Features

LAGOS — Phizbarz is only 23 but hopes to become the next Nigerian Afro-pop star to be famous across Africa — and to get himself known and earn a living, he is using his mobile phone.

The young performer from the country’s commercial and entertainment capital, Lagos, floods social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with clips of his music.

Sometimes he appears as a baseball-capped rapper surrounded by gyrating, scantily clad dancers, sometimes as a sheikh in a pristine white dishdash, dripping with gold.

“If you want to be someone, you have to show off,” he told AFP, from behind the wheel of a sparkling red Mercedes that he borrowed from his manager.

In all, Phizbarz has composed about 100 songs but has never produced an album.

Instead, his creations are converted into ringtones by telephone companies, who sell them individually and pay him and his label 60 per cent of the profits.

Phizbarz himself earns about 50,000 naira ($164, 150 euros) a month, which he considers a “decent” wage.

In Nigeria, performing artists have long been left to their own devices because of the lack of a structured market, making them powerless against piracy that accounts for most sales.

In the packed streets of Lagos — a capital of creativity and temple of resourcefulness — bootlegged copies are sold at car windows or between packets of sweets, cigarettes and recent Nollywood releases — many of which are also pirated.

For the last three years, there’s been a revolution in Nigeria’s music industry because of digital sales and especially mobile telephones, which are bringing in increasingly more revenue.

Analysts PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated in a report published late last year that Nigeria’s music industry was worth $47 million in 2015 and should rise to $86 million by 2020.

“Nigeria’s total music revenue is dependent on ringtones and ringback tones, with the legitimate music sector being small otherwise,” it added.

Instead of hearing a beep while waiting for a caller to pick up, companies play the latest releases and offer them for download.

Telephone operators, led by South African mobile giant MTN, sensed the potential of Nigeria, which is home to nearly 190 million people and where music is almost a religion.

MTN, which has 60 million subscribers in Nigeria, said it is the largest distributor of music.

Ringtones are sold at 50 naira each and it also operates a download platform MTN Music Plus, which competes with world-leading online music sites such as iTunes.

“There are lots of talented musicians on this market who had issues with piracy, it was difficult for them to sell their music,” said MTN Nigeria’s marketing director, Richard Iweanoge.

“We enable them to monetise the work. Every year we pay out more money to the artists, it’s really a working formula.

“Nigerians actually wanted to buy music, they just didn’t have the means to acquire it legally.”

Wannabe megastars like Phizbarz are looking to emulate musicians such as D’banj and Davido, whose songs play in clubs from Johannesburg to Cotonou and Kinshasa.

With roots on the streets of Lagos, they are now courted by major labels and record in Europe and the United States.

“Superstars like Wizkid inspire millions of Nigerians,” said Sam Onyemelukwe, the head of Entertainment Management Company, a partner of the Trace TV music network.

“There are not many jobs for them, not much to do with their lives. Everybody wants to become a singer, have a lot of girlfriends and buy a jet: it’s glamorous.”

The law of averages suggests few will attain the dizzy heights of fame but mobile phones are one potentially lucrative way of getting noticed.

According to PwC, ringtone downloads alone can earn artistes like D’banj and Davido up to $350,000 a year.

“Anybody can record a song for a few thousands of naira and sell it online,” said Onyemelukwe. “There’s about one million ‘artistes’ in Nigeria. But very few of them are successful.”

“The music industry is very hard,” Phizbarz said.

Posting photos and videos online, and touring the local music scene and radio stations is a way of trying to catch the attention of one of the top industry figures, he said.

“You sell your brand first and then you get recognition,” he said.

“You have to know a lot of managers, radio presenters. Even if your beats are good, it is more about who do you know in the industry?  It’s more a brand that you are developing, it’s business.” 

LOS ANGELES — And just like that, Star-Lord and his band of super buddies are back on top of the box office.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” blasted into domestic theatres this weekend to kick off the summer box office to the tune of $145 million at 4,347 locations. The latest from Disney and Marvel was expected to make $140 million, but possibly more by some analysts considering the studio’s track record and enthusiasm that the first go-around generated.

“We feel great. It is a spectacular number, period,” said Disney’s Distribution Chief Dave Hollis. “This is such a fresh and exciting film... it’s the kind of event that gets people excited about going to theatres.”

Returning to deliver more bright colours, wise-cracks and another groovy soundtrack, James Gunn directed and scripted the movie starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper as the titular guardians. The film also features expanded roles for Karen Gillan and Michael Rooker, as well as prominent new characters played by Kurt Russell and Pom Klementieff. The movie functions as an escape thriller, and an origin story for Pratt’s Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord). Gunn is already attached to write and direct the third “Guardians” movie.

“Guardians 2” came into its opening domestic weekend with well over $100 million in the bank from international ticket sales. It made more than $106 million in its first weekend at 58 per cent of overseas territories. This weekend the movie earned an estimated $124 million abroad after opening in several more major foreign markets including Korea, Russia and China. That raises the global weekend total to about $269 million and the movie’s total global take so far to $428 million.

The latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe entered theatres with high expectations. When the original was released in 2014, it was a relatively unknown property that managed to smash records for the month of August when it opened to more than $94 million domestically (still modest by Disney/Marvel standards). But word-of-mouth kept building, and by the end of its theatrical run, it had raked in $333 million domestically and $440 million overseas.

“The strength of the brand is a license to take risks,” Hollis said, noting that the “Guardians” films are the perfect counter to any notion of superhero movie fatigue. “These films have never just been superhero films, they are genre films. Each of these movies feels wholly and uniquely different.”

Now the rag-tag group of heroes has entered the public consciousness. “Guardians 2” was struck with the double-edged sword of familiarity — the original spawned a fondness and a fandom for the characters and their world (that led to a much larger opening for the second instalment), but a sequel is hard-pressed to recreate or recapture the same type of surprise and enthusiasm that struck audiences in 2014.

“It’s all about strategy when it comes to Marvel and with ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2’, the notion of moving what was an August release for the first film to the key summer kick off spot in May clearly paid huge dividends for Disney,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “For this ‘Guardians’ to post the sixth best bow for the month is incredibly impressive given the Cinderella story of the title’s ascension from being a little known question mark of a movie, to a global phenomenon.”

“Guardians 2” enjoyed the widest Imax opening ever — 1,088 screen in 69 markets. The film made $25 million on Imax screens including $13 million in North America. $174 million of the movie’s global earnings this weekend came from 3D ticket sales, according to RealD, which was responsible for about $72 million of the take.

There isn’t much of note at the box office this weekend apart from “Guardians”. Universal’s “Fate of the Furious” cruised into second with $8.5 million at 3,595 theatres. The film now has over $207 million at the domestic box office. “The Boss Baby”, from Fox, took third with $6.2 million from 3,284 locations. Pantelion’s “How to be a Latin Lover”, which seduced its way past “The Circle” last weekend to post strong numbers and a second place finish, slides into fourth with $5.3 million from only 1,203 spots. And Disney’s other box office animal “Beauty and the Beast”, rounds out the top five with $5 million at 2,680 locations — the movie is now in its eighth weekend of release.

Top dog in Mercedes-Benz’ revised and renamed compact roadster model line, the AMG SLC43 picks up where the outgoing AMG SLK55 left off – minus two cylinders, plus two turbos – with near identical performance and improved fuel efficiency.

Introduced last year and 20-years after the SLK-Class first debuted, the SLC-Class’ new name reflects Mercedes’ range-wide revision of nomenclature, but is in essence a face-lifted and renamed continuation of its R172 platform SLK-Class predecessor. Featuring mild design and interior updates, the SLC-Class also introduces new technology systems, but the biggest change being reserved for the range-topping AMG variant.

New look and nomenclature

Updated aesthetically over the third generation SLK-Class introduced in 2011, the SLC-Class features new front and rear bumper, and headlight designs. Its front headlights are now more fluently integrated with its sleek and arrow-like design and features new LED elements, including daytime running lights.

Adopting Mercedes’ diamond style grille mesh and more prominent tri-star and single slats, the SLC-Class has a sportier and assertive presence, while rear lights are slimmer. With long bonnet, curt rear and ascending waistline to, the SLC has a muscular and sporty appearance, and in AMG SLC43 guise features staggered front 235/40ZR18 and rear 255/35ZR18 tyres.

The practical and versatile small sports car, the SLK’s unique selling point since its introduction in 1996 has been its automatically retractable hard-top, which remains a central feature of the SLC-Class.

Providing the cabin refinement and security of a hard-top coupe when deployed, the SLC’s metal and panoramic glass roof folds back under its high boot line, and is electrically operated from a centre console or key fob buttons, at up to 40km/h. If there is enough boot space available for the roof to fold back, the SLC-Class’ boot separator also automatically lowers, but if space is not available, a message alerts the driver.

Improved efficiency

Effectively replacing the AMG SLK55, the AMG SLC43 ditches its predecessor’s mighty and charismatic naturally aspirated 5.5-litre V8 engine and 7-speed automatic gearbox with a lighter and more efficient twin-turbocharged 3-litre V6, mated to Mercedes’ new 9-speed automatic. Developing 362BHP at 5500-6000rpm and 383lb/ft torque throughout 2000-4200rpm, the SLC43 is down 36BHP and 15lb/ft, while net weight loss taking the engine and gearbox swap is just 15kg. However, despite the reduced output, the SLC43 is only 0.1-seconds slower than its predecessor, scorching through the 0-100km/h sprint in just 4.7-seconds, owing to its new gearbox’ more closer ratios, shift times and more aggressive lower gears.

The SLC43’s 9-speed also allows for longer cruising ratios and the ability to utilise the engine’’s most efficient speeds, and contributes to a fuel efficiency improvement from 8.4l/100km to 7.8l/100km on the combined cycle.

With thoroughly accomplished engine with only the faintest turbo lag from idle, the SLC43’s performance almost matches the SLK55’s, but the real difference is in its character and delivery.

Whereas the SLK55’s engine was throatier with more bass, rumble and growl with progressive, eager and peaky delivery, the SLC43’s drone when cruising becomes a livelier and rasping howl at top-end, with crackling pops on downshift, with a broad and muscular mid-range underwriting its climb to a slightly lower-rev peak power plateau.

Compact yet composed

Riding on MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension, with the option of adaptive dampers and a compact front-engine, rear-drive configuration, the 4.1-metre long SLC43 is agile and eager through corners, yet stable, settled and resolutely planted at high speeds.

Weighing in at 1595kg and with revised front suspension rates owing to its altered engine and gearbox weighting, the SLC43 well controls its 1595kg weight through corners, yet remains forgiving over road imperfections encountered on mostly smooth Dubai roads during test drive.

Meanwhile, its electric-assisted steering is quick, accurate, light and progressive, and with a 10.52-metre turning circle and good visibility, is easy to place and manoeuvre on road.

A firmer and more focused car than non-AMG variants the SLC43 is tidy into corners and well controls body lean. It also feels more rigid than garden-variety R172 platform variants driven on more demanding roads, is able to process sudden mid-corner textural imperfections with better composure than before. 

Offering better visibility and exposure to its raspy acoustics with the top down, the SLC43 is more refined and cosseting with the roof up, which in this latest incarnation feels like a more integrated component. Meanwhile, gearbox modes feature progressively more aggressive shift settings and a manual shift mode for more involving steering paddle-shift sequential manual shifting.

Convenient convertible

As a small and low 2-seat roadster, the SLC43 is surprisingly accessible and accommodating for larger occupants and is as practical as a sports car of this size gets. Designed for the benefit of a hard-top and soft-top, the SLC43’s all-weather versatility also allows for convertible driving regardless of cold weather.

Driven roof down, windows up and benefitting from Mercedes’ transparent Airguide draught deflectors, there was very little wind buffeting while driving on motorways. Meanwhile, the SLC43’s heated seats and a powerful heater are complemented by an Airscarf system that directs hot air out of vents in the upper seatback to allow for topless cold weather driving.

Accommodating up to 335-litre of luggage with the roof up and 180-litre with the roof lowered, the SLC43’s cabin is also packed with convenience and comfort features, from electric seats and Magic Sky Roof tinting to an updated infotainment system high resolution 18-centimetre screen, DVD player, voice control, Bluetooth and media integration and powerful sound system. 

Classy yet sporty inside, the SLC43 features a stitched leather flat-bottom steering wheel, sporty aluminium-rimmed cross-hair eyeball air vents, carbon-fibre trim, leather upholstery and a high and rakishly reverse-angled dashboard for a sporty hunkered down ambiance. Well-kitted with advanced driver assistance safety systems, the driven car featured reversing camera and parking, active brake, blind spot and lane assistance systems.

Protection amid Chaos: The creation of property rights in Palestinian refugees camps

Nadya Hajj

New York: Columbia University Press, 2017

Pp. 214

Private property in refugee camps may seem to be an oxymoron, but this book proves otherwise, affirming the obvious truth that the security of one’s home and assets is an organising principle of daily life, including for refugees. The question of ownership is especially poignant for Palestinian refugees who have been forcibly alienated from their original property for seventy years due to Israel’s usurpation and the international community’s failure to rectify this injustice.

While interviewing Palestinian refugees, Nadya Hajj, assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, was surprised to learn of the existence of legal property deeds in camps. “Like Indiana Jones tearing through cobwebs and finding the Holy Grail, I squeaked open a metal file cabinet drawer and discovered hard-copy evidence of property titles in refugee camps all over Lebanon and Jordan.” (p. 3

 This discovery channeled her research into previously uncharted territory, focusing on “the potential for institutional innovation and evolution in transitional political landscapes”. (p. 1)

It also led her to call for new theories about how people function in such undefined and often unregulated spaces. 

Hajj interviewed 200 Palestinians in seven refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, in order to trace “the evolution of property rights from informal understandings of ownership to formal legal claims of assets to shed light on how communities thrive in challenging political economic spaces”. (p. 9)

She learned that this evolution was driven by Palestinian refugees’ attempt to protect themselves and to create order out of the chaos into which they were plunged when expelled from their homeland. 

The book strikes a good balance between the theoretical and the human sides of the issue. By including many quotes from her interviews, Hajj lets refugees recount their first-hand experience in using their pre-1948 traditions and methods for dealing with property rights and violations of the same. Their accounts also reopen the file of property rights in

Palestine, which were mainly inherited from Ottoman times. Hajj critiques assumptions about land ownership in Palestine made by Western scholars who fail to understand the complexity and various types of land ownership prevailing in the Ottoman Empire. 

Later on, Palestinian refugees adapted their strategies to match shifting economic and political conditions — in Jordan, negotiating with the host government to adjust their practices to the country’s laws, and in Lebanon, working with Fatah after the PLO assumed charge of the camps. Moreover, with the remittances sent back by young men working in the Gulf or Libya, small businesses grew and expanded in the camps, especially after the oil boom, increasing the need for more codified property regulations.

Hajj measures how Palestinian refugees dealt with property issues against various theories about how people create institutions, and compares their experience to that of other population groups living in transitional spaces, concluding that the Palestinian case is not exceptional. On the contrary, she contends that it “provides an excellent template for other communities hoping to find protection in transitional spaces”. (p. 13)

It is at this point that the book assumes great current relevance, as Hajj updates her historical findings with coverage of the destruction inflicted on Palestinian lives and camps in this millennium. Tragically, the 2007 conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah Al Islam destroyed Nahr Al Bared camp in North Lebanon, inflicting huge losses on the inhabitants and negating their existing system of property rights. But it also gave Hajj the chance to “track the evolution and renegotiation of property rights in real time”. (p. 112)

Her account of the camp’s rebuilding, and to what extent refugees were able to restore their former property, is very valuable, since it has not been easy to access reliable information about this process. In the face of onerous new restrictions set by the Lebanese authorities, refugees employed new strategies, urging aid organisations and engineering firms in charge of the reconstruction “to use informal refugee claims and pre-2007 titles to define the footprint and location of homes and businesses in the new camp”. (p. 147)

This meant implicitly acknowledging de facto Palestinian ‘‘ownership’’.

Though the resulting reconstruction was not perfect, Hajj contends that Palestinians in Syria — the most recent “doubly dispossessed” refugee community — can learn from the Nahr Al Bared refugees’ efforts.

While breaking new ground on a previously cloudy issue, Hajj imparts both basic and new knowledge about Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, yesterday and today. Most importantly, she shows that far from only being sites of hopelessness and helplessness, refugee camps are sources of dynamic innovation and persistent entrepreneurial spirit.

While upholding stringent academic standards, Hajj’s concern and admiration for the refugees is palpable. One senses that this is not only because she is Palestinian, but because she has tied her academic career to pursuing issues related to justice and human welfare.

By Matthew Diebel 

It is a wonderful thing to see — the deep bond between a mother and her baby.

And it may be because the mom’s brain shrank during pregnancy.

Yup, it got smaller.

A just-released study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience shows that pregnant women lose gray matter in areas of the brain that deal with people’s feelings and non-verbal signals.

However, the loss, rather than diminish this area of brain processing, appears to make it more efficient, enabling improved interpretation of their babies’ needs and emotions, and therefore increasing their maternal attachment.

Due to the time frame of the study, which was conducted by researchers in the Netherlands and Spain, it is not known whether the effects are permanent or temporary.

During the study, a group of fathers and first-time mothers had MRI scans before pregnancy and after giving birth. While the brains of the fathers remained unchanged, the study’s authors said, the scans of the mothers showed a loss of grey matter.

“Loss of volume does not necessarily translate to loss of function,” Elseline Hoekzema, co-lead author of the study and a senior brain scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told CNN. “Sometimes less is more.”

She said that the loss of grey matter could “represent a fine-tuning of synapses into more efficient neural networks”.

Another neuroscientist, Robert Froemke of New York University’s Langone Medical Centre, compared the process to “spring cleaning”.

Related stories

“It is making things more organised, streamlined, coherent to prepare mothers for the complexity and urgency of childcare,” he told the online magazine Healthline. “If neurons are closer together, or neural connections reorganised to disregard irrelevant synapses and preserve important synapses, or otherwise able to more effectively, reliably, and rapidly process critical information, it’s easier to imagine why this might make sense, and help the maternal brain respond to the needs of her baby.”

And as for the forgetfulness sometimes associated with new mothers, Froemke says the brain shrinkage probably has nothing to do with it.

“Parenting — particularly motherhood — is among the most complex and stressful set of events and behaviours we experience in our lives,” he told Healthline. “Taking care of another person, especially a helpless infant, is a lot of work and can demand much or all of our attention.”

 Virtual has been on everyone’s lips for some time now. Virtual reality, virtual storage space, virtual server, virtual here, virtual there… But is it really virtual, or is it more real than you would think it is?

Used in IT, the meaning of virtual is not to be taken literally, of course. It is not the antonym of real. It refers to matters that are as tangible as anything you would have and use, be it machines, data or applications. Still, it has a specific meaning in the technological context, with the closest one being perhaps “simulated”, or “remote”.

As a very simple example, a cartoon or an animation movie would be virtual, whereas one with human beings acting in it would be real. From there we can extrapolate ad lib.

For the private user, virtual often refers to what takes place in the cloud. We speak of virtual storage, all these places like Dropbox and Google Drive where we save our files. In this context virtual is synonymous of remote, as opposed to local, to what is saved and stored on your very computer.

Based on the above definitions the expression virtual reality would be a blatant contradiction, per se. And yet, it merely illustrates reality, with advanced digital means and animation processes. As long as we understand what it is intended for the meaning is clear.

A Google search of the expression virtual reality return this, as a first definition: “The computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.” Again, the word simulation is used here, and rather wisely; it is a key word, a significant one in this case.

Apart of all above, and perhaps relevant in the professional IT field more often than in your home or small office, virtual machines constitute a most important and steadily growing application. Private users may not be directly involved, though they would be indirectly affected.

If you have a computer running under Windows 10 and for some reason absolutely need to also have Windows 7, computer virtualisation lets you have both on one computer, sparing you the expense and the trouble of having to buy and manage two physical computers where you would dedicate one for Windows 10 and one for Windows 7.

In such case, Windows 10 would be the main, the host operating system, and Windows 7 would run under additional software known as “virtual machine”, the two nicely installed on one physical machine. VMware and Oracle VM Virtual Box are two examples of excellent, widely used virtual machine software applications. In other words, having a virtual machine, simply means that you have more than one operating system (assume different Windows) running on the same physical computer.

Installing, setting up and using a virtual machine may not require a degree in rocket science, but it still takes a rather technically minded person to do, one who likes to play around with technology, a patient one preferably for things do not always work smoothly from the first attempt. It can be done using a laptop or a desktop computer. The result is very rewarding in all cases and puts power computing in your hands.

With server computers the result is even more spectacular, for it saves the owner significant amounts of money by avoiding the purchase of several physical server machines.

Just like the trend towards more cloud usage, the trend towards more virtual computers continues, making the virtual very real.

Despite the passage of time, some memories never really fade away. They simply lie in a semi dormant stage, just below the surface and a slight trigger — like a scenery, poem, incident or dialogue — brings them back to life in a jiffy.

Take me for example, while listening to an old song from an Indian film called “Parichay” that means “Introduction” in English, I was swamped with nostalgia. This movie was released in the year 1972 and was supposed to be a remake of the Hollywood classic “Sound of Music” though the director, strongly denied it. The picture had a lot of kid-artists, five to be precise, and my parents thought it was a good idea to gather our neighbourhood children, and take us all to the films together. We were ten in all and filled an entire row in the darkened theatre. The audience alternated between watching the child performers on the screen and us, although I must confess that there were times that they found our antics more entertaining. 

There was a subplot that ran parallel to the main storyline, which was very interesting. The primary theme was about disciplining the unruly bunch of ill-mannered kids but the secondary tale underlined the tenderness between an ailing musician father, and his teenaged daughter. The actors playing these two roles were exceptional and the there was a song that the father-daughter sang about the times gone by. The gentleness they imparted to their characters reduced me to tears. 

I remember snivelling softly so that none of my friends could notice my inability to control my emotions and call me a crybaby later. As we all know, at an age when I was not even eight years old, that was a fate worse than death. Suddenly I felt a warm hand on my scalp and a crisp white handkerchief under my nose. Even without turning sideways I understood it was my dad who had come to the rescue and I stopped weeping immediately.

My father had a unique manner of blessing everyone who greeted him, which was very exceptional. He would literally cup our head with his palm and say “bless you”. The gesture was so reassuring that we literally felt blessed and all our troubles lifted instantly. If I had a row with one of my siblings, he would hear me out and then calm me down by running his hand on my head repeatedly, while reciting the numerous nicknames he had for me. Some of them were so funny that I would burst out in laughter.

It will be twenty-two years this month since I lost him but listening to the father-daughter song earlier, I was flooded with memories. The lyrics, penned by India’s famous poet and lyricist Gulzar, describe how centuries may come and go, but the remembrance of even the smallest things, never truly disappears from our subconscious.

Humming along with the professional singers, I tried to master the stanzas and teach myself the melody as a tribute to my father. 

“Beeti hui batiyan koi dohraye,” I sang in Hindi. 

“Sorry?” my husband exclaimed

“Will someone repeat the long forgotten conversations,” I translated. 

“Bhoole huye naamon se koi toh bulaye,” I crooned some more. 

“Will someone call me by my long forgotten names?” my spouse interpreted this time. 

“Sorry?” it was my turn to be shocked. 

“You can still decipher pure Hindi?” I asked. 

“Once upon a time I was called Gulzar,” he laughed. 

PARIS — Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may have been wrongly blamed for muscle pain and weakness, said a study on Wednesday that pointed the finger at a psychological phenomenon called the “nocebo” effect.

It happens when people suffer side-effects because they expect to — the opposite of the “placebo” effect when a patient gets better on a dummy drug they believe to be the real thing.

“Patients can experience very real pain as a result of the nocebo effect and the expectation that drugs will cause harm,” said Peter Sever of Imperial College London, the lead author of a study published in The Lancet medical journal.

In this case, multiple reports of alleged side-effects from statins appear to have convinced people to experience them — and prompted many to stop taking the drug.

A large-scale quitting of statins is estimated to have resulted in “thousands of fatal and disabling heart attacks and strokes, which would otherwise have been avoided”, wrote the research team.

“Seldom in the history of modern therapeutics have the substantial proven benefits of a treatment been compromised to such an extent by serious misrepresentations of the evidence for its safety.”

Statins are prescribed to lower cholesterol in people at high risk of heart attack or a stroke. 

Known side effects include an increased diabetes risk, the study said. But muscle pain and weakness has remained contentious, with some studies finding a link, and others none.

The latest study offers an explanation for the apparent contradiction.

Benefits outweigh risks

Data gathered from about 10,000 people in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia between 1998 and 2004, showed that patients who did not know they were given a statin in a drug trial did not report significantly more muscle complaints.

It is only when they were told they were taking a statin that people started complaining of muscle ailments — 41 per cent more compared to those not taking the drug.

The muscle symptoms thus appeared “unlikely to be due to the drug itself”, Sever told AFP.

“Just as the placebo effect can be very strong, so too can the nocebo effect.”

The researchers also found no evidence for a heightened risk of erectile dysfunction or sleep disturbance from statin use.

“We hope that patients will understand this and be prepared to take the statin,” said Sever.

“The problem is that patients and doctors are not prescribing statins or patients are not taking them for fear of side effects. They need to weigh up the benefit of the statins and the risks. The latter are minimal.”

Amitava Banerjee of University College London, an expert in drug trial analysis, said the study showed that “muscle pain is very common, but far less commonly caused by statins”.

“If you are at high risk of cardiovascular disease or have had a heart attack or stroke and a statin is recommended, fear of muscle-related side effects alone should not prevent you taking a statin,” Banerjee, who was not involved in the study, commented via the Science Media Centre in London.

One limitation of the study was that it considered a single statin, atorvastatin.

The trial was funded by Pfizer, which markets atorvastatin under the trade name Lipitor.

First introduced nearly a decade ago and affectionately known as “Godzilla” by fans, the Nissan GT-R soon became a legend in its own time. Renowned for its huge performance envelope, practicality and attainability, the GT-R was the affordable four-wheel-drive supercar, able to mix with far pricier and more exotic nameplates.

Revised for the second time in its lifespan, the 2017 GT-R is expected to see the model line out until a replacement arrives before the end of the decade. Sharper, more poised, comfortable and faster than ever, the 2017 model is a testament to the GT-R’s enduring technology and high capabilities, and keeps it more than just relevant or competitive among newer rivals.

Manga style

An evolutionary update picking up where the last significantly upgraded model left off in 2011, the newest GT-R’s most noticeable visual difference is its new “V-motion” grille design and mesh, and corresponding bonnet design. Also redesigned are the front bumper, intakes and spoiler lip, along with the side sills and rear bumper and brake vents, while new body colours include a distinctive shiny orange hue.

Together the changes lend the GT-R’s sharp-edged body a sportier, wider and more urgent demeanour. The changes also allow for improved engine cooling and air flow without compromising the GT-R’s high levels of downforce or low wind-cheating CD0.26 aerodynamics. 

Under its dramatic almost Manga comic book-like aesthetic, the GT-R is built on a unique front-midship platform primarily incorporating high precision steel and aluminium construction, not shared with any other Nissan alliance vehicle. Stiffened again since its last model revision for improved comfort, handling, road-holding and safety, the GT-R’s exclusive layout is designed to ensure a low centre of gravity and balanced within wheelbase weighting. It features a dry sump engine mounted low and behind the front axle, sending power to a rear transaxle 6-speed dual clutch gearbox and differential. In turn up to 50 per cent power is sent back to the front wheels through a second central driveshaft.

Warp speed

Significantly revised with new components and a power hike from 478BHP to 542BHP at its last major update, the GT-R’s mighty 3.8-litre parallel twin-turbo V6 this time receives revised ignition timing and additional boost pressure, yielding a further 20BHP. Developing 562BHP at 6800rpm and — with a modest torque rise — 470lb/ft at 3300-5800rpm, the 2017 GT-R’s output increases may not seem dramatic, but improves mid-range flexibility and performance, without sacrificing fuel efficiency, which remains unchanged at 10.7l/100km, combined.

Somewhat docile sounding at light load and engine speeds with a distinct mid-range turbo whine, the GT-R’s exhaust note is now more evocative, vocal and resonant at heavier loads and higher revs. 

Deceptively yet scintillatingly swift, the GT-R’s somewhat subdued sound, comfortable and hugely confident and poised ride at times disguise its dramatic abilities. With its four-wheel-drive and sticky 255/40ZRF20 front and rear 285/35ZRF20 tyres providing phenomenal traction and quick-spooling turbos, the GT-R unquestioningly bolts with little drama but huge capability.

One of the world’s fastest accelerating cars, the GT-R dispatches the 0-100km/h sprint in 2.7-seconds or less and is capable of a 315km/h top speed. Pulling with vicious urgency through its mid-range and to its 7100rpm rev limit and with decisively swift gear shifts, the GT-R makes short shrift of steep hill climbs, as it accumulates speed at an incredible rate.

Tenacious traction

Highly reassuring with plenty of high speed stability and downforce, the GT-R is also rightly renowned for it enormous levels of traction and grip. 

With its four-wheel-drive system actively altering power distribution between front and rear and a limited-slip doing sending power to the rear wheel best able to put it down, the GT-R easily carries huge speed through corners. And with its now stiffer structure, it is more so capable and focused. However, pushed to its high grip limit the GT-R’s suspension is set-up for more benign under-steer, though which the front wheels scramble to find traction if one pushes through, or by easing off the throttle.

Driven with more precision by turning in early and sharp, and lifting off the throttle to shift weight to the rear and outside for tighter cornering lines helps. 

However, with its huge grip levels, the GT-R instead thrives on aggressive inputs. Highly effective so, the GT-R is not unlike the 1980s Audi Quattro. Dropping to a lower gear than instinctive when approaching a corner allows access to enough power to unstick the rear wheels and tighten a cornering line. Reapplying the throttle with a heavy foot once pointed in the right direction, the GT-R’s four-wheel-drive hunts for and finds the necessary traction to rocket through and out onto the straight.

The daily drive supercar

With stiffer structure and revised suspension rates, the updated GT-R is not just taut and well-controlled through corners when set to its adaptive dampers’ firmer mode, but it is also more pliant, forgiving and fluently supple ride in comfort mode. Taking imperfections in its stride despite low profile tires, the GT-R is a stable and refined ride. 

Meanwhile, its 6-speed dual-clutch automated gearbox’ characteristic telltale low speed gnashing sounds have however been reduced. Finger-snap swift shifting with three responsiveness levels, the GT-R’s manual mode paddle-shifters are now steering wheel-mounted, rather than fixed to the steering column, to allow mid-corner shifting with both hands on the wheel.

Driven in more luxurious Premium version with stitched tan leather, carbon-fibre panels and aluminium elements, the revised GT-R features a redesigned dashboard, higher quality button clicking and thinner dashboard padding, and retains its clear instrumentation and driver-oriented centre console. 

From its 20cm infotainment screen one can access, configure and personalise a long list of additional performance instruments, including but not limited to g-force, boost pressure, gearbox temperature and oil pressure gauges. Though wide and low, the GT-R’s driving visibility is good, and driving position focused, supportive and adjustable, but slightly high-set. Front space is nevertheless generous, rear useable and boot space accommodating, but hindered by a high loading lip.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.8-litre, in-line, front-mid, twin-turbo V6-cylinders 

Valve-train: 24-valve, DOHC, continuously variable valve timing

Bore x stroke: 95.5 x 88.4mm

Compression ratio: 9:1

Gearbox: 6-speed automated dual-clutch, transaxle

Drive-line: Four-wheel-drive, limited slip differential

Ratios: 1st 4.0565; 2nd 2.03016; 3rd 1.595; 4th 1.2486; 5th 1.0012; 6th 0.7964; R 3.3833

Final drive ratios, F/R: 2.937/3.7

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 562 (570) [419] @6800rpm

Specific power: 147.9BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 320.7BHP/tonne

Torque, Net, lb/ft (Nm): 470 (637) @3300-5800rpm

Specific torque: 167.6Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 363.5Nm/tonne

Maximum engine speed: 7100rpm

0-100 km/h: 2.7-seconds (est.)

Top speed: 315km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 11.8-liters/100 km

Fuel capacity: 74 litres

CO2 emissions, combined: 275g/km

Height: 1370mm

Width: 1895mm

Length: 4710mm

Wheelbase: 2780mm

Tread, F/R: 1590/1600mm

Minimum ground clearance: 105mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.26

Head room, F/R: 967/850mm

Legroom, F/R: 1132/670mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1379/1270mm

Boot capacity: 315-litres

Unladen weight: 1740kg

Weight distribution F/R: 54 per cent/46 per cent

Steering: speed-sensitive electronic assist rack and pinion

Lock-to-lock: 2.4-turns

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/multi-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes, F/R: 6-/4-piston callipers, ventilated discs, 390/380mm

Tyres, F/R: 255/40ZRF20/285/35ZRF20