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The New York-based Ospraie Fund fell 26.7 percent in August after a “substantial sell-off” in energy, mining and resource equity investments, Anderson said in a letter to investors yesterday.

Losses at Ospraie, once the largest commodity hedge fund firm, underscore how the sudden swing in commodities caught even experienced managers off-guard. The Morgan Stanley Commodity Related Index of 20 mining, energy and agricultural companies declined 13 percent in July and August as the slowing global economy cut demand for raw materials.

Research on rats has found the reproductive system of male foetuses could be damaged by chemicals as early as eight weeks’ gestation by chemicals including those found in cosmetics.

Such damage could lead to infertility or testicular cancer, according to the research by Professor Richard Sharpe, principal investigator at the Medical Research Council’s Human Sciences Unit.

The scientist said he had discovered a “time window” of eight to 12 weeks’ gestation, when certain hormones in the foetus are activated and the male reproductive system comes into being.

Prof Sharpe said future problems of male fertility, including undescended testicles, low sperm count and the risk of testicular cancer could be determined at this time if these hormones, such as testosterone, do no work properly.

The experiments on rats confirmed that if the hormones are blocked the animals suffered fertility problems.

Prof Sharpe told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper his research had discovered that the male programming window occurred far earlier in foetal development than was previously thought, before the reproductive organs fully develop.

This is the time when androgens such as testosterone in the foetus are most active, he said.

He added: “Women could stop using body creams and perfumes. Although we do not have conclusive evidence that they do harm, there are components about which there are question marks; for example it could be certain combinations of chemicals.”

The announcement was readied as Vice President Dick Cheney headed for the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine in a trip designed to show Washington stands by its allies in the region despite Russia’s military intervention in Georgia.

Her contribution allowed them to overcome problems, which blocked the development of their nuclear reactors and led directly to the USSR exploding its bomb in 1949 – years earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

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The revelations will prove highly embarrassing for the Government, which sought to play down Norwood’s role in press briefings after she was unmasked as a spy in 1999. The briefings were used to justify the Government’s refusal to prosecute her.

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The security services were suspicious of Melita’s Communist sympathies and seemed to have opened a file on her in the 1930s. However, officials failed to take any further action, even when her name was linked to the creation of a spy network at Woolwich Arsenal in 1938.

So what is it then? There are five reasons why Google is doing this, and, if you read the comic book closely – yes, I’m serious – and you know technology you can see the reasons for yourself. These, in turn, lead to what I think is Google’s real goal for Chrome.

First, Google wants a browser where its applications like Gmail, Google Docs, it’s just introduced Google Video will run as quickly as possible. To do this, Google is introducing a new multi-threaded JVM (JavaScript Virtual Machine), V8.

What V8 does is act as a JavaScript compiler rather as an interpreter, which is how most JVMs work. Anyone who’s done a lick of programming knows what this means: compiled programs run much, sometimes as much as orders of magnitude, faster than interpreted programs.

Google also wants a browser that can run multiple applications at once. As it is, the mainstream browsers are single-threaded, single process programs. So, for example, if one JavaScript-based program is slow or hung, everything on the browser runs slowly or not at all. In Chrome each tab has not only its own thread but its own process. By using multiple threads and processes, each browser tab runs at full speed even if one tab’s application freezes up.

Next, Google wants a browser that can handle large Web-based applications. To make that happen, Chrome includes better memory garbage collection for both its Web tabs and for its V8 JVM. The net result is a Web browser that takes up a bit more memory when you first run it, but doesn’t have the memory leakage problems that cause other browsers to slow down the longer you run them as they slowly but surely eat up all available memory.

If you’re going to be running a lot of Google applications, Google knows that you want to be sure that your work is secure. To help with that, Google is sandboxing tabs. Sandboxing is a tried and true security measure that gives an application, or in this case, a Web tab, only the permissions it needs to run. Google will be using a relatively strict permissions system, where a tab requires express permission before it can do anything with data on your system.

Finally, Google is using WebKit, the Apple/KDE-based open-source Web browser engine. WebKit is also what Google is using for its Android mobile phone system.

WebKit is best known for being small and efficient. That’s one of the reasons why it’s in Android, Nokia uses it in some of its mobile devices and Apple uses it in the iPhone.

Now, what do you get when you put this all together? You get Google designing not so much a traditional Web browser, but a Web application platform. And, it’s not just a PC Web application platform, it’s one that will work equally well, without any changes on mobile devices like the increasing popular mini-laptops and MIDs (mobile Internet devices).

You see, killing Internet Explorer isn’t really Chrome’s goal. No, killing Microsoft Office is Chrome’s goal.

Chrome is open source. Its good features will soon be adopted by Firefox and other open-source browsers. Then, running on top of Windows, Mac OS, or Linux, Chrome, and the open-source browsers that take up its features, will provide the gateway on PCs and other computing devices to fast, efficient and safe Web-based applications.

The project, which could result in village-sized platforms peppering the Japanese coastline within a decade, reflects a growing panic in the country over how it will meet its future resource needs.

The floating eco-rig generators which measure 1.2 miles by 0.5 miles (2km by 800m) are intended to harness the energy of the Sun and wind. They are each expected to produce about 300 megawatt hours of power.

Some energy would be lost moving the electricity back onshore, but when three units are strapped together, scientists at Kyushu University say, the effect will be the same as a standard nuclear power station.

The eco-rigs’ gift to the environment does not stop there: some of the power that the solar cells and wind turbines produce will be hived off to fuel colossal underwater banks of light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The lamps are intended to convert the platforms into nurseries for specially selected seaweed that absorbs carbon dioxide and feeds fish and plankton. Deep-sea water that is rich in minerals will enhance the seaweed growth. The wind turbines will power pumps that will then draw the water to the surface.The rigs will be unmanned and comprise several hexagonal platforms.

Strapped between them will be large nets designed to support the weight of wind turbines and about 200,000 hexagonal photovoltaic generators — super-efficient solar panels that are about the size of a double bed. The LEDs will shine down from the panels.

As a country with virtually no fossil fuels, price rises in oil and gas have chilled the corporate sector and the Japanese Government.

Japan’s faith in nuclear power has also taken a beating. An earthquake caused its largest nuclear plant to shut down in 2007 and engineers and seismic experts cautioned that the country’s high susceptibility to quakes placed the industry at risk.

Treasury head Alistair Darling eliminated the tax that buyers are required to pay on home purchases of less than 175,000 pounds ($312,565) to encourage first-time buyers to jump on the property ladder.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown also unveiled plans to spend 1 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) to help buyers hit by a cut in bank mortgage lending in the face of the global credit crunch.

Property prices have fallen by 10.5 percent in the last 12 months, according to Nationwide Building Society.

The Treasury said that for the next year, people buying homes worth 175,000 pounds ($312,565) or less would not have to pay the 1 percent “stamp duty” tax, saving them as much as 1,750 pounds ($3,126).

Brown’s 1 billion pound ($1.8 billion) housing scheme, which he and communities secretary Hazel Blears will formally announce later Tuesday, will target first-time buyers and families at risk of having their homes repossessed.

Under the plans, first-time buyers with an annual household income of less than 60,000 pounds ($107,000) will be entitled to a free five-year loan worth up to 30 percent of a home’s value.

The government promised to help vulnerable families, hit by higher mortgage rates and rising fuel and food costs, from having their homes repossessed.

In some cases, the government will give money to families to help with mortgage payments in exchange for an equity stake in the homes.

In others, the government will buy the home from the mortgage company and then rent it back to the family at an affordable price.

The measures are aimed at keeping the stagnating British economy from falling into a recession, and boosting the popularity of the ruling Labour Party, which is currently lagging 20 points behind the opposition Conservative Party.

Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to “snoop” on one another.

The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi’s copybook.

“With council tax so high, the last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.”