Cocoa-rich dark chocolate could be prescribed for people with liver cirrhosis in future

LONDON  Cocoa-rich dark chocolate could be prescribed for people with liver cirrhosis in future, following the latest research to show potential health benefits of chocolate.Spanish researchers said Thursday that eating dark chocolate capped the usual after-meal rise in abdominal blood pressure, which can reach dangerous levels in cirrhotic patients and, in severe cases, lead to blood vessel rupture.

Antioxidants called flavanols found in cocoa are believed to be the reason why chocolate is good for blood pressure because the chemicals help the smooth muscle cells of the blood vessels to relax and widen.A study of 21 patients with end-stage liver disease found those given a meal containing 85 percent-cocoa dark chocolate had a markedly smaller rise in blood pressure in the liver, or portal hypertension, than those given white chocolate.

“This study shows a clear association between eating dark chocolate and (lower) portal hypertension and demonstrates the potential importance of improvements in the management of cirrhotic patients,” said Mark Thursz, a professor of hepatology at London’s Imperial College.The results were presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver in Vienna and follow a number of earlier scientific studies suggesting that dark chocolate also promotes heart health.Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver as a result of long-term damage. It is caused by various factors, including hepatitis infection and alcohol abuse.(Reuters)

solar-powered airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel or emissions successfully made its first test flight above the Swiss

A solar-powered airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel or emissions successfully made its first test flight above the Swiss countryside on Wednesday.The Solar Impulse, which has 12,000 solar cells built into its wings, is a prototype for an aircraft intended to fly around the world without fuel in 2012.It glided for 87 minutes above western Switzerland at an altitude of 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) with German test pilot Markus Scherdel at the controls.”Everything went as it should,” Scherdel told Reuters Television at Payerne military base after landing.

It took six years to built the carbon fiber aircraft, which has the wingspan of an Airbus A340 and weighs as much as a mid-size car (1,600 kg).The prototype made a “flea hop” in December 2009, flying a distance of 350 meters one meter above the runway of a military airbase near Zurich. It was then transported to Payerne airfield in the west of Switzerland for its maiden flight.The propeller plane is powered by four electric motors and designed to fly day and night by saving energy from its solar cells in high-performance batteries.

It is ultimately expected to attain an average flying speed of 70 kms per hour and reach a maximum altitude of 8,500 meters (27,900 feet).Bertrand Piccard, one of the Swiss pilots behind the project, is best known for completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight in a hot-air balloon in March 1999.

The other main pilot, Swiss engineer Andre Borschberg, has described it as “ten times lighter than the very best glider.””Such a large wingspan for so little weight is something completely new in the world of aviation,” he said on the initiative’s website http://www.solarimpulse.com.

The project’s budget is 100 million Swiss francs ($94 million), 80 million francs of which has been secured from sponsors, according to spokeswoman Rachel de Bros.Belgian chemicals company Solvay, Swiss watchmaker Omega, part of the Swatch group, and German banking giant Deutsche Bank, are the three main sponsors.Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of two Swiss federal polytechnical universities, is scientific advisor.(Reuters)

U.S. natural gas industry officials on Thursday defended a controversial drilling technique

U.S. natural gas industry officials on Thursday defended a controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing as the industry braces for possible new government regulations.Hydraulic fracturing injects millions of gallons of water, sand and a proprietary mix of chemicals up to two miles underground where it breaks open fissures in the gas-bearing shale to allow the gas to be extracted.Some environmental groups claim the technique, which is often referred to as “fracking”, is unsafe and threatens supplies of drinking water, but the industry claims its practice is safe.

“There is no known instance where fracking has contaminated someone’s drinking water,” said Will Brackett, the managing editor of the Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter, speaking on an industry panel sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute and Southern Methodist University’s Cox Maguire Energy Institute.Bush, the former U.S. president and Texas oil man, said more natural gas drilling would create more U.S. jobs. Bush did not touch on the hydraulic fracturing debate.

“When you explore for natural gas, when you develop natural gas, when you lay pipelines for natural gas, Americans are working,” Bush said in opening remarks to the conference.Earlier this month, the top U.S. environmental regulator said she was “very concerned” about the practice. The Environmental Protection Agency last week said it will conduct a study of drinking water impacts, which could mean new regulations on a booming area of the energy sector.

An industry scramble to develop vast shale deposits that are estimated to contain enough natural gas to meet U.S. needs for up to a century has brought drilling rigs within the limits of cities like Dallas and Fort Worth.

A bill in Congress would require gas companies to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and give the EPA oversight of the industry, which is now regulated by the states.

Industry officials dismissed any suggestion that their drilling practices were dangerous.”We have had some issues in less than half a dozen cases and they have been mostly mistakes and it is not clear that the issue is directly related to the fracking process itself,” said Randy Foutch, chairman and CEO of privately-held Laredo Petroleum.

Some residents who live near gas rigs in states from Pennsylvania to Wyoming say their water has become undrinkable since drilling companies fractured the wells and they complain of sickness and skin rashes after using the water.

Removing gas from shale rock accounts for 15 to 20 percent of U.S. natural gas production and provides a relatively clean energy source for the United States, which is trying to reduce its dependence on foreign oil.(Reuters)

OKLAHOMA CITY Bad year for biofuel ends on a dour note

Lyle Rudensey holds a cup of refined homemade biodiesel

OKLAHOMA CITY  An alternative fuel for diesel engines is off to a shaky start this year though it emits fewer pollutants and cuts down on petroleum use because it’s made from environmentally friendly waste and vegetable oil.A federal tax credit that provided makers of biodiesel $1 for every gallon expired Friday. As a result, some U.S. producers say they will shut down without the government subsidy.Biodiesel’s woes come on top of a year of problems for the fledgling biofuel industry – an irony given the push to cut down on greenhouse gases and ease the nation’s need for foreign oil. A key driver for the alternative fuel – the high cost of oil – disappeared as diesel prices dropped 18 percent since the beginning of the recession. Then in March the European Union placed import-killing tariffs on biodiesel and other biofuels.It was a huge hit for U.S. biofuel makers, with Europe taking 95 percent of all global exports.Biodiesel, which is usually blended with traditional fuel, had over the past few years been the fastest growing fuel among fleet vehicles like buses, snow plows and garbage trucks.

Those fleets, however, can shift to traditional fuel, as some have, when the prices of diesel drops.The biodiesel industry is now operating at only 15 percent of its potential capacity, according to the National Biodiesel Board, largely because the price of traditional diesel has collapsed. There are close to 180 biodiesel plants operating in about 40 states.The country’s largest biodiesel refinery, in Houston, sits idle. Another major refinery in Hoquiam, Wash., that was restarted recently to meet alternative fuel mandates in Oregon and British Columbia was shut down after an explosion in December.

The loss of the tax credit, which helps pay salaries, buy new equipment and in good times to turn a profit, will hit small producers particularly hard.A one-year extension of the biodiesel tax credit was included in a bill that was approved by the U.S. House recently, but it never made it through the Senate.

Lawmakers say the tax-credit will be retroactive if approved.Production will cease in Valliant, Okla., where Dwight Francis created a biodiesel startup this year as the local timber economy tanked.For each of the 12,000 gallons of biodiesel that Francis produces each week, he has received a $1 tax credit to help keep operations going.

His company has been riding out the economic downturn until now, thanks to the tax credit.”By the time you buy the feedstock and the chemicals to produce the fuel, you have more money in it than you get for the fuel without the tax credit,” Francis said. “We won’t be producing any without the tax credit.”

Ethanol producers, for instance, were hit by a string of bankruptcies, next-generation biofuels were stung by scandal.This summer a federal jury found that Cello Energy, a next-generation biofuel company that specialized in plants-to-fuel technology, had defrauded investors. That is expected to leave the Environmental Protection Agency far short of the millions of gallons of biofuel it had planned to blend into traditional fuel this year.

VeraSun, the country’s second largest ethanol producer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October and its assets sold. Other ethanol refineries were swept up for pennies on the dollar.”You could say the entire biofuels industry has had a rough year,” said Robert McCormick, principal engineer at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

There is little chance that the U.S. will reach alternative fuel benchmarks of 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 in hopes of weaning the nation off foreign oil.Still, ethanol producers appear to be bouncing back and maintain unflagging political support. And the Department of Energy announced last month that next-generation biofuels would get more than $600 million in federal funding.(AP)

Christmas straw goat stands in the town center of Gavle, Northern Sweden

Christmas straw goat stands in the town center of Gavle, Northern Sweden

STOCKHOLM  A giant straw goat was burned down yet again early Wednesday in a Swedish city where torching it has become a Christmas tradition, to the dismay of local leaders.Gavle city spokeswoman Anna Ostman said someone set fire to the 43-foot-high (13-meter-high) creature around 3 a.m. local time. Only a charred wooden skeleton of the traditional Swedish Christmas symbol remained on Wednesday morning.”It feels very sad,” Ostman said. “We had really hoped that he would survive Christmas and New Year’s.Vandals have burned down the goat 24 times since it was first set up in Gavle in 1966 to mark the holiday season. It has also been smashed several times, run over by a car and had its legs cut off.In 2006 and 2007 city officials doused it in fireproofing chemicals. Ostman said they stopped doing that because it discolored the goat, making it “look like a brown terrier instead of a yellow straw goat.”

The goat is a centuries-old Scandinavian yule symbol that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts to Swedish homes. Many Swedes place a small straw goat underneath their Christmas trees, or hang miniature versions on the branches.

While city officials are always quick to condemn the vandals who set the goats ablaze, they have also become increasingly aware of the international attention the near-yearly attacks draw to Gavle, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) north of Stockholm.This year the city Web site offers users a chance to follow the goat’s fate via a Webcam, Twitter page and a blog – in both Swedish and English.

“So sad that I can’t celebrate Christmas with you all, but thank you so much for now, dear friends,” the blog said Wednesday. “I’m going on holiday now to get some rest – but will of course be back for next Christmas.”

Vandals are seldom caught, but in 2001 a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, spent 18 days in jail for setting it ablaze.In 2005, the goat was burned down by two arsonists dressed up as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man. They were never caught.

Harry Potter's Invisibility Suit for Real

Although the cloaks may sound like something from Harry Potter, researchers in London were today given the go-ahead for a £4.9 million project to create a real invisibility suit. In JK Rowling’s stories, the young wizard uses his cloak to move around his school unseen.

Today, researchers at Imperial College said such a garment could soon become a reality. They hope to create a cloak from a new material that can manipulate light.

Normally, when light hits an object, it bounces off the surface and into the eye, making the object visible. The invisibility cloak made from ‘meta-material’ would work by ‘grabbing hold’ of light waves and making them flow smoothly around an object, in the same way that water in a river flows round a stick.

Putting the cloak on would render the wearer invisible to the human eye. The team at Imperial College say the meta-material could have a range of other applications, including creating super-sensitive microscopes and airport security sensors that can spot tiny amounts of chemicals.

However, they admit the Harry Potter cloak is likely to generate the most interest.  Sir John Pendry, who is leading the project, which is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust and will be carried out with the University of Southampton, said: ‘We’ve shown that an optical invisibility cloak is theoretically possible  –  the big challenge now is to build it.’