Recipes for Health: Warm Lentil Salad — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This recipe started out as something else. I had in my pantry a bag of mixed sprouted lentils – black, green, and brown. I cooked them with the intention of making dal, but I so liked the integrity of the cooked lentils – green and black lentils remain intact even after they soften – that I didn’t want to mash them. Meanwhile I had roasted some squash with balsamic vinegar. I ended up warming the lentils in a cumin-scented vinaigrette and serving them with the squash.

For the squash:

2 pounds kabocha or butternut squash, peeled and cut in small dice (about 3 cups peeled and diced, weighing 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds), or 1 large acorn squash, cut in half*

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (2 tablespoons if using acorn squash)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

 

For the lentils:

1 cup black lentils (also known as beluga lentils), green Le Puy lentils, or a mixture, rinsed

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 onion (intact)

1 quart water

Salt to taste

 

For the salad:

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon walnut oil

1/4 cup chopped or slivered flat leaf parsley

 

*If using acorn squash, place in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes before cutting in half and seeding. It will be much easier to cut.

1. Combine the lentils, ginger, turmeric, onion, water, and salt to taste in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook at a moderate bubble until the lentils have softened and produced a flavorful broth, about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove the onion and discard. Place a strainer over a bowl and drain the lentils.

2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. If using cut up squash, place in a bowl or directly on the baking sheet and toss with salt to taste, the balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Spread on the baking sheet in an even layer and make sure to tip all of the liquid remaining in the bowl over the squash. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes so that the squash browns evenly. The squash should be tender all the way through. Remove from the heat. If using acorn squash, spoon a tablespoon of the balsamic vinegar into both cavities, season with salt, brush with olive oil, and place cut side up on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, basting every 10 minutes, until thoroughly tender. Remove from the heat and when cool enough to handle remove the skin and cut the squash into dice.

3. In a small bowl or measuring cup whisk together the vinegars, mustard, salt and pepper, olive oil, and walnut oil. Toss with the lentils and return to the saucepan. Add a few tablespoons of the lentil broth, stir in the parsley and heat through.

4. Place the squash in the middle of a wide bowl or serving platter, surround with the lentil salad and serve.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Advance preparation: The cooked lentils will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. Keep the broth in a jar and moisten if desired when you reheat. The squash will keep for 2 or 3 days. Reheat gently in a pan or in a medium-low oven.

Nutritional information per serving (4 servings): 381 calories; 18 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 4 grams polyunsaturated fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 44 grams carbohydrates; 13 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 14 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 254 calories; 12 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 29 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 27 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Warm Lentil Salad — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This recipe started out as something else. I had in my pantry a bag of mixed sprouted lentils – black, green, and brown. I cooked them with the intention of making dal, but I so liked the integrity of the cooked lentils – green and black lentils remain intact even after they soften – that I didn’t want to mash them. Meanwhile I had roasted some squash with balsamic vinegar. I ended up warming the lentils in a cumin-scented vinaigrette and serving them with the squash.

For the squash:

2 pounds kabocha or butternut squash, peeled and cut in small dice (about 3 cups peeled and diced, weighing 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds), or 1 large acorn squash, cut in half*

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (2 tablespoons if using acorn squash)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

 

For the lentils:

1 cup black lentils (also known as beluga lentils), green Le Puy lentils, or a mixture, rinsed

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 onion (intact)

1 quart water

Salt to taste

 

For the salad:

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon walnut oil

1/4 cup chopped or slivered flat leaf parsley

 

*If using acorn squash, place in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes before cutting in half and seeding. It will be much easier to cut.

1. Combine the lentils, ginger, turmeric, onion, water, and salt to taste in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook at a moderate bubble until the lentils have softened and produced a flavorful broth, about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove the onion and discard. Place a strainer over a bowl and drain the lentils.

2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. If using cut up squash, place in a bowl or directly on the baking sheet and toss with salt to taste, the balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Spread on the baking sheet in an even layer and make sure to tip all of the liquid remaining in the bowl over the squash. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes so that the squash browns evenly. The squash should be tender all the way through. Remove from the heat. If using acorn squash, spoon a tablespoon of the balsamic vinegar into both cavities, season with salt, brush with olive oil, and place cut side up on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, basting every 10 minutes, until thoroughly tender. Remove from the heat and when cool enough to handle remove the skin and cut the squash into dice.

3. In a small bowl or measuring cup whisk together the vinegars, mustard, salt and pepper, olive oil, and walnut oil. Toss with the lentils and return to the saucepan. Add a few tablespoons of the lentil broth, stir in the parsley and heat through.

4. Place the squash in the middle of a wide bowl or serving platter, surround with the lentil salad and serve.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Advance preparation: The cooked lentils will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. Keep the broth in a jar and moisten if desired when you reheat. The squash will keep for 2 or 3 days. Reheat gently in a pan or in a medium-low oven.

Nutritional information per serving (4 servings): 381 calories; 18 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 4 grams polyunsaturated fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 44 grams carbohydrates; 13 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 14 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 254 calories; 12 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 29 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 27 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein

Read More..

Some Companies Seek to Wean Employees From Their Smartphones

Resolutions to change behavior are common at this time of year, but they usually involve exercising more or smoking less. Now, some companies are adopting policies aimed at weaning employees from their electronic devices.

Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times

Michelle Barry and Mark Jacobsen of Centric Brand Anthropology strive for the elusive work-life balance.

Atos, an international information technology company, plans to phase out all e-mails among employees by the end of 2013 and rely instead on other forms of communication. And starting in the new year, employees at Daimler, the German automaker, can have incoming e-mail automatically deleted during vacations so they do not return to a flooded in-box. An automatic message tells the sender which person is temporarily dealing with the employee’s e-mail.

No one is expected to be on call at all hours of the day and night, and “switching off” after work is important, “even if you are on a business trip,” said Sabrina Schrimpf, a Daimler spokeswoman, referring to the company’s recently released report, “Balanced! — Reconciling Employees’ Work and Private Lives.”

Disconnecting can be more challenging for business travelers who frequently work across time zones.

And there is a ripple effect, said Leslie A. Perlow, a professor of leadership at Harvard Business School and the author of “Sleeping With Your Smartphone.” “These guys fly in the middle of the night and send e-mails back to colleagues” who wait up, ready to respond.

A study conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found that while mobile phones were valued as a way to stay productive, there were downsides to being available at all times. The nationwide survey of 2,254 adults found that 44 percent of cellphone owners had slept with their phone next to their bed and that 67 percent had experienced “phantom rings,” checking their phone even when it was not ringing or vibrating. Still, the proportion of cellphone owners who said they “could live without it” has gone up, to 37 percent from 29 percent in 2006.

Sam Chapman, chief executive of Empower Public Relations in Chicago, said he used to feel phantom vibrations and frequently read and sent e-mail on his BlackBerry in the middle of the night. He slept poorly, did not feel refreshed in the morning and considered himself addicted. “I wanted to make sure that what happened to me didn’t happen to my employees,” he said.

So Mr. Chapman adopted what he called a BlackBerry blackout policy. He and his staff of about 20 turn off their BlackBerrys from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays and completely on weekends for all work-related use, with rare exceptions. “When I’m well rested, I show up to work ready to go,” he said.

He maintains that regimen while traveling, and said the policy had increased company productivity.

Professor Perlow agreed that companies could improve their bottom line by encouraging employees to disconnect at times. “Being constantly on actually undermines productivity,” she said.

But it is not always easy. In early 2012, when Michelle Barry, Mark Jacobsen and a third partner created Centric Brand Anthropology, a Seattle-based company that advises clients on brand strategy, design and culture management, they gave serious thought to the issue.

“A huge priority for us was to have a good balance between work-life,” said Mr. Jacobsen, Centric’s vice president and creative director. “Yet we have found that very difficult to do while working with large multinational clients,” which often require international travel and constant availability.

Being a start-up compounded those challenges. “Just because you can e-mail at 2 a.m., doesn’t mean it’s a good thing,” he said.

Centric encourages employees to prepare a week before a trip, designating a colleague as backup, informing clients about their travel plans, and trying to avoid deadlines immediately after they return. Employees are also encouraged to take spouses or partners on longer assignments and to build in downtime, said Ms. Barry, the company’s president and chief executive. When traveling, she said, “I make a commitment to myself not to stay up all night answering e-mails.”

Experts say there is no firm data for how many companies have policies restricting the use of electronic devices outside the office. “The companies I know actively encourage workers to stay connected after hours and on weekends,” said Dennis J. Garritan, a managing partner of the private equity firm Palmer Hill Capital and an adjunct professor at Harvard Business School.

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Central Africa’s Wildlife Rangers Face Deadly Risks

ZAKOUMA NATIONAL PARK, Chad — Just before dawn, the rangers were hunched over in prayer, facing east. They pressed their foreheads into the dry earth and softly whispered Koranic verses, their lips barely moving. A cool wind bit at their faces.

All of a sudden, Djimet Seid, the cook, said he heard “one war whoop — or maybe it was a scream.”

And then: “K-k-k-k-k-k-k,” the angry bark of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, opening up on fully automatic.

In an instant, an entire Chadian squad of rangers was cut down with alarming precision by elephant poachers who were skilled at killing more than just animals. Crouching in the bush, the poachers fired from a triangle of different spots, concealed and deadly accurate.

“If you go look at the infantry books, it’s exactly how you do a first light attack, exactly,” said Rian Labuschagne, a former paratrooper and now the manager of Zakouma National Park in southern Chad. “Our guys didn’t have a chance.”

Out here, among the spent bullet shells and the freshly dug graves, the cost of protecting wildlife is painfully clear. As ivory poaching becomes more militarized, with rebel groups and even government armies slaughtering thousands of elephants across Africa to cash in on record-high ivory prices, a horrible mismatch is shaping up. Wildlife rangers — who tend to be older, maybe a bit slower and incredibly knowledgeable about their environment and the ways of animals, but less so about infantry tactics — are wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers.

The outcome, too often, is not only firefights and battles, but also coldblooded murder, with dozens of African wildlife rangers killed in recent years, many in revenge-driven ambushes. Ivory poachers, it seems, are becoming increasingly wily and ruthless.

This summer, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a militia of infamous elephant poachers, sneaked up to the headquarters of a wildlife reserve and killed 5 people and 14 okapi, a rare animal with a giraffelike neck and zebralike legs. One guard who narrowly escaped said the attackers sliced open the chest of a downed colleague and ate his heart. In Zimbabwe, poachers are spreading deadly poisons on elephant carcasses to kill vultures. By taking out the birds that serve as a natural early warning system that a kill has been made, the poachers make it even more dangerous for rangers because they have no idea when the poachers are around. In Mozambique, the authorities said that poachers have recently begun using land mines.

Kenya, which is considered tame compared with some of these other places, has lost six rangers this year, more than in recent memory. One of them was Florence Hadia Abae, pregnant and the mother of a small boy. In March, she was following the footprints of suspected poachers near Tsavo National Park, a fabled tourist destination, when a poacher popped out of the bush and shot her in the face.

One of her colleagues was killed in the same ambush, shot in the leg, then finished off with a short, brutish stroke of an ax.

“They had no idea what they were walking into,” said Rob Dodson, a British conservationist working near Tsavo.

In the Zakouma attack, which happened about 50 miles outside the park boundaries in September, five rangers were killed on the spot; one remains missing and is presumed dead. Mr. Seid, the cook, was seriously wounded. The attack appeared to be revenge for a raid on a poachers’ camp, and much of the evidence points to the Sudanese military. For years, wildlife groups have blamed the janjaweed — Sudanese horseback raiders who traditionally work in tandem with the government military — for wiping out many of Central Africa’s elephant herds.

But specific evidence recovered from the poachers suspected of killing Zakouma’s rangers strengthens the Sudanese government link, the Chadian authorities and human rights groups say. A few weeks before the attack, Zakouma rangers raided a poachers’ camp nearby and discovered one uniform for Abu Tira, Sudan’s notorious paramilitary service, which has been blamed for burning down villages and committing other atrocities. The rangers also found several elephant tusks and a stamped leave slip from the Sudanese Army granting four soldiers permission to go to the Chadian border.

Most incriminating, though, were the digital photos recovered from a phone showing stacks of elephant carcasses that looked similar to photos from a horrific massacre of hundreds of elephants in Cameroon this year, suggesting that the Sudanese poachers who killed the Zakouma rangers may have been involved in one of the biggest single elephant slaughters in decades.

“This is not some random group of thugs,” said Jonathan Hutson, a spokesman for the Satellite Sentinel Project, a nonprofit group that helped analyze some of the evidence. “They’re poaching for profit to fund mass atrocities in Sudan.”

Officials at the United States Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, have also been helping analyze some of the forensics.

At first, Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman, reflexively dismissed the evidence.

“Pictures can be fabricated,” he said.

But then he added, “If there is concrete evidence, and someone is proven to be corrupt, he can be taken to court.”

Isma’il Kushkush contributed reporting from Khartoum, Sudan.

Read More..

Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

DNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition.

The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm.

The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust clearance by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some scientists, politicians and industry executives had said the takeover represented a threat to American competitiveness in DNA sequencing, a technology that is becoming crucial for the development of drugs, diagnostics and improved crops.

The fact that the $117.6 million deal was controversial at all reflects a change in the genomics community.

A decade ago, the Human Genome Project, in which scientists from many nations helped unravel the genetic blueprint of mankind, was celebrated for its spirit of international cooperation. One of the participants in the project was BGI, which was then known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

But with DNA sequencing now becoming a big business and linchpin of the biotechnology industry, international rivalries and nationalism are starting to move front and center in any acquisition.

Much of the alarm about the deal has been raised by Illumina, a San Diego company that is the market leader in sequencing machines. It has potentially the most to lose from the deal because BGI might buy fewer Illumina products and even become a competitor. Weeks after the BGI deal was announced, Illumina made its own belated bid for Complete Genomics, offering 15 cents a share more than BGI’s bid of $3.15. But Complete Genomics rebuffed Illumina, saying such a merger would never clear antitrust review.

Illumina also hired a Washington lobbyist, the Glover Park Group, to stir up opposition to the deal in Congress. Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, was the only member of Congress known to have publicly expressed concern.

BGI and Complete Genomics point out that Illumina has long sold its sequencing machines — including a record-setting order of 128 high-end machines — to BGI without raising any security concerns. Sequencing machines have not been subject to export controls like aerospace equipment, lasers, sensors and other gear that can have clear military uses.

“Illumina has never previously considered its business with BGI as ‘sensitive’ in the least,” Ye Yin, the chief operating officer of BGI, said in a November letter to Complete Genomics that was made public in a regulatory filing. In the letter, Illumina was accused of “obvious hypocrisy.”

BGI and Complete said that Illumina was trying to derail the agreement and acquire Complete Genomics itself in order to “eliminate its closest competitor, Complete.”

BGI is already one of the most prolific DNA sequencers in the world, but it buys the sequencing machines it uses from others, mainly Illumina.

Illumina, joined by some American scientists, said it worried that if BGI gained access to Complete’s sequencing technology, the Chinese company might use low prices to undercut the American sequencing companies that now dominate the industry.

Some also said that with Complete Genomics providing an American base, BGI would have access to more DNA samples from Americans, helping it compile a huge database of genetic information that could be used to develop drugs and diagnostic tests. Some also worried about protection of the privacy of genetic information.

“What’s to stop them from mining genomic data of American samples to some unknown nefarious end?” Elaine R. Mardis, co-director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an e-mail.

Dr. Mardis could not specify what kind of nefarious end she imagined. But opponents of the deal cited a November article in The Atlantic saying that in the future, pathogens could be genetically engineered to attack particular individuals, including the president, based on their DNA sequences.

BGI and Complete Genomics dismissed such concerns as preposterous.

Read More..

Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

DNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition.

The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm.

The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust clearance by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some scientists, politicians and industry executives had said the takeover represented a threat to American competitiveness in DNA sequencing, a technology that is becoming crucial for the development of drugs, diagnostics and improved crops.

The fact that the $117.6 million deal was controversial at all reflects a change in the genomics community.

A decade ago, the Human Genome Project, in which scientists from many nations helped unravel the genetic blueprint of mankind, was celebrated for its spirit of international cooperation. One of the participants in the project was BGI, which was then known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

But with DNA sequencing now becoming a big business and linchpin of the biotechnology industry, international rivalries and nationalism are starting to move front and center in any acquisition.

Much of the alarm about the deal has been raised by Illumina, a San Diego company that is the market leader in sequencing machines. It has potentially the most to lose from the deal because BGI might buy fewer Illumina products and even become a competitor. Weeks after the BGI deal was announced, Illumina made its own belated bid for Complete Genomics, offering 15 cents a share more than BGI’s bid of $3.15. But Complete Genomics rebuffed Illumina, saying such a merger would never clear antitrust review.

Illumina also hired a Washington lobbyist, the Glover Park Group, to stir up opposition to the deal in Congress. Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, was the only member of Congress known to have publicly expressed concern.

BGI and Complete Genomics point out that Illumina has long sold its sequencing machines — including a record-setting order of 128 high-end machines — to BGI without raising any security concerns. Sequencing machines have not been subject to export controls like aerospace equipment, lasers, sensors and other gear that can have clear military uses.

“Illumina has never previously considered its business with BGI as ‘sensitive’ in the least,” Ye Yin, the chief operating officer of BGI, said in a November letter to Complete Genomics that was made public in a regulatory filing. In the letter, Illumina was accused of “obvious hypocrisy.”

BGI and Complete said that Illumina was trying to derail the agreement and acquire Complete Genomics itself in order to “eliminate its closest competitor, Complete.”

BGI is already one of the most prolific DNA sequencers in the world, but it buys the sequencing machines it uses from others, mainly Illumina.

Illumina, joined by some American scientists, said it worried that if BGI gained access to Complete’s sequencing technology, the Chinese company might use low prices to undercut the American sequencing companies that now dominate the industry.

Some also said that with Complete Genomics providing an American base, BGI would have access to more DNA samples from Americans, helping it compile a huge database of genetic information that could be used to develop drugs and diagnostic tests. Some also worried about protection of the privacy of genetic information.

“What’s to stop them from mining genomic data of American samples to some unknown nefarious end?” Elaine R. Mardis, co-director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an e-mail.

Dr. Mardis could not specify what kind of nefarious end she imagined. But opponents of the deal cited a November article in The Atlantic saying that in the future, pathogens could be genetically engineered to attack particular individuals, including the president, based on their DNA sequences.

BGI and Complete Genomics dismissed such concerns as preposterous.

Read More..

Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

DNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition.

The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm.

The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust clearance by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some scientists, politicians and industry executives had said the takeover represented a threat to American competitiveness in DNA sequencing, a technology that is becoming crucial for the development of drugs, diagnostics and improved crops.

The fact that the $117.6 million deal was controversial at all reflects a change in the genomics community.

A decade ago, the Human Genome Project, in which scientists from many nations helped unravel the genetic blueprint of mankind, was celebrated for its spirit of international cooperation. One of the participants in the project was BGI, which was then known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

But with DNA sequencing now becoming a big business and linchpin of the biotechnology industry, international rivalries and nationalism are starting to move front and center in any acquisition.

Much of the alarm about the deal has been raised by Illumina, a San Diego company that is the market leader in sequencing machines. It has potentially the most to lose from the deal because BGI might buy fewer Illumina products and even become a competitor. Weeks after the BGI deal was announced, Illumina made its own belated bid for Complete Genomics, offering 15 cents a share more than BGI’s bid of $3.15. But Complete Genomics rebuffed Illumina, saying such a merger would never clear antitrust review.

Illumina also hired a Washington lobbyist, the Glover Park Group, to stir up opposition to the deal in Congress. Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, was the only member of Congress known to have publicly expressed concern.

BGI and Complete Genomics point out that Illumina has long sold its sequencing machines — including a record-setting order of 128 high-end machines — to BGI without raising any security concerns. Sequencing machines have not been subject to export controls like aerospace equipment, lasers, sensors and other gear that can have clear military uses.

“Illumina has never previously considered its business with BGI as ‘sensitive’ in the least,” Ye Yin, the chief operating officer of BGI, said in a November letter to Complete Genomics that was made public in a regulatory filing. In the letter, Illumina was accused of “obvious hypocrisy.”

BGI and Complete said that Illumina was trying to derail the agreement and acquire Complete Genomics itself in order to “eliminate its closest competitor, Complete.”

BGI is already one of the most prolific DNA sequencers in the world, but it buys the sequencing machines it uses from others, mainly Illumina.

Illumina, joined by some American scientists, said it worried that if BGI gained access to Complete’s sequencing technology, the Chinese company might use low prices to undercut the American sequencing companies that now dominate the industry.

Some also said that with Complete Genomics providing an American base, BGI would have access to more DNA samples from Americans, helping it compile a huge database of genetic information that could be used to develop drugs and diagnostic tests. Some also worried about protection of the privacy of genetic information.

“What’s to stop them from mining genomic data of American samples to some unknown nefarious end?” Elaine R. Mardis, co-director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an e-mail.

Dr. Mardis could not specify what kind of nefarious end she imagined. But opponents of the deal cited a November article in The Atlantic saying that in the future, pathogens could be genetically engineered to attack particular individuals, including the president, based on their DNA sequences.

BGI and Complete Genomics dismissed such concerns as preposterous.

Read More..

India Ink: Portrait Emerges of Victim in New Delhi Gang Rape

She was studious, mild-mannered and about to be married.

Her parents had sold off land and scrimped on food to pay for her and her brothers’ education. She came to India’s capital to pursue dreams of being a doctor, from a tiny farming village that regularly suffered drought and floods.

Details about the life of the 23-year-old New Delhi gang rape victim, who died on Saturday, began to trickle out over the weekend, as relatives and neighbors spoke publicly for the first time since the woman was raped by several men in a moving bus, assaulted with an iron rod and dumped on the side of a highway.

For nearly two weeks, as she battled for life, first at a hospital in New Delhi and then in Singapore, hundreds of Indians poured onto the streets in angry protests praying for her demanding justice. On Sunday, as the victim was cremated in a private ceremony in New Delhi, a picture emerged of her life, her family and her dreams. Her name has not been disclosed.

From a Hindu family of modest means, the victim, who was studying physiotherapy, was a “brilliant” and “hard working” student who had doggedly pursued a medical education. “She had made up her mind very early that she wanted to become a doctor,” The Hindu newspaper quoted Lalji Singh, who said he was the victim’s uncle.

The victim’s parents had moved to New Delhi from a small town called Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, among hundreds of Indians who migrate to large Indian cities in search of a better future for their children. Her father worked as a loader with a private airline at New Delhi’s international airport, according to The Hindustan Times.

He had invested heavily in his children’s education, even selling his ancestral property, “so that their aspirations could be fulfilled,” Mr. Singh was quoted as saying. Her father always encouraged her to shine in life, and, unlike many traditional families who save first for their daughter’s marriage, he spared no expense for her education, the Times of India said.

Her father’s sacrifices sparked in the victim a determination to succeed at an early age. As a teenager, she reportedly gave lessons to younger children to supplement the household income. A role model for those in her neighborhood, her parents hoped her two younger siblings would emulate her. She was determined to start earning so she could repay her father, Indian media reported.

On Sunday evening, reports suggested that the victim was preparing for her marriage in February. “They had made all the wedding preparations and had planned a wedding party in Delhi,” Agence France-Presse quoted Meena Rai, who said she had accompanied the victim on shopping trips.

Read More..

French Council Strikes Down 75% Tax Rate on Rich

PARIS — France’s Constitutional Council on Saturday struck down the Socialist government’s plan to impose a 75 percent marginal income tax rate on the wealthy, a measure that figured prominently among the campaign promises of President François Hollande and that had become a divisive emblem of his approach to cutting the budget deficit.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault quickly pledged that the government would reintroduce a revised version of the tax for next year to address the criticisms of the Constitutional Council, which ruled that the measure did not tax affected households equally.

The 75 percent rate was always a symbolic political gesture, as Mr. Hollande himself has acknowledged. It was to expire in two years and would have applied only to annual income above 1 million euros, or about $1.3 million, and so would have affected no more than a few thousand taxpayers.

Tax revenues from the measure would have reached just a few hundred million dollars, little more than a bucket of water in France’s deficit sea; the budget deficit is about $112 billion this year.

The council ruled that the tax was unfair because it would have applied unevenly to different households with the same combined income. A couple making a combined 1.5 million euros a year, for instance, would be exempt from the tax so long as both partners earned less than 1 million euros individually. If one partner earned more than 1 million euros, however, the couple would have been required to pay the 75 percent rate on their combined earnings of more than 1 million.

Mr. Hollande introduced the tax during his presidential campaign — a sharp break from his center-right rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had established a tax ceiling of 50 percent of earnings — to prove his leftist credentials in the face of a challenge from a candidate supported by the Communists, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Among the opposition on the right, politicians said the 75 percent rate was tantamount to theft, calling it “confiscatory” and insisting that it would drive investors and entrepreneurs out of the country. There have been reports and rumors of as many as 5,000 wealthy French citizens moving out of the country, though there are no official figures.

Most recently, in what has grown into a minor national scandal, it was revealed that the actor Gérard Depardieu would be taking up residence in Belgium, where there is no wealth tax and where the maximum income tax rate is 50 percent.

In France, without the 75 percent tax rate, the highest income tax rate will now be 45 percent. (With the invalidation of the 75 percent rate, French Twitter users have implored Mr. Depardieu to return to France, some facetiously, some not.) The 45 percent rate, which will apply to income above 150,000 euros, or about $198,000, is itself an increase from the previous top rate of 41 percent.

The Constitutional Council approved the increase in its ruling Saturday, along with several general elements of the government’s planned budget for next year: an increase in tax withholdings, the taxing of capital gains at the same rates as income tax and a rise in the wealth tax rates.

It invalidated a proposed 75 percent tax on complementary retirement pensions, however, calling it “confiscatory.” The council reduced the rate to 68 percent.

Mr. Hollande has committed to cutting France’s budget deficit, which stood at 4.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, to 3 percent next year. But he has emphasized tax increases rather than spending cuts. To meet the target, Parliament this month approved a spending freeze that would save about $13 billion, along with $26 billion in additional tax revenues — including those meant to come from the 75 percent rate — for the 2013 budget. But the budget was drawn up on the basis of the government’s growth estimate of 0.8 percent, a number viewed by many economists in France and elsewhere as unrealistically high.

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Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Tony Jones/Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated Press

Elwood V. Jensen in 2004.

Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said.

In 2004 Dr. Jensen received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, one of the most respected science prizes in the world.

When Dr. Jensen started his research at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, steroid hormones, which alter the functioning of cells, were thought to interact with cells through a series of chemical reactions involving enzymes.

However, Dr. Jensen used radioactive tracers to show that steroid hormones actually affect cells by binding to a specific receptor protein inside them. He first focused on the steroid hormone estrogen.

By 1968, Dr. Jensen had developed a test for the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. He later concluded that such receptors were present in about a third of those cells.

Breast cancers that are estrogen positive, meaning they have receptors for the hormone, can be treated with medications like Tamoxifen or with other methods of inhibiting estrogen in a patient’s system, like removal of the ovaries. Women with receptor-rich breast cancers often go into remission when estrogen is blocked or removed.

By the mid-1980s, a test developed by Dr. Jensen and a colleague at the University of Chicago, Dr. Geoffrey Greene, could be used to determine the extent of estrogen receptors in breast and other cancers. That test became a standard part of care for breast cancer patients.

Scientists like Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans, who shared the 2004 Lasker prize with Dr. Jensen, went on to show that many types of receptors exist. The receptors are crucial components of the cell’s control system and transmit signals in an array of vital functions, from the development of organs in the womb to the control of fat cells and the regulation of cholesterol.

Dr. Jensen’s work also led to the development of drugs that can enhance or inhibit the effects of hormones. Such drugs are used to treat prostate and other cancers.

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 13, 1920, to Eli and Vera Morris Jensen. He majored in chemistry at what was then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and had begun graduate training in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago when World War II began.

Dr. Jensen wanted to join the Army Air Forces, but his poor vision kept him from becoming a pilot. During the war he synthesized poison gases at the University of Chicago, exposure to which twice put him in the hospital. His work on toxic chemicals, he said, inspired him to pursue biology and medicine.

Dr. Jensen studied steroid hormone chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on a Guggenheim Fellowship after the war. While there, he climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, even though he had no mountaineering experience. He often equated his successful research to the novel approach taken by Edward Whymper, the first mountaineer to reach the Matterhorn’s summit. Mr. Whymper went against conventional wisdom and scaled the mountain’s Swiss face, after twice failing to reach the summit on the Italian side.

Dr. Jensen joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of surgery in 1947, working closely with the Nobel laureate Charles Huggins. He became an original member of the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research (now the Ben May Department for Cancer Research) in 1951, and became the director after Dr. Huggins stepped down.

He came to work at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and continued to do research there until last year.

His first wife, the former Mary Collette, died in 1982. In addition to his son, Dr. Jensen is survived by his second wife, the former Hiltrud Herborg; a daughter, Karen C. Jensen; a sister, Margaret Brennan; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Jensen’s wife was found to have breast cancer in 2005. She had the tumor removed, he said in an interview, but tested positive for the estrogen receptor and was successfully treated with a medication that prevents estrogen synthesis.

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