The world may be ready to handle a pandemic – WHO

Keiji Fukuda, interim director general of health safety and environment, also said that WHO had started preliminary work with the laboratories to develop a vaccine against swine flu, if necessary.

“I think the world is much better prepared than before to respond to this type of situation,” Fukuda said in a teleconference on outbreaks of swine flu in United States and Mexico.

“The last five years we have put in the best position to handle this situation,” said the manager.

WHO had reserves of 5 million sets of the antiviral treatment Tamiflu, made by Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG, which has proven to be effective in combating the virus, he said. Countries and regions also have reservations.

“If this scale, then I think clearly the demand for antivirals and then this will also increase both reserves and likely will require an increased production of this drug,” said Fukuda.

There was “no evidence” that people are being infected with the new strain of the virus have been exposed to pigs or pork, said in response to reports that some countries were banning imports of beef from Mexico.

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Found a strong relationship between use of Facebook and low notes

University students who use Facebook very often spend less time studying and have lower student achievement for students who have not joined this network social. This was a pilot study at a university in the

This happens despite the fact that 75% of users of this network, to be consulted, say that the use of such sites does not interfere with their daily studies.

However, Dr. Aryn Karpinski, head of the research, says that “we can not say that the intensive use of Facebook, we condition to obtaining lower notes in exams, however we managed to verify that it exists a direct relationship between the two events.”

“We found a contradiction between the statements of students who claim that using these social networks do not compromise their studies and our findings where it is found that users are more intense under notes and invest less time in studying and performing tasks .

The expert explained that this study was relatively small, but nevertheless is one of the first to find a relationship between academic achievement and the use of social networks.

What we found is that typically Karpinski, the most intense users of Facebook notes were averages between 3.0 and 3.5 (on a maximum of 5), while those who did not use social networks used to have averages of between 3.5 and 4.0.

Additionally, users claimed more customary to consider an average of between 1 and 5 hours per week, however those who do not sail in social networks tend to look between 11 and 15 hours per week.

Karpinski study this issue and next to Adam Duberstein work being presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association.

The work focused on studying the behavior of 219 college students from Ohio State, and included 102 students and 117 postgraduate degree. 148 of the participants claimed to have account in Facebook.

Of course, this finding triggered a long series of discussions and hopefully, new studies to reveal actually happens with academic achievement and the applicant and use of social networks.

Cuban dissidents labeled the excellent decision to lift restrictions on Obama

The Cuban internal dissent described today as “excellent” by the news that the U.S. president, Barack Obama, decided to lift restrictions on travel and remittances from those who have relatives in the island. Opposition representatives said that now the ball is on the roof of the Government chaired by General Raúl Castro, who claimed to release political prisoners and allowing the departure of the Cubans on the island freely.

“I think a good thing, very positive, that the Cuban people will receive with joy,” he told Efe the economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, one of the 75 caught in the “black spring” of 2003, which now has a non-licensed .

Obama ordered the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce to launch delay, the lifting of restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, said today in Washington Efe a senior.

In addition, the U.S. Administration will issue to facilitate communications with the island and make an appeal to the Government of Havana not to interfere with shipments.

“I expected this because I believe a man of honor and he said it was going to do,” Espinosa said in reference to Obama’s decision.

“Now we expect the Cuban government, which is a new situation and has no speech for President Obama,” he said.

He added that the “logic” says that Havana should respond with an attitude of “softening, flexibility, these new circumstances,” although Cuba has often gone against that. ”

To Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban Commission for Human Rights recognized by the government, the step taken by Obama’s “Chronicle of a decision announced” that can “facilitate the process towards normalization of bilateral relations.”

Sanchez believes that the decision to Obama now demand a determination “similar” in Havana with the application of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on freedom of transit, so that Cubans can come and go “free of island. ”

“Hopefully at least a symmetrical response of the Government of Cuba, although I must confess my skepticism,” said Sanchez.

He added that measures taken in Washington and announcements from General Castro on his willingness to talk are still “modest steps” to normalize relations.

Miriam Leiva, a founder of the Ladies in White (relatives of those imprisoned in 2003), noted that Obama’s decision “very important” because it removes an artificial separation of families and helps those who desperately need help here. ”

But it thinks that would require that “the Congress (U.S.) to allow Americans to travel freely to Cuba,” not only to those who have relatives on the island, “because that would create a contact that will allow an exchange very beneficial. ”

He insisted that now “there has to be positive steps” in Havana, to “show goodwill” as “lift the blockade that the government has for the Cubans.”

“I applaud the move by Obama,” he told Efe in turn Hector Palacios, another prisoner of the group of 75 with a non-licensed, and added that Cuba has to take the next step with the release of political prisoners.

The Cuban government also has to get out of the trench and allow people to travel if you want, said Palacios, who last week presented a paper of three opposition groups are demanding that Obama’s arrival to ensure that money intended to Washington internal opposition on the island.

Vladimiro Roca, the Agenda for the Transition, said that the measure of Obama’s “positive” and said that the decision taken in 2004 by then-President George W. Bush to increase the period to three years between trips to the island Cuban-Americans “do not hurt the people and the Cuban government.”

However, Rock did not see “for now” an eventual normalization of relations between the two countries.

Design a digital camera can take photographs of three-dimensional

Fuji, the Japanese company in digital photography, a camera that is apronte, if fact, point to a new niche business: take three dimensional photographs.

The prototype model of the Japanese manufacturer has developed a model that includes two lenses and two identical light sensors. And carefully coordinated in a single image information taken by the two sensors, one could obtain a digital image with three-dimensional feeling. The system has been called by FujiFilm Real 3D “and can be used both for stills and video clips. Indeed has attempted to develop this type of cameras in the past, but failed to widespread acceptance by the consuming public. To display the image taken with this equipment, FujiFilm LCD panel offers a special camera and a prototype of a digital display that also provides a sense of 3D and has a bright 8.4-inch screen. The 3D camera prototype first appeared at last year’s special exhibition Photokina in Germany recently showed progress in other technical meetings. FujiFilm but said that the first model presented to the public in late 2009, Japan.

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Hackers come to the national grid electricity in the U.S., says Wall Street Journal

Hackers  of China, Russia and other countries have entered the electricity network in the United States and left it software that could be used to disrupt the system, published today by The Wall Street journal Journal.

According to the newspaper Financial, citing security sources who requested anonymity, the attack has been from countries like China, Russia and others, with the objective belief of “navigating the U.S. electric system and its controls.”

But it also notes that these intruders have not sought “to damage the grid or other key aspects of infrastructure, the sources warned that they could do during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have tried to trace the level of infrastructure in the U.S., as the grid, and the Russians,” said one source of information services to the newspaper, which also indicates that the spying on the network infrastructure this country is increasing and there were a large number of cases last year.

It also states that those who found these unwanted presences were the intelligence services of the country and not companies, so that these agencies are concerned that the “ciberatacantes” can get to take control of electrical installations, a plant nuclear or financial networks via the Internet.

The newspaper said that the authorities are investigating the intrusion and have already found software that could be used to destroy structural components, and according to their sources, in addition to the electrical grid, water systems and sewage treatment, among others, have been reviewed by those “ciberespías.

“In recent years we have seen several attacks against critical infrastructure overseas, and many of ours are just as vulnerable as those from abroad,” the congressmen said recently the director of U.S. National Intelligence, Dennis Blair.

The newspaper said that the government of President Barack Obama prepares for a costly plan to protect the power grid and other infrastructure that could be completed next week and that could be included in the computers of private networks.

During the administration of former president George W. Bush the Congress approved funding for 17,000 million secret to protect government networks, “the newspaper said one of its sources.

The Pentagon has spent the last six months in one hundred million dollars to repair the damage that has cyberneticians.

The paper recalls a case in Australia in 2000 when a disgruntled employee used the automated computer control system to release more than 750,000 liters of sewage into rivers and parks in the vicinity of a hotel.

The U.S. power grid is composed of three other separate networks that include the east and west, and the state of Texas, and in each there are thousands of transmission lines, substations and power plants, many of them connected Internet, which increases the vulnerability of the system against possible attacks from hackers and spies.

The newspaper said that Russians and Chinese have denied being involved in the spying, although their sources of intelligence services have managed to trace the track and got them.

“That is pure speculation. Russia has nothing to do with attacks on infrastructure in the U.S. or any other country in the world,” the spokesman told the newspaper of the Russian Embassy in Washington, Yevgeniy Khorishko.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Wang Baodong, said that Beijing “is strongly opposed to any crime that destroys the Internet or computer network”, and has laws that prohibit it and showed his country’s readiness to cooperate countering such attacks.

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