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Apr. 29, 2013 ? Sperm cell release can be triggered by tightening the grip around the delivery organ, according to a team of nano and microsystems engineers and plant biologists at the University of Montreal and Concordia University. Concordia's nanobiotech team devised a microchip that enabled the University of Montreal biologists to observe what happened when pollen tubes -- the sperm delivery tools used by plants -- tried to negotiate a microscopic obstacle course. The pollen tubes were exposed to a series of narrow, elastic openings resulting in a variety of cellular responses. When the opening was too narrow or tight, pollen tube growth stalled. However, the elongating tubes successfully penetrated slightly larger openings. Curiously, the pollen tubes burst and released the sperm cells when passing openings of a particular size relative to the pollen tube width.
The microchip was designed to imitate the mechanical challenges that the female flower tissues place in the path of the rapidly growing pollen tube on its way to the egg cell. Unlike its human counterpart, a microscopic single-cell organ undertakes sperm delivery in plants: a cylindrical protuberance formed by the male gametophyte, the pollen grain. "Similarly to elongated human cells such as neurons, the pollen tubes are tip growing cells that invade other tissues, in this case those of the female flower organs. Unlike those found in humans or other animals, the invasive ability of tip growing cells in plants remain largely unexplored. Our goal was to address this lack of knowledge using pollen tubes, whose invasive life style is the fundamental underpinning of sexual reproduction in flowering plants," said senior co-author Anja Geitmann of the University of Montreal. "Since they are encased in a stiff cellular envelope, plant cells grow and invade differently from animal cells," explained Concordia University senior co-author Muthukumaran Packirisamy. "From a mechanical point of view, the process of pollen tube elongation is similar to that of a balloon catheter used for angioplasty -- forces are generated based on the principle of a hydroskeleton, or fluid under pressure. We designed microchannels through which the pollen tubes had to forcefully squeeze in order to continue their elongation."
Microsystems technology was required to undertake this experiment due to the tiny size of pollen tubes and the consequently minute amount of force they exert to accomplish penetration. The pollen tube requires not only an invasive force to overcome the mechanical resistance of the surrounding tissue, but also the protection of the contents that is to be transported, the sperm cells, of which there are exactly two in each tube. It is crucial that the pollen tube remains tubular while winding its way through the pistil, since kinks and collapses of this catheter-like organ prevent the passage of the sperm cells, similar to a blockage in a twisted garden hose. A typical pollen tube can become many centimeters long but is only between 5 and 20 micrometres wide. By way of comparison, a human hair is typically 100 micrometres thick. "To fit the dimensions of this cell, we had to design the microchip with microscopic channels and obstacles that are narrower than the pollen tubes. We used high resolution soft and direct write lithography techniques to produce this micron-sized obstacle course. Furthermore, measuring the pressure that pollen tubes exert requires materials that are just the right consistency -- not too hard and not too soft. We chose an elastic polymer material, and as the tubes deformed the material at some levels of tightness, we can be certain that the softness was just right. Mechanical modeling allowed us to calculate the forces exerted by these cells. Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) technology allows us to assess cellular behavior much better than the conventional Petri dish," Packirisamy said.
Sexual reproduction in plants is in many ways analogous to human biology. "In order to find its path to the ovule and the egg cell, the pollen tube has to invade a series of female tissues in the receptive flower," Geitmann explained. "The male and the female organs continuously communicate during the process. The female aids the process by lubricating the path, but the male exerts significant force to overcome any residual resistance." The pollen tube must penetrate through a central canal that connects the stigma, or pollen landing platform, to the ovary, the organ that houses the ovules. Upon reaching the ovary, it then passes onto the internal surface of the placenta, finds and enters the opening in the ovule, and finally bursts open when connecting with the egg cell, enabling its fertilization by one of the two sperm cells it delivers. The other sperm cell fertilizes another cell of the female gametophyte to give rise to a tissue that nourishes the growing embryo.
How the timely discharge of the sperm cells is triggered in plants has essentially been unknown. The control of this process is crucial for successful fertilization and seed set, since plant sperm is not motile and must therefore be delivered precisely to its target. A precocious discharge (before the pollen tube reaches the ovule) will not allow the sperm cells to reach the egg, whereas on the other hand, a failure to discharge equally precludes fertilization. "Our findings show that a tight grip around the tube does result in sperm release. This illustrates that plant cells perceive and respond to mechanical stimuli," Geitmann said. "However, the particularities of the cellular responses we observed suggest that other factors, such as protein-based signals, are likely to be in play." The researchers believe that these particularities and the mechanisms that control pollen tube diameter and growth behavior warrant further research. "We're still not sure exactly what causes the sperm cell release from the pollen tube in vivo, but a mechanical trigger might be part of the signaling mechanism," Packirisamy said.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/NP2NjpDDEjM/130429164711.htm
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FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) ? A court-martial got underway Monday for the first female U.S. Army soldier to flee to Canada to avoid a second tour of duty in the Iraq war.
Army Pfc. Kimberly Rivera is charged with desertion and could face up to five years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/12wpci6 ).
Rivera, 30, was a wheeled-vehicle driver in Fort Carson's 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and served in Iraq in 2006. She has said that, while there, she became disillusioned with the U.S. mission in Iraq.
During a two-week leave in the U.S. in 2007, Rivera crossed the Canadian border after she was ordered to serve another tour in Iraq. She applied for refugee status but was denied.
Rivera then applied for permanent residency, but Canadian immigration officials rejected that application, too. Authorities also rejected her requests to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Rivera was first ordered to leave Canada or face deportation in 2009, but she appealed that decision. The mother of four faced another deportation order issued in 2012.
She was arrested at the U.S. border and taken into military custody.
Roughly 19,000 people signed an online petition in Canada protesting Rivera's deportation order, and rallies were held in a number of Canadian cities calling on the government to let her stay in the country.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the U.S. veterans organization Veterans for Peace also protested the deportation order.
In 2012, the War Resisters Support Campaign, a Canadian activist group, estimated there were about 200 Iraq war resisters in Canada. It said two other Iraq war resisters who were deported, Robin Long and Clifford Cornell, faced lengthy jail sentences upon their return.
Long was given a dishonorable discharge in 2008 and sentenced to 15 months in a military prison after pleading guilty to charges of desertion.
The lower house of Canada's Parliament passed a motion in 2009 in favor of allowing U.S. military deserters to stay, but the Conservative Party government was not persuaded.
During the Vietnam War, as many as 90,000 Americans won refuge in Canada, most of them to avoid the military draft. Many were given permanent residence status that led to Canadian citizenship, but the majority went home after President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty in the late 1970s.
Many Canadian politicians say the situation is different now because Iraq war deserters like Rivera enlisted in the U.S. military voluntarily.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/1st-female-iraq-war-resister-court-martialed-172614435.html
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Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/desktop-cluttered-help/
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When you check your email, when you play Temple Run, when you're selecting a song to listen to, you're making art. You just don't know it. In a series called Invisible Hieroglyphics, artists Andre Woolery and Victor AbiJaoudi highlight those hidden masterpieces you don't even mean to make.
The works of art are created on a wide variety of apps, from Instagram to Pinterest to Angry Birds, and more. Each accidental painting is a lovely smattering of colorful digital finger painting.
Here's Fruit Ninja:
This one's from the Facebook app:
Check out the rest on Woolery's site. They're a pretty great way to illustrate that technology can be beautiful. And anyone with an iPad can be an artist. [Andre Woolery Art via Mashable]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/arbitrary-ipad-swipes-and-taps-make-accidental-art-484494160
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Scientists have long observed that species seem to have become increasingly capable of evolving in response to changes in the environment. But computer science researchers now say that the popular explanation of competition to survive in nature may not actually be necessary for evolvability to increase.
In a paper published this week in PLOS ONE, the researchers report that evolvability can increase over generations regardless of whether species are competing for food, habitat or other factors.
Using a simulated model they designed to mimic how organisms evolve, the researchers saw increasing evolvability even without competitive pressure.
"The explanation is that evolvable organisms separate themselves naturally from less evolvable organisms over time simply by becoming increasingly diverse," said Kenneth O. Stanley, an associate professor at the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. He co-wrote the paper about the study along with lead author Joel Lehman, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.
The finding could have implications for the origins of evolvability in many species.
"When new species appear in the future, they are most likely descendants of those that were evolvable in the past," Lehman said. "The result is that evolvable species accumulate over time even without selective pressure."
During the simulations, the team's simulated organisms became more evolvable without any pressure from other organisms out-competing them. The simulations were based on a conceptual algorithm.
"The algorithms used for the simulations are abstractly based on how organisms are evolved, but not on any particular real-life organism," explained Lehman.
The team's hypothesis is unique and is in contrast to most popular theories for why evolvability increases.
"An important implication of this result is that traditional selective and adaptive explanations for phenomena such as increasing evolvability deserve more scrutiny and may turn out unnecessary in some cases," Stanley said.
Stanley is an associate professor at UCF. He has a bachelor's of science in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He has over 70 publications in competitive venues and has secured grants worth more than $1 million. His works in artificial intelligence and evolutionary computation have been cited more than 4,000 times.
Lehman has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in computer science from UCF. He continues his research at the University of Texas at Austin and is teaching an undergraduate course in artificial intelligence.
###
University of Central Florida: http://www.ucf.edu
Thanks to University of Central Florida for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127973/Computer_scientists_suggest_new_spin_on_origins_of_evolvability
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UFC 159 was a bizarre event ? possibly cursed by demons ? but there were still plenty of standout performances by fighters whose bouts ended normally. Who stood out for you? Speak up on Twitter or on Facebook.
No. 1 star -- Jon Jones: As we've said since the fight was made, Chael Sonnen was not the right competition for UFC light heavyweight Jones because he is middleweight coming off of a loss. Jones could have taken Sonnen lightly and still probably won, but he didn't do that. He used the fight as another opportunity to show his dominance, beating Sonnen at his own game by taking him down several times before finishing the fight near the end of the first round.
Would the fight have been stopped if they made it out of the first round, and the referee had noticed Jones' mangled toe? Who cares? It didn't happen, and Jones is still the champ.
No. 2 star -- Pat Healy: The UFC's already stacked lightweight division somehow got even tough with Healy's performance on Saturday night. Along with Jim Miller, he put on a show then finished the fight in the third round. He won both Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night, meaning Healy walked away with an extra $130,000.
No. 3 star -- Sara McMann: As an Olympic silver medal-winning wrestler, McMann is one of the most decorated athletes to join the UFC. This means she had big expectations to perform, and she exceeded them. McMann used wrestling and power to stop Sheila Gaff in the first round.
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/jon-jones-pat-healy-sara-mcmann-ufc-159-132329967.html
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Apr. 28, 2013 ? Being pregnant while young is known to protect a women against breast cancer. But why? Research in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research finds that Wnt/Notch signalling ratio is decreased in the breast tissue of mice which have given birth, compared to virgin mice of the same age.
Early pregnancy is protective against breast cancer in humans and in rodents. In humans having a child before the age of 20 decreases risk of breast cancer by half. Using microarray analysis researchers from Basel discovered that genes involved in the immune system and differentiation were up-regulated after pregnancy while the activity of genes coding for growth factors was reduced.
The activity of one particular gene Wnt4 was also down-regulated after pregnancy. The protein from this gene (Wnt4) is a feminising protein -- absence of this protein propels a fetus towards developing as a boy. Wnt and Notch are opposing components of a system which controls cellular fate within an organism and when the team looked at Notch they found that genes regulated by notch were up-regulated, Notch-stimulating proteins up-regulated and Notch-inhibiting proteins down-regulated.
Wnt/Notch signalling ratio was permanently altered in the basal stem/progenitor cells of mammary tissue of mice by pregnancy. Mohamed Bentires-Alj from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, who led this study explained, "The down-regulation of Wnt is the opposite of that seen in many cancers, and this tightened control of Wnt/Notch after pregnancy may be preventing the runaway growth present in cancer."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/M01wkIKwjeM/130428230427.htm
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A suicide bomber targeting a police van killed at least eight people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, including the son and nephew of an Afghan official involved in peace negotiations with the Taliban, officials said.
The bomber was riding a motorcycle and detonated his explosives as the police patrol drove by in Peshawar, said city police chief Liaqat Ali Khan.
The two Afghans who were killed, Qazi Mohammad Hilal Waqad and Mohammad Idrees, were working at their country's consulate in Peshawar, said Afghan Consul General Syed Mohammad Ibrahim Khel in Islamabad.
However, it did not appear they were the target of the attack, Khel said.
Waqad's father, Qazi Amin Waqad, is a member of the Afghan High Peace Council, appointed by the Afghan government to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban, said an official at the consulate in Peshawar, Shakir Qarar.
The peace council member was in Afghanistan when the attack occurred, and Waqad and Idrees were driving to work at the time, Qarar added.
There were conflicting reports about the number of dead and wounded from the blast.
Khan, the Peshawar police chief, said the suicide bombing killed eight people and wounded 42.
A rescue worker, Mujahid Khan, said 10 people died and 50 were wounded.
Three policemen were among the wounded, Khan said. Many of the dead and wounded were on a nearby passenger bus, which bore much of the force of the explosion.
Local TV footage showed the wreckage of the bus and the motorcycle, as rescue workers rushed wounded people to hospitals in the city.
No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion will likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban. The group has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years and has stepped up attacks ahead of next month's parliamentary election.
Also Monday, two gunmen riding a motorcycle attacked a campaign office of an anti-Taliban political party in northwestern Pakistan, killing a worker there, police chief Khan said. The Awami National Party office is in the city of Nowshera.
On Sunday, the Taliban killed 11 people in bomb attacks on a political rally and two campaign offices in the northwest, part of their quest to disrupt the election. The group has killed at least 60 people in attacks on politicians and party workers since the beginning of April.
The Taliban have specifically targeted secular political parties that have supported military offensives against the militants in the northwest. The Taliban have largely spared Islamic parties and others who believe the government should strike a peace deal with the militants, rather than fight them.
There is a concern that the violence could benefit the parties that take a softer line toward the militants, because they are able to campaign more freely ahead of the May 11 election.
"Unless the government, the country's independent election commission and security forces ensure that all parties can campaign freely without fear, the election may be severely compromised," Ali Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said in a statement issued Monday.
Bashir Jan, a senior member of the Awami National Party who survived a recent bomb attack in the southern city of Karachi, also criticized the government for not doing enough to protect candidates, but he said they were determined to carry on.
"These attacks will not deter us," Jan said at a press conference in Karachi. "We are determined to contest elections."
____
Associated Press writer Zarar Khan contributed to this report from Islamabad.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-suicide-bomber-targeting-police-kills-8-132502868.html
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MILWAUKEE (AP) ? Dozens of air shows that draw tens of thousands of people and generate millions of dollars for local economies have been cancelled this year after the military grounded its jet and demonstration teams because of automatic federal budget cuts.
For years, the biggest draws at air shows have been the military's two elite jet teams, the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels and the U.S. Air Force's Thunderbirds, and their intricate stunts. The armed services also have provided F-16, F-18 and F-22 fighter jets and the U.S. Army Parachute Team, known as the Golden Knights. All the teams were grounded as of April 1 to save money, and the military also dramatically curtailed its help with ground displays of various aircraft.
Those cutbacks have affected more than 200 of the approximately 300 air shows held in the United States each year, said John Cudahy, president of the International Council of Air Shows. About 60 shows have been cancelled, and he expects more cancellations as the season progresses and hope for restoration of the budget cuts fades. He predicted 15 percent to 20 percent of the shows won't return next year, even if the military begins participating again.
"The worst case is that they either cancel and go out of business, or they don't cancel and they have such poor attendance and they go out of business," he said.
Local economies also will feel the sting of the cancellations without the air shows bringing in crucial tourism dollars.
Representatives for some of the nation's biggest air shows, such as the air and water shows in Chicago and Milwaukee and the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis., said they didn't expect a lack of active military jets to affect their events. The Chicago and Milwaukee shows are held along the shore of Lake Michigan, where large crowds are expected to gather for a free spectacle; the Oshkosh event is primarily a convention of pilots and aviation enthusiasts, with an air show attached.
But organizers of other events said they expected such a dramatic drop in attendance that they felt they had to cancel.
Thunder over the Blue Ridge in Martinsburg, W.V., an easy day trip from Baltimore and Washington, won't happen. The two-day show drew 88,000 people when the Thunderbirds performed in 2010, said Bill Walkup, one of the board members and manager of the Martinsburg airport.
"Having the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels is like having the Super Bowl, it's a household name," Walkup said. Without a jet team, the show typically draws 15,000 or fewer.
Organizers also faced a challenge because the show had been hosted for the past few years by the West Virginia Air National Guard. After the Guard said it couldn't do that because of budget cuts, organizers considered hosting the show at the civilian side of the airport ? until the Thunderbirds cancelled.
"When this happened, it just put us out of business," Walkup said.
Maj. Darrick Lee, spokesman for the Thunderbirds, said a typical season averages about $9.75 million and the Air Force needs to focus its resources now on its mission in Afghanistan. Team members are still doing local public appearances that have little or no cost, he said.
"Would we prefer to be flying? Of course," he said. But, he added, "We encourage folks to go and have a good time with or without us."
Organizers cancelled the Indianapolis Air Show in February because of concerns the Blue Angels wouldn't participate, said Robert Duncan, chairman of the show's executive committee. The jet team makes a 25 percent to 30 percent difference in the gate admissions, and sponsors weren't signing up as quickly because of uncertainty about the Blue Angels. The committee is trying to reinvent the show for next year, perhaps by adding a 5k run, carnival games or more civilian aircraft, Duncan said.
Many air shows, including those in Martinsburg and Indianapolis, benefit charities. They also generate millions of dollars in tourism, benefiting hotels, rental car companies and restaurants. Economic impact studies indicate the shows are worth $1 billion to $2 billion nationwide, Cudahy said.
Bob Anderson, of Tallahassee, Fla., is among those whose businesses have been hurt. For more than a decade, he and his wife, Sandy, have sold Blue Angels and Thunderbirds T-shirts and other apparel at shows. In a typical year, they go to more than 20 of them and sales surpass $250,000.
This year, they went to two shows before the teams ended their seasons on April 1. Anderson, who is back to doing carpentry and home repair, said the loss of business also affects others? he spends about $90,000 a year on shirts, printing, embroidery and other supplies.
"The trickle-down effect is tremendous," he said.
Air show organizers in many communities have been scrambling to avoid additional losses.
Curt Drumm, producer and co-founder of Thunder on the Lakeshore, in Manitowoc, Wis., said he has been talking to private owners of former military aircraft and to aerobatic performers to help fill gaps left by three smaller military teams. The event usually draws 70,000 people over three days and is an important source of income for local businesses and civic groups that run food and beverage stands.
"We still have an incredible lineup of civilian performers," Drumm said. But, he acknowledged, "Without those big, noisy jets, it's not quite the same event."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dozens-air-shows-cancel-without-military-jets-165945925.html
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By Caroline Valetkevitch and Ben Berkowitz
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. companies have easily beaten expectations for first-quarter earnings so far in the reporting season, but nearly half of the members of the S&P 500 are yet to announce results and they are unlikely to be as robust.
With results in from 271 of the S&P 500 companies, year-over-year earnings growth is projected at 3.9 percent, compared with a forecast for 1.5 percent growth at the start of the earnings season, Thomson Reuters data shows. That figure includes those that have reported and analyst estimates for those who have not.
The companies yet to report are expected to post an aggregate earnings decline of 0.4 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data - whereas the companies that have already reported have posted growth of 6.1 percent.
Among the biggest companies yet to report are Dow components Wal-Mart Stores Inc
Some 69 percent of the S&P 500 have beaten forecasts, once again conforming to the pattern of lowering expectations enough to "surprise" by beating them. The 69 percent figure exceeds the long-term average of 63 percent. This has been the pattern for the last 15 quarters, with growth estimates at the beginning of earnings ultimately being beaten by at least a full percentage point.
From April 1 to April 24, S&P 500 earnings growth expectations fell 170 basis points for the second quarter, 130 basis points for the third quarter and 70 basis points for the fourth quarter.
"If this recent pattern holds, you're going to find that those beats will continue and therefore lead earnings season to be one of continued positive surprise," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.
So far, this has been good enough for investors. Since earnings season began with Alcoa's report on April 8, the S&P 500 has gained 1.2 percent, and it closed Friday less than 1 percent from its all-time high of 1,593.37 reached on April 11. So far this year, it has climbed nearly 11 percent.
GOING FORWARD, WITH CAUTION
Even though profits have been better than expectations, revenue forecasts have declined, a sign, once again, that companies are exceeding results on the bottom line because of reduced expenses, and not because of stellar sales. So far, just 42 percent of companies are beating revenue expectations, below the long-term average.
First-quarter revenue now is expected to fall 0.3 percent, which is worse than the forecast for 1 percent growth when the season started.
That means companies - yet again - have been able to squeeze out higher profits through cost-cutting and other measures. But that does not bode well for hiring and stands as a potential headwind to the economy in coming quarters.
"It does concern me. It's not sustainable over the medium or the long term. There's only so much companies can do to sustain growth without increasing sales," said Paul Zemsky, head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management, in New York.
There are plenty of examples of major companies that were deeply reserved about the second quarter or the remainder of the year.
Among those were Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc . Apple, until recently the world's biggest company by market value, saw its first quarterly profit decline in a decade and issued a soft outlook for the second quarter that fell short of investor hopes. The stock has lost about 40 percent of its value since September.
"The market was telling you the numbers were too high," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said of Apple's outlook, adding that it was "pretty much even worse than even I was expecting."
(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-earnings-beating-forecasts-jurys-rest-season-211946052.html
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There are a variety of different self hypnosis techniques that one can try if they want to learn about self help hypnosis and how this can be effective and in what situations it is going to be useful. There are a few steps that are going to be involved if you want to learn about self hypnosis techniques and start either hypnotizing yourself or anyone else.
Getting Started
So you want to get started with self hypnosis techniques, well then the first thing that you are going to need to make sure to do is to set the mood. This is very important because if you do not do this, then in no way are you going to be able to get the maximum benefit out of this. You want to turn down the lights, and then you are going to want to put on some soothing music.
A lot of people find that if they put on sounds of the rainforest or of a waterfall or something else soothing, that they are able to perform the hypnosis much easier.
Now that you are ready to get going with the self hypnosis techniques, you want to relax your body. You want to close your eyes and start thinking about relaxing things, and the only thing that you want to think about here is your breathing. Focus on making your breathing slower, and you want to stop thinking about everything else that is going on around you.
Now you want to imagine that there are waves of relaxation coming down your body from your scalp and that you are letting the muscles in your body relax and become loose. You cannot be tense at all if you want this to work, and make sure that you do not get frustrated most of all.
Even if you are not able to get it right away, do not get frustrated because this is just going to make things even worse. If you really want to get the best with self hypnosis techniques then you are going to want to make sure that you have gotten a good nights sleep the night before for one thing.
This is going to be very helpful towards your hypnosis session and make sure that you are going to get the best results.
Hypnosis can be a really great thing as long as you are doing it properly and so you want to make sure that you have the techniques down properly otherwise you are not going to be able to get what you want out of this.
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Considering the gold rush around peer-to-peer currency Bitcoin, it's not surprising that one of the hackers at the Disrupt NY hackathon created an application around the currency. Pay With Bits was to be a Square for Bitcoin. The startup essentially allows Bitcoins to be transfered between parties via their mobile phones.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/FBAov8UKJwc/
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In order to combat the prevalent competition, all internet based businesses should pay special attention to their online domain names, which serves as the first real handshake with the target customers. Those looking to register a domain name must make sure that the title is catchy, easy to remember, relevant with the business objectives and ideas, besides being identifiable with the consumers. The websites for companies are a given as the organizations, in the modern world of the internet, do not seem to have a way of existence without having a website against their names. Therefore, all of them buy domain name and hence the uniqueness of it is not appreciated as much.
In case that option is not open to you, you could explore some of the other members of your social or professional network and find for references for the website from where you plan to buy domain name. If your social network is large enough, you would sure be able to get some information. Moreover, the offerings of the website have to also be taken into consideration. For instance, that short listed domain might be not available because it could have been already registered, purchased already, dormant or some other reasons. In that case, one might have to pay little more for those special case domain names, or will have to settle for some other and register a domain name of a secondary choice.
Therefore, this clearly suggests that no or little strategic planning goes into deciding the domain name before people actually buy domain name. The problem is not only in the lack of analysis of the name and its effectiveness; it is also in the analysis of the websites which provide such domains. Going with a reputed and trusted provider of domain names will always hold one in good stead. We can buy domain name for business online just like asp hosting or mssql hosting.?
Source: http://www.beyourownbossie.com/blog/pay-more-attention-to-business-online-with-domain-names.htm
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SAN DIEGO (AP) ? Carlos Gonzalez has lived nearly all his 29 years in a country he considers home but now finds himself on the wrong side of the border ? and the wrong side of a proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that would grant legal status to millions of people.
Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly 2 million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president.
"I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California. "The United States is all I know."
While a Senate bill introduced earlier this month would bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, not everyone would benefit. They include anyone who arrived after Dec. 31, 2011, those with gay partners legally in the U.S., siblings of U.S. citizens and many deportees such as Gonzalez.
With net immigration from Mexico near zero, the number who came to the U.S. since January 2012 is believed to be relatively small, possibly a few hundred thousand. They include Isaac Jimenez, 45, who paid a smuggler $4,800 to guide him across the California desert in August to reunite with his wife and children in Fresno.
"My children are here, everything is here for me," Jimenez said from Fresno. He lived in the U.S. illegally since 1998 and returned voluntarily to southern Mexico last year to see his mother before she died.
So far, advocates on the left have shown limited appetite to fight for expanded coverage as they brace for a tough battle in Congress. Some take aim at other provisions of the sweeping legislation, like a 13-year track to citizenship they consider too long and $4.5 billion for increased border security.
"It's not going to include everybody," said Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's not perfect. I think you hear a lot of people saying, 'Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good,' and this is good."
Peter Nunez, who supports restrictive policies as chairman of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, rates the bill an 8 or 9 on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most inclusive. He criticizes a measure that allows deportees without criminal histories to apply for permission to return if they have spouses or children in the U.S. legally, a step that supporters say would reunite families.
"I just don't understand why we are going to basically undo a deportation," said Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego.
Senate negotiators were more forgiving of criminal records than the Obama administration was when it granted temporary work permits last year to many who came to the U.S. as children. The administration disqualified anyone with a single misdemeanor conviction of driving under the influence, domestic violence, drug dealing or certain other crimes. The Senate bill says only that three misdemeanors or a single felony make someone ineligible.
Deportations topped 400,000 in fiscal 2012, more than double from seven years earlier, sending Mexicans to border cities like Tijuana where they often struggle to find work. The Padre Chava migrant shelter serves breakfast to 1,100 people daily in a bright yellow building that opened three years ago because it outgrew its old quarters. Director Ernesto Hernandez estimates 75 percent are deported.
"Many come wearing sneakers that cost hundreds of dollars and nothing in their pockets," Hernandez said.
About 10 percent of the shelter's deportees speak little or no Spanish, including Salvador Herrera IV, 28, who came to the U.S. when he was 2 in the back seat of a car and grew up skateboarding and playing basketball in Long Beach. With a conviction for grand theft auto putting his legal status out of the question, he is considering paying $8,000 for someone else's identity documents to try to return illegally to Southern California.
"I'm basically American," he said. "I'm a beach boy. I do American stuff."
Many at the shelter have convictions for DUI or domestic violence, said Hernandez, reflecting the Obama administration's priority to target anyone with criminal records for deportation.
Gonzalez was arrested in Santa Barbara on suspicion of disorderly conduct, landing him in Tijuana for New Year's Eve. He said he had several misdemeanor convictions, including a DUI, which he committed shortly after turning 18.
"That's when you party a lot and you think it's not going to matter," he said.
Gonzalez was born in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, and came to the U.S. by plane when he was 2 years old, never leaving Santa Barbara. After graduating from Santa Barbara High School in 2002, he took automotive classes at community college, worked about four years at a Jiffy Lube outlet and held jobs as a mechanic, gardener and telemarketer in the picturesque California coastal city of 90,000 people.
Gonzalez doesn't know where he will settle after his foot heals. His family helped with more than $3,000 in medical expenses, including a metal rod that holds a toe together.
He may try to find an aunt in Cuernavaca but doesn't have her phone number or address.
"I never thought I would be in this predicament," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/overlooked-us-immigration-overhaul-182243975.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Some feisty Republicans are challenging a claim widely held among GOP leaders that the party must support more liberal immigration laws if it's to be more competitive in presidential elections.
These doubters say the Republican establishment has the political calculation backward. Immigration "reform," they say, will mean millions of new Democratic-leaning voters by granting citizenship to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants now living illegally in the United States.
The argument is dividing the party as it tries to reposition itself after losing the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. It also could endanger President Barack Obama's bid for a legacy-building rewrite of the nation's problematic immigration laws.
Many conservatives "are scared to death" that the Republican Party "is committing suicide, that we're going to end up legalizing 9 million automatic Democrat voters," radio host Rush Limbaugh recently told Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a leader of the bipartisan team pushing an immigration overhaul.
Strategists in both parties say several factors, including income levels, would make many, and probably most, newly enfranchised immigrants pro-Democratic, at least for a time.
Rubio says the risk is worth taking.
"Every political movement, conservatism included, depends on the ability to convince people that do not agree with you now to agree with you in the future," he told Limbaugh.
Politically, Republicans face two bad options.
They can try to improve relations with existing Latino voters by backing a plan that seems likely to add many Democratic-leaning voters in the years ahead. Or they can stick with a status quo in which their presidential nominees are losing badly among the electorate's fastest-growing segment.
In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who suggested that vanishing job opportunities would prompt immigrants to "self deport," carried only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. A Republican Party study of that election concluded, among other things, that the GOP must appeal to more Hispanics, and to do so it must "embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform."
Party leaders say the harsh language that some Republicans use when discussing illegal immigration has angered many Americans with Hispanic heritages.
Rubio's bipartisan group has proposed legislation to strengthen border security, allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status, and provide an eventual path to citizenship for some 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally.
Even if the bill survives the Democratic-controlled Senate, stiff resistance is expected in the GOP-dominated House. Many House Republicans dislike the idea of "amnesty" for those who crossed the border illegally, and some say it's foolish to enfranchise likely Democratic voters.
Obama embraces the Rubio plan, and it won crucial praise from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., last year's vice presidential nominee.
Rubio and his allies challenge the notion that creating a way to citizenship for millions of people here illegally will dramatically increase Democratic turnout in future elections.
"Not all 11 million illegal immigrants here today will qualify to become citizens, and not all of the 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanic," according to Rubio's "Myth vs. Fact" website. The site says many immigrants will not choose to become citizens, and many new citizens, like many current ones, will not bother to vote.
Some Republican campaign strategists, however, say the political damage would be worse than party leaders acknowledge.
Republican consultant and pollster Mike McKenna said one of his surveys shows that most Americans favor "immigration reform" and they believe it will benefit Democrats more than Republicans.
In an interview, McKenna said Republican leaders are embracing Rubio's plan without sufficient data on where it might lead. "I think about two months from now, the folks in the establishment are going to wish they hadn't started this conversation," McKenna said.
Party leaders erred, he said, by couching the immigration debate in political rather than moral terms. "The argument that it's going to be politically advantageous is not going to be sustainable over time," McKenna said.
Political activists have swapped estimates of how many people now living here illegally might choose to become citizens, register to vote and turn out for Democratic candidates if a path to citizenship is opened. Even the most conservative guesses assume that Democrats would benefit more than Republicans, initially, at least.
Rubio's allies play it down.
"The status quo is not acceptable to Republican voters," said GOP consultant Kevin Madden, who has worked for Romney and others. Republican leaders, he said, must push for the best rewrite of immigration laws they can achieve.
Texas-based GOP consultant Matt Mackowiak noted that evangelical leaders, major business groups and others that opposed immigration changes in 2007 are now on board. He said the Republican Party should focus on attracting Hispanic voters with its standard message of small government and free enterprise, and not worry too much if a new law produces more Democratic-leaning voters for a while.
"If we don't win 40 to 45 percent of Hispanics," Mackowiak said, "we're not going to win elections regardless of whether this happens."
Limbaugh is among those who don't buy it.
"I see polling data again that suggests that 70 percent of the Hispanic population in the country believes that government is the primary source of prosperity," he told Rubio in their recent exchange. "I don't, therefore, understand this contention that Hispanics are conservatives-in-waiting."
___
Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-bill-bad-deal-gop-132850249.html
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Saturday 27, April, 2013
Few experiences in life can be as pleasurable as enjoying good food and drinks with your loved ones on a weekend. Delicious foods combined with the alcohol of your choice works wonders in relieving you from all sorts of anxieties at least for few moments and allow you indulge in real enjoyment. So, why not create such moments for yourself and present them to others too? Calgary Dial a Bottle with its promise of a range of quality liquors and snacks makes it hassle- free for you to prepare some excellent cocktails and most importantly, pair them up with the right kind of food.
While sipping a heady cocktail or gorging on a sumptuous meal is a pleasurable experience in itself, it is actually a combination of the two that you should try to strike at. Remember that while the right drink can enliven the already good experience of dining, the wrong one can actually ruin it. In fact, there are certain techniques of pairing cocktails with food and it is best to avail the assistance of the expert and professional bartenders.
Strike at the Right Combination of Food and Drinks
However, here is a list of few popular ways of pairing up cocktails and snacks or main courses:
1.? Shepherd?s Pie, which is a traditional Irish main course, comprising potatoes, lamb and cheese, goes best with Irish beer.
2.? If you are up for some Chicken Gumbos, feel free to try your hands at some new types of cocktails with the base of wine or beer. The spicy nature of the dish is complimented in a perfect way by the flavor of the wine.
3.? If you are preparing something hot and spicy, you should always go for chilled beer as the combination of two satiates taste buds to the fullest.
It is not just with respect to the main courses that you need to plan up for the drinks but also for desserts that tastes good when paired up with certain kinds of drinks.
The professionals at Calgary Dial a Bottle can help you sufficiently in this regard by offering you with a sheer range of alcohols for you to mix up. You can also get informed about bar tenders who can guide you in a house party or so.
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Tips on Pairing Up Some Heady Cocktails with Delicious Dishes,Source: http://www.calgarydialabottle.ca/blog/tips-on-pairing-up-some-heady-cocktails-with-delicious-dishes/
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If you own a small online business, then you better look out because the Internet sales tax could soon be reality. There is an email circulating for all online business owners to write to Congress. The following is what is being requested of small business owners:
Congress is considering online sales tax legislation that is wrongheaded and unfair, and I am writing to ask for your help in telling Congress ?No!? to new sales taxes and burdens for small businesses.
Whether you?re a consumer who loves the incredible selection and value that small businesses provide online, or a small-business seller who relies on the Internet for your livelihood, this legislation has potential to affect you in a negative way. For consumers, it means more money out of your pocket when you shop online from your favorite seller or small business shop owner. For small business Internet sellers, you would be required to collect sales taxes nationwide from the more than 9,600 tax jurisdictions across the U.S. You also would face the prospect of being audited by out-of-state tax collectors. That?s just wrong, and an unnecessary burden on you.
Big national retailers are aggressively lobbying Congress to pass online sales tax legislation to ?level the playing field? with Amazon. And, as they compete with big retail, Amazon is advocating for this legislation too, while at the same time they are seeking local tax exemptions across the country to build warehouses. This is a ?big retail battle? in which small businesses and consumers have a lot to lose. But eBay is fighting, as we have for more than 15 years, to protect small online businesses and sellers and ensure healthy competition, value, and selection that benefit consumers online.
The solution is simple: if Congress passes online sales tax legislation, we believe small businesses with less than 50 employees or less than $10 million in annual out-of-state sales should be exempt from the burden of collecting sales taxes nationwide. To put that in perspective, Amazon does more than $10 million in sales every 90 minutes. So we believe this is a reasonable exemption to protect small online businesses. That?s what we?re fighting for, and what big companies such as Amazon are fighting against.
I hope you agree that imposing unnecessary tax burdens on small online businesses is a bad idea. Join us in letting your Members of Congress know they should protect small online businesses, not potentially put them out of business. Click here to make your voice heard. Together, I believe our voices can make a difference.
It is amazing how this will not only hurt the small business person, but also the consumer. Small businesses will have to hire an accountant just to take care of all the tax issues. You might be inclined to say that is not a bad idea, but it will raise the cost of the items being sold just to cover the cost of the accountant.
Consumers are already paying shipping charges for items being purchased. What will follow will be a surcharge for those items. Many stand alone business, or ?brick and mortar? store fronts, already pay for the items being taxed through the store. Some of the stores use outlets like eBay and Amazon to liquidate their stock in order to make room for more in case the foot traffic does not purchase the stock. Companies are already required to report sales tax twice a year to begin. The added taxes will further cripple the economy. It is another attempt to bring the United States economy to its knees.
Amazon is the main voice vying to be heard. Amazon now says it?s perfectly acceptable to levy sales tax on Internet companies. eBay has always and still says ? no way ? and it?s trying to drum up the kind of online support that squashed the major privacy bill SOPA last year. Amazon is hoping to get the leaders in the retail business to back them and give this a huge push. Once more the ?big dogs? are trying to chase the ?little dogs? away.
Another concern comes from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association they fear it could open the door to a state-level financial transaction tax because states have the authority to select which goods to tax.
Bill Hughes, the senior Vice President of government affairs for RILA, was quoted as saying the trade group went local to persuade on-the-fence senators to support the legislation. District-based retailers were brought to speak with their local representatives:
I would argue what really made the difference is that it?s not just the big guy coming in. We have a working coalition of thousands and thousands of small businesses who are mom-and-pop operations.
In other words, all of the small business owners need to ban to together and write to Congress. There is power in numbers from infinty and beyond.
Source: http://www.thebrennerbrief.com/2013/04/27/web-giants-amazon-and-ebay-battle-over-internet-sales-tax/
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By Asher Levine
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Latin America's growing prosperity is fueling a cancer epidemic that threatens to overwhelm the region unless governments take urgent preventive action, a study published on Friday warned.
A multinational team of researchers found the current state of cancer care and prevention in Latin America incompatible with the socioeconomic changes taking place in the region, where an increasingly urban populace faces mounting lifestyle-related cancer risks.
Writing in The Lancet Oncology medical journal, researchers said Latin Americans are enjoying the benefits of growing economic prosperity but also are leading longer, more sedentary lives, accompanied by a rise in alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity. That is not only leading to an increase in cancer rates, which are expected to rise more than 33 percent in the region by 2020, but a disproportionately high number of cancer deaths.
"If corrective action is not taken this problem will become magnitudes of order bigger than it is today, it will create massive human suffering and it will threaten the economies of the region," Paul Goss, a professor at Harvard Medical School who led the study, said at an event in Sao Paulo on Friday.
While Latin Americans contract cancer at lower rates than residents of the United States, they are nearly twice as likely to die from it, the study said.
Much of that has to do with the way cancer is treated in Latin America. More than half of those in the region have little or no health insurance and relatively few public health efforts are focused on preventive medicine. That means most patients seek treatment when they are at advanced stages of the disease and often too sick to be saved.
That type of care is not only ineffective but often very expensive, draining already scarce resources from public coffers, the study found.
IMMEDIATE CHANGES NEEDED
The study recommended Latin American nations make major changes to their healthcare policies, such as dedicating more funds to public health, widening healthcare access so cancer patients can be treated earlier and developing better national cancer plans. It also envisions shifting funds away from costly end-stage cancer treatment toward palliative care.
While researchers speaking at Friday's event acknowledged the difficulty of enacting such reforms quickly, they called on governments to start with short-term solutions, such as raising taxes on tobacco and providing families with cleaner-burning wood stoves.
The total cost of cancer to Latin American countries currently is about $4 billion per year and stands to grow precipitously, according to the study.
"If we don't put these things on the agenda now, we won't be prepared to deal with this in 10 or 15 years," said Carlos Barrios, a professor at Brazil's Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul. "(At that point) the costs will be likely be exorbitant."
(Editing by Todd Benson and Bill Trott)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/latin-america-threatened-mounting-cancer-epidemic-study-201015495.html
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In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
This week I'm writing from a special place: from the perspective of a Google Glass owner. Well, to be honest I'm not wearing them this exact moment -- I'm actually at 30,000 feet, making the most of a Gogo connection, and when your phone is in airplane mode there's not much point in wearing the headset. Unless, of course, you're looking for a conversation starter. In that role, the headset performs impeccably even when turned completely off.
It's been an interesting couple days wearing the headset around, days I'll continue to chronicle on the site because I know many of you are eager to know what Glass is like. I know this because I've had dozens of strangers come up to me and ask, "What's it like?" Suffice to say, Glass is very interesting and the potential is compelling, but right now the thing is somewhat frustrating in its limited functionality. That'll change real soon as more developers get to grips with the Mirror API.
Filed under: Apple, Samsung, Sony, Google, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Nintendo
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I can just see the Lifetime movie title now: "Married to a terrorist: The Katherine Russell Story."
With the constant barrage of information, and I use that word loosely, regarding the Boston Marathon bombings suspects--the inflammatory rhetoric of radicalization, jihadis and vengeful murder--Katherine Russell, the wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has added another dimension to the evolving narrative of the Tsarnaev brothers: good Christian girl gone bad.
Though much remains to be discovered regarding what actually led to the devastating attack in Boston, plenty has already been surmised. The media's focus on the religious identity of the two suspects has the nation talking about Muslim terrorists yet again. The Tsarnaev brothers may have been mentally disturbed, disgruntled with American foreign policy as some have claimed, or radicalized via online recruitment, but regardless of the motive for their actions, this is about them.
This is not about me.
Yet whenever a crime occurs and a Muslim is the suspect, the crime becomes about me. When society's discourse focuses on a faith, an ideology, a system of belief with more than a billion adherents, and fails to probe the individual, any hope for healing, for understanding, for recovery is lost. It doesn't become about how I can help my country move forward, it becomes about how I am one step further from being considered "all-American."
The case of Katherine Russell, who may well be a victim herself, illustrates the media's voyeuristic fascination with the Muslim woman. She provides a spectacle for the public to shake their heads at because she is a tragic character, and her tragic flaw is her conversion to the Muslim faith.
I cannot remember the last time the spouse of a criminal became the subject of such blatant speculation and gossip. Abcnews.com ran a video with the title: "Katherine Russell: Married to a suspected terrorist." An article on People.com includes the headline: "Katherine Russell Tsarnaev: From All-American Girl to Bomber's Wife." Yahoo News speculates regarding Russell's role in an innocuous YouTube promo video for a mosque, stating, "Naturally, one of the major curiosities is how faith may have played a role in the terror attack -- which is why a YouTube clip that was brought to our attention sparks some intrigue."
Naturally.
Why are such "curiosities" natural? Why has Russell been made infamous not for her connection to the alleged bomber as his spouse or for a crime herself, but for her status as a convert? Why did Russell lose her "All-American girl" title once she became Muslim? This simply gives the message to American Muslim girls that they can never be all-American--only semi-American, at best.
The media's treatment of Russell as a deserter of her American identity because she embraced Islam only cements the position of the American Muslim on the fringes of society in our collective consciousness. How can Muslims, even those born in America like Russell or myself, function and feel like a part of the mainstream when they are viewed as foreigners? What hope do immigrants of other faiths have if even a white American has essentially been excommunicated from her identity as a "real" American for leaving the Christian faith?
Russell has no hope of being seen as "normal;" it is impossible that she chose Islam of her own free will. "She was just this all-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband," according to an anonymous source quoted in The Daily Mail. An article posted on shine.yahoo.com says Russell's life took a turn for the worse after her conversion, "She converted to Islam, changed her name to Karima, dropped out of college, got married and was a mother by the time she was 21. On Saturday, the former all-American girl was spotted returning to the Cambridge apartment she had shared with her husband, wearing a brown-and-tan printed hijab as she climbed out of a car."
Ah yes, the hijab, the scarlet letter of doom; once she donned that piece of cloth, she was clearly on a path toward self-destruction.
"Before Katherine went to Suffolk she wore normal clothes like jeans, T-shirts and skirts," a neighbor, Paula Gillette, told The Daily Mail. "But when he came back she was wearing a white headscarf."
Note: wearing a headscarf does not preclude one from also wearing "normal clothes like jeans."
The portrayal of Russell as abnormal, an aberration exemplifying a fall from American grace, serves only to further the marginalization and alienation of Muslims in the U.S. Focusing on her with pitiable awe only deepens the rift in the Muslim/American identity when so many have struggled for decades to embody them as a single, compatible entity.
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Follow Deanna Othman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/deannaothman
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanna-othman/the-curious-case-of-katherine-russell_b_3167609.html
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