The Malaysian Insider :: Features

English the preferred language for world business

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:10:34 GMT

NEW YORK, May 16 – Workers whose jobs require them to interact with people in foreign countries say that English is the dominant language of business, according to a new poll. More than one quarter of employees in 26 countries around the world told an Ipsos poll that their jobs involve dealing with people in other countries. And of those, ...

WHO warns of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:22:08 GMT

LONDON, May 16 – Health data released today provided the clearest evidence to date of the spread of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease from developed nations to poorer regions such as Africa, as lifestyles and diets there change. The United Nations data showed one in three adults worldwide has raised blood pressure – the cause of ...

Wall Street intrigue at Robin Hood charity gala

Wed, 16 May 2012 02:07:28 GMT

NEW YORK, May 16 — For the first time in months, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was off the hotseat. As Wall Street’s biggest hedge fund managers and top bankers flocked to a charity gala in New York on Monday night, the buzz was all about the disastrous trading losses at JPMorgan Chase & Co and the pressure on CEO Jamie Dimon. “He screwed up,” ...

Internet photo project to capture ‘day in life’ of world

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:27:54 GMT

STOCKHOLM, May 16 — Pictures of a house in India, a food cupboard in New Zealand and someone eating breakfast in Sweden were among the first of thousands of photographs sent to an Internet project to capture a day in the life of people all over the world yesterday. The Swedish-based project, www.aday.org , has got backing from figures in ...

Afghan woman pushes for rights from behind the wheel

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:58:29 GMT

KABUL, May 16 — The morning after the Taliban fell Shakila Naderi shed her head-to-toe burqa, sat behind the wheel of a car for the first time and asked her husband to teach her how to drive.Now Kabul's only female driving instructor, she teaches women a rare skill that confronts harsh opposition in ultra-conservative, Muslim Afghanistan."It ...

Insecticide resistance threatens malaria fight

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:27:02 GMT

LONDON, May 15 – Malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa and India are becoming resistant to insecticides, putting millions of lives at greater risk and threatening eradication efforts, health experts said today. While existing prevention measures such as mosquito nets treated with insecticide and indoor spraying are still effective, experts said ...

Economic growth sows unhappiness in China, says study

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:32:34 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 15 — China's economic growth of the last 20 years has generally been met with declining happiness, especially among the poorest members of society, according to a US analysis published on Monday. The study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is based on six different surveys on self-reported ...

Scotland sets minimum alcohol price

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:44:28 GMT

LONDON, May 15 — The Scottish government set out a minimum price for alcohol Monday, saying too many Scots were "drinking themselves to death" and it was time to tackle the country's relationship with booze. Alcohol should be sold at a minimum price of 50 pence (RM2.48) per unit, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced. The proposal is expected ...

Avoid chewing gum to maintain short-term memory, says study

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:19:05 GMT

LONDON, May 14 — Need to keep mentally alert for the next few minutes? Spit out that piece of chewing gum. That’s the conclusion of a British study which found that chewing gum can impair short-term memory, reported trade publication NutraIngredients.com. The latest study, published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, challenges ...

Japan creates world’s first blue lily

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:30:15 GMT

TOKYO, May 14 — Japanese scientists have made a horticultural breakthrough that will put the world’s first blue lilies in florists’ windows. Researchers in Niigata Prefecture have been working on creating a blue lily since 1998, and teamed up with scientists from drinks giant Suntory Holdings in 2006. As well as being one of Japan’s biggest beer ...

Leica camera auctioned in Austria for record US$2.8m

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:55:31 GMT

VIENNA, May 14 — A rare 1923 Leica went for €2.16 million euros (RM8.6 million) at an auction in Vienna at the weekend, making it the most expensive camera ever sold, the auctioneer said. An anonymous buyer won the bidding battle for the German camera, which still works and is one of around 25 test versions of Leica 0-Series cameras produced in ...

Artist Kapoor finds beauty in London’s Olympic orbit

Sun, 13 May 2012 07:50:52 GMT

LONDON, May 13 — Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor said on Friday that Britons would grow to love his spiralling red tower on London’s Olympic Park, just as people had come to appreciate other structures initially loathed, including the Eiffel Tower. The 115-metre tall structure, higher than London’s Big Ben and New York’s Statue of Liberty ...

Hong Kong positions itself at the centre of Asian art scene

Sun, 13 May 2012 05:08:56 GMT

HONG KONG, May 13 — A collection of the world’s leading galleries are converging on Hong Kong over the next few days in preparation for its largest annual art fair but the smarter ones have already set up outlets here as they look to tap into a city that has set itself up as Asia’s arts hub. Art HK 12 will fill up the Hong Kong Convention and ...

Nepal’s kung fu nuns practise karma with a kick

Sun, 13 May 2012 04:21:19 GMT

KATHMANDU, May 13 — It is a hot, cloudless morning on a hillside on the outskirts of Kathmandu and dozens of nuns arrange themselves into lines around a golden Buddhist shrine. In unison, each slams a clenched fist into their opposite palm, breathes deeply and waits, motionless in the rising heat. But these devotees are not here to pray or to ...

Jeff Koons seeks to wring emotion from ‘empty’ art

Sun, 13 May 2012 01:42:23 GMT

BASEL (Switzerland), May 13 — US pop artist Jeff Koons is seeking to fire up your emotions at a retrospective show of his work in Switzerland. Although some critics regard his work as empty kitsch, Koons has put 30 years of sculpture — including his famous Balloon Dog — into his first museum show in Switzerland along with the admission that his ...

Black pepper found to act as fat-buster, study shows

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:34:08 GMT

SEOUL, May 12 — The following news item may put pepper grinders in restaurants and kitchens into overdrive. A team of researchers from South Korea say they’ve found that the pungent compound found in black pepper could block the formation of new fat cells. Published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the study found that piperine ...

Don’t lose sleep over weight, scientists say

Sat, 12 May 2012 07:23:43 GMT

PARIS, May 12 — A lack of sleep could make you fat, scientists said on Thursday. This, in turn, could increase the sensation of hunger by 25 per cent. "If this translates to a proportional increase in calories, then a person with reduced sleep could eat 350 to 500 calories more per day," said a statement on the research led by Karine Spiegel from ...

Politics, the ongoing campaign

Sat, 12 May 2012 04:48:22 GMT

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — Politics. That has been the one running theme in the country since Election 2008 and with election fever in the air, it seeps into everything we do. Last night's Umno 66th anniversary celebrations is just the latest event to push the political temperature up ahead of the looming polls.I.The two recent The Malaysian Insider ...

What mothers really want

Sat, 12 May 2012 01:43:48 GMT

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — It's common to find articles about places to eat for Mothers' Day or presents for your mother on that special celebration but have you ever wondered what mothers really want? From past experiences, my mom was always appreciative of my gifts but she will say, "Aiyah, girl. Don't waste money on gifts. As long as my children ...

America’s hatred of fat hurts obesity fight

Fri, 11 May 2012 23:50:42 GMT

NEW YORK, May 12 — One night when Lynn McAfee was 5 years old, her psychologically troubled mother left her at the side of a road as punishment for a now forgotten infraction. In the minutes before her mother's car returned, the terrified girl looked toward the nearby houses on the suburban Philadelphia street and wondered if she should walk over ...

An Olympics love story that sparked a fashion empire

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:36:27 GMT

SUMIRAGO (Italy), May 11 — Mention the name Missoni, and most think of a fashion empire that revolutionized textile patterns, spawned the no-bra look on the catwalks, and is now a global brand that designs everything from sweaters to sheets to hotels. But none of it would have happened had it not been for the 1948 London Olympics, where one kind ...

Small step in high heels, a giant leap for prosthetics?

Fri, 11 May 2012 02:49:38 GMT

PARIS, May 11 — Women in stilettos and ostriches have unwittingly contributed to scientific advancement by showing researchers how to design a prosthetic leg better adapted for walking, said a study published recently. The best prosthesis for above-knee amputees, and for humanoid robots, would work nothing like the human leg, scientists found, but ...

Maya lunar calendar notes discovered in Guatemala

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:20 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 11 — On the wall of a tiny structure buried under forest debris in Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered a scribe’s notes about the Maya lunar calendar, which they say could be the first known records by an official chronicler of this ancient civilisation. These notes pertain to the same Maya calendar that is sometimes ...

Divorce courts mirror society as more women pay alimony

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:11:16 GMT

NEW YORK, May 10 – Tables have turned in US divorce courts with more women paying their former husbands alimony and child support than ever before, according to US lawyers. As women climb higher up the career ladder and outpace their exes in salary, when love goes wrong and marriages break up they are being compelled to contribute to the ...

Because the guys are worth it, too

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:00:40 GMT

PARIS, May 10 – “Asian men are just crazy about this,” purred the saleswoman, cradling one of her most popular products in her palm. It’s a Primrose Facial Cleansing Masque she sells in the Aesop beauty shop on Paris’s Rue Saint Honoré, costing €36 (RM142.82) for 120 millilitres, enough to buy dozens of bars of soap. It “works wonders” for men in ...

Experts unconvinced by changes to psychiatric guide

Thu, 10 May 2012 15:33:32 GMT

LONDON, May 10 – Many psychiatrists believe a new edition of a manual designed to help diagnose mental illness should be shelved for at least a year for further revisions, despite some modifications which eliminated two controversial diagnoses. The new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) is due out this ...

Coffee shown to prevent brain damage in diabetics

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:26:21 GMT

LONDON, May 10 — Researchers in Portugal have found that the consumption of caffeine could protect against memory loss associated with advanced diabetes. It’s an area of study that’s not well developed, say scientists from the University of Coimbra: how badly managed type 2 diabetes — which accounts for 90 per cent of all diabetic cases in the ...

Canada researchers find clues to a universal flu vaccine

Thu, 10 May 2012 02:31:43 GMT

MONTREAL, May 10 — Canadian researchers have found more clues that may help lead to the creation of a universal vaccine against the seasonal flu, according to a study published recently. Researchers discovered that the vaccine given against “swine flu,” or the 2009 H1N1 variety, triggered a series of antibodies that protect against many other ...

London show celebrates modern age design innovation

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:50:41 GMT

LONDON, May 10 — The Jaguar E-type, an LED dress and Concorde lead visitors through the last 60 years of British design in this summer’s flagship exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Delving deep into its collection, the museum has put on display examples of British innovation, some of which have never been shown before. Everything from ...

European start-ups court crowds for cash

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:12:53 GMT

PARIS, May 9 – When Vincent and Heloise opened a mash eatery in Strasbourg, they had a feeling their unusual concept could thrive elsewhere in France. But one thing was painfully missing: cash. Like more and more budding entrepreneurs in Europe, the pair of trained engineers turned to individuals, not banks, to help their business sprout and one ...

Major overhaul of US life urged to cure obesity: experts

Tue, 08 May 2012 23:42:03 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 9 — Two-thirds of American adults are too fat, and a major overhaul of US policies — from schools to restaurants to urban planning — is needed to stem the epidemic, medical experts said Tuesday. In a hefty, 400-plus page report, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for urgent action to reverse national obesity trends that are ...

New cure for cellulite creates bikini season buzz

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:52:59 GMT

NEW YORK, May 8 — Attempting to banish cellulite has often been a frustrating and pricy dilemma for women, with everything from caffeinated creams to vibrating massages promising to smooth dimples. Now, women are shelling out up to US$11,000 (RM33,000) for a controversial new laser treatment called Cellulaze — all in the quest to rid their bodies ...

44pc of pet owners unaware their faithful companion is susceptible to allergies

Tue, 08 May 2012 07:10:53 GMT

NEW YORK, May 8 — Spring is synonymous with allergy season for many humans — but they're not the only ones to experience allergic reactions. Domestic pets are also potential sufferers of allergy symptoms — and many of their human masters are uninformed about this condition. According to the "Pet Allergy Worldwide Survey," (PAWS) presented last ...

Curry and ‘India’s holy powder’ subject of cancer-fighting study

Tue, 08 May 2012 02:16:15 GMT

LONDON, May 8 — A team of British researchers has launched a clinical trial that will look at whether a compound found in curry can improve the drug response in patients with advanced bowel cancer — the third most common cancer worldwide after lung and breast. It's a study that will try to improve current bowel cancer treatments which either have ...

US mothers cling to chubby ideal for toddlers, says study

Tue, 08 May 2012 01:03:10 GMT

CHICAGO, May 8 — Mothers of overweight toddlers often mistakenly think their children are normal weight, and mothers of underweight toddlers often wish they were plumper, US researchers said on Monday. The findings, based on a study of poor women in Baltimore, suggest that US mothers often do not have a realistic idea of their offspring's weight, ...

It’s a gas: dinosaur flatulence may have warmed earth

Mon, 07 May 2012 23:37:15 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 8 — In a major new climate finding, researchers have calculated that dinosaur flatulence could have put enough methane into the atmosphere to warm the planet during the hot, wet Mesozoic era. Like gigantic, long-necked, prehistoric cows, sauropod dinosaurs roamed widely around the Earth 150 million years ago, scientists reported in ...

Training immune system to fight cancer comes of age

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:08:33 GMT

NEW YORK, May 7 — More than 100 years after researchers first explored the potential to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer, the field’s leading doctors see the concept finally proving itself on a large scale in the next year or two. Two drugs based on immunotherapy are already available and have met with mixed results. Bristol-Myers ...

Want to quit smoking? Try acupuncture or hypnosis

Mon, 07 May 2012 03:10:31 GMT

NEW YORK, May 7 — Acupuncture and hypnosis have been promoted as drug-free ways to help smokers kick the habit, and there is some evidence that they work, according to a research review that looked at 14 international studies. Researchers, whose findings appeared in the American Journal of Medicine, said that there are still plenty of questions, ...

Scientists ‘switch off’ brain cell death in mice

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:44:16 GMT

LONDON, May 7 — Scientists have figured out how to stop brain cell death in mice with brain disease and say their discovery deepens understanding of the mechanisms of human neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. British researchers writing in the journal Nature said they had found a major pathway leading to brain cell ...

Regular jogging may add ‘years to your life’

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:49:01 GMT

LONDON, May 7 — If you’re aiming to add a few more years to your lifespan, researchers suggest lacing up your running shoes and taking regular, gentle jogs a few times a week. According to new data, men who regularly jog can add 6.2 years to their life while women can tack on 5.6 years. Presented last week at a heart health symposium in Dublin, ...

Wee small hours of the morning explained at last

Sun, 06 May 2012 12:54:47 GMT

PARIS, May 6 — Scientists have pinpointed a protein that helps explain why the elderly frequently have to get up in the night to urinate, a problem that can badly interfere with sleep. Deficient levels of protein called connexin43 trick the bladder into believing that it is full, which sends a “must urinate” warning to the brain, they report on ...

How to get the most from Omega-3 supplements

Sun, 06 May 2012 07:05:50 GMT

DUBLIN, May 6 — While the consumption of oily fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines may be the best dietary way to get your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, a group of cardiologists say that supplements can offer an alternative, provided consumers check the label. At a conference hosted by the European Society of Cardiology in Dublin, Ireland, ...

Jakarta road ‘jockeys’ help motorists skirt the rules

Sun, 06 May 2012 06:24:58 GMT

JAKARTA, May 6 — Jakarta’s carpooling laws were meant to ease traffic jams. Instead, they have spawned an industry of professional hitchhikers who help drivers comply with highway rules — for a fee. Hundreds of men, women and children line the main arteries of the Indonesian capital every weekday, offering to ride in private vehicles during rush ...

East Asians short-sighted for snubbing outdoors, says study

Sun, 06 May 2012 04:22:26 GMT

SYDNEY, May 6 — Snubbing the outdoors for books, video games and TV is the reason up to nine in 10 school-leavers in big East Asian cities are near-sighted, according to a study published on Friday. Neither genes nor the mere increase in activities like reading and writing is to blame, the researchers suggest, but a simple lack of ...

What’s the value of a college degree?

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:43:30 GMT

NEW YORK, May 6 — How much is that college degree really worth? That depends on your major. It turns out that some undergraduate and graduate diplomas are worth a lot more during a lifetime of work. In fact, the difference in earnings between one major and another can be more than 300 per cent, according to recent research from Georgetown ...

Backlash over Photoshop gathering pace

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:00:31 GMT

NEW YORK, May 5 — With everyone from top models to aspiring teenage activists joining the protest for unedited fashion photos, it looks as though a revolution in the beauty magazine industry could be on its way. This week 14-year-old ballet dancer Julia Bluhm caused a media frenzy by delivering a petition to the New York offices of teen ...

Canada ditches the penny, wants charities to gain

Sat, 05 May 2012 11:01:19 GMT

WINNIPEG (Manitoba), May 5 — Canada minted its final one-cent coin yesterday and urged people to donate the little copper-covered coins to charity rather than let them go to waste. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said a charitable donation would be an apt last stop for the pennies, which Canada is pulling from circulation later this year after 104 ...

One in 10 babies are born preterm each year, says study

Sat, 05 May 2012 07:32:07 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 5 — Fifteen million babies, or one in 10 around the world, are born premature every year, and 1.1 million of those infants die, according to an UN-sponsored report released Wednesday. Premature birth is the leading cause of death for newborn infants and is on the rise globally, said the report led by the March of Dimes, The ...

Stress of war prompts soldiers to take Afghan dogs home

Fri, 04 May 2012 23:48:40 GMT

KABUL, May 5 — Spot made the clandestine journey from the Afghan Taliban stronghold of Helmand to the capital Kabul, where he is undergoing medical treatment before moving to the United States to live with the family of the Marine who rescued him. His ears clipped and tail severed from his days as a fighting dog, the surprisingly docile ginger and ...

Vogue slaps global ban on skinny, teeny models

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:37:47 GMT

NEW YORK, May 4 — The editors of all 19 editions of Vogue around the world pledged yesterday to use only healthy models no younger than 16 on their editorial pages in an attempt to shift fashion’s approach to body image. Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue’s flagship US edition, and Emmanuelle Alt of Paris Vogue, which touched off a furore in 2010 with ...