VA stops bonuses for disability claims executives

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Veterans Affairs Department is withholding bonuses for senior officials who oversee disability claims, citing a failure to meet performance goals for reducing a sizable backlog in claims processing.

The backlog has increased dramatically over the past three years, and the department has come under intense criticism from veterans' groups and members of Congress.

VA spokesman Josh Taylor said Monday that the savings would be used to help reduce the backlog. He could provide no specifics nor say how many people would be affected.

In all, records show the department paid its senior executives a total of $2.8 million in bonuses in fiscal 2011.

During that same year, the number of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days jumped from less than 200,000 to nearly 500,000.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-29-US-Veterans-Bonuses/id-b9bfb605edd7441eabef99c42c63dffe

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More Samsung Galaxy S4 units 'now floating into' Sprint sales channels

Samsung is 'ramping up production' for Sprint

Samsung Galaxy S4 supplies have been lower than expected at launch, which has affected multiple carriers -- with Sprint being no exception. In a recent note we received from Sprint, we learned that the carrier's Galaxy S4 orders would be limited mainly to online and over-the-phone orders, with in-store supplies being very scarce due to low supplies.

The new note we received from Sprint today contains much better news: increased Galaxy S4 inventory is now starting to make its way into Sprint sales channels, thanks to increased production from Samsung. New shipments are expected on a daily basis, which will make things much easier on those looking to score one of the year's hottest phones. If supplies continued to be replenished, it shouldn't be hard to find one of these phones in a Sprint store relatively shortly.

More: Galaxy S4 review | Galaxy S4 forums

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/cWERuUlP_N8/story01.htm

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Linney, "Mad Men," Sofia Coppola to receive Women in Film awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Laura Linney, the female cast members of TV drama "Mad Men" and directors Sofia Coppola and George Lucas were named on Monday as winners of Hollywood's annual Crystal and Lucy Awards, which honor women's achievement in film.

The Women in Film organization, which promotes gender parity in the historically male-dominated film business, will honor winners in six award categories at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills in June.

Linney, 49, best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in the 2007 film "The Savages," will receive the award for Excellence in Film.

Five "Mad Men" actresses, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, Jessica Par? and Kiernan Shipka, will be honored with the Excellence in Television award.

Each actress plays a character that defines the changing gender roles in the 1960s United States portrayed in the series.

Oscar-winner Coppola, 41, who was also nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for 2003's "Lost in Translation," will receive the Directors Award, and "Star Wars" director George Lucas will take home the Humanitarian Award.

Teenage actress Hailee Steinfeld, known for her Oscar-nominated role in the 2010 film "True Grit," will be honored with the Face of the Future Award and Rachel Morrison will receive the Vision Award for cinematography.

Women in Film began hosting the awards in 1977.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Patricia Reaney and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/linney-mad-men-sofia-coppola-receive-women-film-193055670.html

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Scientists create novel approach to find RNAs involved in long-term memory storage

Scientists create novel approach to find RNAs involved in long-term memory storage

Friday, April 26, 2013

Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the identity of RNA molecules that are transported as part of the molecular process underpinning learning and memory.

Now, working together, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Columbia University and the University of Florida, Gainesville, have developed a novel strategy for isolating and characterizing a substantial number of RNAs transported from the cell-body of neuron (nerve cell) to the synapse, the small gap separating neurons that enables cell to cell communication.

Using this new method, the scientists were able to identify nearly 6,000 transcripts (RNA sequences) from the genome of Aplysia, a sea slug widely used in scientific investigation.

The scientists' target is known as the synaptic transcriptome?roughly the complete set of RNA molecules transported from the neuronal cell body to the synapse.

In the study, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists focused on the RNA transport complexes that interact with the molecular motor kinesin; kinesin proteins move along filaments known as microtubules in the cell and carry various gene products during the early stage of memory storage.

While neurons use active transport mechanisms such as kinesin to deliver RNA cargos to synapses, once they arrive at their synaptic destination that service stops and is taken over by other, more localized mechanisms?in much the same way that a traveler's bags gets handed off to the hotel doorman once the taxi has dropped them at the entrance.

The scientists identified thousands of these unique sequences of both coding and noncoding RNAs. As it turned out, several of these RNAs play key roles in the maintenance of synaptic function and growth.

The scientists also uncovered several antisense RNAs (paired duplicates that can inhibit gene expression), although what their function at the synapse might be remains unknown.

"Our analyses suggest that the transported RNAs are surprisingly diverse," said Sathya Puthanveettil, a TSRI assistant professor who designed the study. "It also brings up an important question of why so many different RNAs are transported to synapses. One reason may be that they are stored there to be used later to help maintain long-term memories."

The team's new approach offers the advantage of avoiding the dissection of neuronal processes to identify synaptically localized RNAs by focusing on transport complexes instead, Puthanveettil said. This new approach should help in better understanding changes in localized RNAs and their role in local translation as molecular substrates, not only in memory storage, but also in a variety of other physiological conditions, including development.

"New protein synthesis is a prerequisite for maintaining long term memory," he said, "but you don't need this kind of transport forever, so it raises many questions that we want to answer. What molecules need to be synthesized to maintain memory? How long is this collection of RNAs stored? What localized mechanisms come into play for memory maintenance?"

###

In addition to Puthanveettil, who was the first author of the study, authors of "A Strategy to Capture and Characterize the Synaptic Transcriptome," include Igor Antonov, Sergey Kalchikov, Priyamvada Rajasethupathy, Yun-Beom Choi, Maxime Kinet, Irina Morozova, James J. Russo, and Jingyue Ju of Columbia University; Kevin A. Karl of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science; and Andrea B. Kohn, Mathew Citarella, Fahong Yu and Leonid L. Moroz of the University of Florida, Gainesville. For more information, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/10/1304422110.long

Scripps Research Institute: http://www.scripps.edu

Thanks to Scripps Research Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127967/Scientists_create_novel_approach_to_find_RNAs_involved_in_long_term_memory_storage

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Vietnam police seize 53 king cobras from car

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) ? Vietnamese police say they have seized 53 king cobras from a car in Hanoi and arrested the driver.

Officer Dang Van Hanh said Monday the live snakes were taken to a wildlife rescue center near the capital where they treated before being released into the wild.

King cobras are the world's longest venomous snake, and grow up to 5.5 meters (18) feet.

The meat of the king cobras is considered a delicacy by some in Vietnam, where hunting and trading the snakes is banned. The snakes are also sometimes preserved in traditional medicines.

The snakes, which were kept in green sacks, were seized Friday.

Hanh said the car driver told officers he was paid to transport them. Local media reported he was paid under $50.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-police-seize-53-king-cobras-car-102847104.html

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'Hemlock Grove' Exclusive Red-Band Trailer: Watch Now!

Eli Roth's new thriller series, starring Bill Skarsgård, debuts Friday on Netflix.
By Josh Wigler

Famke Janssen in "Hemlock Grove"
Photo: Netflix

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705733/hemlock-grove-eli-roth-netflix.jhtml

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Rainbow rebellion in Australia after "gay" crossing torn up

By Michael Sin

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australians have taken to the streets to create rainbows with colorful chalk in protest after a rainbow pedestrian crossing in Sydney's main gay district was removed as a safety hazard, despite calls to retain it as a statement of gay pride.

Sydney's annual Mardi Gras gay pride celebration is one of Australia's biggest tourist draws, and the colorful stripes on Oxford Street were originally painted to recognize the 35th anniversary of the event in March for a one-month trial period.

But the crossing, which became something of a tourist magnet, was removed on April 11 despite a petition drive that netted 15,000 signatures and the support of people like former tennis star Martina Navratilova.

State officials said the crossing was dangerous, citing CCTV footage showing people lying down on the road to take photos.

In response, James Brechney, 29, chalked a rainbow crossing in the laneway outside his home and posted a photo on Facebook.

Now his "DIY Rainbow Crossings" page has garnered over 17,000 likes in under a week and prompted the chalking of similar rainbows on streets all across Australia and as far away as France, the United States and Germany. One woman posted a photo of a rainbow chalked on her legs.

"It was a celebration of the short-lived crossing that we had in Sydney and I'm just so thrilled it's taken off globally," Brechney said.

A YouTube video was even posted of men chalking rainbow stripes in front of the office of Duncan Gay, the roads minister in New South Wales state.

Gay said he was more than willing to take the criticism, but that the chalked rainbows themselves were potentially dangerous.

"Please be very careful where you place these crossings because a young child might be injured or even killed," he said.

But the movement appears set to continue, with calls for rainbow chalkings outside parliament in New Zealand, which is expected to pass a marriage equality bill later on Wednesday.

"Our chalk rainbows have overridden the memory of seeing that big ugly machine scraping off our Oxford Street rainbow," wrote one post on Facebook. "Let's keep our voice loud and beautiful - the world needs a lot of this right now."

(Reporting by Michael Sin; Editing by Elaine Lies)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rainbow-rebellion-australia-gay-crossing-torn-023932289.html

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Boat filled with protected species hits coral reef

MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? A Chinese vessel that ran into a protected coral reef in the southwestern Philippines held evidence of even more environmental destruction inside: more than 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of meat from a protected species, the pangolin or scaly anteater.

The steel-hulled vessel hit an atoll on April 8 at the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site on Palawan island. Coast guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo said Monday that 400 boxes, each containing 25 to 30 kilograms of frozen pangolins, were discovered during a second inspection of the boat Saturday.

The World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines said the Chinese vessel F/N Min Long Yu could have been carrying up to 2,000 of the toothless, insect-eating animals rolled up in the boxes, with their scales already removed.

"It is bad enough that the Chinese have illegally entered our seas, navigated without boat papers and crashed recklessly into a national marine park and World Heritage Site," said WWF-Philippines chief executive officer Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan. "It is simply deplorable that they appear to be posing as fishermen to trade in illegal wildlife."

The boat's 12 Chinese crewmen are being detained on charges of poaching and attempted bribery, said Adelina Villena, the marine park's lawyer. She said more charges are being prepared against them, including damaging the corals and violating the country's wildlife law for being found in possession of the pangolin meat.

It is not yet clear which of the four Asian pangolin species the meat comes from. The International Union of Conservation of Nature lists two species as endangered: the Sunda, or Malayan, pangolin, and the Chinese pangolin. Two others, including the Philippine pangolin endemic to Palawan, are classified as near threatened.

The animals are protected in many Asian nations, and an international ban on their trade has been in effect since 2002, but illicit trade continues. The meat and scales of the pangolin fetch hundreds of dollars per kilogram in China, where many believe they cure various ailments.

The IUCN says rising demand for pangolins and lax laws are wiping out the toothless anteaters from their forest habitat in Southeast Asia.

Alex Marcaida, an officer of the government's Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, Philippine authorities consider the Philippine pangolin threatened because of unabated illicit trade. He said the Chinese crewmen have said the pangolins came from Indonesia, but officials were still verifying the claim.

WWF-Philippines said the global illegal wildlife trade is estimated to yield at least $19 billion per year, comprising the fourth-largest illegal global trade after narcotics, product and currency counterfeiting and human trafficking. It said the risks are low compared with other crimes, and that high-level traders are rarely arrested, prosecuted or convicted.

The Philippine military quoted the fishermen as saying they accidentally wandered into Philippine waters from Malaysia. They were being detained in southwestern Puerto Princesa city, where Chinese consular officials visited them.

Tubbataha is a 97,000-hectare (239,700-acre) marine sanctuary and popular diving destination 640 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Manila. The massive reef already had been damaged by a U.S. Navy ship that got stuck in January and had to be dismantled.

The fishermen face up to 12 years' imprisonment and fines of up to $300,000 for the poaching charge alone. For possession of the pangolin meat, they can be imprisoned up to six years and fined, Villena said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boat-filled-protected-species-hits-coral-reef-094802333.html

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Non-profit hunts for Earth-killing asteroids

With the dangers of rogue asteroids made clear by the surprise explosion of a meteor over Russia in February, a non-profit organization is ramping up its effort to search for potentially hazardous space rocks near Earth.

The B612 Foundation?was started in 2002 by former NASA astronauts Ed Lu and Rusty Schweickart with colleagues. The organization aims to launch a space telescope called Sentinel in 2017 to catalog near-Earth asteroids, including those that may pose a danger to Earth.

To date, about 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids large enough to destroy the entire planet (about 1 kilometer, or 0.6 miles wide) have been discovered, but far fewer of the smaller, city-killing size (roughly 140 meters, or 460 feet, in diameter) have been found. [Photos: The Sentinel Space Telescope]

"We are essentially flying blind in a cosmic shooting gallery," Scott Hubbard, B612 program architect, told reporters on Tuesday (April 9) at the 29th annual National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.

This reality was starkly illustrated on Feb. 15, when a 55-foot-wide (17 meters) meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, just hours before an asteroid almost three times its size called 2012 DA14 flew uncomfortably close to Earth.

Sentinel's goal is to detect about 90 percent of this city-killing class of asteroids over a period of 6.5 years.

The $450 million mission is to be privately funded, though the foundation has partnered with NASA to share its data and use the agency's Deep Space Network of satellites to facilitate communications between Sentinel and the ground. NASA and lawmakers have said they enthusiastically support the mission and the B612 Foundation's efforts.

"We must better recognize what the private sector can do to aid our efforts to protect the world," Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said during a Congressional hearing on the asteroid issue Wednesday (April 10).

B612 is also looking to partner with other private organizations, such as the solar system exploration non-profit organization The Planetary Society.

"We are hoping in the future to partner with B612, and we will find the asteroid that could have our name on it," said Bill Nye, the CEO of The Planetary Society. "We will ? this sounds extraordinary ? we will save humankind. It sounds like science fiction, but it's real."

B612's presentation at the National Space Symposium came one day before the group's CEO, former astronaut Ed Lu, spoke before the?House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Wednesday (April 10) on the importance of searching for potentially dangerous asteroids before they hit Earth.

Sentinel will fly in a Venus-like orbit around the sun, closer in than Earth. The observatory use an infrared telescope to search for space rocks as they near the sun, absorbing some of its light and re-radiating it as heat.

"If we build sophisticated night-vision goggles, we can see it," said John Troeltzsch, program manager for the Sentinel mission at Ball Aerospace, which has been contracted to build the spacecraft.

Ball was the primary contractor for NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as the agency's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, which, like Sentinel, required a large camera and the ability to point precisely at a given spot in the sky.?

"We have a lot of experience with very cold things observing very faint signals," Troeltzsch said. "If you take what we learned on Spitzer and what we learned on Kepler, you can derive Sentinel."

So far, B612 has raised about $2 million for the mission over the past eight months. It hopes to continue to raise $30 million to 40 million per year to keep the project on track.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitterand Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/non-profits-private-space-telescope-hunt-dangerous-asteroids-101050029.html

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Gene sequencing project finds new mutations to blame for a majority of brain tumor subtype

Apr. 14, 2013 ? The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital -- Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified mutations responsible for more than half of a subtype of childhood brain tumor that takes a high toll on patients. Researchers also found evidence the tumors are susceptible to drugs already in development.

The study focused on a family of brain tumors known as low-grade gliomas (LGGs). These slow-growing cancers are found in about 700 children annually in the U.S., making them the most common childhood tumors of the brain and spinal cord. For patients whose tumors cannot be surgically removed, the long-term outlook remains bleak due to complications from the disease and its ongoing treatment. Nationwide, surgery alone cures only about one-third of patients.

Using whole genome sequencing, researchers identified genetic alterations in two genes that occurred almost exclusively in a subtype of LGG termed diffuse LGG. This subtype cannot be cured surgically because the tumor cells invade the healthy brain. Together, the mutations accounted for 53 percent of the diffuse LGG in this study. Researchers also demonstrated that one of the mutations, which had not previously been linked to brain tumors, caused tumors when introduced into the glial brain cells of mice.

The findings appear in the April 14 advance online edition of the scientific journal Nature Genetics.

"This subtype of low-grade glioma can be a nasty chronic disease, yet prior to this study we knew almost nothing about its genetic alterations," said David Ellison, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the St. Jude Department of Pathology and the study's corresponding author. The first author is Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Computational Biology.

The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is using next-generation whole genome sequencing to determine the complete normal and cancer genomes of children and adolescents with some of the least understood and most difficult to treat cancers. Scientists believe that studying differences in the 3 billion chemical bases that make up the human genome will provide the scientific foundation for the next generation of cancer care.

"We were surprised to find that many of these tumors could be traced to a single genetic alteration," said co-author Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "This is a major pathway through which low-grade gliomas develop and it provides new clues to explore as we search for better treatments."

The study involved whole genome sequencing of 39 paired tumor and normal tissue samples from 38 children and adolescents with different subtypes of LGG and related tumors called low-grade glioneuronal tumors (LGGNTs). Although many cancers develop following multiple genetic abnormalities, 62 percent of the 39 tumors in this study stemmed from a single genetic alteration.

Previous studies have linked LGGs to abnormal activation of the MAPK/ERK pathway. The pathway is involved in regulating cell division and other processes that are often disrupted in cancer. Until now, however, the genetic alterations involved in driving this pathway were unknown for some types of LGG and LGGNT.

This study linked activation in the pathway to duplication of a key segment of the FGFR1 gene, which investigators discovered in brain tumors for the first time. The segment is called a tyrosine kinase domain. It functions like an on-off switch for several cell signaling pathways, including the MAPK/ERK pathway. Investigators also demonstrated that experimental drugs designed to block activity along two altered pathways worked in cells with theFGFR1 tyrosine kinase domain duplication. "The finding suggests a potential opportunity for using targeted therapies in patients whose tumors cannot be surgically removed," Ellison said.

Researchers also showed that the FGFR1 abnormality triggered an aggressive brain tumor in glial cells from mice that lacked the tumor suppressor gene Trp53.

Whole-genome sequencing found previously undiscovered rearrangements in the MYB and MYBL1 genes in diffuse LGGs. These newly identified abnormalities were also implicated in switching on the MAPK/ERK pathway.

Researchers checked an additional 100 LGGs and LGGNTs for the same FGFR1, MYB and MYBL1 mutations. Overall, MYB was altered in 25 percent of the diffuse LGGs, and 24 percent had alterations in FGFR1. Researchers also turned up numerous other mutations that occurred in just a few tumors. The affected genes included BRAF, RAF1, H3F3A, ATRX, EP300, WHSC1 and CHD2.

"The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has provided a remarkable opportunity to look at the genomic landscape of this disease and really put the alterations responsible on the map. We can now account for the genetic errors responsible for more than 90 percent of low-grade gliomas," Ellison said. "The discovery that FGFR1 and MYB play a central role in childhood diffuse LGG also serves to distinguish the pediatric and adult forms of the disease."

The other authors are Gang Wu, Ruth Tatevossian, James Dalton, Bo Tang, Wilda Orisme, Chandanamali Punchihewa, Ibrahim Qaddoumi, Frederick Boop, Matthew Parker, Ryan Lee, Robert Huether, Xiang Chen, Erin Hedlund, Panduka Nagahawatte, Michael Rusch, Kristy Boggs, Jinjun Cheng, Jared Becksfort, Jing Ma, Guangchun Song, Yongjin Li, Lei Wei, Jianmin Wang, Sheila Shurtleff, John Easton, David Zhao, Bhavin Vadodaria, Heather Mulder, Chunlao Tang, Charles Mullighan, Amar Gajjar, Richard Kriwacki, Richard Gilbertson, James Downing and Suzanne Baker, all of St. Jude; Claudia Miller, formerly of St. Jude; Charles Lu, Cyriac Kandoth, Li Ding, Robert Fulton, Lucinda Fulton, David Dooling, Kerri Ochoa and Elaine Mardis, all of Washington University; and Denise Sheer of Queen Mary University of London.

The research was funded in part by the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, including Kay Jewelers, a lead partner; a grant (CA096832) from the National Institutes of Health; and ALSAC.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jinghui Zhang, Gang Wu, Claudia P Miller, Ruth G Tatevossian, James D Dalton, Bo Tang, Wilda Orisme, Chandanamali Punchihewa, Matthew Parker, Ibrahim Qaddoumi, Fredrick A Boop, Charles Lu, Cyriac Kandoth, Li Ding, Ryan Lee, Robert Huether, Xiang Chen, Erin Hedlund, Panduka Nagahawatte, Michael Rusch, Kristy Boggs, Jinjun Cheng, Jared Becksfort, Jing Ma, Guangchun Song, Yongjin Li, Lei Wei, Jianmin Wang, Sheila Shurtleff, John Easton, David Zhao, Robert S Fulton, Lucinda L Fulton, David J Dooling, Bhavin Vadodaria, Heather L Mulder, Chunlao Tang, Kerri Ochoa, Charles G Mullighan, Amar Gajjar, Richard Kriwacki, Denise Sheer, Richard J Gilbertson, Elaine R Mardis, Richard K Wilson, James R Downing, Suzanne J Baker, David W Ellison. Whole-genome sequencing identifies genetic alterations in pediatric low-grade gliomas. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2611

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/top_news/~3/IGPZQlj-GAo/130414193148.htm

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YouTube lets you relive the old-school look of VHS -- in HD

Sure, watching YouTube videos in HD is great when you want clarity, but maybe you've been yearning for that grainy, tape-recorded look. Marking what's apparently the 57th anniversary of cassette-based video recording, the YouTube team has snuck a VHS tape-shaped button on select videos. Clicking it will the throw a filter over the content, providing a highly distorted and nostalgic feast for the eyes. There's no official list of compatible content, but the option seems to be available on most of the videos on YouTube's native channel. We have a feeling at least one VCR enthusiast will be quite pleased.

Filed under: Internet, Google

Comments

Source: YouTube (Google+)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Iha22Ioml7w/

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China says new bird flu cases found in central China

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two people in the central Chinese province of Henan have been infected by a new strain of avian influenza, the first cases found in the region and bringing the total number nationwide to 51, Xinhua state news agency said on Sunday.

One of the victims, a 34-year old man in the city of Kaifeng, is now critically ill in hospital, while the other, a 65-year old farmer from Zhoukou, is stable. The two cases do not appear to be connected.

Three cases have now been reported outside the original clusters in eastern China, including one in the capital Beijing, but there is nothing out of the ordinary so far, the China representative of the World Health Organization said.

"There's no way to predict how it'll spread but it's not surprising if we have new cases in different places like we do in Beijing," Michael O'Leary told reporters.

A total of 19 people in close contact with the two new victims were under observation but had shown no signs of infection, Xinhua said.

On Saturday, the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a seven year-old child in the capital of Beijing had been infected by the H7N9 bird flu virus, the first case to be reported outside of eastern China, where the new strain emerged last month.

The child's parents work in the poultry trade.

Investigators are trying to ascertain the source amid fears that it could cause a deadly pandemic similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, which killed about one in 10 of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

China has been anxious to avoid a repeat of the panic of 2003 by promising total transparency, and O'Leary said his organization has been "very pleased" about the way information was being shared.

Authorities say there is still no indication of human-to-human transmission of the virus, which has already killed 11 people in Shanghai and the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui.

"That's a key factor in this situation," said O'Leary. "As far as we know, all the cases are individually infected in a sporadic and not connected way."

The husband of a H7N9 victim in Shanghai was recently infected, but O'Leary said there was no cause for alarm.

"If there's only very rare cases ... That's different from the ease of transmission from person to person. It's that ease of transmission that we are concerned about, and there's no evidence of that yet."

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee and David Stanway; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-says-bird-flu-cases-found-central-china-021648764.html

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Music, art to highlight today's charity gala - Entertainment - Jamaica ...

The Four Seasons Hotel in Miami will host the annual Jamaica Charity Gala today. The event is a joint fund-raising event by the American Friends of Jamaica, Inc, and the Jamaica Committee.

The arts are a fundamental and defining aspect of Jamaican culture, and the gala will incorporate music and art into the event via performances by DJ Richie D, the Fab 5 band, as well as the auction of 15 pieces by Jamaican painters who have contributed their work for a good cause.

One of the most prominent painters who will be in attendance at the gala is Philip Mark Anthony Thomas.

Educated at the Portmore Community College, the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, and the New York Academy of Art, Thomas has established himself as one of Jamaica's finest painters.

He has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in New York, Ontario and Jamaica, and his work has been exhibited in the National Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

Thomas works in oil but does not limit himself to the medium. He also mixes in tempera, tar, markers, and bauxite earth to produce images that reflect some of the issues faced by the people in the Caribbean region today.

RETURNING THE DEED

As a recipient of many grants throughout his brief career, Thomas and his gallerist, Richard J. Demato, want to return the deed through their support of the Jamaica Charity Gala 2013.

Other artists whose work will be auctioned at the Jamaica Charity Gala include Ainsley Martin, Royan Grey, Sonia Kahn, and Mark Cameron with his oil painting 'Bob'.

The gala gives Jamaicans and the Jamaican diaspora in South Florida an opportunity to mingle, celebrate accomplishments, and be part of the creation of a better Jamaica.

The work of the American Friends of Jamaica, Inc, focuses on health care and education. The main donations this year will go to the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay and the St Andrew's Care Centre, which are both in need of monetary assistance.

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130413/ent/ent3.html

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Coulter, Norquist spar over immigration reform | The Daily Caller

• 

On CNBC?s ?The Kudlow Report? on Friday night, conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter faced off against founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist over the issue of immigration reform.

Norquist supported the reported outline of the proposal that is being negotiated in secret by a group of senators dubbed the ?Gang of Eight.?? Norquist said the?these ?efforts will bring substantial benefits for Americans.

?I think the American people are looking to move towards immigration reform,? Norquist said. ?We have [Republican] senators like Marco Rubio, Jeff Flake, Rand Paul, all moving in that direction. ?The business community ? small businesses, independent businesses ? have been silent for too long on the need for immigration reform, guest worker programs, high-tech immigration, [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] STEM immigration. They have been silent ? they?re now coming out strongly for it.?

?And the various communities of faith, evangelical Protestants, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon church, all of the so-called religious right are coming out strongly now for immigration reform,? he continued. ?So the base of the modern conservative party, the base of the modern Republican Party, Ronald Reagan Republicans, are going home to their base, which has also been welcoming to recognize immigrants are an asset to the country and they help make us stronger, they make us grow faster. Some great studies have come out on the economic benefits as well.?

Coulter, author of ?Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama,? said the current bill shouldn?t be defined as pro- or anti-immigration, but instead shoudl be judged on the merits of the proposal.

?It isn?t pro-immigration or anti-immigration ? it?s changing the current immigration policy,? Coulter said. ?I think we ought to be trying to get immigrants who are better than us, not worse than us. And 85 percent of legal immigrants come from the Third World since [former Sen.] Teddy Kennedy changed immigration law in this country. Sixty-five percent of them need some sort of government assistance. I mean, when I hear that ? you know, ?Don?t worry, immigrants are only on welfare 15 percent higher than native Americans,? it shouldn?t be any immigrants.?

?We ought to be getting ? we can?t get the surgeons, the businessmen, the people who would be competing with everybody who is talking about immigration ? it is the servant class that is coming in who taxpayers need to support,? she added. ?And of course, the business community has always been for immigration. Some elements of the evangelicals always have, but the point is: Is it a good policy or bad policy? It?is?bad for America. It is good for people who want cheap labor, while the rest of us subsidize cheap labor.?

Later in the segment, Norquist challenged Coulter?s argument that a reform like the Gang of Eight?s will expand the number of those on government assistance. He said that the country?s immigration policy shouldn?t center on a bad American welfare system.

?Ann has said a couple times what I?ve heard from other people in other areas, and that is, ?Gee, we have a welfare system and that makes some people dependent,?? Norquist said. ?For the most part, we do. Most of the people who go on to welfare ? Aid To Families with Dependent Children ? over decades and decades were born in this country. We should fix the welfare system. We shouldn?t organize our immigration policy around a failed welfare system. The Republicans have already passed through the House the [Rep. Paul] Ryan plan, which does for all 185 welfare programs what [former President Bill] Clinton signed ? the Republican plan to do for Aid for Families with Dependent Children. Let?s reform welfare because it needs to be reformed.?

Coulter said she would be for immigration reform but only under the condition that the welfare state is eliminated, something she openly dismissed as a possibility. She also rejected the idea that low-skill helps the economy, by saying that cheap labor stymies innovation.

?[I] asked one of my friends, [PayPal co-founder] Peter Thiel, about this idea, especially the agribusiness. They keep saying we really need the guest workers, and Peter made a very interesting point to me, which was when he was creating PayPal, they tried to do ? have the phone service in India, he said that didn?t work. When that didn?t work, we just fixed the problems. When one solution doesn?t work something is created because I had asked him, ?Look, you guys are inventing everything. You can?t invent a machine cabbage picker? We have to bring in hordes of Mexicans collecting welfare?? And he said, ?No, they will invent it. They have invented it.??

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Source: http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/13/coulter-norquist-spar-over-immigration-reform/

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Independent Obama group raises $4.8 million in first quarter

By Gabriel Debenedetti

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The advocacy group dedicated to promoting President Barack Obama's agenda said more than 100,000 donors pitched in to give it just under $5 million in the first quarter of 2013, as it publicized its fundraising numbers for the first time.

Organizing For Action, which operates independently from the White House, said Friday it would release its first-quarter numbers and the names of major donors later in the day.

An email from executive director Jon Carson to supporters said the group received contributions from 109,582 donors, averaging $44 per donation. This adds up to more than $4.8 million.

OFA came under fire in February after the New York Times reported that donors who gave $500,000 or more could attend quarterly meetings with Obama. This report sparked accusations that the group was selling access to president, a charge rejected by White House press secretary Jay Carney.

The group has focused mainly on immigration reform and tightening gun controls, two of Obama's priorities that Congress is grappling with.

The group was spun off of Obama's re-election campaign and launched in January as the president began his second term. It is the first independent effort of its type to support a sitting president.

OFA's chairman is Jim Messina, who managed Obama's re-election campaign. Carson is a former White House staffer who most recently directed the Office of Public Engagement.

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/independent-obama-group-raises-4-8-million-first-142224238.html

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Ballet legend Maria Tallchief dies at 88

FILE - This Sept. 14, 1953 file photo shows Maria Tallchief, prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet, in Tschaikowsky's "Swan Lake" during the opening performance of the company's engagement at the Scala Theater in Milan, Italy. Tallchief died died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. Tallchief joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948. She was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo, file)

FILE - This Sept. 14, 1953 file photo shows Maria Tallchief, prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet, in Tschaikowsky's "Swan Lake" during the opening performance of the company's engagement at the Scala Theater in Milan, Italy. Tallchief died died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. Tallchief joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948. She was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo, file)

FILE - This Oct. 3, 1994 file photo shows former ballerina Maria Tallchief Paschen at the Princess Grace Foundation-USA 11th Annual Princess Grace Awards in New York. Tallchief died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. Tallchief joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948. She was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo/Monika Graff, file)

FILE - This 1951 file photo shows ballet dancer Maria Tallchief of the New York City Ballet. Tallchief died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. She joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948 and was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo, file)

FILE - This May 16, 1952 file photo shows dancers Maria Tallchief, left, and Andre Eglevsky in the first performance of a new ballet, ?Caracole,? by the New York City Ballet in Paris. Tallchief died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. She joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948 and was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo, file)

FILE - This May 1954 file photo shows Maria Tallchief, prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet, in New York. Tallchief died Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Chicago at the age of 88. She joined the company that would become the New York City Ballet in 1948 and was married for a time to George Balanchine, who founded the School of American Ballet in New York. Tallchief worked with Balanchine on such masterpieces as 1949's "Firebird" and his now-historic version of "The Nutcracker." (AP Photo/The Cleanliness Bureau)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Maria Tallchief, one of America's first great prima ballerinas who gave life to such works as "The Nutcracker," ''Firebird," and other masterpieces from legendary choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 88.

Tallchief died Thursday in Chicago, her daughter, Elise Paschen, said Friday.

Tallchief danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1942 to 1947, but her career was most associated with the New York City Ballet, where she worked from 1948 to 1965. Balanchine, the Russian-born dance genius, was not only the company's director; in 1946, he became Tallchief's husband for some years.

She told Women's Wear Daily in 2003 that when she first worked with Balanchine she thought, "'I am seeing music. This is it!' I was a musician myself, and I thought, 'I am in my place now.' I knew that that's the way I wanted to dance."

Tallchief was one of five Oklahoma natives of American Indian descent who rose to prominence in the ballet world from the 1940s through the 1960s. She retired in 1965, when she started teaching the next generation of dancers.

"My mother was a ballet legend, who was proud of her Osage heritage," Paschen said in a statement. "Her dynamic presence lit up the room. I will miss her passion, commitment to her art and devotion to her family. She raised the bar high and strove for excellence in everything she did."

Tallchief created roles in many of Balanchine's ballets, including "Orpheus," in 1948, and "Scotch Symphony," in 1952. She was the Sugar Plum Fairy in his original production of "The Nutcracker" in 1954.

Jacques d'Amboise, a former New York City Ballet dancer who partnered with Tallchief in many performances, said she was the Mount Everest of dance.

"She was the perfect representative of the American ballerina," said d'Amboise, who with the National Dance Institute in New York. "There is one word for her: Grand. She was absolutely grand."

In the 1970s, Tallchief served as artistic director of the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago. She later founded and was artistic director of the Chicago City Ballet.

Kenneth von Heidecke, founder of the Chicago Festival Ballet, studied under Tallchief during the 1970s in Chicago. Tallchief was an honorary artistic adviser with the ballet. He said he owed Tallchief his career because of her meticulous training.

"She would teach classical ballet not just technically ... but she would go beyond that and tell you how the laws of physics help you achieve great elevation or great velocity," von Heidecke said.

In 1996, Tallchief became one of five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors for their lifelong contributions to American culture.

Tallchief was born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in 1925, on a reservation in Fairfax, Okla., a small town about 60 miles northwest of Tulsa. Visiting teachers gave her lessons, and her mother later moved the family to Los Angeles so that she and her sister could receive additional training.

Tallchief's sister, Marjorie Tallchief, became the first American ballerina to join the permanent star roster of the Paris Opera Ballet.

In her 2005 memoir, "Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina," Tallchief wrote that her first ballet lesson was in the basement of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., when she was 3-years-old.

"What I remember most is that the ballet teacher told me to stand straight and turn each of my feet out to the side, the first position," Tallchief wrote. "I couldn't believe it. But I did what I was told."

Ashley Wheater, artistic director with Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, said Tallchief served as a role model to future dancers.

"She's an inspiration for young kids today that come from all different ethnic backgrounds to know that they too can have that opportunity," Wheater said.

___

AP writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report from New York.

___

Follow AP writer Caryn Rousseau on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-12-Obit-Maria%20Tallchief/id-eb7d0d71d1254538b10bb89094d5b114

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Activists say Syrian airstrike kills 18 people

BEIRUT (AP) ? A Syrian government airstrike on a town in the country's northwest killed at least 18 people Saturday, shattering store fronts, setting cars ablaze and sending a giant plume of black and gray smoke over the horizon.

President Bashar Assad's air force has been one of his biggest assets in the 2-year-old civil war and he has used warplanes and helicopters to try to check rebel advances, although the regime also frequently hits civilian areas.

A Human Rights Watch report this week accused the Syrian government of committing war crimes by using indiscriminate and sometimes deliberate airstrikes against civilians, killing at least 4,300 people since the summer.

Saturday's air raid struck the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group. The Observatory said four of the 18 people killed in the attack were members of the same family. Many others were wounded and the death toll was expected to rise, the Observatory said.

Amateur videos posted online showed a giant plume of black smoke, and people in cars and on motorbikes racing to help the wounded. A group of men could be seen carrying a wounded man covered in gray dust. Another man in the video rushes with a bucket of water to help extinguish cars in flames. Rubble and twisted metal litter the street.

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other reporting by The Associated Press of the events depicted.

Rebels have wrested much of the countryside of Idlib and other provinces in northern Syria from regime forces, although government troops still control many military bases in the region from which they launch attacks ? including airstrikes ? on opposition-held areas.

South of Saraqeb, Syrian government troops trying to relieve a besieged military base ambushed a rebel checkpoint, killing at least 12 opposition fighters.

The Observatory said the government forces surprised the rebel fighters on the outskirts of the village of Baboulein. The Observatory, which relies on a network of local activists on the ground, said many opposition fighters were also wounded in the attack.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the assault was part of government efforts to resupply the embattled military base at Wadi Deif outside of the town of Maaret al-Numan, which is just north of Baboulein on the Damascus-Aleppo highway.

Rebels have been trying for months to capture the large base at Wadi Deif, from which regime troops regularly pound the now largely abandoned town of Maaret al-Numan with artillery fire. The regime must push convoys through rebel-held territory to prevent the base from running short of troops and supplies.

On Thursday, activists said rebels shot down a helicopter carrying food and supplies to the base, killing the pilot and three other soldiers.

In the northern city of Aleppo, a government air raid on the disputed Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood killed at least four people and wounded more than a dozen others, the Observatory said. It added that doctors treating the wounded said many showed symptoms of inhaling toxic gas, such as severe vomiting and irritation to the nose and eyes.

Both sides in the Syrian civil war have accused the other of using chemical weapons.

Syria has asked the U.N. to investigate an alleged chemical weapons attack by rebels in March on the village of Khan al-Assal outside of Aleppo. The rebels blame regime forces.

Britain and France want the U.N. to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Khan al-Assal and another village, Ataybah, on March 19, as well as the central city of Homs on Dec. 23.

Syria has rejected U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's push to expand the U.N. probe to include those other villages.

The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests but has since devolved into a civil war that the United Nations says has killed at least 70,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have sought refuge abroad, and millions more have fled their homes to try to find safety elsewhere inside Syria.

International efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict have faltered.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is scheduled to address the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Brahimi has not been able to make progress in his mission to push forward a peace plan for Syria first presented in June at an international conference in Geneva.

On Saturday, Syrian state-run daily Al-Thawra accused Brahimi of being a "false witness." The daily said he had taken sides in the conflict and that his briefing "will not alleviate the suffering of Syrians."

Brahimi angered the Syrian government in December by saying that the four-decade rule of the Assad family had gone on "too long."

In Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry said that four Italian journalists who had been detained in Syria since April 4 have been freed. The ministry did not specify who had detained them, or disclose details of their release.

Italian media have reported that the four were a RAI public television reporter and three freelancers who had entered Syria earlier this month with the intention of working by day in Syria and crossing into Turkey in the evening. They were reportedly detained in a rebel-controlled area in northern Syria near the Turkish border.

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-syrian-airstrike-kills-18-people-151943079.html

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Friction over Function: Scientists Clash on the Meaning of ENCODE s Genetic Data

ENCODE, the $185-million successor to the Human Genome Project, promises to reveal new details about our DNA. But controversy persists as geneticists remain at odds over one little f-word?"function"

By Francie Diep

Image: iStock/ThinkStock

Twelve years after the completion of the Human Genome Project, its successor made a big splash with one big number: Around 80 percent of the human genome is "functional," the researchers leading the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project said. Their claim drew immediate criticism from biologists, many of whom said it is evolutionarily impossible for so much of the genome to truly function for human health.

Seven months later, the controversy continues. Several journals and countless blogs have published opinion pieces about it. Current Biology published its second essay about it April 8. And in late February the journal Genome Biology and Evolution published an unusually harsh takedown that got some attention for zingers comparing ENCODE to Apple Maps, which had a troubled launch with the iPhone 5. How could the meaning of one word?function?be so divisive?

Funded by the National Institutes of Health?s National Human Genome Research Institute, ENCODE was designed to tackle the data generated by the NIH?s Human Genome Project, which determined the sequence of chemical bases?adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine, the A, C, T and G sequences?that make up human DNA. Some groupings of bases spell out a code to make specific proteins, which do much of the work in cells, but scientists do not know what the lion?s share of base sequences do.

The 98 percent

So ENCODE tested nearly every part of the genome, particularly the 98 percent that is not involved in encoding proteins, looking for clues to what roles they play in the body. This next step was important because scientists were sure that some portions of that 98 percent served as regulators, telling protein-makers when, where and how much to produce. Such a job is critical for normal cellular behavior, yet scientists understood only some specific examples. They did not know if there were more regulators than they had already found or, if others existed, how they worked. Such regulatory regions may help explain the basis of many diseases that seem to be genetically inherited but escape straightforward correlations to particular protein-coding genes.

In September 2012 ENCODE's leaders formally ended the project's main phase of research. They published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, including the lead paper in Nature that said 80 percent of the genome is functional. At the same time they published a database that annotated most of the nonprotein-coding genome with notes on its chemistry. The notes essentially said things such as: "This part binds a protein"; "This part is often tagged with methyl groups"; and "This part is usually tucked away, wound around a protein called a histone." (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

Much of the backlash isn't in response to the database of functional parts that ENCODE created. "The ENCODE project gave the scientific community a huge amount of useful data that is being used around the world," says Chris Ponting, a genomics researcher at the University of Oxford who disagrees with some of the conclusions about functional DNA that came from ENCODE. Instead, the major criticism is that the project's lead scientists overstepped in their conclusions, especially in publicizing the idea that much of the human genome was potentially necessary to human life. Such determinations aren't supported by the science ENCODE did, critics say, and offer the public an inaccurate idea of how genetics and evolution work.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=15c19b38451ed203b6f6c2678c3a6d3e

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Molecular techniques are man's new best friend in pet obesity research

Friday, April 12, 2013

According to the World Health Organization, more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. And it's not just humans who are packing on the pounds. Our furry companions are plagued by an obesity epidemic of their own. More than 50 percent of the dogs and cats in the United States are overweight or obese.

In a new paper on pet obesity in the Journal of Animal Science, University of Illinois professor of animal and nutritional sciences Kelly Swanson and his colleagues describe how nutrients and biological compounds in foods can affect gene expression in animals. Their field, called nutrigenomics, offers new insights into the why and how of companion animal obesity.

There are many reasons for the uptick in pet obesity, but they stem from the domestication of cats and dogs, Swanson said. Because most pets no longer hunt or compete for their food and do not mate ? as a result of having been spayed or neutered, the typical dog or cat of today has a much smaller need for energy than the typical wild dog or cat of yesterday, he said.

When a person or an animal consumes more food than the body needs, the excess energy is converted into fat that is stored in adipose tissue. These fats can then be converted back to an energy source during fasting or times of food scarcity.

Adipose tissue secretes more than 50 substances known as adipokines, cell-signaling molecules that are involved in metabolism, immunity and inflammation, the authors write. Two of these adipokines, leptin and adiponectin, increase or decrease, respectively, within obese or insulin-resistant subjects.

The excess adipose tissue that develops in pets often leads to chronic disease and a shorter lifespan, Swanson said. While a new diet or exercise regime may help relieve some of these symptoms, a better understanding of the molecular underpinnings of pet obesity could further increase the quality of life for household animals.

"There are a lot of issues that contribute to pet obesity, but we're focusing on the animal biology side of it and trying to use some of these tools to learn things we couldn't learn in the past," he said.

New tools that allow the researchers to determine how pet obesity affects gene expression within these animals offer promising new insights. These new approaches mark a huge change from the traditional approach to studying obesity, said Maria de Godoy, a postdoctoral researcher in the Swanson lab.

"What we are trying to do is change the emphasis of how to look at obesity," she said. "Our focus is to manage obesity, but if we can, the ideal situation is to prevent it." De Godoy believes nutrigenomics are the key to unlocking the best ways to treat pet obesity.

"Pet owners see the animals just putting on weight, but metabolically speaking, there's a lot of stress on the animal (that is carrying excess weight). The genomic measures are really interesting because we can understand how they change if the animal becomes obese," de Godoy said. "We want to know at what point we can intervene and hopefully prevent the development of obesity or help the animals so that they don't have the complications that they currently do."

###

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu

Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 33 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127726/Molecular_techniques_are_man_s_new_best_friend_in_pet_obesity_research

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Israel detains five women in Western Wall prayer protest

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police detained five women activists on Thursday at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's most sacred sites, for wearing prayer shawls, which Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, a spokesman said.

The incident occurred during a monthly prayer session by the Women of the Wall, a group opposed to police-enforced Orthodox controls at the Jerusalem holy site, where worshippers are segregated by sex in accordance with strict Jewish tradition.

"Police detained for questioning five women who prayed with religious garments at the Wall ... and an ultra-Orthodox man who burnt a book belonging to the Women of the Wall," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The group's monthly gatherings at the Western Wall often end with arrests of women who don prayer shawls or read publicly from the holy scriptures, a rite also reserved under Orthodox ritual for men.

Such scenes have caused consternation within the Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism, which are predominant among Jews living outside Israel and allow men and women to pray side by side.

On Wednesday, officials said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a plan to convert an old archaeological dig south of the Wall to an area where men and women would be allowed to mix and worship freely.

Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli cabinet minister who put together the proposal at Netanyahu's request, said it would not entail structural damage around al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, above the Western Wall.

The sites came under Israel's control in the 1967 Middle East war when it captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-detains-five-women-western-wall-prayer-protest-091419568.html

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Michelle Obama Invokes Slain Hadiya Pendleton to Enter Gun Debate (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Advancing secure communications: A better single-photon emitter for quantum cryptography

Advancing secure communications: A better single-photon emitter for quantum cryptography

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

In a development that could make the advanced form of secure communications known as quantum cryptography more practical, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a simpler, more efficient single-photon emitter that can be made using traditional semiconductor processing techniques.

Single-photon emitters release one particle of light, or photon, at a time, as opposed to devices like lasers that release a stream of them. Single-photon emitters are essential for quantum cryptography, which keeps secrets safe by taking advantage of the so-called observer effect: The very act of an eavesdropper listening in jumbles the message. This is because in the quantum realm, observing a system always changes it.

For quantum cryptography to work, it's necessary to encode the message?which could be a bank password or a piece of military intelligence, for example?just one photon at a time. That way, the sender and the recipient will know whether anyone has tampered with the message.

While the U-M researchers didn't make the first single-photon emitter, they say their new device improves upon the current technology and is much easier to make.

"This thing is very, very simple. It is all based on silicon," said Pallab Bhattacharya, the Charles M. Vest Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering.

Bhattacharya, who leads this project, is a co-author of a paper on the work published in Nature Communications on April 9.

Bhattacharya's emitter is a single nanowire made of gallium nitride with a very small region of indium gallium nitride that behaves as a quantum dot. A quantum dot is a nanostructure that can generate a bit of information. In the binary code of conventional computers, a bit is a 0 or a 1. A quantum bit can be either or both at the same time.

The semiconducting materials the new emitter is made of are commonly used in LEDs and solar cells. The researchers grew the nanowires on a wafer of silicon. Because their technique is silicon-based, the infrastructure to manufacture the emitters on a larger scale already exists. Silicon is the basis of modern electronics.

"This is a big step in that it produces the pathway to realizing a practical electrically injected single-photon emitter," Bhattacharya said.

Key enablers of the new technology are size and compactness.

"By making the diameter of the nanowire very small and by altering the composition over a very small section of it, a quantum dot is realized," Bhattacharya said. "The quantum dot emits single-photons upon electrical excitation."

The U-M emitter is fueled by electricity, rather than light?another aspect that makes it more practical. And each photon it emits possesses the same degree of linear polarization. Polarization refers to the orientation of the electric field of a beam of light. Most other single-photon emitters release light particles with a random polarization.

"So half might have one polarization and the other half might have the other," Bhattacharya said. "So in cryptic message, if you want to code them, you would only be able to use 50 percent of the photons. With our device, you could use almost all of them."

This device operates at cold temperatures, but the researchers are working on one that operates closer to room temperature.

The paper is titled "Electrically-driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire." The first author is Saniya Deshpande, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science. The work is supported by the National Science Foundation. The device was fabricated at the U-M Lurie Nanofabrication Facility.

###

University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/

Thanks to University of Michigan for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 48 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127675/Advancing_secure_communications__A_better_single_photon_emitter_for_quantum_cryptography

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