Tribeca to open with documentary on the National

FILE - This May 21, 2010 file photo shows Matt Berninger, of the band The National, performing during a concert in Los Angeles. The Tribeca Film Festivall announced Thursday that ?Mistaken for Strangers,? which documents the National on tour, will premiere April 17. The film is directed by Tom Berninger, a roadie for the band and brother to lead to singer Matt Berninger. The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 17 through April 28. It will next week announce the feature film slate for its 12th annual festival. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)

FILE - This May 21, 2010 file photo shows Matt Berninger, of the band The National, performing during a concert in Los Angeles. The Tribeca Film Festivall announced Thursday that ?Mistaken for Strangers,? which documents the National on tour, will premiere April 17. The film is directed by Tom Berninger, a roadie for the band and brother to lead to singer Matt Berninger. The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 17 through April 28. It will next week announce the feature film slate for its 12th annual festival. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Tribeca Film Festival will open with a documentary about the National, along with a performance by the Brooklyn band.

The festival announced Thursday that "Mistaken for Strangers," which documents the National on tour, will premiere April 17. The film is directed by Tom Berninger, brother to lead to singer Matt Berninger.

Tribeca's Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore called the film "a highly personal and lighthearted story about brotherly love."

The band will perform following the film's premiere. In 2011, Tribeca also paired a movie and concert with Elton John performing after Cameron Crowe's music documentary "The Union."

The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 17 through April 28. It will next week announce the feature film slate for its 12th annual festival.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-28-US-Film-Tribeca-Opener/id-50f9a87742364d9783319aa2837313f2

peyton manning broncos mexico city earthquake stand your ground law dancing with the stars season 14 david garrard michael bay ninja turtles san antonio weather

Restricting Diet of People 75+ May Not Make Them Healthier ...

We recently blogged about overweight seniors who might live longer than their skinnier counterparts. Now according to a recent study, restricting the diet of people 75 and older may not make them healthier.

The five-year study involved 449 Pennsylvania residents, most of who were in their mid-70s. The participants self-reported their diets on a regular basis to Penn State and the Geisinger Healthcare System researchers classified each diet in one of three categories: sweets and dairy, health-conscious, or Western.

?The ?sweets and dairy' pattern was characterized by the largest proportions of energy from baked goods, milk, sweetened coffee and tea and dairy-based desserts, and the lowest intakes of poultry,? the university said. ?The ?health-conscious' pattern was characterized by relatively higher intakes of pasta, noodles, rice, whole fruit, poultry, nuts, fish and vegetables, and lower intakes of fried vegetables, processed meats and soft drinks. The ?Western' pattern was characterized by higher intakes of bread, eggs, fats, fried vegetables, alcohol and soft drinks, and the lowest intakes of milk and whole fruit.?

The researchers used electronic medical records to correlate each person's diet with cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and metabolic syndrome. The researchers discovered only one link between diet and these conditions, finding increased hypertension among those on a ?sweets and dairy? diet. This led them to conclude that extremely restrictive diet regimens for this age group are likely not needed.?

Those who have healthy eating habits throughout their lives are likely to be healthier than those who eat poorly, noted researcher Gordon Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State.?

However, once the 75-year threshold is reached, dietary changes may not make much difference.?

So more evidence to just let yourself go as you get older. Well I'm not buying it and neither should you. We need to step up and take self-responsibility for? our health. It is not only good for us. It is good for society as we help to curtail out of control medical spending.

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and appears in the Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging.

Connect:

Authored by:

Anthony Cirillo

Anthony is a sought-after international strategic health care marketer whose company Fast Forward Consulting (www.4wardfast.com) empowers organizations to change the health care experience and leverage it in their marketing. (Outcomes - loyal and repeat customers, increased revenue, lower marketing costs, empowered employees, reduced attrition, lower hiring costs.) Anthony is also an ...

See complete profile

Source: http://healthworkscollective.com/anthony-cirillo/86161/restricting-diet-75-may-not-make-them-healthier

2013 Grammys kelly clarkson Lumineers The Lumineers grammys

Silver nanoparticles may adversely affect environment

Feb. 27, 2013 ? In experiments mimicking a natural environment, Duke University researchers have demonstrated that the silver nanoparticles used in many consumer products can have an adverse effect on plants and microorganisms.

Fifty days after scientists applied a single low dose of silver nanoparticles, the experimental environments produced about a third less biomass in some plants and microbes.

These preliminary findings are important, the researchers said, because little is known about the environmental effects of silver nanoparticles, which are found in textiles, clothing, children's toys and pacifiers, disinfectants and toothpaste.

"No one really knows what the effects of these particles are in the environment," said Benjamin Colman, a post-doctoral fellow in Duke's biology department and a member of the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT).

"We're trying to come up with the data that can be used to help regulators determine the risks to the environment from silver nanoparticle exposures," Colman said.

Previous studies have involved high concentrations of the nanoparticles in a laboratory setting, which the researchers point out, doesn't represent "real-world" conditions.

"Results from laboratory studies are difficult to extrapolate to ecosystems, where exposures likely will be at low concentrations and there is a diversity of organisms," Colman said.

Silver nanoparticles are used in consumer products because they can kill bacteria, inhibiting unwanted odors. They work through a variety of mechanisms, including generating free radicals of oxygen which can cause DNA damage to microbial membranes without harming human cells.

The main route by which these particles enter the environment is as a by-product of sewage treatment plants. The nanoparticles are too small to be filtered out, so they and other materials end up in the resulting wastewater treatment "sludge," which is then spread on the land surface as a fertilizer.

For their studies, the researchers created mesocosms, which are small, human-made structures containing different plants and microorganisms meant to represent the environment. They applied sludge with low doses of silver nanoparticles in some of the mesocosms, then compared plants and microorganisms from treated and untreated mesocosms after 50 days.

The study appeared online Feb. 27 in the journal PLOS One.

The researchers found that one of the plants studied, a common annual grass known as Microstegium vimeneum, had 32 percent less biomass in the mesocosms treated with the nanoparticles. Microbes were also affected by the nanoparticles, Colman said. One enzyme associated with helping microbes deal with external stresses was 52 percent less active, while another enzyme that helps regulate processes within the cell was 27 percent less active. The overall biomass of the microbes was also 35 percent lower, he said.

"Our field studies show adverse responses of plants and microorganisms following a single low dose of silver nanoparticles applied by a sewage biosolid," Colman said. "An estimated 60 percent of the average 5.6 million tons of biosolids produced each year is applied to the land for various reasons, and this practice represents an important and understudied route of exposure of natural ecosystems to engineered nanoparticles."

"Our results show that silver nanoparticles in the biosolids, added at concentrations that would be expected, caused ecosystem-level impacts," Colman said. "Specifically, the nanoparticles led to an increase in nitrous oxide fluxes, changes in microbial community composition, biomass, and extracellular enzyme activity, as well as species-specific effects on the above-ground vegetation."

The researchers plan to continue to study longer-term effects of silver nanoparticles and to examine another ubiquitous nanoparticle -- titanium dioxide.

CEINT's research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University. The original article was written by Richard Merritt.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Benjamin P. Colman, Christina L. Arnaout, Sarah Anciaux, Claudia K. Gunsch, Michael F. Hochella, Bojeong Kim, Gregory V. Lowry, Bonnie M. McGill, Brian C. Reinsch, Curtis J. Richardson, Jason M. Unrine, Justin P. Wright, Liyan Yin, Emily S. Bernhardt. Low Concentrations of Silver Nanoparticles in Biosolids Cause Adverse Ecosystem Responses under Realistic Field Scenario. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57189 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057189

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/EctQTz5Sylw/130227183528.htm

michael buble michael buble Jenni Rivera Alive Facebook Down bo jackson bo jackson hanukkah

Why You Should Attend a Christian College ? And Why ... - Patheos

By John Mark Reynolds

Government schools are less expensive, because you have been paying for them, are paying for them, and will be paying for them through taxpayer subsidies for the rest of your life. So, not using them is a tough financial choice. Most Christian colleges receive indirect support from the government through student aid, but are often more expensive than their ?secular? counterparts.

And yet it seems odd, and maybe even wrong, for a Christian to choose a college that ignores half of reality and sets up a discipleship with anybody hostile to the Lordship of Jesus. In this post, then, the third part in a series on the future of Christian colleges, I want to address the questions of why one might choose a Christian college, why one might choose a non-Christian college, and how one might attend college well.

*

Reasons to Attend a Christian College

1.???? College is not just job training; it is highly influential in forming a worldview.

Don?t you hope college changes you? If it doesn?t make you better, what good is it?

The person who goes to college is not the same as the person who attended. Choosing to be mentored by mostly non-Christian faculty is a choice that may make it less likely you will be an active Christian as an adult. More important, even I still go to church a non-Christian college will secularize important ideas I have.

2.???? Most Christian colleges focus of undergraduate education.

There are advantages to a school with strong graduate programs, but they tend to be indirect. Most Christian colleges put their best people in the classroom with students. They may make less use of part-time faculty or graduate students, if they don?t they are the worst choice!

3.???? Christian colleges talk about all of reality.

Is Jesus Lord? If so, then that fact impacts all of reality. Christian colleges can take that fact into account.

The world is fallen. If the school doesn?t take that into account as well, then it is not very Christian, just narrow!

4.???? Christian colleges are tuition driven.

If a Christian college fails to deliver, the market quickly delivers a crushing blow. Many schools are so insulated by endowments that irresponsibility continues too long.

5.???? Christian colleges more easily avoid educational fads.

Rare is the Christian college eager to jump into the educational trend of the moment. Don?t think that matters? Look at college catalogues from the 1970s and their predictions (based on courses) of the World of Tomorrow. Count the number that focused on things that still matter . . . and count the number that make you laugh out loud. If it ?lols? today, then you wasted money yesterday.

*

Reasons Not to Attend a Christian College

1.???? Christian college is often more expensive.?

If you borrow much more than the cost of a new car, then college debt has gone too high. Christian colleges may be out of your price range, but apply and see before you assume this is true. Few people pay the sticker price.

Don?t be afraid to negotiate.

2.???? Christian college or any small school can be academically second-rate.

Never attend a school without regional accreditation. Accreditation is not much, but it does mean your units can transfer and your degree will be recognized . . . even when your small school is not.

Never attend a school whose faculty lack terminal degrees from a wide variety of institutions. If they mostly hire their own graduates or the graduates of only one or two other schools, it is sign of dangerous academic inbreeding.

A school with fewer than one thousand undergraduates may be very good, but in the imminent higher education contraction, they may close. Take care with such a choice.

Read work by scholars in the major you are choosing. Of course, if you are film major, then you should watch their films! Do these professors seem like the sort you would wish to become? What is their job placement rate?

Never do an on-line degree program where the student-teacher ratio is different than off-line degrees. The Internet makes a geographical difference, but it did not increase the ability of a professor to mentor a student. Demand attention on-line or off-line.

Never do an on-line class if the school offering it will not take the class seamlessly in their on-site programs.

3.???? Christian colleges can recruit ?Christian? and then be expensive and secular.

I sat at a meeting where ?Christian? college professors referred to ?Aunt Tillie pitches.? These college descriptions convinced parents and alum to give, but had nothing to do with the daily life of a school.

Google professors. Find their Facebook pages. Talk to the sociologists and psychologists and ask questions. Find out what the faculty actually think, not what they allegedly think.

Many a Catholic school has few faculty members who support Catholic teaching. Many an Evangelical school is similar.

Why pay extra for a State University with a godly president? Students don?t often see the President!

*

Questions to Ask Self Before Attending a Particular Christian College

1. How important is a Christian mentor to you? Who is a Christian?

Each Christian college draws lines differently. Some hire mostly non-Christian faculty. Some only hire Christian faculty.

Why pay extra to go to a college where only a few faculty members are actually Christian? My opinion is that for undergraduates such schools rarely are worth the cost difference.

Who is a Christian? If you think Catholics are not Christians or that people who drink are damned, then you should select a school that agrees.? Most Christians I meet, however, are less concerned about being confronted by John Paul II Catholic or a Billy Graham Evangelical, than rising secularism in the culture.?Is our present problem likely to be our view on End Times or the view that humans are just machines?

There is something bizarre about a school that reads dead Catholics but will not hire living ones. There is something odd about a school that will buy C.S. Lewis? furniture but would not hire him.

Often such schools are narrow on nineteenth century issues, because their doctrinal statements were written then, but useless on contemporary ones. They have professors with the ?correct? views on Calvinism, but secularized views on human behavior!

As a parent if you think it equally tragic that your child becomes a practicing Baptist (or some other group) as an atheist (or nearly so), then don?t pick a school that hires those people.

On the other hand, if you see yourself making common cause daily with broader Christian groups, then pick such a school. It is ridiculous to pay extra to segregate yourself on nineteenth century lines.

2. How important are behavioral standards to you? What ones?

I found it refreshing to attend undergraduate schools where my Christian values were encouraged.

The issue is how strong you want the encouragement and on what issues?

3. Will you probably be going to graduate school??

For most students, graduate school is (sadly) the new college. If you are going to graduate school, and your college has a good graduate school placement rate, then going to a smaller school will not matter. You will be ?known? by our last degree.

*

Questions to Ask the College Before Attending a Particular College

1.???? What percentage of classes are taught by ?adjuncts? or teaching assistants?

An adjunct professor is (generally) part time. He or she often works in multiple schools. You may be paying extra for the same professor also working at the community college down the street!

There are good part-time people, but avoid a school or program that hits twenty-five percent or higher of these faculty. The school or program is paying for other things through your tuition in a class that has not been prioritized.

2.???? What percentage of ?core? or ?general education? classes are taught by ?adjuncts? or teaching assistants?

A big part of a liberal arts education is in classes outside the major. Sometimes those are not fully funded. Avoid schools where part time folks do over twenty-five percent of these classes.?

Imagine paying extra for Bible only to discover that the school doesn?t invest in Bible with full time faculty!

3.???? How much Bible or Christianity is required of all students??

Three units? Really? Anything less than nine is not serious. At least two schools require thirty and that is not a bad thing!

4.???? How strong is the ?core? or ?general education?? Is there a program or is it just a bunch of requirements??

If it is not a plan or program (a separate school), then it will too often be a bottom priority of the department in charge. It will often be incoherent with little in common between the English class and the Science class.

5.???? What is the job or graduate school placement in my major?

If they don?t know, don?t go.

6.???? Do the President and Provost teach or have they ever taught?

If not, then the educational vision will suffer. Avoid if you can schools that are run by educational administrators with little or no classroom time.

7.???? Is there tenure?

Tenure can be good, protecting controversial ideas. Generally, the smaller Christian college itself represents diversity to the educational establishment. Tenure can result in slow motion secularization in the school as professors escape scrutiny.

Schools without tenure gain flexibility and are often ideologically coherent, but can become too narrow or tyrannical. Check out faculty turnover by comparing five years of catalogs. Are there professors who have been there over their whole career? If not, this is a very bad sign that the school is too rigid.

8.???? Are classes Socratic? How large is the largest class?

College is about people: the student and teacher relationship is the heart. Large classes can be good, but only rarely. Some schools advertise ?small average? classes, because the major classes for upperclassmen drives down the average.

I don?t think propaganda is education. A Christian college should take every thought captive to Christ, but that means being able to talk about every thought. No Christian should ever hide from any issue or from any disagreement.

Students should be allowed to consider views contrary to the professors or school without fear of dismissal or retribution. This is a big problem in all schools Christian, secular, liberal, or conservative.

You don?t want to ?stay? a Christian because you were shielded from other ideas. If you stay a Christian, may it be because you considered all ideas.

How large are the core classes? Forget schools that often have classes bigger than thirty. A person with a quiet personality in such a class can easily get an ?A? without personal interaction!

A sage on a stage with fifty students may be edu-taining, but he is missing a part of educating. Discussion with a professor, not another student, is part of education. Big lectures are fine, but only if they lead to hours of conversation!

9.???? How does a student get a faculty advisor? How many meetings on average does a student have??

Every school talks about advising. Often this means getting the schedule done, but has nothing to do with mentoring. Is advising mentoring? Can you be mentored in two meetings a year?

10.? If you are looking for a ?conservative? college, talk to the political science, English, sociology, and psychology faculty. Ask questions.??

These are the faculty in most Christian colleges that are often ?out of step? with what is advertised. Look at what faculty post on their doors. Google these folk and see what they say when not pitching you.

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/why-attend-christian-college-why-not/

Kendrick Lamar JJ Abrams New Orleans Pelicans chris brown hillary clinton apple stock Pro Bowl 2013

Tina Fey won't host Oscars -- who should?

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, TODAY

He received decidedly mixed reviews for his Sunday night stint hosting the Oscars. She was mentioned, along with comedy partner in crime Amy Poehler, as a dream host for the future. But both Seth MacFarlane and Tina Fey have now gone on record saying they won't host next year's show.

Paul Drinkwater / NBC via AP

Tina Fey, seen here hosting the Golden Globes with Amy Poehler, says she won't host the Oscars.

In a comedy bit that opened the awards show, William Shatner muttered, "Why couldn't they get Tina and Amy to host? Why can't Tina and Amy host everything?"

Fey told The Huffington Post that she was flattered "to be Shatnered," but said she won't be looking to host the show.

"I just feel like that gig is so hard," Fey told the site. "Especially for, like, a woman -- the amount of months that would be spent trying on dresses alone ... no way."

When writer Mike Ryan pushed Fey, asking if there was a "one in a million chance," she still declined, saying "I wish I could tell you there was."

As for MacFarlane, he responded to a Twitter fan who asked him if he'd host again with "No way. Lotta fun to have done it though."

With Fey and MacFarlane out of the running, the Academy organizers will have to start combing through a long list of possible hosts. Recent hosts have included Billy Crystal, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, Hugh Jackman, Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres.

It's a list that heavily favors comedians, but there the Academy walks a fine line. Edgy comics like MacFarlane and three-time Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais may appeal to a younger audience, but also run the risk of alienating viewers who like their Oscar humor safe and friendly. And there's no denying it's a great deal of work for a famous name who arguably doesn't gain much from taking the job but has a lot to lose if his or her hosting night goes awry. It might even be easier to win an Oscar than to successfully host one.

Who would you like to see host the 2014 ceremony? Vote in our poll, and tell us on Facebook.

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/02/27/17117706-tina-fey-seth-macfarlane-both-say-they-wont-host-oscars-so-who-should?lite

tournament brackets 2012 ncaa basketball tournament walt what time is it current time a thousand words my sisters keeper

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week: 5 Things You Should ...

Getty

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, dedicated to raising awareness about anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, and other conditions that involve preoccupations with food and weight.

Think you know what an eating disorder is all about? You may not.

Research by Oxford University suggests that eating disorders remain poorly understood by the general public and even health professionals.

Sure, some symptoms are obvious?say, weight loss or purging after eating?but others are less so.

In order to identify the sometimes subtle symptoms of an eating disorder and encourage someone to seek help, here are five surprising facts you should know.

It?s not just teens and young women
Many people assume that only teenage and young adult women develop eating disorders?but increasingly, doctors are seeing more and more cases in women and men of all ages, even in children and the middle aged. A recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found a lack of awareness about male eating disorders often prevented diagnosis and treatment?even though men and boys account for about 25% of cases.

?I have started to see a lot more women in their 40s and up who come to me with eating disorders,? says Jodi Rubin, a therapist in New York City and adjunct lecturer at the NYU Silver School of Social Work. Often times, these later-in-life disorders are triggered by a major life change?leaving or re-entering the work force, getting a divorce, or having a baby, for example.

You can?t tell by looking at someone
An eating disorder can be hard to spot: Bulimia and anorexia symptoms traditionally include dramatic weight loss, but it?s also possible to have disordered eating while maintaining a normal body weight, says Rubin. Binge eaters, in fact, may even be overweight, or may repeatedly shed and then pack on pounds.

?Eating disorders are about control and self esteem as much as they are about the number on the scale,? she says. Someone with an eating disorder may work hard to keep their weight at a certain number as to not ?let on? that he or she has a problem, for example.
There are as many emotional symptoms as there are physical
Sure there are plenty of visible cues that someone might have an eating disorder: Along with weight loss, people who severely restrict calories or nutrients may experience thinning hair, dry skin, and?in the case of a purging disorder?swollen cheeks.

But the emotional signs of an eating disorder may be easier to spot, if you know what to look for. At their root, almost all eating disorders are symptoms of depression or self-esteem issues, says Rubin. You may notice that a friend or loved one has become moody, uptight, anxious, or is expressing self-doubt and shame?either about his or her body, or about life in general.

Strange behaviors might be a clue
Newly adopted rituals can also be a sign that a person?s relationship with food has taken an unhealthy turn. A friend may begin to obsessively count calories, focus only on specific foods or food groups, or avoid making spontaneous plans, or stop eating with other people altogether. When you do eat together, he or she may exhibit unusual food behaviors?using a lot of condiments, or fixating on strange food combinations, for example.

For people hyper-focused on their weight and body image, a preoccupation with exercise often goes along with an eating disorder, as well. It?s normal to want to burn off excess calories after a big meal, but if a friend seems to panic after missing one workout, that?s a red flag.

Calling someone out may not help
Many people with eating disorders are in denial about their problem, says Rubin; some are even proud of the control they are able to exert over their bodies. By bringing up food or weight issues you?ve noticed with a friend, he or she may tell you that you?re imagining it, or that there?s nothing to worry about.

Instead, try talking about the emotional issues: ?If you say, ?I?ve noticed you seem depressed lately,? they?re not really able to deny that,? says Rubin. And even if they don?t come clean and agree to seek help then and there, they?ll remember that you?ve expressed concern and that you?re a safe place to go when they?re ready to talk.

Read more:

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/02/26/5-must-know-facts-about-eating-disorders/

full moon aubrey o day masters live johan santana viktor bout ncaa hockey role models

Hagel confirmed as defense secretary

Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel testifies at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Jan.??The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, overcoming a fierce campaign by some GOP lawmakers to block President Barack Obama's nominee.

Hagel's nomination, which required support from just a majority of the chamber, passed 58-41.

Four Republicans voted to approve Hagel's nomination: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.

In a statement, Obama praised the Senate for passing the confirmation.

"With the bipartisan confirmation of Chuck Hagel as our next Secretary of Defense, we will have the defense secretary our nation needs and the leader our troops deserve," Obama's statement read.? "From the moment he volunteered for military service in Vietnam, Chuck has devoted his life to keeping America secure and our armed forces strong.? An American patriot who fought and bled for our country, he understands our sacred obligations to our service members, military families and veterans."

Tuesday's vote ended a tumultuous confirmation process that began the moment Obama announced Hagel as his choice to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Despite Hagel's tenure in the Senate, many of his former colleagues refused to endorse him for the defense post, pointing to his past comments about the U.S. relationship to Israel and Iran's nuclear program. Even some Democrats showed hesitancy about confirming Hagel at first. It was not until he made a series of personal visits to key members of the party that he was able to secure their support.

During Hagel's? confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he faced a grilling from senators on the panel who pressed him on a wide rang of topics. Hagel's performance was disappointing, but the White House stood by its choice.

The first attempt in the Senate to end debate fell short in the face of an unprecedented GOP filibuster two weeks ago, with Democrats just one vote shy of the 60 needed to proceed to confirm Hagel. (The tally showed 58 votes in favor, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed his vote to ?no? as it was needed to secure the right under parliamentary rules to bring up Tuesday?s vote.)

Last week 15 Republicans sent a letter to Obama urging him to withdraw Hagel's nomination, citing his record and comments he made in the past about Iran's nuclear weapons program. The White House dismissed the request.

Now that he has been confirmed, it remains unclear clear how the sustained battering will affect Hagel's tenure at the Pentagon. But the rough handling he got from his fellow Republicans and former colleagues shows one thing for sure: The former lawmaker cannot count on getting the benefit of the doubt from Congress as he moves to deal with spending cuts that start coming into force on Friday, or takes on challenges overseas like the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In an effort to dispel any lingering concerns over Israel, Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, released a statement of confidence in the new nominee. "Israel looks forward to working closely with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. Under the Obama Administration, security ties between the United States and Israel have been superb," Orien wrote in a message on his Facebook page. "We are fully confident that those bonds will grow stronger still as our countries continue to meet common challenges to our security."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/defense-secretary-nominee-hagel-faces-big-step-confirmation-114702931--politics.html

carlos santana dodgers triple play baa samoyed kenny powers kenny powers carl hagelin

timothyecarhart: Treat malware as biology to know it better

Hal Hodson, technology reporter

Classifying different kinds of malware is notoriously hard, but crucial if computer defences are to keep up with the ever-evolving ecosystem of malicious programs. Treating computer viruses as biological puzzle could help computer scientists get a better handle on the wide world of malware.?

Ajit Narayanan and Yi Chen at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, converted the signatures of 120 worms and viruses into an amino acid representation. The signatures are more usually presented in hexadecimals - a base-16 numbering system which uses the digits 0 to 9 as well as the letters a to f - but the amino acid "alphabet" is better suited to machine-learning techniques that can analyse a piece of code to figure out whether it matches a known malware signature.

Generally, malware experts identify and calculate the signatures of new malware, but it can be hard for them keep up. While machine learning can help, it is limited because the hexadecimal signatures can be different lengths: Narayanan's team found that using machine learning to help classify the hexadecimal malware signatures resulted in accuracy no better than flipping a coin.

But some techniques used in bioinformatics for comparing amino acid sequences take differing lengths into account. After applying these to malware, Narayanan's average accuracy for classifying the signatures automatically using machine learning rose to 85 per cent.

Biology might help in other ways too. Narayanan notes that if further study shows malware evolution follows some of the same rules as amino acids and proteins, our knowledge of biological systems could be used to help fight it.

Journal reference: arXiv:1302.3668

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/28ee8ddf/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A130C0A20Cmalware0Ebiology0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

Imessage Not Working mc hammer pecan pie recipe Hector Camacho Jill Kelly McKayla Maroney gronkowski

Source: http://timothyecarhart.blogspot.com/2013/02/treat-malware-as-biology-to-know-it.html

Gangnam Style

Doubts Emerge on the Value of Very Low Cholesterol Levels

Image: frentusha /iStockphoto

From Nature magazine.

Soon after Joseph Francis learned that his levels of ?bad? LDL cholesterol sat at twice the norm, he discovered the short?comings of cholesterol-lowering drugs ? and of the clinical advice guiding their use. Francis, the director of clinical analysis and reporting at the Veterans Health Administration (VA) in Washington DC, started taking Lipitor (atorvastatin), a cholesterol-lowering statin and the best-selling drug in pharmaceutical history. His LDL plummeted, but still hovered just above a target mandated by clinical guidelines. Adding other medications had no effect, and upping the dose of Lipitor made his muscles hurt ? a rare side effect of statins, which can cause muscle breakdown.

So Francis pulled back to moderate Lipitor doses and decided that he could live with his high cholesterol. Later, he learned that other patients were being aggressively treated by doctors chasing stringent LDL targets. But Francis found the science behind the target guidelines to be surprisingly ambiguous. ?You couldn?t necessarily say lowering LDL further was going to benefit the patient,? he says.

The standard advice may soon change. For the first time in more than a decade, the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is revising the clinical guidelines that shaped Francis?s treatment (see ?How low can you go??). Expected to be released later this year, the fourth set of guidelines, called ATP IV, has been drawn up by an expert panel of 15 cardiologists appointed by the institute. The guidelines will set the tone for clinical practice in the United States and beyond, and will profoundly influence pharmaceutical markets. They will also reflect the growing debate over cholesterol targets, which have never been directly tested in clinical trials.

Since 2002, when ATP III called on doctors to push LDL levels below set targets, the concept of low cholesterol has become synonymous with heart health. Patients brag about their cholesterol scores, physicians joke about adding statins to drinking water, and some hospitals reward doctors when patients hit cholesterol targets.

In 2011, US doctors wrote nearly 250 million prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering drugs, creating a US$18.5-billion market, according to IMS Health, a health-care technology and information company based in Danbury, Connecticut. ?The drug industry in particular is very much in favour of target-based measures,? says Joseph Drozda, a cardiologist and director of outcomes research at Mercy Health in Chesterfield, Missouri. ?It drives the use of products.?

ATP III reflected a growing consensus among physicians that sharply lowering cholesterol would lessen the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes, says Richard Cooper, an epidemiologist at the Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Illinois, who served on the committee that compiled the guidelines. The committee drew heavily on clinical data, but also took extrapolations from basic research and post hoc analyses of clinical trials. LDL targets were set to be ?less than? specific values to send a message, Cooper says. ?We didn?t want to explicitly say ?the lower the better? because there wasn?t evidence for that,? he says. ?But everybody had the strong feeling that was the correct answer.?

By contrast, the ATP IV committee has pledged to hew strictly to the science and to focus on data from randomized clinical trials, says committee chairman Neil Stone, a cardiologist at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. If so, Krumholz argues, LDL targets will be cast aside because they have never been explicitly tested. Clinical trials have shown repeatedly that statins reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, but lowering LDL with other medications does not work as well. The benefits of statins may reflect their other effects on the body, including fighting inflammation, another risk factor for heart disease.

Krumholz?s scepticism is rooted in experience. In 2008 and 2010, the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) clinical trial challenged dogma when it reported that lowering blood pressure or blood sugar to prespecified targets did not reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke. In the case of blood sugar, the risks were worsened. The trial demonstrated the folly of assuming that risk factors must have a causal role in disease, says Robert Vogel, a cardiologist at the University of Colorado, Denver. ?Short people have a higher risk of heart disease,? he says. ?But wearing high heels does not lower your risk.?

Jay Cohn, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, also worries that the focus on LDL levels offers up the wrong patients for statin therapy. Most of those who have a heart attack do not have high LDL, he notes. Cohn advocates treating patients with statins based on the state of health of their arteries, as revealed by noninvasive tests such as ultrasound. ?If your arteries and heart are healthy, I don?t care what your LDL or blood pressure is,? he says.

?We can?t just assume that modifying the risk factor is modifying risk.?
Not all cardiologists want to abolish LDL targets. Indeed, Seth Martin, a fellow in cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, believes that ATP IV should reduce LDL targets further. The simplicity of targets has helped to deliver an important public-health message, he says, and motivated many patients to get the statin therapy that he believes they need. ?Just to throw that out the window doesn?t seem like the ideal scenario.?

Whatever the decision, the pharmaceutical industry will be watching closely, says Donny Wong, an analyst at Decision Resources, a market-research company based in Watertown, Massachusetts. Although most statins are off patent, the big pharmaceutical companies are racing to bring the next LDL-lowering drug to market. In particular, millions of dollars have been poured into drugs that inhibit a protein called PCSK9, an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis. This approach lowers LDL but has not yet been shown to reduce heart attacks or strokes.

Francis expects the new guidelines to relax the targets. He and his colleagues decided last autumn to change the VA?s own clinical standards, so that they no longer rely solely on an LDL target but instead encourage doctors to prescribe a moderate dose of statin when otherwise healthy patients have high LDL cholesterol. The ATP IV guidelines will take a similar approach, he speculates, noting that the VA consulted several outside experts who are also serving on the ATP committee.

Despite an increasingly vegetarian diet, Francis?s cholesterol has not budged. ?Sometimes I want to call my physician and say, ?Don?t worry about that target,?? he says. ?It?s going to be changing very soon.?
?

This story is reprinted with permission from Nature. It was first published on February 26, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2c469272062847be164c9192fe12d2d8

danielle fishel FedEx Gabriel Aubry cyber monday deals small business saturday small business saturday best cyber monday deals

Raul Castro promises an end of an era in Cuba

On Sunday, Cuban President Raul Castro promised to step down at the end of his 5-year term in 2018. Analysts say he's seeking gradual change, without Cuba's old revolutionaries losing control.

By Sara Miller Llana,?Staff writer / February 25, 2013

Cuba's President Raul Castro participates in the closure session of the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Sunday. Castro accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last as Cuba's president and also replaced his No. 2 with a younger Cuban who would be poised to rule if something were to befell Mr. Castro before his second term ends.

Franklin Reyes/AP

Enlarge

Cuban President Raul Castro made the strongest statement yet that the island nation is preparing for a post-Castro era in announcing yesterday that he will step down in five years with plans to institute term limits.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

He also replaced his No. 2 with a younger Cuban who would be poised to rule if something were to befell Mr. Castro before his second term ends in five years ? the first time the nation would be led by someone who did not directly fight in the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Castro himself told lawmakers the nation was at a moment of ?historic transcendence.?

But while a monumental announcement internally, it does not necessarily imply that a vastly different Cuba awaits in 2018 ? one of capitalism and free elections, for example. And the generational transition underway faces several risks as Cuba inches forward with reforms to save its economy, says William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University.

?One risk is that it fails, that resistance from... party bureaucrats prevents the government from carrying out reform,? he says. ?The other is that the reforms will work but they create both winners and losers, that they?ll intensify economic inequality and undermine the social safety network that Cuba has been so proud of.?

Raul Castro, who temporarily took over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2006 and permanently two years later, has long been considered the more practical of the Castro brothers. In?just under?seven years he has already ushered in historic change, introducing a legalized real estate market, an end to travel restrictions, and more permissions for private businesses.

He had long said he was committed to generational change in top leadership but his words were never followed by action.The Castro brothers have preserved legitimacy in Cuba for several reasons, including free healthcare and education for all. But much of it came from the direct role that government officials played in the successful revolution that overthrew?a US-backed regime that was widely unpopular. ?

On Sunday, however, Castro hinted that a non-Cold War figure will soon lead the nation, replacing Jose Ramon Machado Ventura with Miguel Diaz-Canel, aged 52, as his number 2.

Term limits

On Sunday he said that he would like to establish two consecutive term limits with age limits for leaders, including presidents. In doing so, he would set the first example, in contrast to his brother, who held onto power for nearly 50 years.

Yet while it?s a direct break with the Fidel Castro government, it does so in the name of preserving the old system, which Raul Castro reiterated on Sunday. "I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba," he said. "I was elected to defend, maintain, and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it."

?He is slowly but continuously rolling out his version of a new Cuba, which is half continuity with the past and half breaking with past,? says Ted Henken, president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.?That means that he is forging forward with change, but in a way that ?protects the top-down control and authoritarian nature of the regime,? Mr. Henken, also a professor at Baruch College at The City University of New York,?says. ?This is the first sign of a real of generational transfer. But it doesn?t mean at all that there will be a transition.?

That?s because the changes announced are not the result of grassroots work but a hand-picked succession in an authoritarian context. At any time, any member of the younger generation could be reined in for not aligning closely enough with the revolution, says Henken.? ?This is the older generation methodically and thoughtfully choosing people they can then trust with their revolution,??he?says.

Still, a new generation is likely to be more open to change, particularly?economic reform?but also administrative and political reform. ?They are going to be pragmatic, maybe more pragmatic than some of the older generation,? says Mr. LeoGrande. ?They have a better sense of some of the problems the country faces because they?ve grown up with them.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/wUtdmTT4OGQ/Raul-Castro-promises-an-end-of-an-era-in-Cuba

blagojevich new mexico state kevin rose sessions march madness scores doonesbury padma lakshmi

Safety on everyone's mind at Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Raymond Gober parked his motorcycle outside Daytona International Speedway, climbed off and briefly considered bringing his helmet into the track.

"I was about to wear it in, but I knew everyone would be laughing at me," said Gober, a pastor from outside Atlanta.

Maybe not.

Safety was on everyone's mind before and during the Daytona 500 on Sunday, a day after a horrific wreck in a second-tier NASCAR series race hurled chunks of debris, including a heavy tire, into the stands and injured nearly 30 people.

With small spots of blood still soaked into the concrete seating area, the accident raised questions about the safety of fans at race tracks. Should fences be higher and sturdier? Should grandstands be farther from the track?

NASCAR has long been a big draw because of its thrilling speeds, tight-knit racing, frantic finishes and the ability to get so close to the action.

That proximity comes with some risk.

And after Saturday's 12-car melee on the final lap of the Nationwide Series opener, some questioned whether that risk outweighed the reward.

"These are the best seats in the house, but they're also dangerous," Gober said.

Gober was one of thousands of fans who returned to Daytona less than 24 hours after Kyle Larson's car flew into the fence, crumbled into pieces and sprayed parts at spectators.

Early in the 500-mile "Great American Race," a nine-car wreck took out several top contenders.

Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart and 2007 race winner Kevin Harvick were knocked out.

The wreck started when Kasey Kahne let off the gas to slow as they neared the first turn at Daytona International Speedway ? not too far from Saturday's near-disaster. Kyle Busch tried to do the same, but couldn't avoid contact.

Busch sent Kahne spinning across the track. Juan Pablo Montoya, 2010 race winner Jamie McMurray and defending series champion Brad Keselowski also were involved.

Thankfully, the wrecking cars stayed on the track. Things would be considerably different had they done the same Saturday.

"You don't have time to react, but I just remember thinking, 'This is gonna hurt,'" said Steve Bradford, of Dade City. "We were showered with debris."

Gober picked up a bolt that landed next to his left foot and plans to take it home as a souvenir from a crash that could have considerably worse.

He and Bradford have been coming to races at Daytona for years, always seeking out scalped tickets so they can get ultra-close to the cars zooming by at 200 mph.

Now, though?

"Needless to say, we won't be here next year," Bradford said ? meaning the seats, not the race.

He pointed at the upper level.

"Next year, we'll be up there," he said.

Not everyone felt the same way.

John and Andrea Crawford, of Streetsboro, Ohio, love sitting a few rows up. They were there Saturday and back again Sunday, just like so many in that seating section.

The area had rubber marks on seats hit by the tire. Several fans pointed out a chair bent backward, the spot one man was sitting when he got pummeled by the 60-pound tire and wheel.

"I'm not nervous," Andrea Crawford said. "It doesn't happen that much."

When Rick Barasso arrived at his seats, he noticed a few reporters and some tire marks. He asked what was going on and then couldn't stop smiling as he waved his friends over and shared details with them.

"These should be good seats," he said. "I mean, what are the chances?"

Maybe small, but there's little doubt the latest fallout could prompt NASCAR and track officials to consider changes ? at Daytona and elsewhere.

Daytona has plans to remodel the grandstands. Track President Joie Chitwood said Saturday's wreck could prompt sturdier fences or stands farther from the action.

"It's tough to connect the two right now in terms of a potential redevelopment and what occurred," Chitwood said. "We were prepared yesterday, had emergency medical respond. As we learn from this, you bet: If there are things that we can incorporate into the future, whether it's the current property now or any other redevelopment, we will.

"The key is sitting down with NASCAR, finding out the things that happened and how we deal with them."

Daytona reexamined its fencing and ended up replacing the entire thing following Carl Edwards' scary crash at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama in 2009. Edwards' car sailed into the fence and spewed debris into the stands.

"We've made improvements since then," Chitwood said. "I think that's the key: that we learn from this and figure out what else we need to do."

Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford said Sunday that things should be done across auto racing. It was just 16 months ago that IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon was killed when his car crashed into a fence at Las Vegas.

"Maybe we need a double fence, one behind the other, with maybe a space in between to do something to stop this," Rutherford said. "There's a lot of things. I'm sure NASCAR and the IndyCar series are looking at everything to make it safer. What happened yesterday was a terrible thing.

"The drivers, we accept that. That's part of the game. We have to roll the dice and move on. But you don't want to involve the fans."

Chitwood said any fans who felt uncomfortable with their up-close seating for the Daytona 500 could exchange their tickets for spots elsewhere.

"If fans are unhappy with their seating location or if they have any incidents, we would relocate them," Chitwood said. "So we'll treat that area like we do every other area of the grandstand. If a fan is not comfortable where they're sitting, we make every accommodation we can."

Few fans seemed willing to relocate.

"Real NASCAR fans ain't scared," said Zeb Daniels, who was attending his fifth Daytona 500 with his daughter. "If we see anything coming to the fence, we'll hit the floor and pray."

So why take a chance?

"We come for the thrill, the excitement," Daniels said. "We can feel the heat, the tire rubber in our eyes."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/safety-everyones-mind-daytona-500-194639656--spt.html

chrome for android hatchet leah messer freedom riders 9th circuit court of appeals gisele bundchen tom brady randy travis arrested

Analysis: China central bank takes lead in economic reform push

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's readiness to bend retirement rules to keep arch-reformer Zhou Xiaochuan at the helm of the central bank signals clearly that new Communist Party chiefs want to speed economic reform in the country's most critical development phase in three decades.

Central bank insiders interviewed by Reuters say the People's Bank of China (PBOC) is the country's most potent force for reform in the face of powerful vested interests, echoing sources with leadership ties who last week said Zhou would keep his job despite reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65.

Keeping Zhou ensures that the PBOC will remain a trusted instrument through which China's leaders can enact financial reforms designed to boost free markets and private enterprise, rebalance the economy, reinvigorate growth and ultimately heal a socially divisive rift between the country's rich and poor.

"Governor Zhou has been rather bold in spearheading market reforms and sometimes does not care about the possible repercussions," said a PBOC official who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. "They really need someone who can sustain the reform momentum."

The reform agenda espoused by Party leaders Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang is not always popular with the local government officials, state-backed business and cosseted national lenders who would find their power bases fundamentally weakened.

Liberalizing interest rates, for example, would hit fat lending margins at state banks.

Expanding capital markets would end subsidized access to funds for state-owned enterprises and cut private sector finance costs while creating investment options beyond real estate -- cooling the property speculation that lays at the heart of local government corruption and debt risks.

The PBOC has a track record of getting the job done in the face of entrenched opposition.

It has modernized domestic bond and money markets, laid the groundwork for short-term market instruments to manage bank liquidity and credit, while simultaneously creating mechanisms that allow the PBOC to resist pressure from growth-obsessed local officials to constantly tweak interest rates.

Indeed, the last 12 months have produced the most important package of interest rate, currency and capital market reforms since the landmark July 2005 break of the yuan's peg to the dollar -- and all in a year when political change at the top of the Party was supposed to stall change elsewhere.

That's despite a clear clash with the China Banking Regulatory Commission on the liberalization of interest rates.

"Big banks were definitely against interest rate reform, but they could not openly oppose it," Zhao Qingming, senior economist at China Construction Bank, one of the so-called "Big Four" state banks.

When the PBOC proposed doubling the yuan's trading band to 1 percent last year, it worked hard to soothe fears of the Commerce Ministry that it would not harm the export sector, according to sources familiar with the situation.

"We were persuaded that further sharp appreciation was very unlikely," said a senior researcher with the Ministry.

Arguably it was Zhou's 2005 success in engineering a break of the yuan's dollar peg in the face of staunch opposition from the Commerce Ministry that most clearly states his credentials.

PRAGMATIC REFORMER

Yu Yongding, a respected economist and leading advocate of major currency reform, recalls the wrangling required to make the decision on a PBOC monetary policy committee stacked with senior officials from a variety of government departments.

Yu, an economist at the top government think-tank, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), sat on the policy panel from 2004 to 2006, as the PBOC went head-to-head with critics of revaluation who complained that exporters could not withstand any rise in the value of the yuan.

"Their views had to reflect the stance of their respective departments," Yu told Reuters, recalling the logjam as pro-export officials railed against the suggestion of some other committee members of a revaluation of as much as 10 percent.

Yu says Zhou's pragmatic approach defused the row, agreeing to a small initial rise of 2.1 percent in the yuan's value against the dollar, while forging a top-level consensus on the incremental annual pace of currency strengthening that has seen it gain around 33 percent in nominal terms since.

Despite the stronger yuan, China has become the world's single biggest exporting economy while its companies have been forced to make productivity and quality improvements to stay competitive.

Xi and Li, due to take over in March as President and Premier, respectively, need to engineer an even more widespread move up the value chain to deliver enough growth to support China's next stage of economic development -- and the transfer of about 400 million people into cities from the countryside.

That's no mean feat given the general conclusion that China's export-oriented, state-driven economic model that delivered three decades of breakneck double-digit expansion, has reached the outer limits of its effectiveness.

Growth in the world's second-biggest economy slowed in 2012 to a 13-year low, albeit at a 7.8 percent rate that is the envy of other major economies.

Many analysts believe China's growth will be nearer 5 percent than 10 by the end of this decade without far-reaching economic reform -- a worry for a government that has pledged to double household income over the coming decade in a bid to close a wealth gap so wide it threatens social stability.

About 13 percent of China's 1.3 billion people still live on less than $1.25 per day according to the United Nations Development Programme and average urban disposable income is just 21,810 yuan ($3,500) a year.

Meanwhile China has 2.7 million dollar millionaires and 251 billionaires, according to the Hurun Report.

STALKING HORSE

Using the PBOC as a catalyst for reforms is a smart move, provided the anticipated domino-effect works as expected and relatively straightforward liberalization efforts trigger more fundamental evolution in China's economic structure.

The PBOC must make bank borrowing costs more market-driven to improve resource allocation and wean the economy off its reliance on state-led investment, analysts say.

But the financial system is dominated by big state-owned banks that channel the bulk of loans to state projects and state-owned enterprises, starving private enterprise of cash.

All of which conspires against the creation of additional investment options for Chinese households, lumbered mainly with low-yielding bank deposits that constrain consumption.

Optimists say that even if it doesn't deliver entirely as anticipated, the PBOC is likely to be more effective in the short-term than trying more politically-charged reforms, such as China's strict system of household registration, or Hukou.

A further advantage of using the PBOC as the instrument for change is that the most important decisions it disseminates are essentially edicts approved by the State Council - China's cabinet - or by the Communist Party's ruling Politburo.

Keeping a reform-oriented Zhou in the top PBOC job ensures the leadership is dealing with a like-mind.

"If we get someone who is tepid and does everything on an even keel, the reform process could be slowed," said Xu Hongcai, a former PBOC staffer and now a senior economist at China Centre for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), a Beijing-based think-tank. "We must ensure policy continuity while injecting a new air into reforms."

(Editing by Nick Edwards and)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-central-bank-takes-lead-economic-reform-push-211049320--business.html

minnesota vikings looper New Years Eve new years washington redskins New Year Outback Bowl

Berlusconi's last throw of the dice in Italy election

ROME (Reuters) - Billionaire showman Silvio Berlusconi has again astonished Italy with a storming comeback that has frayed nerves in European capitals and among investors, but the signs are his final gamble has failed.

The 76-year-old media magnate and four-times prime minister looked down and out for much of 2012 after a jeering crowd hounded him from office in November 2011 as Italy tottered towards a Greek-style debt crisis.

His indecision over whether to stand in this weekend's election brought his People of Freedom Party (PDL) to the brink of disintegration.

But since precipitating the fall of his successor, technocrat Mario Monti, in December and diving into the campaign, the former cruise ship crooner has shown unrivalled mastery of communication and energy belying his age.

"Berlusconi was a poor prime minister but is a very tough campaigner, he never gives up," said analyst Massimo Franco.

Italy's longest-serving prime minister, who has a gift for off-the-cuff humor, has run rings around both the professorial Monti and colorless centre-left frontrunner Pier Luigi Bersani in the charisma stakes.

However, most pollsters think Berlusconi still lags Bersani and that in the last few days of the campaign the center left may in fact be increasing a gap which stood at around 5 percentage points when a polling blackout began on February 9.

Berlusconi is believed to be suffering at the hands of another populist crowd pleaser, anti-establishment 5-Star Movement leader Beppe Grillo, who is riding a wave of popular disgust with traditional politicians.

Grillo's success - some analysts believe he may reach 20 percent and overtake the PDL - could undermine Berlusconi's bid to win enough Senate seats to paralyze a center-left-led government that is likely to make a ruling alliance with Monti.

If Berlusconi does indeed fail, despite a remarkable campaign, many pundits believe he will gradually fade and eventually lose leadership of the center right that he has headed for almost 20 years.

EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER

Berlusconi is one of the most extraordinary characters to come out of Italy's often bizarre political landscape, possessing a unique mix of political talent, brazen behavior and propensity for diplomatic gaffes that led to his virtual ostracism from European summits before his fall in 2011.

As he climbed the ratings in recent weeks, the nervousness in European capitals, particularly his favorite target Germany, was palpable.

But calls by European politicians to vote for Monti and not Berlusconi have only played into the former premier's hands, creating resentment at foreign interference and damaging the outgoing prime minister.

Berlusconi had for years seemed virtually immune to controversies that would have destroyed a politician in many parts of the world. He has survived up to 30 prosecutions for fraud and corruption and is currently on trial for having sex with an underage prostitute during lurid "bunga bunga" parties.

His wife Veronica left him 2009, accusing him of consorting with underage women, and was awarded a settlement of 100,000 euros ($132,200) a day. But he even made campaign jokes about that.

The perma-tanned media tycoon has been mocked outside Italy for his facelifts, hair transplant and obvious make-up but has shown an enduring ability over the last month to appeal to a large body of conservative voters, especially middle-aged women.

At a campaign rally in Milan on Monday the adoring crowd chanted "Silvio! Silvio!" One woman admirer shrugged off the sex scandals, saying women "throw themselves on him."

Earlier this week, a 30-year-old woman demanded he apologize for suggestive remarks he made to her at a public event, saying they had reduced her 13-year-old daughter to tears.

But Berlusconi possesses keen political instincts that enabled him to hit issues that have traction with voters, unlike Monti who failed to run a good campaign as a centrist, and Bersani, a boring orator and lackluster campaigner.

Berlusconi attacked Monti's hated housing tax, a sure-fire winner with voters suffering in a deep recession, and recently stepped up the heat by offering to pay it back. He has accused Monti of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and imposing austerity at Berlin's orders.

But he has consistently showed himself to be better at promises than action, failing to implement pledges to liberalize an inflexible and uncompetitive economy despite his landslide third election victory in 2008,

Berlusconi, one of Italy's richest men, burst into politics in 1994, creating his own party almost overnight to fill a void on the right caused by a huge corruption scandal that swept away traditional parties including the Christian Democrats.

He billed himself as a new force different from traditional politicians but now ironically looks like being pushed aside by the rise of Grillo, like him 20 years ago, a new element in a tired political landscape.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlusconis-last-throw-dice-italy-election-094836639--finance.html

cmas tcu dr. oz heart attack grill las vegas the heart attack grill joe kennedy iii joseph kennedy iii

Fragments of continents hidden under lava in the Indian Ocean

Public release date: 24-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: F. Ossing
ossing@gfz-potsdam.de
49-331-288-1040
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

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

A picture in printable resolution can be found here: http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie+Mauritia/130222_Reunion_Hotspot

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 24-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: F. Ossing
ossing@gfz-potsdam.de
49-331-288-1040
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

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

A picture in printable resolution can be found here: http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie+Mauritia/130222_Reunion_Hotspot

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/haog-foc022213.php

kristin chenoweth Robert Blake BLK Water ESPYs daniel tosh Jason Kidd All Star Game 2012

Governors join White House to fight automatic cuts

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, left, speaks to reporters during a break at the opening session of the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Exasperated governors who are trying to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts say Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, left, speaks to reporters during a break at the opening session of the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Exasperated governors who are trying to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts say Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, left, gestures asIshe speaks to a reporter before the start of a Health and Homeland Security Committee meeting on ?Protecting Our Nation: States and Cybersecurity? during the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Standing at the back right, is Governor of Puerto Rico Alejandro Garc?a Padilla. Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession, exasperated governors said Saturday as they try to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts. And both Democrat and Republican CEOs expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the massive, automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Health and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gov. Martin O?Malley of Maryland, right, and Vice Chairman Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, talk at the start of the committee?s meeting on ?Protecting Our Nation: States and Cybersecurity? during the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession, exasperated governors said Saturday as they try to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts. And both Democrat and Republican CEOs expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the massive, automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, left, shakes hands with Walgreens CEO and President Gregory Wasson, right, during a break at the opening session of the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Walgreens CEO and President Gregory Wasson, center, with National Governors Association Chairman Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, right, and Vice Chairman Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, left, speaks during the opening session of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. States are grappling with a wave of uncertainty from Washington and facing the potential of spending cuts from the so-called "sequester" as they try to climb out of tough economic conditions. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? With the deadline for action less than a week away, exasperated governors are joining a White House push to intensify pressure on Congress to prevent a looming budget crisis.

Both Democrat and Republican chief executives, gathered in Washington for the National Governors Association annual meeting, warned of widespread economic fallout should Washington lawmakers fail to reach an 11th-hour compromise.

"It's senseless and it doesn't need to happen," Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, said Saturday. "And it's a damn shame, because we've actually had the fastest rate of jobs recovery of any state in our region. And this really threatens to hurt a lot of families in our state and kind of flat line our job growth for the next several months."

Indeed, some governors expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1, pointing to the impasse as another crisis between the White House and Congress that spooks businesses from hiring and hampers their ability to construct state spending plans.

"I've not given up hope, but we're going to be prepared for whatever comes," said Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican. "There will be consequences for our state."

White House officials are scheduled to join several governors on Sunday morning television shows, where they're expected to continue a public education campaign designed to outline the real consequences of inaction. Members of President Barack Obama's Cabinet in recent days warned of widespread flight delays, shuttered airports, off-limit seashores and hundreds of thousands of furloughed employees spread across dozens of states.

Both Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are scheduled to appear on national television. O'Malley is among the governors also set to be featured, along with Republican Govs. Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, Bob McDonnell, of Virginia, and Arizona's Jan Brewer.

There are fewe signs of urgency among congressional leaders, who have recently indicated their willingness to let the cuts take effect and stay in place for weeks, if not much longer.

The cuts would trim $85 billion in domestic and defense spending, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of workers at the Transportation Department, Defense Department and elsewhere.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces.

Obama has unsuccessfully pushed his approach of reducing deficits through a combination of targeted savings and tax increases. House Republicans have said reduced spending needs to be the focus and have rejected the president's demand to include higher taxes as part of a compromise.

___

Follow Steve Peoples at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples and Ken Thomas at: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

___

Online:

National Governors Association: http://www.nga.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-24-US-Budget-Battle/id-6b9b0d16cf764a84a3824174b60d5555

micron