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Friday, November 30, 2012
Lee County Humane Society to hold annual campaign No More ...
AUBURN, AL (WTVM) -
Lee County Humane Society will hold the 17th Annual No
More Wasted Lives fundraising campaign beginning Monday, Dec. 10 at noon at the
Kroger on Dean Road parking lot.?
Lee County Humane Society Executive Director, Bobbi Yeo, will remain locked in a dog kennel, day and night, until the fund-raising goal of more than $26,000 is reached.?
No More Wasted Lives is the shelter's largest fundraiser, and all proceeds from this campaign directly benefit the animals at the shelter.
Lee County Humane Society cares for more than 5,000 animals each year.?Lee County Humane Society hopes to raise $5 for every animal that came through the shelter's doors over the past year.?Lee County Humane Society cared for 5,374 pets in 2012, and its goal is to raise $26,870 in honor and memory of these animals.
Lee County Humane Society invites the entire Lee County community to visit Bobbi during her stay in the kennel and support the shelter by making a donation.?Holiday cards will be available to send to friends and family acknowledging donations made as memorials or honorariums.? Donations to the Lee County Humane Society are tax-deductible, and all donors will receive a letter acknowledging their gift.
Lee County Humane Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving the citizens of Lee County through animal rescue, the promotion of responsible animal companionship, and the elimination of pet overpopulation.?
Copyright 2012 WTVM. All rights reserved.
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Sandy slowed US consumer spending and pay in Oct.
FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 file photo, a sign advertising a sale is seen posted on a storefront in Philadelphia. Americans cut back on spending in October and saw no growth in their income, reflecting disruptions from Superstorm Sandy. On Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, the Commerce Department said consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in October. That's down from an increase of 0.8 percent in September and the weakest showing since May. Income was flat in the month following a 0.4 percent rise in September. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 file photo, a sign advertising a sale is seen posted on a storefront in Philadelphia. Americans cut back on spending in October and saw no growth in their income, reflecting disruptions from Superstorm Sandy. On Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, the Commerce Department said consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in October. That's down from an increase of 0.8 percent in September and the weakest showing since May. Income was flat in the month following a 0.4 percent rise in September. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Americans cut back on spending last month while their income remained flat. The weakness in part reflected disruptions from Superstorm Sandy that could slow economic growth for the rest of the year.
The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in October. It was the weakest figure since May, and it compared with a 0.8 percent spending increase in September.
Income had risen 0.4 percent in September.
Work interruptions caused by the storm reduced wages and salaries in October by about $18 billion at an annual rate, the government said. The storm affected 24 states, with the most severe damage in New York and New Jersey.
Consumers may also be scaling back on spending because of fears about the "fiscal cliff." That's the name for automatic tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect in January if Congress and the Obama administration fail to strike a budget deal by then.
"The upshot is that although both incomes and spending will probably bounce back in November, the underlying trend is weak," said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
The depressed spending figures suggest that the economy is growing more slowly in the October-December quarter than it did in the July-September quarter. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity.
Dales predicts U.S. economic growth will tumble from the 2.7 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter to a weak 1 percent in the October-December period. That's too low to lower the unemployment rate, now at 7.9 percent.
Even discounting the effects of Sandy, income and spending gains would have been meager. Income would have risen a still-weak 0.1 percent. Spending would have been essentially flat, Dales estimated.
After-tax income adjusted for inflation fell 0.1 percent in October. And spending, when adjusted for inflation, dropped 0.3 percent ? the biggest such decline in three years.
The saving rate edged up slightly to 3.4 percent of after-tax income in October, compared with 3.3 percent in September.
Many economists say growth will rebound in the New Year once the rebuilding phase begins in the Northeast.
And if President Barack Obama and Congress can reach a budget deal to avert to fiscal cliff, some economists, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, are predicting a strong year for the economy.
Still, the storm's impact has slowed sales in the nation's most densely populated region ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.
The International Council of Shopping Centers said 18 major retailers reported sales rose 1.7 percent in November compared with the same period a year ago. The group had been expecting sales growth between 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent.
The economic damage from the storm may be starting to fade, though. Retailers are reporting solid sales over the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend.
And applications for unemployment benefits have fallen from an 18-month high in the first week of November. That surge was driven by applications in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Still, the increase in unemployment applications earlier this month will likely depress job growth for November. Many economists predict that net job growth for November will range between 25,000 and 75,000 ? well below the 171,000 jobs that were added in October.
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There's not as much deep sea life as thought
There's life deep under the sea, but not as much as we thought.
Scientists looking at the abundance of microbes in the sediments under the seafloor ? the so-called deep biosphere once thought to be teeming with more than 300 billion tons of life ? have found that the vast subterranean world is not quite so crowded.
The new research followed up on landmark findings from 15 years ago, when researchers from the University of Georgia estimated that subseafloor sediments housed 35.5 x 10^29 microbes (that's 1 followed by 29 zeroes), comprising 334 billion tons (303 x 10^12 kilograms) of carbon.
The new study calculates that a mere 4.1 x 10^29 microbes, made up of 4.5 billion tons (4.1 x 10^12 kilograms) of carbon, live in the subseafloor. The new tally is 92 percent smaller than the earlier estimate, but still indicates a significant amount of subseafloor microbial biomass.
Low levels of life
The difference comes from a larger sampling of ocean sediment environments, the researchers say.
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Science news from NBCNews.com
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Scientists build with bricks of DNA
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Researchers have coaxed single strands of DNA to fit together like Lego bricks and form scores of complex three-dimensional shapes.
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Scientists build with bricks of DNA
"Basically all the sites that were used in the previous studies were in high-productivity areas, so all estimates had to be skewed towards higher values," said Jens Kallmeyer, a geomicrobiologist at the University of Potsdam in Germany, who led the study. "The earlier cell counts are correct ? we also used them for our model ? but they do not cover the whole range of conditions in the world's oceans."
Sediments in upwelling zones ? where nutrient-rich waters from greater depths circulate into upper ocean layers ? and areas near the shore typically house the greatest number of microbes because they are the most nutrient-rich areas of the ocean floor. Farther from shore, however, fewer nutrients reach the bottom of the sea and microbial cell counts are typically much lower ? up to five times lower, Kallmeyer's team found. [ Strangest Places Where Life Is Found on Earth ]
As much as 40 percent of the ocean floor can be classified as ultra-oligotrophic, or extremely nutrient-poor, Kallmeyer said. In these areas, ocean sediments contain oxygen throughout their entire depth. Since microbial metabolism typically removes oxygen from ocean sediments, high oxygen levels are a telltale sign of very low levels of microbial life.
Really small, hard to count
Microbial cells found in deep subsurface environments are often extremely small ? close to the theoretical limit of how small such lifeforms can be ? thanks to extremely limited levels of nutrients, Kallmeyer said, which makes counting them difficult. His team had to sample large volumes of sediment to find enough microbes to count under the microscope.
"There isn't much life down there," Kallmeyer told OurAmazingPlanet.
According to the team's findings, detailed online Aug. 27 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the subseafloor houses about the same number of microbes as the planet's soil and seawater environments, though Kallmeyer thinks researchers may soon be spurred to re-examine those numbers.
"Given how drastically we changed the subseafloor sedimentary cell abundance by using just a larger dataset, I can't help but ask myself how well the numbers for other environments are actually constrained," he said.
Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and? Google+.
? 2012 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50029660/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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iPhone faces a real challenge as Android app revenue surges
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, has suffered a stroke but is OK and resting in a Las Vegas hospital, a family friend said on Thursday. "He was doing well and says he's feeling OK," close family friend Brian Oxman told Reuters. Oxman, Michael Jackson's one-time attorney, said the 83-year-old patriarch of the pop music family started experiencing weakness on Wednesday while walking in a park near his home and was later admitted to a hospital. Jackson has a history of strokes, Oxman said. "He was talking fine," Oxman added. "He sounded excellent to me." A former ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iphone-faces-real-challenge-android-app-revenue-surges-220530002.html
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Students at Layton Junior High get their game on | The Salt Lake ...
(Carol Lindsay | The Salt Lake Tribune) Devin Smith and Miriam Wilson play Ingenious during an after-school board games club at Layton Junior High.
After-school club ? Teacher Stephen Olson loves sharing his passion for board games.
Layton ? Growing up, Stephen Olson loved board games ? all kinds of board games.
He played them with his family and friends. When he went to college at the University of Utah, he started a board game club with fellow students.
Eventually Olson?s friends gave up board games for girlfriends, wives, children and other activities, and the club died out. But Olson?s love for games never diminished.
Fast forward to 2012, and Olson is a math teacher at North Layton Junior High. It?s his first year on the job, and he discovered there is no math club, so he volunteered to supervise one. He then discovers there is no chess club. It?s one of the few board games he doesn?t love, so he asked his administration if he could have a combination chess and board game club.
They consented.
On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, the board game club meets after school from three to five. Olsen is a happy teacher?he gets the chance to play board games and share his knowledge and love of the game with students.
Olsen visited his parents? home and retrieved an assortment of his favorite games from youth including Ingenious, Small World and Tsuro. Other students play trading card games and still others play chess.
"I can?t resist playing games," Olson said. "I play while I?m correcting papers."
The games help students with reassigning skills and logic. Small World teaches them about combination and how things can synergize or work against one another. Olson said the students also have to learn to put on their poker faces when playing.
While the majority of game playing is friendly, tension can break out.
story continues below
"Small World gets a little heated," Olson said.
Seventh-grader Alex Chipman loves the structure of board games.
"I have Asperger?s so this is one of the few times I can open up and enjoy myself," said Alex, who flits around the room checking out all the games. "I don?t like it when people don?t follow the rules. Here I don?t have to worry about people going against the rules because if they don?t follow them, the game won?t work."
Alex?s father, David Chipman, is a resource teacher at North Layton Junior High. He enjoys having Alex participate in the club. "It keeps him occupied and forces him to interact socially," he said. "I think it gives the kids a way of expressing their own personality without having to be afraid of what anybody else thinks about it because they all have a shared interest in the games. If you are passive or aggressive in your play it?s OK, it?s a game, and no one gets hurt."
Eighth-grader Miriam Wilson has always loved board games, and she has not missed a single day of club. At home she played Monopoly and Sorry. The club has introduced her to new games.
"I like playing with other people," Miriam said. "After I?ve played with them for a while, I know what they are thinking and what their next move is going to be."
At another table sit the trading-card gamers. Two brothers, Braden and Cameron Putnam, are in the club. They enjoy playing games with each other and their brother, but they joined the game club to play against new people.
Next Page >Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55294777-78/games-club-board-game.html.csp
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55th Annual Jacksonville Christmas Parade
Decmber 1 is when Santa is making an early appearance at the 55th annual Jacksonville Christmas Parade. Starting at 1 p.m. at 5 Municipal Drive, bring the whole family out to enjoy a fun day filled with fun.?The proceeds benefit the Jacksonville Boys & Girls Club. Call 501-982-4316 for more information.
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North Idaho authorities concerned about Washington marijuana law
Washington's new marijuana law is raising eyebrows nationwide and causing concern across the border with law enforcement officers in Idaho.
The law legalizes recreational pot use and sets up state-licensed growers and distributors. Across the border the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department said they'll have to step up their game to crack down on marijuana and a law that will bring in revenue for Washington could end up costing Kootenai County.
"I think we will see a lot more possession cases. I think unfortunately we will see a lot of under the influence cases," Kootenai County Sheriff's Lieutenant Stu Miller said.
video Kootenai County deputies deal with around five marijuana cases a week. Lt. Miller predicts it could double when the new Washington law kicks into action. .
"We have a responsibility to protect our community. In our community it's against the law to have marijuana. We are going to have to step up our efforts to make sure we are protecting those folks, making sure their voices are still heard," Miller said.
Law enforcement classifies marijuana as a gateway drug, and worries addiction could spike and lead to harder drug use. It's possible the new law could put a little more pressure on an already crowded jail and that more manpower will be needed to handle any spike in crime.
"Our deputies will have to take more time away from finding people on the streets, more incidents of fights because of drug based burglaries, thefts," Miller explained.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Initiative 502 could cause problems at the border.
"When outside the state people start coming here to buy marijuana what happens, who's going to enforce that if they take it across state lines? That's going to be a federal issue. Then you will have a federal versus state issue," Knezovich said..
Now it's a waiting game to see how this will actually impact Idaho. Washington state officials have a little more than year to license farmers and retail stores to distribute pot to the public. That gives law enforcement officials in Idaho time to figure out how they're going to respond.
"We are going to be doing some planning in that year to figure out if there is anything extra we need to do," Lt. Miller said.
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Scientist at Work Blog: Bidding Farewell to the Jewel of the Lotus
Aaron Putnam, a postdoctoral researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, led an expedition to Bhutan to examine links among climate, glaciers and water resources in the Himalaya. This is his final post.
Friday, Nov. 2
A long, tiring drive over a narrow, cliff-bound gravel road took us westward from Sephu back to Thimpu. We dropped Tshewang Rigzin and Pashupati Ssarma at their respective houses, and finally arrived at our hotel where David Putnam and I were met by an enthusiastic and relieved Ed Cook and Paul Krusic. After checking into our room, we compared notes on our respective journeys out of the mountains from Rinchen Zoe.
Ed and Paul said that as they were taking their final steps out of the mountains, they could see the growing storm that would bring blizzard conditions to our high camp at Rinchen Zoe La. Needless to say, they were concerned about our welfare and were doubly relieved to see that we made it from the field site unscathed.
We recounted our saga to Ed and Paul, and they filled us in on theirs. They were able to exit the mountains on schedule for Mike Roberts to catch his flight. The good news was that Ed, Paul, and Karma Tenzin of the Council for Renewable Natural Resources were able to make a reconnaissance collection of samples from the ancient juniper trees growing at the timberline below Tampe La.
These will be among the highest growing trees they have sampled in Bhutan. Ed and Paul were excited about the possibility of reconstructing several centuries of atmospheric temperature from these trees, though they wished that there had been more time to build a larger sample collection. This is clearly a promising avenue for further research.
Soon it was time for dinner, and it turns out that our arrival coincided with the departure of Summer Rupper and her student, Josh Maurer.
They decided to delay their ride to the airport in Paro for one more dinner with the team. Our group met at the local pizza restaurant in Thimpu, whose specialty is the dangerously spicy ?Devil?s Pizza.? Also joining us for dinner was Phuntsho Namgyal, who had been so instrumental in helping to plan the logistics for the excursion.
Even though only weeks had passed since we were last in Thimpu together, and even though many of the team members had first met upon our arrival in Bhutan, it felt like a reunion of old friends. Notably absent were Scott Travis, who was afflicted with altitude sickness and had to turn back early in the trip, and Mike Roberts, who departed Bhutan the previous day.
After dinner, Summer and Josh were escorted to Paro and they departed Bhutan.
The next day, David, Paul, Ed and I were to convene at the Ministry of Economic Affairs where I was to deliver a formal debriefing lecture for Karma Tshering, director of the Department of Hydromet Services, and his colleagues. Tshewang met us at our hotel, where he dressed David and me each in a formal gho, which is the traditional male dress of Bhutan (and also requires a fundamental level of skill to put on, which neither David or I possessed).
Ed and Paul were simultaneously dressed, and we were escorted to the department building. I delivered the debriefing lecture for the glacial geology portion of our research. In previous days, while we were still on the trail, Summer and Ed had delivered debriefing lectures on the glaciology and dendrochronology components of the field work.
My lecture focused primarily on the motivations, methods, and expectations for our attempt to discern the record of past glacier fluctuations from Rinchen Zoe. Of particular interest to Karma and his colleagues was the potential for reconstructing fluctuations of mountain snowlines in response to ongoing climate change.
Hydropower in Bhutan is generated largely from runoff resulting from melting snow in the mountains. Thus, any upward migration of the mountain snowline will serve to shrink the existing snowpack available to melt throughout the summer, and diminish the amount of power that can be generated.
Glacier extents hinge on the altitude of mountain snowlines. So if we can use the record of past mountain glaciation to determine how past climate changes have influenced mountain snowline altitudes, then it will be easier to anticipate how rapidly the snowpack will diminish with future warming.
Our discussions combined elements of cross-cultural communication, as well as the void between geologists, who strive to understand how things come to be, and engineers, who are concerned with how to put those things to use. We discussed the water derived from the monsoon versus the winter snowpack, as well as the possible impact of a strengthening monsoon on glaciers.
Again we confronted our differing research questions and expected outcomes. It would take a later visit from Professors Joerg Schaefer and Peter Schlosser of the Earth Institute at Columbia University to iron out those issues to everyone?s satisfaction.
Our last major task involved shipping the samples back to Columbia University. We had spent five weeks traveling, 16 days walking in the mountains, and several days on the winding mountain roads to collect those 57 bags of rock, and it was imperative that they make it safely to the laboratory in New York. Tshewang and Phuntsho had acquired the necessary export permits, and to our delight, the precious 200 or so pounds of samples were whisked away without issue by the local air carrier office.
David and I spent our last day in Thimpu purchasing bundled prayer flags in the open market by the river, kiras for our wives, and visiting the ?zoo? to see Bhutan?s national animal, the takin. After noon, we loaded up a Department of Hydromet Services vehicle for the one-hour drive on the tortuous road to Paro.
Sitting on a high promontory above the Paro valley, we surveyed the ancient pattern of rice paddies, Paro Dzong on a rock outcrop over the river, and the walled Royal Palace complex as the sun set. That evening, in the corner of the hotel lobby where the wireless signal was the strongest, I was interviewed by Marco Werman of PRI?s ?The World? via Skype.
The next day David and I made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Taktsang Monastery, precariously perched on cliffs above Paro. The steep trail up the mountain is punctuated by clusters of prayer flags, prayer wheels, and prayer mills, where tiny rivulets are harnessed to turn a prayer wheel and send the jewel at the heart of the lotus, Om Mani Padme Hum, downstream to the masses in India and Bangladesh.
The following morning we again boarded a Druk Air flight bound for Delhi. Seated on the right side of the plane we were graced with a day of pure, clear, mountain air. The sacred snow-cone of Jomolhari was the first to rise into sight, followed in awesome succession by Kanchenjunga, Makalu, Everest and the great spine of the world stretching eastward to Afghanistan.
We re-entered the modern world in the New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport, the past five weeks in Bhutan rapidly becoming a memory as fleeting as a prayer carried on a mountain breeze. We had experienced the uncompromising freedom of the high mountains and had fled back to the shackles of our lives.
David?s furrowed brow reflected renewed worry about his courses and students at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. I began fretting about the samples, and speeding up the geochemistry. The envelope of random receipts promised days of accounting for the expense report.
Fog prevented our landing in Newark and after a grueling flight from Delhi we sat on an abandoned runway in Newburgh, N.Y., for several hours. David missed his connecting flights, and my wife, Katherine, picked me up hours late in Newark and whisked me home to our apartment in Tappan, N.Y.
The normal routine of life had almost resumed, and then ? Hurricane Sandy! But that is a tale for another blog.
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Physicalism
Often synonymous with materialism, physicalism is the belief that the world is made up of what can be explored through the physical sciences, and nothing more. Is this a defensible position, or does it overlook possible true states of the world and reality?
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Reflecting On U.S. Military's Contribution To Global AIDS Response ...
By Kaiser GH Update
?As we look forward to World AIDS Day this year, I?m amazed at how far we?ve come in the battle against HIV and how effectively U.S. government agencies continue to work collaboratively towards an AIDS-free generation,? Richard Shaffer, director of the U.S. Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program, writes in the AIDS.gov blog. ?At the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (DHAPP) we support HIV prevention programs around the world ? in 70 countries ? providing and expanding HIV prevention, care, and treatment support for active-duty military personnel, dependent family members and surrounding civilian communities,? Shaffer notes and provides a recap of the program?s work since its inception (11/27).
Read more:
Reflecting On U.S. Military?s Contribution To Global AIDS Response
Related posts:
- Military Medicine?s Contribution to an AIDS-free Generation
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- Malawi Needs Donor Support To Maintain HIV/AIDS Treatment Program
- Brazil?s HIV/AIDS Treatment, Prevention Program May Be In Jeopardy, Some?
- Peace Corps Volunteers Provide HIV/AIDS Prevention, Awareness
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Thursday, November 29, 2012
Researchers synthesize new kind of silk fiber, and use music to fine-tune material's properties
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? Pound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by MIT's Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk's unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks.
Now Buehler -- together with David Kaplan of Tufts University and Joyce Wong of Boston University -- has synthesized new variants on silk's natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material.
And an ear for music, it turns out, might be a key to making those structural improvements.
The work stems from a collaboration of civil and environmental engineers, mathematicians, biomedical engineers and musical composers.?
"We're trying to approach making materials in a different way," Buehler explains, "starting from the building blocks" -- in this case, the protein molecules that form the structure of silk. "It's very hard to do this; proteins are very complex."
Other groups have tried to construct such protein-based fibers using a trial-and-error approach, Buehler says. But this team has approached the problem systematically, starting with computer modeling of the underlying structures that give the natural silk its unusual combination of strength, flexibility and stretchiness.
Buehler's previous research has determined that fibers with a particular structure -- highly ordered, layered protein structures alternating with densely packed, tangled clumps of proteins (ABABAB) -- help to give silk its exceptional properties. For this initial attempt at synthesizing a new material, the team chose to look instead at patterns in which one of the structures occurred in triplets (AAAB and BBBA).
Making such structures is no simple task. Kaplan, a chemical and biomedical engineer, modified silk-producing genes to produce these new sequences of proteins. Then Wong, a bioengineer and materials scientist, created a microfluidic device that mimicked the spider's silk-spinning organ, which is called a spinneret.
Even after the detailed computer modeling that went into it, the outcome came as a bit of a surprise, Buehler says. One of the new materials produced very strong protein molecules -- but these did not stick together as a thread. The other produced weaker protein molecules that adhered well and formed a good thread. "This taught us that it's not sufficient to consider the properties of the protein molecules alone," he says. "Rather, [one must] think about how they can combine to form a well-connected network at a larger scale."
The results are reported in a paper published in the journal Nano Today.
The team is now producing several more variants of the material to further improve and test its properties. But one wrinkle in their process may provide a significant advantage in figuring out which materials will be useful and which ones won't -- and perhaps even which might be more advantageous for specific uses. That new and highly unusual wrinkle is music.
The different levels of silk's structure, Buehler says, are analogous to the hierarchical elements that make up a musical composition -- including pitch, range, dynamics and tempo. The team enlisted the help of composer John McDonald, a professor of music at Tufts, and MIT postdoc David Spivak, a mathematician who specializes in a field called category theory. Together, using analytical tools derived from category theory to describe the protein structures, the team figured out how to translate the details of the artificial silk's structure into musical compositions.
The differences were quite distinct: The strong but useless protein molecules translated into music that was aggressive and harsh, Buehler says, while the ones that formed usable fibers sound much softer and more fluid.
Buehler hopes this can be taken a step further, using the musical compositions to predict how well new variations of the material might perform. "We're looking for radically new ways of designing materials," he says.
Combining materials modeling with mathematical and musical tools, Buehler says, could provide a much faster way of designing new biosynthesized materials, replacing the trial-and-error approach that prevails today. Genetically engineering organisms to produce materials is a long, painstaking process, he says, but this work "has taught us a new approach, a fundamental lesson" in combining experiment, theory and simulation to speed up the discovery process.
Materials produced this way -- which can be done under environmentally benign, room-temperature conditions -- could lead to new building blocks for tissue engineering or other uses, Buehler says: scaffolds for replacement organs, skin, blood vessels, or even new materials for use in civil engineering.
Elliott Schwartz, professor emeritus of music at Bowdoin College, says: "For centuries, mathematics, logic and science have provided important models for musical structures, processes, and our understanding of sonic materials. The present research may well lead to one more important chapter in this ongoing story of mutual interaction."
It may be that the complex structures of music can reveal the underlying complex structures of biomaterials found in nature, Buehler says. "There might be an underlying structural expression in music that tells us more about the proteins that make up our bodies. After all, our organs -- including the brain -- are made from these building blocks, and humans' expression of music may inadvertently include more information that we are aware of."
"Nobody has tapped into this," he says, adding that with the breadth of his multidisciplinary team, "We could do this -- making better bio-inspired materials by using music, and using music to better understand biology."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Joyce Y. Wong, John McDonald, Micki Taylor-Pinney, David I. Spivak, David L. Kaplan, Markus J. Buehler. Materials by design: Merging proteins and music. Nano Today, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.nantod.2012.09.001
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.
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China denies yuan 'significantly undervalued'
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Costco to spend $3 billion on special dividend
9 hrs.
Costco will spend $3 billion to pay a special dividend of $7 per share next month ahead of higher tax rates that may kick in come January.?
Many companies are making special end-of-year dividend payments or moving up their quarterly payouts because investors will have to pay higher taxes on dividend income starting in 2013, unless Congress and President Barack Obama reach a compromise on taxes and government spending.?
The Issaquah, Wash., company said Wednesday that the special dividend will be payable Dec. 18 to shareholders of record Dec. 10. In addition, Costco Wholesale Corp. will pay its regular quarterly dividend of 27.5 cents per share on Nov. 30 to shareholders of record as of Nov. 16.?
Costco also said Wednesday that its November revenue climbed nearly 9 percent to $8.15 billion. Revenue from stores open at least a year rose 6 percent. That increase would have totaled 5 percent excluding gains from gasoline price inflation and stronger foreign currencies. Sales were strongest in Texas, the Midwest and the southeastern U.S., as well as Canada and Mexico, the company said on a conference call. Customers snapped up candy, cooler and deli items and Costco said hardware, health and beauty and women's apparel categories also performed well.?
The company is selling $3.5 billion in debt to cover the cost of the special dividend. Costco will sell $1.2 billion in senior notes due in December 2015, $1.1 billion in notes due in December 2017, and $1.2 billion due in December 2019.?
Several Costco warehouses were closed during part of the month due to power outages following Superstorm Sandy. The company estimated that the storm trimmed 0.5 percent from sales of stores open at least a year. That is a key gauge of a retailer's health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.?
Costco's shares rose $6.07, or 6.3 percent, to close at $102.58 on Wednesday. The stock has climbed from a low of $78.81 in early January to a 52-week peak of $104.43 last month.?
Investors have paid a maximum 15 percent tax rate on dividends since 2003. But that historically low rate is set to expire in January. Dividends will be taxed as ordinary income in 2013, the same as wages, so rates will go up depending on which income bracket a taxpayer is in. For the highest earners, the dividend rate could jump to 43.4 percent. Even if a political compromise is reached, there's no guarantee that the tax rate for dividends will remain at its current level.?
Fitch Ratings said Wednesday that it lowered Costco's issuer default rating one notch to "A+" from "AA-" because of the debt the company is taking on. Analyst Philip M. Zahn said "A+" is still considered an above-average, investment-grade rating.?
Costco runs 618 warehouses in several countries, including 447 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.?
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/costco-spend-3-billion-special-dividend-1C7316258
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Virginia Tech scientists discover record-breaking black hole energy blast
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Public release date: 28-Nov-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rosaire Bushey
busheyr@vt.edu
540-231-5035
Virginia Tech
Powerful quasar outflow lives up to predictions
Virginia Tech physics researchers have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever, a finding that may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe.
Researchers studied the quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 in great detail using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and found the most energetic quasar outflow ever discovered.
The rate that energy is carried away by the huge mass of material ejected is equivalent to two trillion times the power output of the sun.
"This is about 100 times higher than the total power output of the Milky Way galaxy it's a real monster outflow," said Nahum Arav, an associate professor of physics in College of Science and leader of the research team, which includes Benoit Borguet, now a postdoctoral researcher now at the University of Liege, Belgium; Doug Edmonds and Carter Chamberlain, both graduate research assistants at Virginia Tech, and Chris Benn, a collaborator who works with the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in Spain.
The findings were released today (Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012) by the European Southern Observatory.
Theorists have predicted energy flows of this magnitude, and simulations have suggested these outflows impact the galaxies around them, but it has all been speculation until now.
"For the last 15 years many theorists have said that if there were such powerful outflows it would help answer many questions on the formation of galaxies, on the behavior of black holes, and on the enrichment of the intergalactic medium with elements other than hydrogen and helium," Arav said. "This discovery means we can better explain the formation of galaxies. There are hundreds of people doing the theoretical side of the work. They hypothesize outflows in their simulations, and now we've found an outflow in the magnitude that has only been theorized in the past. Now they can refine their already impressive models and base them on empirical data."
Quasars are light phenomenon produced as material falls into a black hole producing a huge amount of energy. The bigger the black hole, the bigger the quasar. The Milky Way, according to Arav, is a big galaxy with a "smallish" black hole. The black hole at the heart of quasar SDSS J1106-1939 is massive, estimated to be a thousand times heavier than the black hole in the Milky Way.
And while black holes are noted for pulling material in, quasars accelerate some of the material and eject it at high speed. The larger the quasar, the more material it can take, the higher speed it can accelerate it, and the further it can eject the material.
"Quasars have been known for 40 years," Arav explained. "We were able to figure out how to measure the mass of mechanical energy the black hole is putting out by calculating the size of the outflow, how far away from the black hole it was, and how much mass it had per unit area."
The quasar's outflow is at least five times more powerful than the previous record holder, also discovered by Arav and his research group in 2009, and material from the outflow is inferred to be about a thousand light years away from the black hole at the heart of quasar SDSS J1106-1939.
Every year, according to the team's analysis, a mass of more than 400 times that of the sun is streaming away from the quasar at a speed of 8,000 kilometers per second.
"I've been looking for something like this for a decade," Arav said, "so it's thrilling to finally find one of the monster outflows that have been predicted."
###
The European Southern Observatory contributed information to this report.
The study was supported from NASA STScI grants GO 11686 and GO 12022 as well as NSF grant AST 0837880.
[ | 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: 28-Nov-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rosaire Bushey
busheyr@vt.edu
540-231-5035
Virginia Tech
Powerful quasar outflow lives up to predictions
Virginia Tech physics researchers have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever, a finding that may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe.
Researchers studied the quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 in great detail using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and found the most energetic quasar outflow ever discovered.
The rate that energy is carried away by the huge mass of material ejected is equivalent to two trillion times the power output of the sun.
"This is about 100 times higher than the total power output of the Milky Way galaxy it's a real monster outflow," said Nahum Arav, an associate professor of physics in College of Science and leader of the research team, which includes Benoit Borguet, now a postdoctoral researcher now at the University of Liege, Belgium; Doug Edmonds and Carter Chamberlain, both graduate research assistants at Virginia Tech, and Chris Benn, a collaborator who works with the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in Spain.
The findings were released today (Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012) by the European Southern Observatory.
Theorists have predicted energy flows of this magnitude, and simulations have suggested these outflows impact the galaxies around them, but it has all been speculation until now.
"For the last 15 years many theorists have said that if there were such powerful outflows it would help answer many questions on the formation of galaxies, on the behavior of black holes, and on the enrichment of the intergalactic medium with elements other than hydrogen and helium," Arav said. "This discovery means we can better explain the formation of galaxies. There are hundreds of people doing the theoretical side of the work. They hypothesize outflows in their simulations, and now we've found an outflow in the magnitude that has only been theorized in the past. Now they can refine their already impressive models and base them on empirical data."
Quasars are light phenomenon produced as material falls into a black hole producing a huge amount of energy. The bigger the black hole, the bigger the quasar. The Milky Way, according to Arav, is a big galaxy with a "smallish" black hole. The black hole at the heart of quasar SDSS J1106-1939 is massive, estimated to be a thousand times heavier than the black hole in the Milky Way.
And while black holes are noted for pulling material in, quasars accelerate some of the material and eject it at high speed. The larger the quasar, the more material it can take, the higher speed it can accelerate it, and the further it can eject the material.
"Quasars have been known for 40 years," Arav explained. "We were able to figure out how to measure the mass of mechanical energy the black hole is putting out by calculating the size of the outflow, how far away from the black hole it was, and how much mass it had per unit area."
The quasar's outflow is at least five times more powerful than the previous record holder, also discovered by Arav and his research group in 2009, and material from the outflow is inferred to be about a thousand light years away from the black hole at the heart of quasar SDSS J1106-1939.
Every year, according to the team's analysis, a mass of more than 400 times that of the sun is streaming away from the quasar at a speed of 8,000 kilometers per second.
"I've been looking for something like this for a decade," Arav said, "so it's thrilling to finally find one of the monster outflows that have been predicted."
###
The European Southern Observatory contributed information to this report.
The study was supported from NASA STScI grants GO 11686 and GO 12022 as well as NSF grant AST 0837880.
[ | 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/2012-11/vt-vts112812.php
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Reducing sibling rivalry in youth improves later health and well-being
ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) ? Sibling conflict represents parents' number one concern and complaint about family life, but a new prevention program -- designed and carried out by researchers at Penn State -- demonstrates that siblings of elementary-school age can learn to get along. In doing so, they can improve their future health and well-being.
"Negative sibling relationships are strongly linked to aggressive, anti-social and delinquent behaviors, including substance use," said Mark Feinberg, research professor in the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development. "On the other hand, positive sibling relationships are linked to all kinds of positive adjustment, including improved peer and romantic relationship quality, academic adjustment and success, and positive well being and mental health. With this program, we wanted to help siblings learn how to manage their conflicts and feel more like a team as a way to improve their well-being and avoid engaging in troublesome behaviors over time."
The researchers recruited 174 families living in both rural and urban areas to participate in the study. Each of the families had one child in the fifth grade and a second child in the second, third or fourth grade. To obtain background information about the families, the researchers collected questionnaire data from the parents, interviewed each of the siblings privately and videotaped family interactions. The team also videotaped the siblings as they planned a party together.
The team also gave a popular book on how to parent siblings to each of the families -- including those in the control and the intervention groups -- to see if the intervention would yield benefits above and beyond having access to such a parenting book.
The program -- called SIBlings Are Special (SIBS) -- was designed by Feinberg; Susan McHale, director of the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State and professor of human development; and colleagues to improve sibling and family relationships just prior to older siblings' transition to middle school, which often is marked by increased exposure to and involvement in risky behaviors. The 174 families who participated in the study were randomly assigned to take part in SIBS or to be in a control condition.
The program included a series of 12 afterschool sessions in which the researchers used games, role-playing activities, art activities and discussions to teach small groups of sibling pairs how to communicate in positive ways, how to solve problems, how to come up with win-win solutions and how to see themselves as part of a team rather than as competitors. The program also included three "family fun nights" in which the children had the opportunity to show their parents what they had been doing in the afterschool sessions.
"We found that the siblings who were exposed to the program showed more self-control and social confidence; performed better in school, according to their teachers; and showed fewer internalizing problems, such as depressive symptoms, than the siblings in the control group," said Feinberg.
Not only did the program help the siblings, it helped their parents too.
"The program helped parents use more appropriate strategies for parenting their kids," said Feinberg. "In addition, intervention mothers reported significantly fewer depressive symptoms after the program than control mothers, perhaps because their kids were doing better and they were less worried about them. No effects of the program were seen for fathers regarding depression."
The results appeared this month in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
How can the team's results be used by parents who are not involved in the study?
"We think that by encouraging siblings to feel like they're part of a team, and by giving them tools to discuss and resolve issues, parents can help their kids develop more positive relationships with each other, which can benefit everyone in the family," said Feinberg. "So, for example, if the kids are fighting over what television channel to watch or whose turn it is, we might suggest that a parent not resolve the issue for them, but instead give them just enough help so that they can calmly discuss and resolve the problem on their own. When siblings come up with their own solutions, they may be more likely to use those solutions again in the future."
Investing in more effort on the front end as a parent by helping siblings learn how to stay calm and discuss and resolve issues will pay off over time, according to Feinberg. "It's an investment in reducing your own stress and enhancing your children's well-being for the future."
The National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium at Penn State funded this research. Other authors on the paper include Anna Solmeyer, postdoctoral scholar; Michelle Hostetler, research associate; Kari-Lyn Sakuma, research associate and curriculum development expert; Damon Jones, research assistant professor of health and human development; and co-principal investigator Susan McHale, director of the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State and professor of human development.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State.
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Journal Reference:
- Mark E. Feinberg, Anna R. Solmeyer, Michelle L. Hostetler, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Damon Jones, Susan M. McHale. Siblings Are Special: Initial Test of a New Approach for Preventing Youth Behavior Problems. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.10.004
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/8a8KrDqy9IY/121127154213.htm
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Music Legends Impersonated by Sony Earbuds
A clever series of print ads created by Welcomm Publicis Worldwide in South Korea for Sony in order to promote the sound quality of their earbuds. Creative director Yanghun Kim?impersonated music legends ? Elvis, Mozart, Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson ? to illustrate the fact that the sound is as if the musician was singing directly into the ears of the user. Enjoy!
Source: http://www.zillamag.com/advertising/music-legends-impersonated-by-sony-earbuds/
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