Serena offers ominous warning for Australian Open rivals

BRISBANE (Reuters) - Serena Williams felt she was close to accessing the sporting "zone" during her emphatic 6-2 6-1 victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the final of the Brisbane International on Saturday.
Williams needed only 51 minutes to beat the Russian in an ominous warm-up for the Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on January 14.
"I've been in the zone a few times," Williams told reporters.
"I don't know if I was in the zone today, but I was definitely heading in that direction. I've been in the twilight zone before, where I just felt so good I couldn't do anything wrong."
The world No.3's performance was so strong that Pavlyuchenkova said afterwards: "I always feel like I don't know how to play tennis when I play against you."
Williams captured the 47th title of her career. She has won 35 of her past 36 matches while claiming Wimbledon, the Olympics, the US Open, the season-ending tour championship and now the opening event of 2013.
The 31-year-old American roared through the Brisbane tournament without the loss of a set.
She said: "I was looking at a lot of old matches on YouTube, and I feel like right now I'm playing some of my best tennis. I feel like I want to do better and play better still."
Williams said a decision to seek on-court tranquillity after a shattering defeat to Virginie Razzano at the French Open last year had triggered her career resurrection.
"I really started being more calm on the court and just relaxing more, if it's possible for me to relax," she said.
"I feel better when I'm more calm. When I'm crazy like I was in Paris, as you can see, it doesn't do great for me. I think it is a really fine line between being too calm... I think sometimes if I'm too calm it doesn't work for me, either. I can be calm and still be pumped up and really excited.
"I can't do too much of either."
Williams said she wanted to take up meditation as an off-court routine, even though it would challenge her.
"I can never sit long enough for meditation," she said. "I really want to meditate more and I want to be still and be in that quiet area. But I just pick up my iPad and start playing some games, and then next thing I know I'm watching TV.
"Hopefully I can get there."
At Melbourne Park Williams will be chasing her 16th major championship and sixth Australian Open title.
She will start as the clear favourite after her irresistible progress through the Brisbane event coincided with injuries hampering the preparations of world No.1 Victoria Azarenka (toe) and No.2 Maria Sharapova

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Hussey finishes on a high with Australia sweep

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Michael Hussey ended his test career on a high on Sunday when Australia beat Sri Lanka by five wickets with a day to spare in the third test to sweep the series 3-0.
The 37-year-old was deprived of the ultimate fairytale ending when his batting partner Mitchell Johnson scored the winning run but Hussey, ever the team man, was not remotely concerned.
"It couldn't have ended any better," he said after being applauded off the pitch by both teams at the end of his 79th test.
"I feel very proud to have worn the baggy green cap and I've probably achieved a lot more in my career than I ever dreamed I could."
Australia, chasing 141 runs to win the test, lost three wickets in quick succession just before tea to bring Hussey out for his final test innings before retirement.
The break came with the hosts just five runs shy of victory and when Johnson pushed the ball wide of point for his only run of the innings, Hussey was already halfway down the pitch to secure the winning run.
"I was telling Mitch the over before if it comes up that you hit it, then I'm more than happy to let us get this over and done with," said Hussey, who finished unbeaten on 27 for a career average of 51.52.
"But I was more than happy to be out there when the winning run was hit. A dream come true. The important thing was making sure we won the test match."
Australia had dismissed the tourists for 278 before lunch to set up the run chase but they inched nervously towards the target after David Warner had departed for a duck without a run on the board.
Seamer Suranga Lakmal had the opener caught in the slips by his captain Mahela Jayawardene but it was the spin-bowling of Tillakaratne Dilshan and particularly Rangana Herath that was always going to provide most problems on a turning wicket.
The peace of a hot afternoon at the Sydney Cricket Ground was punctuated by the loud appeals of the Sri Lankans pretty much any time the ball came near a batsman's front pad.
Jayawardene, so profligate with his appeals to the TV umpire in this series, made the most of his first of the innings to remove Phil Hughes for 34 with Australia still 96 runs short of their target.
There was some confusion as to whether they were appealing for a catch or lbw off the Herath delivery. The TV pictures showed no nick or glove but did reveal that the ball would have hit the stumps so Hughes was out.
HUSSEY CHANTS
Clarke, the most prolific test batsmen of last year and later named Player of the Series, came to the crease for another duel with Herath, who took more test wickets than any other bowler in 2012.
In the end though, it was the spin of Dilshan which removed the Australia skipper for 29 although opener Ed Cowan (36) and Matthew Wade (9) did then quickly fall victim to Herath.
The crowd had already started chanting Hussey's name before Clarke's dismissal in the hope he would get out to bat again in his final test after being run-out in the first innings and they got their wish.
"What a place to finish. The SCG is probably my top three favourite grounds in the whole world," Hussey said.
"The crowd support and the support in general has been a bit overwhelming and I've been a bit embarrassed by it. In a way I'm quite relieved that it's over now."
Sri Lanka had resumed on 225-7 in the morning looking to bulk up their lead of 87 and give their bowlers something to work with.
Dinesh Chandimal hit a defiant 62 not out off 106 balls but ran out of partners when Jackson Bird had Nuwan Pradeep caught behind for nine half an hour before lunch.
Chandimal and Pradeep had put on 41 for the final wicket after Herath (10) and Lakmal (0) had departed relatively cheaply.
Bird, the least experienced of the four paceman deployed by Australia in the test, was named Man of the Match after bagging figures of 7-117.
Australia won the first test in Hobart by 137 runs and the second by an innings and 201 runs inside three days in Melbourne last week.
"I think we fought really well, but it wasn't good enough," said Jayawardene, who is stepping down as captain after this series.
"When you are competing at this level, I think we need to be much better prepared and show more character to win test matches in these conditions.

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Penguins' Private Lives Recorded in Antarctica

MCMURDO SOUND, Antarctica — Suppose someone monitors your whole life, from the moment you were born through childhood, puberty, adolescence and your midlife crisis, all the way to your ultimate death — recording what you eat, where you go, who you make love to, when you raise children and how your body ages. Pretty scary, right?
But that's exactly what biologist David Ainley is doing. Not with humans, but with Adélie penguins in Antarctica. If he could put TV cameras in the birds' master bedrooms, he wouldn't hesitate.
No detail too private
For 17 years now, Ainley has studied three penguin colonies in and around McMurdo Sound, located at the southern extent of the Ross Sea. "It's rare in science to collect data throughout the whole age structure of a population," Ainley told LiveScience, noting Adélie penguins live, on average, about 20 years. Some of the sedate, elderly colony members were just "screaming" newborn chicks when he first arrived here in 1996.
Back then, the three colonies were growing rapidly, at a rate of about 10 percent per year. "My original goal was to find out what caused this increase, and why the smaller colonies grew even faster than the larger ones," said Ainley, who is a biologist at H.T. Harvey & Associates, an ecological consultancy in San Jose, Calif.
Surprisingly, the baby boom turned out to be a side effect of the Antarctic ozone hole (an opening in the protective atmospheric layer), which reached huge dimensions in the 1990s. "A larger ozone hole means a cooler stratosphere, a more powerful polar vortex and, as a result of stronger winds, more open water in the immediate neighborhood of the colonies," he said. The penguins need the open water for finding their favorite foods — krill and fish.
With funding from the U.S. Antarctic Program, through the National Science Foundation, Ainley has discovered a lack of competition for scarce food resources is what drives the smaller colonies to grow faster than larger ones. Also, predator leopard seals, which aren't very efficient hunters, are more interested in the bigger colonies, where they have a better chance to catch their nourishing penguin snack.
Along the way, penguin privacy has gone out the window: To keep track of a representative selection of individual penguins, Ainley has banded them on one of their flippers, making it easy to identify each from afar through binoculars. [Image Gallery: Private Sex Lives of Penguins]
Moreover, at the exit of the colonies, Ainley has mounted electronic weigh bridges, over which the penguins have to pass when they go foraging in the open sea, and again when they return to feed their newborn chicks from their own stomachs. Radio-frequency chips identify the penguins, and the automatic measurements provide a detailed record of their foraging and feeding behaviors during the austral summer season.
An icy obstacle
All was going well with Ainley's research. But in March 2000, catastrophe struck. A huge part of the Ross Ice Shelf broke loose. The iceberg, nearly the size of the state of Connecticut, blocked access to the open waters of the Ross Sea, effectively cutting off the penguins' preferred route to their winter habitat, farther away from the pole. To reach these slightly warmer and less gloomy regions with their fish and krill in tow, the poor birds now had to take a 50-mile (80 kilometers) detour. Eventually, the iceberg would remain stuck for a period of five years, and the penguin colonies diminished markedly. [Album: Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]
"At first, I was very disappointed," said Ainley, as it looked as if the iceberg had wrecked his research program. "But then it turned out that there was a lot of new information to gain from the whole episode." In particular, Ainley discovered many penguins from the small colony at Cape Royds did not return home at all in the summer season, but started a new life at one of the other two Adélie colonies at Ross Island — at Cape Crozier and Cape Bird.
This was completely unexpected, said Ainley. "The scientific gospel was that penguins live in the same colony for their entire life, and that they never migrate elsewhere. But the gospel was written by people who had never witnessed an iceberg event like this one."
Contemplating the universe
By now, everything is pretty much back to normal again. Together with his colleague Jean Pennycook, Ainley started his 17th field expedition in early December. Every other day at Cape Royds, he walks through the penguin colony, armed with a pair of binoculars, keeping track of what the birds are doing. "There's not very much to do, really,” he said. “Actually, I spend most of my time at my laptop." Research results, as well as daily pictures from breeding nests, are published at a special website, www.penguinscience.com, partly for educational reasons.
The small colony at Cape Royds has a population of about 2,000 penguin pairs, as opposed to Cape Bird, with some 50,000 pairs, and Cape Crozier, the biggest colony in the world, with a staggering 280,000 pairs. "At the other colonies, there's more than enough work to keep two people busy for seven days a week," he said.
But despite the cold, Ainley doesn't seem to mind the relative lack of work. Pointing at the male penguins that are solemnly breeding two fresh-laid eggs each, he notes: "They're just sitting there, contemplating the universe."
To many researchers in Antarctica, the combination of utter remoteness and overwhelming natural beauty is the main atttraction of the frozen continent. In fact, Ainley admits he choose penguin research for his doctoral work just to get a chance to go to Antarctica. "I just had to go there," he said. "I could've chosen geology instead, since I also majored in that discipline."
Then again, monitoring the full life cycle of a mountain or a glacier, from birth to death, is a bit beyond human scope. In the case of the Adélie penguins, Ainley almost accomplished this feat. "I'll return two more times on my current grant," he said. "If I'm creative enough to come up with a new research project, I may receive another five-year grant."
The penguins aren't likely to mind. Who knows, they might start to miss their human friend if he weren't to show up anymore.

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NHL players respond to lawsuit in labor dispute

 As the National Hockey League and the players' union sought to negotiate the end to a long labor dispute that has jeopardized the season, proceedings in a lawsuit pitting the two sides against each other moved forward.
In a court filing on Thursday, the players asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the league that sought a declaration confirming the legality of the player lockout.
The lockout has been in place since mid-September as the two sides have struggled to come to a new labor agreement. The league has canceled games up to January 14, more than 50 percent of the regular season which was scheduled to start in October.
The dispute moved to court last month after reports circulated that the NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) would seek a vote from its members to proceed with a "disclaim of interest" and no longer represent players in bargaining.
Such a move would free players to file antitrust lawsuits against the league in an effort to block the lockout.
In its court filing on Thursday, lawyers for the NHLPA argued that the lawsuit filed by the league was premature and that it should be dismissed.
"They ask the Court to simply assume the outcome of events that had not yet taken place at the time the Complaint was filed, and then decree what the law would be on the basis of those assumptions," wrote lawyers for the players.
A spokesman for the NHL declined to comment on the filing.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of Manhattan immediately responded to the players' request by issuing an order scheduling a conference January 7 to establish a case-management plan for the litigation. He wrote that the goal of the plan should be to enhance "the parties' ability to resolve their disputes with dispatch.

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NHL-Labor talks at near standstill as season deadline looms

Jan 3 (Reuters) - Negotiations on a labor deal between the National Hockey League (NHL) and locked out players ground to a near standstill on Thursday, with time running out on salvaging even a partial season.
The optimism that surrounded talks on Wednesday vanished quickly as the NHL Players Association (NHLPA) dialed up the pressure, calling on the membership to vote again to give their executive board the power to file a disclaimer of interest that would dissolve the union and free individual players to file anti-trust lawsuits against the league.
The move came less than 24 hours after the union opted not to play the disclaimer card and let a self-imposed Wednesday midnight deadline pass, allowing negotiations to continue into the late evening.
However, the mood had changed dramatically when the two parties returned to the bargaining table early on Thursday afternoon with talks limited to small group discussions that did not include NHLPA chief Donald Fehr.
With very little bargaining taking place, the focus shifted to tactics and legal maneuvering, with the union going to court on Thursday to ask a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the league.
The dispute moved to court last month after reports circulated that the NHLPA would seek a vote from its members to proceed with a "disclaim of interest" and the NHL launched a pre-emptive strike asking to have the lockout declared legal.
In its court filing, lawyers for the NHLPA argued that the lawsuit filed by the league was premature and that it should be dismissed.
"They ask the court to simply assume the outcome of events that had not yet taken place at the time the complaint was filed, and then decree what the law would be on the basis of those assumptions," wrote lawyers for the players.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of Manhattan immediately responded to the players' request by issuing an order scheduling a Jan. 7 conference to establish a case-management plan for the litigation that "may enhance, and does not needlessly inhibit, the parties' ability to resolve their disputes with dispatch".
With more than half the season already wiped out and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman having set a Jan. 19 deadline for the puck to drop on a shortened 48-game schedule, time is running out on the league and players to get a deal done.
There had been indications the two sides were inching closer to agreement on major issues - such has how to split $3.3 billion in revenue - contract lengths, revenue sharing and length of the new collective bargaining agreement but they remain far apart on others.
Player pension plans and how they are funded has suddenly popped up as the hot topic, along with where the salary cap ceiling should be set.

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DISCOVER YAHOO! WITH YOUR FRIENDS close Labor talks at near standstill as season deadline looms

Negotiations on a labor deal between the National Hockey League (NHL) and locked out players ground to a near standstill on Thursday, with time running out on salvaging even a partial season.
The optimism that surrounded talks on Wednesday vanished quickly as the NHL Players Association (NHLPA) dialed up the pressure, calling on the membership to vote again to give their executive board the power to file a disclaimer of interest that would dissolve the union and free individual players to file anti-trust lawsuits against the league.
The move came less than 24 hours after the union opted not to play the disclaimer card and let a self-imposed Wednesday midnight deadline pass, allowing negotiations to continue into the late evening.
However, the mood had changed dramatically when the two parties returned to the bargaining table early on Thursday afternoon with talks limited to small group discussions that did not include NHLPA chief Donald Fehr.
With very little bargaining taking place, the focus shifted to tactics and legal maneuvering, with the union going to court on Thursday to ask a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the league.
The dispute moved to court last month after reports circulated that the NHLPA would seek a vote from its members to proceed with a "disclaim of interest" and the NHL launched a pre-emptive strike asking to have the lockout declared legal.
In its court filing, lawyers for the NHLPA argued that the lawsuit filed by the league was premature and that it should be dismissed.
"They ask the court to simply assume the outcome of events that had not yet taken place at the time the complaint was filed, and then decree what the law would be on the basis of those assumptions," wrote lawyers for the players.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of Manhattan immediately responded to the players' request by issuing an order scheduling a January 7 conference to establish a case-management plan for the litigation that "may enhance, and does not needlessly inhibit, the parties' ability to resolve their disputes with dispatch".
With more than half the season already wiped out and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman having set a January 19 deadline for the puck to drop on a shortened 48-game schedule, time is running out on the league and players to get a deal done.
There had been indications the two sides were inching closer to agreement on major issues - such has how to split $3.3 billion in revenue - contract lengths, revenue sharing and length of the new collective bargaining agreement but they remain far apart on others.
Player pension plans and how they are funded has suddenly popped up as the hot topic, along with where the salary cap ceiling should be set.
The league wants a cap locked in at $60 million while the players are believed to be seeking something in the $65-67 million range.

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Poll: Obesity's a crisis but we want our junk food

WASHINGTON (AP) — We know obesity is a health crisis, or every new year wouldn't start with resolutions to eat better and get off the couch. But don't try taking away our junk food.
Americans blame too much screen time and cheap fast food for fueling the nation's fat epidemic, a poll finds, but they're split on how much the government should do to help.
Most draw the line at policies that would try to force healthier eating by limiting food choices, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
A third of people say the government should be deeply involved in finding ways to curb obesity, while a similar proportion want it to play little or no role. The rest are somewhere in the middle.
Require more physical activity in school, or provide nutritional guidelines to help people make better choices? Sure, 8 in 10 support those steps. Make restaurants post calorie counts on their menus, as the Food and Drug Administration is poised to do? Some 70 percent think it's a good idea.
"That's a start," said Khadijah Al-Amin, 52, of Coatesville, Pa. "The fat content should be put up there in red letters, not just put up there. The same way they mark something that's poisonous, so when you see it, you absolutely know."
But nearly 6 in 10 people surveyed oppose taxes targeting unhealthy foods, known as soda taxes or fat taxes.
And when it comes to restricting what people can buy — like New York City's recent ban of supersized sodas in restaurants — three-quarters say no way.
"The outlawing of sugary drinks, that's just silly," said Keith Donner, 52, of Miami, who prefers teaching schoolchildren to eat better and get moving.
"People should just look at a Big Gulp and say, 'That's not for me.' I think it starts when they are young and at school," he added.
Indeed, while three-quarters of Americans consider obesity a serious health problem for the nation, most of those surveyed say dealing with it is up to individuals. Just a third consider obesity a community problem that governments, schools, health care providers and the food industry should be involved in. Twelve percent said it will take work from both individuals and the community.
That finding highlights the dilemma facing public health experts: Societal changes over recent decades have helped spur growing waistlines, and now a third of U.S. children and teens and two-thirds of adults are either overweight or obese. Today, restaurants dot more street corners and malls, regular-sized portions are larger, and a fast-food meal can be cheaper than healthier fare. Not to mention electronic distractions that slightly more people surveyed blamed for obesity than fast food.
In the current environment, it's difficult to exercise that personal responsibility, said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, which has closely tracked the rise in obesity.
"We need to create environments where the healthy choice becomes the easy choice, where it's possible for people to bear that responsibility," he said.
The new poll suggests women, who have major input on what a family eats, recognize those societal and community difficulties more than men do.
More than half of women say the high cost of healthy food is a major driver of obesity, compared with just 37 percent of men. Women also are more likely than men to blame cheap fast food and to say that the food industry should bear a lot of responsibility for helping to find solutions.
Patricia Wilson, 53, of rural Speedwell, Tenn., says she must drive 45 minutes to reach a grocery store — passing numerous burger and pizza joints, with more arriving every year.
"They shouldn't be letting all these fast-food places go up," said Wilson, who nags her children and grandchildren to eat at home and watch their calories. She recalls how her own overweight grandmother lost both her legs and then her life to diabetes.
More than 80 percent of people in the AP-NORC poll said they had easy access to supermarkets, but just as many could easily get fast food. Another 68 percent said it was easy for kids to purchase junk food on their way to school, potentially foiling diet-conscious caregivers like Wilson, who doesn't allow her grandchildren to eat unhealthy snacks at home.
"If they say they're hungry, they get regular food," she said.
Food is only part of the obesity equation; physical activity is key too. About 7 in 10 people said it was easy to find sidewalks or paths for jogging, walking or bike-riding. But 63 percent found it difficult to run errands or get around without a car, reinforcing a sedentary lifestyle.
James Gambrell, 27, of Springfield, Ore., said he pays particular attention to diet and exercise because obesity runs in his family. He makes a point of walking to stores and running errands on foot two to three times a week.
But Gambrell, a fast-food cashier, said he eats out at least once a day because of the convenience and has changed his order at restaurants that already have begun posting calorie counts. He's all for the government pushing those kinds of solutions.
"I feel that it's a part of the government's responsibility to care for its citizens and as such should attempt to set regulations for restaurants that are potentially harmful to its citizens," he said.
On the other side is Pamela Dupuis, 60, of Aurora, Colo., who said she has struggled with weight and has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. She doesn't want the government involved in things like calorie-counting.
"They should stay out of our lives," she said.
The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted Nov. 21 through Dec. 14. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,011 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

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High School Basketball Star Must Tan to Treat Rare Disease

When the Shawnee High School basketball team is down on the scoreboard, players know to throw the ball to Josh Borelli. Borelli is not only the team's star player, but also the player most adept at overcoming adversity.

Borrelli, a senior at the Medford, N.J., school, has a condition called Mucha-Habermann, an extremely rare skin disorder that causes lesions to develop all over the body.

Borrelli developed the autoimmune disease out-of-the-blue in eighth grade.

"One day I woke up in the eighth grade and I had red lesions all over my body so I went to the doctors," he told ABC News. "It was the first or second case he's seen in his 40 year practice."

According to the NIH, Mucha-Habermann strikes males more often than females and occurs more frequently in children, specifically between the ages of five to 10. Borrelli's father told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was believed to be the only person in the country to have the disease at the time he was diagnosed.

"This disease is so rare that most dermatologists don't see it in their entire practice," Dr. Doris Day, clinical associate professor of dermatology at New York University Medical, who does not treat Borrelli, told ABC News. "It's something that we read about but don't see."

Borrelli's own case went into remission as he entered high school, only to return at the start of his senior season. This time, his doctor ordered a new treatment in addition to his prescribed medication: daily visits to the tanning salon.

"My dad went with me the first couple of times to the tanning salon because I was a bit nervous," he said of the first of his now-routine eight minutes per day in the tanning booth.

The treatment worked and Borrelli's skin is now smooth, although enhanced with a Coppertone complexion. Doctors say the ultraviolet technique is so effective that Borrelli cannot miss a single day of tanning, especially since the disease can resurface at any time and cause life-threatening complications in adults.

The treatment has not hurt his basketball game. He continues to average nearly 20 points per game and is just two points shy of scoring 1,000 points in his career.

"If anything it's probably helped," Borrelli said. "There's people out there worse off than I am so I'm real lucky."

Borrelli's year-round tan has even inspired his fans to create a tagline of their own, donning "Fear the Tan" t-shirts at the school's basketball games.

"It's a tough situation and it's been very challenging for him but I've seen him rise to the occasion," Borrelli's father, David Borrelli, told ABC News.

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Racial gaps in access to robotic prostate surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Minority and Medicaid cancer patients are less likely to have their prostates removed at hospitals that use robot-assisted surgery, according to a new study that stops short of suggesting the robotic technique represents better care.
"People who are poor - frequently Hispanic, African American or black, and Medicaid patients - tend to get what is considered to be less high-quality care than those who are middle class and wealthy," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society.
But Brawley, who wasn't involved in the new study, also said there is no evidence that removing a prostate with a robot is better than the old-fashioned way, with "open" surgery that requires an incision across a man's stomach.
Those are two of several treatment options available for prostate cancer, including radiation as well as active surveillance, also known as watchful waiting.
The American Cancer Society estimates approximately 250,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, and about 28,000 died from it.
Despite a lack of evidence showing its superiority, robot-assisted prostate removal has become the predominant method since being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Simon Kim at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Robotic surgical tools allow doctors to operate through small incisions with the aid of a tiny video camera, an approach that is considered less invasive but also tends to be more expensive.
Kim and his colleagues write in The Journal of Urology that evidence does exist to show that black patients are already less likely to get radiation or to have their prostates removed, but there is less data on whether they and other minorities have equal access to robot-assisted prostate removal.
For the study, Kim's group used two national databases to compare the differences between the approximately 20,500 cancer patients who had their prostates removed at hospitals offering robotic surgery, and the 9,500 who had their surgery at hospitals without robots between 2006 and 2008.
Overall, the researchers found, the proportion of all prostate removals shifted from about 56 percent taking place at hospitals with robots in 2006 to 76 percent in 2008.
They also found that hospitals offering robotic surgery removed more than four times the number of prostates as other hospitals during that time.
That's important because hospitals that remove more prostates tend to report better patient outcomes after surgery.
In addition, black patients were 19 percent less likely to have their surgery at a hospital using robots compared to white patients, and Hispanic patients were 23 percent less likely.
Medicaid patients were also 30 percent less likely to go to a hospital offering robotic surgery, compared to patients with private insurance.
Dr. Michael Barry, who was not involved in the new research but has studied prostate cancer treatment and outcomes, pointed out that the new work shows a gap in who is able to access the hospitals that perform the greatest number of prostate removals.
"The issue here is not access to robot (surgery) but high-volume hospitals," said Barry, a clinical professor of medicine at Boston's Harvard Medical School.
The study authors, who were not available for comment by press time, similarly conclude that gaps in access to robotic surgery hospitals may also indicate limited access to high-volume hospitals.
"More effective health care policies focusing on incentives to provide better access for minorities or for patients primarily insured by Medicaid may reduce disparities in access to high volume hospitals with robotic surgery," they write.

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Eli Lilly banks on cost controls for higher 2013 profit

Eli Lilly and Co said on Friday it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.
Lilly, whose shares were up nearly 4 percent on Friday, said 2013 sales will be flat to a bit higher, despite the loss of patent on its $5 billion-a-year antidepressant, Cymbalta, in December.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker is coming off a particularly difficult 2012 when sales declined sharply because of competition from cheaper generics.
It expects 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share excluding items, from a forecast of $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012. In 2011, its adjusted earnings were $4.41 per share.
Analysts on average forecast earnings of $3.71 for 2013 and $3.36 per share for 2012, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"Overall, it was better than anyone expected," said Barclays Capital analyst Tony Butler. "From an earnings perspective, no one believed that operating expenses would be kept in check."
Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said, "They're cutting costs at a pace that's maybe a little quicker than people were anticipating, and that was one of the reasons for the outperformance in their guidance."
The company said 2013 net profit would benefit from a tax credit that had been pushed into this year because of the late signing of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 - the legislation that prevented the so-called fiscal cliff.
The company said it is not sure yet of the amount of the tax credit, which is related to research and development accounting, and said it would provide more information during its January 29 earnings conference call. Lilly said it excluded the impact from all of its financial guidance.
Similar uncertainty could face other drugmakers, as well as other corporate sectors with extensive research budgets, such as technology and defense. However, "It could be resolved by the time everybody else reports," Butler said of the pharmaceutical industry. "We've got another three weeks before anyone reports."
Lilly said the adjusted earnings forecast also excludes payment and income for revenue sharing with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's Amylin unit on Byetta, a diabetes drug, and restructuring charges. Lilly severed ties with Amylin when it agreed to collaborate with Boehringer Ingelheim on diabetes drug development.
HELP ON THE WAY
Lilly forecast 2013 revenue of $22.6 billion to $23.4 billion, driven by sales of its drugs for diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, erectile dysfunction and animal health. The company said it also expects significant revenue growth from Japan and emerging markets, such as China.
Analysts are looking for 2013 revenue of $22.82 billion.
While Cymbalta is not expected to start facing generic competition until the end of the year, the company cautioned that sales declines could begin sooner if wholesalers start to reduce inventory supplies prior to the patent expiration.
As a result, it said, the fourth quarter could look significantly different than the first three.
Lilly has already been battered by generic competition for its once top-selling schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa, and will face generic competition for its $1 billion-a-year Evista osteoporosis drug in early 2014.
But help is on the way. Lilly said it now has 13 drugs in late-stage testing, the most at any one time in its history. It could seek approvals this year for drugs for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, gastric cancer and for a type of lymphoma.
Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice told analysts on a conference call that the company was firmly focused on replenishing the developmental pipeline. "This is our future and it's our first priority."
The company also vowed to maintain its dividend payout and complete its share repurchase plan.
"Lilly has financially done a really good job. Obviously, you need the pipeline to come through," said Barclay's Butler, adding that positive late-stage data on ramucirumab in breast cancer could signal an important new product for Lilly. The drug is also in late-stage testing for the smaller gastric cancer market.
Other key events for Lilly in 2013 include the start of a new Phase III trial of solanezumab in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease after an earlier study failed but showed some signs of hope for the memory-robbing condition, and an August trial challenging a method of use patent on the $3 billion-a-year lung cancer drug Alimta.
Should Lilly prevail in court, the company could have patent protection on the medicine into 2022 even though the basic patent lapses in 2016.
Asked if the company would consider settling the case before it comes to trial, Phil Johnson, Lilly's vice president for investor relations, said: "Nothing is off the table, but we have not historically entered into those kinds of agreements."
Eli Lilly shares were up 3.8 percent at $51.60 on Friday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

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