56 dead in renewed ethnic violence in west Myanmar

Myanmar Buddhist monks hold banners and placards during a rally against recent violence in Rakhine state, outside the city hall in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Nearly 200 protesters including Buddhist monks called for the stop of renewed violence in western coast of Myanmar. Rakhine state spokesman Myo Thant said clashes between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists - reported in other parts of the coastal region Sunday - engulfed the townships of Kyaukphyu and Myebon late Tuesday. (AP Photo)

Myanmar Buddhist monks hold banners and placards during a rally against recent violence in Rakhine state, outside the city hall in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Nearly 200 protesters including Buddhist monks called for the stop of renewed violence in western coast of Myanmar. Rakhine state spokesman Myo Thant said clashes between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists - reported in other parts of the coastal region Sunday - engulfed the townships of Kyaukphyu and Myebon late Tuesday. (AP Photo)

Myanmar Buddhist monks offer prayers during a rally against recent violence in Rakhine state, at Sule pagoda in downtown Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Nearly 200 protesters including Buddhist monks called for the stop of renewed violence in western coast of Myanmar. Rakhine state spokesman Myo Thant said clashes between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists - reported in other parts of the coastal region Sunday - engulfed the townships of Kyaukphyu and Myebon late Tuesday. (AP Photo)

KYAUKTAW, Myanmar (AP) ? At least 56 people have been killed and 1,900 homes destroyed in renewed ethnic violence in western Myanmar as the government warned perpetrators and the international community appealed for calm.

About 75,000 people remain in refugee camps since an outbreak of violence in June between the Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in which at least 90 people were killed and more than 3,000 homes were destroyed. Curfews in place in some areas since then have been expanded with the latest violence, but tensions have stayed high in part because the government has failed to find any long-term solution other than segregating the communities, which have long been in conflict.

Since Sunday, 25 men and 31 women were reported dead in four Rakhine state townships, local government spokesman Win Myaing said. Some 1,900 homes had been burned down in the fresh conflict, while 60 men and four women were injured. It was unclear how many of the victims were Rohingya people and how many were Rakhine.

The United States called for Myanmar authorities to take immediate action to halt the violence. The United Nations appealed for calm.

Myanmar's state daily Myanma Ahlin reported Friday the President's office has warned it will take action against instigators involving in the clashes.

"As the international community is closely watching Myanmar's democratic transition, such unrest could tarnish the image of the country," said the announcement.

An Associated Press photographer who traveled to Kyauktaw, one of the affected townships 45 kilometers (75 miles) north of the Rakhine capital of Sittwe, said he saw 11 wounded people brought by ambulance to the local 25-bed hospital, most with gunshot wounds.

One was declared dead after arrival. All the victims being treated were Rakhine, but that could reflect an inability or unwillingness of Rohingya victims to be treated there.

A volunteer at the hospital, Min Oo, said by telephone that five bodies, including one of a woman, had also been brought there. He said the injured persons were brought by boat from Kyauktaw town 16 kilometers (10 miles) away, and taken from the jetty by the ambulances.

An account by a Rakhine villager in the area suggested great confusion and tension. The villager said that when groups of Rakhine and the Rohingya had a confrontation, government soldiers shot into a crowd of Rakhine, even though, according to his claim, it had been dispersing. The villager would not give his name for fear of violent reprisals.

There have been concerns in the past that soldiers were failing to protect the Rohingya community, but the Rakhine villager's account hints that Myanmar's military may have been defending the Rohingya in this case.

"We feel very unsafe because soldiers are not protecting us but protecting the Muslim villages. They shot the Rakhine people when people got near Muslim villages," said Aung Than, a resident of Kyauktaw township, 74 kilometers (46 miles) north of Sittwe. "Soldiers did not shoot in the air, but they shot at the Rakhine people."

The United Nations called for calm and for it to be given access to the area for humanitarian purposes.

"The U.N. is gravely concerned about reports of a resurgence of inter-communal conflict in several areas in Rakhine State ? which has resulted in deaths and has forced thousands of people, including women and children, to flee their homes," U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Ashok Nigam said in a statement.

Large numbers of people fleeing the new violence were headed for already overcrowded refugee camps, the U.N. official said, advocating short-term humanitarian support and action toward long-term solutions.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was deeply concerned about the reports and urged restraint.

The unrest broke out days after the U.S. held what it described as an encouraging human rights dialogue with Myanmar ? the latest sign of diplomatic re-engagement with the former pariah state that has made significant democratic reforms.

The conflict in western Myanmar is rooted in a dispute over the Muslim residents' origin. Although many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated as intruders who came from neighboring Bangladesh to steal scarce land.

The U.N. estimates their population in Myanmar at 800,000. But the government does not count them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so ? like neighboring Bangladesh ? denies them citizenship. Human rights groups say racism also plays a role: Many Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.

The crisis has proven a major challenge to President Thein Sein's government and to opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been criticized by some outsiders as failing to speak out strongly against what they see as repression of the Rohingya.

Buddhist monks have been spearheading anti-Rohingya protests, and on Thursday staged their latest one in Yangon, the country's biggest and most important city. More than 100 staged a peaceful protest at the historic Sule Pagoda.

_____

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-26-AS-Myanmar-Violence/id-0eb7a4a4d43643b7a99699ea6e118ef0

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Dead Guys, Dead Brands, Legendary Cars, and Coolness From The ...

Like today, companies and car manufacturers employed many different techniques in their ads back in the 1960s. The collection below, culled like so many others before it from the 1964 NY International Auto Show program shows a good range in both creativity and approach in 1960s advertising. Some ads, like the Ferrari one you?ll see immediately below rely on the rock solid, international reputation of the brand itself. Even in the 1960s, Ferraris were prized automotive possessions, so simply blurting the name across a page was good enough to get the masses looking. Other companies like Rover got more creative and as you?ll see in the Goodyear ad featuring Craig Breedlove, some companies chose to go long form and use an amazing amount of text in their ads. You?ll never see an ad like the Goodyear one in a magazine or on a blog today. People don?t have the attention span to read them like that anymore.

Scroll down and enjoy this newest installment from the 1964 NY International Auto Show!

CLICK THE ADS TO ENLARGE!

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Source: http://bangshift.com/blog/dead-guys-dead-brands-legendary-cars-and-coolness-from-the-1964-ny-international-auto-show-program.html

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Ryan says in Ohio pipeline key to creating jobs

SWANTON, Ohio (AP) ? Mitt Romney's administration on Day One would approve a pipeline that would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in Texas, creating thousands of jobs and pushing America on its way to energy independence, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday.

Ryan told supporters during his third trip to swing state Ohio in the last two weeks that there are enough energy resources for North America to become energy independent within eight years.

"We need to unlock the energy we have in this country to create jobs," he said.

Ryan blamed President Barack Obama for standing in the way of the Keystone XL pipeline and pushing too many environmental regulations that have cost jobs in the coal industry, a thorny issue for the president in southeast Ohio, where coal has a large footprint.

Obama earlier this year objected to the Keystone XL pipeline's proposed 1,179-mile route over environmental concerns, suggesting that the pipeline should go around a sensitive aquifer in Nebraska. But Obama encouraged the company to pursue a shorter project from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast.

Approving the entire pipeline would get people back to work in construction and factories, Ryan said.

"Think of the jobs right there," he said.

The Wisconsin congressman said coming up with new energy sources and improving job training programs will go a long way in helping Ohio and other industrial states that have lost jobs over the last four years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ryan-says-ohio-pipeline-key-creating-jobs-171126160--election.html

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Futurity.org ? Cancer link raises questions about stem cells

UC DAVIS (US) ? A type of stem cell seen as promising for medical therapies is very similar to the type of cells that gives rise to cancer, researchers report.

The findings suggest that although the cells?known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)?show substantial potential as a source of replacement cells and tissues to treat injuries, disease, and chronic conditions, scientists and physicians must move cautiously with any clinical use because iPSCs could also cause malignant cancer.

?This is the first study that describes the specific molecular pathways that iPSCs and cancer cells share from a direct comparison,? says Paul Knoepfler, associate professor of cell biology and human anatomy at the University of California, Davis, and the study?s principal investigator.

?It means that much more study is required before iPSCs can be used clinically. However, our study adds to a growing knowledge base that not only will help make stem cell therapies safer, but also provide us with new understandings about the cancer-causing process and more effective ways to fight the disease.?

Since 2007, cell biologists have been able to induce specialized, differentiated cells (such as those obtained from the skin or muscle of a human adult) to become iPSCs.

Like embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are a type of stem cell that is able to become any cell type. This ?pluripotent? capability means that iPSCs have the potential of being used in treatments for a variety of human diseases, a fundamentally new type of clinical care known as regenerative medicine.

iPSCs are considered particularly important because their production avoids the controversy that surrounds embryonic stem cells. In addition, iPSCs can be taken from a patient?s own skin and induced to produce other needed tissues, thereby evading the possibility of immunologic rejection that arises when transplanting cells from a donor to a recipient.

In contrast to therapies based on ES cells, iPSCs would eliminate the need for patients to take immunosuppressive drugs.

Earlier research indicated that both ES cells and iPSCs pose some health risks. Increasing evidence suggests that pluripotency may be related to rapid cellular growth, a characteristic of cancer. iPSCs, as well as embryonic stem cells, are well known by scientists to have the propensity to cause teratomas, an unusual type of benign tumor that consists of many different cell types.

The new study demonstrates for the first time that iPSCs?as well as ES cells?share significant similarities to malignant cancer cells. Findings are reported in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

Unexpectedly similar

The investigators compared iPSCs to a form of malignant cancer known as oncogenic foci that are also produced in laboratories; these cell types are used by medical researchers to create models of cancer, particularly sarcoma.

Specifically, the scientists contrasted the different cells? transcriptomes, comprised of the RNA molecules or ?transcripts.? Unlike DNA analysis, which reflects a cell?s entire genetic code whether or not the genes are active, transcriptomes reflect only the genes that are actively expressed at a given time and therefore provide a picture of actual cellular activity.

From this transcriptome analysis, the investigators found that the iPSCs and malignant sarcoma cancer cells are unexpectedly similar in several respects.

Genes that were not expressed in iPSCs were also not expressed in the cancer-generating cells, including many that have properties that guide a cell to normally differentiate in certain directions.

Both cell types also exhibited evidence of similar metabolic activities, another indication that they are related cell types.

?We were surprised how similar iPSCS were to cancer-generating cells,? says Knoepfler. ?Our findings indicate that the search for therapeutic applications of iPSCs must proceed with considerable caution if we are to do our best to promote patient safety.?

Reprogram cancer?

Knoepfler notes, for example, that future experimental therapies using iPSCs for human transplants would most often not involve implanting iPSCs directly into a patient. Instead, iPSCs would be used to create differentiated cells?or tissues?in the laboratory, which could then be transplanted into a patient.

This approach avoids implanting the actual undifferentiated iPSCS, and reduces the risk of tumor development as a side effect. However, Knoepfler notes that even trace amounts of residual iPSCs could cause cancer in patients, a possibility supported by his team?s latest research.

Encouragingly, the UC Davis team also found important differences between the cell types that could provide clues to making iPSCs safer.

As part of this study, the researchers transformed tumor-generating cell types into iPS-like cells by manipulating their genetic make up. Although the reprogrammed cancer cells did not behave identically to iPSCs, and had reduced ability to produce different cell types, the findings are exciting because they suggest that cancer cells can be reprogrammed into more normal cell types, possibly opening the door to new cancer therapies.

?We found that we could reprogram the cancer cells to behave more akin to normal stem cells,? says Knoepfler. ?This suggests that such cancer cell reprogramming could become a new way of treating cancer patients, in essence telling their tumors to turn into normal stem cells.?

Knoepfler says the team is continuing to study the differences and similarities between iPSCs and cancer cells, as well as investigate possible ways to make iPSCs safer. It appears that targeting specific metabolic pathways may enhance iPSC formation, while modulating other pathways may improve safety.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the National Institutes of Health supported the work.

Source: UC Davis

Source: http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/cancer-link-raises-questions-about-stem-cells/

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Facebook Shuttering Massive Pages for Violating Photo Copyrights

Facebook takes the copyright infringement of photographs seriously. So seriously that it doesn?t think twice about instantly ? and permanently ? nuking offending pages, regardless of how popular those pages are. Case in point: two months ago, popular trend hunting blog The Cool Hunter had its popular page abruptly deleted; the page boasted over 788,000 fans, contained five years? worth of content, and was a huge source of traffic for the company?s website. Facebook has since stated that the removal was due to ?multiple instances of copyright infringement.?

Last week, The Cool Hunter founder Bill Tikos published a post that gives his account of what happened, and acknowledged that his page contained unattributed photos:

[One of the reasons] that could have caused the closure of our FB page is that we sometimes use images even when we do not know who has taken the picture.

With FB, Tumblr, Pinterest and all the other image-sharing opportunities today, millions of people and organizations share images ? theirs and someone else?s ? freely every day. We WANT to give credit always, but in many cases we cannot find that information. On our ?About Us? page and on our (now extinct) FB page we specifically state that if we have posted an image that belongs to you, we want to know, so that we can give you the appropriate credit.

[...] we cannot believe that they think that everyone who clicks ?share? on FB has checked that they personally have the right to post that image! That is a ridiculous idea. If people did that, FB would not be the business it is. It would be a tiny little official online group of insiders who share each others? images and copy. Facebook is founded on FREE SHARING. They make their money based on that sharing.

The key point is that absolutely every one of us has posted images AND COPY whose author we do not know and whose authors? permission we do not have. Facebook is built on this sharing. As are pretty much all other social media platforms. So, why do they attack a few and not all, if they are the police?

The Next Web has learned from Facebook that this deletion is permanent, and points out that Facebook?s Community Standards are clear on this issue of respecting photo copyrights:

Before sharing content on Facebook, please be sure you have the right to do so. We ask that you respect copyrights, trademarks, and other legal rights.

Tikos has a point: Facebook is teeming with people sharing photos in a way that violates the service?s terms of use. However, it?s generally the big fish that make enough of a splash to get targeted and taken down. If you?re a copyright violating big fish, you?d better watch your back?

Source: http://www.petapixel.com/2012/10/08/facebook-shuttering-massive-pages-for-violating-photo-copyrights/

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HBT: Cards' Matheny gets outmanaged

The biggest hit in Sunday?s Game 1 came about because the Nationals got the matchup they wanted and the Cardinals didn?t.

Down 2-1 with two on and two out in the top of the eighth, Nationals manager Davey Johnson sent up lefty Chad Tracy in hit in the pitcher?s spot in the order. The Cardinals had their regular eighth-inning guy, righty Mitchell Boggs, in the game at the time, but Mike Matheny chose to counter with left-hander Marc Rzepczynski. Of course, that just led to another move from Davey Johnson; he put in right-hander Tyler Moore to replace Tracy.

Matheny should have known this was coming; Tracy had nine at-bats against lefties all year. It was a no-brainer that Johnson would go get Moore off the bench. And Moore, getting to face the southpaw, came up big, delivering a two-run single that proved to be the difference in the Nationals? 3-2 win.

It was Matheny?s second of three very questionable decisions in the game. In the sixth, he picked Skip Schumaker over Matt Carpenter to hit for the pitcher with two on and two out against Craig Stammen. Maybe he felt Carpenter could be employed in a bigger situation later, though that chance to break the game open seemed plenty big at the time. Schumaker ended up striking out to end the inning. And Carpenter did get to bat in an important situation in the eighth. He too struck out, thanks to Tyler Clippard getting a strike call on a pitch four or five inches off the plate.

The third decision came before Carpenter hit in the eighth. With just six outs left in a one-run game, Matheny chose to give away one of them to bunt David Freese from first to second. The sac was successful, but the Cards failed to score.

It?d be silly to say Matheny lost this game for the Cardinals; an offense that came up with just three hits all day was the bigger problem. What Matheny didn?t do was put the team in the best position to win.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/07/mike-matheny-gets-outmanaged-as-cards-lose-game-1/related/

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