Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/chris-brown-booed-at-knicks-game/
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Report: Apple to release updated phone this summer
NEW YORK (AP) ? Apple is set for a possible summer launch of the next iPhone, rather than a fall launch like the last two models, according to a report Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.
Apple Inc. is also working on a cheaper iPhone model that could win it some market share in developing countries, the paper said. It cited unnamed people "familiar with the device's production."
The report is in line with the expectations of company watchers and Wall Street analysts. The iPhone 5 costs around $600, and while Apple maintains older iPhones in production, even those aren't cheap enough to compete effectively against low-end smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software.
Apple doesn't comment on future products before its launch events. Its executives usually emphasize that the company's goal is to make the best products, not the cheapest ones.
The Journal said Apple is set to start production of the new iPhone within the next three months. It's apparently relying on sources among the Asian companies that supply components for the phone and assemble it.
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Monday, April 1, 2013
Crucial step in human DNA replication observed for the first time
Apr. 1, 2013 ? For the first time, an elusive step in the process of human DNA replication has been demystified by scientists at Penn State University. According to senior author Stephen J. Benkovic, an Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry and Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Chemistry at Penn State, the scientists "discovered how a key step in human DNA replication is performed."
The results of the research will be published in the journal eLife on 2 April 2013.
Part of the DNA replication process -- in humans and in other life forms -- involves loading of molecular structures called sliding clamps onto DNA. This crucial step in DNA replication had remained somewhat mysterious and had not been well studied in human DNA replication. Mark Hedglin, a post-doctoral researcher in Penn State's Department of Chemistry and a member of Benkovic's team, explained that the sliding clamp is a ring-shaped protein that acts to encircle the DNA strand, latching around it like a watch band. The sliding clamp then serves to anchor special enzymes called polymerases to the DNA, ensuring efficient copying of the genetic material. "Without a sliding clamp, polymerases can copy very few bases -- the molecular 'letters' that make up the code of DNA -- at a time. But the clamp helps the polymerase to stay in place, allowing it to copy thousands of bases before being removed from the strand of DNA," Hedglin said.
Hedglin explained that, due to the closed circular structure of sliding clamps, another necessary step in DNA replication is the presence of a "clamp loader," which acts to latch and unlatch the sliding clamps at key stages during the process. "The big unknown has always been how the sliding clamp and the clamp loader interact and the timing of latching and unlatching of the clamp from the DNA," said Hedglin. "We know that polymerases and clamp loaders can't bind the sliding clamp at the same time, so the hypothesis was that clamp loaders latched sliding clamps onto DNA, then left for some time during DNA replication, returning only to unlatch the clamps after the polymerase left so they could be recycled for further use."
To test this hypothesis, the team of researchers used a method called F?rster resonance energy transfer (FRET), a technique of attaching fluorescent "tags" to human proteins and sections of DNA in order to monitor the interactions between them. "With these tags in place, we then observed the formation of holoenzymes -- the active form of the polymerase involved in DNA replication, which consists of the polymerase itself along with any accessory factors that optimize its activity," Hedglin said. "We found that whenever a sliding clamp is loaded onto a DNA template in the absence of polymerase, the clamp loader quickly removed the clamp so that free clamps did not build up on the DNA. However, whenever a polymerase was present, it captured the sliding clamp and the clamp loader then dissociated from the DNA strand."
The team members also found that, during the moments when both the clamp loader and the clamp were bound to the DNA, they were not intimately engaged with each other. Rather, the clamp loader released the closed clamp onto the DNA, allowing an opportunity for the polymerase to capture the clamp, completing the assembly of the holoenzyme. Subsequently, the clamp loader dissociated from DNA. "Our research demonstrates that the DNA polymerase holoenzyme in humans consists of only a clamp and a DNA polymerase. The clamp loader is not part of it. It disengages from the DNA after the polymerase binds the clamp," Hedglin added.
Benkovic noted that this mechanism provides a means for the cell to recycle scarce clamps when they are not in use for productive replication.
In addition to Benkovic and Hedglin, other Penn State researchers who contributed to the paper include Senthil K Perumal and Zhenxin Hu.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Mark Hedglin, Senthil K Perumal, Zhenxin Hu, Stephen Benkovic. Stepwise assembly of the human replicative polymerase holoenzyme. eLife, 2013; (in press) [link]
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/FJWArHcm-sM/130401151039.htm
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NKorea calls nukes country's 'life' at big meeting
South Korean Army soldiers patrol along a barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Sunday, March 31, 2013. North Korea warned South Korea on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean Army soldiers patrol along a barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Sunday, March 31, 2013. North Korea warned South Korea on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean Army soldiers patrol along a barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Sunday, March 31, 2013. North Korea warned South Korea on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean Army soldiers patrol along a barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Sunday, March 31, 2013. North Korea warned South Korea on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? A top North Korean decision-making body issued a pointed warning Sunday, saying that nuclear weapons are "the nation's life" and will not be traded even for "billions of dollars."
The comments came in a statement released after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party. The meeting, which set a "new strategic line" calling for building both a stronger economy and nuclear arsenal, comes amid a series of near-daily threats from Pyongyang in recent weeks, including a vow to launch nuclear strikes on the United States and a warning Saturday that the Korean Peninsula was in a "state of war."
Pyongyang is angry over annual U.S.-South Korean military drills and a new round of U.N. sanctions that followed its Feb. 12 nuclear test, the country's third. Analysts see a full-scale North Korean attack as unlikely and say the threats are more likely efforts to provoke softer policies toward Pyongyang from a new government in Seoul, to win diplomatic talks with Washington that could get the North more aid, and to solidify the young North Korean leader's image and military credentials at home.
North Korea made reference to those outside views in the statement it released through the official Korean Central News Agency following the plenary meeting.
North Korea's nuclear weapons are a "treasure" not to be traded for "billions of dollars," the statement said. They "are neither a political bargaining chip nor a thing for economic dealings to be presented to the place of dialogue or be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing (Pyongyang) to disarm itself," it said.
North Korea's "nuclear armed forces represent the nation's life, which can never be abandoned as long as the imperialists and nuclear threats exist on earth," the statement said.
North Korea has called the U.S. nuclear arsenal a threat to its existence since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula still technically at war. Pyongyang justifies its own nuclear pursuit in large part on that perceived U.S. threat.
While analysts call North Korea's threats largely brinkmanship, there is some fear that a localized skirmish might escalate. Seoul has vowed to respond harshly should North Korea provoke its military. Naval skirmishes in disputed Yellow Sea waters off the Korean coast have led to bloody battles several times over the years. Attacks blamed on Pyongyang in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans.
The plenary statement also called for strengthening the moribund economy, which Kim has put an emphasis on in his public statements since taking power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in late 2011. The United Nations says two-thirds of the country's 24 million people face regular food shortages.
The statement called for diversified foreign trade and investment, and a focus on agriculture, light industry and a "self-reliant nuclear power industry," including a light water reactor. There was also a call for "the development of space science and technology," including more satellite launches. North Korea put a satellite into orbit on a long-range rocket in December. The United Nations called the launch a cover for a banned test of ballistic missile technology and increased sanctions on the North.
The central committee is a top decision-making body of the North's ruling Workers' Party. The committee is tasked with organizing and guiding the party's major projects, and its plenary meeting is usually convened once a year, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry. South Korean media said the last plenary session was held in 2010 and that this was the first time Kim Jong Un had presided over the meeting.
The White House says the United States is taking North Korea's threats seriously, but has also noted Pyongyang's history of "bellicose rhetoric."
On Thursday, U.S. military officials revealed that two B-2 stealth bombers dropped dummy munitions on an uninhabited South Korean island as part of annual defense drills that Pyongyang sees as rehearsals for invasion. Hours later, Kim ordered his generals to put rockets on standby and threatened to strike American targets if provoked.
___
Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report. Follow Foster Klug at www.twitter.com/APKlug.
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Watching fluid flow at nanometer scales: Tiny nanowires can lift liquids as effectively as tubes
Apr. 1, 2013 ? Imagine if you could drink a glass of water just by inserting a solid wire into it and sucking on it as though it were a soda straw. It turns out that if you were tiny enough, that method would work just fine -- and wouldn't even require the suction to start.
New research carried out at MIT and elsewhere has demonstrated for the first time that when inserted into a pool of liquid, nanowires -- wires that are only hundreds of nanometers (billionths of a meter) across -- naturally draw the liquid upward in a thin film that coats the surface of the wire. The finding could have applications in microfluidic devices, biomedical research and inkjet printers.
The phenomenon had been predicted by theorists, but never observed because the process is too small to be seen by optical microscopes; electron microscopes need to operate in a vacuum, which would cause most liquids to evaporate almost instantly. To overcome this, the MIT team used an ionic liquid called DMPI-TFSI, which remains stable even in a powerful vacuum. Though the observations used this specific liquid, the results are believed to apply to most liquids, including water.
The results are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by a team of researchers led by Ju Li, an MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering and materials science and engineering, along with researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and Zhejiang University in China.
While Li says this research intended to explore the basic science of liquid-solid interactions, it could lead to applications in inkjet printing, or for making a lab on a chip. "We're really looking at fluid flow at an unprecedented small length scale," Li says -- so unexpected new phenomena could emerge as the research continues.
At molecular scale, Li says, "the liquid tries to cover the solid surface, and it gets sucked up by capillary action." At the smallest scales, when the liquid forms a film less than 10 nanometers thick, it moves as a smooth layer (called a "precursor film"); as the film gets thicker, an instability (called a Rayleigh instability) sets in, causing droplets to form, but the droplets remain connected via the precursor film. In some cases, these droplets continue to move up the nanowire, while in other cases the droplets appear stationary even as the liquid within them flows upward.
The difference between the smooth precursor film and the beads, Li says, is that in the thinner film, each molecule of liquid is close enough to directly interact, through quantum-mechanical effects, with the molecules of the solid buried beneath it; this force suppresses the Rayleigh instability that would otherwise cause beading. But with or without beading, the upward flow of the liquid, defying the pull of gravity, is a continuous process that could be harnessed for small-scale liquid transport.
Although this upward pull is always present with wires at this tiny scale, the effect can be further enhanced in various ways: Adding an electric voltage on the wire increases the force, as does a slight change in the profile of the wire so that it tapers toward one end. The researchers used nanowires made of different materials -- silicon, zinc oxide and tin oxide, as well as two-dimensional graphene -- to demonstrate that this process applies to many different materials.
Nanowires are less than one-tenth the diameter of fluidic devices now used in biological and medical research, such as micropipettes, and one-thousandth the diameter of hypodermic needles. At these small scales, the researchers found, a solid nanowire is just as effective at holding and transferring liquids as a hollow tube. This smaller scale might pave the way for new kinds of microelectromechanical systems to carry out research on materials at a molecular level.
The methodology the researchers developed allows them to study the interactions between solids and liquid flow "at almost the smallest scale you could define a fluid volume, which is 5 to 10 nanometers across," Li says. The team now plans to examine the behavior of different liquids, using a "sandwich" of transparent solid membranes to enclose a liquid, such as water, for examination in a transmission electron microscope. This will allow "more systematic studies of solid-liquid interactions," Li says -- interactions that are relevant to corrosion, electrodeposition and the operation of batteries.
The research was supported by Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by David L. Chandler.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Jian Yu Huang, Yu-Chieh Lo, Jun Jie Niu, Akihiro Kushima, Xiaofeng Qian, Li Zhong, Scott X. Mao, Ju Li. Nanowire liquid pumps. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.41
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/xo4g1nCVFtc/130401121511.htm
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Veterans fight changes to disability payments
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already.
Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate.
Advocates for the nation's 22 million veterans fear that the alternative inflation measure would also apply to disability payments to nearly 4 million veterans as well as pension payments for an additional 500,000 low-income veterans and surviving families.
"I think veterans have already paid their fair share to support this nation," said the American Legion's Louis Celli. "They've paid it in lower wages while serving, they've paid it through their wounds and sacrifices on the battlefield and they're paying it now as they try to recover from those wounds."
Economists generally agree that projected long-term debt increases stemming largely from the growth in federal health care programs pose a threat to the country's economic competitiveness. Addressing the threat means difficult decisions for lawmakers and pain for many constituents in the decades ahead.
But the veterans groups point out that their members bore the burden of a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past month, they've held news conferences on Capitol Hill and raised the issue in meetings with lawmakers and their staffs. They'll be closely watching the unveiling of the president's budget next month to see whether he continues to recommend the change.
Obama and others support changing the benefit calculations to a variation of the Consumer Price Index, a measure called "chained CPI." The conventional CPI measures changes in retail prices of a constant marketbasket of goods and services. Chained CPI considers changes in the quantity of goods purchased as well as the prices of those goods. If the price of steak goes up, for example, many consumers will buy more chicken, a cheaper alternative to steak, rather than buying less steak or going without meat.
Supporters argue that chained CPI is a truer indication of inflation because it measures changes in consumer behavior. It also tends to be less than the conventional CPI, which would impact how cost-of-living raises are computed.
Under the current inflation update, monthly disability and pension payments increased 1.7 percent this year. Under chained CPI, those payments would have increased 1.4 percent.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that moving to chained CPI would trim the deficit by nearly $340 billion over the next decade. About two-thirds of the deficit closing would come from less spending and the other third would come from additional revenue because of adjustments that tax brackets would undergo.
Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said she understands why veterans, senior citizens and others have come out against the change, but she believes it's necessary.
"We are in an era where benefits are going to be reduced and revenues are going to rise. There's just no way around that. We're on an unsustainable fiscal course," Sawhill said. "Dealing with it is going to be painful, and the American public has not yet accepted that. As long as every group keeps saying, 'I need a carve-out, I need an exception,' this is not going to work."
Sawhill argued that making changes now will actually make it easier for veterans in the long run.
"The longer we wait to make these changes, the worse the hole we'll be in and the more draconian the cuts will have to be," she said.
That's not the way Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs said he recently warned Obama that every veterans group he knows of has come out strongly against changing the benefit calculations for disability benefits and pensions by using chained CPI.
"I don't believe the American people want to see our budget balanced on the backs of disabled veterans. It's especially absurd for the White House, which has been quite generous in terms of funding for the VA," said Sanders, I-Vt. "Why they now want to do this, I just don't understand."
Sanders succeeded in getting the Senate to approve an amendment last week against changing how the cost-of-living increases are calculated, but the vote was largely symbolic. Lawmakers would still have a decision to make if moving to chained CPI were to be included as part of a bargain on taxes and spending.
Sanders' counterpart on the House side, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, appears at least open to the idea of going to chained CPI.
"My first priority is ensuring that America's more than 20 million veterans receive the care and benefits they have earned, but with a national debt fast approaching $17 trillion, Washington's fiscal irresponsibility may threaten the very provision of veterans' benefits," Miller said. "Achieving a balanced budget and reducing our national debt will help us keep the promises America has made to those who have worn the uniform, and I am committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to do just that."
Marshall Archer, 30, a former Marine Corps corporal who served two stints in Iraq, has a unique perspective about the impact of slowing the growth of veterans' benefits. He collects disability payments to compensate him for damaged knees and shoulders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He also works as a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, helping some 200 low-income veterans find housing.
Archer notes that on a personal level, the reduction in future disability payments would also be accompanied down the road by a smaller Social Security check when he retires. That means he would take a double hit to his income.
"We all volunteered to serve, so we all volunteered to sacrifice," he said. "I don't believe that you should ever ask those who have already volunteered to sacrifice to then sacrifice again."
That said, Archer indicated he would be willing to "chip in" if he believes that everyone is required to give as well.
He said he's more worried about the veterans he's trying to help find a place to sleep. About a third of his clients rely on VA pension payments averaging just over $1,000 a month. He said their VA pension allows them to pay rent, heat their home and buy groceries, but that's about it.
"This policy, if it ever went into effect, would actually place those already in poverty in even more poverty," Archer said.
The changes that would occur by using the slower inflation calculation seem modest at first. For a veteran with no dependents who has a 60 percent disability rating, the use of chained CPI this year would have lowered the veteran's monthly payments by $3 a month. Instead of getting $1,026 a month, the veteran would have received $1,023.
Raymond Kelly, legislative director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, acknowledged that veterans would see little change in their income during the first few years of the change. But even a $36 hit over the course of a year is "huge" for many of the disabled veterans living on the edge, he said.
The amount lost over time becomes more substantial as the years go by. Sanders said that a veteran with a 100 percent disability rating who begins getting payments at age 30 would see their annual payments trimmed by more than $2,300 a year when they turn 55.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/veterans-fight-changes-disability-payments-070421575--politics.html
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Clean fuel regulations: EPA, oil industry vie over effect on gas prices
EPA on Friday proposed new regulations to require refineries to make cleaner gasoline. The cost? EPA says less than a penny a gallon. Oil industry says nine cents a gallon ? and higher gas prices.
Suzanne Meredith, of Walpole, Mass., gases up her car at a Gulf station in Brookline, Mass., July 2012. Reducing sulfur in gasoline and tightening emissions standards on cars beginning in 2017, as the Obama administration is proposing, would come with costs as well as rewards.
Steven Senne/AP/File
EnlargeThe Obama administration proposed on Friday new ? and more costly ? regulations of the refining industry to produce cleaner gasoline and clearer skies.
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If the new rules are implemented as scheduled in 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says, they will spare thousands of people from premature death and prevent respiratory problems in tens of thousands of children. The cost: on average less than a penny gallon.
Not so, says the oil industry, which has been battling the EPA over the proposed rules. The new rules will add as much as nine cents a gallon to the cost of making fuel and will produce ?ambiguous? results, says The American Petroleum Institute.?API, the industry?s lobbying arm in Washington, refers to the proposed new rules as part of a ?tsunami of regulations? the industry faces this year that could add as much as 65 cents to the cost of producing a gallon of fuel in the future.
Gasoline prices are politically sensitive. Consumers often know how much they have paid for a gallon of gasoline compared with their prior fill-up. When pump prices are rising, consumers grumble and, if prices get high enough, cut back on other discretionary purchases. As a result, economists refer to rising fuel prices as a tax on the economy.
But will Americans pay more for fuel and smile about if they believe it will result in cleaner air?
?Some will, but the majority won?t,? answers Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at GasBuddy.com. ?There is a sense among a lot of people that we are entitled to cheaper fuel prices than the rest of the world.?
The proposed changes would make US standards the same as most of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, Mr. Kloza says. ?We would be joining 45 other countries with tougher fuel standards,? he says.
Republicans quickly attacked the proposed regulation. ?The Obama Administration is modeling our regulations after California, which has the worst economy in the nation, and today?s announcement is essentially a guaranteed energy tax hike and unfortunately is just one of many radical policies coming out of this Administration that will deal a heavy blow to middle-class families and small businesses,? said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement.??
In January, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, often associated with Democratic issues, conducted what it termed a ?bipartisan survey? of 800 registered voters for the American Lung Association on whether Americans favored tougher fuel regulations and improved antipollution laws. It found 62 percent of voters supported new gasoline and vehicle standards, and 32 percent opposed them.
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