A sperm donor is the natural or biological father of every child produced as a result of his donations.
Sperm donors may be selected on the grounds of looks, personality, academic ability, race, and many other factors.
It is increasingly popular among unmarried women, single and coupled lesbian and married women whose husbands suffer male infertility problems.
However, Have you ever imagined how the society around you would look like if there were kids born of one sperm donor?
The children would
1.probably look alike,
2.probably attend the same school(s) in the area,
3.probably end up going on a date together. An accidental incest between half brothers and sisters.
But more over it rises concern in some experts in genetics. There could be a possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely.
Although other countries, including Britain, France and Sweden, limit how many children a sperm donor can father, there is no such limit in the United States.
Source NewYork Times
Friday, September 9, 2011
Saturday, September 25, 2010
HIV among gays in the US
WASHINGTON: One in five sexually active homosexual men in the US has HIV, and almost half of those who carry the virus do not know they are infected, a study has found.
The findings were published this week to precede US National Gay Men's HIV Awareness Day on Monday.
''This study's message is clear: HIV exacts a devastating toll on men who have sex with men in America's major cities, and yet far too many of those who are infected don't know it,'' said Kevin Fenton, director of the centres' National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.
In the earlier study, 46 per cent of gay black men tested positive, compared with 40 per cent in the more recent study, Hispanics represented 18 per cent of the infected compared with 23 per cent in the more recent study and White men comprised 21 per cent of the infected in 2004-05 and 20 per cent in 2008.
Click here for more from source
The findings were published this week to precede US National Gay Men's HIV Awareness Day on Monday.
''This study's message is clear: HIV exacts a devastating toll on men who have sex with men in America's major cities, and yet far too many of those who are infected don't know it,'' said Kevin Fenton, director of the centres' National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.
In the earlier study, 46 per cent of gay black men tested positive, compared with 40 per cent in the more recent study, Hispanics represented 18 per cent of the infected compared with 23 per cent in the more recent study and White men comprised 21 per cent of the infected in 2004-05 and 20 per cent in 2008.
Click here for more from source
Monday, March 1, 2010
House cleaner awarded 400,000 pounds house
A hard-working cleaner has been rewarded with a 400,000 pound ($687,500) house and car after her employers became Britain's biggest lottery winners.
Nigel Page and Justine Laycock won 56 million pounds in the Euromillions jackpot earlier this month and decided they wanted to thank their cleaner Denise Kelso for her work.
They handed her the keys to their four-bedroom home, which she had kept clean for years, and Justine's black Honda Civic in gratitude for her years of service.
The couple have moved into a new 4 million pound home in England's West Country, where Kelso will continue working for the couple.
"All you need to know is I love my cleaner very much," Justine told the Sunday Mirror.
Kelso said she and her husband were "taking care" of Justine and Nigel's former home.
"It's still their house and car, but we are living here," she said.
"They've only just won, so I'm sure they're still trying to decide what they want to do."
Source smh.com.au
Nigel Page and Justine Laycock won 56 million pounds in the Euromillions jackpot earlier this month and decided they wanted to thank their cleaner Denise Kelso for her work.
They handed her the keys to their four-bedroom home, which she had kept clean for years, and Justine's black Honda Civic in gratitude for her years of service.
The couple have moved into a new 4 million pound home in England's West Country, where Kelso will continue working for the couple.
"All you need to know is I love my cleaner very much," Justine told the Sunday Mirror.
Kelso said she and her husband were "taking care" of Justine and Nigel's former home.
"It's still their house and car, but we are living here," she said.
"They've only just won, so I'm sure they're still trying to decide what they want to do."
Source smh.com.au
Monday, February 22, 2010
Switzerland’s troubling record of suicide
Here is one record the Swiss may not be so enthusiastic about holding: more suicides are committed here using guns per capita than anywhere else in Europe.
The issues of gun suicide and Switzerland’s high rate of weapon ownership came under the spotlight again in January. The police chief overseeing security at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos turned his service revolver against himself a day before the event began.
His case is hardly unique. From 1996 to 2005, 3,410 suicides, or between 24 and 28 per cent of all those in Switzerland, were committed using firearms.
That percentage trails the United States, it is true, where 57 per cent of suicides involve a gun. But few European countries come anywhere near Switzerland.
And of other English-speaking countries, the highest rate is in Canada, where 19 per cent of suicides were by firearm in 2000. In England and Wales the figure stands at 2.8 per cent, and in Scotland at 1.8 per cent.
Guns are highly efficient: experts say that 90 per cent of suicide attempts involving firearms are successful.
The issues of gun suicide and Switzerland’s high rate of weapon ownership came under the spotlight again in January. The police chief overseeing security at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos turned his service revolver against himself a day before the event began.
His case is hardly unique. From 1996 to 2005, 3,410 suicides, or between 24 and 28 per cent of all those in Switzerland, were committed using firearms.
That percentage trails the United States, it is true, where 57 per cent of suicides involve a gun. But few European countries come anywhere near Switzerland.
And of other English-speaking countries, the highest rate is in Canada, where 19 per cent of suicides were by firearm in 2000. In England and Wales the figure stands at 2.8 per cent, and in Scotland at 1.8 per cent.
Guns are highly efficient: experts say that 90 per cent of suicide attempts involving firearms are successful.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Airline theft
PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating whether a pickpocket stole thousands of euros from passengers as they slept on an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris.
"There is an investigation under way," a spokesman for the border police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris said when asked to confirm a report on the website of the Le Figaro.
The paper said around 4,000 euros ($5,744) appeared to have been stolen from five business class passengers as they slept on the overnight flight.
"On this flight, which takes off from Tokyo Narita at 10 p.m., passengers often sleep deeply before waking up shortly before arriving in Paris at around 4 a.m.," Le Figaro quoted one of the alleged victims as saying.
A woman alerted the cabin crew when she woke to find a large sum missing, the passenger said.
"This lady called staff to say that all the cash in her handbag had been stolen. Counting Swiss francs, euros and yen, there was apparently about 3,000 euros," the passenger said.
A spokeswoman for Air France said the pilot had alerted police who were waiting when the flight touched down.
"I would say that it is really extremely rare to have several passengers at once reporting thefts on board," she said.
She said that while the company was responsible for baggage carried in the hold, passengers had responsibility for possessions they had with them in the cabin.
Source Au.news.yahoo.com
"There is an investigation under way," a spokesman for the border police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris said when asked to confirm a report on the website of the Le Figaro.
The paper said around 4,000 euros ($5,744) appeared to have been stolen from five business class passengers as they slept on the overnight flight.
"On this flight, which takes off from Tokyo Narita at 10 p.m., passengers often sleep deeply before waking up shortly before arriving in Paris at around 4 a.m.," Le Figaro quoted one of the alleged victims as saying.
A woman alerted the cabin crew when she woke to find a large sum missing, the passenger said.
"This lady called staff to say that all the cash in her handbag had been stolen. Counting Swiss francs, euros and yen, there was apparently about 3,000 euros," the passenger said.
A spokeswoman for Air France said the pilot had alerted police who were waiting when the flight touched down.
"I would say that it is really extremely rare to have several passengers at once reporting thefts on board," she said.
She said that while the company was responsible for baggage carried in the hold, passengers had responsibility for possessions they had with them in the cabin.
Source Au.news.yahoo.com
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Mobile phone security at risk
Billions of mobile phone users around the world are at risk of having their calls intercepted and recorded after hackers broke the encryption used to protect 80 per cent of the world's mobiles.
People regularly trading in confidential information, such as Government officials and executives, would be the most likely eavesdropping targets but virtually anyone with enough skills and determination could harness the research for nefarious means, security experts warn.
German computer engineer Karsten Nohl told a hacker conference in Berlin that he and his team decoded the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) encryption algorithm to draw attention to gaping security holes in the technology and drive mobile operators to patch them.
About 80 per cent - or 3.5 billion - of the world's mobiles are based on GSM, which is over 20 years old.
In Australia, virtually every mobile phone uses GSM or a variation of it after Telstra shut down its ageing CDMA network, Telsyte research director Warren Chaisatien said.
Nohl, who has published the secret GSM encryption code online, told the Chaos Communication Congress this week that a skilled eavesdropper using basic equipment and free software could be recording phone calls within 15 minutes, The Guardian reported.
"This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate," Nohl, 28, said, insisting his work was purely academic.
“We are trying to push operators to adopt better security measures for mobile phone calls.”
Security experts including mobile encryption firm Cellcrypt said it would be largely skilled hackers and well-funded criminals who would have access to the technology and expertise required to intercept calls..
However, Cellcrypt's Ian Meakin told the BBC that Nohl's work was still a "massive worry".
"It lowers the bar for people and organisations to crack GSM calls. It inadvertently puts these tools and techniques in the hands of criminals," Meakin said.
The GSM Association, which devised the algorithm, said Nohl's work was illegal and admitted intercepting calls using his method was "theoretically possible but practically unlikely". It said it was taking the security threat very seriously.
Nohl claims he consulted lawyers before publishing his findings and insists he is operating within the law. But he conceded the data he produced could be used for illegitimate purposes, such as to create a phone tapping device.
"What he is doing would be illegal in Britain and the United States. To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me," GSM association spokeswoman Claire Cranton told The New York Times.
Nohl is developing a solid reputation in the hacker community after a similar campaign last year that led to an update to the security protecting millions of cordless home phones.
Several hacker groups had earlier signalled their intentions to crack the GSM algorithm, which protects calls by scrambling the communications link between the radio base station and handset.
Serious security flaws in the technology were discovered and exposed as early as 1994.
A newer, more secure version of the algorithm has been developed by the GSM Association but it has not yet been implemented by most mobile mobile network operators around the world.
source www.smh.com.au
People regularly trading in confidential information, such as Government officials and executives, would be the most likely eavesdropping targets but virtually anyone with enough skills and determination could harness the research for nefarious means, security experts warn.
German computer engineer Karsten Nohl told a hacker conference in Berlin that he and his team decoded the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) encryption algorithm to draw attention to gaping security holes in the technology and drive mobile operators to patch them.
About 80 per cent - or 3.5 billion - of the world's mobiles are based on GSM, which is over 20 years old.
In Australia, virtually every mobile phone uses GSM or a variation of it after Telstra shut down its ageing CDMA network, Telsyte research director Warren Chaisatien said.
Nohl, who has published the secret GSM encryption code online, told the Chaos Communication Congress this week that a skilled eavesdropper using basic equipment and free software could be recording phone calls within 15 minutes, The Guardian reported.
"This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate," Nohl, 28, said, insisting his work was purely academic.
“We are trying to push operators to adopt better security measures for mobile phone calls.”
Security experts including mobile encryption firm Cellcrypt said it would be largely skilled hackers and well-funded criminals who would have access to the technology and expertise required to intercept calls..
However, Cellcrypt's Ian Meakin told the BBC that Nohl's work was still a "massive worry".
"It lowers the bar for people and organisations to crack GSM calls. It inadvertently puts these tools and techniques in the hands of criminals," Meakin said.
The GSM Association, which devised the algorithm, said Nohl's work was illegal and admitted intercepting calls using his method was "theoretically possible but practically unlikely". It said it was taking the security threat very seriously.
Nohl claims he consulted lawyers before publishing his findings and insists he is operating within the law. But he conceded the data he produced could be used for illegitimate purposes, such as to create a phone tapping device.
"What he is doing would be illegal in Britain and the United States. To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me," GSM association spokeswoman Claire Cranton told The New York Times.
Nohl is developing a solid reputation in the hacker community after a similar campaign last year that led to an update to the security protecting millions of cordless home phones.
Several hacker groups had earlier signalled their intentions to crack the GSM algorithm, which protects calls by scrambling the communications link between the radio base station and handset.
Serious security flaws in the technology were discovered and exposed as early as 1994.
A newer, more secure version of the algorithm has been developed by the GSM Association but it has not yet been implemented by most mobile mobile network operators around the world.
source www.smh.com.au
Monday, December 28, 2009
Three dear while six injured in a Highway accident
TWO children are dead, and their parents severely burned, after a fuel tanker collided with three cars yesterday afternoon and rolled over an embankment of the Princes Highway near Batemans Bay.
The driver of the diesel tanker also died at the scene.
Two people with 80 per cent burns, believed to be the children's parents, were flown by helicopter to Royal North Shore and Concord hospitals. It is believed the family was from Ulladulla. Another patient, believed to be a woman in her 50s, was taken to Batemans Bay Hospital with spinal injuries and three others with minor injuries were taken to Milton-Ulladulla Hospital.
Source Smh
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