The aerospace technology of tomorrow – Video

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11-07-2012 13:07 Innovation is key at the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire, England. A week long international trade fair for the aerospace industry, where the technology of tomorrow is on show for all to see and where you get to glimpse of projects which, in a few short years, will become a reality. Taking gadgets to a new level, the European manufacturer Airbus introduced the iPad to its cockpit. The touch screen device used by millions on a daily basis can now be operated by pilots to carry out numerous performance calculations, even including the configuration of an aircraft's take-off. Didier Lux, Executive Vice President of Airbus Customer Services, explained: "Our children use it every day, so we must be able to provide the same type of technology to Airbus pilots, especially when it's so fantastic in terms of ergonomics, ease of access and data processing." Farnborough dedicated a special stand to innovation, where a number of projects from European universities are on display. Cardiff University exhibited its programme which identifies in real time, any damage caused to the structure of a plane. "The idea of this system is to pick up damage. So, to be able to very early on collect information about any damage in the structure and where it is and what kind of damage we've got. There are sensors actually embedded into the composite structure and they pick up a signal that comes off the damage as it grows, and by using that information we can work out exactly where ...

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The aerospace technology of tomorrow - Video

AirAsia, ST Aerospace ink maintenance pact

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ST Aerospace and AirAsia Bhd have signed a 10-year agreement for component repair management maintenance-by-the-hour (MBH) for the low-cost airline's Airbus A320 aircraft.

In a joint announcement today, ST Aerospace and AirAsia Bhd said the agreement is worth approximately US$80 million (US$1 = RM3.19).

ST Aerospace is currently supporting AirAsia on an existing MBH programme for 100 A320 aircraft. With this contract, ST Aerospace, will effectively support 175 of AirAsia's A320 aircraft.

AirAsia Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said through high aircraft utilisation and paramount importance placed on flight safety and quick turnaround time, the low-cost carrier has managed to achieve high efficiency in operations to keep costs low.

Meanwhile, ST Aerospace President Chang Cheow Teck said the company is honoured to further its partnership with AirAsia. He added that the contract marks a 10-year partnership between St Aerospace and AirAsia.

ST Aerospace first provided AirAsia's fleet of five Boeing 737-300 aircraft with component rotable management and support services in 2002. -- Bernama

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AirAsia, ST Aerospace ink maintenance pact

ST Aerospace Seals Component Repair Management MBHTM Contract with AirAsia

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Farnborough, London, 12 July 2012 ST Aerospace and AirAsia jointly announced today that the companies have signed a 10-year agreement worth approximately US$80m (S$102m). The contract involves component repair management Maintenance-By-the-Hour (MBHTM) support for 75 of AirAsias Airbus A320 aircraft, and is expected to commence immediately.

ST Aerospace is currently supporting AirAsia on an existing component repair management MBHTM programme for 100 A320 aircraft. With this contract, ST Aerospace will effectively support 175 of AirAsias A320 aircraft.

Through high aircraft utilisation and paramount importance placed on flight safety and quick turnaround time, AirAsia has managed to achieve high efficiency in operations to keep our costs low. ST Aerospace has been a reliable partner, consistently providing us with high quality and cost effective maintenance, repair and overhaul services. We have enjoyed 10 years of partnership, and we look forward to continuing this successful relationship. ~ Tony FERNANDES, Group CEO, AirAsia

ST Aerospace is honoured to further our partnership with AirAsia. This contract is a testimony to our performance and ability to provide our customers with safe and dependable maintenance, repair and overhaul solutions. It also reflects AirAsias confidence in ST Aerospaces services over the last decade. ST Aerospace is fully committed to building our relationship with AirAsia as the airline continues to grow its operations worldwide. ~ CHANG Cheow Teck, President, ST Aerospace

This contract marks the 10 years of partnership between ST Aerospace and AirAsia. ST Aerospace first provided AirAsias fleet of five Boeing 737-300 aircraft with component rotable management and support services in 2002. Through the years, ST Aerospace has steadfastly supported AirAsias fleet with an integrated range of solutions that includes airframe maintenance, avionics upgrades, cabin interior reconfiguration, component rotable and maintenance services, as well as engine MBHTM support. When it introduced its new fleet of 100 A320 aircraft in 2007, AirAsia extended its partnership with ST Aerospace for component repair management MBHTM services on this new aircraft fleet.

This contract is not expected to have any material impact on the consolidated net tangible assets per share and earnings per share of ST Engineering for the current financial year.

AirAsia, the leading and largest low-cost carrier in Asia, services the most extensive network with 150 routes. Within 10 years of operations, AirAsia has carried over 140 million guests and grown its fleet from just two aircraft to approximately 114. The airline today is proud to be a truly ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) airline with established operations based in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines servicing a network stretching across all ASEAN countries, China, India, Sri Lanka and Australia. This is further complemented by AirAsia X, its low-cost long-haul affiliate carrier that currently flies to destinations in China, Australia, Taiwan Iran, Korea and Japan. AirAsia was named the Worlds Best Low Cost Airline in the annual World Airline Survey by Skytrax for three consecutive years (2009, 2010, 2011).

ST Aerospace (Singapore Technologies Aerospace Ltd) is the aerospace arm of ST Engineering. Operating a global MRO network with facilities and affiliates in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe, it is the worlds largest commercial airframe MRO provider with a global customer base that includes leading airlines, airfreight and military operators. ST Aerospace is an integrated service provider that offers a spectrum of maintenance and engineering services that include airframe, engine and component maintenance, repair and overhaul; engineering design and technical services; and aviation materials and management services, including Total Aviation Support. ST Aerospace has a global staff strength of more than 8,000 engineers and technical specialists. Please visit http://www.staero.aero.

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ST Aerospace Seals Component Repair Management MBHTM Contract with AirAsia

Boehner says no decision on bringing farm and nutrition bill to the House floor

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WASHINGTON House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that no decision has been made on House consideration of a five-year, $500-billion farm and nutrition bill that has cleared the Senate and was approved earlier in the day by the House Agriculture Committee with some changes.

The bipartisan 35-11 vote by the committee shortly after midnight Thursday added to pressure on House Republican leaders to take a position on the far-reaching bill that will redesign safety nets for food producers, set conservation and energy policies and fund the food stamp program now helping feed 46 million Americans.

But GOP leaders have shown little enthusiasm for diverting from their election-year agenda for a bill that could take days to complete and could be difficult to pass. GOP conservatives don't like the high cost of the bill and the federal subsidies going to farmers while Democrats are unhappy with proposed cuts to the food stamp program.

Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., feels the committee did "an awful lot of good work," Boehner said at a weekly news conference. But "no decisions about it coming to the floor at this point," Boehner said.

The House will be in session for three more weeks before it leaves for its five-week summer break. After that there are only eight more legislative days in September. The current farm bill expires at the end of September.

"The House leadership needs to bring the farm bill to the floor for a vote," said Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. "Our nation's farmers and ranchers need the certainty of a new five-year farm bill and they need it before the current farm bill ends."

With droughts and weather disasters now hitting farmers, said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debby Stabenow, D-Mich., "failure to pass a farm bill or passing a short-term extension would add even more uncertainty and stress onto American farm families and small businesses."

Both the bill that passed the Senate last month and the House measure would end direct payments to farmers, even when they don't plant crops. Both put more emphasis on crop insurance, with the Senate creating a new taxpayer-financed revenue protection program that protects farmers from moderate losses before crop insurance kicks in. The House gives farmers a choice between the revenue support program and a pricing program, preferred by Southern rice and peanut farmers, that pays producers when prices dip below a certain level.

Both the House and Senate bills would reduce spending by about $1.9 billion a year over current levels through the changes in the commodity protection programs and consolidation of conservation programs. The House bill would save another $1.6 billion a year by targeting waste and abuse in the food stamp program, compared to $400 million in the Senate legislation. Food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, make up 80 percent of the farm bill's spending, nearly $80 billion a year.

"There are some good reforms in this bill. There are other parts of the farm bill that I have concerns with," Boehner said. He referred to what he said was "a Soviet-style dairy program in America today and one of the proposals in this farm bill would actually make it worse."

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Boehner says no decision on bringing farm and nutrition bill to the House floor

DNA that freed one man in 1985 St. Louis rapes convicts another

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ST. LOUIS DNA evidence that proved the innocence of a man imprisoned for 17 years in two rapes in 1985 led to the conviction Wednesday of Johnnie Moore, who had a record of other sex crimes.

A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated for only one hour including time for lunch before finding Moore, 55, guilty of two counts each of forcible rape and sodomy for separate attacks on girls 14 and 16.

Sentencing is set for Aug. 31. He could face prison terms of up to life without parole.

Both girls were accosted on the street and forced into secluded locations where they were attacked at knifepoint. The first was at Norwood and Maffit avenues on July 26, 1985, and the second at Lillian and Davidson avenues on Oct. 1, 1985.

Moore, of St. Louis, claimed on the witness stand Wednesday that sex with both was consensual. He alleged that the 14-year-old only called it rape because she was angry when he stopped after she revealed her young age.

But Assistant Circuit Attorney Christine Krug advised jurors not even to consider such a claim. Were it true, Krug noted, it would not have taken police 27 years to track down Moore, because the angry teen would have pointed to him from the start.

Instead, both teens initially identified the wrong man, Lonnie Erby, who spent 17 years in prison for those rapes and another until he was exonerated in 2003 by the same science that linked Moore to the crimes.

Moore was indicted in December 2010 after the victims were located and the match was confirmed.

Justice delayed? Yes, Krug said. Justice denied? No.

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DNA that freed one man in 1985 St. Louis rapes convicts another

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DNA leads to arrest in 1988 assault case

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July 13, 2012 1:14 am

By Sadie Gurman/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

DNA evidence stored in the Allegheny County crime lab helped a Pittsburgh police sex assault detective solve a decades-old rape case.

Stevey Darnell Kiser, 56, of San Diego was being held in the Allegheny County Jail on Thursday, charged with raping a woman at knife point in her Shadyside apartment building on Aug. 23, 1988.

The woman told police at the time that she was walking home from a friend's house and entering her apartment when a man hit her on the head, knocking her to the ground. The man raped her as she screamed and fought against him; she stopped when he threatened to kill her, Detective Aprill-Noelle Campbell wrote in a criminal complaint filed against Kiser. A fellow apartment-dweller heard her cries and saw a man holding a knife. The assailant darted across Fifth Avenue, down College Avenue and out of sight.

The woman was taken to UPMC Shadyside, where a rape kit was used to collect evidence, which later was processed by criminologists at the county lab.

Twenty-three years passed before the woman, who had been researching her case, contacted Detective Campbell. She told the detective she had been reading about "East End Rapist" Keith Wood, who was responsible for a series of brazen sexual assaults on women in the East End in 2002, and she wondered if DNA evidence gathered from her case had ever been compared to Mr. Wood's.

Detective Campbell wrote that she contacted Thomas Meyers, a scientist with the Allegheny County medical examiner's office, who told her that the woman's evidence had not been entered into the nationwide DNA database known as CODIS, or Combined DNA Index System, which catalogs the DNA of convicted felons. The medical examiner's office began performing DNA tests in 1995 and thus had not analyzed the evidence, Mr. Meyers told the detective, according to the criminal complaint.

The county lab has specimens from hundreds of unsolved cases dating to 1982. The CODIS system routinely checks DNA from unsolved cases against that of known criminals with the goal of finding a match, and police have made a push in recent years to add more cases, including missing persons and unidentified remains, to the database.

Detective Campbell received notice of a match in the rape case in April. Kiser lives in San Diego, where he was arrested in 2009 for driving a school bus with a loaded gun, a spokesman with the San Diego County district attorney's office said. Police charged him with a pair of felony firearms offenses, to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation. California law requires officers to collect DNA samples from all adults arrested for felonies, so Kiser's sample was added to the database.

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DNA leads to arrest in 1988 assault case

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One of four students on this country's International Biology Olympiad is from Bellarmine Prep in San Jose

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Photo courtesy of Bellarmine College Preparatory Nikhil Buduma wears the gold medal he recently won at the USA Biology Olympiad National Finals at Purdue University. Nihil, an incoming senior at Bellarmine College Preparatoy is now one of four students on the USA team heading to Singapore for the 23rd International Biology Olympiad, July 8-15.

Nikhil Buduma will start his senior year at Bellarmine College Preparatory a well traveled young man.

Nikhil is one of four high school students selected for the U.S. team competing in the 23rd International Biology Olympiad July 8-15 in Singapore.

Nikhil won his slot at the 10th annual USA Biology Olympiad National Finals held at Purdue University in June. There, he was competing in a field of 20, selected from more than 10,000 applicants.

At the two-week session at Purdue, leading U.S. biologists in the fields of cellular biology, biotechnology, microbiology, animal anatomy and physiology, plant anatomy and physiology, genetics and evolution, ethology, ecology and biosystematics worked with the 20 finalists.

Nikhil, who was a finalist for the second time, earned his spot with high scores on the practical and theoretical exam at the end of the USA Biology Olympiad.

"I'm extremely honored," Nikhil says of winning a place on the team. "I'll be studying hard for the competition, but I look forward to the preparation."

Rod Wong, chairman of the science department at Bellarmine, says, "Nikhil has been an outstanding science student since his arrival, and his participation and success in the USABO during the past two years has been amazing.

"He is a leader and a role model in the Bellarmine Science Club and will play a key role in the development of the new Bellarmine STEM-Med (Science, Technology, Engineering,

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One of four students on this country's International Biology Olympiad is from Bellarmine Prep in San Jose

Leading geneticist heralds digital age of biology

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The Irish Times - Friday, July 13, 2012

DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor

THE LINE separating the digital world and the biological world is blurring and may soon fade away. It will lead to a time when our personal biology will be transmitted across the internet at the speed of light, the geneticist Dr Craig Venter has said.

We are in waht I call the digital age of biology, he told a packed out audience assembled in the examination hall on the Trinity College campus, an event taking place as part of the ongoing EuroScience Open Forum based at the Convention Centre Dublin.

He pictured a time in the not too distant future when digitised biological samples collected at an influenza outbreak could be transmitted to a laboratory and analysed to identify a vaccine target.

The result would in turn be transmitted to vaccine manufacturers around the world to stop a pandemic before it could start. This is biology moving at the speed of light, Dr Venter said.

His talk, entitled: What is Life?, was a reprise of a series of lectures first given in 1943 at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies by physicist Erwin Schrdinger.

Although a physicist, Schrdinger delivered an lecture on the processes that control life, talks that later went on to inspire a generation of biologists.

One such biologist attended yesterdays talk, Nobel Prize winner James Watson. Also present was the Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who in a piece of interlocking history attended last nights lecture at Trinity just as his predecessor of 1943 had, one Eamon de Valara.

Dr Venter opened his address by declaring it was a considerable honour to be asked to deliver the presentation. He talked about the lectures and their impact, pointing out that the notion of a DNA code was first used by Schrdinger in his description of a code script.

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Leading geneticist heralds digital age of biology

Installation of new spectrometer gets under way on A&M campus

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Eagle photo by Dave McDermand Workers carefully line up placement Thursday for a super-conducting magnet that arrived on Texas A&Ms West Campus.

A 100-ton crane sat outside Texas A&M Universitys biochemistry and biophysics building Thursday not an uncommon site for the construction-heavy campus.

But the cranes presence had nothing to do with raising another new building. Instead, it was there to lift a four-metric-ton, 800 megahertz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer through an opening in the roof of the building.

The installation of the NMR, which will be complete in two to three months, puts A&M on par with other top national research institutions, Dr. Gregory Reinhart, head of the biochemistry and biophysics department, said.

NMR spectroscopy functions similar to the way an MRI takes images of the body, Reinhart said. NMR was developed first, and expanded into the imaging technique known as MRI. NMR, however, allows for higher precision for molecular information.

In NMR, we dont look at large objects, rather we look at individual molecules, like proteins and nucleic acids, Tatyana Igumenova, assistant professor and director of the NMR facility, said. This kind of instrument will allow us to determine the structure and dynamics of those molecules.

The NMR will be extremely powerful for research in drug design, Igumenova said.

You can identify potential drug candidates and use an NMR to determine where exactly they bind to the protein or enzyme, and what kind of effect they have on the structure and dynamics, Igumenova said.

With these capabilities, researchers will be able to design improved inhibitors to prevent the spread of disease.

The NMR, along with the upgrade and relocation of two other instruments to the NMR facility, cost a total of $2.7 million. The NMR itself cost more than $2 million, Reinhart said.

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Installation of new spectrometer gets under way on A&M campus

NLP – Eye Movements Don't Indicate Lying

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Editor's Choice Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry Article Date: 12 Jul 2012 - 14:00 PDT

Current ratings for: NLP - Eye Movements Don't Indicate Lying

5 (1 votes)

A lot of research has been done to establish whether there is a link between behavior and lying, but no one has looked into the popular notion that eye movement relates to whether a person is being truthful or not.

NLP advocates maintain that a person who is lying often looks up and to the left as you look at them, while a person telling the truth tends to look to the right. The relationship between eye movement and thought is an important part of the NLP framework, which is not only about reading other people but also learning to relate better to people, by having better communication skills.

Professor Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire, UK) and Dr Caroline Watt (University of Edinburgh, UK) investigated the idea by filming volunteer test subjects, as they either lied or told the truth. Their eye movements were then assessed in detail following a predefined method of describing their movement.

In their second study, a different group of people were asked to watch the video recordings and see if they could detect the lies based on the volunteers' eye movements.

Wiseman described the findings as conclusive:

The researchers conducted another trial to cross-check their findings in the real world. They examined press conferences where people were claiming to be victims of crimes or appealing for missing people, where the outcomes were already known.

Dr Leanne ten Brinke noted that:

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NLP - Eye Movements Don't Indicate Lying

Take An Inaugural Fundraising Cruise To Benefit Susan G. Komen For The Cure®

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CruisesOnly® and Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Team Up to Host a Group Cruise SailingWilmington, Mass. (PRWEB) July 12, 2012 Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and CruisesOnly®, America’s Largest Cruise Agency, and flagship brand in the World Travel Holdings(WTH) portfolio, are teaming up to offer [“A Cruise for the Cure®,” a unique group sailing fundraiser to raise money for breast cancer research ...

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Take An Inaugural Fundraising Cruise To Benefit Susan G. Komen For The Cure®

Worms Thrive Better Than Humans In Weightless Space

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July 12, 2012

John Neumann for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

When European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andr Kuipers first went to space in 2004 to the International Space Station (ISS), he took with him some microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans worms. A team of scientists from the U.S., Japan, France and Canada were interested in seeing how C. elegans reacted to living in weightlessness.

You may not need to stay awake at night worrying about space worms invading the planet but this species at least seemed to come back better for the trip.

Researchers found the worms came back with fewer toxic proteins in their muscles than if they had stayed on Earth, according to results published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports recently. Further investigation revealed that seven genes were less active in space.

Living on the ISS prevented certain genes from functioning normally and surprisingly, the worms seemed to function better without them.

Turning off these genes in a laboratory, researchers found that worms raised without the seven genes also lived longer and healthier. Nathaniel Szewczyk, a scientist from the project, explains: Muscle tends to shrink in space. The results from this study suggest that muscles are adapting rather than reacting involuntarily to space conditions.

Counterintuitively, muscles in space may age better than on Earth. It may also be that spaceflight slows the process of ageing.

Humans share around 55 percent of genes with C. elegans so the next step is to probe human muscle response to spaceflight.

After Andr finished his second mission to the ISS earlier this month, the astronaut himself was investigated as well.

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Worms Thrive Better Than Humans In Weightless Space

NASA Commercial Partner SpaceX Completes Dragon Design Review

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NASA partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed an important design review of the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft. The concept baseline review presented NASA with the primary and secondary design elements of its Dragon capsule designed to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station.

SpaceX is one of several companies working to develop crew transportation capabilities under the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Through CCDev2, NASA is helping the private sector develop and test new spacecraft and rockets with the goal of making commercial human spaceflight services available to commercial and government customers.

In the June 14 review conducted at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., SpaceX provided details about each phase of a potential crewed mission. This included how the company plans to modify its launch pads to support such missions, Dragon's docking capabilities, the weight and power requirements for the spacecraft, and prospective ground landing sites and techniques. The company also outlined crew living arrangements, such as environmental control and life support equipment, displays and controls.

"SpaceX has made significant progress on its crew transportation capabilities," NASA CCP Manager Ed Mango said. "We commend the SpaceX team on its diligence in meeting its CCDev2 goals to mature the company's technology as this nation continues to build a real capability for America's commercial spaceflight needs."

Safety was a key focus of the review. The SpaceX team presented NASA with analyses on how its SuperDraco launch abort system would perform if an emergency were to occur during launch or ascent. The review also outlined plans for getting astronauts away from danger quickly and safely on the way to low Earth orbit, in space and during the return home.

"The successful conclusion of the concept baseline review places SpaceX exactly where we want to be -- ready to move on to the next phase and on target to fly people into space aboard Dragon by the middle of the decade," said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk.

All of NASA's industry partners, including SpaceX, continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities under CCDev2.

While NASA works with U.S. industry to develop commercial spaceflight capabilities to low Earth orbit, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket, to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration of deep space. Designed to be flexible for launching crew and cargo missions, Orion and SLS will expand human presence beyond Earth and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

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NASA Commercial Partner SpaceX Completes Dragon Design Review

NASA solar flare photo: The sun burped

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NASA reports a X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun recently, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 10 AM PST. It erupted from a part of the sun known as Active Region 1520, which rotated into view on July 6.

Heres the image released by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. (NASA image)

If you think that looks pretty big, youre right. The flare has been classified as strong, meaning theres the potential for technological interference here on Earth mostly related to radio interruption and navigation malfunction.

The flight center reports there was a coronal mass ejection occurred simultaneously. These strong solar winds are associated with the aurora effect here on Earth, meaning we could be in for some pretty sights. Take a look at the aurora pictures in this gallery and see if you think if its worth the risk of electronic interruption.

A look at recent sunspots, ejections and flares.

An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. It erupted from Active Region 1520 which rotated into view on July 6.

An active region spurted off at least half a dozen solar flares and numerous other small bursts of plasma over about 36 hours (Apr. 29 - May 1, 2012). The bright active region, viewed in extreme ultraviolet light by Solar Dynamics Observatory, must have had a tangled magnetic field for it to erupt so frequently. None of the flares were major, but they made for a nifty movie. (NASA/SDO)

The sunspot region AR 1429 that generated several major solar storms recently. The spot is almost always changing as its magnetic fields realign themselves. (NASA)

A large sunspot region (AR1429) unleashed an X5 class flare (the second largest of this solar cycle) and a smaller one (X1) late on March 6, 2012, seen in extreme ultraviolet light by the SDO spacecraft. The bright flare (with several smaller flashes) was followed by a large coronal mass ejection that smacked Earth with a moderately strong geomagnetic storm two days later. (NASA)

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NASA solar flare photo: The sun burped

South Koreans athletes bet on traditional medicine

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JINCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korean athletes looking to stay in peak shape for the London Olympics are turning to Oriental rather than Western medicine to see off aches and sprains that could derail their medal chances.

While some athletes remain wary of remedies that are not certified due to doping concerns, for the vast majority regular treatment has boosted fitness and the ability to overcome injury quickly.

"I have had lots of physical therapy, which takes a long time to effect a cure, but Oriental therapy works faster. My pain halved after a day," Kim Yeon-koung from the Korean women's volleyball team told Reuters.

"I used to dislike it (acupuncture) due to the pain. Now I receive therapy regularly even if I am not hurt as my body has experienced benefits which I think boost my performance," said Kim, grimacing in pain while receiving acupuncture at a gym in Jincheon, 150 kilometres south of Seoul.

Park Jung-geu from the men's handball team said oriental medicine helped his muscles relax quickly.

"I can tell that I am getting better after being treated about three times, while physical therapy requires long, consistent treatment," he said.

Shin Joon-shik, chairman of a major traditional Korean hospital in Seoul, has treated high profile athletes such as football player Park Ji-sung, figure skating gold medallist Kim Yuna, baseball player Choo Shin-soo and golfer Paul Casey.

He said Korean traditional medicine helps to treat sprains and muscle injuries.

"Traditional Chinese medicines are more effective for chronic diseases while Korean medicines are for acute illness," he said.

Official data showed the number of oriental medicine clinics surged 32 percent to 12,292 in 2011 from 2004.

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South Koreans athletes bet on traditional medicine

Mystics-Liberty Preview

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Either the New York Liberty or Washington Mystics will head into the WNBA's Olympic break on a high note.

Given Washington's nearly year-long road winless drought, New York seems to be in good shape.

The Liberty look to send the Mystics to a 17th consecutive road loss while ending their own struggles Friday.

New York has lost six of nine after falling 84-82 at Indiana on Tuesday despite a season-high 33 points from Cappie Pondexter. The Liberty (6-11) have played the last seven games without Plenette Pierson (strained left knee) and the last three without Kia Vaughn (concussion), who are third and fourth on the team in scoring.

They trailed by as many as 12 points and rallied to take the lead in the fourth quarter, but the Fever hit a pair of late free throws to secure the win.

"Felt like we could have won the game," Pondexter said. "We had a chance."

Pondexter is averaging 23.8 points over her last four games and ranks third in the league with 19.9 per game. She scored a game-high 25 and Leilani Mitchell added 16 in a 76-70 road win over Washington on June 8.

She'll look to help New York head into the league's month-long break for the Olympics on a positive note with another victory over the Eastern Conference-worst Mystics, whose road skid continued with an 85-73 loss to Connecticut on Wednesday.

Washington (3-14), which has lost six straight road games versus New York, hasn't won away from home since beating Los Angeles 86-85 on July 17.

The Mystics, who have lost four straight and nine of 10 overall, were led Wednesday by Crystal Langhorne's 19 points, while Michelle Snow added 12 and seven rebounds.

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Mystics-Liberty Preview

Liberty's Malone says he should get premium in Sirius deal

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SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) - Liberty Media Corp Chairman John Malone has a message for Sirius XM Radio boss Mel Karmazin: "Don't forget about me." The two men have been locked in a battle for control of Sirius, the satellite radio company that Karmazin runs, but where Liberty ranks as controlling shareholder, with a 46 percent stake. In late May, Liberty told the U.S. Federal Communications ...

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Liberty's Malone says he should get premium in Sirius deal

1000 Islands Privateers officially in Watertown

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This section displays the last 50 news articles that were published.

Professional hockey is now officially in Watertown. The 1000 Islands Privateers introduced themselves to the city on Thursday. As our Brian Dwyer tells us, the team will become not only the hockey anchor for the area, but also plans to play a major role in the community.

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WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- After two seasons in Alexandria Bay, the 1000 Islands Privateers now officially have a new home.

"We're so enthusiastically happy about moving here," 1000 Islands Privateers owner Nicole Kirnan said. "We just see this as a tremendous opportunity. It's such a much more populated area. We're that much closer to Fort Drum."

The Privateers are a professional "A" level team that's designed to help teach and grow players, maybe even advancing their career to leagues like the ECHL. And as it gets ready to take the ice in a few months, the team promises to not only leave behind some of the on-ice issues it had in Alexandria Bay, but to bring a high quality product to Watertown that can compete for championships.

"We want to have a tough team," 1000 Islands Privateers head coach Paul Kelly said. "We want guys who are willing to go, pay the price and go the extra mile to be successful."

As part of that extra mile, the team promises to be great off the ice as well, saying it'll have players visiting schools, hospitals and helping at camps on off days.

"We understand that to make a team like this work, we need to be in the community. We can't just come in and expect people to support us, we need to support everything that's going on in the community," Kirnan said.

And for a city that's been looking for that anchor for its arena, Mayor Jeff Graham says the Privateers are a great fit.

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1000 Islands Privateers officially in Watertown

Islands Trust is looking for input

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Islands Trust is looking for input