News Briefs

Assange Arrested, Denied Bail

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website that leaked thousands of secret U.S. military and State Department documents, turned himself in to the British police on Tuesday after Britain received a formal warrant for his arrest from Swedish authorities.

He is being held in custody until a trial next week decides his possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for sexual assault charges.

WikiLeaks drew condemnation for posting classified documents on its website, which included U.S. embassy communications and a military video of a July 2007 helicopter attack in Iraq that killed a Reuters television cameraman and his driver. Created in 2006, WikiLeaks receives confidential material and posts it on the Internet.

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the release of government documents. The U.S. embassy in London said it didn't send a representative to Tuesday's hearing.

His surrender to police followed a warrant on one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation, and one count of rape. The crimes were allegedly committed in August of 2010.

Prosecutors at the hearing said some claims relate to whether Assange failed to use condoms during sex and whether he may have exploited a woman while she was sleeping.

MasterCard, the world's second-biggest payments network, and London-based Visa Europe are suspending payments to WikiLeaks via their systems, the companies said. MasterCard and Visa Europe are following the lead of eBay unit PayPal, which recently cut access to WikiLeaks for violating the online payment processor's acceptable use policy.

UB Transportation Researchers Combat Severe Weather

Adel Sadek, associate professor in the UB Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, and UB's Transportation Systems Laboratory are working on developing a computer model that will be used to determine how to better manage the region's transportation system in severe weather conditions.

Using the model, the researchers will be able to determine the effects that emergency measures, such as closing a lane or entire section of the New York State Thruway, will have on local traffic patterns.

Sadek and his colleagues will be able to use the model to simulate the outcome of diverting traffic to lesser-used roads that typically do not handle much traffic.

Factored into the simulations will be variables such as average driver speed and the distance left between one car and another, as well as how those factors are affected by road and visibility conditions.

In collecting the information for their model, the UB team has relied heavily on analyzing the behavior of a car in which they installed a GPS system and the way it responded to changing weather.

Aspirin Cuts Death Rates From Range of Cancers, Researchers Say

Aspirin, a century-old medicine known to relieve pain and prevent blood clots, also reduces the risk of death from a variety of cancers, researchers said.

Taking 75 milligrams of aspirin a day for more than five years cuts deaths from cancer by 20 percent, according to the study published in The Lancet medical journal Tuesday. The researchers found that the pill was associated with a reduced risk of death from esophageal, colorectal, lung and prostate cancers.

More studies are needed before aspirin, which can increase the risk of internal bleeding, should be recommended for cancer prevention, said the researchers, led by Peter Rothwell, professor of clinical neurology at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England.

The risk of death after 20 years was lowered in patients who took aspirin by 60 percent for esophageal cancer, 40 percent for colorectal cancer, 30 percent for lung cancer and about 10 percent for prostate cancer. Aspirin doses greater than 75 milligrams didn't appear to increase the benefit.

The effects of the drug over a longer period are unknown, and further data on the risks of taking aspirin for tumors that affect women, such as breast cancer, is needed.