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The latest in its product offensive, the Volvo XC60 proves that the Swedish automaker is on a veritable roll with its new platform, design and technology. A distinctly Scandinavian approach to automotive luxury, the XC60 brings a fresh and capable alternative in the wildly popular premium mid-size SUV segment.

Stylishly designed inside and out, comfortable and well-packaged, smooth driving and with flexible and capable drivelines, the recently launched second generation XC60 stands to make a mark and is offered in a range of well-equipped trim levels and choice of turbocharged (and hybrid) four-cylinder engines, including the most luxurious Inscription specification.

Distinctive design

A follow-up to the well-received XC90 SUV and S90/V90 saloon/estate models, the XC90 is Volvo’s third completely distinct model line built on its versatile contemporary Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) platform and the first such mid-size incarnation. Longer, lower and wider than its predecessor, the new XC60, however, uses lighter stiff steel components and features shorter overhangs and a bigger footprint for better stability and a more grounded stance.

Designed exclusively for four-cylinder use (and a hybrid T8 model), the XC60’s SPA platform features a sportier and more luxurious rearwards cabin design, and rides on sophisticated double wishbone front and integral-link rear suspension, with optional adaptive air suspension, as tested.

Distinctive among a largely homogenous automotive segment, the XC60’s design is sportily urgent yet classy, and is particularly elegant in Inscription trim with limited by effective use of chrome. With broad upright grille with vertical slats, the XC60’s fascia features an interplay of concave and convex surfaces with sharp angles and triangular motifs echoed across its design. 

Slim, browed headlights are bisected by Volvo’s unique “Thor’s hammer” LED signature, while its flanks are chiselled and muscularly surfaces and shoulders. A long bonnet and sweepingly rakish roofline create a sense of momentum, which is complemented by a jutting tailgate framed by angled and slim rear light design.

Refined and confident

Expected to be available in Jordan in 250BHP T5 and 315BHP T6 turbocharged petrol versions, all XC60 variants, however, feature the same engine capacity and cylinder count, including the entry-level D4 turbo-diesel engine variant available with Inscription trim level, as driven at regional launch at the southern Turkish coast. 

A versatile and economic engine option if rumours of the possible easing of restrictions on diesel passenger cars were to pan out in Jordan, the XC60 D4 is smooth, willing and muscular in mid-range. With virtually no diesel clatter audible from inside the cabin and quick, progressive delivery, one might even think it a petrol engine.

Developing 187BHP at 4250rpm and revving to somewhere in the region of 5000rpm, the XC60 D4 also produces a thick and meaty 295lb/ft serving of torque throughout 1750-2500rpm, which allows for confident pulling power on inclines and for overtaking at cruising speeds.

Capable of 0-100km/h in 8.4-seconds and a 205km/h top speed, the D4 returns 5.1l/100km combined fuel consumption, which is frugal given its standard four-wheel drive, high equipment and luxury levels, and near two-tonne weight.

Standard across the XC60 range is a smooth, quick and slick shifting 8-speed automatic gearbox, with aggressive first and second gears much minimising low-end turbo lag in the D4 version.

Comfort and composure

Allowing for responsive and quick acceleration across the model range, the XC60’s gearbox also features tall seventh and eighth ratios for quiet, smooth and efficient cruising, while different gearbox driving modes calibrate response levels and include a manual “tiptronic” mode.

Driving all four wheels, the XC60 allocates more power to the rear when necessary on loose surfaces, whether to tighten a cornering line or ensure tenacious road-holding. Off-road, the XC60’s four-wheel-drive proved capable when driving steep slow inclines over loose rocks and dirt.

Meanwhile, optional air suspension proved very useful in raising ground clearance by 40mm in off-road mode and provided taut body control through on-road corners in normal ride height.

Stable and reassuring at speed, it is also tidy and capable through switchbacks, where it well manages its height and weight with good body control and tidy turn-in, helped by quick, light and direct steering. Agile for its class, it weaves through corners better than expected, while air suspension well manages road imperfections, and tyres prove grippy through corners. Best on smooth fast roads, the Inscription specification model’s low profile 255/45R20 tyres were slightly firm side over rougher, broken backroads and gravelly paths away from urban centres near Marmaris, Turkey. 

Similar to rural Jordanian roads, one would recommend the next down tyre size, riding on 45cm alloys for enhanced comfort and fluency.

Airy and advanced

Confident, composed, comfortable and well-controlled, the Volvo XC60 is settled and buttoned down on motorways and on rebound over crests and dips, and is refined, well-insulated inside. With a distinctly Swedish sensibility, the XC60 Inscription has an airy, almost natural feel and tones to its cabin, but is nevertheless exquisitely classy and well crafted with quality materials. 

With comfortable and supportive seats and confidently high, yet reassuringly car-like driving position, the XC60 is ergonomic and well-packaged, with good space front and rear even with optional sunroof, yet one felt that the driving mode selector is positioned somewhat far back in the centre console.

Luxurious, comfortable and well equipped, the XC60 Inscription features numerous standard and optional features including a 22-centimetre smartphone-integrated, voice-activated infotainment system with cloud-based apps and wifi hotspot capability. 

Edging closer to fully autonomous future driving, the XC60 features a host of advanced and innovative driver assistance safety systems including Pedestrian, Cyclist, Large Animal Detection, Run-Off Prevention, Blind Spot Information System with Steer Assist and Oncoming Lane Mitigation to prevent head on collision. 

Other systems include Steer Assist, which works alongside City Safety systems and can provide steering input to avoid collisions between 50-100km/h, while braking individual wheels to maintain vehicle stability at the same time.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, turbo-diesel, transverse 4-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82 x 93.2mm

Compression ratio: 15.8:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, common-rail direct injection, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel drive

Ratios: 1st 5.25:1; 2nd 3.029:1; 3rd 1.95:1; 4th 1.457:1; 5th 1.221:1; 6th 1.0:1; 7th 0.809:1; 8th 0.673:1

Reverse/final drive: 4.015:1/3.329

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 187.5 (190) [140] @4250rpm

Specific power: 95.2BHP/litre

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 295 (400) @1750-2500rpm

Specific torque: 203.15Nm/litre

0-100km/h: 8.4-seconds

Top speed: 205km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 5.8-/4.7-/5.1-litres/100km 

Fuel capacity: 60-litres

Ground clearance: 216mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 23.1°/20.8°/25.5°

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.32

Unladen weight: 1990kg

Steering: Speed sensitive electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones/integral-link axle, active air suspension

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Braking distance, 100-0km/h: 36-metres

Tyres: 255/45R20

Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds
Adila Laidi-Hanieh
UK: Art Books Publishing, 2017
Pp. 288

Two events this year attest to the continuing attraction of Fahrelnissa’s monumental artistic production, 26 years after her death. One is the June opening of a major exhibition of her works at the Tate Modern in London, which will later travel to Berlin and Beirut. 

The other is the publication of this book in which cultural researcher Adila Laidi-Hanieh, once Fahrelnissa’s student, intertwines biography and art history to present a comprehensive picture of her life and work, which almost literally spanned the 20th century.

This is a tall order when writing about such a prolific person whose life was so full of events. Taking her cue from Fahrelnissa, who refused to compartmentalise her life into personal and artistic domains, the author succeeds remarkably in revealing the dynamics linking the person with her creativity. 

Though Fahrelnissa received much recognition in her lifetime, critics often assigned her art to an exotic Orientalist box, attributing her aesthetic choices to her Middle East origins. In contrast, Laidi-Hanieh argues convincingly for releasing her from this box, because “it distracts from the individuality and contemporaneity of Fahrelnissa’s practice”. (p. 166)

Born into an illustrious Ottoman family and married into a royal one, the Hashemites, Fahrelnissa was proud of both, and never denied her Turkish origins or Arab affiliations. Still, the author’s meticulous research, detailed analysis of scores of paintings and of Fahrelnissa’s changing styles and associations with other artists in Turkey, France, Germany and England — all point to European influences, from the Old Masters to Kandinsky, as being more important to her development. 

Laidi-Hanieh pays ultimate respect to Fahrelnissa by taking her at her word about her inspirations and motives, quoting extensively from her diaries and other writings which point to her more expansive, universalist, even cosmic affiliations, as well as to her spiritual and intellectual depth. As she wrote in a 1949 diary entry: “Why must we always see with the eyes of this world, why not see farther and enlarge the visual orb and reach even the divine, in a circle traversed by cosmic waves”. (p. 124) 

Even her characteristically anti-naturalistic portraits, while departing from her usual focus on colour, light and motion, were grounded in spirituality, as she strove to capture the subject’s inner life. According to the author, “Fahrelnissa’s sublime was not simply an artistic choice; it was a projection of her own exaltation during the painting process”. (p. 190)

The book examines Fahrelnissa’s stylistic trajectory from figurative to Expressionist to abstract which led to her huge canvases of kaleidoscopic whirls of boldly vibrating colors and shapes, marked off by thick black lines. This was not an entirely linear process, and Fahrelnissa gave various explanations for her move to abstraction, but Laidi-Hanieh connects it to her vision. “By 1949… she had embraced a conception of abstraction as a process of artistic maturity, of communion with the absolute, as a voyage into the infinite, a purification, and a liberation from the limited world of objects and figuration.” (p. 122) 

Laidi-Hanieh’s elegant prose brings to life the rich cultural environment in which Fahrelnissa lived and which she created around her, whether in Istanbul, Paris, London or Amman. While in many ways Fahrelnissa was privileged, the author poignantly conveys the extent to which her life was a struggle to be who she was and to do what she wanted, a struggle to overcome the many personal losses and bouts of depression she faced, and a struggle with herself in art where she “engaged in quasi-physical combat with her canvases”. (p. 131)

Reading this book, one understands the enigmatic line in Fahrelnissa’s poem: “I ran to the inferno and the inferno engulfed me and this is why I am happy”. (p. 222)

Laidi-Hanieh’s in-depth research and obvious knowledge of the art scene in Turkey and Europe in Fahrelnissa’s time enable her to present select incidents which attest to the artist’s determined struggle. It all began with convincing her family to send her to art school in Istanbul at a time when girls stayed home waiting to marry; it continued with her ability to embrace critique at the free academy in Montparnasse in 1928, spurring her development into a significant contributor to the modern art movement.

The greatest struggle was adapting after the 1958 coup in Iraq in which several of her beloved husband Prince Zeid’s family members were killed, and he lost his position as Iraq’s ambassador to Britain. Despite their devastation, Fahrelnissa was soon engaged in inventing new art forms. 

The book’s excellent text is enriched by truly stunning images of Fahrelnissa’s paintings, as well as sketches and photos, and a comprehensive chronology of her life events and multiple exhibitions. 

Many in Jordan have reason to be thankful that Fahrelnissa chose to spend her last years in Amman, to be near her son, Prince Raad, for she practically introduced abstract art to the country and devoted a lot of her time to giving free art lessons. Much of Laidi-Hanieh’s research was carried out here, thanks to the help of Prince Raad and Princess Majda, Suha Shoman of Darat Al Funun, and others.

There will be a book signing and discussion with the author at Darat Al Funun on September 26 at 6:30pm.

WASHINGTON — With a handful of US technology giants growing more powerful and dominant, debate is intensifying on whether big tech’s growth is healthy or not.

Over the past few years, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon have become among the world’s most valuable companies. 

Along with stalwarts like Microsoft and rising stars like Netflix, the tech firms exercise enormous control over what people see and how they live.

Increasingly, policymakers and others have begun to consider breaking up or regulating the biggest technology companies, although imminent action appears unlikely.

While many consumers welcome innovation from the tech sector, critics have complained about the power of “gatekeepers” of information and other content.

Google holds around 90 per cent of the internet search market in the United States and Europe. Facebook and Google scoop up some 60 per cent of digital ad revenues and are eating up 90 per cent of new ad growth in the United States.

Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS power the overwhelming majority of mobile devices. Amazon accounts for nearly half of US online sales and is expanding into new sectors.

Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, said three firms — Google, Facebook and Amazon — “have more power than any previous monopolies we’ve dealt with in the past century”.

“We have to be incredibly concerned about the power of Facebook, Google and Amazon,” said Lynn, who launched his research centre last month after his team was ousted from the Google-funded New America Foundation.

“They have their hands on the flow of news, the flow of books and they are manipulating that flow in a conscious way to promote their interests.”

Even though the idea of taking on the tech giants appears extreme, the upheaval in US politics over the past year has brought together allies from across the spectrum worried about their concentration of economic power.

The recently formed “New Centre” political alliance that includes leaders from the traditional right and left has placed “challenging big tech” on its agenda.

Bill Galston, a former White House advisor under Bill Clinton and co-founder of New Centre, argued that tech monopolies are hurting wages, entrepreneurship and could be distorting the political landscape.

“The big tech firms have almost unlimited funds they can throw into lobbying, and they have been ramping this up steeply,” Galston said. “Is that a good thing for democracy?”

Lou Kerner, partner at the investment firm Flight Ventures, said this monopoly power is more concentrated than any in recent history, and expressed concern it will “strangle innovation” and increase income inequality.

But Kerner said he opposes heavy-handed regulation or breakup of the tech giants.

“By their nature regulators move slowly and by the time they address the problems they are no longer problems,” Kerner said.

“Historically the market has been much better at addressing monopoly powers in technology.”

Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents firms including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, said breaking up the tech giants could have a “chilling effect on innovation”.

“If our goal is really to maintain innovation, spur the entire economy, and grow higher paying jobs, asking the government to penalise a successful foundational economic sector, absent bad behaviour or consumer harm, seems illogical,” Black said.

European regulators have taken a more aggressive approach, imposing a hefty fine on Google after concluding the search giant illegally favoured its own shopping services, one of three antitrust investigations into the company.

In Washington, the rise of Donald Trump suggests a possible shift in US policy after years in which Silicon Valley was seen as close to the White House.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon said recently he was leading an effort within the administration to turn Facebook and Google into “public utilities”.

But Federal Trade Commission chief Maureen Ohlhausen, who would lead any US antitrust action, signalled any effort to break up tech firms is remote.

People who regularly do resistance exercises may get stronger and build more lean muscle mass when they add more protein to their diet, a recent study suggests. 

Researchers examined data from 49 previously published studies with a total of 1,863 people who did muscle-building workouts like weightlifting. Participants who boosted their protein intake — whether from foods or from supplements like bars, powders and shakes — added more lean muscle mass and got stronger muscles than exercisers who did not add extra protein to their diets. 

However, increasing daily protein consumption beyond more than 1.6 grammes for every kilogramme of body weight did not appear to have any added benefit. 

“Performing resistance exercise is an effective way to maintain or increase lean muscle mass,” said lead study author Robert Morton of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. 

“Protein supplementation is sufficient and necessary to augment increases in muscle mass and strength during periods of resistance training,” Morton said by e-mail. 

Added protein didn’t help older adults as much as younger people, however. 

Also, the benefits of extra protein were more pronounced for newer exercisers than for people with lots of previous experience with resistance training. 

All of the studies included in the research review had healthy adults performing resistance exercises at least twice a week. For each study, participants were randomly selected to stick to their usual diets or add extra protein. 

Across all these studies, people adding protein to their diets consumed an extra 4 grammes to 106 grammes daily. Overall, the most common source of added protein was whey protein supplements, followed by supplement blends. 

Ten studies gave people added protein with milk, and another seven examined adding protein with whole foods like beef and yogurt. 

One limitation of the study is that researchers did not have enough data on older adults to determine how much added protein might help these individuals build lean muscle mass, which typically declines with age. Researchers also didn’t look at what happens when dieters get added protein. 

“It has been difficult to cultivate one simple message, quantifying how much protein, what types of protein and whether messages should differ among different populations of people,” said Kelsey Mangano, a nutrition researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell who was not involved in the study. 

Still, the findings offer fresh insight into the amount of protein some people might add to their diets to get additional benefits from muscle-building workouts, Mangano said by e-mail. 

The results might not apply to people who do not do resistance training at least twice a week, said Dr Mingyang Song of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. 

Adding protein also is not risk-free, Song said by e-mail. It can lead to digestive problems and damage the kidneys, and there is also some concern that it may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. 

“It may result in an imbalanced diet,” Song said. “Thus, a healthy, whole-food based diet should be consumed.”

They say money cannot buy happiness, but science begs to differ.

An international research team has demonstrated that you really can make yourself happier by paying other people to do your time-consuming chores.

It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, the new study suggests. If you feel pressed for time, your life satisfaction can be improved by trading money for minutes that you can use as you wish.

The researchers, led by Ashley Whillans, a professor at the Harvard Business School, began with survey data from nearly 4,500 people from the United States, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands. Survey-takers were asked whether they paid other people to do “unenjoyable daily tasks” in order to “increase their free time”.

In 28 per cent of cases, the answer was yes. These folks spent an average of $147.95 per month to buy themselves extra time.

What they lost in currency, they made up for in happiness. Whillans and her colleagues found that the people who traded money for time were more satisfied with life than their counterparts who did not. They also were less likely to say they felt “time stress,” a condition that was linked with lower levels of life satisfaction.

Just in case their original question was too narrow, the researchers conducted a second survey that asked more than 1,800 Americans whether they spent money to buy themselves “more free time”.

This time, half of the survey-takers answered yes. These folks spent between $80 and $99 per month, on average, so that others would handle chores like cooking, shopping and “household maintenance”.

As before, the people who bought themselves time were more satisfied with life than those who did not. And as before, the people who did not employ this strategy were generally less satisfied with life because their lack of free time was stressing them out.

These findings held up even after the researchers took into account the amount of money survey-takers spent on groceries — a variable used as a proxy for discretionary income.

“People across the income spectrum benefited from buying time,” the researchers wrote.

Finally, Whillans and her colleagues conducted a more direct test with the help of 60 lucky working adults in Vancouver.

For two consecutive weekends, the researchers gave these volunteers $40 to spend. In one of the weeks, the volunteers were asked to spend the money on a material purchase. In the other week, they were asked to invest their windfall on something that would save them time. The researchers checked in with the volunteers each weekend to see how they felt after they had spent the money.

As expected, the volunteers reported less time-related stress in the week when they made a time-saving purchase than in the week when they bought a material good.

They also had more positive feelings (like joy and enthusiasm) and fewer negative feelings (such as anger, fear and nervousness) in the week when they bought themselves time.

“Making a time-saving purchase caused improvements in daily mood,” the researchers wrote. “Improvements in daily mood should promote greater life satisfaction.”

In other words, they had found a way to buy happiness.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fancy a laptop computer 20 times faster than the one you are using now? It may well be round the corner. We may soon see the light — literally!

Each technology has its limit. Year after year the industry keeps pushing it, improving on it, and then one day that limit is reached — new ways must be found.

Since 2006 Intel’s processors line up for small computers has been the Core i3, i5 and i7, from slowest (and least expensive) to fastest (most expensive). It is worth mentioning the company’s latest, most powerful addition, the i9 that was announced earlier this summer, though until now its not yet available for mobile devices.

There are several variations and speeds to choose from, for each of the models. Moreover, each of them has been significantly improved over the past decade. Essentially, however, it is more or less the same technology, based on Intel’s microarchitecture.

One of the breakthrough technologies that has been announced in the past but was never commercialised is the one based on superconductivity, whereby electronic components and elements offer no resistance at all, resulting in very high processing speeds, no overheating and very low power consumption.

Superconductivity is usually achieved in laboratory only, at extremely low temperature. Being able to perform the trick at room temperature has been repeatedly announced by researchers but has never materialised — at least not commercially, not on a wide scale.

Another, newer technology that apparently promises the same extraordinary result is that of the “photonic computer”. Instead of electricity, communication and data would be channelled along light paths (think of something similar to laser…), hence achieving unpresented speed and no significant heat production. A dream come true, in other words. The closest researchers have come to achieving this trick is in Australia, at University of Sydney.

Using photons, light’s main constituent, to carry and process information, instead of electricity travelling though copper cables, is nothing new, of course. One of the most obvious applications is Fibre Optic (FO) networking, the same that most Internet service providers in Jordan are now offering, replacing the traditional ADSL type over metal wires. FO is becoming the standard in Jordan, after winning over most industrialised countries in the world.

Photons, light and FO, they are all based on the same scientific concept and technology. Long before FO was implemented to bring you the Internet, it was already used in local computer networks, anytime long copper cabling was not possible. Indeed, IT engineers know well that you cannot have one stretch of copper cable longer than 100 metres in your local network. In all these cases FO has always brought the right solution.

When will the photonic computer be available for sale? University of Sydney’s scientists did not tell, and probably are unable to tell today. However, everything indicates that it may be less of a dream, more tangible than achieving superconductivity at room temperature. In other words it may be doable for the IT industry in the near future.

One question remains. Do we really need super-fast computers at home or at work? Most of us would rather have faster and more stable Internet, as well as safer computers. Still, extra speed would not hurt.

Many of the same things people should do for a healthy heart, like exercising, eating well and avoiding cigarettes, can also help protect the brain from cognitive decline and dementia, according to the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association.

Both the heart and brain need adequate blood flow. But blood vessels can narrow and harden over time, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes as well as cognitive decline, according to an advisory the organisations published in the journal Stroke. 

The odds of this type of blood vessel damage, known as atherosclerosis, can be minimised by a healthy lifestyle and keeping blood pressure as well as sugars and cholesterol levels in the blood within safe range, the advisory authors note. 

“Most healthcare providers are comfortable recommending healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factor control measures to prevent heart attack and stroke,” said lead author Dr Philip Gorelick, a researcher at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids. 

“Many, however, are not aware of or knowledgeable about the possibility that many of the same basic factors that prevent heart attack and stroke may also prevent or delay the onset of cognitive impairment and dementia,” Gorelick said by e-mail. 

As lives stretch longer in the US and elsewhere, about 75 million people worldwide could have dementia by 2030, according to the advisory. 

The document stresses the importance of taking steps to keep the brain healthy as early as possible, because atherosclerosis can begin in childhood. 

Elevated blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, for example, can damage blood vessels, triggering complications that eventually reduce blood flow to the brain. 

Although these conditions can be managed with medications, the advisory stresses that the largest benefit to brain health and cognitive function may not always be found in pills. 

“Although it is extremely important to control blood pressure and cholesterol with medications, there is the largest benefit to cognitive and brain health if the blood pressure and cholesterol can be maintained at healthy levels through things that everyone can do such as engaging in aerobic exercise, eating a Mediterranean diet, and keeping a healthy weight,” said Dr Andrew Budson, a researcher at Boston University and author of “Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and What to Do About It.” 

A Mediterranean diet typically includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and olive oil. This diet also tends to favour lean sources of protein like chicken or fish over red meat, which contains more saturated fat. 

Too often, a modern Western diet consists of a lot of processed food, refined sugar and flour, and is paired with a lifestyle devoid of exercise, Budson, who was not involved in the advisory, said by e-mail. 

Adopting a Mediterranean diet, along with other heart-healthy habits, are best done as early in life as possible to get the most benefit, the advisory emphasises. 

“The advice is not new,” said Dr Hannah Gardener, a neurology researcher at the University of Miami Medical School in Florida who was not involved in the advisory. 

“The time to act to reduce your risk of stroke and dementia is many decades before these health outcomes occur or are diagnosed,” Gardener said by e-mail. 

If people cannot manage to address all of the seven risk factors for heart and brain problems at once, eating well and exercising a lot is a good place to start, said Dr Rebecca Gottesman of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. 

“Exercising and eating a healthy diet are not only important on their own, but may lead to reductions in blood pressure, cholesterol and [blood sugar], as well as weight,” Gottesman, who was not involved in the advisory, said by e-mail. “People who are active are also less likely to smoke, which is harmful for a number of aspects of health.”

SAN DIEGO — Tuna caught in industrialised areas of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans have 36 times more pollutants than those fished in remote parts of the West Pacific, scientists from Scripps Oceanography have found.

The researchers tracked concentrations of toxins in tuna around the world and found that the location of fish, as much as its species, can affect how safe it is to eat.

“The pollutant levels in seafood — and tuna in our case — can be heavily determined by the location where it was caught,” said lead author Sascha Nicklisch, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “It is important to know the origin of catch of the fish, to know the amount of pollutants in your fish.”

Researchers said they hoped the study would help advance understanding of how toxins enter our food supply through seafood and how to manage fisheries to reduce that risk.

The study, published in the June issue of the academic journal Environmental Health Perspectives, tested tuna from locations around the globe for the presence of pesticides, coolants and flame retardants. Together, they’re part of a class of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, which accumulate in body tissue and make their way up the food chain.

Big fish and predators tend to have higher levels of toxic chemicals, so tuna offered a good means of tracking them. And yellowfin, which are relatively large fish but have shorter ranges than other tuna species, allowed researchers to look at regional pollutants.

“They stay in the location where they are born and hunt,” Nicklisch said. “So we tried to use these tuna to create a snapshot of local contamination.”

Scientists identified eight key sites around the globe and analysed 10 fish from each of them. To collect the samples, staff researcher Lindsay Bonito travelled from Tonga to Panama, Louisiana, Hawaii, Guam and Vietnam, chasing tuna.

“I was tasked to go out and actually secure tuna from all over the world,” Bonito said. “I would either go out and fish for it, or contact fishermen.”

They screened the fish for 247 toxic compounds and calculated pollutant concentrations for each area. Average toxin levels in tuna from the most polluted areas were 36 times those found in the least polluted areas. The differences between individual fish were even higher. Toxic levels in the most and least contaminated tuna samples varied by a factor of 180, according to the report.

In general, Nicklisch said, the more contaminated sites were industrialised areas of the northern hemisphere, including ocean regions off the Atlantic coast of Europe, and the east and west coasts of North America. Those of Asia, and in the Pacific Islands were relatively clean, he said.

“The sites where we caught them are known to be more pristine, such as kingdom of Tonga,” he said.

Because food-borne toxins can affect the health of people who eat them, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration issue guidelines on how much fish to eat, with more protective recommendations for children and pregnant or nursing women.

Most of the tuna analysed in the study would be considered safe under current guidelines, the researchers said. But there were wide variations between regions, and some areas, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean around Europe, had high levels of unsafe fish.

In all of the tuna samples, researchers found a particularly pernicious set of chemicals. Each fish tested contained 10 specific compounds that interfere with proteins that regulate cell membranes and fend off toxins, Nicklisch said. By disabling that defence, the toxic compounds open the floodgate to a host of other pollutants.

“These compounds might lead to accumulation of chemicals in these tuna, because the proteins usually block those compounds in fish, but also in us, in humans,” Nicklisch said.

He said he hoped the study would lead to better safety testing of chemicals found in food, and enhance public information and labelling of seafood.

“The most important part of the take-home message is that it’s important to know where your fish was caught,” he said.

The government of India launched an initiative to save and educate the girl child, roughly two years ago. I have been harping on this issue for the last several decades but nobody really listened to me. It was only when decline in the child sex ratio (defined as the number of females per one thousand males, within the age group of 0-6 years) reached alarming proportions, the concerned authorities woke up from their apathy, to spread social awareness on this subject. 

I belong to a family where the women had to fight for their higher education because it was not automatically granted to them. I am talking about my mother’s generation, of course. My grandmothers had to battle to even go to school. As soon as they mastered the alphabet and could do basic counting, their names were withdrawn and they were made to contribute in the housework at home. 

My mum, on the other hand, convinced my maternal granddad to allow her to enrol at the renowned BHU for an undergraduate degree. She had to switch three trains and one streamer at the end of each term, in order to reach Banaras from the interiors of Assam, where her father was posted. But she was resilient and so were many of my aunts and it was only this determination that finally helped in getting them good academic qualifications.

When our daughter was born, we were overjoyed, but while the rest of the family were cooing over her cherubic looks and angelic smile, I was already planning her intellectual future. Soon after her naamkaran (naming ceremony), I started singing the letters of her name out to her in the form of a lullaby. She listened with rapt attention to my every utterance and one day, when I least expected it, she mimicked me perfectly. 

From then onwards we were on a roll and much before her second birthday, she could identify every colour of the rainbow, recognise most of the animals in her picture book and hum all the nursery rhymes and nonsensical ditties that I made up for her. She was especially good at spelling the names of her little friends and if they made any mistake, she corrected them immediately. “No, no no, it is not Simta,” she would lisp. “S-m-i-t-a, S-m-i-t-a”, she would repeat to the confused child.

“That is how you spell your name,” she announced.

Despite moving from one country to another with my husband’s job, for which she was compelled to switch five international schools, she pretty much sailed through them without much difficulty. I would coach her at home and had to teach myself rudimentary Arabic, French and Spanish, which were her additional subjects, before helping her with them. 

When the time for her college applications dawned, we were in East Africa, with the most dubious Internet and postal services on the planet. Following in the footsteps of her matriarchs, our daughter had to struggle too before she got admitted into the higher portals of academia.

All these thoughts were going through my head when I called to wish her happy birthday.

“Mom, can you come for my graduation?” she asked. 

“Again? But I’ve already attended twice,” I replied. 

“This one is my second master’s degree before I start PhD,” she stated. 

“Remember your favourite mantra — save daughters by educating them?” she continued.

“Well, yes,” I answered. 

“I am simply fulfilling your wish,” she laughed.

“God bless you,” I said.

Women who consistently get the minimum recommended amount of exercise for a healthy heart may be less likely to have a stroke than their counterparts whose exercise habits shift over time, a recent US study suggests. 

Researchers examined data on more than 61,000 women in the California Teachers Study who reported their exercise habits at two points in time, once from 1995 to 1996 and again from 2005 to 2006. The women were current and retired teachers when the study began. 

Overall, 987 women had a stroke by the end of the study period. 

But the women who got at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise at both points in time were 30 per cent less likely to have what is known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain. 

“How people exercise changes over time and some individuals exercise when they are a young adult but do not keep it up when they are older,” said lead study author Dr Joshua Willey of Columbia University Medical Centre in New York. 

“In our study, we found that maintaining exercise levels was protective against stroke, and that taking up exercise when not being active while younger was also protective,” Willey said by e-mail. “Similarly, those who no longer exercised on the follow up assessment did not have a lower risk of stroke.” 

The American Heart Association recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise or at least 75 minutes of more vigorous physical activity. 

More than 22,000 women met these minimum recommendations at both points when they were assessed in the study, mostly with moderate exercise. 

Almost 19,000 women failed to get enough exercise at either point in time. 

Another 11,500 women fell short of this goal in the beginning but achieved it at the end, while about 8,600 women started out getting enough exercise, but failed to do so by the end of the study. 

Compared to women who failed to meet exercise recommendations at either point in time, women who got enough moderate activity at both points were 38 per cent less likely to have a fatal stroke and 12 per cent less likely to have any kind of stroke, the study found. 

Meeting moderate exercise guidelines by the end of the study, but not at the start, was associated with 35 per cent lower odds of a fatal stroke and 27 per cent lower odds of any stroke. 

But the chance of any stroke, including fatal ones, was similar for women who never got enough exercise and women who started out meeting the activity recommendations but did not do so at the end of the study, researchers report in the journal Stroke. 

The results were similar for women who did higher-intensity exercise. 

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how exercise habits might influence the odds of having a stroke or dying from it. 

Other limitations include the lack of data on other factors that could influence stroke risk such as blood pressure, obesity or diabetes, the authors note. 

Even so, the findings add to growing evidence for the benefits of moderate exercise, said Joe Northey of the University of Canberra in Australia. 

“Moderate intensity seems to be optimal for increasing blood flow to the brain,” Northey, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. “Increasing cerebral blood flow through exercise improves the health and function of the brain.” 

Enjoyment, rather than intensity, should be the focus, said Dr James Burke, of the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor, Virginia. 

“The best exercise is the one a person enjoys doing because he/she is more likely to make it a habit,” Burke, who was not involved in the study, said by email. 

Inactivity, meanwhile, can take a toll on health, said Sandra Billinger of Kansas University Medical Centre in Kansas City. 

“When we don’t exercise, our blood vessels become more stiff, we tend to gain weight, our lungs are not well used and our muscles become weak and lose size,” Billinger, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail.