Mars rover Opportunity puts itself in standby mode

NASA/JPL

NASA's twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have now spent nine years on the surface of Mars.

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com

NASA's long-lived Opportunity Mars rover has gone into a self-imposed standby mode on the Red Planet, the robot's handlers say.

Mission controllers for Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004, first learned of the issue on Saturday. On that day, the rover got back in touch after a nearly three-week communication moratorium caused by an unfavorable planetary alignment called a Mars solar conjunction, in which Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun.

The Opportunity rover apparently put itself into standby on April 22 after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission managers said.

"Our current suspicion is that Opportunity rebooted its flight software, possibly while the cameras on the mast were imaging the sun," Opportunity project manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., explained in a statement Monday.

"We found the rover in a standby state called automode, in which it maintains power balance and communication schedules, but waits for instructions from the ground," Callas added. "We crafted our solar conjunction plan to be resilient to this kind of rover reset, if it were to occur."

Opportunity's handlers prepared new commands Monday designed to spur the rover into resuming operations, mission team members said.

The golf-cart-size Opportunity landed on Mars more than nine years ago along with its twin, Spirit, on a three-month mission to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. The two rovers found plenty of such evidence, and then kept trundling across Mars. Spirit was declared dead in 2010, but Opportunity is still going strong.

Mars solar conjunctions occur every 26 months, so Opportunity's team knows how to weather them. This most recent conjunction, in fact, is the fifth that the rover has endured.

Mars solar conjunctions affect NASA's entire fleet of robotic Red Planet explorers. Mission controllers resumed sending commands to the agency's venerable Mars Odyssey orbiter Monday and plan to do the same with the Mars rover Curiosity on Wednesday (May 1), officials said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter?@michaeldwall?and?Google+.?Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on?SPACE.com.

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

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Twitter Should Shut Me Down

In August of 2012 I left my job at a startup in New York City. I was 24.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/y_BbaZfGp9c/twitter-should-shut-me-down-484175370

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Cyberattack suspect to be sent home to Netherlands

MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in Spain on suspicion of launching what authorities have called the biggest cyberattack in Internet history is expected to be handed over to the Netherlands within 10 days, a Spanish court official said Monday.

The suspect ? identified only by his initials S.K. ? was questioned Saturday in the National Court in Madrid after his arrest last week and agreed to the deal, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court rules prevent him from giving his name.

Police say the 35-year-old suspect operated from a bunker in northeast Spain and also had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country. He was arrested Thursday in Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona.

He is accused of attacking the anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus, whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.

Dutch authorities alerted Spanish police in March of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused outages at U.S. banking sites last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second. The attack on Spamhaus was three times that size.

Police from the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Spain and the U.S. took part in the investigation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-04-29-EU-Spain-Cybercrime/id-187118ad175147eeadf64b588118a347

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Useful Health And Beauty Tips For Young Teenage Girls | Tips on ...

Posted by Sean on Apr 28, 2013 in Beauty, Health & FitnessGoogle+

Almost every person in this world especially young teenage girls love to look stunning and gorgeous. Therefore, we bring some good health and beauty tips for girls.

? Make it a habit to consume plenty of water every day. Mixing honey with water and drinking it every day and help attain a shine on your skin and help to keep it smooth.

? Also try to eat food rich in vitamin A and C and it will surely help you look good.

? In order to moisturize your skin use some milk to massage into your skin. This will bring a glow on your skin and will help avoid dryness.

? Good and healthy eatables are essential to attain a clean and good looking skin. Include plenty of fresh fruits and raw vegetables in your diet. Try to use natural products for your face such as cucumber and milk.

? When using make up for your eyes make sure that it matches with your overall appearance. A little mascara on the tips of the eye lashes can make the eyes look beautiful and attractive. To attain a wide eyed look use a small amount of orange shadow at the corner of the eyes.

? To prevent chapping use a good quality lip balm.

? In order to brighten up your looks and appearance make sure to use mineral make up.

? Prefer sleeping only on silk or satin pillow cases to avoid creases on the facial area.

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Tags: beauty tips for girls, beauty tips for teenager, beauty tips for teenagers, health and beauty tips, natural beauty tips for girls, teenage beauty tips

Source: http://www.foodfitnesslifelove.com/beauty/useful-health-and-beauty-tips-for-young-teenage-girls/

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Why Writing Has Made Me An Emotional Wreck | The Creative Penn

One of the things I love about the author community these days is the authenticity around sharing, and the generosity in helping others.

Blogging and social networks enable writers to finally find a community online, and I am so grateful that this site continues to be a place we can share honestly and with support for each other. Today I?m excited to welcome Rachel Abbott, Amazon #1 bestselling author of Only The Innocent and now The Back Road, to talk about some of her writing challenges when going deeper into characters.

You can also check out an audio interview with Rachel here, on marketing your way to a #1 bestseller.

I?ve always been a writer of one sort or another, but until four years ago my experience had been in writing creative treatments, plots for interactive programs or even board reports ? none of which generally require significant emotional input. It?s hard to shed a tear over a flowchart ? although sometimes it might want to make you scream with frustration.

When I wrote my first novel ? Only the Innocent ? I wrote for my own pleasure.

I never expected anybody to read it ? not even family. But I was pressurized into sharing it, and I realized that if I was going to allow people to actually read it, I wanted to make sure that it was at least half decent. I was happy with the story, but I wasn?t convinced about the quality of the writing, and nobody was going to be allowed near it until I was. Of course, this was before I realized that you can?t just learn to write, like you might learn to recite the alphabet ? it is forever a work in progress and an endless learning curve. Nonetheless, I took my fragile ego in both hands and paid to have my book torn apart by an expert.

In the end, the feedback wasn?t too bad considering it was my first attempt. However, it was full of phrases that I didn?t understand.

Apparently my biggest sin was ?head-hopping?.

What?

On Point of View

I hadn?t the faintest idea what this was about, so I turned to Google and read every possible article I could find until it was ingrained in me. I was told that I was writing as if I were watching a film, sitting in an armchair. Where I should have been was inside the head of one of the characters ? the person whose point of view the scene was written from. That person?s eyes needed to become my camera.

It took a while, but I got there in the end. I now make sure that every scene of every chapter is clearly marked in the draft with exactly whose POV the scene is viewed from in capital letters so I can?t forget.

If you are as ignorant as I was about this, a classic example of head-hopping would be:

?Nick dragged his gaze away from the road ahead and looked at Laura. Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears as she stared out of the window. But Laura didn?t see his glance. She was watching the dark brooding clouds, and thinking how well they matched her mood.?

First we?re seeing the scene from Nick?s perspective, and then suddenly we know what Laura is thinking. If your camera is inside the character?s head, you?ve just switched seats!

Now I know that this is quite basic stuff and you probably all got this long ago, but when you really do get inside a character?s head it can make you go slightly loopy. You have to start thinking what your character would think, feel what they would feel. You might want to see, hear and even smell their surroundings ? just as they would do. So how do you describe what somebody is feeling?

There are two perspectives here. Let?s imagine there are two people in a room. Ellie and Leo (short for Leonora). These are two characters from my latest novel, The Back Road. Ellie is furious, and Leo is watching her. If you are in Leo?s head, you have to describe how that fury looks to you. If you are in Ellie?s head, you have to describe how the fury actually feels.

On Adverbs

I thought the first one was easy, but I was wrong ? as I discovered when I read a book on self-editing and was told that under no circumstances should adverbs be used. ?Words ending in LY should be eradicated from your writing,? it said.

Why? I thought, angrily. (There you go!! An adverb.)

I?d heard of the ?show don?t tell? advice, but didn?t really get it until the whole adverb issue was pointed out. I searched my novel. Uh oh ? there were lots of adverbs. So now not only did I have to start thinking about whose head I was in, I had to think about how they would ?see? people?s actions. I started to look into body language and descriptions of facial expressions. If I can?t say ?angrily? ? what would this person be looking like, or how would they be holding their body?

Whereas once I might have said ?Ellie turned angrily to Leo,? I now had to think what an angry turn looks like. How would Ellie be feeling, and how would that portray itself in her actions?

?Ellie slammed the glass down on the worktop and spun round to face Leo.? Now I don?t need to be told she?s angry. I can see it for myself.

But to get to that point, I had to get inside Ellie?s head (even though at this point I was viewing the scene from Leo?s POV ? just to confuse you) so that I could work out exactly how she would demonstrate her fury. Then I had to stand on the other side of the room and see it enacted through Leo?s eyes.

So I?ve experienced the rage, but now I am in calm place ? all in a matter of seconds ? witnessing this anger portrayed by another person. Now do you understand the ?loopy? comment?

All of this helps me enormously with describing a person?s demeanor without resorting to adverbs, but what about when I am describing the emotion from within that person. If that scene had been from Ellie?s point of view, I would have had to describe how she was feeling. It somehow didn?t feel good enough to say something like ?Ellie felt a ball of anger bubble up inside her,? because that didn?t really explain the raw emotion.

I needed to dig deeper.

There were a couple of points in my latest novel where I came unstuck. In both cases I was writing a scene from the point of view of the person who was experiencing the trauma, and so I had to find words to express how she felt. I couldn?t say ?She sat disconsolately on the bed? ? I had to really think how to describe what ?disconsolately? would feel like (and anyway, it was an adverb!).

On one occasion I wrote something like ?Ellie wondered why was it so difficult to describe emotional pain,? to which my editor responded in large letters on the side of my manuscript ? ?it?s not Ellie who can?t describe it ? it?s you!?.

Oops.

How right she was. But emotional pain is so very difficult to describe, and it?s not something that one wants to experience on a regular basis. So I had to dig deep down inside myself to think of something that had hurt me badly, and imagine it all over again so that I knew how it felt. That was a harrowing and distressing moment, but I?ve found myself doing it more and more often.

The second occasion was when I needed to describe fear. I?m not very often in situations where I?m afraid, I?m happy to say. I live on an island where nobody ever locks their doors when they go out, and crime is zero. But as luck would have it, one day I?d been out ? leaving the door unlocked ? and I came home just as it was getting dark. I was alone.

Then, from upstairs, I heard a thud.

It wasn?t subtle ? and it was definitely in my house. I felt as if I a million tiny pins were pricking every inch of my body. It only lasted a second, but it was the first time I had bothered to even think what fear felt like. I was more interested in my reaction to that moment of fear than I was in what was going on upstairs in my house. I forgot about my burglar for a moment while I imagined the words I would use to describe my physical reaction.

Hopefully the title of this blog now makes perfect sense.

Since starting to write about people and the sometimes terrible situations in which they find themselves, I have had to explore emotions in a way that I have never done before.

I?ve had to interpret those feelings and put them into words ? and they have to be words that will affect my readers and show them what each character is feeling. I am constantly examining how I react to events so that I can find the words to express each and every sentiment when the need arises, and the days of controlling my emotions to give an aura of outward calm have long gone.

So if you see somebody sobbing in the corner, scribbling in a black notebook, that?ll be me!

P.S. The loud thump from upstairs was a mirror falling off the wall (it didn?t break).

What are the challenges you have in writing emotion, or point of view? Please share your comments and tips below.

Rachel Abbott?s second novel The Back Road is available now on Amazon for ?1.99. It will be released later this year in other formats in the UK, and in paperback and Kindle versions in the US.

You can find Rachel at Rachel-Abbott.com and on twitter @_rachelabbott

Top image: Flickr Creative Commons shipwreck by palestrina55

Tagged as: character, emotion, fiction, point of view

Source: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/04/28/writing-emotional-wreck/

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Vince Vaughn & Wife Kyla Weber Expecting Baby #2 (VIDEO)

Vince Vaughn & Wife Kyla Weber Expecting Baby #2 (VIDEO)

Vince Vaughn has announced that he and his wife Kyla Weber are expecting their second child in August. The actor, whose comedy “The Internship” will debut in June, broke the baby news when he sat down for a chat with Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show. Vince Vaughn, 43, is shown in a preview clip ...

Vince Vaughn & Wife Kyla Weber Expecting Baby #2 (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/vince-vaughn-wife-kyla-weber-expecting-baby-2-video/

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B787 1st test flight in Japan since battery fire

TOKYO (AP) ? Japan's All Nippon Airways has successfully conducted its first test flight of the Boeing 787 aircraft since battery problems grounded the planes earlier this year.

Ray Conner, president of Boeing's consumer airline division, and ANA President Shinichiro Ito were aboard the flight Sunday.

The aircraft safely completed a two-hour flight before returning to Tokyo's Haneda Airport.

Batteries aboard two 787s failed less than two weeks apart in January, causing a fire aboard one plane and smoke in another. The root cause of those problems is still unknown.

Boeing has since developed and tested a revamped version of the battery system, with changes designed to prevent and contain a fire.

Japan's transport ministry approved Boeing's modifications Friday following similar steps by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/b787-1st-test-flight-japan-since-battery-fire-061821252.html

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US-MUSIC Summary

Michael Buble mixes it up on album of standards, original songs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With a son on the way and a new album with more original songs than ever, Michael Buble is venturing into uncharted territory without letting go of his personal or artistic roots. "To Be Loved," the 37-year-old Canadian singer's follow-up to his 2011 "Christmas" album, mixes standards inspired by jazz, Motown and even the Bee Gees, with tracks written by Buble as well as collaborations with Bryan Adams and Reese Witherspoon.

South Korean rap sensation Psy honored at Tribeca Film Festival

NEW YORK (Reuters) - South Korean rapper and Internet sensation Psy was honored as a transcultural phenomenon by the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday along with a host of other luminaries ranging from choreographer Twyla Tharp to controversial media host Glenn Beck. "Who knew, right?" Psy said as he was presented his Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award. "Giving me this award in itself is innovation, I think."

Country singer George Jones dead at 81

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Jones, a classic country singer with a voice full of raw honky-tonk emotion and a life full of honky-tonk turmoil, died on Friday at age 81, his spokesman said. Jones, whose career spanned more than six decades and included hits such as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Window Up Above," died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville.

Mamma Mia! Bookie offers odds on ABBA reunion

LONDON (Reuters) - A British bookmaker is taking bets on an ABBA comeback after singer Agnetha Faltskog hinted at a possible reunion for Sweden's most successful band. Faltskog, who has come out of retirement to release a solo album called "A", was asked by German's Die Zeit Magazine if she would be open to an ABBA reunion and she responded positively.

African diva Angelique Kidjo wins Songlines Best Artist award

LONDON (Reuters) - African diva Angelique Kidjo was named Best Artist in Songlines magazine's annual world music awards on Friday, lauded for her high-energy shows and her championing of social causes. French veterans Lo'jo, who mix French folk with African and Arabic sounds, picked up the Best Group award and the young Zimbabwean band Mokoomba was chosen as top Newcomer.

Psy knocked from top of Korean charts by 63-year-old singer

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean rapper Psy, whose latest video "Gentleman" tracked global megahit "Gangnam Style" by going viral on the Internet, has been knocked from the top of the music charts in his native country by a 63-year-old easy listening pop singer. "Gangnam Style", which holds the YouTube record for most views with more than 1.5 billion, catapulted the sunglassed Korean with the garish jackets to world stardom and made him one of the best-known faces to grace the growing K-pop music scene.

Documentary about deceased British singer Amy Winehouse in the works

(Reuters) - A documentary is in the works about the late British soul singer Amy Winehouse and it features previously unseen material, the film's distributor said on Wednesday. The film, which will include archival footage never seen by the public, will be directed by Briton Asif Kapadia, whose 2010 film "Senna," about Brazilian auto racer Ayrton Senna, won a BAFTA for best documentary.

Kurdish singer sparks identity debate on Arab talent show

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A singer from Iraq's Kurdistan region has made it through to the semi-final of an Arab talent contest, igniting heated debates over Iraqi identity and politicizing the popular TV show. A panel of judges praised 24-year-old Parwaz Hussein and she was voted through to the next round of "Arab Idol", in which aspiring popstars from Morocco to Bahrain compete for a recording contract.

Justin Bieber shrugs off "rumors" after Swedish drug find

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Teen idol Justin Bieber on Thursday seemed to shrug off the latest controversy surrounding his European tour after Swedish police said they had found drugs on his tour bus but could not link them to any single person. Bieber, 19, has made headlines in the past two months for showing up late for his own London concert, walking shirtless through airport security in Poland, posting a cartoon of himself in bed with a young woman, and expressing the hope that Holocaust victim Anne Frank would have been a "belieber" like his millions of fans.

Michael Jackson wrongful death trial set to get underway Monday

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The civil trial over the death of Michael Jackson is set to get formally underway next week after jury selection was completed on Tuesday in the $40 billion case that pits the pop star's mother against concert promoters AEG Live. Six alternate jurors were chosen on Tuesday following the selection a day earlier of a jury of six men and six women for what is expected to be an emotional three-month trial.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-music-summary-133156745.html

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Tax cheats pony up $5.5 billion in amnesty programs

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Internal Revenue Service has recouped more than $5.5 billion under a series of programs that offered reduced penalties and no jail time to people who voluntarily disclosed assets they were hiding overseas, government investigators said Friday.

In all, more than 39,000 tax cheats have come clean under the programs.

But there's more.

Government investigators suspect that thousands of other taxpayers have quietly started reporting foreign accounts without paying any penalties or interest. The number of people reporting foreign accounts to the IRS nearly doubled from 2007 to 2010, to 516,000 accounts, a report by the Government Accountability Office said.

The sharp increase suggests that some people are simply starting to report their accounts without taking part in the disclosure programs, the report said.

"IRS has detected some taxpayers with previously undisclosed offshore accounts attempting to circumvent paying the taxes, interest and penalties that would otherwise be owed," the report said. "But based on GAO reviews of IRS data, IRS may be missing attempts by other taxpayers attempting to do so."

Some taxpayers try to avoid penalties through a technique the IRS calls "quiet disclosure," in which they file amended tax returns that report offshore income from prior years. Others simply declare existing offshore accounts for the first time with their current year's tax return, the report said.

"If successful, these techniques result in lost revenue for the Treasury and undermine the offshore programs' fairness and effectiveness," the report said.

Peter Zeidenberg, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Washington, said it's pretty obvious that people are starting to report foreign accounts that probably existed for years.

"I don't think you get an increase like that from people just all of a sudden getting the idea I'm going to open an account in Switzerland," Zeidenberg said.

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said catching overseas tax dodgers is a top priority of the agency. In a written response to the report, he said the agency is working to improve the way it identifies people who are still trying get around the agency's disclosure programs.

The IRS has run four voluntary disclosure programs since 2003. The last three ? in 2009, 2011 and 2012 ? have yielded almost all of the $5.5 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest. The latest program is still open.

The agency stepped up its efforts in 2009, when Swiss banking giant UBS AG agreed to pay a $780 million fine and turn over details on thousands of accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets from American customers.

The GAO's report looked at data from the 2009 program. More than 10,000 cases from that program have been closed so far. The median account balance: $570,000.

U.S. taxpayers can hold offshore accounts for a number of legitimate reasons, the report says. They may want to diversify their investments, facilitate international business transactions or get easier access to money while living or working overseas.

But, the report notes, "some use them to illegally reduce their tax liabilities, often by not reporting the income earned on these accounts."

Taxpayers with foreign accounts totaling more than $10,000 must report them to the IRS or face stiff penalties.

The IRS has long had a policy that certain tax evaders who come forward can usually avoid jail time as long as they agree to pay back taxes, interest and hefty penalties. Drug dealers and money launderers need not apply. But if the money was earned legally, tax evaders can usually avoid criminal prosecution.

Fewer than 100 people apply for the program in a typical year, in part because the penalties can far exceed the value of the hidden account, depending on how long the account holder has evaded U.S. taxes.

The disclosure programs offered reduced penalties, but they were not a complete amnesty. In the 2009 program, most of the tax cheats were required to forfeit 20 percent of their accounts, the report said.

Miller said the agency is using information from people who have come forward to target banks and financial advisers.

The disclosure programs helped build political momentum to pass a law in 2010 that will require foreign banks to report U.S. account holders to U.S. authorities, said Ian Comisky, partner at Blank, Rome, a law firm based in Philadelphia.

If foreign governments refuse to disclose the information, U.S. banks must withhold 30 percent of certain payments to financial institutions in those countries ? a big incentive for countries to cooperate.

Together, the disclosure programs and the new law offer a powerful incentive for tax dodgers to come clean, Comisky said.

"They are more scared, and they are coming in where they might have been sitting out in the cold," Comisky said. "Now they're trying to come in, even if there's a penalty to do so."

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tax-cheats-pony-5-5-billion-amnesty-program-190719949.html

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Engadget Mobile Podcast 178 - 04.26.13

New phones usually enjoy a big comfortable seat in the limelight when they land. This week, however, there's a lot less elbow room thanks to the recent deluge. But, despite much more muscular competition, that cheeky Asha 210, still manages to get in there first. Enjoy the show.

Hosts: Myriam Joire (tnkgrl), Brad Molen, Joseph Volpe

Producer: James Trew

Music: Tycho - Coastal Brake (Ghostly International)

Hear the podcast

Filed under: Podcasts, Mobile

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1GPLEUF6_U4/

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Gunmen kill 10 Iraqi security forces in 2 attacks

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed.

The attack on the army intelligence soldiers in the former insurgent stronghold of Ramadi drew a quick response from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Shiite-led government has been the target of rising Sunni anger over perceived mistreatment.

The attackers stopped a vehicle carrying the soldiers near the protest camp, prompting a gunbattle that left the five soldiers dead and two of the attackers wounded, police officials said.

Al-Maliki vowed his government would not keep silent over the killing of the soldiers. Iraqi officials have repeatedly claimed that insurgent groups, such as al-Qaida in Iraq and supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam regime, have infiltrated the Sunni demonstrations.

"I call upon the peaceful protesters to expel the criminals targeting military and police," al-Maliki said in a statement posted on his official website.

Authorities announced a curfew in the whole province of Anbar. They also gave the protest organizers in Ramadi, the provincial capital, a 24-hours deadline to hand over the gunmen responsible for killing the soldiers or face a "firm response," said Maj. Gen. Mardhi Mishhin al-Mahalawi, the army's Anbar operations chief.

Members of Iraq's Muslim Sunni minority have been rallying for the past four months in several Iraqi cities to protest what they describe as unfair treatment by al-Maliki's government.

Tensions spiked earlier this week when fighting broke out in the northern town of Hawija during a security crackdown on a protest encampment. That provoked a series of clashes nationwide that left more than 170 people dead over the past five days.

In Cairo, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood group, from which Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi hails, condemned the Iraqi government's actions in the crackdown. The Sunni political and religious organization decried the Iraqi government's "violence in dealing with the peaceful demonstrators and protesters that resulted in the killing and wounding of many innocent people, which is rejected by Islam and humanity."

It added: "this is not the way people are governed or the way to achieve security and reform." Morsi's government has itself come under criticized as scores of Egyptian protesters have been killed or wounded in police crackdowns and street clashes since the Islamist leader was elected after Hosni Mubarak's ouster in 2011.

For many Iraqi Shiites, the months of protests coupled with the latest unrest raise worrying parallels to the civil war engulfing neighboring Syria.

There, Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is fighting largely Sunni rebels who draw support from Turkey and Sunni Gulf states. Assad's Alawite sect is a branch of Shiite Islam, and his regime is backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran, which also has significantly bolstered ties with Iraq in the years since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In a speech Saturday, al-Maliki warned that sectarianism is an "evil thing" that can swiftly spread from country to country in the Islamic world ? an apparent reference to the divisions in Syria.

"If sectarianism erupts in one place, then it will erupt elsewhere too," he said. "And it is returning to Iraq because it has erupted in another area in the region."

That echoed previous concerns raised by the Iraqi premier. In a February interview with The Associated Press, al-Maliki predicted a victory for rebels in Syria would destabilize the wider Middle East, sparking sectarian wars in his own country and in Lebanon.

In further violence Saturday, gunmen also opened fire on a checkpoint manned by government-allied Sunni fighters, killing five of them, near the city of Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad.

The militiamen, known as Sahwa, are among those who joined forces with U.S. troops to fight al-Qaida during the Iraq war. Since then, the group has been a target for Sunni insurgents who consider its members to be traitors.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

___

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Baghdad, and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-kill-10-iraqi-security-forces-2-attacks-133149811.html

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Suitey Is A Software Powered Real Estate Brokerage For New York City Apartments And Homes

At first sight, Suitey looks like nothing more than a run-of-the-mill real estate website. But while sites like Trulia and Zillow merely provide a listing of available properties from a large assortment of brokerages and owners, all the properties on Suitey are being directly offered by Suitey itself. That?s because Suitey is a fully fledged real estate brokerage, and they believe they?re the first software-powered brokerage that offers a better, more transparent home buying experience. At their core, Trulia and Zillow are really nothing more than virtualized billboards. They provide a centralized location for brokers and owners to advertise their for-sale properties. Let?s say you?re looking for a new apartment, and you?ve narrowed down your list to five places. That means you?ll probably have to deal with five different real estate brokers, which from experience can be a total nightmare. With Suitey, everything is simplified. Once again, let?s say you?re looking for an apartment in Manhattan (for now, Suitey only offers listings in New York City). Once you narrow things down to five options on their website, you can contact a Suitey agent who will set a time to view all the properties with you. In the future, you?ll be able to video chat with the agent directly from the website. This face-to-face experience with Suitey?s agents is key to the company’s ethos. ?We want to ensure that our agents are people you?d feel comfortable buying a home from,? says David Walker, CEO of Suitey. He tells me that Suitey?s agents are heavily vetted by the company before they are hired in a process that ensures their competence and general likability. Once you?ve agreed to buy the home, Suitey gives you a one percent discount to sweeten the deal. That may not seem like much, but if you?re buying property for several million dollars, that rebate ends up being a couple thousand dollars you can put towards your deposit. ?I?ve never heard of anything quite like it, and it would interesting to see what happens,? says Laura Goldstein, Managing Editor of AOL Real Estate. ?People have such a bad association with real estate agents, and the customer service approach feels very appealing.? Suitey was one of the ten companies featured at the Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator?s Demo Day today. You can check out a roundup of startups from our coverage of the event here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NxUfX7EqjHo/

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Boston bombings suspect moved from hospital to prison

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been moved to a Massachusetts prison facility from the hospital he has been held in for a week.

By Tracy Connor, Alastair Jamieson and Erin McClam, NBC News

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has been moved from the hospital to a federal prison 40 miles away that provides specialized medical care, the government said Friday.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was moved from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he has been held and interrogated since his capture last week, to the federal prison at Fort Devens, Mass.,?the Marshals Service said.

The prison?s website describes it as a facility for men who need specialized or long-term medical or mental health care.

The most prominent inmate there is Raj Rajaratnam, who in 2011 was sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading. He has diabetes, and the prison has a dialysis center.

The prison is in a wooded setting on a military base that was decommissioned in 1996. Another inmate there is Sabri Benkahla, who is serving 10 years for lying to authorities about training with militants in Pakistan. Benkahla was accused of being part of an American group that trained with paintball guns. He is scheduled for release in 2016.

Roger Stockham,?a Southern California man who was accused in January 2011 of plotting to blow up a mosque outside Detroit, served at Fort Devens and was released late last year. Stockham has a long criminal history that includes holding?a psychiatrist hostage, kidnapping his son, trying to hijack a plane and threatening to kill the president.

A lawyer who has had clients sentenced to Fort Devens told The Hartford Courant in 2005 that the prison has an outdoor basketball court. Crafts, including woodworking and making leather goods, are popular, the lawyer told the newspaper ? though it is not clear how restricted Tsarnaev will be.

At the time, a judge had recommended that John Rowland, a former Connecticut governor who pleaded guilty to a corruption charge, be assigned to Fort Devens. Instead he served about 10 months at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.

In 1918, during a flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people around the world, there was a severe outbreak at what was then known as Camp Devens ? a ghastly scene of piled up corpses and cots overflowing onto porches.

The outbreak came in the last days of World War I. According to an account published by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, men at Devens were so sick that their oxygen-deprived skin turned deep blue.

The decision on where to send federal inmates is made by the Bureau of Prisons, which does not generally disclose its reasons for assigning prisoners.

Boston police could be seen early Friday leaving the hospital, which has treated not just Tsarnaev but people injured in the marathon blasts April 15.

Tsarnaev, 19, was upgraded earlier this week to fair condition from serious. His injuries, including a gunshot wound to the head and neck that may have been self-inflicted, were so severe that he initially communicated with investigators by moving his head and in writing.

He also has injuries to the leg and hand, apparently from a firefight with police in suburban Watertown, Mass., on April 19 that played out about 12 hours before Tsarnaev was captured hiding in a boat parked in the driveway of a house.

New York authorities said Thursday that Tsarnaev had improved to the point that he could talk, and that in a second round of questioning he admitted that he and his brother decided on the?run to carry out a second attack in Times Square. His brother, Tamerlan, was killed after the shootout.

Tsarnaev has been charged with federal crimes including conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, and Attorney General Eric Holder could decide to seek the death penalty.

Tsarnaev has told investigators that he and his brother acted alone when they built and detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the marathon. Three people were killed in the attack and more than 200 injured.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that the brothers were motivated by a desire to defend Islam after the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In prison, experts have said, Tsarnaev will probably be subject to special administrative measures that could sharply curtail his contact with fellow prisoners and the outside world. Stephen Huggard, a former Boston federal prosecutor who worked on the?Sept. 11?investigation, said Tsarnaev?s parents, who are in Russia and have insisted he?s being framed, may not be allowed to visit.

/

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

At a hospital court room hearing earlier this week, Tsarnaev showed little sign?of fear or remorse and his heart monitor didn?t register a blip when he was told he could be could be facing the death penalty, according to a source familiar with the events inside the room when he was read his rights.

The mother of the Tsarnaev brothers insisted Thursday that her sons are not responsible for the attack and said she did not see any aggression in the older brother, even when the FBI questioned him two years ago.

Speaking to reporters in Russia, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva also said the elder son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, came to Russia for six months last year to attend a family wedding, visit relatives and later renew his Kyrgyzstan passport.

?America took my kids away from me,? she said. ?I?m sure my kids were not involved in anything.?

U.S. investigators have said they want to know more about why Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in Russia. When he returned to the United States in July, he began posting radical Islamic videos to his YouTube account.

Matthew DeLuca of NBC News contributed to this report.

Related stories

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 26, 2013 7:18 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2b33426e/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C260C179263310Eboston0Ebombings0Esuspect0Emoved0Efrom0Ehospital0Eto0Eprison0Dlite/story01.htm

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15 feared trapped as hospital collapses in India

NEW DELHI (AP) ? A portion of a hospital building collapsed in central India on Friday and up to 15 people were feared trapped in the debris, an official said.

Mayor Krishna Gaur said 15 other people had been rescued from the collapsed portion of the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state.

Police officer Upendra Jain said 25 to 30 people were believed to be on the first floor of the women's medical ward when its ceiling crashed down. The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.

Jain said there were no major injuries among the people rescued at the hospital, operated by state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. Bhopal is about 750 kilometers (465 miles) south of New Delhi.

Building collapses are common in India as builders try to cut corners by using substandard materials, and as multistory structures are built with inadequate supervision. The massive demand for housing around cities and pervasive corruption often result in builders adding unauthorized floors or constructing illegal buildings.

Early this month, at least 72 people were killed when an eight-story residential building being constructed illegally near Mumbai, India's financial capital, came crashing down in the worst building collapse in the country in decades.

Another 70 people were injured when the building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in on April 4.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/15-feared-trapped-hospital-collapses-india-133212646.html

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Stocks hold on to gains despite soft growth

LONDON (AP) ? Markets were leaden-footed Thursday but mostly held on to big gains made this week, as investors continue to hope central banks will provide support to a weakening global economy.

This week investors have had to contend with largely disappointing U.S. economic data, notably a big slide in durable goods orders for March, as well as further confirmation of a slowdown in China, the world's second-largest economy.

However, sentiment has held up largely because investors think the world's major central banks will continue with their super-easy and super-cheap monetary policies. That's increasingly the case in Europe, where investors think it's now almost definite that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates at its policy meeting next Thursday.

"The case for an ECB rate cut at the 2 May policy meeting is quite strong," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

Markets in Europe have been particularly buoyant over the past couple of days as a number of analysts changed their forecasts to predict a reduction in the ECB's main interest rate from the current record low of 0.75 percent.

After those sharp gains, stock markets were more subdued on Thursday, with Germany's DAX flat at 7,762 and the CAC-40 in France 0.3 percent lower at 3,831.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.1 percent at 6,422 even though official figures showed the country's economy grew by a greater than anticipated quarterly rate of 0.3 percent in the first three months of the year.

Many in the markets were predicting that Britain would sink into its third recession in less than five years. But the rise eased expectations that the Bank of England will soon announce another big monetary stimulus. That worked against stocks but gave the British pound a lift ? it was trading 1.1 percent higher at $1.5437 and near two-month highs.

"Sterling leapfrogged above the $1.54 level after the country dodged another quarter of negative growth," said David Madden, market analyst at IG.

The dollar was faltering against a range of currencies, with the euro up 0.4 percent at $1.3064. Against the yen, the dollar was 0.5 percent lower at 99.05 yen

Later, the focus in the U.S. will likely center on the weekly jobless claims figures, which could provide an insight into monthly nonfarm payrolls figures due next week. Another round of corporate earnings from the likes of Coca Cola and Exxon Mobil could also impact upon trading.

Ahead of the bell and the bulk of the economic and corporate news, Wall Street was poised for a steady opening, with Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures up 0.3 percent.

Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.6 percent to close at 13,926.08 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1 percent to 22,401.24. South Korea's Kospi added 0.8 percent to 1,951.60.

Oil prices were fairly flat too after recovering above $90 a barrel on Wednesday ? the benchmark rate was up 23 cents at $91.66 a barrel.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-hold-gains-despite-soft-growth-105925403--finance.html

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Google's Got A Problem. Search Ads Aren't Just For Search Engines Anymore

Search advertising became such a popular and lucrative juggernaut because it offered businesses the ability to reach and persuade people with true purchase intent. But now keyword targeting is available on Twitter and Facebook, which could loosen Google's stranglehold on ads that convince us what to buy.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YTCJhJ7XOi4/

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How Important Is Local Online Marketing For Small Businesses ...

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

As local market comprises of highly potential customers who are significant in driving new and repeated sales, there arises the need for local online marketing.

This article emphasizes on why small businesses should consider local online marketing as an important aspect of their overall marketing strategy.

Increasing numbers of people are using Internet to shop locally
According to a study ?User Wave View VII?, conducted by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, 97% of all consumers use Internet for researching products and services in their local areas. These statistics prove that local online marketing is the best way to target prospective customers. Further, with almost all mobiles coming with Internet facilities, location based searches are also increasing.

Location based marketing involves customizing marketing messages as per the location and preferences of prospective customers. When a customer is looking for a business in a particular area, there are higher chances of your website appearing on the search results if your business has geo-specific content.

Consumers prefer local searches, as most of the location based search

Click here to view rest of article from original site

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Source: http://www.thmg.com/marketing-tips/how-important-is-local-online-marketing-for-small-businesses/

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Catch-22, Clinical Trial Edition: The Double Bind for Women and Children

?I remember wheeling down this long, narrow corridor into my office, just a confused, scared mess, but I had to confront him.? Phil Vardy was a young medical researcher in Sydney that day in 1982. The man he had to confront was his boss, one of Australia?s most prominent doctors, William McBride.

He had just seen an article McBride published suggesting an ingredient in the drug Bendectin caused birth defects ? with fabricated defects and experimental pregnant rabbits that didn?t exist either.

Vardy?s confrontation with McBride did not go well, and ?small battles led to bigger ones which led to bigger ones.? It would cost Vardy his job and his marriage. After a decade of media storms and public enquiries establishing fraud, McBride lost his license to practice medicine.

I was a maternity consumer advocate in Australia then, and watching what happened to Bendectin and the women who needed it was a long slow revelation. This month, the FDA added a hopeful chapter to the saga. But that?s jumping too far ahead. Let?s go back first.

McBride?s part began in 1961 when he sent a letter to The Lancet reporting limb malformations associated with the drug Thalidomide. The pendulum swung overnight from under-awareness and inadequate protection to hyper-vigilance, emotion and hype about drug safety in pregnancy.

In the wake of Thalidomide, Bendectin inevitably came in the firing line. In some countries up to a third of all pregnant women had taken the drug ? over 30 million by the early 1980s.

That number of women would be expected to give birth to over a million babies with some kind of birth defect ? by coincidence alone. So the potential for people to point the finger of blame at this drug was sky-high.

The National Enquirer and other media spread the word. The Public Citizen?s Health Research Group (unsuccessfully) petitioned the FDA in 1980 and 1982 to remove its marketing approval. Bendectin, they argued, didn?t work and was ?unsafe for human use.?

Bendectin did work and was never proven to cause birth defects, but it caused a lot of litigation. McBride ? his fraud not yet revealed ? was a prominent medical expert for many plaintiffs.

The case against the drug was made up of flimsy science and selective choices of studies. Even without junk and fraud, it?s risky to look at some studies in isolation, rather than systematic reviews of all strong evidence. Litigation over Bendectin led the Supreme Court to set a new standard for scientific evidence and testimony.

But the drug was off the market by 1983 purely for commercial reasons. Defending it was just too expensive. This quote in the NY Times shows what Bendectin was up against: ?Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children will be spared the risk of exposure to this questionably effective and unsafe drug.?

With Bendectin gone, the rate of birth defects didn?t fall. The ratio of hospitalization of pregnant women for nausea and vomiting almost doubled in the US (from about 7 per thousand to 13). There aren?t very effective non-drug alternatives, so many women used drugs not approved safe for pregnancy.

This month, 30 years after the end of Bendectin, Diclegis was approved by the FDA for the treatment of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. It?s a new formulation of Bendectin?s key ingredients. But we still have a far larger problem.

We don?t have adequate evidence of the effects of drugs women need to use when they?re pregnant. We seem to be more concerned about protecting people from the risks of research than the risks of not doing research.

Animal studies can?t resolve the problem. Some drugs cause birth defects only in humans, or only in some animals and not in humans. Surveillance only gets us so far. Such as finding out too late that a particular type of hypertensive drug in pregnancy was sometimes fatal for the baby.

The problem leaked out to partially affect all women. Women of childbearing age or even all women have often been excluded from drug research ? just in case. Yet differences in body weight, metabolism and more between men and women can affect drug response and ideal dosing in critical ways.

Children are another group with extensive additional safeguards for research. By the late 1990s, children were described as ?therapeutic orphans?, because there were so few safety and efficacy studies in children. And legislative efforts to try to improve the situation began.

It?s the Catch-22 of clinical trials. For too long we have been trying to protect women and children from the risks of untested drugs?by not testing their drugs adequately. Here?s hoping the arrival of Diclegis is a sign of wider progress.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=6bacbe6c6c0da316dc26b00dc84aa75e

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Why soft corals have unique pulsating motion

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered why Heteroxenia corals pulsate. Their work, which resolves an old scientific mystery, appears in the current issue of PNAS.

One of the most fascinating and spectacular sights in the coral reef of Eilat is the perpetual motion of the tentacles of a coral called Heteroxenia (Heteroxenia fuscescens). Heteroxenia is a soft coral from the family Xeniidae, which looks like a small bunch of flowers, settled in the reef walls and on rocky areas on the bottom of the reef. Each "flower" is actually a living polyp, the basic unit which comprises a coral colony. Apparently, the motion of these polyps, resembling flowers that are elegantly spreading out and closing up their petals, is unique in the animal kingdom.

?Except for the familiar swimming motion of jellyfish, no other bottom-attached aquatic animal is known to perform such motions. Pulsation is energetically costly, and hence there must be a reasonable benefit to justify this motion.

The perpetual motions of jellyfish serve them for swimming, predation and feeding. The natural explanation would be that that the Heteroxenia's spectacular motions are used for predation and feeding, however several studies indicate that these corals do not predate on other animals at all. If predation is not the reason for pulsating, there must be another explanation to justify the substantial energetic expense by the Heteroxenia.????

Maya Kremien found the answers to these questions, while working on her master's research at the Interuniversity institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat under the supervision of Prof. Amatzia Genin from the Hebrew University and Prof. Uri Shavit from the Technion in a joint research funded by the National Science Foundation.

After watching several coral colonies with an underwater infrared-sensitive camera night and day, the researchers found their first surprising discovery: Heteroxenia corals cease to pulsate and take a half-hour break every single day in the afternoon hours. At this stage, the afternoon "siestas" remained unexplained.

The labs of Prof. Genin and Prof. Shavit conduct work on the interaction between biological processes of aquatic creatures and the water motions which surround them. Apparently aquatic animals affect the flow and at the same time are absolutely dependent on that flow. In order to solve the mystery of the Heteroxenia coral, the research team developed (as part of Ph.D. work by Tali Mass) an underwater measuring device called PIV (particle imaging velocimetry), which allows measurement of the flow field just around the coral very accurately. The system consists of two powerful lasers, an image capturing system and computation ability. A special set of lenses releases a sheet of light in short, powerful pulses so that the imaging system can capture pairs of snapshots of natural particles moving with the flow. The computational system then performs a mathematical analysis of the pairs of photos, producing a huge database of flow field maps, from which the flow speed, characteristics of solutes transport, and turbulent mixing intensity are calculated.??

The measurements were performed at night with the support of divers who volunteered to assist the research team. It was found that if a diver lightly touched the coral, the polyps "close" and remain motionless for a few minutes, after which the coral returns to its normal pulsation activity. The researchers used this behavior in order to repeatedly measure the flow field around the Heteroxenia during pulsation and rest.

These measurements led to the research group's next discovery. Analysis of the direction of water flow indicated that the motion of the polyps effectively sweeps water up and away from the coral tissues into the ambient water. Corals need carbon-dioxide during daytime and oxygen during nighttime, as well as nutrients (such as phosphate and nitrogen) during day and night. One of the challenges for coral colonies is to render their surrounding waters rich in essential commodities by efficiently mixing the water around them.

By using the sophisticated measuring system, the researchers calculated the mixing intensity of the water as a result of the coral's pulsation. The unexpected discovery was that even though the polyps' motions are uncoordinated (i.e. each polyp starts its period of motion at a different time), the accumulated effect of the polyps? activity is a significant enhancement of the flow around the colony, particularly in the upward direction which sweeps water away from the coral, hence reducing the probability of re-filtration of the same water.

However, these findings still did not yet answer the question of why a coral would invest so much energy to move its tentacles. After receiving a permit from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the research team collected a few Heteroxenia colonies from the sea in order to run a series of laboratory experiments. All corals were returned back to their original location after the experiment terminated. The Hypothesis was that the pulsation motions enhance the coral's photosynthesis rate.

Corals are among the most ancient creatures surviving on our planet. One of the "secrets" of their amazing survival abilities is that they "host" photosynthetic algae in their tissues. The symbiotic algae provides the coral with essential nutrients and lives off the waste of the coral.

In a previous study of the same research team (which the results of were also published in PNAS) it was found that the motion of water around corals is essential in order to enhance the efflux of oxygen from the coral tissues. Without water motion, the oxygen concentration in the coral tissues would rise and the photosynthesis rate would drop.

The answer to the question as to why the Heteroxenia pulsates was finally revealed through the lab experiments. First, the photosynthesis rate of a pulsating Heteroxenia was measured, and it was found to be on an order of magnitude higher than that of a non-pulsating colony. Next, in order to prove that the mechanism of pulsation is intended to sweep away oxygen, the researchers artificially increased the oxygen concentration in the measurement chamber so that even when the coral managed to mix water via pulsation, it was replacing oxygen-rich water with new water, which, unfortunately for the coral , was also rich in oxygen. And indeed it was found that the photosynthesis rate was low in this case, and even when the coral was constantly pulsating, the oxygen concentration remained high and photosynthesis remained low, as if the coral was at rest (i.e. not pulsating).?

The elegant motion of Heteroxenia has been fascinating the scientific society and capturing the attention of researchers for nearly 200 years (Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, 1744-1829), yet it has not been explained. Now, in the study of Kremien, Genin and Shavit, it was found that the pulsation motions augment a significant enhancement in the binding of carbon dioxide to the photosynthetic enzyme RuBisCo, also leading to a decrease in photorespiration. This explanation justifies the investment of energy in pulsation -- the benefit overcomes the cost. In fact, thanks to pulsation, the ratio between photosynthesis to respiration in Heteroxenia is the highest ever measured in stony and non-pulsating soft corals.

The findings of this study indicate that pulsation motions are a highly efficient means for sweeping away water from the pulsating body, and for an increased mixing of dissolved matter between the body and the surrounding medium. These two processes (expulsion of medium and mixing of solutes) may lead to future applications in engineering and medicine. Currently the research group is focusing on attempts to broaden the results of this study and on developing mathematical models which could serve various applicative purposes.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. M. Kremien, U. Shavit, T. Mass, A. Genin. Benefit of pulsation in soft corals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1301826110

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/CQqT9BpWGj4/130423091042.htm

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4 Tips To Protect Your Social Security Number | Bankrate.com

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Source: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/smart-spending/tips-protect-your-social-security-number-1.aspx

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A look at immigrant patients deported by hospitals

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Over the last five years, American hospitals have sent at least 600 immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally back to their home countries to avoid paying for long-term care after serious illness or injury.

The Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University has documented "medical repatriation" cases in 15 states involving patients from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Lithuania, Mexico, the Philippines and South Korea.

Here's a look at some of the most dramatic examples from a report issued in December:

___

Quelino Ojeda Jimenez was working atop a building at Chicago's Midway Airport in 2010 when he fell, suffering injuries that left him nearly quadriplegic and reliant on a ventilator.

Advocate Christ Medical Center cared for Jimenez for four months, absorbing more than $650,000 in costs, according to a 2011 Chicago Tribune story.

Three days before Christmas that year, the hospital put him aboard a medical flight and sent him to Mexico, even though his family protested. Crying and unable to speak, Jimenez could do nothing to prevent his removal.

The receiving hospital in Mexico lacked rehabilitation services and could not afford new filters for his ventilator. After suffering two heart attacks and a septic infection, Jimenez died on Jan. 2, 2012.

___

Luis Alberto Jimenez was working as a landscaper in Florida when the car he was in was struck by a drunk driver in February 2000.

Jimenez, then 35, suffered brain damage and other injuries and was treated at Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart, Fla., until June, when he was transferred to a nursing home.

The following January, he was readmitted to the hospital with an infection that doctors feared could be fatal. He stayed at the hospital for a year because no other long-term care provider would take him.

The hospital eventually filed a lawsuit in state court seeking permission to transport him to a hospital in his native Guatemala. A judge approved the flight in June 2003, and Jimenez was flown to Guatemala before the court could rule on an appeal filed by his legal guardian.

In mid-2004, the Florida District Court of Appeals overturned the lower court's order, declaring that state courts do not have the authority to permit deportations, which are regulated by federal immigration law. But by then Jimenez had been returned home, bedridden and suffering from seizures, to live with his elderly mother in a remote area of Guatemala.

___

Barbara Latasiewicz was working as a housekeeper in the Chicago area in 2009 when she had a stroke while scrubbing a bathtub. The Polish woman was paralyzed on her left side and needed around-the-clock care.

Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital tried to find her long-term care, but 30 facilities refused to take her because she was undocumented. Latasiewicz had overstayed a temporary visa after arriving in the U.S. in 1990.

The hospital allowed her to stay without insurance or any other way to pay for 2? years at a cost of more than $1.4 million.

In early 2012, arrangements were made to transfer her to a stroke-specialty unit in Poland. She refused to consent to the transfer, which would permanently separate her from her son and grandchildren. The hospital obtained a judge's order allowing her transfer to Poland.

A March 1 story in the Chicago Tribune says the 60-year-old woman cried while sitting in the airport awaiting a flight out, knowing she would probably never return to the U.S., which had been her home for more than 20 years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/look-immigrant-patients-deported-hospitals-071427622.html

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Study led by NUS scientists reveals escalating cost of forest conservation

Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
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Contact: Carolyn Fong
carolyn@nus.edu.sg
65-651-65399
National University of Singapore

Researchers illustrate how changes to farming could dramatically increase future costs of conservation

In the face of unprecedented deforestation and biodiversity loss, policy makers are increasingly using financial incentives to encourage conservation.

However, a research team led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) revealed that in the long run, conservation incentives may struggle to compete with future agricultural yields.

Their findings were first published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 15 April 2013.

Financial incentives for conservation

Incentives are being leveraged in dozens of tropical developing countries to conserve forests, to protect biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. This incentive-based approach is comparatively inexpensive, as low agricultural yields and widespread poverty often mean that relatively small incentives can motivate many landholders to protect their land for conservation.

As a result, this approach has become a leading climate change mitigation strategy adopted by the United Nations as policies for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

Costs of conservation in the long run

In a bid to assess the future viability of these types of conservation programmes, the team, comprising researchers from NUS, ETH Zurich and University of Cambridge, developed a framework and model that looked at the strategy's effectiveness in the context of intensified farming practices.

The researchers modeled conservation payments necessary to protect forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has some of the largest remaining forests in the world. They found that a new agricultural intensification and conservation programme could double or triple cassava and maize yields by introducing disease-resistant plant varieties, increasing fertilizer use and improving farming practices.

Increased farm yields will bring dramatic benefits to DRC farmers, and could increase land area spared for conservation. Similar agricultural intensification policies are being promoted across the tropics.

However, the researchers highlight how those higher yields and incomes will also increase financial incentives for farmers to clear more forest for agriculture. As a result, financial incentives to encourage farmers to protect forests and not expand agriculture would need to escalate as well. They expect farmers who were once willing to protect forests for a comparative pittance could, in a matter of years, demand more for their conservation actions. Small-scale farmers might also be displaced by larger commercial ventures as farming becomes more lucrative, and as profits increase with growing global demand for agricultural products.

After taking these factors into account, the researchers found that while the current costs of forest conservation in many countries are very low, future changes in agricultural practices could radically increase the cost of conservation.

Escalating cost is top concern

The NUS-led study illustrated that these contemporary policies tend to focus on short-term conservation and on improving the livelihoods of poor communities around forested areas. However, they risk overlooking impacts of on long-term conservation.

The researchers warn that conservation expenditure will have to dramatically increase to compete with future agriculture.

Said Jacob Phelps, a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science and first author of the study, "Our research suggests that as agriculture becomes more intensive, the small payments successful at incentivising forest conservation today could increase to well beyond what is considered economically efficient, or even feasible. We anticipate that similar patterns are likely across the tropics, including in places like Indonesia."

###

For more information, please contact:

Carolyn FONG
Manager, Media Relations
Office of Corporate Relations
Tel: (65) 6516 5399
Email: carolyn@nus.edu.sg

About National University of Singapore (NUS)

A leading global university centred in Asia, the National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore's flagship university which offers a global approach to education and research, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise.

NUS has 16 faculties and schools across three campuses. Its transformative education includes a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. Over 37,000 students from 100 countries enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives.

NUS has three Research Centres of Excellence (RCE) and 23 university-level research institutes and centres. It is also a partner in Singapore's 5th RCE. NUS shares a close affiliation with 16 national-level research institutes and centres. Research activities are strategic and robust, and NUS is well-known for its research strengths in engineering, life sciences and biomedicine, social sciences and natural sciences. It also strives to create a supportive and innovative environment to promote creative enterprise within its community.

For more information, please visit http://www.nus.edu.sg

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Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
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Contact: Carolyn Fong
carolyn@nus.edu.sg
65-651-65399
National University of Singapore

Researchers illustrate how changes to farming could dramatically increase future costs of conservation

In the face of unprecedented deforestation and biodiversity loss, policy makers are increasingly using financial incentives to encourage conservation.

However, a research team led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) revealed that in the long run, conservation incentives may struggle to compete with future agricultural yields.

Their findings were first published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 15 April 2013.

Financial incentives for conservation

Incentives are being leveraged in dozens of tropical developing countries to conserve forests, to protect biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. This incentive-based approach is comparatively inexpensive, as low agricultural yields and widespread poverty often mean that relatively small incentives can motivate many landholders to protect their land for conservation.

As a result, this approach has become a leading climate change mitigation strategy adopted by the United Nations as policies for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

Costs of conservation in the long run

In a bid to assess the future viability of these types of conservation programmes, the team, comprising researchers from NUS, ETH Zurich and University of Cambridge, developed a framework and model that looked at the strategy's effectiveness in the context of intensified farming practices.

The researchers modeled conservation payments necessary to protect forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has some of the largest remaining forests in the world. They found that a new agricultural intensification and conservation programme could double or triple cassava and maize yields by introducing disease-resistant plant varieties, increasing fertilizer use and improving farming practices.

Increased farm yields will bring dramatic benefits to DRC farmers, and could increase land area spared for conservation. Similar agricultural intensification policies are being promoted across the tropics.

However, the researchers highlight how those higher yields and incomes will also increase financial incentives for farmers to clear more forest for agriculture. As a result, financial incentives to encourage farmers to protect forests and not expand agriculture would need to escalate as well. They expect farmers who were once willing to protect forests for a comparative pittance could, in a matter of years, demand more for their conservation actions. Small-scale farmers might also be displaced by larger commercial ventures as farming becomes more lucrative, and as profits increase with growing global demand for agricultural products.

After taking these factors into account, the researchers found that while the current costs of forest conservation in many countries are very low, future changes in agricultural practices could radically increase the cost of conservation.

Escalating cost is top concern

The NUS-led study illustrated that these contemporary policies tend to focus on short-term conservation and on improving the livelihoods of poor communities around forested areas. However, they risk overlooking impacts of on long-term conservation.

The researchers warn that conservation expenditure will have to dramatically increase to compete with future agriculture.

Said Jacob Phelps, a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science and first author of the study, "Our research suggests that as agriculture becomes more intensive, the small payments successful at incentivising forest conservation today could increase to well beyond what is considered economically efficient, or even feasible. We anticipate that similar patterns are likely across the tropics, including in places like Indonesia."

###

For more information, please contact:

Carolyn FONG
Manager, Media Relations
Office of Corporate Relations
Tel: (65) 6516 5399
Email: carolyn@nus.edu.sg

About National University of Singapore (NUS)

A leading global university centred in Asia, the National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore's flagship university which offers a global approach to education and research, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise.

NUS has 16 faculties and schools across three campuses. Its transformative education includes a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. Over 37,000 students from 100 countries enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives.

NUS has three Research Centres of Excellence (RCE) and 23 university-level research institutes and centres. It is also a partner in Singapore's 5th RCE. NUS shares a close affiliation with 16 national-level research institutes and centres. Research activities are strategic and robust, and NUS is well-known for its research strengths in engineering, life sciences and biomedicine, social sciences and natural sciences. It also strives to create a supportive and innovative environment to promote creative enterprise within its community.

For more information, please visit http://www.nus.edu.sg

---

[ | 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/nuos-slb042313.php

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