German conservative plunge in poll amid tax, nepotism scandals

By Annika Breidthardt

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives plunged to their lowest rating in seven months in a leading opinion poll on Sunday as a tax evasion scandal embroiled an ally and their Bavarian sister party faced questions about nepotism.

Support for Merkel's Christian Democrats and Bavarian partner the Christian Social Union fell three percentage points from a week earlier to 37 percent, their lowest ranking since October, the Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed.

Last month, one of Germany's most admired sports managers, Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness, said he had voluntarily reported himself to authorities in a tax evasion investigation that exposed Merkel's government to criticism it is lenient on tax cheats.

Hoeness is seen as a supporter of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) and has had close ties to Merkel.

With five months to go to federal elections and a regional vote in Bavaria, Merkel and CSU leaders have distanced themselves from Hoeness, though the party has also faced questions about the conduct of its own members.

The CSU regional parliamentary floor leader stepped down late last month, saying he had used state funds to pay his wife a hefty salary for working for him, a legal loophole Bavarian lawmakers had used for years.

Some ministers in the regional cabinet have now said they will donate the money they paid their family members to charity.

"There have been a range of events recently that have shattered peoples' trust in the economic elites," said Emnid chief Klaus-Peter Schoeppner. Those events included the Hoeness case and the Bavarian scandal, he added.

The CDU/CSU's junior coalition partner in the federal parliament, the Free Democrats, rose one point in the poll to 5 percent, which would allow them to enter parliament.

Their combined 42 percent put them on par with the joint force of the opposition Social Democrats (SPD), which was unchanged at 27 percent, and the Greens, who gained a point after announcing a divisive "soak-the-rich" campaign for new taxes last week.

Taxes are set to become a hot topic in the run-up to the September 22 election, when Merkel will seek her third term in office.

On Sunday, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported a CSU lawmaker in the federal lower house had said he had employed his former fianc?e and had asked the president of the house, the Bundestag, to check if that broke any rules.

Spiegel magazine reported Bayern Munich's big sponsors, Adidas, Audi, Volkswagen and Deutsche Telekom, wanted Hoeness to suspend his club presidency after the team's Champions League final at the end of May.

The magazine said the sponsors agreed Hoeness could take up office again if he did not have to go to jail. Adidas and Audi have an 18.2 percent stake in Bayern Munich.

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/german-conservative-plunge-poll-amid-tax-nepotism-scandals-101219936.html

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Focus on STD, not cancer prevention, to promote HPV vaccine use

Friday, May 3, 2013

The HPV vaccine can prevent both cervical cancer and a nasty sexually transmitted disease in women. But emphasizing the STD prevention will persuade more young women to get the vaccine, a new study suggests.

These results go against the conventional wisdom that scaring women about the possibility of cancer is the best way to get them vaccinated.

The failure of that cancer-threat message may be one reason that fewer than 20 percent of adolescent girls in the United States have received the HPV vaccine, said Janice Krieger, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

"Young women don't respond strongly to the threat of cervical cancer," Krieger said.

"They seem to be more worried about getting an STD. That's the way we should try to encourage them to get the HPV vaccine."

The vaccine ? most commonly sold under the brand name Gardasil ? prevents the types of HPV, or human papillomavirus, that cause most cases of cervical cancer and most cases of genital warts, a sexually transmitted disease.

Krieger conducted the study with Melanie Sarge of Texas Tech University. It appears in a recent issue of the journal Health Communication.

Many early studies of how to sell the benefits of the HPV vaccine found that the message that it prevents cancer was effective. But these studies often involved women of all ages, from adolescence to old age. The problem, though, is that the vaccine is targeted to women under the age of 26.

"Cancer is something people start to worry about later in life, not when they're in high school and college. We decided to do a clean study that compared what message worked best with college-aged women versus what worked with their mothers," Krieger said.

Participants in the study included 188 female college students (average age of 22) and 115 of their mothers (average age of 50).

The mothers and students both received a packet of materials that included a questionnaire and a pro-vaccine message. The student message recommended talking to a doctor about the HPV vaccine, and the parent message recommended encouraging their daughter to talk to a doctor.

Two different messages were created. Half of the mothers and students received a message sheet about the vaccine with a large headline that read, "Prevent cervical cancer." The other half received a similar message, but with the headline declaring, "Prevent genital warts." A text box on the sheet also re-emphasized either the cancer or the genital warts message.

Participants then filled out the questionnaire, which asked a variety of questions that included how they felt about the threat of HPV and whether they felt they (or their daughter) could talk to a doctor about receiving the vaccine.

Results showed that the message emphasizing the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing genital warts was a clear winner with the young women.

Compared to those who received the cancer prevention message, young women who read that the vaccine prevented genital warts were more likely to say they intended to talk to their doctor about the vaccine. They also said they felt more comfortable talking to their doctor about the vaccine.

"Preventing cancer was not a big motivator," Krieger said.

Overall, the findings showed that scaring young women into getting the vaccine doesn't seem to be a good strategy.

Young women who perceived HPV as a bigger threat to their health than others, or who thought they were more likely to get the virus, were not consequently more likely to say they would get the vaccine or talk to their doctor.

"Our results suggest it is more important to get women to feel comfortable talking to their doctor about the vaccine," she said. "Fear doesn't work. They need to feel it is not difficult or embarrassing to discuss the vaccine with their doctor. That's the best way to encourage them to be vaccinated."

The researchers expected that the mothers in the study would be more likely to talk to their daughters about getting the HPV vaccine if they read the cancer prevention message rather than the STD prevention message.

Part of their reasoning was that the mothers, being older, were at a stage in their life when cancer was a bigger issue for them, Krieger said. But they also thought mothers would not feel comfortable about an STD message that assumes that their daughters were sexually active.

However, it turned out that the mothers weren't affected by which of the messages they received.

"We believed that mothers would react negatively to the message about preventing genital warts, but that wasn't supported. Mothers reacted similarly to the genital warts and cancer prevention messages. It suggests that if we focus on the prevention of genital warts in our messages to daughters, it may not mean we have lost the mothers."

Krieger said the results should encourage policymakers, doctors and others to shift their messages to young women concerning the HPV vaccine.

"Cancer may seem to be the more serious issue to some older adults, but it is not the top concern for young women," she said.

###

Ohio State University: http://researchnews.osu.edu

Thanks to Ohio State University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128116/Focus_on_STD__not_cancer_prevention__to_promote_HPV_vaccine_use

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Possible lead in case of missing U.S. journalist in Syria

BOSTON (AP) ? The New Hampshire-based family of a journalist missing for five months now believe "with a very high degree of confidence" that he is being held in a Syrian prison.

James Foley was last seen on Nov. 22 in northwest Syria, where he was contributing videos to Agence France-Press for the media company GlobalPost. His family in Rochester, N.H., says he was kidnapped by unknown gunmen.

GlobalPost CEO Philip Balboni said Friday that an exhaustive investigation has determined that Foley was likely abducted by a pro-Syrian government military group. Investigators believe he is being held with one or more Western journalists in a detention facility near Damascus.

Foley's family and the company have appealed to the Syrian government to release him.

The family spoke at World Press Freedom Day in Boston.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nh-family-missing-us-journalist-syrian-prison-151219097.html

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The marriage extracation and new relationships - Talk About Marriage

Coping with Infidelity Relationship recovery from the destructiveness of infidelity.

Today, 09:56 AM	? #1 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 102	Hi Everyone, Been a long while. Ok quick backstory, Physician STBXW was cheating on me with multiple men, including someone in her staff,and was using every fog technique known to man. After exposure and IC, STBXW decides she wants out to be with the POSOM. No sweat, 14 years done, have a lovely life. She has been moderately fighting me in the divorce, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the next month. She is moving out of the house and I will be staying in the home until sold. So this is where it gets sticky. So it has been over a year since my STBXW had any physical contact. I have not had any emotional support in the last two years. So on a request from my therapist I started online dating. Well it worked, a little too well. Now I have been meeting and talking to an incredible woman for the last couple of weeks(nothing physical). I have yet to broach the subject that I was A.Married B.In the process of a divorce. I really like this girl and at this point I can tell the difference between infatuation and something more. It's just the timing is so damn horrible. I get the feeling the STBXW is dragging her heals on the agreement because she knows something is afoot in the background with me. I haven't been this happy in over a year. So the question is how do you think I should drop this on the new girl? This is all too new for me and I was just wondering if I tell her now will she be miffed that I didn't tell her earlier and walk. So much confusion. You guys have been there for me in the past. What do you think the honorable thing is to do?
?

Today, 10:22 AM	? #2 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: UK Posts: 296	About two months after I met my now-husband (who then became my WH but that's not relevant to this), he sat me down and got that "I have to tell you something that you're not going to like" face on. I was worried he was going to finish with me and told him just to tell me. He said that he was not divorced, as he had led me to believe, but that he was separated, and getting divorced. I can't say I was happy that he lied to me, but at that point I knew I loved him and I didn't want to lose him. So I understood. It also turned out that he had been separated more recently than he had led me to believe also - when we met it had only been four months since his W left him, not almost a year as I thought. This had several effects on us. Firstly, and positively, I was able to help him through the very difficult divorce that followed, in full knowledge of what was going on. Secondly, and negatively, when the wife found out about me, she started making things more difficult for him. I met his two sons twice, fairly early on in our relationship, and after the wife found out they had met me, she saw to it that he never saw them again for about four years. For me, I would have preferred it if we had met further on in the process, preferably when the divorce was over and everyone was more settled in the situation. Everything was very very raw to bring another woman into the mix. However, you are still living with your wife so I think the new girl would struggle with that one - I know I would. If my husband had told me that he was still living with his wife I think I would have assumed that he was cheating on her, lying to me, and I would have run a mile. I think this is your biggest problem. __________________ "And remember the truth that once was spoken / To love another person is to see the face of God." ~ Victor Hugo, Les Mis?rables. "We're not broken just bent / And we can learn to love again" ~ Pink <- I really want to believe this
?

Today, 11:34 AM	? #6 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 170	Your STBXW still lives with you. That is an issue... Be honest with the girl. Tell her you don't want to do any more than talk to her, maybe lunch until you are done, STBXW is out etc... I know how it is. I met my gf after my EX moved out. The marriage was over, I was done but there were issues. Good women don't want to date married men so be a good man and tell her you still have to wrap up some final issues and as much as you like her you want to make sure you can focus on getting to know her without the distractions in the background. I still had to go through a few months, 2 more than I thought as the divorce dragged on. If your STBXW finds out you are happy with this new girl, she could very well get jealous and not play nicely in the sandbox with the other kiddies. Take your time. I met my gf online and I was just flat out honest with her with all the crap in my life that was due to mainly my cheating EX. We worked through it, but it was rough at times. I actually met her and was talking to her to help her out as a friend, but when I met her and saw how gorgeous she was, I said F that. I made sure I kissed her so I wouldn't be placed in the 'friends box'... All the lessons I learned on how to be a better husband, I use on my gf now
?

Today, 04:20 PM	? #12 (permalink)
Member ? Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 383	Quote: Hi Everyone, Been a long while. Ok quick backstory, Physician STBXW was cheating on me with multiple men, including someone in her staff,and was using every fog technique known to man. After exposure and IC, STBXW decides she wants out to be with the POSOM. No sweat, 14 years done, have a lovely life. She has been moderately fighting me in the divorce, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the next month. She is moving out of the house and I will be staying in the home until sold. So this is where it gets sticky. So it has been over a year since my STBXW had any physical contact. I have not had any emotional support in the last two years. So on a request from my therapist I started online dating. Well it worked, a little too well. Now I have been meeting and talking to an incredible woman for the last couple of weeks(nothing physical). I have yet to broach the subject that I was A.Married B.In the process of a divorce. I really like this girl and at this point I can tell the difference between infatuation and something more. It's just the timing is so damn horrible. I get the feeling the STBXW is dragging her heals on the agreement because she knows something is afoot in the background with me. I haven't been this happy in over a year. So the question is how do you think I should drop this on the new girl? This is all too new for me and I was just wondering if I tell her now will she be miffed that I didn't tell her earlier and walk. So much confusion. You guys have been there for me in the past. What do you think the honorable thing is to do? Well, now that you know what it's like being deceived and lied to, don't do it to anyone else.
?

Find a Therapist:

Source: http://talkaboutmarriage.com/coping-infidelity/72714-marriage-extracation-new-relationships.html

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Antibacterial Soap Draws FDA Scrutiny

May 3, 2013 9:45am

ABC News? Dr. Richard Besser and Roger Lee report:

Triclosan is a popular antibacterial chemical that has been on the market for more than 40 years and found in everything from soap to body washes, but recent studies raise concerns that it might be doing more harm than good.

Studies of triclosan in animals suggest that the chemical could increase the risk of infertility and early puberty and other hormone-related problems in humans.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to deliver a review later this year of whether triclosan is safe. The FDA says animal studies ?don?t always predict effects in humans.?

The FDA has been working on a review of whether triclosan is safe for nearly 40 years. ?Its website said the review would be released in 2012, but there is still no sign of it. When asked about a release date, an FDA spokesperson declined to comment because of ongoing litigation. Until this review is finalized, companies are permitted to use the chemical in their products.

The FDA?s ruling, which will determine whether triclosan continues to be used in household cleaners, could have implications for a $1 billion industry that includes hundreds of antibacterial products from toothpaste to toys.

The soap and detergent industry says the concerns about triclosan are overblown.

?The fact is triclosan is safe ? has an extensive track record; human health and environmental safety,? Brian Sansoni, a spokesman for the American Cleaning Institute, said.

Meanwhile, some consumer advocates have questioned why the chemical is still being used after the FDA said it has no evidence soaps made with triclosan ?provide any benefit over washing with regular soap and water.?

In 2007, researchers at the University of Michigan and other universities compiled data from 30 studies looking at the use of antibacterial soaps. The results showed soaps with triclosan were no more effective at preventing illness or reducing bacteria on the hands than plain soap.

Indeed, the only officially approved use of the chemical is in certain toothpastes after a study showed it helps prevent gingivitis.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SHOWS: Good Morning America

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/05/03/popular-antibacterial-soap-ingredient-draws-fda-scrutiny/

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How graphene and friends could harness the Sun's energy hitting walls

May 2, 2013 ? Combining wonder material graphene with other stunning one-atom thick materials could create the next generation of solar cells and optoelectronic devices, scientists have revealed.

University of Manchester and National University of Singapore researchers have shown how building multi-layered heterostructures in a three-dimensional stack can produce an exciting physical phenomenon exploring new electronic devices.

The breakthrough, published in Science, could lead to electric energy that runs entire buildings generated by sunlight absorbed by its exposed walls; the energy can be used at will to change the transparency and reflectivity of fixtures and windows depending on environmental conditions, such as temperature and brightness.

The isolation of graphene, by University of Manchester Nobel Laureates Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov in 2004, led to the discovery of the whole new family of one-atom-thick materials.

Graphene is the world's thinnest, strongest and most conductive material, and has the potential to revolutionise a huge number of diverse applications; from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips. The isolation of graphene also led to the discovery of a whole new family of one-atom-thick materials.

Collectively, such 2D crystals demonstrate a vast range of superlative properties: from conductive to insulating, from opaque to transparent. Every new layer in these stacks adds exciting new functions, so the heterostructures are ideal for creating novel, multifunctional devices.

One plus one is greater than two -- the combinations of 2D crystals allow researchers to achieve functionality not available from any of the individual materials.

The Manchester and Singapore researchers expanded the functionality of these heterostructures to optoelectronics and photonics. By combining graphene with monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC), the researchers were able to created extremely sensitive and efficient photovoltaic devices. Such devices could potentially be used as ultrasensitive photodetectors or very efficient solar cells.

In these devices, layers of TMDC were sandwiched between two layers of graphene, combining the exciting properties of both 2D crystals. TMDC layers act as very efficient light absorbers and graphene as a transparent conductive layer. This allows for further integration of such photovoltaic devices into more complex, more multifunctional heterostructures.

Professor Novoselov said: "We are excited about the new physics and new opportunities which are brought to us by heterostructures based on 2D atomic crystals. The library of available 2D crystals is already quite rich, covering a large parameter space.

"Such photoactive heterostructures add yet new possibilities, and pave the road for new types of experiments. As we create more and more complex heterostructures, so the functionalities of the devices will become richer, entering the realm of multifunctional devices."

University of Manchester researcher and lead author Dr Liam Britnell added: "It was impressive how quickly we passed from the idea of such photosensitive heterostructures to the working device. It worked practically from the very beginning and even the most unoptimised structures showed very respectable characteristics"

Professor Antonio Castro Neto, Director of the Graphene Research Centre at the National University of Singapore added: "We were able to identify the ideal combination of materials: very photosensitive TMDC and optically transparent and conductive graphene, which collectively create a very efficient photovoltaic device.

"We are sure that as we research more into the area of 2D atomic crystals we will be able to identify more of such complimentary materials and create more complex heterostructures with multiple functionalities. This is really an open field and we will explore it."

Dr Cinzia Casiraghi, from The University of Manchester, added: "Photosensitive heterostructures would open a way for other heterostructures with new functionalities. Also, in future we plan for cheaper and more efficient heterostructure for photovoltaic applications."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Manchester University, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. L. Britnell, R. M. Ribeiro, A. Eckmann, R. Jalil, B. D. Belle, A. Mishchenko, Y.-J. Kim, R. V. Gorbachev, T. Georgiou, S. V. Morozov, A. N. Grigorenko, A. K. Geim, C. Casiraghi, A. H. Castro Neto, and K. S. Novoselov. Strong Light-Matter Interactions in Heterostructures of Atomically Thin Films. Science, 2 May 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1235547

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/N8nsPsaCo7U/130502142506.htm

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