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Tuesday 31 January 2012
Monday 30 January 2012
The 'Choking Game': 1 in 7 College Kids Has Tried It (Time.com)
College students aren't necessarily renowned for their good judgment, and a new study reinforces that, finding that nearly one in seven co-eds has played the Choking Game, which is every bit as dangerous as it sounds.
Also called the Fainting Game, Pass Out, or Space Monkey, the Choking Game can be played individually or in groups. It consists of manually choking yourself or others, sticking a plastic bag over the head, tying a string around the neck or hyperventilating, all in search of a few seconds of euphoria. (See TIME's health and medicine covers.)
Researchers at The Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University surveyed 837 students at a Texas university and found that the behavior, which works by cutting off blood flow to the brain in order to induce a high, was frighteningly commonplace:
?16% of students said they'd played the game, and three-quarters more than once
?On average, students first played the game at age 14
?Males were more likely to have played than females
?90% of students who had played the game learned about it from friends, and most students said they first played in a group
Why in the world would kids engage in this potentially deadly behavior? In a word, curiosity. They may also not realize it has the potential to be just as deadly as illegal drugs. The good news is that learning that a number of teens and college students have suffocated to death from playing the Choking Game helped deter students from playing. Parents, talk to your kids. And schools can play a role too: related research found that 90% of parents think that including information about the dangers of the game in school health and drug prevention classes is a smart idea.(MORE: For Teens Who Cut, Going Online Can Sometimes Help)
As the study notes:
"This 'game,' as it is often called, does not require obtaining any drugs or alcohol, is free, and can go undetected by many parents, teachers, physicians, and other authority figures. Most importantly, many of those who engage in this activity, do not understand that the practice can be just as deadly as the illegal substances youth have been warned against."
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Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 owners coping with Siri envy can find several good apps in Apple's App Store that replicate some?but not all?of Siri's functions. Bing's iPhone app offers excellent voice-controlled Web searches, for example, while Dragon Go! listens to the commands you speak for other Web functions, like using specific online sites and services such as OpenTable, Wolfram Alpha, and Yelp. From the same maker of Dragon Go!, Nuance Communication, comes another voice-controlled app designed to increase productivity and take the stress off your typing fingers: Dragon Dictation for iPhone (free). As a simple dictation app, Dragon transcribes whatever you speak. End of story. The app does have some shortcut buttons to push the transcribed text through to Facebook, a new email message, and a few other places, but Dragon Dictate doesn't actually store any notes in the app itself.
As far as free apps go, Dragon Dictation for iPhone does a good job in its core mission: transcribing what you say aloud. But it doesn't go much beyond that.
What Dragon Dictation Can Do
Dragon Dictation is relatively accurate and fast, although users should have reasonable expectations for what that means in a lightweight app. When you press the button that tells Dragon to start listening to your speech, a "Recording" screen appears, with moving indicator bars to show that it can hear you. When you finish speaking, Dragon can (if you enable this setting) automatically detect the end of your speech, but you can press the "Done" button instead if you prefer. The app then needs a moment or two, depending on how much you just said, to process the language before spitting out typed text. When the text appears on screen, you can select any word to delete or revise. If Dragon has a second guess at what the word or words are supposed to say, it will suggest the alternate, which you can pick without having to key it in.
Check out The Best iPhone Apps
At the bottom of the screen are two selections, one to pop open the keyboard and one that offers you these options: copy, email, send via SMS text message, post to Twitter, post to Facebook, and settings.
If you stop after speaking a few lines, check the transcription, and then start up again, the Dragon iPhone app will pick up where you left off, so long as you haven't moved the cursor.
In terms of accuracy, the app isn?t as clever as the full desktop dictation software, like Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium for Windows ($199.99, 4.5 stars), but it's pretty good. And it works even better if you turn on a setting Recognize Names, which uses names from your Contacts list to inform Dragon on spelling.
It also handles homonyms fairly well because it looks for clues in which other words are commonly used nearby; in testing, the most common errors I saw were with similar-sounding words rather than homonyms per se. Some examples are: "we'll" and "well"; "in a" and "and a"; "endure" and "indoor."
What Dragon Dictation Cannot Do
A few of the app's limitations really bothered me. In particular I was frustrated by the inability to shake to undo, a standard feature in iOS that I use often because I am forever accidentally deleting large swathes of text. You also can't train this little app to learn special words, like proper names of places and people that might not be in your Contacts list.
Dragon Dictation is a dictation app, and not a note-taking app, so you can't save notes inside the app. I really wish the next update would add this feature, because having it would make it so much more valuable. As it is, you can copy your transcriptions and paste them into another note app, but that's clunky. I want to save the notes I make quickly and in the app where I created them. Or, better, I'd love to see a partnership with a note-taking app so that all Dragon notes I make are automatically saved to a service such as Evernote or Awesome Note (+ToDo).
Another clumsy feature in the otherwise simple and clean Dragon Dictation iPhone app rears its ugly head when you try to scroll through a long note. Six sentences into the "Gettysburg Address," it became very difficult for me to get to the bottom of the note. Every time I touched the app to scroll, words would highlight for correction. Getting the cursor where I needed it became a painstaking task.
Dragon for Dictation
In sampling speech-recognition and voice-command software, I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences with Nuance's Dragon family of products. For accuracy and speed, the Dragon Dictation iPhone app meets the standards of the brand. The usability could be improved, however, and it wouldn't take too much heavy-lifting to elevate it from being a "very good app for some" to "very good app, even if you don't think you need it." Dictation is a time-saver over typing, but Dragon Dictation needs to make it easier for users to put their words to work, adding an ability to save notes in the app or automatically save them to a third-party app, as well as cut out some of the tapping needed to send a message to email, text, Facebook, and Twitter, with a few simple voice commands.
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Sunday 29 January 2012
Feisty Gingrich stakes campaign on electability (AP)
SARASOTA, Fla. ? Newt Gingrich has staked his presidential bid on the idea that he's best positioned to defeat President Barack Obama. Yet even some supporters seem to be struggling to buy that claim, an indication that efforts by chief rival Mitt Romney to undercut him may be working.
"Beating Obama is more important than everything else," Patrick Roehl, a 51-year-old computer software engineer, said at a Gingrich rally inside a Sarasota airport hangar this past week. "Can Newt win? I'm not sure. He's got a lot of high negatives. The elections are won and lost in the middle. I'm not sure he appeals to the middle."
John Grainger, a 44-year-old assistant golf pro, doesn't like Romney. But he's having trouble shaking skepticism about Gingrich.
"I want to be a Newt supporter," he said. "This guy's going to have the guts to stand up and speak his piece ? no holds barred." But Grainger said he wasn't quite ready to back the former House speaker.
Interviews with more than a dozen Republican voters at Gingrich's overflowing rallies ahead of Tuesday's primary suggest that many Florida voters love his brash style as they look for someone to take it to Obama. But these voters also have lingering doubts about whether Gingrich really is Obama's most serious threat.
Romney and his allies are working to stoke those doubts, and the GOP's establishment wing has started to help the former Massachusetts governor try to make that case.
Romney and his backers are highlighting what they consider Gingrich's liabilities ? consulting contracts and ethics investigations among them. They're suggesting that more baggage could emerge in the fall in the general election.
"In the case of the speaker, he's got some records which could represent an October surprise," Romney said, referring to Gingrich's consulting work and ethics allegations when he was in the House. "We could see an October surprise a day from Newt Gingrich."
An outside group dedicated to helping Romney has spent almost $9 million on Florida television advertising, including a massive $4 million investment this week alone, to make the case even more explicitly.
"Newt Gingrich's tough talk sounds good, but Newt has tons of baggage. How will he ever beat Obama?" says the new ad from the so-called super PAC, Restore Our Future.
Gingrich is not letting such criticism go unanswered. He's telling everyone that he alone can defeat Obama. He points to his 12 percentage point victory last weekend in the South Carolina primary as proof.
Exit polling there showed that 51 percent of Republican voters said that Gingrich was better suited to defeat the Democratic president.
"Their highest value was beating Obama," Gingrich told evangelical voters this past week. "And if they thought Romney was the only person who could beat Obama, then they would swallow a lie. But the minute they thought there were two people who could beat Obama, they suddenly turned and said, Well, you know, maybe we should be for Newt."
Polls suggest that Gingrich could defeat Romney in Florida, a surge fueled partly by growing support from the tea party movement and continued anti-Romney sentiment.
"He's a fighter. Mitt, I think, is too wishy-washy," said Dominique Boscia, a 43-year-old unemployed woman from Lakewood Ranch. "I like feisty people. I like people who have spunk."
For months, Gingrich has used aggressive debate performances to fuel his underdog candidacy. He has thrilled conservatives by promising to take the fight directly to Obama in a series of free-form debates modeled after the 1858 meetings between Illinois Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.
Should Obama refuse, Gingrich says he'll follow the president until he agrees.
That gets good applause lines at rallies. But a closer look at polling suggests that a debate beat down doesn't necessarily mean Gingrich can beat the president in an election that will include independents and Democrats.
Gingrich struggled among independents in a recent Washington Post-ABC News national poll, in which 53 percent gave him unfavorable marks and just 22 percent had a favorable opinion of the former House speaker. While Romney has typically polled better among independents, the poll conducted between Jan. 18 and 22 found virtually no difference: 51 percent of independents viewed him unfavorably, compared with 23 with favorable views.
But when all Florida voters, including independents and Democrats, are asked to weigh in, Romney appears to have a strong advantage over Gingrich, according to a poll conducted by Suffolk University-WSVN-TV Miami. Romney would defeat Obama here 47 percent to 42 percent; Gingrich would lose, earning just 40 percent to Obama's 49 percent of likely Florida general election voters.
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Video: The Road Ahead for the GOP
Did a strong performance in Thursday night's GOP debate lock up the nomination for Romney? Robert Costa, National Review; Ed Rogers, BGR Group; and Phil Musser, fmr. Romney 2008 campaign advisor, discuss.
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46170435/
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Saturday 28 January 2012
Avastin's Failure in Breast Cancer: New Study May Explain Why It Happened (LiveScience.com)
A new study may explain why the cancer drug Avastin hasn't worked in the treatment of breast cancer patients. Although the drug stops tumor growth for a short time, it often leads to more invasive tumors in the long run.
The reason for this revved-up invasiveness, researchers concluded from experiments done in mice, is that drugs like Avastin increase the portion of a tumor made of breast cancer stem cells.
Although Avastin, when initially given, causes some cancer cells to die and tumors to shrink, what's left behind are the cancer stem cells, according to the study. These cells can then multiply, and they are among the most lethal cancer cells ? they can sprout new tumors more easily than run-of-the-mill cancer cells.
The finding suggests that clinicians could improve Avastin's effectiveness by blocking this unwanted effect of the drug. It's a potentially bright spot for the drug, after a November decision by the Food and Drug Administration that the drug should not be used to treat breast cancer?after studies showed the drug failed to lengthen patient's lives.
"This result explains why they don't work as well as we hoped it would, and it really points to what we need to do to develop drug combinations that are more effective," said Dr. Max Wicha, author of the new study and an oncologist at the University of Michigan.
The new findings, which may also apply to other drugs in the same class as Avastin, were published Monday (Jan. 23) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The seeds of a tumor
Avastin falls into a category of cancer drugs called antiangiogenic agents, which aim to work by blocking the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors with vital nutrients and oxygen. Without a blood supply, tumors will die, the thinking goes.
"There was a lot of excitement about using these drugs to block the blood supply to tumors," Wicha said. "But the first large studies showed that while Avastin seemed to be preventing tumors from progressing for a few months, the tumors would then start to grow again, and be even more aggressive."
Wicha said he and his colleagues suspected the cause of the new, aggressive growth, might be cancer stem cells. "These cells are the most dangerous, if they're left in the body," he explained. "They're like the seeds of a plant."
The researchers tested their theory by giving an antiangiogenic drug to mice with breast cancer tumors. As expected, the tumors shrank and had fewer blood vessels feeding them. When the team analyzed the cells within the tumors, however, the tumors of mice that had been treated with an antiangiogenic drug had five times more stem cells.
Further, the scientists found, the lack of oxygen ? called hypoxia ? in the tissues that followed the death of the blood vessels had the side effect of encouraging the growth of these dangerous cells. If doctors could combine drugs that kill the cancer stem cells with antiangiogenic drugs, they may have a winning formula, Wicha said.
"Our research suggests that it's going to necessary to target both angles of this at the same time," he said.
Two sides of a drug
The new findings didn't surprise Celeste Simon, a molecular biologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who studies the role of the body's low oxygen environments to human health.?
"Stem cells really like to reside in a low oxygen area," Simon said.
What the study adds, Simon said, is evidence that drugs like Avastin increase the pool of cancer stem cells living in these low-oxygen conditions.
"The notion is that by making the tumor more hypoxic, you're actually selecting for the more aggressive cells," she said. "This and other papers underscore a growing idea in the therapeutic world that, like all treatments, antiangiogenic drugs need to be very carefully evaluated in terms of their full impact on human health."
But more work is needed, she said, to flesh out the full molecular details of the observation. Tumors implanted into mice, such as the study used, aren't always a perfect mimic of human biology. "While these results are intriguing, they need to be followed up, from my point of view, with experiments on more sophisticated mouse models or primary tumors," Simon said.
Pass it on: ?Although Avastin successfully cuts off the blood supply of breast cancer tumors, it also increases the number of so-called breast cancer stem cells that can lead to tumor growth in the long run.
This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. ?Find us on?Facebook.
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Brooke Burke's Sweat and Butt Wiping (omg!)
Newlywed Brooke Burke Charvet, co-host of Dancing with the Stars, puts the "it" in fit. After having four kids, the audacity to wear a sports bra and short shorts while running could only come from a woman who knows she's got it going on. Her new exercise DVD, Transform Your Body with Brooke Burke: Tone & Tighten, may help you shave an inch or two, but it takes more than a DVD to have a body as great as Brooke's. She tells Fitness her five-day-a-week workout regimen includes Pilates Plus and a couple visits to the gym where she goes for a short treadmill workout and full-body toning.
Brooke Burke Ties the Knot
Hottest Spot: Abs
Even if they weren't so toned, her abs would still be her number one asset. While it's enviable that she lacks signs of carrying children, it's good to know she puts her kids, not her image, first. She reportedly schedules her workouts just as a doctor's appointment or sporting event for her kids, saying she never misses any of these things.
Guilty Pleasure: Spaghetti Bolognese
Brooke wears her craving like a badge of honor. In the February 2012 issue of Ladies Home Journal she says, "If I really crave something, I'll eat it and then get back into the groove afterward. I don't feel like I've failed or fallen off the wagon. Eating healthy shouldn't be torture."
Favorite Sport: Butt Wiping
Today Brooke tweeted her latest blog at? ModernMom.com with the title "The Greatest Butt Wiper." On second thought, it may be too cramped in the bathroom if the whole family decides to spectate. We probably don't need to know what makes her so good at it, seeing as hubby, David, is her only butt wiping competition.
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Friday 27 January 2012
Jon Rubinstein leaves Hewlett-Packard
Former Palm chief Jon Rubinstein has left Hewlett-Packard, having completed the 24-month commitment period he agreed to when HP acquired Palm. An HP spokesperson has confirmed the story, first reported by AllThingsD, in a brief statement: "Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well."
Rubinstein rose to fame as a hardware guru at NeXT, ultimately joining Apple after the company acquired NeXT in 1996. He was instrumental in developing the iMac and PowerMac desktops before spearheading the iPod project that would herald the company's business dominance. After retiring in 2006, he joined Palm to revitalize the flagging device maker's fortunes, developing the Palm Pre and WebOS software before being crowned as its CEO in 2009. A year later, Hewlett-Packard purchased the company for $1.2 billion: but just a year later, pulled the shutters down as Rubinstein was shifted (or "dumped") to a "product innovation role" within HP, where he saw out the last of his retention period before departing. In a terse comment to The Verge, the man himself has said that he's "going to take some well deserved time off," and after the last twelve months, we wouldn't blame him.
Rubinstein rose to fame as a hardware guru at NeXT, ultimately joining Apple after the company acquired NeXT in 1996. He was instrumental in developing the iMac and PowerMac desktops before spearheading the iPod project that would herald the company's business dominance. After retiring in 2006, he joined Palm to revitalize the flagging device maker's fortunes, developing the Palm Pre and WebOS software before being crowned as its CEO in 2009. A year later, Hewlett-Packard purchased the company for $1.2 billion: but just a year later, pulled the shutters down as Rubinstein was shifted (or "dumped") to a "product innovation role" within HP, where he saw out the last of his retention period before departing. In a terse comment to The Verge, the man himself has said that he's "going to take some well deserved time off," and after the last twelve months, we wouldn't blame him.
Jon Rubinstein leaves Hewlett-Packard originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Azarenka into women's final at Australian Open
Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts after winning a point against Kim Clijsters of Belgium during their semifinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts after winning a point against Kim Clijsters of Belgium during their semifinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Kim Clijsters of Belgium hits a forehand return to Victoria Azarenka of Belarus during their semifinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Victoria Azarenka of Belarus prepares to serves to Kim Clijsters of Belgium during their semifinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Kim Clijsters of Belgium reacts as she plays Victoria Azarenka of Belarus during their semifinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012.(AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Novak Djokovic of Serbia hits a forehand return to David Ferrer of Spain during their quarterfinal at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Victoria Azarenka reached her first Grand Slam final and staked a claim for the No. 1 ranking when she beat defending champion Kim Clijsters 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in the Australian Open semifinals on Thursday.
The third-seeded Azarenka recovered her composure twice in periods when a resurgent Clijsters seemed to have the upper hand, breaking the veteran Belgian's serve three times in the third set to secure victory in only her second appearance in a major semifinal.
The 22-year-old Belarusian will play either Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova or 2008 Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova in the Saturday night final. Azarenka, Kvitova and Sharapova can all finish the tournament with the No. 1 ranking.
After a strong start, Azarenka's serve deserted her in the second set and Clijsters dictated play with her solid groundstrokes and some amazing defense.
But after getting the momentum back, it was Clijsters who blinked first in the third set, dropping serve in the second game and again in the fourth. She got two of those service games back, including one when she rallied from 40-0 down to win a game to get the score back to 4-3.
But Azarenka rallied immediately again, breaking serve. She got triple match point trying to serve out the match and, after a double-fault on her first, she clinched it on a Clijsters' error.
Azarenka threw her racket on the court and sank to her knees, bent over with her hands covering her face. Clijsters came around the net to congratulate her.
"I felt like my hand is about 200 kilograms and my body is about 1,000 and everything is shaking, but that feeling when you finally win is such a relief. My God I cannot believe it's over. I just want to cry," Azarenka said as she choked back tears, then buried her face in the towel.
"It was just trying to stay in the moment. Kim really took over the second set and I felt there was nothing I could do. I just tried to regroup."
Clijsters is a popular player in Australia, where she's widely known as "Aussie Kim." The four-time major winner had most of the backing from the crowd on the national holiday in what is likely to be her last Australian Open.
Azarenka held her nerve despite the crowd.
"I guess before you all thought I was a mental case. I was just young and emotional," she said in a courtside interview. "I'm really glad the way I fight, that's the most thing I'm really proud of. I fight for every ball."
The Sharapova-Kvitova semifinal was next match on Rod Laver Arena.
On Wednesday night, top-ranked Novak Djokovic held off No. 5 David Ferrer in a second-set tiebreaker and then raced through the third set for a 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-1 win, setting up a rematch of last year's final against fourth-ranked Andy Murray and ensuring the 'Big 4' reached the semifinals for the third time in the last four majors.
With Nos. 2-4 already in the semis, Djokovic looked to be in trouble in the second set when he clutched at his left hamstring and had trouble breathing.
"No, I don't have any physical issues," Djokovic later said, playing down any health concerns. "I feel very fit and I feel mentally, as well, very fresh.
"It's just today I found it very difficult after a long time to breathe because I felt the whole day my nose was closed a little bit. I just wasn't able to get enough oxygen."
Murray beat Kei Nishikori 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 earlier Wednesday, while second-ranked Rafael Nadal and No. 3 Roger Federer were already preparing for their semifinal showdown on Thursday, their 10th clash at a major but their first meeting at that stage of a Grand Slam since 2005.
Doubts about Djokovic's temperament surfaced after he won his first major at the 2008 Australian Open and didn't reach another final for 11 Grand Slam tournaments. In his first title defense in 2009, he struggled with breathing problems and the heat and had to retire from his quarterfinal match against Andy Roddick.
Trying again to defend the Australian title, and again in the quarterfinals, Djokovic was leading by a set and a break when he dropped serve against Ferrer.
At break point, he scrambled to hit a lob on his backhand and didn't even wait for it to land out before turning to face the back of the court, grabbing at the back of his left leg. He leaned over and rested his head on the top of his racket. Ferrer was back in contention.
At times Djokovic looked exhausted and sore at times in the second set, but he pulled through.
"In these conditions, at this stage of the tournament, when you're playing somebody like David ... your physical strength and endurance comes into question," Djokovic calmly explained of his on-court demeanor. "Actually I'm not concerned about that at all."
That may not be how Murray's new coach, Ivan Lendl, sees it. Lendl has been working with Murray this month, trying to help him break his Grand Slam title drought ? he has lost three major finals, including the last two in Australia.
He was doing some scouting Wednesday night at Rod Laver Arena, sitting about 15 rows behind the Djokovic group, surrounded by people waving Serbian flags. He couldn't have missed the sideways glances Djokovic sneaked at his support crew. Murray and Djokovic know each other well, but haven't been on the same side of a Grand Slam draw for a while.
Murray said he's growing in confidence because he's "just more used to being in this position."
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Thursday 26 January 2012
Memorial service to cap 3-day mourning for Paterno (AP)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? A capacity crowd of 12,000 filed into Penn State's basketball arena Thursday for the school's final tribute to Joe Paterno.
Among those finding their seats as video boards flashed a smiling image of the coach ? Paterno's last team and new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer.
Paterno's death on Sunday from lung cancer at age 85 came less than three months after his stunning ouster as head coach in the wake of child sex-abuse charges against a retired assistant. But this week, thousands of alumni, fans, students and former players in Happy Valley are remembering Paterno for his record-setting career, his love for the school and his generosity.
Small clusters of mourners continued to visit Paterno's statue outside the school's football stadium hours before the memorial.
Sharon Winter, a 1963 graduate and long-time season ticket holder from Wernersville, dabbed tears from her eyes as she looked at the hundreds of items that well-wishers since Paterno's death.
"If you haven't lived it, you can't explain it," said Winter, who, with her husband Carl, keeps an apartment in State College. "We never knew the place without Joe. He's always been a part of our lives and who we are."
Many Penn Staters found themselves reflecting on Paterno's impact and the road ahead.
"What's Joe's legacy? The answer, is his legacy is us," former NFL and Nittany Lions receiver Jimmy Cefalo said Wednesday before Paterno's funeral. Cefalo is scheduled to be one of the speakers at the tribute called "A Memorial for Joe" at the arena across the street from Beaver Stadium ? the place Paterno helped turned into a college football landmark.
Paterno's son, former Nittany Lions quarterback coach Jay Paterno, also is expected to speak at the memorial, which will cap three days of public mourning for Paterno. Viewings were held Tuesday and Wednesday morning, before the funeral and burial service for Paterno on Wednesday afternoon at the campus interfaith center where family members attended church services.
Cefalo, who played for Penn State in the `70s, said it will be the most difficult speech of his life. But he offered a hint of what he might say.
"Generations of these young people from coal mines and steel towns who he gave a foundation to," Cefalo said. "It's not (the Division I record) 409 wins, it's not two national championships, and it's not five-time coach of the year (awards). It's us."
The memorial Thursday is expected to feature a speaker for each decade of Paterno's coaching career, according to Charles V. Pittman, a former player who said he will represent the 1960s.
Pittman said he was in Paterno's first class and was the coach's first All-America running back. Pittman's son later played for the Nittany Lions as well, making them the first father-son pair to play for Paterno, Pittman said. They wrote a book about their experiences called "Playing for Paterno."
Pittman said he spoke with Paterno two or three times a year. In 2002, the coach chided Pittman for moving to South Bend, Ind. ? home of rival Notre Dame ? to take a job as a newspaper executive.
"He called me a traitor," said Pittman, senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications Inc., an Indiana-based company that owns television and radio stations and newspapers, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Associated Press.
Pittman attended Wednesday's funeral, which also drew other notable guests including former NFL players Franco Harris and Matt Millen; and former defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. All were at Thursday's event, too.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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Apple approval process fails to stop fake Camera+ app (Appolicious)
For all the effort Apple expends in regulating its iTunes App Store, it seems that questionable, malicious or copyright-infringing apps make it through to consumers a lot more often than one might think. The latest app to appear in the App Store that didn?t belong is a copy of the popular Camera+ app.
Claiming to be Camera+ version 4.0, the app made its way into the App Store this week and was spotted by U.K. security firm Sophos, which was able to determine that the app was a fake, according to Computer World. Sophos was unable to download it and determine if it was a delivery system for malware, however, which is something that is often seen in fake or otherwise untrustworthy apps that make it into the App Store or into Google?s Android Market for its Android operating system.
The real Camera+ is created by developer Tap Tap Tap and currently is in version 2.4. While it?s unclear if there was malware involved in the fake version of the app, which was released by a company called Pursuit Special, Sophos and Tap Tap Tap think the purpose it was released was to trick users into thinking it was the real deal and syphon money from the popularity of Camera+.
Camera+ and Tap Tap Tap have run afoul of Apple?s app review process in the past. In 2010 after the app?s release, Apple bounced it from the app store for a developer agreement violation when it discovered that Camera+ accessed the iPhone?s volume control button to use as a shutter button. Third-party apps aren?t allowed to access the iPhone?s hardware buttons, and that resulted in the app?s ban. Tap Tap Tap fixed the issue and was restored to the App Store, but it seems as though the incident generated a little resentment between the two companies.
There have been plenty of other incidents when apps have made their way into the App Store when they should have rightly been denied. Last year, Apple added copyright infringement as a reason it could reject apps from the App Store, after some pretty public stories in which games made it onto Apple?s platform by basically making knock-off versions of popular games on other platforms. One game took the assets of titles such as The Blocks Cometh and League of Evil to create a knock-off Blocks Cometh release. The reason for that seemed to be the same as for Camera+ ? the app maker wanted to use an established name to make some money.
Nobody knows exactly what Apple?s review process actually entails, and there are so many apps in the App Store that it?s tough to know how many are legitimate and how many aren?t, or how many troublemakers get screened out. But incidents like this raise questions and make it tough on developers. Apple seems to do a pretty good job preventing things like the fake Camera+ app from making their way into its store, but with so many developers depending on iOS apps to make a living, creeping fake apps like this one can be worrisome.
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Wednesday 25 January 2012
Tumblr boasts 120M users, and 15B page views monthly
By Helen A.S. Popkin
Tumblr
One of Tumblr's most beloved memes, reads from his own Ryan Gosling-dedicated Tumblr. That's just how huge Tumblr is now!
Within two weeks of its 2007 launch, plucky microblogging platform Tumblr hit 750,000 users, becoming the?go-to point for single service blogs?(often with NSFW titles) such as "Look at this F---ing Hipster," "STFU, Parents," "Animals with Casts," countless "F--- Yeah"?Tumblogs,??and a collection of infinitely reblogged photo memes such as "Selleck Waterfall Sandwich" and "Jumping Rob Pattinson.
Five years later, the?New York City-based tech company has grown from a content-generating platform to curation central, serving?120 million users and getting 15 billion unique page views every month. These are the numbers CEO David Karp cited from Internet traffic-tracking outfit Quantcast, while discussing Tumblr's evolution Monday at the Digital Life Design Conference in Munich, Germany.
"The early growth that we saw was around creators," Karp told the audience. "Our first community was those creators. We didn?t set out to build a network ... all we wanted to do was make novel tools."
Those novel ? and easy-to-use ? tools took off quickly?however, even though Tumblr originally eschewed the standard social network tools common on similar sites?? such as commenting and tagging ? that more than a few people find annoying.
Nonetheless, Tumblr is now a major influencer in how the distribution of mainstream media is changing. For example, the average Tumblr post is re-blogged on the site nine times, and now features apps for direct posts to Facebook and Twitter.
The content "therefore reaches vastly more people than if it just sat on its original site waiting to be discovered by people visiting it directly," Felix Salmon writes on the Tumblr reblogging phenomenon in his Reuters post, "How sharing disrupts media." "In the future, the most viral stories are going to have a life of their own, being shared across many different platforms and being read by people who will never visit the original site on which they were published."
Probably not that far in the future, either. As Tumblr's "about" page notes, the site now hosts more than 16 billion posts and 42 million blogs. On Monday alone, Tumblr racked up up more than 61 million posts.
via Venturebeat
More on the annoying way we live now:
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet ? at least until the Stop Online Piracy Act becomes a law, making snark a libelous felony. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.
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Verizon sees record revenue in Q4 2011, adds 1.5 million subscribers
If you see a Verizon executive walking around today whistling a happy tune, it's because the comany's fourth-quarter 2011 earnings were just announced. Big Red recorded a 7.7 percent increanse in revenue compared to Q4 2010, for its wireless (as in mobile) and wireles (mainly FiOS) combined.
On the wireless side, Verizon saw 18.3 billion in total revenue, up 13 percent year over year. Data revenue was up 19.2 percent to 6.3 billion, and Verizon saw 1.5 million (net) new subscribers, its largest increase in three years. The vast majority of those new subscribers -- 1.3 million -- are of the traditional postpaid variety. Verizon now has 108.7 million total "connections," the company reported, 6.3 percent higher than Q4 2010.
Smartphones make up 44 percent of Verizon's customer base, compared to 39 percent for for the final three months of 2010. It didn't break down how many are Android, and how many are iPhone.
Source: Verizon (pdf)
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Ci98UV5rT9g/story01.htm
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Tuesday 24 January 2012
Simon Cowell breaks off engagement
Simon Cowell's trip down the aisle is getting postponed.
In an interview with UK newspaper the Daily Mirror, the "X Factor" judge reveals that he and his fiancee, Mezhgan Hussainy, are taking a break from both their relationship and their wedding plans.
PHOTOS: See which Idol alums are engaged or have kids
"It's quite a complicated relationship. We have had a break from each other, and we are still incredibly close," the 52-year-old Brit explains in Sunday's Mirror . "I'm vulnerable. It's not on, it's not off, it's somewhere in the middle. I don't know if I will ever get married, but I am happy."
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Late-night 'Idol' guest? Jim Carrey's daughter
PHOTOS: Celebrity engagements
Cowell and Hussainy met on the set of American Idol in 2003, where she was working as a makeup artist, and the couple got engaged in February 2010. At the time, Cowell, who's known for his emotionless demeanor, made it clear that he was very much over the moon.
"I'm smitten with Mezghan, I think she's the one," he gushed to the British TV host Piers Morgan. "She's very special...You know when you've found somebody very special."
PHOTOS: Revisit Simon's last season on Idol
But in Sunday's Mirror, Cowell alludes that the spark has fizzled out and he's regretting his remarks from two years ago.
Addressing his heartfelt quip on "Piers Morgan," Cowell says, "I have been pretty good about not talking about my private stuff, but I got caught up in the moment."
Copyright 2012 Us Weekly
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46095115/ns/today-entertainment/
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Monday 23 January 2012
Debates have major impact on GOP presidential race (AP)
NEW YORK ? The Republican presidential debates have served up riveting television and exposed the contenders' strengths and weaknesses, with no one benefiting more than Newt Gingrich. His in-your-face style has excited GOP voters who want a scrappy fighter to take on President Barack Obama in the fall.
At the same time, no one has found himself more boxed in by the format than Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor's cautious but generally mistake-free performances earlier in the contest were seen as evidence of his resilience. But that steadiness recently has given way to a string of awkward gaffes and unforced errors, mostly surrounding his income taxes and the vast wealth he earned running a venture capital firm.
Gingrich, Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were set to square off twice this week before Florida Republicans have their say in the primary Jan. 31. Debates were scheduled for Monday night in Tampa, and Thursday night in Jacksonville.
Romney's advisers at one point signaled that he might skip both Florida debates. His campaign has recruited Brett O'Donnell, a former debate coach to 2008 Republican nominee John McCain, to help him prepare. Since losing South Carolina's primary to Gingrich on Saturday, Romney has ratcheted up his criticism of Gingrich, all but promising feistier debate performances from him this week.
The debates ? 17 so far ? have offered political junkies a dose of "must-see" TV and exposed the candidates' warts and all.
Ask Herman Cain, a former pizza executive with no political experience who bounced briefly to the top of the field after several witty and memorable debate performances. Or Rick Perry, who saw his once promising candidacy unravel on stage as he stammered to recall the third of three federal agencies he'd eliminate and ended with a memorable "oops."
The debates also have influenced media coverage of the race. An analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the tone of coverage of a candidate almost directly corresponded with the assessment of their debate performances. The center also studied Twitter postings around the debates, and found an extraordinary amount of instant debate commentary reverberating through that platform.
The debates have cast a particularly sharp focus on the Republican field, in part because there is no primary on the Democratic side. In the 2008 presidential race, there were 26 debates in which Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and other candidates mixed it up in memorable fashion.
The debates have been particularly important to residents of early voting states, which saw a flood of TV advertising from the campaigns and independent groups but much less face-to-face campaigning from candidates than in years past.
Data bears that out.
In New Hampshire, which held the nation's first primary Jan. 10, 84 percent of those surveyed said the debates were important to their vote, according to exit polls sponsored by The Associated Press and the broadcast networks.
In South Carolina, 65 percent said the debates were important in determining their vote. Among the most conservative voters, including evangelical Christians and tea party backers, the figure was closer to 70 percent.
That group of voters backed Gingrich in Saturday's primary in the strongest numbers, in part because of two memorable debate exchanges.
At a CNN debate last Thursday in Charleston, moderator John King asked Gingrich to comment on an interview his former wife had given to ABC News alleging that he had asked her for an open marriage. Gingrich let loose, channeling conservative rage at the "elite media."
"I think the destructive, vicious negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. I'm appalled you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that." Gingrich snarled at King. The audience roared its approval.
At an earlier Fox News Channel debate in Myrtle Beach, Gingrich rebuffed a question from panelist Juan Williams on whether black voters might be insulted by Gingrich's frequent references to Obama as the "food stamp" president. Obama is the nation's first black president; Williams is also black.
"The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history. Now, I know among the politically correct, you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable," Gingrich said, adding: "If that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job."
The reaction in the audience was so positive that Gingrich's campaign produced a television ad drawing from the exchange.
Gingrich even spoke of his own debating skills at his South Carolina victory party.
"It's not that I am a good debater," he said. "It is that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."
While Gingrich's strong debate performances have temporarily deflected questions about his history and character, few expect that to last. Gilbert Cranberg, an emeritus professor of mass communications at the University of Iowa, said good debaters don't necessarily make good presidents.
"You want a president to be deliberative, to consult, not to make snap judgments," Cranberg said. "Debates are showbiz."
___
AP deputy director of polling Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.
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Cooling semiconductor by laser light
ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2012) ? Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have combined two fields -- quantum physics and nano physics -- and this has led to the discovery of a new method for laser cooling semiconductor membranes. Semiconductors are vital components in solar cells, LEDs and many other electronics, and the efficient cooling of components is important for future quantum computers and ultrasensitive sensors. The new cooling method works quite paradoxically by heating the material! Using lasers, researchers cooled membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C.
The results are published in the journal Nature Physics.
"In experiments, we have succeeded in achieving a new and efficient cooling of a solid material by using lasers. We have produced a semiconductor membrane with a thickness of 160 nanometers and an unprecedented surface area of 1 by 1 millimeter. In the experiments, we let the membrane interact with the laser light in such a way that its mechanical movements affected the light that hit it. We carefully examined the physics and discovered that a certain oscillation mode of the membrane cooled from room temperature down to minus 269 degrees C, which was a result of the complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances," explains Koji Usami, associate professor at Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute.
From gas to solid
Laser cooling of atoms has been practiced for several years in experiments in the quantum optical laboratories of the Quantop research group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Here researchers have cooled gas clouds of cesium atoms down to near absolute zero, minus 273 degrees C, using focused lasers and have created entanglement between two atomic systems. The atomic spin becomes entangled and the two gas clouds have a kind of link, which is due to quantum mechanics. Using quantum optical techniques, they have measured the quantum fluctuations of the atomic spin.
"For some time we have wanted to examine how far you can extend the limits of quantum mechanics -- does it also apply to macroscopic materials? It would mean entirely new possibilities for what is called optomechanics, which is the interaction between optical radiation, i.e. light, and a mechanical motion," explains Professor Eugene Polzik, head of the Center of Excellence Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
But they had to find the right material to work with.
Lucky coincidence
In 2009, Peter Lodahl (who is today a professor and head of the Quantum Photonic research group at the Niels Bohr Institute) gave a lecture at the Niels Bohr Institute, where he showed a special photonic crystal membrane that was made of the semiconducting material gallium arsenide (GaAs). Eugene Polzik immediately thought that this nanomembrane had many advantageous electronic and optical properties and he suggested to Peter Lodahl's group that they use this kind of membrane for experiments with optomechanics. But this required quite specific dimensions and after a year of trying they managed to make a suitable one.
"We managed to produce a nanomembrane that is only 160 nanometers thick and with an area of more than 1 square millimetre. The size is enormous, which no one thought it was possible to produce," explains Assistant Professor S?ren Stobbe, who also works at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Basis for new research
Now a foundation had been created for being able to reconcile quantum mechanics with macroscopic materials to explore the optomechanical effects.
Koji Usami explains that in the experiment they shine the laser light onto the nanomembrane in a vacuum chamber. When the laser light hits the semiconductor membrane, some of the light is reflected and the light is reflected back again via a mirror in the experiment so that the light flies back and forth in this space and forms an optical resonator. Some of the light is absorbed by the membrane and releases free electrons. The electrons decay and thereby heat the membrane and this gives a thermal expansion. In this way the distance between the membrane and the mirror is constantly changed in the form of a fluctuation.
"Changing the distance between the membrane and the mirror leads to a complex and fascinating interplay between the movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor and the optical resonances and you can control the system so as to cool the temperature of the membrane fluctuations. This is a new optomechanical mechanism, which is central to the new discovery. The paradox is that even though the membrane as a whole is getting a little bit warmer, the membrane is cooled at a certain oscillation and the cooling can be controlled with laser light. So it is cooling by warming! We managed to cool the membrane fluctuations to minus 269 degrees C," Koji Usami explains.
"The potential of optomechanics could, for example, pave the way for cooling components in quantum computers. Efficient cooling of mechanical fluctuations of semiconducting nanomembranes by means of light could also lead to the development of new sensors for electric current and mechanical forces. Such cooling in some cases could replace expensive cryogenic cooling, which is used today and could result in extremely sensitive sensors that are only limited by quantum fluctuations," says Professor Eugene Polzik.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Copenhagen.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- K. Usami, A. Naesby, T. Bagci, B. Melholt Nielsen, J. Liu, S. Stobbe, P. Lodahl, E. S. Polzik. Optical cavity cooling of mechanical modes of a semiconductor nanomembrane. Nature Physics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nphys2196
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://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120122152546.htm
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Sunday 22 January 2012
Will Type For Food: Communications devolution
Seeing an e-reader on the train the other day, I was inspired with an overwhelming desire not to get one. No surprises there as I am an old grouch in a younger person's body, and I have that inspiration almost every day, but seriously, why buy them? Because you can't get a paper book with buttons on it? If I had a book like that, I'd spend all my time changing channels and never bother actually reading a book, which would somewhat defeat the purpose, old bean.
It's getting harder to keep up with the latest thing in the world of stuff. we don't just have to deal with the communications revolution, but the communications insurrection that happened after the first communications revolution, and then the communications putsch that happened after the communications insurrection, and then the communications coup, and the ongoing communications civil war, and so on, and so on. If I had kept up with all the things I was meant to keep up with in the thirty odd years that I have been on this earth, I would now be in possession of not only a laptop, and a blog, and an email, and a mobile phone, and a television, but I would also have an iPod, an iPad, an iBook, a video player, a cassette deck, a tape answering machine, a Super 8 player, a twitter account, a tumblr account, a fax machine, a Nintendo, an Atari, a Commodore 64, a Kodak camera, a ham radio set, a UHF, several phrase books of Japanese-English, French-English, Auslan-English, and possibly a set of message flags, a pigeon farm, and a telegraph machine. What would I do with all those things? I don't even want a bloody NBN, which Stephen Conroy keeps threatening me with.*
I mean, it's all a bit much for me. When I was a kid, communications was simple: the phone would ring, you would race your brothers to get it, and wrestle it out of their hands before shouting
HELLOTWOOHONEFOURONESIX!
And waiting for the lovely connection ladies on the other end to ask you nicely if your parents were around.** Now that is what communications should be about, ladies and gentlemen. Why did things ever change?
*Should be another ten years or so before it arrives anyway, there is that at least.
**Yes, we had a telephone exchange in Balranald. I guess we must have been one of the last places in Australia to get a wired up properly.
Source: http://willtypeforfood.blogspot.com/2012/01/communications-devolution.html
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Saturday 21 January 2012
AP sources: Perry abandoning bid, backing Gingrich (AP)
CHARLESTON, S.C. ? Texas Gov. Rick Perry will abandon his presidential bid and endorse Newt Gingrich, two Republican officials said Thursday, a move coming just two days before the pivotal South Carolina primary as Republican front-runner Mitt Romney struggles to fend off a challenge from the former House speaker.
Perry scheduled a news conference Thursday morning at a hotel in North Charleston to announce his decision.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the announcement.
Adding to the intrigue in the last hours of the South Carolina campaign, a bus emblazoned with Herman Cain's name sat in the hotel parking lot where Perry was to speak. Cain, a tea party favorite, dropped out of the race late last year.
Perry has faced calls in recent days to drop out of the race in hopes of compelling conservative voters, whose support has been divided among several like-minded candidates, to rally behind Gingrich in hopes of stopping Romney.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor considered the more moderate candidate in the race, has benefited thus far from having several conservative challengers competing for the same segment of voters. New polls show Romney leading in South Carolina but Gingrich gaining steam heading into Saturday's contest in a state where conservatives hold great sway in choosing the GOP nominee.
Perry's decision to endorse Gingrich does not necessarily mean conservatives will rally behind the former House speaker. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a champion of the anti-abortion issue, is still in the race and over the weekend was endorsed by a group of evangelical leaders.
And there's no guarantee that the Texas donors who fueled Perry's bid will shift to Gingrich, even if the governor asks them to.
Romney has been working to court them in recent weeks, having made repeated visits to Texas to meet with major Republican donors. He also won the backing of former President George H.W. Bush. Several Perry supporters, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly discussing their next steps before Perry's announcement, said they have been approached by Romney's campaign and will support him as the most-likely candidate to face President Barack Obama in November.
At least three so-called "super" political action committees have sprung up since early 2011 supporting Perry. One, Americans for Rick Perry, raised about $193,000 during the first half of 2011, federal election records show.
But none of the groups has been more prominent than Make Us Great Again, which aired more than $3.3 million worth of ads in Iowa and South Carolina supporting the Texas governor. A spokesman for the group did not immediately return calls from the AP seeking comment about whom, if anyone, the PAC would support after Perry drops out.
Perry entered the race last August to great fanfare and high numbers in polls. But his standing quickly fell after a series of gaffes and other verbal missteps. Those errors called into question whether the Texas politician who had never lost a race during his three-decade career in elected office was ready for the national stage.
His biggest flub came in a nationally televised debate in early November, when he could not remember the name of the third Cabinet department he pledged to eliminate.
Perry could only manage to say, "Oops." Making fun of himself afterward, he told reporters: "I stepped in it."
It was a cringe-inducing moment replayed more than a million times on YouTube. The memory lapse not only solidified Perry's reputation for weak debate performances, it gave the impression that he couldn't articulate his own policies. The stumble further tamped down his already faltering poll numbers.
Perry, 61, was relatively unknown outside of Texas until he succeeded George W. Bush as governor after Bush was elected president in 2000. A former Democrat, Perry had already spent about 15 years in state government when he became governor. He went on to win election to the office three times ? the most recent was in 2010 ? to become the state's longest-serving chief executive.
Part of Perry's appeal came from his humble beginnings as a native of tiny Paint Creek, Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M University and was a pilot in the Air Force before winning election in 1984 to the Texas House of Representatives. He switched to the GOP in 1989, and served as the state's agriculture commissioner before his election as lieutenant governor in 1998.
Perry's success as a politician suggested he would be a strong competitor to Obama. He had never lost a race in Texas, and his fight against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010 showed how tough he could be on a rival.
Perry picked Aug. 13 for his official announcement speech, the same day as the Iowa Straw Poll. While rival Michele Bachmann won that poll, the Texas governor cast a shadow over her victory by challenging her as conservatives' best hope for winning the nomination and defeating Obama.
He entered near the top of some polls. But his support of a Texas policy to allow children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates soon proved to be problematic with conservatives nationwide. So, too, did his 2007 order that would have required schoolgirls in Texas to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus. Although state lawmakers overturned the order, Perry defended the vaccination as necessary to combatting the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer.
His performance on the campaign trail also led to concerns about how his rhetoric would sound to a national audience. During a campaign stop in Iowa in August, he suggested that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be practically committing treason if he were to print more money and said, "I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
A Perry speech to a New Hampshire audience in October led to a damaging video, during which he appeared unusually animated ? "loopy" to some observers ? a stark contrast to the image of the serious, starchy governor he had projected. Amid questions, Perry later told reporters that he hadn't been drinking or taking medication at the time and called it "a pretty typical speech for me."
More flubs followed. While criticizing the nine-member Supreme Court to a newspaper editorial board, he referred to "eight unelected and frankly unaccountable judges" and struggled to come up with the name of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then called her "Montemayor." He urged college students in New Hampshire to support his candidacy, "those of you that will be 21" on Election Day, though the voting age is 18.
The widespread criticism of those performances and his rivals' attacks on his immigration and vaccination policies led to a significant drop in support.
___
AP Special Correspondent David Espo in North Charleston and Associated Press writer Chris Tomlinson in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
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In response to SOPA/PIPA, I am releasing some of my photographs to the public domain.
With important sites blacked out today in protest of pending SOPA and PIPA legislation, we here at Compound Eye would like to voice our opposition with a different approach. Instead of closing down, we are opening up.
I hold the copyright to many thousands of images, mostly of insects and other natural history subjects. Copyright enables me to derive a modest income. By licensing permissions to commercial users I can afford lenses, travel to exotic jungles and, more recently, my mortgage and groceries. Copyright laws are important to me, enough so that much of my work couldn?t exist without them.
The images that sustain me now, however, are not the ones I started with when I picked up photography a decade ago. Some of my older images- even ones I used frequently at the time- are no longer doing anyone any good hidden in my archives and locked up under my copyright.
So I have released the following images to the public domain:
I have chosen these particular photographs because I have found them useful over the years for illustrating biological concepts. Ecological mutualisms. Caste differences in army ants. Life history. Behavior. I hope they will continue to be useful to others.
The way to engender public support for intellectual property laws, ensuring their future health, is to recognize when copyright has outlived its usefulness.
[gallery of Alex's public domain images]
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=44c5f10fc266da8b4eb4997bcc56c85e
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Friday 20 January 2012
Viagra Perks Up Penises Plant Stems [Video]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/avtHl6f0R6A/viagra-perks-up-penises-plant-stems
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Syria ready to let monitors stay, Obama ups pressure (Reuters)
BEIRUT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Syria is ready to let Arab monitors extend their mission beyond this week, an Arab League source said, but U.S. President Barack Obama said he was looking to increase international pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to step aside.
Damascus opposes broadening the scope of the Arab League observer mission, the source at the League said, but would accept a one-month extension of its mandate which expires on Thursday.
U.N. officials say more than 5,000 people have been killed in the violence across Syria, where pro-Assad forces are trying to crush peaceful protests and armed rebels.
The government says 2,000 members of its security forces have died.
"Unfortunately we're continuing to see unacceptable levels of violence inside that country," Obama said in Washington after meeting Jordan's King Abdullah.
"We will continue to consult very closely with Jordan to create the kind of international pressure and environment that encourages the current Syrian regime to step aside," he added.
The Arab League must decide whether to withdraw its 165 monitors or keep them in Syria, even though they are expected to report that Damascus has not fully implemented a peace plan agreed on November 2. Arab foreign ministers are set to discuss the team's future on January 22.
"The outcome of the contacts that have taken place over the past week between the Arab League and Syria have affirmed that Syria will not reject the renewal of the Arab monitoring mission for another month ... if the Arab foreign ministers call for this at the coming meeting," the Arab League source said.
The Arab plan required Syria to halt the bloodshed, withdraw troops from cities, free detainees, provide access for the monitors and the media and open talks with opposition forces.
A senior opposition leader said Syrian troops fighting rebels in the town of Zabadani near Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire on Tuesday.
Pro-Assad troops backed by tanks attacked the town on Friday in the biggest military offensive since the Arab monitors entered the country last month.
"FAILED MONITORS"
A rebel army chief said on Tuesday the Arab League monitors should go as they had failed to curb a crackdown on protesters seeking President Bashar al-Assad's overthrow.
"Though we respect and appreciate our Arab brothers for their efforts, we think they are incapable of improving conditions in Syria or resisting this regime," Riad al-Asaad, the Turkish-based commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army told Reuters.
"For that reason we call on them to turn the issue over to the U.N. Security Council and we ask that the international community intervene because they are more capable of protecting Syrians at this stage than our Arab brothers," Asaad said.
The Arab League source said Beijing and Moscow had urged President Assad to accept an extension of the monitoring mission to avert an escalation at the international level.
Syria would agree to an increase in the number of monitors, he said, but would not allow them to be given formal fact-finding duties or be allowed into "military zones" that are not included in the existing Arab peace plan.
Any change in the scope of the mission, whether to militarize it or let it investigate human rights abuses and potentially assign blame, would require a new agreement with Syria, the source said.
Qatar has proposed sending in Arab troops, a bold idea for the often sluggish League and one likely to be resisted by Arab rulers close to Assad and those worried about unrest at home.
Syria's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it was "astonished" at Qatar's suggestion, which it "absolutely rejected."
AN OLD ALLY
The League could ask the U.N. Security Council to act, but until now opposition from Russia and China has prevented the world body from even criticizing Syria, an old ally of Moscow.
Few Western powers favor any Libyan-style military action in Syria, which lies in the heart of the conflict-prone Middle East. Bordering Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Israel, it is allied to Iran and the armed Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah group.
Assad, while offering reform, has vowed to crush his opponents with an "iron fist," but Syrians braving bullets and torture chambers appear equally determined to add him to the list of the past year's toppled Arab leaders.
Army deserters and other rebels have taken up arms against security forces dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect, pushing Sunni Muslim-majority Syria closer to civil war.
Syria's state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday that what it called terrorists had fired rockets, killing an officer and five of his men at a rural checkpoint near Damascus. Seven others were wounded in the incident, a day after gunmen assassinated a brigadier general near the capital.
Eight people were killed when a bomb hit a minibus on the Aleppo-Idlib road, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In Homs, tank fire crashed into the Khalidiya district after a night rally against Assad there, activists said. YouTube footage showed a crowd dancing at the rally and waving the old Syrian flag used before the Baath Party seized power in 1963.
The British-based Observatory said eight people were killed in violence in Homs, a flashpoint city of one million racked by unrest, crackdowns and Sunni-Alawite sectarian killings.
(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir in Cairo, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, and Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by David Stamp)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120118/wl_nm/us_syria
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