Kutcher is Jobs, Seyfried is Lovelace at Sundance

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Ashton Kutcher as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Amanda Seyfried as porn star Linda Lovelace are among the highlights at January's Sundance Film Festival.

Kutcher headlines director Joshua Michael Stern's "jOBS," one of 18 star-studded premieres announced Monday for Robert Redford's independent-cinema showcase. Chronicling 30 years in the life of the Apple mastermind who died last year, "jOBS" is the closing-night film at Sundance, which runs Jan. 17-27 in Park City, Utah.

Seyfried has the title role in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's "Lovelace," a portrait of the adult-film actress who became an anti-porn crusader years after starring in the hardcore hit "Deep Throat."

The roles are dramatic departures for Kutcher, best-known for broad movie comedies and the TV sitcoms "That '70s Show" and "Two and a Half Men," and Seyfried, best-known for romances such as "Dear John" and "Mamma Mia!"

But dramatic departures often are what it's all about at Sundance, which presents films out of the mainstream that let top-name talent take a break from the Hollywood mold.

"A lot of these actors are looking to spread out of their comfort zones," said Sundance director John Cooper. "It's about doing something different for them."

The lineup of dramas, along with 11 documentaries also announced in the premiere section Monday, play outside the roster of 64 films unveiled last week for Sundance's U.S. and world-cinema competitions. Along with entries in the festival's midnight section and other programs also announced last week, Sundance will offer 115 feature-length films.

The dramatic premieres present a number of reunions among filmmakers and stars, including Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight," with co-writers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprising the star-crossed romantic roles they played in 1995's "Before Sunrise" and 2004's "Before Sunset"; Jane Campion's "Top of the Lake," a six-hour mystery whose cast includes Holly Hunter, who won an Academy Award for the director's 1993 drama "The Piano"; Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's misfit teen tale "The Way, Way Back," featuring Steve Carell and Toni Collette, who co-starred in the 2006 Sundance premiere "Little Miss Sunshine"; and Michael Winterbottom's "The Look of Love," with his frequent star Steve Coogan as British porn baron Paul Raymond.

Other premiere highlights include "Don Jon's Addiction," with Joseph Gordon-Levitt making his directing debut and starring alongside Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore in the story of a modern Don Juan; George Tillman Jr.'s "The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete," a tale of two boys in the Brooklyn housing projects whose cast includes "American Idol" alumni Jennifer Hudson and Jordin Sparks; Fredrik Bond's "The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman," with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood in a romance between a man traveling abroad and a troubled Romanian beauty; Anne Fontaine's "Two Mothers," starring Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as friends who fall for each other's sons; and Naomi Finer's "Very Good Girls," featuring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen as teens aiming to lose their virginity but who fall for the same guy.

Documentary premieres include Freida Mock's "Anita," examining the fallout from sexual-harassment charges brought by Anita Hill against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas; Alex Gibney's "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," an analysis of the website that released classified government documents; and R.J. Cutler and Greg Finton's "The World According to Dick Cheney," a study of the former vice president and the power he wielded in George W. Bush's administration.

Also premiering at Sundance is Sebastian Junger's "Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington," a portrait of photographer Hetherington's work in war zones around the world.

It will be a sorrowful return to Sundance for Junger, co-director with Hetherington on the Oscar-nominated "Restrepo," a portrait of a U.S. platoon in Afghanistan that won the top documentary prize at the 2010 festival. Hetherington was killed last year while covering the fighting between rebels and government forces in Libya.

"For me, it just adds another layer to the human cost of what that these guys are trying to expose," said festival programming director Trevor Goth. "I think it's going to be a very emotional moment at the festival."

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org/festival

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kutcher-jobs-seyfried-lovelace-sundance-210106950.html

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Heavy hydrogen excess hints at Martian vapour loss

Gravity means most things are lighter on Mars but it seems the Red Planet likes its hydrogen heavy. In its first chemical analysis of the Martian soil, the Curiosity rover has discovered an unusually high proportion of heavy hydrogen, also known as deuterium. Combined with future results, the finding may help pin down when and how Mars lost most of its atmosphere.

Most hydrogen atoms contain just a proton and an electron, but some contain an extra neutron, forming deuterium. On Earth, deuterium is much rarer than hydrogen ? for example, in our oceans one in every 6420 hydrogens also has a neutron. As deuterium is thought to have been produced in the big bang, it should have once appeared in similar abundances on all the planets in the solar system.

That's why the new discovery by Curiosity, which landed in an area of Mars called Gale crater on 6 August, is intriguing. After heating a soil sample to 1100 ?C and analysing the resulting vapour, Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment found a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio that is five times higher than that on Earth: one deuterium for every 1284 hydrogens.

"This is one of those ratios that's just way, way different," SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy told a press conference on 3 December at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco.

Bygone water

Mars's atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's and is thought to be vanishing. Mahaffy suggests that Mars could have lost a bunch of its light hydrogen when its climate was warmer and wetter. Ultraviolet light from the sun could have broken up water vapour in the atmosphere, creating free hydrogen. The lighter isotopes of hydrogen would then escape into space more rapidly, leaving proportionately more deuterium behind.

Knowing the modern deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio doesn't paint that picture on its own. But looking at the ratio captured in hydrated minerals on Aeolis Mons, a mountain thought to preserve a layered history of Martian geology, could help fill in the historical record. "It will help us understand the processes that may have stripped an early atmosphere from Mars," Mahaffy said.

More details will come with the MAVEN mission, set to launch in 2013, which will measure the current rate at which hydrogen is escaping from the atmosphere.

"Those escape rates extrapolated back in time, combined with atmospheric measurements we're making, and hopefully combined with what we might find in very ancient rocks 3.5 billions years ago when a lot more water could have been at Gale crater, all of those will help us make a model of the early environment and whether it's conducive to life," Mahaffy said.

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32Marketers Weigh In On The Future of Internet Marketing | The ...

• The Daily Egg
• 32 Marketers Weigh In On The Future of Internet Marketing

by Kristi Hines 12/03/2012

It?s December folks and you know what that means.

Time for 2013 predictions.

We asked some real ?in the trenches? online marketers where they see Internet marketing heading in 2013 ? here is what they had to say!

Ruth Zive of MarketingWise, Inc.

It?s all about flipping that sales funnel ? letting your stakeholders herald your message to their constituents and leveraging the powers of social media to that end.

Jordan Kasteler of Utah Search Engine Optimization

2013 is the year of the individual influence, not just domain authority in search engines. And the targeting of audiences, not keywords. It?s also, finally, the TRUE year of mobile. We will finally see brands allocating budget to responsive design to accommodate visits from all device types.

Jason Mathes of Average Joe Geek

I see more aggressive Internet marketers going for the quick sale using highly targeted traffic that they pay for. With the recent changes with Google it is going to be harder to ?game? the system so they will try paid for alternatives to get the traffic they need to make their money. Traditional Internet marketers will try and leverage Social Media, Email, and especially Mobile markets heavily though.

Nathalie Lussier of Nathalie Lussier Media

I see brands consolidating their different outposts on social media through their own sites (bringing Pinterest into their sites, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) to build their home base or hub. I also see production values going way up, when it comes to web design, video production, and delivery of all kinds of content.

Moin Shaikh of Intesols Web Design

Internet Marketing in 2013 will reach beyond the desktop, will be focusing on more on mobile, tablets and other portable devices. And social will be even more engaging. Internet marketing will be all about customer centric content and customer reviews. People will be trusting reviews and social content more than company produced web content.

Wayne Liew of Sprout Geek

As businesses and marketers become better technically, the focus on analytics and ROI will continue to grow. Such a development will increase the demand for optimization skills, whether it is at the campaign level or at the landing page level. Inbound marketing strategies that focus on value creation will become the primary marketing strategy for many businesses, even for those with a huge marketing budget.

Kaila Strong of Vertical Measures

I think a growing focus in 2013 will be author authority/author rank. With Content Marketing playing a huge role in 2012, author rank is key for search engines and the end user to figure out what content rises above the rest. Utilizing a strategy that focuses on building your own author rank or your brand author rank will help tremendously to be a big player in this space.

Sarah Arrow of Sark e-Media

I see 2013 as the year internet marketers stopped relying on Google and started to bring all the marketing tools together to create a better and consistent experience for their readers. 2013 will be the time to stop talking and start focusing on the clients and the value brought to them.

Ardala Evans of Vertical Measures

In 2013 websites should work harder on being a great resource for their visitors/clients. Give them a reason to keep coming back to your site other than just to buy goods or services. Of course, this involves new, helpful, entertaining content that is regularly added to your site. Haven?t quite got the hang of being a publisher during 2012? Well you need to realize you are one and work on getting good at it in the coming year.

Justin McGill of SEOrchers

I think location and mobile are going to continue to play huge roles. Now more than ever, your location is being accounted for in natural search results for just about every phrase out there. My agency has seen HUGE improvements because of this as we get plenty of traffic now for things like ?SEO Services? when people from Phoenix and Scottsdale are searching. On the left hand side, change your location and see how the search results are affected. I find it fun, but maybe that?s just because I?m an SEO kind of guy.

Jo Linsdell of JoLinsdell.com

Mobile will have an increasing important role in 2013. A new breed of SEO strategies has already started to emerge and I can see this continuing to develop and evolve over the new year.

Steve Chou of My Wife Quit Her Job

Marketers will leverage the social graph to produce much more targeted offers.

Chris C. Ducker of Startup & Small Business Strategies

I believe that Internet marketers will have to create REAL communities first, before coming out with their products. We are going back to the old days! Forget B2B and even B2C, our social landscape has turned us all onto the joys of P2P. Building a personal brand has never been more important than it is nowadays. And this new rule of thumb is certainly true for people that sell to other people, that they?ve likely never met, such as Internet marketers.

Zsuzsa Szabo of Antavo Intelligent Promotions

Internet marketing will go mobile and visual. Besides text marketers will need to learn photo editing skills, and platforms will appear to manage the many channels ? apps, industry specific social networks ? customers are using.

Scot Smith of Revvenue

I see more localization lead by independent retailers and sellers in 2013. People will be selling more of their own products and services locally powered by SaaS services like Zaarly.

Cindy Steed of Learn to Soar

I see social media as the driving force for all types of marketing. Scaling to mobile is a vital transition, along with understanding the culture demands a higher level of reaching back to potential clients, and regular engagement.

Gwen Morrison of Endurance Marketing

I think (smart) companies will start seeing social media as part of their integrated marketing ? rather than standing alone. More and more people will be viewing Facebook pages via mobile. And I think consumers will expect even faster response time from businesses. Content marketing will (finally) catch on with business owners ? as they see the SEO value and expectations their target market has for quality content.

Missy Diaz of G34 Media

I see Internet marketing evolving (yet again) into a microcosm of content marketing and social evangelism. The two now are intertwined and this will come to the forefront in 2013 like never before.

Roberto Avey of RobertoAvey.com

Authorship will increasingly become more important to search engines more so than just the WEBSITE, while Google continues to ?hit? spammy type websites from rankings. Thus the importance of Google+, and social media. Not what site is writing it but who is writing it, why, where and when?

Regina Woodard of Assisted Transition

Internet marketing will continue to grow in 2013. Businesses will start to really come around with the fact that more and more of their customers are going online and that if they aren?t there, they?re losing people.

I think ? and hope ? that 2013 will be the final wakeup call that you can?t successfully run a business without an Internet presence and without using it effectively.

Halfdan Timm of HalfdanTimm.dk

I think, and hope, we will see clients start demanding more transparency. In Denmark, the majority of internet marketing clients do not know what they pay for. They do not require numbers, they do not require to see exactly what they?re paying for ? and they get black hat SEO and no improving sales as a result of this.

More focus on transparancy and on honest marketers. Currently, internet marketing is quite a shady business. I hope that?ll change during 2013.

Dhruv Bhagat of Grove Times

Personally I can?t wait to see what the future of search marketing has in store for us all. If you are a web marketer that takes a strong branding and business building approach to your online marketing I think you will flourish even more so. If you sit around brainstorming how to manipulate the search results I don?t think you will be around for very long.

Eren Mckay of Embracing Home

After the Penguin hit and the EMD update, Internet marketers have started to clearly see that they will lose the ?arm wrestling match? with Google if they attempt to shadily manipulate algorithms in order to rank. Of course SEO will always be around but the gray and black hat techniques won?t be as appealing to most internet marketers anymore.

The focus will be much stronger on relationship building through social media, email marketing, building a community and providing high value content to a loyal audience.

Ranking will be a consequence of a strategic marketing plan instead of a main target.

Yomar Lopez of Yomar.me

I see two major booms: trust dynamics (I.e. authenticity and transparency) and value first promotions (content marketing/SEO, sweepstakes, contests). These paradigm shifts are already in play, so we?re seeing a growing chasm between busy workers/mass marketers and those that focus on connections and being human.

Just look at all the social metric platforms out there. More and more are beginning to move away from old measures of influence and importance towards metrics that revolve around how transparent, engaging, and even compassionate we really are.

I?d say by 2016 or so, we?re going to see big business scratching their heads, wondering why social media isn?t ?working? for them. Then we?re going to see a new dot com/startup boom like we saw back in the mid-to-late nineties, except the economy will focus more on sharing and trust.

Second comment?

I?ll go against the grain and say that we won?t see HUGE developments in visual and mobile. The technology isn?t there yet. Once we see improvements on the backbone and bottlenecks of it all, we?ll see some really crazy stuff, I?m sure.

Of course, we?re already seeing big strides in mobile and visual alike.. But I suspect 2013 will be a more of the same with some slight-edge startups one-upping more established, stale platforms.

A few folks here hit the nail right on the head: mobile is more the catalyst than the focus. Business, especially online, is becoming more and more about creating connected cultures. Whether you build tribes, communities, or networks, it is absolutely necessary to speak the language and use the tools your audience receives best (and most consistently).

What folks forget about mobile is that it?s not merely about visuals and style, it?s about access (which goes back to connectivity). It?s also about the experience. I?ve seen some really savvy developers create new experiences for mobile platforms. These things focus more on complimenting their core experience, rather than replacing it. I?d say that?s the smartest approach.

I will reiterate how crucial trust dynamics will be in 2013 and onward. Mobile, visual aids, social media.. All these things reinforce trust by giving audiences access, facilitating equivalent exchange, and ?baking a bigger pie?.

We?re seeing many auction, contests, and sweepstakes sites popping up now. I reckon this trend will continue because now consumerism has become a more social event. Apps like GetGlue and Pinterest have made this fact very clear, too. Savvy consumers want to share their preferences and recommendations, directly and indirectly. It?s a great way to connect with new people and re-connect with old friends.

In short, connectivity (tighter integration, access, true social) and trust dynamics (value up-front, content marketing, lead nurturing, etc.).. That?s what I see in 2013 or, at least, that is what I hope for!

Guy Kawasaki?s theories in Enchantment will become especially pervasive. So, are you a baker or an eater?

John Paul Aguiar of Money Dummy

To succeed in Internet Marketing in the future, marketers will need to learn how to focus on the warm and fuzzies of relationship building. With more focus on quality content combined with social media, it will be very hard to ?game? the system the way shady marketers have done in the past.

Aaron Parrish of Outfitter Marketing

Mobile mobile mobile! Marketers will have to focus on making content available on a variety of devices and take full advantage of what tablets and phones have to offer. That means mobile apps and responsive web design at the very least. If your site doesn?t look good on an iPad AND Android device, you?re leaving money on the table.

Clara Matthews of Clarabela Media

More mobile. Also more visual, meaning an emphasis on video and photos.

Aidan Rogers of Apex Internet

SEO will continue to evolve into something closer to what Google have been preaching for the last? how many years now? Old school algorithm chasing will be less effective. Google will get smarter at correctly identifying great content that engages. SEO will be more people focused ? blatant manipulation of rankings less and less effective. Internet marketing will require all new levels of creativity.

Gregory Ciotti of Sparring Mind

The end of micro sites and the necessity to build huge authority sites.

Saadi Allan of Right Clicks Marketing

I think that internet marketing will continue to become more holistic, the silos of SEO, social, CRO, content, etc. will continue to break down as the ROI on fragmented or standalone strategies continue to decline.

2013 may just be the year for Google Plus too.

Also I?ve heard some folks are using mobile phones and these tablet things for surfing the internet! Maybe that will catch on.

Dan Ripoll of Content BLVD

Content marketing is the future of internet marketing. As consumers continue to ignore ads and engage with content, the essential elements of content marketing become a necessary part of the internet marketing mix. Blogging, Guest blogging, infographics, research, social media, product reviews etc.

Kristi Hines of Kristi Hines Media

I think that while lots of people are writing about how everything has to be different in terms of performing quality online marketing for ourselves and customers, there are still a lot of consultants, companies, and agencies who are using outdated tactics when it comes to SEO, social media, and content. In 2013, I think these outdated tactics that are targeted by Google Penguin, Panda, and future algorithmic updates will finally become extinct along with those who refuse to start following the new rules of online marketing.

What are your thoughts on the direction of Internet marketing in 2013? Please share in the comments!

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Source: http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/12/03/future-of-internet-marketing/

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Nokia Siemens to close services unit: sources

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks' (NSN) services unit faces closure as an essential contract with Deutsche Telekom will not be extended, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

One person said the closure, effective en 2013 would be announced on Wednesday during a workers' meeting in Kassel.

NSN Services, which generates under 100 million euros ($130.7 million) in annual sales and employs about 1,000 people, ensures that calls and data are transmitted via overhead cable networks. Deutsche Telekom sold the unit to NSN five years ago.

At the time the two companies agreed on a 5-year 300 million euro services contract. The unit also counts Vodafone as a customer.

The contract would not be extended, the person said.

German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung first reported about the closure of the unit.

Verdi union representative Mike Doeding said that a meeting to update workers about next year's plans was scheduled for Wednesday, adding he had no idea about the message to be expected.

"If they are to close the unit it would be an outrage," Doeding said.

NSN declined to comment, while Deutsche Telekom referred to NSN for comment.

NSN, a 50-50 joint venture between Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG, is cutting costs and plans to shed a quarter of its staff and sell product lines to focus on mobile broadband. NSN had 60,600 employees at the end of the third quarter.

The telecoms equipment market is going through rough times with stiff competition from Chinese peers Huawei and ZTE as the major telecoms operators postpone investments, faced with shrinking markets due to the weak economy.

France's Alcatel-Lucent is also cutting costs.

On Monday, NSN said it was selling its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners, resulting in the transfer of up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal.

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde and Maria Sheahan in Frankfurt, Tarmo Virki and Terhi Kinnunen in Helsinki; Editing by Ludwig Burger and Louise Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nokia-siemens-services-unit-faces-closure-paper-000327695--sector.html

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Gunman severely wounds Swedish woman in Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) ? A gunman on a motorcycle shot and severely wounded an elderly Swedish woman who worked at a church in eastern Pakistan on Monday, officials said.

The woman, who was identified by Pakistani police as Bargetta Emmi, was getting out of her car in front of her home in the city of Lahore when she was shot in the neck by an unknown assailant. Her servants reported the incident to police, said Pakistani police officer Malik Awais.

She was a director of FGA Church (Full Gospel Assemblies of Pakistan), Awais said.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Teo Zetterman confirmed en elderly Swedish woman was shot and severely wounded in Lahore. He said she was a volunteer worker in her 70s, but did not provide her name or where she worked.

The woman is a Swedish citizen but has lived and worked in Pakistan for several years, said Zetterman.

The gunman who shot Emmi escaped, and the motive was unclear.

Also in Lahore, gunmen on Monday desecrated over 100 graves of Ahmadis, members of a persecuted religious sect in Pakistan, said Awais, the police officer. More than a dozen gunmen held the caretakers of the graveyard hostage while they defaced the graves.

"You can't inscribe verses from the holy Quran on the graves. You are Ahmadis. You are not Muslims," one of the attackers told the caretakers, according to Awais.

Parliament amended Pakistan's constitution in 1974 to declare that Ahmadis were not considered Muslims under the law.

Ahmadis believe their spiritual leader, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a messiah ? a position rejected by the government in response to a mass movement led by Pakistan's major Islamic parties.

The Ahmadis' plight ? along with that of Pakistan's other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Christians and Hindus ? has deepened in recent years as hard-line interpretations of Islam have gained ground and militants have stepped up attacks against groups they oppose. Most Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims.

Also Monday, a roadside bomb ripped through a police van as it was patrolling on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing two officers and wounding two others, said senior police officer Javed Khan.

Peshwar is on the edge of Pakistan's tribal region, the main sanctuary for Taliban militants in the country, and has been hit by frequent bombings over the past few years.

In the southern city of Karachi, a gunman riding on a motorcycle killed the leader of an Islamic seminary, sparking a riot by hundreds of seminary students, who stoned shops and set vehicles on fire, said police officer Azhar Iqbal.

Karachi has a long history of political, sectarian and ethnic strife, which has been on the rise this year.

____

Associated Press writers Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan and Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-severely-wounds-swedish-woman-pakistan-164441287.html

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Diabetes Drug Metformin May Fight Cancer

Dec. 3, 2012 -- One of the oldest, cheapest, and most widely used diabetes drugs may be a promising new cancer treatment.

In new research from the Mayo Clinic, ovarian cancer patients who took the drug metformin survived longer than patients who did not take it.

The study is just one of dozens under way worldwide examining the drug -- which costs just pennies a pill -- as a treatment for breast, colon, prostate, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers.

?I happen to be very hopeful that metformin will prove to be a useful cancer treatment,? says American Cancer Society chief medical and scientific officer Otis Brawley, MD.

Diabetes Drug Fights Cancer?

Metformin (also known as Glucophage) has been approved to control blood sugar in the U.S. since the mid-1990s, and it has been used in Europe for more than 50 years.

It is used by millions of people with type 2 diabetes and those at risk for developing the disease.

In the study, Mayo clinic researchers followed 61 women with diabetes taking metformin who also had ovarian cancer, and 178 ovarian cancer patients without diabetes who were not taking the drug.

Even though the metformin-takers and non-takers were matched for age, ovarian cancer stage, and other key variables likely to impact survival, the women who took the drug had improved survival.

After five years, 67% of women who took metformin had not died from ovarian cancer, compared to 47% of women without diabetes who did not take the drug. The researchers also found that among women with diabetes who took insulin or other diabetes drugs, 43% of those taking insulin and 34% of those taking other diabetes drugs had not died from ovarian cancer.

The study was published online today in the journal Cancer.

?The survival difference in the two groups was striking,? says researcher Sanjeev Kumar, MBBS.

William Cliby, MD, agrees. He directs the department of gynecologic surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

While it was not clear if taking the diabetes drug caused the women with diabetes to live longer, Cliby says the data certainly pointed in that direction.

?Every way we looked at this, the metformin group always did better,? he says.

?

More Study Needed, Researchers Say

The researchers say the findings illustrate the need for clinical trials to determine if the diabetes drug really does have a place in the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Until these trials are done, metformin is not likely to be included in the drugs now used by patients with the disease, even though it has been used by tens of millions of people and has a long safety record.

Common side effects include problems such as diarrhea, bloating, gas, and indigestion.

While these complaints are not often serious, Brawley points out that they mimic symptoms commonly associated with ovarian cancer relapse.

?I could easily see a woman having a lot of unnecessary anxiety because she thinks her cancer is back, or her doctor being fooled into ordering a lot of unnecessary diagnostic tests,? he says.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20121130/diabetes-drug-metformin-cancer?src=RSS_PUBLIC

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U.N. pulls non-essential Syria staff due to insecurity

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday it was withdrawing "all non-essential international staff" from Syria due to the worsening security situation, and was restricting remaining aid workers to the capital.

Up to 25 of about 100 foreign staff could leave this week, it said, adding that more armored vehicles were needed after attacks in recent weeks on humanitarian aid convoys and the hijacking of goods or vehicles. Some convoys had been caught in crossfire between Syrian government and rebel forces, including an incident in which two staff were injured near the airport.

"The U.N. has decided to send all non-essential international staff out of Syria and to halt all field trips outside of the capital for now," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement posted on its service www.irinnews.org.

Damascus had been considered safe until last week when the main airport was shut down and flights into Syria cancelled after several attacks by rebels, it said.

"The situation is significantly changing," said Sabir Mughal, the U.N.'s chief security advisor in Syria. "There is an increased risk for humanitarians as a result of indiscriminate shooting or clashes between the parties."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-pulls-non-essential-syria-staff-due-170237404.html

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