American Idol: With time running out, did the judges use their save?

After picking off the male contestants, America was left with only girls to eliminate this week. Who did viewers opt to say goodbye to?

By Jodi Bradbury,?Contributor / April 19, 2013

Janelle Arthur performs on American Idol in March, in Los Angeles. Was Janelle's performance of Dolly Parton's 'Dumb Blonde,' enough to keep her safe this week?

Ray Mickshaw/Fox/AP

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On Wednesday, Nicki Minaj told the remaining five girls that they all have super powers. But when they started the show off on Thursday with a medley of Donna Summer hits, it was as if the producers were intent on proving the opposite. Not to mention the dated music, American Idol sabotaged the contestants by making them prance around on stage to a weakly choreographed routine and to make matters worse, every girl was assigned a male dancer whose dance prowess only further highlighted the fact that dancing is not one of the superpowers Nicki was referring to.?On their Ford Fiesta Mission they went on a scavenger hunt, demonstrating that acting is also missing from their arsenal of superpowers.

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For the last few weeks, Idol has had their past winners and runner-ups making the rounds during the results shows. On Thursday, both Clay Aiken and Fantasia Barrino?returned to the stage. Unlike some of the past homecomings, Mr. Aiken didn't talk so much about his personal successes post-Idol, instead, he focused on the good he's been able to do from the platform that Idol provided him with. In addition to starting the National Inclusion Project, Clay also became an ambassador for Unicef, traveling to Somalia, Afghanistan, and Uganda to witness the educational programs in place. While his performance of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," was pleasant it was not quite as moving as his charitable efforts. Maybe Idol could hire Clay to help infuse some of that philanthropy back into the show??

Then for some reason, Latoya London, one of the so called "Three Divas" from Season Three, returned to discuss how the other two divas of her season, Fantasia and Jennifer Hudson, went on to enjoy great success while she went back to Oakland to start all over again. Obviously, Latoya really needed some exposure; otherwise why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of embarrassment? She then had the distinct honor of helping Ryan Seacrest to introduce Fantasia who came on to sing her new song, "Lose To Win." It seems like Latoya may still be waiting for the "winning" part.

Of course, of all the homecomings we've seen this season, the best took place tonight when Paula Abdul made a surprise cameo to tell Candice Glover how much she enjoyed her performance of, "Straight Up." Ryan then convinced Paula to reclaim her seat on the panel and to see her seated on her past throne was nostalgic. Even with her zaniness, Paula comprised 33% of a panel what once made Idol truly special, along with Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell. Despite the musical chairs since then, Idol has been unable to recapture the magic of the original panel.

After our walk down memory lane, it was time for the results. On Wednesday, this article insinuated that predicting the bottom two was as easy as pie; clearly it would be Janelle Arthur and Amber Holcomb. Unfortunately, after the results, I now have some egg on my face. Clearly, the judges' 'Amber Propaganda' (which has a great ring to it if you happen to be from the Boston area) infected the fertile minds of the viewers and convinced them that she deserved safety more than Kree Harrison. Unbelievable.

Thankfully, despite their momentary befuddlement, the viewers had enough clarity to put Janelle in the bottom. After performing her aptly selected song, "Keep Me Hanging On," for the judges' save, the panel could not come to consensus and bid Janelle goodbye.?

This is the point where things start to get more complicated; three out of the four remaining girls have exceptional talent and while Kree should not be in the bottom next week, since she'll likely pick up all of Janelle's voters, there's still a chance that America could be persuaded to believe the judges' hype about Amber and send Candice or Angie Miller to the bottom. But, let's not think like that. Let us all think happy thoughts and imagine the remaining four weeks going in this order: Goodbye Amber, Goodbye Angie and ultimately Goodbye Kree, making Candice Glover the winner of Season 13.?

Follow me on Twitter @JodiBWrites

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/9nXf-t54KNA/American-Idol-With-time-running-out-did-the-judges-use-their-save

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The Pleasures Of Travelling In Business Class For Less

If you love to travel for pleasure or have to travel for work, and would like to do it in comfort and style, but at the same time you are conscious of the costs, then there are some agencies that specialise in providing that very same service. They are the experts to go to in order to avail of some great deals in first and business class. The great service and the comfortable offered is worth the price that is paid. So travel need not be such a nightmare any more.

How Does One Get Hold Of A Discounted Ticket?

If you go to the websites of the many airline companies you could be lucky to get yourself a fantastic last minute business class deal. Otherwise you could get in touch with the many travel agencies who specialise in just this. Since these agencies have good contacts with the airline companies, they are able to get their clients very good deals. They normally have offices in many other cities of the world. So once you fill in the form in the website with all your details, the staff will get in touch with you and give you all the options they have been able to find for you and you can make the final choice.

Services Rendered To Corporate Clients

Travel agents are willing to make bookings for corporates. Being fully aware that any company will work within a certain budget, the travel agent will be able to get you excellent last minute business class deals. They are used to servicing different business houses and they know exactly what each of them requires. In fact they are more than willing to get in touch with the travel section in the company and help them in finding good deals quickly and thus saving not only money but also precious time, spent in searching the numerous websites of the many airlines. Before booking any tickets the agents will get in touch with you personally to make sure that what they are offering will suit your needs. The more bookings they make for the company, the more discounts the travel company will be able to offer.

Avail Of Discounts To Any Destination

There are some destinations like the Pan European ones where the traveller will not be able to get a discount from the airline itself. But there are a few travel agencies who can get you a discounted seat in first and business class, because of their contacts.

About the Author:
Chris Toomey is an independent travel awareness consultant. Writes contents on traveling and has deep knowledge of discounted first and business class airfare and online first and business class air tickets with the lowest price.

Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-Pleasures-Of-Travelling-In-Business-Class-For-Less-/4531201

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Thatcher's funeral to take place on April 17

By Larry Fine AUGUSTA, Georgia, April 8 (Reuters) - Guan Tianlang answered questions about his readiness to play the Masters at the record-setting age of 14 when he gave two-times champion Ben Crenshaw a putting lesson at the 18th hole at Augusta National on Monday. The 61-year-old Crenshaw, whose career was built on his ability as a putter, mentored the precocious Chinese during their practice round, advising the Asia-Pacific Amateur champion about the notoriously fast, sloping greens of Augusta. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thatchers-funeral-place-april-17-101329157.html

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Japan's nuclear plant 'losing faith' in leaking water pits

TOKYO (Reuters) - The company that runs a Japanese nuclear power plant destroyed by a tsunami two years ago said on Tuesday it was losing faith in temporary storage pits for radioactive water - but it doesn't have anywhere else to put it.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it had found a new leak at one of the pits at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Three out of seven storage pits are now leaking, compounding clean-up difficulties after the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

"We cannot deny the fact that our faith in the underwater tanks is being lost," Tepco general manager Masayuki Ono told a hastily arranged news conference.

"We can't move all the contaminated water to above ground (tanks) if we opt not to use the underground reservoirs," Ono said. "There isn't enough capacity and we need to use what is available."

A tsunami crashed into the power plant north of Tokyo on March 11, 2011, causing fuel-rod meltdowns at three reactors, radioactive contamination of air, sea and food and triggering the evacuation of 160,000 people.

The fresh leak was found in the No. 1 storage pool where contaminated water from the leaking No. 2 pit was being transferred. Tepco has halted the transfer of the contaminated water.

Ono said on Monday Tepco did not have enough tank space should it need to move the water out of the storage pits, which were dug into higher ground away from the damaged reactors and lined with waterproof material. The company has stepped up construction of the sturdier tanks, he said.

Tepco said over the weekend about 120,000 liters (32,000 gallons) of contaminated water leaked from the No. 2 and 3 pits. The plant's cooling system has also broken down twice in recent weeks.

The government instructed Tepco to carry out a "fundamental" review of the problems at the plant, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Monday.

Tepco's president, Naomi Hirose, was also summoned to the Industry Ministry to explain the leaks and got a public dressing down from the minister, Toshimitsu Motegi.

Immediately after the explosions at the plant, Tepco released some radioactive water into the sea, prompting protests from neighboring countries. Many nations put restrictions on imports of Japanese food after the disaster.

It was the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Last month, a senior Tepco executive said the company was struggling to stop groundwater flooding into the damaged reactor buildings and it may take as long as four years to fix the problem.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori, Risa Maeda and Mari Saito; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/leak-found-fukushima-plant-water-storage-pool-regulator-044042392--finance.html

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Nevada jury awards $500M in hepatitis case

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? A Nevada jury has ordered the state's largest health management organization to pay $500 million in punitive damages to three plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit stemming from a Las Vegas hepatitis outbreak.

The decision on Tuesday comes after a jury last week found the companies liable for $24 million in compensatory damages.

Plaintiffs' attorneys had asked Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay almost $2.5 billion in the negligence lawsuit, saying it would warn health corporations against putting profits ahead of patient safety.

They argued the HMO knew a doctor operating an outpatient endoscopy clinic was dangerous but sent patients there anyway.

Attorneys for the two companies argued that a large punitive award would be unreasonable.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

With billions of dollars on the line, a Nevada jury was deliberating Tuesday whether the state's largest health management organization should pay punitive damages in a negligence lawsuit stemming from a Las Vegas hepatitis outbreak called the largest in U.S. history.

The Clark County District Court jury began deliberating the morning after plaintiffs' lawyer Robert Eglet asked them on Monday to order Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay almost $2.5 billion in punitive damages in the civil lawsuit.

Eglet said the large amount was needed to send a message that corporations shouldn't put profits ahead of patient safety.

Attorney D. Lee Roberts Jr., representing the two companies, argued that such a large award would be unreasonable, disproportionate and ruinous.

Roberts said the jury of five women and three men already sent a message last week, when it found the companies liable for $24 million in compensatory damages to plaintiffs Helen Meyer and Bonnie and Carl Brunson.

Health Plan of Nevada and parent company Sierra Health Services ? subsidiaries of publicly traded UnitedHealth Group Inc. ? have already promised to appeal.

Legal experts couldn't predict Tuesday how long the jury would deliberate or whether it would agree to Eglet's stunning request for punitive damages of more than 1,000 times the compensatory amount awarded last week.

But they said any amount greater than $240 million ran the risk of being slashed.

"Even if the jury were to bless this outrageous request, it's likely the trial judge will reduce it significantly," said Darren McKinney, spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association in Washington, D.C. "And if the trial judge fails to do that, surely the state Supreme Court, in light of previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, will reduce it."

John Kircher, a Marquette University law professor and author of the 2012 book, "Punitive Damages, Law and Practice," said the high court has essentially capped punitive damages at less than 10 percent of a compensatory damage award.

"It's not automatic," Kircher said. "But the U.S. Supreme Court has said it sees due process problems if the punitive award exceeds compensatory damages by more than a double-digit percentage."

Eglet said he calculated 15 percent of company profits to arrive at punitive damage figures of a little more than $1.9 billion from Health Plan of Nevada and about $590 million from Sierra Health Services.

The plaintiffs' lawyer argued that Health Plan of Nevada treated patients with the legal term "bad faith" when it hired outpatient clinic owner Dr. Dipak Desai to a low-bid contract even though company administrators were warned in advance that Desai was speeding through procedures and pinching pennies so much that patients were at risk of contracting blood-borne diseases.

Roberts argued that Desai was responsible for the hepatitis outbreak, not the companies.

Defense attorneys also argued that they were blocked from showing the jury during the six-week trial that company executives didn't know Desai employed unsafe endoscopy practices while boasting that he performed the fastest colonoscopies in the country.

After the hepatitis outbreak became public in early 2008, the Southern Nevada Health District in Las Vegas notified more than 50,000 people that they were at risk for blood-borne diseases including AIDS and should be tested.

Investigators traced hepatitis C infections of nine people to procedures conducted in 2007 at Desai endoscopy clinics. Health officials said that although hepatitis C was found in another 105 Desai patients, the cases weren't conclusively linked to procedures at his clinics.

Desai, once a powerful member of the state Board of Medical Examiners, wasn't named in the civil lawsuit involving Meyer and the Brunsons.

He has denied wrongdoing, declared bankruptcy and surrendered his medical license, but faces trial in state court later this month and federal court next month on separate criminal charges stemming from the outbreak.

Desai's lawyers have fought for years to prove that he is so incapacitated by strokes and other physical ailments that he is unfit for trial.

_____

Find Ken Ritter on Twitter: http://twitter.com/krttr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-04-09-US-Hepatitis-Exposure-Insurers/id-cf7b0c3ba9894b898c4d90bb7b9a860e

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'Artificial leaf' gains the ability to self-heal damage and produce energy from dirty water

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Another innovative feature has been added to the world's first practical "artificial leaf," making the device even more suitable for providing people in developing countries and remote areas with electricity, scientists reported in New Orleans on April 8. It gives the leaf the ability to self-heal damage that occurs during production of energy.

Daniel G. Nocera, Ph.D., described the advance during the "Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture" at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

Nocera, leader of the research team, explained that the "leaf" mimics the ability of real leaves to produce energy from sunlight and water. The device, however, actually is a simple catalyst-coated wafer of silicon, rather than a complicated reproduction of the photosynthesis mechanism in real leaves. Dropped into a jar of water and exposed to sunlight, catalysts in the device break water down into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. Those gases bubble up and can be collected and used as fuel to produce electricity in fuel cells.

"Surprisingly, some of the catalysts we've developed for use in the artificial leaf device actually heal themselves," Nocera said. "They are a kind of 'living catalyst.' This is an important innovation that eases one of the concerns about initial use of the leaf in developing countries and other remote areas."

Nocera, who is the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University, explained that the artificial leaf likely would find its first uses in providing "personalized" electricity to individual homes in areas that lack traditional electric power generating stations and electric transmission lines. Less than one quart of drinking water, for instance, would be enough to provide about 100 watts of electricity 24 hours a day. Earlier versions of the leaf required pure water, because bacteria eventually formed biofilms on the leaf's surface, shutting down production.

"Self-healing enables the artificial leaf to run on the impure, bacteria-contaminated water found in nature," Nocera said. "We figured out a way to tweak the conditions so that part of the catalyst falls apart, denying bacteria the smooth surface needed to form a biofilm. Then the catalyst can heal and re-assemble."

Nocera said that about 3 billion people today live in areas that lack access to traditional electric production and distribution systems. That population will grow by billions in the decades ahead. About 1 billion people in the developing world already lack reliable access to clean water. Thus, a clear need exists for a simple device like the artificial leaf that's compatible with local conditions.

"It's kind of like providing 'fast-food energy,'" he noted. "We're interested in making lots of inexpensive units that may not be the most efficient, but that get the job done. It's kind of like going from huge mainframe computers to a personal laptop. This is personalized energy."

Earlier devices used rare, costly metals and other materials, involved complicated wiring and were expensive to manufacture. But Nocera's artificial leaf uses less-expensive materials and incorporates a design -- a so-called "buried junction" -- that is simple and would be inexpensive to mass produce. And the leaf has advantages over solar panels, which are costly and produce energy only during daylight hours. The leaf's hydrogen and oxygen, in contrast, can be stored and used at night.

"A lot of people are designing complicated, expensive energy-producing devices, and it is difficult to see them being adopted on a large scale," he said. "Ours is simple, less expensive, and it works. And with that, I think we've changed the dialog in the field."

Among the team's priorities for further development of the device: integrating it with technology for converting the hydrogen into a liquid fuel that could run traditional portable electric generators or even cars.

Nocera acknowledged research funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/f5b7sYp9CPQ/130408185855.htm

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Source: http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/id/9548203/device/rss/

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National Director of Sales, Easton-Bell Sports, Scotts Valley, CA ...

Job Description
The National Director of Sales for North America will ensure successful partnerships with the Independent Bike Retail Channel and the Canadian Distributor to achieve revenue and gross margin goals for the SRD business group within Easton-Bell Sports. Reporting directly to the SVP of Global Sales - Action Sports, the Director will oversee three Regional Sales Managers for Bike, one National Sales Manager for Snow and a team of three Sales Analysts. He or she will be responsible for developing the strategic sales direction for the region, setting and executing the appropriate budget, forecasts and for providing guidance and leadership to the internal and external sales teams and distributors. Highly organized, the National Sales Director will be a key resource for the product and marketing teams for 4 distinct brands across a diversity of products including: hardgoods, softgoods, accessories and apparel. Top candidates will have a proven track record for reaching and exceeding growth targets.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
Establish multi-channel/multi-category sales strategy and align resources to achieve growth objectives. Develop short-term and long-range plans and budgets, based on specific growth objectives.
P&L responsibility including ability develop accurate forecast to achieve net sales, gross margin, working capital and EBITDA objectives.
Develop and monitor financial reports to determine progress towards objectives, while revising and planning in accordance with current conditions.
Active participation in the product development process (Innovation Road) to ensure proper assortment and forecasted quantities are met for the overseen marketplaces.
Develop short-term and long-range plans and budgets, based on specific growth objectives.
Manage the US IBD, US Snow sales reps and the Canadian Bike and Snow Distributor.
Maintain customer relationships with all key accounts within the US region and target accounts needed to build category business.
Travel to each sales territory at least once a year and provide feedback from customers to customer service, marketing and R&D Teams.
Develop sales programs and incentives annually to drive growth.
Provide the Operations and Demand Planning teams with annual forecasts and rolling monthly projections.
Develop annual sales plans and build the annual SGA budgets for your team.
Work with the marketing and R&D teams to help develop products that will keep the brand in a leadership position in the market place.
Build a world class sales team and make sure everyone is performing at the highest levels.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Bachelor Degree in Business, Management, or related field
10+ years of applicable business and sales management experience in Sporting Goods, Action Sports, and/or Outdoor Recreation Retail for a Multi-National, leading Brand.
Demonstrated proficiency in establishing and/or managing a wholesale apparel business, required.
Experience managing product demand, including forecasting and account reviews.
Demonstrated track record of success in matrix / cross-functional team management.

SKILLS AND ABILITIES
Solid Business acumen.
Independent Rep experience, desired.
Good communication skills, written and spoken.
Ability to travel on a regular basis.
Knowledge of SAP, valuable.

Please click apply now button below and be sure to let us know you found it on Malakye.com!

Source: http://www.malakye.com/ASP/front/sendmail.asp?ID=18988

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Video: Henry powers Red Bulls to first win

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/51386063#51386063

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The Philadelphia Burger Brawl Is Back On May 5th at Phoodie.info ...

Founded by Rouge owners Rob and Maggie Wasserman, the yearly Philadelphia Burger Brawl brings in more than twenty of the city?s most supreme burger making studs and studdettes. Past winners include TV food personality Bobby Flay of Bobby?s Burger Palace in 2012, and former Top Chef contestant Jen Carroll of Ten Arts in 2011, but maybe the third annual winner will be one without a TV show.

Tickets are a hefty $75 but, as went for preceding Burger Brawls, this year?s event will help fund Philadelphia Public Schools in need of computer labs.

Tickets are available here.

Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catherine Street, (215) 922-3456

Source: http://www.phoodie.info/2013/04/01/the-philadelphia-burger-brawl-is-back-on-may-5th/

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Developer Freedom At Stake As Oracle Clings To Java API Copyrights In Google Fight

Editor's note: Sacha?Labourey is CEO and Steven G. Harris is senior vice president of products for CloudBees. APIs exist for a reason: They act as the communication channel, the lingua franca, the boundary, between the provider of the implementation and users of that implementation -- developers. Will our economy thrive and be more competitive because companies can easily switch from one service provider to the other by leveraging identical APIs?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/HUibbHmjsL4/

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How Ancient Life May Have Come About

A family tree unites a diverse group of individuals that all carry genetic vestiges from a single common ancestor at the base of the tree. But this organizational structure falls apart if genetic information is a communal resource as opposed to a family possession.

Some evidence suggests that early evolution may have been based on a collective sharing of genes. A group of researchers are now searching for clear genetic vestiges from this communal ancestry.

But it's hard to shake our fascination with family trees.

My father used to travel for work, and when he arrived in a new city, he'd open up the phone book and check for anyone listed with our uncommon last name. Occasionally he'd get a hit and brazenly call them up to ask: "Are we related?"

The answer was always yes, with the common link often being my great grandfather.

Like my father, biologists are curious about family ties, but they go about it in a more systematic way. Rather than phone books, they sift through genetic codes from humans to bacteria and a lot in between. The main question is: Are the commonly held genes similar enough to point to a common origin?

The answer has always been yes. The implication is that we all belong to some universal tree of life. And at the base of this tree ? some have imagined ? there sits a mild-mannered microbe that lived more than 3 billion years ago, unaware that its genes would be the starting point of an entire planet's worth of highly differentiated life.

However, this organism, the so-called last universal common ancestor (or LUCA), may be just a fantasy.

"Our perspective is that life emerged from a collective state, and so it is not at all obvious that there is one single organism which was ancestral," said Nigel Goldenfeld from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The organisms belonging to this collective state would have shared genetic information from neighbor to neighbor, rather than solely from parent to offspring. Goldenfeld is leading a new NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) team that aims to provide a clearer understanding of this early stage of evolution.

"We are hoping to find fossils of the collective state in the genomes of organisms," Goldenfeld said.

Goldenfeld's team will be performing genetic studies that will try to tease out signatures of community-based evolution. They will complement this field and laboratory work with theoretical modeling and computer simulations.

"The ultimate goal is to understand how our planet's biochemistry is an instantiation of the universal laws of life, thus addressing the question of whether life is an inevitable and thus widespread outcome of the laws of physics," Goldenfeld said.

A time before Darwinism

It might sound strange that an organism's genetic code could be the result of "crowdsourcing." We are more familiar with traditional reproduction, as practiced by the birds and the bees. [Code of Life: 10 Animal Genomes Deciphered]

In so-called "vertical gene transfer," an organism inherits its genome from its parents, but it does not receive an exact copy. Small changes enter the code through reproductive mixing and mutations. This "descent with modification," as Darwin put it, eventually allows a population of interbreeding organisms (or species) to evolve.

If every snippet of DNA was solely the product of descent with modification, then every organism could be placed on a tree of life stemming from a single ancestor. But as it turns out, "different genes go back to different ancestors," said Peter Gogarten of the University of Connecticut, who has done extensive work on comparative genetics.

How is that possible? It can happen if organisms share genes. Imagine a gene belonging to members of a specific family tree. One day, this gene becomes isolated and gets picked up by another organism with a different family tree. No reproduction between partners takes place ? only an "adoption" of a specific gene.

This so-called "horizontal gene transfer" is quite common among bacteria and archaea, as exemplified by antibiotic resistance. When a specific bacterium develops a defense against some drug, the corresponding gene can pass horizontally to others in the same colony.

A 2008 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that 80 percent of the genes in bacteria were horizontally transferred at some point in the past.

Complex organisms also exhibit evidence of horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer, albeit to a lesser extent. Researchers have shown that ancient ancestors of plants and animals "swallowed up" other bacteria to form symbiotic relationships, which eventually resulted in specialized cellular components, such as mitochondria and chloroplasts.

In his work, Gogarten has shown that horizontal gene transfer turns the tree of life into a thick bush of branches that interweave with each other. Many of these branches terminated long ago due to extinction, but some of their genes live on in us, thanks to horizontal gene transfer.

Several studies suggest that horizontal gene transfer was more prevalent in the past when nothing but single-celled organisms inhabited the Earth.

"I like to think of early life as being more like an undifferentiated slime mold," Goldenfeld said. "Such a communal form of life would have no meaningful family tree, because it is the community that varies in descent, not individual organismal lineages." [[7 Surprising Theories on the Origin of Life]

Evolving evolution

The late Carl Woese, a colleague of Goldenfeld, was one of the first scientists to propose that early life leaned heavily on horizontal gene transfer. Woese passed away in December of last year. He is perhaps best-remembered for classifying life into the now-well-accepted domains of bacteria, eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi and protists) and archaea.

In 1987, Woese wrote about the consequences of rampant horizontal gene transfer. In such a scenario, "a bacterium would not actually have a history in its own right: It would be an evolutionary chimera."

A "chimera" is the name of a creature from Greek mythology that mixed together features of a lion, a goat and a snake. This hybridization presumably gave the chimera an advantage over its "competitors."

In a 2006 PNAS paper, Kalin Vetsigian, Woese and Goldenfeld showed that microbial chimeras may also have an advantage over their biological counterparts. The researchers used computer models to demonstrate that the genetic code could evolve more efficiently if organisms shared their genes collectively. Horizontal gene transfer turned out to be a better "innovation-sharing protocol" than vertical (Darwinian) transfer.

Now, with his NAI team, Goldenfeld wants to confirm these simulations with genetic studies. Specifically, they will target archaea, whose genes have yet to be scrutinized as closely as those from the other domains, Goldenfeld said.

The group is particularly interested in the question of how the ability to evolve originally developed. The "evolution of evolution" sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem ? especially if you think, as Goldenfeld does, that life is by definition something capable of evolving.

However, evolution can utilize different mechanisms to achieve the same goal. Goldenfeld's team will try to recover some of life's former evolutionary phases by stressing cells and then seeing how their genomes rearrange in response.

Universal biology

However, DNA evidence is just one aspect of this five-year research project.

"We want to understand how evolution works before there were species or maybe even genes," Goldenfeld said. "So this is going beyond 'origin of species' approaches to evolution, such as population genetics."

How does one study evolution without genetics? One considers the "rules of the game" that the genetic code is just one manifestation of. Goldenfeld calls this "universal biology." It is an attempt to distill from our specific biochemistry the general physical laws that animate matter.

Being a physicist, Goldenfeld gives the example of thermodynamics. Life must obey conservation of energy and the law of increasing entropy, which will certainly influence how organisms optimize their use of resources.

Other rules involve how to control the amount of variation in the genome from one generation to the next. Too little variation, and organisms can't adapt to changes in the environment. Too much variation, and organisms can't retain useful traits.

The team can place different sets of rules into a computer simulation and see what sort of artificial life appears. Goldenfeld believes that formulating the principles of universal biology may help answer one of the biggest questions of all.

"We would like to have a better understanding of why life exists at all." Goldenfeld said. "Is it a phenomenon that should be generic, like the formation of a crystalline solid, or is it something rare and bizarre?"

This is of special interest to astrobiologists, who wonder about the likelihood that we are not alone. If life is eventually found elsewhere, Goldenfeld thinks we'll have a few things in common. [Mars Discovery Raises Question: What Is Life?]

"The principles of universal biology should be applicable to all life irrespective of whether it is carbon chemistry-based or something stranger," he said.

Something stranger? Okay, so maybe that means they won't be in the phone book.

This story was provided by?Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-life-may-come-181314142.html

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How Did Dinosaurs Have Sex? [Excerpt]

See Inside

Once considered beyond the reach of science, insights into the love lives of these extinct giants are emerging

By Brian Switek

Image: Amy Martin

In Brief

• Scientists historically skirted the subject of how dinosaurs had sex, out of modesty and an absence of evidence.
• But studies of the closest living relatives of dinosaurs are providing insights into their probable reproductive anatomy.
• And computer models can test the plausibility of putative mating positions.

Adapted from My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs, by Brian Switek, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright ? 2013 by Brian Switek

I was shuffling through Chicago's O'Hare international airport when I saw it: a magnificent, towering skeleton of a dinosaur. At first I thought it was a mirage created by my travel-addled brain. But the scene did not evaporate as I approached. Pillarlike forelimbs and brawny shoulders supported a long swerve of neck bones leading up to the dinosaur's small, boxy skull, which peered over the top of a banner touting the airport's Wi-Fi, as if looking to the tarmac beyond to check the latest departures and arrivals. I stopped and stared at the behemoth?a replica of Brachiosaurus inherited from the Field Museum in Chicago?mentally filling in the internal organs, muscles and skin of a creature that at 85 feet long is one of the largest dinosaurs ever found. And then a strange thought bubbled up in my mind: How did such a gargantuan animal have sex?

Giddy and tired, I envisioned a pair of amorous Brachiosaurus standing in a clearing in a conifer forest some 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period, each one waiting for the other to make the first move. But try as I might, I couldn't quite figure out the mechanics of what should come next. Could the male rear up to mount the female? Could the female support his weight? Wouldn't her massive tail get in the way? Alas, my flight started boarding, so I had to part ways with the skeleton, but I continued to ponder the mating mystery on the plane. It has captivated me ever since.

Dinosaurs must have had sex to reproduce. As in nearly all modern-day reptiles, males would have deposited sperm inside females, which would later lay fertilized eggs containing developing dinosaur embryos. Yet although scientists have managed to deduce quite a bit about dinosaur biology, the nuts and bolts of dinosaur sex remained largely unknown?in part because studying the sexual behavior of animals was taboo historically and the topic seemed so beyond the reach of science that very little could be said about dinosaur mating with confidence. Not all hope is lost, however. Dinosaur fossils have furnished clues to such intimate details as when during development these reptiles reached sexual maturity and how they attracted mates. Meanwhile studies of birds and crocodilians?the closest living relatives of dinosaurs?hint at what the external reproductive anatomy of dinosaurs looked like. And computer modeling offers the possibility of testing theories about how these giants managed to do the deed itself. Much remains to be discovered, but scientists are slowly drawing back the curtain on dinosaur amour.

Lock and Key

Signs of sex are hard to find in the fossil record of any creature. Among the rare examples are 47-million-year-old turtles that died while copulating and a pair of 320-million-year-old sharks that might have been courting when they were rapidly buried. Sadly no dinosaur skeletons have been found locked in romantic embrace. And not even the most beautifully preserved of these beasts retain remains of their reproductive organs.

For insights into the private parts of these extinct animals, scientists have had to turn to their closest extant relatives: birds and crocodilians. Birds are living dinosaurs, a specialized lineage that evolved around 150 million years ago and continues to thrive today. Crocodilians?a group that includes the alligators, gharials and crocodiles?are the closest living relatives of the group formed by extinct dinosaurs and modern birds. A trait present in both birds and crocodilians is likely to have been present in nonavian dinosaurs as well. One such trait is a cloaca?the single end point for the reproductive, urinary and intestinal tracts in both sexes of birds and crocodilians and probably, by extension, dinosaurs. Thus, an Apatosaurus's genitals would not be visible as it plodded by. Instead they would have been concealed in the cloaca, which would have appeared only as a slit underneath the dinosaur's tail.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=ce5f12d3e06cd930ceed5d325db8d9aa

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Savor Unseen Diversity On Group Tours To India

To witness unseen diversity, you need to move on group tours to India which helps you to explore about crowning glory of the country. The global tourists can take advantage of this journey to discover incredible face of India that is unmatched to see across the world. For more convenience, get the profit of group travel packages available from any travel agents of India at reasonable charges.

India is the country of perfect amalgamation of ancient milestones, creative architecture, green landscape and consummate diversity that will leave you spell bound through their colors of diversity and enchanting structure as well. However, it will be best to plan for group tours to India with dear ones at least once in life. On this trip, group visitors can get opportunity to come across the glory of the nation and can also delight fun loving holidays at super tourist place of the country. The travelers will be amazed to mesmerize best time with each other at most renowned visiting place of India. To approach to such exotic places, tourists are much needed to have prior info about traveling destination, weather report, transportation info, wearing details and other dos and donts to follow during group traveling in India. The visitors from any parts of the world are needed to follow such guidelines without fail. In this way, best travel agents of India can help you with ease. They can give all details to organize customize group traveling in India as per budget and convenience. Apart from that, group tourists can also get advantage of group tour packages in India for any of the fascinating parts of the nation.

For successful India group tours, it is recommended to avail the services of skilled travel agents without fail. It tourists from overseas parts are not aware about traveling norms in India they can get the best info available about group traveling from travel operators with ease. The tourism experts can also manage your hotels booking, car rentals, group package booking and other traveling activities at any parts of India without fail. Moreover, they can also assist you to get the best tourist guide for navigation in throughout the trip as well. Hence, the vital hand of authorized travel professionals in India can make your journey easy and fun loving with ease.

To discover famous religious places in India, you need to hire the tourist guides who can help you to discover the finest holy places of vivid religions like Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians etc. All religions have their own values and dignity to praise. If you are Muslim follower, you can plan for Muslim pilgrimage tours in India. On this trip, one can explore famous Muslim holy spots across the country such as Taj Mahal, Akbars tomb, Fatehpur Sikri, Mughal fort etc in Agra. In Delhi, you can witness famous Jama Masjid, Humauns tomb, Red fort, Qutub Minar and so on. In Rajasthan at Ajmer, one can explore renowned Ajmer-e-Sarif etc. In Mumbai, you can explore enchanting Haji Ali Dargah as well. All these Muslim lures are founded by ancient Islamic rulers who were ruled in India several years ago. Similarly, one can also discover other popular pilgrimages of other religions at different destinations of India with ease.

Hence, Group Tours to India enable you to witness some outlandish attractions of diversity that is unseen to explore across the world.

About the Author:
Avenasoweell is a professional writer of web content. For more information on Muslim Pilgrimages Tours.

Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Savor-Unseen-Diversity-On-Group-Tours-To-India/4510044

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Rick Ross Responds To 'U.O.E.N.O' Backlash: I 'Don't Condone Rape'

'There was a misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation,' Rick Ross tells Q 93.3 in New Orleans amid controversy.
By Rob Markman

Rick Ross
Photo: Alexander Tamargo

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704537/rick-ross-does-not-condone-rape.jhtml

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Biological transistor enables computing within living cells

Mar. 28, 2013 ? When Charles Babbage prototyped the first computing machine in the 19th century, he imagined using mechanical gears and latches to control information. ENIAC, the first modern computer developed in the 1940s, used vacuum tubes and electricity. Today, computers use transistors made from highly engineered semiconducting materials to carry out their logical operations.

And now a team of Stanford University bioengineers has taken computing beyond mechanics and electronics into the living realm of biology. In a paper to be published March 28 in Science, the team details a biological transistor made from genetic material -- DNA and RNA -- in place of gears or electrons. The team calls its biological transistor the "transcriptor."

"Transcriptors are the key component behind amplifying genetic logic -- akin to the transistor and electronics," said Jerome Bonnet, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in bioengineering and the paper's lead author.

The creation of the transcriptor allows engineers to compute inside living cells to record, for instance, when cells have been exposed to certain external stimuli or environmental factors, or even to turn on and off cell reproduction as needed.

"Biological computers can be used to study and reprogram living systems, monitor environments and improve cellular therapeutics," said Drew Endy, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering and the paper's senior author.

The biological computer

In electronics, a transistor controls the flow of electrons along a circuit. Similarly, in biologics, a transcriptor controls the flow of a specific protein, RNA polymerase, as it travels along a strand of DNA.

"We have repurposed a group of natural proteins, called integrases, to realize digital control over the flow of RNA polymerase along DNA, which in turn allowed us to engineer amplifying genetic logic," said Endy.

Using transcriptors, the team has created what are known in electrical engineering as logic gates that can derive true-false answers to virtually any biochemical question that might be posed within a cell.

They refer to their transcriptor-based logic gates as "Boolean Integrase Logic," or "BIL gates" for short.

Transcriptor-based gates alone do not constitute a computer, but they are the third and final component of a biological computer that could operate within individual living cells.

Despite their outward differences, all modern computers, from ENIAC to Apple, share three basic functions: storing, transmitting and performing logical operations on information.

Last year, Endy and his team made news in delivering the other two core components of a fully functional genetic computer. The first was a type of rewritable digital data storage within DNA. They also developed a mechanism for transmitting genetic information from cell to cell, a sort of biological Internet.

It all adds up to creating a computer inside a living cell.

Boole's gold

Digital logic is often referred to as "Boolean logic," after George Boole, the mathematician who proposed the system in 1854. Today, Boolean logic typically takes the form of 1s and 0s within a computer. Answer true, gate open; answer false, gate closed. Open. Closed. On. Off. 1. 0. It's that basic. But it turns out that with just these simple tools and ways of thinking you can accomplish quite a lot.

"AND" and "OR" are just two of the most basic Boolean logic gates. An "AND" gate, for instance, is "true" when both of its inputs are true -- when "a" and "b" are true. An "OR" gate, on the other hand, is true when either or both of its inputs are true.

In a biological setting, the possibilities for logic are as limitless as in electronics, Bonnet explained. "You could test whether a given cell had been exposed to any number of external stimuli -- the presence of glucose and caffeine, for instance. BIL gates would allow you to make that determination and to store that information so you could easily identify those which had been exposed and which had not," he said.

By the same token, you could tell the cell to start or stop reproducing if certain factors were present. And, by coupling BIL gates with the team's biological Internet, it is possible to communicate genetic information from cell to cell to orchestrate the behavior of a group of cells.

"The potential applications are limited only by the imagination of the researcher," said co-author Monica Ortiz, a PhD candidate in bioengineering who demonstrated autonomous cell-to-cell communication of DNA encoding various BIL gates.

Building a transcriptor

To create transcriptors and logic gates, the team used carefully calibrated combinations of enzymes -- the integrases mentioned earlier -- that control the flow of RNA polymerase along strands of DNA. If this were electronics, DNA is the wire and RNA polymerase is the electron.

"The choice of enzymes is important," Bonnet said. "We have been careful to select enzymes that function in bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, so that bio-computers can be engineered within a variety of organisms."

On the technical side, the transcriptor achieves a key similarity between the biological transistor and its semiconducting cousin: signal amplification.

With transcriptors, a very small change in the expression of an integrase can create a very large change in the expression of any two other genes.

To understand the importance of amplification, consider that the transistor was first conceived as a way to replace expensive, inefficient and unreliable vacuum tubes in the amplification of telephone signals for transcontinental phone calls. Electrical signals traveling along wires get weaker the farther they travel, but if you put an amplifier every so often along the way, you can relay the signal across a great distance. The same would hold in biological systems as signals get transmitted among a group of cells.

"It is a concept similar to transistor radios," said Pakpoom Subsoontorn, a PhD candidate in bioengineering and co-author of the study who developed theoretical models to predict the behavior of BIL gates. "Relatively weak radio waves traveling through the air can get amplified into sound."

Public-domain biotechnology

To bring the age of the biological computer to a much speedier reality, Endy and his team have contributed all of BIL gates to the public domain so that others can immediately harness and improve upon the tools.

"Most of biotechnology has not yet been imagined, let alone made true. By freely sharing important basic tools everyone can work better together," Bonnet said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Andrew Myers.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Jerome Bonnet, Peter Yin, Monica E. Ortiz, Pakpoom Subsoontorn, and Drew Endy. Amplifying Genetic Logic Gates. Science, 28 March 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1232758

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/ED1fLVQ-WsM/130328142400.htm

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What attracts people to violent movies?

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Why are audiences attracted to bloodshed, gore and violence? A recent study from researchers at the University of Augsburg, Germany and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people are more likely to watch movies with gory scenes of violence if they felt there was meaning in confronting violent aspects of real life.

Anne Bartsch, University of Augsburg, Germany and Louise Mares, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present their findings at the 63rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. Their study examined whether these serious, contemplative, and truth-seeking motivations for exposure to violent portrayals are more than just an intellectual pleasure. They invited a large binational sample from Germany and the US (total of 482 participants), ranging in age from 18-82, and with varying levels of education. Participants viewed film trailers featuring different levels of gore and meaningfulness, and rated their likelihood of watching the full movie. They also indicated their perceptions of the film (how gory, meaningful, thought-provoking, suspenseful, etc.).

Earlier studies have suggested that audiences are not necessarily attracted to violence per se, but seem to be drawn to violent content because they anticipate other benefits, such as thrill and suspense.

These findings suggest that such hedonistic pleasures are only part of the story about why we willingly expose ourselves to scenes of bloodshed and aggression. Some types of violent portrayals seem to attract audiences because they promise to satisfy truth-seeking motivations by offering meaningful insights into some aspect of the human condition.

"Perhaps depictions of violence that are perceived as meaningful, moving and thought-provoking can foster empathy with victims, admiration for acts of courage and moral beauty in the face of violence, or self-reflection with regard to violent impulses," said Bartsch. "Examining the prevalence of such prosocial responses and the conditions under which they occur offers a theoretically intriguing and socially valuable direction for further work."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by International Communication Association, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/P0FeaSwr-TA/130328091750.htm

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Cyprus capital controls could be lifted in a month

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? There were long lines of anxious people but no sign of trouble as banks in Cyprus opened Thursday for the first time in nearly two weeks, following an international bailout that sought to prevent the country from financial ruin.

The government has imposed a daily limit on how much people can withdraw to stop a run on its banks ? the first such action in the 14-year history of the euro currency. Cypriots took the measure in their stride, aware that with their economy teetering on the edge of collapse, any undue panic would make the situation worse.

"Everything has been paralyzed. Besides my business being already low, now no one thinks of buying flowers," said flower shop owner Christos Papamichael who was among about 30 people waiting patiently for bank doors to open.

"People think of anything (else) besides flowers, they've got other priorities. But now there's a half an hour delay and we're just waiting here."

The limits on transactions, have been imposed initially for seven days and are being reviewed daily. According to Central Bank assessments, the restrictions are to be fully lifted in a month, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said.

"Gradually, probably in a period of a month, or something according again to the estimates of the Central Bank and according to the developments, the restrictions will be fully lifted," he said.

"If there (are) withdrawals from the banks, they may happen, but let me tell you once again there will be no bank run."

Guards from private security firms reinforced police outside some ATMs and banks in the capital, Nicosia, but no problems controlling crowds was reported.

President Nicos Anastasiades expressed his "warm gratitude and deep appreciation towards the Cypriot people for the maturity and spirit of responsibility they have shown at a critical time for the stability of the Cypriot economy," a statement from his office said.

However, many Cypriots were left frustrated and confused by the closures and controls and concerned about the effect on their businesses and livelihoods.

"No matter how much information there was, things were changing all the time," said Costas Kyprianides, a grocery supplier in Nicosia.

Banks have been shut in Cyprus since March 16 to prevent people from draining their accounts as politicians scrambled to come up with a plan to allow the country to qualify for 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in international bailout loans for its stricken financial sector.

A deal was finally reached in Brussels with other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund early Monday. The country's second-largest bank, Laiki, is to be split up, with its healthy assets being absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus. Savers with more 100,000 euros ($129,000) in either Bank of Cyprus and Laiki will face big losses. At Laiki, those could reach as much as 80 percent of amounts above the 100,000 insured limit; those at Bank of Cyprus are expected to be much lower.

The capital controls include limiting daily cash withdrawals to 300 euros ($383) per person and limiting payments abroad to 5,000 euros ($6,400). No checks can be cashed, although they can be deposited.

Anyone leaving the country, whether Cypriot or a visitor, can only take up to 1,000 euros ($1,290) with them in cash.

The country's general accounting office said pensions and other social security payments, together with salaries for government employees, will be in bank accounts next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Many Cypriots were working out exactly what they could and couldn't do. Television talk shows hosted dial-ins with experts, with viewers' queries ranging from which bank they would repay loans to if their lender was being wound down, how they could pay tuition fees for children studying abroad and handle check payments. People wondered whether they would be able to access their salaries, many of which were due this week.

Some analysts are concerned that, if kept in place long, Cyprus's measures will go against the fundamental principle of the single currency: Free and easy movement of money around the euro's 17 members.

In a statement Thursday, The European Commission said EU member states could restrict financial transactions "in certain circumstances and under strict conditions on grounds of public policy or public security" but added that "the free movement of capital should be reinstated as soon as possible".

Not every account in Laiki and Bank of Cyprus will be hit with big losses. Deposits held by the central government, local authorities such as municipalities, universities and development projects being co-funded by the European Union will not face a so-called haircut. Constantinos Petrides, undersecretary to the president, said the measure was agreed between the Cypriot government and a delegation from the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission.

Government welfare and pension fund accounts in Laiki will be treated in the same way as those in the Bank of Cyprus, "thereby ensuring most of the deposits," Petrides added.

Some individuals and businesses, spotting that Cyprus's economy was in trouble and that a tax on deposits was being discussed, had moved their money out of Cyprus well before the banks closed their doors last week.

According to ECB figures, deposits in Cyprus' banks slipped 2.2 percent last month, to 46.36 billion euros ($59.36 billion), the lowest figure since May 2010 and down from a peak of 50.5 billion euros ($64.67 billion) in May 2012. The figure excludes deposits from other banks and the central government.

"I anticipated, not this to happen, but I anticipated issues last year, when Greece had a question of whether it will remain in euro and the consequences of that," said Athos Angelides, who runs a business importing and distributing hair salon products. "So luckily we transferred money in the middle of last year over to the UK."

The stock market, which has been closed since March 15, stayed shut. It will remain closed on Friday and Monday, when most of Europe is closed for the Easter celebrations. Cyprus follows the Orthodox calendar and does not celebrate Easter until May this year.

____

Elena Becatoros in Nicosia and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyprus-capital-controls-could-lifted-month-163928990--finance.html

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Who Needs Original Content? OUYA To Launch With Nintendo 64, SNES And NES Emulation Support

The OUYA Android-based gaming console is getting ready for its debut: the stated beginning shipping date for Kickstarter backers is March 28. At launch, it sill isn't clear exactly how many software titles the console will offer, but a new report suggests that at the very least, early backers will have emulators to play with on the small, inexpensive console.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dgkV12NJhag/

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Serrano, EPA Agree: Sandy Rebuilding Should Include Green ...

Washington, DC - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- At a hearing today on water infrastructure financing, Congressman Jos? E. Serrano questioned the Environmental Protection Agency on their plans for Hurricane Sandy restoration. The Deputy Assistant Administrator at the Office of Water, Mike Shapiro, laid out the variety of ways that the EPA is contributing to the rebuilding effort and how they are ensuring the reconstruction does not just rebuild the same vulnerable infrastructure again.

Full article: Serrano, EPA Agree: Sandy Rebuilding Should Include Green Infrastructure ...

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• THDA?s Housing Search Database Helps Tennesseans Find Housing Across the State
  NASHVILLE - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- One is all a renter needs, but the TNHousingSearch has 100,000 in the list. Tennessee Housing Development Agency (THDA) built a website, www.TNHousingSearch.org, and has been inviting property owners to post Tennessee rental properties of all sizes, shapes, locations and costs on the site for each searching by households wanting to rent a home.

• Huizenga Reintroduces Bipartisan Legislation To Help Low & Middle Income Americans
  Washington, DC - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- This week, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02) introduced the Consumer Mortgage Choice Act - H.R. 1077, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would amend and clarify the qualified mortgage definition in the Dodd-Frank Act thereby improving access to credit and qualified mortgages for low and moderate income borrowers while protecting consumers from bad loans

• The Ballen Group Has Just Closed Another Las Vegas Real Estate Transaction.
  Las Vegas, NV - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- The Ballen Group, A Las Vegas real estate team who specializes in Summerlin, Las Vegas and surrounding areas has closed another Las Vegas Real Estate Transaction. This time, The Ballen Group resented the Home Buyer who purchased a home in Las Vegas, Nevada

• Costa Announces More Than $5.3 Million to Combat Valley Homelessness
  Washington, DC - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- Rep. Jim Costa announced more than $5.3 million has been awarded to Fresno and Madera County organizations from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The funds were made available through the Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance competitive grant program. HUD recently released a report showing that nearly 4,500 homeless persons including more than 600 homeless veterans in Fresno and Madera Counties

• Waters and Capuano Reintroduce Bill to Strengthen Federal Housing Administration
  Washington, DC - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services, reintroduced the FHA Emergency Fiscal Solvency Act. The legislation, co-sponsored by Representative Michael E. Capuano, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, is designed to strengthen FHA and to help ensure its long-term solvency. In recent years, the agency has stepped into the void, providing crucial liquidity as private firms have retreated from writing mortgage insurance policies, particularly for key groups such as first time homebuyers.

• COUNCIL VOTES ON PACKAGE OF LEGISLATION TO ADDRESS SAFETY, HOUSING AND BUSINESS NEEDS FOLLOWING HURRICANE SANDY
  New York, NY - March 14, 2013 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today, the City Council will vote on legislation to create additional criminal and civil penalties for those who commit crimes against vulnerable New Yorkers during a local state of emergency. Reports of crime following recent Hurricanes Irene and Sandy show that some people used these emergencies as opportunities to damage or steal property and to injure individuals, both physically and financially, in mandatory evacuation zones. The legislation recognizes that crimes of opportunity committed during times of emergency are different, more serious and must be treated as such

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Source: http://states.realestaterama.com/2013/03/14/serrano-epa-agree-sandy-rebuilding-should-include-green-infrastructure-ID023140.html

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Beating heart cells in the lab: Creating new tissue instead of transplanting hearts

Mar. 4, 2013 ? Embryonic stem cells can develop into any kind of tissue. Adult stem cells can still turn into different kinds of cells, but their differentiation potential is significantly reduced. "The mechanisms influencing the differentiation of stem cells into tissues are still far from being understood," says Professor Marko Mihovilovic (Vienna University of Technology). However, his research group has now managed to synthesize substances which control the differentiation process. Progenitor cells can be turned into heart cells, which eventually start beating in the petri dish.

"Various substances are known to influence the development of heart tissue. We have systematically synthesized and tested substances with cardiogenic potential," says Thomas Lindner, PhD-student at the Vienna University of Technology. The tailored chemicals are then tested on the progenitor cells of mice at the Medical University of Vienna. "The new triazine derivatives we are using are much more efficient at turning the stem cells into heart cells then any other substances ever tested before," says Marko Mihovilovic. The team at the Vienna University of Technology has already patented the new method.

Construction Kit for Molecules

The key advantage of the method developed at the Vienna University of Technology is its flexibility. "Our modular synthetic strategies are a bit like playing with LEGO bricks. A very high degree of complexity can be achieved by assembling very simple building blocks," says Marko Mihovilovic. Many different variations of the substances can be produced without having to develop new synthetic methods for each substance.

On the Verge of New Medicine

Now the goal is to turn this pharmacological tool into a pharmaceutical drug for humans. "It is crucial to unveil the exact mode of action. We want to know on a molecular level, how our triazine derivatives influence the cell development," says Mihovilovic.

"We want to open the door to a completely new kind of regenerative medicine," Marko Mihovilovic hopes. "At the moment, transplant medicine dominates, but it would be much better to create tissue in the lab, with the patient's own DNA, so that the danger of tissue rejection is completely eliminated."

Not only the differentiation of stem cells to tissues can be influenced by chemical signals. It is also possible to go the opposite way and turn differentiated cells back into pluripotent cells, which can turn into different kinds of tissues. "Our vision is to take cells which are easy to extract, such as skin cells, and to treat them with a cocktail of different chemicals, creating new tissue," says Mihovilovic. Synthetic chemistry will help to overcome the problem that heart tissue regenerates so poorly. If the therapy can used for humans, the patients' quality of life could be increased dramatically, and health care cost could be reduced.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/BRt6oQdUYKk/130304105159.htm

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Allan Calhamer, creator of game 'Diplomacy,' dies

CHICAGO (AP) ? As a kid rooting around in the attic of his boyhood home, Allan Calhamer stumbled across an old book of maps and became entranced by faraway places that no longer existed, such as the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

That discovery and a brewing fascination with world politics and international affairs were the genesis of "Diplomacy," the board game he would create years later as a history student at Harvard University in the 1950s. After its commercial release in 1959, the game earned a loyal legion of fans in the U.S. and elsewhere that reportedly included President John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger and Walter Cronkite, among others.

Calhamer died Monday at a hospital in the western Chicago suburbs where he grew up, his daughter Selenne Calhamer-Boling said. He was 81.

"He was brilliant and iconoclastic and designed this game that's played around the world, and he's adored by nerds throughout the world," his daughter said by phone Saturday. "But at the end of the day he was a great dad. He was at all the T-ball games and all the screechy, horrible orchestra concerts and all the klutzy ballet recitals. I guess that's how I'll remember him."

Calhamer tested early versions of the game out on Harvard classmates before perfecting it. After its commercial release, Avalon Hill bought the rights and helped make it an international hit. The game is still for sale, and was re-released in 1999 with a colorful new map and metal pieces.

Players represent seven European powers at the beginning of the 20th century and vie for dominance by strategically forging and breaking alliances. Unlike "Risk," there are no dice, and a player's success is largely based on his or her negotiating skills.

Inspiration for the game was also supplied by a Harvard professor who taught a class in 19th-century Europe and wrote a book called "Origins of the World War."

Calhamer said in a 2009 interview with Chicago magazine that reading the book recalled for him the atlas in his parents' attic.

"That brought everything together," Calhamer told the magazine. "I thought, 'What a board game that would make.'"

After graduating in 1953, Calhamer followed a fanciful path, living for a time on Walden Pond because he was fan of Henry David Thoreau's famous work and later working as a park ranger at the Statue of Liberty.

In his late 30s, he met his wife, Hilda, in New York. At her insistence they settled in his hometown of La Grange Park, Ill. Calhamer-Boling said her father then shed his "dilettante" ways and picked up a steady job as a postman, which allowed him pursue hobbies and his art. He tried developing other games, as well, but they never caught on, she said.

Since his death, emails have been pouring in to the family from "Diplomacy" fans around the world who wanted to convey how much the game meant to them, Calhamer-Boling said.

The moving messages were not what she expected.

"I always think of it as such an intellectual game because it's so strategic," she said. "But what I'm seeing over and over again in these emails is that the recurring theme is: 'I was a really really nerdy awkward kid who had trouble relating to people, but because 'Diplomacy' required interpersonal skills and required you to get people to do what you wanted them to do that's how I built my social skills.'"

Calhamer is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-02-Obit-Allan%20Calhamer/id-6f204f06a18c457dac63462133bbaec9

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