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Nearly half of all heart attacks may be silent, occurring without any symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath and cold sweats, a US study suggests.

Silent heart attacks, discovered during exams by cardiologists, were more common in men, researchers found. (Symptomatic heart attacks are more common in men, too.)

But in the ensuing years, women with silent heart attacks were 58 per cent more likely to die compared to women with no heart attacks, whereas the mortality rate for men with a silent heart attack was only 23 per cent higher than for men without a heart attack.

Overall, silent heart attacks were associated with a roughly tripled risk of dying from heart disease and a 34 per cent increased risk of dying from any cause. 

With silent heart attacks, people typically don’t seek medical advice because they don’t realise anything is wrong, said lead study author Dr Zhu-Ming Zhang of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

“There could be many reasons for people not realising they are having a heart attack,” Zhang added by e-mail. 

To assess the prevalence of silent heart attacks, Zhang and colleagues studied nearly 9,500 middle-aged adults. 

Half the participants were followed for more than 13 years. During that time, 317 people had silent heart attacks and another 386 had heart attacks with classic symptoms that are easier to spot.

Out of 1,833 deaths from all causes during the study period, 189 were tied to heart issues, researchers report in ssthe journal Circulation.

The relatively young age of participants may have influenced the gender disparity in deaths from silent heart attacks, said Dr Laxmi Mehta, the director of the women’s cardiovascular health programme at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre.

“We know rates of heart attacks in young women are lower than in young men,” Mehta, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

“The death rates may be higher in women due to underuse of guideline derived medical therapies and lower referral rates to cardiac rehab in women,” Mehta added.

There were no significant differences between blacks and whites, however. 

One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data on other races and ethnicities, the authors note. It’s also possible that they underestimated the number of silent heart attacks because these episodes can be difficult to detect after the fact. 

Other studies have also found women are more likely to have silent heart attacks than men, noted Dr. Leslie Cho, the head of preventive cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

“No one really knows why people have silent [heart attacks], however, when patients are further probed, they have atypical symptoms which they thought were not related to the heart but turned out to be a [heart attack],” Cho, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

Because silent heart attacks are by definition very hard to detect, it’s crucial that people take any symptoms of discomfort seriously, whether it’s slight pain in the chest or jaw or difficulty breathing or heartburn, said Dr Sheila Sahni, the chief fellow in cardiology at the Ronald Reagan University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Centre. 

Too often, patients downplay symptoms and fail to seek help.

“When it comes to matters of the heart, time equals muscle,” Sahni, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. 

“When you feel something out of the ordinary, get it checked out,” Sahni added. “It’s better to be wrong than to find out a few days later you suffered a silent heart attack.”

LOS ANGELES — Since she got in on the adult colouring book craze two years ago, Cheri Brown has spent more than $400 on 50 books holding intricate sketches that she embellishes with Sharpies, coloured pencils and gel pens.

But in November, Brown shifted spending to digital products. She paid $100 for mobile apps including Recolour and Colourfy, which Comscore researchers say together reached 2.3 million users in the US in March, less than 10 months after launching.

Brown, who crisscrossed the world as a diver for 30 years, now relaxes at home in the Los Angeles area. Eight hours a day, usually settled in an armchair or curled in bed, she pecks with her right index finger at an iPad Mini, lighting its screen with the blues, greens and silvers of the sea.

Brown, 63, even plans to pay upward of $700 for a stylus and an iPad Pro. It stores more artwork, boasts a bigger screen and offers greater precision.

“If I had $100 to spend on colouring, I’d be more likely to buy into a really good app than buy colouring books,” she said. “You see where my purchases are starting to go.”

The brisk rise of colouring apps threatens the enormous growth of colouring book publishers, who sold 12 million adult and children’s colouring books in the US last year — 1,100 per cent more than in 2014, according to tracking firm Nielsen.

Colouring book enthusiasts insist they’d never abandon the pad and paper. But the concern is that, like Brown, people will become accustomed to the on-demand, dynamic enchantment of apps and ditch the old medium. That’s what has happened as other throwback trends enjoy revivals — for instance how young adults subscribe to Netflix, not cable, to watch Nickelodeon shows from their past.

The issue reflects a spreading realisation: It’s dangerous for companies entrenched in making physical products or selling goods at bricks-and-mortar shops to not fight for online spending — and vice versa.

That explains why popular publisher Blue Star Colouring has found a partner to develop a colouring app, why movie studios are hawking apps filled with games and extra content, why rumours suggest online retail giant Amazon.com plans to open hundreds of bookstores and why many online shopping start-ups now rent mall space.

The colourist community is falling in line.

“There is a place for physical books,” said Ilkka Teppo, 40, the chief executive and founder of Sumoing, the Helsinki, Finland, start-up behind Recolour. “You can much more easily try colour combinations and styles on digital, then when you have more time, you can have the experience on print.”

Business strategists agree books and apps can coexist. But it’s not certain that every industry searching for physical-digital harmonies can escape the infamous decline that Napster, iTunes and Spotify unleashed on music companies.

“They can have a happy medium,” said Elizabeth Spaulding, the the leader of management consulting firm Bain & Co.’s digital practice. But “simply waiting for it to play out is not a good answer. Figuring out trends that could displace their business is what matters.”

With colouring books, Brown’s move to digital offers one prediction of the future.

A friend’s Facebook post about colouring apps and the tediousness of books inspired her digital transition. Brown carried a big tote with pencils and books when taking her infirm mother to long doctor’s visits. Now, she slips the iPad into her purse.

Colouring a page takes days. So she’s coloured only 150 pages versus 300 digital creations in one-third the time. On screen, she colours three insect sketches during a doctor’s appointment, mainly because elements like shading are instantaneous.

“With a touch of a finger, you’ve got it perfectly done — polished and smooth,” she said.

After trying 20 of the 450 colouring apps, she settled on Recolour, paying a $40 annual subscription. It’s best, she says, because you can erase by touch, quickly access recently used colours and colour virtual 3-D objects. She expects Recolour to add better effects, which can make a drawing look like it’s on canvas or other materials.

Pens and crayons cost hundreds of dollars. She spends less these days, occasionally splurging on 99-cent add-ons from third-party apps like Lumiere that animate Recolour drawings: say putting shooting stars on an evening landscape.

Brown hasn’t ditched books; she recently bought five because she wants to finish her colouring supplies. But she’ll use her iPad camera to scan most pages into Recolour for digital alteration instead.

Showcasing her best digital work is possible too. She ordered a 60cm-by-60cm print from Costco of her colouring of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

“Almost looks like a photograph”, she said.

Debra Matsumoto, a spokeswoman for Laurence King Publishing, which has sold 16 million art-book copies since 2013, acknowledged that heightened competition hurts sales. But the firm anticipates an enduring, sizable audience that “purposely seeks a very non-digital experience”, Matsumoto said.

Count among them Shelly Durham, who runs the website Adult Colouring Book Reviews.

“Using a colouring app and saying you created art is like putting a TV dinner in the microwave and saying you cooked,” she said. “They will never be the same.”

Laurence King is out to prove it. One new book has gum binding for easy tearing and framing of pages. Another is a flipbook-style story, and a third has an accordion-like layout that unwinds 4.5 metres.

Apps maintain separate tactics to outlast — and buoy — books. Recolor is talking to publishers, advertisers and entertainment giants about constantly introducing the latest hot characters and themes into its app since digital rollouts can be fast.

“There will be major synergistic deals cut between intellectual property holders, booksellers and app vendors over the next 12 months,” Teppo said.

Recolour recently raised an undisclosed amount for the non-profit World Wildlife Fund by selling a pack of 10 animal drawings for $2.99. It also promoted the band Wolfmother by offering free album cover art for colouring.

Teppo declined to reveal overall sales figures, but data suggest a surging business. In April, Recolour added more than 2 million users and hosted 30 million colouring sessions — both double from March. About 3 per cent of users subscribe, generating 5 cents in revenue per daily user, comparable to casual mobile games. Colourfy, the largest player in colouring apps, has five times as many users, according to estimates from tracking firm Sensor Tower.

Commissioning an illustration runs about $80 on average. Two launch every day, though striking partnerships could accelerate the pace tenfold.

Teppo’s six-man team pursued Recolour almost a year ago after realising three had wives hooked on colouring books. Smartphones, where tapping to insert a swatch of colour could replace scribbling between lines, promised to make the art form easier. They launched in August.

About 80 per cent of users are women or their children. Women tend to love puzzle games like “Candy Crush”, but colouring provides the satisfaction of creation, Teppo said.

Others describe colouring as a way to relieve stress. That’s partially the case with Brown. But entertainment is key, because she lacks options as a homebound caregiver.

She’s forged friendships with app-colourists from Japan to Poland she discovered on the popular image-sharing app Instagram. But Brown avoids the “condescending” book-only colourists, she says.

“You’ll always have artists that think the only way to be an artist is to pull out their colouring set,” she said. “My heart is in the digital end of things.”

“When I was young I’d listen to the radio, waiting for my favourite songs. When they played I’d sing along, it made me smile.” Hearing ‘Yesterday Once More’ from the track of The Carpenters, really made me smile. And then, before I could stop myself, my memory went into an instant flashback. 

During my childhood, the radio played a very important part in our upbringing. It was a period when the television had not made an appearance in the small town where I lived. So, the radio was a focal point towards which all members of my family gravitated. Various tasks were also earmarked according to the timings of the programmes. For instance, when the English news broadcast was aired at eight in the morning, I knew I had to present myself at the breakfast table precisely. In case I was not ready by the end of the show, I had to rush straight to the bus stop or miss the ride to school.

If an Agony Aunt kind of recording was blaring, that solved problems from selecting the right jars for storing pickles, to curing suntan with a mixture of yoghurt and lime juice, I was sure that it was three in the afternoon. My grandmother would be in rapt attention, ostensibly shelling peas or knitting booties, but in fact, storing all that information, for later use.

From sports commentary, in depth interviews, short stories, advertising jingles to the weather report, I had the entire timetable at my fingertips. The best of it was when Radio Cylon played the popular catchy numbers and we all joined in, from various parts of the house. Now, this radio station was not even based in India but was situated in nearby Sri Lanka where a lot of money, in terms of advertising, came from my home country. The station employed some of the most admired Indian announcers who were responsible in establishing Radio Ceylon as the “King of the Airwaves” in South Asia.

For some reason that is incomprehensible now, All India Radio and other Indian radio stations at the time banned Bollywood songs. Therefore more listeners were attracted to “Binaca Geetmala”. Binaca, that sponsored the show, was a toothpaste brand and Geetmala, literally meant a “garland of songs”. It was a weekly countdown show of the top songs from Hindi cinema and Ameen Sayani, the man with a magical voice, hosted it. 

On particular weeknights, during the half-hour duration of this transmission, my entire household huddled together around the radio. There was no way we could do anything but be hypnotised by the magnetic voice of the host. I would try to do my homework along with, but I could concentrate on nothing other than the songs.

My brothers would loudly predict the chartbusting numbers and I would join in. If we were right, we celebrated by jumping up and down on the floor cushions. When we made the wrong forecast, we pretended to be upset and refused to eat dinner. One sharp look from our mother would have us trooping towards the dining table, but here I digress.

Suddenly I came back to the present and realised that the Karen Carpenter song was still playing. 

“All my best memories,” she sang. 

“Come back clearly to me,” I hummed along. 

“Some can even make me cry,” she crooned sweetly. 

“Just like before,” I joined in, sniffing back tears. 

“It’s yesterday once more,” both of us sang out.

WASHINGTON — Self-driving cars are expected to usher in a new era of mobility, safety and convenience. The problem, say transportation researchers, is that people will use them too much.

Experts foresee robot cars chauffeuring children to school, dance class and baseball practice. The disabled and elderly will have new mobility. Commuters will be able to work, sleep, eat or watch movies on the way to the office. People may stay home more because they can send their cars to do things like pick up groceries they’ve ordered online.

Researchers believe the number of kilometres  driven will skyrocket. It’s less certain whether that will mean a corresponding surge in traffic congestion, but it’s a clear possibility.

Gary Silberg, an auto industry expert at accounting firm KPMG, compares it to the introduction of smartphones. “It will be indispensable to your life,” he said. “It will be all sorts of things we can’t even think of today.”

Cars that can drive themselves under limited conditions are expected to be available within five to 10 years. Versions able to navigate under most conditions may take 10 to 20 years.

Based on focus groups in Atlanta, Denver and Chicago, KPMG predicts autonomous “mobility-on-demand” services — think Uber and Lyft without a driver — will result in double-digit increases in travel by people in two age groups: those over 65, and those 16 to 24.

Vehicles travelled a record 4.98 trillion kilometres in the US last year. Increased trips in autonomous cars by those two age groups would boost kilometres travelled by an additional 3.2 trillion kilometres annually by 2050, KPMG calculated. If self-driving cars without passengers start running errands, the increase could be double that.

And if people in their middle years, when driving is at its peak, also increase their travel, that yearly total could reach 13 trillion kilometres. “This could be massive,” Silberg said.

Driverless cars are expected to make travel both safer and cheaper. With human error responsible for 90 per cent of traffic accidents, they’re expected to sharply reduce accidents, driving down the cost of insurance and repairs.

But the biggest cost of car travel is drivers’ time, said Don MacKenzie, a University of Washington transportation researcher. That cost comes down dramatically when people can use their travel time productively on other tasks.

A study by MacKenzie and other researchers published in the journal Transportation Research: Part A estimates that the vehicles can cut the cost of travel by as much as 80 per cent. That in turn drives up kilometres travelled by 60 per cent.

“You are talking about a technology that promises to make travel safer, cheaper, more convenient. And when you do that, you’d better expect people are going to do more of it,” MacKenzie said.

There’s a fork ahead in this driverless road, says a report by Lauren Isaac, the manager of sustainable transportation at WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff, that envisions either utopia or a nightmare.

In the best case, congestion is reduced because driverless cars and trucks are safer and can travel faster with reduced space between them. Highway lanes can be narrower because vehicles won’t need as much margin for error. There will be fewer accidents to tie up traffic. But those advantages will be limited as long as driverless cars share roads with conventional cars, likely for decades.

But that scenario depends on a societal shift from private vehicle ownership to commercial fleets of driverless cars that can be quickly summoned with a phone app. Driverless fleets would have to become super-efficient carpools, picking up and dropping off multiple passengers travelling in the same direction.

The congestion nightmare would result if a large share of people cannot be persuaded to effectively share robot cars with strangers and to continue using mass transit, Isaac said.

A study last year by the International Transport Forum, a transportation policy think tank, simulated the impact on traffic in Lisbon, Portugal, if conventional cars were replaced with driverless cars that take either a single passenger at a time or several passengers together.

It found that as long as half of travel is still carried out by conventional cars, total vehicle kilometres travelled will increase from 30 to 90 per cent, suggesting that even widespread sharing of driverless cars would mean greater congestion for a long time.

Airlines also may face new competition as people choose to travel by car at speeds well over 160kph between cities a few hundred kilometres apart instead of flying. Transit agencies will need to rethink their services in order to stay competitive, especially because the elimination of a driver would make car-sharing services cheaper.

To make the shared-vehicle model work, government would have to impose congestion pricing on highways, restrict parking in urban centres, add more high-occupancy vehicle lanes and take other measures to discourage people from travelling alone in their self-driving cars.

Land-use policies may need to be adjusted to prevent sprawl, or people will move beyond the fringes of metropolitan areas for low-cost housing because they can work while commuting at high speeds. Taxes based on the number of kilometres a personal vehicle travels are another way to discourage car travel.

All these policy changes would be controversial and difficult to achieve.

While there are “loads of likely positive impacts for society associated with driverless technology,” people are right to worry about potential for huge increases in congestion, Issac said.

“Without any government influence,” she said, “human nature is to get into that single occupancy vehicle.”

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities faced calls Monday to ban all fishing in the upper Gulf of California or permanently prohibit gillnets to save the vaquita marina, the world’s smallest porpoise, from extinction.

Concerns about the vaquita’s fate rose on Friday when scientists warned that only 60 of the sea creatures were left and could vanish by 2022 even though the navy has been patrolling their habitat.

In reaction, the World Wildlife Fund called for a full-fishing ban in the vaquita’s northwestern Mexico refuge.

The porpoise’s population had already fallen to fewer than 100 in 2014, down from 200 in 2012, according to scientists at the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA).

The vaquita’s fate has been linked to another critically endangered sea creature, the totoaba, a fish that has been illegally caught for its swim bladder, which is dried and sold on the black market in China.

Poachers use illegal gillnets to catch the totoaba. The vaquita, a shy 1.5-metre-long cetacean with dark rings around the eyes, is said to be the victim of bycatch.

President Enrique Pena Nieto imposed a two-year ban on gillnets in April 2015 and increased the vaquita protection area
tenfold to 13,000 square kilometres.

Pena Nieto also deployed navy reinforcements to enforce the ban.

The government is compensating fishermen to the tune of $70 million over two years for giving up gillnets while new methods are sought.

Fishermen in ‘crisis’ 

But Omar Vidal, the director of the World Wildlife Fun of Mexico, said the measures have been “insufficient” and that fishermen have “camouflaged” gillnets with other legal nets.

An immediate fishing ban, he said, “can save the vaquita”.

“It’s a drastic measure but maybe the most efficient way is to prohibit fishing and obviously compensate fishermen,” he told a news conference.

Mexico’s environment ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the proposal.

Sunshine Antonio Rodriguez Pena, the president of the fishing cooperative of the port of San Felipe, said his group would lodge a complaint before the United Nations if a fishing ban were to be imposed.

“They are completely crazy,” he told AFP, noting that legal fishing includes corvina and clams and local fishermen are already in a “crisis”.

“They should just declare [the vaquita] extinct because fishermen are not killing it,” Rodriguez told AFP, saying other factors are to blame, such as predators, red algae or toxins.

Hope remains

For its part, CIRVA is calling for the two-year gillnet ban to become permanent.

Barbara Taylor, the co-chief scientist of CIRVA’s latest study, told AFP that it would take until 2075 to see the vaquita return to 1997 levels, when there were more than 500.

While three were found dead in March, she said it is likely that more died this year because most carcasses are not recovered.

Taylor, a scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said CIRVA members were “thrilled and relieved” when they spotted vaquitas last fall as “we knew there had been a catastrophic decline and feared we may see none”.

“However, it was clear that we had few sightings and that the new numbers would confirm the results from acoustic monitoring that illegal fishing had brought vaquitas to the brink of extinction,” she said.

CIRVA Chairman Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, of Mexico’s Natonal Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, said there’s still hope for the vaquita as other national treasures have recovered in the past, such as elephant seals, which once numbered 20 and now number more than 150,000.

LONDON — Psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, may one day be an effective treatment for patients with severe depression who fail to recover using other therapies, scientists said on Tuesday.

A small-scale pilot study of psilocybin’s use in cases of treatment-resistant depression showed it was safe and effective, the British researchers said.

Of 12 patients given the drug, all showed some decrease in symptoms of depression for at least three weeks. Seven continued to show a positive response at three months. Five remained in remission beyond the three months.

Robin Carhart-Harris, who led the study at Imperial College London’s department of medicine, said the results, published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, were striking.

Many patients described a profound experience, he said, and appeared to undergo a shift in the way they perceived the world.

“But we shouldn’t get carried away with these results,” he told reporters at a briefing in London. “This isn’t a magic bullet. We’re just learning how to do this treatment.”

Magic mushrooms grow worldwide and have been used since ancient times, both for recreation and for religious rites.

British researchers led by David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial, have been exploring the potential of psilocybin to ease severe forms of depression in people who don’t respond to other treatments.

The World Health Organisation estimates that some 350 million people worldwide are affected by depression, a common mental disorder characterised by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, tiredness, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep and appetite, and poor concentration.

Many patients respond to treatment with antidepressants and cognitive behavioural therapy, but around 20 per cent don’t get better and are classed as having treatment-resistant depression.

Psilocybin acts on the serotonin system, suggesting it could be developed for treating depression. But hallucinogenic drugs can also cause unpleasant reactions, including anxiety and paranoia, so Nutt’s team wanted to find out if psilocybin can be given safely.

The trial involved six men and six women, aged between 30 and 64, all diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. They all went through a full screening process before being allowed to participate and they were fully supported before, during and after they received psilocybin.

The patients were given psilocybin capsules during two dosing sessions, seven days apart.

Blood pressure, heart rate and the self-reported intensity of the effects of psilocybin were monitored during each session, and the patients were seen by a psychiatrist the next day and one, two, three and five weeks after the second dose.

Carhart-Harris said no serious side effects were reported during the study.

Renowned as a maker of fine luxury and sports cars and with a rich racing tradition, Maserati now enter the SUV market with the long-awaited Levante SUV. Expected to drastically expand the brand’s sales and client demographic even more than its Ghibli mid-size executive saloon sister, the Maserati SUV should not come as a surprise, given the premium SUV market’s ever-growing popularity.

Unprecedented as a production model, the Maserati SUV has been in the pipeline since the Kubang concept first appeared as a crossover style vehicle in 2003 and was revisited as an SUV in 2011. Erroneously expected by some pundits to be a badge-engineered Jeep, the production Levante is however, and in fact, a smooth, refined and sporty SUV of distinctly Italian and Maserati provenance.

Predatory posture

Drawing heavily on the seductively dramatic 2014 Maserati Alfieri sports coupe concept, the Levante strike a similarly moody and assertively predatory aesthetic, all the more dominant owing to increased ride height. With vast hexagonal grille, squinting strongly browed headlights and a long sculpted bonnet with side ports to exaggerate its length, the Levante features slim inwardly tilted LED running lights, widely spaced grille slats and evocative Trident emblem.

Deep, gaping and hungry, the Levante’s grille reveals close radiator slats which help achieve best in class CD0.31 aerodynamics and can open to feed in cooling air when necessary. Kitted with enormous 265/45R20 footwear to fill its muscular wheelarches, the Levante’s rising waistline and descending roof lend urgency from profile, while broad haunches, pert rear section, big tailgate spoiler and big dual exhausts give it’s a sporting edge and road hugging demeanour.

Riding on air spring suspension for poised level cornering and comfort over imperfections, the Levante features five ride heights, including low parking and 175mm ground clearance high-speed modes where it looks hunkered down and aggressive. Off-road modes can raise clearance to stilt-like 247mm — from a default 210mm — to comfortably traverse deep ruts and rocks, improve approach, departure and ramp angles and increase wheel travel to keep tyres in contact with the ground.

Flexible and abundant

Built on a lighter and 20 per cent stiffer version of its Ghibli and Quattroporte saloon sisters’ architecture, the Levante also shares the same Ferrari-built 3-litre direct injection twin-turbo V6 engine and smooth. Driving all four wheels through a swift and slick 8-speed automatic gearbox, the Levante features different driving modes which alter gearbox and throttle responses and suspension firmness. Fixed steering column-mounted manual mode paddle shifters allow for more driver involvement.

Offered in two states of tune including a range-topping 424BHP Levante S, the driven base model is by no means short on power, punching out a mighty 345BHP at a relatively low-revving and easily accessible 5750rpm. With quick-spooling turbos virtually eliminating off-the-line turbo lag, the Levante pulls confidently hard from low-end and is characterised by a muscular 369lb/ft wall of torque throughout a broad and versatile 1750-500rpm. 

Launching its 2109kg frame from standstill to 100km/h in just 6 seconds and capable of a 251km/h top speed, the Levante’s power accumulation is underwritten by an effortlessly flexible and wide mid-range wave of torque. Influencing one to exploit its burgeoning mid-range brawn rather than instinctively reach for top-end power like the S model, the entry-level Levante is confidently swift yet promotes a more relaxed approach, and return good in-class 10.7l/100km fuel efficiency. 

Sure-footed and fluent

With sophisticated double wishbone front and five-link rear suspension combined with standard air suspension and Skyhook adaptive dampers, the Levante is able to dispatch road imperfections with supple stability and corners with sure-footed finesse. More forgiving rear anti-roll bar setting and slimmer rear tyres in the entry-level Levante — compared with the S model — make it a more compliant and fluent drive through winding mountain roads, feeding in lateral weight shifts in a more progressive manner.

Ostensibly driving with a rear-drive like balance and fluency, the Levante’s effective and low-position Q4 four-wheel drive system sends 100 per cent of its power rearwards under normal condition. However, pressed hard through a corner, the Levante’s electronically controlled wet multi-plate clutch can divert up to 50 per cent power to the front wheels to retain traction, grip and ensure safe, swift and confident cornering, while its light suspension keeps tyres flat and firmly gripping the road.

Additionally featuring a mechanical limited-slip rear differential to res-distribute power along the rear axle and an electronic torque vectoring that selectively brakes inside wheels through tight corners. The Levante is ever poised, controlled, agile and tenaciously sticks to tarmac through narrow switchbacks. Tidy into corners, the Levante features precise, light and natural feeling speed-sensitive hydraulic-assisted steering.

Stylish and spacious

Committed and reassuring at speed, the Levante is also unexpectedly capable off-road. Featuring pre-set off-road modes, the Lavante’s air suspension rises for additional clearance, while electronic stability and drive-line systems are recalibrated for various off-road conditions. On test drive over a challenging dirt and gravel route, the Levante dispatched the uneven low traction surfaces and steep inclines with ease. Meanwhile, a low-set front facing camera allows drivers to see terrain conditions more accurately than the Levante’s long and high bonnet would normally permit.

With ascending high waistline and descending roofline, the Levante’s cabin has a hunkered down profile, yet is spacious in front, and is surprisingly accommodating in the rear, where leg and headroom is noticeably better than most competitors. Highly adjustable seats and steering allow for a support and comfortable driving position, while layouts and design are elegant yet sporty, utilising quality materials. 

Infotainment and convenience features are extensive and include heated/ventilated seats, climate control, pedal adjustment, optional rear electric sunblinds and panoramic sunroof and user-friendly high-resolution 8.4-inch touchscreen. High end Harmon Kardon and Bowers & Wilkins sound systems are available as are customisation options. Driver assistance systems are extensive and include stop/go adaptive cruise control, hill descent control, blind spot, lane departure and forward collision warnings, rear and surround view cameras and parking assistance.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3-litre, in-line, twin-turbocharged V6 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 86.5 x 84.5mm

Compression: 9.7:1

Valve-train: Chain-driven 24-valve DOHC, direct injection, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 8-speed, automatic, four-wheel drive, self-locking rear-differential

Gear ratios: 1st 4.71; 2nd 3.14; 3rd 2.11; 4th 1.67; 5th 1.28; 6th 1.0; 7th 0.84; 8th 0.67

Reverse/final drive: 3.3/2.8

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 345 (350) [257] @5750rpm

Specific power: 115.8BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 163.5BHP/tonne

Torque lb/ft (Nm): 369 (500) @1750-5000rpm

Specific torque: 167.8Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 237Nm/tonne

Redline: 6500rpm

0-100km/h: 6 seconds

Top speed: 251km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 14.8-/8.3-/10.7 litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 249g/km

Fuel capacity: 80 litres

Length: 5003mm

Width: 1968mm

Height: 1679mm

Wheelbase: 3004mm

Track, F/R: 1624/1676mm

Kerb weight: 2109kg

Weight distribution F/R: 50:50

Luggage volume: 580 litres

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/multi-link, adjustable air springs

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated perforated discs, 345 x 32mm/330 x 22mm

Brake callipers, F/R: 2-/1-piston

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

Turning circle: 11.7 metres

Tyres, F/R: 265/45R20 (as tested)

DETROIT — Self-driving cars could hit roads within five years, the head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said recently, days after the company announced an alliance with Google parent Alphabet.

Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne declined to disclose financial details of the partnership or a timetable for building minivans that will expand the Internet company’s test fleet of autonomous vehicles.

“It’s not sort of ‘pie-in-the-sky,’ the thing is real and it’s coming,” Marchionne said.

“People are talking about 20 years, I think we’ll have it here in the next five years.”

Alphabet this week announced an alliance with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in a major expansion of its fleet of self-driving vehicles.

The company’s test fleet will be more than doubled with the addition of 100 new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans, with the companies aiming to have some on the road by the end of this year.

The collaboration with FCA marks the first time that the California-based Internet giant has worked directly with an automaker to build self-driving vehicles.

“FCA will design the minivans, so it’s easy for us to install our self-driving systems, including the computers that hold our self-driving software, and the sensors that enable our software to see what’s on the road around the vehicle,” the car team said in a post at the Google+ social network.

The minivan design also paves a road to explore the potential of large self-driving vehicles that could be used mass-transit style with features such as hands-free sliding doors for getting in or out, according to the post.

Alphabet said it was not licensing its autonomous car technology and will not sell the self-driving minivans.

Marchionne noted that there are many unresolved issues, including how self-driving cars will be priced and what kinds of features will be built into them.

“But, if we don’t explore it, we will never know,” Marchionne told reporters during the official launch of the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica minivan at an 88-year-old plant in Ontario just across the Canadian border from Detroit.

The Pacifica was designed for hybrid or battery electric power trains and is capable of supporting Google’s self-driving hardware, according to FCA. 

While the partnership with Alphabet is limited in nature, Marchionne looked ahead to future developments.

“I think most of us in this industry would agree that we are going to transition to a different state than what we are in today,” he said.

“I think walking through the transition in a collaborative fashion with people who have historically been viewed as intruders and potential enemies of our business is the best possible solution for us.”

Google began testing its autonomous driving technology in 2009, using a Toyota Prius equipped with the tech giant’s equipment. It now has some 70 vehicles, including Lexus cars adapted by Google and its in-house designed cars unveiled in 2014.

The companies will position engineering teams at a facility in Michigan to accelerate the design, testing and manufacturing of the self-driving Chrysler Pacifica.

An array of automobile makers including Audi, Ford, Mercedes, Lexus, Tesla and BMW are working on building self-driving capabilities into vehicles.

Most people do not need to fast overnight before getting their blood drawn for a cholesterol test, according to a group of experts.

Cholesterol test results obtained one to six hours after a meal were not significantly different from results obtained after a fast, researchers found.

“It could be implemented tomorrow with no problems at all,” said lead author Dr Borge Nordestgaard, of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. 

“Today, the key players for keeping the fasting procedure are the laboratories drawing the blood. They simply could change the procedure tomorrow, and then nobody would fast anymore. That is what we did in Denmark — and patients, clinicians and laboratories were all happy with the change.”

Nordestgaard told Reuters Health in an e-mail that doctors essentially just always had patients fast before a cholesterol test. “So people got used to it without questioning the fasting procedure,” he said.

Typically, blood is drawn for a cholesterol test — known as a lipid panel — after a person has fasted for at least eight hours, the researchers write in the European Heart Journal.

In 2009, Denmark began using non-fasting cholesterol tests. One advantage, the researchers say, is that forgoing fasting simplifies the process for patients, doctors and laboratories. Also, patients are more likely to get the test.

The team of researchers met twice in person to look at data from a number of large studies, such as the Nurses’ Health Study, the Copenhagen General Population Study and the Heart Protection Study.

The researchers found that not fasting, compared to fasting, didn’t significantly change the levels of substances typically measured during a cholesterol test, including triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL (or bad) cholesterol and HDL (or good) cholesterol.

The research team cautions that fasting cholesterol tests may be needed if a person has high triglycerides (or blood fats), is recovering from pancreatitis.

BEIJING — After poaching Bentley’s design chief last year, Hyundai Motor Co. said on Monday that it has also secured the services of the luxury marque’s exterior designer.

Hyundai issued a statement saying Sangyup Lee will start work next month as its head of design, after Reuters reported the hiring of the Korean designer by the South Korean auto giant.

Lee is being brought in to work with Luc Donckerwolke, a Peruvian-born Belgian, to lead Hyundai’s development of its Genesis premium car brand — a project driven by Chung Euisun, heir-apparent to the Hyundai Group.

“Lee will help... enhance the design competitiveness of both the Hyundai and Genesis brands with his abundant experience in designing high-end luxury vehicles,” Hyundai said in its statement.

“His challenging and innovative design languages fit well with the DNA of Hyundai Motor.”

Hyundai Motor, which sells some 8 million cars a year, sees limited growth unless it breaks into new markets, a person close to the automaker told Reuters. For the South Korean firm, that means premium cars and maybe pick-up trucks and parts of Southeast Asia.

Lee said he has joined Hyundai Motor as a vice president in charge of Hyundai and Genesis design, reporting to Donckerwolke, who will head up Hyundai’s new Prestige Design Division, as well as being global head of Hyundai design — a reporting arrangement that Hyundai also confirmed on Monday.

Bentley spokesman Andrew Roberts confirmed Lee “has resigned from Bentley to take a position at another brand”.

Lee, 46, ran Bentley’s exterior design since 2012 having previously worked at Volkswagen group’s design centre in California, and General Motors. He played a lead role in designing the Chevrolet Corvette, Stingray and Camaro — which featured in the “Transformers” movies — and Bentley’s Bentayga SUV.

‘Clean sheet’

Lee told Reuters the ex-Bentley design duo aim to make Genesis a recognised global premium brand as new disruptive technologies such as autonomous, connected cars and alternative propulsion systems alter the auto design landscape.

“Because of these technologies, the car industry is about to hit a crossroads. The future is truly open,” he said. “It’s difficult to say if all the prestigious brands today will still be around in 10-20 years.”

Lee, who says he was first approached by Hyundai two years ago, said he and Donckerwolke plan to design Genesis cars from a “clean sheet of paper”.

“For decades, luxury brands such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati have been about possession,” he said. “In the future, as disruptive technologies kick in, luxury is going to be about experience. People are going to look for a special experience rather than something special to own.”

Global legacy

As “mobility on demand” — the once futuristic concept of calling up a robot-car by smartphone — takes hold, Hyundai predicts many households in the United States, its biggest market, will no longer own two, or three cars, but spend more on one car, said the person close to the company.

“That means upscale cars,” he said, adding “profitability wise, the luxury segment is much better, too”.

That fits with Chung’s aspiration to not just drive the Genesis brand but elevate the Hyundai name to an elite global corporate league alongside the likes of BMW, Boeing and Apple.

“That’s his legacy. ES [Euisun] wants to make Hyundai a truly globally recognised and respected company,” the person said.

Chung was involved with hiring both Donckerwolke and Lee, as well as Manfred Fitzgerald, former brand and design director at Lamborghini who was named earlier this year as head of Genesis, said another person with knowledge of the matter.