Donie's news Ireland daily BLOG update

Seventy nine year old activist Margaretta D’Arcy transferred to Mountjoy prison

 

The Artists (79) was serving second month of sentence in Limerick before being moved. 

Artist and peace activist Margaretta D’Arcy has been transferred from Limerick Prison to Mountjoy in Dublin, her family confirmed today.

Artist and peace activist Margaretta D’Arcy has been transferred from Limerick Prison to Mountjoy in Dublin, her family confirmed today.

The 79-year-old Aosdána member, who is entering the second month of a three-month sentence, was informed that she was to be transferred to the Dóchas women’s prison this morning , her son Finn Arden said.

“I spoke to her by telephone and she was in good form,” Mr Arden said.

His mother was imprisoned in mid-January for refusing to sign a bail bond to uphold the law and keep away from unauthorised zones at Shannon airport, following imposition of a suspended sentence for illegal incursion of the runway at Shannon on October 7th, 2012.

She is suffering from cancer and has arthritis.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice said there are no plans to offer her early release from prison on compassionate grounds.

Former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday has appealed to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter as have a number of MEPs and several TDs, but the department has said that Mr Shatter believes resolution of the matter “rests entirely with the individual concerned”, as stated in the Dáil.

Ms D’Arcy has been visited in a private capacity by Sabina Coyne, wife of President Michael D Higgins, and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, and was in court again earlier this week relating to protests over US military use of Shannon.

The seriousness of the climate situation has yet to sink in nationally

 

We are witnessing a displaced fury against windmills and pylons rather than tackling the real threat to our future. 

It is tempting to imagine that a sea change in Ireland’s on-again, off-again relationship with the reality of climate change has occurred in recent times, as extreme weather events have yet again battered our coastline, inundated farms and flooded urban areas, with the latest wave of damage running to more than €100 million.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, visiting areas ofLimerick hit by flooding, commented: “I think we all now believe in climate change . . . the defences that were here, with the new climates that we are having all around the world, are no longer adequate.”

Next up was Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin. “When calm is restored I think we have to do some serious thinking about long-term flood defences because clearly climate change is a reality.”

Then Brian Hayes, Minister of State for the Office of Public Works, said the OPW had identified some 250 at-risk locations for repeated flooding. The costs of trying to defend these locations, he warned, would run into “tens of billions of euros”.

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Opposition leader Micheál Martin both agreed that climate change was indeed real. The one who doesn’t seem to have got the memo was Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan. As the storms rolled in and the flood waters rose higher, Hogan chose instead to join Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney in celebrating securing a renewal of the environmental vandalism that will be Ireland’s latest derogation from the EU nitrates directive.

“Whether we have scientific evidence or not in relation to climate change, it looks as if we’re going to have these types of weather patterns in the future,” said Hogan. This was about as close to uttering the “c” word as he has managed in 2½ years. And yes Minister, there is evidence alright, mountains – and lakes – of it, in fact.

Tipping point: Not everyone is so conflicted. The world is “perilously close” to a climate tipping point, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde warned recently.

With a culinary flourish, she added: “unless we take action, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled”.

The public service broadcaster RTE with a budget in excess of €300 million, should have a team covering climate and environment with the depth and passion lavished on business or sports. Instead, it scrapped its solitary environment post.

Rosy future: The Marian Finucane Show on Sunday featured an economist gushing about the rosy future of improved labour market opportunities his three-year-old daughter would enjoy by the mid-2030′s.

Meanwhile, the World Bank’s 2012 document Turn Down the Heat projects that global average temperatures will break the plus 2 degrees “point of no return” by the end of that decade. This locks us into a future of food and fresh water shortages, devastating and intensifying weather extremes, coastal inundation, desertification, ocean acidification and mass extinction events. This shocking reality has barely made a dent in our national discourse.

Quite how anyone imagines the global economy could survive such relentless disruption has become the question that dare not speak its name.

RTÉ’s failure on environmental reporting is a tragedy. The print media have hardly fared much better. RTÉ’s audience council is now inviting the public to comment on its communication of climate change. Submissions close next Monday.

Interestingly, Met Éireann’s head of forecasting, Dr Gerry Fleming, pointedly avoided linking the ratcheting up of extreme weather events in Ireland to climate change, stating: “it’s our grandchildren or great grandchildren who will make that call”. His British counterpart, the Met Office’s chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, had no such reservations. “All the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change . . . there is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”

The clamour for answers is gathering pace yet, oddly, the outrage is not being directed against the real enemy, an energy system utterly dependent on coal, oil and peat-burning. In our displaced fury, we are, Don Quixote-style, tilting instead at “ugly” windmills and pylons.

Amid the gloom, some positive news: An Taisce has just established a new climate change committee (disclosure: I’m a member) to take a more forceful approach to communicating this crisis and challenging Ireland’s dangerous do-nothing consensus.

Minister Reilly says Rehab cannot be forced to comply with public pay policy

  

Rehab will hold meeting next week to decide whether to disclose CEO’s salary

The Minister for Health has admitted that Rehab cannot be forced to abide by public pay policy.

But James Reilly says the government expects organisations receiving major public funding to pay staff at similar rates to public servants.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has agreed to hold a hearing with Rehab “in the next fortnight” to discuss pay and funding issues.

Meanwhile, the Rehab board of directors is meeting next Monday to decide whether to reveal the salary package of its chief executive, Angela Kerins.

The Chairman of the Group, Brian Kerr, said last month that the remuneration of the CEO is a matter for the Rehab Group board – and since the last voluntary disclosure of her salary in April 2011, there has been no formal request from any relevant authority to do so again.

In a statement on January 23rd, Mr. Kerr said some of the pressure that has been placed on Ms. Kerins and her family has been entirely unfair and very personal.

Minister Reilly says the government will not stop until it has full transparency in bodies that receive State funding. But he is ruling out an independent inquiry.

The human brain now reacts to emoticons naturally,

Says Neuroscientists

 

The humble smiley face or ‘emoticon’ is now much more than a simple pattern of colons and symbols. According to a recent study, the human brain now reacts emotionally to seeing them on our screens.

With the advent of text messages as one of the most popular forms of communication, human beings as a physically emotive people meant some messages were lost in translation without the addition of a  or  to indicate their mood.

Now, according to a team of neuroscientists, we have used emoticons so often in the past 40 years that the human brain now recognises them as human faces.

The report was published in Social Neuroscience and titled Emoticons in mind: An event-related potential study involving 20 participants in the study.

As part of the experiment, the 20 people were shown images of upright and inverted faces, emoticons and meaningless strings of characters. The participants’ facial responses, known in neuroscience as the N170, showed that inverted faces “produces a larger and later N170 while inverting objects which are perceived featurally rather than configurally reduces the amplitude of the N170.”

The first documented use of the emoticon was by Scott E Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University, who suggested that the smiley face be used as an indication of when something is a joke or not.

2014 Google Science Fair seeks entries from teens 13-18 worldwide

  

2014 Google Science Fair is seeking entries from teens worldwide

Students aged 13-18 who have a concept for changing the world are invited to submit their ideas to the fourth annual Google Science Fair and be in with a chance of winning some pretty spectacular prizes.

Students from around the world may enter the Google Science Fair. All they need to participate is curiosity and an internet connection, Clare Conway of Google Science Fair team wrote on Google’s Official Blog.

Students have until 12 May to submit their projects. The winners will be announced at a finalist event at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, on 22 September.

M/s Conway also detailed the prizes that are up for grabs.

“This year’s grand prize winner will have the chance to join the Virgin Galactic team at Spaceport America in New Mexico as they prepare for space flight and will be among the first to welcome the astronauts back to Earth, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands aboard the National Geographic Endeavour and a full year’s digital access to Scientific American magazine for their school.

“Age category winners will have a choice between going behind the scenes at the LEGO factory in Billund, Denmark, or an amazing experience at either a Google office or National Geographic.”

If there is global warming this is what the British aisles would look like

 

The possibility that global warming might have something to do with the extraordinary weather that is now rapidly floating up and dominating the agenda.

It is an all too familiar sight these days as Father Thames reclaims his ancient sovereignty over his flood plain. A Street, in Oxford, has become a river, banked by sodden suburban homes. Its inhabitants have taken to canoes instead of cars. But this time there is something else: people are holding a banner: “Can we talk about climate change now?”

Well, I guess they can. At first, the possibility that global warming might have something to do with the extraordinary weather – which has dumped nearly 300 Windermeres of water on Britain in two months – was little discussed. But it is now rapidly floating up the agenda.

After years avoiding what used to be his trademark issue, David Cameron has now twice voiced his strong suspicion of a link with climate change, most recently in a passionately delivered peroration at Tuesday’s press conference.

Junior environment minister Dan Rogerson, standing in for the more sceptical Owen Paterson, agreed on Thursday that global warming was to blame. And Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey accused some Conservatives of “parroting the arguments of the most discredited climate change deniers” – only for his deputy, Michael Fallon, to hit back by denouncing “unthinking climate change worship”.

More significantly, Dame Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, judged that “all the evidence” suggested that climate change helped cause the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years”. She was launching an official study that fingered increasingly heavy rains, sea-level rise in the Channel, and an increasing intensity of Atlantic storms hitting Britain as possible signs of its effects.

The report also cited the “extreme cold” of the North American winter, stretching all the way down to New Orleans, which has even forced a polar bear at a Chicago zoo to take refuge indoors. Indeed, last month Michigan became the chilliest place on the planet, beating the South Pole: water thrown from buckets turned to ice in mid-air, while the 200-strong community of Hell, west of Detroit, froze over.

California, meanwhile, is suffering its most severe drought in a century; Australia has just had its hottest year on record, and Argentina sweltered through some of its worst heat in December. And Arctic Norway has been so hot and dry that it has experienced three major wildfires in two months, while Greenland has been basking in a heatwave.

None of this, let it quickly be said, can clearly be attributed to climate change. Even the Met Office report said “it is not possible, yet, to give a definitive answer”, leading Lord Lawson to protest: “It’s just this Julia Slingo woman” making an “absurd statement”. More clarity may come – a 2011 study found that global warming made the devastating floods in 2000 at least twice as likely to happen – but firm conclusions are, at the least, premature.

Nor is it clear that such “extreme events” have increased because of climate change. But what does seem to be certain – and has been consistently predicted for decades – is that these will become more intense as the world warms up and injects greater energy into the weather system. So the lesson of this winter’s weather and the other extremes around the world is that – whatever their cause – this is what climate change is expected to look like. Or as one former Tory ministerial adviser put it to me: “We are watching the trailer of the movie called Global Warming.”

That undermines a reassuring view that seems to have been adopted by Mr Paterson – that climate change will do more good than harm for most of this century and is, as he put it, “something we can adapt to over time”.

This approach rests on over-simple calculations of longer growing sessions, the fertilising effects of increased carbon dioxide in the air, and reduced deaths from cold in developed countries (the fate of the poor, who suffer throughout, is glossed over), which pay scant attention to the effects of extreme weather.

But these, as we are finding out, can be extremely disruptive. So far only a tenth as many homes have been inundated as in the 2007 floods, but 70 per cent of the fire and rescue services are caught up in the biggest mobilisation since the Second World War.

Fishermen have been stranded in port, tens of thousands of families have lost power, and much of the country almost came to a halt this week as roads and bridges closed, and rail links were smashed: rail chiefs warn that hundreds of places on railway lines are at risk and that services will be disrupted for months. The estimated cost, 1 per cent of GDP, threatens the recovery. So what will the feature film be like?

It’s time to do more than talk about it.

In with a chance: rhinos have just been given more protection

Prince William makes his mark on the wild side

Now for some good news: the agreement this week, between 46 countries in London, to clamp down on the illegal wildlife trade (since the original treaty to control it was agreed 41 years ago). It comes not a moment too soon; the trade is driving the rhino, the elephant and many less spectacular species toward extinction.

It also marks the emergence of a new big player on the international environmental stage, joining his father and grandfather. The Duke of Cambridge has shown this week that – just like the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh – he is a force to be reckoned with. It was en route to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, on the Royal Yacht Britannia, that an abiding love of nature was instilled in Prince Philip as he tried out a new camera by taking pictures of seabirds. This led, in time, to him effectively lobbying governments as head of the World Wildlife Fund.

Prince Charles has taken the issue even further, campaigning on a host of issues, and increasingly using his convening power to bring governments together. His son joined him in making this week’s meeting a success. Let’s hope it’s just a beginning.

Homes built of fungi (but will there be mushroom inside?)

We’ve gone through the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages to the Atomic one. But what’s next? Promoters of a new building technique, about to be tried out in New York claim it’s going to be – wait for it – the “Mushroom Age”. In future, they hope, we’ll live in self-growing houses made of fungi.

Don’t worry, it’s not like the Smurfs’ spotty homes. This will be very hi-tech, if organic, stuff – based on bricks made of corn stalks and mushroom cells that grow to form blocks in any shape an architect dreams up. And once they are laid, the bricks go on growing, meshing together and strengthening construction.

The first such building, three giant joined-together towers, is to open at the Museum of Modern Art PS1 in Queens in June to provide cool (in more senses than one) seating for people attending its summer concerts. Pedro Gadanho, of the museum, believes the material “could change the way people build”.

“It’s really inexpensive, almost cheaper than anything,” adds its designer, David Benjamin. It emits no carbon, it requires almost zero energy, and doesn’t create any waste (eventually it’s composted). Enough, in short, to turn a Smurf green.

Donie's news Ireland daily Blog

Convicted murderer Joe O’Reilly

fails in his attempt to be released from Mountjoy prison

   

Joe  O’Reilly who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife Rachel in north Co Dublin in 2004, has failed in an attempt to secure his release from prison.

Mr Justice Michael Peart dismissed his application to the High Court yesterday for a declaration under Article 40 of the Constitution that his detention in the Midlands Prison is unlawful and directing his release.

O’Reilly (38) was convicted three years ago of the murder of his 30-year-old wife at their home at Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, Co Dublin.

The judge said that O’Reilly, according to an affidavit, had on July 12th served an application to have his conviction quashed.

O’Reilly told the court he had been unable to engage the services of a solicitor and was dealing with his application through the post while pursuing an application to be granted legal aid.

He had written to the court claiming his detention was rendered unlawful by the fact that he had a more restricted access to the courts than other citizens and was disadvantaged by not being permitted to attend personally.

The judge said O’Reilly had been lawfully sentenced and until that sentence was quashed by a court of competent jurisdiction he must serve it. A custodial sentence necessitated certain limitations to freedom and a restriction of rights that would otherwise be available to someone not serving a sentence.

“One of those restrictions is one of which this applicant complains, namely that unlike other persons who are not in prison he may not simply walk into court and move an application or attend the Central Office to file papers,” he said.

The judge said access to justice was not denied to him. It meant that for reasons that were self-explanatory and obvious he had to go about accessing justice by a different but no less onerous route, initially through the post.

The court had heard that O’Reilly claimed to be impecunious and could not pay court fees for proceedings. Many others not in prison endured the same level of financial hardship, he said.

“It is a matter for the legislature to legislate in relation to legal aid . . . he has made an application in that regard,” said the judge.

An unrepresented prisoner’s access to justice was by post and such applications were given to a judge for initial consideration. O’Reilly’s application for release must satisfy the court there were arguable grounds and a reasonable capability of success.

If the court considered there was some weight to the grounds advanced, the judge would direct an inquiry so that the prisoner could attend court to challenge his detention and allow the prison governor also attend to justify it.

The judge said the grounds put forward by O’Reilly that his detention was unlawful had no possibility of success and he dismissed the application.

NUIG Galway does research deal with the Chinese institute

   

NUIG GALWAY will share and exchange research on biomaterials with a leading Chinese research institute and a medical technology firm after signing a deal in Beijing today.

Minister for Health Dr James Reilly is due to attend the memorandum of understanding signing by NUIG’s president, Dr Jim Browne, with the Tianjin International Academy of Biotechnology and Medicine and China Nucleon Medical Technology Group.

Biomaterials are substances implanted in the body, such as hip implants, stents, heart valves, wound dressings and systems for delivering genes, drugs and vaccines.

NUIG hosts a Science Foundation Ireland-supported research cluster in this field, known as the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB).

The Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biotechnology and Medicine is a €140 million research plant in northern China.

The China Nucleon Medical Technology Group is regarded as a pioneer in medical imaging for the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.

The company is said to have “extensive facilities for clinical trials and preclinical drug development throughout China”, according to the university.

The memorandum of understanding will “facilitate the exchange of researchers, the exchange of academic information and the development of collaborative research projects”, according to NUIG.

The first project in the partnership will involve collaboration between the Galway researchers and their Chinese counterparts on developing a polymer for cancer treatment.

NFB principal investigator Dr Wenxin Wang described the agreement as having enormous potential “for the development of new techniques and treatments and for the commercialisation and translation of existing technologies to the clinical environment”.

“China is currently emerging as a major player in biomedical research, and establishing these relationships now will pay ever-increasing dividends in the future,” said Dr Wang.

Dr Browne said that such partnerships pointed to Ireland’s “global strength in the biomedical sector and the importance of creating linkages which will be of mutual benefit to industry and enterprise both in Ireland and in China”.

The university already has partnerships in China, signed during the trade and investment mission led by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to Shanghai and Beijing this year.

The NUIG’s existing agreements are with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Fourth Medical Military University Hospital in Xi’an.

The university’s Regenerative Medicine Institute, which is involved in stem cell research, also has agreements with the Shanghai Institute for Paediatric Research, Bio-X Institutes and the Tangdu Neurosurgery and Neurology Hospital.

More than 1million Irish properties now registered for the household tax

      

The number of houses and apartments that have been registered for the household charge has gone over one million, according to the latest figures from the Local Government Management Agency.

As of Friday last, 1,014,585 properties had been registered. The charge had been paid with regard to some 989,095, while a waiver had been registered for in 19,490 cases. The other 6,000 applications were awaiting resolution of queries.

The number of people applying for waivers means income from the charge has yet to top the €100 million mark. So far, €99.8 million has been collected in charges and late fees. The tax is €100, but those paying since August 1st owe €115 including penalties and interest.

A spokeswoman for the agency said it would expect that €100 million will have been collected in the coming weeks, if not days.

According to Department of the Environment figures, about 600,000 homeowners have yet to register to pay the charge.

More than 100,000 warning letters were sent by city and county councils last month to homeowners who had failed to pay. A second round of letters will be sent to another 100,000 households in the coming weeks.

Almost all those who received letters will have been second-home owners already liable for the non-principal private residence or second home tax. These homeowners were identified using the NPPR database and the register of private rented accommodation held by the Private Residential Tenancies Board.

The second round of letters will also include non-payers who have been identified using sources such as the Revenue Commissioners, ESB Networks and the Department of Social Protection.

Local authorities were due to begin sending the second batch of letters, but the spokeswoman for the Local Government Management Agency said it was still working with local authorities and other State agencies in matching information and compiling a database of non-payers.

In the meantime, more letters will be sent to landlords who have not registered properties for the charge. Landlords should be aware they must pay the household charge in addition to the non-principal private residence charge, the spokeswoman said.

Letters will continue to be sent in batches of about 100,000. Once all homeowners who have not paid have received a letter, those who persist in not paying will be sent a second which will be “more strongly worded”, a spokesman for the department said.

A third letter is to advise non-payers of court proceedings.

Local authorities are facing the prospect of making cuts to services as a result of the deficit in payments of the household charge.

Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has advised county and city managers that he is withholding funds because of the shortfall in revenue from the charge.

The reduction in funding will vary between local authorities, but will range from 5 to 15 per cent.

80% of Ireland’s ‘best managed companies’ plan to expand their workforce,

   

Eight in 10 of some of the best managed companies in Ireland plan to expand their workforces in the coming year, a survey has found.

And nine out of 10 of the firms, recognised as best managed by the Deloitte awards programme, have indicated that they plan to expand their business in the coming year, with Britain and Europe identified as the top locations.

Half the firms plan to engage in merger and acquisition activity this year.

The annual survey of Irish companies, with total revenues of €10bn employing 24,000 people, also found that optimism is on the rise among this group of indigenous Irish companies.

“Half of respondents observed an improvement in market conditions in the last 12 months, compared to 40% last year,” the survey found.

“Similarly, 74% feel more confident about the outlook for their company compared to 12 months ago.”

However, 43% believe that it will be the second half of 2013 before the economy returns to growth.

Similar to the 2011 results, 31% of respondents indicated that improving consumer sentiment was the single most important factor in returning the economy to growth.

This was followed by restoring credibility and integrity in the banking sector (24%), growth in exports (12%), and renegotiating the terms of the EU/IMF bailout (12%).

“In line with this, one third of companies identified lack of customer demand as the biggest challenge facing indigenous Irish companies. Availability of funding and the high cost of doing business were also acknowledged as considerable challenges for Irish companies. Interest-ingly however, the majority of respondent companies indicated that they are not experiencing difficulty in obtaining finance for working capital (69%) or capital projects (67%).”

Bluebird Homecare andother medical companies to create 555 new jobs in Ireland

    

Bluebird Care a homecare provider, is to create 520 jobs across Ireland over the next six months.

Elsewhere, a medical device company called Cambus Teo is to create 35 jobs in Co Galway by the end of next year.

The jobs at Bluebird Care will be created throughout the country and the majority of positions will be full time, according to operations director for Ireland Eddie O’Toole.

The Health Service Executive-approved franchise has 18 offices in Ireland, employing almost 800 people, and it is to open two more offices, in Westmeath and Wexford.

Recruitment has already begun for some of the care work and support staff jobs, which have a minimum education requirement of Fetac level 5.

The increased requirement for care staff for older people is partly as a result of the company winning a number of public and private tender contracts for enhanced care, including those from the HSE.

The executive currently spends €140 million a year on homecare packages and it began a tender process last December for the provision of enhanced homecare packages. Mr O’Toole said the increased demand for care staff was also due to demographics.

“Currently, approximately half a million people are over 65. By 2036 that is expected to grow to 1.3 million.”

There is going to be “more demand for care services going forward”, he said.

In Ireland and throughout Europe the emphasis is on the benefits of people continuing to live at home, he said.

Statistics showed that people lived longer when living at home, in the community, with friends and family nearby, he said.

Bluebird Care began in the UK in 2004 and in the company has 150 offices there. It began operating in Ireland in 2007.

The recruitment process is expected to take some time because there is a requirement for Garda vetting as well as for induction and training.

The Cambus Teo jobs will be in engineering, production and management.

The firm, which currently employs 50 people, is based in the Gaeltacht area of Spiddal and is supported by Údarás na Gaeltachta.

Established in 2006, Cambus Teo develops, designs, and manufactures components for a number of minimally invasive medical devices.

Half of the company has been acquired by Helix Medical, a global medical device provider, whose investment has allowed for the jobs expansion.

Scientists Identify New Gene Regions Linked to Type 2 Diabetes

Findings help shed light on condition’s genetics, biology

   

Scientists have now identified 10 new regions of DNA linked to type 2 diabetes, bringing the total number of genes and gene regions associated with the disease to more than 60.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin and does not respond effectively to the insulin it does produce. As a result, glucose levels in the blood can increase unchecked. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to a number of health complications, including heart disease, stroke, nerve damage and blindness.

The international team of researchers said their findings may help experts develop treatments for the condition.

“The 10 gene regions we have shown to be associated with type 2 diabetes are taking us nearer a biological understanding of the disease,” said the study’s principal investigator Mark McCarthy of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, in a university news release. “It is hard to come up with new drugs for diabetes without first having an understanding of which biological processes in the body to target. This work is taking us closer to that goal.”

The study, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and the University of Michigan, investigated common genetic variations in DNA that may be linked to type 2 diabetes.

The investigators examined the DNA of nearly 35,000 people with type 2 diabetes and roughly 115,000 people without the disease and found the new gene regions where DNA changes could be linked to people’s risk for diabetes. Two of these regions showed different effects depending on gender. One was associated with greater risk for the disease in men, while the other was linked to increased risk in women.

A pattern in the type of genes linked to type 2 diabetes also emerged from the study.

“By looking at all 60 or so gene regions together we can look for signatures of the type of genes that influence the risk of type 2 diabetes,” McCarthy said. “We see genes involved in controlling the process of cell growth, division and aging, particularly those that are active in the pancreas where insulin is produced. We see genes involved in pathways through which the body’s fat cells can influence biological processes elsewhere in the body. And we see a set of transcription factor genes — genes that help control what other genes are active.”

The study authors said they are continuing their investigation of the genetic changes behind type 2 diabetes by fully sequencing patients’ DNA.

“Not only will we be able to look for signals we’ve so far missed, but we will also be able to pinpoint which individual DNA change is responsible,” McCarthy said. “These genome sequencing studies will really help us push forward towards a more complete biological understanding of diabetes.”

Saturday's Ireland news Blog as told by Donie

Call’s for ‘urgent legislation’ as a record €11.5m awarded for boy’s catastrophic injuries by his  'Mother's lapse of concentration'

 

Cullen Kennedy (10), who suffered injuries in a car crash in 2008 that left him permanently confined to a wheelchair, with his grandmother Monica Kennedy and mother, Margaret Kennedy. A settlement of €11.5 million in his case was approved at the High Court yesterday

The courts are “gambling” daily with the welfare and security of those who suffer catastrophic injuries because of the failure to legislate to ensure lifelong care needs will be met, a High Court judge has said when approving a record €11.5 million settlement for a young boy left quadriplegic after a road crash.

Ms Justice Mary Irvine, while stressing that the case before her involved an “excellent” settlement, called yesterday for “urgent and prompt” attention to the need for laws providing for periodic payments in catastrophic injury cases.

“The reality is the courts don’t know when people are going to die,” she said. “We are gambling every day.” It was an “absolute tragedy” and, in certain cases where lump sum payments had been made the money to meet care needs was running out.

She made the remarks addressing the general position in catastrophic injury cases when approving the €11.5 million lump sum settlement, the highest to date in a personal injuries action, in the case of Cullen Kennedy (10), Corheen, Loughrea, Co Galway.

Cullen suffered devastating injuries when, due to what the court heard was a “momentary lapse of concentration” by his mother, Margaret, when, distracted by him as she drove him to school in Co Clare in June 2008, her car veered on to the wrong side of the road and collided head on with another car. Ms Kennedy was uninsured at the time.

The other driver suffered minor injuries. Ms Kennedy suffered some injuries but Cullen, then aged six and restrained in a booster seat in the back of the car, suffered very severe injuries when his head hit the front windscreen. As a result he is quadriplegic and wheelchair-bound and will require 24-hour care for life.

Cullen’s mother and his grandmother Monica Kennedy play a large part in providing that care at his mother’s rented home and are supported on a 24-hour basis by nurses and special needs assistants, who assist Cullen in attending school. The child has no mental impairment and was described as “lively and vivacious”.

Cullen, suing through his grandmother, who gave up her job to help care for him, brought the proceedings against his mother and the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland. Under the settlement, the bureau will pay the €11.5 million judgment sum, plus costs.

While stressing the settlement in this case was “excellent” as it was expected to meet all Cullen’s lifelong care needs, Ms Justice Irvine said the continuing failure to enact laws providing for period payment orders involved injustice, as some catastrophically injured persons would run out of funds for their care. A second, lesser injustice due to the absence of legislation was that some such persons would die earlier than expected, resulting in a “windfall” for their next of kin.

Ms Justice Irvine noted that a working group on periodic payment orders (PPOs) was set up by the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, 3½ years ago, chaired by Mr Justice John Quirke and including herself. It had reported unanimously in October 2010 that legislation was required to allow cases be settled on the basis of PPOs.

It was recommended that catastrophically injured persons would be paid a sum annually for the rest of their lives, a system that would guarantee their care, she said.

She said the report was delivered in October 2010 to the last government and had been with this Government since it came to power. While she had no doubt the Government had “very significant” issues to deal with, the absence of legislation had left the courts “gambling” with the futures of the most vulnerable litigants.

Kenny and Noonan show no sympathy towards the Kelly couple evicted out of their home

     

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan have shown little sympathy for the couple who were dramatically evicted from their home on Wednesday afternoon.

Enda Kenny described the circumstances in which Brendan Kelly (71) and his wife, Asta (63), found themselves evicted from their home as being “peculiar”.

Mr Kenny told Newstalk he did not understand why the couple had not made arrangements to live elsewhere since they were served with a repossession order two years ago.

Michael Noonan said the Government would distinguish between those who wanted to stay in their homes and professional landlords.

“We have no pledge to keep people in 21 different homes and we must distinguish between people who can’t pay and people who won’t pay,” he said.

Yesterday, The Irish Times reported that the couple had bought 21 properties during the 1990s and the last decade.

Mr Kelly spent yesterday in the Dáil talking to politicians, including Dún Laoghaire People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, according to neighbours.

His wife, who remained outside the house from which they were evicted, declined to comment citing legal matters before going into a neighbour’s house.

A small blue tent remained outside the driveway of the five-bedroom red-brick home at St Matthias Wood, Killiney, Co Dublin.

Neighbours at the immaculately kept, gated cul-de-sac said the couple did not intend to spend last night in the tent.

One neighbour who declined to be named said the couple’s property empire had “made their argument very difficult”, but added that nobody deserved to be evicted in a “brutal manner”.

The house was being looked after by security guards employed by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Irish Nationwide Building Society, which is now part of the corporation, gave the couple a €2.2 million mortgage for the house in 2004. The outstanding portion of the mortgage is in the region of €2 million, with the last mortgage payment on the house having been made in 2009.

When asked why they had not sold some properties to meet debts, Mr Kelly said it was practically impossible to sell in the current climate.

Sympathy came from an unlikely source yesterday when members of the Occupy Dame Street movement visited the house to express their solidarity with the couple.

Mrs Kelly thanked the protesters, who said they would offer every assistance to her and to anybody else who found themselves in danger of eviction.

One protester, Seán Ryan, said the number of homes the couple owned was “irrelevant”.

“Do we define these people by their net worth?” he asked.

Healthier lifestyle’s can ‘switch off ‘the ageing gene process

   

A healthy lifestyle and diet can switch on and off the genes (centre pic.) that are responsible for ageing.

Scientists have identified four ‘Father Time’ genes that help determine the rate at which we age.

These genes may be programmed from an early age, but being aware of how they are altered could lead to the development of innovative anti-ageing drugs, researchers say.

Scientists already knew that ‘epigenetic’ changes – chemical alterations to DNA made by external factors in the environment – are important to ageing.

But the new research goes helps to explain how and when these effects occur.

Dr Jordana Bell, from King’s College London, one of the study authors, said: “We found that epigenetic changes associate with age-related traits that have previously been used to define biological age.

“We identified many age-related epigenetic changes, but four seemed to impact the rate of healthy ageing and potential longevity and we can use these findings as potential markers of ageing.

“These results can help understand the biological mechanisms underlying healthy ageing and age-related disease, and future work will explore how environmental effects can affect these epigenetic changes.”

The scientist studied 172 twins, who were aged 32 to 80. They looked for epigenetic changes in their DNA.

Twins are often used in such studies because identical pairs share exactly the same genes, making it possible to differentiate genetic and environmental effects.

Analysing the changes in relation to chronological age, the researchers identified 490 age-related epigenetic changes.

Matching these to specific age-related traits highlighted four genes displaying changes linked to cholesterol levels, lung function and maternal lifespan.

Further research showed that many of the epigenetic DNA alterations were also present in a group of 44 younger twins aged 22 to 61.

This suggests that while many age-related genetic changes caused by environmental factors occur throughout a person’s life, some might be triggered early on.

Professor Tim Spector, director of the Department of Twin Research at King’s College, said: “This study is the first glimpse of the potential that large twin studies have to find the key genes involved in ageing, how they can be modified by lifestyle and start to develop anti-ageing therapies.

“The future will be very exciting for age research.”

 

Overcrowding is still a big issue in Ireland’s Mountjoy prison

 

Overcrowding and confinement for up to 23 hours a day continue to blight the prison system, especially Mountjoy, according to the latest annual reports from the prison visiting committees.

The committees have provided reports on Mountjoy, Cork, Cloverhill and Wheatfield prisons to the Minister for Justice, who has published them on the department’s website.

The committee said that beds in Mountjoy were unsuitable, and in 2011 many prisoners had to sleep on mattresses on the floor. Too many people were confined in small spaces for up to 23 hours per day, and financial constraints were not an excuse for this to continue for much longer, it said. It also recommended an enhanced programme of education.