Resurrection of 3-billion-year-old antibiotic-resistance proteins

Feb. 27, 2013 ? Scientists are reporting "laboratory resurrections" of several 2-3-billion-year-old proteins that are ancient ancestors of the enzymes that enable today's antibiotic-resistant bacteria to shrug off huge doses of penicillins, cephalosporins and other modern drugs. The achievement, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens the door to a scientific "replay" of the evolution of antibiotic resistance with an eye to finding new ways to cope with the problem.

Jose M. Sanchez-Ruiz, Eric A. Gaucher, Valeria A. Risso and colleagues explain that antibiotic resistance existed long before Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in 1928. Genes that contain instructions for making the proteins responsible for antibiotic resistance have been found in 30,000-year-old permafrost sediment and other ancient sites. Their research focused on the so-called beta-lactamases, enzymes responsible for resistance to the family of antibiotics that includes penicillin, which scientists believe originated billions of years ago.

They describe using laboratory and statistical techniques to reconstruct the sequences of beta-lactamase proteins dating to Precambrian times, 2-3 billion years ago. The team also synthesized the inferred ancestral enzymes and conducted studies on their stability, structure and function. "The availability of laboratory resurrections of Precambrian beta-lactamases opens up new possibilities in the study of the emergence of antibiotic resistance," the report states. "For instance, it should now be possible to perform laboratory replays of the molecular tape of lactamase evolution and use such replays to probe the molecular determinants of the efficiency of lactamases to adapt to different types of antibiotics." The authors also note that the extreme stability and catalytic features displayed by the 2-3-billion-year-old lactamases suggest that resurrected Precambrian proteins have utility for the biotechnology industry.

The authors and co-authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, NASA Astrobiology Institute, FEDER Funds and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

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. Valeria A. Risso, Jose A. Gavira, Diego F. Mejia-Carmona, Eric A. Gaucher, Jose M. Sanchez-Ruiz. Hyperstability and Substrate Promiscuity in Laboratory Resurrections of Precambrian ?-Lactamases. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013; 135 (8): 2899 DOI: 10.1021/ja311630a

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/DnM0elaO8pw/130227102028.htm

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US economy showing strength as spending cuts loom

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 photo, a construction worker works at a new home under construction in Chicago. U.S. new-home sales jumped in January from the previous month to the highest level since July 2008, a sign that the housing recovery is accelerating. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 photo, a construction worker works at a new home under construction in Chicago. U.S. new-home sales jumped in January from the previous month to the highest level since July 2008, a sign that the housing recovery is accelerating. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Even with automatic spending cuts looming, the outlook for the U.S. economy brightened a bit Tuesday after reports showed that Americans are more confident and are buying more new homes.

Home prices are also rising steadily, and banks are lending more. Such improvements suggest that the economy is resilient enough to withstand the deep government cuts that will kick in Friday.

That's especially encouraging because uncertainty over the federal budget could persist for months.

"The stars are lining up for stronger private sector growth this year," said Craig Alexander, chief economist at TD Bank.

Sales of new homes jumped nearly 16 percent in January to their highest level in 4? years, adding momentum to the housing recovery. Consumer confidence rose in February after three months of declines. And home prices increased in December from the same month in 2011 by the largest amount in more than six years.

The upbeat economic news contributed to a rally on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 100 points.

Consumers still face numerous burdens. Among them is a sharp increase in gas prices. The national average for a gallon, $3.78, has surged 44 cents in a month.

And Social Security taxes rose 2 percentage points beginning Jan. 1. This year, the increase will cost a typical household that earns $50,000 about $1,000. Income taxes for the highest-earning Americans also rose.

Both factors could reduce overall spending.

On Friday, about $85 billion in automatic spending cuts are to kick in, and there's little sign that the White House and Congress will reach a budget deal to avoid them. The cuts will cause furloughs and temporary layoffs of government workers and contractors and sharply reduce spending on defense and domestic programs.

For about 2 million long-term unemployed, benefits now averaging $300 a week could shrink by about $30. Payments that subsidize clean energy, school construction and state and local public works projects could be cut. Low-income Americans seeking heating or housing aid might face longer waits.

Overall, the tax increases and spending cuts could shave up to 1.2 percentage points from growth this year, economists estimate. Alexander estimates that without the spending cuts or tax increases, the economy would expand more than 3 percent this year. Instead, he predicts growth of only 2 percent.

But growth should accelerate later this year as the effects of the government cutbacks ease, he and other economists say. And several reports Tuesday suggest that the economy's underlying health is improving despite the prospect of lower government spending and further budget stalemates:

? The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 6.8 percent in December from a year earlier. That was the biggest year-over-year increase since July 2006. Rising home prices tend to make homeowners feel wealthier and encourage more spending. They also cause more people to buy before prices rise further. And banks are more likely to provide mortgages if they foresee higher home prices.

? Consumer confidence rose after three months of declines, according to the Conference Board, a business research group. Confidence had plunged in January after higher taxes cut most Americans' take-home pay. The rebound, though, suggests that some consumers have begun to adjust to smaller paychecks. The consumer confidence index rose to 69.6 in February from 58.4 in January. That's higher than last year's average of 67.1.

? Bank lending rose 1.7 percent in the October-December quarter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. It was the sixth rise in seven quarters. Banks made more commercial and industrial loans to businesses and auto loans to consumers. More lending means the Federal Reserve's policy of keeping interest rates at record lows will benefit more people. Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated to Congress on Tuesday that the Fed's efforts are helping the economy and signaled that they will continue.

? Sales of new homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 437,000, the Commerce Department said. That's the highest level since July 2008. The gain will likely encourage more construction. Higher sales are keeping the supply of new homes low, even as builders have tried to keep up. At the current sales pace, it would take only 4.1 months to exhaust the supply of new homes for sale. That's the lowest such figure in nearly eight years.

"Builders are not putting up homes fast enough to meet underlying demand," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.

New homes have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to data from the National Association of Homebuilders.

Construction hiring has picked up in recent months. The industry has gained 98,000 jobs since September, its best stretch since the spring of 2006 ? before the housing bubble burst.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-26-Economy/id-b14871bb6e8b45f4ba17a09a15c0c8de

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Researchers test holographic technique for restoring vision

Feb. 26, 2013 ? Researchers led by biomedical engineering Professor Shy Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology are testing the power of holography to artificially stimulate cells in the eye, with hopes of developing a new strategy for bionic vision restoration.

Computer-generated holography, they say, could be used in conjunction with a technique called optogenetics, which uses gene therapy to deliver light-sensitive proteins to damaged retinal nerve cells. In conditions such as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) -- a condition affecting about one in 4000 people in the United States -- these light-sensing cells degenerate and lead to blindness.

"The basic idea of optogenetics is to take a light-sensitive protein from another organism, typically from algae or bacteria, and insert it into a target cell, and that photosensitizes the cell," Shoham explained.

Intense pulses of light can activate nerve cells newly sensitized by this gene therapy approach. But Shoham said researchers around the world are still searching for the best way to deliver the light patterns so that the retina "sees" or responds in a nearly normal way.

The plan is to someday develop a prosthetic headset or eyepiece that a person could wear to translate visual scenes into patterns of light that stimulate the genetically altered cells.

In their paper in the Feb. 26 issue of Nature Communications, the Technion researchers show how light from computer-generated holography could be used to stimulate these repaired cells in mouse retinas. The key, they say, is to use a light stimulus that is intense, precise, and can trigger activity across a variety of cells all at once.

"Holography, what we're using, has the advantage of being relatively precise and intense," Shoham said. "And you need those two things to see."

The researchers turned to holography after exploring other options, including laser deflectors and digital displays used in many portable projectors to stimulate these cells. Both methods had their drawbacks, Shoham said.

Digital light displays can stimulate many nerve cells at once, "but they have low light intensity and very low light efficiency," Shoham said. The genetically repaired cells are less sensitive to light than normal healthy retinal cells, so they preferably need a bright light source like a laser to be activated.

"Lasers give intensity, but they can't give the parallel projection" that would simultaneously stimulate all of the cells needed to see a complete picture, Shoham noted. "Holography is a way of getting the best of both worlds."

The researchers have tested the potential of holographic stimulation in retinal cells in the lab, and have done some preliminary work with the technology in living mice with damaged retinal cells. The experiments show that holography can provide reliable and simultaneous stimulation of multiple cells at millisecond speeds.

But implementing a holographic prosthesis in humans is far in the future, Shoham cautioned.

His team is exploring other ways, aside from optogenetics, to activate damaged nerve cells. For instance, they are also experimenting with ultrasound for activating retinal and brain tissue.

And Shoham said holography itself "also provides a very interesting path toward three-dimensional stimulation, which we don't use so much in the retina, but is very interesting in other projects where it allow us to stimulate 3-D brain tissue."

In mid-February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first artificial retina and retinal prosthesis, which works in a different fashion than the Technion project. The FDA-approved device, the Argus II, uses an artificial "retina" consisting of electrodes, and a glasses-like prosthesis to transmit light signals to the electrodes.

"I think Shy's lab is very smart to pursue many methods of restoring vision," said Eyal Margalit, a retinal disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He said researchers around the world are also looking for ways to use stem cells to replace damaged retinal cells, to transplant entire layers of healthy retinal cells, and in some cases "bypass the eye entirely, and stimulate the cortex of the brain directly" to restore lost vision.

Shoham's co-authors on the paper included Dr. Inna Reutsky-Gefen, Lior Golan, Dr. Nairouz Farah, Adi Schejter, Limor Tsur, and Dr. Inbar Brosh.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Technion Society. The original article was written by Kevin Hattori.

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Journal Reference:

1. Inna Reutsky-Gefen, Lior Golan, Nairouz Farah, Adi Schejter, Limor Tsur, Inbar Brosh, Shy Shoham. Holographic optogenetic stimulation of patterned neuronal activity for vision restoration. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1509 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2500

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/G1QOPaftAZc/130226134259.htm

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Why Your Real Estate Farming Practices Are Outdated | Leading ...

Since my company?s inception, in 1997, not a month goes by that we don?t run into at least three to four Real Estate Agents that claim postcard farming is useless and a waste of time and money.

Because I?m a naturally curious person, I feel compelled to dig into this, ask some questions, and find out if things truly are as they seem, or if there may be something else afoot, that could simply be overlooked by the Realtor?.

Over the years, we?ve noticed that there are some common thoughts that come up time and time again. All these things, I would put under the category of using ?Outdated Real Estate Farming Practices?, and not actually problems with Farming a neighborhood with postcards.

With a few small tweaks, these agents could actually be very successful with their Real Estate Postcard Farming Program. To those ends, today, I thought I would share the three most common mistakes we see that can be tweaked, and avoided, turning your Real Estate Farming efforts into immediate successes.

1) If you aren?t tracking your response rates with your Postcard marketing, how can you truly say postcard farming isn?t effective?

This one comes up time and time again. In fact, this has always been the most fascinating part of the Real Estate Industry to me. Unlike any other industry in Corporate America, the Real Estate Industry at large seems to be accepting of conducting long term, very expensive postcard marketing campaigns, without any true way to track ROI.

If I were to go into Pepsi, for instance, pitch my marketing plan and when asked how we would gauge success or ROI, say, ?I Don?t Know?, I would get tossed out of the meeting. They would be right to do so, because it?s simply unheard of to not have any plan for tracking marketing results.

If major corporations refuse to throw money out to simply be ?visible?, you should too!

So how to you track your postcard farming program? While there are many ways you can, my favorite path is always the one that is automated.

Take for instance a program like our LeadingAgent Neighorhood Capture System. With the use of a variable data key code (capture code), and a hook to get the homeowner to go back to your website for an item of value, you can easily track response rate.

Whatever system you use, hopefully it?s intuitive enough that the capture code is not only unique to the homeowner?s address, but ALSO the actual marketing piece. By having that feature, you can not only track overall effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, but also the effectiveness of a particular marketing piece, vs. other pieces in your campaign.

When you actually start tracking results, you may be very surprised to find out that your campaign wasn?t broken at all. You just didn?t know where your deals were coming from. Conversely, if you find out that your postcard campaign indeed is not effective, this gives you a quick way to find out, without wasting a bunch of money, and allowing you to make tweaks, to get your campaign firing on all cylinders.

2) Neighborhood Demographics Have Changed, But Your Marketing Content Didn?t

There is a saying that ?If you stop for lunch, you become lunch?. This saying can apply to your Real Estate Farming techniques. You see, in the past 10-15 years, across many of America?s cities, home values have risen dramatically. As the home values have rose, many aging homeowners chose to sell their homes, taking advantage of the high prices, and downsize to a smaller home, retirement community, etc.

Who moved into these homes? In the Silicon Valley, where our offices are based, for instance, many young, high tech executives moved into these homes. They were doing very well with stock options and great salaries and decided to settle down, buy a home close to their company and start a family.

If you are a Realtor? that didn?t notice these changes, the problem here, is that in a flash, the demographics of your marketplace changed. As a result of these changes, what used to interest the people you were marketing to, simply doesn?t cut it anymore.

Take for instance the recipe card. If you farm area has shifted to young, well educated professionals, recipe cards are the very worst thing you can send them. Instead for instance, maybe you would focus on market stats related postcards that truly analyze what is going on. Or, since your target group has trended to the younger, more active segment of the population, maybe value added pieces that detail events and activities they can take advantage of, in the area they live.

Learn about your marketplace, give them what they want, and you will be successful.

3) Relentless Consistency Has Become The Name Of The Game

In the last 10-15 years, more than ever, mass media has hit a fever pitch. Americans are given so many marketing messages throughout the day, at such a rapid pace, and the internet has given us such an ?on demand? style of living that we have simply had our attention spans reduced to that of the mosquito.

Time and time again we hear from Realtors? that say they mailed postcards religiously to a farm area, year after year and it yielded zero results. Come to find out, when we dig a bit and ask them how frequently they were sending cards, we most commonly hear, ?twice a year?, ?every quarter?, or at best, ?every other month?.

THIS WILL NOT WORK

In today?s marketplace, if you want to have a successful geographic postcard marketing campaign, you have to send postcards to your farm area a minimum of once per month. If you can afford to start out more frequently, all the better. Any less than every four weeks will make you irrelevant in the minds of homeowners in your farm area(s), therefore making your postcard campaign a complete loss.

You work hard on your marketing messages. Don?t let something as easily solvable as consistency be the thing that ruins your campaign.

So there you have it. These of course are just the three most common things we hear from Realtors? when discussing postcard farming practices and why they think this form of marketing doesn?t work. There are many others we have encountered though, and thankfully, they all have simple solutions as those detailed above.

Do you need help analyzing your current postcard marketing campaign and want to figure out how to get it back on track? Have you completely stopped postcard farming and want to see about getting a campaign up and running? Have you never participated in this form of marketing and would like to learn ?best practices?, before getting started? Contact me anytime, and I would be more than happy to help you in any way I can.

Chris Leo is a Silicon Valley, CA entrepreneur, complete workaholic, top notch marketer, type ?A? personality, shameless self-promoter and never ending ?connector?.

Even though he is seemingly always working, when he does take breaks, the ?work hard, play hard? motto takes on a whole new meaning. His life is controlled chaos and he loves it.

Chris on Google+

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Source: http://leadingagent.net/blog/?p=1135

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Ben Affleck Oscar Speech: Emotional, Moving, Slightly Uncomfortable

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/ben-affleck-oscar-speech-emotional-moving-slightly-uncomfortable/

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Music, movie industry to warn copyright infringers

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Internet users who illegally share music, movies or TV shows online may soon get warning notices from their service providers that they are violating copyright law. Ignore the notices, and violators could face an Internet slow-down for 48 hours. Those who claim they're innocent can protest ? for a fee.

For the first time since a spate of aggressive and unpopular lawsuits almost a decade ago, the music and movie industries are going after Internet users they accuse of swapping copyrighted files online. But unlike the lawsuits from the mid-2000s ? which swept up everyone from young kids to the elderly with sometimes ruinous financial penalties and court costs ? the latest effort is aimed at educating casual Internet pirates and convincing them to stop. There are multiple chances to make amends and no immediate legal consequences under the program if they don't.

"There's a bunch of questions that need to be answered because there are ways that this could end up causing problems for Internet users," such as the bureaucratic headache of being falsely accused, said David Sohn, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based civil liberties group. But he added: "There's also the potential for this to have an impact in reducing piracy in ways that don't carry a lot of collateral damage."

The Copyright Alert System was put into effect this week by the nation's five biggest Internet service providers ? Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cablevision ? and the two major associations representing industry ? the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.

Under the new program, the industry will monitor "peer-to-peer" software services for evidence of copyrighted files being shared. Each complaint will prompt a customer's Internet provider to notify the customer that their Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally. Depending on the service provider, the first couple of alerts will likely be an email warning. Subsequent alerts might require a person to acknowledge receipt or review educational materials. If a final warning is ignored, a person could be subject to speed-throttling for 48 hours or another similar "mitigation measure."

After five or six "strikes," however, the person won't face any repercussions under the program and is likely to be ignored. It's unclear whether such repeat offenders would be more likely at that point to face an expensive lawsuit. While proponents say it's not the intention of the program, it's possible the alert system will be used to initiate lawsuits.

The number of Internet users subject to the new system is a sizable chunk of the U.S. population. Verizon and AT&T alone supply more than 23 million customers.

For the recording industry, which blames online piracy for contributing to a dramatic drop in profits and sales during the past decade, the new alert system is a better alternative than lawsuits. In December 2008, the Recording Industry Association of America announced it had discontinued that practice ? which had been deeply unpopular with the American public ? and would begin working with the Internet providers on the alert system instead.

"We think there is a positive impact of (alert) programs like this, and that they can put money in the pocket of artists and labels," said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the trade group.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates some 29 million people have downloaded or watched unauthorized movies or TV shows online, mostly using technology such as BitTorrent, a popular peer-to-peer protocol. Like its counterparts in the music industry, the MPAA says it believes people will stop when they understand it's illegal and are redirected to legal ways of paying for downloads.

The alert system "will help ensure an Internet that works for everyone by alerting families of illegal activity that has occurred over peer-to-peer networks using their Internet accounts and educate them on how they can prevent such activity from happening again," Michael O'Leary, an executive for the MPAA, said in a statement Tuesday.

A primary question is whether the system will generate a significant number of "false positives," or cases in which people are accused of sharing illegal content but aren't. One scenario is if a person doesn't encrypt their wireless connection, leaving it open to a neighbor or malicious hacker that swaps illegal files. Another example might be if a person uploads a "mashup" of songs or brief scenes from a movie ? content that wouldn't necessarily violate the law but could get flagged by the system.

The Center for Copyright Information, which created the alert system, is responsible for producing the methods that companies will be allowed to use to catch pirates, but it said Tuesday it won't release those details publicly. It said the system will rely on humans to review the entire content of every file to make sure it qualifies as material protected under copyright laws.

"This is an imperfect science," said Yoshi Kohno, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. "The likelihood of a false positive depends on the diligence of the party doing the investigation."

Bartees Cox, a spokesman for the consumer watchdog group Public Knowledge, says it will watching to ensure the program doesn't evolve into imposing harsher punishments by Internet providers, such as terminating a person's Internet access altogether if they are accused of being a prolific violator.

If a person believes they've been wrongly accused, they will have multiple chances to delete the material and move on without any repercussion. If the problem is chronic, they can pay $35 to appeal ? a charge intended to deter frivolous appeals but also one that can be waived. The center says it won't require proof that a person is financially strapped.

The center's director, Jill Lesser, said the goal is to educate the average Internet user, rather than punish them, and no one will see their Internet access cut off.

"This is the first time the focus has been on education and awareness and redirection to legal and authorized services and not on punitive measures or a carrot-and-stick approach," she said.

Sohn said the effort will be a significant test whether voluntary measures can reduce copyright infringement.

"The long-term challenge here is getting users to change their attitudes and behaviors and views toward copyright infringement, because the technology that enables infringement ? computers, digital technology and the Internet ? that stuff isn't going away," he said.

___

Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

___

Online:

http://www.copyrightinformation.org/the-copyright-alert-system

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-02-26-Internet%20Piracy/id-ccf2d1d17968430aa7260431e694211b

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Fragments of continents hidden under lava in the Indian Ocean

Monday, February 25, 2013

The islands Reunion and Mauritius, both well-known tourist destinations, are hiding a micro-continent, which has now been discovered. The continent fragment known as Mauritia detached about 60 million years ago while Madagascar and India drifted apart, and had been hidden under huge masses of lava. Such micro-continents in the oceans seem to occur more frequently than previously thought, says a study in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience ("A Precambrian microcontinent in the Indian Ocean," Nature Geoscience, Vol 6, doi: 10.1038/NGEO1736).

The break-up of continents is often associated with mantle plumes: These giant bubbles of hot rock rise from the deep mantle and soften the tectonic plates from below, until the plates break apart at the hotspots. This is how Eastern Gondwana broke apart about 170 million years ago. At first, one part was separated, which in turn fragmented into Madagascar, India, Australia and Antarctica, which then migrated to their present position.

Plumes currently situated underneath the islands Marion and Reunion appear to have played a role in the emergence of the Indian Ocean. If the zone of the rupture lies at the edge of a land mass (in this case Madagascar / India), fragments of this land mass may be separated off. The Seychelles are a well-known example of such a continental fragment.

A group of geoscientists from Norway, South Africa, Britain and Germany have now published a study that suggests, based on the study of lava sand grains from the beach of Mauritius, the existence of further fragments. The sand grains contain semi-precious zircons aged between 660 and 1970 million years, which is explained by the fact that the zircons were carried by the lava as it pushed through subjacent continental crust of this age.

This dating method was supplemented by a recalculation of plate tectonics, which explains exactly how and where the fragments ended up in the Indian Ocean. Dr. Bernhard Steinberger of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and Dr. Pavel Doubrovine of Oslo University calculated the hotspot trail: "On the one hand, it shows the position of the plates relative to the two hotspots at the time of the rupture, which points towards a causal relation," says

Steinberger. "On the other hand, we were able to show that the continent fragments continued to wander almost exactly over the Reunion plume, which explains how they were covered by volcanic rock." So what was previously interpreted only as the trail of the Reunion hotspot, are continental fragments which were previously not recognized as such because they were covered by the volcanic rocks of the Reunion plume. It therefore appears that such micro-continents in the ocean occur more frequently than previously thought.

###

Torsvik, T.H., Amundsen, H., Hartz, E.H., Corfu, F., Kusznir, N., Gaina, C., Doubrovine, P.V., Steinberger B., Ashwal, L.D. & Jamtveit, B., ?A Precambrian microcontinent in the Indian Ocean", Nature Geoscience, Vol. 6, doi:10.1038/NGEO1736.

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: http://www.helmholtz.de/en/index.html

Thanks to Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126998/Fragments_of_continents_hidden_under_lava_in_the_Indian_Ocean_

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Tech leaders plan virtual push on immigration (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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Census Bureau drops use of segregation-era term

WASHINGTON (AP) ? After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping its use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in surveys.

Instead of the term that came into use during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern labels "black" or "African-American".

The change will take effect next year when the Census Bureau distributes its annual American Community Survey to more than 3.5 million U.S. households, Nicholas Jones, chief of the bureau's racial statistics branch, said in an interview.

He pointed to months of public feedback and census research that concluded few black Americans still identify with being Negro and many view the term as "offensive and outdated."

"This is a reflection of changing times, changing vocabularies and changing understandings of what race means in this country," said Matthew Snipp, a sociology professor at Stanford University, who writes frequently on race and ethnicity. "For younger African-Americans, the term 'Negro' harkens back to the era when African-Americans were second-class citizens in this country."

First used in the census in 1900, "Negro" became the most common way of referring to black Americans through most of the early 20th century, during a time of racial inequality and segregation. "Negro" itself had taken the place of "colored." Starting with the 1960s civil rights movement, black activists began to reject the "Negro" label and came to identify themselves as black or African-American.

Still, the term has lingered, having been used by Martin Luther King Jr. in his speeches. It also remains in the names of some black empowerment groups that were established before the 1960s, such as the United Negro College Fund, now often referred to as UNCF.

For the 2010 census, the government briefly considered dropping the word "Negro" but ultimately decided against it, determining that a small segment, mostly older blacks living in the South, still identified with the term. But once census forms were mailed and some black groups protested, Robert Groves, the Census Bureau's director at the time, apologized and predicted the term would be dropped in future censuses.

When asked to mark their race, Americans are currently given a choice of five government-defined categories in census surveys, including one checkbox selection which is described as "black, African Am., or Negro." Beginning with the surveys next year, that selection will simply say "black" or "African American."

In the 2000 census, about 50,000 people specifically wrote in the word Negro when asked how they wished to be identified. By 2010, unpublished census data provided to the AP show that number had declined to roughly 36,000.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-stopping-term-negro-census-surveys-164013710--politics.html

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CSN: Sandoval lost weight to avoid benching

MESA, Ariz. ? Pablo Sandoval?s bat looked crisp as he collected three hits in his first four exhibition at-bats. But those weren?t the numbers that Giants manager Bruce Bochy wanted to see in the first weekend of games here.

Late last week, Bochy told Sandoval he would bench him if the Panda didn?t tip the scales at a certain weight by Saturday?s Cactus League opener.

?To his credit, he did,? Bochy said. ?Although to be honest, I?m not sure how.?

Maybe Sandoval locked himself in a sauna and cranked up the coals. However he did it, it came as a surprise to Bochy, who originally did not list Sandoval among his scheduled regulars on Saturday.

Instead, Sandoval is the only position player to start both of the Giants? exhibition games in the field.

?I talked to him (on Saturday) and he wants to play,? Bochy said. ?He comes in and does his early work. To play five innings, it helps with his conditioning.?

Sandoval just got done playing in the Venezuelan league playoffs three weeks ago, so he?s in better ?baseball shape? than most of his teammates. He also wants to make sure he?s ready when he leaves for the World Baseball Classic next week.

Although Bochy wouldn?t divulge any specific numbers, it?s believed that Sandoval is heavier than at any time since the end of the 2010 season, when his weight problem contributed to losing his job in the postseason. It was a wakeup call that compelled him to reshape his body that winter.

Sandoval might not be in the same condition he was when he reported in 2011, but Bochy didn?t describe him as if he?s in need of another wakeup call.

?He?s doing what I asked,? Bochy said.

--

Even though Matt Cain threw a lot of pitches in the first inning, Bochy said he would have sent his opening-day starter back out there if not for the line drive off the side of his right knee.

[BAGGARLY: Cain gets a scare with line drive off knee]

?We were a little concerned the knee might start swelling,? Bochy said. ?We?re being a little cautious with him. It?s a long spring.?

--

Everyone knows what kind of an arm Nate Schierholtz has in right field. Well, outfield prospect Francisco Peguero?s arm is even better, by reputation.

Peguero showed off that arm during infield drills. And like any quick-draw artist, he showed he?s not afraid of the next gun.

When Peguero hit a looping drive down the right field line in Sunday?s 4-3 loss to the Cubs, he didn?t hesitate while rounding first base. Peguero was able to hustle a double out of it.

Not even Schierholtz, the right fielder, could throw him out.

--

A cold wind chapped everyone?s skin all day, and it was no coincidence that the Giants and Cubs both decided to conduct pop-up drills for the first time this spring. The wind is known to blow at AT&T Park and Wrigley Field, after all.

When the game began, outfield prospect Gary Brown made two especially impressive catches. He stayed with the gusting wind and covered a lot of ground while making one catch in right-center. Then he sprinted straight back and didn?t get turned around while hauling in another deep drive.

?He?s a gifted outfielder with good speed and he gets good reads on the ball,? Bochy said. ?It?s impressive. He?s a young guy who doesn?t know this outfield, the wind and the sun here, and he made all the plays.?

Actually, Brown played at HoHoKam Park plenty of times in the Arizona Fall League and he knew ?that Mesa is the absolute worst with the wind and sun breaking through the clouds.?

Told of Bochy?s comment, Brown?s eyes got wide.

?Maybe it?d be better if you forget what I just told you,? he said, smiling.

--

Angel Villalona got his first start in a Giants uniform and collected his first hit, a single to left field off Kyuji Fujikawa. Villalona likely will be among the first rounds of cuts, and while you have to wonder whether the Giants are giving him a serious look, he?s still just 22 years old. He?s a prospect.

--

Bob Brenly?s kid, Michael, is in Cubs camp and played in Sunday?s game. He?s got some size on the old man.

--

Dan Runzler continues to look very good. I also like what I see from Kensuke Tanaka thus far, but I think it?ll be hard for him to make the team over Wilson Valdez or Tony Abreu if he can?t play shortstop.

--

The ol? Twitter stream filled up with NASCAR references as the Daytona 500 reached its conclusion, and as I watched the Giants and Cubs, a thought occurred to me: The goal of NASCAR and baseball is the same ? make as many left turns as you can, as quickly as possible.

The talented Billy Byler, beat reporter who covers the Giants? A-ball affiliate in Augusta, added one more thought: ?And draft to your advantage.?

Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/andrew-baggarly/extra-baggs-sandoval-avoids-weight-related-benching-etc

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Commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Oldest Parish of the Diocese of Connecticut, Christ Church, Stratford, Wednesday, June 12, 1907 (Christ Episcopal Church )

Author: Stratford (Conn.). Christ Church. [from old catalog]
Publisher: [New Haven
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: 13953301
Digitizing sponsor: Sloan Foundation
Book contributor: The Library of Congress
Collection: library_of_congress; americana
Scanfactors: 1

Full catalog record: MARCXML

This book has an editable web page on Open Library.

Selected metadata

Scanningcenter:	capitolhill
Mediatype:	texts
Identifier-bib:	00126089545
Identifier:	comemmorationoft00stra
Ppi:	400
Camera:	Canon 5D
Operator:	scanner-annie-coates-@...
Scanner:	scribe8.capitolhill.archive.org
Scandate:	20080806150438
Imagecount:	19
Identifier-access:	http://www.archive.org/details/comemmorationoft00stra
Identifier-ark:	ark:/13960/t3zs2ww5t

Source: http://archive.org/details/comemmorationoft00stra

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Justices poised to query voting rights focus on South

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the Supreme Court last scrutinized the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2009, Justice Anthony Kennedy peered down from the bench and asked why federal rules were tougher for Alabama and Georgia than for Michigan and Ohio.

Chief Justice John Roberts pointedly added that it seemed lawyers defending the rules, which were created to protect black voters, believed that even in modern times "southerners are more likely to discriminate than northerners."

Now four years later, as the landmark law faces another challenge, the skepticism of Roberts and of Kennedy, often the decisive vote on racial dilemmas, is likely to emerge with even greater force.

In the dispute to be heard on Wednesday, the crucial issue is whether Congress may continue to require certain states, mainly in the South, to show that any proposed election-law change would not discriminate against African-American, Latino or other minority voters.

The screening provision known as Section 5 is one of the pillars of the law passed after the notorious "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, when state troopers attacked civil rights marchers with clubs and tear gas. The act broadly prohibited poll taxes, literacy tests and other rules depriving blacks of the franchise. In the 1960s, such measures existed throughout the nation but were especially common in the South with its legacy of slavery.

The modern relevance of the issues was underscored in the 2012 presidential election campaign when courts nationwide heard civil-rights challenges to newly adopted state voting-districts, voter identification laws, and polling-place limits, for example on hours of early voting. The most restrictive laws ended up being blocked before the November elections.

As the 2009 remarks of Kennedy, Roberts and other justices signaled, the conservative Supreme Court majority is skeptical that today's South still needs special oversight. The new case from Shelby County, Ala., is likely to come down to whether Congress documented sufficient evidence in its 2006 renewal of the law to justify treating different locales differently.

The Obama administration is defending the provision, asserting that the South still needs tough supervision. The court's ruling in one of the most closely watched cases this term could affect federal oversight of a swath of states through 2031 as well as the extent of minority participation in elections in crucial jurisdictions.

Nine designated states (and parts of seven others) must obtain federal approval before making any election-law changes, such as for voter-identification rules or in district boundaries. The nine fully covered states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Conservative advocates and southern officials who have banded together against Section 5 say it is an archaic measure that encroaches on state sovereignty. The U.S. government, backed by civil rights groups, counters that in the case of Shelby County v. Holder that Congress has rightly continued to single out places with the worst bias.

In 2009, the Supreme Court avoided the large question about the scope of Congress's power to remedy discrimination and decided the case from Texas on narrow grounds. But Chief Justice Roberts fired a warning shot about how the court might ultimately rule when he wrote, "Things have changed in the South. Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

In his brief for the Obama administration defending Section 5, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli acknowledged that "there is no question that ?things have changed in the South' since 1965." But Verrilli stressed that Congress found that states covered by Section 5 were still resisting minority voters' "right to participate in the political process."

He pointed to a federal court's decision last year that Texas legislators had redrawn voting districts along racial lines and disadvantaged minority voters. In separate 2012 actions, judges blocked Texas from imposing a tough voter-ID rule and Florida locales from curtailing an early-voting period. Critics of Section 5 note, however, that in 2012 northern states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania tried to impose voting restrictions that were rejected by courts.

PERPETRATORS TO VICTIMS

When Congress first adopted Section 5 in 1965, it wanted to prevent places with a history of bias from continually imposing new rules that would keep blacks from the polls. As the court observed when it upheld the law against its first challenge, in 1966, Congress found case-by-case litigation costly and inadequate to stop abuses. Congress sought "to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims," the court observed.

As Congress has repeatedly renewed Section 5, it has retained a coverage formula linked to discriminatory practices of the 1960s and early 1970s. But it has allowed jurisdictions that can show a new, clean record to "bail out" and has extended coverage beyond those states originally covered.

In Shelby County's appeal to the Supreme Court, lawyer Bert Rein says Section 5 and its coverage formula achieved their goals and that Congress failed to document in 2006 the kind of systematic obstruction that originally warranted tough scrutiny.

Still, in Alabama, the U.S. Justice Department has repeatedly and recently blocked proposed electoral changes. One 2008 incident occurred in Shelby County when the city of Calera implemented a redistricting plan that caused the one African American on the city council to lose his seat. After the Justice Department forced Calera to redraw the map with fairer lines, he won his election.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Debo Adegbile will represent that council member, Ernest Montgomery, and other Shelby County African Americans, on Wednesday.

Adegbile was at the lectern in 2009, on behalf of African Americans in that Texas case, when Chief Justice Roberts said it appeared the message of Section 5's defenders was that "southerners are more likely to discriminate than northerners."

Adegbile said then, and insists today, that it's not that discrimination does not happen outside Section 5's covered states but that repetitive violations are concentrated in those within its scope. "Voting discrimination continues," Adegbile told Reuters in a recent interview, "particularly in Alabama, and indeed Shelby County's own recent record proves that point."

(Editing by Howard Goller and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/justices-poised-query-voting-rights-focus-south-070823447.html

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Social Media Beyond Facebook: Joining The $1 Trillion Fight Against Cancer

What the rebound and recent decline of Facebook (FB) has revealed to investors is not only that there are profits to be made in the social media sector, but that niche players such as LinkedIn (LNKD) and Viratech (VIRA.PK) have much more to offer to investors due to the evolution of the industry.

At present, the social media sector for publicly traded companies is much like that after the dotcom bubble burst. The losers are falling to the side, providing only losses to take on the tax return for the shareholders. But for the shareholders of the survivors, hope springs eternal that they are long the next Amazon (AMZN) and EBAY (EBAY).

With over one billion users and one-fifth of Internet page use coming its way, Facebook will survive. It will certainly not be the $100 stock that some had projected in the halcyon days before its initial public offering. But it has recovered nicely from a grim post-IPO plunge. However, for long term investors, the best hope is probably that Facebook follows others behemoths and starts to pay a dividend as it is no longer a growth stock.

What the decline after its initial public offering did show to the investment community is that Facebook, even with its mammoth presence, cannot be everything to everyone in social media investing. There is plenty of room, and gains, to be made from social media niche players such as LinkedIn and Viratech that have much to offer to investors.

LinkedIn is where Facebook wants to be in the social media employment landscape. It dominates the online job services sector, with a recent effort by Facebook falling short. Over the last year of market action, LinkedIn is up more than 90%. Its earnings-per-share growth, both actual and projected, is jaw-dropping with a surge of 51.92% this year; 48.48% estimated for next year; and 61.33% expected for the next five years.

By contrast, the earnings-per-share growth for Facebook is down 95.27% this year.

Viratech could also be registering strong growth numbers for its shareholders. As a player in the social media health sector, Viratech recently launched the first social media network dedicated to cancer. Two years in the development, Viratech's website assimilates thousands of scientific materials from researchers around the world dedicated to eradicating cancer.

This effort by Viratech comports very well with the direction of Obamacare. One of the main objectives of Obamacare is to bring together the offerings of medical providers through health insurance exchanges. As part of this massive effort that will take place in all fifty states, this is a huge emphasis being placed on accessing all aspects of medical care via the Internet.

According to a CNBC article by Bertha Coombs, "So far, the Obama administration gave states nearly $2 billion in funding for the development of the exchanges, but analysts say for tech firms the opportunities are still growing when it comes to the build-out of the infrastructure that will be needed to carry out the expansion of coverage under Medicaid for the health care overhaul."

Viratech is obviously one of the firms that is still growing that could play a vital role in the infrastructure of health care reform for the treatment, cure, and eradication of various types of cancer. The American Cancer Society and LiveStrong estimate the global economic cost of cancer at close to $1 trillion. A major advantage Viratech will have in this sector of the health care marketplace is its development of the micro social network concept. With this, any user can establish a micro social network, then develop and update it with content and content or intellectual property that is automatically registered with Google "authoritative source" status.

Social media is inevitably trending towards boutique sites such as LinkedIn and Viratech. That is why LinkedIn has done so well after its initial public offering while Facebook is far beneath the share price from last May. Situated to benefit from Obamacare and the direction of the social media in a $1 trillion health care need, Viratech shareholders should benefit from the gains in cancer treatment from around the globe.

The next step will be how well these social media stocks can adapt to changes in the marketplace. As an example, Amazon has moved from being an on-line retailer to now being a dominant company in The Cloud. Facebook tried this with employment, but failed. LinkedIn will now have to move beyond its present niche due to the lack of a moat that has it with very high valuations that cannot be sustained. For Viratech, the cancer base gives it a very strong foundation for long term investors

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1219531-social-media-beyond-facebook-joining-the-1-trillion-fight-against-cancer?source=feed

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Google I/O Registration Date Leaks, Be Ready To Sign Up On March 13 (Update: It?s Official)

A tipster has sent in a screen grab of what appears to be a landing page announcing registration dates for Google's massive I/O developers conference in May. Update: Google's made it official. Registration opens on March 13th at 7am PDT (10am ET). Google+ accounts and Google Wallets are required to sign up.

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

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Let's Talk Oscars

Emmanuelle Riva in Amour

Photo by Darius Khondji/Sony Pictures Classics

I turn away from following this year?s Oscar race for a moment?OK, maybe it?s been a month?and suddenly the awards blogs are uniformly predicting, with the serene, number-crunching confidence of so many Nate Silvers, that Ben Affleck?s Argo is a lock for best picture? The L.A.-based industry oracle Gold Derby has every single one of its polled experts naming Argo as the likely winner, a distinction shared in this year?s field only by Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway. What happened? Does the narrative about mass Affleck pity?that the whole Hollywood community came together as one to shore up the broken self-esteem of this young, powerful, handsome man when he was denied the Best Director nomination?really hold up? And even if the Job-like trials of Ben make up part of the story, surely there must be other determining factors, including widespread uneasiness about the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty and, I don?t know, Lincoln fatigue? How did a pleasant, insubstantial, history-amending political thriller that was greeted upon its release with, at most, mild critical and popular enthusiasm, manage to barrel through awards season racking up one prize after another: the BAFTA, the Critics? Choice award, the Golden Globe, and numerous critics? group prizes?

I?m in the middle of a fascinating book about awards culture, one I?ve been recommending Ancient Mariner-style to anyone I can collar in the street. One of its key insights is that, in an age increasingly devoid of universally accepted markers of value (the gold watch at retirement), cultural prizes?ordered in a tacitly accepted hierarchy at which the Oscar sits near the top, overshadowed only, perhaps, by the Nobel?have become our chief means of distributing prestige. The Oscars are so symbolically powerful, in fact, that there?s no way of getting outside their gravitational field?even grumbling about the awards? venality, snarking about them on Twitter, or declaring that you?re skipping them entirely is a way of staking out your position vis-?-vis this yearly rite and shoring up its presence in the collective imagination.

Reading this book (The Economy of Prestige by James F. English) has changed my attitude toward the upcoming ceremony and given me a fresh burst of energy for what tends to be a draining time of the year for film critics?there are a lot of people writing at once about the same, rarely surprising events, and the pressure to say or think anything new can be paralyzing. But if you approach the Academy Awards not as something to accept or reject, to snub or to live-tweet, but rather as a kind of annual public ritual where beliefs about art, money, power, sex, race, and justice collide in unexpected and complex ways (resulting in, for example, Argo somehow winning Best Picture), the idea of writing on the awards suddenly gets a lot more exciting.

Which will come in handy, because Sunday?s ceremony threatens to be one of the most actively assaultive on viewers? sensibilities in years (since, perhaps, Rob Lowe danced with Snow White in an ill-starred 1989 production number whose incredible story was the best thing I read this week). Seth McFarlane?a man whose puerile smugness I find so intolerable I could barely endure that 15-minute announcement of the nominees back in January?will be our host for all 500 hours. Poor Russell Crowe, fresh from the laughingstock pillory after his lackluster vocal performance in Les Mis?rables (I didn?t think he was that bad!) is slated to sing in ?a celebration of movie musicals? with Jennifer Hudson and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I?ve already written about a couple of the races I?m personally invested in. (A feeling I tend to be shy about confessing: Caring about who wins an Oscar race seems like kissing a celebrity photo taped up inside your locker?we may all have done it in our lifetime, but let?s not brag about it.) I?d love to see my favorite Hollywood composer Alexandre Desplat win Best Score (even if he did get nominated for the bound-to-be-over-recognized Argo rather than the unlikely-to-be-recognized-at-all Zero Dark Thirty). And it would be the highlight of my night if Emmanuelle Riva upset Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress?of course, of course, J-Law 4eva, but she?ll have an infinity of other chances. And Emmanuelle Riva, in addition to having given a towering performance in Amour, is a cinema legend and a passionate, committed artist (qualities that come through in the wonderful interview she gave the Daily Beast) and the oldest-ever nominee in the category and the night of the show is her 86^th birthday. For the love of God! To deny her the gift of a simple golden statue, and us of the gracious speech she would give through an interpreter, would essentially be to rob one?s own grandmother on Christmas morning.

So, I?ll be over here rooting for the French people. You?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=fb8330b1fd72b1f843d28984e4c14f8d

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Spotify (for Android)

Spotify, a relatively new face in the streaming music space, is also available on your Android smartphone. The free, ad-supported app lets music listeners stream crisp music over a wireless signal, but if you drop $9.99 for a Premium subscription, you open the door to on-demand playback, commercial-free listening, and other features. Although Spotify offers a quality listening experience (including the ability to download Facebook friends' playlists), a few issues keep it from topping the recently revamped Slacker Radio, our Editors' Choice award-winning mobile music app.

Spotify 101
For the uninitiated, Spotify is an online music service that lets you play songs from a mainstream-heavy library of more than 15 million tracks, build playlists, and get recommendations from other members or from Spotify's own recommendation engine. Upgrading to a Premium account removes ad interruptions, and lets you store playlists offline, play music on demand, and sync your account to an unlimited number of mobile devices. If you'd rather not pay a dime, Spotify lets you use the radio feature for free, albeit with ad interruptions and the inability to preview the next song (much like Slacker Radio).

Note: You can only log-in with existing Spotify or Facebook credentials?you can't create a new account from within the app, which is frustrating. You can create a new account using the desktop version, but it pushes you to sign up using your Facebook username and password. There's a way to sign up using email, but it's easily overlooked.

The Spotify Experience
Spotify features a rudimentary layout that isn't quite as attractive as Slacker Radio's but gets the job done. Swiping left to access your Settings menu to open your playlists, friends list, inbox, and other areas. There are over 20 genre stations including the likes of "Emo," "Hardcore," and "Reggae," but the number pales in comparison to what Slacker Radio offers. Tapping "Hip Hop," for example, immediately launches the station. That's fine for the non-hardcore listeners, but passionate music lovers like me like a deeper drill down. Bringing a finger to Slacker Radio's "Hip Hop," on the other hand, opens the door to eleven sub-stations including "'90s Hip Hop" and "Hip Hop Workout."

Spotify for Android lacks live radio (Slacker serves up live ESPN) and a dedicated comedy channel. The latter issues's a headscratcher as you can search for comedians and return numerous bits. Mobile Spotify also lacks lyrics?disappointing.

On the upside, you can stream or cache tracks at a deliciously high 320kbps, called Extreme mode. It'll hog your data, so use it sparingly or with Wi-Fi. Regardless of the bitrate you select, you'll enjoy loud, crisp audio. Spotify for Android also supports gapless playback and crossfading between tracks so there aren't any abrupt pauses. These are features that Slacker Radio lacks, and is one that music diehards will appreciate.

I Heart Radio
Apart from genre-based stations, Spotify lets you create custom radio stations from any album view: track, artist, album, or playlist. These stations sync across all your Spotify accounts.

Simply tap a song and the radio icon to start streaming similar tunes. I started with the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive, hit the radio icon, and Janis Joplin's "Kozmic Blues" began playing, followed by Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Like in Slacker, you can click thumbs up or down to give feedback to Spotify's music recommendation engine.

When you hit "thumbs up" Spotify automatically adds the song to a new playlist called "Liked From Radio."

I noticed performance issues when I tried switching radio stations too quickly. For instance, after a couple songs inspired by the Bee Gees, I felt like listening to hip hop so I tried starting a new station based off Kid Cudi's "Erase Me," but the radio station didn't change.?

Yet another way to discover new music is through the What's New tab, which shows trending songs and playlists among Spotify members near you. This section showcases 10 new releases, five "Top Playlists," and five "Top Tracks." The desktop client recommends twice the amount. Spotify for Android also lets you build playlists. For instance it adds Spotify's Play Queue, a scrollable list that displays what songs lay ahead of your currently playing track. You can drop in tracks at any time, even if you're listening to someone else's playlist. You cannot, however, add music from your phone to a playlist.

Slacker for Android taps users' Facebook networks to display their contacts' playlists. Not only can you subscribe to playlists, but download them if you're a premium account holder.

Does it Hit the Spot?
Spotify for Android is a solid app for those who already invest in a Premium desktop subscription or love combing friends' playlists for new music, but if you want a more well-rounded mobile listening experience, the Editors' Choice award-winning Slacker for Android is the way to go. It offers more music variety and live radio?a winning combination.

?More Android Software Reviews:
??? Spotify (for Android)
??? eFax for Android (2013)
??? RedPhone Beta (for Android)
??? Google Android 4.2 'Jelly Bean'
??? Google Currents (for Android)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/i767KgXdevY/0,2817,2405831,00.asp

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NASA releases glory Taurus XL launch failure report summary

Feb. 21, 2013 ? NASA has released a summary report on findings from a panel that investigated the unsuccessful 2011 launch of the agency's Glory spacecraft.

The satellite, designed to improve our understanding of Earth's climate, was lost March 4, 2011, when it failed to reach orbit after launch aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A mishap investigation board led by Bradley C. Flick, director of the Research and Engineering Directorate at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., determined the Taurus launch vehicle's fairing system failed to open fully and caused the mishap. The fairing is a clamshell nosecone that encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere.

The mishap investigation board was not able to identify the definitive cause for the fairing system failure, but it did recommend ways to prevent future problems associated with the joint system that makes up the fairing. NASA and Orbital are continuing to investigate the fairing system.

The summary report provides an overview of the mishap investigation board's findings. The board's complete report is not available for public release because it contains information restricted by U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations and information proprietary to the companies involved. The summary is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/728836main_T9_MIB_Public_Release_Summary.pdf

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/dMTN1qSpBrQ/130221093938.htm

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Heat Beat Bulls 86-67: LeBron James Scores 26, Dwyane Wade Adds 17 (VIDEO)

CHICAGO ? LeBron James scored 26 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, and the Miami Heat beat the Chicago Bulls 86-67 Thursday for their season-high ninth straight win.

James also had seven assists in another big performance after ending his franchise-record seven-game streak of scoring at least 30 the previous night in Atlanta.

Dwyane Wade added 17 points, and the Heat took control in the first half, sending the Bulls to their fifth loss in seven games on a night when the Derrick Rose recovery story took another twist.

After saying last week that he wouldn't rush back from his knee injury to play this season if he wasn't ready, Chicago's sidelined superstar had to go into damage control mode after his older brother Reggie blasted the organization in an ESPNChicago.com article for not making a move before Thursday's trade deadline.

Things didn't get much better for the Bulls once the game started.

Nate Robinson scored 14 points, Carlos Boozer had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Joakim Noah added 11 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, but he also committed four of the Bulls' season-high 27 turnovers.

Chicago was particularly bad in the first half, coughing it up 17 times as the Heat built a 45-35 lead, and the Bulls came up short after winning at Miami last month. This time, the Heat took control in the second quarter, scoring 13 straight points during a 4 1/2-minute stretch to turn a two-point deficit into an 11-point advantage even though James was on the bench for much of the run.

It started after a soaring right-handed dunk by Taj Gibson to give Chicago a 28-26 lead with 8:16 remaining. Allen answered with a driving layup, Wade followed with two jumpers and the Bulls turned it over five times as the Heat built a 39-28 lead.

Marco Belinelli ended the scoring drought for Chicago with a free throw, and Boozer then nailed a jumper after Bosh buried a 20-footer. But it was a rough night all around for Chicago, even before the Bulls took to the court.

Rose, recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, found himself at the center of attention after his brother went off, and he wound up releasing this statement in response: "I have always felt that the Bulls organization's goals have been the same as mine and that is to bring another championship to this city."

That comment came after Reggie Rose ripped the Bulls, telling ESPNChicago.com they don't have the talent to compete for a championship and that their decision to stand pat before the trade deadline could be a "big factor" in whether Derrick plays at all this season.

"It's frustrating to see my brother play his heart and soul out for the team and them not put anything around him," said Reggie Rose, Derrick's manager.

NOTES: Bulls G Kirk Hinrich sat out because of soreness in his right elbow. The veteran Hinrich missed seven games with an infection in the elbow before delivering 10 assists Tuesday in a win at New Orleans. The Bulls visit Charlotte on Friday, and Thibodeau expects him to make the trip. ... The Heat traded backup center Dexter Pittman and a second-round pick in this year's draft to the Grizzlies on Thursday for the rights to center Ricky Sanchez. ... Mike Miller remained in Miami because of ear problems resulting from a head cold. He also missed Wednesday's game at Atlanta but could be available in Saturday at Philadelphia.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/heat-bulls-86-67-lebron-wade-video_n_2738490.html

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