Bad sleep 'dramatically' alters body

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News  

A run of poor sleep can have a potentially profound effect on the internal workings of the human body, say UK researchers.

The activity of hundreds of genes was altered when people's sleep was cut to less than six hours a day for a week.
Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers said the results helped explain how poor sleep damaged health.
Heart disease, diabetes, obesity and poor brain function have all been linked to substandard sleep.
What missing hours in bed actually does to alter health, however, is unknown.
So researchers at the University of Surrey analysed the blood of 26 people after they had had plenty of sleep, up to 10 hours each night for a week, and compared the results with samples after a week of fewer than six hours a night.
More than 700 genes were altered by the shift. Each contains the instructions for building a protein, so those that became more active produced more proteins - changing the chemistry of the body.

Egypt suspends Luxor balloon flights after deadly crash

Governor of Luxor, Ezzat Saad: "I would like to offer my condolences"

The Egyptian authorities have suspended all hot air balloon flights near Luxor and launched an investigation following the deaths of 19 tourists in a crash.

Hong Kong, Japanese, British, French and Hungarian nationals were among those killed on Tuesday morning.
A landing rope is reported to have got caught around a helium gas tube and severed it, after which a fire erupted and the balloon shot up into the air.
It then plunged some 300m (1,000ft) to the ground in a field west of the city.
The pilot and one passenger survived by jumping out of the basket.

UN report Torture in Afghan prisons is widespread

BBC's Quentin Somerville said the report details use of electric shock to extract confessions.

The United Nations says torture in Afghan prisons continues to be widespread despite its recommendations in a similar report in 2011.

More than half of the 635 detainees interviewed by UN investigators said they had been ill-treated or tortured.
The Afghan government says the claims are exaggerated, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says.
Nato's force in Afghanistan, Isaf, has suspended the transfer of detainees to facilities named in the report.
The report, by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), focused on detainees in facilities run by both national and local police forces and the intelligence services, the NDS, between October 2011 and October 2012.
Impunity charge It identified 14 methods of torture and ill-treatment practices, including beatings, a threat of execution and sexual abuse. Some were given electric shocks to extract confessions or obtain information.

Mali conflict French troops enter Diabaly

 

France says it will not leave until the whole of northern Mali is recaptured

A column of French and Malian troops has entered the key central Malian town of Diabaly, without resistance from militant Islamists, officials say.

About 30 armoured vehicles carrying some 200 French and Malian soldiers moved into the town, said an AFP reporter with the soldiers.
The Islamists fled the town on Friday after it was hit by French airstrikes.
France launched its military action in Mali more than a week ago to end the Islamist control of northern Mali.
France has sent some 2,000 troops to help Malian forces fight the militants, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
It has called on West African countries to speed up the deployment of a regional force of more than 3,000.

An Islamist group in Nigeria, says it carried out an attack last week which killed two Nigerian troops as they prepared to deploy to Mali.

Ansaru said it targeted the troops because the Nigerian military was joining efforts to "demolish the Islamic empire of Mali".

Greek parliament passes new tax increases

 

Austerity measures have triggered mass protests in recent months

The Greek parliament has approved a series of unpopular tax rises aimed at boosting revenue in line with Athens' commitments to international creditors.

The measures, approved overnight, introduce a new top tax rate of 42% for Greeks earning more than 42,000 euros (£34,700; $56,000) a year.
Corporate rates also go up and the tax base now includes low-earning farmers.
Greece has been kept solvent by huge rescue loans from its EU partners and the IMF since May 2010.
The Conservative-led government insists the new measures, designed to raise up to 2.3bn euros this year, are fair.

Jimmy Savile scandal: Report reveals decades of abuse

 

Children as young as eight were abused by Jimmy Savile, a report detailing 50 years of allegations has revealed.

The Met Police and NSPCC outlined offences at 13 hospitals, including Great Ormond Street in London and Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds.
Some 214 crimes were recorded across 28 police force areas, including 34 of rape or penetration, the report said.
The CPS apologised for missing the opportunity to prosecute Savile in 2009, while he was still alive.
Police said the victims' accounts painted a "compelling picture of widespread sexual abuse by a predatory sex offender", and Cdr Peter Spindler, who is leading the investigation, said Savile had "groomed the nation".
And the NSPCC said Savile was one of the most prolific sex offenders in its 129-year history.
'Sincere apology' The former BBC presenter of Top Of The Pops and Jim'll Fix It, who also worked as a Radio 1 DJ and received a knighthood in 1990, died aged 84 in October 2011 - a year before the allegations emerged in an ITV documentary.
Revelations that Savile had sexually abused children prompted hundreds of victims to come forward, including those who said they were attacked on BBC premises and a number of other institutions.

NSPCC director of child protection advice and awareness Peter Watt said: "The sheer scale of Savile's abuse over six decades simply beggars belief.
"He is without doubt one of the most prolific sex offenders we have ever come across and every number represents a victim that will never get justice now he is dead."
The Giving Victims a Voice report set out the findings of Operation Yewtree, which launched three months ago to investigate the Savile abuse claims.

Galaxy crash sparks large spiral

 

  The ultraviolet range that Galex can see in revealed a wealth of new stars at the galaxy's outer reaches

Astronomers have spotted the largest known spiral galaxy - by accident.

A team was looking through data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) satellite for star-forming regions around a galaxy called NGC 6872.
But they were shocked to see a vast swathe of ultraviolet light from young stars, indicating that the galaxy is actually big enough to accommodate five of our Milky Way galaxies within it.
The find was reported at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.
NGC 6872, a galaxy about 212 million light-years away in the constellation Pavo, was already known to be among the largest spiral galaxies.
Near it sits a lens-shaped or lenticular galaxy called IC 4970, which appears to have crashed through the spiral in recent astronomical times.