Most recipes and producers of curry powder usually include coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, and red pepper in their blends.

Turmeric extracts, one of curry spices have long been used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine.

Curcimins, the yellow pigment in turmeric, is known for having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Research has suggested inflammation plays an important role in the development of a range of diseases, including heart disease, and curcumins could have an effect on those pathways, said Bharat Aggarwal, who studies the use of curcumins in cancer therapy at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

The researchers studied 121 patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at their hospital between 2009 and 2011.

Half of those patients were given one-gram curcumin capsules to take four times a day, starting three days before their surgery and continuing for five days afterwards. The other half took the same number of drug-free placebo capsules.

The researchers found that during their post-bypass hospital stays, 13 per cent of patients who’d been taking curcumins had a heart attack, compared to 30 per cent in the placebo group.

After accounting for any initial pre-surgery differences, Wongcharoen and his colleagues calculated that people on curcumins had a 65 per cent lower chance of heart attack.

Researchers said it’s likely that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumins may have helped limit heart damage in the patients.

‘Curcumin has for many years now been shown to reduce inflammation and to reduce oxygen toxicity or damage caused by free radicals in a number of experimental settings,’ commented Jawahar Mehta, a cardiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

‘But that doesn’t mean that this is a substitute for medication,’ he said, noting that drugs like aspirin, statins and beta blockers have been proven to help heart patients and people in the current study were taking those as well.

The study was published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

A second psychiatric evaluation of the Norwegian mass killer Breivik has found him sane enough to face trial and a jail term.

The findings contradict a previous evaluation, published in November, that found him legally insane.

Both reports will be considered by the court when it decides whether he should be sent to a psychiatric ward or jail.

The new assessment was made by psychiatrists Terje Toerrissen and Agnar Aspaas on a request from the court after widespread criticism against the first diagnosis.

“Our conclusion is that he is not psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now,” Toerrissen told The Associated Press.

Breivik has always insisted he is mentally stable, admitting he carried out the attacks and saying they were an atrocious but necessary part of a ‘crusade’ against multiculturalism and Islam, but denying charges of terrorism.

The latest assessment is likely to be welcomed by Breivik and his lawyers.

If the court concludes that he was sane at the time of the killings then Breivik could face 21 years in prison with the potential for indefinite extensions to his term as long as he is considered a danger to the public.

The seeds, stored away by squirrels, were found in the Siberian permafrost. They were grown back to life into full flowering plants by scientists in Russia.

A map showing the location of squirrel burrows in Siberia found to contain thousands of ancient seeds.

The latest findings could be a landmark in research of ancient biological material and the bid to potentially revive other species, including some that are extinct.

The previous record for feasible regeneration of ancient plant was with 2,000-year-old date palm seeds at the Masada fortress near the Dead Sea in Israel.

The scientists emphasize the importance of permafrost itself in the “search of an ancient genetic pool, that of preexisting life, which hypothetically has long since vanished from the earth’s surface”.

The latest success is older by a significant order of magnitude, with researchers saying radiocarbon dating has confirmed the tissue to be 31,800 years old, give or take 300 years.

The permafrost essentially acted as a giant freezer, and the squirreled-away seeds and fruit resided in this closed world, undisturbed and not thawed, at an average of minus 7 degrees Celsius (19 degrees Fahrenheit) for tens of thousands of years.

All burrows were found at depths of 20-40 meters (65 to 130 feet) from the present day surface and located in layers containing bones of large mammals such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, deer, and other representatives of fauna from the Late Pleistocene Age.

Scientists were able to grow new specimens from such old plant material in large part because the burrows were quickly covered with ice, and then remained “continuously frozen and never thawed,” in effect preventing any permafrost degradation.

In their lab near Moscow, the scientists originally sought to grow plants from mature S. Stenophylla seeds, but when that failed, they turned to the plant’s placental tissue, the fruit structure to which seeds attach, to successfully grow regenerated whole plants in pots under controlled light and temperature.

Scientists have known for years that certain plant cells can last for millennia under the right conditions.

Some earlier claims of regeneration have not held up to scientific scrutiny, but the Yashina/Gilichinsky team was careful to use radiocarbon dating to ensure that the seeds and fruit found in the permafrost were not modern contaminants from S. Stenophylla, which still grows on the Siberian tundra.

Colombian churchgoers and parishioners mourn the two killed priests.

Two of the alleged killers are being prosecuted after being traced from calls made from the priests’ phones.

Prosecutors allege the priests paid the suspected hitmen around US$ 8,500 (£5,440) to kill them and make it look like a robbery attempt.

The two priests had been friends since their training and often celebrated Mass and other religious services together, Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper reported.

The prosecutors said the priests had agreed a suicide pact after one of them was diagnosed with AIDS, but contracted hitmen because they could not bring themselves to carry it out.

Relatives of the dead priests insist they were victims of an armed robbery.

They have denied reports that they were involved in a gay relationship.

Suicide, like homosexual acts is forbidden in the Catholic Church.

In their final Catholic church service before their death, priest Reatiga asked parishioners to pray to Santa Marta, the patron saint of lost causes, the paper reported, while priest Piffano asked his to “pray for me”.

The ship was docked in Zhenjiang city on the Yangtze river when it leaked phenol, an acid used in detergents into the water because of a faulty valve, local authorities reported.

It is the nation’s second water pollution scare in a month, after factories in the southern region of Guangxi contaminated water supplies for millions with toxic cadmium and other waste in January.

Residents started complaining their tap water had a strange smell on Friday, and soon rumours that a capsized ship was polluting the river sparked a run on bottled water in at least two cities in Jiangsu province, the Shanghai Daily said.

With the incident, panic buying of bottled water for a couple of days as a supermarket shelf stripped nearly bare as a customer loaded water bottles into a shopping cart.

However, it stopped by the time consumers receive notice and assurance from the government that the tap water is safe for public consumption.

The water quality had now returned to normal, the government of Zhenjiang, in Jiangsu, said in a statement.

The spilled chemical phenol, also called carbolic acid, can irritate the eyes and skin, damage the liver and kidneys, and impair the nervous system if absorbed, according to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Before hand a more serious environmental scandal in Guangxi, where a 300-kilometre (190-mile) section of the Longjiang River was polluted by toxic cadmium and other waste.

Many waterways in China have become heavily contaminated with toxic waste from factories and farms pollution blamed on more than three decades of rapid economic growth and lax enforcement of environmental protection laws.

In view of violation by some people on environmental laws, authorities have so far detained at least eight company executives and punished nine government officials over the case.

>

South Korean intelligence apparently had no information about Kim Jong Il’s death two days ago until North Korea announced it.

According to the North’s TV broadcasts, the 69-year-old leader died of a heart attack Saturday during a train trip.

South Korean officials are under public and media fire for their apparent failure to collect credible intelligence on the sudden death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The lapse in intelligence on North Korea kept President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea in the dark until the North’s announcement, the sources said.

According to Seoul government sources, there was no inside intelligence that indicated the North’s announcement would be about the leader’s death.

When North Korea’s state television aired the news of Kim’s death, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin was in parliament briefing lawmakers on a defense reform bill. He rushed back to his ministry after being informed of the news.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was also on a tour of a front-line unit when the news broke out.

In May, the South Korean government also came under fire for failing to collect accurate information about the North Korean leader’s trip to China.

At that time, officials said that Kim’s heir-apparent son, Jong-un, was accompanying his father on the China trip, but he actually did not.

Ministers meeting in Brussels also working on other measures that could target Iran’s energy sector.

The Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

The sanctions follow a UN report, that Iran had carried out tests related to ‘development of a nuclear device’.

But despite the report, Iran was not referred to the UN Security Council because Russia and China were opposed to the move.

Last week the US, Canada and the UK announced new sanctions against Iran in the wake of the report from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Britain announced on Wednesday it was expelling all Iranian diplomats from London, after pulling its own out of Tehran.

Ahead of the Brussels talks, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said he wanted ‘an intensification of the economic pressure’, particularly the isolation of Iran’s financial sector.

The 27-member EU has already frozen the assets of hundreds of Iranian companies and has adopted measures to prevent new investment and technological assistance to Iran’s gas producing and refining industry.

The EU is yet to release details about the 180 officials and entities targeted by the sanctions.

Correspondents say foreign ministers failed to agree on an oil embargo against Iran because some EU countries are dependent on Iranian oil.

A US$ 1.6 million (1 million pounds) will be given every two years for a ‘groundbreaking advance in engineering which has led to significant international public benefit’.

Former British Petroleum (BP)chief executive and charitable trust head John Browne who oversee the awards has this to say: “Engineering underpins every aspect of our lives. As the bridge between scientific discovery and commercial application, engineering feeds and clothes us and enables us to work, travel and communicate.
“But too often the engineers behind the most brilliant innovations remain hidden. The Queen Elizabeth Prize aims to change that.”

The prize, the world’s biggest, will be given to an individual or team of up to three people after deliberations by an international judging panel of experts.

Trustees believe it will inspire youngsters to study engineering and generate pioneering new ideas.

The first awarding of the prize will take place in December 2012.

Prime Minister David Cameron hoped the award would “carry the same stature as the Nobel Prizes” .

Firms who sponsor the awards will be launched at the Science Museum in London, among them are defense giant BAE Systems, oil producer Shell and drugs company GlaxoSmithKline.

During his visit to the State Department, the two time Oscar winner said that diplomacy is cheaper than war especially in this hard economic times.

“People don’t take the time to understand just how important diplomacy is. It takes a long time, it’s quiet but it’s certainly a lot cheaper than a war,” the veteran actor said.

Douglas approved the employment of diplomacy that led to the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between Russia and the United States in February.

The agreement reduces existing warhead ceilings between two countries by 30 percent over the next decade and restricts each side to 700 deployed long-range missiles and heavy bombers.

The actor could not hide his concern on Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the risk that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

In his visit to the State Department, Douglas wanted to discuss with its officials about the Ploughshares Fund’s nonproliferation and arms control efforts and issues relative to President Barack Obama’s Prague Agenda.

The flood water is filthy, and there is a very real risk of waterborne or communicable diseases such as diarrhea and skin infections taking hold among the local residents if they can’t maintain basic standards of hygiene.

The next threat could be lurking in the floodwater where a a two-meter (6.5-ft) snake was caught by a motorcycle taxi driver and residents have also had to contend with crocodiles escaping from flooded farms with some already caught by local residents.

Seven of Bangkok’s 50 districts, all in the northern outskirts are heavily flooded, and residents have fled aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks and by wading in waist-deep water. Another eight districts have seen less serious flooding.

The higher than normal tides in the Gulf of Thailand, expected to peak tomorrow, are obstructing the flood runoff from the north of the country, and there are fears that the overflows could hit parts of the city center.

The government is also worried that major barriers could break. This morning’s high tide passed without a major breach, but the waters briefly touched riverside areas closer to the city’s central businesses districts of Silom and Sathorn.

The flood walls protecting much of the inner city are 2.5 meters, and tomorrow’s high tide is expected to reach 2.6 meters (8.5ft).

Economic analysts have quoted that damage estimates of US$ 6 billion (£3.7 billion) could double if floods swamp Bangkok.

The floods, the heaviest in Thailand in more than half a century, have drenched a third of the country’s provinces, killed close to 400 people and displaced more than 110,000 others.

The water has crept from the central plains south toward the Gulf of Thailand. It is surrounded by massive pools of water flowing around and through the city via a complex network of canals and rivers.