Botnet Warlord: Meet the Man Who Will Kill Your Computer

You can blow away any website in the world if you try hard. Throw enough traffic at a server on the internet—friendly or otherwise—and it'll buckle. For most these attacks are a headache, but here's one man who makes a sport (and money) out of swarming his enemies online. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7jbMoPS5Ins/botnet-warlord-meet-the-man-who-will-kill-your-computer

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Warm weather helps wheat crop but soil still dry

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Nebraska's winter wheat crop has started to turn green with the warm weather, but the soil remains exceptionally dry because of the drought.

The U.S. Agriculture Department said Monday that the state's pastures haven't started growing much this spring because of the dry conditions.

About 64 percent of the state's hay and forage supplies rated short or very short.

Roughly 77 percent of the state's topsoil moisture rated short or very short. And 95 percent of the subsoil rates short or very short.

About 11 percent of Nebraska's wheat crop rated in good or excellent condition.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/warm-weather-helps-wheat-crop-091616770.html

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Neutrons help explain ozone poisoning and links to thousands of premature deaths each year

Apr. 9, 2013 ? A research team from Birkbeck, University of London, Royal Holloway University and Uppsala University in Sweden, have helped explain how ozone causes severe respiratory problems and thousands of cases of premature death each year by attacking the fatty lining of our lungs.

In a study published in Langmuir, the team used neutrons from the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble and the UK's ISIS Neutron Source to observe how even a relatively low dose of ozone attacks lipid molecules that line the lung's surface. The presence of the lipid molecules is crucial for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, as they prevent the wet surfaces of the lung from collapsing.

Ozone is mostly produced in the upper atmosphere as the sun's UV light splits oxygen molecules, but it can also form at ground level from burning fossil fuels. It is known to harm our respiratory systems and is linked to asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, and other cardiopulmonary problems. A recent study published by the Bloomberg School's Department of Environmental Health Sciences found that stricter ozone emission regulations in the US could prevent over a thousand premature deaths and over a million complaints of respiratory problems each year [1].

However, it remains unclear how exactly ozone causes this damage. One theory is it attacks the lung's surface layers which consist of a layer of water sitting below a mixture of fatty molecules called lipids and proteins that are together known as lung surfactant. The surfactant aids the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide during breathing. It does this by reducing surface tension, i.e. the attraction that molecules feel for each other, in the liquid surface layer above, causing these fluids to spread out and provide a greater surface area for gas exchange.

Critically, a lack of adequate surfactant, a deficiency often found naturally in babies born prematurely, can produce similar respiratory health complaints to those mentioned above, even resulting in death in some cases.

This link was further established in 2011 by the same team from Birkbeck who demonstrated that ozone reacted very strongly with the lipid layer, damaging it. However, what exactly is going on and how these reactions might impede the surfactant from doing its job was still unclear.

To investigate further Dr Katherine Thompson from Birkbeck and her team ran neutron reflection studies at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble and ISIS Neutron Source in Oxfordshire on an artificial lipid monolayer, created to mimic the lung surface. The lipid layer was exposed to a dilute gaseous mixture of ozone, and changes in its structure or surface tension were studied in real time. The concentration of ozone was around 100 parts per billion (0.1 ppm), equivalent to what you might get in a polluted city in the summer.

The use of neutrons meant that Dr Thompson could label different parts of the sample using deuteration, a process whereby a heavier isotope of hydrogen, deuterium, is introduced and contrasted with undeuterated samples to pick out the location of hydrogen atoms. This allowed them to monitor different parts of the molecule separately as they reacted with the ozone.

Using this technique Dr Thompson's team showed that one of the lipid's upwards-facing tails, known as the C9 portion, breaks off during the ozone degradation and is lost from the surface completely. The portion still attached to the lipid head then re-orientates itself and penetrates into the air?water interface. The loss of the C9 portion causes an initial decrease in surface tension which temporarily increases surface area for gas exchange and efficient respiration. However this effect is short-lived as the penetration of the rest of the molecule into the water results in a slow but pronounced rise in surface tension, producing an overall net increase.

Note:

1. Health Benefits from Large-Scale Ozone Reduction in the United States -- Berman et all, Oct 2012

2. Royal Holloway is one of the UK's leading universities. We have a distinguished history of world-changing research and innovative teaching, with an international outlook. Our close-knit community enables students to benefit from a personalised experience, with staff collaborating across facilities to enhance health, science, culture and security on a global scale. Set in 135 acres of parkland in Surrey, our campus is recognised as one of the most beautiful in the world, and the pioneering spirit of our founders continues to inspire teaching and research today.

3. Birkbeck, University of London, is a world-class research and teaching institution, a vibrant centre of academic excellence and London's only specialist provider of evening higher education.Our flexible approach attracts many non-traditional students and we offer them the opportunity to fit university studies around busy lives. Birkbeck encourages applications from students without traditional qualifications and it has a wide range of programmes to suit every entry level.18,000 students study at Birkbeck every year. They join a community that is as diverse and cosmopolitan as London's population.

4. About ILL and ISIS -- the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble and ISIS at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK are international research centres which have led the world in neutron scattering science and technology. They operate intense neutron sources, feeding beams of neutrons to a suites of 30 to 40 high-performance instruments that are constantly upgraded. Each year 1,200 researchers from over 40 countries visit each of ISIS and ILL to conduct research into condensed matter physics, (green) chemistry, biology, nuclear physics, and materials science. The UK, along with France and Germany is an associate and major funder of the IL; ISIS is owned and operated by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.

5. STFC -- The Science and Technology Facilities Council is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and tackling some of the most significant challenges facing society such as meeting our future energy needs, monitoring and understanding climate change, and global security. The Council has a broad science portfolio and works with the academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics, alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.

The next step for Katherine and her colleagues is to look at adapting the model, to represent the condition of people with various forms of chronic respiratory problem and attempt to understand why ozone seems to affect them worse than others.

Dr Katherine Thompson, Birkbeck, University of London said: "We are not completely sure what causes the second stage of tension increase. The damaged lipid might be slowly dissolving in the water and leaving the interface entirely, or a slow reaction might be occurring that is damaging another part of the lipid not directly attacked by ozone. What we can say is that the slow increase in surface tension that occurs as a result of the ozone exposure would certainly damage the ability of our lungs to process oxygen and carbon dioxide, and could account for the respiratory problems associated with ozone poisoning."

Dr Martin King from Royal Holloway University said: "This important study shows how a key air pollutant has a detrimental effect on the human lung and could impair breathing. It is essential that a complex mixture of air pollutants -- for example Ozone and nitrogen oxides -- and the effect of inhaled particulate matter on the lung, is looked at next."

Dr Richard Campbell from the Institut Laue-Langevin said: "Neutrons are an ideal tool for studying biological materials, particularly their reactions and interactions on surfaces and across interfaces. They are highly sensitive to lighter atoms such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that make up these organic molecules and isotopic labelling can be used to determine the structure and composition of interfacial layers. As one of the world's brightest neutron sources, the ILL has a long history of modelling important micro-scale processes that take place inside our bodies and providing ground-breaking insights that inform the next generation of treatments."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Royal Holloway, University of London, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/P39my8Nuvq4/130409211934.htm

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Google Is Whittling Away At The iPhone's Best ... - Business Insider

Steve Kovach/Business Insider

Apps on the HTC One

?

The best reason to buy an iPhone instead of an Android phone made by Samsung or HTC is that the iPhone has a much better app selection.

Otherwise, the phones are pretty much equal these days. Some would even say Samsung and HTC phones are better because they have bigger screens.

Google, which makes Android, is run by some pretty smart people, so it's working to fix the apps problem.

Google has recently taken two steps toward this goal:

• The first: It made Sundar Pichai the head of Android, replacing Andy Rubin. While?Rubin is a product visionary he also has a reputation for not being great at working with partners. Pichai, meanwhile, made his career at Google convincing computer manufacturers to pre-install the Google Toolbar. ?He is seen by colleagues as someone third-party developers will be more excited to work with. Pichai is also expected to be more friendly with Samsung, which is making the kind of high-end phones that users who want to use apps like to buy. The more consumers of apps there are on the Android platform, the more app developers will build for it.?

• The second: Google is cracking down on spam inside its version of the App Store, called Play Store. TechCrunch reports that 60,000 spammy apps vanished from Play Store in February. In theory, getting rid of junk the Play Store should make it a more appealing place for consumers to go and try out new apps.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-whittling-away-at-the-iphones-last-remaining-advantage-2013-4

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US companies are posting more jobs but filling few

WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. employers have more job openings than at any other time in nearly five years. That's in part because they seem in no hurry to fill them.

And it helps explain why the job market remains tight and unemployment high. Even as openings have surged 11 percent in the past year, the number of people hired each month has declined.

Why so many openings yet so few hires?

Economists point to several factors: Some unemployed workers lack the skills employers want. Some companies may not be offering enough pay. And staffing firms and employment experts say that in a still-fragile economy, many businesses seem hesitant to commit to new hires. They appear to be holding out for the perfect candidate.

"We're living in a fear-based environment right now," says Kim First, CEO of The Agency Worldwide, a recruiting firm for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Those who do have jobs these days are unlikely to lose them. Layoffs have sunk to a pre-recession level.

But First says that companies feel they can't afford to take a risk by hiring someone who doesn't appear to be an ideal fit for the job they've advertised.

"They are really reluctant to make that leap of faith," she says. Companies "need someone to come in and hit the ground running."

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the number of job openings rose 8.7 percent in February from January to a seasonally adjusted 3.93 million. That was the most since May 2008.

At the same time, companies hired a seasonally adjusted 4.4 million people, just 2.8 percent more than in January. And hiring remained lower than it was a year ago, when it was nearly 4.5 million.

The figures suggest that the Great Recession may have transformed the job market in ways that economists still don't fully understand. Normally, more openings lead, over time, to stronger hiring and steadily lower unemployment.

Yet in May 2008, when job openings were as numerous as they are now, the unemployment rate was 5.4 percent. Now, it's 7.6 percent.

And in 2007, before the recession began, employers were hiring an average of 5.2 million people a month ? 15 percent more than in February this year.

The Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, or JOLTS, reveals the total number of people hired and laid off each month. It differs from the department's jobs report, which provides each month's net job gain or loss. But by quantifying total hiring and layoffs, the JOLTS can paint a fuller picture of what employers are doing.

From November through February, employers added a net average of about 220,000 jobs a month. The JOLTS report shows that a big reason for those gains was that layoffs fell. Companies cut 1.5 million jobs in January ? the fewest since the JOLTS data was first compiled in December 2000.

The number of people quitting is still low compared with pre-recession levels, though it's risen in recent months. A low number of people quitting reduces opportunities for those out of work. About 2.3 million people quit in February, 7 percent higher than a year ago but below the average of nearly 2.9 million that were quitting each month when the recession began in December 2007.

Jason Faberman, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, likens the job market to a game of musical chairs: If no one gets up, there isn't any room for anyone else to sit.

In March, U.S. employers added a net 88,000 jobs, the fewest in nine months and less than half the pace of the previous six months. At the same time, the increase in openings suggests that net job gains may strengthen in coming months.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that total hiring, as gauged by the JOLTS report, is something he and other Fed officials track in assessing the job market. The Fed has said it plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent.

Steven Davis, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, says his research shows that companies aren't filling jobs as fast as they did in the past. Jobs now remain unfilled for an average of 25 days. That's up from about 16 days in mid-2003, when the job market was recovering from the previous recession.

Davis cites several reasons for the change. Companies may be uncertain about the outlook for the economy. And if the outlook worsens after a company posts a job opening, they may not fill it.

With unemployment high, the cost of missing a good hire doesn't seem as high, Davis says. Managers may figure they can always find someone just as qualified later.

And a bigger proportion of job openings in the United States is in health and education. Those jobs take longer to fill, partly because of higher skill and education requirements. Lower-skilled jobs in areas such as construction, which are typically filled more quickly, have declined.

Some economists also say that there may be a mismatch between the skills the unemployed have and what employers are seeking. Some manufacturers, for example, have reported difficulty in finding higher-skilled machinists, according to the Fed's Beige Book, which provides anecdotal information on economic conditions across the country.

"It's a different labor market than we've had in the past," says Cooper Howes, an economist at Barclays. "We have to readjust our expectations of what a healthy labor market looks like."

All of which could make it harder to reduce unemployment. Howes says a "normal" level of U.S. unemployment may now be around 7 percent, rather than 5 percent to 6 percent.

Other economists doubt that a skills mismatch is playing a significant role. Elise Gould, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says there are more unemployed people than jobs in nearly every industry. That suggests that a broad slowdown in the economy is to blame for still-high unemployment, rather than a shortage of qualified workers in certain industries.

Some companies may also have slowed hiring after steep government spending cuts began taking effect March 1. Those cuts are expected to shave about a half-point from economic growth this year.

Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, says that until employers fill a job opening, they feel they're "saving a ton of money by leaving the position open."

That dynamic won't change, Cappelli says, until the economy grows fast enough that people feel comfortable about quitting to find jobs elsewhere.

___

AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

___

Follow Chris Rugaber on Twitter at https://Twitter/ChrisRugaber

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-companies-posting-more-jobs-filling-few-210843528--finance.html

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Are gun politics too complex? Simplicity would help.

As the Newtown families plead for Congress to act, lawmakers ? and President Obama ? admit to the complexity of gun issues. Scholars on simplicity offer some ideas.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board / April 9, 2013

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, center, signs legislation April 4 that includes new restrictions on weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines, a response to last year's deadly school shooting in Newtown.

AP Photo

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Four long months have nearly passed since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. And yet Congress has yet to approve any new gun legislation ? despite the personal pleas for action by the families of victims in Newtown, Conn.

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Why the delay?

One reason is that Americans remain intensely divided over many of the gun issues. Lawmakers are locked into blocs of competing views among voters, creating a stalemate in forging a compromise. Even when polls show a majority favoring a particular solution, that doesn?t sway key lawmakers.

But another, rarely mentioned reason is that the issues surrounding guns are complex. Gun legislation remains complicated because the causes for gun violence are varied. And other issues are complex: Who can tell if a person is dangerous? What is the role of violent video games? What is an assault weapon?

As President Obama stated after the Newtown shooting: ?We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides.? And Rep. Mike Thompson, chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, admits to the difficulty in crafting solutions. The California Democrat says that he has worked ?with virtually everyone imaginable? on reducing gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment. And yet he found one thing to be clear about gun regulation: ?It is a very complex issue, and in order to make any meaningful progress, it?s gonna take a complex and very comprehensive solution. You push one place, it takes you somewhere else.?

It is not only elected officials who confess to being stuck in the thicket of issues over how to balance the public?s desire for protection against a constitutional right to bear arms.

The Supreme Court?s 2008 decision that recognized a fundamental gun right left open many unknown loopholes. In a 2010 ruling related to guns, Justice Steven Breyer highlighted the ?highly complex? issues and posed a series of questions:

?Does the right to possess weapons for self-defense extend outside the home? To the car? To work? What sort of guns are necessary for self-defense? Handguns? Rifles? Semiautomatic weapons? When is a gun semiautomatic?... Who can possess guns and of what kind? Aliens? Prior drug offenders? Prior alcohol abusers??

Perhaps a new approach is needed, one that addresses this complexity first.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/l2O2yJKeXaU/Are-gun-politics-too-complex-Simplicity-would-help

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Pain bites into Portuguese life as crisis deepens

In this photo taken on March 29, 2013, Elena Baptista, right, prepares a meal with her daughter Vania, 12, left, and son Joao, 7, in their house's kitchen/living room in Loures, outside Lisbon. The Baptista family counts itself among the casualties of an unrelenting financial crisis that is squeezing the life out of some European Union economies, including Portugal. Pedro Baptista, a stocky 37-year-old, has found work as a part-time window cleaner but his wife Elena, 35, has been on unemployment benefit for almost a year after losing her job in a school canteen. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo taken on March 29, 2013, Elena Baptista, right, prepares a meal with her daughter Vania, 12, left, and son Joao, 7, in their house's kitchen/living room in Loures, outside Lisbon. The Baptista family counts itself among the casualties of an unrelenting financial crisis that is squeezing the life out of some European Union economies, including Portugal. Pedro Baptista, a stocky 37-year-old, has found work as a part-time window cleaner but his wife Elena, 35, has been on unemployment benefit for almost a year after losing her job in a school canteen. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo taken on Feb. 21, 2013, a needy elderly woman receives her daily meal in the dining hall of the Portuguese charity AMI - International Medical Assistance. center in Lisbon. The Portuguese charity AMI _ International Medical Assistance _ was set up almost three decades ago as a rapid response organization for catastrophes abroad. Now the emergency is at home. Before 2008, up to 8,000 people a year sought AMI's help in Portugal. In 2012, it was almost 16,000. In some places such as Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, the increase in people approaching the charity has been more than 250 percent since 2008. And some of the needy are university graduates. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo taken on March 5, 2013, needy people eat their daily meals in the dinidng hall of the Portuguese charity AMI - International Medical Assistance center in Lisbon. The Portuguese charity AMI _ International Medical Assistance _ was set up almost three decades ago as a rapid response organization for catastrophes abroad. Now the emergency is at home. Before 2008, up to 8,000 people a year sought AMI's help in Portugal. In 2012, it was almost 16,000. In some places such as Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, the increase in people approaching the charity has been more than 250 percent since 2008. And some of the needy are university graduates.(AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo taken on March 5, 2013, needy Portuguese women go through second-hand clothes in the Portuguese charity AMI - International Medical Assistance center in Lisbon. The Portuguese charity AMI _ International Medical Assistance _ was set up almost three decades ago as a rapid response organization for catastrophes abroad. Now the emergency is at home. Before 2008, up to 8,000 people a year sought AMI's help in Portugal. In 2012, it was almost 16,000. In some places such as Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, the increase in people approaching the charity has been more than 250 percent since 2008. And some of the needy are university graduates. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo taken on March 5, 2013, second-hand clothes and toys for needy people are seen on the shelves of the Portuguese charity AMI - International Medical Assistance center in Lisbon. The Portuguese charity AMI _ International Medical Assistance _ was set up almost three decades ago as a rapid response organization for catastrophes abroad. Now the emergency is at home. Before 2008, up to 8,000 people a year sought AMI's help in Portugal. In 2012, it was almost 16,000. In some places such as Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, the increase in people approaching the charity has been more than 250 percent since 2008. And some of the needy are university graduates.. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) ? Serving a frugal lunch in their kitchen not much bigger than a bathroom, Pedro and Elena Baptista spoon stewed chicken feet onto their boiled potatoes and leave the slightly meatier wings for their 12-year-old daughter, Vania, and 7-year-old son, Joao.

The Baptista family counts itself among the casualties of an unrelenting financial crisis that is squeezing the life out of some European Union economies, including Portugal. Pedro Baptista, a stocky 37-year-old, has found work as a part-time window cleaner but his wife Elena, 35, has been on welfare for almost a year after losing her job in a school canteen. Scraping by on a monthly household income of ?650 ($840) and constantly going cap-in-hand to charities and family members has sapped their confidence.

But Pedro is determined to stay positive. "Ups and downs are part of life. Things will improve," he says. "We just have to hold on."

Exactly how long is hard to say, however, as Portugal's prime minister warns his nation to harden itself for more austerity.

It seems that every time Europe's leaders appear to have contained the continent's 3-year-old crisis over too much government debt, it erupts again ? witness the recent woes in Cyprus. Across Europe, the long-held belief that the state will always provide for its citizens' well-being is vanishing.

In return for rescue loans, governments across the region are slashing spending and raising taxes. However, the austerity has a knock-on effect of choking the growth needed to pull countries out of their nosedive. Despite the acute hardship, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said Sunday that his government must cut even deeper. That's because the Constitutional Court last week struck down some austerity measures aimed at government workers and pensioners, denying the government more than 1.3 billion euros in anticipated savings.

Meanwhile, the debt crisis risks jumping from Cyprus to Portugal. The creditors who lent Portugal 78 billion euros in a bailout two years ago are demanding that the government prune spending by another 4 billion euros in 2014 and 2015. If Portugal doesn't comply, it could be denied the next installment of its bailout.

Portugal's ordeal has begun to send shivers across Europe, even as the pain becomes hard to bear at home. Pensioners, schools and government workers are in the crosshairs of the latest planned cuts. The austerity is destroying legions of small businesses. And charities say they are already struggling to cope with a deluge of calls for help.

Here is a walk through Portugal's austerity-battered society.

PENSIONERS:

Checking over her bank statement showing her monthly pension payment, Maria Luisa Cabral stared silently at the slip of paper. When she finally spoke, the 66-year-old former librarian's voice shook and tears welled.

"That's about 10 percent less each month," she said. "I just feel really angry."

Portugal's elderly have been hit hard by austerity. Taxes and cuts in previous years had already cut Cabral's income by 20 percent. This year, the government will take another bite out of pensions over 1,350 euros a month.

Public outrage greeted this year's tax hikes, which even the finance minister conceded were "enormous." As well as hurting pensioners, the hikes are costing many workers the equivalent of more than a month's pay.

Every month for 40 years, Cabral handed over part of her earnings for her state employee pension and calculated what she would have to live on after retiring.

"You deduct money all your working life on the assumption you'll be entitled to a pension at the end of it," Cabral said.

She reckons she'll now have to give up her life's little luxuries ? buying a book, for example, or going to a cinema or a concert.

Governments across Europe are finding it harder to meet their expanding pension payments. The portion of retired people across Europe is quickly expanding and stretching welfare budgets. For Portugal, the outlay on state pensions has risen to 14.5 percent of gross domestic product from 9 percent since 2000, according to the government. The bill is forecast to keep growing through 2020.

Pensioners point to numbers they say are more worrying: Almost 80 percent of the country's 1.7 million retirees have to get by on less than ?500 a month.

While pensions drop, the cost of living keeps going up. Sales taxes have risen sharply, including a hike to 23 percent from 6 percent on electricity; the center-right government has scrapped rent controls; payments to see a doctor in the national health service have risen, as has the cost of public transport; government help to buy medicine has shrunk.

Cabral and thousands of others have joined pensioners' lobby group Apre, created last October when the 2013 state budget was unveiled. Cabral says she felt compelled to act when she saw elderly people in stores furtively counting out coins in their palms to see if they had enough to buy what they needed. At pharmacies, she saw them asking ? embarrassed, in front of queuing people ? if they could pay for their medicine in installments.

"People are feeling (the crisis) in their gut," Cabral said.

EDUCATION:

The Camoes high school in Lisbon is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious. Its wrought-iron balconies and elegant patios with soaring plane trees recall the wealth and majesty of the Portuguese capital when the school opened at the start of the last century and Portugal still had an empire.

The school is named for Portugal's great Renaissance poet, and some of the country's most illustrious figures have studied in its thick-walled classrooms with tall windows, including the current president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.

By 2013, however, the school is a vivid demonstration of what happens when austerity is heaped on austerity.

Broken windows, cracked walls, flaking paint, leak-stained ceilings are the new reality. Sunscreens hang off their hinges. The gardens around the school buildings are overgrown. The sports field is closed, its artificial surface cracked and weedy. Parents of the school's roughly 1,200 students have come in on weekends and holidays to patch up the classrooms and corridors.

An engineering appraisal last year recommended structural repairs. School director Jaime Joao shrugs when he recalls how the Ministry of Education reacted when he phoned them about it: "They said, we have no money."

Portugal stripped its education budget by more than 5 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to European Commission figures published last month, making it one of the continent's biggest belt-tighteners. Portuguese university presidents say that over the past two years some 20,000 fewer state scholarships were awarded to students, with about 55,000 granted this year. More downsizing is likely: The International Monetary Fund, one of the bailout lenders, has proposed getting rid of at least 50,000 teaching posts in coming years.

Teacher morale is another worry, Joao says. As civil servants who are subject to cuts in the government wage bill, teachers have seen their living standards decline sharply. In 2008, a typical high-school teacher might receive an annual net salary of around ?20,000, according to the National Federation of Education, which represents school and university staff. The same teacher now gets about ?16,500, it says.

Mario Nogueira, secretary-general of Fenprof, the national teachers' federation, says further cuts will only aggravate education problems.

"In all honesty I don't know where they can cut anymore," Nogueira said. "We're already down to the bone."

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN:

A lively neighborhood bookstore close to Lisbon's bullring hosted numerous book signings, poetry readings and art exhibitions in recent years. Last month, after it shut down, the owners posted a bitterly-worded sign in the window of the empty shop. It had to close, the sign said, because of the "savage impoverishment and vertiginous drop in purchasing power" witnessed in Portugal, which had brought a "brutal fall" in the store's revenue.

It's the knock-on effect of austerity. Family spending plunged by almost 7 percent last year, the national statistics agency says. That was only slightly worse than 2011, and it's depressing the economy which contracted by 3.2 percent last year. Unemployment is at a record 17.5 percent and is forecast to rise.

All around are signs the country is in a death spiral.

The Portuguese Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Similar Establishments says some 11,000 of its members shut their business last year when sales tax on food and drink jumped to 23 percent from 13 percent.

Sales of cement last year were the lowest since 1973 as construction ground to a halt. Boarded-up stores along main streets and in shopping malls are an increasingly common sight.

After one of the two biggest cinema chains in the country shut almost half its 106 cinemas, 212 of Portugal's 308 council areas have no movie house, local media reported. Almost 6,700 companies filed for bankruptcy last year, a 41 percent increase on 2011, according to a study by credit insurance company Cosec.

CHARITIES:

The Portuguese charity AMI ? International Medical Assistance ? was set up almost three decades ago as a rapid response organization for catastrophes abroad. Now the emergency is at home.

Before 2008, up to 8,000 people a year sought AMI's help in Portugal. In 2012, it was almost 16,000. In some places such as Porto, Portugal's second-largest city, the increase in people approaching the charity has been more than 250 percent since 2008. And some of the needy are university graduates.

Ana Martins, AMI's national director for the past 18 years, says people seeking aid used to ask for help finding a job or resolving social or family problems.

These days, they ask for food.

"I've never seen so many people in such a precarious situation, lacking so many basic necessities," she said. That includes families living in homes with no electricity or natural gas for cooking because the supply has been cut off due to unpaid bills.

AMI's assistance center in Olaias, a low-income Lisbon suburb of high-rise apartment blocks, is a 21st-century version of the soup kitchens seen in the Great Depression. Staff start serving lunch at 11.30 for dozens of people aged from 20 to over 60. From the way they devour their food, they look like they hadn't eaten breakfast.

Margarida Mendes, who has run the center since it was set up in 1994 to help homeless people, says her work has changed a lot in recent years. Now it's mostly families seeking support.

Her work, she says, can be distressing, and the most poignant episodes involve young children. Recently, a small child jumped up and down and screamed in delight when he saw a packet of cheap, plain cookies sticking out of the top of the family's monthly parcel of food aid. That small scene got to Mendes: "You think to yourself, What kind of country is this where that sort of thing happens?"

The Baptista family comes to Olaias to pick up food parcels. They contain cooking oil, cans of sausages, flour. It's not much, but it helps. They also get second-hand clothes and school books for their son and daughter.

The financial crisis capsized their lives. Just five years ago they were together pulling in ?1,600 a month ? close to the average income for a couple in Portugal. Today they live on little over a third of that.

"For us, the past year has been the hardest time of our lives," Pedro, the father, says in their small kitchen which doubles as a living room, though it has no sofa or armchairs.

Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar recently conceded that straightening out Portugal's finances will take decades and will require the sacrifices of a generation.

The Baptista family belongs to that generation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-08-Portugal-Feeling%20The%20Pain/id-d76015d013024c00aa20670651243ed7

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Obama warns GOP against blocking gun bill

FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama is bringing 11 relatives of those killed in the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School to Washington on Air Force One Monday so they can personally encourage senators to back gun legislation that faces tough opposition. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama is bringing 11 relatives of those killed in the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School to Washington on Air Force One Monday so they can personally encourage senators to back gun legislation that faces tough opposition. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

White House press secretary Jay Carney briefs reporters at the White House in Washington, Monday, April 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? President Barack Obama says the contentious debate over gun control measures "shouldn't be about politics." He's warning Republican lawmakers against using delay tactics to sink legislation.

Obama is speaking about his gun proposals in Connecticut, where 20 children and 6 adults were killed in a horrific school shooting last year. The shooting spurred fresh debate in Washington over gun control measures.

The president is singling out GOP lawmakers who want to use procedural maneuvers to block legislation. Obama says the move would be akin to saying the public's opinion doesn't matter.

He is also challenging the notion that gun legislation would be a political victory for him. He says the debate "isn't about me" and should instead focus on families that have been torn apart by violence.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-08-Obama/id-689d85dba3b74d4e9cd90288ac8e73db

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Twitter Pushes Android App Update To Fix The ?Me? Tab Bug

Over the weekend, we told you about an issue with Twitter’s Android update from last Wednesday. The issue centered around the “Me” tab not loading properly, just giving you a spinning wheel on a white screen. Users took to Twitter to complain about the bug, saying that they couldn’t access important features on the screen, like reading DMs and switching accounts. You could search for yourself and tap on your avatar to find your way to your profile, but that was a hack more than anything else. Most users just thought they had a bad connection and waited for the screen to load…forever. Today, the company released an update to the app that fixes the bug: v4.0.1 - Fixes “Me” tab loading issues - Improved UI on Honeycomb devices I’ve confirmed with multiple people who were having the problem that this update does indeed fix the issue, and the “Me” tab is now loading quickly. It didn’t seem to affect every Android device, but the folks it did affect have been pretty loud about it since last Wednesday. Here’s a tweet from just a few hours ago: Consider the bug squashed. Twitter has been working on unifying the experience for the service on all platforms, including native apps. The main reason for pushing out updates to the mobile versions were to incorporate the new Twitter Cards that were announced last week. This was just a bump in the road for an otherwise beautifully redesigned app that now lets you cycle through your four tabs with a gesture. Now all four tabs work. [Photo credit: Flickr]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Qtqbw6qVLps/

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PFT: Bucs willing to give first-rounder for Revis

AP

Veteran quarterback Matthew Hasselbeck had an eventful couple of days last month.? Cut by the Titans, he quickly landed in the same division, with the Colts.

Now the clear-cut backup to Andrew Luck after being in 2012 the clear-cut backup to Jake Locker, Hasselbeck?s work will be deemed a success if he can constantly nudge Luck to be the best quarterback he can be.

?I feel like I learned a lot in my role with Jake Locker this past year and it really was fulfilling to work with a young guy that?s talented and eager to work and eager to learn,? Hasselbeck told Monday?s edition of Pro Football Talk.? ?I think the thing that I could probably do a better job is just really bringing a competitive spirit to the room.? Obviously, Andrew Luck?s gonna be the starting quarterback there but I can still come in and bring an element of like just being the best that I can be, each and every day.

?I do remember as a young quarterback with the Green Bay Packers, the atmosphere was just very, very competitive.? I mean and everyone knew if Brett Favre had two broken legs, he was still going to be the starting quarterback but the atmosphere was that, ?Hey we?re going to come in and we?re going to compete with each other, each and every day and really just try to push each other in any way that we can sort of like one-up a guy.?? We are just gonna go for it and I think it just, I don?t know if it made Brett any better but I know it made me better and so I think that?s probably the lesson that I learned or one of the lessons that I learned and so I?m looking forward to being around a great talent like Andrew Luck.? I think it?ll probably improve my game just having that mentality and in the end ironically it?ll help the Indianapolis Colts be a better team because of it.?

But it likely won?t result in Hasselbeck ending up as a starter elsewhere.

?I would be shocked if this is not the last stop,? Hasselbeck said.? ?I signed a two-year deal.? My goal right now is just to play those two years and make them two great years but this whole ride has been a dream come true for me.? I was a sixth-round draft pick, wasn?t invited to the Combine, really when I got uh drafted by the Green Bay Packers if I had left training camp with a free pair of Green Bay Packer shorts I would have chalked it up as a victory so this really is a dream come true for me to get to do this for a living.? And it?s not easy.? It takes everything you?ve got each and every year.? You?ve got to bring it 100 percent to have a successful season but I?m committed to two years right now and I?d be shocked if there?s anything beyond that.?

Despite the commitment level required to thrive in the NFL, Hasselbeck has other interests.? His appearance on Monday?s show came in connection with his work with the End It Movement, which has made April 9 an international effort to bring awareness to and ultimately to abolish the ongoing global slavery problem.

There are now more slaves in the world that at any point in history.? You?ll learn that troubling fact and others if you visit the End It Movment?s website.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/08/bucs-willing-to-give-a-2013-first-rounder-for-revis-jets-want-a-lot-more/related/

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First trial to investigate magic mushrooms as a treatment for depression delayed by UK and EU regulations

Apr. 5, 2013 ? The world's first clinical trial to explore the use of the hallucinogenic ingredient in magic mushrooms to treat depression is being delayed due to the UK and EU rules on the use of illegal drugs in research.

Professor David Nutt, president of the British Neuroscience Association and Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London (UK), will tell the BNA's Festival of Neuroscience today (Sunday) that although the UK's Medical Research Council has awarded a grant for the trial, the Government's regulations controlling the licensing of illegal drugs in research and the EU's guidelines on Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) have stalled the start of the trial, which was expected to start this year. He is calling for a change to the regulations.

He will tell the meeting at the Barbican in London, that his research has shown that psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, has the potential to alleviate severe forms of depression in people who have failed to respond fully to other anti-depressant treatments. However, psilocybin is illegal in the UK; the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances classifies it as a Schedule 1 drug, one that has a high potential for abuse with no recognised medical use, and the UK has classified it as a Class A drug, the classification used for the most dangerous drugs. This means that a special licence has to be obtained to use magic mushrooms in research in the UK, and the manufacture of a synthetic form of psilocybin for use in patients is tightly controlled by EU regulations.

Prof Nutt will say: "The law for the control of drugs like psilocybin as a Schedule 1 Class A drug makes it almost impossible to use them for research and the reason we haven't started the study is because finding companies who could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence, which can take up to a year and triple the price, is proving very difficult. The whole situation is bedevilled by this primitive, old-fashioned attitude that Schedule 1 drugs could never have therapeutic potential, and so they have to be made impossible to access."

"The knock-on effect is this profound impairment of research. We are the first people ever to have done a psilocybin study in the UK, but we are still hunting for a company that can manufacture the drug to GMP standards for the clinical trial, even though we've been trying for a year to find one. We live in a world of insanity in terms of regulating drugs at present. The whole field is so bogged down by these intransient regulations, so that even if you have a good idea, you may never get it into the clinic."

He will say that the regulations need to be changed. "Even if I do this study and I show it's a really useful treatment for some people with depression, there's only four hospitals in this country that have a licence to hold this drug, so you couldn't roll out the treatment if it worked because the regulations would make it difficult to use," he said.

Prof Nutt and his team at Imperial College London (UK) have shown that when healthy volunteers are injected with psilocybin, the drug switched off a front part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is known from previous imaging studies to be over-active in depression. "We found that, even in normal people, the more that part of the brain was switched off under the influence of the drug, the better they felt two weeks later. So there was a relationship between that transient switching off of the brain circuit and their subsequent mood," he will explain. "This is the basis on which we want to run the trial, because this is what you want to do in depression: you want to switch off that over-active part of the brain.

"The other thing we discovered is that the major site of action of the magic mushrooms is to turn down a circuit in the brain called the 'default mode network', which the anterior cingulate cortex is part of. The default mode network is a part of the brain between the front and back. It is active when you are thinking about you; it coordinates the thinking and emotional aspects of you."

The researchers discovered that the 'default mode network' had the highest density of 5HT2A receptors in the brain. These are known to be involved in depression and are the targets for a number of existing anti-depressive drugs that aim to improve levels of serotonin -- the neurotransmitter [1] that gives people a sense of well-being and happiness. Psilocybin also acts on these receptors.

"We have found that people with depression have over-active default mode networks, and they are continually locked into a mode of thinking about themselves. So they ruminate on themselves, on their incompetencies, on their badness, that they're worthless, that they've failed; these things are not true, and sometimes they reach delusional levels. This negative rumination may be due to a lack of serotonin and what psilocybin is doing is going in and rapidly replacing the missing serotonin, switching them back into a mind state where they are less ruminating and less depressed," Prof Nutt will say.

The proposed trial will be for patients with depression who have failed two previous treatments for the condition. Thirty patients will be given a synthetic form of psilocybin and 30 patients will be given a placebo. The drug (or placebo) will be given during two, possibly three, carefully controlled and prepared 30-60 minute sessions. The first session will be a low dose to check there are no adverse responses, the second session will give a higher, therapeutic dose, and then patients can have a third, booster dose in a later session if it's considered necessary. While they are under the influence of the drug, the patients will have guided talking therapy to enable them to explore their negative thinking and issues that are troubling them. The doctors will follow up the patients for at least a year.

"What we are trying to do is to tap into the reservoir of under-researched 'illegal' drugs to see if we can find new and beneficial uses for them in people whose lives are often severely affected by illnesses such as depression. The current legislation is stopping the benefits of these drugs being explored and for the last 40 years we have missed really interesting opportunities to help patients."

Ethical approval for the trial was granted in March and Prof Nutt says he hopes to be able to start the trial within the next six months -- so long as he can find a manufacturer for the drug.

[1] Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals from neurons (nerve cells) to target cells.

[2] Funding: The Beckley Foundation has funded part of Prof Nutt's research, and the Medical Research Council has agreed a grant for the proposed clinical trial.

Abstract title: "Can we use psychedelic drugs to treat depressions?" Symposium: "Treating depression with antidepressants: where are we now and where are we going?"

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/depression/~3/pA07KX3YSxA/130407090832.htm

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Egyptian court dismisses lawsuit to ban comedy show

On Saturday a Cairo court dismissed a lawsuit against the popular Egyptian comedy show by satirist Bassem Youssef. Youssef has been under fire for criticizing Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

By Aya Batrawy,?Associated Press / April 6, 2013

A bodyguard secures popular Egyptian television satirist Bassem Youssef, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon Stewart, as he enters Egypt's state prosecutors office to face accusations of insulting Islam and the country's Islamist leader in Cairo, Egypt March 31.

Amr Nabil/AP/File

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A Cairo court on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Islamist lawyer demanding that a popular Egyptian satirist's TV show be banned for allegedly insulting the president and containing excessive sexual innuendo.

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Judge Hassouna Tawfiq said the court dropped the complaint against Bassem Youssef's "ElBernameg," or "The Program," because the plaintiff did not have an interest in the case. Youssef still faces other investigations related to the show but the ruling may set a precedent.

The comedian has been in the international spotlight since Egyptian authorities brought him in for questioning this week in a separate case over the same accusations, a move that prompted criticism from as far away as Washington. On his Jon Stewart-inspired show, Youssef frequently satirizes everything from President Mohammed Morsi's policies to his mannerisms, as well as hardline Islamic clerics, while highlighting contradictions in their comments.

His criticism of Morsi and the president's backers in the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most organized political force, has angered some within the Islamist fundamentalist group.

Plaintiff Mahmoud Abul-Enein, a Brotherhood lawyer, filed the suit demanding the suspension of the license of the private satellite TV channel, the Capital Broadcasting Center, which airs Youssef's show. He claimed the comedian's program "corrupted morals" and violated "religious principles."

A chief Brotherhood lawyer said that Abul-Enein's lawsuit was filed independent of the group.

The president's office said earlier this week that it was not involved in the legal action against Youssef, and that it recognizes the "importance of freedom of expression."

In his written opinion, the judge explained that "it is clear from the statement released by the president's office ... that the presidency is not going to file a complaint against media personality Bassem Youssef or anyone else out of respect for freedom of expression."

"It is the right of citizens to express themselves freely far from restrictions and the presidency urges respect for the law," the judge added.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/sEE09ABNGN0/Egyptian-court-dismisses-lawsuit-to-ban-comedy-show

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Retinoic acid gradient visualized for the first time in an embryo

Monday, April 8, 2013

In a ground-breaking study, researchers from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan report a new technique that allows them to visualize the distribution of retinoic acid in a live zebrafish embryo, in real-time. This technique enabled them to observe two concentration gradients going in opposing directions along the head-to-tail axis of the embryo, thus providing long-awaited evidence that retinoic acid is a morphogen.

The report, published today in the journal Nature, puts an end to a long-standing debate around the presence of retinoic acid gradients across the vertebrate embryo, during the early stages of development. It also sheds light on the role of retinoic acid in tissue development.

Retinoic acid has been thought to be a morphogen, a signalling molecule that diffuses throughout the embryo switching genes on and off and imparting different cell fates depending on its concentration. However, retinoic acid concentration gradients had never been visualized because retinoic acid cannot be tagged with the commonly used 'green fluorescent protein' GFP, or GFP-like proteins, as label.

"Until now no one had succeeded in monitoring the concentration of retinoic acid in real-time in a live embryo, and there was no direct data proving the existence of a retinoic acid gradient in the vertebrate embryo, explains Dr. Miyawaki, who led the research.

In order to monitor the concentration of retinoic acid in live zebrafish embryos at the early stages of their development, Dr. Miyawaki and his colleague Dr. Shimozono developed a technique to tag the molecule that acts as receptor for retinoic acid with genetically-encoded, coloured fluorophores. Based on the principle of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), the tags allow them to visualize the presence of retinoic acid and quantitatively determine its concentration over time.

By combining this technique with pharmacological and genetic manipulations, Miyawaki and his team demonstrate the presence of two linear retinoic acid concentration gradients across the antero-posterior axis of the embryo, from the trunk area to the head and the tail. Their findings suggest that retinoic acid diffuses quickly, thus establishing stable and robust gradients that are resistant to external perturbations.

"A better understanding of the gradients of retinoic acid is essential for research into the patterns of tissue development. It is necessary if we ever want to control the development of three-dimensional tissue structures from induced pluripotent stem cells, for regenerative medicine for example," concludes Dr. Miyawaki.

###

RIKEN: http://www.riken.jp/engn/

Thanks to RIKEN 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/127627/Retinoic_acid_gradient_visualized_for_the_first_time_in_an_embryo

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New 'transient electronics' disappear when no longer needed

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Scientists have described key advances toward practical uses of a new genre of tiny, biocompatible electronic devices that could be implanted into the body to relieve pain or battle infection for a specific period of time, and then dissolve harmlessly.

These "transient electronics," described in New Orleans on April 8 at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, could have other uses, including consumer electronics products with a pre-engineered service life.

John Rogers, Ph.D., who led the research, explained that it arises from a view of electronics fundamentally different from the mindset that has prevailed since the era of electronic "chips," integrated circuits and microprocessors, which dawned almost 50 years ago.

"The goal of the electronics industry has always been to build durable devices that last forever with stable performance," Rogers explained. "But many new opportunities open up once you start thinking about electronics that could disappear in a controlled and programmable way."

Those opportunities, he added, include cell phones and other mobile devices that stop working on a timetable corresponding to the time for upgrading to a new model. Instead of adding to the $50 million of so-called e-waste generated every year, the devices would simply break down. Medical implants that are only needed for a few weeks could just disappear, without requiring an extra surgery to remove them from the body. And no one would have to retrieve dozens of transient water-quality sensors from a river undergoing water quality monitoring. They would dissolve without a trace and without harm to the environment.

Although other researchers have developed so-called bioresorbable medical devices that disappear over time in the body, Rogers' team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the first to produce such broadly applicable technology, which has many more potential uses than other devices. The scientists have designed transient electronics as temperature sensors, solar cells and miniature digital cameras, for instance. Moreover, previous bioresorbable devices were made of different materials that only partially dissolved, leaving behind residues, and they did not perform as well as Rogers' current devices.

The electronics are enclosed in material that dissolves completely after a certain period of time when exposed to water or body fluids, somewhat like dissolvable sutures. By altering the number of layers of the wrapping, scientists can define everything about how the device will dissolve in the body or in the environment, including its overall lifetime, said Rogers. The devices perform just as well as conventional electronics and function normally until the encapsulating layer disappears. Once that happens, it takes about 30 minutes for the electronic connections to dissolve away, and the device stops working. Current versions of the devices remain operable for a few weeks. Rogers' team is researching ways to make devices that last a few years.

In his ACS report, Rogers described key advances in the technology. One advance established for the first time that transient electronic devices, implanted into laboratory mice, actually work in battling infections and do, indeed, dissolve when done. Rogers' team previously only thought that would happen. The devices produced localized heat, which prevented bacterial growth and surgery-related infections from developing in the mice. The findings add to the confidence that similar devices can be designed to reduce pain by stimulating certain nerves or facilitate bone growth or wound healing.

The scientists also reported progress in making the devices with conventional manufacturing processes instead of meticulously building the electronics one-by-one by hand in a laboratory. "It's a step toward producing these devices with the kind of manufacturing processes that are already in wide use for traditional electronics like silicon-based microprocessors and memory technology," said Rogers.

Another advance involved the materials for making and powering the devices without an external electricity source. Rogers said, for instance, that the latest transient electronic devices incorporate zinc oxide, which is "piezoelectric." It means that thin, flexible devices made with zinc oxide could produce electricity when bent or twisted -- perhaps by movement of muscles in the body, pulsation of blood vessels or beating of the heart.

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Home of Abraham, Ur, unearthed by archaeologists in Iraq

Home of Abraham: A sprawling structure, thought to be about 4,000 years old, probably served as an administrative center for Ur, around the time?Abraham?would have lived there before leaving for Canaan, according to the Bible.

By Sinan Salaheddin,?Associated Press / April 4, 2013

Manchester University professor Stuart Campbell shows excavation in progress at Tell Khaiber, Iraq. A British archaeologist says he and his colleagues have unearthed a huge, rare complex near the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, home of the biblical Abraham. Stuart Campbell of Manchester University's Archaeology Department says it goes back about 4,000 years, around the time Abraham would have lived there. It's believed to be an administrative center for Ur.

Stuart Campbell/AP

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British archaeologists said Thursday they have unearthed a sprawling complex near the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, home of the biblical?Abraham.

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The structure, thought to be about 4,000 years old, probably served as an administrative center for Ur, around the time?Abraham?would have lived there before leaving for Canaan, according to the Bible.

The compound is near the site of the partially reconstructed Ziggurat, or Sumerian temple, said Stuart Campbell of Manchester University's Archaeology Department, who led the dig.

"This is a breathtaking find," Campbell said, because of its unusually large size ? roughly the size of a football pitch, or about 80 meters (260 feet) on each side. The archaeologist said complexes of this size and age were rare.

"It appears that it is some sort of public building. It might be an administrative building, it might have religious connections or controlling goods to the city of Ur," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the U.K.

The complex of rooms around a large courtyard was found 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Ur, the last capital of the Sumerian royal dynasties whose civilization flourished 5,000 years ago.

Campbell said one of the artifacts they unearthed was a 9-centimeter (3.5-inch) clay plaque showing a worshipper wearing a long, fringed robe, approaching a sacred site.

Beyond artifacts, the site could reveal the environmental and economic conditions of the region through analysis of plant and animal remains, the archaeological team said in a statement.

The dig began last month when the six-member British team worked with four Iraqi archaeologists to dig in the Tell Khaiber in the southern province of Thi Qar, some 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Baghdad.

Decades of war and violence have kept international archaeologists away from Iraq, where significant archaeological sites as yet unexplored are located. Still, the dig showed that such collaborative missions could be possible in parts of Iraq that are relatively stable, like its Shiite-dominated south.

Campbell's team was the first British-led archaeological dig in southern Iraq since the 80s. It was also directed by Manchester University's Dr. Jane Moon and independent archaeologist Robert Killick.

"This has been an opportunity to get back to an area very close to our heart for a long time," Campbell said.

Iraq faces a broader problem of protecting its archaeological heritage. Its 12,000 registered archaeological sites are poorly guarded.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Q8Ay3mqMNP0/Home-of-Abraham-Ur-unearthed-by-archaeologists-in-Iraq

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Gillmor Gang: Fork You

The Gillmor Gang ? John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor ? spent a too-quick hour on Facebook Home, Twitter’s new deep linking Cards, and the jousting over Webkit. Individually, these developments represent interesting strategy for the major notification platforms of Google, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook. But taken together, we’re seeing an important moment of truth. With Facebook pulling a “kindle” by hijacking Android’s lockscreen for its notification engine, suddenly everybody has to get in line. Apple retains its AirPlay gateway to the big screen, but it’s Facebook not Google that threatens iOS’ fit and finish. And just in time for apps, Twitter sets in motion developer innovation linking app to app and eventually the Web, Look out Cleveland, a fork is coming through. @stevegillmor, @kteare, @kevinmarks, @borthwick, @jtaschek Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor Live chat stream

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/PwFG8jHpz64/

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Widely used filtering material adds arsenic to beers

Apr. 7, 2013 ? The mystery of how arsenic levels in beer sold in Germany could be higher than in the water or other ingredients used to brew the beer has been solved, scientists announced in New Orleans April 7 at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

Mehmet Coelhan, Ph.D., and colleagues said the discovery could be of importance for breweries and other food processors elsewhere that use the same filtering technology implicated in the elevated arsenic levels in some German beers. Coelhan's team at the Technische Universit?t in Munich set out to solve that riddle after testing 140 samples of beers sold in Germany as part of a monitoring program. The monitoring checked levels of heavy metals like arsenic and lead, as well as natural toxins that can contaminate grain used in brewing beer, pesticides and other undesirable substances.

Coelhan explained that the World Health Organization uses 10 micrograms per liter of arsenic in drinking water as a limit. However, some beers contained higher arsenic levels. "When arsenic level in beer is higher than in the water used during brewing, this excess arsenic must come from other sources," Coelhan noted. "That was a mystery to us. As a consequence, we analyzed all materials, including the malt and the hops used during brewing for the presence of arsenic."

They concluded that the arsenic was released into the beer from a filtering material called kieselguhr, or diatomaceous earth, used to remove yeast, hops and other particles and give the beer a crystal clear appearance. Diatomaceous earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae that lived millions of years ago. It finds wide use in filtering beer, wine and is an ingredient in other products.

"We concluded that kieselguhr may be a significant source of arsenic contamination in beer," Coelhan said. "This conclusion was supported by analysis of kieselguhr samples. These tests revealed that some kieselguhr samples release arsenic. The resulting arsenic levels were only slightly elevated, and it is not likely that people would get sick from drinking beers made with this filtration method because of the arsenic. The arsenic is still at low levels -- the risk of alcohol poisoning is a far more realistic concern, as stated in previous studies on the topic."

Coelhan pointed out that beers produced in at least six other countries had higher arsenic amounts than German beers, according to a report published four years ago. He said that breweries, wineries and other food processors that use kieselguhr should be aware that the substance can release arsenic. Substitutes for kieselguhr are available, he noted, and simple measures like washing kieselguhr with water can remove the arsenic before use.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Lb97_ZsSS_M/130407183550.htm

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Different drug combinations work best for prevention versus treatment of colorectal tumors

Public release date: 7-Apr-2013
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Contact: Diana Quattrone
diana.quattrone@fccc.edu
215-728-7784
Fox Chase Cancer Center

Study evaluates the effectiveness of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and the cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor in animal models more relevant to humans

WASHINGTON, DC (April 7, 2013)Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Once colorectal cancer has spread to other parts of the body, only 11 percent of patients will survive five years from the date of their diagnosis. Most colorectal cancers are adenocarcinomascancers that begin in cells that make and release mucus and other fluids. Adenocarcinomas begin as benign tumors called adenomas, which become malignant over time. By treating adenomas before they become cancerous, it could be possible to prevent colorectal cancer.

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have tested the effectiveness of two promising drugs in preventing and treating colorectal adenomas in mice. A team led by Wen-Chi Chang, PhD, assistant research professor at Fox Chase, found that the effect of these drugs, which have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of other conditions, depends on whether adenomas are present when drug treatment begins. Chang will present these findings at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Sunday, April 7.

"We often get focused on either the preventive or therapeutic setting and don't think about how these drugs are maybe serving more than one purpose," says senior author on the study Margie L. Clapper, PhD, co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase. "The most exciting thing for us was to be able to track these tumors and for the first time distinguish between prevention and chemotherapy, and to show that one agent is maybe effective in both settings if used appropriately, or in this case, in combination with another agent."

Past studies in animals have shown that colorectal tumors can be suppressed by combined treatment with two drugs: a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory compound called sulindac and a cholesterol-lowering medication called atorvastatinwhose brand name is Lipitor. But in those studies, tumors were induced in an unnatural waythrough exposure to carcinogenic chemicalswhereas in humans, cancer often has genetic origins.

To evaluate the effectiveness of sulindac and atorvastatin in an animal model more relevant to humans, Chang, Clapper and their colleagues used a unique mouse that had genetic alterations that cause them to develop multiple colorectal adenomas, without exposure to carcinogens. "No one had previously tested the effectiveness of this drug combination against colorectal cancer originating from alterations in the genome," Clapper says. "In some ways, using this type of preclinical tumor model represents a new paradigm for doing prevention studies and therapeutic studies."

In the new study, the researchers treated the mice with either drug alone or in combination for 100 days and used colonoscopic examinations to evaluate the presence and size of tumors before and after treatment. In mice that had tumors prior to treatment, only combination therapy reduced the number of adenomas in the colon by the end of the treatment period.

The results were strikingly different in mice that were tumor-free when treatment began. In these mice, exposure to atorvastatin alone or in combination with sulindac resulted in about a three-fold increase in the percentage of mice that were tumor-free by the end of the treatment period. Among these mice, 44 percent of those treated with atorvastatin alone and 30 percent of those treated with both drugs did not develop tumors, compared with 13 percent of mice that received no treatment and nine percent that received sulindac alone. Moreover, atorvastatin treatment completely inhibited the formation of microscopic adenomas in these mice.

The findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of the two drugs at preventing and treating colorectal adenomas depends on whether tumors are present prior to the onset of treatment. "Based on this study, we're able to say that if you don't have a tumor to begin with, maybe Lipitor is best, but if you do have a tumor to begin with, you need the combination therapy," Chang says. "We can start to tailor clinical care based upon the disease state as well as the establishment of tumors."

Moving forward, the researchers plan to study the specific genetic alterations in this particular mouse model, with the goal of identifying molecular pathways that could be targeted with therapies.

###

Co-authors on the study include Christina M. Ferrara, Stacy L. Mosier, Harry S. Cooper, Karthik Devarajan, Harvey Hensley, and Tianyu Li of Fox Chase. This research was supported by NIH R21CA129467.

Fox Chase Cancer Center, part of Temple University Health System, is one of the leading cancer research and treatment centers in the United States. Founded in 1904 in Philadelphia as one of the nation's first cancer hospitals, Fox Chase also was among the first institutions to receive the National Cancer Institute's prestigious comprehensive cancer center designation in 1974. Fox Chase researchers have won the highest awards in their fields, including two Nobel Prizes. Fox Chase physicians are routinely recognized in national rankings, and the Center's nursing program has achieved Magnet status for excellence three consecutive times. Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical research and oversees programs in cancer prevention, detection, survivorship, and community outreach. For more information, call 1-888-FOX-CHASE (1-888-369-2427) or visit http://www.foxchase.org.

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

Public release date: 7-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Diana Quattrone
diana.quattrone@fccc.edu
215-728-7784
Fox Chase Cancer Center

Study evaluates the effectiveness of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and the cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor in animal models more relevant to humans

WASHINGTON, DC (April 7, 2013)Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Once colorectal cancer has spread to other parts of the body, only 11 percent of patients will survive five years from the date of their diagnosis. Most colorectal cancers are adenocarcinomascancers that begin in cells that make and release mucus and other fluids. Adenocarcinomas begin as benign tumors called adenomas, which become malignant over time. By treating adenomas before they become cancerous, it could be possible to prevent colorectal cancer.

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have tested the effectiveness of two promising drugs in preventing and treating colorectal adenomas in mice. A team led by Wen-Chi Chang, PhD, assistant research professor at Fox Chase, found that the effect of these drugs, which have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of other conditions, depends on whether adenomas are present when drug treatment begins. Chang will present these findings at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Sunday, April 7.

"We often get focused on either the preventive or therapeutic setting and don't think about how these drugs are maybe serving more than one purpose," says senior author on the study Margie L. Clapper, PhD, co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase. "The most exciting thing for us was to be able to track these tumors and for the first time distinguish between prevention and chemotherapy, and to show that one agent is maybe effective in both settings if used appropriately, or in this case, in combination with another agent."

Past studies in animals have shown that colorectal tumors can be suppressed by combined treatment with two drugs: a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory compound called sulindac and a cholesterol-lowering medication called atorvastatinwhose brand name is Lipitor. But in those studies, tumors were induced in an unnatural waythrough exposure to carcinogenic chemicalswhereas in humans, cancer often has genetic origins.

To evaluate the effectiveness of sulindac and atorvastatin in an animal model more relevant to humans, Chang, Clapper and their colleagues used a unique mouse that had genetic alterations that cause them to develop multiple colorectal adenomas, without exposure to carcinogens. "No one had previously tested the effectiveness of this drug combination against colorectal cancer originating from alterations in the genome," Clapper says. "In some ways, using this type of preclinical tumor model represents a new paradigm for doing prevention studies and therapeutic studies."

In the new study, the researchers treated the mice with either drug alone or in combination for 100 days and used colonoscopic examinations to evaluate the presence and size of tumors before and after treatment. In mice that had tumors prior to treatment, only combination therapy reduced the number of adenomas in the colon by the end of the treatment period.

The results were strikingly different in mice that were tumor-free when treatment began. In these mice, exposure to atorvastatin alone or in combination with sulindac resulted in about a three-fold increase in the percentage of mice that were tumor-free by the end of the treatment period. Among these mice, 44 percent of those treated with atorvastatin alone and 30 percent of those treated with both drugs did not develop tumors, compared with 13 percent of mice that received no treatment and nine percent that received sulindac alone. Moreover, atorvastatin treatment completely inhibited the formation of microscopic adenomas in these mice.

The findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of the two drugs at preventing and treating colorectal adenomas depends on whether tumors are present prior to the onset of treatment. "Based on this study, we're able to say that if you don't have a tumor to begin with, maybe Lipitor is best, but if you do have a tumor to begin with, you need the combination therapy," Chang says. "We can start to tailor clinical care based upon the disease state as well as the establishment of tumors."

Moving forward, the researchers plan to study the specific genetic alterations in this particular mouse model, with the goal of identifying molecular pathways that could be targeted with therapies.

###

Co-authors on the study include Christina M. Ferrara, Stacy L. Mosier, Harry S. Cooper, Karthik Devarajan, Harvey Hensley, and Tianyu Li of Fox Chase. This research was supported by NIH R21CA129467.

Fox Chase Cancer Center, part of Temple University Health System, is one of the leading cancer research and treatment centers in the United States. Founded in 1904 in Philadelphia as one of the nation's first cancer hospitals, Fox Chase also was among the first institutions to receive the National Cancer Institute's prestigious comprehensive cancer center designation in 1974. Fox Chase researchers have won the highest awards in their fields, including two Nobel Prizes. Fox Chase physicians are routinely recognized in national rankings, and the Center's nursing program has achieved Magnet status for excellence three consecutive times. Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical research and oversees programs in cancer prevention, detection, survivorship, and community outreach. For more information, call 1-888-FOX-CHASE (1-888-369-2427) or visit http://www.foxchase.org.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/fccc-dd040213.php

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