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New Zealand level series thanks to Guptill century

Label: World

EAST LONDON, South Africa (Reuters) – A brilliant, unbeaten century from opener Martin Guptill led New Zealand to an eight-wicket victory off the final ball against South Africa in the second T20 international on Sunday.

Chasing 169 for victory in 19 overs at Buffalo Park, Guptill helped erase the memory of Friday’s embarrassing capitulation to 86 all out in Durban with a stunning batting display as the tourists reached their target for the loss of just two wickets to level the series 1-1.

Requiring 39 from the final four overs and 11 off the last, Guptill was on 97 and needing four for victory when Rory Kleinveldt bowled the final delivery – a low full toss which was eased away through extra cover.

Guptill’s unbeaten 101 was just the third T20 international century by a New Zealander, the first two belonging to captain Brendon McCullum who was almost anonymous with 17 from 15 balls during a second-wicket partnership of 73 with Guptill.

The right-handed opener was similarly dominant during an opening stand of 76 with Rob Nicol (25) as he drove the Proteas attack impeccably straight and displayed the skills – and patience – so obviously missing from the New Zealand batsman in Durban.

Captain Faf du Plessis led from the front once again as South Africa posted a competitive 165-5 in 19 overs after losing the toss and being asked to bat first.

Du Plessis paced his innings to perfection on a tricky pitch to reach 63 from 43 balls with eight fours and a six in a match reduced to 19 overs per side following a 52-minute floodlight failure.

The deciding match takes place in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.

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New Zealand level series thanks to Guptill century

Label: World

Captain Faf du Plessis led from the front once again as South Africa posted a competitive 165-5 in 19 overs after losing the toss and being asked to bat first.

Du Plessis paced his innings to perfection on a tricky pitch to reach 63 from 43 balls with eight fours and a six in a match reduced to 19 overs per side following a 52-minute floodlight failure.

The deciding match takes place in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Without an ‘iTV,’ Apple’s growth could shrink to the single digits by 2015

Label: Technology

Another analyst believes that Apple is losing its shine. Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research on Thursday trimmed his price target for the company, citing concerns that growth may be slowing. The analyst believes that iPhone sales will remain strong for at least the next two years, however Apple (AAPL) is expected to lose overall market share “if it does not bring out a lower-price device” in the wake of a changing industry. Sacconaghi notes that the iPad should continue to see success in a tablet market that is “a rocket…an absolute juggernaut,” with tablet PC shipments estimated to more than triple over the next five years. It is believed, however, that Apple will likely become a single digit growth company by 2015, unless it releases a new major product such as an HDTV.

[More from BGR: RIM’s biggest problem: It’s still scrambling to catch yesterday’s hottest mobile app]

“That said, it will have a pristine balance sheet, and be generating a mind-boggling $ 49 billion in free cash flow a year after paying its current dividend,” Sacconaghi wrote in a note to investors, according to Forbes. “More importantly, we believe that Apple’s innovation offers significant option value, which is not in our forecast. Three years ago, the iPad did not exist. Today it generates $ 32 billon in annual revenues, and as a standalone business would be the 11th biggest U.S. tech company. Potential ‘options’ for Apple investors include a lower-end iPhone, a television ‘solution,’ a larger iPad or converged device and monetizing advertising, e-commerce and search from its iOS platform (and credit card database) of 435 million users.”

[More from BGR: WhatsApp goes free for iPhone for a limited time]

The analyst kept his Outperform rating on shares of Apple, although he trimmed his price target from $ 800 to $ 750 and lowered his 2013 fiscal year EPS forecast to $ 49.41 per share, from $ 50.57.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Cancer Immunotherapy Where Are We Going?

Label: Health

The compelling concept of utilizing the patient’s own immune system for a stronger and more effective way to attack cancer cells is not a new one. William Coley observed in 1891 that infections produced in patients with inoperable cancer following an injection of streptococcal organisms (Gram-positive bacteria) led to tumor shrinkage especially when the patients developed fever and other signs of a full-blown infection.¹ Since then, research has embraced approaches to “train” the patient’s own immune system to recognize certain biomarkers or proteins that are mainly found on cancer cells and to destroy the cells.

After several setbacks the first cellular immunotherapy, Dendreon’s Sipuleucel-T (Provenge^(R)), was approved for the treatment of prostate cancer in 2010. Today, new promising cancer immunotherapy approaches are in clinical trials. Most recently, researchers at the 54^th American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting reported early success with a developmental-stage cell-based cancer vaccine for the treatment of leukemia and have shown remission in several patients ^2,3, including a 7-year old girl who relapsed twice after chemotherapy.Cancer immunotherapy can be thought of as either active or passive immunotherapy. The most prominent passive immunotherapies, which have revolutionized cancer therapy, are monoclonal antibodies that either target tumor-specific antigens and receptors or block important pathways central to tumor growth and survival. Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies are the market leader in the targeted cancer therapy space and include blockbusters such as trastuzumab (Herceptin^(R)) or rituximab (Rituxan^(R)).In general, antibodies are significant elements of the body’s adaptive immune system. They play a dominant role in the recognition of foreign antigens and the stimulation of the immune response. Therapeutic antibodies target and bind to antigens, usually proteins that are mainly expressed on diseased cells such as cancer cells. After binding, cancer cells can be destroyed by different mechanisms such as antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, the activation of the complement system — an important part of the immune system — and triggering cell death.Although very successful, especially in oncology, therapeutic antibodies have a significant limitation: they don’t generate a memory response by the immune system, and thus, repeated antibody infusions are required. Further, monoclonal antibodies are only able to recognize specific proteins present of the cell surface. Monoclonal antibodies are mostly produced in cell culture systems which are often costly. Humanization of murine monoclonal antibodies by replacing of certain parts of the antibody with human sequences has improved the tolerability of antibodies and made them less immunogenic, but even fully human sequence-derived antibodies can carry some immunological risk.Novel approaches in the passive immunization strategy include antibody drug conjugates, a combination of targeting antibody with a very potent drug such as the recently approved brentuximab vedotin (ADCETRIS(TM)) for Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). ADCETRIS comprises an anti-CD30 monoclonal antibodyanti-CD30 monoclonal antibody and a cytotoxic (cell-killing) agent that is released upon internalization into CD30-expressing tumor cells. Currently, the development of next generations of ADCs is underway.Alternatively, specific and durable cancer immunotherapies designed to actively “train” or stimulate the patient’s intrinsic immune response have been more problematic; however, recent success stories, such as the cell-based immunotherapy Provenge, have revitalized this field. Dendreon’s approach modifies the patients’ own dendritic cells to present a protein specific to prostate cancer cells.Dendritic cells are the most potent, “professional” antigen-presenting cells. They process the antigen material and present it on their surface to other cells of the immune system. Once activated, the dendritic cells migrate to the lymphoid tissues where they interact with T-cells and B-cells — white blood cells and important components of the immune system — to initiate and shape the adaptive immune response. To develop Provenge, each patient’s own dendritic cells are harvested and then loaded ex vivo with the tumor-associated antigen. Now “presenting” the antigen, the dendritic cells are administered back into the patient to induce a potent, cell-mediated anticancer immune response resulting in tumor shrinkage and clinical benefit.In another experimental approach for the treatment of leukemia, patients’ own modified T-cells were infused back into the patients. Prior to this, the T-cells were transduced with a lentivirus to express the CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor. CD19 is an antigen which is found on B-cell neoplasms, cancerous B-cells, and the lentivirus was the vehicle to transfer the genetic material for CD19 into the cells. A case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine stated that a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) was in ongoing remission 10 months after treatment.³These promising results have spurred continued research for new and safe ways to achieve effective tumor vaccination, and drug developers have explored many cancer immunotherapy strategies. To generate an effective antitumor immunity, therapeutic intervention should drive several functions; specifically, it should promote the antigen presentation functions of dendritic cells, promote the production of protective T-cell responses, stimulate B-cells and overcome immunosuppression characteristics that are common to tumor cells.⁴Cell-based therapeutic vaccines are most frequently produced outside the patient’s body and involve isolation of the specific cells, such as dendritic cells, and the introduction of preselected antigens, often with the use of specific vehicle, into the cells. The antigens can be encoded in viral vectors (frequently DNA) or administered as peptides or proteins in a suitable adjuvant and carrier through a long and cumbersome process.During my doctoral thesis, I conducted immunization experiments using RNA as a negative control, assuming that the RNA would be degraded during the experiment thus making it impossible to use as a vaccine. The physiological role of messenger (m) RNA is to transfer genetic information from the nucleus to the cytoplasm where this information is translated into the corresponding protein. mRNA is known to be very unstable and has a relatively short half-life. But astonishingly, we were able to measure a solid T-cell immune response. We repeated the experiment and confirmed that the RNA we had produced had the potential to be used as a vaccine. Importantly, we didn’t need to isolate the patients’ cells: mRNA-based vaccines can be injected directly into the skin (intradermal). The mRNA-based vaccines are then taken up by antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, and are then able to induce an immune response. Importantly, mRNA-vaccines can also be synthesized quickly for any antigen sequence identified.⁵The first mRNA-based vaccines (RNActive(R)) are now in the clinic for the treatment of prostate cancer and lung cancer and have demonstrated that they do what they are supposed to do – induce a balanced humoral, as well as T cell-mediated, immune response that is entirely HLA independent. The HLA (human leukocyte antigen) system is used to differentiate the body’s own cells (self) and non-self cells. Additionally, RNA-vaccines do not need a vehicle such as a virus for delivery to the cells, nor do they contain virus-derived elements that are often found in DNA-vaccines. These attributes make RNActive a very safe therapeutic.The risk of integration of the RNA into the host-genome is minimized (RNA would have been transcribed first to DNA, and then it has to be transported to the nucleus), as is the residual risk of DNA-based vaccines for inactivating or activating genes or affecting cellular regulatory elements, which can induce oncogenesis. Thus, the favorable safety profile of mRNA-based therapies broadens their potential use not only for the treatment of diseases but for use as prophylactic vaccinations. A recent proof-of-concept study using mRNA-based vaccines (RNActive) in animal models for influenza was published in Nature Biotechnology.⁶Therapeutic cancer immunotherapies and vaccines have come a long way, and novel, promising approaches give hope for safe and effective treatment options. This may one day lead to the treatment of all cancers as chronic diseases.Literature¹Kirkwood JM, Butterfield LH, Tarhini AA, Zarour H, Kalinski P, Ferrone S: Immunotherapy of cancer in 2012. CA Cancer J Clin. 2012²June CH, Blazar BR: T-Cell Infusions: A New Tool for Transfusion Medicine That Has Come of Age. Presentation at 54^th ASH Annual Meeting 2013³Porter DL, Levine BL, Kalos M, Bagg A, and June CH: Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T Cells in Chronic Lymphoid Leukemia. N Engl J Med 2011⁴Mellman I, Coukos G, Dranoff G: Cancer immunotherapy comes of age. Nature. 2011Petsch B, Schnee M, Vogel AB, Lange E, Hoffmann B, Voss D, Schlake T, Thess A, Kallen KJ,⁵Hoerr I, Obst R, Rammensee HG, Jung G: In vivo application of RNA leads to induction of specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and antibodies. Eur J Immunol. 2000⁶Petsch B, Schnee M, Vogel AB, Lange E, Hoffmann B, Voss D, Schlake T, Thess A, Kallen KJ, Stitz L, Kramps T: Protective efficacy of in vitro synthesized, specific mRNA vaccines against influenza A virus infection. Nat Biotechnol. 2012

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China and India: The $10 Trillion Engine of Future U.S. Growth

Label: Business

My friend and colleague Michael J. Silverstein, writing in this space in late October, mentioned that the most dangerous thing about China is America’s misguided attitude toward the country. In short, we appear to be afraid of China’s success.

The U.S. has never before run from a challenge. This is the wrong time to start.

As Silverstein and his co-authors—Carol Liao, David Michael, and Abheek Singhi—point out in their new book, The $ 10 Trillion Prize, one of the reasons many Americans feel threatened by China is they don’t know a lot about the country. What they do “know,” by and large, is what they’ve been told by politicians and others who accuse China of stealing U.S. jobs.

Yes, many low-skill, low-wage U.S. jobs have moved elsewhere, in many cases to China. Yes, many low-cost, mass-produced products that used to be made here are now being made there, and in other low-cost countries, such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam. And, yes, many of those jobs will never come back.

But as China and the other developing countries grow, they also become potential customers for U.S. goods and services, from corn and soybeans to automobiles, commercial jetliners, heavy machinery, construction and farm equipment, and banking, investment, and insurance services, to name just a few.

It wasn’t that long ago that the prevailing American vision of the Middle Kingdom was that of millions of mindless peasants marching in automaton-like lockstep to the orders of the party bosses. They led lives of drudgery, on collective farms, toiling for mere survival. Everybody dressed like Chairman Mao. Dissent was met with tanks. And it wasn’t that long ago that that may have been accurate in some respects.

But China today, as Silverstein and his co-authors make clear, is a booming multiclass society with hundreds of millions of people who want nothing more than their own version of the American Dream: a nice home, a quality car, a good education for their children, appliances and conveniences, better health care, stylish clothes, more time for travel and leisure. In short: a better life for the next generation than the current generation enjoyed. The same is true in India.

The authors visited with and tell the stories of dozens of Chinese and Indian families and entrepreneurs who are striving for the same things Americans want—and for the first time in their lives, they have the money to get them.

My colleagues have calculated that between 2010 and 2020, Chinese and Indian consumers will spend some $ 64 trillion on goods and services. Chinese consumers will spend approximately $ 41.5 trillion, with annual expenditures reaching more than $ 6 trillion in 2020. Indians will spend $ 22.5 trillion, with annual spending hitting an estimated $ 3.6 trillion by 2020. Combined, they will be spending some $ 10 trillion per year by 2020—more than three times what they spent in 2010.

That’s what U.S. politicians and business leaders should be talking about: the promise of China and India as engines of future U.S. growth. That’s the prize the book is about.

China and India today show the kind of unbridled optimism that used to be the hallmark of America. Many Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs expect their companies to grow by factors of 10 over the next decade.

Rather than fear such growth, Americans should embrace it, wish them well, and make sure our businesses, farms, and factories are prepared to meet their needs.

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3-day trip becomes 3-week ordeal for 2 Jamaicans

Label: World

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — It was supposed to be a three-day fishing trip at most. It turned into a three-week ordeal, drifting under an intense sun for hundreds of miles in the Caribbean in a small boat with a broken motor.

The two Jamaican fishermen survived by eating raw fish they caught and drinking water from melted ice they had brought to preserve their catch. The Colombian navy finally plucked them from the sea a week ago and delivered them home Saturday after treating them for severe dehydration, malnutrition and hypothermia.

Everton Gregory, 54, and John Sobah, 58, recounted their story in a telephone interview from Jamaica, while the boat owner and the men’s employer also provided details.

The men set off from Jamaica’s southeastern coast on Nov. 20. The water was glassy, the wind was calm and their boat was laden with 14 buckets of ice, 16 gallons of water and several bags of cereal, bread and fruit.

They headed to Finger Bank, a nearby sand spit 8-miles-long (13-kilometers) that is known for its abundance of fish like wahoo, tuna and mahi mahi. The owner of the 28-foot (8-meter) boat said she usually joins them on fishing trips, but she couldn’t go that afternoon.

After spending a couple of days around Finger Bank, the two men set off for home with their catch. But the boat’s engine soon died. The water was too deep to use the anchor and the current too strong to use the oars, so the boat slowly drifted away from Jamaica.

At first, the men got by on sipping the water and eating the food they brought with them. But days turned into weeks, and they began to eat the fish they had caught and drink the melted ice that had kept it fresh.

Gregory and Sobah kept eating raw fish and used a tarp to try to collect water, but the rain clouds remained at a distance.

Back home, friends and family called police and used their own boats to search the area where the men were last seen. The two fishermen work for the Florida-based nonprofit group Food for the Poor, which chartered a plane to search along Jamaica’s coast.

Marva Espuet, the owner of the boat, said she knew she had packed it with more food and water than needed for a three-day trip, but the thought provided little relief.

“If I had gone, there would have been two boats going,” said the 52-year-old woman, a longtime friend of both fishermen.

With searches proving fruitless, Sobah’s niece grew frantic, recalled Nakhle Hado, a fishing manager for Food for the Poor who helped lead the search. She “begged me that she wanted John back for Christmas,” Hado said.

Hado said some people believed the two men would never be found, but he and others didn’t give up. “My gut was telling me that they were still alive,” he said.

Hado said he had trained Gregory and Sobah on how to survive at sea.

“In case something happens, they don’t have to think twice. They know how to react,” he said. “It’s very important, their mental state.”

Gregory and Sobah finally ran out of fresh water and went several days without drink. A healthy human being can die from dehydration anywhere from three to five days without water.

Then on Dec. 12, a Colombian navy helicopter patrolling off the coast of that South American country spotted the men near Lack of Sleep cay, more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) from where they started. It took two days for a navy vessel to reach them because of bad weather. The men were hospitalized for several days at the Colombian island of San Andres before boarding a plane back home to Jamaica.

“It feels good,” Sobah told the AP in a brief phone interview after arriving.

Gregory said he had lost hope, but Sobah tried to keep him positive that they would be rescued. “I just had that belief,” Sobah said. “I believe in the Creator.”

Yet it is Gregory who plans to keep fishing despite the ordeal because he needs the job.

Sobah said he’s done. “I’m not going to go fishing again. No way.”

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