Pigs smart as dogs? Activists pose the question

FILE - A Jersey cow stares down a chicken in the milking parlor of a farm south of Winchester, Va. on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. The chicken was eating spilled feed for the cows. Animal-welfare advocates are launching a campaign called The Someone Project that aims to highlight research depicting pigs, chickens, cows and other farm animals as more intelligent and emotionally complex than commonly believed. (AP Photo/The Winchester Star, Scott Mason)

FILE - A Jersey cow stares down a chicken in the milking parlor of a farm south of Winchester, Va. on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. The chicken was eating spilled feed for the cows. Animal-welfare advocates are launching a campaign called The Someone Project that aims to highlight research depicting pigs, chickens, cows and other farm animals as more intelligent and emotionally complex than commonly believed. (AP Photo/The Winchester Star, Scott Mason)

FILE - This June, 28, 2012, file photo shows hogs at a farm in Buckhart, Ill. Pork prices could rise in the next months of the summer of 2013 because of a virus that has migrated to the U.S., killing piglets in 15 states at an alarming rate in facilities where it has been reported. Colorado and 14 other states began reporting the virus in April 2013, and officials have confirmed its presence in about 200 hog facilities around the nation. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

FILE - A worker checks on young broiler chickens in one of the dozen bird houses at a chicken farm in Clermont, Ga. on Dec. 13, 2012. Gwen Venable of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association said poultry provides a valuable, affordable source of protein. "Consumers should be able choose their food based on their own dietary preferences and nutritional needs and without being unduly influenced by any one group's personal agenda," she wrote in an email. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bob Andres)

FILE - Anastasia, a young farm pig, walks around her yard after being vaccinated and micro-chipped at the Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary in Ravenna, Ohio on Monday, April 23, 2007. Anastasia is one of 10 rescued farm and potbelly pigs receiving medical preparation for their trip from the Ravenna sanctuary to their new home at the Humane Farming Association in Elk Creek, Calif. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

Lori Marino, a lecturer in psychology at Emory University, is photographed next to an image of a pig on her computer at left, and a cat on a calendar hanging in her office in Atlanta on Friday, July 26, 2013. Marino has conducted extensive research on the intelligence of whales, dolphins and primates and plans to review existing scientific literature on farm animals' intelligence, prepare summaries that would be accessible to the public, and identify areas where further research would be useful. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

NEW YORK (AP) ? There's extensive evidence that pigs are as smart and sociable as dogs. Yet one species is afforded affection and respect; the other faces mass slaughter en route to becoming bacon, ham and pork chops.

Seeking to capitalize on that discrepancy, animal-welfare advocates are launching a campaign called The Someone Project that aims to highlight research depicting pigs, chickens, cows and other farm animals as more intelligent and emotionally complex than commonly believed. The hope is that more people might view these animals with the same empathy that they view dogs, cats, elephants, great apes and dolphins.

"When you ask people why they eat chickens but not cats, the only thing they can come up with is that they sense cats and dogs are more cognitively sophisticated that then species we eat ? and we know this isn't true," said Bruce Friedrich of Farm Sanctuary, the animal-protection and vegan-advocacy organization that is coordinating the new project.

"What it boils down to is people don't know farm animals the way they know dogs or cats," Friedrich said. "We're a nation of animal lovers, and yet the animals we encounter most frequently are the animals we pay people to kill so we can eat them."

The lead scientist for the project is Lori Marino, a lecturer in psychology at Emory University who has conducted extensive research on the intelligence of whales, dolphins and primates. She plans to review existing scientific literature on farm animals' intelligence, identify areas warranting new research, and prepare reports on her findings that would be circulated worldwide via social media, videos and her personal attendance at scientific conferences.

"I want to make sure this is all taken seriously," Marino said in an interview. "The point is not to rank these animals but to re-educate people about who they are. They are very sophisticated animals."

For Marino and Friedrich, who are both vegans, the goals of the project are twofold ? to build broader public support for humane treatment of farm animals and to boost the ranks of Americans who choose not to eat meat.

"This project is not a way to strong-arm people into going vegan overnight but giving them a fresh perspective and maybe making them a little uncomfortable," Marino said.

"Maybe they'll be thinking, 'Hmm, I didn't know cows and pigs could recognize each other and have special friends,'" she said. "That might make them squirm a little, but that's OK."

The major associations representing chicken and pork producers say the farmers they represent already have taken strides to minimize cruel treatment of farm animals.

"While animals raised for food do have a certain degree of intelligence, Farm Sanctuary is seeking to humanize them to advance its vegan agenda ? an end to meat consumption," said David Warner of the National Pork Producers Council. "While vegans have a right to express their opinion ? and we respect that right ? they should not force their lifestyle on others."

Gwen Venable of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association said poultry provides a valuable, affordable source of protein.

"Consumers should be able choose their food based on their own dietary preferences and nutritional needs and without being unduly influenced by any one group's personal agenda," she wrote in an email. "We do not feel that Farm Sanctuary's campaign is reasonable, as the campaign's ultimate goal would be to eradicate poultry and pork from consumers' diets."

Thomas Super of the National Chicken Council said efforts to link farm animals with household pets was part of a strategy to create a "meat-free society." He also contended that the farmers and companies involved in raising chickens have a vested interest in ensuring they are healthy and well-treated.

While The Someone Project will encompass several species of farm animals, pigs are likely to be one of the prime subjects, given the breadth of past studies of their intelligence and behavior. Some researchers say pigs' cognitive abilities are superior to 3-year-old children, as well as to dogs and cats.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a section on its website entitled "The Hidden Lives of Pigs" which depicts them as social, playful and protective animals with a vocabulary of more than 20 different oinks, grunts and squeaks.

"Pigs are known to dream, recognize their own names, learn tricks like sitting for a treat, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates," the website says. "Like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages."

The website recounts news stories of pigs saving the lives of imperiled humans and saving themselves by jumping off trucks bound for slaughterhouses.

Treatment of pigs has been a political issue in several states due to efforts to pass laws banning the confinement of breeding pigs in gestation crates.

Friedrich said he makes the most headway with state legislators on this issue when he argues that pigs are more cognitively and emotionally advanced than dogs or cats.

"They would recoil in horror if dogs and cats were subjected to the same conditions," he said.

Bob Martin, a food systems expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said he developed an appreciation of pigs' emotional complexity while serving recently as executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.

"Pigs in gestation crates show a lot of signs of depression," he said. "When I went to a farm operation in Iowa where pigs were not confined, they came running up to greet the farmer like they were dogs. They wanted to interact with him."

Bernard Rollin, a Colorado State University professor who teaches both philosophy and animal science, said he expected increasing numbers of meat-eaters to join the ranks of those demanding changes in the way pigs are housed at many large facilities.

"You have to have ideological blindness to think these animals are not intelligent," Rollin said. "I hope we go back to an agriculture that works more with the animals' biological and psychological needs and nature rather than against them."

"The trouble is, we're used to seeing them as herds," he said. "You see 1,000 cows or pigs and think, 'Oh, they're all the same.' But there are actually huge individual differences."

According to Farm Sanctuary, cows become excited over intellectual challenges, chickens can navigate mazes and anticipate the future, and sheep can remember the faces of dozens of individual humans and other sheep for more than two years.

There is existing research suggesting that campaigns such as The Someone Project may make headway in influencing consumers.

In one recent study examining doubts that people might have about eating meat, University of British Columbia psychologists Matthew Ruby and Steven Heine concluded that the animal's level of intelligence was the foremost concern.

Another recent study by university researchers from Australia and Britain concluded that many meat-eaters experience moral conflict if reminded of the intelligence of the animals they are consuming.

"Although most people do not mind eating meat, they do not like thinking of animals they eat as having possessed minds," the researchers wrote in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Dena Jones, manager of the Animal Welfare Institute's farm animal program, predicted that public awareness of farm animals' intelligence would steadily increase, leading to more pressure on the farm industry from food retailers and restaurant chains.

"It's the retailers who are going to force the industry to bring their practices into line with consumer expectations," she said.

Janeen Salak-Johnson, a professor in the University of Illinois animal sciences department, said she observes a conflict among her students as they contemplate issues related to animal welfare and food supply. While some students from suburban Chicago may be embracing meatless diets, students from farming communities are convinced that local farms help feed the world.

Salak-Johnson says she favors a "happy medium" and contends that campaigns such as The Someone Project go too far in trying to equate "production animals" with household pets.

"We can't let all these animals roam free ? it's not an economically sustainable system," she said. "Yes, we have to fulfill our obligations to these animals, but is it fair for us to starve the world?"

___

Online:

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/

http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/

National Pork Producers Council: http://www.nppc.org/

___

Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/craryap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-07-29-Rethinking%20Farm%20Animals/id-40621f28a99842fab04b0c8f5be2cab3

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Priest, Guard Reportedly Attacked by Dogs on Franciscan University Campus

A priest and a guard were reportedly attacked by two pit bulls on the campus of Franciscan University on Tuesday.

Steubenville Police say they responded to a complaint about the dogs running around the campus and chasing people. When police arrived, one of the dogs was acting aggressive and growling at officers.

Police say that they shot and killed the dog for the safety of everyone involved.

Source: http://www.wtrf.com/story/22794983/priest-guard-reportedly-attacked-by-dogs-on

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By Andrew R.C. Marshall

NAUNG CHEIN, Myanmar (Reuters) - A year ago, Wun Naung Lay left his village in northern Myanmar to look for work and found heroin instead. Today, the skeletal 25-year-old is locked up and going cold turkey beneath a filthy blanket in a bamboo cell.

Wun Naung Lay is one of more than 600 young men who have undergone primitive drug rehabilitation at the Youth for Christ Centre, a collection of tin-roofed shacks on a riverbank in Kachin State.

Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium after Afghanistan and use of its derivative, heroin, is widespread. The center's popularity is a testament both to the severity of Myanmar's drug problem and the lack of options for users in a poor country where modern treatment programs are rare.

It offers a 40-day "course" of prayer, Bible study and devotional singing, with football and weightlifting for those strong enough.

Detox begins in the Special Prayer Room, as the bamboo cell is called. New arrivals are locked in around the clock for seven to ten days.

"At first I just wanted to go home, but now I'm feeling a bit better," said Wun Naung Lay, whose forearms are perforated with needle holes.

The Youth for Christ Centre is the brainchild of Ndingi Laja, 45, a former convict and folk singer better known by his stage name Ahja.

A wiry and intense figure, Ahja believes his devotion to God helped him kick heroin while serving a nine-year sentence for drug use. Founded in 2009, a year after his release, the center is an attempt at faith-based abstinence on a larger scale.

His methods find little support among global health experts, who say voluntary drug treatment is not only more humane but also more effective.

They advocate harm-reduction policies, including needle-exchange programs and substitution drugs such as methadone, which focus on mitigating the ill-effects of drug use.

There is no methadone at Ahja's riverside rehab - he doesn't believe in it. "It isn't effective. You never escape the addiction completely," he says.

After their grim stint in the Special Prayer Room, the men are moved to a dormitory that is also locked at night. This discourages residents from sneaking out to buy alcohol or cigarettes, both banned at the center, or from running away entirely.

A quarter of the 65 males, mostly aged 15 to 25, who started the latest course have "escaped", said Ahja.

Some are farmers and laborers, others are students. They are usually Kachin, who are predominantly Christian, but some are from Buddhist ethnic groups.

Most arrive voluntarily, but some are brought by force with the help of staff members, many of them former addicts.

Ahja started his center with donations from fellow Christians. He charges each patient 40,000 kyat ($40), although poorer families pay less, sometimes nothing.

He insists his methods are effective, although he can't say how many patients stayed off drugs after leaving the center.

Around Myanmar, drug users are still criminalized and stigmatized. Under a law enacted when it was a British colony, even possessing a needle carries a six-month jail sentence.

A crackdown by police in Myitkyina, Kachin State, last year drove users underground and interrupted prevention and treatment programs that help combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

About 20 percent of injecting drug users, most of whom live in heroin-saturated northern Myanmar, are infected, according to the Ministry of Health.

(Editing by Alan Raybould and Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faith-healing-going-cold-turkey-myanmar-behind-locked-052616008.html

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The White House opinion on the Westboro Baptist Church

After the tragic death of the 19 Arizona firefighters this past week, the Westboro Baptist Church tweeted about picketing their funerals. Below is how the White House responded.

The White House released an official response this past Tuesday to the Westboro Baptist Church petitions and their opinions on the matter.

The White House is under pressure to classify the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, especially in light of recent picketing and petitions filed in the deaths of Arizona firefighters, the Boston Marathon bombings and Newtown victims back in December 2012, according to ABC News.

The Westboro Baptist Church is an unaffiliated Baptist Church best known for the unconventional behaviors of its 50 members, including picketing and protesting the deaths of service members, Newtown victims, school shooting victims, and its blazing anti-gay ideology.

Their most recent press coverage has been in response to their Twitter announcement discussing the plan to picket the funerals of the 19 Arizona firefighters whose lives were taken fighting an uncontrollable wildfire. The tweet read, "Praise God. A consuming fire!"

The Westboro Baptist Church, led by pastor Fred Phelps, has been scrutinized for some time based on past behaviors and outbursts, including the defamation of President Barack Obama as the ?Antichrist,? approval of shootings, bombings, and soldiers' deaths as part of God's retribution on the United States for "the sin of homosexuality,? and for yelling obscenities to grief-stricken families at funerals, yelling "Thank God for dead soldiers," "God blew up the troops" and "AIDS cures fags,? picket signs.

Despite these actions, the White House recently released a statement that it will not identify the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group because it is not their place to label it as such. Label or no label, the White House does not have to reserve judgment on the group and spoke out about its opinions.

The official White House response released this past Tuesday stated, "As a matter of practice, the federal government doesn't maintain a list of hate groups. That all said, we agree that practices such as protesting at the funerals of men and women who died in service to this country and preventing their families from mourning peacefully are reprehensible."

The aforementioned acts of the Westboro Baptist Church did lead President Barack Obama and Congress to enact a 2012 law limiting protesters' time at, and proximity to, military services and burials. However, past Supreme Court rulings on the church ? like in 2011 - still uphold the members' right to protest at the funerals under the First Amendment.

Though the White House will not label the group, they have chronicled the five circulating petitions and the hundreds of thousands of petitioners ? over 367,000 - attempting to classify the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group and retract its IRS tax-exempt status, according to CNN.

The petitions focused on most are those that cross the threshold of 100,000 signatures. According to White House officials, policy staff reviews these petitions and provides a response. The largest petition to date is the "Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group" with 367,180 signatures, mostly concentrated around the Kansas region, the home of the Westboro Baptist Church, and Newtown, Connecticut, where funerals of children and victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were picketed.

Source: http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/2013/07/white-house-opinion-westboro-baptist-church

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Parents' 'worst nightmare': 23-year-old from Staten Island wanted for Florida scams

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As a young girl on Staten Island, Ryan Elkins was a Little League softball all-star and a Richmond County Fair ribbon winner in hula hoop and pie-eating contests. She graduated from Port Richmond High School in 2007 and at one time pointed toward a career in nursing.

But her life has spiraled out of control in the past five years, and Ms. Elkins, 23, is now wanted in Florida on charges that she's part of a femme fatale ring "who target men and steal their money, jewelry, guns and other pricey possessions."

Her heartbroken parents say their daughter hasn't been the same since she was lured into a gang of sorts in 2008.

They said she was approached at the St. George Ferry Terminal by a young woman from Mariners Harbor who "promised her the world" and subsequently introduced her to a pimp at a Manhattan nightclub. From that point, Ms. Elkins has behaved as if she belonged to a cult -- with infrequent communications with her parents, typically only when she is in trouble.

"She didn't wake up and decide to do this," said her mother.

When the phone rings at home on Staten Island, "I always expect the worst," said her devastated father. Both parents, who asked that their names not be used in this report, described the experience as their worst nightmare.

During an interview with the Advance Friday, they repeatedly emphasized two points: First, they want their daughter to get help, as they believe she has mental health issues that need professional attention. Second, they want other parents to realize that Ms. Elkins was not long ago a child like so many others -- with no indication that they would lose her in this fashion. "That's not my daughter," her mother said. She added that the family has been thwarted from the start in their efforts to be proactive to get Ms. Elkins help, because she is an adult.

If Ms. Elkins manages to turn her life around, it will start with addressing the criminal charges against her in South Florida.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office is working with authorities in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Miami Beach to break the ring of women who target men. Police dubbed them "four foxy thieves" and their exploits have been reported across the state and nationally on CNN.

"They're attractive women that go into a bar and they have a scam and they work it again and again," Dani Moschella, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office, told CNN.

The sheriff's office released details of a September incident in which Ms. Elkins is accused of having stolen a $25,000 Rolex watch from a man she met at the Hard Rock Hotel in Miami. After repairing to a hotel room with the man, Ms. Elkins told him she wanted to give him a massage and suggested that he remove his clothing, according to the report. He did so but stated that he did not want to remove his watch. She removed it anyway during the massage, placing it on a nightstand -- but soon stopped abruptly and left the room, stating she was going to get something to eat, according to the arrest report.

The man, realizing the watch was missing, chased her out of the room and onto the street, where a security guard detained her, officials said. She subsequently turned over the watch, according to the arrest report. The case, with felony charges of second-degree grand theft, is still pending; she is due back in court on that case on July 18.

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Source: http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/parents_worst_nightmare_23-yea.html

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Egyptian security forces raid Al Jazeera's Cairo office: Al Jazeera

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Qatari-owned media company Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that Egyptian security forces had raided its Cairo office.

But a Reuters cameraman outside the office in the centre of the city said he saw no sign of a raid.

A spokesman for the channel in Doha said that its Cairo bureau chief was taken in for questioning on Sunday, but had been released. He said he was not aware of any raid.

(Reporting By Maggie Fick; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egyptian-security-forces-raid-al-jazeeras-cairo-office-132450353.html

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Japan's Aussie wool story

JAPANESE textile giant Nikke is planning to use the story of Australia's Great Dividing Range in a new campaign to promote Australian wool in their homeland.

Nikke, known as The Japan Wool Textile Company, is the country's largest end-user of wool, producing everything from school uniforms to suits for Emperor Akihito.

Chief executive and president Mitsuyoshi Sato was in Australia last month, scoping out potential ideas for a new Australian wool campaign.

Australian Superfine Woolgrowers Association (ASWGA) president Helen Cathles, who showed Mr Sato around several properties on the Southern Tablelands, said in the past Nikke had focused on New Zealand wool in the promotion of their wool brand.

When they expressed an interest in Australia, she suggested they consider the Great Dividing Range as it marked the start of the majority of the superfine woolgrowing country in Australia.

"They are after that story of provenance and you only need to look at a map of where the Australian shoreline was 400 million years ago to see it sits over all the area now where beautiful superfine Merino wool is grown," she said.

Mrs Cathles said traceability was important to Nikke with each of the school uniforms it produced fitted with a barcode that allowed it to be traced back to the exact property where the wool used for the garment was grown.

"All ASWGA members have their own numbers that the garments can be traced back to," she said.

"This is made possible as Nikke have the ability to scour, topmake, weave, knit and produce the final garment, hence, they can accurately pin point the origin of the individual woolgrower."

Source: http://www.stockjournal.com.au/news/agriculture/livestock/sheep-wool/japans-aussie-wool-story/2662899.aspx?src=rss

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Syrian opposition bloc urges world to protect Homs

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syria's main opposition bloc on Friday urged the international community to take action to protect civilians in the cities of Homs and Daraa that have been targeted by military as part of a government campaign to regain control of the territory it lost to the opposition.

The appeal comes as opposition figures meet in Turkey to elect a new leadership, including an interim government that would try to run rebel-held territories in Syria.

The Syrian National Coalition appealed to the United Nations and Western countries that have supported the opposition in Syria's civil war "to intervene immediately" and provide food and medicine to the besieged, rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs and Daraa in the south, where the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule began in March 2011.

More than 93,000 people have been killed in the conflict that began as peaceful protests but turned into an armed revolt after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown.

The government controls much of Homs, Syria's third largest city, while several neighborhoods in the center are opposition strongholds. Building on its capture of the strategic town of Qusair between the Lebanese border and Homs, the army launched an offensive in the city on Saturday, pounding rebel positions with artillery and airstrikes for five straight days, according to the SNC.

In a statement, the SNC said clashes between rebels and troops flared up again in Friday morning, along with shelling of residential areas of Sheik Miskeen and Jassim in Daraa.

"The areas under attack in Homs have been cut off from the rest of the world and suffer from an urgent shortage of medicine and food," the SNC said, appealing to its Western backers to support rebel units and provide them with more sophisticated weapons.

In Damascus, Syria's state-run SANA news agency said that three people were injured in an overnight mortar attack in the capital's Dweilaa region.

In recent months, rebels fighting in the north have received more powerful weaponry, including anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles, likely supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The U.S., which has provided opposition fighters with non-lethal aid, said recently it was willing to supply them with arms, but has been reluctant to do so for fear they could end up in the hands of radical Islamic groups that have been the most effective fighting force on the opposition's side.

The Western-backed opposition coalition is primarily composed of exiled politicians with little apparent support from Syrians inside the country, who are trying to survive the third summer of devastating conflict.

SNC acting leader George Sabra and senior opposition figures Louay Safi and Mustafa Sabbagh top the list of candidates for the new leadership that is expected to emerge from the coalition's two-day meeting in Istanbul. However, its members remain deeply divided and previous attempts to unite its ranks and devise a strategy for possible peace talks that the U.S. and Russia have been trying to convene in Geneva this summer have failed.

In Rome, United Nation's food agencies said that Syria's food security situation has significantly deteriorated over the past year, leaving at least 4 million Syrians unable to produce or buy food to survive.

With fighting well in its third year, "crop and livestock production, food availability and access to food have all taken an increasingly heavy toll," according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP). Their experts visited Syria in May and June.

Current wheat production is 2.4 million tons, some 40 percent less than the annual average harvest of more than 4 million tons before the crisis and 15 percent lower than the reduced harvest of 2011/2012.

"There is a limited window of opportunity to ensure crisis-affected families do not lose vital sources of food and income," the two U.N. organizations said, and Syria needs to import about 1.5 million tons of wheat for the current season.

The livestock sector "has been seriously depleted by the conflict," the report said, saying that poultry production is down over 50 percent compared with 2011, while sheep and cattle numbers have also significantly declined."

Household food insecurity has increased with massive population displacement in Syria, disruption of agricultural production, unemployment, economic sanctions, currency depreciation and high food and fuel prices, the report said.

___

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-bloc-urges-world-protect-homs-071011936.html

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Sony: PS4 Well Ahead In Preorders, Console Is Most ... - Games Thirst

PS4 has been very well received by the media and gamers alike, as Sony has sort to, and accomplished, the goal of painting the console as one that?s friendly to the gamer and built as a games machine first. And alas, everything Sony has shown proves that to be true ? even down to the specs, with??Fergal Gara, VP and managing director at Sony Computer Entertainment UK and Ireland, confidently stating that PS4 is ?the most powerful console ever conceived?.

It was in an interview with TechRadar that Gara divulged this info, adding that although they?re ahead in numbers now, they plan to keep their heads down and race to the finish, recognizing that the console generation game isn?t a sprint.

The thing I?m most pleased about is the entire design principles about the PS4 are being focused around the gamer first. So how can we create a platform that?s great to develop for and easy to develop for, because that unleashes the creatives and if they can create the best experiences that?s going to lead to satisfaction for gamers.

But secondly to design a piece of technology like that it?s very easy to deliver one or the other, in particular I?m talking about the price and the performance trade off. It?s very hard to deliver both and for me the balance that?s been delivered across those two is outstanding. So it?s great to be going to market with what we believe is the most powerful gaming device ever conceived and certainly ever developed and at a price that feels very acceptable, certainly based on the pre-order volumes that we?re seeing.

We have the most uncompromised memory spec that we could pretty well dream up and if you talk to developers, if you talk to first party, third party developers, you?ll see that that opens up the possibilities for them and it?s about as high spec as they could have ever imagined, 8GB gives them huge headroom to continue developing fantastic games.

PS4 launches holiday season 2013. There?s a rumor claiming that an exact launch date will be revealed at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany this August. We?ll keep you posted.

Source: http://www.gamesthirst.com/2013/07/05/sony-ps4-well-ahead-in-preorders-console-is-most-powerful-ever-made/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sony-ps4-well-ahead-in-preorders-console-is-most-powerful-ever-made

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Nook's Android app now supports HD magazines on tablets

Next time you fire up the Nook app on your Android tablet, you'll be able to browse HD magazines -- assuming your device has a 1280 x 720 screen. Introduced three months ago on Retina iPads, the feature now jumps to the latest version of the Android app, along with a number of other updates. New magazine titles aside, version 3.4 lets you enlarge book illustrations and adds support for the system's assistive technology for blind and low-vision users. Go wild with screen magnification on Android 4.2 or higher, or listen to the app speak via TalkBack on 4.1. Meanwhile, the Nook app for iOS comes equipped with bug fixes and a better way to organize books in a series. Sure, these updates don't bring a bunch of new major features, but they show that Barnes & Noble isn't likely to ax its mobile apps in the near future like it did the ones for Macs and PCs.

Filed under: Misc

Comments

Source: Nook (Android), (iOS)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/58bLP0MqQN8/

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How Novice Runners Should Start Training for Maximum Results

Most running novices plot their early runs in terms of distance. "I used to be able to run X distance in high school; I'm going to run that same distance today." Then they spend the next two weeks hobbling around like a broken grandpa. There's a better way.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/tDbHyM07M-4/how-novice-runners-should-start-training-for-maximum-re-655196934

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Where the Most Important Part of Your Battery Comes From

Lithium's kind of a big deal. It powers everything from our gadgets to our cars?really our entire modern world. And that's not changing any time soon; some analysts estimate that demand could grow up to 25% over the next several years. But how does one harness the power of a metal that bursts into flame every time it gets wet? How do you even get it out of the ground?

What is Lithium?

Lithium (Greek for "stone") is the third element on the periodic table, a silvery-white alkali metal that's soft enough to be cut with a table knife. It's also the lightest metal on Earth, as well as the least-dense solid element. It has the equivalent density of a plank of pine wood, and half that of water. It floats in oil (and water too, though that'd end very badly since, you know, alkali go boom), and since it's reactive with moisture in the air, pure lithium is typically stored in anaerobic conditions and covered in either mineral oil, petroleum jelly, or some other such non-reactive liquid.

That's not to say that you can just dig a hole and pull out a chunk of lithium. No, it's far too corrosive and reactive for that; in fact, lithium never occurs freely in nature. Instead it's always found as a compound, often in pegmatitic minerals, as well as in ocean water, brines, and clays. Problem is, even though lithium is relatively abundant?it is the 33rd most common element?it's very diffuse throughout nature, which means that collecting and concentrating it into a commercially viable form is a massive pain.

How Did We Discover It?

Johan August Arfwedson first isolated lithium from petalite?a crystalline substance?in 1817. Over the next few decades, a number of researchers teased out the basic physical conditions of the metal. By 1855, chemists Robert Bunsen and Augustus Matthiessen had discovered a means of precipitating large amounts of lithium from lithium chloride via electrolysis, which led to small-scale production in 1916 and commercial-scale lithium production by 1923.

Lithium was used in WWII as a high-temperature grease for aircraft engines, thanks to its high melting point and the fact that it's significantly less corrosive than the calcium soaps used previously. Lithium also played a major role in the Cold War. The lithium-6 and lithium-7 ions were used to create tritium, a boosting compound used to increase the efficiency and yield of hydrogen bombs, as well as a solid fusion fuel itself.

From the late 1950s until the mid-1980s, the US was the dominant global lithium producer. Over roughly a quarter century, the US amassed a stockpile of 42,000 tons of lithium hydroxide from production sites in Nevada and North Carolina. America supplied 80% of the global demand for lithium in 1976, and continued its dominance until 1984, when one of the largest deposits on the planet was discovered in Chile (and again in 1997, when mining began on another massive deposit in Argentina).

So, What Do We Do When We Find It?

Turns out, the US only holds a fraction of the massive lithium deposits of Chile and Argentina. They're the two largest producers, in that order, churning out 60 percent of the world's annual supply. Australia and China combine for another 30 percent. The remaining 10 percent accounts for smaller producers like the US and Russia. The US Geological Survey estimates total worldwide lithium reserves at 13 million tons. interestingly, half of that supply is thought to actually reside in Bolivia, along the eastern face of the Andes. Overall, the USGS estimates there's at least 5.4 million tons of lithium in them thar Bolivian hills.

Historically, lithium has either been mined from brines or from hard rock mining. Hard-rock lithium mining is just like other traditional mining operations: Dig a big hole, pull out the rocks you want, send them off for processing. The problem with applying that to lithium is that extracting the substance from solid rock is an incredibly time-, energy-, and cost-intensive ordeal. Since lithium is so diffuse, you've got to pull a lot of rock out of the ground just to get a little bit of of the good stuff.

Instead, far more economically efficient, brine-based extraction methods have been developed. Both Chile and Argentina (as well as China, Russia, and the US's only operating lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada) use the brine pool method. Brine itself is, as Western Lithium explains:

The brines, volcanic in origin, are present in desert areas and occur in playas and salars where lithium has been concentrated by solar evaporation. In the salars (saline desert basins sometimes known as salt lakes or salt flats), the brine is contained at or below the surface and is pumped into large solar evaporation ponds for concentration prior to processing. When the basin surfaces are predominantly composed of silts and clays with some salt incrustation, they are referred to as playas. If the surface is predominantly salt they are called salars. Although the fundamental character of the deposits is similar, there is great variability in size, surface character, stratigraphy, structure, chemistry, infrastructure and solar evaporation rates.

The largest such brine pool resides in the world?s largest salt flat, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni.

The Foote Mineral company used to operate a lithium brine pool in Silver Peak, Nevada and provides this deeper look as to how lithium is extracted:

The Foote Mineral Company is recovering lithium from solar evaporated saline brines at Silver Peak, Nevada. The brines are pumped from beneath a playa surface inside a closed basin. The playa deposits consists of mixtures of clays, silts, sands, and evaporites, many of which are saturated with saline brines down to known depths of 600 feet. Brines are probably present below this depth, for gravity studies have indicated the unconsolidated sediments reach depths of 1500 feet. The genesis of the Silver Peak deposit is apparently related to volcanic activity and the area is characterized by hot springs, cinder cones, and lava deposits. The brine pumped from wells contains 300 ppm of lithium and 10-15 wt. % of other dissolved solids. The playa surface is well suited for solar evaporation. The brines are pumped into a series of solar evaporation ponds and after they reach saturation a series of salts are precipitated. The sequence of salts precipitated is NaCl, a mixture of NaC1 and glaserite (KNa(SO4 )2 ), and then these two plus Ka As a consequence of the evaporation, the lithium concentration is increased to approximately 5000 ppm. The effective evaporation season at Silver Peak begins in April and commonly continues through October. It is necessary to accumulate sufficient brine by October to operate the processing plant through the winter months. Lithium is recovered from the brine by precipitating lithium carbonate.

Just four companies?Talison Lithium, Rockwood Holdings, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, and FMC?account for 95 percent of worldwide lithium production and all use the industry standard method of precipitating pure lithium from molten lithium chloride (LiCl) using electrolysis. This process is of course performed in an air and water free environment to avoid a reaction.

Where Do the Batteries Come In?

In the video above, Leyden Energy offers us a view inside their li-ion battery plant and a behind the scenes tour of its production facility.

The Science Channel's How It's Made series also walks us through a more general form of the battery production process in the clip above.

Meeting Demand

We've got roughly 900 million vehicles on the road worldwide, and not enough lithium reserves to replace very many of them with battery-powered alternatives. "Since a vehicle battery requires 100 times as much lithium carbonate as its laptop equivalent, the green-car revolution could make lithium one of the planet's most strategic commodities," says Mary Ann Wright of Johnson Controls-Saft, a lithium-ion battery producer.

"To make just 60 million plug-in hybrid vehicles a year containing a small lithium-ion battery would require 420,000 tons of lithium carbonate - or six times the current global production annually," William Tahil, research director at Meridian International Research, told Barrons. "But in reality, you want a decent-sized battery, so it's more likely you'd have to increase global production tenfold. And this excludes the demand for lithium in portable electronics."

To span that supply shortage, numerous alternative sources for lithium have been explored. One promising system is to use the brine pulled up by geothermal pumps. A cadre of seven geothermal plants in the Salton Sea have been able to pull about 16,000 tons of lithium (as well as a fair amount of zinc) from their pipes annually. It's simply a matter of filtering the dissolved minerals from the water.

[Wikipedia - NBC News - Daily Mail - Rodinal Lithium - Salt Institute - BC Institute of Technology - About - Resilience - Western Lithium - Hardrock mining image: Kamzara / Shutterstock, salt pile image: Vladimir Melnik / Shutterstock, all other images: AP Images]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/where-the-most-important-part-of-your-battery-comes-fro-586442784

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TSA Is Instagramming the Crazy Stuff It Confiscates at Checkpoints

What is Instagram for if not bragging oh so subtly about the stuff you're doing. It's true for rich kids on fancy vacations, and apparently, it's true for the Transportation Safety Administration, which has been posting images of the absurd stuff passengers are trying to carry on planes every day.

Since June 27th, the TSA has posted 10 gauzy, filter-soaked shots of handguns, concealed knives, fireworks, and even an (inert) hand grenade?all of which were confiscated from passengers trying to board flights. It's proof in sepia and tan that the TSA is doing its job by keeping the skies safe.

As Forbes points out, TSA is no stranger to using the Internet to get the message out about it successes. The agency has been blogging weekly updates about its dominion over the checkpoint line since 2008. Let's just hope all that social media communication isn't distracting agents from the all important task of taking dangerous implements away from air travelers in the first place. [TSA Instagram via Forbes]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/tsa-is-instagramming-the-crazy-stuff-it-confiscates-at-651017621

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2 win National High School Musical Theater Awards

NEW YORK (AP) ? A teenager from Connecticut who sang songs from popular Broadway hits like "Newsies" and another from California who nailed the sassy tune "Raunchy" from the musical "110 in the Shade" won top honors Monday night at the National High School Musical Theater Awards.

Sarah Lynn Marion, from Fullerton, Calif., was named best actress and Taylor Varga from Newtown, Conn., got the best actor crown at the fifth annual "Glee"-like competition, nicknamed the Jimmy Awards after theater owner James Nederlander.

Both top winners will receive a $10,000 scholarship award, capping a months-long winnowing process that began with 50,000 students from 1,000 schools and ended at the Minskoff Theatre, the long-term home of "The Lion King." This year's contestants come from 20 states.

Marion, who studies at Huntington Beach High School for the Performing Arts and had sung a segment from "Hello, Dolly," absolutely nailed the song "Raunchy," with the appropriate lyric, "Gonna make them other gals turn green."

In her acceptance speech, she thanked her teachers, her parents, her four siblings, her friends and all fellow contestants. "And my first grade teacher who gave me my first role as Jack's mother in 'Jack and the Beanstalk,'" she said.

Varga, who attends Newtown High School, was one of two J. Pierrepont Finches from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and delivered a touching "Santa Fe" from "Newsies" for his solo. "I'm a little lost for words," he said, before thanking his family and friends who made the trip from Connecticut.

The 62 teens who made it to New York ? 31 girls and 31 boys ? got a five-day theatrical boot camp at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, complete with scrambling to learn an opening and closing group number, intense advice on their solo songs, plus a field trip to watch "Annie" on Broadway and dinner at famed theater-district hangout Sardi's.

All 62 performed snippets of the songs that they had sung at regional competitions as part of seven large medleys and then seven finalists ? three boys and four girls ? were asked to sing solos. The final winners were picked from the last seven.

All had to switch from black dresses for the ladies and dark suits for the men at the top of the show into their character costumes for their medleys and then back again. Their performances were backed by a nine-piece orchestra.

The five runners-up, who each receive $2,500, were: Martha Hellerman from Madison, Wis.; Eva Maria Noblezada from Charlotte, N.C.; Jillian Caillouette from Norwich, Conn.; Michael Burrell from Mission Viejo, Calif.; and Austin Crute from Atlanta.

There was a fair amount of overlapping of roles, with two Belles from "Beauty and the Beast," two Miss Adelaides from "Guys and Dolls" and a memorable set of five Bakers from "Into the Woods," who were all thrown on stage to duke it out together.

The irreverent show "Avenue Q" had two representatives, complete with puppets, and there was a tap dancing Billy Crocker from "Anything Goes" and a gun-toting Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun." Shows ranged from "Chicago" to "Sweeney Todd" to "Les Miserables" and "In the Heights."

During their visit, the teens were tutored one-on-one by theater pros Leslie Odom Jr., Liz Callaway, Michael McElroy and Telly Leung. The judges Monday night included Tony-winning director Scott Ellis, Tony nominee Montego Glover and casting professional Bernie Telsey. One judge was overheard summing up the judging process with one word: "brutal." The hosts were Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana, who co-star in "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella."

___

Online:

http://www.nhsmta.com

___

Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-07-02-High%20School%20Theater%20Awards/id-88c4467eff8149eab4b4b4050caf2e12

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Gerrans holds off Sagan to win 3rd stage of Tour

Stage winner Simon Gerrans of Australia celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)

Stage winner Simon Gerrans of Australia celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)

Jan Bakelants of Belgium, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Peter Sagan of Slovakia, wearing the best sprinter's green jersey, celebrates on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Pierre Roland of France puts on the best climber's dotted jersey on the podium of the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Australia's Simon Gerrans, left, crosses the finish line ahead of Peter Sagan of Slovakia, right and second place, Jose Joaquin Rojas of Spain, second left and third place, and Belgium's Philippe Gilbert, center in white and fifth place, to win the third stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 145.5 kilometers (91 miles) with start in Ajaccio and finish in Calvi, Corsica island, France, Monday July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)

CALVI, Corsica (AP) ? Australian sprinter Simon Gerrans held off a late charge by Peter Sagan to win Monday's hilly third stage of the Tour de France by less than half a wheel.

Belgian rider Jan Bakelants did enough in the sweltering heat to keep the race leader's yellow jersey.

Gerrans looked to have the finish line in sight with about 100 meters to go, though the Slovakian rider put on a late sprint and almost caught him.

But Gerrans dug deep to clinch his second career Tour stage win. Spaniard Jose Joaquin Rojas finished third.

"Sagan is a guy who can often climb with the best climbers and sprint with the best sprinter, so I'm really thrilled to be able to beat such a classy rider," Gerrans said. "I surprised quite a few people a little bit today, including myself."

Gerrans shouldn't be too surprised, though, as he had prepared well.

"This is a stage that I've been targeting for quite some time," he said. "We were down here in Corsica last weekend doing a recon and scouting the finishes and it all paid off today."

Although Gerrans has clinched a stage win on all three Grand Tours, his previous stage win on "Le Tour" was five years ago ? when it actually finished in the northern Italian ski resort of Prato Nevoso.

He was slowing up but just managed one last effort to throw his bike forward the way a 100-meter runner would dip for the line.

"I wasn't sure if I had won ? a half-wheel length?!" Gerrans said. "All went perfectly well, my team took great care of me after the last climb."

He will also need to thank his countryman and teammate Simon Clarke, who placed himself in the early breakaway.

"It was the team plan. I was brought to the Tour de France to join breakaways, so I made sure I did my job," Clarke said. "I was quite relaxed today and when you're relaxed it means you have good legs."

It was a particularly welcome win for Gerrans' Orica Greenedge team after the confusion of Saturday's first stage, when the team bus was stuck on the finish line and removed moments before the riders arrived.

"We saw the footage," Gerrans said. "You really can't do (anything) but laugh at the situation. (Our driver) did a fantastic job, we are proud of him. He was embarrassed so we felt quite sad for him."

Sagan is in the coveted sprinter's green jersey he is expected to contest with British sprinter Mark Cavendish, who is 49 points behind.

"I'm a bit sad about the stage, but the team's objective is to get the green jersey and that's what we have," Sagan, a Slovak, said through a translator. "I don't feel at my best yet. But the Tour is long and there are still a lot of good stages to come."

Bakelants, the winner of Sunday's second stage, finished in 19th place.

"The team worked very hard for me, and I'm very happy to keep the yellow jersey," Bakelants said. "It was a very hot day and the conditions were not easy."

Monday's 90-mile trek started from Ajaccio, where French emperor and military mastermind Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, and finished in Calvi after three moderate climbs and a steeper last climb tested the legs of the peloton.

Gerrans clocked about 3 hours, 40 minutes.

It was the last of the trio of Corsican stages before the race heads to mainland France for Tuesday's team time trial in Nice, where race favorite Chris Froome's Sky team are expected to challenge for the win.

"There are some strong teams out there," Froome said.

With the Tour heading through Corsica for the first time, some fans got their first glimpse of the showcase race ? and made a point of getting noticed. One defied the heat to dress up in a full Napoleon outfit, saluting from the roadside.

Further on, a man held up a Coriscan flag as he rode on horseback alongside the rolling pack.

But the riders were concentrating too hard to notice.

"Twisty roads like that along the coast, stunning scenery," Froome said. "I'm sure it made for great shots from the helicopter, but that's not what we were interested in."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-07-01-CYC-Tour-de-France/id-13b52629a3e64a56bd13ac2e70d1fc24

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