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(Reuters Health) - A new study finds that circumcised men appear less likely to sustain cuts, abrasions and other minor injuries to the penis during sex — which may help explain why circumcision lowers the risk of HIV transmission from heterosexual sex.

For the new study, researchers used data from an HIV clinical trial in Africa, where nearly 2,800 men between the ages of 18 and 24 were randomly assigned to undergo circumcision or remain uncircumcised. In 2005 and 2006, that trial and two others in Uganda, South Africa and Kenya showed that circumcision can reduce a man’s risk of HIV infection through heterosexual sex by up to 60 percent.

In the current study, the researchers found that, over two years, circumcised men were 39 percent less likely than their uncircumcised counterparts to report any type of penile injuries during sex.

This raises the possibility that lower injury risk is one reason that circumcision lowers the odds of HIV transmission, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Supriya D. Mehta of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Exactly why circumcision may protect against HIV during sex is unknown, Mehta and colleagues report in the Journal of Urology. There are a few theories: One is that, by reducing the amount of mucosal tissue exposed during sex, circumcision limits the virus’ access to the body cells it targets. Another theory is that the thickened skin that forms around the circumcision scar helps block HIV from gaining entry.

But there is also a possible role for mild penile injuries — cuts, scratches and tears in the skin that could serve as a portal of entry for HIV. In some past studies, uncircumcised men have reported higher rates of such injuries than circumcised men.

At the outset of the current trial, 64 percent of the men said they had sustained some form of penile injury during sex in the past six months — most often general soreness, scratches, cuts or abrasions. Seventeen percent said they had bleeding.

Six months into the trial, that rate was on the decline. By year two, 31 percent of circumcised men said they’d had a sex-related penile injury in the past six months.

Men in the uncircumcised group also reported a reduction in injuries, though it was less significant — with 42 percent saying they’d sustained a penile injury in the past six months. That decline, according to Mehta’s team, is likely due to the general improvements both study groups showed in their sexual health practices — including greater condom use and fewer sex partners.

Men who said they had had multiple sex partners in the past month were more likely to report sex-related penile injuries than those who had been monogamous. On the other hand, condom use and the habit of washing the penis within an hour of having sex were both linked to decreased risks of penile soreness and other injuries.

Further studies, Mehta’s team writes, should look at the role penile injuries may play in the transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.

source:- Reuters

If you think utilities will swiftly adopt smart-grid technologies, consider the story of GridPoint.

Despite being only seven years old, the high-profile energy start-up has adjusted its strategy a few times and made a string of acquisitions. At first, it planned on selling home energy management systems and batteries to consumers, then shifted its focus to selling smart-grid equipment to utilities, such as software to manage home energy or charge electric cars.

Last week, GridPoint announced that it has signed a deal to supply energy management software and hardware to the United States Postal Service, which has set a goal of lowering energy use by 30 percent by 2015. It could bring in as much as $28.7 million over three years to GridPoint.

The deal is significant because GridPoint sees commercial and industrial energy management, which it entered through its acquisition of ADMMicro last November, as a business with better near-term potential than smart-grid gear, according to the company. Utilities are slow at buying IT-related technology, whereas businesses make quicker decisions based on a return on investment, the company has found.

“The fact of the matter is that the (smart-grid) marketplace is taking time to evolve from pilots to significant rollouts. As a business, we need to make sure we have an opportunity to generate business from multiple sources,” said GridPoint Executive Vice President John Clark, who joined the company after it acquired V2Green, which made utility software for managing electric vehicle charging.

GridPoint isn’t alone in noticing how slowly things are moving in certain areas of the smart grid.

Between the federal government and utilities, about $8 billion will be spent on modernizing the grid with two-way meters and other digital technologies. But for companies that aren’t directly linked to smart metering, that money, which has been slow in coming, may not be all that meaningful.

“There is some disappointment, or disillusionment, that the market did not materialize as fast as people thought, particularly for the tech start-ups and investors that targeted it,” said Rick Nicholson, an analyst at IDC’s Energy Insights service, which recently adjusted its forecasts for spending in North America. “It’s still going to materialize into a multibillion-dollar market, it’s just going to take longer.”

Finding a niche
Smart-grid technologies are designed to make the grid more reliable and efficient for utilities and give consumers more control over how they use energy. But the nature of doing business at a utility means the technology upgrade process is slow.

Utilities typically negotiate with public utility commissions on how they will recoup the costs of capital investment, such as smart meters, batteries, or in-home energy displays for consumers. That investment cycle, coupled with utilities focus on reliability, means they don’t have big incentives to move quickly, said Rob Day, an investor at Black Coral Capital.

The decision to buy IT to use energy more efficiently at commercial or municipal organization is more straight-forward. At the U.S. Postal Service, GridPoint will be installing submetering hardware, which can report energy usage of big energy consumers in a building, such as heating and air conditioning units. Data from hundreds or thousands of locations is collected with an on-board computer and can then be viewed by energy managers through a portal. With that level of detail and alerts, organizations can find ways to lower energy use and troubleshoot equipment problems, Clark explained.

GridPoint hopes to parlay its energy-management services into revenue from installing solar arrays or performing energy audits, a line of business it gained in February when it acquired Standard Renewable Energy, which also caters to residential customers. GridPoint can also work with utilities on demand-response programs where customers are paid to dial down electricity use during peak times, Clark said.

There’s ample opportunity to make money by lowering energy use at businesses, but it’s a crowded market, said Day. Established building-automation companies, such as Siemens and Johnson Controls, have broad product lines and the demand-response field also has a number of suppliers. “I’ve seen a lot of start-ups and established companies targeting that sector,” Day said.

The consumer end of the smart grid is also taking time to take shape. There are a number of companies that have developed home energy management systems to give consumers more detailed electricity consumption data and recommendations on how to be more efficient. GridPoint’s customer-facing software is being used at smart-grid programs in Boulder, Colo.

But there are some doubts about how large that business can become and questions over whether utilities can effectively market these products. A recent survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that many consumers were eager to reduce energy use, but few understood the benefits of smart meters or utilities’ smart-grid programs.

There are certainly still a number of companies earning money by supplying utilities. Smart meter makers or industrial conglomerates, such as Siemens, ABB, and General Electric, have many utility-related products while metering related companies, such as SilverSpring Networks, are doing well, said IDC’s Nicholson.

GridPoint, which has raised more than $220 million in equity financing, is considered visionary in the smart-grid field and continues to pursue business with utilities. In the past several months, it has announced that its products will be used in stimulus-funded smart-grid programs and an electric vehicle charging trial with utility Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. But given the pace of technology change in the power industry, companies like GridPoint need to find a lucrative corner of the market while the smart grid matures.

“Would our investors have liked for the smart-grid space to take off and be the billions and billions of dollars people thought it would be two or three years ago? Absolutely,” said GridPoint’s Clark. “We believe it will, and part of being a successful early-stage company is making sure you’re there to participate.”

Yahoo Inc is planning to introduce features that will give its users even more access to updates from the popular social networking site Facebook, expanding a partnership the web companies struck last year.

Yahoo and Facebook accounts can be more broadly linked together, allowing Yahoo users, for instance, to have a Facebook newsfeed delivered to their homepage or mail.

The additional integration will also make it easier to share activities performed on Yahoo sites, such as photos uploaded Yahoo’s Flickr, across Facebook. The expansion was announced by Yahoo on Sunday.

The new features underscore Yahoo’s efforts to tap the popularity of social networking, and keep its users from fleeing to hot sites like Facebook, which counts more than 350 million worldwide users.

Yahoo also said it would rename Yahoo Profiles, a central spot for users to manage their identity and activities, to Yahoo Pulse and change the settings to make privacy features easier to use.

Just as it has done for the past three years, a new iPhone should play a major role at Apple’s Worlwide Developers Conference next week. And when CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage on Monday to give his keynote address, I’ll be there, along with CNET reporter Erica Ogg, to bring you all the details.

Until that time, I’m happy to speculate on what the new iPhone will offer. Although this year has been a little different because of a well-publicized leak of an iPhone prototype in April, few details about new devices emerge form Apple’s labs before a formal unveiling. But that won’t stop us from putting together the various clues to make our own guesses.

What we won’t see
4G or not 4G? First off, an important clarification is in order. Though some have called the new handset the “iPhone 4G”–and we refer to it as such in informal conversations around the CNET office–we do not expect it to run on a 4G network. It will be the fourth-generation iPhone model, but because it should operate solely on AT&T’s network (more on that later), its fastest data speeds will continue to be 3G. AT&T will begin testing its 4G LTE network later this year, but commercial deployment won’t begin until 2011 at least. So check back then for a faster iPhone.

Verizon: I also have to repeat what we’ve said already. There will not be a Verizon iPhone this year. And if you don’t believe us, just consider that Verizon spokesman John Johnson told Beet.TV on Wednesday that the carrier has no plans to carry the phone in the “immediate future.”

Yes, it’s a carefully worded statement, which means that it’s very possible that we’ll see a Verizon iPhone at some point in the future. Yet, when that will happen–if happens at all–is unclear. This fall has been suggested as a likely time frame, but I think that’s unlikely. I predict that Apple will wait until Verizon rolls out its own 4G LTE network, which should begin later this year. There’s also the matter that AT&T’s exclusivity contract won’t end until 2012, but that could change at any time.

Design
Pictures of the new iPhone have been all over the blogsphere since Gizmodo paid $5,000 for a prototype of the new iPhone that an Apple engineer allegedly lost.

From what we can tell from the pictures, the device will be marginally heavier with a flat back, sharper corners, a smaller and brighter display, and an aluminum border around the edge. Indeed, that’s a break from the iPhone 3G and 3GS, which have a curved back and wobble slightly when resting on a table.

I’ll save my opinions until I see the actual handset and get it in my hands, but a boxier shape would put it more in line with the iPad and some Google Android devices, such as the HTC Incredible. According to Gizmodo, the new iPhone also should have a flash for the main camera, split volume buttons, a micro-SIM card slot (like the iPad), and a possible noise cancellation microphone.

We’ll reportedly see a front-facing video camera, as well, though I’m not convinced that it will be used for video calling. AT&T offers its Video Share application on a limited number of phones, but the service isn’t available everywhere, and the carrier hasn’t promoted it aggressively. The new iPhone might mark a change in strategy for AT&T, but then again, the new camera could just be for self-portraits.

Features
Tethering: AT&T’s recent announcement that it was revamping its smartphone data plans brought welcome news about tethering. We’ve waited more than a year for the capability, since Apple executives first mentioned it during the iPhone OS 3 announcement in March 2009. It’s worth noting that tethering is available on the iPhone in other countries, which means that AT&T has been the holdup, so we’re glad that it’s finally here.

Horsepower: The new iPhone could have a faster processor similar to the iPad’s A4 chip. We’d welcome any added zip to the handset’s performance, particularly since we’ll get multitasking with iPhone OS 4.

Battery: Of course, a faster processor would mean improved battery life. Indeed, any change for the better would be more than welcome. I also wouldn’t worry about the effects of a more vibrant display on performance. Even with twice the resolution, it would still be smaller than the iPad, and it wouldn’t have to push as many pixels.

In the cloud: The adoption of a cloud-based music service is another popular Apple rumor. Music industry sources told CNET in March that such a service won’t be ready until the third quarter of this year, which is a likely time frame, given that Apple usually reveals music announcements in September.

iPhone OS 4
Of course, the new iPhone will debut with all the new features of iPhone OS 4, including multitasking, home screen folders, a unified e-mail in-box, and a 5x digital zoom in the camera. During the keynote speech, we should hear more about the new mobile operating system and when it will roll out to the iPhone 3GS.

What else?
We have a standing list of features the iPhone still lacks. Nicole Lee wrapped them up nicely, following the OS 4 announcement, so I’ll refer you to her blog post for the full story. Some items–such as compatibility with Adobe Systems Flash and a removable battery–we’re pretty sure we’ll never get, but others–such as audio profiles and a multiple-notifications bar–may indeed come. Whether the new iPhone will have them, however, is a mystery until Monday.

Release date
Speculation abounds over when the new iPhone will hit stores, and AT&T has reportedly blocked employees from taking vacations in June. I’ve heard that Monday, June 21, is a possible release date, whereas another rumor says it could hit stores as early as Monday. Both dates would break from Apple’s tradition of Friday iPhone releases, but Apple always can surprise us. I’m guessing that we will see it during the second or third week of this month. I’m not inclined to believe rumors of a July release.

Be sure to tune in Monday to get the full scoop. And before you go, please tell us what you expect and what you want from the new iPhone.