GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran's nuclear and hydropower facilities are well protected from cyber attacks and even the most powerful earthquakes, Iranian environmental protection chief Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh said on Friday.

Iran's only nuclear power reactor at Bushehr was unscathed when a strong earthquake that killed 37 people and injured 850 hit close to the site last month, Iranian officials and the Russian company that built it said.

But that has not stopped fears about safety in a country that sits on major faultlines, especially as Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said that more reactors would be built there, just hours after the earthquake.

Two U.S. think-tanks, the Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists, said before the earthquake struck that warnings over such events had "fallen on deaf ears".

"Most of the energy producing utilities - including all our power plants, being hydropower or even nuclear - they do comply with the minimum of 8, up to about 10, on the Richter scale for resistance to earthquakes," Mohammadizadeh told Reuters.

"The highest known levels of safety and environmental standards have always been observed and incorporated during construction and after the commissioning phase," he said, speaking through an interpreter during an interview at the Iranian diplomatic mission in Geneva.

Mohammadizadeh, also vice president, said Iran was aware of the risks from earthquakes and landslides, which he said applied equally to its hydropower dams.

"Some of the dams we have well over 3 billion cubic meters of water right behind the dam. Imagine what kind of catastrophe a leakage or destruction of the dam could impose," he said.

CYBER PROTECTION

Besides the threat of natural disasters, Mohammadizadeh also said Iran's defenses against cyber attacks were as good as any country's and its facilities were well guarded.

Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was the first publicly known target of a computer virus used to attack industrial machinery.

The Stuxnet virus, widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010, although researchers at Symantec Corp have uncovered a version deployed two years earlier.

The West suspects such sites are used by Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says it nuclear program is purely for peaceful means.

"Obviously we have very well managed to protect ourselves from such cyber attacks in not only nuclear facilities and establishments for nuclear power production but also oil and gas and also hydropower as well as the banking network and we have very well protected our system and our information," Mohammadizadeh said.

"We have developed locally the knowledge of counteracting such cyber attacks and we have very well mastered it," he said. "Up to now we have always had success in countering such attacks and we expect to continue to do so."

A senior U.S. Air Force official told reporters in January that Iran responded to the 2010 Stuxnet attack by beefing up its own cyber capabilities, and would be a "force to be reckoned with" in the future.

Indeed, Western analysts say Iran has launched increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks itself in a confrontation with its adversaries, including the United States, Israel and Gulf Arabs, as pressure increases on Tehran to curb its nuclear program.

Mohammadizadeh likened cybersecurity to protecting one's health, with a need for preventive and protective steps.

"The issue of protecting against cyber attacks is not in a standstill situation. It will always be on the move and progress further to ensure a safe environment," he said.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Editing by Alison Williams)

The team owner just disagrees with the severity of the penalties levied against Joe Gibbs Racing this week.

More importantly, he's deeply troubled with the perception JGR cheated.

"You spend your life trying to live a certain way. That's a real personal thing and is something that has a big effect on me," said Gibbs, who added that when someone wrongs him, he always searches for intent.

"The first thing I wanted to know was: 'What was their intent?'" Gibbs said Friday. "Was it an accident, was it a mistake or did they purposefully try to do something? That's important to me. This motor and what happened, there was not an attempt to circumvent the rules or have an unfair competitive advantage."

JGR made a strong statement that the organization is weathering this storm in Friday qualifying at Richmond International Raceway, where Kenseth won the pole. Brian Vickers was second to make it an all-JGR front row for Saturday night's race.

The pole-winning run negates at least one portion of the penalty levied against Kenseth on Wednesday, when NASCAR said the pole he won last week at Kansas would not count toward eligibility for next year's preseason race at Daytona.

It was part of a harsh penalty levied by NASCAR, which maintained it's not its responsibility to determine intent or if the infraction provided an advantage when doling out punishment.

"Everybody's asked the same thing why aren't things more black and white?" NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said. "It's too light. It's too heavy. It's too wide. It's too high. It's too low. It's black and white, and we can't judge the performance because some guys do a better job of it than others, quite frankly."

The issue is not whether the part was illegal, because JGR admits one of eight connecting rods failed to meet the minimum weight requirement. But the engine came from manufacturer Toyota Racing Development, and JGR is questioning the fairness in NASCAR's harsh ruling against the team.

The reasoning, Pemberton said Friday, is two-fold.

"When you talk about engines, you talk about tires, and you talk about fuel, that's a common thread that's been understood, and it's stood the test of time for the last 65 years: Don't mess with those areas, and the penalties are severe," Pemberton said.

But NASCAR also holds the team ultimately responsible for every piece of the car presented at inspection.

"At this time we will not and cannot penalize vendors," Pemberton said. "We'd be at it all day long, whether it was a shock that went bad, a spring that collapsed that caused the car (to be) low or any of those things.

"But when you go down that road, there are a million pieces on these cars, and so we choose to go down the path that it's the team's responsibility for quality control, to check on the parts and pieces that they bring and compete with at the racetrack."

Per NASCAR policy, Kenseth's race-winning engine from Sunday at Kansas was taken back to the North Carolina Research & Development Center for a thorough inspection. Once opened up to NASCAR inspectors, one connecting rod was found to be approximately three grams less than the weight of an envelope too light.

Kenseth had everything but his trophy taken away, with NASCAR docking him 50 points, plus the three bonus points he earned for the win. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff was fined $200,000 and he and Gibbs were both suspended for six races.

JGR is appealing, so Ratcliff and Gibbs could work Friday at Richmond International Raceway, where Kenseth has gone on record in calling the penalties "grossly unfair" and "borderline shameful."

It's the first technical penalty JGR has appealed in 22 years, Gibbs said.

"One thing that is very important to me is the intent here was not to get an unfair advantage in any way. That's very important to me," said Gibbs, adding that 10 TRD engines have been inspected this year, eight from JGR, without an issue.

"I think basically that's what our appeal is going to be. We want to go forward and go through that process and what we'll be appealing will be the severe nature of the penalties."

Ratcliff also insisted that the No. 20 Toyota had no advantage from the one light connecting rod.

"I respect NASCAR's view on it as far as the part was illegal so by the letter of the law, the part's illegal and there's consequences for that. I do not feel like the spirit of the law was compromised," he said. "That's where we felt like the severity of the penalty is extremely harsh.

"We won Kansas, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. You make that change in that engine and that race doesn't change a bit."

The engines are made by TRD in Costa Mesa, Calif., and shipped to JGR's shop in North Carolina. JGR can't touch the engines beyond installing them in the cars, and TRD has accepted responsibility for the mistake. TRD officials said the manufacturer shipped the part with paperwork that indicated its correct weight, and TRD employees simply missed the fact it was not legal.

Ratcliff argued TRD should have felt the burden of the penalty, not JGR. Although NASCAR did dock Toyota five manufacturer points, the bulk of the penalty went against Gibbs and Ratcliff, who wasn't sure if he would have to pay the $200,000 himself. "I hope not. If I do I'm going to be broke we need to start a relief fund," he said.

"Back in the day, most of the engines were built by the race team," Ratcliff said. "Now you have a handful of major engine builders that supply engines to most all the teams in the garage. How do you hold them accountable? I think it's time for some change on how NASCAR approaches it because times have changed so much."

The penalties against JGR came a week after NASCAR penalized Penske Racing for allegedly using illegal parts in the rear suspension of defending champion Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano's cars.

Keselowski and Logano were docked 25 points apiece, their crew chiefs were fined a total of $200,000 and were suspended along with five other Penske employees for six races. Penske's appeal will be heard next Wednesday, and team owner Roger Penske has maintained they were working in a gray area of the rule book.

The Penske and Gibbs cases aren't similar in that Penske has a difference of opinion about a rule, where the Gibbs group will argue the severity of the fines.

Pemberton stood by his rules are rules defense.

"We feel like we're consistent, but not every violation is exactly the same," Pemberton said. "We do our best and we feel like we do a good job interpreting the rules and levying the penalties they deserve."

So: if you've got questions about the HTC One, or about the wild smartphone market in general, there's no better place to be than right here, starting at 1:30 PM sharp on Monday. Ask us absolutely anything, and we'll do our best to answer.

But even before the move, this lineage was . One ancient cousin to modern whales and hippos, called Andrewsarchus mongoliensis, ranks as the largest mammal known to have stalked the land as a predator. A skull from this creature the only fossil found so far from this beast greets visitors on their way into a new exhibit on whales here at the American Museum of Natural History.

"It's odd to have a big predator in this hoofed plant-eating mammal group," said John Flynn, co-curator of the exhibit, referring to the group to which whales and the now-extinct Andrewsarchus belonged. "But if you think about it, some of the other relatives like pigs and peccaries are pretty ferocious and will eat just about anything."

In an artist's rendering, the 45-million-year-old Andrewsarchus has a profile not unlike a giant feral pig with a more streamlined snout. This 6-foot-tall (1.8 meters) creature lived solely on land, but its relatives began taking to the water and eventually left land completely. []

The "first whale," a creature whose lifestyle (living on land but eating fish from the nearby sea) represented the early stage of this transition into the water, was a wolf-size fish eater that lived about 50 million years ago on the edges of the ancient , according to the exhibit. Whereas this creature had a body clearly adapted for land, its relatives began acquiring features better suited to life in the water, such as webbed feet and a more streamlined, hairless shape.

The basilosaurids, which lived about 34 million to 40 million years ago, had a more familiar shape than their ancestors. Basilosaurids had nostrils situated toward the top of their heads, an ear structure that suggested they could hear well underwater, and forelimbs that took the shape of paddlelike flippers.

Their hips and legs were on the way out. A basilosaurid on display, Dorudon atrox, displays a tiny pelvis and legs detached from its spinal column. []

These leftovers from land are still visible in some . For instance, the skeleton of a pygmy right whale hanging from the ceiling displayed two tiny bones, the remnant of the pelvis, Flynn pointed out.

"Imagine your hip bones just started to float off your body that is what that is," he said.

Nowadays, there are two varieties of whale. These are the baleen whales, such as the blue whale, which use plates of baleen, made from fingernail-like material, to filter food from the water, and toothed whales, such as dolphins,and narwhals, which kept their teeth. (In the case of narwhals, one tooth becomes a modified tusk.)

Around 30 million years ago, these lineages split and evolved into the more than 80 species living today.

The exhibit also explores whale biology, and includes a life-size replica of a blue whale heart. Whales' relationships with humans are also a focus. The exhibit addresses the whaling industry, modern dangers, such as ship collisions, as well as coastal peoples' interactions with them.

Formally known as "Whales: Giants of the Deep," this exhibition traveled to New York from New Zealand, where it was developed by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. (It was modified by the American Museum of Natural History.) In traditional Maori culture, whales were the source of important resources, such as oil, protein, bones and teeth, and the inspiration for stories of whale riders, ancestors transported to New Zealand atop a whale.

A preview of the exhibit opened with a Maori blessing intended to invoke the gods, the spirits of ancestors and spirits of the whales on display.

is on display until Jan. 5, 2014.

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"Its incredible, you just try to live an honest genuine life and the next thing you know, you've got the president calling you," he told ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday.

Collins said President Barack Obama had been encouraging in the telephone conversation.

"He was incredibly supportive and said he was proud of me and said this not only affected my life but others going forward," he said.

Asked about the scale of reaction to his decision to come out, Collins said: "That's kind of mind-boggling... I never set out to be the first," he said.

"I'm ready to raise my hand but, you know, you still look around like, 'OK, come on guys.'

"It's time for someone else in the room to raise their hand and say: 'You know what? Yeah, so big deal. I can still play basketball. I can still help the team win, and that's what's most important,'" he added.

The 34-year-old center revealed his sexuality in an article published by Sports Illustrated on Monday and said he was glad that he was now 'out'.

"I know that I, right now, am the happiest that I've ever been in my life," he said.

"A huge weight has been lifted. I've already been out to my family and my friends, but just to, you know, sort of rip the Band-Aid off and come out on my own terms."

Collins is currently a free agent after spending last season with the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards but said he expects future team-mates to welcome him.

"From my team-mates I am expecting support because that is what I would do for my team-mates, team is like a family and the NBA is like a brotherhood and I am looking it at that we will all support each other on and off the court," he said.

Asked about what advice he would give to a young gay man hoping to make it in the NBA, Collins said he should focus on the game.

"It doesn't matter that you are gay but the key thing is - its about basketball. Its about working hard, its about sacrificing for your team," he said.

Collins could well be the first of several gay players in top sports to come out but he said everyone's decision on how open to be was based on their own circumstances.

"I hope that every player makes a decision that leads to their own happiness. I know that I, right now am the happiest I have been in my life," he said.

(Reporting by Simon Evans, editing by Justin Palmer)

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell more than 1 percent on Wednesday, hurt by sluggish economic data from China that hurt commodity prices and weak earnings reports from some of the country's biggest companies. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite indexunofficially closed down 135.21 points, or 1.09 percent, at 12,321.29. Eight of the 10 main sectors on the index were in the red.

Analysis: CIBC's Canada focus raises concerns as growth slows

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce'sremake from swashbuckling Wall Street player to low-risk Canada-focused lender has stabilized its earnings, but some shareholders now worry that the bank faces outsized exposure to an uncertain housing market. The bank's homebound approach - which CIBC trumpets as a road to reduced risk - is a direct result of previous U.S. forays that cost the bank billions following the 2001 tech meltdown and the 2008 subprime crisis.

Canada April auto sales rise for Detroit carmakers

(Reuters) - Canadian sales rose for the three Detroit automakers, led by strong sales for pickup trucks. Ford Motor Cowas the top-seller in Canada in April, when sales rose 15.5 percent to 27,907 vehicles.

Facebook first-quarter revenue up 38 percent

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc'sfirst-quarter revenue increased 38 percent year-on-year, as the world's largest social network continued to grow its mobile advertising business. Shares of Facebook were down 43 cents at $27 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

Canada manufacturing PMI ekes out slight growth, orders rise

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's manufacturing activity eked out the smallest of expansions in April after shrinking in March but the sector did see an encouraging rise in new orders from abroad, according to data released on Wednesday. The RBC Canadian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index was at 50.1 last month after adjusting for seasonal variation, up from 49.3 in March. A reading above 50 represents expansion, while a number below means contraction.

Chesapeake posts quarterly profit, oil output up

(Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corpreported quarterly profit that exceeded Wall Street expectations on Wednesday, as the U.S. oil and gas company produced more crude oil from shale basins like the Eagle Ford in Texas and expenses fell. Chesapeake, under the direction of a board handpicked by its largest investors and interim Chief Executive Steve Dixon, is focused on drilling its best properties and increasing output of more profitable crude oil while lowering spending.

Exclusive: Highfields Capital raises stake in Tim Hortons - source

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Highfields Capital Management has increased its stake in Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortonsfrom 1.5 percent to around 4 percent this year, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters Wednesday. A Highfields spokeswoman declined to comment. A Tim Hortons spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutors add third executive to Alstom bribery case

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A third executive of the U.S. arm of French power and transport engineering company Alstomhas been charged with taking part in a scheme to pay bribes in Indonesia, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday. William Pomponi, a former vice president of sales for the U.S. company, was charged in federal court in Connecticut late on Tuesday, the Justice Department said.

Strike-hit Lufthansa agrees inflation-busting pay deal

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa agreed an inflation-busting pay settlement with a union representing 33,000 workers, ending a dispute which had threatened to drive travelers towards rival flyers. While Lufthansa agreed to raise pay by up to 4.7 percent for cabin crew and ground staff, a possible new round of strikes loomed as pilots' union Cockpit demanded the airline respond to its own 4.6 percent wage hike proposals by the middle of May.

Jean Coutu misses profit expectations, boosts dividend

(Reuters) - Canadian pharmacy chain Jean Coutu Group Inc'sfourth-quarter profit missed analysts' expectations as tighter price controls for generic drugs hit revenue. Price controls have crimped prescription sales growth at Jean Coutu Group and rivals such as Shoppers Drug Martin recent years. Increasing use of generic drugs has also exacerbated the impact of lower prices.

Prime Minister Enrico Letta's new government is under pressure to draft economic and social reforms, including measures to get Italians back to work.

The lower house of Parliament votes later Monday to confirm the government, followed by the Senate on Tuesday.

Italy's stock market was trading up 1.5 percent while the country's borrowing costs on its 10-year bonds dropped below 4 percent for the first time since 2010 as markets expressed confidence in the new government.

A lawyer for the gunman who shot the officers on Sunday described his client as desperate because of the economic situation.

LONDON (Reuters) - When Ireland's Katie Taylor was taking hits and striking blows for boxing's Olympic debut in an east London ring last year, John Hardy did not want to look.

To this leading neuroscientist and molecular biologist, a boxing bout is little more than a session of mutual brain injury. He was horrified to see women boxing at Olympic level for the first time at the London 2012 Games.

"We shouldn't get our fun out of watching people inflict brain damage on each other," said Hardy, who is chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease at University College London's Institute of Neurology. "To me as a neuroscientist it's almost surreal."

Hardy, whose research work focuses on Alzheimer's and other types of dementia, said having women in an Olympic boxing ring was "a terrible thing" - not because he thinks women should not compete alongside men in sport, but because women boxing simply meant more people inflicting more damage on more brains.

That, in turn, was highly likely to mean more people suffering the devastating, incurable symptoms of brain diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Advances in modern neuroscience mean scientists know more than ever about chronic brain damage and the long-term trauma that can result from frequent knocks to the head.

"You get tiny lesions along the blood vessels where they have torn the nerve cells around them. This damages those nerve cells, and those cells start to develop the tangles that you see in Alzheimer's disease," Hardy said.

"And what we now understand is that this process spreads."

Partly due to this new understanding, now is a time of intense sensitivity about and scrutiny of brain damage in sport - particularly among North America's National Football League (NFL) players.

Former San Diego Chargers player Junior Seau committed suicide last year after what some believe were years of depression stemming from multiple concussions he suffered as a player.

Last week, the NFL and General Electric Co announced a $60-million effort with leading neurologists to speed up research on brain injury to improve diagnosis and treatment amid growing concern about sports-related concussion.

RULE CHANGES

A study published last year found that even minor repeated head blows during sports such as hockey and American football may damage the learning ability of sports men and women after just one season.

The brain debate has even reached the White House, where President Barack Obama suggested in January that changes be made to NFL rules to reduce the level of violent impact.

In soccer too, concerns are growing about the damage players might be doing to their brains when they head the ball.

A small study of female soccer players published last month found evidence of mental impairment caused by repeatedly bouncing a football off the head. The U.S. researchers who conducted that study said the effects suggested headers caused "mild traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobes".

When it comes to boxing, health experts and scientists - and even some competitors themselves - have been worried about brains for decades.

The Irish former featherweight world champion Barry McGuigan, perhaps fearful of what damage might already have been done, said in 1988: "Boxing damages your brain; don't let anyone tell you any different".

Around the same time, fellow lightweight fighter Terry Marsh, who was later diagnosed with epilepsy, said: "I don't need the British Medical Association to tell me getting hit on the head can't do me any good."

As far back as 1928, the American pathologist Harrison Stanford Martland wrote a paper entitled "Punch drunk" in which he showed that prize fighters were suffering from brain injury caused by the rupture of blood vessels.

The "punch drunk" condition, known more formally as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) or as its variants, dementia pugilistica or boxer's dementia, is a neurodegenerative disease that can affect boxers and others who suffer knocks to the head.

It can cause depression, aggression, impulsivity and memory loss and has been linked to suicide.

"A lot of boxers, and indeed American footballers too, have a period in their 30s and 40s where they are depressed, they drink, they show explosive tempers, and have basically pretty messed up lives," said Hardy.

BAD JUDGEMENT

It is not hard to find examples of boxers whose brains have begun to fail them.

American heavyweight champion and boxing idol Muhammad Ali began struggling with a stutter and trembling hands even before he came to the end of his fighting career. His subsequent decline with the neurodegenerative disorder Parkinson's syndrome has been painful for fans to witness.

Mike Tyson, a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, was convicted and imprisoned for rape, had multiple marriages and break ups, was declared bankrupt and was eventually diagnosed with the brain condition bipolar disorder.

British former heavyweight world champion Frank Bruno was diagnosed with the same condition while his compatriot Michael Watson needed six brain operations and suffered lasting damage after being knocked down in a 1991 bout.

Hardy argues that there is a tendency to think of these problematic lives as par for the course for boxers - who were more likely than non-boxers to come from disadvantaged backgrounds and mix in unstable circles.

"But the truth is they have bad judgment because of the injuries to their brain," he said. In the language of brain science this was called "loss of executive control", he explained, "and this in itself is part of the disease process".

"It's not inherent in their personalities as boxers, it's damage to the frontal cortex. They are already experiencing brain injury."

In an article posted on the World Boxing Association's (WBA) website, Calvin Inalsingh, head of the association's medical advisory committee, admits that "boxing is the only sport in which the objective is to render blows to the head and body of the opponent so as the cause the opponent to be incapacitated".

It is this, according to Hardy, that means when it comes to arguing for a ban on sports that cause brain injury, boxing is in a class of its own.

In other sports, such as American football, soccer or rugby, where the objective is to score touchdowns or goals or tries, and where head injury may be a by-product of that aim, authorities can and do change the rules or adjust the advice on protective clothing to make the game safer.

"But the whole point of boxing is to inflict brain damage," said Hardy. "That's why I think it's really a hopeless case in terms of a sport."

He has little doubt that in time, as medical knowledge expands, boxing will be banned, although he accepts there may be many more years of argument between brain scientists and sports authorities first.

"In science we have become very good at identifying causes and mechanisms of disease but unfortunately we understand things for a long time before we get better at solving them."

(Editing by Clare Fallon)