Japan launches 'Hayabusa' bullet train

TOKYO: Japan's latest bullet train, the thin-nosed "Hayabusa" or Falcon, made its 300 kilometre per hour (186 mph) debut Saturday, boasting a luxury carriage modelled on airline business class.

Japan has built up a network of cutting-edge Shinkansen train lines since the 1960s that criss-cross the island nation and now hopes to sell the infrastructure technology abroad, including to the United States.

The latest ultra-fast tech-marvel will make two trips a day from Tokyo to Aomori, a scenic rural backwater on the northern tip of the main Honshu island that has until now been off Japan's bullet train map. It will also make one more trip a day to Sendai, located between Tokyo and Aomori.

Mutsutake Otsuka, chairman of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), stressed the engineering sophistication of the new ride. "To the best of our ability, we will strive to improve Hayabusa's passenger comfort, safety and environmental friendliness, not just its speed," he told hundreds of people who came to Tokyo station to see the futuristic train.

The mood at the launch was dampened slightly by a seven minute delay to the first service after a passenger fell from the platform at Tokyo station, where more than 1,000 train hobbyists rushed to take pictures. The train was not moving at the time, and the man climbed back up to the platform unaided.

The green-and-silver E5 series Hayabusa travels at up to 300 kilometres per hour to make the 675 kilometre trip to Aomori in three hours and 10 minutes. From next year, it will push its top speed to 320 kilometres per hour to become Japan's fastest train.

Passengers will glide quietly along the straight stretches and tunnels that cut through Japan's mountainous countryside, said JR East, which has heavily promoted the launch of the new service.

Those willing to pay 26,360 yen ($320) for a one-way trip can enjoy the comfort of a 'GranClass' car, where a cabin attendant will serve them drinks and food in their deeply reclining leather seats on thick woollen carpets.

To promote the service, the train company has also heavily advertised Aomori as a tourist destination, praising its landscape, seafood and winter snow.

Japan's ultra-fast, frequent and punctual bullet trains have made them the preferred choice for many travellers, rather than flying or road travel, ever since the first Shinkansen was launched in time for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. But as Japan, and its railway companies, struggle with a fast-greying and shrinking population and falling domestic demand, the government and industry are aggressively seeking to promote the bullet trains abroad.

Japan has in the past sold Shinkansen technology to Taiwan and hopes to capture other overseas markets, such as Brazil and Vietnam, but faces stiff competition from train manufacturers in China, France and Germany.

The biggest prize is a future high-speed US rail network that President Barack Obama has promoted, to be backed by 13 billion dollars in public funding. California's then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was treated to an early test ride on the Hayabusa when he visited Japan in September.

Japan says its trains boast a strong safety record: despite running in an earthquake-prone country, no passenger has ever died due to a Shinkansen derailment or collision -- although people have committed suicide by jumping in front of the trains. Japan has also been developing a magnetic levitation or maglev train that, its operator says, reached a world record speed of 581 kilometres per hour in 2003 on a test track near Mount Fuji in Tsuru, west of Tokyo.

Researchers make key memory cells in lab dish

CHICAGO: U.S. researchers have coaxed stem cells into becoming a type of brain cell that dies off early in people with Alzheimer's disease.

The new technology would provide a ready supply of cells for use in testing new drugs or even transplants to help restore lost memory, the team reported on Friday in the journal Stem Cell.

While most Alzheimer's research is done in genetically modified mice, the new technique would allow researchers to study a key aspect of the disease in human cells.

"These are cells that are critically important for memory functions," said Dr. Jack Kessler of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who worked on the study.

Kessler said the team used embryonic stem cells to create the neurons, which are thought to be among the earliest brain cells lost in Alzheimer's disease.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, the source of all other cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old human embryos, are especially pliable.

The technique to convert stem cells into neurons was developed by Christopher Bissonnette, a former doctoral student in Kessler's lab, who was inspired by the death of his own grandfather from Alzheimer's disease, a fatal brain-wasting form of dementia that affects memory, thinking and behavior.

When Kessler and Bissonnette implanted the newly grown nerve cells into the brains of mice, they functioned normally, producing nerve fibers called axons and making the brain chemical acetylcholine, used to retrieve memories from other parts of the brain.

The researchers say the technique can produce an almost infinite number of these cells, giving other scientists the chance to study these cells.

ORDINARY SKIN CELLS

The team has used the same approach to make induced pluripotent stem cells, in which ordinary skin cells are reprogrammed into an embryonic-like state. Using these cells, also known as iPS cells, the researchers converted them into brain cells or neurons.

The advantage of iPS cells, Kessler said, is they can be made from people with known Alzheimer's disease, allowing researchers to study differences between healthy cells and diseased cells.

The team made neurons from Alzheimer's patients, healthy people with no family history of Alzheimer's, and people who are healthy but have a genetic predisposition to develop the disease.

"These are real people with real disease. That's why it's exciting," Kessler said.

Kessler said the technology is far from ready, but that eventually it may be possible to make replacement memory cells that can be transplanted into people with Alzheimer's.

"This is exactly the type of fundamental research that is needed," William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, said in an e-mail.

"Knowing more about what causes and prevents brain cell death in Alzheimer's disease will undoubtedly be important for the development of future Alzheimer's treatments."

EU drops Hollywood studios probe

BRUSSELS: European regulators dropped a probe into deals done by major Hollywood film studios that it feared would stifle access to digital screens for low-budget European movies.

"I am pleased that Hollywood studios considered our legitimate concerns and modified the contracts so that cinema-goers can watch both Hollywood blockbusters but also small budget and art-house films with the latest state-of-the-art technology," said Joaquin Almunia, European Union competition commissioner.

"As the majors concerned have modified those contracts, all ends well, like in a good film," Almunia's spokeswoman added.

Almunia's office said that an antitrust investigation probing investment deals concluded during the switchover from film projection to digital cinemas had closed after the big producers changed the terms of contracts signed.

"Several major US Hollywood film studios revised contract provisions relating to the financing and installation of digital projection equipment in cinemas," the commission said in a statement.

"The changes proposed by major Hollywood film studios will make it easier for independent and art-house distributors to have access to cinemas equipped with digital equipment," it said.

France to enforce veil ban from April

PARIS: A New French law banning full-face veils in public places will take effect from next month - a move widely accepted as targeting the country's Muslim population.

The law follows France's burqa ban, which outlawed the wearing of the full-length garment worn by women in Islamic traditions. From 11 April, the full-face veil will be illegal to wear in public places - on the street, in the supermarket, in classrooms, in museums, on buses and in parks. The only exceptions to a woman wearing the niqab in public will be if she is travelling in a private car or worshipping in a religious place.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of trying to secure the vote of the far-right with the new legislation. Critics have pointed out that tiny minority of women in France wear full niqab - Muslim groups have estimated that just a few hundred people, in a country with a population of five million, wear the garment.

Those falling foul of the new law will face fines of €150 and be forced to attend a citizenship class, which will outline the 'secular values' of the republic. Although, confusingly, Sarkozy gave a speech praising the "Christian heritage of France", reports British daily newspaper.