BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets were mostly higher Tuesday as speculation that lukewarm U.S. economic indicators would keep the Federal Reserve from ending its stimulus program early offset pessimism about China's economy. Major European markets opened slightly down.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225, the region's heavyweight index, jumped 1.8 percent to 14,098.74. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 2.6 percent at 4,834.00 after the country's central bank left interest rates unchanged and said the Australian dollar is likely to continue falling, easing pressure on the economy.
Singapore's Straits Times Index was up 0.9 percent to 3,170.10. Seoul's Kospi was almost unchanged at 1,855.02.
In China, the Shanghai Composite Index reversed early losses to rise 0.6 percent to 2,006.56 after reports on Monday that Chinese manufacturing weakened in June amid a credit crunch. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.7 percent to 20,658.65.
Much of the decline in Hong Kong was led by Chinese banks, which are facing central bank credit restrictions that have caused interest rates on loans by banks to other banks to sharply rise.
"The market is still worrying that the liquidity crisis in Chinese banks is not over," said Francis Lun, chief economist of GE Oriental Financial Group.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 in London was down 0.4 percent to 6,281.53 shortly after opening. Germany's DAX index dropped 0.9 percent to 7,913.40 while France's CAC-40 shed 0.7 percent to 3,741.77. All three indexes had risen the previous day.
Futures augured gains on Wall Street. Dow futures rose 0.2 percent to 14,915 and broader S&P 500 futures added 0.3 percent to 1,611.
Tuesday's gains in Asian markets followed a rally on Wall Street after an ISM manufacturing survey for the U.S. that showed a weak rebound in June thanks to new orders and higher production. The survey boosted stock markets as investors estimated it was strong enough to show the recovery is on track, but not so strong as to encourage the Federal Reserve to start ending its monetary stimulus program ahead of time.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.4 percent to 14,974.96 by day's end, while the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.5 percent to 1,614.96 and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.9 percent to 3,434.
"This rebound in the ISM and moderate employment growth in June would leave the Fed on track to start tapering" its bond purchases in September, said Paul Dales, analyst at Capital Economics.
U.S. economic indicators have been one of the main market drivers in recent weeks as investors gauge when the Fed is likely to wind down its stimulus.
After a volatile few weeks, Fed officials are trying to calm investors' concerns about the central bank's planned reduction in monthly purchases of financial assets. Those purchases are aimed at stimulating the economy by pushing down market interest rates, and investors worry that as the economy improves, a pullback could deprive them of cheap borrowing rates.
In that vein, the U.S. monthly jobs report due Friday will get huge attention as it is the most closely watched indicator for the world's largest economy.
Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 5 cents to $98.05 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.43 to close at $97.99 a barrel on Monday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3026 from $1.3065 late Monday in New York. The dollar rose to 99.75 yen from 99.63 yen.
We hope you've had time to say your goodbyes, because Google Reader bows out today, ending its eight-year existence. The search giant gave a two-month warning, with many users incensed that they'd be losing their defacto RSS reader -- their favorite way to absorb news and internet going-ons. We'd like to hear why Reader managed to pull in such a devoted following, so leave us your memories in the comments below and let us know which service you've moved your feeds to, because some of us haven'tdecidedyet.
New treatment for schizophrenia discovered in FinlandPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jesper Ekelund jesper.ekelund@helsinki.fi 358-503-317-987 University of Helsinki
A research group led by professor Jesper Ekelund showed that by giving a very large dose of famotidine (200 mg daily), sufficient amounts of the drug are able to penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier to affect the histamine system in the brain.
Famotidine has been used for the treatment of heartburn since the 1980s, but at regular dosing, famotidine almost does not enter the brain at all, since the brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier. By increasing the dosage five-fold the drug is able to enter the brain and affect the histamine system.
- Already after one week the symptoms of persons suffering from schizophrenia started to decrease and after four weeks of treatment the symptoms had decreased statistically significantly. The patients that participated in the study were also positively disposed towards the treatment, says Ekelund.
Thirty persons suffering from schizophrenia participated in the study. The patients had been on sickness pension for at least five years. They were randomly divided into two groups, one which received famotidine and one which received placebo. All of the patients who took famotidine responded positively to the treatment while the symptoms of those who were on a placebo did not change.
Schizophrenia is the most common and severe psychotic disorder, and is the cause of at least half of all psychiatric hospital treatment days. No randomized, controlled trials in humans that test the effect of H2 blockade in schizophrenia have been published so far.
Innovation in psychiatric medication urgently needed
Since 1963, when the subsequent Nobel prize winner Arvid Carlsson showed that dopamine has a central role in psychosis, the so called dopamine-hypothesis has been central in psychosis. All presently available medications for psychosis are based around this principle. Since treatment response is all too often incomplete and side effects common, there is still a great, unmet medical need for medications with other mechanisms of action. Many other signaling substances have been the focus of attention, but so far, the brain histamine system has most widely been regarded as important only with regard to side effects of many psychosis medications.
- Famotidine shouldn't be used directly as treatment for schizophrenia until long-term use of a dose of this size has been proved safe. However, our study shows that the histamine system in the brain offers a novel approach to treating psychosis. This should lead to increased efforts by the pharmaceutical industry to develop medications based on this histamine-based mechanism, says Ekelund.
Famotidine works by blocking the histamine H2 receptor. There are important neurons in the brain that use histamine as their primary signaling substance. These neurons have an important role as regulators of other signaling substances. From animal research, it is known that by affecting the histamine system, one can also affect other signaling substances that are known to be involved in schizophrenia.
The project has already received international recognition. Katarina Meskanen, one of the members of Ekelunds research group, was awarded the Young Scientist Award of the SCNP (Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology) and the project has been awarded substantial funding (306,000 USD) from the Stanley foundation for follow-up studies.
###
The research group will replicate the finding through a larger, multinational study in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, where the study is coordinated by professor Jari Tiihonen.
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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.
New treatment for schizophrenia discovered in FinlandPublic release date: 1-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jesper Ekelund jesper.ekelund@helsinki.fi 358-503-317-987 University of Helsinki
A research group led by professor Jesper Ekelund showed that by giving a very large dose of famotidine (200 mg daily), sufficient amounts of the drug are able to penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier to affect the histamine system in the brain.
Famotidine has been used for the treatment of heartburn since the 1980s, but at regular dosing, famotidine almost does not enter the brain at all, since the brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier. By increasing the dosage five-fold the drug is able to enter the brain and affect the histamine system.
- Already after one week the symptoms of persons suffering from schizophrenia started to decrease and after four weeks of treatment the symptoms had decreased statistically significantly. The patients that participated in the study were also positively disposed towards the treatment, says Ekelund.
Thirty persons suffering from schizophrenia participated in the study. The patients had been on sickness pension for at least five years. They were randomly divided into two groups, one which received famotidine and one which received placebo. All of the patients who took famotidine responded positively to the treatment while the symptoms of those who were on a placebo did not change.
Schizophrenia is the most common and severe psychotic disorder, and is the cause of at least half of all psychiatric hospital treatment days. No randomized, controlled trials in humans that test the effect of H2 blockade in schizophrenia have been published so far.
Innovation in psychiatric medication urgently needed
Since 1963, when the subsequent Nobel prize winner Arvid Carlsson showed that dopamine has a central role in psychosis, the so called dopamine-hypothesis has been central in psychosis. All presently available medications for psychosis are based around this principle. Since treatment response is all too often incomplete and side effects common, there is still a great, unmet medical need for medications with other mechanisms of action. Many other signaling substances have been the focus of attention, but so far, the brain histamine system has most widely been regarded as important only with regard to side effects of many psychosis medications.
- Famotidine shouldn't be used directly as treatment for schizophrenia until long-term use of a dose of this size has been proved safe. However, our study shows that the histamine system in the brain offers a novel approach to treating psychosis. This should lead to increased efforts by the pharmaceutical industry to develop medications based on this histamine-based mechanism, says Ekelund.
Famotidine works by blocking the histamine H2 receptor. There are important neurons in the brain that use histamine as their primary signaling substance. These neurons have an important role as regulators of other signaling substances. From animal research, it is known that by affecting the histamine system, one can also affect other signaling substances that are known to be involved in schizophrenia.
The project has already received international recognition. Katarina Meskanen, one of the members of Ekelunds research group, was awarded the Young Scientist Award of the SCNP (Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology) and the project has been awarded substantial funding (306,000 USD) from the Stanley foundation for follow-up studies.
###
The research group will replicate the finding through a larger, multinational study in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, where the study is coordinated by professor Jari Tiihonen.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
When the iPhone got native panorama function in iOS 6, people started sharing tons of sprawling views. 360s of stadiums, the whole visible coastline at sunset. Laudable Facebook wallpapers all. But the urge to capture really wide shots didn't start a few years ago, it began in the 1800s when photographers like George R. Lawrence realized that aerial technology could help them take new kinds of photos.
Lawrence graduated from ladders to balloons to kites over the course of some experimentation, and eventually settled on using 17 Conyne kites (attached to each other with piano wire) to lift a 50 pound camera into the air. And we're talking 400 to 2,000 feet up. Lawrence captured wide views of cities all over the U.S., and his most famous series is probably a flattened San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake (above and below). That's real dedication to doing something new. [Open Culture]
It's just under five months since the announcement of TechStars London, the UK outpost of Boulder, U.S.-based uber-accelerator TechStars after it merged with Jon Bradford?s Springboard. Today TechStars London is unveiling its first cohort, giving us a glimpse at how things are shaping up post-merger.
The big fear of drivers of electric vehicles? Getting stranded with a dead battery. But what if you could bring a charger along with you? That's the idea of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), which offers electric-only power for short daily ?commutes, backed up by a gasoline engine that ?provides propulsion for longer distances. It seems like a win-win?the eco-friendliness of an EV with no range restrictions. Depending on your driving habits, you could go weeks or months without filling up at a gas station, and electricity is about one-third the cost per mile of petroleum. Of course, critics note that a lot of that energy for charging a car comes from coal or natural gas electricity, not renewable sources. And when running on gasoline a plug-in can't match the fuel economy of a conventional gas?electric hybrid or even a fuel-efficient economy car. Plus, those extra batteries are expensive?the additional cost takes years to pay off in fuel savings.
Why, then, do carmakers even bother with plug-ins? Government mandates are a big reason. Starting with the 2015 model year, California requires that 3 percent of an automaker's sales in that state come from zero-emissions vehicles. And PHEVs play a big part in raising corporate average fuel economy numbers, so they have a role in nearly every automaker's future product plans. What's certain is that we're going to see more PHEVs on the market in the coming years. Do they offer the best of both worlds, or are they boondoggles aimed purely at satisfying government regulations?
To find out, we took a car from each of the four brands that currently have plug-ins on the showroom floor: Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, and Honda, which sells its PHEV Accord only in California and New York. Starting from our Manhattan offices, we drove highways and back roads up to Monticello, N.Y., and tested straight-line performance at the ?Monticello Motor Club. Then we put each vehicle through a maximum-range city-driving loop with the climate control and radio off. For that last test only the Volt guarantees full-time electric operation; the other three kick in the gasoline engine under situations such as full throttle or high speeds. With careful driving we still kept up with traffic in the other three without the use of the gas engines, so our results reflect electric-only power. Only the Prius was a disappointment; the rest offer a rewarding driving experience and are a compelling preview of a piece of the automotive future.
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Public release date: 1-Jul-2013
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