'Good' and 'bad' skin bugs dictate who gets spots

The secret to clear skin may lie in the cocktail of strains of a common bacterium that lives on your skin.

Propionibacterium acnes bacteria are abundant in the pores on everyone's face. They have been implicated as a cause of pimples, but why they aggravate spottiness in some people but not others has been a mystery.

The discovery that there are "good" and "bad" types of P. acnes offers a clue. It also opens up the possibility of developing treatments customised to the flora of an individual's skin.

The condition affects 85 per cent of teenagers and 11 per cent of adults, and as anyone with acne can testify, existing treatments such as antibiotics have limited effectiveness and can make skin dry out or cause redness and peeling.

Strains sequenced

A team led by Huiying Li of the University of California, Los Angeles, has analysed bacteria from the nose skin of 49 people with acne and 52 controls. "Not all P. acnes strains were created equal," says Li.

Of the thousands of P. acnes strains the researchers identified, the most common 66 were investigated in depth by completely sequencing their genomes. Of these, 63 strains were found in people with and without acne, but two appeared to be linked to acne, and one to healthy skin.

One of the "bad" strains was uniquely found on spotty skin; the other was also found in 16 per cent of samples from people without acne. The "good" strain was hardly found in people with acne but was present in a fifth of those with clear skin.

Rogue genes

Uniquely, the "bad" strains had extra groups of genes derived from viruses. These rogue genes can potentially aggravate acne and include one which binds the bugs unusually tightly to human cells. Because spots are caused by our immune system going into overdrive in response to the presence of P. acnes, resulting in inflammation, this "tightness" gene "means it can trigger a stronger immune response", says Li.

The "good" strain, meanwhile, lacked these genes. Instead, it had genetic components enabling it to recognise and destroy the rogue genes, which means it doesn't cause the skin to become inflamed and spots don't erupt.

Since not all the individuals with clear skin had the "good" strains and not all with acne had the "bad" ones, other factors – such as the tendency of the immune system to over-react or an individual's genetic make-up – might dictate whether good or bad strains grow on skin. In other words, the experiment does not demonstrate what came first – the bad strains of bacteria or the acne, a point raised by researchers not involved in the work.

"Whether the strains are cause or effect is not addressed by this study," says Martin Blaser of New York University. "Nevertheless, this is an important first step in understanding the role of P. acnes in disease."

Probiotics for acne

Li says further investigations are under way in the same people to find out how the balance of good, bad and neutral strains changes over time. She is hopeful that it might be possible to develop creams customised to each person's unique cocktail of skin bacteria to prevent or treat acne.

"Good strains might be used as probiotics to stop skin blemishes before they start, much like yogurt contains good strains of bacteria to fight off bad bugs in the gut," she says.

Another possibility might be drugs that kill only the bad strains. At present, acne is treated with antibiotics that kill all bacteria on the skin, including harmless ones that helpfully prevent nasty strains from taking hold. Exclusively killing the bad strains would be more beneficial, says Li.

Journal reference: Journal of Investigative Dermatology, doi.org/kng

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Italy's lefti-wing leader suggests loose alliance to end deadlock

ROME: Italian left-wing leader Pier Luigi Bersani on Friday held out the prospect of forming a minority government based on a loose alliance in parliament following inconclusive elections, as Europe puts on pressure for a quick solution.

"I am calling it a government of change, which I would take the responsibility of leading," the Democratic Party leader said in an interview with La Repubblica daily, warning that Italy's "governability (is) at risk".

"Like all governments, it will ask for the confidence of parliament," he said.

But Bersani rejected out of hand the possibility of a grand coalition arrangement with Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right forces, after a new anti-establishment party upset the traditional balance of power between Italy's right and left by winning big in the polls early this week.

Bersani said the government he is proposing would have key objectives, including easing austerity measures, creating jobs, helping the poorest and cutting government costs -- echoing at least some of the demands made by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

But since a Democratic Party-led coalition did not manage majorities in both houses of parliament, the new government would depend on the support of other parties in the upper house -- an arrangement that analysts have warned would prove "highly unstable" at a time when Italy is facing an acute economic crisis.

Stefano Folli, editorialist for Il Sole 24 Ore business daily, said it would "hand over the government" to the whims of the populist Five Star Movement.

Most analysts say there will have to be new elections within months to resolve the impasse.

It is unclear whether the Five Star Movement would support Bersani after its leader, former comedian Beppe Grillo, said his movement "is not going to give a vote of confidence to the Democratic Party or to anyone else".

Not everyone in his movement agrees with this rejection, however.

The party captured a quarter of the vote with a campaign that mixed advocacy on environmental causes and grassroots local issues with a crusade against political sleaze, drawing many austerity-weary Italians to its ranks.

The party has spooked Europe with its promise to hold a referendum on the euro and cancel Italy's debts, prompting European leaders to urge Italy to stick to its fiscal commitments and form a government as soon as possible.

A deputy from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) called on Friday for Italy to leave the euro if it could not stick to EU rules after its inconclusive election.

"If one can't succeed in persuading the people of a country that they have to stick to the commitments they have themselves signed up to in terms of how the common currency works, then you can't demand new elections from outside, but the country must return to its own currency," said Klaus-Peter Willsch.

Markets were jittery in trading on Friday, with the Milan index plunging 1.58 percent -- the worst performer among major European stock markets.

The technocratic cabinet of outgoing premier Mario Monti, who won praise abroad for his budget discipline and economic reforms but became increasingly unpopular at home, will stay in place until a new government is formed.

A centrist coalition led by Monti came in fourth place, garnering far too little support to be able to cobble a majority in alliance with the left.

Bersani meanwhile ruled out another possibility -- the formation of an emergency coalition with his long-time arch-rival Berlusconi -- saying: "The hypothesis of a grand understanding does not exist and will never exist".

The scandal-tainted Berlusconi on Friday made an appearance at his appeal trial in Milan against a tax fraud conviction linked to his business empire.

A verdict in the case is expected later this month, along with a ruling in another trial in which Berlusconi is a defendant on charges of having sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of office while he was still prime minister.

Italy's new parliament must convene by March 15 at the latest under the rules of the constitution. After parliament meets, formal negotiations can begin with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on a new government.

Guglielmo Meardi, a professor at Warwick Business School in Britain, said Italy was "used to parliamentary instability... and should stay on the rails until the autumn, when fresh elections could be held."

- AFP/al

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Why Google built the pricey, powerful Chromebook Pixel

Chrome OS needed a push. Is the Chromebook Pixel it?

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

It's been a week now since Google unveiled the Chromebook Pixel, and the reactions have settled into a rough consensus: nice laptop, but not for you.

"The Chromebook Pixel is just too much machine for the software," the Wirecutter's Nathan Edwards writes in a representative take. At CNET, Seth Rosenblatt's review makes a similar point: "the Chromebook Pixel's high price and cloud OS limitations make it impossible to recommend for the vast majority of users."

All of which raises the question -- why release it? Surely Google knew that by introducing a high-end laptop for the bare-bones Chrome operating system, it would court incredulity even from enthusiastic early adopters. When you're charging $1,300+ for a Web browser, "Just look at that screen!" only goes so far.

But while we were scratching our heads over Google's intentions with the Pixel, company executives laid out a reasonably persuasive case for bringing it to market. J.R. Raphael, in a sharp piece at Computerworld, has the relevant quote from Google's vice president of engineering, Linus Upson. Emphasis Raphael's:

The Chromebook Pixel ... brings together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. With the Pixel, we set out to rethink all elements of a computer in order to design the best laptop possible, especially for power users who have fully embraced the cloud.

There are two big ideas there. Let's take them in turn.

The Pixel is meant to inspire. No one denies that this Chromebook turns heads. Much of the Pixel's unveiling last week was given over to discussion of the laptop's design and construction -- the etched glass used in the trackpad, the subtle placement of the microphones, the playful light bar on the exterior that changes color to reflect battery life. And that's to say nothing of that screen, the 4.3 million-pixel showstopper from which the laptop gets its name.

Compare that to the bargain-basement laptops that have carried Chrome OS until now. The operating system began life on the CR-48, a rubbery brick of a prototype that appeared to take its design cues from the Brutalists. The first consumer models, from Samsung and Acer, offered only modest improvements in style and performance. What the early Chromebooks lacked in style they made up in value -- starting at $349, they offered a bargain to workers and students who lived primarily in the Web browser and wanted more power than they could get from a
tablet.

The problem is that Chromebooks have yet to escape the perception that they are inferior, meant for consumers who simply can't afford better. Google's vision of the cloud extends to the entire market -- the low end, the high end, and everything in between. Until now, there hasn't been a high-end Chromebook. As a result, you're unlikely to ever step into a meeting and see an executive carrying one under her arm.

Walk around the Google campus in Mountain View and you're struck by how many Googlers are working on MacBooks. But of course they are: Apple laptops are built with style, sophistication, and power -- adjectives few would ascribe to the Samsung Series 5. The Pixel marks an attempt to meet style with style and power with power -- to show Web developers, manufacturing partners, and its own employees that Chrome is a serious operating system deserving of a first-class computer.

Google hopes the Pixel's power pushes Chrome OS forward.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

The Pixel could inspire developers to build fast, full-featured Web apps that take advantage of touch -- a feature rapidly becoming standard on laptops. It could inspire manufacturing partners to launch sleeker, more powerful Chromebooks themselves, at prices above the $250 and $350 they have been able to charge to date. And it could inspire Googlers to ditch their MacBooks in favor of a homegrown solution that has its own advantages. That's a best-case scenario, sure -- but if you're Google, it's one worth pursuing.

Which leads us to the second big reason Google says it developed the Pixel:

The Pixel is a tool for power users. When Google isn't selling the design of the Chromebook, it's selling features meant for people who spend all day on their laptops. The hardware boots up in seconds, connects to Verizon's 4G LTE network, and comes with 1 terabyte of Google Drive storage for three years -- which ordinarily costs $1,800.

At the same time, to say the Pixel is for "power users" feels like a case of marketing materials getting ahead of reality. Power users like laptops that are light; the Pixel weighs 3.3 pounds, or a third of a pound heavier than the 13-inch
MacBook Air. Power users need battery life; the Pixel tops out around five hours, the MacBook gets closer to seven.

And while workers whose companies use Google Apps will feel at home on the Pixel, enough is missing from Chrome OS to make it difficult to use as a primary computer. Having used it for a week now, I find myself constantly missing the native apps that help me work: Evernote, OmniFocus, Tweetbot, 1Password, Rdio. In most cases I can make do with a combination of Web apps and Chrome extensions, but the experience is inferior -- and belies the notion that this is a computer for needy, greedy "power users."

It turns out that the Pixel is more of a computer for what you might call cloud zealots -- users determined to store almost of all of their data online, in exchange for the added convenience and security. It's easy to see why Google would want to cultivate cloud zealots -- more Web surfing equals more advertising revenue. But Chrome OS makes average users -- to say nothing of power users -- constantly aware of the trade-offs they are making. (For a good list, see David Pogue.)

Still, improvements to Chrome OS over the past four years mean that users are making fewer trade-offs than they used to. HTML5 is improving, and Web apps along with it, and the result is that it's now unfair to dismiss Chromebooks as mere Web browsers. Browsing is still the thing they do best, but you can do real work on a Chromebook (I wrote this piece on a Pixel, not all that much more slowly than I might have on my MacBook Air). In time, you might be able to work as fast on a Chromebook as you can on a more traditional laptop.

Ultimately, the Pixel is a case of a company putting its money where its mouth is. If Chrome OS was ever to be anything more than a curiosity -- and let's face it, it's almost four years old and hasn't exactly set the computing world on fire -- Google had to do something dramatic. Some of that can be done on the software side, but a world-class operating system needs great hardware. Great hardware pushes operating systems forward.

And so the reviews that say the Pixel isn't for most people are right -- Google itself all but admits it. That doesn't mean it's a failure, though. If a year from now Samsung and Acer are releasing higher-end Chromebooks of their own, and Web apps have come closer to reaching parity with native software, and more Googlers are using Pixels as their main machines, Google can call its expensive laptop a success. Chrome OS finally has the concept
car to advance its vision of pure cloud computing. Now the company can only watch and wait as it sees what the world makes of the concept.

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Scarred Duckbill Dinosaur Escaped T. Rex Attack

A scar on the face of a duckbill dinosaur received after a close encounter with a Tyrannosaurus rex is the first clear case of a healed dinosaur wound, scientists say.

The finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Cretaceous Research, also reveals that the healing properties of dinosaur skin were likely very similar to that of modern reptiles.

The lucky dinosaur was an adult Edmontosaurus annectens, a species of duckbill dinosaur that lived in what is today the Hell Creek region of South Dakota about 65 to 67 million years ago. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

A teardrop-shaped patch of fossilized skin about 5 by 5 inches (12 by 14 centimeters) that was discovered with the creature's bones and is thought to have come from above its right eye, includes an oval-shaped section that is incongruous with the surrounding skin. (Related: "'Dinosaur Mummy' Found; Have Intact Skin, Tissue.")

Bruce Rothschild, a professor of medicine at the University of Kansas and Northeast Ohio Medical University, said the first time he laid eyes on it, it was "quite clear" to him that he was looking at an old wound.

"That was unequivocal," said Rothschild, who is a co-author of the new study.

A Terrible Attacker

The skull of the scarred Edmontosaurus also showed signs of trauma, and from the size and shape of the marks on the bone, Rothschild and fellow co-author Robert DePalma, a paleontologist at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History in Florida, speculate the creature was attacked by a T. rex.

It's likely, though still unproven, that both the skin wound and the skull injury were sustained during the same attack, the scientists say. The wound "was large enough to have been a claw or a tooth," Rothschild said.

Rothschild and DePalma also compared the dinosaur wound to healed wounds on modern reptiles, including iguanas, and found the scar patterns to be nearly identical.

It isn't surprising that the wounds would be similar, said paleontologist David Burnham of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, since dinosaurs and lizards are distant cousins.

"That's kind of what we would expect," said Burnham, who was not involved in the study. "It's what makes evolution work—that we can depend on this."

Dog-Eat-Dog

Phil Bell, a paleontologist with the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative in Canada who also was not involved in the research, called the Edmontosaurus fossil "a really nicely preserved animal with a very obvious scar."

He's not convinced, however, that it was caused by a predator attack. The size of the scar is relatively small, Bell said, and would also be consistent with the skin being pierced in some other accident such as a fall.

"But certainly the marks that you see on the skull, those are [more consistent] with Tyrannosaur-bitten bones," he added.

Prior to the discovery, scientists knew of one other case of a dinosaur wound. But in that instance, it was an unhealed wound that scientists think was inflicted by scavengers after the creature was already dead.

It's very likely that this particular Edmontosaurus wasn't the only dinosaur to sport scars, whether from battle wounds or accidents, Bell added.

"I would imagine just about every dinosaur walking around had similar scars," he said. (Read about "Extreme Dinosaurs" in National Geographic magazine.)

"Tigers and lions have scarred noses, and great white sharks have got dings on their noses and nips taken out of their fins. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and [Edmontosaurus was] unfortunately in the line of fire from some pretty big and nasty predators ... This one was just lucky to get away."

Mysterious Escape

Just how Edmontosaurus survived a T. rex attack is still unclear. "Escape from a T. rex is something that we wouldn't think would happen," Burnham said.

Duckbill dinosaurs, also known as Hadrosaurs, were not without defenses. Edmontosaurus, for example, grew up to 30 feet (9 meters) in length, and could swipe its hefty tail or kick its legs to fell predators.

Furthermore, they were fast. "Hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus had very powerful [running] muscles, which would have made them difficult to catch once they'd taken flight," Bell said.

Duckbills were also herd animals, so maybe this one escaped with help from neighbors. Or perhaps the T. rex that attacked it was young. "There's something surrounding this case that we don't know yet," Burnham said.

Figuring out the details of the story is part of what makes paleontology exciting, he added. "We construct past lives. We can go back into a day in the life of this animal and talk about an attack and [about] it getting away. That's pretty cool."

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Sequester Set to Trigger Billions in Cuts

Nobody likes the sequester.

Even the word is enough to send shivers of fiscal panic, or sheer political malaise, down the spines of seasoned politicians and news reporters. And today, the sequester will almost certainly happen, a year and a half after its inception as an intentionally unpalatable event amid the stalemate of the debt-limit crisis in 2011.

Automatic budget cuts will be triggered across federal agencies, as President Obama will be required to order sequestration into effect before midnight Friday night. The federal bureaucracy will implement its various plans to save the money it's required to save.

Now that the sequester will probably happen, here are some questions and answers about it:

1. HOW BIG IS IT?

The cuts were originally slated for $109 billion this year, but after the fiscal-cliff deal postponed the sequester for two months by finding alternate savings, the sequester will amount to $85 billion over the remainder of the year. Over the rest of the year, nondefense programs will be cut by nine percent, and defense programs will be cut by 13 percent.

If carried out over 10 years (as designed), the sequester will amount to $1.2 trillion in total.

2. WHAT WILL BE CUT, SPARED?

Most government programs will be cut, including both defense and nondefense spending, with the cuts distributed evenly (by dollar amount) over those two categories.

Some vital domestic entitlements, however, will be spared. Social Security checks won't shrink; nor will Veterans Administration programs. Medicare benefits won't get cut, but payments to providers will shrink by two percent. The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), food stamps, Pell grants, and Medicaid will all be shielded from the sequester.

But lots of things will get cut. The Obama administration has warned that a host of calamities will befall vulnerable segments of the population.

3. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO BAD?

Questions persist over whether or not it really does.

The sequester will mean such awful things because it forces agencies to cut things indiscriminately, instead of simply stripping money from their overall budgets.

But some Republicans, including Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, have suggested that federal agencies have plenty of flexibility to implement these cuts while avoiding the worst of the purported consequences. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal accused President Obama of trying to "distort" the severity of the sequester. The federal government will still spend more money than it did last year, GOP critics of sequester alarmism have pointed out.

The White House tells a different story.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the sequestration law forces agency heads to cut the same percentage from each program. If that program is for TSA agents checking people in at airports, the sequester law doesn't care, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano can't do anything about it.

Agency heads do have some authority to "reprogram" funds, rearranging their money to circumvent the bad effects. But an OMB official told ABC News that "these flexibilities are limited and do not provide significant relief due to the rigid nature of the way in which sequestration is required by law to be implemented."

4. WHEN WILL THE WORST OF IT START?

Not until April -- but some of the cuts could be felt before then.

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SingPost sets up S$10m fund to help low-wage employees

SINGAPORE: SingPost is setting up a $10 million "Inclusivity Fund", which will benefit its low-wage workers.

Over 70 per cent of the fund will go to helping the workers cope with the rising cost of living. This will include retention awards and enhancements to their wages.

Part of the fund will also go into training to help them upgrade their skills.

Staff with school-going children can also stand to benefit from bursaries and scholarships.

The fund will be disbursed over five years and benefit some 3,400 workers.

The company will also be investing about S$30 million to enhance its delivery and improve processes.

- CNA/xq

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This sapphire smartphone screen is strong, strong, strong

Virtually indestructable sapphire smartphone screen

BARCELONA, Spain--The smartphone screen on the iPhone above may look like it's made of glass, but it isn't. It's made of sapphire. That's right, the same aluminum oxide compound (AL₂O₃) better known for brilliant blue gemstones that dangle from ears and throats and can cost a small fortune.

But this particular screen bears little resemblance to Earth-mined rock. Synthetically grown from a "mother" or starter crystal, companies that manufacture synthetic sapphire melt and cut the material (with diamond-tipped saws) into wafers, sheets, you name it.

In the case of the demo, a thin sheet of sapphire has been glued over a regular iPhone 5's chemically hardened Gorilla Glass 2 screen with some transparent adhesive -- it's completely clear. To my eye, the sapphire overlay is indistinguishable from a sheet of glass. That is, until I've spent a few minutes deliberately trying to scratch and smash it with a hunk of craggy concrete.

One time a tiny nugget of concrete did break from the chunk and stick to the sapphire display. I thought perhaps it was embedded, but it too wiped away without any noticeable nicks or indentations. The result: a layer of concrete powder that coats the screen, but wipes away clean. Next to it in the demo, a sheet of Gorilla Glass collected scratches.

Depending on the exact formula of chemically reinforced glass, sapphire has approximately 2.5 or 3 times its strength.

Apart from being one of the strongest compound materials there is -- second only to diamond -- synthetic sapphire is highly rigid and won't buckle or melt in high heat situations. It is also slow to corrode, conducts heat at low temperatures, and is known for its excellent light transmission for wavelengths well beyond the scope of human vision. The screen was just as responsive as glass when I handled the device.

Grown sapphire is already used in aerospace, military, and medical devices -- especially lasers, protective windows, and highly-specialized lenses. It's also used in
LED TVs and bulbs, and the high-end watch industry, and already existed in the
iPhone 5 demo unit as a cover material for the main camera lens.

And yes, sapphire has already turned up in a smartphone, making its debut in the Vertu Ti Android phone, which sells for upwards of $10,000. Luckily, most future smartphones with sapphire displays won't cost such a jaw-dropping bundle, although the material is more costly, about 3 or 4 times the cost of regular glass.

Yet, cost is exactly why we're even able to conceive of sapphire as your phone's topper material. Manufacturing prices continue to drop -- it's all about economies of scale.

GT Advanced Technologies, the company that organized the sapphire display demo, manufactures the giant blocks, or boules, of crystalline sapphire that customers like China's Zhejiang Shangcheng Science and Technology eventually turn into phone screens and more. It takes 16 days and a 2,200-degree Celsius furnace (almost 4,000 Fahrenheit) to create a 250-pound block of synthetic sapphire.

Today there's not enough capacity to create sapphire displays en masse, but we will see an uptick in adoption at the higher end of the spectrum. How much would you pay for a phone with a virtually indestructible screen?

Check out more cool finds, videos, and photos from Mobile World Congress 2013.

Bend it like Corning Willow Glass

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Why African Rhinos Are Facing a Crisis

The body count for African rhinos killed for their horns is approaching crisis proportions, according to the latest figures released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

To National Geographic reporter Peter Gwin, the dire numbers—a rhinoceros slain every 11 minutes since the beginning of 2013—don't come as a surprise. "The killing will continue as long as criminal gangs know they can expect high profits for selling horns to Asian buyers," said Gwin, who wrote about the violent and illegal trade in rhino horn in the March 2012 issue of the magazine.

The recent surge in poaching has been fueled by a thriving market in Vietnam and China for rhino horn, used as a traditional medicine believed to cure everything from hangovers to cancer. Since 2011, at least 1,700 rhinos, or 7 percent of the total population, have been killed and their horns hacked off, according to the IUCN. More than two-thirds of the casualties occurred in South Africa, home to 73 percent of the world's wild rhinos. In Africa there are currently 5,055 black rhinos, listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, and 20,405 white rhinos. (From our blog: "South African Rhino Poaching Hits New High.")

Trying to snuff out poaching by itself won't work, said Gwin. The South African government is fighting a losing battle on the ground to gangs using helicopters, dart guns, high-powered weapons—and lots of money. (National Geographic pictures: The bloody poaching battle over rhino horn [contains graphic images].)

"Every year they get tougher on poaching, but rhino killings continue to rise astronomically," said Gwin. "Somehow they have to address the demand side in a meaningful way. This means either shutting down the Asian markets for rhino horn, or controversially, finding a way to sustainably harvest rhino horns, control their legal sale, and meet what appears to be a huge demand. Either will be a formidable endeavor."

Hope and Hurdles

The signing in December of a memorandum of understanding between South Africa and Vietnam to deal with rhino poaching and other conservation issues raises hope for some concrete action. Observers say the next step is for the two governments to follow through with tangible crime-stopping efforts such as intelligence sharing and other collaboration. The highest hurdle to stopping criminal trade, though, is cultural, Gwin believes. "In Vietnam and China, a lot of people simply believe that as a traditional cure, rhino horn works." (Related: "Blood Ivory.")

The recent climb in rhino deaths threatens what had been a conservation success story. Since 1995, due to better law enforcement, monitoring, and other actions, the overall rhino numbers have steadily risen. The poaching epidemic, the IUCN warns, could dramatically slow and possibly reverse population gains.

The population growth is also being stymied by South Africa's private game farmers, who breed rhinos for sport hunting and tourism and for many years have helped rebuild rhino numbers. Many of them are getting out of the business due to the high costs of security and other risks associated with the poaching invasions.

Those who still have rhinos on their farms will often pay a veterinarian to cut the horns off—under government supervision—to dissuade poachers, but the process costs more than $2,000 and has to be repeated when the horns grow back every two years. Even then the farmers are stuck with horns that are illegal to sell—and which criminals seek to obtain.

Room for Debate

Rhino killings and the trade in their horns will be a major topic at a high-profile conference, the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which opens in Bangkok March 3. What won't surprise Gwin is if the issue of sustainably harvesting rhino horns from live animals comes up for discussion.

"It's an idea that seems to be gaining traction among some South African politicians and law enforcement circles," he said, noting that the international conservation community strongly opposes any talk of legalizing the trade of rhino horn, sustainably harvested or not. The bottom line for all parties in the discussion is clear, said Gwin: "The slaughter has to stop if rhinos are to survive."

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Benedict Pledges 'Obedience' to New Pope

In his farewell remarks to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to resign in nearly 600 years, promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor.

Benedict, in a morning meeting at the Vatican, urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.

Benedict, 85, is spending a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.

His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace. Despite the historical nature of Benedict's resignation, not all cardinals attended the event.

With their first working meeting not until Monday, only around 100 cardinals were set to attend, the Vatican press office said Wednesday. Those who are there for Benedict's departure will be greeted by seniority.

Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.

Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address

In the evening, at 5:00 p.m. local time, Benedict will leave the Vatican palace for the last time to head to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence outside Rome. Before his departure, the German-born theologian will say some goodbyes in the Courtyard of San Damaso, inside the Vatican, first to his Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and then to the Swiss Guards who have protected him as pontiff.

9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI

From there it is a short drive to a heliport for the 15-minute flight via helicopter to Castel Gandolfo, just south of the city. Benedict will not be alone on his journey, accompanied by members of the Pontifical Household such as two private secretaries, the head of protocol, his personal physician and his butler.

Once Benedict lands in the gardens at Castel Gandolfo, he will be greeted a group of dignitaries, such as the governor of the Vatican City state Giovanni Bertello, two bishops, the director of the pontifical villas, and the mayor and parish priest. Off the helicopter and into a car, Benedict will head to the palace that he will call home for the coming months. From a window of the palace, Benedict will make one final wave to the crowd at the papal retreat.

It is there, at 8:00 p.m., that Benedict's resignation will take effect once and for all. Once the gates to the residence close, the Swiss Guards will leave Benedict's side for the last time, their time protecting the pontiff completed.

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure is bittersweet. Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.

"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."

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