Features

LAS VEGAS — It’s enough to make you want to drop everything and race for the nearest power outlet: Your workday isn’t even done, and your smartphone or laptop battery is already in the red zone.

If you’re hoping that techno-progress will dispel that depleted feeling, you may be in for a long wait. Battery life is constrained by limitations in chemistry, and improvements aren’t keeping pace with demands from modern gadgets.

We’re still dependent on the venerable lithium-ion cell, first commercialised by Sony in 1991; it’s light, safe and holds a lot of charge relative to most alternatives, but it isn’t getting better fast enough to keep up with our growing electronic demands.

So instead, manufacturers are doing their best to “cheat” their way around lithium-ion’s limitations. The CES gadget show in Las Vegas this week featured plenty of workarounds that aim to keep your screen lit longer.

Proceed with caution, though: Manufacturer claims of battery life improvement can fall short of real-world experience.

New chips

Not that long ago, computer-chip makers competed to make their chips ever faster and more capable, with power consumption a secondary consideration. But the boom in energy hungry smartphones and laptops means that companies like Intel need to put much more emphasis on power efficiency these days.

Intel says its sixth-generation Core chips, known as Skylake, add a little more than an hour to battery life to laptops compared with the previous generation, according to spokesman Scott Massey. The chips utilise a more compact design, hard-wired functions that used to be run via software and fine-tuning how they ramp power use up and down.

Better-designed laptops

Laptop manufacturers are smartly sipping power, too.

HP says the Spectre x360 notebook it introduced in March gains up to 72 minutes of battery life, for a total of up to 13 hours, thanks in part to Intel’s new chip. Among other tricks, the PC doesn’t refresh the screen as often if the image isn’t moving. “If we can solve a bunch of small problems, they can add up,” HP Vice President Mike Nash said.

Similarly, Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X1 Yoga tablet turns off its touch screen and keyboard backlight if it senses its owner is walking and has the screen folded back like an open book. Vaio, the computer maker formerly owned by Sony, says its Z Canvas launched in the US in October benefits from shrinking components and efficiently distributing heat to make more room for a bigger battery.

And Dell says it has worked with manufacturers to squeeze more battery capacity into the same space. It says its efforts recently boosted the energy storage of its XPS 13 laptop by 7.7 per cent compared to an earlier version of the same model .

New chargers

Maybe it’s your phone that’s not keeping up. If so, you might check out new accessories designed to make it easier and faster to charge back up.

Kickstarter-funded Ampy uses your body’s kinetic energy to charge up a pager-sized device. Strap it to your arm or a belt and it can recharge a smartphone in real time; an hour of jogging or similar exercise yields about an hour of use. You could also just throw it in your bag and get the same extra hour of gadget life after a week of walking around — not an awesome trade off, maybe, but possibly better than nothing.

The wireless-charging technology Qi makes it possible to charge a phone without plugging it in. Instead, you lay it down on a special pad and let electromagnetic field coupling do the work. Wireless charging has always been much slower than wired, although Qi’s backers say it’s speeding up. But wired charging is getting faster, too, at least for phones with the latest hardware — and with Qi, you still have to line up your device just right on the sometimes fussy pads.

Gullies on Mars that appeared to have possibly been carved by water were probably dug out by great chunks of dry ice, a pair of French researchers say.

Even as certain lines of evidence mount for the very occasional occurrence of water on present-day Mars, the findings published by the journal Nature Geoscience serve as a reminder that not every familiar-looking geological feature on Mars has an analogue on Earth.

“When dealing with other worlds, we must take care to remember that unfamiliar processes are possible and even likely in alien environments,” Colin Dundas of the US Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Centre, who was not involved in the research, wrote in a commentary on the work.

As NASA orbiters and rovers probe the Red Planet from above and on the ground, there has been growing support for the idea that water was once plentiful on our dry, dusty neighbour. The Mars Science Laboratory rover, known affectionately as Curiosity, has found signs of a long-lasting series of lakes that rose and fell in Gale Crater over many millions of years. Analyses of pebbles in the crater have revealed hints of a sustained river as well. Other papers have posited the idea that Mars once had a large ocean that slowly disappeared over the eons.

All of this was a Mars in the distant past. But even today, researchers are beginning to think there could be some liquid water — albeit very harsh, salty water — that on very rare occasions briefly exists on the surface today. The recent discovery that dark streaks known as “recurring slope lineae” could have been left by contemporary liquid water compelled NASA officials to wax enthusiastic about the planet’s current habitability.

“It suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars,” John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said at a briefing announcing those results (also published in Nature Geoscience).

Not all streaks on slopes are potential signs of a wet present; far from it, in fact. A pair of French researchers has analysed different features — Martian gullies in the planet’s mid-latitudes, deep channels that on Earth would have looked like they were carved by streams or sliding wet debris. But the proposed explanations would require groundwater discharge, which would be unlikely in the spots where many of these gullies are found, on lone peaks and sand dunes.

“Martian gullies have attracted considerable attention because they resemble terrestrial debris flows formed by the action of liquid water,” lead author Cedric Pilorget, a planetary scientist at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in France, wrote in an e-mail. “This has been puzzling because such features are geologically recent [less than a few million years old] and have thus formed during the current cold and dry Martian era. Was water involved, to what extent and what could it mean in terms of habitability?”

Instead, the researchers pointed to another possible cause: frozen carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the by far the most abundant gas in the Red Planet’s atmosphere, and much of it sticks to the surface in winter, stretching from metre-thick ice caps near the poles to surface frost in the mid-latitudes.

And, as it just so happens, “the distribution of frost correlates with the regions where gullies are most prominent”, Dundas wrote. “Moreover, gully activity appears to be seasonal, with a marked preference for the winter and spring — when CO₂ frost is observed on mid-latitude slopes.”

Scientists have had an idea that frozen carbon dioxide (also known as dry ice) could have been the cause of such gullies for a while now, but they weren’t sure how it worked, said Alfred McEwen, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona and leader of the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has taken images tracking the development of current gullies on Martian slopes.

“This activity did not involve liquid water; we’ve known that for some time,” McEwen said. “But how do you explain the gullies exactly, especially since they look so much like water-carved gullies?”

In the new paper, the scientists studied the frost on slopes at different locations and in different orientations with respect to the sun, developed models to analyse how carbon dioxide would act at different temperatures, and presented a mechanism that could explain the gullies’ creation.

Since dry ice can freeze into a thick translucent slab, sunlight can travel all the way to the ground and cause the dry ice to start to sublimate — go from a solid directly to a gas — at the slab’s base.

“This causes pressure to rise beneath the ice slab, and eventually causes the slab to lift and break apart, rapidly expelling both gas and entrained regolith material,” Dundas said.

People whose blood sugar levels are in the borderline range — higher than normal, but not yet diabetic — might still have an increased risk of kidney problems, a Norwegian study suggests.

Compared to individuals with normal blood sugar, people with slightly abnormal glucose levels are more likely to have two problems associated with kidney disease — abnormal blood filtration and more of the protein albumin in the urine, the study found.

The questions, said Dr Robert Cohen, an endocrinology researcher at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine who wasn’t involved in the study, are, “What represents abnormal “enough” blood sugar to start causing problems in the kidneys that we see with full blown diabetes, and what criteria should we be using if we want to get a head start on preventing the complications of diabetes?” 

Globally, about one in nine adults have diabetes, which is often linked to obesity and ageing and develops when the body can’t properly use or make enough of the hormone insulin to convert sugar into energy. 

While the link between full-blown diabetes and chronic kidney disease is well known, doctors disagree about how much sugar in the blood might pose a risk to people without the disease. They also disagree on how to diagnose and treat patients with only mildly abnormal blood glucose levels and whether it’s reasonable to call this condition “prediabetes”.

For the current study, Dr Toralf Melsom of the University of North Norway and colleagues assessed blood sugar and indicators of kidney damage in 1,261 people aged 50 to 62 who didn’t have diabetes. 

Researchers looked for abnormal blood sugar by measuring blood glucose in fasting patients, and by measuring blood levels of haemoglobin A1c. This second test estimates average blood sugar over several months based on the percentage of haemoglobin — the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen — that is coated with sugar.

At the start of the study, 595 people had slightly abnormal blood sugar levels based on US guidelines for interpreting these test results, which are fairly stringent. Under guidelines favoured outside the US that require more sugar in the blood before glucose levels are considered elevated, only 169 people had abnormal results. 

After a typical follow-up period of around five years, people with slightly abnormal blood sugar under either set of guidelines were more likely to have kidneys that were working harder to filter the blood. The condition, called hyperfiltration, is thought to contribute to kidney damage in diabetes.

Participants who had slightly abnormal baseline fasting glucose test results were also more likely to have elevated levels of albumin in the urine, indicating early kidney damage. 

The subset of people with slightly abnormal blood sugar under the more restrictive guidelines used outside the US were 95 per cent more likely to have high blood filtration rates and 83 per cent more likely to have excess albumin in the urine. 

The study only included middle-aged white people, so the results might be different in other populations, the authors acknowledge in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. There also isn’t consensus on the best way to define kidney filtration in studies of large populations because nephrons, the functional waste-processing unit in the kidney, vary by age and gender, the authors note. 

While the study findings may not change clinical practice, the results highlight the need for doctors to pay attention to people with slightly elevated blood sugar, said Dr Laura Rosella, a public health researcher at the University of Toronto who wasn’t involved in the study. 

These people should focus on lifestyle changes such as eating better, exercising more and losing weight, she said.

“If someone adopts the necessary changes that would prevent the onset of diabetes, it is likely to protect against the progression to kidney disease as well — just like it will prevent cardiovascular disease and many cancers,” Rosella added.

Two Internet subscriptions each with a different service provider, several e-mail addresses, replication of data on multiple hard disks and cloud storage, at least two computers and one mobile unit; this is the way to go and the price to pay to ensure maximum uptime using IT, and the peace of mind that goes with it all.

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” was the wise advice given to me when I started working in the IT business years ago. The old proverb has never been as valid as now, with life in the technology world becoming as dangerous as it may be thrilling and rewarding at the same time. If certain aspects leave you little choice, others provide room for ample duplication of tools, means and services.

The “little choice” part involves deciding whether, for example, you will go Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS as your main working environment on your computer. The vast majority of people will go one way or another. In some rare instances users adopt both. I know of a few who use MS-Windows in the workplace and Mac OS at home.

Apart from the above exception, in the overwhelming number of situations you can diversify the tools and the resources while remaining under the same main system, be it Windows or Mac OS — or Android for that matter. The idea is to protect your information from corruption or loss, and to avoid interruption of service. Who can afford to be cut and deprived of Internet or computer usage, including of smartphone, for more than a couple of hours? Maybe hermits can… if there are any still left.

Last time my main ADSL ISP provider experienced a failure in the area where I live, I was able to switch the computer Internet connection and take the Internet signal from my smartphone that I set to work as a “hot spot”, like a router that gives wireless Internet access to the devices within its range. Thanks to this setting change and to the fact that the ADSL subscription and my mobile phone are with two different providers, I was not disconnected for more than 10 minutes.

Do I trust Cloud storage? Yes I do, but to follow the advice my friend gave me years ago, I have three subscriptions, one with Google Drive, one with OneDrive (Microsoft) and a third with Dropbox. You can never be too careful.

The same goes with having and managing multiple e-mail addresses: one on a paid Web domain name that you would own, and a couple with a free e-mail service like Gmail and Hotmail. Who knows when one would be out of service or would lose your entire address book?

Being in the IT business I understandably need to have and use more than one computer. Do I stick to just one brand? Of course, I don’t. For now Dell and Lenovo are the two I like and trust, though previously HP and Fujitsu-Siemens have also been part of my setup.

Last but not least, keeping multiple copies of your data on external hard disks in various locations is the only way to have protection against fire, theft and other similar hazards. This too is about duplication and diversification. Banks and large corporations know it well, but private users tend to forget this elementary precaution.

Admitted, multiplying and diversifying technology resources requires effort, work, some organisation, plus additional expense. It is perfectly justified, in my opinion.

LAS VEGAS — Chinese electronics giant Huawei took aim Tuesday at the premium segment dominated by Apple, unveiling a new large-screen smartphone along with a tablet and luxury smartwatch.

As it unveiled its latest flagship smartphone called the Mate 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show, Huawei said it sees a path to becoming the number two global vendor in the sector — a spot now held by US-based Apple.

“Every year, every month, we are increasing our market share,” said Huawei consumer devices chief Richard Yu.

“Within a few years we believe we can be number two.”

At CES, Huawei announced the launch of its premium flagship phone claiming better performance and battery life than rivals made by Apple and Samsung.

With a six-inch display, it still has a smaller overall footprint than similar smartphones, said Kevin Ho, who heads Huawei’s handset operations.

The Mate 8 will launch in 30 countries — but not the United States — starting at 599 euros ($650), in line with flagship models from Apple and Samsung.

The first wave of markets where the Mate 8 will be launched are in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Ho said the new device has a battery life of more than two days. It has a fingerprint identification system for payments, improved camera audio and microphone technology.

Huawei designed its own chipset for the device, ensuring it stays cool despite high performance, Ho said.

“High performance does not always mean hot,” he said.

Huawei boosted its global smartphone market share to 7.7 per cent in the third quarter behind Samsung and Apple, according to research firm Gartner.

It has taken a leading position in China ahead of Samsung, but its US offerings have been limited until its recent agreement to produce a Nexus phone for Google.

Yu said Huawei’s total consumer device revenues grew 70 per cent in 2015 to more than $20 billion as it shipped 108 million handsets.

He added that Huawei has in the past few years boosted its global brand awareness and trust from consumers. Huawei’s image was tarnished several years ago amid concerns over its ties to the Chinese government.

“We regained trust from consumers,”  Yu said.

Huawei also unveiled a 10-inch tablet which appears to be designed as a rival to the iPad. 

The MediaPad M210 will be sold in the US and more than two-dozen other markets starting at $349.

The company also unveiled two new versions of its smartwatch — called Jewel and Elegant — which appear aimed at the luxury segment occupied by Apple Watch.

Aimed at women, the two new models start at $499 and $599. The Jewel is made in collaboration with Swarovski and features the European company’s diamond-emulating glass stones known as Zirconia circling the face.

As CES ballooned into an overwhelming crush of products, press events and panels in recent years, longtime attendees grumbled that the consumer-electronics show was just too much stuff and not enough substance.

Bejewelled smartphone cases shared space with vibrating forks, Wi-Fi-connected washing machines were displayed alongside the latest pair of celebrity-backed headphones. The weeklong convention lacked focus, and the reasons for skipping it began to mount.

This year’s CES is slated to be the biggest ever. Despite its gargantuan footprint, show organisers say the convention will be more manageable and relevant.

There will be less emphasis on the typical CES electronics like televisions, tablets and smartphones, and more attention paid to industry-changing innovations such as connected, electric and driverless cars; the Internet of Things; drones; virtual reality and gaming; and entertainment tech. To reflect that shift, the Consumer Electronics Association, which produces CES, recently changed its name to the Consumer Technology Association — a small but symbolic move.

After several years of muted interest, that’s spurring renewed optimism about the annual trade show, held every January in Las Vegas. CES is one of the world’s biggest technology gatherings, and an estimated 150,000 to 170,000 people are expected to attend.

Don’t expect to see a groundbreaking new product category among the 3,600 exhibitors. But as fledgling tech sectors have matured, the incremental advancements should be more compelling.

Once again, automakers will command a heavy presence at CES, which in recent years has become almost as much of a car show as a consumer electronics one. Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Technology Association, said auto-tech companies will occupy more exhibit space than last year.

Although cars weren’t historically part of the CES lineup, the auto industry’s participation “is an absolute natural fit” as cars have become important platforms to house technology, said James Pillar, head of marketing for Bentley Motor Inc.’s Americas division.

“The car is very much a consumer product, and the level of technology in cars now is exceptional,” Pillar said. “They’re not mutually exclusive, they’re very much one and the same.”

Auto brands including BMW, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz USA, Porsche and Toyota are attending. Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors, and Herbert Diess, head of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, are giving keynote addresses.

Another big trend at CES will be the Internet of Things, as exhibitors show off a plethora of Web-connected, sensor-loaded, app-driven clothing, kitchen appliances, jewellery and thermostats. But the explosion of “smart” items has left many consumers feeling Internet of Things fatigue, so exhibitors are under pressure to prove that their gizmos are truly solving a problem and adding value.

One company hoping to tap into the wearables trend is Chronos, which makes a tiny device that transforms an ordinary wristwatch into a smartwatch that can track steps and other activity. Founder and Chief Executive Mark Nichol said the San Francisco company chose CES for the device’s public debut because “it’s where you have to be — everyone is there”.

“We think we have such a unique take on what a wearable is that we’ll really stand out,” he said. “This is the one pure wearable tech show that we’re definitely doing.”

As CES has broadened its scope, organisers have tried several strategies to manage the sprawl. Start-ups have gained greater prominence with their own dedicated exhibit area called Eureka Park that this year will be 33 per cent larger than in 2015, with 500 exhibitors and a waiting list to join.

And Shapiro said those start-ups have to offer a worthwhile, tech-driven product.

“They can’t just be a plastic case accessories company,” he said.

Of course, not everything that is heavily touted at CES goes on to become a life-changing product. Take, for instance, 3-D televisions, which were the “it” innovation of CES six years ago but quickly flamed out because of high prices, a lack of content and sceptical consumers.

Shapiro didn’t mince words when he spoke of the ultimate disappointment of 3-D TVs.

“It was overhyped and I think there were those in the industry that were delusional, frankly, and they believed their own hyperbole,” he said. “Yes, it was the talk of the show for one year because a lot of the set-makers were very excited about it, but it was definitely a mistake and it hurt industry credibility.”

LAS VEGAS — The mystery electric car start-up Faraday Future, which seeks to “redefine mobility”, unveiled its first prototype vehicle on Monday while offering few details on its ownership and structure.

The company took the wraps off its tech-inspired Batmobile-style vehicle that is part of a plan to compete against the likes of Tesla and reshape the auto sector.

“We are redefining the very nature of cars and mobility,” said the company’s senior vice president of research and engineering, Nick Sampson, unveiling the “FFZERO1” prototype car on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A company statement described the car as “a high performance electric vehicle built upon... a modular engineering system optimised for electric vehicles, on which all future FF production vehicles will be based”.

The “variable platform architecture” will help minimise production costs while speeding development, according to the company.

The company said it is aiming for an entirely new concept for vehicles with an emphasis on technology and personalisation, instead of adapting existing automotive systems.

The cars will for example integrate the smartphone into the steering column to provide real-time data to drivers and potentially use augmented reality to show road conditions.

The concept car could also be “fully autonomous”, according to the company.

Design and engineering philosophies

The FFZERO1 “is an amplified version of the design and engineering philosophies informing FF’s forthcoming production vehicles”, said Richard Kim, head of design.

“This project liberated our designers and inspired new approaches for vehicle forms, proportions and packaging that we can apply to our upcoming production models.”

Sampson said Faraday intends to move “very fast” on its plans and has already announced a $1 billion factory to be built near Las Vegas.

In just 18 months since its founding, Faraday has 750 employees and intends to produce its first car within two years.

Faraday will move fast because it will act “more like a technology company than an automotive company”, Sampson said.

At the event, Faraday confirmed a “strategic partnership” with China-based media and tech firm Letv, but did not provide details bout its ownership or even indicate who is its chief executive.

The company told AFP that its investors include Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, founder of Letv, which is sometimes described as the Netflix of China.

Faraday Future employees include former executives from Apple, BMW, Google, NASA, Tesla and other prominent firms.

Faraday is exploring “new types of ownership” for the vehicles, Sampson said, without elaborating. 

Earlier, he told AFP the company was looking at shared ownership options and added that “ownership models will change over time”.

Based in California, Faraday Future announced its factory plans in early December, saying it would be a “first phase” for the new company, which is yet to get a vehicle on the road.

The facility is “something more than an ordinary ‘assembly line’,” according to its announcement, and will include 280,000 square metres “for passionate creators and diligent visionaries, where new concepts will be refined and implemented”. 

It will create 4,500 jobs in the region — the same area where Tesla is building a major new battery manufacturing facility.

While Faraday Future has often been compared with Tesla, Sampson said he does not see the company created by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk as a rival.

“We compete with companies selling gasoline cars,” he said. “Tesla in some respects we should consider as our allies, not our competitors.”

Teen smokers might crave nicotine in part because their brains respond differently than adults to seeing people light up, a small study suggests. 

To see if young minds might be hard-wired to desire cigarettes, researchers did magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of teens and adults — including smokers and nonsmokers — who watched videos of adolescents and young adults smoking. 

With teen smokers in particular, researchers saw heightened responses in brain regions rich in the neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical that modulates pleasure and reward centres and helps regulate emotions. 

“We interpret these data to mean that the teen brain is more responsive to the rewarding and thrilling aspects of smoking, thus making craving more psychologically salient to them,” said study co-author Adriana Galvan of the University of California Los Angeles. 

“The dopamine system undergoes significant maturation during the teenage years, rendering the teen brain more reactive to rewards and perhaps more vulnerable to addictive substances,” Galvan added by e-mail.

Galvan and co-author Kathy Do of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign analysed MRI results for 39 teens and 39 adults who watched a series of brief video clips of actors smoking cigarettes. 

Roughly half of the participants said they were smokers, and those who admitted to this habit reported more cravings when they watched the videos. 

Adolescent smokers reported the same level of craving in response to the videos, even though they had a much briefer history of smoking than the adults in the study. 

When researchers asked participants after the MRIs whether they wanted to smoke, and how badly, only teen smokers appeared to have a connection between activation of reward and pleasure centres in the brain and a subsequent desire for cigarettes. 

Besides the small study size, another limitation is that researchers didn’t ask participants to refrain from smoking for a set period of time before the start of the experiment, which might be an independent influence on cravings, the authors note in the Journal of Adolescent Health. 

It’s also possible that the study found different responses to the videos in teen and adult smokers because the older participants didn’t identify with the images featuring young people, noted Adam Leventhal, director of the Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory at the University of Southern California. 

“For the adults in the study, the video of young people smoking might not have been realistic enough to produce the natural response that they might have had if encountering smoking in the real world,” Leventhal, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

Teens might have also responded more to the videos because during adolescence, parts of the brain that react to pleasure-seeking cues develop much faster than those involved in impulse control, Leventhal added. 

“Consequently, teens are generally more interested in seeking out new, exciting, and pleasurable experiences than adults, which could generalise to addictive behaviours like smoking,” he said.

To the extent that teen brains may be more sensitive to nicotine than adult brains, it makes sense to set the age for buying cigarettes at 21 to help keep adolescents from using tobacco when they may be more vulnerable to cravings, said Dr Nancy Rigotti, a researcher at Harvard University and director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Centre at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. 

The study doesn’t definitively prove this is the case, “but it is very nice supporting data”, Rigotti, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

A comfortable and well-equipped large family SUV, the Nissan Pathfinder Hybrid offers competitively pricing and good fuel economy in its segment. Powered by a light hybrid drivetrain with a downsized supercharged four-cylinder engine doing the heavy lifting but supplemented by an electric motor, the Pathfinder Hybrid is effective and efficient.

A more frugal version of Nissan’s practical and spacious seven-seat SUV, the Pathfinder Hybrid is powered by a 230BHP 2.5-litre supercharged engine and 20BHP electric motor, developing a combined 250BHP. Just 10BHP less powerful than the 3.5-litre naturally aspirated V6 Pathfinder, the Hybrid model’s electric motor and mechanically-driven forced induction, however, provide muscular and responsive low-end torque.

Confident and consistent

Eager-off-the-line, the Pathfinder Hybrid can momentarily chirp its front tyres in 2WD mode but digs in and pounces off briskly with 4WD mode engaged. Confident and versatile with, early, broad and generous maximum torque peaking a 3600rpm, the Pathfinder Hybrid accumulates maximum power by 5600rpm and with faint evocative supercharger whine at full throttle, can achieve 0-97km/h in around 8 seconds.

Brisk in overtaking and confident and consistent uphill, the Pathfinder’s light hybrid electric motor complements its petrol engine and isn’t easily depleted of electric charge on extended inclines and heavy throttle load. Recharging batteries swiftly through the petrol engine and regenerative brakes that transform kinetic energy to electric, the Pathfinder Hybrid is frugal for its size and weight, consuming just 7.4l/100km, combined. 

Silky smooth and efficient the Pathfinder Hybrid’s continually variable transmission (CVT), however, doesn’t feature manually selectable pre-set simulated “gear” ratios, but instead features a “low” modes for when wants more to keep revs high. Transmission “downshifts” at low speed could be slightly more responsive. However, a dual-clutch system ensures generally good integration between the petrol engine, electric motor and transmission.

Balanced and settled

Smooth, brisk and with good mid-range muscle, the Pathfinder Hybrid is in its element on the motorway, where it is stable, refined and comfortably able to soak up road imperfections despite big somewhat low profile 235/55R20 tyres. For a tall, comfortable and not overtly sporty vehicle weighing 2071kg, the Pathfinder Hybrid keeps body roll under good control and is settled on vertical rebound.

Unexpectedly agile, balanced and confident through sprawling and narrow but brisk countryside switchbacks, the Pathfinder Hybrid’s light steering isn’t the most direct there is, but weighs up nicely when leaned on through corners. Turning in tidy and early into a cornering line, the Pathfinder Hybrid is happy, and entertainingly, almost instinctively eager to be hustled along B-roads.

With a long wheelbase and intuitive four-wheel drive sending power to the rear wheels when necessary, the Pathfinder Hybrid grips hard and feels stable, predictable and controllable through brisk corners, with near perfect front-to-rear weight distribution and its hybrid battery pack located low beneath rear seats. Meanwhile, big disc regenerative brakes provide good and consistent stopping power even under heavy usage.

Cavernous and comfortable

Designed with an emphasis on width and a sense of movement, the Pathfinder Hybrid’s bold grille and bonnet ridges trail away to bulging and arcing front wheel arches housing large 20-inch alloy wheels. Meanwhile, a rakish front screen angle, subtly descending roofline and bulging wavy rear haunches lend the Pathfinder and rear-heavy yet athletic and urgent stance from profile.

Both a design and engineering departure from its more traditionally boxy predecessor, the current Pathfinder is designed for improved driving refinement, ride comfort, and passenger and cargo space. Designed primarily for road use, it however features lockable four-wheel drive, 14.7° approach, 16.2° break-over and 22.3° departure angles and 180mm ground clearance for broken, rough and gravelly roads.

Spacious and practical, with between 453-2,259 litres cargo volume depending on seat configuration, the Pathfinder Hybrid offers good front visibility, driving position and ergonomics with 8-way adjustable driver’s and seat. Convenient and comfortable with wide door swing angles, step-in running boards, low cargo loading height and power tailgate.

Versatile and practical

Generously accommodating in front two-seat rows, the Pathfinder easily accommodates larger occupants with good shoulder, leg and headroom. A versatile split reclining and sliding middle bench can be folded forwards even with childseat in place, to allow easy access to a decently sized rearmost third row seats.

Ergonomically laid out with intuitive controls and good storage space, the Pathfinder Hybrid also features plenty of soft touch textures and leather upholstery in either beige or black. With an airy and welcoming ambiance with large twin sunroofs, the Pathfinder Hybrid, the Pathfinder Hybrid also features tri-zone climate control and welcome lighting

Competitively priced at JD42,600, the Pathfinder Hybrid is well-equipped in SV spec as driven, and features, remote central locking and engine start and multi-function steering wheel. Also included are 6-speaker USB and MP3-enable infotainment, smart auto headlights, rearview monitor and reversing sensors and cruise control, among other features.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: petrol/electric hybrid, 2.5-litre, transverse, supercharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 89 x 100mm

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC

Gearbox: Continuously variable transmission (CVT) 6-speed auto

Drive-train: Four-wheel drive

Gear ratios: 2.43:1–0.38:1

Reverse/final drive: 1.79:1/5.577:1

Power – petrol engine, BHP (PS) [kW]: 230 (233) [171] @5600rpm

Power – electric motor, BHP (PS) [kW]: 20 (20) [15]

Power – combined, BHP (PS) [kW]: 250 (254) [186]

Torque – petrol engine, lb/ft (Nm): 243 (330) @3600rpm

Torque – electric motor, lb/ft (Nm): 29 (40)

Torque – combined, lb/ft (Nm): 243 (330)

Maximum engine speed: 6200rpm

0-97km/h: 8 seconds (est.)

Fuel consumption, city/highway/combined: 7.8-/7.1-/7.4 litres/100km

Fuel capacity: 73 litres

Wheelbase: 2900mm

Ground clearance: 180mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 14.7°/16.2°/22.3°

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.33

Legroom, F/M/R: 1072/1059/781mm

Step-in height, F/R: 480/495mm

Cargo lift-over height: 798mm

Cargo volume, min/max: 453/2,259 litres

Kerb weight: 2071kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 56/54 per cent

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link, anti-roll bars

Steering: Power-assisted, speed sensitive

Lock-to-lock: 3.3 turns

Turning circle: 11.8 metres

Brakes: Ventilated discs, regenerative braking

Tyres: 235/55R20

Price, as tested: JD42,600 (on-the-road)

SAN DIEGO — Heavy exposure to electronic cigarette vapor damages DNA in cell cultures, causing genetic instability that could lead to cancer, according to a study by VA San Diego Healthcare System and University of California, San Diego, researchers.

Moreover, even nicotine-free vapor induces this damage, indicating that other substances in e-cigarettes can damage cells, the study stated.

The study won’t come close to scientifically settling whether e-cigarettes represent a great new danger, a harmless diversion or something in between. It does provide more grounds for suspicion that e-cigarettes are not entirely benign, and carry health risks of an unknown magnitude.

Worldwide attention has been focused on e-cigarettes as a possible means of weaning smokers off tobacco, or alternatively as a new public health menace. But since e-cigarettes became popular scarcely a decade ago, there hasn’t been time to collect long-term evidence, such as the population studies that linked smoking to lung cancer.

The study was published Monday in the journal Oral Oncology. Weg M. Ongkeko was the senior author on the research team, and Vicky Yu was first author.

The new research doesn’t prove that the damage takes place in people, because it was performed only in cell cultures, said Laura Crotty Alexander, one of the research team study authors. But it strongly suggests such an effect takes place. Further work is needed to confirm this damage, and at what levels of exposure to e-cigarette vapor the damage kicks in.

She has previously conducted e-cigarette research indicating that the vapor makes the “superbug” MRSA harder to kill.

An even bigger question, whether e-cigarettes are as bad for one’s health as regular cigarettes, also isn’t answered in the study, Crotty Alexander said. That question bedevils public health advocates who are wrestling with the issue of how to deal with e-cigarettes.

In a statement that made headlines around the world, Jessica Wang-Rodriguez, another study author, said e-cigarettes “are no better than smoking regular cigarettes”.

That statement was made in a press release picked up by reporters who didn’t cite from the study itself. These press release rewrites were strongly criticised by other researchers.

“To declare that smoking is no more hazardous than using e-cigarettes, a non-tobacco-containing product is a false and irresponsible claim,” e-cigarette researcher Michael Siegel of Boston University told the Daily Caller. Siegel supports using e-cigarettes to get smokers to quit.

Crotty Alexander said the evidence simply isn’t definitive, in any direction.

“The problem is that we really cannot say that the e-cigarettes are safer in humans,” Crotty Alexander said. “I feel uncomfortable saying that e-cigarettes are equally bad or worse than conventional combustible cigarettes, but that is some people’s opinion.”

The paper itself notes that cigarette smoke extract kills cells at a lower concentration than does e-cigarette vapor, Crotty Alexander said. And it kills more rapidly.

“Because of the high toxicity of cigarette smoke extract, cigarette-treated samples of each cell line could only be treated for 24 h[ours],” the study stated.

Cells were exposed to extracts containing 1 per cent e-cigarette vapors in a number of tests, one of which is called a “neutral comet assay” that measures DNA damage.

The e-cigarette extract was tested for eight weeks on a cell line representing normal epithelial tissue, and for one week on two cell lines representing cancers. The extract-containing liquid was replaced every three days.

Results showed a statistically significant increase of up to 1.5 fold in DNA strand breaks, as compared to an untreated control cell culture.

Whether e-cigarettes are harmful and should be avoided can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. The evidence on harm is hotly disputed in the scientific literature. And that evidence is minuscule, compared to the copious evidence about the harm from tobacco.

If vaping is harmful, but less so than smoking cigarettes, then smokers who switch to e-cigarettes are making a healthy choice. But non-smokers who take up the habit would be harming their health.

While cigarettes were invented in the 19th century, e-cigarettes became popular only about 10 years ago. Prototypes were developed in the 1960s, but Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, is credited with developing the first modern e-cigarette, in 2003.

So long-term data on the risks or benefits of vaping simply doesn’t exist. And the implications of using e-cigarettes depend on who is vaping, and one’s personal values.

E-cigarettes come in innumerable configurations, including single-use models and more expensive reusable kinds with rechargeable batteries and refillable reservoirs. They can be bought in liquor stores or specialty vape shops dedicated to vast array of hardware used by aficionados. This hardware inspires a devotion not unlike hot rod or computer fans.

They all contain a reservoir for the flavoured juices, an atomiser that vaporises the liquid, a battery that powers the atomiser, and a mouthpiece for inhaling the vapors.

Some of the criticism takes aim at the vast and lightly regulated market for the liquids, which are made with nicotine in varying levels and no nicotine at all. They contain various flavouring agents which are not well understood.

“The specific substances in e-cig liquids are still under investigation, as many formulations are proprietary information. However, our findings are consistent with previous assessments of e-cig effects on pulmonary tissue and cell lines, which implicated flavouring compounds as primary toxicants within e-cigs,” the study stated.

People who have quit smoking within the last year are four times more likely to use e-cigarettes daily than current smokers to use e-cigarettes daily, according to a study led by Rutgers University researchers released in November. The researchers say this is evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit.

And a study by Public Health England released in August found that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than smoking and can help smokers quit.

However, a study released in August 2014, found that the number of middle and high school student nonsmokers who used an electronic cigarette in the previous year tripled in two years. The number rose from 79,000 in 2011 to 263,000 in 2013, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The danger, say e-cigarette foes, is that adolescent nonsmokers who take up vaping will find it easier to start smoking — the supposed “gateway” effect marijuana is blamed for leading those who inhale to try narcotics.

Vaping supporters responded on Twitter to the VA-led study, saying that it’s actually a benefit that e-cigarette liquids preferentially kills cancer cells.

They also pointed to the sentence in the study about the difficulty of comparing the effect of vaping liquids to that of cigarette smoke because of the latter’s high toxicity.

Another limitation of the study, which Wang-Rodriguez said she plans to address in future research, is that it tested lab-grown cells, which may not give the same results as cells living inside a person.

Crotty Alexander said a new study on whole animals is under way. This should give results more representative of what would be seen in people.

While human testing would be ideal, it runs into moral problems, Wang-Rodriguez said. Exposing people to suspected carcinogens would be ethically wrong. That problem wouldn’t apply if current e-cigarette users were recruited. But even a direct study in humans would be more limited than animal studies.

“It’s harder to take a tissue sample of their lung,” she said. “But I think a population or epidemiologic study is worth doing.”