Ads are spin, of course, and the NFL?s spin here is unambiguous: that it has for decades done and continues to do everything possible to protect the health and welfare of its players. Facing a wave of lawsuits by retired players over concussions and related brain injuries that question what the NFL knew and when it knew it?some of which were consolidated in federal court in Philadelphia on Tuesday?the league is combating the perception it has callously sent its players to slaughter. It also needs to protect its brand and the future of the sport. In that regard, the most telling quotation in the Times story comes from the NFL?s chief marketing officer, Mark Waller, who says player safety is ?probably one of the most important topics for casual fans, particularly mothers.? I added the italics, because if mom thinks football is crazy dangerous, she?s not going to let her son play, and if enough sons don?t play, football loses popularity, and if football loses popularity?you get the picture. Mom may not be reading websites that track catastrophic football injuries, but she will be watching the Super Bowl.
DANA POINT, California (AP) ? Twitter CEO Dick Costolo sought to calm the global outrage over the company's new country-by-country censorship policy, complaining in part that the issue is being treated with the same kind of shorthand that has made Twitter popular.
Speaking at the All Things D conference on Monday, Costolo repeated the company's justification for the policy change it announced last week: By taking down tweets only in the country where Twitter believes they may have violated local laws, it is making sure the maximum 140-character-long messages are still available to the rest of the world.
Twitter's reasoning has been mostly lost in a barrage of comments ? many from Twitter users themselves ? that the company is caving into attacks on free speech, especially in countries with repressive regimes.
"It's a super complex issue," Costolo said. "When the news came out, people tried to distill it down to, 'What did they just say?' It's easy to distill it down to 'Twitter is endorsing XYZ.'"
"It takes a while for the scholars and the people who study these matters to weigh in and start to say, 'Wait, this is actually a thoughtful and honest approach to doing this and it's in fact being done in a way that's forward-looking.' So we wait for that to happen," he added.
The complaint about knee-jerk responses to complex issues is somewhat ironic given that the company's meteoric growth has been fueled often by buzz-worthy but flippant comments.
Costolo also emphasized that if Twitter reacts to take-down requests, it will make public the reasons a tweet is being removed. The company already has 45 people who respond to such requests, including those from copyright holders of music or movies in the United States.
He said the policy wouldn't affect its stance toward China or Iran, where the service is already blocked completely.
"I don't think the current environment in China is one in which we think we could operate," he said.
Costolo spoke just days before Facebook is expected to file the paperwork necessary for an initial public offering of stock, a move that is likely to make initial investors and employees in the company rich.
San Francisco-based Twitter also faces the same securities regulations that are forcing Facebook to go public ? a rule that says companies with more than $10 million in assets and more than 500 shareholders of a certain class of stock must disclose their financial results and other details.
Twitter, which was founded in 2006, will bump up against the rule "at some point," Costolo said. But he added he would rather spend time building value at the company than dealing with such issues.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? It's no secret that during Hollywood's awards season, complex character roles often get overlooked in favor of more uplifting performances. But when Martin Scorsese saw such a slight befall his "Hugo" star, he was not about to slink away with his tail between his legs.
The esteemed filmmaker took a stand and barked loudly for that actor -- and now Blackie the Doberman is at the center of a heated award campaign.
In an op-ed piece in Sunday's Los Angeles Times, Scorsese -- whose 3D adventure "Hugo" leads this year's Academy Awards race with 11 nominations -- voiced his outrage over the Doberman pinscher's omission from nominations for the inaugural Golden Collar Awards.
"How could she not be nominated?" he wrote, noting the two nods -- two! -- for the plucky little terrier Uggie of "The Artist" fame. (Notably, the silent movie romance is second only to "Hugo" in Oscar nods with 10.)
Oh, the injustice.
So Scorsese -- he of "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" fame -- took the matter one step further, urging a write-in campaign for Blackie.
Dog News Daily, the online magazine behind the Golden Collars, took up the gauntlet Sunday, inviting fans of Blackie to make their preference known.
"We will do what Mr. Scorsese so eloquently requests of the LA Times readers as well as fans of HUGO and Dobermans everywhere," the site's editors wrote. "If Blackie receives 500 write-in 'NOMINATE HUGO'S BLACKIE' posts by Monday, February 6th on Dog News Daily's FACEBOOK PAGE then the Golden Collar nominating committee will request that the panel of 14 judges add HUGO'S BLACKIE as the 6th Nominee in the Best Dog in a Theatrical Film category."
Should Blackie be added to the ballot, she'll be competing with Uggie, arguably this year's highest-profile canine. The Jack Russell terrier received his Golden Collar nominations for performances in both "The Artist" and "Water for Elephants."
Uggie, too, is at the center of a social media campaign, instigated by Moveline on Facebook to urge an Oscar nod for the terrier.
In the campaign for Blackie, hardly a whimper. Until now. The muzzles are off and the dog race is on.
Also vying for top dog at the February 13 Golden Collars are Cosmo ("Beginners"), Denver ("50/50") and Hummer ("Young Adult"). But Scorsese is mad about Blackie.
In his op-ed piece, Scorsese pointed out the dynamics working against actors of the Doberman persuasion. "Jack Russell terriers are small and cute," Scorsese reminded readers. "Dobermans are enormous and -- handsome. More tellingly, Uggie plays a nice little mascot who does tricks and saves his master's life in one of the films, while Blackie gives an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorizes children. I'm sure you can see what I'm driving at.
"We all have fond memories of Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, the big stars, the heroes, but what about the antiheroes? We have learned to accept the human antihero, but when it comes to dogs, I guess we still have a long way to go."
(Reporting by Sheri Linden; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
A new University of Colorado Boulder-led study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century.
According to the new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self- perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to CU-Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. The primary evidence comes from radiocarbon dates from dead vegetation emerging from rapidly melting icecaps on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, combined with ice and sediment core data from the poles and Iceland and from sea ice climate model simulations, said Miller.
While scientific estimates regarding the onset of the Little Ice Age range from the 13th century to the 16th century, there is little consensus, said Miller. There is evidence the Little Ice Age affected places as far away as South America and China, although it was particularly evident in northern Europe. Advancing glaciers in mountain valleys destroyed towns, and famous paintings from the period depict people ice skating on the Thames River in London and canals in the Netherlands, waterways that were ice-free in winter before and after the Little Ice Age.
"The dominant way scientists have defined the Little Ice Age is by the expansion of big valley glaciers in the Alps and in Norway," said Miller. "But the time it took for European glaciers to advance far enough to demolish villages would have been long after the onset of the cold period," said Miller, a fellow at CU's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
Most scientists think the Little Ice Age was caused either by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of both, said Miller.
The new study suggests that the onset of the Little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions. Climate models used in the new study showed that the persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a sea ice-ocean feedback system originating in the North Atlantic Ocean.
"This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age," said Miller. "We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time. If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period -- in this case, from volcanic eruptions -- there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect."
A paper on the subject is being published Jan. 31 in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The paper was authored by scientists and students from CU-Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the University of Iceland, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Science Foundation.
As part of the study, Miller and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact collected from beneath receding ice margins of ice caps on Baffin Island. There was a large cluster of "kill dates" between A.D. 1275 and 1300, indicating the plants had been frozen and engulfed by ice during a relatively sudden event.
Both low-lying and higher altitude plants all died at roughly the same time, indicating the onset of the Little Ice Age on Baffin Island -- the fifth largest island in the world -- was abrupt. The team saw a second spike in plant kill dates at about A.D. 1450, indicating the quick onset of a second major cooling event.
To broaden the study, the team analyzed sediment cores from a glacial lake linked to the 367-square-mile Langj?kull ice cap in the central highlands of Iceland that reaches nearly a mile high. The annual layers in the cores -- which can be reliably dated by using tephra deposits from known historic volcanic eruptions on Iceland going back more than 1,000 years -- suddenly became thicker in the late 13th century and again in the 15th century due to increased erosion caused by the expansion of the ice cap as the climate cooled, he said.
"That showed us the signal we got from Baffin Island was not just a local signal, it was a North Atlantic signal," said Miller. "This gave us a great deal more confidence that there was a major perturbation to the Northern Hemisphere climate near the end of the 13th century." Average summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere did not return to those of the Middle Ages until the 20th century, and the temperatures of the Middle Ages are now exceeded in many areas, he said.
The team used the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model to test the effects of volcanic cooling on Arctic sea ice extent and mass. The model, which simulated various sea ice conditions from about A.D. 1150-1700, showed several large, closely spaced eruptions could have cooled the Northern Hemisphere enough to trigger Arctic sea ice growth.
The models showed sustained cooling from volcanoes would have sent some of the expanding Arctic sea ice down along the eastern coast of Greenland until it eventually melted in the North Atlantic. Since sea ice contains almost no salt, when it melted the surface water became less dense, preventing it from mixing with deeper North Atlantic water. This weakened heat transport back to the Arctic and creating a self-sustaining feedback system on the sea ice long after the effects of the volcanic aerosols subsided, he said.
"Our simulations showed that the volcanic eruptions may have had a profound cooling effect," says NCAR scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study. "The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries."
The researchers set the solar radiation at a constant level in the climate models, and Miller said the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. "Estimates of the sun's variability over time are getting smaller, it's now thought by some scientists to have varied little more in the last millennia than during a standard 11-year solar cycle," he said.
One of the primary questions pertaining to the Little Ice Age is how unusual the warming of Earth is today, he said. A previous study led by Miller in 2008 on Baffin Island indicated temperatures today are the warmest in at least 2,000 years.
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University of Colorado at Boulder: http://www.colorado.edu/news
Thanks to University of Colorado at Boulder for this article.
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Polly Nelson of the Woodland Food Closet, center, accepts a $540 donation from Goose, right, with Delores Blake and Sophie, left, with Ginny Day. For several years, students of The Cultured Canine, owned by Blake, have collected money to make a holiday donation to a pet-related charity. This year?s beneficiary is the Woodland Food Closet, which has been soliciting businesses for donations of pet food in an effort to keep struggling families and their pets together in tough economic times. The donation will help support those efforts. The Cultured Canine offers obedience and agility classes, private training and pet-sitting services. For more information, call (530) 574-5689. Wayne Tilcock/Enterprise photo
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=131266
View this story on page A6 Posted by Wayne Tilcock on Jan 29 2012. Last Login: Sat Jan 21 16:52:56 2012 Filed under Animals, Local News, Woodland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
COMMENTARY | According to the Associated Press, President Barack Obama is upset with colleges and universities that have been raising their tuition rates, forcing an increasing number of students into debt as college degrees are worth less in a down economy. He has threatened to cut federal dollars for these schools and transfer the money to schools that offer good education for a reasonable price.
That rising tuition is a problem is undeniable. With the weak job market oversaturated with college graduates, degrees are worth less and less while remaining indispensable -- twentysomethings cannot hope for a shot at a middle class lifestyle unless they nab a diploma. Knowing that high school graduates cannot hope for middle class security without a term of stay at college, colleges have teens by the short hairs: They can charge more each semester, and everyone has no choice but to pay.
And if all colleges raise their prices similarly, it makes no point to contemplate a transfer. Students might as well grin and bear it as they write checks, grimly hoping the economy improves and their degree is worth something by the time they walk across the graduation stage.
Despite being able to engage in abusive tuition-raising at will, institutions of higher education are consistently protected by the fact that hurting schools will hurt students. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a critic of Obama's tough talk, said shifting federal dollars from universities hurts the students it is meant to help.
Aye, the old rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma: You can't put the squeeze on universities today to get them to change their tuition-raising ways so nothing changes tomorrow. Every time you get ready to teach a well-deserved lesson to those in corrupt ivory towers, you are lambasted as a tyrant who is harming innocent kids. To avoid looking like an anti-education Neanderthal you must spare the fiscal rod and spoil the college president child.
The catch-22 scenario afflicting attempts to rein in tuition abuse at colleges and universities is also seen in other areas, particularly military spending. If you try to cut military spending you risk being attacked as an unpatriotic coward who is risking the lives of brave American soldiers by denying young men sufficient body armor and weaponry. Therefore, you can never deny the Pentagon the funds it desires, lest you be seen as willing to send young Americans to their deaths.
Chickpeas and spinach bring big health benefits to this hearty one-pan meal. Cumin, chili powder, garlic and onion bring big flavor.
This meal wasn?t going to be a post. It was just meant to be dinner. But suddenly, the kitchen was smelling heavenly (assuming there?s cumin in heaven, and I certainly hope so). And when I served the chops and spooned the chickpea spinach mixture next to them, the plates looked really inviting. So before cutting into my chop, I had Marion taste hers. She smiled and nodded, and here we are.
Skip to next paragraph Terry Boyd
Terry Boyd is the author of Blue Kitchen, a Chicago-based food blog for home cooks. His simple, eclectic cooking focuses on fresh ingredients, big flavors and a cheerful willingness to borrow ideas and techniques from all over the world. A frequent contributor to the Chicago Sun-Times, he writes weekly food pieces for cable station USA Network's Character Approved Blog. His recipes have also appeared on the Bon App?tit and Saveur websites.
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This particular dish came together because we?ve been eating too much chicken. We love chicken, but even for us, there?s been a lot of it. So when I saw a nice looking pair of pork chops in the grocery store, I grabbed them. My first thought for sides were mashed potatoes and a salad, quick and easy. But we?ve been doing those a lot lately too.?
So I asked myself what we hadn?t been doing lately. Chickpeas immediately came to mind. These delicious, nutty-tasting beans are packed with proteins and other nutrients. No wonder they?ve spread from their Middle Eastern beginnings to tables all over the world.
I love cooking like this, by the way, making up the dish as I shop. After picking up a can of chickpeas, I headed back to the produce department for some spinach, another nutrient powerhouse. Onion and garlic would round out the produce for this meal. For the spices, I would go with salt, pepper, lots of cumin, a little chili powder and, to heat things up on a winter night, some cayenne pepper. Heading for the checkout, I could already smell and taste everything coming together.
Pork Chops with Chickpeas, Spinach and Cumin ?Serves 2 (can easily be doubled)
2 bone-in pork chops, about 1-inch thick and 8 ounces each ?1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin ?1/2 teaspoon chili powder ?1/4? teaspoon cayenne pepper ?olive oil ?4 to 5 cups loosely packed baby spinach (about 3 ounces) ?salt and freshly ground black pepper ?1 medium yellow onion, sliced ?2 cloves garlic, minced ?1 15-1/2-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed ?1/2 cup reduced sodium chicken broth (or water)
About 1/2 hour before cooking, let chops come to room temperature on a plate on the kitchen counter. (Don?t leave them in their package, especially if they?re on a Styrofoam tray ? its insulating properties will keep them too chilled.)
Mix the cumin, chili powder and cayenne pepper in a small bowl. Set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, lidded skillet over medium flame. When the oil is shimmering, add the spinach in handfuls, tossing to coat with oil. When all the spinach is incorporated, remove the pan from heat and cover. Let stand for 3 to 5 minutes; the spinach will wilt and condense greatly in volume.
Meanwhile, pat chops dry with paper towel and season on both sides with salt, pepper and half of the cumin mixture. Gently press the seasonings into the chops. Transfer the wilted spinach to a bowl with a slotted spoon and set aside. Wipe the pan clean with paper towels and heat 2 more tablespoons of oil over medium flame. Saut? chops for 5 minutes on one side, tilting the pan occasionally to make sure they stay in contact with oil and don?t scorch. Turn chops and cook for another 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add onion to pan, drizzling in more oil, if needed. Cook for about 4 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning or browning too much; reduce heat slightly, if necessary. When onions are just softening and turning translucent, add garlic to pan and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add chickpeas to pan, sprinkle with remaining cumin mixture and stir to combine. Add chicken broth or water to pan. Nestle chops among chickpeas, adding any accumulated juices, cover pan and reduce heat to low. Cook until chops are just cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. An instant read thermometer should read 145 degrees F when inserted in the thickest part of the chop (avoid touching bone with the thermometer).
Transfer chops to a plate and tent with foil. Add spinach to skillet and toss to combine. Cook until spinach is just heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Adjust seasonings. Plate chops and spoon chickpea spinach mixture alongside. Serve.
Related post: Turkish Style Red Lentil Soup with Chard
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It's an Apple patent application: please be aware this is unlikely to wind up in your next device, please fasten seat belts and fix your tray table in the fixed and upright position. Inside the bezel of your iDevice or Mac is a magnet that operates a switch -- that will only be activated when a "correlated" magnet inside a key-fob makes contact. That's the thinking behind Cupertino's newest patent application, attempting to turn magnets into a way of keeping your stuff secure. An example listed in the patent is using a stylus with specially encoded magnets to securely unlock an iPad, which we attribute to a zealous patent attorney and not a reversal of the "they blew it" rule. It may sound ridiculous when you first consider it, but given the magnetic-activation of the iPad 2's smart cover, it's not as outlandish as you believe. Still, we'll believe it if we see it in a couple of years.
Thanks for taking your time to read this, I've been waiting for you.
The term epic has became popular a few years ago and nowadays its over used. In regards to collaborative storytelling, an epic requires ambition and planning, and since it's not a one man enterprise all parties involved should have these qualities/skills.
You could reply to this saying yes, I'm ambitious and I can plan stuff but how about we have a one on one and we see if you really are?
What to roleplay then? I play pretty much anything so I think it would be easier to tell you what I don't do.
Cliches. I've rped a whole lot, so sometimes are plain boring to me because I've done them before. However if you have a fresh new approach to old ideas we can give them a try. Ideas like Underworld, High Fantasy Kingdoms and Highschool.
Twilight. I wasted hours of my life I'm not getting back reading that crap, luckily I didn't read the whole trilogy. I do understand the appeal though, to be loved and protected by something dangerous. We could do that, but no Twilight.
Zombies stink and I'm too much of a chauvinistic womanizer to play m/m, f/f is okay though. *Shrugs* I'm honest about it.
The more the parties involved communicate with each other and the more they know about each other the smoother the RP goes. So feel free to send me a PM and we can move to IMs and talk things out.
Maybe this thread can tell you more about me, if you are interested. http://www.roleplaygateway.com/introduction-invitation-t67306.html
With the iPad 3 due to be announced in a matter of weeks, Adam Lashinsky has shed some light on Apple's extreme secrecy leading up to a product launch.
Lashinsky's book, Inside Apple, was released on January 25 and offers a never-before-seen insight into how Apple operates and how the company faces a future without its co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs.
"Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office buildings," Lashinsky writes. "New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place."
Windows are frosted, some 'lockdown rooms' have no windows at all, select employees' electronic ID cards will no longer grant access to where they once did and operations are run strictly on a need to know basis.
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If the ever growing mountain of rumours and speculation surrounding the iPad 3 is to be believed, then the device is ready for release, will be announced by Apple in February and will go on sale in either March or early April.
Expected to feature a faster processor and a super-high resolution Retina display, the iPad 3 will not be a huge update, it will be to the iPad 2 what the iPhone 4S was to the 4, an evolution not a revolution, but one which will no doubt see the world's media pay close attention and lead to fans queuing up for hours to buy one.
Lashinsky - who spoke to countless former Apple employees while writing the book - continues: "You quite likely have no idea what is going on, and it's not like you're going to ask. If it hasn't been disclosed to you, then it's literally none of your business.
"All you can surmise is that a new, highly secretive project is under way, and you are not in the know. End of."
The borderline absurdity of Apple's secrecy is not lost on the company however, as the retail store at its Cupertino headquarters sells t-shirts with the message "I visited the Apple campus. But that's all I'm allowed to say."
Aside from the occasional blurry photograph of what claims to be a component of the iPad 3, everyone but select Apple employees are completely in the dark about the next generation tablet.
Even employees joining the company are hired in secrecy and, according to Lashinsky, "many employees are hired into so-called dummy positions, roles that aren't explained in details until after they join the company."
Apple will release an updated iPad and it will probably appear soon but, despite the never-ending torrent of rumour and gossip from sources who might as well be called Mr X, all anyone knows for sure is that Apple can create a whirlwind of hype and speculation by saying absolutely nothing.
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Valve has released Steam Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch into the App Store. Sort of. It is available to download and install on your iOS device, but unfortunately you need to be part of a limited beta to actually begin to use it. We are sure this will change fairly soon but it is very frustrating for those gamers that use Steam and want to use the app now.
DAVOS, Switzerland ? The founder of Wikipedia has hailed the online encyclopedia's role in helping halt U.S. legislation aimed at cracking down on Internet piracy.
Jimmy Wales told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that the idea to black out Wikipedia's English pages for 24 hours came from the site's volunteer editors, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move.
Wales says the two bills that Congress postponed indefinitely last week were "very badly designed, technologically incompetent, and just something that we felt needed to be stopped."
Wikipedia was among a number of sites that argued the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act would hurt technological innovation and infringe on free-speech rights.
(Reuters) ? Carnival Corp, whose luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Italy, was sued by a crew member in a first of what may be multiple U.S. lawsuits seeking class-action status over the disaster, court documents show.
Lawyers for Gary Lobaton, who was a crew member on board the Costa Concordia, said in a court filing that he was not aware of the "dangerous conditions" of the cruise ship until it was too late to abandon the ship.
The lawsuit sought to determine whether Carnival deviated from international safety standards when operating the cruise ship.
"Costa Concordia's Captain, Francesco Schettino, delayed the order to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats," Lobaton's lawyers said in the filing.
Lobaton, who sued Carnival individually and on behalf of all others similarly affected by the cruise disaster, had sought damages from the company, according to the court filing.
Lobaton had also requested the court to assign class-action status to the lawsuit.
The 114,500-tonne ship capsized off the Tuscan coast, which left 11 people dead and 22 missing.
According to a January 24 BBC report, the number of dead has risen to 16.
Carnival could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.
The case is Gary Lobaton vs Carnival Corp, Case No. 1:12-cv-00598, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues, says Texas A&M marine expertPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Keith Randall keith-randall@tamu.edu 979-845-4644 Texas A&M University
GALVESTON, Jan. 26, 2012 Discoveries made in some underwater caves by Texas &M University at Galveston researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons.
Tom Iliffe, professor of marine biology at the Texas A&M-Galveston campus, and graduate student Brett Gonzalez of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., examined three "blue holes" in the Bahamas and found that layers of bacterial microbes exists in all three, but each cave had specialized forms of such life and at different depths, suggesting that microbial life in such caves is continually adapting to changes in available light, water chemistry and food sources. Their work, also done in conjunction with researchers from Penn State University, has been published in Hydrobiologia.
"Blue holes" are so named because from an aerial view, they appear circular in shape with different shades of blue in and around their entrances. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 such caves in the Bahamas, the largest concentration of blue holes in the world.
'We examined two caves on Abaco Island and one on Andros Island," Iliffe explains. "One on Abaco, at a depth of about 100 feet, had sheets of bacteria that were attached to the walls of the caves, almost one inch thick. Another cave on the same island had bacteria living within poisonous clouds of hydrogen sulfide at the boundary between fresh and salt water. These caves had different forms of bacteria, with the types and density changing as the light source from above grew dimmer and dimmer.
"In the cave on Andros, we expected to find something similar, but the hydrogen sulfide layer there contained different types of bacteria," he adds. "It shows that the caves tend to have life forms that adapt to that particular habitat, and we found that some types of the bacteria could live in environments where no other forms of life could survive. This research shows how these bacteria have evolved over millions of years and have found a way to live under these extreme conditions."
Iliffe says the microbes change where the salt water meets fresh water within the caves and use chemical energy to produce their food. They can survive in environments with very low amounts of oxygen and light.
There are tens of thousands of underwater caves scattered around the world, but less than 5 percent of these have ever been explored and scientifically investigated, Iliffe notes.
"These bacterial forms of life may be similar to microbes that existed on early Earth and thus provide a glimpse of how life evolved on this planet," he adds. "These caves are natural laboratories where we can study life existing under conditions analogous to what was present many millions of years ago.
"We know more about the far side of the moon than we do about these caves right here on Earth," he adds. "There is no telling what remains to be discovered in the many thousands of caves that no one has ever entered. If life exists elsewhere in our solar system, it most likely would be found in water-filled subterranean environments, perhaps equivalent to those we are studying in the Bahamas."
Over the past 30 years, Iliffe has discovered several hundred species of marine life, and has probably explored more underwater caves at least 1,500 than anyone in the world, examining such caves in Australia, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and North Atlantic regions of the world.
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More can be learned from his website at http://www.cavebiology.com .
About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world's leading research institutions, Texas A&M is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represents an annual investment of more than $630 million, which ranks third nationally for universities without a medical school, and underwrites approximately 3,500 sponsored projects. That research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.
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Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues, says Texas A&M marine expertPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Keith Randall keith-randall@tamu.edu 979-845-4644 Texas A&M University
GALVESTON, Jan. 26, 2012 Discoveries made in some underwater caves by Texas &M University at Galveston researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons.
Tom Iliffe, professor of marine biology at the Texas A&M-Galveston campus, and graduate student Brett Gonzalez of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., examined three "blue holes" in the Bahamas and found that layers of bacterial microbes exists in all three, but each cave had specialized forms of such life and at different depths, suggesting that microbial life in such caves is continually adapting to changes in available light, water chemistry and food sources. Their work, also done in conjunction with researchers from Penn State University, has been published in Hydrobiologia.
"Blue holes" are so named because from an aerial view, they appear circular in shape with different shades of blue in and around their entrances. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 such caves in the Bahamas, the largest concentration of blue holes in the world.
'We examined two caves on Abaco Island and one on Andros Island," Iliffe explains. "One on Abaco, at a depth of about 100 feet, had sheets of bacteria that were attached to the walls of the caves, almost one inch thick. Another cave on the same island had bacteria living within poisonous clouds of hydrogen sulfide at the boundary between fresh and salt water. These caves had different forms of bacteria, with the types and density changing as the light source from above grew dimmer and dimmer.
"In the cave on Andros, we expected to find something similar, but the hydrogen sulfide layer there contained different types of bacteria," he adds. "It shows that the caves tend to have life forms that adapt to that particular habitat, and we found that some types of the bacteria could live in environments where no other forms of life could survive. This research shows how these bacteria have evolved over millions of years and have found a way to live under these extreme conditions."
Iliffe says the microbes change where the salt water meets fresh water within the caves and use chemical energy to produce their food. They can survive in environments with very low amounts of oxygen and light.
There are tens of thousands of underwater caves scattered around the world, but less than 5 percent of these have ever been explored and scientifically investigated, Iliffe notes.
"These bacterial forms of life may be similar to microbes that existed on early Earth and thus provide a glimpse of how life evolved on this planet," he adds. "These caves are natural laboratories where we can study life existing under conditions analogous to what was present many millions of years ago.
"We know more about the far side of the moon than we do about these caves right here on Earth," he adds. "There is no telling what remains to be discovered in the many thousands of caves that no one has ever entered. If life exists elsewhere in our solar system, it most likely would be found in water-filled subterranean environments, perhaps equivalent to those we are studying in the Bahamas."
Over the past 30 years, Iliffe has discovered several hundred species of marine life, and has probably explored more underwater caves at least 1,500 than anyone in the world, examining such caves in Australia, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and North Atlantic regions of the world.
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More can be learned from his website at http://www.cavebiology.com .
About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world's leading research institutions, Texas A&M is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represents an annual investment of more than $630 million, which ranks third nationally for universities without a medical school, and underwrites approximately 3,500 sponsored projects. That research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. ? The first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years means most offerings ? including the always popular pizza ? will come with less sodium, more whole grains and a wider selection of fruits and vegetables on the side.
First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new guidelines during a visit Wednesday with elementary students. Mrs. Obama, also joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, said youngsters will learn better if they don't have growling stomachs at school.
"As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet," Mrs. Obama said. "And when we're putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria."
After the announcement, the three went through the line with students and ate turkey tacos with brown rice, black bean and corn salad and fruit ? all Ray's recipes ? with the children in the Parklawn Elementary lunchroom.
Under the new rules, pizza won't disappear from lunch lines, but will be made with healthier ingredients. Entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.
Despite the improvements, the new rules aren't as aggressive as the Obama administration had hoped. Congress last year blocked the Agriculture Department from making some of the desired changes, including limiting french fries and pizzas.
A bill passed in November would require the department to allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The initial draft of the department's guidelines, released a year ago, would have prevented that. Congress also blocked the department from limiting servings of potatoes to two servings a week. The final rules have incorporated those directions from Congress.
Among those who had sought the changes were potato growers and food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools. Conservatives in Congress called the guidelines an overreach and said the government shouldn't tell children what to eat. School districts also objected to some of the requirements, saying they go too far and would cost too much.
The guidelines apply to lunches subsidized by the federal government. A child nutrition bill signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 will help school districts pay for some of the increased costs. Some of the changes will take place as soon as this September; others will be phased in over time.
While many schools are improving meals already, others still serve children meals high in fat, salt and calories. The guidelines are designed to combat childhood obesity and are based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
Vilsack said food companies are reformulating many of the foods they sell to schools in anticipation of the changes.
"The food industry is already responding," he said. "This is a movement that has started, it's gaining momentum."
Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, which represents school lunch workers, said that many schools won't count pizza as a vegetable even though they can. Students qualifying for subsidized meals must have a certain number of vegetables and other nutritious foods on their lunch trays.
"Most schools are serving fruit or vegetables next to their pizza and some schools are even allowing unlimited servings of fruit or vegetables," Pratt-Heavner said.
Celebrity chef Ray said she thinks too much has been made of the availability of pizza and French fries. The new rules will make kids' lunch plates much more nutrient dense, she said.
"The overall picture is really good," she said. "This is a big deal."
The subsidized meals that would fall under the guidelines are served as free and low-cost meals to low-income children and long have been subject to government nutrition standards. The 2010 law will extend, for the first time, nutrition standards to other foods sold in schools that aren't subsidized by the federal government. That includes "a la carte" foods on the lunch line and snacks in vending machines.
Those standards, while expected to be similar, will be written separately and have not yet been proposed by the department.
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Online:
USDA school lunch rules: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/Legislation/nutritionstandards.htm
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Find Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Bacteria that resist nearly all antibiotics have been found in seawater off Antarctic research stations, probably arriving there through human sewage
DIY smear test works for cervical cancer
A do-it-yourself smear test could enable millions of women in poorer countries to head off cervical cancer
Stretching spider silk to its high-tech limits
The marvellous stuff that spiders and silkworms make has a big future in technologies from artificial corneas to brain implants, as Jessica Griggs finds out
Newt 'Lightyear' Gingrich promises moon base by 2020
Newt Gingrich says he will get a moon base built by the end of 2020 if he is elected president - he faces a few tricky hurdles
Frack responsibly and risks - and quakes - are small
If fracking operations are managed properly the risk of accidents will be small, says Mike Stephenson
Dating in the multiverse
Would your current partner be your true love in another universe? A new play explores the twists and turns a relationship can take across parallel universes
Fight over changing constants reaches stalemate
What was supposed to be a superweapon in the battle to find out whether nature's fundamental constants vary has turned out to be a damp squib
Pinch-screen puts all your fingers in control
A tablet with a touch-sensitive back allows novel control gestures with the device sandwiched between thumb and fingers
Sky shimmers after solar storm
Particles raining down on Earth's poles yesterday created spectacular auroral displays
FBI releases plans to monitor social networks
Federal law enforcement officials have asked contractors to build software that would watch for signs of criminal activity
DNA sequencing quickly identifies metabolic diseases
Metabolic diseases are difficult to diagnose - now DNA sequencing has been used for the first time to speed up the process
Environmental fears may scupper Obama's energy vision
US energy independence was a major theme of President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address - fears over fracking may stand in the way
TEHRAN, Iran ? Iran's parliament will begin debating a draft bill requiring the government to immediately halt oil exports to Europe, a prominent lawmaker said Wednesday, as Tehran weighs its options following the European Union's decision to stop importing oil from the country.
The EU embargo, announced on Monday, was the latest attempt to try to pressure Iran over a nuclear program the United States and its allies argue is aimed at developing nuclear weapons but which Iran says is for purely peaceful purposes. It came just weeks after the U.S. approved, but has yet to enact, new sanctions targeting Iran's Central Bank and, by extension, its ability to sell its oil.
Many Iranian lawmakers and officials have called for an immediate ban on oil exports to the European bloc before its ban fully goes into effect in July, arguing that the 27 EU nations account for only about 18 percent of Iran's overall oil sales and would be hurt more by the decision than Iran. China, a key buyer of Iranian crude, has blasted the embargo.
"The bill requires the government to stop selling oil to Europe before the start of European Union oil embargo against Iran," lawmaker Hasan Ghafourifard told the parliament's website, icana.ir. Debate on the bill is to begin on Sunday, he said.
The U.S. sanctions had outraged Iranian officials, prompting repeated threats from various officials that the country could shutter the vital Strait of Hormuz if measures are enacted that affect its oil exports. Roughly a fifth of the world oil passes through the narrow waterway, and the U.S. and others have warned Iran they will not allow it to impede the free flow of traffic in the area.
Iran is OPEC's fourth largest producer and most of its crude goes to Europe and Asia.
Iranian officials have said the sanctions will have no effect on the economy and they will find other willing buyers. Analysts and diplomats also have played down the likelihood that Iran will actually move to close the strait ? a step that could bring it into direct conflict with U.S. and other Western naval and ground forces stationed in and around the Persian Gulf.
"The door to dialogue remains open for Iran," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Berlin Wednesday. "But it also is clear that we in the world cannot accept Iran's government reaching for nuclear weapons. So the sanctions are necessary."
"If they are applied comprehensively and supported by as many as possible in the world, that makes the probability of success all the greater," Westerwelle said after meeting his Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd.
The sanctions debate comes at a time when the country's economy and currency are under increasing pressure following a series of other economic sanctions that already have been imposed.
The rial has shed about 50 percent of its value relative to the dollar over the past month, a decline that the central bank governor, in a moment of rare candor, attributed at least partially to the "psychological effects" of the U.S. sanctions. The currency, which was trading at 15,000 rials to the dollar on the black market at the start of the year, hit a record low of 22,000 rials to the U.S. currency by the weekend.
After weeks of criticism over his inaction, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad approved a decision by monetary authorities that would raise the interest rates on bank deposits to roughly 21 percent, the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting Economic Minister Shamseddin Hosseini.
The move was a reversal of his earlier opposition to the decision by Iran's Money and Credit Council that would have boosted the interest rates to a level above the inflation rate. Economists said such a step was crucial to absorbing market liquidity and buoying the rial.
Banks would be instructed to enact the new rates starting Thursday, Hosseini said.
The market reacted to the announcement immediately, with the rial trading at 19,000 rials to the dollar within hours of Hosseini's remarks.
Ahmadinejad's refusal to sign off on the council's decision stoked a rift between fiscal authorities and the president, with Central Bank Gov. Mahmoud Bahmani warning earlier in the month he may quit if the government continues to interfere in shaping monetary policies and does not approve an increase in bank deposit interest rates.
Bahmani was quoted on state television on Wednesday as saying that a single foreign currency rate will be offered within the next 48 hours as part of the central bank's measures to stabilize the currency exchange market.
Analysts say that the main reason behind the currency's depreciation was a decision to lower interest rates on one-year deposits to 14 percent from 17.5 percent. The rate cut prompted Iranians to pull their money out of banks and buy gold and foreign currency, instead.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Nancy Shevell, the American heiress married to former Beatle Paul McCartney, on Wednesday resigned from the board of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority where she served since 2001.
"In my 30-year professional career, this has been a highlight for me," Shevell told the board which oversees the New York area's bridges, tunnels and mass transit systems.
"Thank you so much. I am so very emotional and sad right now," she added. She did not give a reason for her decision to step aside.
Shevell, 52, told reporters that she and her husband, 70, one of the two remaining ex-Beatles, would divide their time between New York and London.
Shevell became McCartney's third wife on October 9, 2011. The independently wealthy Shevell, the daughter of a successful trucking company owner, was previously married and has a son.
McCartney's work schedule, meanwhile, remains busy as ever with his newest album "Kisses on the Bottom" due for release on February 7 and a performance planned for the London Olympics this summer.
You guys probably know this by now, but I was a fan of App Inventor. Watching my wife use it to create her own application just sucked me in, and I loved the whole idea of a way for anyone to make an Android app. When we heard that Google was shutting it down, I was sad, but the news that MIT was going to pick up the pieces and run with it lifted my spirits again. Recent news makes me even happier -- MIT and Google have released the full source-code for the service, and folks at MIT's Center for Mobile Learning have said that the public release of the re-vamped service is on track for an April release:
So far (knock on wood) our development effort is on track for releasing the MIT Public App Inventor Service in the first quarter of this year. While unexpected issues can always arise, we're guardedly optimistic that people who plan to run App Inventor courses or workshops can anticipate being able to use the MIT service by mid-April.
With the release of the source and the JAR files you have the choice of running your own local copy, or jumping in and using MIT's version once it goes live. See the links below for more information, and remember us if you give it a try and come up with your own app -- we'd love to check it out!
Paramount became the first studio to offer digital versions of UltraViolet-based movies this week, with the launch of Paramount Movies. With this new service, users can purchase a film in either digital or physical form, and automatically store a copy of it within Paramount's cloud-based digital locker. This effectively allows you to stream a film to any iOS device, though support for Android and Windows Phone remains unavailable (as does compatibility with most set-top boxes). It's all part of DECE's "buy once, play anywhere" ethos, though it should be noted that the studio's UV offerings are somewhat limited. At the moment, Paramount Movies boasts about 60 titles, all of which are available at comparatively steep prices: $20 for HD quality movies, and $13 for SD versions. Check it out for yourself at the source link below.
LONDON (Reuters) - For Daniel Radcliffe, it's time to forget Harry Potter. The 22-year-old actor, inextricably linked to the boy wizard he played throughout the movie franchise, takes on his first adult role in Victorian-era horror film "The Woman in Black."
Hitting theatres in Britain on February 10 and a week earlier in the United States, the movie is a step into the unknown for an actor who grew up on the set of one of Hollywood's most successful series.
Instead of production budgets of $250 million or more, The Woman in Black cost an estimated $17 million to make. And however big Radcliffe's fan base around the world, another billion-dollar box office looks out of the question.
James Watkins, who directed The Woman In Black, called it a "reinvention" for Radcliffe.
"I think it's the start of that, absolutely," Radcliffe told Reuters in an interview ahead of Tuesday's red carpet world premiere of the new movie.
One of the attractions of playing Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer and father mourning the death of his wife, was the obvious break with what went before.
"People haven't seen me looking like this before. People haven't seen me playing a father -- all those things are going to help separate it in their mind," Radcliffe said.
"But I think ultimately the thing that will help that reinvention is the fact that the story is so good. I think people will very quickly forget that they're watching Harry Potter."
CREEPY MANSION
In The Woman in Black, Kipps is forced to leave his three-year-old son and travel to a remote village on the east coast of England to look into the legal affairs of the recently deceased owner of Eel Marsh House, a creepy mansion cut off from the mainland when the tide rises.
He discovers a dark family secret that helps explain the appearance of a mysterious, ghost-like woman dressed in black who beckons children to an early grave.
The film is based on a novel by Susan Hill that was adapted into a successful West End play, still running in London.
Jane Goldman, who co-wrote the scripts for "Kick-Ass" and "The Debt," was brought in to translate the page to the big screen, and horror specialist Watkins directed.
Radcliffe said he did not think too hard about trying to be different from his Harry Potter character when he worked on the set of The Woman in Black and was pleased with the results.
"I think my work in this is certainly on a par with the work I did on the last Potter which I was very, very proud of."
He will soon discover if critics agree. Throughout the Harry Potter series Radcliffe earned mixed reviews, although any negative comments did nothing to deter record audiences.
And his two main stage roles -- "Equus" in 2007 and "How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" in 2011 were generally well-received, particularly Equus.
Looking ahead, Radcliffe said proving he was not a one-part wonder would take time.
"It's a long road. It's not going to be one film and suddenly you're off. It's going to be a combination."
That combination will involve both stage and screen.
"In an ideal world I would like to mix them as much as possible. In March I'm filming a movie called 'Kill Your Darlings' in which I'll be playing a 19-year-old Allen Ginsberg.
"That's the next thing on the plate and after that we'll see."
NASA's chief climate scientist built his career studying Earth's atmosphere and modeling humans' potential impacts on climate. Then he realized that laboratory work wasn't enough.
By Douglas Fischer
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January 24, 2012?|
Jim HansenImage: NASA
Editor's note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A's with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries.
James E. Hansen never thought his decision to study atmospheric models would lead to his arrest. But there he was in handcuffs this summer, protesting at the White House against a pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta's oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.
It wasn't the first arrest, either. Hansen, who has directed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies for 31 years, earned the sobriquet "father of global warming" after testifying before Congress in 1988 on the dangers of global warming. He appeared again in 1989. Then he quietly returned to his work, turning aside television and media requests for the next 15 years because, as he said, "you have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media."
That approach changed in 2004, when he realized government climate policies worldwide failed to reflect the dangerous story his science was telling. Emerging from his lab, Hansen attacked Bush Administration officials for censuring and watering down climate findings. In 2008 he testified in British court on behalf of the "Kingsnorth Six," a group of Greenpeace activists who successfully claimed their effort to shut down a power plant was justified under British law because it prevented the greater harm of climate change. In 2009 and 2010, Hansen was arrested protesting mountaintop-removal coal mining.
DailyClimate.org editor Douglas Fischer caught up with Hansen in December at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where the scientist previewed findings about impacts the world courts with its unslacked appetite for carbon-based fuels.
Question: Do you fear you have lost some of your scientific credibility by protesting at the coal plants or by becoming more of a voice in the climate debate?
Answer: If I was not publishing papers in the peer reviewed literature, then that would be a valid criticism. But I am still publishing. I'm trying to make that science clear to the public. It's not easy: The scientific evidence has really become very clear, and we're not doing a very good job of communicating that.
Q: Climate policy has become less a scientific question and more a cultural marker. How can science influence those values and attitudes?
A: We need to make clear to the public what's really going on. If they just listen to politicians, they don't understand the story because nothing is being done.
Q: Do reporters ever say, "Look, I can't touch you as a source because you're involved in 350.org or the coal plants or these protests"?
A: The fossil fuel industry and those who prefer business as usual ? they will use that. But look at my coauthors. I've got some of the best scientists in the world.
Q: Let's flip the question: Do scientists ever say, "Jim, I wish I could get out there the way you are, but I'm afraid, I don't have the support"?
A: There are consequences of becoming a target. Look at the people who have been the principal targets: Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Ben Santer. Their science has been confirmed. And yet (the attacks) took a toll on them. Of course that's going to cause other scientists not to step out.
Q: Failure to develop a climate policy isn't a fault of just one party or one person.
A: That's right, and that's not understood. If you say, "Democrats are the ones who favor doing something," look at the records of the last several administrations: Emissions increased fastest during the Clinton/Gore administration. And (Democrats) proposed a policy that is not going to do anything significant. It's designed by big banks and it favors big oil and big coal and big utilities.
Posted by Wayne Tilcock on Jan 29 2012. 
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012
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