EarthTalk?: Should Pet Owners Keep Their Cats Indoors? | njtoday ...

E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I understand that pet cats prey on lots of birds and other ?neighborhood? wildlife, but isn?t it cruel to force felines to live indoors only? And isn?t human encroachment the real issue for bird populations, not a few opportunistic cats? ? Jason Braunstein, Laos, NM

While it is true that habitat loss as a result of human encroachment is a primary threat to birds and wildlife of all kinds, outdoor cats are no doubt exacerbating the loss of biodiversity as their numbers swell and they carry on their instinctual business of hunting.

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute?s Peter Marra estimates that outdoor cats in the United States, counting both pets and feral animals, kill up to 3.7 billion birds each year?along with up to 20 billion other small mammals. Researchers estimate that roughly 114 million cats live in the contiguous U.S., 84 million of them pets and the rest feral?and that as many as 70 percent of pet cats spend some time roaming outside and hunting.

?Cats are a nonnative species,? reminds Marra, adding that they often target native species and can transform places that would normally harbor many young birds into ?sinks that drain birds from neighboring populations.? As a result of this ongoing predation, many environmentalists and animal lovers think cats should stay inside. ?The big message is responsible pet ownership,? Marra says. He acknowledges that feral cats may be the bigger problem, but pet cats still catch as many as two billion wild animals a year.

The non-profit American Humane Association reports that there are several ways to keep indoor cats happy even though they are restricted from chasing and hunting wildlife. Getting Fluffy a companion (another cat or even a dog) is a good way to provide an outlet for play. Likewise, interactive toys, scratching posts, cat perches and other amenities?check with any well-stocked local pet store?can make the indoor environment a stimulating yet safe one for housebound cats and should serve to prevent stir-crazy behavior.

Meanwhile, another non-profit, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), adds another reason why cat owners might want to think about restricting their pet?s territory to inside: Research shows that indoor cats live significantly longer lives than their free-roaming counterparts. ?Life for outdoor cats is risky,? reports the group. ?They can get hit by cars; attacked by dogs, other cats, coyotes or wildlife; contract fatal diseases, such as rabies, feline distemper, or feline immunodeficiency virus; get lost, stolen, or poisoned; or suffer during severe weather conditions.?

But the fact that feral cat populations have gotten so large in recent years makes the problem that much more vexing. Researchers concede that efforts to catch and either neuter or euthanize feral cats have proven ineffective given their booming populations, leaving cat owners wondering whether jeopardizing Fluffy?s mental health for the sake of saving a few birds is really even worthwhile.

CONTACTS: Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/; American Humane Association, www.americanhumane.org; American Bird Conservancy, www.abcbirds.org.

EarthTalk? is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E ? The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Source: http://njtoday.net/2013/06/29/earthtalk-should-pet-owners-keep-their-cats-indoors/

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Court victories draw big crowds to gay pride parades

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Gay rights supporters crowded parade routes in San Francisco, New York and other major U.S. cities Sunday to celebrate what once was unimaginable ? two Supreme Court victories on same-sex marriage.

The high court gave celebrants one more reason to cheer Sunday when Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected a last-ditch effort by opponents to stop gay marriages in California.

Among the thousands at San Francisco's event, now in its 43rd year, were scores of teenage girls, opposite-sex couples and families with children.

"You can feel the smiles," Graham Linn, 42, of Oakland said as he stood on a three-foot-tall building ledge surveying crowds 10-deep on the sidewalks. "All around you there is a release. There is a vindication, and you can feel it."

The biggest applause went up for the two newlywed couples whose legal challenge of Proposition 8 made it possible for Californians to wed.

The couples ? Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank ? waved from convertibles as a group of people carried cartoon-style signs that read, "Prop. 8-Kapow!"

Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, who orchestrated the lawsuit, and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Academy Award for the movie about the slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk, marched with them.

"It's so historic," Jeff Margolis, 58, said. "So many of us could never imagine this would happen, that people would be able to do what they want for the rest of their lives."

Loud cheers went to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Kalama Harris ? straight politicians who have been vocal advocates of same-sex marriage.

San Francisco's parade lineup illustrated how mainstream support for same-sex marriage has become. Companies such as Facebook and supermarket chain Safeway were represented. Police officers and sheriff's deputies marched while holding hands.

There was also a group that called itself "Mormons for Marriage" that drew enthusiastic applause. The Mormon Church was one of the main sponsors of Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Proposition 8 and also invalidated part of a 1996 federal law that denied spousal benefits to gay couples. On Sunday morning, Kennedy denied a last-ditch request from the sponsors of Proposition 8, who argued that a lower court on Friday prematurely allowed gay marriages to continue in the nation's most populous state.

The group that maintains marriage should be between a man and woman said the lower court should have waited until the Supreme Court ruling is finalized late in July.

"Everyone on all sides of the marriage debate should agree that the legal process must be followed," said attorney Austin R. Nimocks of Alliance Defending Freedom in a statement Sunday. "The more than 7 million Californians that voted to enact Proposition 8 deserve nothing short of the full respect and due process our judicial system provides."

San Francisco City Hall remained open on Sunday so couples who wanted to marry could obtain their licenses. Every other clerk in California's 58 counties will be required to issue same-sex marriage licenses starting Monday.

Parade organizers planned to hold a VIP reception for the newlyweds following the parade.

The parade in New York City, where the first pride march was held 44 years ago to mark the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots that kicked off the modern gay rights movement, also was a sort of victory lap for Edith Windsor, the 84-year-old widow who challenged the federal Defense of Marriage Act after she was forced to pay $363,053 on the estate of her late wife.

Windsor, who was picked as a grand marshal of New York's parade months before she won her case before the Supreme Court last week, walked up Fifth Avenue during the event and recalled watching it on television in past years with her wife, Thea Spyer, before Spyer died in 2009.

"I love it obviously," she said. "If someone had told me 50 years ago that I would be the marshal of New York City gay pride parade in 2013 at the age of 84, I never would have believed it."

In Seattle, the two women who were the first same-sex couple to be granted a marriage license in Washington state after same-sex marriage became legal there last year, Jane Abbot Lighty and Pete-e Petersen, helped raise a giant marriage equality sign featuring a red equal sign on top of the city's iconic Space Needle for the first time.

In another first, the Seattle Mariners flew a rainbow flag ? the symbol of gay pride first unfurled during San Francisco's parade in 1978 ? during their game Sunday against the Chicago Cubs.

The Supreme Court wins motivated many first-time pride parade spectators, including Michael Pence, 53, and John Moehnke, 46, of North Carolina. The couple, who are engaged and plan to marry in New York in the fall, attended Chicago's annual Pride Parade with a church group, saying they were thrilled about the court decisions and want to see gay marriage extended to Illinois and other states.

"We have such a long way to go but we're ready for the fight," Moehnke said.

Efforts to legalize gay marriage in Illinois have stalled. Advocates started the year with intense momentum and received backing from President Barack Obama and Illinois' top political leaders. The measure cleared the Illinois Senate on Valentine's Day, state Rep. Greg Harris, the bill's sponsor, decided not to call a vote in the House because he didn't have the needed support.

Harris was one of several politicians at the parade Sunday. He said he would bring back the issue in the fall, adding that the Supreme Court's rulings have resonated with his colleagues in the Illinois House.

"Illinois is in a truly second-class status until we pass marriage equality," Harris said.

___

Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago, AP Radio Correspondent Julie Walker in New York and AP Photographer Elaine Thompson in Seattle contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-wins-draw-big-crowds-gay-pride-parades-002804140.html

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States find ways to raise taxes without saying so

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? If Pennsylvania's Republican governor gets his way, the state will pay for $1.8 billion in transportation improvements largely by raising a wholesale tax on gasoline. Yet, his spokesman insists, "it's not a tax increase."

In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republicans who share control of the Senate boast that they have balanced the budget without raising taxes, even though a critical part of the balancing act involved extending an income tax on high earners that both sides had campaigned against in 2010.

As state government leaders struggle to reconcile public demand for services with still sluggish post-recession tax collections, they have turned to tax increases ? but will call them anything but. Governors and lawmakers in several states have labeled their ideas extensions, surcharges or fees and used verbal gymnastics to explain why they aren't tax increases.

"Anything to avoid using the 'T' word is explored. They're 'revenue enhancements' or 'lifting of caps' or 'impact fees,'" said Matthew Brouillette, president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"Of course," he added, "the ultimate result is that more money is coming out of taxpayers' wallets."

Raising taxes this year also puts a little breathing room between the laws passed in state legislatures and lawmakers' 2014 campaigns for office. Still, any opponent would likely seize on such a vote no matter when it was taken, so the labels become part of a delicate dance for politicians searching for both sources of revenue and votes for their re-election.

Strategies include taxing corporations or the wealthy more heavily while emphasizing resulting tax cuts for the middle class, or taxing businesses that will inevitably pass along the increases.

In Georgia, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal engineered an end-run of a politically sensitive vote on the renewal of a tax on hospitals that generated more than $230 million, which was used to secure about $450 million in additional federal Medicaid money this year.

Lawmakers were reluctant to jeopardize the federal funding, but many Republicans feared primary challenges next year if they voted to extend the tax, so Deal and his allies proposed replacing it with a "provider fee" designed to work the same way. Both chambers overwhelmingly approved it and the governor signed it in February.

In Connecticut, where the governor and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly touted a budget with no new taxes, this year's adjustments included extending a 20 percent increase on the state corporation tax that had been set to expire June 30. House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said it's debatable whether such actions are tax increases and sought to focus on residents rather than businesses.

"What most people care about is whether their income taxes are going up, whether their sales taxes are going up, not whether corporate taxes are going up. Those are not happening," Sharkey said this month.

In Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature suggested they were actually cutting taxes by making certain temporary tax increases permanent. In those cases, they argued, the permanent rates are slightly lower than the temporary rates were at their peak. But the permanent rates are higher than the rates in place before the temporary increases were approved in 2009.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who ran for office on a no-new-taxes pledge, waited until the third year of his term to advocate a plan that would accelerate badly needed highway and bridge projects and bolster financing for mass transit. Negotiations on the details continued behind closed doors days before lawmakers are expected to take their summer break.

The projects would be paid for mainly by an increase in a tax on the fuel that distributors sell to gas stations.

Right now, the tax is assessed on only the first $1.25 a gallon. Corbett proposes to phase in an increase over five years, until ultimately the full price of wholesale gas would be taxed ? increasing the tax by 28.5 cents a gallon at current prices.

"This is not a new tax, nor am I proposing to increase the rate of the existing tax," the governor said in unveiling the plan in February. "I am simply saying the time has come to apply it to the full value."

It remains unclear how much of the increase would be passed on to consumers. Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley asserted that fluctuations in crude-oil prices and other factors could erase the increases that the administration projects.

"You can't say that it's a tax increase ... because there are so many variables that go into the price of gasoline," he said.

In New York, the extension of the tax on millionaires and a $500 million tax on business that had been scheduled to expire next year were critical to this year's state budget deal.

The millionaires' tax was originally approved in 2009 at the height of the state's fiscal crisis and was slated to expire in 2011. Cuomo and Senate Republicans both opposed it during their 2010 campaigns, calling it a "job killer," but then approved two extensions. The second one kept the tax alive until 2016.

Politicians in both parties emphasize that the budget keeps spending in check and reduces taxes on the middle class. They also approved $350 rebate checks to be mailed out to most families with children next year, beginning weeks before Election Day.

"The public wants a free lunch" and that's part of why elected officials eager to please constituents respond by devising creative ways to raise revenue or giving new names to tax increases, said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College in New York City.

"Raising taxes is verboten. You can't do it, but you have to do it," he said. "It's ubiquitous."

___

Associated Press writers Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y.; Randall Chase in Dover, Del.; Bill Barrow and Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/states-ways-raise-taxes-without-saying-150723112.html

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the Great, Global Business Revolution - Fortune Management ...

By Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large

FORTUNE -- You think you know all this: Global economic power is shifting from North to South. Emerging-market middle classes are surging; they'll be increasingly urban and young. Governments worldwide are asserting stronger control over their nations' key industries and resources. Business will never be the same. You've heard it before.

The great virtue of Ram Charan's new book, Global Tilt: Leading Your Business Through the Great Economic Power Shift, is that it shows you how inadequate your understanding of these trends probably is. Yes, you know about them, but so did the many business leaders from North and South who failed to take advantage of them or who even got steamrollered by them. We all understand this shift is big; Charan demonstrates that it's much bigger than many of us realize and will demand far more drastic changes to the way we run our businesses than most managers have dreamed of making.

While the shift affects virtually every business on earth, Global Tilt speaks mainly to managers from the North who have no conception of how deeply they must transform their business lives. The South, Charan shows persuasively, is a different world. (The dividing line, he notes, is about 31 degrees north latitude, which runs more or less across the tops of Mexico, Africa, and India.) Businesses in the South tend to be managed for cash, not for GAAP earnings per share; capital costs are high; companies are mostly private, not publicly held -- all opposite of Northern norms. Social networks are radically different; cultural values governing loyalty, goodness, and advancement are unfamiliar; government's role can be baffling.

Charan does more than just point out such differences, though he does that with strong examples. He also shows how successful companies are winning in a tilted world by changing the way they're managed and led. He shows, for example, how Bharti Airtel, the Indian telecom giant, is building a dominant business in 17 African countries, and how CEO Manoj Kohli is doing it by mastering the local context in each one -- social, economic, and governmental differences that require business model changes from what worked in India.

Most Northern organizations aren't tuned to succeed in the South. Budgets and goals don't match the boss's lofty stated aspirations for winning in new territories. Performance appraisals aren't aligned with what really wins in the South. Critical decisions aren't made in the right places. Charan explains the inevitable failures that follow and the ways well-run companies are avoiding them.

Most sobering is Global Tilt's extensive taxonomy of all the ways Southern companies are humiliating competitors from the North. Many people know how AB InBev (BUD), with origins in Brazil, grew through energetic global acquisitions and eventually bought America's sadly unprepared Anheuser-Busch. Far fewer people know about GMR, a multi-billion-dollar Indian company that is beating out Northern competitors for huge infrastructure projects worldwide because it can scale faster than they can. China's Haier Group, uniquely among Chinese companies for years, focused on quality and brand; it's now in 161 countries and is the world's No. 1 appliance brand. Northern managers know these guys are good, but they suffer when they don't appreciate just how good they are.

As in all his books, Charan tells and shows us how we must change, speaking with an authority few can match. He long ago established the virtuous circle of a top global consultant: Everybody calls him because everybody calls him. As a result, he knows more about these issues than any individual CEO. Charan isn't bashful about telling managers what to do. Managers shouldn't hesitate to do it.

Source: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/28/global-business-changes/

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Migraine ? Types, causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment

Migraine is not new to us, it is one problem with which 1 out of 4 women , and 1 out of 12 men, is suffering. Migraine is a problem involves severe headaches, sickness and vomiting. After diagnosis of migraine , one should avoid painkillers, prohibit anti sickness medicines, avoid possible triggers, anti-inflammatory medicines,if not done these steps can even worsen the migraine. However, taking a migraine medicine can help to avoid migraine attack and headaches. It is found that migraine generally starts in the earlier stage, that is, in the childhood or as an adult. The attacks can either be witnessed in weeks or may appear in the later intervals. The episodes of migraine can even last throughout life or it may stop in later adult life.

Types of migraine

Migraine is of two types

-Migraine attack without aura(common migraine)

-Migraine attack with aura(classic migraine)

In common migraine, the headache arises in one side, and spreads all over the head. Sometimes, it starts on both the sides. Other symptoms being feeling nausea, vomiting, sickness, etc. Most of the people suffers from common migraine.

Classic migraine or migraine with aura is the one, with which 1 out of 4 having migraine, go through this. This migraine is associated with an aura(warning sign) being felt, most commonly visual aura. The other symptoms are the same as classic migraine.

Causes of migraine:

The reason for the occurrence of migraine is blurred. Studies have resolved that, the blood vessels in the brain gets narrower which results into an aura. Other theories determined, that it is due to some chemical hinges in the brainiac which send confusing signals. The activity of the brain also increases due to the certain change in chemicals. However, it is proved that migraine is not inherited, tough it is found in people from same family. The clear result being, the involvement of some genetic factor.

Diagnosis of migraine:

Migraine is diagnosed by the symptoms it carries. Ideally, there is no such test to determine migraine, it can be confirmed by the doctor as the symptoms are examined. There are some cases in which typical headaches are detected, but it cannot be considered as migraine. Migraine is normally detected by the symptoms, and the test is conducted in order to identify the symptoms. The symptoms of migraine does not occur between the attacks, if you have migraine. A prolonged headache, that is not vanishing from along time, is not considered migraine.

How to cure migraine?

There are several medicines and treatments involved to get rid of it, if followed properly:

1) painkillers: dose of aspirin and paracetamol works well on migraine, if it is taken at early stage, it can remove the problem completely. Medications have different effects depending upon the severity.

2) anti-inflammatory painkillers: these painkillers have better effect than painkillers like paracetamol as they contain ibuprofen, which can be taken from pharmacies or through prescription.

3) Triptan medicines: in case the painkillers do not work, depending upon the severity of migraine, Triptan medicines are given like eletriptan, almotriptan, frovatriptan, rizatriptan, etc. They interact with a brain chemical 5HT, which is supposed to be a substitute for brain chemical change due to migraine.

A migraine is a problem which is hard to reduce from the root once it starts prevailing. The prevention of the attacks is associated by taking regular medicines. These medicines are not like other medicines as they are not painkillers, but can minimize the severity of migraine in terms of less attacks and its intensity.

Source: http://healthbeautyfitness.in/migraine-types-causes-symptoms-diagnosis-and-treatment/

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Teenager in jail since March for sarcastic Internet comment faces 8 ...

Published time: June 28, 2013 15:48

A teenager from Texas could spend the next eight years in prison if a court decides that the sarcastic comment he made during an online argument is enough to convict him of issuing a terroristic threat.

Justin Carter was only 18 years old when he and a friend got into an online spat over Facebook back in February with another person. They were arguing about the computer game ?League of Legends,? his dad told a local ABC affiliate, but one snarky remark made by the teen was apparently enough to raise suspicion in one woman who was watching the conversation unfold all the way up in Canada.

?Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,?? father Jack Carter told KKVUE News, ?to which he replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.??

According to the parent, the teenager from Texas followed up that remark with the phrases ?LOL? and ?JK?? Internet shorthand for ?Laugh out Loud? and ?Just Kidding.? The Canadian witness wasn?t amused, however, and reportedly conducted a cursory Google search to find out more about the sarcastic gamer. That information led her to learn that the Carter household is located close to a local elementary school, prompting her to alert the police.

Carter, who has since turned 19, was arrested in late March and has so far spent three months and one day behind bars. His trial is slated to begin in July, and if convicted of ?making a terroristic threat? he could spend most of his twenties in federal prison.

Under Texas law, a person could be charged with a misdemeanor if he or she ?threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property? with the intent to prompt a reaction, cause fear in another or interrupt the occupation of a public place. If the defendant is thought to have made a threat to cause impairment or interruption of a public service, it?s a felony in the Lone Star State.

?These people are serious. They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made," Jack Carter told KVUE.

It?s likely that the timing of the teenager?s quip ? only two months after the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left 26 people dead in Connecticut ? didn?t discourage authorities from launching an investigation. His father said his son didn?t mean anything of it, though, and was just being behaving like an average teenager.

?Justin was the kind of kid who didn't read the newspaper. He didn't watch television. He wasn't aware of current events. These kids, they don't realize what they're doing. They don't understand the implications. They don't understand public space,? said Jack Carter.

?If I can just help one person to understand that social media is not a playground, that when you go out there into social media, when you use Facebook, when you use Twitter, when you go out there and make comments on news articles, and the things you are saying can and will be used against you," he said.

Carter?s trial is expected to begin July 1 in Texas. Earlier this month, a grand jury in Massachusetts declined to indict an 18-year-old aspiring rapper who was accused of making terrorist threats after posting prose on his Facebook page that referenced the Boston Marathon bombing. Cameron B. D?Ambrosio was detained for one month in jail and stood to serve as much as two decades if convicted.

Source: http://rt.com/usa/prison-years-teenager-sarcastic-383/

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Breakthrough in Internet bandwidth: New fiber optic technology could ease Internet congestion, video streaming

June 27, 2013 ? As rapidly increasing demand for bandwidth strains the Internet's capacity, a team of engineers has devised a new fiber optic technology that promises to increase bandwidth dramatically. The new technology could enable Internet providers to offer much greater connectivity -- from decreased network congestion to on-demand video streaming.

Described in the June 28 issue of the journal Science, the technology centers on donut-shaped laser light beams called optical vortices, in which the light twists like a tornado as it moves along the beam path, rather than in a straight line.

Widely studied in molecular biology, atomic physics and quantum optics, optical vortices (also known as orbital angular momentum, or OAM, beams) were thought to be unstable in fiber, until BU Engineering Professor Siddharth Ramachandran recently designed an optical fiber that can propagate them. In the paper, he and Alan Willner of USC demonstrate not only the stability of the beams in optical fiber but also their potential to boost Internet bandwidth.

"For several decades since optical fibers were deployed, the conventional assumption has been that OAM-carrying beams are inherently unstable in fibers," said Ramachandran. "Our discovery, of design classes in which they are stable, has profound implications for a variety of scientific and technological fields that have exploited the unique properties of OAM-carrying light, including the use of such beams for enhancing data capacity in fibers."

The reported research represents a close collaboration between optical fiber experts at BU and optical communication systems experts at USC. "Siddharth's fiber represents a very unique and valuable innovation. It was great to work together to demonstrate a terabit-per-second capacity transmission link," said Willner, electrical engineering professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Ramachandran and Willner collaborated with OFS-Fitel, a fiber optics company in Denmark, and Tel Aviv University.

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the technology could not come at a better time, as one of the main strategies to boost Internet bandwidth is running into roadblocks just as mobile devices fuel rapidly growing demands on the Internet. Traditionally, bandwidth has been enhanced by increasing the number of colors, or wavelengths of data-carrying laser signals -- essentially streams of 1s and 0s -- sent down an optical fiber, where the signals are processed according to color. Increasing the number of colors has worked well since the 1990s when the method was introduced, but now that number is reaching physical limits.

An emerging strategy to boost bandwidth is to send the light through a fiber along distinctive paths, or modes, each carrying a cache of data from one end of the fiber to the other. Unlike the colors, however, data streams of 1s and 0s from different modes mix together; determining which data stream came from which source requires computationally intensive and energy-hungry digital signal processing algorithms.

Ramachandran's and Willner's approach combines both strategies, packing several colors into each mode, and using multiple modes. Unlike in conventional fibers, OAM modes in these specially designed fibers can carry data streams across an optical fiber while remaining separate at the receiving end. In experiments appearing in the Science paper, Ramachandran created an OAM fiber with four modes (an optical fiber typically has two), and he and Willner showed that for each OAM mode, they could send data through a one-kilometer fiber in 10 different colors, resulting in a transmission capacity of 1.6 terabits per second, the equivalent of transmitting eight Blu-RayTM DVDs every second.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/zoBY3cb6fMU/130627142406.htm

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Man arrested over attack on John Constable artwork

LONDON (AP) ? A fathers-rights group said Friday that one of its members attacked a John Constable painting in Britain's National Gallery.

London police said a 57-year-old man was arrested at the gallery Friday after reports of damage to "The Hay Wain."

Constable's 1821 rural scene ? one of Britain's most famous artworks ? was removed for treatment, but the gallery said no lasting damage had been done.

The group Fathers 4 Justice said the vandal was Paul Manning, a "desperate dad" who had stuck a picture of his son on the painting.

The attack came just after another man appeared in court, charged with spraying paint on a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey earlier this month

Tim Haries, also affiliated with Fathers 4 Justice, was bailed until September.

Fathers 4 Justice campaigns on behalf of fathers denied contact with their children. It emerged about a decade ago and made headlines with high-profile demonstrations, including having members dressed as superheroes scale Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey.

In 2004, members caused panic in the House of Commons chamber when they hurled purple powder at then-Prime Minister Tony Blair from the public gallery.

The original group splintered in 2006 following allegations that extremist members were plotting to kidnap Blair's young son Leo.

Earlier this month it said it was resuming "nonviolent direct action" because its attempts to lobby politicians for changes to the law had failed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/man-arrested-over-attack-john-constable-artwork-170047084.html

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World stocks boosted by Japan, US indicators

A man walks by an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A man walks by an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A man looks at an electronic stock board at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Tokyo Stock Exchange employees work at the computer terminal in Tokyo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A man looks at a cell-phone in front of an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A worker stretches on a chair during a trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, in Tokyo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.6 percent to 13,684.37. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

BANGKOK (AP) ? World stock markets were boosted Friday by encouraging indicators from Japan and further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing.

Reports showing improved consumer spending, a jump in pending home sales and a drop in jobless claims emboldened investors to dive into riskier assets such as stocks. Wall Street posted its third-straight gain of the week.

Japan got a dose of upbeat economic news when the government said industrial production rose 2 percent in May from April, the fourth straight monthly increase, while the most-watched consumer price index stopped falling for the first time in seven months. Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.5 percent to 13,677.32.

In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.1 percent to 6,249.19. Germany's DAX was nearly unchanged at 7,987.27. France's CAC-40 fell 0.3 percent to 3,752.23. Wall Street was poised for gains. Dow Jones industrial futures gained 0.3 percent to 14,977 while S&P 500 futures advanced 0.3 percent to 1,611.70.

Investors were also encouraged by comments from key U.S. Federal Reserve officials. The president of the New York branch of the Fed said the central bank would likely keep buying bonds if the economy failed to grow at the pace expected. Jerome Powell, a member of the Fed's board in Washington, said investors appear to have incorrectly concluded that the Fed will taper its purchases soon.

That brought a sign of relief to markets fearing that a pullback by the Fed would deflate stock and commodity markets, where investors have turned due to the low interest rates created by the bond buying program.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.8 percent to 20,803.29 while mainland Chinese shares also rose as fears eased of a credit crunch in China, analysts said. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.5 percent to 1,979.21, while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index edged up less than 0.1 percent to 887.68.

The central bank had allowed rates that banks pay to borrow from each other to soar last week, part of an attempt by Beijing to clamp down on massive credit in the informal lending industry. Later, however, when Chinese policymakers softened their stance with the promise to provide "liquidity support" if needed.

The central bank's action was "good for the future because it makes merchant banks turn more market-driven and do more prudent lending," said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong.

Elsewhere, South Korea's Kospi added 1.6 percent to 1,863.32. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2 percent to 4,802.60

Among individual stocks, Japan's Sharp Corp. soared 8.1 percent after announcing it will set up a joint venture with in China with liquid crystal display panel maker Nanjing China Electronics Panda Group Corp., Kyodo News reported. Panasonic gained 7.6 percent. Nintendo added 6.7 percent.

New York stocks got a substantial boost Thursday by the National Association of Realtors, which reported that its seasonally adjusted index for pending home sales rose 6.7 percent last month. That's the highest level since December 2006. Separately, the U.S. Commerce Department said consumer spending rose 0.3 percent last month, nearly erasing a similar decline in April. Income rose 0.5 percent.

Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 62 cents to $97.67 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.55 a barrel to close at $97.05 on the Nymex on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3051 from $1.3049 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 98.89 yen from 98.36 yen.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-28-World%20Markets/id-d971a5b9921744ee806cbef4aa16cea2

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Not revealing BlackBerry 10 unit sales was a big mistake

BlackBerry Earnings Analysis Q1 2014

BlackBerry?s May-quarter handset shipments of 6.8 million units was probably at least 400,000 units short of what the company needed for the quarter. That is a painful miss for the period when both the Z10 and the Q10 were available. But the decision to avoid disclosing how many BlackBerry 10 units were sold into channels in BlackBerry?s earnings release is making the situation even worse for the company.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry back in the red after posting surprise Q1 loss]

Analysts thought BB10 shipments would fall between 2.5 million and 5 million units in the fiscal quarter.?The unit consensus had ticked up in the days before earnings as analysts raised their expectations. No matter what the real number is, everyone expected BlackBerry to reveal it in the earnings report. Leaving the investors in the dark about this key metric is worse than revealing even a weak figure; the uncertainty makes people speculate about all kinds of worst case scenarios.

[More from BGR: iOS 7 might be more innovative than we think]

It is possible BlackBerry will reveal the BB10 volume number later, but leaving it out of the initial report has already helped trigger a -20% decline in share price by 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning.?Investor confidence in the management has been shaken again.

The most likely reason for the low shipment figure in the May quarter is a combination of sub-3 million shipment volume of BB10 models and weak sales of legacy Curve phones in the emerging markets. This leaves BlackBerry entirely dependent on the success of the Q5 model currently debuting in Middle East and arriving to Europe and Asia within weeks.

The big worry now is that the Z10 and Q10 may have been priced out of the handset market where dirt cheap Android phones are already undermining? both Nokia and Apple. The new Q5 is 40% cheaper than the Q10, but its price still levitates more than 100% above cheaper Android smartphones with similar or better displays and better cameras.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/not-revealing-blackberry-10-unit-sales-big-mistake-123029615.html

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US stocks flit between small gains and losses

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. stocks were flitting between small gains and losses on Friday, a calm end to the most volatile trading month in nearly two years.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 39 points, or 0.3 percent, to 14,986 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index was up less than one point to 1,614.

Investors seemed unsure how to react to recent statements by Federal Reserve officials about the central bank support's for the economy. Mixed economic news Friday added to investor uncertainty after big stock gains so far this year.

"It's a dull Friday," said Gary Flam, a stock manager at Bel Air Investment Advisors. A bull market, he added, is "rarely a straight march up."

The S&P 500 index is still on track to end its best first half of a year since 1998, when it gained 17.7 percent, including dividends. The index has gained 14.3 percent so far this year.

On Friday, consumer confidence was up but a key gauge of business activity in the Chicago area plunged.

"Investors don't know what to make of the news," said John Toohey, vice president of stock investment at USAA Investments. "I wouldn't be surprised to see more ups and downs."

The University of Michigan said its index of consumer sentiment dipped to 84.1 in June from 84.5 the previous month. But that was still relatively high. May's reading was the highest since July 2007.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Business Barometer sank to 51.6 from a 14-month high of 58.7 in May. That was well below the level of 55 that economists polled by FactSet were expecting.

The Dow gained 365 points over the previous three days this week as investors jumped back into the market following a slump last week. That's when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank could begin scaling back on its economic stimulus program later this year, providing the economy continues to recover. Since then, other top Fed officials have stressed that the Fed wouldn't pull back its support too soon.

The Dow has had 15 triple-digit moves in June, the most since October 2011.

The Nasdaq composite index was up 13 points, or 0.4 percent, to 3,414.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.49 percent from 2.47 percent late Thursday. Last month, the yield fell as low as 1.63 percent. Treasury yields help set borrowing costs for a range of consumer and business loans.

In commodities trading, gold gained $12.10 to $1,223.70 an ounce. The price of crude oil fell 49 cents to $96.56 a barrel. The dollar rose against the euro and the Japanese yen.

Among stocks making big moves:

? BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plunged $3.97, or 26 percent, to $11.08 after the company posted a surprise loss in the first quarter and warned of future losses despite releasing its make-or-break smartphones this year. The company also discontinued making new versions of its slow-selling tablet device, The Playbook.

? Accenture fell $8.22, or 10 percent, to $72. The consulting firm cut its revenue and profit outlook for its fiscal year ending in August. Revenue was hurt by lower demand in Europe as well as its communications, media and technology division.

In overseas trading, Japanese stocks rose on news that a key consumer price index stopped falling for the first time in seven months, a sign that the world's third-largest economy is making progress in its battle against deflation. The government also reported that industrial production rose 2 percent, a fourth straight monthly increase. The benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 3.5 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-stocks-flit-between-small-gains-losses-184556731.html

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U.S. boss held hostage now free

BEIJING (AP) ? An American boss detained nearly a week by his company's Chinese workers left the Beijing factory Thursday after he and a labor representative said the two sides had reached agreement in a pay dispute.

Chip Starnes, who said he was "saddened" by the experience, told The Associated Press a deal was reached overnight to pay the scores of workers who had demanded severance packages similar to ones given to laid-off co-workers in a phased-out division, even though the company said the remaining workers weren't being laid off.

The workers at the medical supply plant in Huairou district, on the outskirts of Beijing, said that the company owed them unpaid salary, that they believed the entire factory was shutting down and that they saw equipment being packed and itemized for shipping to India.

Starnes said the workers' demands were unjustified. Neither he nor district labor official Chu Lixiang gave details of the agreed compensation. Chu said all the workers would be terminated, although Starnes said some would be rehired later.

"It has been resolved to each side's satisfaction," Chu told reporters at the plant. She said they had been sorting out paperwork until 5 a.m. and that 97 workers had signed settlement agreements.

Starnes, a co-owner of Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, had quietly departed the factory grounds by the time Chu spoke, returning to his hotel in Beijing.

"Yes!! Out and back at hotel," Starnes wrote in a text message. "Showered.. 9 pounds lost during the ordeal!!!!!!"

Police in Huairou district had made no moves to halt the labor action but guarded the plant and said they were guaranteeing Starnes' safety while local labor officials brokered negotiations.

It is not rare in China for managers to be held by workers demanding back pay or other benefits, often from their Chinese owners. Police are reluctant to intervene, as they consider it a business dispute, and local officials typically are eager to see the matter resolved in a way least likely to fuel unrest.

The labor action reflected growing uneasiness among workers about their jobs amid China's slowing economic growth and the sense that growing labor costs make the country less attractive for some foreign-owned factories.

About 80 workers started blocking all exits starting last Friday, and Starnes had spoken to reporters in recent days through the barred window of his factory office.

Earlier Thursday, he said in a telephone interview that he had been forced to give in to what he considered unjustified demands. He summed up the past several days as "humiliating, embarrassing." At the beginning of his captivity, workers had deprived him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office, he said.

"We have transferred our funds from the U.S.," he said. "I am basically free to go when the funds hit the account here of the company."

Starnes told the AP he planned to get back to business, and even rehire some of the workers who had been holding him.

He previously said the company had been winding down its plastics division, with plans to move it to Mumbai. When he arrived in Beijing last week to lay off the last 30 people, workers in other divisions started demanding similar severance packages.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-boss-held-china-leaves-plant-payout-044656354.html

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Nanny cam shows intruder beating NJ woman near kid

MILLBURN, N.J. (AP) ? A hulking robber forced his way into a home and attacked a woman watching cartoons with her 3-year-old daughter, punching and kicking her in a series of assaults recorded by a home surveillance camera before throwing her down the basement stairs and nonchalantly walking out the front door, police said.

Portions of the nanny cam footage were aired on television Tuesday as police sought the public's help in identifying the man responsible for the attack, which occurred Friday morning in Millburn, a suburb of about 20,000 residents just west of New York.

Police Capt. Michael Palardy said he was revolted by what he saw the man do to the woman on the video.

"There was no reason for him to touch her at all because she would have willingly gave him what he wanted," Palardy said. "I've probably gone through this video 20 times, and it still sickens me every time I see it. He had no regard for her life. He didn't care if she lived or died."

Police withheld the woman's name to protect her identity and requested the faces of her and her child be blurred when the video was aired.

The woman suffered a concussion, bruises, chipped teeth and cuts around the mouth that required stitches, police said. It's believed she was knocked unconscious when tossed down the stairs, then awoke and called police. She was treated at a hospital and was released.

The nanny cam footage shows the woman sitting next to her child in front of the TV, then getting up to check out a noise out of the frame. It then shows her backing up and being attacked by a man who rushes her.

The burglar made three trips upstairs to rifle through the family's belongings, police said, assaulting the woman on the trips back to the first floor, kicking her, punching her and yanking her by the hair.

"It really takes a sick person to be able to do that," Palardy said.

The woman screams at the beginning of the assaults, which took place over several minutes, but then is quiet as her 3-year-old remains glued to the couch.

"I knew that if I started screaming, my daughter would, too, and I was afraid she would get hurt," the woman told News 12 New Jersey. "I took it. I didn't cry the entire time."

Police said the attacker made off with jewelry, which News 12 said included the woman's wedding ring. Neither the 3-year-old girl nor a 1-year-old boy upstairs was injured.

The police captain said he hoped the girl would not be permanently scarred by what she witnessed.

"She's a little girl, just 3 years old," he said. "Hopefully she can forget this."

A $5,000 reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attacker, authorities said.

"We're confident we're going to catch him and the residents will feel safe again," Palardy said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nanny-cam-shows-intruder-beating-nj-woman-near-214954314.html

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IE 11 on Windows 8.1 preview supports HTML5 Netflix streaming right now

Netflix recently detailed some of the technological developments needed to transition from Silverlight to HTML5 streaming video in the browser, and in a notable turn one of the first companies on board is Microsoft. It's not that surprising since Microsoft has made it clear it's pushing other technologies going forward, but it's still a stark example of how much things have changed in recent years. Netflix's Tech Blog announced today that anyone running Internet Explorer 11 in the Windows 8.1 preview can visit Netflix.com today and try out HTML5-powered video streaming right now. Already available on ARM Chromebooks (pictured above), Netflix says Microsoft has implemented the Premium video extensions it's been working on to provide support for GPU-accelerated 1080p video, DRM and encryption without proprietary plugins.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Netflix Tech Blog

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/acDSxcTdCAc/

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Brother TD-4000

The Brother TD-4000 is a distant cousin to the Editors' Choice Brother QL-700. Both are label printers, and both come with the same label-printing program. But where the QL-700 is strong on versatility, with a wide range of label types and even the ability to print stamps, the TD-4000's strengths are its speed and its ability to print labels up to four inches wide. That makes it a heavier duty printer than most people need, but if you print a lot of labels, or print labels as large as 4 by 36 inches, it may be just right.

With its ability to handle four-inch-wide rolls, the TD-4000 is necessarily wider than typical office label printers like the QL-700, with its maximum 2.4-inch label width. However, it's not much bigger otherwise, at 6.2 by 6.8 by 9.0 inches (HWD). In fact, it has a smaller footprint than the Editors' Choice Dymo LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo, which is basically two printers in one case. It's certainly small enough to fit on a desk without taking up a lot of space.

Limited Choice of Label Types, but Easy to Switch
Among the key features the TD-4000 shares with the QL-700 are an automatic cutter and the ability to switch label rolls easily. Most label printers offer a variety of label types and sizes, but swapping out the rolls is just hard enough to discourage switching labels very often.

The Dymo LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo offers one solution to that problem, at least for people who use only two label types. By combining two printers in one case, it lets you load two rolls of labels and switch between them as needed. Brother label printers, including the TD-4000, offer a second-best solution, by making it easy enough to switch rolls so it's not much of an issue unless you need to switch several times a day. I timed the switch, without rushing, at about 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, there aren't all that many types of rolls to switch to with the TD-4000. According to Brother, the printer can work with thermal paper rolls from other manufacturers, but Brother itself offers only one color?white?in a choice of five sizes, 2 by 1 inches, 3 by 1 inches, 4 by 1.97 inches, 4 by 6 inches, and a 4-inch-wide continuous format.

Street prices for the rolls range from $144 to $225 for boxes of 12 rolls, with 3,372 to 18,528 labels per box, depending on label size. That works out to about 1 cent per label for the 2 by 1 and 3 by 1 labels, 2.2 cents for the 4 by 1 labels, and 4.3 cents for the 4 by 6 labels. The continuous roll comes out to 12.9 cents per foot.

Setup and Software
Setting up the TD-4000 is standard for a label printer. For my tests, using a Windows Vista system, I connected by USB cable, although the printer also offers an RS-232 serial port for those who need one. The installation routine puts on your hard drive both Brother's P-touch Editor version 5 label printing software and a printer driver that lets you print directly from standard application programs like Microsoft Word or Excel.

The software also offers some useful tricks, including the option to install P-touch shortcuts in the Word, Excel, and Outlook toolbars or Ribbons (depending on the Microsoft Office version). The shortcuts let you send text to P-touch Editor to print as labels, which is particularly useful for printing labels from a list, including, for example, turning some or all of your Outlook contacts into mailing-list labels.

One minor issue is that although the printer can recover from errors gracefully, the manual doesn't explain how. The trick is to tap on the power button without holding it for long enough to turn the printer off, then choose the Trashcan button in the popup that shows on your computer screen to delete the print job from the print queue.

Also note, more as a disappointment than a problem, that if you use the cloud-based options for FedEx or UPS, there's no easy way to print labels for either. However, Brother says that UPS's downloadable program for Windows, UPS WorldShip, will let you print UPS labels on the printer without problems.

Speed
Largely making up for the minor issues I ran into is that the TD-4000 is impressively fast. Brother rates the printer at 4.3 inches per second (ips). The actual time will be a little slower, because of the time between giving a print command and the printer starting to print. However the more labels you print at a time, the closer the total time will be to the claimed speed.

I timed a single one-inch address label with three lines plus a Postnet bar code at 3.2 seconds, 50 labels at 18.5 seconds, and 100 labels at 34.0 seconds. After adding the extra eighth of an inch between labels, that works out to 3.04 ips for 50 labels and 3.3 ips for 100 labels. As a point of comparison, the QL-700, which is fast for its price class, managed 83.3 address labels per minute (lpm) on our tests. On the 100-label test, the TD-4000 was more than twice as fast, with the 100 labels in 34 seconds translating to a rate of 176.5 lpm.

Given its price and speed, the Brother TD-4000 would be overkill for most offices. If you just want a label printer on your desk for printing a few labels a day, a printer like the Brother QL-700 or Dymo LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo will be a far better fit. But if you need to print lots of labels at once on a regular basis for mailing lists or the like, need to print labels at up to four inches wide, or both, the Brother TD-4000 offers the kind of speed and capability that can handle the job. For that level of heavy-duty label printing, it may well be your first choice.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ebWIenEmgCQ/0,2817,2420844,00.asp

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Jackson Williams: Most Telling Moment of the Wendy Davis Texas Senate Filibuster

Some things you just can't make up.

During Tuesday's successful filibuster of an anti-abortion bill in the Texas Senate, Democrat Rodney Ellis (Houston) briefly helped Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) with a back brace during her heroic 13-hour marathon. In response, a rotund Republican arose with a "point of order." He said a rule had been broken whereby no member may aid or abet the filibuster-er in any way. He was adamant.

Thanks to the Lt. Governor, also a conservative Republican, the challenge was upheld and counted as one of Wendy's three strikes, another filibuster rule. During debate over this silly point of order, veteran legislator Ellis took the opportunity to remind fellow senators of some not-so-distant history.

In 1977, a Republican staged the longest filibuster in senate history, 43 hours. Several times, this senator needed a bathroom break, which isn't allowed because the rules state that you can't leave the floor. Yet at one point, the Lt. Governor, a Democrat in a Senate then controlled by Democrats, arranged to receive a message from the House chamber, a maneuver that allowed the Republican to briefly depart without his filibuster killed. He was permitted to run to the nearest ladies' room and empty the waste bag he wore beneath his clothes.

He was accompanied by two sergeants-at-arms so that he wouldn't break the filibuster rule of sitting. Not kidding.

At another point during the almost two-day affair, according to Ellis, a group of Republicans got a trash can and literally encircled their colleague on the floor of the Senate so he could privately handle his business right there and continue onward.

Aiding and abetting, indeed. Yes, Virginia, democracy can sometimes include....latrine duty?

Neither side of the aisle considered any of this a violation at the time. It was simply being gracious. Ah, but it wasn't a female member fighting to block a draconian abortion bill in an era of right-wing extremism. Gloves off, back brace be damned!

I must be clueless. I don't understand the mindset of modern Republicans. Then again, perhaps I do. Maybe there really is a war on women raging within today's GOP. Ask Wendy Davis the next time you see her, and believe me, you'll see her. She's now a rising star.

The Republicans have seen to it, bless their hearts.

?

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/most-telling-moment-of-th_b_3507701.html

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Straight from the horse's toe: The world's oldest genome

Scientists have reconstructed the genome of a horse that lived some 700,000-years-ago, mapping out the evolutionary history of the modern horse.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 26, 2013

A Przewalski's horse is shown in Khomyntal, western Mongolia, in one of three reintroduction sites. From a tiny fossil bone found in the Yukon, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient horse about 700,000 years old. The researchers also found new evidence that the endangered Przewalski's horse, found in Mongolia and China, is the last surviving wild horse.

Claudia Feh/Przewalski's Horse Association via Nature/AP

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Researchers have sequenced the genome of a horse that lived some 700,000 years ago ? the oldest genome ever sequenced ? making it possible to reconstruct an evolutionary narrative of the modern horse, whose journey through history has been intimately bound to our own.

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According to a study published in the current ?issue of the scientific journal, Nature, the genome, of an ancient horse that lived in what is now Canada?s Yukon, is about 10 times older than the previous oldest genome, of a human that lived about 70,000 years ago. That means the hindsight of paleogenomics has been dialed backwards some 630,000 years from where it was, offering up the extraordinary possibility that scientists may be able to reproduce our prehistoric record in greater detail than ever before, tracing not just the evolution of horses but ? tantalizingly ? of humans.

"We have beaten the time barrier,? said evolutionary biologist Ludovic Orlando of the University of Copenhagen, a lead author of the study, in a statement.??All of a sudden, you have access to many more extinct species than you could have ever dreamed of sequencing before.?

Discovered in 2003, the ancient horse bones were bound in the world?s oldest known permafrost at Canada?s remote Thistle Creek site. A multinational team of scientists, headed by Dr. Orlando and Eske Willerslev, also of the University of Copenhagen, then extracted DNA from one of the animal?s toes after determining that the bone was a promising candidate to still have viable DNA: had the DNA not been kept cold and dry, it would have not survived those more than half-million years.

Sequencing DNA as fantastically old as that of the ice-encased horse is tough work, and the successful mapping of its genome is a testament to just how far sequencing technology has come, since the first genome, of a virus that infects bacteria, was sequenced in 1976.?

The scientists mulled over fragmented and deteriorating DNA, building from disjointed strings of just 25 individual letters a complex genome that is billions of bases long. And since the DNA had accumulated bacteria tenants during its long, icy repose, scientists also had to ferret out which sequences belonged to the horse, and which to the bacteria.

That complex sequencing needed fact checking. To confirm the horse?s age, scientists compared it to younger horses? genomes, sequencing a DNA sample from the frozen bones of a horse some 43,000-years-old, as well as samples from a donkey, five modern domestic horses, and a wild horse native to Mongolia. They say they are now confident that the horse is a staggering 700,000 years old.?

Scientists had once believed that horses had followed a simple, linear evolutionary road ? the sort that can be easily printed onto a T-shirt ? growing from a tiny version to the modern domesticated horse, frolicking cowboy astride it. But recent developments have complicated that linearity, suggesting that the horse?s evolution looked less like a T-shirt design and more like an unruly river, swelling to enormous volumes and pitching over waterfalls, and splitting off into tributaries, some with dead-ends.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/2Tiw_48E2ug/Straight-from-the-horse-s-toe-The-world-s-oldest-genome

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Obama's climate plan takes aim at coal plants

NEW YORK (AP) ? America is slowly moving toward cleaner sources of energy and using less of it overall. President Barack Obama's plan to fight climate change will accelerate those trends.

The measures aim to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants, increase America's reliance on renewable energy sources and make trucks, homes and businesses more efficient.

Some parts of the plan will take months to work out and years to go into full effect. The most ambitious part of the plan seeks to rein in one of the biggest sources of carbon dioxide: coal-fired power plants.

Obama will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to develop standards that limit power-plant emissions of carbon dioxide. States would then be able to create rules to comply with the standards.

Obama also seeks to increase funding for clean energy research by 30 percent to $7.9 billion and make $8 billion in federal loan guarantees available to projects that could help capture and bury the carbon dioxide produced at power plants.

Here's how the plan will likely affect companies and consumers:

? UTILITIES AND COAL PRODUCERS

Power plants account for 40 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, and most of those emissions come from burning coal. To reduce these emissions, power companies will have to run coal plants less often, install equipment that captures carbon dioxide and in some cases shut down plants that become too expensive to operate.

The cost to make these changes are likely so great that utilities would instead generate more power with natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar power, which will become comparatively less expensive and more profitable.

As a result, very few, if any, new coal-fired plants will be built.

The stock prices of the nation's biggest coal miners, including Peabody Energy Corp., Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. and Arch Coal, Inc., have fallen more than 10 percent over the past two days as details of Obama's plan trickled out.

The financial effect on utilities that rely heavily on coal, such as NRG Energy and First Energy, is unclear. While coal-fired power will become more costly, that will be offset by higher electricity prices.

The plan offers clear benefits to natural gas producers such as Exxon Mobil and Chesapeake Energy and to utilities such as Exelon, Entergy and Calpine, which generate large amounts of electricity using low-carbon sources like nuclear power and natural gas.

? RENEWABLE ENERGY COMPANIES

By directing the Department of Interior to accelerate permits to clean energy developers who want to use public land, Obama will make it less expensive for companies to build wind, solar and geothermal energy projects.

This will help companies that provide equipment for, build and finance large wind and solar farms, such as First Solar, SunPower, General Electric and Siemens.

? ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Companies that install windows, insulation and heating and cooling systems stand to benefit from Obama's plan, which will give homeowners and businesses incentives to invest in energy-efficiency improvements. While the upfront costs can be high, the long-term savings can be significant.

Obama also wants the EPA to develop new fuel efficiency standards for heavy trucks, which are the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector after cars. Obama implemented new fuel economy standards for cars through 2025.

These new standards for trucks would go into effect for trucks made in 2018 and beyond. Engine-makers and parts suppliers that succeed in developing fuel-efficient technologies could benefit. While trucking companies may face higher equipment costs at first, their fuel bills will decline.

? ELECTRIC CUSTOMERS

Homeowners and businesses will likely pay more for electricity because the nation will be relying less on coal, which has historically been the cheapest way to produce electricity.

But more efficient homes and appliances are helping reduce energy consumption, which will likely offset at least some of the higher electricity cost.

Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Bernstein Research, estimates that a 20 percent nationwide reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would increase retail power prices by about 1 cent per kilowatt hour, or 9 percent. At current rates of electricity use, that would add $9 or so to an average American's monthly bill. Obama's plan seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent from their 2005 level by 2020.

Nick Akins, CEO of American Electric Power, one of the nation's largest utilities, said in an interview Tuesday that as long as utilities like his are given enough time to transition to a cleaner fleet of power plants, Obama's plan can be carried out "without a major impact to customers or the economy."

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Follow Jonathan Fahey on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-climate-plan-takes-aim-coal-plants-012546705.html

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Independence Day Sequel a Go, Minus Will Smith

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/independence-day-sequel-a-go-minus-will-smith/

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Humana's CEO on the massive undertaking of health reform

By Caroline Humer

(Reuters) - Bruce Broussard took over as chief executive of Humana Inc in January, just in time to steer the health insurer's entry onto the health insurance exchanges created by President Barack Obama's reform law.

Humana plans to sell subsidized insurance plans in 14 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Kentucky, where it is based, about the same number of states as rivals like WellPoint Inc and Aetna Inc.

The exchanges are expected to bring in 7 million people in 2014. Insurers must offer plans to any individual who applies, regardless of prior health problems. The government will provide subsidies to people who earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or $94,200 for a family of four.

Humana already has experience with government healthcare programs - it has more than 2.5 million members in privately administered Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly. It also manages Medicare pharmacy benefits for more than 3 million people.

Here is a discussion that Reuters had with Broussard this week on the effort to roll out "Obamacare":

Q: What has proven harder than you thought about the development of the exchanges?

A: This is a massive project. A number of months ago the industry met with the president and he made the comment this is probably the largest healthcare project since the Truman-Kennedy era, and he is right. We are taking on a very, very large project and so there are a lot of details that the states and the federal government are working on. It's keeping up with those and being able to implement them where they are already behind schedule, and trying to keep up so that we do fulfill the needs of the public promise that has been made.

Our challenge right now is it is moving so quickly, keeping up with it and being able to assist the state and federal governments for it to be successful because I think the last thing we want is for it not to be successful. So we are dedicated to helping it. But the details are coming out and they are coming out as quickly as the federal government can get them out.

Q: What did you think about the recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report that said some states are behind?

A: I'm not going to take a different stance than the GAO. I'll just say in general there are a lot of details and everyone is working hard to get this done. The industry is working hard, the states are working hard, the federal government is working hard, but this is a big task that's been taken on and I'm sure details will be get lost in the process just because of the size and the enormous effort that is required here.

Q: When consumers decide on which plan to purchase, would you expect that access to certain doctors and hospitals will play a large role?

A: It's going to be interesting. This is where price and choice are going to come at a crossroads here. I think a more cost-effective product is going to have less choice. It is a test. Most of our products are going to be narrow networks and limited providers because we feel that is the best way we can offer a product that is going to be cost-effective.

Q: How else can consumers judge the value of these products?

A: This isn't much different from (Medicare) Part D and Medicare Advantage when it came out in 2005. There was a lot of confusion around what it meant and there was a lot of time being spent on educating both around choices and options and subsidies to the type of plan.

As we look over the coming number of months, we look at that as a responsibility that we have in educating in the 14 states we will be in. We are going to take our market point sales group that today also handles the Medicare Advantage program, we are going to expand that and they will be an active part of the individual exchange. So we are going to have people on the ground helping people.

We also believe in having relationships where people are in their normal course of life, so retail chains are an important part of that. So not only are we going to have people go to their homes, but in addition we are working with partners with retail outlets so we can staff individuals where it is convenient to a potential member to incorporate in their life.

Q: Do you mean grocery stores and pharmacies?

A: Yes, that's right.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Douglas Royalty)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/humanas-ceo-massive-undertaking-health-reform-165828188.html

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