Why some smokers get cancer while others don't

They said people with high concentrations in their urine of a nicotine byproduct called NNAL had double the risk of developing lung cancer compared to smokers with lower NNAL concentrations in their urine.And smokers who had high urine levels of both NNAL and another nicotine byproduct called cotinine had more than eight times the risk of lung cancer compared to smokers with the lowest concentrations of these two compounds.

The findings may help explain why some smokers get cancer while others do not, they said."Smoking leads to lung cancer, but there are about 60 possible carcinogens in tobacco smoke, and the more accurately we can identify the culprit, the better we will become at predicting risk," said Jian-Min Yuan of the University of Minnesota, who presented the findings at the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver.

Only about one in 10 smokers gets lung cancer.Studies have found that laboratory animals with high concentrations of NNAL had higher rates of lung cancer, but its effect in humans has not been clear.

The researchers collected data from two large Chinese studies of 50,000 men and women aged 45 to 74. In addition to asking them how much they smoked, what they ate and other lifestyle factors, the researchers collected blood and urine samples.Yuan and colleagues identified 246 smokers who later developed lung cancer and 245 smokers who did not during the 10-year period following their initial interview and exam.

Spouse's old photo smiles predicts "marriage success"

Psychologists have found that how much people smile in old photographs can predict their later success in marriage.In one test, the researchers looked at people's college yearbook photos, and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength had divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)

In a second trial, the research team asked people over age 65 to provide photos from their childhood (the average age in the pictures was 10 years old). The researchers scored each person's smile, and found that only 11 percent of the biggest smilers had been divorced, while 31 percent of the frowners had experienced a broken marriage.Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.

While the connection is striking, the researchers stress that they can't conclude anything about the cause of the correlation."Maybe smiling represents a positive disposition towards life," said study leader Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana. "Or maybe smiling people attract other happier people, and the combination may lead to a greater likelihood of a long-lasting marriage. We don't really know for sure what's causing it."

Hertenstein said he has considered other explanations, such as the possibility that people who smile more often tend to attract more friends, and a larger support network makes it easier to keep a marriage healthy. Or it could be that people who smile when a photographer tells them to are more likely to have obedient personalities, which could make marriage easier.

Stephen Hawking hospitalized, "now comfortable"

"Professor Hawking is very ill," said Gregory Hayman, the university's head of communications. "He is undergoing tests. He has been unwell for a couple of weeks."Later in the afternoon, Hayman said Hawking was "now comfortable but will be kept in hospital overnight."

The illness had caused Hawking to cancel an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6.Hawking, 67, gained renown for his work on black holes, and has remained active despite being diagnosed at 21 with ALS, (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), an incurable degenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

For some years, Hawking has been almost entirely paralyzed, and he communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer activated by his fingers.Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics a "unified theory" which would resolve contradictions between Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

"A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence," he wrote in his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time," published in 1988.

IBM revenue falls more than expected

While International Business Machines Corp's first-quarter profit beat Wall Street projections and the technology giant reiterated its full-year outlook, its shares fell 2 percent in after-hours trading on Monday."I didn't expect them to miss on revenue by that much, which is probably why the stock is trading off," said Peter Misek, analyst at Canaccord Adams.

"Short-term bookings look a little weaker than everybody had hoped. That probably means that the next quarter will be mixed. The long-term guide looks solid."IBM said its quarterly revenue fell to $21.71 billion from $24.50 billion a year earlier. That compared with analysts' average forecast of $22.56 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Net profit for the quarter ended March 31 fell 1 percent to $2.30 billion, from $2.32 billion in the year-ago quarter.Profit per share, however, rose to $1.70 from $1.64, as the number of shares outstanding decreased. Analysts on average were expecting profit of $1.67 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

IBM has so far fared better than many other technology companies, thanks to its growing focus on software and services, such as outsourcing and technology support.

Oracle to buy Sun Micro amid stiff competition of hardware market

The announcement on Monday surprised many Oracle watchers, who believe the company can boost profitability at Sun's software businesses but were unsure if it can be as successful with Sun's hardware unit amid stiff competition from IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc and new entrant Cisco Systems Inc.

"It's an out-of-the-box, left-field type of a deal because Oracle is buying a predominantly hardware business," said Jefferies & Co analyst Ross MacMillan. "The push-pull of the deal is the uncertainty of the hardware business with the earnings accretion of the software business."The deal would make Oracle the world's fourth-largest maker of servers, with the No. 2 slot in the high-end of the market, which was worth about $17 billion last year. It is already the world's No 2 maker of business software after IBM.

Oracle will pay $9.50 a share for Sun, which values the high-end server and software maker at about $7.06 billion, based on 743 million shares outstanding as of the end of its fiscal second quarter on Dec. 28, according to Sun.Sun had previously rejected IBM's offer to pay up to $9.40 a share, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

Shares of Santa Clara, California-based Sun jumped 36.3 percent to $9.12 in Nasdaq trading, while Redwood City, California-based Oracle shares fell 1.7 percent to $18.74. Shares of IBM, which declined to comment, fell 0.32 percent.Oracle President Safra Catz said on a conference call that Oracle intends to make the hardware division profitable. Sun's top-selling products are high-end servers and storage gearCatz said the acquisition, which the companies expect to close this summer, will add at least 15 cents per share to earnings in the first full year after closing.

Child of shorter-height women die 70% more in India

A look at 50,000 young children found that those whose mothers were shorter than 57 inches were 70 percent more likely to have died by age 5 than those whose mothers were at least 63 inches tall.Shorter women are likely to be less healthy as adults -- height can indicate a woman's overall health and nutrition from her childhood. Women with a smaller uterus may have more complications during gestation, the researchers said.

"What the study shows is the critical need to invest in children, and especially girls, as the payoff is not only for them as children and adults, but for their offspring as well," said S.V. Subramanian of the Harvard School of Public Health who along with colleagues conducted the research.

Their report, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, said that more than 2 million children younger than 5 years old died in India in 2006.This is more than in any other country, accounting for about one in four childhood deaths worldwide, according to United Nations data.

The findings "suggest the presence of inter-generational transfer of poor health from mother to offspring," said Subramanian."Since maternal height itself is a consequence of a mother's childhood environment, our study is suggestive of the long-run and durable adverse impact of poor childhood conditions of the mother on the health of her offspring 15 to 30 years later."

Oracle's purchase of Sun to re-shape industry

The $7.1 billion deal, which Oracle reached after the collapse of Sun's talks with International Business Machines Corp, will make it the No. 2 player in the $17 billion market for high-end Unix computers used in corporate data centers. That puts Oracle behind IBM and ahead of Hewlett Packard Co.

The acquisition also gives Oracle control of Sun's Java software, one of the world's most widely used computer languages, and the Solaris operating system for Unix servers."This is a competitor that is much more formidable than Sun standing alone," said Howard Anderson, a lecturer at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and former CEO of the Yankee Group.

"If I were a Sun customer I was starting to get nervous about Sun. I was worried about their viability. I'm not worried about that anymore. I know that Oracle is going to be there."Analysts say Oracle, known for its aggressive marketing and tight cost controls, will cut Sun's bloated cost structure and energize a struggling company with 33,556 workers at the end of last year. Sun posted a loss of $1.9 billion in the first half of its current fiscal year.

Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi predicted that once Oracle takes over Sun, it will likely need to cut another 5,500 to 10,000 positions.