Belly fat 'makes more fat cells'

The fat that some people carry around their middles could be making them even fatter, researchers have said.

The Canadian team found abdominal fat tissue produces a hormone called NPY - which also prompts the development of cells that turn into fat.

It is already known that high levels of the hormone in the brain produce constant feelings of hunger.

A UK expert said better understanding of how the hormone worked might lead to drugs to stop its effects.

Being overweight is bad for health, no matter where the weight lies - but abdominal fat is known to be the most dangerous, increasing the risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and some cancers.

'Vicious cycle'

The researchers, from Lawson Health Research Institute which is linked to the University of Western Ontario, carried out tests on rats which showed abdominal fat, as well as the brain, produces NPY - or Neuropeptide Y.

It is thought the excessive production of NPY in the brain is one of the main reasons why overweight people eat more food.

But the scientists found NPY in abdominal tissues increases fat cell number by stimulating the replication of fat cell precursor cells - which then change into fat cells.

Their findings were published in the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology journal.

Dr Kaiping Yang, who led the research, said: "This may lead to a vicious cycle where NPY produced in the brain causes you to eat more and therefore gain more fat around your middle - and then that fat produces more NYP hormone which leads to even more fat cells."

The team will now look at whether NPY produced in the abdomen is released into the body's circulatory system, and therefore affecting hunger messages in the brain.

If it is, it may be possible to develop a simple blood test to detect increased levels of NPY they say.

Dr Yang added: "If you can detect NPY early and identify those at risk for abdominal obesity we can then target therapy to turn off NPY.

"It would be much easier to use drugs to prevent obesity than to treat the diseases caused by obesity."

Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said the study provided more information on the "complex mechanisms" which regulate how the body stores and processes fat.

He added: "This is one of those findings that, in the not too distant future, might lead to a way of manipulating this hormone's feedback loop.

"It's not science fiction to think you could find some way to block it."

BBC News

Bus driver chooses GPS over gigantic warning sign, plows into overpass

The driver of the bus carrying the Garfield High School girls softball team that hit a brick and concrete footbridge was using a GPS navigation system that routed the tall bus under the 9-foot bridge, the charter company's president said Thursday.

Steve Abegg, president of Journey Lines in Lynnwood, said the off-the-shelf navigation unit had settings for car, motorcycle, bus or truck.

Although the unit was set for a bus, it chose a route through the Washington Park Arboretum that did not provide enough clearance for the nearly 12-foot-high vehicle, Abegg said. The driver told police he did not see the flashing lights or yellow sign posting the bridge height.

"We haven't really had serious problems with anything, but here it's presented a problem that we didn't consider," Abegg said of the GPS unit. "We just thought it would be a safe route because, why else would they have a selection for a bus?"

Some models that offer routing for larger vehicles base directions on general information -- such as routes that are closed to buses -- rather than painstakingly collected data such as bridge heights, GPS experts say.

The accident Wednesday afternoon sheared the roof off the charter bus and sent 21 students and a coach returning from a game in Kirkland to the hospital. All were treated and released.

Sixteen softball players stayed home from school Thursday to recover, said Seattle Public Schools spokesman David Tucker.

The nearly century-old concrete and brick footbridge in the arboretum was not damaged, other than a few minor chips and scratches, city officials said.

The bus driver, whose name was not released by police or the company, was cited for "hitting a structure with impaired clearance" and given a $154 ticket.

A spokesman for Garmin Ltd., the manufacturer of the GPS unit used by Journey Lines, said an independent company that also supplies information to online mapping sites provides its underlying data.

Bus routes typically steer drivers away from roads or turns where larger vehicles are not allowed, but don't take specific bridge heights into account, said Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner.

"The bigger comment here is that drivers always need to obey all the rules of the road at all times," he said.

"Stoplights aren't in our databases, either, but you're still expected to stop for stoplights."

A handful of companies do offer GPS systems -- largely used by commercial truckers -- that allow drivers to enter the height of their vehicles and then route them around bridges that would be too low.

"It's such a painful process to collect the data," said Edward Friedman of TeleType GPS, which released its WorldNav truck system three months ago. "You actually have to ... drive around and look at the heights of the bridges and go to all the counties."

Mark Hornung, senior vice president of operations for the manufacturer of CoPilot Truck, another GPS system for laptops and mobile devices that takes clearance heights into account, said some who buy cheaper generic systems wind up in tough spots.

Matt Bremner, business manager at Western Motorcoach, which sells luxury RVs in Lynnwood, said most GPS models he's seen are geared for cars. Those driving larger vehicles just need to apply common sense and pay attention to where they're going.

"If this guy was a professional driver, he should have known his bus was 12 feet high and couldn't fit into a 9-foot box," he said.

Abegg declined to answer other questions about the accident or the driver, saying the company was still investigating.

Journey Lines received the highest "satisfactory" rating from the state Utilities and Transportation Commission during its most recent inspection two months ago, said spokeswoman Marilyn Meehan.

But the company was fined $300 in 2006 after parents complained that a bus taking students from Lowell Elementary in Everett on a field trip had exhaust fumes leaking up through the floors.

Inspectors also found emergency lights that were not working and mold growing on the bus -- all problems that were corrected, Meehan said.

The state also fined the company $200 in 1994 for broken warning lights and failing to properly maintain driver qualification files, Meehan said.

State Patrol records indicate that Journey Lines buses were involved in accidents in 1998 and 2005, with one injury each, no fatalities, and no written citations or violations, Meehan said.

The charter company has the highest safety rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which found no problems during its six most recent inspections, according to the agency's database.

seattlepi.com

8-year-old girl gets divorce after forced marriage

A Yemeni court on Tuesday granted a divorce to an eight-year-old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage this year, saying he feared she might be kidnapped. "I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school," Nojud Mohammed Ali said, after a public hearing in Sanaa's court of first instance.

Her former husband, 28-year-old Faez Ali Thameur, said he married the child "with her consent and that of her parents" but that he did not object to her divorce petition. In response to a question from Judge Mohammed al-Qadhi, he acknowledged that the "marriage was consummated, but I did not beat her." Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, has no law governing the minimum age of marriage.

Nojud was a second grader in primary school when the marriage took place two and a half months ago. "They asked me to sign the marriage contract and remain in my father's house until I was 18. But a week after signing, my father and my mother forced me to go live with him."

Nojud's father, Mohammad Ali Al-Ahdal, said he had felt obliged to marry off his daughter, an act he claims she consented to. He said he was frightened after his oldest daughter had been kidnapped several years ago and later married to her abductor. He said the same man then kidnapped another of his daughters who was already married and had four children, resulting in him being jailed. Dressed in traditional black, Nojud said she would now go to live in the home of her maternal uncle and did not want to see her father. The girl's lawyer, Shadha Nasser, said Nojud's case was not unique. "I believe there are thousands of similar cases," she said, adding that civil society groups are pressing parliament to set the minimum age for marriage at 18.

Breitbart.com

Retired NYC Subway Cars Creating a Reef off the Coast of Delaware

If you think subway cars are only useful so long as they are efficiently carrying urban travelers from point A to point B, well, you're wrong! It turns out that hundreds of retired New York City subway cars have been finding a second home--80 feet underwater, and 16 nautical miles off the coast of Delaware. There they are helping to transform "a barren stretch of ocean floor into a bountiful oasis, carpeted in sea grasses, walled thick with blue mussels and sponges, and teeming with black sea bass and tautog." So far, 666 subway cars have already made their way to the ocean floor, and the results have been impressive: "a 400-fold increase in the amount of marine food per square foot in the last seven years," and "In the last several years, the reefs have drawn swift open-ocean fish, like tuna and mackerel, that use the reefs as hunting grounds for smaller prey. Sea bass like to live inside the cars, while large flounder lie in the silt that settles on top of the cars." This is great news, as ocean acidification from climate change and other human disruptions are harming reefs around the world.

So what about the environmental impacts from the subway cars themselves?

Some environmental groups, such as the American Littoral Society, "opposed the use of the Redbird cars because they have small levels of asbestos in the glue used to secure the floor panels and in the insulation material in the walls." However, "State and federal environmental officials approved the use of the Redbirds and other cars for artificial reefs in Delaware and elsewhere because they said the asbestos was not a risk for marine life and has to be airborne to pose a threat to humans."

The only significant problem, it seems, is that other states are catching on to the trend, but unfortunately there is only a limited number of retired subway cars available. As a result, "States have experimented with other types of artificial reef materials, including abandoned automobiles, tanks, refrigerators, shopping carts and washing machines." But none have worked very well; the fish seem to like the roominess of the subway cars, and their weight ensures that the structure stays stably anchored to the sea bed. Besides, while the environmental impacts of dumping subway cars are, at worst, minimal, it doesn't seem like a great idea to begin throwing all our abandoned appliances in the sea in the hopes of restoring aquatic ecosystems...

Treehugger

Real-life 'Spiderman' scales HK hotel

The real-life spiderman, Frenchman Alain Robert, climbed up the Four Seasons hotel in Central using his bare hands on Tuesday afternoon.Mr Robert told journalists he made the climb to help promote awareness about global warming.
The 45-year-old urban climber began the climb about 1.00pm. He then spent 45 minutes climbing up to the hotel's 26-storey high balcony.

Police and firemen have deployed air cushion units under the hotel. More than 100 onlookers at the pedestrian level and office workers were watching while he climbed.

The Four Seasons hotel is part of the International Finance Centre. It has a height of 206m – 60-storeys – and is the largest Four Seasons hotel.

A spokesman from the Four Seasons hotel said although they had not been informed about the climb, they had no intention to take legal action over it.

Mr Robert told local media that he had wanted to climb IFC II, but was worried he might have been sued by the property's owner. He also said the air conditioning systems on the balcony of the building would have increased the difficulty of the climb.

He is also in town to promote his memoir With Bare Hands. The book is about his story and philosophy of being one of the world's leading urban climbers. On Tuesday night, he will appear at a literary dinner at SoHo SoHo to discuss his new memoir.

He once told a journalist that “I cannot do any normal job... I plan the climb so I know what to expect,” he said. “It is rare I can't climb a building – it's only the law that will stop me, not the building.”

Alain Robert has scaled 85 giant structures around the globe including many of the world's tallest structures, most of which he has scaled using only his bare hands and climbing shoes.

He has also climbed some of the world's most famous buildings. These include the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Montparnasse Tower in Paris, along with some very tall skyscrapers.

Mr Robert is well-known in Hong Kong and the mainland.

On May 31, 2007, he scaled China's highest skyscraper, the 88-story Jin Mao Building in Shanghai. For this climb he wore a Spiderman costume. Robert was later arrested and jailed for five days. He was then expelled from the mainland. Then in November 2007, Mr Robert was invited by the local government of Zhangjiajie, a region in the southern province of Hunan, to climb the 1,518 metres Tianmen mountain, to promote tourism.

On June 11, 2005 he climbed the Cheung Kong Centre in Hong Kong and the Far East Financial Centre in 1996.

SCMP. Apr. 15, 2008

[A+] Advice on saving buildings ignored

Government has accepted only four of the 59 sites named by antiquities board

The Antiquities Advisory Board has advised the government to declare at least 59 historic buildings as monuments since the 1970s - but only four of its recommendations have been accepted, a confidential document has revealed.

Five of the buildings have been demolished.

The revelation has prompted calls for an urgent overhaul of the conservation process. Board members and a conservation expert have also complained that the system does not offer full legal protection to valuable buildings.

The board is a statutory body set up to advise the Antiquities Authority on matters relating to antiquities and monuments and can only make recommendations on items referred to it by the authority.

The document, discussed at a board meeting in 2006, reports on the status of buildings recommended as monuments. Between 1977 and 2005, the board recommended monument status for 59 buildings, of which 15 were on government sites.

Of the five that were demolished, the Marine Department Building in Central and the south block of Western Market in Sheung Wan were government buildings and had been recommended for monument status in 1977. They were demolished in 1982. The other three were the Hong Kong Club in Central, the Sacred Heart Canossian College in Mid-Levels and the Old Sports Pavilion at the University of Hong Kong.

Five buildings or groups of buildings - Lui Seng Chun, 344 Shanghai Street in Mong Kok, Kom Tong Hall in Mid-Levels, Tat Tak Communal Hall in Yuen Long, and Pak Mong Village on Lantau Island - are expected to be declared monuments in the near future. The fate of the remaining 45 buildings, some of which have been on the preservation list for nearly three decades, is still in the balance. Tsang Tai Uk in Sha Tin, Pun Uk in Yuen Long, and Wong Chuk Hang San Wai in Aberdeen were recommended as monuments in 1978, 1979 and 1983 respectively.

While in most cases it was the owners or tenants of the buildings who objected to proposed monument status, there were instances where government departments also did so, the document revealed. For example, the Lands Department and the Government Property Agency objected to declaring the Ex-Commodore's House in Bowen Road in Mid-Levels as a monument because they needed to sort out building maintenance and public access to other buildings in the area. The building is now leased to a charitable organisation, Mother's Choice.

"It [the paper] is evidence showing that heritage, and the board, have long been neglected by the government," board member Ng Cho-nam said. "The demolished buildings could have been saved if more resources were allocated for heritage protection, at least for the government-owned buildings."

Board member Laurence Li Lu-jen blamed what he described as a flawed conservation system. "The court clearly stated that the Antiquities Authority is only required to consult the board when it intends to declare a building a monument," he said, referring to the court's statement after the judicial review filed against the demolition of Queen's Pier.

Professor Lee Ho-yin, director of the architectural conservation programme at the University of Hong Kong, said the board should have the power to recommend buildings for monument status instead of having to wait to be consulted by the Antiquities Authority. The decision to declare a monument should not rest only with the authority.

A spokesman for the Antiquities and Monuments Office said it would not comment on confidential documents. He said the board's advice was not a determining factor in declaring a monument. That decision rested with the Antiquities Authority, a role that rests with the secretary for development.

SCMP. Apri 13, 2008.