Life, Interrupted: Brotherly Love

Life, Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.

There are a lot of things about having cancer in your 20s that feel absurd. One of those instances was when I found myself calling my brother Adam on Skype while he was studying abroad in Argentina to tell him that I had just been diagnosed with leukemia and that — no pressure — he was my only hope for a cure.

Today, my brother and I share almost identical DNA, the result of a successful bone marrow transplant I had last April using his healthy stem cells. But Adam and I couldn’t be more different. Like a lot of siblings, we got along swimmingly at one moment and were in each other’s hair the next. My younger brother by two years, he said I was a bossy older sister. I, of course, thought I knew best for my little brother and wanted him to see the world how I did. My brother is quieter, more reflective. I’m a chronic social butterfly who is probably a bit too impulsive and self-serious. I dreamed of dancing in the New York City Ballet, and he imagined himself playing in the N.B.A. While the sounds of the rapper Mos Def blared from Adam’s room growing up, I practiced for concerto competitions. Friends joked that one of us had to be adopted. We even look different, some people say. But really, we’re just siblings like any others.

When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 22, I learned just how much cancer affects families when it affects individuals. My doctors informed me that I had a high-risk form of leukemia and that a bone marrow transplant was my only shot at a cure. ‘Did I have any siblings?’ the doctors asked immediately. That would be my best chance to find a bone marrow match. Suddenly, everyone in our family was leaning on the little brother. He was in his last semester of college, and while his friends were applying to jobs and partying the final weeks of the school year away, he was soon shuttling from upstate New York to New York City for appointments with the transplant doctors.

I’d heard of organ transplants before, but what was a bone marrow transplant? The extent of my knowledge about bone marrow came from French cuisine: the fancy dish occasionally served with a side of toasted baguette.

Jokes aside, I learned that cancer patients become quick studies in the human body and how cancer treatment works. The thought of going through a bone marrow transplant, which in my case called for a life-threatening dose of chemotherapy followed by a total replacement of my body’s bone marrow, was scary enough. But then I learned that finding a donor can be the scariest part of all.

It turns out that not all transplants are created equal. Without a match, the path to a cure becomes much less certain, in many cases even impossible. This is particularly true for minorities and people from mixed ethnic backgrounds, groups that are severely underrepresented in bone marrow registries. As a first generation American, the child of a Swiss mother and Tunisian father, I suddenly found myself in a scary place. My doctors worried that a global, harried search for a bone marrow match would delay critical treatment for my fast-moving leukemia.

That meant that my younger brother was my best hope — but my doctors were careful to measure hope with reality. Siblings are the best chance for a match, but a match only happens about 25 percent of the time.

To our relief, results showed that my brother was a perfect match: a 10-out-of-10 on the donor scale. It was only then that it struck me how lucky I had been. Doctors never said it this way, but without a match, my chances of living through the next year were low. I have met many people since who, after dozens of efforts to encourage potential bone marrow donors to sign up, still have not found a match. Adding your name to the bone marrow registry is quick, easy and painless — you can sign up at marrow.org — and it just takes a swab of a Q-tip to get your DNA. For cancer patients around the world, it could mean a cure.

The bone marrow transplant procedure itself can be dangerous, but it is swift, which makes it feel strangely anti-climactic. On “Day Zero,” my brother’s stem cells dripped into my veins from a hanging I.V. bag, and it was all over in minutes. Doctors tell me that the hardest part of the transplant is recovering from it. I’ve found that to be true, and I’ve also recognized that the same is true for Adam. As I slowly grow stronger, my little brother has assumed a caretaker role in my life. I carry his blood cells — the ones keeping me alive — and he is carrying the responsibility, and often fear and anxiety, of the loving onlooker. He tells me I’m still a bossy older sister. But our relationship is now changed forever. I have to look to him for support and guidance more than I ever have. He’ll always be my little brother, but he’s growing up fast.

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Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears regularly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

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Bits Blog: Facebook's Other Big Disruption

Facebook just made a potentially game-changing announcement. It got less fanfare than Tuesday’s announcement that it is going into the social search business, but this other announcement may have bigger long-term implications for the technology industry.

Put simply, some of the world’s biggest computing systems just got a little cheaper, and a lot easier to configure. As a consequence, the companies that supply the hardware to these systems may have to scramble to remain as profitable. The reason is a Facebook-led open source project.

In 2011 Facebook began the Open Compute Project, an effort among technology companies to use open-source computer hardware. Tech companies similarly shared intellectual property with Linux software, which lowered costs and spurred innovation. Facebook’s project has attracted many significant participants, including Goldman Sachs, Arista Networks, Rackspace, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

At a user summit on Wednesday Intel, another key member of the Open Compute Project, announced it would release to the group a silicon-based optical system that enables the data and computing elements in a rack of computer servers to communicate at 100 gigabits a second. That is significantly faster than conventional wire-based methods, and uses about half the power.

More important, it means that elements of memory and processing that now must be fixed closely together can be separated within a rack, and used as needed for different kinds of tasks. There is a lot of waste in data centers today simply because, when there is an upgrade in servers, lots of other associated data-processing hardware has to be changed, too.

There were other announcements, like a computer motherboard called Grouphug that allows different manufacturers’ chips to be interchanged without altering other parts of the machine. Before, they were custom made. Put together, such innovations potentially lower the cost and complexity of running big and small data centers to an extent that works for a lot of companies.

“Who wouldn’t want a cheaper, more efficient server?” said Frank Frankovsky, vice president of hardware design at Facebook, and the chairman of Open Compute. “The problem we’re solving is much larger than Facebook’s own challenges. There is a massive amount of data in the world that people expect to have processed quickly.”

To be sure, it’s in Facebook’s interest to attack expensive hardware. The company makes money from a service that requires hundreds of thousands of computer servers distributed in big centers around the world. Google and Amazon.com, which are not members of the project, maintain proprietary systems which they apparently felt gave them a competitive edge.

For Facebook, the difference seems to be more in the software. To the extent hardware costs drop, that’s great for them. Mr. Frankovsky argued that, while “this puts challenges on the incumbents” in hardware, “it also helps them. They have a finite number of engineering resources, and this way they hear from a community about whether there is an interest for a product.” Intel may hope to benefit from its open-source release, since it could see an overall rise in demand for its chips with the move toward cheaper computing.

The real test is whether Facebook can increase the number of potential buyers for Open Compute equipment. “The question is, can they extend this beyond a few Web businesses like Facebook and Rackspace, or a few financial exercises at Goldman, and bring this to industries like oil or aerospace?” said Matt Eastwood, an analyst with IDC, a technology research firm. “That will take it from 20 or 30 companies to hundreds of companies.”

The issue isn’t so much a technical one, he argues, as it is one of getting corporate information technology professionals interested in radical design changes. Mr. Frankovsky is aware of the problem. Recently he and his colleagues led a seminar in Texas for BP, Shell and other oil giants on how they could use Open Compute hardware in their data centers.

This will not change things dramatically this year, and possibly even next, but over the long haul it could remake a lot of businesses. Linux, remember, was around for several years as a minor player, but eventually undid Sun Microsystems and others.

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Russia to Let U.S. Adoptions in Last Stages Proceed

MOSCOW — Russia’s federal child rights commissioner said Thursday that American citizens in the final stages of adopting children here would be allowed to take custody and return to the United States, providing some clarity after more than two weeks of confusion over a new law banning adoptions by American citizens.

The child rights commissioner, Pavel A. Astakhov, said that Americans whose adoptions have already been approved by a court would be allowed to complete the process, and would be issued the birth certificates, passports and other documentation needed to leave Russia with their new children after a required 30-day waiting period.

Theoretically, some of those adoptions could be derailed by the normal procedures that existed before the ban took effect on Jan. 1, but Mr. Astakhov said that was unlikely and that officials would make no special effort to interfere.

“All children on whom there is a court decision will leave the Russian Federation for the States,” Mr. Astakhov said at a 90-minute news conference where he also fiercely defended the adoption ban and complained angrily about cases of physical and sexual abuse of adopted Russian children in the United States. His comments were certain to provide reassurance to several dozen families in the late stages of adoption, some of whom are already here grappling with uncertainty and battling bureaucracy that can be maddening even under the best of circumstances.

But State Department officials have estimated that there are as many as 500 families somewhere in the middle of the lengthy and expensive process. Many of those who do not already have a court approval in hand seem likely to be disappointed.

Mr. Astakhov also acknowledged that there had been substantial confusion and chaos as local and regional officials were in many cases uncertain about how to carry out the ban, and whether they should block adoptions that had already received court approval. “Yes, there is a problem — a transition period,” he said.

He conceded that some officials had tried to deny parents a copy of their new child’s birth certificate, which is needed to obtain a passport and leave the country. This occurred in one case involving parents from the Rocky Mountain region who are in Russia now to adopt a 3-year-old girl who has H.I.V.

After being stonewalled on Tuesday, the girl’s father said he received an apology and the requested birth certificate on Wednesday, and was told that her passport would be ready on Friday.

Rebecca Preece, who is in Moscow to adopt a boy with Down syndrome, said that despite Mr. Astakhov’s comments, the judge in her case refused again on Thursday to sign a decree finalizing the adoption by certifying that the waiting period was completed. The judge approved the adoption last month. “We are still quite confused but much more hopeful than we were this morning,” Mrs. Preece said by e-mail.

Although abuse cases are rare, Mr. Astakhov suggested that adopted children were just as likely to fall into the hands of an abusive predator as to find a loving home. Of the latter, he cited Jessica Long, a gold-medal-winning Paralympic swimmer who lost her legs as an infant because of a congenital condition and was adopted from Siberia.

Mr. Astakhov complained of “perverts who tortured 11 boys” and a “pedophile” who raped his adopted daughter for two years. “This is how our children lived in America. And who knows who a disabled orphan will become? Jessica Long, who became a Paralympic champion, or Masha, who was sexually exploited?”

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Intel 4th-Quarter Earnings Are Sharply Lower

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel has money, smart people and resolve, but it still doesn’t have a quick fix for the deterioration of its largest market — personal computers.

The world’s biggest maker of semiconductors, which grew by supplying chips to most of the world’s personal computer makers, is now facing an erosion of that market. According to Gartner, a market analysis firm, PC shipments worldwide declined 3.5 percent in 2012.

The result was evident Thursday in Intel’s fourth-quarter earnings report. The company, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., reported net income of $2.5 billion, or 48 cents a share, down 27 percent from $3.4 billion, or 64 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 3 percent to $13.5 billion from $13.9 billion.

“The PC business as we’ve known it is evolving,” said Paul S. Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, in a call to Wall Street analysts. “The form factors are going to blur here.”

Instead of PCs, more people and businesses are buying smartphones and tablets. Intel gets 64 percent of its revenues and some of its highest profit margins from chips for PCs. It has scrambled to revive the market, while it aggressively tries to supply tablet and smartphone makers, so far with little success.

But even as its gets harder to sell PCs, Intel appears to have managed its business better than many investors thought possible. Revenue was in line with analysts’ expectations, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters, but net income was higher than the 45 cents a share that the analysts were expecting, on average.

Intel projected lower revenue and pressure on its profit margins for 2013, however, which sent its shares down about 5 percent in after-hours trading. Shares of Intel finished regular trading Thursday at $22.68, up 57 cents.

At the after-hours price, Intel’s market capitalization dropped below that of Qualcomm, a smaller maker of chips, but a company that makes chips for smartphones and tablets. Even a year ago, this would have been unthinkable.

Over the last six months, shares of Intel have fallen about 18 percent, while Qualcomm’s stock is up almost 20 percent. ARM Holdings, which sells designs for low-power chips popular in mobile devices, is up almost 90 percent in that time.

“Longer term, Intel will move more aggressively into smartphones,” said Bobby Burleson, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity. “But everyone worries about their long-term gross margins.”

Intel, which employs an engineering-focused staff of 105,000 people, plans to continue to invest heavily in research and development, as well as new manufacturing facilities. Intel operates on the principle that making the biggest volumes of the most advanced chips gives it a quality and profit margin advantage.

Despite the lower earnings, Intel said it would spend $18.9 billion on research and development, along with marketing and administrative costs, in 2013. Two years ago Intel spent $16 billion on those things, increasing that amount to $18.2 billion last year.

“Our manufacturing leadership becomes increasingly valuable,” said Stacy J. Smith, Intel’s chief financial officer. “People expect Intel to make more powerful, more efficient devices. That applies across all our businesses.”

That works, as long as the chips have buyers. Last year Intel hoped two PC industry initiatives would woo buyers back to PCs, but neither did. One, backed by a large investment from Intel, was in lightweight ultrabook laptop computers, many of which had tablet features, like touch screens. These came to market later than analysts had expected, at prices most consumers did not find attractive.

The other, Microsoft’s release of its Windows 8 operating system, has so far failed to excite buyers. Consumers and businesses did not buy new computers in order to use the upgraded system.

Mr. Otellini remained upbeat about ultrabooks, saying that there were now 140 types of the lightweight laptops on the market. The number of styles and different ways they use things like keyboards and touch screens, he said, would make it harder to tell a PC from a tablet.

“We’re in the midst of a radical transformation with the blurring of form factors,” he said, adding that next year Intel would introduce a new chip, called Haswell, which would help in the production of lightweight machines that have longer battery life. He said little about Windows 8.

Intel’s second-largest business, chips for computer servers in data centers, reflected an overall strength in that industry. Fourth-quarter sales to data centers was $2.8 billion, an increase of 4 percent from a year earlier.

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Study Confirms Benefits of Flu Vaccine for Pregnant Women

While everyone is being urged to get the flu vaccine as soon as possible, some pregnant women avoid it in the belief that it may harm their babies. A large new study confirms that they should be much more afraid of the flu than the vaccine.

Norwegian researchers studied fetal death among 113,331 women pregnant during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009-2010. Some 54,065 women were unvaccinated, 31,912 were vaccinated during pregnancy, and 27,354 were vaccinated after delivery. The scientists then reviewed hospitalizations and doctor visits for the flu among the women.

The results were published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The flu vaccine was not associated with an increased risk for fetal death, the researchers found, and getting the shot during pregnancy reduced the risk of the mother getting the flu by about 70 percent. That was important, because fetuses whose mothers got the flu were much more likely to die.

Unvaccinated women had a 25 percent higher risk of fetal death during the pandemic than those who had had the shot. Among pregnant women with a clinical diagnosis of influenza, the risk of fetal death was nearly doubled. In all, there were 16 fetal deaths among the 2,278 women who were diagnosed with influenza during pregnancy.

Dr. Marian Knight, a professor at the perinatal epidemiology unit of the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the research, called it “a high-quality national study” that shows “there is no evidence of an increased risk of fetal death in women who have been immunized. Clinicians and women can be reassured about the safety of the vaccine in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.”

The Norwegian health system records vaccinations of individuals and maintains linked registries to track effects and side effects. The lead author, Dr. Camilla Stoltenberg, director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that there are few countries with such complete records.

“This is a great study,” said Dr. Denise J. Jamieson, an obstetrician and a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was not involved in the work. “It’s nicely done, with good data, and it’s additional information about the importance of the flu vaccine for pregnant women. It shows that it’s effective and might reduce the risk for fetal death.”

In Norway, the vaccine is recommended only in the second and third trimesters, so the study includes little data on vaccination in the first trimester. The C.D.C. recommends the vaccine for all pregnant women, regardless of trimester.

“We knew from other studies that the vaccine protects the woman and the newborn,” Dr. Stoltenberg said. “This study clearly indicates that it protects fetuses as well. I seriously suggest that pregnant women get vaccinated during every flu season.”

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Study Confirms Benefits of Flu Vaccine for Pregnant Women

While everyone is being urged to get the flu vaccine as soon as possible, some pregnant women avoid it in the belief that it may harm their babies. A large new study confirms that they should be much more afraid of the flu than the vaccine.

Norwegian researchers studied fetal death among 113,331 women pregnant during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009-2010. Some 54,065 women were unvaccinated, 31,912 were vaccinated during pregnancy, and 27,354 were vaccinated after delivery. The scientists then reviewed hospitalizations and doctor visits for the flu among the women.

The results were published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The flu vaccine was not associated with an increased risk for fetal death, the researchers found, and getting the shot during pregnancy reduced the risk of the mother getting the flu by about 70 percent. That was important, because fetuses whose mothers got the flu were much more likely to die.

Unvaccinated women had a 25 percent higher risk of fetal death during the pandemic than those who had had the shot. Among pregnant women with a clinical diagnosis of influenza, the risk of fetal death was nearly doubled. In all, there were 16 fetal deaths among the 2,278 women who were diagnosed with influenza during pregnancy.

Dr. Marian Knight, a professor at the perinatal epidemiology unit of the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the research, called it “a high-quality national study” that shows “there is no evidence of an increased risk of fetal death in women who have been immunized. Clinicians and women can be reassured about the safety of the vaccine in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.”

The Norwegian health system records vaccinations of individuals and maintains linked registries to track effects and side effects. The lead author, Dr. Camilla Stoltenberg, director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that there are few countries with such complete records.

“This is a great study,” said Dr. Denise J. Jamieson, an obstetrician and a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was not involved in the work. “It’s nicely done, with good data, and it’s additional information about the importance of the flu vaccine for pregnant women. It shows that it’s effective and might reduce the risk for fetal death.”

In Norway, the vaccine is recommended only in the second and third trimesters, so the study includes little data on vaccination in the first trimester. The C.D.C. recommends the vaccine for all pregnant women, regardless of trimester.

“We knew from other studies that the vaccine protects the woman and the newborn,” Dr. Stoltenberg said. “This study clearly indicates that it protects fetuses as well. I seriously suggest that pregnant women get vaccinated during every flu season.”

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Gadgetwise Blog: From Disney, a Video Game Universe on One Platform

Disney Interactive Studios went to great pains to lay out its new multiplatform gaming initiative, Disney Infinity, and with good reason. Infinity, which is to be released in June, will have a lot of elements at the start, and has the potential to grow into a behemoth.

As a new platform for Disney video games, Infinity will incorporate Disney franchises and characters, similar to Kingdom Hearts, a series of video games that was first released in 2002. Any property from the Disney vault, including Pixar characters, could be included in the Infinity platform.

But Disney upped the ante by adding physical toys, like those used in the Skylanders video game, which has been a hot seller for Activision. Toys will include collectible figures based on popular characters and hexagonal discs that offer special powers or gadgets that can be used in the games. The games will be sold as virtual play sets that players unlock by placing a figure on a specially designed base.

Infinity will initially be compatible across all gaming consoles, and will eventually be made available online and on mobile devices. Disney plans to start the line with 17 interactive figures and three play sets based on “Monsters University,” “The Incredibles” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchises.

The Infinity play sets will have typical story-driven challenges in which players solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Along the way, players can collect characters, vehicles and gadgets and save them in a virtual “toy box” for later play.

The toy box was inspired by the “Toy Story 3” video game, which included a toy box mode that allowed customized play, similar to the way a child would play with toys: by pulling them randomly from a toy box. Recognizing the popularity of the toy box mode, Disney Interactive sought to expand that no rules mentality. With Infinity’s toy box, Sulley from “Monsters University” can fight alongside Mr. Incredible, for instance, or the pirate Jack Sparrow can take a ride in Lightning McQueen from “Cars.”

In an unprecedented move, Disney will allow Infinity players to create their own games, similar to Minecraft, and share them with the community of other Infinity users. Players can use their imaginations to create new terrains, buildings and roadways, and then add interactive experiences, like plates that trigger explosions or robots that spawn enemy fighters.

The prices will be comparable to other new video game releases, with the starter pack costing $75. New play sets will be $35 each, and the collectible figures will run about $13 each, or $30 for a set of three.

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Pakistan Rejects Preacher’s Politics and Says He Is at Risk

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two days after a charismatic preacher swept into the capital surrounded by thousands of supporters, Pakistan’s government responded by rejecting his political agenda and hinting that an operation to dislodge him was imminent.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Wednesday that there were indications that suicide bombers planned to target the preacher, Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, who is in a bulletproof container near Parliament.

Mr. Qadri and his boisterous supporters, estimated at 25,000 people, could be the subject of a “targeted operation” as early as Thursday, Mr. Malik said. “For the safety of the women and children in the protest, I request you to leave by tomorrow,” he said at a news conference.

Mr. Qadri, 61, who has demanded that the government resign to make way for a caretaker administration, insisted that he was standing firm, but also suggested the standoff could be resolved within a couple of days, although he declined to specify how.

“We are in the victory zone and about to achieve our target,” he told The New York Times, speaking inside the fortified container, mounted on the back of a truck, from which he has delivered several fiery speeches. “The march will be successful in the next one or two days at most.”

Earlier, the information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, mocked Mr. Qadri’s demands at a news conference, and accused him of using the many women and children among his supporters as “human shields.” But Mr. Kaira said, “The people will not stand by him.” The government was showing some teeth after Mr. Qadri managed to lead his supporters into the capital, despite numerous obstacles, leaving officials looking outwitted.

The government’s authority was also challenged on Tuesday by the Supreme Court, which ordered the arrest of the prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, as part of a corruption prosecution. The government has signaled that it intends to challenge the order when the case comes to court on Thursday morning; officials see the move as part of a long-running proxy battle between the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the president, Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistan’s military, meanwhile, has been grappling with its longtime foe India in the disputed province of Kashmir, where at least five soldiers from both sides have died in a series of skirmishes over the past two weeks.

In the latest episode, Pakistan said Wednesday that Indian troops had shot a Pakistani soldier at a position named Kundi, and lodged an official complaint with New Delhi. India denied responsibility. The tensions have raised worries that months of steady diplomatic progress between the rival neighbors could be undone. But hopes for a resolution of the dispute rose late on Wednesday when, after a phone conversation between senior commanders on both sides, India said an agreement to calm the situation had been reached.

Pakistan’s director general of military operations, Maj. Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem, spoke for 10 minutes with his Indian counterpart, Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia, an Indian spokesman told reporters.

The spokesman, Col. Jagdeep Dahiya, told Agence France-Presse that the Pakistani general “said strict instructions have been passed not to violate the cease-fire.”

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Bundesbank to Repatriate Some Overseas Gold Reserves

FRANKFURT — Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled away for safe keeping below the streets of Lower Manhattan.

Now the German central bank wants to make a big withdrawal — 300 tons in all.

On Wednesday, the Bundesbank said that it would begin moving some of the reserves, the second-largest stock in the world after that of the United States. The goal is to house more than 50 percent of German gold in Bundesbank vaults in Frankfurt by 2020, up from a little less than a third today, the bank said.

Citing security reasons, Carl-Ludwig Thiele, a member of the Bundesbank executive board, declined to say how the transfer would be accomplished or to estimate the cost. But he said the Bundesbank had plenty of experience moving large sums of money.

During the cold war, West Germany followed a policy of storing its gold as far west as possible in case of a Soviet invasion. While that worry is gone, there is still an argument for keeping some gold in financial centers like New York and London. It remains the one currency that is accepted everywhere. In the event of a currency crisis, the gold could be quickly deployed in financial markets to help restore confidence.

The New York Fed stores the German gold without cost on the theory that the presence of foreign gold supports the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. A spokesman for the New York Fed declined to comment.

The Bundesbank announcement follows a public outcry last year after a clash in Parliament about whether all the bank’s gold was properly accounted for.

For the great many Germans who still rue the day they had to trade their marks for euros, there has been at least one consolation. If the common currency didn’t work out, Germany still had huge reserves of the hardest currency of all: gold.

Except, as many people learned for the first time last year, it did not — at least not in the country itself.

More than two-thirds of Germany’s gold reserves, valued at 137 billion euros, or $183 billion, is abroad, stored in vaults in New York, Paris and London.

The new policy will include the complete withdrawal of 374 tons of German gold stored at the Banque de France in Paris, about 11 percent of the total. Bundesbank officials were quick to note that the decision was not a reflection of French trustworthiness. Rather, because France and Germany now share the euro, there is no need for reserves as insurance against currency crises.

“The gold in Paris is in the best of hands,” Mr. Thiele said on Wednesday. “We are thankful to the Bank of France for storing it.”

Still, news of the planned transfer caused some clucking in financial circles after news leaked out on Tuesday. “Central banks don’t trust each other?” William H. Gross, a founder and managing director of the investment firm Pimco, asked on Twitter.

Mr. Thiele denied there was any mistrust. “We have no doubts about the integrity of other central banks,” he said. “We’re not aware of any irregularities.”

After World War II, vanquished Germany had no gold reserves. The Nazis had used most of it to finance the war, and much of what was left vanished mysteriously in the postwar chaos.

But as its economy recovered and Germany became the export powerhouse it is today, the country accepted gold as well as dollars from the central banks of its trading partners to cover the financial imbalance created by German trade surpluses.

German reserves peaked in 1968 at about 4,000 tons, several years before the collapse of the so-called Bretton Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, which was underpinned by gold reserves.

The end of Bretton Woods in 1973 eliminated some, though not all, of gold’s importance as a universal currency. The total has fallen to about 3,400 tons after Germany transferred some of its treasure to international institutions in which it participates, including the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Thiele acknowledged that Germans could get emotional about their gold, but he insisted that the Bundesbank made its decision to repatriate the treasure independently and not because of a public outcry last year after reports suggested the gold was not properly accounted for.

The government auditing agency, the Bundesrechnungshof, called on Bundesbank officials in a report to Parliament to conduct an inventory of the thousands of bars of German gold that are stacked in foreign vaults.

Mr. Thiele said that he and other Bundesbank officials personally visited the German gold abroad and that he was satisfied that it was all there.

At a packed news conference, Bundesbank officials attended by armed security guards demonstrated on Wednesday how they tested the bars for quality and authenticity. No two bars have exactly the same weight and purity, so each must be assessed separately.

Even after Germany completes the transfer at the end of 2020, half of its gold will remain abroad — about 37 percent in New York. The Bundesbank does not plan to move any gold out of the Bank of England, which will continue to store 13 percent of the total.

The Bank of England charges about 550,000 euros a year for storage, Bundesbank officials said.

Despite the public criticism, the Bundesbank has not let go of its gold easily. It has continually rejected periodic attempts by political leaders to convert the reserves to cash and has not sold any gold on world markets.

The central bank has, however, sold some of its holding to the public — in the form of commemorative German marks.

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Personal Best: Training Insights From Star Athletes

Of course elite athletes are naturally gifted. And of course they train hard and may have a phalanx of support staff — coaches, nutritionists, psychologists.

But they often have something else that gives them an edge: an insight, or even an epiphany, that vaults them from the middle of the pack to the podium.

I asked several star athletes about the single realization that made the difference for them. While every athlete’s tale is intensely personal, it turns out there are some common themes.

Stay Focused

Like many distance swimmers who spend endless hours in the pool, Natalie Coughlin, 30, used to daydream as she swam laps. She’d been a competitive swimmer for almost her entire life, and this was the way she — and many others — managed the boredom of practice.

But when she was in college, she realized that daydreaming was only a way to get in the miles; it was not allowing her to reach her potential. So she started to concentrate every moment of practice on what she was doing, staying focused and thinking about her technique.

“That’s when I really started improving,” she said. “The more I did it, the more success I had.”

In addition to her many victories, Ms. Coughlin won five medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke.

Manage Your ‘Energy Pie’

In 1988, Steve Spence, then a 25-year-old self-coached distance runner, was admitted into the United States Long Distance Runner Olympic Development Program. It meant visiting David Martin, a physiologist at Georgia State University, several times a year for a battery of tests to measure Mr. Spence’s progress and to assess his diet.

During dinner at Dr. Martin’s favorite Chinese restaurant, he gave Mr. Spence some advice.

“There are always going to be runners who are faster than you,” he said. “There will always be runners more talented than you and runners who seem to be training harder than you. The key to beating them is to train harder and to learn how to most efficiently manage your energy pie.”

Energy pie? All the things that take time and energy — a job, hobbies, family, friends, and of course athletic training. “There is only so much room in the pie,” said Mr. Spence.

Dr. Martin’s advice was “a lecture on limiting distractions,” he added. “If I wanted to get to the next level, to be competitive on the world scene, I had to make running a priority.” So he quit graduate school and made running his profession. “I realized this is what I am doing for my job.”

It paid off. He came in third in the 1991 marathon world championships in Tokyo. He made the 1992 Olympic marathon team, coming in 12th in the race. Now he is head cross-country coach and assistant track coach at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. And he tells his teams to manage their energy pies.

Structure Your Training

Meredith Kessler was a natural athlete. In high school, she played field hockey and lacrosse. She was on the track team and the swimming team. She went to Syracuse University on a field hockey scholarship.

Then she began racing in Ironman triathlons, which require athletes to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run a marathon (26.2 miles). Ms. Kessler loved it, but she was not winning any races. The former sports star was now in the middle of the pack.

But she also was working 60 hours a week at a San Francisco investment bank and trying to spend time with her husband and friends. Finally, six years ago, she asked Matt Dixon, a coach, if he could make her a better triathlete.

One thing that turned out to be crucial was to understand the principles of training. When she was coaching herself, Ms. Kessler did whatever she felt like, with no particular plan in mind. Mr. Dixon taught her that every workout has a purpose. One might focus on endurance, another on speed. And others, just as important, are for recovery.

“I had not won an Ironman until he put me on that structure,” said Ms. Kessler, 34. “That’s when I started winning.”

Another crucial change was to quit her job so she could devote herself to training. It took several years — she left banking only in April 2011 — but it made a huge difference. Now a professional athlete, with sponsors, she has won four Ironman championships and three 70.3 mile championships.

Ms. Kessler’s parents were mystified when she quit her job. She reminded them that they had always told her that it did not matter if she won. What mattered was that she did her best. She left the bank, she said, “to do my best.”

Take Risks

Helen Goodroad began competing as a figure skater when she was in fourth grade. Her dream was to be in the Olympics. She was athletic and graceful, but she did not really look like a figure skater. Ms. Goodroad grew to be 5 feet 11 inches.

“I was probably twice the size of any competitor,” she said. “I had to have custom-made skates starting when I was 10 years old.”

One day, when Helen was 17, a coach asked her to try a workout on an ergometer, a rowing machine. She was a natural — her power was phenomenal.

“He told me, ‘You could get a rowing scholarship to any school. You could go to the Olympics,’ ” said Ms. Goodroad. But that would mean giving up her dream, abandoning the sport she had devoted her life to and plunging into the unknown.

She decided to take the chance.

It was hard and she was terrified, but she was recruited to row at Brown. In 1993, Ms. Goodroad was invited to train with the junior national team. Three years later, she made the under-23 national team, which won a world championship. (She rowed under her maiden name, Betancourt.)

It is so easy to stay in your comfort zone, Ms. Goodroad said. “But then you can get stale. You don’t go anywhere.” Leaving skating, leaving what she knew and loved, “helped me see that, ‘Wow, I could do a whole lot more than I ever thought I could.’ ”

Until this academic year, when she had a baby, Ms. Goodroad, who is 37, was a rowing coach at Princeton. She still runs to stay fit and plans to return to coaching.

The Other Guy Is Hurting Too

In 2006, when Brian Sell was racing in the United States Half Marathon Championships in Houston, he had a realization.

“I was neck-and-neck with two or three other guys with two miles to go,” he said. He started to doubt himself. What was he doing, struggling to keep up with men whose race times were better than his?

Suddenly, it came to him: Those other guys must be hurting as much as he was, or else they would not be staying with him — they would be pulling away.

“I made up my mind then to hang on, no matter what happened or how I was feeling,” said Mr. Sell. “Sure enough, in about half a mile, one guy dropped out and then another. I went on to win by 15 seconds or so, and every race since then, if a withering surge was thrown in, I made every effort to hang on to the guy surging.”

Mr. Sell made the 2008 Olympic marathon team and competed in the Beijing Olympics, where he came in 22nd. Now 33 years old, he is working as a scientist at Lancaster Laboratories in Pennsylvania.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 15, 2013

An earlier version of this post misstated the year in which Steve Spence competed in the Olympic marathon, finishing 12th. It was 1992, not 2004. It also misidentified the institution at which he is a coach. It is Shippensburg University, not Shippensburg College. The article also misstated the circumstances under which Helen Goodroad attended Brown. She was recruited to row at the university, she did not receive a rowing scholarship. And the article misstated the length of some races that Meredith Kessler has won. They are 70.3 mile championships, not 70.3 kilometers.

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