Behind Alcatel-Lucent’s Desperate Search for Cash

Alcatel-Lucent, the Paris-based telecom gear maker born of a 2006 transatlantic merger, has entered a desperate new phase in its struggle to stay afloat. As Bloomberg News reported on Dec. 4, it is in talks with Goldman Sachs (GS) and other banks to obtain at least €1 billion ($ 1.3 billion) in financing.

The deal would buy the company some time as it faces €2.3 billion in debt repayments over three years. It probably would have to sell off some major assets and pledge others, however—such as patents held by its venerable Bell Labs subsidiary—as collateral, the corporate equivalent of hocking the family jewels. “Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) is now using more or less last-resort financing options,” says Alexander Peterc, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas (BNP) in London.

It would be a humbling blow—yet it may already be too late for Alcatel-Lucent to repair its fundamental problem: It is simply too inefficient and starved for cash to compete successfully against rivals.

Its weakness was further underscored this week, when Chinese gear maker ZTE (763) obtained a record $ 20 billion credit facility from China Development Bank. Already the world’s fifth-largest supplier of wireless equipment, ZTE is likely to surpass Alcatel within two years and move into third place worldwide behind China’s Huawei Technologies and Sweden’s Ericsson (ERIC).

Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen, who took over in 2008, has struggled to get the company back on track through a series of job reductions and smaller asset sales. Even so, its costs are out of whack with competitors’. Even taking into account 5,500 job cuts announced in October, revenue per employee was €49,700 ($ 65,000), at least 14 percent less than those of rivals Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, according to a Bloomberg News analysis.

To reach similar levels of productivity, Alcatel-Lucent would have to shed another 10,000 workers, about 15 percent of its workforce. Verwaayen said earlier this year that such drastic cuts were “out of the question” and the French government and labor unions would fiercely oppose them.

Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent is burning through an average €700 million euros in cash annually and had made a profit only one year out of the past six. On Dec. 4, its already junk-rated debt was downgraded further by Moody’s Investors Service (MCO), which said it didn’t believe the company could “materially” reduce its cash burn this year.

The financing plan being negotiated with banks would involve Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse (CS) providing a first tier of financing, with a second tier including Citigroup (C) and possibly JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and European banks such as Barclays (BCS), Bloomberg News reported. Collateral could include its patent portfolio, partly inherited from Bell Labs, which was part of Lucent Technologies at the time of the 2006 merger. Alcatel-Lucent is considering the sale of such assets as its undersea fiber-optic cable unit.

Some other gear makers are downsizing in the face of competition from China as well as weak sales in Europe. Finnish-German joint venture Nokia Siemens, for example, is cutting 23 percent of its ranks. Verwaayen told analysts last month that Alcatel-Lucent would “look at the reality of the market from a cost point of view, not assuming that Europe will come back next year.”

Cutting costs will be particularly challenging for Alcatel-Lucent, though, because it’s involved in so many businesses—a fact the company bragged about in the 2006 merger, when it said it had “the most comprehensive wireless, wireline, and services portfolio in the industry.”

With reporting by Marie Mawad, Adam Ewing, Matthew Campbell, and Beth Jinks

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EU leaders in Norway to pick up Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — European Union leaders on Sunday hailed the achievements of the 27-nation bloc, but acknowledged they need more integration and authority to solve problems, including its worst financial crisis, as they arrived in Norway to pick up this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Conceding that the EU lacked sufficient powers to stop the devastating 1992-95 Bosnia war, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the absence of such authority at the time is “one of the most powerful arguments for a stronger European Union.”

Barroso spoke to reporters with EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and the president of the EU Parliament, Martin Schulz, in Oslo, where the three leaders were to receive this year’s award, granted to the European Union for fostering peace on a continent ravaged by war.

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland will present the prize, worth $ 1.2 million, at a ceremony in Oslo City Hall, followed by a banquet at the Grand Hotel, against a backdrop of demonstrations in this EU-skeptic country that has twice rejected joining the union.

About 20 European government leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, will be joining the ceremonies. They will be celebrating far away from the EU’s financial woes in a prosperous, oil-rich nation of 5 million on the outskirts of Europe that voted in 1972 and 1994 in referendums to stay out of the union.

The decision to award the prize to the EU has sparked harsh criticism, including from three peace laureates — South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina — who have demanded the prize money not be paid out this year. They say the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security.

The leader of Britain’s Independence Party, Nigel Farage, in a statement described rewarding the EU as “a ridiculous act which blows the reputation of the Nobel prize committee to smithereens.”

Hundreds of people demonstrated against this year’s prize winners in a peaceful torch-lit protest that meandered through the dark city streets to Parliament, including Tomas Magnusson from the International Peace Bureau, the 1910 prize winner.

“This is totally against the idea of Alfred Nobel who wanted disarmament,” he said, accusing the Nobel committee of being “too close to the power” elite.

Dimitris Kodelas, a Greek lawmaker from the main opposition Radical Left party, or Syriza, said a humanitarian crisis in his country and EU policies could cause major rifts in Europe. He thought it was a joke when he heard the peace prize was awarded to the EU. “It challenges even our logic and it is also insulting,” he said.

The EU is being granted the prize as it grapples with a debt crisis that has stirred deep tensions between north and south, caused soaring unemployment and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest austerity measures.

It is also threatening the euro — the common currency used by 17 of its members — and even the structure of the union itself, and is fuelling extremist movements such as Golden Dawn in Greece, which opponents brand as neo-Nazi.

Barroso acknowledged that the current crisis showed the union was “not fully equipped to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.”

“We do not have all the instruments for a true and genuine economic union … so we need to complete our economic and monetary union,” he said, adding that the new measures, including on a banking and fiscal union, would be agreed on in coming weeks.

He stressed that despite the crisis all steps taken had been toward “more, not less integration.”

Van Rompuy was optimistic saying that EU would come out of the crisis stronger than before. “We want Europe to become again a symbol of hope,” he said.

The EU says it will donate the prize money to projects that help children in conflict zones and will double it with EU funds.

The European Union grew from the conviction that ever-closer economic ties would ensure century-old enemies like Germany and France never turned on each other again, starting with the creation in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community, declared as “a first step in the federation of Europe.”

In 60 years it has grown into a 27-nation bloc with a population of 500 million, with other nations eagerly waiting to join, even as its unity is being threatened by the financial woes.

While there have never been wars inside EU territory, the confederation has not been able to prevent European wars outside its borders. When the deadly Balkans wars erupted in the 1990s, the EU was unable by itself to stop them. It was only with the help of the United States and after over 100,000 lives were lost in Bosnia was peace eventually restored there, and several years later, to Kosovo.

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Amazon’s Android Appstore explodes, downloads increase 500% over last year

Amazon’s (AMZN) Appstore is on fire. While the marketplace may not boost as many apps as Google’s (GOOG) Play Store, it has seen substantial growth in the past year. In fact, the company announced on Thursday that its Appstore has seen downloads increase more than 500% since last year. Amazon also revealed that the number of developers utilizing in-app purchasing doubled in the third quarter and that 23 of the top 25 grossing apps now incorporate the technology.

“Amazon offers the best end-to-end solution for app and game developers,” said Aaron Rubenson, Director of Amazon Appstore for Android. “Developers can use Amazon Web Services’ building blocks as the infrastructure for their games. To enhance customer engagement, they can add features like GameCircle’s Leaderboards, Achievements, Friends, and Whispersync. Amazon’s In-App Purchasing allows developers to generate additional income. Finally, since discovery can be a major challenge for app developers, we’re providing more and more ways to help developers reach customers on Amazon, Kindle Fire devices, and in our Appstore. We’re working hard to make lives easier for developers, and to give them more ways to grow their business.”

The success of Amazon’s Appstore is directly related to the success of its Kindle Fire line of tablets. Unlike most Android devices, the Kindle Fire does not include access to Google Play and instead must rely solely on Amazon’s offering for content and applications.

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Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to duet on “Letterman” Top 10

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are no strangers to Top 10 lists, but now they’re poised to expand their knowledge of them beyond the music charts.

Rolling Stones leaders Jagger and Richards will appear on “Late Show With David Letterman” on Tuesday to deliver the Top Ten list for the night, CBS said Friday.

Though this will mark the first time that Jagger and Richards have appeared on “Letterman,” they’ve appeared on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater – where “Late Show” is taped – before. The Stones made numerous appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” starting with their maiden performance on October 25, 1964.

The group is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary and recently released the greatest-hits anthology “GRRR!” They be in the area to play the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Saturday, and at Newark’s Prudential Center on Thursday.

The group will also perform at the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert 12.12.12 – The Concert for Sandy Relief, which takes place Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. Other performers at the benefit will include Paul McCartney, the Who, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Billy Joel and Eric Clapton, among others.

Letterman has been rubbing shoulders with rock royalty lately – earlier this week, he was joined on his show by the surviving members of Led Zeppelin. Last weekend, Letterman and the group received Kennedy Center Honors.

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USDA to allow more meat, grains in school lunches

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department is responding to criticism over new school lunch rules by allowing more grains and meat in kids’ meals.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of Congress in a letter Friday that the department will do away with daily and weekly limits of meats and grains. Several lawmakers wrote the department after the new rules went into effect in September saying kids aren’t getting enough to eat.

School administrators also complained, saying set maximums on grains and meats are too limiting as they try to plan daily meals.

“This flexibility is being provided to allow more time for the development of products that fit within the new standards while granting schools additional weekly menu planning options to help ensure that children receive a wholesome, nutritious meal every day of the week,” Vilsack said in a letter to Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.

The new guidelines were intended to address increasing childhood obesity levels. They set limits on calories and salt, and phase in more whole grains. Schools must offer at least one vegetable or fruit per meal. The department also dictated how much of certain food groups could be served.

While nutritionists and some parents have praised the new school lunch standards, others, including many conservative lawmakers, refer to them as government overreach. Yet many of those same lawmakers also have complained about hearing from constituents who say their kids are hungry at school.

Though broader calorie limits are still in place, the rules tweak will allow school lunch planners to use as many grains and as much meat as they want. In comments to USDA, many had said grains shouldn’t be limited because they are a part of so many meals, and that it was difficult to always find the right size of meat.

The new tweak doesn’t upset nutritionists who fought for the school lunch overhaul.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says the change is minor and the new guidance shows that USDA will work with school nutrition officials and others who have concerns.

“It takes time to work out the kinks,” Wootan said. “This should show Congress that they don’t need to interfere legislatively.”

Congress has already interfered with the rules. Last year, after USDA first proposed the new guidelines, Congress prohibited USDA from limiting potatoes and French fries and allowed school lunchrooms to continue counting tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.

The school lunch rules apply to federally subsidized lunches served to low-income children. Those meals have always been subject to nutritional guidelines because they are partially paid for by the federal government, but the new rules put broader restrictions on what could be served as childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed.

School kids can still buy additional foods in other parts of the lunchroom and the school. Congress two years ago directed USDA to regulate those foods as well, but the department has yet to issue those rules.

Sen. Hoeven, who had written Vilsack to express concern about the rules, said he will be supportive of the meals overhaul if the USDA continues to be flexible when problems arise.

“This is an important step,” he said. “They are responding and that’s what they need to do.”

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Extreme Franchising: RadioShack in Afghanistan

The next time you stroll through downtown Kabul, you might be able to buy batteries from a RadioShack (RSH) outlet, the result of a new effort by the U.S. to shore up Afghanistan’s economy: selling American franchises to Afghan entrepreneurs.

The U.S. has set a 2014 deadline for troops to withdraw from Afghanistan and turn security over to Afghan military and police. That is prompting capital flight, depressing property values, and triggering other economic pain. That’s where franchising might fit—and an initial foray into the country proved promising, U.S. executives say.

“I didn’t have huge expectations going there that we would consummate an agreement, but after being there on the streets and seeing some fairly sophisticated [retail] operators in a very difficult climate, I’ve walked away with the fact that we would do business in Afghanistan,” says Martin Amschler, a RadioShack vice president who joined several American franchise executives to participate in a five-day matchmaking event in Kabul this week.

Organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the International Franchise Association (IFA), the event gave franchising brass a chance to explore the market and meet with Afghan businessmen and U.S. and Afghan officials. Outside of mostly fast-food chains on bases, there aren’t any American franchises in Afghanistan, says Beth Solomon, a vice president at the IFA who led the trip. “There is a vast culture of young [Afghans] who are very tech savvy, Internet savvy. Everyone’s got the latest Samsung or iPhone,” she says, “and there is disposable income.”

The big idea behind the effort is the “knowledge transfer” of infrastructure-building and business services expertise to locals to help rebuild the country, says Solomon, who recruited participants from RadioShack, Hertz Equipment Rental (HTZ), Tutor Doctor, and AlphaGraphics. “Franchising can be a very useful transitional economic development strategy, because the challenges of security and so forth can be minimized because it’s Afghan business leaders who are going to run these businesses,” says Solomon.

Of course, with more than one-third of Afghanistan’s 30 million people living below the poverty line, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book, much of the population can’t afford to buy an American franchise.

Bill Edwards, a seasoned franchising consultant who specializes in exporting American franchise brands such as Build-A-Bear Workshop (BBW) and Denny’s (DENN), and was on the trip for AlphaGraphics, doesn’t see a lack of Afghan investors. “There’s a lot of money there” willing to invest in American franchises, Edwards says. “There’s a need for Western business. There’s a market, there’s consumers, there’s funding, there’s capital. But there’s all the other challenges, of course.”

Apart from security, the biggest challenge would be vetting prospective buyers, says RadioShack’s Amschler. “But at the end of the day there are private contractors over there today that provide those services … and then, of course, we would have our own list of requirements in terms of net worth and what types of business experience they have,” he says.

Approved Afghan buyers would attend RadioShack University at corporate headquarters in Fort Worth and get “support on the ground” from RadioShack employees for about two weeks when a store opens, plus training visits throughout the year, Amschler says.

Among other efforts to stabilize Afghanistan’s economy, how significant could franchising be? A statement from the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration about the conference notes “franchising has proven to be an ideal market vehicle for both employment and economic growth.” Edwards says he thinks franchising is “the model” because “it brings a business model that’s proven. It brings training, which is the thing they need; the skill set is just really not good there.”

Education is crucial to Afghanistan, says Rogelio Martinez, vice president of international franchise development at 30-employee Tutor Doctor, a “supplementary education” business that has sold about 400 franchises in 14 countries. “It’s something that everybody was talking about. [Afghan] business owners wanted to develop Afghan employees to take mid-level, senior-level management positions. Families want their kids to learn and attend good universities in Afghanistan or abroad.”

The Van Nuys (Calif.) company, which Martinez says charges franchisees about $ 57,000 to get started, provides training and an online tool that uses a Skype-like interface for tutors and students to communicate online. He expects to sell about seven franchises in Afghanistan in 2013. “They can’t be importing expats all the time; they need to have the local talent to have a sustainable model,” says Martinez.

David Riker, franchise development director for Hertz, is also optimistic about his company’s prospects in Afghanistan. Unlike fellow participants on the Kabul trip, he already has franchises on two military bases there, renting heavy machinery used in building roads and construction projects. “As the military draws down, Afghanistan is going to have to support more of its infrastructure, so that’s where the opportunity comes in,” Riker says. Depending on what kind of equipment a franchise buyer wants, getting started is “probably in the $ 3 million range.”

Aiding Afghanistan through franchising certainly won’t be quick, says Edwards. “Let’s not be too Pollyannaish. This is going to be a challenge, but it’s definitely an opportunity.”

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Anger at Australian radio station over royal hoax

LONDON (AP) — It started out as a joke, but ended in tragedy.

The sudden death of a nurse who unwittingly accepted a prank call to a London hospital about Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate has shocked Britain and Australia, and sparked an angry backlash Saturday from some who argue the DJs who carried out the hoax should be held responsible.

At first, the call by two irreverent Australian DJs posing as royals was picked up by news outlets around the world as an amusing anecdote about the royal pregnancy. Some complained about the invasion of privacy, the hospital was embarrassed, and the radio presenters sheepishly apologized.

But the prank took a dark twist Friday with the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, three days after she took the hoax call. Police have not yet determined Saldanha‘s cause of death, but people from London to Sydney have been making the assumption that she died because of stress from the call.

King Edward VII’s Hospital, where the former Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness this week, wrote a strongly-worded letter to the 2DayFM radio station’s parent company Southern Cross Austereo, condemning the “truly appalling” hoax and urging it to take steps to ensure such an incident would never happen again.

“The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients,” the letter read. “The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words.”

The hospital did not comment when asked whether it believed the prank call had directly caused Saldanha’s death, only saying that the protest letter spoke for itself.

DJs Mel Grieg and Michael Christian, who apologized for the prank on Tuesday, took down their Twitter accounts after they were bombarded by thousands of abusive comments. Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, said the pair have been offered counseling and were taken off the air indefinitely.

No one could have foreseen the tragic consequences of the prank, he stressed.

“I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it’s fair to say they’re completely shattered,” Holleran told reporters on Saturday.

“These people aren’t machines, they’re human beings,” he said. “We’re all affected by this.”

Details about Saldanha have been trickling out since the duty nurse’s body was found at apartments provided by the private hospital, which has treated a line of royals before, including Prince Philip, who was hospitalized there for a bladder infection in June.

The nurse, who was originally from India, had lived with her partner Benedict Barboza and a teenage son and daughter in Bristol, in southwestern England, for the past nine years. The hospital praised her as a “first-class nurse” who was well-respected and popular among colleagues during her four years working there.

Just before dawn on Tuesday, Saldanha was looking after her patients when the phone rang. A woman pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II asked to speak to the duchess, and, believing the caller, Saldanha transferred the call to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who spoke to the two DJs about Kate’s condition live on air.

During the call — which was put online and later broadcast on news channels worldwide — Grieg mimicked the Britain’s monarch’s voice and asked about the duchess’ health. She was told Kate “hasn’t had any retching with me and she’s been sleeping on and off.” Grieg and Christian, who pretended to be Prince Charles, also discussed with the nurse when they could travel to the hospital to check in on Kate.

Three days later, officers responding to reports that a woman was found unconscious discovered Saldanha, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Police didn’t release a cause of death, but said they didn’t find anything suspicious. A coroner will make a determination on the cause.

In the aftermath of Saldanha’s death, some speculated about whether the nurse was subject to pressure to resign or about to be punished for the mistake. Royal officials said Prince William and Kate were “deeply saddened,” but insisted that the palace had not complained about the hoax. King Edward VII’s Hospital also maintained that it did not reprimand Saldanha.

“We did not discipline the nurse in question. There were no plans to discipline her,” a hospital spokesman said. He declined to provide further details, and did not respond to questions about the second nurse’s condition.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates radio broadcasting, said it has received complaints about the prank and is discussing the matter with the Sydney-based station, which yanked its Facebook page after it received thousands of angry comments.

Holleran, the radio executive, would not say who came up with the idea for the call. He only said that “these things are often done collaboratively.” He said 2DayFM would work with authorities, but was confident the station hadn’t broken any laws, noting that prank calls in radio have been happening “for decades.”

The station has a history of controversy, including a series of “Heartless Hotline” shows in which disadvantage people were offered a prize that could be taken away from them by listeners.

Saldanha’s family asked for privacy in a brief statement issued through London police.

Flowers were left outside the hospital’s nurse’s apartments, with one note reading: “Dear Jacintha, our thoughts are with you and your family. From all your fellow nurses, we bless your soul. God bless.”

Officials from St. James’s Palace have said the duchess is not yet 12 weeks pregnant. The child would be the first for her and William.

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James Cameron Relives Voyage to Ocean’s Deepest Spot

SAN FRANCISCO — The first thing James Cameron saw 7 miles below the sea was man-made: tracks from a remotely operated vehicle.

“When I got to the bottom, I saw skid marks from the ROV,” Cameron said yesterday (Dec. 4) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, referring to a 2009 survey by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Scientific results of the film director’s expedition to the Mariana Trench were presented at the meeting this week, and Cameron and the researchers described the highlights to a packed crowd.

Cameron reported a new, corrected depth for his landing — 35,803 feet (10,912 meters) — which beats by five feet (1.5 m) the record set by U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960 at the same spot. However, “because the error [calculating the depth] on Don’s dive is much greater, we’re just going to have to call it a tie,” Cameron said.

Deepsea Challenger

Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger expedition made dives to the New Britain Trench and the Mariana Trench in the southwestern Pacific Ocean between Jan. 31 and April 3, with one manned dive by Cameron to the Mariana’s Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in any ocean.

Unusual, never-before-seen species were snared and brought back to the surface. A bizarre microbial mat community was discovered living on altered rocks in the Sirena Deep, another deep pool 6.77 miles (10.9 kilometers) below the surface.

Changes in temperature and salinity starting at 26,200 feet (8 km) deep hint at an unknown current coming into the Challenger Deep, said Doug Bartlett, a microbiology professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

The filmmaker journeyed inside a high-tech lime-green machine — a steel sphere encased in foam — dubbed the Deepsea Challenger. The expedition traveled with two unmanned seafloor “landers” — large contraptions hoisted over the side of a ship and dropped to the seafloor. Once on the bottom, bait attached to the lander lured seafloor creatures to the craft, and a suite of instruments took samples, photographs and data. [Images: James Cameron's Historic Deep-Sea Dive]

The two contraptions working together proved to be a very good system, Cameron said. “We could rendezvous on the bottom and see the results of that bait running for six to eight hours, and that’s how Doug could find a new species of giant arthropod,” Cameron said.

Challenging journey

The March 26 dive proved to be a physical and mental challenge for Cameron. “I did yoga for six months so I could contort myself into the sphere,” he said.

As he sank through the water, Cameron said he “burned though my whole checklist,” designed to distract him during the long hours of the dive. “I still had 3,000 meters left to go with pretty much nothing left to do but sit quietly and think about the pressure building up around the hull,” he said.

The sub touched down gently, and Cameron immediately took a sample of the seafloor, as planned. This was a good contingency, because the sub’s hydraulic fluid line then burst, leaving him unable to collect more samples.

To his surprise, the sub’s voice communications worked perfectly. “We actually expected they wouldn’t, and I would have to default to texting,” he said. “Texting while driving is not a good thing, especially if you’re using two hands to operate seven joysticks and you’re 7 miles down.”

Cameron first drove the sub about 200 meters, finding the seafloor elevation stayed the same. In fact, Challenger Deep turned out to be remarkably flat, and the sub was easy to drive. “The vehicle was quite nimble, the sub’s yaw rate was very good,” he said. (Yaw describes the left-to-right rotation of a craft.)

A quick return

After about three hours, some of the submersible’s batteries had low charge readings, the steering was problematic, and it was time to return to the surface. The mission should have lasted five to six hours. “I hate this. I hated having to go back,” Cameron recalled thinking.

The trip to the top was mercifully short at 73 minutes. The submersible covered nearly 7 miles in a little over an hour — slow in a car, but like riding a missile for a human in a metal ball. Cameron said the surface trip is when he noticed the aches and pains from the cramped sub. “That’s when your butt is really sore, and when you notice how much it hurts.” [Infographic: James Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive]

The sub now sits in a barn in Santa Barbara, waiting for Cameron or another group with enough money to send it back to the deep ocean. He declined to say how much it cost to build and mount the expedition.

“I would love for the sub to dive again,” he said. “I personally feel that we just barely got started before we had to turn back and there’s just so much out there.”

“And if not, at the very least, the technical innovations can be incorporated into other vehicle platforms,” Cameron added. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s an open source situation.”

Reach Becky Oskin at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.

Copyright 2012 OurAmazingPlanet, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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“American Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe signs with Shine America

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe has entered a multi-year production deal with Shine America.

Under the exclusive deal between Nigel Lythgoe Productions and Shine, Lythgoe will jointly develop and produce entertainment franchises for the global television marketplace with the Shine Group, Shine America CEO Rich Ross said Thursday.

Nigel Lythgoe Productions will continue to be based in Los Angeles. The agreement begins January 1, 2013.

“I am thrilled to be teaming up with Shine to develop new shows for a global audience,” Lythgoe said. “We live in one world and need to create content for that market. I cannot think of a more exciting company to partner with in order to face that challenge.”

“Nigel is clearly one of the world’s leading television producers, with an un-matched track record in TV programming both here in the U.S. and in the UK,” Ross added. “We are thrilled to welcome Nigel and his team to the Shine family and we look forward to developing the next wave of entertainment franchises together.”

Shine America, the U.S. arm of the Shine Group, the production company chaired by Rupert Murdoch‘s daughter Elisabeth Murdoch, produces and distributes a variety of scripted and unscripted programs. Past and current shows include “The Biggest Loser,” “The Office,” “Ugly Betty,” “Tabatha Takes Over,” and adaptations of Shine Group formats “MasterChef” and “Minute to Win It.”

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Should breast cancer patients skip the pre-op MRI?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new review of existing evidence suggests that using magnetic resonance imaging to “stage” a woman’s breast cancer before surgery might do more harm than good.

MRI produces a much clearer image than X-rays and ultrasound, and is recommended for detecting early tumors in women at increased risk for breast cancer. But routinely using the technology once any woman is diagnosed with a tumor may lead to more radical surgery without any benefits, says a team of Australian and U.S. researchers.

They found that about 26 percent of women who had a pre-operative MRI to help determine the extent and severity of their tumor ended up having their entire breast removed, compared to about 18 percent of those whose surgeons only used traditional methods of characterizing the cancer.

“I wasn’t surprised by the results at all. What I am surprised by was the strength of the data,” said Dr. Monica Morrow, the study’s senior author and the chief of breast service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Because MRIs are more sensitive than mammograms, some doctors think they are a good tool for identifying the precise outlines of cancerous tissue. Others, however, have begun to question whether the imaging led surgeons to remove more breast tissue than necessary.

Moreover, women who have MRIs before breast surgery seem to be no less likely to need a second surgery to remove additional cancerous tissue.

A study published in September, for instance, found that among more than 300 women who underwent breast cancer surgery, just as many of those who had an MRI before the first surgery ended up having a repeat operation. (see Reuters Health article of September 25, 2012 here: http://reut.rs/Oogm3c)

An MRI can also add more than $ 1,000 to a patient’s bill.

“I think more surgeons are starting to question this because they’re seeing the outcomes,” Morrow said.

For the new study, she and her colleagues pulled together data from nine previous studies to see if MRIs influenced the number of women who had their breast removed or who had a second surgery to remove additional cancer.

From the nine studies, the researchers had information on 3,112 women who had breast cancer surgery.

Overall, the team found that about 16 percent of the women who had an MRI ended up having the entire cancerous breast removed, known as a mastectomy, during their first surgery. That’s compared to about 8 percent of women who did not have an MRI.

They also found that having an MRI before surgery did not influence whether women would need additional surgery to remove more tissue. In each group, between 11 percent and 12 percent had to go back under the knife.

After taking into account the women’s initial surgery and the second operations, the researchers calculated that about 26 percent of those who had an MRI ended up having their entire breast removed, compared to 18 percent in the no-MRI group.

“It causes more mastectomies to start with, but it doesn’t decrease the number of women who started out wanting a lumpectomy and needing a mastectomy,” said Morrow of preoperative MRIs.

The study did not look at long term outcomes, including how many women survived beyond five years. Nor did it examine the use of MRI to screen the opposite breast for signs that cancer had spread, the researchers note in their report, which is published in the Annals of Surgery.

These results do not apply to certain subgroups of patients, they add, including women with genetic mutations that predispose them to cancer and those whose other diagnostic tests produced conflicting results.

But based on the short term measures of how many surgeries women got and how much tissue surgeons removed from them, Morrow told Reuters Health that MRIs do not seem to have a place in breast cancer surgery.

“There may be select circumstances where we’d use it to solve a problem, but for most women with breast cancer they don’t need an MRI for their evaluation,” she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RdZNIw Annals of Surgery, online November 26, 2012.

(This story was refiles to change “woman” to “women” in second paragraph.)

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