WASHINGTON: A Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, fish, fruit, legumes and wine reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease by 30 percent, a major new study has found.
The study, published by the New England Journal of Medicine, followed 4,479 people in Spain -- men and women age 55 to 80 -- over a five year period, finding dramatic confirmation of previous observations of such a diet's health benefits.
"We observed that an energy unrestricted Mediterranean diet, supplemented with extra virgin olive oil or nuts, resulted in a substantial reduction in the risk of major cardiovascular events among high-risk persons," the study concluded.
It put the risk reduction at "approximately 30 percent, among high risk persons who were initially free of cardiovascular disease. These results support the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular risk reduction."
Participants in the study, which was led by Ramon Estruch, a professor of medicine at the University of Barcelona, were divided into three groups including a control group on a low fat diet.
One group followed a traditional Mediterranean diet supplemented by four tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil a day. A second group followed the same diet, but instead of the olive oil consumed about 30 grams a day of mixed nuts.
Participants in those two groups also ate at least three servings of fruits and two of legumes a day. They also ate fish three times a week and favored white meat like chicken instead of red meat.
They were also strongly encouraged not to eat commercially baked goods, pastries and sweets, and to limit their consumption of dairy products and processed meats.
For those who normally drank wine with their meals, their diet called for seven glasses of wine a week.
Researchers could tell whether the study participants were following the diets by measuring markers for olive oil in their urine or a blood marker for the mixed nuts.
They found that participants stuck to the Mediterranean diets, but that the low-fat control diet led to only small reductions in fat.
"The interventions were intended to improve the overall dietary pattern, but the major between-group differences involved the supplemental items," the study said.
"Thus, extra virgin olive oil and nuts were probably responsible for most of the observed benefits of the Mediterranean diets," it said.
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday criticised Hollywood for awarding its top honour to the Iran hostage drama "Argo", with a senior official saying it "lacks artistic value" and media poking fun at US first lady Michelle Obama's surprise appearance at the Oscar ceremony.
"This anti-Iran movie lacks artistic value," Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hosseini was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
"It was awarded the top honour through a massive financing and advertisement campaign ... so that it attracts more attention worldwide," said Hosseini, who also accused Hollywood of targeting the Islamic republic.
Iran's state television earlier slammed the 85th Academy Awards as "the most political Oscar ever," as it reported the news that "Argo" had won the coveted best film Oscar.
The Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, branded "Argo" as an "anti-Iran movie" financed by a "Zionist company" -- in a reference to the California-based Warner Bros. which produced it.
Meanwhile, The US State Department, still mourning the loss of its diplomats in a bloody attack on a mission in Libya, cheered the Oscar win for "Argo" based on a true life tale of diplomatic bravery.
"I think we all were excited to see it win," deputy acting spokesman Patrick Ventrell told journalists of Ben Affleck's film which picked up the coveted best picture award at the Oscars on Sunday night.
"We cooperated with them in some of the production aspects of, you know, filming inside of this building," Ventrell said.
New Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tweeted ahead of the awards ceremony in Los Angeles wishing "Good luck @BenAffleck and #Argo" and adding "nice seeing @StateDept & our Foreign Service on the big screen - JK."
Affleck, who also stars in the movie, tweeted back his thanks, adding "Grateful for the outstanding service and sacrifice of US diplomats and their families!"
NEW YORK: Batman may be able to save the world, but he'll lose his sidekick Robin -- who in his current incarnation is his son -- in the upcoming Batman Incorporated comic book series.
DC Comics said the caped crusader's acrobatic young assistant, Batman alter ego Bruce Wayne's son Damian, will die in Wednesday's issue number eight.
"This master theme of damaged and ruined families was nowhere more in evidence than in the creation of Damian, the first 'Son of Batman' to be acknowledged in the canon," series writer Grant Morrison said in a statement.
"In many ways this has been Damian's story as much as it has been the story of Bruce Wayne and it's a story that had its end planned a long time ago -- for what son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?"
The good news for those who might miss Robin is that this is the comics universe and characters who are killed can easily return. Even a previous incarnation of Robin was killed and resurrected before.
"You can never say never in a comic book," Morrison told the New York Post. "Batman will ultimately always have a partner."
NEW YORK: The Nobel prize awarded to Francis Crick in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA has been put up for auction by his family along with one of his lab coats, his books and other memorabilia.
It is believed to be the first Nobel prize placed at auction in more than 70 years and the opening bid is set for $250,000, Heritage Auctions said Monday.
Some of the proceeds from the April 10 auction in New York will help fund research at the new Francis Crick Institute in London set to be completed in 2015.
His family said Crick was a modest man who preferred to outfit his office with a big chalkboard and a portrait of Charles Darwin than to display his many awards.
The Nobel has been in storage for much of the past 50 years and his family hopes to sell it to a museum or institute where it can be on public display.
"Our hope is that, by having it available for display, it can be an inspiration to the next generation of scientists," said granddaughter Kindra Crick.
Born in England in 1918, Crick's graduate work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He returned to research in 1949 with a position at Cambridge University.
A critical influence in his career was his friendship with the American zoologist and geneticist James Watson.
Together, they proposed the double-helical structure for DNA and the replication scheme in 1953. Crick and Watson subsequently suggested a general theory for the structure of small viruses.
Crick's children have fond memories of the ceremony in Stockholm where the King of Sweden gave him the award, along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins, who also contributed to the discovery.
"It was a great honor to be there," said son Michael Crick, who is also a scientist.
"My Dad dressed for the occasion, gave a speech and danced with my sister Gabrielle."
His father then went right back to work.
"He was a very focused scientist and after DNA he went on to work on the mechanism of protein synthesis, deciphering the three-letter nature of the genetic code and determining the origins of life on earth," Crick said.
"He was a driven scientist his whole life. At 60, he turned his attention to theoretical neurobiology and for the next 28 years helped advance the study of human consciousness."
Crick's initials are engraved on the back of medal, along with the date of the award in Roman numerals. The two-page Nobel diploma is included with the medal.
His endorsed check for nearly 86,000 kroners is also up for auction, along with nautical logbooks and gardening journals. (AFP)
NEW YORK: Flamboyant Australian tycoon Clive Palmer unveiled his plan Tuesday for building a perfect replica of the Titanic -- plus a lot of extra lifeboats.
More than a century after the original, supposedly unsinkable ocean liner hit an iceberg and went down in the North Atlantic, Palmer says he thinks the time has come to complete the unfinished journey to New York.
"The Titanic was the ship of dreams. Titanic II is the ship where dreams will come true," Palmer said in New York at the project's official launch.
Featuring the same rigid divisions as in 1912 between first, second and third class, passengers will eat either in an ornate dining room or at a long common table. "There'll be no mingling" between classes, Palmer said.
Passengers in the luxury section will enjoy the identical grand staircase and reproductions of the original Titanic's Turkish bath and swimming pool.
Rebuffing public skepticism about the project, Palmer said a contract could be signed with China's CSC Jinling Shipyard within days, with construction starting by the end of this year and the launch in 2016. He wouldn't say what it will all cost.
"Certain people, certain individuals spend too much time in the pub or the bar saying, 'Oh that will never happen'," he said. Palmer refused to give the estimated cost, stating bluntly: "I'm funding this myself because I want to spend the money I've got before I die."
A larger-than-life character who has made a fortune in mining, Palmer said he was unfazed by the seeming temptation of fate in giving one of the unluckiest shipping projects in history a second chance.
"I'm not too superstitious," he said.
Titanic II will closely resemble the original, although with important modifications, including a slightly wider hull and an extra layer of decking.
Passengers will be provided with period costumes appropriate to their class of ticket, Palmer said, joking that he will be in third class: "That's where the fun's going to be."
One modification that Palmer underlined is a vast improvement in the lifeboats, which were insufficient on the original ship, contributing to the loss of more than 1,500 people when it sank in icy waters.
Palmer said this time the ship would exceed regulatory requirements with top-of-the-range lifeboats that are "very safe."
"You could go round the world in them if you wanted," he said.
Markku Kanerva, from Deltamarin, the Finnish firm designing Titanic II, said "we go far beyond" latest regulations.
"I can assure you that from the safety point of view it will be absolutely the most safe cruise ship in the world when it's launched," he said.
But Palmer wouldn't fall into the trap of echoing the original "unsinkable" claim.
"It would be very cavalier to say anything like that. I think people have said that in the past," Palmer deadpanned.
At 833 feet (269 meters), the ship will be about a finger's length longer than the original, with room for 2,435 passengers and 900 crew.
If all goes according to plan, Titanic II will start by sailing from China to Southampton, England, and from there along the original, ill-fated route to New York. After, the ship would cruise mostly in the North Atlantic.
Not only will crew -- and possibly passengers -- be in costume, but there will probably be no televisions aboard, or Internet access, Palmer said.
That pleased Helen Benziger, a descendant of Titanic survivor Margaret "Molly" Brown. She hailed "the romance of the Titanic" and a chance "to spend five days on a ship where people are civil. I think we all crave a bit of civility in our lives, where there's grace, where there's, excuse me, manners."
Palmer said the lack of distracting modern gadgets for a few days would do even more than improve manners.
"You can fall in love with your wife again," he said, joking: "We want to reduce the trend on divorces in the United States." (AFP)
BARCELONA: The "phablet" phenomenon is taking the mobile world by storm.
Manufacturers at the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain released a slew of outsized smartphones that can barely fit in one hand and tablets that have shrunk dramatically.
Further blurring the lines between smartphone and tablet, a selection of the latest tablets can be used as phones, albeit somewhat awkwardly.
At the February 25-28 World Mobile Congress, the Ascend Mate by Chinese manufacturer Huawei, the world's number three smartphone manufacturer, was the champion with a vast six-inch screen.
Not far behind in the smartphone screen real estate contest, rival Chinese handset maker ZTE released its Grand Memo boasting a 5.7-inch display.
South Korean giant LG trailed with its Optimus Pro, at 5.5 inches.
"It's a growing trend, especially in Asia, and a lot of these phones are favoured by women, women who don't have to worry putting it into their pockets, they carry it in their purse," said Ken Hong, communications director at LG.
More than 120 million tablets were sold worldwide in 2012, up 50 percent from the previous year, and shipments of smartphones are predicted to hit one billion this year according to global consultants Deloitte.
But the size of tablets is shrinking.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8, released just ahead of the congress, trimmed its screen to eight inches to compete with Apple's new iPad mini.
Taiwan's Asus has managed to marry the two devices.
Asus showed off the Padfone Infinity, a five-inch, high-definition screen smartphone that can harness the latest superfast fourth-generation wireless network and which slots into 10.1-inch tablet.
The smartphones of 2013 have to be fast, too, however, as the 4G network, also known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE, expands worldwide.
China's Huawei unveiled a new mobile at the show, the Ascend P2, which it claims is the fastest in the world.
Sharp-cornered and thinner than a pencil at 8.4 mm, the company said it can achieve speeds of 150 Mbps, fast enough to download a two-hour high-definition movie in less than five minutes.
The mobile, which has a more modest 4.7-inch, high definition screen, is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor and is able to use LTE networks.
Huawei held 5.3 percent of the market in the fourth quarter of 2012.
That is still well behind Samsung and Apple which held more than 50 percent of the sales combined -- 29.0 percent for Samsung and 22.1 percent for Apple.
If you can't be the biggest, smallest or fastest, there is another way to the hearts of mobile phone consumers.
Finnish manufacturer Nokia, once the leader of the mobile phone world, tried to lure shoppers with lower prices.
Nokia released two Windows Phone-operated smartphones -- the Lumia 520 and 720 -- to be offered with pre-tax price tags of 139 euros ($189) and 249 euros respectively.
But Nokia also offered the Nokia 105, the kind of mobile handset people use mostly for making telephone calls, for just 15 euros.- See more at: http://www.geo.tv/GeoDetail.aspx?ID=89894#sthash.WJCKHgTo.dpuf
LONDON: Gareth Bale fired Tottenham into third place in the Premier League as his sublime last minute goal capped a majestic performance in a 3-2 win over West Ham at Upton Park on Monday.
Bale has been in the form of his life in recent weeks and the Wales winger added another chapter to his growing legend with a brilliant brace that would surely have been appreciated by Hammers legend Bobby Moore, whose death 20 years ago was marked by a moving pre-match tribute.
Moore, regarded as one of the best defenders in the history of the game, famously captained England to World Cup glory in 1966 and also led West Ham to FA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup triumphs.
But even Moore might have been hard pressed to subdue Bale in this mood.
Bale had given Spurs a first half lead but an Andy Carroll penalty and Joe Cole's strike put West Ham ahead by the hour mark.
Gylfi Sigurdsson came off the bench to equalise and Bale produced a simply remarkable long-range winner to move Tottenham, unbeaten in their last 11 league games, two points clear of Chelsea and four ahead of fifth placed Arsenal, who visit White Hart Lane on Sunday.
Bale underlined his claims as the best player in the Premier League with yet another moment of magic to put Spurs ahead in the 13th minute.
He was surrounded by West Ham defenders on the edge of the penalty area, but, drifting away from James Collins, he cleverly worked space for a shot and as West Ham's back-four hesitated the Welsh winger drove a low strike past Jussi Jaaskelainen.
That was Bale's 22nd goal for club and country this season, as well as his eighth in his last seven games.
But West Ham responded well to that setback and grabbed an equaliser in the 25th minute.
Kevin Nolan laid the ball off to Carroll in a dangerous position in the penalty area and former West Ham midfielder Scott Parker, lunging in to block, made clear contact on Carroll, forcing referee Howard Webb to give the spot-kick.
England forward Carroll, on loan from Liverpool, stepped up to smash the penalty past Hugo Lloris for his third goal of the season.
Jan Vertonghen almost restored Tottenham's lead in the opening moments of the second half when his cross deflected off Guy Demel and forced Jaaskelainen into a scrambling save.
Jaaskelainen, called into action again from the resulting corner to push away Steven Caulker's towering header, was keeping Spurs at bay almost single-handed.
He turned Sigurdsson's long-range shot onto a post and when the rebound fell to Emmanuel Adebayor, the Hammers goalkeeper leapt to his feet to block the follow-up.
After those escapes, West Ham moved ahead in the 58th minute when Cole collected Joey O'Brien's lofted pass with a fine first touch and turned to bury his shot beyond Lloris.
Tottenham kept pressing and, after Matt Taylor missed a golden chance to extend West Ham's lead, the visitors levelled when Sigurdsson prodded home at the far post from Bale's free-kick.
That set the stage for a pulsating finish and after more heroics from Jaaskelainen, Bale took charge, producing a truely stunning strike from 30 yards to seal the points.(AFP)
