Molecule treats leukemia by preventing cancer cell repair

Apr. 17, 2013 ? Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory have identified a molecule that prevents repair of some cancer cells, providing a potential new "genetic chemotherapy" approach to cancer treatment that could significantly reduce side effects and the development of treatment resistance compared with traditional chemotherapy.

In healthy people, white blood cells called B cells (or B lymphocytes) are a kind of sophisticated tool kit, making antibodies against pathogens or other invaders. In the process of antibody production, B cells turn on the gene known as activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), which acts as a sort of molecular scissors that cut the chromosomes within the B cell. This is needed to rearrange pieces of the B-cell chromosomes and produce different "flavors" of antibodies that do different jobs.

But in some cancers this process goes wrong, with AID acting out of control and creating mutations and chromosome rearrangements that make the tumor more aggressive.

Those AID-induced cancers proliferate with help from the cell-repair mechanism known as homologous recombination (HR). Researchers in the laboratory of Associate Professor Kevin Mills, Ph.D., identified a molecule called DIDS (for 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2-2'-disulfonic acid) that blocks the DNA repair action in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), causing the cancer cells to die.

"This treatment affects every cell in the body," Mills says. "But by its mode of action it kills only tumor cells that are expressing AID, yet it is almost entirely harmless to normal, healthy cells."

The research, published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, is the latest proof of principle for what Mills calls "genetic chemotherapy": using the mechanisms involved in genetic instability in cancer, to cause tumor cell self-destruction.

For the new paper, authors Kristin Lamont, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate, and Muneer Hasham, Ph.D. an associate research scientist, both in the Mills laboratory, tested DIDS in normal mouse cells, mouse cancer cells, human cancer cell lines and human primary cancers. "We collected 74 different primary patient CLL samples," Lamont says, "and measured AID expression in those samples. We found that about 40 percent of them express AID, and if we treated those with DIDS in vitro, the AID-expressing ones had significantly higher levels of DNA damage and died."

Mills adds, "Demonstrating that this works on primary cancer cells moves us one step closer to eventually testing this in patients." The DIDS treatment approach, Mills adds, also addresses the issues of side effects, a major problem with standard chemotherapy.

"By its selectivity for cancer cells, DIDS reduces the issue of the really nasty side effects associated with chemotherapy treatments," Mills explains.

Moreover, the list of cancers associated with aberrant AID expression is growing, so the treatment approach could apply not only to leukemia but also a range of other cancer types.

Mills' collaborators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York shared their expertise in DNA repair to understand the action of the DIDS molecule. "We hypothesized that the molecule would work as it did," Mills says, "but they helped us to determine exactly why and how it works."

Since the researchers submitted the paper for publication, they have developed a new and better potential treatment molecule. "One of our goals is to design an even better molecule," Mills says. "And we've done that. We now have a new molecule in that same class, that delivers significantly more potency, with just as much selectivity as the original molecule."

Cyteir Therapeutics, Inc. a startup biotechnology company founded by Mills in 2012, continues to pursue development of the new molecule for cancer therapy, while Dr. Mills and his team at Jackson will keep studying the cellular mechanisms, in the hope of finding yet more potential new cancer drugs. Cyteir Therapeutics is now ramping up the R&D efforts necessary to take the genetic chemotherapy treatment to clinical trials, possibly in 2014.

This work, which took place in The Jackson Laboratory's NCI-designated Cancer Center, was a collaboration with oncologists at Cancer Care of Maine, part of Eastern Maine Medical Care in Bangor, Maine, and the Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and Maine Medical Center Research Institute, both in Scarborough, Maine.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,450. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Jackson Laboratory.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. K. R. Lamont, M. G. Hasham, N. M. Donghia, J. Branca, M. Chavaree, B. Chase, A. Breggia, J. Hedlund, I. Emery, F. Cavallo, M. Jasin, J. Ruter, K. D. Mills. Attenuating homologous recombination stimulates an AID-induced antileukemic effect. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2013; DOI: 10.1084/jem.20121258

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/Ni3EwTkPLuI/130417105935.htm

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News in Brief: Some like it acidic

In a world of altered oceans, a shelled plankton species may flourish

By Puneet Kollipara

Web edition: April 17, 2013

Enlarge

Shelly Plants

Shell-creating plankton Emiliania huxleyi make smaller shells (shown) under present conditions than they may in a higher-carbon future, new research suggests.

Credit: Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

As carbon dioxide levels in the air rise and turn the oceans more acidic, some forms of life may thrive, not suffer. Shelled plankton could be resilient in higher-carbon conditions, new research finds.

Scientists had thought that higher ocean acidity would make it harder for plankton to create their calcium carbonate shells. Researchers led by Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez of the University of California, Santa Barbara studied how acidification would affect Emiliania huxleyi, single-celled aquatic plants that make shells called coccoliths. The shells? purpose is unclear, but they are fundamental parts of the organisms.

In the lab, the scientists grew the creatures in seawater with different amounts of CO₂ bubbled in, including one pool with air that, at 1,340 parts per million, had 3.4 times more CO₂ than today?s atmosphere. That carbon level simulates the atmosphere in 2300 if humans burn all Earth?s stores of fossil fuels.

Creatures in more acidic water made coccoliths that were about 17 percent longer than ones grown under current carbon conditions. Still, it wasn?t all good news: The cells grew a bit more slowly, the researchers report April 12 in PLOS ONE. The plankton could lose ground to faster growing species in a more acidic future.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349745/title/News_in_Brief_Some_like_it_acidic

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McQueary lawsuit against Penn State to go forward

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? A whistleblower and defamation lawsuit against Penn State will go forward, a judge ruled Tuesday, denying the university's request to have it dismissed.

Former assistant football coach Mike McQueary sued the school in October, claiming he was portrayed as untruthful in statements made in 2011 by the university's president after Jerry Sandusky's arrest.

Judge Thomas Gavin said McQueary's lawsuit makes sufficient claims of "outrageous conduct" on the part of the school to keep the case alive. He gave the school 20 days to respond to the lawsuit filed in October.

Penn State spokesman Dave La Torre declined to comment, and McQueary's lawyer Elliot Strokoff did not return a phone message seeking comment.

McQueary was a graduate assistant in February 2001 when he encountered Sandusky showering with a boy in a team locker room, complained about it to then-head coach Joe Paterno and then met with the two administrators about it.

Sandusky was first charged with child sexual abuse in November 2011. At the same time, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, administrators who worked under then-president Graham Spanier, were accused of perjury and failure to properly report suspected abuse.

McQueary testified against Sandusky in June during the criminal trial that ended with a 45-count guilty verdict against the former defensive coordinator. McQueary has lost his coaching job at the school.

McQueary's lawsuit involves a news release that Spanier issued in support of Curley and Schultz. Spanier gave the two his unconditional support and said he was confident the record would show the charges were groundless.

If the perjury charges against Curley and Schultz were groundless, Gavin wrote, "one cannot help but deduce that McQueary's contradictory testimony is untruthful."

The judge said McQueary asserts the university "treated him like a leper to be quarantined outside of State College" in the aftermath of the arrests of Sandusky, Schultz and Curley, isolating him from longstanding friends and colleagues.

Additional charges were added last year against Curley and Schultz, and Spanier was also charged in the alleged cover-up of Sandusky complaints. A week ago, a judge ruled against their efforts to have the charges thrown out, and the next step could be a preliminary hearing or appeals. All three men deny the criminal allegations against them.

Curley is on leave to complete the last year of his contract as athletic director. Spanier, forced out as president shortly after he issued the news release in support of Curley and Schultz, remains a tenured faculty member and is on paid leave. Schultz has retired.

Sandusky, 69, is appealing his case while serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mcqueary-lawsuit-against-penn-state-forward-170121972--spt.html

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Twitter will unveil something 'big' on Good Morning America tomorrow

Forget music halls -- Twitter thinks morning TV talk shows are where it's at for product announcements. It used The Today Show last year to unveil a profile page redesign, and we now know it will rely on Good Morning America this Thursday to unveil something... "big." But what does that cryptic clue mean? While logic would suggest Twitter Music given its semi-official status, we could also see TV in expanded tweets or something entirely unexpected. We'll keep our eyes (and possibly ears) open.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Source: Good Morning America (Twitter)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/17/twitter-will-unveil-something-big-on-good-morning-america/

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Skin cells turned directly into the cells that insulate neurons

Apr. 15, 2013 ? Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have succeeded in transforming skin cells directly into oligodendrocyte precursor cells, the cells that wrap nerve cells in the insulating myelin sheaths that help nerve signals propagate.

The current research was done in mice and rats. If the approach also works with human cells, it could eventually lead to cell therapies for diseases like inherited leukodystrophies -- disorders of the brain's white matter -- and multiple sclerosis, as well as spinal cord injuries. The study will be published online April 14 in Nature Biotechnology.

Without myelin to insulate neurons, signals sent down nerve cell axons quickly lose power. Diseases that attack myelin, such as multiple sclerosis, result in nerve signals that are not as efficient and cannot travel as far as they should. Myelin disorders can affect nerve signal transmission in the brain and spinal cord, leading to cognitive, motor and sensory problems.

Previous research in rodent disease models has shown that transplanted oligodendrocyte precursor cells derived from embryonic stem cells and from human fetal brain tissue can successfully create myelin sheaths around nerve cells, sometimes leading to dramatic improvements in symptoms. "Unfortunately, the availability of human fetal tissue is extremely limited, and the creation of OPCs from embryonic stem cells is slow and tedious," said the study's senior author, Marius Wernig, MD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "It appeared we wouldn't be able to create enough human OPCs for widespread therapeutic use, so we began to wonder if we could create them directly from skin cells."

Nan Yang, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Wernig laboratory and lead author of the study, pointed out that there is another advantage to using this technique. "By using the patient's own skin cells, we should be able to generate transplantable OPCs that are genetically identical to the patient's natural OPCs," Yang said. "This allows us to avoid the problem of immune rejection, which is a major complication in transplantation medicine."

Last year, Wernig's team successfully created human nerve cells out of skin cells. Other researchers had successfully used a similar process to turn skin cells into embryonic-like cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, and then grow those iPS cells into nerve cells, but Wernig's lab was the first to convert skin cells directly into nerve cells without the intermediate iPS cell step.

The team's current research project also involved directly converting skin cells into OPCs without having to create iPS cells. The researchers showed that mouse and rat skin cells could be directly converted into OPCs, and that these cells would successfully myelinate nerve cells when transplanted into the brains of mice with a myelin disorder.

Next, the team plans to reproduce the research in human cells; if successful, the approach could lay the groundwork for therapies for a wide array of myelin disorders and spinal cord injury.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Christopher Vaughan.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Nan Yang, J Bradley Zuchero, Henrik Ahlenius, Samuele Marro, Yi Han Ng, Thomas Vierbuchen, John S Hawkins, Richard Geissler, Ben A Barres, Marius Wernig. Generation of oligodendroglial cells by direct lineage conversion. Nature Biotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2564

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/c6P1AiDhxCc/130415124807.htm

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Officials: Suspected US drone kills 4 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? Two Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected U.S. missile strike has killed four people in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border.

The officials say the drone fired three missiles into a house on Sunday in Datta Khel town of North Waziristan.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The officials say the people who were in the house have not yet been identified.

The area is home to various local and foreign al-Qaida allied militant groups.

The Pakistani military has not launched any major offensive in the region and Washington relies mostly on drone strikes to battle militants.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-suspected-us-drone-kills-4-pakistan-155300526.html

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Three people dead in suspected murder-suicide in Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Three people have been found shot dead at a house in Topeka, Kansas, in a suspected murder-suicide, police said on Saturday.

The three bodies were found on Friday night at a house in a neighborhood of single family homes, said Lieutenant Shane Lind of the Topeka Police Department.

Police said in a statement it appeared the suspect had killed two people at the home and then committed suicide.

Police declined to immediately release further details of the killings or the ages and genders of the dead, saying family members would first have to be informed.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy, Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/three-people-found-shot-dead-house-topeka-kansas-161750886.html

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Keith Richards joins Clapton at Crossroads Festival

NEW YORK (AP) ? Eric Clapton's Crossroads festival has become the mecca for riff worshippers, so it was appropriate that guitar deity Keith Richards made a surprise appearance to perform with Clapton.

The Rolling Stone received perhaps the most sustained standing ovation of the night as he joined his old pal toward the end of Crossroads, a two-night concert festival at Madison Square Garden that brought together a dazzling array of guitar masters, from John Mayer to Jeff Beck to legends like Buddy Guy, and of course, Clapton and Richards.

Richards ? whose Stones announced another tour earlier this month ? flashed his typical wry smile to the crowd before joining Clapton in playing the blues standard and Clapton favorite "Key to the Highway. "

"Now we're gonna rock it up," Richards said before launching into "Sweet Little Rock N' Roller."

Richards' appearance was only the beginning of Clapton's hour-plus long set, which included hits like "Crossroads" and "Little Queen of Spades." It also featured other special guests, like Robbie Robertson, who sang the classic "I Shall Be Released."

"I just want to say it's an honor to be here in honor of Crossroads and Eric Clapton," said Robertson.

Crossroads Guitar Festival, which benefits Clapton's Crossroads Centre for substance abuse in Antigua, has been held every three years since 2004; this Friday and Saturday was its first at Madison Square Garden.

The show lasted almost five hours, with each performer showcasing his own particular brand of wizardry on the instrument (all the headliners were men, though there were a few women as supporting players in the program).

Clapton joined Los Lobos and Robert Cray early on and Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks played an acoustic set and brought out Gregg Allman. Keb' Mo' and Taj Mahal paid tribute to the blues in their acoustic set, while newcomer Gary Clark Jr. had the crowd on its feet throughout most of his electrifying set, which was followed by another fiery set, this one by Jeff Beck.

Other highlights a performance by blues great Buddy Guy an a set from Vince Gill, Keith Urban and Albert Lee.

"It's one of the greatest things that ever happened, getting this invitation from Eric Clapton," Gill gushed onstage.

The night ended with just about all of the evening's performers coming back on stage for a jam session with Clapton.

"See you in three years," Clapton told the crowd before exiting the stage.

___

Online:

http://www.crossroadsguitarfestival.com

http://crossroadsantigua.org

http://www.ericclapton.com

___

Follow Nekesa Mumbi Moody at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/richards-joins-clapton-crossroads-festival-064148063.html

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How To Sleep In Space

While you are sinking into you soft, pillow-top mattress—or pile of trash—there are a handful of human beings in space who take to their nightly respite a little differently, by strapping themselves into a zero-g space coffin. Apparently it's better than it sounds. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/D8GRwUXQqkI/how-to-sleep-in-space

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Looking for logic in North Korea's threats

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? To the outside world, the talk often appears to border on the lunatic, with the poor, hungry and electricity-starved nation threatening to lay waste to America's cities in an atomic firestorm, or to overrun South Korea in a lightning attack.

Enemy capitals, North Korea said, will be turned "into a sea of fire." North Korea's first strikes will be "a signal flare marking the start of a holy war." Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal is "mounted on launch pads, aimed at the windpipe of our enemies."

And it's not all talk. The profoundly isolated, totalitarian nation has launched two rockets over the past year. A February nuclear test resulted in still more U.N. sanctions. Another missile test may be in the planning stages.

But there is also a logic behind North Korea's behavior, a logic steeped in internal politics, one family's fear of losing control and the ways that a weak, poverty-wracked nation can extract concessions from some of the world's most fearsome military powers.

It's also steeped in another important fact: It works.

At various points over the past two decades, North Korea's cycles of threats and belligerence have pressured the international community into providing billions of dollars in aid and, for a time, helped push South Korea's government into improving ties.

Most importantly to Pyongyang, it has helped the Kim family remain in power decades after the fall of its patron, the Soviet Union, and long after North Korea had become an international pariah. Now the third generation of Kims, the baby-faced Kim Jong Un, is warning the world that it may soon face the wrath of Pyongyang. If the virulence of Kim Jong Un's threats have come as a surprise, he appears largely to be following in his father's diplomatic footsteps.

"You keep playing the game as long as it works," said Christopher Voss, a longtime FBI hostage negotiator and now the CEO of the Black Swan Group, a strategic advisory firm focusing on negotiation. "From their perspective, why should they evolve out of this? If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Like hostage-takers, the North Koreans find themselves backed into a corner of their own creation, surrounded by heavily armed foes and driven by beliefs that seem completely illogical to everyone else. "From the outside, it makes no sense," said Voss. "From the inside it makes all the sense in the world."

But the North Koreans also have repeatedly and purposefully backed themselves into those corners, terrifying the world with missile launches and nuclear tests that often end with North Korea getting more international assistance.

Take the early 1990s, when Pyongyang backed away from a nuclear weapons program in exchange for promises of $5 billion in fuel and two nuclear reactors. Or the late 1990s, when North Korea launched a suspected missile over Japan and dispatched a submarine into South Korean waters. But by 2000 the leaders of both Koreas were sitting down for a historic summit in Pyongyang. Then, in 2006, North Korea terrified the world with a nuclear weapons test, but a year later ratcheted back its nuclear program in exchange for aid and political concessions.

The predictability of the pattern is an important sign to scholars that at least part of what is going on has been carefully considered, and that Pyongyang has clear goals in mind.

In other words: No matter how irrational the situation looks, North Korea's leadership is not crazy.

Instead, many observers believe, North Korea simply wants the world to believe it is crazy, leveraging the international community's fear of unpredictability to magnify its power.

The result is obvious.

"How many countries have been overrun since the end of the Cold War? How many dictators have been deposed?" asked Rodger Baker, an analyst for Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm. "And where is North Korea? It's still there."

The North Korean leadership also retains, as far as is known, the support of its people. Their lives are often miserable, hunger is widespread and indoor toilets are a luxury to many. But other than a few whispered rumors of minor military rebellions, there has been no sign of revolt.

To many North Korean exiles, the recent round of threats are really about retaining that internal support

"Kim Jong Un is so young," said Nam-su Han, who fled North Korea as a young man after his father, a military officer, was executed, and who now runs a Seoul-based activist group. "He needs to gather the support of his citizens ... and he's using this (belligerence) to make the people come together."

Fear of outsiders, and pride in their own resilience, has long helped unify the people of North Korea. The country was pulverized during the Korean War, when more than 1 million North Koreans are believed to have died. In the mid-1990s, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have died as famine swept the country.

Through it all, North Koreans have been fed an unrelenting stream of propaganda that the Kims are watching over them as parents, and are bravely standing up to the aggressive foreign powers ? South Korea and the United States ? who are said to be preparing to attack.

Now it is Kim Jong Un ? "the great, brilliant commander ... leading the world's most powerful country" ? who is standing up to the aggressors.

Kim is under immense pressure, not just because he is a new ruler, but because a new generation of North Korean military and civilian leaders will rise to prominence in coming years, anxious to live in a more developed nation, said Peter Hayes, head of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, an Asia-focused think tank. More exposed to the outside world than their predecessors, Hayes believes they will be far more likely to turn on their ruler if he doesn't come through.

"If he doesn't deliver an economy worth living in, he's toast," Hayes said.

Kim Jong Un has to try to cement his popular support, ensure the backing of this key elite, and negotiate his way through the complex waters of international diplomacy, a juggling trick that may explain why the threats, and the volume of those threats, are more bellicose than normal.

"Maybe he's more risk-taking. Maybe he's trying to create his own brand," Hayes said. "But he's playing many different games at many different levels at the same time."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/looking-logic-north-koreas-threats-062434091.html

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Add One Jay-Z Rhyme, One Kanye Call To Get Pusha T's 'Numbers'

'Dropping 'Numbers on the Boards' yesterday was like really spontaneous,' Pusha tells MTV News of newly released rap track.
By Rob Markman

Pusha T
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705575/jay-z-kanye-west-pusha-t-numbers-on-the-boards.jhtml

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Ken Levine talks about endings, art and human connection

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2aa80ce8/l/0Lvideo0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51521218/story01.htm

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Gun measures put moderate Senate Dems in bind

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama's push for tougher gun measures and expanded background checks has placed several moderate Senate Democrats facing re-election next year in a bind, forcing them to take sides on a deeply personal issue for rural voters.

The choice: Either they stick with Obama and gun control advocates ? and give an opening to campaign challengers and the National Rifle Association to assail them ? or they stand with conservative and moderate gun owners back home worried about a possible infringement on their rights.

Five Senate Democrats ? Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Max Baucus of Montana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina ? are seeking another term in states carried by Republican Mitt Romney last fall. For the next few weeks, at least, the spotlight will be on how they maneuver as the Senate debates gun-control legislation pushed by Democrats in response to the deadly Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting.

Two other GOP-leaning states with large numbers of gun owners ? West Virginia and South Dakota ? will have open seats following Democratic retirements. Republicans have placed many of these states at the top of their priority lists as they try to gain six seats to win back the Senate majority.

Debate begins next week on Senate legislation that would require nearly all gun buyers to submit to background checks, toughen federal laws banning illicit firearms sales and provide more money for school safety measures. The background checks are viewed by gun control advocates as the best step to prevent criminals and the mentally ill from accessing weapons. The NRA has opposed the expansion of background checks, saying it could lead to federal registries of gun owners. It has sought better enforcement of existing laws, which it contends is too easy for criminals to circumvent.

"There's a fear in these states that this is going to go further and farther than anyone has suggested," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former chief of staff to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. But he said efforts to curb gun violence were aided by the emotional toll of the Sandy Hook shootings, in which 20 children and six adult educators were killed. "Newtown changed everything," he said.

Thus, these Senate Democrats are weighing the possibility of angry voters next year against pressure from fellow Democrats. So far, they're divided.

Baucus, the only Democrat with the NRA's top rating, said he will vote against the bill as it currently stands. He pointed to the 18,000 phone calls his office has received about it ? he said only 2,000 of those callers favored it.

"I represent Montana ? that's my first loyalty," Baucus said. "They're my employers. That's why I'm here."

Baucus knows the perils of a debate over firearms. He supported a 1994 crime bill sought by President Bill Clinton that included an assault weapons ban and survived a vigorous challenge from Republicans two years later.

Two other Democrats have already raised their objections.

Begich and Pryor voted Thursday with Republicans in an unsuccessful bid to block debate on Democrats' gun control legislation.

Begich said the current bill has "serious problems with it" and he wanted Democrats to consider his proposal with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to improve how the federal background check system prevents weapons from getting to people with certain mental health problems.

"My first priority is Alaska. It's not complicated for me," Begich said. "It doesn't matter if it's election year or non-election year. I've done 4 1/2 years of pro-gun votes here." Asked whether Obama's push on gun violence was complicating matters for him at home, Begich said with a laugh: "The president makes my life difficult on many fronts."

Pryor said the bill in its current form was "too broad and unworkable."

Hagan is taking a different position. She said in a statement she planned to support what's become known as the Manchin-Toomey measure for its sponsors, noting it would "explicitly" ban the federal government from creating a registry.

"As a mother there is nothing more important to me than protecting our kids. I am looking at each proposal to ensure it is common sense, will be effective and will not infringe on Second Amendment rights," she said.

Landrieu has yet to indicate what she might support in a final bill. She said following Thursday's vote that the Second Amendment right to own firearms "is not to be taken away" but that the nation was "plagued by gun violence." Making no commitments, she said it was "worthy of a debate to see if we can find a common-sense solution."

Debate begins next week on a measure forged by Manchin and Republican Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania that would expand background checks less broadly than the overall legislation. The proposal would subject buyers in commercial settings like gun shows and the Internet to the checks but exempt transactions such as sales between friends and relatives.

The Senate also is likely to hold votes on proposals to ban military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, two measures that were excluded from the bill and are expected to be defeated. With so many votes ahead, and the potential for a number of procedural votes, any Democrat runs the risk of having one of their votes misconstrued in future TV ads.

All are bracing for negative ads ? and pressure from those they anger.

Gun control advocates holding rallies across the country have the deep pockets of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pumped $12 million in TV advertising pressuring support for the measures. Bloomberg's group announced plans Friday for more ads next week in seven states, including Landrieu's Louisiana and North Dakota, home to freshman Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.

An offshoot of Obama's campaign, Organizing for Action, planned to hold rallies in 14 states on Saturday to push for the measures.

On the flip side, the NRA is certain to spend a chunk of money assailing anyone who backs the measure. Republicans, meanwhile, say the issue could serve as a strong motivating factor in rural states next year.

"The discussion is devastating to Democrats ? that's why they stopped talking about it for a long time," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

___

Associated Press writer Matt Gouras in Helena, Mont., and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gun-measures-put-moderate-senate-dems-bind-202208983--politics.html

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Companies jockey for position in changing U.S. space market

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Space companies are shifting strategies to benefit from a change in how the U.S. government buys satellites, rockets and space services.

After years of billion-dollar cost overruns and schedule delays on complex satellite programs, U.S. officials are looking for smaller, less expensive spacecraft and exploring alternatives such pay-for-service deals, or packing sensors on government or commercial satellites.

Air Force General Robert Kehler, who heads the military command that oversees U.S. nuclear, satellite and cyber operations, warned thousands of top industry executives this week that big-ticket space programs would be reevaluated as part of a 60-day review ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

"There is no doubt that our space-based systems are expensive and will be part of that review," he said at the week-long National Space Symposium, which brought together over 9,000 experts from across the industry.

"Regardless of the outcome, we must find ways to drive costs down as we look to the future."

The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2014 includes $8 billion for unclassified space programs, about the same as this year, and billions more for additional programs in the "black world," but officials are forecasting deeper cuts in 2015.

Brigadier General Roger Teague, director of strategic plans at The Air Force Space Command, told the conference that his office had already cut costs by $985 million by reducing staffing, testing and production costs, and was targeting additional cuts of $600 million across 20 programs this year.

INDUSTRY CHANGES TACTICS

The shift is changing the way big players like Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, and smaller firms like Orbital Sciences Corp, ITT Exelis Corp, Harris Corp and Alliant Techsystems Inc map out future business plans.

"If we keep doing things the same way and expect different results in this environment, that's not going to work," said retired Lieutenant General Trey Obering, the former director of the Missile Defense Agency who now works for consulting firm Booz Allen.

Rick Ambrose, who heads space programs for Lockheed, which is building new large missile warning, protected communications and global positioning satellites for the Air Force, said Lockheed is bracing for further declines in Pentagon spending.

He said the Pentagon was likely to stick to the existing programs for core missions, such as missile warning, targeting and protected communications, all contracts held by Lockheed, even as it explores new options. But all firms were under pressure to innovate, accelerate schedules and cut costs.

Ambrose said Lockheed's space division was halfway to its goal of consolidating 1.5 million square feet of facilities and would have reduced overhead by $300 million this year.

Lockheed also builds smaller satellites, and is taking part in Air Force studies about different approaches, but Ambrose warned against rushing headlong into new acquisition programs.

He said that approach backfired during the last drawdown, when the Pentagon curtailed existing programs before leap-ahead programs matured, leaving gaps in some important capabilities.

"If you're a wing walker you never let go of a rung until you grab the next rung," he said.

SPACEX VS BOEING

Lockheed and Boeing also face competition for the biggest rockets, with the Air Force laying the groundwork for new entrants like Space Exploration (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences.

Boeing is rapidly expanding its commercial satellite orders after losing out to Lockheed on some bigger military contracts, but sees good opportunities for its new line of smaller satellites and the prospect of hosting sensors on its wideband communications satellites in coming years.

"It's clear that they want to move away from these big mega-programs that cost a lot of money and find cheaper solutions," Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems told Reuters, citing space situational awareness and communications as promising areas.

"If you look at our business overall, we have recognized the changes in the marketplace and we have adapted for that," he said, adding that Boeing delivered 11 satellites last year and was on track to deliver 10 more this year.

The Air Force is wrapping up an analysis of alternatives for a next-generation weather satellite this summer that will likely include several of the new approaches.

Companies like Harris and Orbital Sciences are promoting the use of "hosted payloads" in which sensors are packed aboard other satellites, although government and industry officials say some technical and policy issues must still be worked out.

Harris is working with Iridium Communications on the largest hosted payload deal to date, an aircraft-tracking venture to kick off in 2015 that it says will save airlines money but also holds promise for U.S. government missions.

Meanwhile, Inmarsat PLC is getting ready to launch its new Global Express communications satellites, which it says will offer comprehensive mobile broadband services to a variety of users, including the U.S. military.

Obering said the new environment presented opportunities, but the Pentagon needed to revamp its acquisition processes to realize the benefits of technological advances in industry.

One model could be the way the Missile Defense Agency had been freed from some budget processes to rapidly develop missile defense capabilities, Obering said.

"We have to fundamentally change our acquisition approaches to do that. We have to be able to move at the speed of industry to be able to take full advantage of what ... the commercial market will be offering in the coming years," he said.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Andrew Hay)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/companies-jockey-position-changing-u-space-market-213526172--finance.html

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Zuckerberg, Schmidt, Mayer and others back FWD.us tech political lobby group

If you thought that Mark Zuckerberg's aspirations ended at command your smartphone, then think again. The Facebook chief has teamed up with a raft of other tech heavyweights including Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer and Elon Musk to form FWD.us, a political lobby group designed to promote tech-friendly causes. The first issue it wants to tackle is immigration reform to make it easier to woo foreign engineering talent, but it also has designs on scientific research, education reform and job creation. Evidently, these people still have spare time even after their stressful day jobs.

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: FWD.us

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/11/FWD.us/

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DNA discoverer's letter sells for $5.3M, a record - Bradenton.com

NEW YORK ? A letter that scientist Francis Crick wrote to his son about his Nobel Prize-winning DNA discovery was sold to anonymous buyer at a New York City auction on Wednesday for a record-breaking $5.3 million.

The price, which far exceeded the $1 million pre-sale estimate, topped $6 million when the commission is included, according to Christie's. The price was a record for a letter sold at auction, Christie's said, eclipsing an Abraham Lincoln letter that sold in April 2008 for $3.4 million including commission.

On Thursday, the molecular biologist's 1962 Nobel Prize medal in physiology or medicine will be offered by Heritage Auctions, which estimates it could fetch over $500,000.

The items are among a dozen artifacts Crick's heirs are selling to benefit scientific research.

In the March 19, 1953, handwritten letter to his 12-year-old son, Michael, Crick describes his discovery of the structure of DNA as something "beautiful." The note tells his son how he and James Watson found the copying mechanism "by which life comes from life." It includes a simple sketch of DNA's double helix structure, which Crick concedes he can't draw very well.

The seven-page letter, written to his son in boarding school, concludes: "Read this carefully so that you will understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy."

Crick, who died in 2004 at age 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He spent the latter decades of his career doing brain research at the Salk Institute, where he became a professor in 1977.

Michael Crick's daughter Kindra said the family decided to sell the medal and other items because they had been in storage for 50 years, first locked up in a room of her grandfather's La Jolla, Calif., home and later in a safe deposit box.

They chose to sell them now because it "coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic discovery and 50 years since he received the award," she said.

Half the proceeds from the Christie's sale will benefit the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the granddaughter said. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale will go to the new Francis Crick Institute in London, a medical research institute slated to open in 2015.

Michael Crick, who was in New York to attend the auctions with his daughter, told The Associated Press that the family hoped the prospective buyers "will give people the opportunity to look at them and that they will be an inspiration for future scientists."

The 1962 medal being sold Thursday was struck in 23-karat gold. One side features the Genius of Medicine holding an open book in her lap, collecting water pouring out of a rock to quench the thirst of a sick girl beside her.

It is being offered with his Nobel diploma, a handsome two-page vellum document that contains an original hand-colored picture of a long-haired youth in a blue tunic holding the Rod of Asclepius.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions said it is only the second time that a Nobel medal has been offered at a public auction. The first was Niels Bohr's 1922 Nobel in Physics that sold in November for about $50,000, said Sandra Palomino, director of its historical manuscripts.

The late William Faulkner's 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature is heading for auction at Sotheby's in June.

Other items in the Heritage sale include Crick's endorsed Nobel Prize check in the amount of 85,739,88 Swedish krona, dated Dec. 10, 1962, and a white lab coat complete with stains and wear.

---

Online:

Heritage Auctions: http://www.ha.com

Christie's: http://www.christies.com

Source: http://www.bradenton.com/2013/04/10/4476539/dna-discoverers-items-featured.html

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Coming Out: Junior Year

Great to see you back on the site, girly! :D Can I reserve girl 2?

Oh, and you updated the rules ^^ I like the number after six the best~

EDIT: Annnnd, Boy 3. ^_^ Sorry it took me so long to add him, I wanted to read... and re-read.. and re-read again, their little bio things ^^ lol

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/Ec6-LaxjZ24/viewtopic.php

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Obama to pitch Buffett tax, killing corporate tax breaks

By Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday will issue a greatest hits list of ideas to raise $580 billion in new tax revenues over a decade, including a minimum tax on the wealthy and putting an end to some corporate tax breaks, administration officials said.

The president's 2014 budget proposal, expected to be released in full later on Wednesday, has no chance of moving forward in the divided U.S. Congress. But as lawmakers consider a revamp of the tax code and face a deadline on the government's debt limit this summer, some Obama measures could play a role.

The bid will revive Obama's offer last year to Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner during the negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff of looming tax hikes and spending cuts.

Senior administration official previewed the budget on condition of anonymity to reporters ahead of the release.

Obama will officially propose a new "Buffett tax" named for investor Warren Buffett that phases in a minimum 30 percent tax rate on household income above $1 million, the advisors said.

He had earlier backed the idea but not included it in his budget proposals.

The White House also will bring back a long-running proposal to cap itemized deductions and exemptions among wealthier taxpayers - starting at household income of roughly $250,000.

The cap would apply to the same list of deductions in years past, officials said. That includes the charitable tax break and the exemption for municipal bond interest.

Obama is not seeking to raise individual tax rates as he has in prior budgets, according to a White House document. For years, he sought to raise rates on household income above $250,000.

The fiscal cliff deal raised rates for households earning more than $450,000 a year, from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

Also in the budget is ending the tax break for "carried interest" profits earned by fund managers like those who run private equity and other investment firms, officials said.

Administration officials also said to expect the White House to pitch familiar ideas to limit energy tax breaks, curb tax shifting to low-tax countries like the Cayman Islands, and a bid to end a tax break for corporate jets.

Obama proposes cutting the top U.S. corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, now the highest in the industrialized world.

Obama has said that he backs a full-scale revamp of the entire tax code, both individual and corporate, and a White House summary called the budget proposals a "down payment."

Top tax-writers in Congress also back a tax rewrite, but the process is fraught with disagreement over how to streamline the code and whether to raise new revenue in the process.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pitch-buffett-tax-killing-corporate-tax-breaks-100313227--sector.html

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Senate deal on background checks aside, outdated tracing system hurts gun control

Though Sens, Joe Manchin (R) of W. Va and Pat Toomey (R) of Penn. have reached a deal on background checks to take form as an amendment to the Senate gun control bill, a key piece of the White House?s gun control plan is at risk of failure ?? specifically, the process by which law enforcement agencies trace the original source of a gun sale during criminal investigations. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is using 1960s era technology to manage a 21st century problem. As gun traces increase under stepped up enforcement, the system must be updated in order to keep up.

The ATF?s Firearms Tracing System is used to determine the ?chain of custody? of confiscated weapons by matching serial numbers and other descriptive information to manufacturer and points-of-sale records. That information is used by investigators to link guns to suspects and to uncover potential trafficking.

You might think the feds would employ state-of-the-art computers to deliver the gun tracing information to police investigators within a few minutes, but far from it. The ATF?s ?system? is largely a manual process based on the use of microfiche, the same technology that libraries have been using for 50 years to archive newspapers and magazines.

OPINION: 6 reasons why President Obama will defeat the NRA and win universal background checks

When a trace request comes in to the ATF?s National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W. Va., employees trek to the microfiche department, where 500 million records are stored. They use special readers that magnify the itsy-bitsy images and report their findings. Urgent requests are turned around within 24 hours, but the process generally takes five days, sometimes longer.

That?s not nearly good enough. The ATF processed 350,000 gun traces last year, a workload that?s been growing and will continue to rise as lawmakers, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, turn their attention to what had been a routine law-enforcement function. In mid-January, when President Obama introduced 23 executive orders on gun safety, he also issued a memo requiring federal law enforcement to submit trace requests for all guns recovered during criminal investigations.

The ATF, part of the Department of Justice, knows it has a problem in fulfilling that mandate. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder paid a visit to the National Tracing Center to have a look for himself. There?s only one conclusion Holder could possibly reach: The Firearms Tracing System needs an overhaul.

ATF?s chief information officer, Richard Holgate, euphemistically describes the microfiche system as a ?target of opportunity.? He would like to replace it with a faster, more efficient digital imaging system at a cost of about $4 million. That?s not cheap, but it?s a small price to pay to expedite a process that supports one of the White House?s top priorities ? and public safety. The ATF?s overall tech budget this year is about $80 million, minus some $15 million if sequestration takes full effect.

Yet, as important as it is, upgrading the Firearms Tracing System hasn?t made its way to the top of the ATF?s to-do list. Mr. Holgate has had his hands full with other projects, including transitioning the agency?s email system to cloud computing, making aggregate gun-trace data available to the public, and moving email records to an online archive.

As the ATF contemplates its next move, one step that?s not an option is deployment of a modern database of gun owners or firearms registrations, which would really speed the tracing process up. While technically feasible, that?s prohibited by the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. The gun lobby wants to make sure that restriction remains in place.

The ATF must instead concentrate on accessing and integrating the records that are available under current law. As a step in that direction, it created a web application called eTrace that lets law enforcement agencies request gun traces online. The ATF could use computer-integration software and web technologies to streamline other parts of the gun-tracing process.

Other federal computer systems involved in gun enforcement are also in need of attention. The FBI?s National Instant Criminal Background Check System buckled under a spike in activity late last year when the prospect of stiffer federal laws prompted a surge in gun sales. The FBI is bringing in Accenture Federal Systems to modernize the system.

But the National Instant Criminal Background Check System doesn?t exist in a vacuum; the ATF operates a referral system that ties into it. When a would-be gun buyer completes an application, an ATF Form 4473, the FBI has three days to complete a background check before that transaction is allowed to proceed. If disqualifying information is discovered after a sale goes through, ATF agents have the sensitive job of repossessing the firearm. Those potentially dangerous situations could be minimized if the FBI and ATF were better at information sharing.

THE MONITOR'S VIEW: Are gun politics too complex? Simplicity would help.

The bottom line is that the White House?s gun safety initiative will only work if the computer systems involved are up to the job. When it takes 60 seconds to fire 45 rounds, but 24 hours to trace the gun, Washington has a major technology fix-it project on its hands.

John Foley covers federal information technology (IT) policy as editor of InformationWeek Government. His recent columns include ?ATF?s Gun Tracing System Is A Dud? and ?Federal Gun Control Requires IT Overhaul.? Follow him on Twitter at @jfoley09.

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-deal-background-checks-aside-outdated-tracing-system-154057481--politics.html

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Galaxy Note 8.0 coming to the US on April 11th for $400

If you want a (semi) pocketable S Pen experience, well, then the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II is the device for you. If you want something more akin to carrying around a digital legal pad, there's the well proportioned Note 10.1. But if one note is too small for you, and the other too big, then maybe the Note 8.0 is just right. The mid-sized tablet, announced at MWC, is finally hitting American shores on April 11th for $400. Under the hood are the same powerful internals we got a good look at in Barcelona, including the 2GB of RAM and 1.6GHz quad-core processor. But, sadly, Samsung removed the cellular radios for the US variant -- which means this slate won't double as a comically large phone. Well, at least the lack of HSPA+ should mean that the 4,600 mAh battery should last a little bit longer. You'll be able to pick up the Galaxy Note 8.0 in just a few days from all usual suspects (Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, and so on). If you need a proper reminder of all its various specs and features, check out the preview and the PR after the break.

Gallery: Galaxy Note 8.0 for the US

Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/galaxy-note-8-0-coming-to-the-us-on-april-11th-for-400/

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Botanists in the rainforest

Public release date: 10-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Karline R. L. Janmaat
karline_janmaat@eva.mpg.de
49-341-355-0227
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Chimpanzees use botanical skills to discover fruit

This press release is available in German.

Fruit-eating animals are known to use their spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet, it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now investigated which strategies chimpanzees in the Ta National Park in Cte d'Ivoire, West Africa, use in order to find fruit in the rain forest. The result: Chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this botanical knowledge during their daily search for fruit.

To investigate if chimpanzees know that if a tree is carrying fruit, then other trees of the same species are likely to carry fruit as well, the researchers conducted observations of their inspections, i.e. the visual checking of fruit availability in tree crowns. They focused their analyses on recordings in which they saw chimpanzees inspect empty trees, when they made "mistakes".

By analysing these "mistakes", the researchers were able to exclude that sensory cues of fruit had triggered the inspection and were the first to learn that chimpanzees had expectations of finding fruit days before feeding on it. They, in addition, significantly increased their expectations of finding fruit after tasting the first fruit in season. "They did not simply develop a 'taste' for specific fruit on which they had fed frequently", says Karline Janmaat. "Instead, inspection probability was predicted by a particular botanical feature - the level of synchrony in fruit production of the species of encountered trees."

The researchers conclude that chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this information during their daily search for fruit. They base their expectations of finding fruit on a combination of botanical knowledge founded on the success rates of fruit discovery and an ability to categorize fruits into distinct species. "Our results provide new insights into the variety of food-finding strategies employed by our close relatives, the chimpanzees, and may well elucidate the evolutionary origins of categorization abilities and abstract thinking in humans", says Christophe Boesch, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Primatology.

###

Original publication:

Karline R. L. Janmaat, Simone D. Ban & Christophe Boesch Ta Chimpanzees use Botanical Skills to Discover Fruit: What we can Learn from their Mistakes Animal Cognition, 10 April 2013

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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: 10-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Karline R. L. Janmaat
karline_janmaat@eva.mpg.de
49-341-355-0227
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Chimpanzees use botanical skills to discover fruit

This press release is available in German.

Fruit-eating animals are known to use their spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet, it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now investigated which strategies chimpanzees in the Ta National Park in Cte d'Ivoire, West Africa, use in order to find fruit in the rain forest. The result: Chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this botanical knowledge during their daily search for fruit.

To investigate if chimpanzees know that if a tree is carrying fruit, then other trees of the same species are likely to carry fruit as well, the researchers conducted observations of their inspections, i.e. the visual checking of fruit availability in tree crowns. They focused their analyses on recordings in which they saw chimpanzees inspect empty trees, when they made "mistakes".

By analysing these "mistakes", the researchers were able to exclude that sensory cues of fruit had triggered the inspection and were the first to learn that chimpanzees had expectations of finding fruit days before feeding on it. They, in addition, significantly increased their expectations of finding fruit after tasting the first fruit in season. "They did not simply develop a 'taste' for specific fruit on which they had fed frequently", says Karline Janmaat. "Instead, inspection probability was predicted by a particular botanical feature - the level of synchrony in fruit production of the species of encountered trees."

The researchers conclude that chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this information during their daily search for fruit. They base their expectations of finding fruit on a combination of botanical knowledge founded on the success rates of fruit discovery and an ability to categorize fruits into distinct species. "Our results provide new insights into the variety of food-finding strategies employed by our close relatives, the chimpanzees, and may well elucidate the evolutionary origins of categorization abilities and abstract thinking in humans", says Christophe Boesch, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Primatology.

###

Original publication:

Karline R. L. Janmaat, Simone D. Ban & Christophe Boesch Ta Chimpanzees use Botanical Skills to Discover Fruit: What we can Learn from their Mistakes Animal Cognition, 10 April 2013

---

[ | 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/m-bit040913.php

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Deutsche Telekom gets conditional regulatory nod for vectoring

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom has received conditional regulatory approval to upgrade its copper network via a process called vectoring, or VDSL2, in order to offer faster Internet.

The German federal network agency said on Tuesday in a draft decision that Deutsche Telekom would have to give its competitors access to the new technology but it could deny access in areas where alternative networks are available.

In the next 20-25 years as much as 80 billion euros ($104 billion) is needed to roll out a fiber optic network in Germany, investment that will need to be shared among the local telecoms operators.

In the meantime Deutsche Telekom wants to upgrade its copper network via vectoring, or VDSL2. This cheaper alternative will enable it to offer Internet speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, up from current levels of 16 Mbit/s.

Cable companies at the moment offer 50 Mbit/s Internet for the same price or less than Deutsche Telekom's current speeds, and can already supply up to 150 Mbit/s.

Vectoring is a technology which makes it possible to double bandwidth by cancelling electromagnetic interference between lines in so-called distribution boxes.

To make it work the technology can only be installed by one operator in the boxes. After that the new infrastructure can be used by all operators.

Deutsche Telekom, which said on Tuesday it welcomed the decision, owns about 330,000 such boxes in Germany, while its competitors have connected to about 8,200 of these boxes with their own lines.

In Germany cable operators such as Kabel Deutschland and Liberty Global's Unity Media are chipping away at Deutsche Telekom's share of the broadband market with faster, cheaper offerings.

Their cable lines, designed to deliver TV to homes, have been upgraded to carry voice calls and Internet at speeds often five times faster than competing services from the telcos.

Deutsche Telekom controls more than 40 percent of the broadband market. Vodafone has about 12 percent.

Kabel Deutschland, the largest cable operator with about 15 million of the 28 million homes served by cable, said in December the market penetration of it and its rivals in fixed-line broadband was below 15 percent.

($1 = 0.7682 euros)

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde an Peter Maushagen; Editing by Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/deutsche-telekom-gets-conditional-regulatory-nod-vectoring-090039397--finance.html

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Hooters allegedly forces out waitress because brain-tumor scar is ugly

A woman is suing Hooters for employment discrimination based on disability status for allegedly being forced out of her job as a waitress at the racy restaurants after she underwent cancer surgery, lost her hair and had a large scar on her head.

Hooters reportedly wanted her to wear a wig. ?The woman tried, but it hurt her scar, which was still healing. ?She says her hours were then cut back until she eventually was forced to quit.

Imagine a place like Hooters being so superficial.

Hooters, for anyone unaware, is a chain-restaurant where the waitresses wear very skimpy clothes in order to show off their usually-large breasts, which are known as ?hooters? in American slang.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch?does a good job walking through the legal issues here (media doesn?t always do so well on that). ?But in a nutshell, disability rights laws protect you from discrimination based on your disability or your perceived disability (meaning, someone refuses to hire you because they think you have AIDS, even if you don?t). ?In this case, allegedly pushing a waitress out because her cancer has made her less attractive (in the management?s eyes), is a tough sell. ?As the paper points out, the plaintiff needs to be able to prove that she was able to do her job. ?But the question arises ? or it?s one that Hooters will try to sell to the court ? as to whether being a ?hot chick? is essential to doing your job at Hooters.

While, sure, being a hot woman is essential working at HootersI?m not sure how a judge rules in favor of Hooters on this one, lest every business start alleging that its ?public face? is important, and thus they discriminate against people with disabilities, and even minorities and women, because it?s ?what the customers want.?

Now granted, we?re dealing with Hooters here. ?But as FindLaw explains, it?s really not enough to simply say ?our customers like pretty girls.?

Title VII?prohibits employers from discriminating in employment decisions based on gender, race, national origin, religion or age. Many states make it illegal? to discriminate based on sexual orientation or transgender status.

Title VII also, however, allows for discrimination based on protected characteristics (except race), when that characteristic is what is called a ?Bona Fide Occupational Qualification? (BFOQ). To be a BFOQ, being a member of that group is essential to the job.

To use this exception to the rule against discrimination, an employer must be able to prove that no member outside the desired group could perform the job. A simple example would be a job for a women?s bathroom attendant.

Employers can, and often do, however, go too far. For example, airlines have been prohibited from hiring only female flight attendants because men too can perform the basic function of the job.

Hooters went on to settle that other case. ?So it?s still not entirely clear what would happen if they hadn?t settled. ?But I?m not sure what the difference is between saying Hooters? customers find cancer scars disturbing and saying every restaurant customer finds cancer scars disturbing. ?Cancer is disturbing. ?And too bad. ?You don?t get to end someone?s career over it. ?That?s kind of the whole point of disability laws.

I?m not entirely convinced that it should be legal for Hooters to exist at all. ?But to the degree we want to make an exception for quasi-sexual jobs like Hooters, I think you have a much harder sell saying that we should now start making exceptions to disability laws as well. ?At some point, a judge is going to say ?enough.? ?How much you want to bet Hooters settles this one too, rather than risk a defeat that could impact its restaurants nationwide?

Source: http://americablog.com/2013/04/hooters-allegedly-forces-out-waitress-with-cancer-because-her-scar-was-ugly.html

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