Wall Street gains as earnings flow in; Alcoa up

Stocks rose on Wall Street Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a good start.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 86 points to 13,415 as of noon EST. The Dow is coming off of two days of losses.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained six points to 1,463 and the Nasdaq composite rose 17 points to 3,109.

Stocks, having rallied after a last-minute resolution stopped the U.S. going from over the “fiscal cliff,” are facing their first challenge of the year as companies start to report their earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012. Throughout last year, analysts had cut their outlook for earnings growth in the period and now expect them to rise by 3.21 percent, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.

“Maybe earnings expectations were a little too low,” said Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. “You don't need to have great earnings, you just need to beat those expectations” for stocks to rally, Detrick said.

Alcoa predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Late Tuesday the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts' estimates. Investors pay close attention to Alcoa's results and forecasts because the aluminum it makes is used in so many industries including construction and manufacturing.

Alcoa's stock rose 8 cents to $9.18.

Consumer products maker Helen of Troy, whose brands include Dr. Scholl's, Vicks and Fabreze, rose 89 cents to $34.42 after reporting a 15 percent increase in net income. Agricultural products giant Monsanto gained 84 cents to $99.34 after it said that its profit nearly tripled in the first fiscal quarter as sales of its biotech corn seeds expanded in Latin America.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 1.87 percent.

Among other stocks making big moves:

— Wireless network operator Clearwire jumped 22 cents to $3.14 after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose $1.17 to $37.14 and Sprint fell 8 cents to $5.89.

— Online education company Apollo Group plunged 10 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall-term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix. The stock fell $2.04 to $18.88.

— Seagate Technology, a maker of hard-disk drives, jumped $1.52 to $32.91 after predicting revenue for its fiscal second quarter that topped Wall Street expectations late Tuesday.

— Bank of America fell 29 cents to $11.69 after Credit Suisse analysts lowered their outlook on the lender to “neutral” for “outperform,” saying the current stock price overestimates the improvement in cost reduction that the bank can achieve this year.

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Testimony about Colorado massacre resumes in James Holmes hearing

More emotional testimony was expected at a hearing on the Aurora movie theater massacre, as prosecutors continued to lay out their case against the defendant, James Holmes.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Vivid testimony about the movie theater massacre that shocked a nation extended into a second day as a preliminary hearing for James E. Holmes resumed Tuesday.

Prosecutors continued to lay out their case against Holmes, 25, accused of killing 12 people and injuring about 70 during a shooting rampage on July 20 in a suburban cinema. At issue in the proceeding, expected to last a week, is whether there is a sufficient case to go to trial.

In the first day of testimony Monday, law enforcement officials described the bloody shooting scene and heartbreaking rescue attempts to bring the gravely wounded to treatment.

PHOTOS: Colorado movie theater shooting

The prosecution has been trying to show that Holmes acted deliberately while the defense in cross-examination has focused on how the former neuroscience graduate student appeared emotionally detached, bolstering their expected insanity presentation.

Throughout, Holmes has sat impassive, while some of the victims' relatives have wept during the more graphic testimony.

On Tuesday, the atmosphere at the Arapahoe County Court House contained less of the frenzy that marked the first day. Yet the proceedings come as the debate over gun control has heated up in the wake of the attack last month in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman who invaded the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman first killed his mother in their home and ended his shooting spree by killing himself.

WHO THEY WERE: Aurora theater shooting

Tuesday’s testimony also comes as the nation commemorates the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting where six died and 13 were injured when gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meet-and-greet with her constituents. Tucson, which has had events for several days, will mark the exact time of the shooting with the ringing of bells across the city at the moment of the morning attack.

Giffords, who went through a painful recovery and rehabilitation for gun wounds to the head, has become a spokeswoman for greater gun control. She and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, announced they would raise money to support gun control efforts. The pair visited Newtown last week.

On Monday, Aurora police testified about the horrors they found in the theater, including blood-soaked aisles and walls, crumpled bodies, and scores of spent shell casings.

TIMELINE: U.S. mass shootings

The prosecution also showed surveillance video of Holmes entering the theater complex just past midnight. He had purchased his ticket 12 days earlier. The chilling, soundless video shows Holmes redeeming his ticket at a kiosk, giving it to a ticket taker, then lingering near the concession stand for a few minutes before turning toward Theater 9, where the Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” was playing.

Prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will seek the death penalty.

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Alabama police: High school white supremacist planned bomb attack

Deam reported from Centennial, Colo.; Muskal reported from Los Angeles. 

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Target to match some rivals’ online prices year-round

(Reuters) – Target Corp said on Tuesday it will match on a year-round basis the prices found on the websites of key rivals Amazon.com Inc, Best Buy Co Inc, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Toys R Us, its latest tactic to hold onto shoppers focused on price.

The move extends an online price-matching program that Target introduced over the holiday season and which was supposed to last only from November 1 to December 16. It also comes after Target last week reported flat sales growth in December at stores open at least a year.

In November Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel said the retailer was not seeing a lot of price-match activity in its stores.

While shopping online has grown rapidly in recent years, it still represents a small fraction of overall shopping in the United States. Target’s policy of matching online prices differs from policies at several chains, which match only printed advertised prices for items sold at stores.

Target said that throughout the year it will match the price when a customer buys an eligible item at one of its stores and finds the same item at a lower price in the following week’s Target circular or in a local competitor’s printed ad. It will also match the price if the customer finds the same item at a lower price within a week on Target’s website or the websites of Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Toys R Us.

Amazon says it offers competitive prices and does not offer price matching when an item’s price drops after a customer buys it, with the exception of televisions. Walmart matches the prices of print ads from competitors. Walmart also says it checks the prices of 30,000 items at competing chains each week to make sure it has the lowest prices.

Best Buy matches the price from a local competitor’s store, a local Best Buy store or its own web site. Toys R Us matches in-store prices and certain online prices.

(Reporting By Jessica Wohl in Chicago and Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Alden Bentley and John Wallace)

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Spielberg earns 11th Directors Guild nomination

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Steven Spielberg has extended his domination at the Directors Guild of America Awards, earning a nomination Tuesday for his Civil War epic "Lincoln" to pad the record he already held to 11 film nominations from the guild.

Also nominated were past winners Kathryn Bigelow for her Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty"; Tom Hooper for his musical "Les Miserables"; and Ang Lee for his lost-at-sea story "Life of Pi."

Rounding out the Directors Guild lineup is first-time nominee Ben Affleck for his Iran hostage-crisis tale "Argo."

The Directors Guild field is one of Hollywood's most-accurate forecasts for who will be in the running at the Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Thursday. The winner at the Directors Guild almost always goes on to win the directing prize at the Oscars, too. Only six times in the 64-year history of the guild awards has the winner there failed to follow up with an Oscar.

Besides the record number of feature-film nominations, Spielberg also has won the Directors Guild prize a record three times, for "The Color Purple," ''Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan," along with directing Oscars for the latter two. He received the guild's lifetime-achievement award in 2000.

Bigelow became the first woman ever to win the guild honor and the directing Oscar three years ago for "The Hurt Locker." Hooper won the same prizes a year later for "The King's Speech," while Lee is a two-time guild winner for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain," the latter also earning him the directing Oscar.

Affleck, who also stars in "Argo," follows such actors-turned-filmmakers as Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson to earn a Directors Guild nomination.

Overlooked by the guild were past nominees Quentin Tarantino for his slave-revenge tale "Django Unchained" and David O. Russell for his oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook."

The film that receives the Directing Guild prize typically also goes on to win the best-picture Oscar, a prize Spielberg has earned only once, for "Schindler's List." No clear front-runner has emerged yet for the Feb. 24 Oscars, with "Lincoln," ''Zero Dark Thirty" and "Les Miserables" all considered strong prospects to take home Hollywood's highest honor.

Sunday's Golden Globes will help sort out the Oscar picture, as will the various guild prizes that will be handed out in late January and February on the run-up to the Academy Awards.

Winners for the 65th annual Directors Guild awards will be announced at a Hollywood dinner Feb. 2, with Kelsey Grammer as host for the second year in a row.

Milos Forman, director of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus," will receive the guild's lifetime-achievement award.

___

Online:

http://www.dga.org

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Oil Sand Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level

Todd Korol/Reuters

An oil sands mine Fort McMurray, Alberta.

OTTAWA — The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed.

For the study, financed by the Canadian government, the researchers set out to develop a historical record of the contamination, analyzing sediment dating back about 50 years from six small and shallow lakes north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the center of the oil sands industry. Layers of the sediment were tested for deposits of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, groups of chemicals associated with oil that in many cases have been found to cause cancer in humans after long-term exposure.

“One of the biggest challenges is that we lacked long-term data,” said John P. Smol, the paper’s lead author and a professor of biology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “So some in industry have been saying that the pollution in the tar sands is natural, it’s always been there.”

The researchers found that to the contrary, the levels of those deposits have been steadily rising since large-scale oil sands production began in 1978.

Samples from one test site, the paper said, now show 2.5 to 23 times more PAHs in current sediment than in layers dating back to around 1960.

“We’re not saying these are poisonous ponds,” Professor Smol said. “But it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late but the trend is not looking good.” He said that the wilderness lakes studied by the group were now contaminated as much as lakes in urban centers.

The study is likely to provide further ammunition to critics of the industry, who already contend that oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands poses environmental hazards like toxic sludge ponds, greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of boreal forests.

Battles are also under way over the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would move the oil down through the western United States and down to refineries along the Gulf Coast, or an alternative pipeline that would transport the oil from landlocked Alberta to British Columbia for export to Asia.

The researchers, who included scientists at Environment Canada’s aquatic contaminants research division, chose to test for PAHs because they had been the subject of earlier studies, including one published in 2009 that analyzed the distribution of the chemicals in snowfall north of Fort McMurray. That research drew criticism from the government of Alberta and others for failing to provide a historical baseline.

“Now we have the smoking gun,” Professor Smol said.

He said he was not surprised that the analysis found a rise in PAH deposits after the industrial development of the oil sands, “but we needed the data.” He said he had not entirely expected, however, to observe the effect at the most remote test site, a lake that is about 50 miles to the north.

Asked about the study, Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, emphasized in an e-mail that with the exception of one lake very close to the oil sands, the levels of contaminants measured by the researchers “did not exceed Canadian guidelines and were low compared to urban areas.”

He added that an environmental monitoring program for the region announced last February 2012 was put into effect “to address the very concerns raised by such studies” and to “provide an improved understanding of the long-term cumulative effects of oil sands development.”

Earlier research has suggested several different ways that the chemicals could spread. Most oil sand production involve large-scale open-pit mining. The chemicals may become wind-borne when giant excavators dig them up and then deposit them into 400-ton dump trucks.

Upgraders at some oil sands projects that separate the oil bitumen from its surrounding sand are believed to emit PAHs. And some scientists believe that vast ponds holding wastewater from that upgrading and from other oil sand processes may be leaking PAHs and other chemicals into downstream bodies of water.

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Americans may face rising gasoline prices again in 2013

The GasBuddy 2013 Fuel Price Outlook report warns that gasoline prices may rise again this year. (Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / December 18, 2012)

By Ronald D. White

January 8, 2013, 10:06 a.m.

It's the kind of news that Americans waiting for holiday spending bills to arrive don't want to hear: “Even with increasing energy production in the U.S., declining fuel consumption, and improving fuel efficiency, Americans may still face rising gasoline prices in 2013."

The quote comes from Gregg Laskoski, one of the senior petroleum analysts at GasBuddy.com. That's the fuel price spotting service used by several million smartphone users to report the highest and lowest gasoline and diesel prices they encounter.

PHOTOS: Best car values for fuel economy

GasBuddy's 2013 forecast hedges its bets on whether America's fuel bills will indeed be higher or lower this year, citing a number of factors that could cause prices to rise or fall. Among them are the following:

• The value of the U.S. dollar over the course of the year: "When the dollar loses value, crude oil climbs higher and Americans pay more for gasoline."


• Uncertainty over the level of U.S. fuel exports in 2013: "As of January 2013, the Energy Information Administration reports that exports have risen 217% in the last 10 years, most recently rising to nearly three million barrels per day. The amount of products exported amounts to over 16% of what Americans consume everyday."


• The effects of hurricanes that may threaten fuel infrastructure along the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard: "Hurricane season has brought significant harm to oil infrastructure in the last decade, and while hurricanes are not guaranteed to impact such facilities, such an event could interrupt notable infrastructure."


• The dependability of the nation's refineries after several problems in 2012: "We'll also see whether refineries have sufficiently addressed the weaknesses that were exposed last year."

Despite the caveats, GasBuddy sees the median price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. starting out at around $3.29 a gallon in January before rising to an early peak of $3.95 a gallon in April.

Summer gas prices are expected to range between $3.60 and $3.73 a gallon, the forecast said. By December, the median price could fall back to $3.33 a gallon.

Among U.S. cities, gasoline prices could rise as high as $4.35 to $4.65 in Los Angeles, $4.10 to $4.40 a gallon in New York, $4.35 to $4.60 in Chicago, and $3.85 to $4.15 in Houston.

The median price for a gallon of diesel is expected to range from $3.90 in January to $4.12 a gallon by October.

“The saying goes that all you can be sure of in life is death and taxes. I’d add the seasonal run-up in fuel prices every spring as something I’m sure of in life,” said Patrick DeHaan, the other senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com.

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From gang member to team player

SAN FRANCISCO — Luis Aroche learned about violence at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, across from the projects where his friend Carl lived.

He remembers sitting down at his desk and seeing his teacher, Mrs. Foster, in tears. His class had just finished the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Carl was playing on the swings and got shot," Aroche said. "And died. Kindergarten. He got found laying in a pool of blood in the park," Aroche paused. Swallowed. Started up again. "He was my desk buddy. He would go with me to the bathroom. And now, Carl wasn't there.

"That was my first experience of loss. And I didn't understand it. To this day, I don't understand it."

Aroche since has become something of an expert on violence — as victim, perpetrator and now as part of a hoped-for solution. Last year, San Francisco Dist. Atty. George Gascon hired the former gang member to be his office's first "alternative sentencing planner," part of an effort to keep offenders from ending up back behind bars.

The position, criminal justice experts say, has no equivalent in any prosecutor's office in the country.

And Aroche is as singular as his job. An Aztec skull tattoo stretches down his right forearm to his hand, its grimace partly wiped away by laser removal. The day his juvenile record was sealed, he says, was the happiest of his life.

Today, he helps prosecutors figure out who among San Francisco's low-level offenders deserves a jail cell and who deserves a second chance.

He knows a lot about both.

::

If you were Aroche, 12 years old and living in the Mission District in 1990 — when gangs and crack cocaine meant funerals were as commonplace as quinceañeras — you got a tattoo, cut school and drank beer. You thought a stint in Pelican Bay State Prison was like going off to "Stanford or Yale." You practiced how to sit and talk and smoke like the toughest prisoners.

"We would learn how to iron our clothes using a comb, 'cause that's how you iron your pants in prison," Aroche said. "You iron it with the teeth of the comb … and then you put it underneath the mattress."

Aroche's first tattoo was a small cross on his left hand, in the soft web between thumb and forefinger. He got it in an alleyway not far from the studio apartment where he slept on the floor with his five brothers, three sisters, the occasional niece or nephew. His parents got the bed in the corner.

His Salvadoran mother was a chambermaid at a Fisherman's Wharf motel, his Puerto Rican father a security guard in the Navy shipyards.

And his older brothers? They would disappear for years. Aroche didn't know why until his father took him to visit San Quentin State Prison. They were "main men" in a notorious Northern California prison gang. When they were out, they were "the mayors of the Mission."

By the time Aroche was 15, he was drinking so much and incarcerated so often that he gave himself a test every night before he went to sleep. If he put out his hand and felt warm, smooth drywall, he knew he was home. If he felt cold, slick concrete, he was in custody.

One night he ended up in the hospital. He'd been drunk, hanging out in Lucky Alley, when a car drove up and the doors flew open. Aroche saw his friend get sliced with a machete. Gunshots rang out.

"And I remember some guy grabbing me and hitting me with a crowbar and stabbing me in my stomach," he said. "And I could feel the pierce of my stomach, just ripping me open.... And I thought, this is it. This is it. This is my life."

::

At the computer in his spartan office at the Hall of Justice, Aroche is poring over the official tale of another life in the balance: a 28-year-old woman on a downward spiral.

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Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer

DUBAI (Reuters) – A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second to be jailed for the offence in as many days.

The U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state has clamped down in recent months on political activists who have been using social media websites to criticize the government and the ruling family.

Kuwait has seen a series of protests, including one on Sunday night, organized by the opposition since the ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, used emergency powers in October to change the voting system.

The court sentenced Ayyad al-Harbi, who has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter, to the prison term two months after his arrest and release on bail.

Harbi used his Twitter account to criticize the Kuwait government and the emir. He tweeted on Sunday: “Tomorrow morning is my trial’s verdict on charges of slander against the emir, spreading of false news.”

His lawyer, Mohammed al-Humidi, said Harbi would appeal against the verdict. “We’ve been taken by surprise because Kuwait has always been known internationally and in the Arab world as a democracy-loving country,” Humidi told Reuters by telephone. “People are used to democracy, but suddenly we see the constitution being undermined.”

On Sunday, Rashid Saleh al-Anzi was given two years in prison over a tweet that “stabbed the rights and powers of the emir”, according to the online newspaper Alaan. Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal.

Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.

In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.

Public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, and Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that has ousted four veteran Arab dictators in the past two years.

But tensions have risen between Kuwait’s hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Oscar host Seth MacFarlane to announce nominations

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the first time in 40 years, the host of the Academy Awards will help announce the Oscar nominations.

Academy officials say Oscar host Seth MacFarlane will join actress Emma Stone to reveal the nominees for the 85th annual Academy Awards. This is the first time since 1972 that an Oscar host has participated in the nominations announcement. Charlton Heston was the only other show host to announce Oscar nominees.

MacFarlane and Stone will reveal the contenders early Thursday morning from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif. The Academy Awards will be presented Feb. 24 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

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Alexander Leaf Dies at 92; Linked Diet and Health

Alexander Leaf, a versatile physician and research scientist who was an early advocate of diet and exercise to prevent heart disease, and who traveled the world to make important discoveries about increasing human longevity and to help scientifically establish the dangers global warming poses to the human species, died on Dec. 24 in Boston. He was 92.

The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Barbara Leaf.

Dr. Leaf’s career toggled between pure scientific research and medical practice; unusually for the medical world, he sustained achievement in both realms. He was at different times chairman of medicine and chief of medical services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, one of the nation’s premier hospitals, and led the department of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was one of the first practicing physicians ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in 1972.

He was probably best known for his work on heart disease, advocating prevention through exercise and diet, particularly foods low in animal fat and sodium.

Dr. Leaf’s research into the cellular biology of heart disease led him to undertake a series of expeditions in the early 1970s to study longevity in parts of the world where heart disease was rare and some people were said to live 140 years or more.

The expeditions, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, were criticized when some of the very old people in the study turned out to have lied or been misinformed about their ages. Dr. Leaf openly disavowed the project. But he never doubted the basic insights he had gleaned from the scores of interviews he conducted with people in the Caucasus Mountains, the Hunza Valley of Pakistan and the foothills of the Andes.

Whether they were 120 or older, as many of the subjects had claimed, or in their late 90s, as was later found, he concluded that people who lived in mountainous places, worked outdoors into their old age and consumed local food high in vegetable content and low in animal fat tended to live very long and healthy lives free of heart disease.

Dr. Leaf made a similar series of trips in the late 1980s, sponsored by the World Health Organization, to study the effects of climate change in Africa. His report on the study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1989, drawing praise from public health experts as one of the first to link longer, hotter summers with outbreaks of infectious diseases like malaria in regions previously untouched by them.

Dr. Arnold S. Relman, a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of The New England Journal, said Dr. Leaf “had a moral sense that science was not just for answering basic questions about the human body, but for dealing with the broader questions of human suffering and human welfare.”

Dr. Leaf was born Alexander Livshiz on April 10, 1920, in Yokohama, Japan, where his Russian-born parents had separately fled during the Russian civil war after the Bolshevik Revolution. His parents, both dentists, changed the family name when they arrived in Seattle in 1922.

He graduated from the University of Washington as a chemistry major, received his medical degree at the University of Michigan and served his internship and residency at Massachusetts General.

Besides Mrs. Leaf, whom he met while both were students at the University of Washington, his survivors include their daughters, Caroline, Rebecca and Tamara Leaf, and two grandchildren.

Dr. Leaf’s early research focused on how sodium and potassium pass through cell walls, a process crucial to cellular health and important in understanding the causes of heart disease. His work on toad bladders was considered seminal in the development of treatments for life-threatening heart arrhythmias.

As chief of medical services at Massachusetts General from 1966 to 1981, he established one of the first programs in the country for primary-care medical residents and set up a network of free clinics in poor neighborhoods around Boston. He was a founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which was formed in 1961 to oppose nuclear proliferation and later added environmental and social problems to its portfolio. He led Harvard’s department of preventive medicine from 1981 to 1990.

Dr. Leaf continued his research after retiring from teaching, remaining active almost as long as the mountain-dwelling subjects of his 1970s studies.

In his 80s he began studying the effects of fish oil and fatty acids on longevity. In 2005 he was the lead author of a paper published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, describing the effectiveness of fish oil’s omega-3 fatty acids in reducing heart attacks triggered by ventricular arrhythmias, which are chaotic contractions of the heart muscles.

“There is still some uncertainty about the extent of the benefit,” Dr. Relman said, “but I dare say if you ask most cardiologists, they will tell you that as a result of that article they are taking daily doses of fish oil, myself included.”

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