worlds (2005) Wells’s tripods terrorise Tom Cruise. Dubbed “the greatest B-movie made”

Star Wars: Episode I (1999) The CGI take on a young Darth Vader. Detractors said that it lacked emotional pull

For 20 years, I've been travelling around the world as a DJ: Thailand, Columbia, Chile, India, Israel, Malaysia, Miami - you name it, I've played there. Going to all these countries - and through the contacts you make there - you seem to build up an idea of what place is happening at a particular time. And right now, nowhere is more exciting than China.

I've been going to China every year now for more than a decade. I was there for the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Everyone was in a state of high panic, thinking there was going to be drastic change overnight, with tanks and soldiers sweeping in from the outskirts of town. I was working, playing a set rounding off a party for 10,000 people in Kowloon Bay. There was an air of chaos and pandemonium, and then, just like the millennium bug, nothing happened. The morning dawned and things continued pretty much as they were.

But change did begin to come, slowly, at first, but now accelerating all the time. Every time I go, I can see, smell and feel the changes since my last visit.

By the late 1990s, I'd kind of got over Hong Kong and was looking for more. I felt the place to go was definitely Shanghai, and friends who lived there were saying the same thing.

In those early days, you felt the hand of the military. If they said a show had to end at 2am, that's when it ended. Obviously there were bars and people were drinking, but you'd come out and sense the military were just round the corner, always monitoring what was going on. A friend of mine, Mian Mian, wrote a book called Candy about the underground scene of that period, about how the creative work of artists, painters, singers, writers, was being monitored, and also about how people would stay out beyond the curfew and go back to people's houses to party. It was published in several countries, but banned in China.

Now though, it's almost gone the other way. The clubs go on until six or seven in the morning. There are shopping malls, Gucci and Prada everywhere - and not just in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. There's a chain of nightclubs called Babyface in 12 of the major cities. If you had a chain of 12 British clubs, it wouldn't be perceived as creditable - but it is out there, because the country's so vast, and Babyface is one of the most credible chain of clubs in the world. Every major DJ goes through there at some stage during their career.

Shanghai set out to take over from Hong Kong and I think it's done that. It's got the most amazing futuristic skyline which rivals and even betters Tokyo. When I'm in town, I stay at the Grand Hyatt which starts on the 54th floor and goes up to the 87th floor of the Jin Mao tower. So sometimes you are sitting on the 60th floor, above the clouds, looking down at the Bund, the city region on the bank of the Huangpu river. Everywhere you look are futuristic buildings but it's also steeped in history, and there's so much going on. It feels like you're at this magical place at exactly the right time.

Friday, 24 August 2007, 15:00 GMT 16:00 UK

By Jonathan Kent BBC News, Kuala Lumpur

Base jumpers have been allowed to dive from the city's highest points

Dozens of people have been marking the start of Malaysia's 50th anniversary celebrations by throwing themselves off one of the country's tallest buildings.

The international base jump from the KL Tower is part of a tour of the country by extreme sports enthusiasts.

Malaysia boasts some of the world's tallest buildings, which are a familiar feature of its urban landscape.

Authorities are proud of the high-rises and generally relaxed about letting thrill-seekers base jump off them.

To honour next week's 50th anniversary of Malaysia winning its independence from Britain, international base jumpers have been allowed to dive from urban highpoints across the country.

This includes sites in the cities of Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, and from towers in Alostar, George Town and the capital Kuala Lumpur in West Malaysia.

Three hundred metres up the KL Tower, a telecommunications tower in Kuala Lumpur, I asked one base jumper the obvious question: "Just how crazy do you have to be to jump off a building with just a parachute?"

"You have to be completely sane to jump off a building with a parachute," he replied.

"That's the point. I don't think any of us are really crazy. [We] put a lot of planning into this, think about it and make it as safe as possible."

• Saturday August 25 2007

Hollywood's image of piracy has been altered by the internet

Operating under the sign of a Jolly Roger, The Pirate Bay website hopes to evoke a buccaneer spirit: swashbuckling swordsmen, or perhaps the pirate radio stations of the 1960s. But as the internet's number one destination for illegal downloads, it has raised the ­hackles of the entertainment industry and elevated its founders to the top of Hollywood's most wanted list.

With more than two million visitors every day, The Pirate Bay has become one of the sharpest thorns in the side of the media business. Its controversial success has caused havoc in the music, TV and film industries.

Current top downloads include The Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4.0 and Knocked Up — all showing in British cinemas, but available to watch on a computer screen for those willing to take the risk.

The three-year campaign to bring down the website is almost an epic of Hollywood proportions, sprinkled with high-flying lawyers and accusations of political extremism. And yet, so far, the chase has failed to bring the pirates down.

Despite their high profile, however, the men behind The Pirate Bay are not part of an organised crime syndicate. Instead, they are an unlikely trio of Swedish computer geeks who began their war with the media from a small room in Stockholm.

The group, who spoke exclusively to the Guardian, live like students in the suburbs of Sweden's major cities. They wake late and work into the night. The closest thing they have to an official headquarters is a desk on the suburban outskirts of Malmo — and that is simply because it has a working fax machine.

But as the most hated men in Hollywood, they said they have become used to the attention. "We get legal threats every day, or we used to," said Peter Sunde, 28, one of the site's main workers. "But we don't have a problem with them — we're just a search engine."

Fredrik Neij, a 29-year-old IT consultant, has a more prosaic view: "It's nice to be noticed," he smiled.

Chief among those angered by The Pirate Bay's popularity is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents the US film studios. It is waging war against the site, which it claims is costing billions in lost sales.

John Malcolm, executive vice-president of the MPAA, has railed against the trio, accusing them of cashing in on illegal activity. "The bottom line is that the operators of The Pirate Bay, and others like them, are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works," he said.

Mr Sunde insists the site does not profit its founders, and money raised from advertising is used to cover expenses. Instead, he says, the team make their money from a variety of side projects and day jobs.

Filesharing and illegal downloading has been a big issue for media companies since the late 1990s. But while pioneering services such as Napster and Kazaa were closed down by the courts, the campaign against The Pirate Bay has failed to make a breakthrough.

The crux of the defence is that The Pirate Bay operates like any internet search engine: it points to downloads, rather than hosting any illegal content itself. Under Swedish law this has so far made it immune to prosecution.

"I don't like the word untouchable, but we feel pretty safe," said Mr Sunde. He thinks that European enmity towards the Bush administration has bolstered support. "The US government is losing popularity every day in Europe, and people don't want to see us give in to them."

Their apparent invulnerability to prosecution has made them heroes of the internet piracy movement, but not everybody feels the same way.

"I certainly don't see them as romantic pirates: it's out and out theft," says John Kennedy, chief executive of the international music industry body IFPI. "It's pure, ruthless greed — or total naivety."

But the group's supporters around the world say they are vexed with what they see as the "corruption" of the media industry.

"This is already happening — you cannot stop it," says Magnus Eriksson of Piratbyran, the Swedish thinktank which helped start the website in 2003. "But the thing is that the people who download the most are also the ones who spend the most on buying media. Media companies already know that they have to change."

The pirates suspect the cam­paign against them is gathering pace. Last year police raided the site and held Gottfried Svartholm, the third member of the group, for questioning. No charges resulted, but the site was offline for two days.

Lately critics have focused on potential political links, including one German failed attempt to link the organisation with far-right extremists.

More recently Swedish police said they were considering blocking the website because of a tip-off that some pages linked to images of child abuse. This, says Mr Sunde, was just an attempt to smear The Pirate Bay's reputation. "There were three files in question, but it turned out that none of them contained child porn," he said.

The group is adamant it is just a search engine, but Mr Kennedy rejects any analogy with traditional internet businesses. "When I sit down with Google they are prepared to talk about copyright issues," he says. "If I thought The Pirate Bay guys were doing something really new and clever, then we'd look at it — but there's no evidence of that."

Mr Sunde remains unmoved. He says piracy is a way of life on the internet. "I started off copying disks on my computer when I was eight or nine," he said. "You should never tell people where they can't go or what they can't do."

(WI) what you need:

• www.utorrent.com
  
• websites - www.torrentz.com (seach engine whcih includes Pirate Bay)
• http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
  

Near-death events have triggered out-of-body experiences

Experts have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in volunteers.

The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people.

Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere.

The visual illusion plus the feel of their real bodies being touched made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies.

The researchers say their findings could have practical applications, such as helping take video games to the next level of virtuality so the players feel as if they are actually inside the game.

Clinically, surgeons might also be able to perform operations on patients thousands of miles away by controlling a robotic virtual self.

Teleported

For some, out-of-body experiences or OBEs occurs spontaneously, while for others it is linked to dangerous circumstances, a near-death experience, a dream-like state or use of alcohol or drugs.

One theory is that it is down to how people perceive their own body - those unhappy or less in touch with their body are more likely to have an OBE.

But the two teams, from University College London, UK, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, believe there is a neurological explanation.

We feel that our self is located where the eyes are UCL researcher Dr Henrik Ehrsson

In the Swiss experiments, the researchers asked volunteers to stand in front of a camera while wearing video-display goggles.

Through these goggles, the volunteers could see a camera view of their own back - a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that appeared to be standing in front of them.

When the researchers stroked the back of the volunteer with a pen, the volunteer could see their virtual back being stroked either simultaneously or with a time lag.

The volunteers reported that the sensation seemed to be caused by the pen on their virtual back, rather than their real back, making them feel as if the virtual body was their own rather than a hologram.

Volunteers

Even when the camera was switched to film the back of a mannequin being stroked rather than their own back, the volunteers still reported feeling as if the virtual mannequin body was their own.

And when the researchers switched off the goggles, guided the volunteers back a few paces, and then asked them to walk back to where they had been standing, the volunteers overshot the target, returning nearer to the position of their "virtual self".

Dr Henrik Ehrsson, who led the UCL research, used a similar set-up in his tests and found volunteers had a physiological response - increased skin sweating - when they felt their virtual self was being threatened - appearing to be hit with a hammer.

Dr Ehrsson said: "This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."

Dr Susan Blackmore, psychologist and visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, said: "This has at last brought OBEs into the lab and tested one of the main theories of how they occur.

"Scientists have long suspected that the clue to these extraordinary, and sometimes life-changing, experiences lies in disrupting our normal illusion of being a self behind our eyes, and replacing it with a new viewpoint from above or behind."

Peter Bradshaw

August 21, 2007 8:43 AM

REFERRING TO:http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/08/bad_chemistry_couples_who_fail.html

Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman ... voted worst screen partners. Photograph: Allstar/Lucas Film

Ah, the elusive fizz of "screen chemistry". Poor Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman have made it to No 1 in a "worst screen chemistry" poll, published by the screen advertisers Pearl & Dean, for their sparks-not-flying, fireworks-not-exploding relationship in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. They are, after all, two of the dullest actors in Hollywood; they are close in age anyway, and Portman is only slightly more feminine than her co-star.

But sexual chemistry is rare, and fleeting, in art as in life. As top male star and top female star emerge from their trailers and warily eye each other on the first day's principal photography, they may be wondering if this is the right choice for their career, or if their onscreen partner is going to upstage them. None of these things make for convincing bedroom eyes.

For my money, the worst screen chemistry occurred on the small-screen, between Hollywood star Meg Ryan and TV interviewer Michael Parkinson, when Ryan was over here to promote her steamy thriller In the Cut. Ryan was haughty; Parkinson was grumpy. It was a horrifying, unwatchable parody of the flirtatious badinage that Hollywood traditionally writes for sexy younger woman meeting worldly older man. Ryan, of course, had famously great chemistry with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, which might have ruined her chemistry-potential for anyone else. She certainly had zero chemistry with Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail.

Hollywood's most famously awful screen chemistry does not appear in this poll: Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), a catastrophic non-meeting of hearts and minds. Larry was reputedly miffed at Marilyn's reluctance to pay tribute to his legendary reputation, and her unforgivable failure to find him personally attractive.

The bad karma of some real-life couples will affect their onscreen relationship. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were always going to be awful in Gigli due to their failing relationship, though I thought the bad vibe between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut was right for the film.

Some actresses are doomed to bad chemistry because they are simply too interesting and singular for their other halves: Julia Stiles has found no chemistry with anyone since Heath Ledger in Ten Things I Hate About You. Drew Barrymore looks cheerfully bemused by every leading man plonked down next to her. Not bad chemistry, but no chemistry: a test-tube of cold, clear water.

By Helen Fawkes BBC News, Alushta, Crimea

Health experts are sceptical about the "therapy's" supposed benefits

The Crimean Stars Sanatorium in Alushta has devised a treatment called "wine therapy".

It claims the treatment can help alleviate a range of medical problems like stress, impotence and heart disease.

Even though it may sound like a joke, the sanatorium takes its "wine therapy" very seriously.

Your first stop is not the bar. Instead, there is a medical consultation.

Patients are then advised which cocktail they should take.

Moderation

Dr Alexander Sheludko, who came up with the treatment, points out that medical research has shown that wine in moderation can be good for you.

He boasts that hundreds of people have now had a taste of his medicine.

Wine is a live product which contains vitamins - it has lots of compounds which are biologically active Dr Alexander Sheludko Crimean Stars Sanatorium

"Wine is a live product which contains vitamins. It has lots of compounds which are biologically active," he says.

There are seven different types of cocktails on offer.

The formula is simple - lots of dried herbs are mixed with lots of Crimean wine. Sometimes vodka is added for an extra kick.

Then all you have to do is sit back, relax and make sure you take your "prescription" three times a day for a week or two.

Small glasses of the drink are served from 0700 in the sanatorium's cafe.

'Relaxing'

Lena Borodina, who works as a hairdresser in Russia, has tried lots of alterative treatments.

She says that living in Moscow is stressful and that she travelled to the Ukrainian clinic for something to help her unwind.

I'm happy that it seems to be working well and I rather enjoy it Lena Borodina

"I think that wine therapy is an excellent type of treatment. It relaxes you, gives you strength and fills you with vigour," she adds.

"I'm happy that it seems to be working well and I rather enjoy it."

But Ukrainian health experts are sceptical about whether there are any real medical benefits from "wine therapy".

There is also the question about whether it is such a good idea in a country that has high levels of alcoholism.

The wine is produced locally in the Crimea

"I think that such therapy could lead to someone becoming addicted to drink. It could become the first step towards psychological dependence," Dr Iryna Lipych, a specialist in alcohol dependency, says.

"It is also important to remember that alcohol causes lots of medical problems, and especially that it has a bad effect on liver."

Some of the Crimean cocktails taste very strong.

If they are drunk on an empty stomach, they could well make you feel a bit tipsy.

• attachment  is the actual book albeit in pdf format
• youtube on Dawkins
  
• torrent download for "Beyond Belief" - debate

Secretary, starring James Spader and Maggie GyllenhaalJosh Spero

August 8, 2007 8:02 AM

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/08/what_makes_great_sex_on_screen.html

My computer screen was getting all steamed up as I was doing my research into a new list of the 50 greatest sex scenes in cinema, when my mother texted me the words: "In or out?" Either she's disturbingly psychic or we were at cross-purposes.

Either way, she was asking the right question - for more than the smutty reason. Which scenes were in this list (The 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema website), as determined by the Independent Film Channel and nerve.com, a sex, art and culture website?

Although Premiere Magazine put it top of its poll in 2003, the scene in Antonioni's Blow-Up where David Hemmings shoots Veruschka, who writhes around on the floor in bored ecstasy, doesn't feature. Evidently it must have been too coy for the IFC, or perhaps it has been ruined by Austin Powers. Is it too soon to say the exclusion would have Antonioni turning in his grave?

But back to the list. Many of the scenes are marked out by the disturbing nature of the sex. Take No 1 - Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland having grief-stricken sex in Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now. It's profoundly out of place given the rest of the film, yet it is tender, erotic and tells us about the characters, as meaningful sex scenes should.

The disturbances continue through the top 10: Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello pound away at each other on the stairs in A History of Violence (2), with all the layers of deceit and mistrust involved; Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring have surreal sapphic sex in Mulholland Drive (3); while Secretary (8) and Betty Blue (6) are chock-full of odd, unhinged sex. Perhaps most disturbing is The Night Porter (12), where Nazi guard Dirk Bogarde and concentration camp survivor Charlotte Rampling reconnect.

It seems that what makes a good sex scene - according to this list - is relevance. Most of the top 50 scenes are not bolted-on attempts to sexualise some of Hollywood's mannequins but vital expressions of character and advancements of plot. Where would Brokeback Mountain (23) be without all that unzippering? Doesn't paraplegic Jon Voight going down on Jane Fonda in Coming Home (16) tell us a lot about both love and war?

Originality of combination and location lifts scenes up this poll. The orgy in Shortbus (38) certainly scores on the combination side, although I think the threesome that ends with one guy singing The Star-Spangled Banner into another guy's ass takes the palm. Team America: World Police (14) gets a mention for being clever enough to include some great shots of puppet sex.

Anyone can film Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez sucking face, but it is those scenes that move away from your standard, heated, grinding fare that really are the greatest. Now over to you: which scenes (in mainstream cinema, not porn, thank you) sent your DVD player in search of a post-coital cigarette?

BBC News: Tuesday, 14 December, 2004, 10:37 GMT

The bridge is 23 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower

The world's highest road bridge has been inaugurated in southern France by President Jacques Chirac.

The Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains is more than 300m (984ft) high - taller even than the country's Eiffel Tower.

The bridge, which opens to traffic on Thursday, was built to clear summer traffic jams around the town.

The BBC's Paris correspondent, Caroline Wyatt, says the bridge is one of the most breathtaking ever built.

She says that with its concrete and steel pillars soaring high above the morning fog in the Tarn Valley, the construction makes a spectacular sight.

'Delicacy of a butterfly'

Seven slender piers support the roadway, rising into seven graceful pylons bound to the bridge with what look like cobwebs of steel, our correspondent says.

"The bridge is just on the clouds," Millau Mayor Jacques Godfrain told the BBC's World Today programme.

"The architect, Norman Foster, gave us a model of art."

TALL ORDER Cost: 394m euros (£272m; $524m) Highest point: 343m (1,125ft) Vehicle height: 270m (885ft) In pictures: The Millau bridge

"A work of man must fuse with nature. The pillars had to look almost organic, like they had grown from the earth," the world-renowned British architect said in an interview with regional daily newspaper Midi Libre.

Like Concorde and the Channel Tunnel, the bridge is Franco-British.

French construction group Eiffage - that built the Eiffel Tower - financed the project in return for the right to collect receipts from a bridge toll for 75 years.

The bridge is now a source of pride for Millau, which believes many more tourists will come to admire one of the engineering wonders of the 21st Century, our correspondent says.

The construction also removes a bottleneck at the town, completing a new motorway link between Paris and the Mediterranean.

The construction of the steel bridge - now weighing about 36,000 tonnes - began in December 2001, using innovative techniques.

From the north and south sides of the valley, the metal sections of the structure were assembled, lifted slightly and then carefully slotted into place on each of the supporting pillars.

By Sabaa Alyanai BBC Blast reporter

Smoking in enclosed public places was banned in England on 1 July, but the legislation did not affect only cigarette smokers.

One month on, campaigners claim hundreds of Middle Eastern-style cafes where the water-filtered shisha pipe is smoked are unfairly under threat of closure. They are planning a legal challenge against the new law.

SHISHA - WHAT, WHEN, WHERE? Called hookah in India; shisha or narghile in Middle East Shared experience - one or more pipes can stem from the shisha pipe Intricately-designed glass base is filled with water - stainless steel pipe connects it to the clay pot head Flavoured tobacco or herbal fruit pulp fills the clay pot, is covered with pin-pricked foil, then heated by coal Mainly smoked after dinner with mint tea and baklava (sweet pastries), with guests or socially at a cafe Tobacco flavours come from across the globe, ranging from melon or coconut to coffee or cappuccino

But what's so special about shisha compared with cigarettes? Many smokers, particularly if they are Muslim, say the ancient custom is central to their social life and culture. They don't drink or go to pubs, so the cafes are the hub of their social life.

Has the legislation reduced shisha cafes to ashes?

Many shisha cafes across England have been - or expect to be - adversely affected by the ban, with a number closing down in the capital and other cities.

As with other bars and restaurants, many shisha cafes have found the new law has in effect moved their business outside to do battle with the elements.

With only a metre of pavement available on London's Edgware Road - which has long been a focal point for Middle Eastern cafes and restaurants - there is not enough space for everyone who wants to smoke.

Meanwhile rows of shisha pipes are left untouched inside.

"Come winter time, no-one will want to be outside in the cold," says fitness consultant and shisha smoker Paul Carter.

The shisha pipe is smoked slowly, via a water filter, with flavoured tobacco or herbal alternatives.

Many shisha smokers claim the full health impacts have not been fully researched, and the pipe is less harmful partly because the tobacco quantities are small.

"Where is the scientific evidence?" asks 25-year-old Brad Barker, who is smoking with friends at a London cafe.

I have a wife and a child to support, I have a mortgage... how will I pay my rent? Ayad Albelbese

The World Health Organization has stated that shisha does have harmful effects and, when consulted, said it should be included in the smoking ban.

But it also acknowledged in a report released in 2005 that there is "surprisingly little research addressing tobacco smoking using a water pipe" and that a more thorough understanding of the risks and health effects should be sought.

One month on from the ban the Department of Health is adamant that it is "still the right decision [to include shisha] because it is proved to still be dangerous" and that the legislation should apply to everyone.

In Birmingham Ayad Albelbese, owner of the Ali Baba shisha cafe, says local university students used to describe his place as their "second home" during term time.

His cafe - which existed only to sell shisha and drinks - closed completely at 0559 on the morning the ban kicked in.

Returning to his desolate property, he says he and other owners are angry that they were not consulted sufficiently before the ban.

"Ninety five percent of my business was relying on shisha...[since the ban] I have been without an income, I have a wife and a child to support, I have a mortgage...how will I pay my rent?"

Birmingham City Council said it had informed all owners of the move, adding that the wider consultation exercise was the responsibility of central government.

New avenues

Aside from his personal plight, Mr Albelbese says he is upset that part of the Arabic culture has been destroyed.

"Where will Asian and Muslim people go? You go to a casino, if you don't gamble why do you go? In the same way, you go to a shisha cafe to smoke shisha.

"How can you have a shisha outside in this weather?"

In his attempt to explore a different business avenue, Mr Albelbese has stumbled across another hurdle, having been refused an A3 restaurant licence to serve hot food.

He is not the only shisha cafe owner seeking to explore alternative avenues.

Cigarettes are addictive but shisha is an addictive cultural experience... it can last all evening and I'm not plastered by the end of it Ben Palmer-Fry, biology teacher

Hasan Al Daheri, the Iraqi owner of Panini Cafe in the Edgware Road area, says he feels desperate that his livelihood is being taken away from him. He is currently awaiting a decision on his application for a hot food licence.

"What I've served for 30 years has disappeared."

Not all businesses have been negatively affected by the ban.

In nearby Bayswater the Bedouin restaurant, which has a covered outside space for smoking shisha, staff say business is still steady.

One customer Lamine Bilal, 20, says he comes only "to smoke shisha".

On an evening out with friends, biology teacher Ben Palmer-Fry says the place is a "taste of Arabic culture".

"Cigarettes are addictive but shisha is an addictive cultural experience... it can last all evening and I'm not plastered by the end of it."

The intentions of the legislation was not to shut down businesses Ibrahim El-Nour

Habibi's restaurant in Birmingham says it has seen an increase in the demand for shisha smoking since the ban.

Owner Manal Timraz described it as her busiest period to date. At the back of the restaurant there are gardens with roofed areas for shisha smokers that she plans to expand, and a smoke-free indoor restaurant for diners.

In an attempt to combat the British weather she plans to install tables that emit heat from in-built heaters.

And according to Ali Mirza of New Natural Village London, which sells shisha pipes, more people are smoking at home. He says he has seen an estimated 30% increase in sales since the ban.

In many cafes, rows of pipes are left redundant. Pic by Sabaá Alyanai

But the campaign goes on.

Ibrahim El-Nour, chief executive of the Edgware Road Association and leader of the Save the Shisha campaign, is sceptical about the survival of thriving cafes, saying: "We expect these places to close soon, at the end of the summer."

He says "the intentions of the legislation was not to shut down businesses" and that is what he wants to avoid.

The campaign says it hopes to rescue a part of Middle Eastern culture from dying out in a multicultural UK.

An application to exempt shisha from the ban, on the grounds of health and culture, has been refused but hope is not yet lost.

As part of the campaign, Mr El-Nour is urging its 600 or so members - many of whom he says have been forced to close - to donate money to finance the legal bid to seek a judicial review.

"its alright if u have your own pipe but more fun with friends"

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shisha
  

BBC News: Thursday, 26 July 2007, 10:32 GMT 11:32 UK

Oscar meows in protest if removed from the room of a dying patient

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.

Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

According to the author of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

"He doesn't make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," David Dosa, a professor at Brown University who carried out the research, told the Associated Press news agency.

'Premonitions'

Oscar was adopted as a kitten at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre.

Cats often can sense when their owners are sick or when another animal is sick Thomas Graves, feline expert

The cat is said to do his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses at the home, but is not generally friendly to patients.

Although most families are grateful for the warning Oscar seems to provide, some relatives ask that the pet be taken away while they say their last goodbyes to their loved ones.

When put outside the room, Oscar is said to pace up and down meowing in protest.

Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "Cats often can sense when their owners are sick or when another animal is sick.

"They can sense when the weather will change, they're famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Setae allow geckos to scurry up walls and hang upside down

Unlike other adhesives inspired by the nimble reptiles, "geckel" can attach to both wet and dry surfaces, the team that developed the material says.

Its staying power comes from coating fibrous silicone, similar in structure to a gecko's foot, with a polymer that mimics the "glue" used by mussels.

Writing in Nature, the researchers say it could have medical applications.

"I envision that adhesive tapes made out of geckel could be used to replace sutures for wound closure, and may also be useful as a water-resistant adhesive for bandages and drug-delivery patches," said Professor Phillip Messersmith from Northwestern University in Evanston, near Chicago.

"Such a bandage would remain firmly attached to the skin during bathing but would permit easy removal upon healing."

Other research teams claim they have already produced a gecko-inspired material that works underwater.

Tiny forces

Geckos have an incredible ability to stick to surfaces. Some studies suggest the over-engineered reptiles can hold hundreds of times their own body weight.

In 2000, a University of California team showed that the adhesion was due to very weak intermolecular forces produced by the billions of hair-like structures, known as setae, on each gecko foot.

Geckos can support hundreds of times their own body weight

The cumulative attractive force of billions of setae allows geckos to scurry up walls and even hang upside down on polished glass.

The reptile's grip is only released when it peels its foot off the surface.

The new geckel material exploits this ability but also combines it with the sticking power of mussels.

It consists of a base of densely packed silicone setae coated with a polymer that mimics amino acids found in the "glues" of mussels.

"I was reading a research paper about the drop of adhesion in geckos when [they go] under water, and it hit me: maybe we could apply what we know about mussels to make gecko adhesion work under water," said Professor Messersmith

Tests showed that the material could be stuck and unstuck more than 1,000 times, even when used under water. The researchers said that other materials had only demonstrated "a few contact cycles".

Removing the polymer coating drastically reduced its efficiency.

Sticky tape

Creating a cheap, mass produced adhesive that mimics the sticking power of the cold-blooded gecko has long been a goal of scientists.

We have demonstrated a proof of concept Phillip Messersmith

It was produced using electron-beam lithography, where a beam of electrons etches patterns in a surface.

The same technique is used to make geckel but is expensive and difficult to scale-up for mass production.

For example, the pieces of geckel used in the latest experiments were just 60 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in diameter.

"We have demonstrated a proof of concept," said Professor Messersmith.

"The challenge will be to scale up the technology and still have the geckel material exhibit adhesive behaviour."

But last year, researchers at aerospace and defence firm BAE Systems raised hopes of mass production when they showed off centimetre length strips of a plastic, known as Synthetic Gecko.

Sticking plaster

Using a technique known as photo-lithography, common in the silicon industry, they have since been able to scale up production.

"We've now got large pieces," said Dr Sajad Haq, a research scientist at the company's Advanced Technology Centre in Bristol.

He was unable to reveal the exact size of the sheets as the company has applied for patents on the material.

Synthetic Gecko is composed of millions of mushroom-shaped hairs

"We've now got the material working on rough surfaces and wet surfaces, so it does work underwater for example" he said.

Crucially, he said, his team has not had to tweak the design too much to make it work when wet.

"The material we use is still a simple system," he said. "We haven't had to do anything complex to ensure it works underwater."

He also said that, like geckel, Synthetic Gecko could be re-used over and over again.

Once patented, the firm plans to use the material for a range of applications from repair patches for tanks, aircraft and submarines to crawler robots.

"It's becoming more and more practical," he said. "It's getting very close to a high maturity level."

As the Synthetic Gecko research is commercially sensitive, specific details have not yet been published.

http://www.nature.com/