Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Gene acts as a brake on breast cancer progression

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2011) ? New research out of McGill University's Goodman Cancer Research Centre provides compelling new evidence that a gene known as 14-3-3? plays a critical role in halting breast cancer initiation and progression. The study, led by the Dept. of Biochemistry's William J. Muller, was recently published online in the journal Cancer Discovery.

The discovery of this new target points to novel therapies that eventually could slow or stop breast cancer progression. Muller also says that this gene is likely a major player in a number of other types of cancer.

Based on past clinical observations revealing that the expression of gene 14-3-3? is silenced in a large percentage of breast cancers, researchers had long suspected that it played a role in stopping cancer cells from dividing. The McGill team wanted to confirm whether this was the case. Using a transgenic mouse model that expresses ErbB2, an oncogene associated with aggressive breast cancers, they inactivated the 14-3-3? gene in the mammary gland.

"We found that the loss of this expression did, in fact, result in a dramatic acceleration of tumour onset," explained Muller who is also affiliated with the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC). "The two genes, 14-3-3? and ErbB2, co-operate, with 14-3-3? being the brakes. If you lose the brakes, ErbB2 can induce the cells to divide indefinitely. Furthermore, not only is the ability of these cells to divide enhanced but they become extraordinarily metastatic. They can invade distant sites."

Co-authors include Chen Ling, Vi-Minh-Tri Su and Dongmei Zuo. All are from the Goodman Cancer Research Centre and McGill's Faculty of Medicine in the Dept. of Biochemistry. All authors were supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Terry Fox Foundation.

"We are pleased that our funding has led to a better understanding of molecular mechanisms of breast cancer development, which ultimately will lead to improved interventions for breast cancer patients " said Dr. Morag Park, the Scientific Director of the CIHR, Institute of Cancer.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Chen Ling, Vi-Minh-Tri Su, Dongmei Zuo, And William J. Muller. Loss of the 14-3-3? Tumor Suppressor Is a Critical Event in ErbB2-Mediated Tumor Progression. Cancer Discovery, 2011 DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-11-0189

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://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129142010.htm

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War drawdowns wreak havoc on Guard soldiers' lives (Providence Journal)

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tebow does it again for Denver

Denver's 16-13 OT victory vs. San Diego makes QB 5-1 as a starter

By BERNIE WILSON

updated 7:50 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2011

SAN DIEGO - Tim Tebow wasn't watching as San Diego's Nick Novak lined up to attempt a 53-yard field goal that would have given the Chargers an overtime victory over the Denver Broncos.

He was praying, of course.

Did Tebow ask for a miss?

"I might have said that. Or maybe a block. Maybe all of it," the Denver quarterback said with a laugh.

Whatever, it worked.

Novak missed wide right. Tebow moved the Broncos down the field and Matt Prater kicked a 37-yard field goal with 29 seconds left in overtime to lift the Broncos to a 16-13 victory Sunday over the Chargers, who've lost six straight games for the first time in 10 years.

The Broncos narrowly avoided the first NFL tie since Cincinnati and Philadelphia ended deadlocked at 13 on Nov. 16, 2008.

Some people have a problem with Tebow wearing his religion on his sleeve. But he has been a savior for the Broncos, going 5-1 since coach John Fox elevated him to starter in the wake of his performance in a close loss to the Chargers on Oct. 9 in Denver.

Still, Hall of Famer John Elway, the Broncos' executive vice president of football operations, won't commit to the unconventional Tebow for his passing numbers and poor third-down conversions.

The Broncos (6-5) have won four straight to trail Oakland by one game in the AFC West.

"This is a special team, a special team when you have a bunch of guys that when things aren't going good we get closer instead of pulling apart," Tebow said. "The No. 1 reason we are like that is because we believe in each other, we believe in the coaching staff."

Coach John Fox believes in his quarterback.

"Tim has outstanding ability," Fox said. "He proved it at a high level of college football in the SEC at Florida. It's (the option) something that he is comfortable with. I think our team has adapted to it. Right now it's working in the run portion of our offense. We still have some growth to do in the pass portion."

Tebow led Denver from its 43 after Novak was wide right on a 53-yard field goal attempt with 2:31 left in overtime. Novak made a 53-yarder in the first quarter, a career-best, and was wide right on a 48-yard try early in the fourth quarter.

Tebow had a 12-yard gain and Willis McGahee ran 24 yards up the middle to set up Prater's winning kick, which was right down the middle.

Tebow, the talk of the NFL because he runs the read option and often struggles while passing, carried 22 times for 67 yards ? the most carries by a quarterback in a game since at 1950, according to STATS LLC.

He also threw for one touchdown and finished with a better rating than Philip Rivers, 95.4 to 77.1. Rivers was pressured all day by Elvis Dumervil, who had two sacks, and rookie Von Miller, who had one.

Tebow's first start was also an overtime win, 18-15 at Miami on Oct. 23.

Novak didn't have an explanation for his OT miss.

"I had a good warmup and hit that ball pretty decent," he said of the 53-yarder he kicked in the first quarter. "When you make the first kick of the game from 53, it gives you a lot of confidence for the next kicks to come."

The Chargers (4-7) are on their longest streak since ending 2001 with nine straight defeats and are last in the division, three games behind Oakland with five to play.

"There's nothing I can say to make it sound good," Rivers said. "It's about as rough as it gets."

Tebow got a final chance to try to win it in regulation after the Broncos forced the Chargers to punt. Starting on his own 26, Tebow kept the drive going with a 39-yard completion to Eric Decker ? which the Chargers unsuccessfully challenged ? and a 23-yarder to Dante Rosario. The Broncos had to settle for Prater's 24-yard field goal that tied it at 13 with 1:34 to go.

Referee Jeff Triplette confused the crowd and TV viewers by saying each team would get a possession in OT. He then corrected himself, saying it would be sudden-death.

The Broncos won it on their third possession in OT.

Rivers was 19 of 36 for 188 yards. Tebow was 9 of 18 for 143 yards.

The Chargers took a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter when Rivers hit Antonio Gates on a 6-yard scoring pass in the back of the end zone to cap a 15-play, 91-yard drive.

Tebow threw an 18-yard TD pass to Eric Decker just before halftime to pull to 10-7.

Novak kicked a 25-yard field goal early in the third quarter. Denver had a long drive later in the quarter before Prater kicked a 41-yard field goal to pull to 13-10.

NOTES: McGahee ran 23 times for 117 yards. A week after having a critical fumble in a loss at Chicago, San Diego's Ryan Mathews ran 22 times for a career-high 137 yards. It was his third career 100-yard game, all against Denver. ... Broncos CB Cassius Vaughn injured an ankle in the first quarter and didn't return. ... Injured Chargers were LG Brandyn Dombrowski (foot), TE Kory Sperry (ribs), LB Na'il Diggs (chest) and Corey Liuget (tibia).

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Monday, November 28, 2011

Newt Gingrich wins endorsement of New Hampshire Union Leader (Los Angeles Times)

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Next Stop Mars! Huge NASA Rover Launches toward Red Planet

AND WE'RE OFF! NASA's Curiosity rover launched successfully this morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Image: NASA TV

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? NASA has launched its next Mars rover, kicking off a long-awaited mission to investigate whether the Red Planet could ever have hosted microbial life.

The car-size Curiosity rover blasted off atop its Atlas 5 rocket today (Nov. 26) at 10:02 a.m. EST (1502 GMT), streaking into a cloudy sky above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here. The huge robot's next stop is Mars, though the 354-million-mile (570-million-kilometer) journey will take 8 1/2 months.

Joy Crisp, a deputy project scientist for the rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., called the liftoff "spectacular."

"This feels great," she said as she watched the rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral. [Photos: Curiosity Rover Launches to Mars]

Pamela Conrad, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's mission at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said, "Every milestone feels like such a relief."

NASA expected around 13,500 people to watch the liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, with many more viewing from surrounding areas, setting a record for the number of spectators watching an unmanned launch.

"It's a beautiful day," Conrad added. "The sun's out, and all these people came out to watch."

The work Curiosity does when it finally arrives should revolutionize our understanding of the Red Planet and pave the way for future efforts to hunt for potential Martian life, researchers said.

"It is absolutely a feat of engineering, and it will bring science like nobody's ever expected," Doug McCuistion, head of NASA's Mars exploration program, said of Curiosity. "I can't even imagine the discoveries that we're going to come up with."

A long road to launch

Curiosity's cruise to Mars may be less challenging than its long and bumpy trek to the launch pad, which took nearly a decade.

NASA began planning Curiosity's mission ? which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) ? back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.

Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011.

That two-year slip helped boost the mission's overall cost by 56 percent, to its current $2.5 billion. But today's successful launch likely chased away a lot of the bad feelings still lingering after the delay and cost overruns.

"I think you could visibly see the team morale improve ? the team grinned more, the team smiled more ? as the rover and the vehicle came closer, and more and more together here when we were at Kennedy [Space Center]" preparing for liftoff, MSL project manager Pete Theisinger of JPL said a few days before launch.

A rover behemoth

Curiosity is a beast of a rover. At 1 ton, it weighs five times more than each of the last two rovers NASA sent to Mars, the golf-cart-size twins Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in January 2004 to search for signs of past water activity.

While Spirit and Opportunity each carried five science instruments, Curiosity sports 10, including a rock-zapping laser and equipment designed to identify organic compounds ? carbon-based molecules that are the building blocks of life as we know it.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=36a401e60cc30fa9b8462b231b399274

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NASA rover launched to seek out life clues on Mars

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:22am EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Saturday, launching a $2.5 billion nuclear-powered NASA rover toward Mars to look for clues on what could sustain life on the Red Planet.

The 20-story-tall booster built by United Launch Alliance lifted off from its seaside launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:02 a.m. EST (3:02 p.m. GMT).

It soared through partly cloudy skies into space, carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on a 354-million mile (556 million km), nearly nine-month journey to the planet.

"I think this mission is an important next step in NASA's overall goal to address the issue of life in the universe," lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters shortly after the launch.

The car-sized rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is expected to touch down on August 6, 2012, to begin two years of detailed analysis of a 96-mile (154-km) wide impact basin near the Martian equator called Gale Crater.

The goal is to determine if Mars has or ever had environments to support life. It is the first astrobiology mission to Mars since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

Scientists chose the landing site because it has a three-mile-high (4.8-km high) mountain of what appears from orbital imagery and mineral analysis to be layers of rock piled up like the Grand Canyon, each layer testifying to a different period in Mars' history.

The rover has 17 cameras and 10 science instruments, including chemistry labs, to identify elements in soil and rock samples to be dug up by the probe's drill-tipped robotic arm.

'LONG SHOT'

The base of the crater's mountain has clays, evidence of a prolonged wet environment, and what appears to be minerals such as sulfates that likely were deposited as water evaporated.

Water is considered to be a key element for life, but not the only one.

Previous Mars probes, including the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, searched for signs of past surface water.

"We are not a life-detection mission," Grotzinger said. "We have no ability to detect life present on the surface of Mars. It's an intermediate mission between the search for water and future missions, which may undertake life detection."

With Curiosity, which is twice as long and three times heavier than its predecessors, NASA shifts its focus to look for other ingredients for life, including possibly organic carbon, the building block for life on Earth.

"It's a long shot, but we're going to try," Grotzinger said.

Launch is generally considered the riskiest part of a mission, but Curiosity's landing on Mars will not be without drama.

The 1,980-pound (898 kg) rover is too big for the airbag or thruster-rocket landings used on previous Mars probes, so engineers designed a rocket-powered "sky-crane" to gently lower Curiosity to the crater floor via a 43-foot (13-meter) cable.

"We call it the 'six-minutes of terror,'" said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, referring to the landing. "It is pretty scary, but my confidence level is really high."

Curiosity is powered by heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium. It is designed to last one Martian year, or 687 Earth days.

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/p_MPQrgqTjg/us-space-mars-idUSTRE7AN0AT20111127

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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Protesters dig in to keep pressure on Egypt army (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Protesters demanding an end to army rule in Egypt sought on Saturday to build on momentum from a mass protest, bedding down in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a ninth day just two days before the first free parliamentary polls in living memory.

Thousands stayed in the square late into the night on Friday, aiming to keep up pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to further speed up a transition to democracy which they believe requires the generals to leave power now.

The political turmoil and violence - 41 people were killed this week - are compounding the economic woes of a country where livelihoods have been battered by a year of turmoil that started with the toppling of Hosni Mubarak in February by mass protests.

The generals have shown no sign of giving way to the demand to quit now. Instead, they have responded by promising that a new president would be elected by mid-2012, sooner than previously announced, and appointing a new prime minister to head a "national salvation government."

Kamal Ganzouri, the new prime minister, held the same post under Mubarak. Speaking to the media on Friday, he described his task as thankless and "extremely difficult" and listed his priorities as securing the streets and reviving the economy. Egypt's pound has weakened to its lowest level in seven years.

The Tahrir protesters have dismissed Ganzouri, 78, as yet another face from the past whose appointment reflects the generals' resistance to change.

"Why are they picking Ganzouri now? This shows that the army is unwilling to let go of any power by recycling a former ally. This government won't have any powers, why else pick someone that is loyal to them," said protester Mohamed El Meligy, 20.

DIVIDE

Tahrir Square and the surrounding streets were relatively calm on Friday after the deployment of extra security forces in areas where youths had clashed with police earlier this week.

The violence had fueled public anger at the military council and drawn more protesters to Tahrir Square.

If maintained, the calm will deflate the arguments of those who argue that the first phase of the three-stage parliamentary vote should be postponed because of this week's turmoil.

In a further boost to the military council, several thousand protesters demonstrated in support of the generals' role in another Cairo square on Friday -- a further echo from the last days of Mubarak's rule when loyalists took to the streets.

Though smaller than the "Last Chance Friday" protest in Tahrir Square, the demonstration highlighted the division between revolutionary youths wanting to overhaul the whole system and more cautious Egyptians keen to restore normality.

The appointment of Ganzouri, who was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, has also drawn attention to the division.

"I favor him. He is a very good man, he did a lot of good things. If he had continued in his role (in 1999) the situation would have stayed much better," said restaurant worker Osama Amara, 22.

The military council announced on Friday that each round of voting would be held over two days instead of one to give everyone the chance to cast their vote.

In Tahrir, where the main political groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party have avoided demonstrating this week, some protesters said the vote should still be delayed.

The Brotherhood, Egypt's best organized political force, wants the election to go ahead as scheduled.

"Believe me, I don't know who I am going to vote for," said Hoda Ragab, a 55-year-old woman at Friday's protest in Tahrir.

"In all sincerity, it's because I don't have any program for any party in these conditions. It would be better for the elections to be delayed a week or two, so we can get over these problems," she said.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdellah and Marwa Awad; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/wl_nm/us_egypt_protests

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Climate change hits Africa's poorest farmers

In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, Janet Vambe, 72, prepares to sow maize seed in Harare, Zimbabwe. As she surveys her small, bare plot in Zimbabwe's capital, farmer Janet Vambe knows something serious is happening, even if she has never heard of climate change. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, Janet Vambe, 72, prepares to sow maize seed in Harare, Zimbabwe. As she surveys her small, bare plot in Zimbabwe's capital, farmer Janet Vambe knows something serious is happening, even if she has never heard of climate change. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, a woman tills her plot in Harare, Zimbabwe. International climate change negotiators meet in the South African coastal city of Durban Monday. Their agenda includes how to get African and other developing countries the technology and knowledge to ensure that people can keep feeding their families without looking for emergency food aid. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, Janet Vambe, 72, poses for a photo ahead of sowing maize seed in Harare, Zimbabwe. As she surveys her small, bare plot in Zimbabwe's capital, farmer Janet Vambe knows something serious is happening, even if she has never heard of climate change. "Long ago, I could set my calendar with the date the rains started," the 72-year-old said. Nowadays, "we have to gamble with the rains. If you plant early you might lose and if you plant late you might win. We are at a loss of what to do." (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

(AP) ? As she surveys her small, bare plot in Zimbabwe's capital, farmer Janet Vambe knows something serious is happening, even if she has never heard of climate change.

"Long ago, I could set my calendar with the date the rains started," the 72-year-old said. Nowadays, "we have to gamble with the rains. If you plant early you might lose and if you plant late you might win. We are at a loss of what to do."

Paramu Mafongoya, a University of Zimbabwe agronomist, says Vambe's worries and those of millions of other poor farmers ? most of them women ? across Africa are a clear sign of the impact of climate change on a continent already struggling to feed itself. Changes have been noted in the timing and the distribution of rainfall on the continent. Zimbabweans say the rainy season has become shorter and more unpredictable, Mafongoya said.

Climate change "is a serious threat to human life," Mafongoya said. "It affects agriculture and food security everywhere."

International climate change negotiators meet in the South African coastal city of Durban starting Monday. Their agenda includes how to get African and other developing countries the technology and knowledge to ensure that people like Vambe can keep feeding their families without looking for emergency food aid.

A Green Climate Fund that would give $100 billion a year by 2020 to developing countries to help them fight climate change and its effects was agreed on at last year's climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. Durban negotiators hope to make progress on addressing questions such as where the money will come from and how will it be managed.

Climate change specialist Rashmi Mistry said her anti-hunger group Oxfam will be in Durban lobbying to ensure that women have a voice in managing the Green Fund, and that their needs are addressed when its money is spent. Most small-scale farmers in Africa are women, and they also are the ones shopping for the family's food. But tradition often keeps them out of policymaking roles.

Mistry said when yields are low and market prices are high, women are the first to suffer.

"She's the one usually who will feed her husband first and feed her children first, and she will go hungry," Mistry said.

Across Africa, said Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy on climate change, farmers need to triple production by 2050 to meet growing needs.

"At the same time, you've got climate change lowering average yields by what's expected to be 28 percent," Steer said. He called for more investment in such areas as agricultural research and water management.

Experts already are working on solutions. For example, Africa Harvest, a think tank that uses science and technology to address poverty and improve livelihoods among some of the poorest people in Africa, is working with farmers in an arid stretch in eastern Kenya who were finding it harder and harder to grow their usual crops of corn and beans. Africa Harvest got farmers to switch to sorghum. They have seen bumper harvests as a result because they are focusing on the right crop and the right practices for the climate, said Moctar Toure, chairman of Africa Harvest, who will be in Durban for the talks.

"The way we do agricultural development has to change," Toure told The Associated Press. "We need to balance the need to increase farm productivity with environmental conservation. We will also work towards broad policy changes in our target countries in order to address endemic problems (affecting women) such as land right security, access to credit and knowledge."

Experts worry that one consequence of resources becoming scarcer will be more frequent conflict. Already, Zimbabwe has seen aid used as a political weapon. Those who can prove their loyalty to longtime President Robert Mugabe's party have been seen to be favored when it comes time to hand out seeds or food.

Modern techniques of growing drought-resistant crops like sorghum and millet, staggering planting programs, irrigation and harvesting rain and river water in dams help minimize the risk to farmers. But Zimbabwe's modern agricultural infrastructure has been disrupted by a decade of political and economic turmoil.

Acute food shortages eased after Zimbabwe adopted the U.S. dollar to end world-record inflation in 2009, but local farm production continues to decline. This month, the U.N. food agency said more than 1 million Zimbabweans needed food aid and poor families, especially households with orphans and vulnerable children, can't afford much of the food that is available. Most of that food is imported.

Climate change, like the political problems linked to poverty in Zimbabwe, is manmade, though over a longer term.

Scientists say the accumulation of carbon dioxide traps the Earth's heat, and is causing dramatic changes in weather patterns, agricultural conditions and heightened risks of devastating sea-level rise. Industrialized nations bear the bulk of the blame, since they have been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 200 years.

Africa emits only about 3 percent of the total greenhouse gases per year, but its fragile systems and impoverished people are hardest hit by the consequences.

Weather experts say Zimbabwe's average rainfall has decreased over the decade and October temperatures this year soared to above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the highest since 1962.

Harare meteorologist Jephias Mugumbate said rains in January and February ? crucial for the ripening of crops ? can no longer be relied on.

It was often said drought in southern Africa recurred every 10 years.

"But now it has become more frequent and intensified. Temperatures show an upward trend and instead of being cooler our nights are becoming hotter," Mugumbate said

Like Vambe, tens of millions of Africans rely on rain-fed agriculture.

Vambe's corn crop has supported her family for more than five decades. But her yields have been steadily falling.

She walks at daybreak to her nearly bare field 10 miles (15 kilometers) from her home in the impoverished western Harare township of Highfield. She has finished planting her seed with the help of her two grandchildren. The dusty brown soil beckons for rain.

Maize, the nation's staple food, needs 60 days of moisture to reach maturity.

"The rains have become erratic. We can no longer rely on the seasons," Vambe said.

She has had to replant on several occasions because of a "false start" to the rainy season.

"This is what has been affecting our yields since 2000. We are no longer getting good yields because the rain comes and goes away," she said.

In the past, the growing season ended in March and harvests were gathered through April.

"Today, nothing is definite. You get rain in April then our maize rots in the fields," Vambe said. "If we are not respecting our spirits and if they are angry, there will be no rain."

____

Associated Press Writer Donna Bryson in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-26-AF-Climate-African-Farmers/id-042cc513a8554f5ea29e449b56efd345

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Free Toys. Because Everybody likes free, right? (Balloon Juice)

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Lite Sprites Prisma and Lite Wand

The WowWee Lite Sprites Prisma and Lite Wand ($36 list) are part of the Lite Sprites family. Lite Sprites use color and light to express their moods and feelings. Each Sprite has her own personality and domain in the natural world. The leader of the Sprites, Prisma is outgoing and loves all colorful light. She comes with a special forest pod home and includes 10 built-in colors. The bundled Lite Wand features magical color and light displays; it can receive color from another wand and capture color from the world. The bundle takes four AAA batteries.

Lite Sprites live in Lite-Topia, an enchanted land that sparkles with color and light. With the Lite Wand, you can collect and share color with Lite Sprites and their world. The Lite Wand features magical color and light displays, Lite-Topia SFX and audio guidance, select color from the built-in library and share it with Prisma and the rest of Lite-Topia, receive color from another Lite Wand, play built-in color games (Color Hunt and Color Mix), send spells to Sprites and playsets, volume control. Prisma features comes with special Forest Pod home, includes 10 built-in "favorite" colors, leader of the Sprites, catches colors and spells from the Lite Wand, shares colors with other Sprites, interacts with playsets.

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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Dyslexic adults have more trouble if background noise levels are high

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Dyslexia affects up to 17.5% of the population, but its cause remains somewhat unknown. A report published in the Nov. 23 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE supports the hypothesis that the symptoms of dyslexia, including difficulties in reading, are at least partly due to difficulty excluding excess background information like noise.

In the study of 37 undergraduate students, the researchers, led by Rachel Beattie of the University of Southern California, found that the poor readers performed significantly worse than the control group only when there were high levels of background noise.

The two groups performed comparably at the prescribed task when there was no background noise and when the stimulus set size was varied, either a large or a small set size.

According to Dr. Beattie, "these findings support a relatively new theory, namely that dyslexic individuals do not completely filter out irrelevant information when attending to letters and sounds. This external noise exclusion deficit could lead to the creation of inaccurate representations of words and phonemes and ultimately, to the characteristic reading and phonological awareness impairments observed in dyslexia."

###

Beattie RL, Lu Z-L, Manis FR (2011) Dyslexic Adults Can Learn from Repeated Stimulus Presentation but Have Difficulties in Excluding External Noise.PLoS ONE6(11): e27893. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027893

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

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There?s congestion on I-10: Film at 11 (Offthekuff)

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Friday, November 25, 2011

Great expectations

Great expectations [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

When will artificial molecular machines start working for us?

Physicist Richard Feynman in his famous 1959 talk, "Plenty of Room at the Bottom," described the precise control at the atomic level promised by molecular machines of the future. More than 50 years later, synthetic molecular switches are a dime a dozen, but synthetically designed molecular machines are few and far between.

Northwestern University chemists recently teamed up with a University of Maine physicist to explore the question, "Can artificial molecular machines deliver on their promise?" Their provocative analysis provides a roadmap outlining future challenges that must be met before full realization of the extraordinary promise of synthetic molecular machines can be achieved.

The tutorial review will be published Nov. 25 by the journal Chemical Society Reviews.

The senior authors are Sir Fraser Stoddart, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry, and Bartosz A. Grzybowski, the K. Burgess Professor of Physical Chemistry, both in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Dean Astumian, professor of physics at the University of Maine. (Grzybowski is also professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.)

One might ask, what is the difference between a switch and a machine at the level of a molecule? It all comes down to the molecule doing work.

"A simplistic analogy of an artificial molecular switch is the piston in a car engine while idling," explains Ali Coskun, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow in Stoddart's laboratory. "The piston continually switches between up and down, but the car doesn't go anywhere. Until the pistons are connected to a crankshaft that, in turn, makes the car's wheels turn, the switching of the pistons only wastes energy without doing useful work."

Astumian points out that this analogy only takes us part of the way to understanding molecular machines. "All nanometer-scale machines are subject to continual bombardment by the molecules in their environment giving rise to what is called 'thermal noise,'" he cautions. "Attempts to mimic macroscopic approaches to achieve precisely controlled machines by minimizing the effects of thermal noise have not been notably successful."

Scientists currently are focused on a chemical approach where thermal noise is exploited for constructive purposes. Thermal "activation" is almost certainly at the heart of the mechanisms by which biomolecular machines in our cells carry out the essential tasks of metabolism. "At the nanometer scale of single molecules, harnessing energy is as much about preventing unwanted, backward motion as it is about causing forward motion," Astumian says.

In order to fulfill their great promise, artificial molecular machines need to operate at all scales. A single molecular switch interfaced to its environment can do useful work only on its own tiny scale, perhaps by assembling small molecules into chemical products of great complexity. But what about performing tasks in the macroscopic world?

To achieve this goal, "there is a need to organize the molecular switches spatially and temporally, just as in nature," Stoddart explains. He suggests that "metal-organic frameworks may hold the key to this particular challenge on account of their robust yet highly integrated architectures."

What is really encouraging is the remarkable energy-conversion efficiency of artificial molecular machines to perform useful work that can be greater than 75 percent. This efficiency is quite spectacular when compared to the efficiency of typical car engines, which convert only 20 to 30 percent of the chemical energy of gasoline into mechanical work, or even of the most efficient diesel engines with efficiencies of 50 percent.

"The reason for this high efficiency is that chemical energy can be converted directly into mechanical work, without having to be first converted into heat," Grzybowski says. "The possible uses of artificial molecular machines raise expectations expressed in the fact that the first person to create a nanoscale robotic arm, which shows precise positional control of matter at the nanoscale, can claim Feynman's Grand Prize of $250,000."

###

The title of the paper is "Great Expectations: Can Artificial Molecular Machines Deliver on Their Promise?" In addition to Stoddart, Grzybowski, Coskun and Astumian, the other co-author of the paper is Michal Banaszak from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland.



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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Great expectations [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

When will artificial molecular machines start working for us?

Physicist Richard Feynman in his famous 1959 talk, "Plenty of Room at the Bottom," described the precise control at the atomic level promised by molecular machines of the future. More than 50 years later, synthetic molecular switches are a dime a dozen, but synthetically designed molecular machines are few and far between.

Northwestern University chemists recently teamed up with a University of Maine physicist to explore the question, "Can artificial molecular machines deliver on their promise?" Their provocative analysis provides a roadmap outlining future challenges that must be met before full realization of the extraordinary promise of synthetic molecular machines can be achieved.

The tutorial review will be published Nov. 25 by the journal Chemical Society Reviews.

The senior authors are Sir Fraser Stoddart, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry, and Bartosz A. Grzybowski, the K. Burgess Professor of Physical Chemistry, both in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Dean Astumian, professor of physics at the University of Maine. (Grzybowski is also professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.)

One might ask, what is the difference between a switch and a machine at the level of a molecule? It all comes down to the molecule doing work.

"A simplistic analogy of an artificial molecular switch is the piston in a car engine while idling," explains Ali Coskun, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow in Stoddart's laboratory. "The piston continually switches between up and down, but the car doesn't go anywhere. Until the pistons are connected to a crankshaft that, in turn, makes the car's wheels turn, the switching of the pistons only wastes energy without doing useful work."

Astumian points out that this analogy only takes us part of the way to understanding molecular machines. "All nanometer-scale machines are subject to continual bombardment by the molecules in their environment giving rise to what is called 'thermal noise,'" he cautions. "Attempts to mimic macroscopic approaches to achieve precisely controlled machines by minimizing the effects of thermal noise have not been notably successful."

Scientists currently are focused on a chemical approach where thermal noise is exploited for constructive purposes. Thermal "activation" is almost certainly at the heart of the mechanisms by which biomolecular machines in our cells carry out the essential tasks of metabolism. "At the nanometer scale of single molecules, harnessing energy is as much about preventing unwanted, backward motion as it is about causing forward motion," Astumian says.

In order to fulfill their great promise, artificial molecular machines need to operate at all scales. A single molecular switch interfaced to its environment can do useful work only on its own tiny scale, perhaps by assembling small molecules into chemical products of great complexity. But what about performing tasks in the macroscopic world?

To achieve this goal, "there is a need to organize the molecular switches spatially and temporally, just as in nature," Stoddart explains. He suggests that "metal-organic frameworks may hold the key to this particular challenge on account of their robust yet highly integrated architectures."

What is really encouraging is the remarkable energy-conversion efficiency of artificial molecular machines to perform useful work that can be greater than 75 percent. This efficiency is quite spectacular when compared to the efficiency of typical car engines, which convert only 20 to 30 percent of the chemical energy of gasoline into mechanical work, or even of the most efficient diesel engines with efficiencies of 50 percent.

"The reason for this high efficiency is that chemical energy can be converted directly into mechanical work, without having to be first converted into heat," Grzybowski says. "The possible uses of artificial molecular machines raise expectations expressed in the fact that the first person to create a nanoscale robotic arm, which shows precise positional control of matter at the nanoscale, can claim Feynman's Grand Prize of $250,000."

###

The title of the paper is "Great Expectations: Can Artificial Molecular Machines Deliver on Their Promise?" In addition to Stoddart, Grzybowski, Coskun and Astumian, the other co-author of the paper is Michal Banaszak from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/nu-ge112311.php

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Rights activist convicted and jailed in Belarus

Ales Belyatsky, the jailed leader of Vesna, the most prominent human rights group in Belarus, waves to his relatives as he sits in a cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. Belyatsky was arrested in August 2011 after Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors are thought to have given Belarusian police information about Vesna's bank accounts in their countries. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Ales Belyatsky, the jailed leader of Vesna, the most prominent human rights group in Belarus, waves to his relatives as he sits in a cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. Belyatsky was arrested in August 2011 after Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors are thought to have given Belarusian police information about Vesna's bank accounts in their countries. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Ales Belyatsky, the jailed leader of Vesna, the most prominent human rights group in Belarus, sits in a cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. Belyatsky was arrested in August 2011 after Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors are thought to have given Belarusian police information about Vesna's bank accounts in their countries. A district court in the capital, Minsk, sentenced Ales Belyatsky to 4 1/2 years in a maximum security jail. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Ales Belyatsky, the jailed leader of Vesna, the most prominent human rights group in Belarus, speaks with his laywer as he stands in a cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. Belyatsky was arrested in August 2011 after Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors are thought to have given Belarusian police information about Vesna's bank accounts in their countries. A district court in the capital, Minsk, sentenced Ales Belyatsky to 4 1/2 years in a maximum security jail. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

MINSK, Belarus (AP) ? Belarus' leading human rights activist was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 4.5 years in prison on Thursday at a trial condemned by U.S. and European Union officials as politically motivated.

Ales Belyatsky heads Vesna, the ex-Soviet nation's most prominent rights group which actively reported on alleged irregularities in last December's presidential election and the ensuing police crackdown on protests.

The election, in which authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko won another term, was criticized by international observers and sparked a massive protest rally that was violently dispersed by police who arrested some 700 people, including seven of the nine presidential candidates.

Belyatsky's group has since provided legal assistance to those arrested, helped them pay fines and offered help to their families.

The 49-year old Belyatsky, who has been in jail since his arrest in August, looked tired but composed while listening to the judge reading out Thursday's verdict. Some in the audience shouted "Shame."

"My case is politically motivated," Belyatsky said in his final statement. "I'm fighting for human rights, but now I feel like a voice crying in the desert."

Belyatsky was charged with tax evasion after Polish and Lithuanian authorities provided data about his accounts in those countries. Vesna said Belyatsky had to use the accounts to get cash from donors because Belarusian law left him no other option to receive funds needed to help victims of political repression. Polish and Lithuanian governments later apologized for giving Belarusian prosecutors the data on Belyatsky's accounts.

The U.S. Embassy in Minsk strongly condemned Thursday's verdict and urged Belarus "to release Belyatsky and all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, remove any barriers to their future participation in public life, and cease its campaign against critics of the government."

The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele deplored the sentence as "clearly politically motivated" and "a symbol of the ever intensifying crackdown on civil society in the country." ''We call on Belarus to immediately and unconditionally release and rehabilitate Ales Byalyatski and all other political prisoners in Belarus," they said in a statement.

Poland, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the verdict "confirms that the current regime does not observe the basic U.N. standards on civic rights and freedoms."

Warsaw urged authorities in Belarus to immediately release Belyatsky and "other political prisoners." Without that, the Polish foreign ministry warned, "the European Union's dialogue with Belarus will not be possible."

Garri Pogonyailo, another Belarusian rights activist, described the verdict as a punishment for Vesna's activities in defending victims of political repression.

"That's the authorities' revenge for Belyatsky's rights activities," he told The Associated Press. "Lukashenko wants to show what happens to those who are involved in defending human rights."

United Nations experts warned Thursday that Belarus has moved even further to clamp down on basic freedoms with a new law that was passed last month.

The legislation further boosts the already sweeping powers of the secret police, still known as the KGB, allowing its officers to break into residences and offices without a warrant. It also bans political and civil society groups from receiving foreign assistance and from holding money in foreign banks.

"When defenders are allowed to associate but cannot effectively seek, receive or utilize funding resources, the right to freedom of association becomes void," said Margaret Sekaggya, a U.N. expert on defenders of human rights.

___

AP writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Frank Jordans in Geneva and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-24-EU-Belarus-Activist-Convicted/id-05f064b7d73d433db9da735f23d4bbad

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Daniel Grant: Moving? Take Care When Transporting Works of Art

The neighborhood is going down. The rent is going up. My wife got a job in another city. There is an endless variety of reasons for moving from one place to another, and some people do it often enough that they just keep the cardboard boxes in storage.

Many people planning a move think largely about the largest items they own -- the sofas, bureaus, beds and tables -- especially if they need to guess the size of the truck they will rent. The more delicate things are packed in newspapers, clothing or towels and placed tightly in the spaces around the sofas and tables.

Works of art and antiques, however, are frequently a casualty of do-it-yourselfers or those who hire movers who don't have specific expertise in transporting art. "We've had people come to us who have used general movers in the past," said Bob McCracken, president of Richard Wright, Ltd., an art moving firm in Massachusetts. "They tell us stories: someone's foot went through their painting, things were dropped. General movers hire from pools, people who say they have moved things before."

Artworks require special handling as even a light bump can cause paint to fall off a canvas or permanently unbalance a sculpture. The glass covering a print may shatter and tear the artwork underneath, or a frame may break and create a pull on the canvas.
"You can strap a painting into the back seat of your car and hope you don't hit any potholes along the way," said the registrar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, "but there are a lot safer ways to do it."

Those ways can also be considerably more expensive, and the Metropolitan Museum regularly spends over a million dollars a year moving objects from one place to another. The cost is high because of the potential risks.

Federal Express, for instance, discourages people from using the company to ship artwork because of the high probability of some sort of damage. "Things with a high intrinsic value have a high breakage rate," a company spokesman said. There are, however, a number of precautions one can take, some of which are quite inexpensive and common-sensical.

One of the more painless things to do is remove the hanging devices from behind a painting -- the screws and wires -- and take the picture out of the frame. Both the canvas and frame may expand and contract under certain climatic conditions, brushing against each other which may knock off some paint. Museum conservators often recommend putting some felt or foam between the frame and canvas, then wrapping it all up in brown paper. This provides protection against dirt and dust as well as cushions a small bump.

The national operations manager for U.S. Art Co., which is based in Randolph, Massachusetts, said that it is "common sense to pack and ship a painting upright, the way it is hung on the wall. If it is tipped on its side, the artwork may move, the canvas may be stretched and paint could pop off."

Movers typically wrap a painting in a buffered, acid-free glassine paper, then wrap it again with a bubble wrap and finally place the piece in a cardboard box that is at least three inches larger on all sides than the wrapped picture. Within that three-inch space, one might put styrofoam plastic peanuts or even cooked popcorn - a benefit of popcorn is that you can feed it to the birds afterwards. It is environmentally friendly.

The cost of the packing, for a single 30-by-40 inch painting ranges from $50 to $100, several art movers stated. Some art movers are also willing to simply pack artworks that will be trucked by more general home movers.

If the picture is covered by a sheet of glass, do-it-yourselfers might choose to place a couple of strips of tape across it, securing the glass in one piece if it breaks rather than shattering all over the work.

The tape may leave a residue on the glass when it is later removed, which can be tricky to remove, especially if it is ultraviolet plexiglass whose glazing material may be damaged by the potent chemicals in some household cleansers, such as Fantastic and Formula 409. Those chemicals, by the way, also give off vapors that may equally damage the art. The tape residue should be removed with hexane or mineral spirits, dabbed on a cotton swab; nail polish remover is also usable, although not on ultraviolet plexiglass.

Bubble wrap, which is available at many hardware stores, is difficult to tape down securely (some art movers recommend wrapping the work again in more adhesive-friendly brown paper). One problem with bubble wrap is that it tends to retain heat and moisture, which may harm the art. Wood, for instance, may warp inside bubble wrap; paint may flake off or a metal sculpture may develop rust.

One way to avoid this problem is not pack or move on a rainy day, and it is possible to stipulate to movers that they should not come if the relative humidity is above 65, or below 40, percent or when it is raining. Wind may also be a consideration, as a large cardboard box could be blown out of a mover's hands in a sudden gust.

Another way is to demand in writing that movers not store works left overnight on a loading dock where heat and humidity levels, not to mention dirt, are likely to be unregulated and the possibility of theft is quite real. Art movers generally use climate-controlled trucks (70 degrees Farenheit, 55 percent relative humidity) whose storage units ride on compressed air i order to offer the smoothest possible ride. For a local move, the cost of a climate-controlled truck with two art handlers is over $100 per hour.

When the art must be transported by air, the costs increase substantially, as a wooden crate must be built and air freight charges added. The cost is also dependent upon where the shipment is going, the time of year, the amount of insurance one places on the objects and how they will be cared for along the way. The storage cabins of most planes are pressurized and environmentally controlled to degrees that are not destructive to most works of art. However, it is the airline's own baggage handlers, rather than those of an art moving company, who actually load and unload the crate. Therefore, the crate must be very strong.

Many owners of precious objects ask to have these pieces shipped in wooden crates. For almost any sculpture, this is mandatory, and crates can be constructed at a cost of between $100 and $1,500, depending on how large the piece is and how protected the work will be.
A crate is relatively easy to build. It is a simple pine box, reinforced with 3/4" plywood and lined with waterproof paper and a layer of polyurethane foam. One must make sure that objects do not bang against the sides but are fitted snuggly inside. Screws, rather than nails, should be used to attach the lid of the crate as hammering may prove quite jarring to the works inside which one is looking to protect. Many conservators also suggest coating the outside with oil paint as it adds an extra sealant to protect against rain.

James Wallace, former director of the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, stated that it is also advisable to place skids on the bottom of the crate, "in order that the prongs of a forklift are able to slide underneath easily, and some ornament on top so that the crate could not be shipped upside down."

The heavier the crate, the more expensive the shipping charge. A 250-pound sculpture, for instance, may need 1,200 pounds of crating material just to ship it safely.

Of course, one should resolve in advance with the mover the amount of insurance -- generally, $5 for every $1,000 in the artwork's declared value, either through a rider on one's homeowner's policy or through the mover -- as well as instructions on how the art objects should be handled, and this should be in writing. Moving can be traumatic, but decisions should not be avoided by letting whatever happens happen.

Outside of the major urban areas, there are very few commercial movers who know anything about how to pack or move works of art. No one wants to take chances with artworks that have monetary or even just sentimental value, so it makes sense to call museums in one's area for recommendations on which companies have moved objects for them. There are a number of companies regularly used by most museums, and they are equipped to provide a certain level of insurance coverage for valuable pieces, although most collectors and museums get additional insurance elsewhere. The classified sections of such art magazines as ARTnews and Art in America are also good places to look for companies that are equipped to handle art objects.

The more one moves, the greater the likelihood of some damage taking place, but it can be minimized by putting everything in writing and requiring certain kinds of care. Understanding the needs of one's most precious objects is the first requirement, and it may be the most important one to reducing the worry over whether or not one's favorite pieces come safe and sound through the door of one's new home.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-grant/moving-take-care-when-tra_b_1112692.html

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