Global stocks recover on euro rescue proposals (AP)

LONDON ? Global stocks advanced Monday as further proposals to get a grip on Europe's debt crisis were touted amid signs that the U.S. Christmas shopping season has started off strongly.

The advance came despite denials that the International Monetary Fund was readying a euro600 billion ($794 billion) rescue package for Italy and that the eurozone's six triple-A rated countries were preparing to float bonds together and use the proceeds to provide assistance to some of the single currency bloc's indebted members, such as Italy and Spain.

Investors are clearly hoping that the recent signs of deterioration in the debt crisis will finally get Europe's leaders to agree on a package of measures that can ease market concerns over whether the euro currency itself can survive. Anecdotal evidence that the U.S. enjoyed a strong day for retailing on Friday after Thanksgiving Day has eased concerns that the world's largest economy will slide back into recession.

"While positive news provides a welcome relief for the markets, it cannot detract from the fact that the future of the eurozone is hanging in the balance," said Jane Foley, an analyst at Rabobank International.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 2.1 percent at 5,272, while Germany's DAX rose 2.9 percent to 5,653. The CAC-40 in France was 3.6 percent higher at 2,961.

The euro, meanwhile, was 0.7 percent higher at $1.3385.

Wall Street was poised for a strong open, too ? Dow futures were up 2.3 percent at 11,445 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 2.9 percent to 1,187.

Many in the markets think that the euro project, as currently designed, is at a crucial turning point. With more and more governments finding it prohibitively expensive to borrow money to finance their debts, there's a groundswell of opinion that says the euro's days are numbered. Belgium, Italy and France all have big bond issues this week. More failures on that front following last week's disappointing auction from Germany could stoke further turmoil.

"The success or otherwise of these auctions may determine the future of the EU," said Gary Jenkins, an analyst at Evolution Securities. "We do seem to be moving slowly towards more of a fiscal union but at a pace that may result in all the components being put in place after a complete meltdown of the financial system."

Credit rating agency Moody's issued a similar warning Monday. It said the "rapid escalation" of Europe's financial crisis is threatening the creditworthiness of all eurozone governments, even the most highly rated. Only six of the eurozone's 17 countries have the top rating ? Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland.

And the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said policy makers around the world must "be prepared to face the worst," as the economic impact of Europe's debt crisis threatens to spread around the developed world.

The Paris-based OECD says in its latest Economic Outlook that continued failure by EU leaders to stem the debt crisis that has spread from Greece to much-bigger Italy "could massively escalate economic disruption" and end in "highly devastating outcomes."

The biannual report released Monday recommends urgently boosting the EU bailout fund and calls on Europe's central bank to do more to stem the crisis.

Oil prices tracked equities higher, too. Benchmark crude for January delivery was up $3.53 to $100.30 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

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Turn on, tune in and get better?

Janeen Delany describes herself as an "old hippie" who's smoked plenty of marijuana. But she never really dabbled in hallucinogens ? until two years ago, at the age of 59.

A diagnosis of incurable leukemia had knocked the optimism out of the retired plant nurserywoman living in Phoenix. So she signed up for a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin ? the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" ? could help with depression or anxiety following a grim diagnosis.

Delaney swallowed a blue capsule of psilocybin in a cozy office at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She donned a blindfold, a blood pressure cuff and a headset playing classical music. With two researchers at her side, she embarked on a six-hour journey into altered consciousness that she calls "the single most life-changing experience I've ever had."

What a long, strange trip it's been. In the 1960s and '70s, a rebellious generation embraced hallucinogens and a wide array of street drugs to "turn on, tune in and drop out." Almost half a century later, magic mushrooms, LSD, Ecstasy and ketamine are being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses. Scientists believe these agents have the potential to help patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, drug or alcohol addiction, unremitting pain or depression and the existential anxiety of terminal illness.

"Scientifically, these compounds are way too important not to study," said Johns Hopkins psychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths, who conducted the psilocybin trial.

In their next incarnation, these drugs may help the psychologically wounded tune in to their darkest feelings and memories and turn therapy sessions into heightened opportunities to learn and heal.

"We're trying to break a social mind-set saying these are strictly drugs of abuse," said Rick Doblin, a public policy expert who founded the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies in 1986 to encourage research on therapeutic uses for medical marijuana and hallucinogens. "It's not the drug but how the drug is used that matters."

Regulators and medical researchers remain wary. But among at least some experts at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, the shift in attitude "has been dramatic," Doblin said.

Researchers explored the usefulness of hallucinogenic agents as an adjunct to psychotherapy in the 1950s and '60s. But allegations that hallucinogens were used in government-funded "mind control" efforts, freewheeling experimentation by proponents like Dr. Timothy Leary, and the drugs' appeal to a generation in revolt quashed legitimate research for decades.

The thaw has been slow in coming. In 2008, Griffiths co-wrote a report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology comparing psilocybin with a placebo for people dealing with incurable diseases. Psilocybin resulted in "mystical experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance," according to the study, the first since 1972 to explore a hallucinogen's therapeutic value.

In January, a team led by UCLA psychiatrist Charles Grob reported in Archives of General Psychiatry that psilocybin improved the mood of patients with "existential anxiety" related to advanced-stage cancer. The benefits lasted at least three months.

Janeen Delany is a typical case: The insights she gleaned during her encounter with psilocybin continue to shape her attitudes toward life and death.

Delany said her "trip" awakened a deep and reassuring sense of "knowing." She came to see the universe and everything in it as interconnected. As the music in her headphones reached a crescendo, she held her breath and realized it would OK ? no, really easy ? not to breathe anymore. She sensed there was nothing more she needed to know and therefore nothing she needed to fear about dying.

And that, paradoxically, has allowed her to live.

"When you take the veil of fear away from your life, you can see and experience everything in such a present way," she said. "I don't have to know what the future is. Every day is the day of days."

Fighting addiction

Such mystical insights are central in another potential use for psilocybin ? as an addiction treatment. Griffiths is conducting a pilot study combining psilocybin with cognitive behavioral therapy to help smokers quit. Four people have completed the program, and so far none has returned to smoking, Griffiths says.

At the University of Arizona in Tucson, addiction specialist Dr. Michael P. Bogenschutz has proposed a clinical trial to test whether psilocybin can help ease alcohol dependence. If the NIH agrees to fund the study, it would be the first instance in decades of government financial support for a trial involving any drug of abuse.

Psilocybin's effect on the brain can be described, if not explained. It increases the activity of serotonin, a chemical that affects mood. Brain networks associated with emotions are highly active in the presence of psilocybin, as are structures involved in higher reasoning and judgment, MRI scans show.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/3wi-sVDdTcw/la-he-drugs-of-abuse-20111130,0,327696.story

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E. coli bacteria engineered to eat switchgrass and make transportation fuels

E. coli bacteria engineered to eat switchgrass and make transportation fuels

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A milestone has been reached on the road to developing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels with a domestically-produced clean, green, renewable alternative.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered the first strains of Escherichia coli bacteria that can digest switchgrass biomass and synthesize its sugars into all three of those transportation fuels. What's more, the microbes are able to do this without any help from enzyme additives.

"This work shows that we can reduce one of the most expensive parts of the biofuel production process, the addition of enzymes to depolymerize cellulose and hemicellulose into fermentable sugars," says Jay Keasling, CEO of JBEI and leader of this research. "This will enable us to reduce fuel production costs by consolidating two steps ? depolymerizing cellulose and hemicellulose into sugars, and fermenting the sugars into fuels ? into a single step or one pot operation."

Keasling, who also holds appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkley, is the corresponding author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that describes this work. The paper is titled "Synthesis of three advanced biofuels from ionic liquid-pretreated switchgrass using engineered Escherichia coli."

Advanced biofuels made from the lignocellulosic biomass of non-food crops and agricultural waste are widely believed to represent the best source of renewable liquid transportation fuels. Unlike ethanol, which in this country is produced from corn starch, these advanced biofuels can replace gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis, and they can be used in today's engines and infrastructures. The biggest roadblock to an advanced biofuels highway is bringing the cost of producing these fuels down so that they are economically competitive.

Unlike the simple sugars in corn grain, the cellulose and hemicellulose in plant biomass are difficult to extract in part because they are embedded in a tough woody material called lignin. Once extracted, these complex sugars must first be converted or hydrolyzed into simple sugars and then synthesized into fuels. At JBEI, a DOE Bioenergy Research Center led by Berkeley Lab, one approach has been to pre-treat the biomass with an ionic liquid (molten salt) to dissolve it, then engineer a single microorganism that can both digest the dissolved biomass and produce hydrocarbons that have the properties of petrochemical fuels.

"Our goal has been to put as much chemistry as we can into microbes," Keasling says. "For advanced biofuels this requires a microbe with pathways for hydrocarbon production and the biomass-degrading capacity to secrete enzymes that efficiently hydrolyze cellulose and hemicellulose. We've now been able to engineer strains of Escherichia coli that can utilize both the cellulose and hemicellulose fractions of switchgrass that's been pre-treated with ionic liquids."

E. coli bacteria normally cannot grow on switchgrass, but JBEI researchers engineered strains of the bacteria to express several enzymes that enable them to digest cellulose and hemicellulose and use one or the other for growth. These cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic strains of E. coli, which can be combined as co-cultures on a sample of switchgrass, were further engineered with three metabolic pathways that enabled the E. coli to produce fuel substitute or precursor molecules suitable for gasoline, diesel and jet engines. While this is not the first demonstration of E. coli producing gasoline and diesel from sugars, it is the first demonstration of E. coli producing all three forms of transportation fuels. Furthermore, it was done using switchgrass, which is among the most highly touted of the potential feedstocks for advanced biofuels.

Gregory Bokinsky, a post-doctoral researcher with JBEI's synthetic biology group and lead author of the PNAS paper, explains that the pre-treatment of the switchgrass with ionic liquids was essential to this demonstration.

"The magic is in the ionic liquid pre-treatment," Bokinsky says. "If properly optimized, I suspect you could use ionic liquid pre-treatment on any plant biomass and make it readily digestible by microbes. For us it was the combination of biomass from the ionic liquid pretreatment with the engineered E. coli that enabled our success."

The JBEI researchers also attribute the success of this work to the "unparalleled genetic and metabolic tractability" of E. coli, which over the years has been engineered to produce a wide range of chemical products. However, the researchers believe that the techniques used in this demonstration should also be readily adapted to other microbes. This would open the door to the production of advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic feedstocks that are ecologically and economically appropriate to grow and harvest anywhere in the world. For the JBEI researchers, however, the next step is to increase the yields of the fuels they can synthesize from switchgrass.

"We already have hydrocarbon fuel production pathways that give far better yields than what we obtained with this demonstration," says Bokinsky. "And these other pathways are very likely to be compatible with the biomass-consumption pathways we've engineered into our E. coli. However, we need to find enzymes that can both digest more of the ionic liquid pre-treated biomass and be secreted by E coli. We also need to work on optimizing the ionic liquid pre-treatment steps to yield biomass that is even easier for the microbes to digest."

###

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov

Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115553/E__coli_bacteria_engineered_to_eat_switchgrass_and_make_transportation_fuels

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Newt Gingrich: Union Leader endorsement a big boost in New Hampshire

In a front page editorial Sunday, New Hampshire's prominent statewide Union Leader newspaper endorsed Newt Gingrich. It's a big boost for Gingrich and a blow to Mitt Romney, currently leading in polls.

Newt Gingrich?s presidential campaign just got a big boost in New Hampshire ? the state holding the first Republican primary election.

Skip to next paragraph

The Union Leader, the state?s most prominent publication and a leading voice in conservatism, says it?s backing Gingrich over Mitt Romney.

Romney, who holds a commanding lead in New Hampshire polling, is still the man to beat there. But the Union Leader?s rejection of his candidacy is a blow nonetheless ? particularly since Gingrich has vaulted past his GOP rivals to claim neck-and-neck status with Romney in national Republican polls as well as likely-voter surveys in other states.

The newspaper?s endorsement ? spread across the top of the front page in the Sunday edition and signed by publisher Joseph W. McQuaid ? carries a granite-like tone typical of a publication prominent in Republican politics. Four years ago, its endorsement of John McCain helped propel McCain past Romney to a win in New Hampshire and to his party?s nomination.

"We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing," the newspaper wrote in its editorial.

"We don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers,? the paper declared in obvious reference to Romney. ?We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job.?

"We don't have to agree with them on every issue," the newspaper wrote about Gingrich, some of whose positions (on immigration, for example) have rankled conservatives. "We would rather back someone with whom we may sometimes disagree than one who tells us what he thinks we want to hear."

Writes Maggie Haberman at Politico.com: ?It's the most significant?and impactful endorsement in the GOP race so far, and solidifies Gingrich's standing as the alternative to Romney as the race heads into the final pre-Iowa caucuses stretch.?

While the Union Leader?s endorsement shakes things up, Romney remains the clear front-runner in New Hampshire, a state where he owns a home and where he?s well-known because of his time as governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/usa/~3/ekCQ8aEqzAY/Newt-Gingrich-Union-Leader-endorsement-a-big-boost-in-New-Hampshire

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World stocks rise from 7-week low on Europe hopes (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? World stocks rose from last week's 7-week low on Monday as hopes grew euro zone leaders would unveil fresh measures to resolve the two-year-old debt crisis, while caution ahead of next week's key summit kept the euro and German yields under pressure.

An unsourced report in Italian daily La Stampa suggested the International Monetary Fund was preparing a rescue plan for Italy worth up to 600 billion euros ($796 billion), later dismissed by an IMF spokesperson.

But a downgrade in Belgium's sovereign rating late on Friday and a warning by Moody's that the rapid escalation of the region's sovereign and banking crisis threatens the rating of all European government bonds kept top-rated German debt supported.

"The bears out there will know that markets do not go down in a straight line and this could be just a relief rally in what will prove to be a prolonged bear market," said Stan Shamu, strategist at IG Markets.

MSCI world equity index (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.9 percent, rising for the first time after ten consecutive days of losses. The index is down nearly 15 percent since January and more than 22 percent since hitting a three-year high in May.

European stocks (.FTEU3) and emerging stocks (.MSCIEF) both rose around 1.5 percent.

U.S. stock futures were up more than 2 percent, pointing to a firmer open on Wall Street later.

The market was also expected to get some support from news that U.S. retailers racked up a record $52.4 billion in sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, a 16.4 percent jump.

U.S. crude oil gained 2.2 percent to $98.92 a barrel.

Bund futures were steady on the day.

After the Italian aid report, Italian/German 10-year government bond yield spread tightened 10 basis points to 496 bps.

The premium investors pay to hold Belgium's 10-year government bonds rather than German debt was largely unchanged from Friday at 368 basis points.

Belgian borrowing costs have increased sharply in past weeks as the country has struggled to set up a government, with the country's benchmark 10-year yield rising near the 6 percent level on Friday, beyond which financing costs could become unsustainable.

A sustained rise in yields is likely to scare some of the long-term euro bond buyers. Kokusai Asset Management, Japan's biggest mutual fund, said it had sold all its Italian, Spanish and Belgian bond holdings, spooked by a jump in Italian bond yields to above 7 percent and other signs that the crisis in Europe was deepening [ID:nL4E7MS152].

Investors will keep a close eye on developments in the euro zone. Documents showed detailed operational rules for the region's bailout fund were ready for approval and will clear the way for the 440 billion euro facility to attract cash from private and public investors in coming weeks.

Officials say Germany and France are exploring ways for rapid fiscal integration among euro zone countries. Germany's original plan was to get all 27 countries on board, but officials have been looking at alternatives such as an agreement among just the euro zone countries or a separate agreement outside the EU treaty that could involve a core of around 8-10 euro zone countries.

The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.3301.

The dollar (.DXY) fell 0.6 percent against a basket of major currencies.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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US to pay $2.5 million to anthrax victim's widow

Joe Raedle / Getty Images file

Maureen Stevens' husband, Bob Stevens, a photo editor for American Media Inc., was the first fatality in the anthrax mailings.

By Associated Press

The U.S. government has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the widow and family of a Florida tabloid photo editor killed in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

A document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press shows that Maureen Stevens will drop all other claims stemming from the death of Robert Stevens. The document also says the U.S. is not admitting fault.

Stevens' lawsuit, filed in 2003, claimed the government was negligent because it failed to stop someone at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., from creating weapons-grade anthrax used in letters that killed her husband and four other people. Seventeen more people were sickened.

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Maureen Stevens' attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. The settlement names her and her three grown children, and notes that attorneys' fees of no more than 25 percent will be paid out of that amount.

Robert Stevens worked in Boca Raton for American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, Sun and Globe tabloids when he was exposed to anthrax. He died Oct. 5, 2001. Other anthrax-laced letters were mailed to television networks in New York and a U.S. Senate office building in Washington.

After a lengthy and unprecedented investigation, the FBI concluded that a government scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, was solely responsible for the attacks. Ivins, however, committed suicide in 2008 and some who worked with him at Fort Detrick have expressed doubt that he did it or had the means to create the anthrax used in the letters.

For years the FBI investigation focused on another scientist, Steven Hatfill, who was identified as a "person of interest" in 2001 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Hatfill was eventually cleared and sued the government for invasion of privacy, resulting in a $5.8 million settlement.

Lawsuits filed by other victims have been dismissed, although at least one is on appeal.

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/29/9092419-us-to-pay-25-million-to-anthrax-victims-widow

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Psychiatric evaluation finds Norway killer insane (AP)

OSLO, Norway ? Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was insane when he killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway, and should be sent to a psychiatric ward instead of prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.

A psychiatric evaluation ordered by an Oslo court found that the self-styled anti-Muslim resistance fighter was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, the country's worst peacetime massacre ? which means he's not mentally fit to be sentenced to prison, prosecutors told reporters.

The report, written by two psychiatrists who spent a total of 36 hours talking to Breivik, will be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists before the court makes a ruling on whether Breivik is legally insane.

Their conclusions contrasted with earlier comments by the head of that board, who told The Associated Press in July that it was unlikely that Breivik would be declared legally insane because the attacks were so carefully planned and executed.

"The conclusions of the forensic experts is that Anders Behring Breivik was insane," prosecutor Svein Holden said, adding Breivik was in a state of psychosis during the attacks.

In their report, the experts describe a man "who finds himself in his own delusional universe, where all his thoughts and acts are governed by these delusions," Holden said. "They conclude that Anders Behring Breivik during a long period of time has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today."

In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which he or she is charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he's no longer in control of his own actions.

The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, which could ask for additional information and add its own opinions.

"That's interesting," the head of the panel, Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad, told the AP on Tuesday when asked to comment on the report's conclusions.

In July, Rygnestad said that a psychotic person typically struggles to perform even simple tasks like driving a car, and that the meticulous planning and skills required for Breivik's attacks spoke against psychosis.

On Tuesday, Rygnestad told AP that his earlier comments were based on "secondary information" and that a person's mental state can only be determined through in-depth analysis. He said he had not read the full report yet. But he maintained his assertion that psychotic people typically aren't able to carry out complex tasks that require intricate planning.

"Usually not. Then again, unusual things also happen," he said.

Breivik has confessed to carrying out the attacks but denies criminal guilt, saying he's a commander of a Norwegian resistance movement opposed to multiculturalism.

Investigators have found no sign of such a movement and say Breivik most likely plotted and carried out the attacks on his own.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_eu/eu_norway_massacre

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