US to hand prison over to Afghans

FILE ? This Sept. 27, 2010, file photo reviewed by the U.S. military, shows a U.S. military guard walking a corridor between detainee cells at the Parwan detention facility near Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Saturday, March 23, 2013, the Pentagon said the U.S. has reached an agreement with the Afghanistan government to transfer the facility to Afghan control. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday as officials finalized the agreement after days of intense negotiations. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

FILE ? This Sept. 27, 2010, file photo reviewed by the U.S. military, shows a U.S. military guard walking a corridor between detainee cells at the Parwan detention facility near Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Saturday, March 23, 2013, the Pentagon said the U.S. has reached an agreement with the Afghanistan government to transfer the facility to Afghan control. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday as officials finalized the agreement after days of intense negotiations. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

FILE ? This March 23, 2011, file photo shows Afghan detainees through a wire mesh fence inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Saturday, March 23, 2013, the Pentagon said the U.S. has reached an agreement with the Afghanistan government to transfer the facility to Afghan control. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday as officials finalized the agreement after days of intense negotiations. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

FILE ? In this March 23, 2011, file photo a U.S. military guard watches over detainee cells inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Saturday, March 23, 2013, the Pentagon said the U.S. has reached an agreement with the Afghanistan government to transfer the facility to Afghan control. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday as officials finalized the agreement after days of intense negotiations. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) ? The U.S. military is handing over to the Afghan government the only detention facility in the country that was under American control. The transfer comes a year after the two sides initially agreed on the handover.

A transfer ceremony was scheduled for Monday at the Parwan Detention Facility, which is next to the U.S.-run Bagram military base north of Kabul.

The U.S. was supposed to fully hand over the facility last September after signing an agreement to do so a year ago.

But the transfer was held up pending a final deal between the U.S. and the Afghans over the release of dangerous prisoners.

That deal was struck late last week and under it, prisoners considered dangerous would not be released from the detention center.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-25-AS-Afghanistan/id-d54a81bf22844bf79f04380ef8bc7b9e

kurt busch nba dunk contest 2012 act of valor woody guthrie benson henderson 2012 dunk contest edgar vs henderson

Black market killing chimps and gorillas

BANGKOK (AP) -- The multibillion-dollar trade in illegal wildlife ? clandestine trafficking that has driven iconic creatures like the tiger to near-extinction ? is also threatening the survival of great apes, a new U.N. report says.

Endangered chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos are disappearing from the wild in frightening numbers, as private owners pay top dollar for exotic pets, while disreputable zoos, amusement parks and traveling circuses clamor for smuggled primates to entertain audiences.

More than 22,000 great apes are estimated to have been traded illegally over a seven-year period ending in 2011. That's about 3,000 a year; more than half are chimpanzees, the U.N. report said.

"These great apes make up an important part of our natural heritage. But as with all things of value, great apes are used by man for commercial profit and the illegal trafficking of the species constitutes a serious threat to their existence," Henri Djombo, a government minister from the Republic of Congo, was quoted as saying.

The U.N. report paints a dire picture of the fight to protect vulnerable and dwindling flora and fauna from organized criminal networks that often have the upper hand.

Apes are hunted in their own habitats, which are concentrated in central and western Africa, by sophisticated smugglers who transport them on private cargo planes using small airstrips in the African bush. Their destination is usually the Middle East and Asia.

In countries like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Lebanon, great apes are purchased to display as show pieces in private gardens and menageries.

In Asia, the animals are typically destined for public zoos and amusement parks. China is a main destination for gorillas and chimpanzees. Thailand and Cambodia have recorded cases of orangutans being used for entertainment in "clumsy boxing matches," the report said.

Lax enforcement and corruption make it easy to smuggle the animals through African cities like Nairobi, Kenya, and Khartoum, Sudan, which are trafficking hubs. Bangkok, the Thai capital, is a major hub for the orangutan trade.

Conditions are usually brutal. In February 2005, customs officials at the Nairobi airport seized a large crate that had arrived from Egypt. The crate held six chimpanzees and four monkeys, stuffed into tiny compartments. The crate had been refused at the airport in Cairo, a well-known trafficking hub for shipment to the Middle East, and returned to Kenya. One chimp died of hunger and thirst.

The proliferation of logging and mining camps throughout Africa has also increased the demand for primate meat. Adults and juveniles are killed for consumption, and their orphans are captured to sell into the live trade. Villagers also pluck primates out of rural areas to sell in the cities.

Humans also have been encroaching upon and destroying the primates' natural habitats, destroying their forest homes to build infrastructure and for other purposes. That forces the animals to move into greater proximity and conflict with people.

Sometimes animals are even the victims of war.

Arrests are rare largely because authorities in Africa, where most great apes originate, do not have the policing resources to cope with the criminal poaching networks. Corruption is rampant and those in authority sometimes are among those dealing in the illegal trade. Between 2005 and 2011, only 27 arrests were made in Africa and Asia.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) regulates the trade of animals and plants to ensure their survival. Under the agreement, trade in great apes caught in the wild is illegal. But traffickers often get around that by falsely declaring animals as bred in captivity.

The orangutan is the only great ape found in Asia. One species, the Sumatran orangutan, is critically endangered, with its population having dropped by 80 percent over the last 75 years. Their numbers are in great peril due to the pace of land clearance and forest destruction for industrial or agricultural use.

The report estimates that nearly all of the orangutan's natural habitat will be disturbed or destroyed by the year 2030.

"There are no wild spaces left for them," said Douglas Cress, a co-author of the report and head of a U.N. sponsored program that works for the survival of great apes. "There'll be nothing left at this rate. It's down to the bone. If it disappears, they go, too."

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chimps-gorillas-other-apes-being-130310115.html

miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy usssa baseball alex o loughlin the godfather cape breton bowling green

Graphene Sponges: The Lightest Material on the Planet

At this point, it'd be more of a surprise if graphene wasn't an integral part of a mind-bending, record-setting new technology. But, of course, it is. Again. Enter the lightest material in the world: graphene aerogel. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/GjTHYGhxxYE/graphene-sponges-the-lightest-material-on-the-planet

bridesmaids winning lottery numbers megamillions winner kansas jayhawks mega millions results louisville lotto numbers

GOP's 'no' on Medicaid becomes "Let's make a deal'

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Given the choice of whether to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care law, many Republican governors and lawmakers initially responded with an emphatic "no."

Now they are increasingly hedging their objections.

A new "no, but ..." approach is spreading among GOP states in which officials are still publicly condemning the Democratic president's Medicaid expansion yet floating alternatives that could provide health coverage to millions of low-income adults while potentially tapping into billions of federal dollars that are to start flowing in 2014.

The Medicaid health care program for poor, which is jointly funded by the federal and state governments, already covers about one in five people in the U.S. Expanding it was the way Obama envisioned covering many more low-income workers who don't have insurance. The new Republican alternatives being proposed in states generally would go part of the way, but cover fewer people than Obama's plan, guarantee less financial help or rely more on private insurers.

But so far, many of the Republican ideas are still more wistful than substantive. It's uncertain whether they will actually pass. And even if they do, there's no guarantee Obama's administration will allow states to deviate too greatly from the parameters of the Affordable Care Act while still reaping its lucrative funding. Yet a recent signal from federal officials that Arkansas might be able to use Medicaid money to buy private insurance policies has encouraged Republicans to try alternatives.

The GOP proposals could lead to another health care showdown between the White House and states, leaving millions of Americans who lack insurance waiting longer for resolution. Officials in about 30 states that are home to more than 25 million uninsured residents remain either defiant or undecided about implementing Obama's Medicaid expansion, according to an Associated Press survey.

Supporters of the Medicaid expansion have built coalitions of hospitals, businesses groups, religious leaders and advocates for the poor to try to persuade reluctant Republicans of the economic and moral merits of Obama's health care plan. But some Republicans believe the pressure ultimately will fall on Obama to accept their alternatives if he wants to avoid a patchwork system for his signature accomplishment.

"If the Obama administration is serious about innovative ways to bring down the cost of health care, it's going to cooperate with conservative ideas rather than continue down its one-size-fits-all, far-left-wing ideological path," said Missouri Rep. Jay Barnes, a Republican from Jefferson City.

A House committee led by Barnes already has defeated Obama's version of Medicaid expansion. It is to hear public testimony Monday on his "market-based Medicaid" alternative that would award health care contracts to competing private insurers and provide cash incentives to patients who hold down their health-care costs. His proposal would contain costs by covering fewer children than Medicaid now does and adding fewer adults than Obama's plan envisions.

Committees in Florida's Republican-led Legislature also have rejected a Medicaid expansion for roughly 1 million of the state's poorest residents, even though it is backed by GOP Gov. Rick Scott. Now Republican Sen. Joe Negron is pursuing an alternative that would use federal funds to provide vouchers for low-income residents to buy private policies. Negron said he still doesn't believe expanding Medicaid is the right decision, but he wants to help Florida residents get health coverage.

"We don't want to do it the Washington way. We want to do it the Florida way," Negron said.

Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich also has been in discussions with the Obama administration about providing subsidized insurance instead of full Medicaid coverage for more adults. Republican governors in Texas, Nebraska and Indiana want the federal government to award Medicaid money as block grants to states.

"It's a two-step for many of these Republican governors. When they look at the numbers they want to do it, but they want to distance themselves from Obamacare at the same time," said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that analyzes health care policies.

That might be fine with the Obama administration.

"There actually is quite a bit of flexibility on how they can approach this, and the federal government has indicated they want to get to 'yes' " said Joan Alker, co-executive director of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families in Washington, D.C.

As originally enacted, the Affordable Care Act required states to expand Medicaid to adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, about $32,500 annually for a family of four. A Supreme Court decision last summer made the expansion optional for states but kept in place a powerful financial incentive. The federal government will fully fund the expansion for the first three years, with the states' share gradually increasing to 10 percent by 2020.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in December that getting full funding will still require a full expansion. Yet some Republicans in Missouri, South Dakota and elsewhere claim to see room for compromise.

LaTonya Jenkins, a 51-year-old laid off teacher's aide who lives in temporary housing for the homeless in Kansas City, recently enrolled in Medicaid but could lose coverage if her part-time job pushes her income over Missouri's strict eligibility limits. She recently traveled to Missouri Capitol to urge lawmakers to expand Medicaid.

"If they don't, and they cut it out, then what are we to do? We'll be lost," said a tearful Jenkins, who has diabetes and cares for her grandson. "I'll be sicker than ever and back in the hospital."

___

Associated Press writer Kelli Kennedy contributed to this report from Miami.

___

Follow David A. Lieb at: http://www.twitter.com/DavidALieb

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gops-no-medicaid-becomes-lets-124049576.html

bruins boston bruins carl crawford mad cow disease rampart jimmy fallon jimmy fallon

International court detains Rwandan-born warlord

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? African warlord Bosco Ntaganda was taken from the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda on Friday and flown to International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he faces charges including murder, rape and persecution in a rebel group's deadly reign of terror that gripped eastern Congo a decade ago.

Ntaganda arrived and was taken to a cell shortly before midnight Friday, nearly seven years after he was first indicted. His transfer was hailed as a crucial step in bringing to justice one of Africa's most notorious warlords. It was also a welcome relief to a court that earlier this week dropped charges against a senior Kenyan suspect for lack of evidence and late last year acquitted another rebel leader accused of atrocities in Congo.

Nicknamed "The Terminator" because of his reputation for ruthlessness in battle, Ntaganda became a symbol of impunity in Africa, at times playing tennis in eastern Congo, apparently without fear of arrest.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the transfer "an important moment for all who believe in justice and accountability.

"For nearly seven years, Ntaganda was a fugitive from justice, evading accountability for alleged violations of international humanitarian law and mass atrocities against innocent civilians, including rape, murder, and the forced recruitment of thousands of Congolese children as soldiers," Kerry said in a statement. "Now there is hope that justice will be done."

The White House said the transfer marked a major step toward ending a cycle of impunity. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the U.S. hopes it will build momentum for an agreement to deal with the region's economic, political and security problems.

Despite his 2006 ICC indictment, Ntaganda joined the Congolese army in 2009 as a general following a peace deal that paved the way for him and his men to be integrated into the military. He was allowed to live freely in the provincial capital of Goma, where he also dined at top restaurants.

Last year, however, the agreement between the former warlord and the Congolese government disintegrated, and he and his troops defected, becoming known as M23 and battling Congolese government troops in the country's mineral-rich east.

Ntaganda is believed to have turned himself in after becoming vulnerable when his M23 rebel group split into two camps last month over the decision to bow to international pressure and withdraw from Goma late last year. Ntaganda and another rebel leader, Jean-Marie Runiga, had opposed any pullout, but a rebel general, Sultani Makenga, ordered a retreat and initiated peace talks with the Congo government.

Rwanda's cooperation in the transfer of Ntaganda could come at a cost. If he testifies in The Hague, he could reveal details of Rwanda's alleged role in the conflict in Congo and support for M23.

A United Nation panel of experts last year said that both Rwanda and Uganda commanded and supported M23. Both countries deny the charge.

Ntaganda was turned over to ICC staff in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where he gave himself up at the U.S. Embassy on Monday. He is the first indicted suspect to voluntarily surrender to the court's custody.

The court's prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, welcomed his transfer as a great day for victims in Congo.

"Today those who have long suffered at the hands of Bosco Ntaganda can look forward to the future and the prospect of justice secured," Bensouda said.

Ntaganda is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. He will first be given a medical checkup and appointed a defense attorney.

Rights groups welcomed Ntaganda's arrest.

"Ntaganda's expected trial will underscore the importance of the ICC in providing accountability for the world's worst crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to deliver justice," said Geraldine Mattioli-Zeltner, international justice advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

Ntaganda was first indicted in 2006 on charges of recruiting and using child soldiers. In July last year, the court issued a second arrest warrant accusing Ntaganda of murder, rape, sexual slavery, persecution and pillaging in 2002-2003 in the eastern province of Ituri. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.

Prosecutors call Ntaganda the "chief of operations" of the Union of Congolese Patriots and its armed wing, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, known by their French acronyms UPC and FPLC. The groups waged a brutal military campaign to establish political and military domination for the Hema tribe over resource-rich Ituri, allegedly killing some 800 people in a few months.

According to court documents, his rebels used the same tactics in each village they attacked ? surrounding the settlement and shelling it before going house-to-house to slaughter survivors with guns, machetes, spears and knives. The fighters allegedly raped women and abducted them to turn into sex slaves during the attacks.

Prosecutors say Ntaganda "planned and commanded scores of coordinated military attacks against the Lendu and other non-Hema tribes."

The former leader of the UPC/FPLC, Thomas Lubanga, last year became the first person convicted in the International Criminal Court's 10-year history. He was found guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers in fighting in Ituri and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. He has appealed his conviction.

The alleged leader of a Lendu tribe militia in Ituri, Mathieu Ngudjolo, was acquitted in December of atrocities in Ituri.

While getting Ntaganda to The Hague is a significant step for the court, several of its highest-profile suspects remain at large, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for genocide in Darfur province, and Joseph Kony, leader of the shadowy Ugandan rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army.

"As we welcome progress in one case, others also subject to ICC warrants in the region remain at large," Bensouda said. The international court has no police force and relies on cooperation of states to arrest and transfer suspects.

___

Associated Press writers Jason Straziuso and Edmund Kagire in Kigali, Rwanda, and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/international-court-detains-rwandan-born-warlord-123340579.html

whitney houston death the vow the voice season 2 ron paul maine safe house jay z and beyonce baby cpac

'Sideline quasars' helped to stifle early galaxy formation

Friday, March 22, 2013

University of Colorado Boulder astronomers targeting one of the brightest quasars glowing in the universe some 11 billion years ago say "sideline quasars" likely teamed up with it to heat abundant helium gas billions of years ago, preventing small galaxy formation.

CU-Boulder Professor Michael Shull and Research Associate David Syphers used the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the quasar -- the brilliant core of an active galaxy that acted as a "lighthouse" for the observations -- to better understand the conditions of the early universe. The scientists studied gaseous material between the telescope and the quasar with a $70 million ultraviolet spectrograph on Hubble designed by a team from CU-Boulder's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy.

During a time known as the "helium reionization era" some 11 billion years ago, blasts of ionizing radiation from black holes believed to be seated in the cores of quasars stripped electrons from primeval helium atoms, said Shull. The initial ionization that charged up the helium gas in the universe is thought to have occurred sometime shortly after the Big Bang.

"We think 'sideline quasars' located out of the telescope's view reionized intergalactic helium gas from different directions, preventing it from gravitationally collapsing and forming new generations of stars," he said. Shull likened the early universe to a hunk of Swiss cheese, where quasars cleared out zones of neutral helium gas in the intergalactic medium that were then "pierced" by UV observations from the space telescope.

The results of the new study also indicate the helium reionization era of the universe appears to have occurred later than thought, said Shull, a professor in CU-Boulder's astrophysical and planetary sciences department. "We initially thought the helium reionization era took place about 12 billion years ago," said Shull. "But now we think it more likely occurred in the 11 to 10 billion-year range, which was a surprise."

A paper on the subject by Shull and Syphers was published online this week in the Astrophysical Journal.

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph used for the quasar observations aboard Hubble was designed to probe the evolution of galaxies, stars and intergalactic matter. The COS team is led by CU Professor James Green of CASA and was installed on Hubble by astronauts during its final servicing mission in 2009. COS was built in an industrial partnership between CU and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder.

"While there are likely hundreds of millions of quasars in the universe, there are only a handful you can use for a study like this," said Shull. Quasars are nuclei in the center of active galaxies that have "gone haywire" because of supermassive black holes that gorged themselves in the cores, he said. "For our purposes, they are just a really bright background light that allows us to see to the edge of the universe, like a headlight shining through fog."

The universe is thought to have begun with the Big Bang that triggered a fireball of searing plasma that expanded and then become cool neutral gas at about 380,000 years, bringing on the "dark ages" when there was no light from stars or galaxies, said Shull. The dark ages were followed by a period of hydrogen reionization, then the formation of the first galaxies beginning about 13.5 billion years ago. The first galaxies era was followed by the rise of quasars some 2 billion years later, which led to the helium reionization era, he said.

The radiation from the huge quasars heated the gas to 20,000 to 40,000 degrees Fahrenheit in intergalactic realms of the early universe, said Shull. "It is important to understand that if the helium gas is heated during the epoch of galaxy formation, it makes it harder for proto-galaxies to hang on to the bulk of their gas. In a sense, it's like intergalactic global warming."

The team is using COS to probe the "fossil record" of gases in the universe, including a structure known as the "cosmic web" believed to be made of long, narrow filaments of galaxies and intergalactic gas separated by enormous voids. Scientists theorize that a single cosmic web filament may stretch for hundreds of millions of light years, an eye-popping number considering that a single light-year is about 5.9 trillion miles.

COS breaks light into its individual components -- similar to the way raindrops break sunlight into the colors of the rainbow -- and reveals information about the temperature, density, velocity, distance and chemical composition of galaxies, stars and gas clouds.

For the study, Shull and Syphers used 4.5 hours of data from Hubble observations of the quasar, which has a catalog name of HS1700+6416. While some astronomers define quasars as feeding black holes, "We don't know if these objects feed once, or feed several times," Shull said. They are thought to survive only a few million years or perhaps a few hundred million years, a brief blink in time compared to the age of the universe, he said.

"Our own Milky Way has a dormant black hole in its center," said Shull. "Who knows? Maybe our Milky Way used to be a quasar."

The first quasar, short for "quasi-stellar radio source," was discovered 50 years ago this month by Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt. The quasar he observed, 3C-273, is located roughly 2 billion years from Earth and is 40 times more luminous than an entire galaxy of 100 billion stars. That quasar is receding from Earth at 15 percent of the speed of light, with related winds blowing millions of miles per hour, said Shull.

###

University of Colorado at Boulder: http://www.colorado.edu/news

Thanks to University of Colorado at Boulder for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 61 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127409/_Sideline_quasars__helped_to_stifle_early_galaxy_formation

ryan leaf ryan leaf luke kuechly brad miller chandler jones peyton hillis fletcher cox

Protective properties of influenza vaccines revealed

Mar. 22, 2013 ? Collaborating scientists from Nationwide Children's Hospital, Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified an important mechanism for stimulating protective immune responses following seasonal influenza vaccinations.

The study was published in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

While seasonal influenza vaccines protect 60 to 90 percent of healthy adults from "the flu," the mechanisms providing that protection are still not well understood.

The study led by Octavio Ramilo, MD, chief of Infectious Diseases and an investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children's Hospital and professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University (OSU) College of Medicine, and Hideki Ueno, MD, PhD, an investigator at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research at Baylor University, demonstrates how certain T cells in the blood are stimulated to provide protective antibody responses with seasonal flu vaccines.

Antibodies are produced by specific white blood cells or B cells, which serve as an immune defense against foreign bodies such as the influenza virus. Helper T cells, another type of white cell, are essential for the generation of B cells.

Blood samples before and after influenza vaccination from three groups of healthy study participants were analyzed for antibody responses. The groups included two sets of adults, one receiving flu vaccines during the 2009-2010 winter and the other receiving vaccination during the 2011-2012 winter. The third group included children receiving the flu vaccine during the 2010-2011 winter.

Analyses show that a temporary increase in a unique subset of helper T cells expressing the co-stimulator molecule ICOS adds to the immune response by helping B cells produce influenza-specific antibodies.

Results indicated that at day seven following the administration of a flu vaccine in all groups, stimulated T cells were evident, contributing to the development of the immune response.

The T cells positively correlated with increased antibodies against each flu virus strain examined, with the exception in the children's group against the swine-origin H1N1 virus.

"Given that seasonal influenza vaccines induce antibody responses mainly through boosting the recall response of the immune system, this lack of correlation might reflect the lack of H1N1 specific immunity in some children," explains study co-author Emilio Flano, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children's and an associate professor of Pediatrics at OSU College of Medicine.

"This is consistent with the fact that these children had not been vaccinated or naturally exposed to the H1N1 virus prior to being vaccinated during the 2010-2011 winter," said study co-author Santiago Lopez, MD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity and a resident at Nationwide Children's.

Further experiments demonstrated that this unique subset of helper T cells can boost production of existing antibodies that fight flu by stimulating memory B cells, but do not help production of new antibodies by na?ve B cells.

"We're gratified that our study provides evidence of one of the essential events associated with the immune response following seasonal influenza vaccination," says Dr. Ramilo. "Understanding these processes is a key step toward developing more effective vaccines."

Asuncion Mejias, MD, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children's and an assistant professor of Pediatrics in Infectious Diseases at OSU College of Medicine also contributed to this study which was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Nationwide Children's Hospital.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. S.-E. Bentebibel, S. Lopez, G. Obermoser, N. Schmitt, C. Mueller, C. Harrod, E. Flano, A. Mejias, R. A. Albrecht, D. Blankenship, H. Xu, V. Pascual, J. Banchereau, A. Garcia-Sastre, A. K. Palucka, O. Ramilo, H. Ueno. Induction of ICOS CXCR3 CXCR5 TH Cells Correlates with Antibody Responses to Influenza Vaccination. Science Translational Medicine, 2013; 5 (176): 176ra32 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3005191

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/GerSgNGIcSw/130322154024.htm

election day Electoral College map nyc marathon nyc marathon willie nelson khloe kardashian Wreck It Ralph