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Merkel sounds a gloomy note. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will say in her annual new years address that the eurozone crisis is far from over and that the economic environment will be more difficult in 2013. She appeared to contradict her own finance minister, Wolfgang Schuble, who said a couple of days ago that the worst was over.

The US will go over the fiscal cliff. Maybe. US lawmakers came back to the capital for a rare Sunday session. As both Republicans and Democrats fanned out to the usual Sunday talk shows, they were at first optimistic that some kind of temporary agreement would be reached in Washington, in order to avoid an tax hikes on pretty much everyone in America and oddities like runaway prices for milk. By the afternoon, it appeared that talks had stalled. Then Senate majority leader Harry Reid admitted that Congress was real close to the point that negotiations over even a temporary solution would collapse, possibly because of a debate over changes to Social Security. Suddenly, the odds on Intrade of a fiscal cliff deal by the absolute deadline, Dec. 31, plunged to 2.2%. Yet Republican senator Lindsey Grahamsaid the critical 80 votes needed in the Senate were in fact available for some sort of deal, and pundits reminded us that, as always, any public statements about cliff negotiations are probably a lot of posturing. Will the US fruitlessly go over the fiscal cliff, plunging the country into a UK-style double dip recession?

Markets are going to freak out over the fiscal cliff. If it happens. US financial markets have demonstrated a willingness to send the price of futures down precipitously at even the whiff of a breakdown in the talks over resolving the fiscal cliff. President Barack Obama emphasized this point, noting that if lawmakers go home without a deal, markets will have an adverse reaction. If selloffs in US markets reverberate across the globe, that could prove to be an understatement: Quartzs Simone Foxman notes that US markets could end 2012 with the craziest trading day of the year.

Black Monday for the NFL. At least six National Football League teams in the US are expected to fire their head coaches or general managers today in an annual ritual following the end of the regular season.

UN ends peacekeeping in East Timor. The United Nations is counting the seven-year mission as a success after two relatively calm presidential elections and the retraining of the police force. Peacekeepers previously pulled out in 2005 after shepherding the country into independence, but returned the next year amid unrest.

While you were sleeping

Chinese manufacturing survey optimistic. The monthly HSBC Purchasing Managers Index rose to 51.5, itshighest level in a year and a halfand adding to signs of Chinese economic momentum. Survey data indicated the new orders were driven by domestic orders, likely tied to infrastructure development, rather than exports.

Zynga pared its offerings. The social gaming companyshut down, or stopped accepting new players for, 11 games including Mafia Wars 2 and PetVille, as part of cost-cutting efforts to focus on more successful games and new titles.

Japan seizes Chinese fishing vessel. Japans coastguard seized a vessel and its captain inside its 200-mile nautical exclusion zone, on suspicion of coral fishing. Its the latest event in a long-running stand-off over territorial waters between the two.

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Quartz Daily Brief—Fiscal cliff, euro gloom, PetVille, girl gang leaders

The more soap hospitals ordered and put by bedsides the more the rates of infection went down, researchers found

The strain has developed resistance to modern drugs while living in farm animals reared with antibiotics

Unlike the normal bug which attacks weakened hospital patients, it can infect young and healthy people outside too, say researchers

'We had to leave a woman aged 86 lying on her floor to help a drunk on a bus.

TARGETING a toxin released by MRSA could help combat the lethal superbug, scientists say.

Health staff deserve congratulations for halving hospitals deaths from the superbug MRSA in England.

Just eight weeks ago Liam King was struggling to survive after contracting MRSA and under-going heart surgery for the second time in his young life.

Next time you go to your GP with a bad cold or cough, don't expect to come back with antibiotics.

A family has blasted hospital chiefs after a mum and premature baby were diagnosed with the killer MRSA superbug.

Hospitals are failing to stop MRSA because cleaning is not focused on the right areas says expert.

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MANILA, Philippines --- Harnessing the power of technologies in 2012 to save lives, raise Filipinos' quality of life, and make science and technology (S&T) people-friendly have been the constant thrust of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

The DOST counts on its 18 attached agencies to come up with life-changing initiatives anchored on S&T.

DOST, its attached agencies, and other stakeholders make up the Philippines' S&T community.

Secretary Mario Go Montejo of the DOST has made clear yesterday the government's objective.

''DOST is focused on how to save and improve the quality of life of the Filipino people,'' he said.

He cited the significant role that Filipino scientists play in coming up with life-changing technologies.

''The challenge is for our scientists to make Juan de la Cruz feel the benefits that science and technology would bring to his life,'' Montejo stressed.

Looking back this year, one of the first things that would come to mind is the P1.6-billion Project NOAH, or the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards.

President Benigno S. Aquino III led NOAH's launching last July 6 this year in Marikina City, fittingly near the banks of perennially overflowing Marikina River.

Together with its eight components, chief among them DREAM-LiDAR for 3D-mapping of the country's 18 major rivers, NOAH was designed by Filipino scientists and other local bright minds to save lives and communities when Mother Nature unleashes its fury as it often happens in the Philippines.

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DOST Saving Lives Through Technologies

First Pakistani Antivirus Instant Virus Killer
From:VideoMerkezi1Views:0 0ratingsTime:02:47More inComedy

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First Pakistani Antivirus Instant Virus Killer - Video

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwire - Dec 18, 2012) - GeoVax Labs, Inc. ( OTCQB : GOVX ), an Atlanta-based biopharmaceutical firm developing vaccines to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, is pleased to announce full enrollment in a 48 patient Phase 1 trial testing the safety and immunogenicity of its 2nd generation adjuvanted DNA/MVA vaccine for the prevention of HIV infection. The adjuvant, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), enhances the vaccine response by recruiting and stimulating white blood cells that initiate immune responses at the site of vaccination. The Phase 1 trial (designated HVTN 094) consists of priming with a recombinant DNA vaccine followed by boosting with a recombinant modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vaccine, and is being conducted by the NIH-sponsored HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN).

The GeoVax use of the GM-CSF adjuvant is unique in that instead of co-inoculating with the GM-CSF protein, the GM-CSF adjuvant is encoded in the same DNA that expresses HIV non-infectious virus-like-particles. This ensures that GM-CSF is immediately present at every site where vaccine responses are being initiated and allows very low levels of GM-CSF to have a profound effect on the vaccine responses. In non-human primate studies, the co-expression of GM-CSF in simian prototypes of GeoVax's HIV vaccine achieved a 90% per exposure rate of protection against twelve serial rectal challenges with the heterologous SIVE660 virus, which translated to 70% of vaccinated animals being protected against all twelve challenges. Based on these outstanding results, the 2nd generation adjuvanted form of the GeoVax vaccine is being advanced in human trials.

"We are extremely pleased with the speed with which the HVTN clinical research sites enrolled HVTN 094 and with the impressive safety results," said Harriet Robinson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of GeoVax. "There is no reason to anticipate that GM-CSF might prove unsafe, because it has approved uses in humans and our co-expression of GM-CSF with our vaccine results in very low levels of GM-CSF enhancing protective responses in the non-human primate model."

Robert T. McNally, Ph.D., GeoVax's President & CEO, commented, "Now that the enrollment stage of the Phase 1 trial is finished, we look forward to completion of the trial in mid-2013. With the Phase 2a trial of our first generation HIV vaccine successfully completed, we will be working with the HVTN and NIH to plan the next steps of our vaccine development."

About GeoVax

GeoVax is a biotechnology company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV. Our goals include developing HIV/AIDS vaccines for global markets, overseeing the manufacture and testing of these vaccines under GMP/GLP conditions (FDA guidelines), conducting clinical trials for vaccine safety and effectiveness, and obtaining regulatory approvals to move the product forward. GeoVax's vaccines are unique in expressing virus like particles that display the trimeric membrane bound form of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein. All preventative Phase 1 human clinical trials conducted to date tested various combinations and doses of our DNA and MVA vaccines, their ability to raise anti-HIV humoral (antibody) and cellular (cytotoxic T cell) immune responses, as well as, the vaccines' safety. Successful results from a Phase 1 study supported a Phase 2a trial that was completed in the 3rd quarter of 2012.

GeoVax's 2nd generation preventive vaccine is currently in phase 1 testing and may progress to multi-stage phase 2 efficacy testing, given safety and immunogenicity are as expected. Overall, the GeoVax vaccine, in various doses and combinations, has been tested in close to 500 humans. GeoVax is also enrolling patients in a Phase 1 therapeutic trial for individuals already infected with HIV. For more information, please visit http://www.geovax.com.

About HIV/AIDS

HIV infection, which can lead to AIDS, is a pandemic that can affect anyone, regardless of race, gender, age, or sexual orientation. 33 million people are currently infected globally; it is estimated that there will be 2.5 million new infections this year. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than a million people in the U.S. have contracted the virus. Every 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV. Globally, HIV is the top killer among women of reproductive age. HIV is a worldwide disease with different subtypes (or clades) of the virus predominating in different regions of the world. Clade B is the predominant subtype in North America. Globally, most infections involve subtypes AG, B and C. GeoVax vaccines are currently designed to function against clade B. For more information, please visit http://www.geovax.com.

About the HVTN

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GeoVax Announces Full Enrollment of Phase 1 Clinical Trial for 2nd Generation HIV/AIDS Vaccine