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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Understanding your possible business buyers.
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Winter storm slams Great Lakes region
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A powerful winter storm that buried the U.S. Plains moved on Tuesday into the southern Great Lakes region, where it snarled the evening commute in Chicago and Milwaukee, created near-whiteout conditions and forced hundreds of flight cancellations.
Wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour (56 km per hour) hurled a potent blend of wet snow and sleet on north-central Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northern Indiana and Ohio, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 500 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway airports, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. Those flights that managed to take off or land faced delays of up to an hour.
The Illinois Tollway agency, which maintains nearly 300 miles of highway around Chicago, deployed its fleet of more than 180 snowplows to keep the roads clear.
As the afternoon rush hour began in Chicago, blowing snow reduced visibility and created treacherous driving conditions, doubling average travel times in and out of the city on major expressways, according to Traffic.com.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation warned that much of Interstate 94 between the Illinois state line and Milwaukee was ice covered.
In Chicago, the city's public school system, the third-largest school district in the country, canceled all after-school sporting events, including six state regional basketball games.
The snowstorm may have discouraged some voters in Chicago and its suburbs from voting in a special election primary to replace indicted Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who resigned the seat in November citing health concerns.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service said the storm would continue to move eastward, dumping 3 to 5 inches of wet snow on Detroit overnight and into Wednesday morning.
It is then expected to move slowly into the Northeast, largely avoiding the cities of New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., but bringing snow to parts of New York state, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"It's going to linger for a long time over portions of the Northeast," Korty said.
'POTPOURRI OF WINTRY WEATHER'
Parts of New York and Pennsylvania could get a "sloppy mix" of snow, ice and rain. Already, ice accumulations were causing sporadic power outages across higher terrains of western Maryland, eastern West Virginia and far western Virginia, said Erik Pindrock, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.
"It's a very multi-faceted storm," Pindrock said. "It's a whole potpourri of wintry weather."
In Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, where the storm hit earlier, residents were digging out.
Highways in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and parts of Kansas remained closed because of heavy and drifting snow.
Amarillo, Texas, saw 19 inches of snow Sunday night into Monday, the third-largest snowfall ever in that city, Pindrock said.
In Kansas, a woman died and three passengers were injured Monday night on Interstate 70 when their pickup truck rolled off the icy roadway in Ellis County, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said. Earlier Monday, a man was killed when his car veered off the interstate in Sherman County near the Colorado border, he said.
"We urge everyone to avoid travel and be extremely cautious if you must be on the roads," said Ernest Garcia, superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol.
A 58-year-old man and his 69-year-old sister died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Kansas City, Kansas, from a gas generator being used in their home because they lost power Tuesday in the snowstorm, said Deputy Fire Chief Craig Duke.
In northern Oklahoma, one person died when the roof of a home partially collapsed in the city of Woodward, said Matt Lehenbauer, the city's emergency management director.
"We have roofs collapsing all over town," said Woodward Mayor Roscoe Hill Jr. "We really have a mess on our hands."
Kansas City, Missouri, was also hard hit by the storm, which left snowfalls of 7 to 13 inches in the metro region on Tuesday, said Chris Bowman, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. Another 1 to 3 inches is forecast for Tuesday evening and nearly two-thirds of the flights at Kansas City International Airport Tuesday afternoon were canceled.
In addition to the winter storm, National Weather Service forecasters on Tuesday issued tornado watches across central Florida and up the eastern coast to South Carolina.
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Missouri, David Bailey in Minneapolis, James B. Kelleher in Chicago and Corrie MacLaggan in Texas; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Barbara Goldberg, Nick Zieminski, Dan Grebler, Phil Berlowitz, Eric Walsh and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/storm-buried-plains-slams-great-lakes-region-025456755.html
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Satechi Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader
-
Pros
Speedy USB 3.0 connection. Doesn?t require an external power supply.
- Cons USB connection only.
-
Bottom Line
The Satechi Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is a versatile, nicely designed USB 3.0-compatible solution for users who need to access data stored across multiple card formats.
Measuring 0.6 by 4.1 by 2.5 inches (HWD) and weighing a scant 4 ounces, the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is tiny enough to slip into your pants pocket or backpack without adding any noticeable bulk. With the exception of the plastic front and rear panels, the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is constructed entirely out of sleek brushed aluminum. Consequently, its chassis earns points for style while also providing a degree of sturdiness that would otherwise be absent in, say, an all-plastic design.
The top of the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is simple and unadorned, save for an LED power indicator that emits a bright blue light when the unit is connected to your system. Four included adhesive feet can be affixed to the bottom of the unit to provide a grip for smooth surfaces. The front panel of the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader houses slots for MS, TF, M2, and SD card formats. The rear panel, meanwhile, sports XD and CF card slots.
There's a USB 3.0 port for connecting the reader to your system. It's backwards-compatible, so the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader can also be connected via USB 2.0. Moreover, since the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is bus-powered, no external power supply is required. As its name implies, though, the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader only supports a USB connection; users with a preference for eSATA or FireWire need to look elsewhere.
The Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is compatible with Windows (2000/XP/Vista/7/8) and Mac (OS 10.2 or higher). In both operating systems, setting it up is a straightforward process that requires little beyond simply plugging it into your system's USB port. Since it's a plug-and-play device, I found it equally easy to use in both Windows and Mac, and functioned identically in both operating systems, albeit with one wrinkle: In Windows, the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader appears as five removable disks, with each one representing the five slots. In the Mac interface, conversely, only slots with inserted cards appear as a removable drive. More importantly, the card slots are judiciously arranged between the two panels in a way that prevents overcrowding when the Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is fully loaded. That, along with a generously-sized 24-inch USB cable, make for a hassle-free user experience.
Whether you've got data stored across multiple SD, XD, MS, TF, M2, CF cards and don't have a system with an integrated card reader or if you prefer to access multiple cards at once, the Satechi Multifunction USB 3.0 Card Reader is an great option. Overall, it's a portable and convenient way to access and transfer data stored in multiple card formats. While it would have stood to benefit from giving users the option of connecting via eSATA or FireWire, it's nonetheless worth checking out.
By Ahmer Kazi Ahmer Kazi is a junior analyst for the PCMag Hardware team. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Television and Film from St. John's University, where he also minored in English. He additionally holds a Juris...
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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Balloon crash deepens pall on tourism-dry Luxor
LUXOR, Egypt (AP) ? The fiery crash of a sightseeing balloon that killed 19 tourists has cast a further pall over this city of ancient temples and tombs, already perhaps the hardest hit by Egypt's two-year drop in tourism, which has left hotels here empty and residents desperate for income.
Some connected to the tourist trade in Luxor, a city utterly dependent on foreign visitors to survive, were seething with anger Wednesday at the country's Islamist president for his silence over the crash.
Mohammed Morsi has yet to publicly speak about the tragedy ? and some here took that not just as insensitivity to the victims' families but as indifference to the vital tourism trade.
"Morsi should have taken a plane and come here," Salah Zaky, one of the owners of the five-star Steigenberger Hotel in Luxor , 510 kilometers (320 miles) south of Cairo . "The whole world is watching and he is asleep. It's as if there is no government."
Morsi spoke by telephone to Luxor's governor to discuss the balloon disaster, according to state media. Hours after the crash, he spoke live on TV at a meeting with political leaders ? but only about upcoming parliamentary elections, without mentioning the crash.
"They don't care if this hotel closes. They only care about the ballot box," Zaky said, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group from which Morsi hails and which has dominated all elections held since Mubarak's ouster.
Nine of those who died in Tuesday's crash were in a tour group from Hong Kong that was staying at the Steigenberger. The husband of one of the victims had chosen not to go on the balloon ride and watched from the ground as it burst into flame and plummeted to the earth, with his wife, daughter, sister and brother-in-law on board, hotel staffers said. The man flew out of the country Tuesday evening.
Investigators were still gathering evidence about the cause of the crash, the head of the probe Walid el-Moqadem told The Associated Press, refusing to give details. He said investigators had not yet questioned the balloon's pilot, who survived the crash with severe burns.
"He could barely open his eyes," el-Moqadem said.
The hot air balloon was carrying 20 tourists from Hong Kong, Japan, Britain, Belgium and France on a sunrise flight over Luxor's dramatic pharaonic sites and desert landscape.
The disaster occurred when it was trying to land, just after 7 a.m. Tuesday. Initial investigations suggested that the fire broke out when a landing cable tore one of the balloon's fuel tubes, used to fire the burner that heats the air in the balloon. Investigators said it appeared the pilot jumped out of the balloon's gondola when the fire first broke out, still relatively close to the ground. The investigators spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe was not complete.
The balloon then rose back up, to some 300 meters (1,000 feet), the fire spread to the balloon itself, which burst. Amateur video taken from another balloon flying nearby shows it crashing it back to the earth like a fireball.
The only other survivor was a tourist from Britain, who may have gotten out at the same time as the pilot. He and the pilot were being treated in military hospitals in Cairo, as families of some of the victims arrived in the country to identify their loved ones.
For residents of Luxor, the main city in a province of around 1 million people, the tragedy only further added to their worries over the tourism trade on which they rely. Tourism is the main employer in the area ? and practically the only industry besides farming and a sole sugar factory processing the region's sugar cane crops.
Nearly everyone relies in some way on the visitors who come to visit the monumental ancient temples in Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, the desert valley where many of ancient Egypt's pharaohs, including Tutankhamun, were buried.
With little else to keep it going, the city has been hit hard with many foreign visitors staying away from Egypt amid the turmoil, protests and instability that have plagued the country since the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
The number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion. Last year, the numbers climbed up to just over 10 million, but most tourists go to the beach resorts of the Red Sea, staying away from Nile Valley sites like Luxor.
In Luxor, "when tourism stalls, it affects the tour agents, the drivers, the boat owners, vegetable and fruit sellers, the groceries, the butchers and everybody else who are part of the cycle of life of tourism," said tour agent Medhat Ramadan, who nervously checked his IPad for the latest news on the crash.
"Even farmers who plant the food for horses that drive tourists in carriages are affected. It's all one cycle," he said.
Along with the depressed tourism, Egypt's economy in general has suffered amid the political turmoil. Constant protests, often turning into riots or clashes, along with political uncertainty, have dried up foreign investment. Foreign reserves, a key indicator for the economy's health, have shrunk by two thirds since Mubarak's ouster in February 2011.
The crash had one immediate effect with the suspension of all balloon rides in the area.
"This was one of the pillars of tourism here in Luxor. Now it is gone," said Ramadan. With tour companies forced to offer cheaper and cheaper packages to draw visitors to the city, offering balloon rides ? which draw a higher price ? was one way to pull in extra money for the companies, he said.
For months, hotels here have been reporting occupancy rates below 30 percent ? often well below, even in the winter high season, when normally they are nearly full.
Zaky said the Steinberger has averaged only 25 percent occupancy and has had to cut a quarter of its 400-member staff. At the same time, his gas bill has doubled and electricity costs rose 20 percent in recent months because of price hikes by a government trying to close rampant deficits.
Hesham Youssef, who runs a sailboat offering trips for tourists on the Nile River, said he sometimes goes for three days without a client.
He said Morsi is good ? "a man of the poor, he always mentions God's name." But, Youssef said, "he needs to come out and say something about what happened to those tourists. It is not his fault because what happened was something from God, but he must say something."
Tharwat Agamy, from Luxor's Tourism Chamber, said there was no immediate word on cancellation as a result of the balloon crash, but he feared they would soon happen.
"The whole world is talking about this right now. We are doing our best to push tourism forward but this will take us back many steps back,' he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/balloon-crash-deepens-pall-tourism-dry-luxor-205854093.html
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Suspected killer of Tunisia opponent arrested: police | Morocco ...
TUNIS, Feb 25, 2013 (AFP)
The suspected killer of leftist opposition politician Chokri Belaid whose murder sparked a political crisis in Tunisia was arrested on Monday, police sources said.
They said the suspect was arrested along with an alleged accomplice, both members of the radical Muslim Salafist movement. The main suspect, a 31-year-old furniture maker, was arrested in the Carthage suburb of Tunis.
The second man was allegedly the getaway motorbike rider for the lone, hooded gunman who shot dead Belaid, 48, at close range in front of his Tunis? home on February 6, two police officers told AFP.
They said the arrests were carried out on the strength of the testimony of a woman who had witnessed the killing and has since been placed under police protection. Several online media also reported the two arrests, but the interior ministry spokesman was unreachable for comment.
Interior Minister Ali Larayedh, who has been tapped to form a new government in the face of the deepening crisis sparked by Belaid?s killing, said last week that arrests had been made. ?The investigation has not led yet to identify the killer, those behind the murder and its motives,? said Larayedh, refusing to elaborate or disclose the number of arrests.
Belaid?s family has blamed the ruling Ennahda party for being behind the killing, an accusation the Islamists have vehemently denied. The assassination triggered days of unrest as people took to Habib? Bourguiba Avenue, epicentre of the 2011 uprising that toppled ex-dictator Zine? El Abidine Ben Ali, exacerbating a long-running political crisis in Tunisia.
On the day of the murder, prime minister Hamadi Jebali proposed the formation of a government of technocrats as a way out of the crisis. But the initiative was rejected by his own Ennahda party, leading to his resignation.
Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/02/79998/suspected-killer-of-tunisia-opponent-arrested-police/
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Breast cancer among young women increasing
Rebecca Johnson was 27 years old and had just graduated from medical school when she got the diagnosis: breast cancer. She thought she was a rare case, but then a few of her friends got it too. So did some friends of friends.
Was it all just a coincidence, or was breast cancer becoming more common in younger women?
"I really wondered," said Johnson, now 44 and the director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology program at Seattle Children's Hospital. So she examined decades' worth of data from the National Cancer Institute and made a disturbing find: Cases of younger women with advanced breast cancer have increased about 2% each year since the mid-1970s and show no signs of abating.
The results, published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., confirmed the suspicions of many oncologists who had noticed an uptick in patients younger than 40 with cancer that had spread to the bones, brain or lungs.
In 1976, 1.53 out of every 100,000 American women 25 to 39 years old was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, the study found. By 2009, the rate had almost doubled to 2.9 per 100,000 women in that age group ? a difference too large to be a chance result.
"Most studies have failed to show an absolute increase," said Dr. Benjamin Paz, a City of Hope Cancer Center surgeon who was not involved in the study. "Now, looking at a longer period of time, this study shows there's clearly been an increase. It's the first to do so."
The trend, which has yet to be explained, has raised real concerns about future efforts to treat the disease. Survival rates for young women with metastatic breast cancer are much lower than they are for older women, because the cancer tends to behave more aggressively in the young.
The data from the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results, or SEER, database detected a significant increase among black and white women in both urban and non-urban areas, suggesting that the root cause or causes were widespread.
"An increasing number of young women in the United States will present with metastatic breast cancer in an age group that already has the worst prognosis, no recommended routine screening practice, the least health insurance, and the most potential years of life," Johnson and her coauthors wrote.
To be sure, it remains uncommon for a young woman to be diagnosed with breast cancer. About 7% of all breast cancers diagnosed in the United States involve women younger than 40, and on average, 1 in 173 women in this age group risks developing some type of breast cancer.
Johnson and her coauthors said they hoped that other Western nations would corroborate their findings using their own data. If a trend is established, research should investigate the reason for the increase, they added.
They hypothesized that the trend was due to a variety of lifestyle changes that have occurred during the study period. Diet, exercise, obesity, earlier onset of menstruation, use of birth control, delayed pregnancy and other factors all might play a role.
A few smaller studies have examined risk factors such as obesity, sedentary lifestyle and high caloric intake and concluded that when combined, they do predispose to young adult breast cancer.
However, it is still unknown exactly why cancers can behave so much more aggressively in younger patients, and why estrogen ? or the blocking of it ? has a very different effect on cancer cells in younger and older women.
"There's something different about breast cancers in young adults than in older people," Johnson said. "Researchers that are focusing on cancer in young adults are trying to tease out what those biological differences are."
In the meantime, she said she hoped the study would alert young women to the risks of breast cancer.
"There's no evidence that 29-year-olds should go out and get mammograms or anything like that," Johnson said. "But if there's a take-home message, I would say that it would be awareness of the fact that breast cancer can happen even in young women and that it's important for both young women and their doctors to be aware of this."
monte.morin@latimes.com
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
At Rhythm & Hues all-staff meeting: blunt talk about layoffs, foreign subsidies
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The 1,400 employees at Rhythm & Hues have been bracing for the worst ever since TheWrap broke the news last week that the Oscar-winning visual-effects shop was mired in financial difficulties and might be acquired by Prime Focus.
But that deal fell apart. And on Monday, founder John Hughes called designers and artists to a town-hall meeting at Rhythm & Hues' El Segundo headquarters to paint a bleak financial picture, an employee at the meeting told TheWrap.
Though the reasons for Rhythm & Hues' failure are myriad, ranging from the cutthroat nature of the bidding process for new projects to the industry's slender profit margins, Hughes made a point of stating that the drive for tax subsidies had undermined California-based business.
Countries like Canada and the United Kingdom offer generous tax subsidies that have lured away effects work in recent years, contributing to the closures of more than a half-dozen visual-effects shops in California.
Rhythm & Hues, which is up for Oscars for its work on "Life of Pi" and "Snow White and the Huntsman," has attempted to compensate for the globalized nature of the business. It opened a branch in Ontario and sought out cheaper labor in places like Malaysia and India, but Hughes said the company was still at a competitive disadvantage compared with foreign shops.
He said studios can get as much as 60 percent of their production costs back in these countries by factoring in a combination of tax breaks, subsidies and state-supported healthcare in places like the United Kingdom.
The group that gathered at Rhythm & Hues this week was substantially diminished from the one that assembled last Friday to listen as management informed them that payroll had been suspended indefinitely. Over the weekend, roughly 200 staffers received phone calls telling them not to report to work - they had been laid off.
Sunday night, word that Rhythm & Hues was handing out pink slips spread across social media platforms and industry blogs, and worried employees texted, called and g-chatted with one another to find out who was on the chopping block.
A spokesman for Rhythm & Hues did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment, nor did the company's attorney Bob Baradaran. The company did release a statement Monday acknowledging that it was filing for bankruptcy and saying that it hoped to emerge from the process stronger.
Transparency was baked into the ethos of Rhythm & Hues, current and former employees tell TheWrap. Since it was launched in 1987, Hughes has made a habit of hosting weekly company meetings during which he openly discussed the company's finances, taking staffers through what Rhythm & Hues had in the bank and what films it was bidding on.
"John Hughes is the soul of company; he is so humble in every way - from what he drives to what he wears," the employee at Monday's meeting told TheWrap. "No other company would do something like that."
That practice halted roughly a month ago, a Rhythm & Hues employee, who asked that his name not be printed, wrote in a blog on TheWrap last week, as the company's executives closed rank to try to find a way to avert Chapter 11. With the company now publicly acknowledging that it is entering into reorganization, the cloud of secrecy lifted again.
Hughes told the crowd at the hour-long meeting that the company had secured a loan from several studios to allow it to stay open while it is in bankruptcy protection. That money will be used to allow it to meet its payroll obligations and continue working on Universal's "R.I.P.D.," 20th Century Fox's "Percy Jackson" sequel and Warner Bros.' "The Seventh Son."
Spokespeople for the studios did not immediately respond to TheWrap's requests for comment.
Rhythm & Hues had also been working on "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" for Lionsgate, but the studio has pulled the project and sent it to another shop, the individual at the meeting said. "Category 6," a Warner Bros. disaster film, may also be sent to another visual-effects company depending on Rhythm & Hues' financial situation, another individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.
Hughes said that even as it reorganizes, Rhythm & Hues would continue bidding on projects and said it is possible that some of the films that were being pulled would return to the company.
Payroll has been suspended at the company, but Hughes told employees that the company's lawyers will ask the bankruptcy court judge to approve its loan from studios as soon as possible. That will allow people to get paid by early next week, he said.
Hughes made a point of stressing repeatedly how grateful he is to the studios for standing by Rhythm & Hues, calling them "extremely helpful" and "very cooperative."
Earlier, three studios, Universal, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, had attempted to keep the company afloat with a $20 million bridge loan. That would have helped the studio avert bankruptcy until Prime Focus could purchase the company.
However, the India-based effects shop was brought into discussions about a possible Rhythm & Hues acquisition only two weeks ago and could not raise the funding necessary to pull off a deal of that size in such a short period of time, according to an individual with knowledge of the talks. It remains interested in acquiring or partnering with the company, but only if it emerges from Chapter 11.
A spokeswoman for Prime Focus declined to comment.
At Monday's meeting, staff was still shell-shocked by the news that many of their colleagues had been let go and that their own jobs were in jeopardy. However, they applauded Hughes and his team, who have built Rhythm & Hues into a leading effects company over more than two decades, one that is widely expected to win a Visual Effects Oscar this month for its work on "Life of Pi."
Yet feelings remain raw, with staff members questioning how an industry-leader like Rhythm & Hues could still find itself unable to stay afloat in a business that is growing more competitive and less financially rewarding each year.
"The industry is shooting itself in the foot," the Rhythm & Hues employee at the meeting said. "People can't be creative if they're constantly worried about their jobs. Farmers treat horses better."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rhythm-hues-staff-meeting-blunt-talk-layoffs-foreign-010908500.html
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U.S. intelligence agencies evaluating North Korea "seismic event"
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jennifer Aniston is joining Owen Wilson in Peter Bogdanovich's comedy "She's Funny That Way," Red Granite Pictures announced in Berlin. She will play a therapist with a mother in rehab for alcoholism in the Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach-produced the film following a married Broadway director (Wilson) who falls for a prostitute-turned-actress, then helps advance her career. Jason Schwartzman, Cybil Shepherd, Eugene Levy, Kathryn Hahn and Brie Larson co-star in the comedy (also known as "Squirrels to Nuts") written by Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-intelligence-agencies-evaluating-north-korea-seismic-event-063053800.html
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iPhone 5S spied on the production line in China?
A host of images have turned up online claiming to show a yet unannounced Apple handset on production lines in China which could potentially be the iPhone 5S.
There's been a huge amount of speculation surrounding the next iteration of iPhone, with many suggesting Apple will release an incremental upgrade to the iPhone 5 instead of going the whole hog with the iPhone 6.
The 14 images picked up by Chinese site SJBBS appear to show a handset which looks very similar to that of the iPhone 5, which further boosts thinking that the 5S is on the cards.
Can you feel it?
Credit: SJBBS
With no distinguishing features to separate the front plate snaps from the current leader in the iPhone range, people have been taking a closer look at the pictures displaying the components inside the device.
Apparently the handset in the picture uses a different rotational motor, which makes the phone vibrate, to the one found in the iPhone 5.
Credit: SJBBS
Some people had complained that the vibration on the iPhone 5 was noisier that on its predecessors, so Apple may be addressing this with its next smartphone.
Of course we're taking all these pictures with a hefty dosage of salt as it's not the first time we've seen factory leaks claiming to be an Apple product, only to turn out to be fakes.
From SJBBS via AppleInsider
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Monday, February 11, 2013
Chemistry trick kills climate controversy
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Public release date: 11-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
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University of Copenhagen
Volcanoes are well known for cooling the climate. But just how much and when has been a bone of contention among historians, glaciologists and archeologists. Now a team of atmosphere chemists, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Copenhagen, has come up with a way to say for sure which historic episodes of global cooling were caused by volcanic eruptions.
The answer lies in patterns of isotopes found in ancient volcanic sulfur trapped in ice core, patterns due to stratospheric photochemistry. Their mechanism is published in the highly recognized journal PNAS.
Better history through atmospheric chemistry
Matthew Johnson is an associate professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen where he studies chemical mechanisms in the atmosphere. He is thrilled at the prospect of giving a more precise tool to historians studying cold spells.
"Historical records are not always so accurate. Some may have been written down long after the fact, or when a different calendar was in use by a different culture. But the chemistry does not lie", says Johnson.
Method reads height by analyzing effect of sunshine
Powerful volcanoes can shoot gases through the atmosphere and high into the stratosphere where it can affect climate globally for a year or more. Less powerful eruptions can also have powerful impacts, but only locally, and for shorter times. And here's the trick. High plumes spend longer in the harsh sunlight of the stratosphere, and that changes the chemical signature of the sulfur in the plume. The balance of various isotopes is changed according to very precise rules, explains Mathew Johnson.
"Using our method we can determine whether a given eruption was powerful enough for the plume to enter the stratosphere affecting global climate. If we can find material from ancient eruptions it can now be used to give an accurate record of global volcanic events extending many hundreds of thousands of years back in time.", says Johnson.
Clue to fires found in ice
Strangely, the best place to look for traces of the fiery events is in ice. Tracking climate history is performed on cores drilled from the ice shields of Greenland and Antarctica. Much like tree rings, the snows of each year is compacted into a layer representing that year. As you go further down in the borehole, you descend into deeper history.
If volcanic material shows up in a layer, you know there was an eruption in that year. Using the method developed by Johnson and his colleagues it is now possible to analyze exactly how powerful a given eruption was.
"With the sulfur isotope method, we now have a way to prove whether a given eruption was so explosive that it entered the stratosphere, affecting global climate and civilizations, or, whether a given eruption was confined to the troposphere and local in its effects" says Johnson and goes on: "There are many controversial eruptions. The Mediterranean island of Santorini blew apart and caused the end of the Minoan culture. But there is a huge debate about when exactly this occurred. 1601 was the 'year without a summer' - but nobody knows where the volcano was that erupted. There's debate over whether there was an eruption on Iceland in 527, or 535, or 541. The sulfur isotope trick is a definite method to solve debates like this and get the most information out of the ice core records" Says Matthew Johnson.
Global collaboration crucial to get results
Denmark has absolutely no volcanoes. So revealing the mechanism required the very different talents of two groups practically on opposite sides of the globe, explains Johnson.
"The Tokyo Institute of Technology specializes in analysis of the patterns of sulfur isotopes found in samples in nature, and was able to synthesize the isotopically labelled samples. The University of Copenhagen has a strong group in atmospheric chemistry and spectroscopy; the laboratory measurements were carried out in Copenhagen. Together we were able to do the experiments and build the atmospheric chemical model that demonstrated the stratospheric photoexcitation mechanism", concludes Johnson.
###
Article in PNAS: http://chem.ku.dk/om/news/newslist/volcano_matthew/.
For more information contact:
Associate Professor Matthew Johnson
Mail: msj@kiku.dk
Tel: 45-3532-0302
Press officer Jes Andersen
Mail: jean@science.ku.dk
Tel: 45-3050-6582
[ | 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: 11-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
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University of Copenhagen
Volcanoes are well known for cooling the climate. But just how much and when has been a bone of contention among historians, glaciologists and archeologists. Now a team of atmosphere chemists, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Copenhagen, has come up with a way to say for sure which historic episodes of global cooling were caused by volcanic eruptions.
The answer lies in patterns of isotopes found in ancient volcanic sulfur trapped in ice core, patterns due to stratospheric photochemistry. Their mechanism is published in the highly recognized journal PNAS.
Better history through atmospheric chemistry
Matthew Johnson is an associate professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen where he studies chemical mechanisms in the atmosphere. He is thrilled at the prospect of giving a more precise tool to historians studying cold spells.
"Historical records are not always so accurate. Some may have been written down long after the fact, or when a different calendar was in use by a different culture. But the chemistry does not lie", says Johnson.
Method reads height by analyzing effect of sunshine
Powerful volcanoes can shoot gases through the atmosphere and high into the stratosphere where it can affect climate globally for a year or more. Less powerful eruptions can also have powerful impacts, but only locally, and for shorter times. And here's the trick. High plumes spend longer in the harsh sunlight of the stratosphere, and that changes the chemical signature of the sulfur in the plume. The balance of various isotopes is changed according to very precise rules, explains Mathew Johnson.
"Using our method we can determine whether a given eruption was powerful enough for the plume to enter the stratosphere affecting global climate. If we can find material from ancient eruptions it can now be used to give an accurate record of global volcanic events extending many hundreds of thousands of years back in time.", says Johnson.
Clue to fires found in ice
Strangely, the best place to look for traces of the fiery events is in ice. Tracking climate history is performed on cores drilled from the ice shields of Greenland and Antarctica. Much like tree rings, the snows of each year is compacted into a layer representing that year. As you go further down in the borehole, you descend into deeper history.
If volcanic material shows up in a layer, you know there was an eruption in that year. Using the method developed by Johnson and his colleagues it is now possible to analyze exactly how powerful a given eruption was.
"With the sulfur isotope method, we now have a way to prove whether a given eruption was so explosive that it entered the stratosphere, affecting global climate and civilizations, or, whether a given eruption was confined to the troposphere and local in its effects" says Johnson and goes on: "There are many controversial eruptions. The Mediterranean island of Santorini blew apart and caused the end of the Minoan culture. But there is a huge debate about when exactly this occurred. 1601 was the 'year without a summer' - but nobody knows where the volcano was that erupted. There's debate over whether there was an eruption on Iceland in 527, or 535, or 541. The sulfur isotope trick is a definite method to solve debates like this and get the most information out of the ice core records" Says Matthew Johnson.
Global collaboration crucial to get results
Denmark has absolutely no volcanoes. So revealing the mechanism required the very different talents of two groups practically on opposite sides of the globe, explains Johnson.
"The Tokyo Institute of Technology specializes in analysis of the patterns of sulfur isotopes found in samples in nature, and was able to synthesize the isotopically labelled samples. The University of Copenhagen has a strong group in atmospheric chemistry and spectroscopy; the laboratory measurements were carried out in Copenhagen. Together we were able to do the experiments and build the atmospheric chemical model that demonstrated the stratospheric photoexcitation mechanism", concludes Johnson.
###
Article in PNAS: http://chem.ku.dk/om/news/newslist/volcano_matthew/.
For more information contact:
Associate Professor Matthew Johnson
Mail: msj@kiku.dk
Tel: 45-3532-0302
Press officer Jes Andersen
Mail: jean@science.ku.dk
Tel: 45-3050-6582
[ | 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/uoc-ctk021113.php
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'Laborist' obstetrical care improves pregnancy outcomes
Feb. 11, 2013 ? In a study to be presented on February 16 between 8 a.m., and 10 a.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ?, in San Francisco, researchers will report findings that suggest shifting from a traditional model of obstetrical care to a laborist model improves pregnancy outcomes.
The "laborist" concept has been around for nearly a decade. In this model, obstetricians provide 24-hour a day on-site staffing of labor units. While it has been assumed that laborists improve obstetric care, there had been no studies done to test whether it does and how much it helps. Sindhu K. Srinivas, MD, MSCE and director of obstetrical services at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and her team worked with a non-profit organization, the National Perinatal Information Center and 24 of their member hospitals to determine the effectiveness of the laborist model.
"Many hospitals have moved toward adopting the laborist model, and it's critically important to determine whether it is improving pregnancy outcomes," explained Srinivas.
The study matched 8 laborist hospitals to 16 non-laborist hospitals accounting for location, volume of deliveries, the presence of a neonatal ICU and teaching status.
"The hospitals selected were diverse in terms of volume with 30 percent of the data coming from hospitals with more than 5,000 births a year, 44 percent from hospitals with 2,500 to 5,000 births per year and 25 percent from hospitals with less than a 2,500 births per year," said Srinivas.
The study showed that using the laborist model resulted in 15 percent fewer labor inductions, reduced maternal length of stay (0.09 days), and a significant reduction in preterm delivery (17 percent).
"We thought the laborist model would improve pregnancy outcomes and now we have data that demonstrates that," said Srinivas. We need to do more research to understand the mechanism by which these outcomes are improved but this is a start."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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/~3/TtNWGAjW5y8/130211102302.htm
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Samsung Galaxy Axiom (U.S. Cellular)
It may seem hard to believe, with the rise of 5.5-inch phablets like the Samsung Galaxy Note II, but not everyone wants a gigantic smartphone. Even the 4.8-inch Galaxy S III can prove unwieldy for many hands. Luckily, U.S. Cellular offers the $29.99 Samsung Galaxy Axiom, which takes many of the same features from Samsung's larger handsets, and offers them in a comparatively petite 4-inch package. It isn't quite as powerful as Samsung's larger handsets, but it costs a heck of a lot less.
Design, Network, and Call Quality
The Galaxy Axiom measures 4.79 by 2.51 by 0.47 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.83 ounces. It looks a little plump, but it's quite comfortable to hold and operate with one hand. It's made out of the same flimsy-feeling plastic as the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III, with the same faux-tarnished design on the back cover.
The phone's 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel display looks bright and sharp. It's a slight step down from the 4.3-inch, 960-by-540-pixel display on the Motorola Electrify M, though. The onscreen keyboard is a little cramped for typing, but you get used to it. There's a physical Home key beneath the display, flanked by capacitive Back and Options buttons.
U.S. Cellular is seventh-largest carrier in the U.S. It runs its own 3G and 4G LTE networks in parts of 26 states. Prices are good, but not significantly better than any of the big four networks. Instead, U.S. Cellular sells itself on better customer service and network quality than other carriers. Our readers agreed, giving the carrier our?Reader's Choice award?last year, for reasonable prices and a reliable network.?
The Axiom supports U.S. Cellular's relatively new 4G LTE network, which, at the moment, is still limited to four major clusters throughout the U.S. We test U.S. Cellular phones in New York City, where they roam on Sprint's network, which can be frustratingly slow. If you're planning to buy a phone on U.S. Cellular, you may want to take a look at the coverage map, in case you plan to spend a lot of time outside of the carrier's native coverage area. You can also stay connected via 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi.
Voice quality on the Axiom is average. In my tests, I heard a lot of static in the earpiece, and voices were somewhat fuzzy. There's aggressive noise cancellation in play here, which makes voices sound somewhat digitized, but otherwise clear. The speakerphone sounds fine and is loud enough to hear outside. Calls sounded good through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset. Samsung's S-Voice virtual assistant is on board, and I had no trouble using it over Bluetooth. Battery life was good at 8 hours and 59 minutes of talk time.
Hardware, OS, and Apps
The Axiom is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor. That isn't as fast as the 1.5GHz chip in the Galaxy S III and Electrify M, but it still performed well in our benchmark tests. And since the Axiom has a lower screen resolution that either of those phones, it performs just as well for tasks like gaming. You won't have trouble running any of the latest apps or games from the Google Play store, which offers a whopping 700,000+ titles.
The Axiom runs Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). There's no word yet on an update to a newer version. Samsung has made some modifications to the OS, most of which are the same as you'll find on the Galaxy S III. There's a tiny strip at the bottom of the home screen and an Apps menu that allows you slide through pages just by dragging a finger over it, or you can flick through one page at a time. You get five customizable home screens that come rather aggressively preloaded with apps and widgets. Thankfully, there isn't much bloatware, but what's there cannot be deleted.
The Siri-like S Voice for voice control is on-board, and does a good job with voice commands and searches. There's also Kies Air hidden under the Settings menu, which lets you view your phone's contacts, messages, and media through a PC's Web browser.?Additionally, the Axiom supports NFC, and Google Wallet comes preinstalled. NFC lets you use Samsung's S Beam, which, along with Wi-Fi Direct, allows you to transfer files by tapping two phones together. There's also DLNA support for watching content from your phone on an HDTV or monitor.
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
You get 1.71GB of free internal storage.?There's also an empty, side-mounted microSD card slot on the left edge of the phone. My 32 and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine. All of our music test files played back except for FLAC, and sound quality was fine over both wired 3.5mm headphones as well as Altec Lansing BackBeat?Bluetooth headphones. All test videos played back too, at resolutions up to 1080p.
The 5-megapixel camera is decent. It takes an average of 1.2 seconds for autofocus to lock in and snap a photo, which is a bit long. But photos show a fair amount of detail and colors look accurate, if not particularly vibrant. Video performance, on the other hand, is mixed. The camera records 720p video at 30 frames per second, but they look somewhat blurry indoors, with a lot of screen tearing; video recorded outside fares much better. There's also a decent 1.3-megapixel camera on the front of the phone for low-res stills and video chat.
As a smaller, slightly less powerful, less-expensive alternative to the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, the Samsung Galaxy Axiom succeeds. It still gets you plenty of power and features, along with 4G LTE support, at a very affordable price. But if you're looking for U.S. Cellular's ultimate Android phone and don't mind the extra size, the Galaxy S III is still a better choice. The Axiom's primary competition is the Motorola Electrify M, which packs even more power into a similarly well-sized package. The Electrify has a more powerful processor and a larger, sharper display, but it also costs more than twice the price as the Axiom, and its camera isn't as good. Both are solid phones, so it comes down to a matter of which design you prefer.
More Cell Phone Reviews:
??? Samsung Galaxy Axiom (U.S. Cellular)
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??? Alcatel One Touch Premiere (U.S. Cellular)
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/KK-DieMEfNI/0,2817,2415188,00.asp
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Online or off, bullying proves harmful
Feb. 11, 2013 ? Children who are bullied online or by mobile phone are just as likely to skip school or consider suicide as kids who are physically bullied, according to a study led by a Michigan State University criminologist.
The findings, published in the International Criminal Justice Review, suggest parents, school officials and policymakers should consider bullying experiences both on and offline when creating anti-bullying policies and procedures.
"We should not ignore one form of bullying for the sake of the other," said Thomas Holt, associate professor of criminal justice. "The results suggest we should find ways to develop school policies to combat bullying within the school environment and then figure out how to translate that to the home, because the risk goes beyond the schoolyard."
The study is one of two new research papers from MSU scholars dealing with cyberbullying. The other study, led by Saleem Alhabash in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, suggests positive online comments are an effective way to fight cyberbullying.
Holt and colleagues, using survey data from more than 3,000 third- through 11th-grade students in Singapore, analyzed the relationships between physical bullying, cyberbullying and mobile phone bullying on skipping school and suicidal thoughts. The study, one of the first to explore bullying in Southeast Asia, echoes research findings from the United States and Canada.
According to the study, 22 percent of students who were physically bullied skipped school or thought about skipping. By comparison, 27 percent of students who were bullied online (which includes email, blogs and chat rooms) and 28 percent who were sent bullying text messages on a mobile phone skipped school or thought about skipping.
Similarly, 22 percent of students who were physically bullied reported suicidal thoughts, while 28 percent of those who reported cyberbullying and 26 percent who were bullied via cell phone said they considered suicide.
In addition, females and younger students were more likely to consider suicide, which reflects other research findings.
Holt said parents should pay attention to warning signs of bullying such as mood changes, sadness, school failures, social withdrawal and a lack of appetite.
When it comes to cyberbullying, he said "careful supervision of youth activity online, including the use of filtering software, can help reduce the likelihood that the child is targeted by bullies via the Web."
Managing the child's mobile phone use is encouraged, Holt said, although there is evidence kids are less likely to report this type of bullying for fear of losing their phone.
"Thus," he said, "parents must carefully educate their children on the risk of bullying victimization via mobile phones and ensure that they can speak to one or both parents about negative experiences."
Holt's co-authors were Grace Chee from MSU, Esther Ng from the Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youth in Singapore and Adam Bossler from Georgia Southern University.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Michigan State University.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/ebbMZ5Cq1fI/130211102306.htm
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Visualizing biological networks in 4-D
Feb. 11, 2013 ? Every great structure, from the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge, depends on specific mechanical properties to remain strong and reliable. Rigidity?a material's stiffness?is of particular importance for maintaining the robust functionality of everything from colossal edifices to the tiniest of nanoscale structures. In biological nanostructures, like DNA networks, it has been difficult to measure this stiffness, which is essential to their properties and functions. But scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have recently developed techniques for visualizing the behavior of biological nanostructures in both space and time, allowing them to directly measure stiffness and map its variation throughout the network.
The new method is outlined in the February 4 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"This type of visualization is taking us into domains of the biological sciences that we did not explore before," says Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics at Caltech, who coauthored the paper with Ulrich Lorenz, a postdoctoral scholar in Zewail's lab. "We are providing the methodology to find out?directly?the stiffness of a biological network that has nanoscale properties."
Knowing the mechanical properties of DNA structures is crucial to building sturdy biological networks, among other applications. According to Zewail, this type of visualization of biomechanics in space and time should be applicable to the study of other biological nanomaterials, including the abnormal protein assemblies that underlie diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Zewail and Lorenz were able to see, for the first time, the motion of DNA nanostructures in both space and time using the four-dimensional (4D) electron microscope?developed at Caltech's Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology. The center is directed by Zewail, who created it in 2005 to advance understanding of the fundamental physics of chemical and biological behavior.
"In nature, the behavior of matter is determined by its structure?the arrangements of its atoms in the three dimensions of space?and by how the structure changes with time, the fourth dimension," explains Zewail. "If you watch a horse gallop in slow motion, you can follow the time of the gallops, and you can see in detail what, for example, each leg is doing over time. When we get to the nanometer scale, that is a different story?we need to improve the spatial resolution to a billion times that of the horse in order to visualize what is happening."
Zewail was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of femtochemistry, which uses ultrashort laser flashes to observe fundamental chemical reactions occurring at the timescale of the femtosecond (one millionth of a billionth of a second). Although femtochemistry can capture atoms and molecules in motion, giving the time dimension, it cannot concurrently show the dimensions of space, and thus the structure of the material. This is because it utilizes laser light with wavelengths that far exceed the dimension of a nanostructure, making it impossible to resolve and image nanoscale details in tiny physical structures such as DNA .
To overcome this major hurdle, the 4D electron microscope employs a stream of individual electrons that scatter off objects to produce an image. The electrons are accelerated to wavelengths of picometers, or trillionths of a meter, providing the capability for visualizing the structure in space with a resolution a thousand times higher than that of a nanostructure, and with a time resolution of femtoseconds or longer.
The experiments reported in PNAS began with a structure created by stretching DNA over a hole embedded in a thin carbon film. Using the electrons in the microscope, several DNA filaments were cut away from the carbon film so that a three-dimensional, free-standing structure was achieved under the 4D microscope.
Next, the scientists employed laser heat to excite oscillations in the DNA structure, which were imaged using the electron pulses as a function of time?the fourth dimension. By observing the frequency and amplitude of these oscillations, a direct measure of stiffness was made.
"It was surprising that we could do this with a complex network," says Zewail. "And yet by cutting and probing, we could go into a selective area of the network and find out about its behavior and properties."
Using 4D electron microscopy, Zewail's group has begun to visualize protein assemblies called amyloids, which are believed to play a role in many neurodegenerative diseases, and they are continuing their investigation of the biomechanical properties of these networks. He says that this technique has the potential for broad applications not only to biological assemblies, but also in the materials science of nanostructures.
Funding for the research outlined in the PNAS paper, "Biomechanics of DNA structures visualized by 4D electron microscopy," was provided by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at Caltech is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Katie Neith.
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Journal Reference:
- U. J. Lorenz, A. H. Zewail. Biomechanics of DNA structures visualized by 4D electron microscopy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1300630110
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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Slicing, Dicing Knife Coin Is Useful For More Than Just Scratching Lottery Tickets
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