Protein cocktail is 'elixir of life'

Protein cocktail is 'elixir of life'

A cocktail of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - is the latest contender in the age-old search for the elixir of life.

Scientists gave mice drinking water laced with three amino acids. They said the rodents lived significantly longer than other mice fed a normal diet.

The research, reported in a scientific journal, has yet to be tried in people.

The study leader said a large patient trial was needed to provide evidence to convince doctors.

In experiments, middle-aged healthy male mice were given drinking water containing the amino acids leucine, isoleucine and valine.

Dr Enzo Nisoli, of the University of Milan, and colleagues, said it increased the average lifespan of the mice by 12% and boosted their fitness and co-ordination

They wrote in their paper, published in Cell Metabolism: "Our study offers a rationale for deeply exploring the role of amino acids in prevention and control of age-related disorders in humans."

The amino acids - three of the 20 that make up proteins - have been shown to extend life span in yeast. However, the precise role of these amino acids in humans is unknown.

They are used by bodybuilders to maintain muscle tissue and can be bought in health food stores and online.

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Are mobile phones a health hazard?

Are mobile phones a health hazard?

Could mobile phones be giving us brain cancer? Academic and toxicologist Devra Davis, who was in the group that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, says yes. 

According to Davis, an eminent American scientist and one of the country's leading epidemiologists, the mobile phone industry spent years trying to bury scientific evidence -- that it harms -- to protect its $3 trillion, 4.6 billion-customer global business. 

With mobile phone use soaring, especially among the young, Davis says a "global public health catastrophe" will be seen in as little as three years if the problem is ignored, the Daily Mail reported. 

The most troubling research, she says, threatens male fertility. Research in seven countries, including the US, China and Australia, suggests that keeping a switched-on mobile phone in a trouser pocket can have a drastic effect on sperm count. 

"All the research shows the same thing - if you take young men who are trying to become fathers, those who use mobile phones at least four hours a day have about half the sperm count of others," Davis says. 

"Sperm exposed to mobile phone radiation in the lab is sicker, thinner and less capable of swimming," she adds. 

Mobile phones are low-powered radio frequency transmitters which produce microwave radiation. 

In a new book provocatively titled "Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What The Industry Has Done To Hide It And How To Protect Your Family," Davis says the threat from mobile phone radiation has been underplayed for too long. 

"Is it possible that the pervasive use of mobile phones is causing a host of subtle, chronic health problems, damaging our ability to have healthy children and creating long-term risks to our brains and bodies," she asks. 

Her work includes supporting research from studies in the US, Sweden, Greece, France and Russia. 

For example, a team at the University Of Washington found that just two hours of mobile phone-level radiation splintered the DNA of brain cells in rats, making them similar to cells found in malignant tumours. 

Davis, who is a grandmother, is worried about the effect on children, arguing that their thin, pliant skulls make them more vulnerable. 


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Google Voice: The next killer app?

Google Voice: The next killer app?

WASHINGTON: Google releases so many products - most of them free - that it's easy to overlook one that's really special. Google Voice qualifies. 

Thanks to its features and competitive potential, Google's relatively new service has been quietly sending tremors throughout the telephony industry. 

And Google Voice - a service that's like a supercharged telephone number that you can use from your cell phone, smartphone, or from Gmail - is gaining traction, offering features that are either unavailable with other phone numbers or available only at a fee. 

There is, though, a bit of bad news - at least for some. Currently, Google Voice is only available in the US. 

However, the internet is full of workarounds for international users who sign up for the service via virtual private networks (VPN). And once a number is procured, the service can be used freely. 

Moreover, Google plans to roll out Voice internationally. The only question is when. 

But whether you get Google Voice now or in the near future, it's likely to make you rethink your current phone setup - or, at the least, to provide you with some attractive, free options for enhancing how you use your existing lines. So what can the telephony product do for you? 

--- Aggregate phone numbers 

Anyone who juggles multiple phone lines and hates missing calls will love Google Voice. Once you have a Google Voice phone number, you can set it up so that any calls you receive on the service will automatically ring all of your other telephones, acting as a real-time call-forwarding system. If there's a telephone nearby, you'll get the call. 

--- Intelligent voicemail 

Google Voice takes voicemail to a new level, thanks to a number of features that will be a boon to those frequently playing voicemail phone-tag. 

One feature allows you to set up personalised greetings for particular callers or particular types of callers. 

So, for instance, you might want to set up a fairly formal greeting for business associates, while friends and family would hear a whimsical voicemail message, complete with music and sound effects. 

Even more useful, however, is Google Voice's ability to transcribe voicemail messages into text. With this enabled, you could automatically receive an email transcription of a voicemail message while you're in a meeting. 

You'll also have an instant record of all voicemail messages received - thanks to Google Voice's integration with Gmail - and you can easily forward a voicemail message by email as well. 

The transcription capability in Google Voice is a transformative feature that might make you say goodbye to listening to voicemail messages the usual way, and it works surprisingly well. 

--- Call screening 

For anyone who hates the peremptory nature of carry-everywhere cell phones and smartphones, Google's call-screening feature will be welcome. With it, you can preview who is calling and then determine whether to answer the phone or send the person directly to voicemail. The choice is one-touch simple. 

Voice also makes it easier than traditional phone services to block particular callers. Can't seem to shake pesky calls from a business or acquaintance? Just select the record of the calls in Gmail, and follow the instructions for blocking unwanted calls. 

--- Using Google Voice 

Once you've set up a Google Voice number, there are multiple ways that you can use it. Firstly, it is available as an internet-based application, through your Gmail or iGoogle account, with a simple and clear interface. 

In this sense it's very much a competitor of Skype, which up to now had pretty much locked up the internet telephony market. 

Skype still has the edge over Google Voice in some ways. In particular, there's no video conferencing feature in Google, whereas in Skype, one-on-one video calls are easy and fun. 

Google Voice's conferencing feature - which requires adding additional callers to your current call as the calls come - is arguably less friendly than Skype's as well. 

But Google Voice's crowning achievement is that it can be used from most smartphones - removing you from the need to be at your computer to make or receive calls and potentially cutting down drastically on your cell phone bill. 

BlackBerry, Android, and Nokia users can point their phone's browser to m.google.com/search to get the right version of Google Voice installed on their phone. iPhone users need to get Google Voice from iTunes. 

Once installed on your smartphone, though, most of what makes Google Voice worth having is available at your fingertips, no matter where you are. That's why, once fully rolled out, Google Voice may just be the next must-have app for the masses. 

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