KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) ? An 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest on Thursday ? although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week.
Yuichiro Miura, who also conquered the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak when he was 70 and 75, reached the summit at 9:05 a.m. local time, according to a Nepalese mountaineering official and Miura's Tokyo-based support team.
Miura and his son Gota made a phone call from the summit, prompting his daughter Emili to smile broadly and clap her hands in footage on Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
"I made it!" Miura said over the phone. "I never imagined I could make it to the top of Mount Everest at age 80. This is the world's best feeling, although I'm totally exhausted. Even at 80, I can still do quite well."
The climbers were going to take pictures at the summit before starting to descend, his office said.
Nepalese mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha, at Everest base camp, confirmed that Miura had reached the summit and is the oldest person to do so.
The previous oldest was Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, who accomplished the feat at age 76 in 2008, just a day before Miura reached the top at age 75.
Sherchan, now 81, was preparing to scale the peak next week despite digestive problems he suffered several days ago. On Wednesday, Sherchan said by telephone from the base camp that he was in good health and "ready to take up the challenge."
Sherchan's team leader Temba, who uses one name, said he would congratulate the new record holder once he returned to the base camp and that Sherchan would not turn back until he completes his mission.
Sherchan's team is also facing financial difficulties. It hasn't received the financial help that the Nepal government announced it would provide them. Purna Chandra Bhattarai, chief of Nepal's mountaineering department, said the aid proposal was still under consideration.
On his expedition's website, Miura explained his attempt to scale Everest at such an advanced age: "It is to challenge (my) own ultimate limit. It is to honor the great Mother Nature."
He said a successful climb would raise the bar for what is possible.
"And if the limit of age 80 is at the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest place on earth, one can never be happier," he said.
Miura conquered the mountain despite undergoing heart surgery in January for irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, his fourth heart operation since 2007, according to his daughter. He also broke his pelvis and left thigh bone in a 2009 skiing accident.
Miura became famous when he was a young man as a daredevil speed skier.
He skied down Everest's South Col in 1970, using a parachute to brake his descent. The feat was captured in the Oscar-winning 1975 documentary, "The Man Who Skied Down Everest." He has also skied down Mount Fuji.
It wasn't until Miura was 70, however, that he first climbed to the top of Everest. When he summited again at 75, he claimed to be the only man to accomplish the feat twice in his 70s. After that, he said he was determined to climb again at age 80.
___
Associated Press writers Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report from Tokyo.
Our back has an important job. It carries us through our daily tasks and it protects the spinal column and nerves that carry messages from our brain throughout our body. Most of us have had some back problems at least once in our life. When back pain and problems are chronic it makes it very difficult to concentrate or to carry on our daily activities.
For some people a dose of over-the-counter medication is helpful. The shelves are full of competing brands. Others find that a hot bath or an ice massage is the right solution. People often resort to surgery if their back problems cannot be relieved.
Maintaining good spinal health is one key to avoiding back problems. That includes healthy eating, proper exercise and other things that are good for your entire body, not just your back. Beyond those concerns, many of us are desperate for non-surgical, non-invasive spinal treatments. There are a number of approaches, some well recognized and some that are newer ideas.
Yoga is a centuries old method of exercise that strengthens the core and health. In Yoga you practice various poses, learn to breathe correctly and to relax. Clinical trials indicate that for some this is effective in relieving back problems.
Acupuncture, the art of inserting needles into specific points to improve the body or relieve pain, and acupressure which is the release of the same points without needles are also ancient medicines that show modern promise for treating back problems.
Massage therapy is beneficial for some people who suffer with back problems from tension and overwork. Sometimes, for more serious situations massage is coupled with physical therapy. Physical therapy is used to strengthen the body that is in recovery from trauma or surgery.
People also seek out chiropractic care for back pain. This involves various forms of spinal manipulation. It may also involve treatment on a spinal decompression table. The spinal decompression therapy seems to be one of the newest treatments available and it involves being tilted, with a slight pulling pressure so that the spine is brought into alignment.
There are ways to achieve many of these effects at home with massage devices and yoga videos. Equipment for the home can extend from treadmills and bikes to inversion tables to allow that same gentle alignment you need in your own home. Just think how relaxed you will feel as you tilt at a comfortable angle to improve circulation all over your body. Your spine gradually goes into place and the improved flow of oxygen rich blood supports your spinal health. You can use your inversion table in the comfort of your own home, at your own schedule and convenience, for less than the cost of continual treatment in offices and gyms.
With a wire transfer of $451.8 million, Elon Musk has finally made good on his promise to repay the hefty loan Tesla received from the Department of Energy well ahead of its 2022 due date, beating even Musk's own five-year estimate. This comes on the heels of a very profitable first quarter, and is yet another sign the electric car maker is doing quite well on the greener side of things, despite a touch of bad press earlier this year. For more on what Tesla has to say about this milestone, check the press release after the break.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Carrefour, Europe's largest retailer, is in advanced talks to divest its remaining 25-percent stake in its Middle Eastern joint venture to local partner Majid Al Futtaim (MAF), two sources familiar with the matter said.
Family-owned MAF is paying between $400-$500 million for the stake, one of the sources said, adding an announcement on the divestment was "imminent".
Carrefour, the world's largest retailer after Wal-Mart , has been cutting its presence globally and sold 2.8 billion euros ($3.60 billion) worth of assets last year to raise cash for investments and shore up its balance sheet.
The joint venture with MAF operates 48 hypermarkets and 42 supermarkets in 11 countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
Carrefour was not immediately available for comment in Paris. A spokesman for MAF in Dubai declined to comment. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as the matter is not public.
Unlisted MAF is keen to expand its operations in the region and is said to be in talks to buy Egypt's largest supermarket chain from family-owned Mansour Group.
MAF is set to issue a hybrid bond - which combines elements of both debt and equity - to finance the transaction, two other sources said.
($1 = 0.7769 euros)
(Reporting by Praveen Menon, Dinesh Nair and Rachna Uppal; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
PHILADELPHIA?Samantha Curtis, a 29-year-old sales clerk who has reportedly cracked three separate iPhone screens over the years, is due to give birth to a baby boy this coming August, sources confirmed.
The expectant mother, who has accidentally damaged a trio of smartphone displays by either dropping her iPhone, allowing it to collide with other items in her purse, or losing control of it when absentmindedly spinning it on a tabletop, said she is ?thrilled? to bring her new child into the world.
?I?m very happy,? said Curtis, who damaged her last iPhone so badly that she could barely read the screen. ?David and I have been trying to have a baby for a while now, and we can?t wait to start a family.?
?It?s going to be wonderful,? she added, placing her fourth iPhone in two years on her living room coffee table.
Curtis, who habitually mishandles the expensive, fragile electronic device containing all of her contacts and important personal information, expressed unbridled enthusiasm over the impending arrival of her newborn baby. In addition to having outright shattered her iPhone on multiple occasions, Curtis has improbably managed to drop it on the sidewalk nearly 10 times in the last five weeks alone, and said she has become increasingly excited about the prospect of motherhood.
Moreover, the mom-to-be often leaves her iPhone in her car by accident.
?As magical as these last six months have been, I?m definitely looking forward to finally having the baby,? said Curtis, who in addition to regularly damaging her phone has also cracked her six-pound laptop by dropping it on her kitchen?s hard linoleum floor. ?It?s crazy to think that in just a few weeks I?m going to be cradling my own child in my arms. I just can?t wait to finally meet him.?
?We?re either going to name him Jason or Gregory; we haven?t decided yet,? added Curtis, who destroyed her second iPhone by letting it slip through her fingers and into scalding hot bath water.
Though she acknowledged that being a mother will pose its challenges, the woman who has also gotten into several car accidents?some of which have left her vehicle substantially damaged?expressed confidence that she will be up to the task.
With a history of occasionally leaving her jacket at bars and restaurants, tripping and spilling the contents of her purse to the ground, forgetting to cap bottles of detergent, and having a dog who is mostly friendly but has been known to bite, Curtis told reporters that she would never let anything or anyone harm her child.
?This is a huge responsibility, and I know I?m up for it,? said Curtis, who currently has a few pen caps and three pieces of loose change scattered across her living room floor, as well as two electrical outlets she is completely unaware of. ?I?ve been reading up on the topic, but I think at the end of the day the main thing about being a mom is just to give your baby all the love and affection you?ve got, and everything else will fall into place. So that?s what I?m going to do.?
?Whoops!? added Curtis, once again dropping her phone.
May 22, 2013 ? Re-routing anti-cancer drugs to the "power plants" that make energy to keep cells alive is a promising but long-neglected approach to preventing emergence of the drug-resistant forms of cancer -- source of a serious medical problem, scientists are reporting. That's the conclusion of a new study published in the journal ACS Chemical Biology.
Shana Kelley and colleagues explain that doxorubicin and other common forms of chemotherapy work by damaging the genes inside the nucleus of cancer cells. Cancer cells divide and multiply faster than surrounding normal cells, making copies of their genes. The drugs disrupt that process. But cancer cells eventually adapt, developing structures that pump out nucleus-attacking drugs before they can work. Kelley's team explored the effects of targeting doxorubicin to the mitochondria, the energy-producing structures in cells that also contain genes.
They describe a re-targeting approach that involved mating doxorubicin with a small piece of protein that made the drug travel to mitochondria instead of the nucleus. The combo killed cancer cells, even those that had developed pumps. Such an approach could work with a whole family of anti-cancer drugs that target the nucleus, the scientists indicate.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Graham R. Chamberlain, David V. Tulumello, Shana O. Kelley. Targeted Delivery of Doxorubicin to Mitochondria. ACS Chemical Biology, 2013; : 130423103952004 DOI: 10.1021/cb400095v
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Pandora Radio is the granddaddy of streaming music apps, and for years now, the company's iPhone app has been one of the most popular ways to use and interact with the service. Just today, the app has nabbed a big update, bringing it to version 4.3. The new update adds a redesigned interface, which lets you tap an album to see lyrics, artist info, or other notes. You can also publish information directly to Facebook and share recommendations with your friends.
The update has been able to share tracks to Twitter and email for a while now, so the Facebook integration just adds to the functionality. The Pandora app itself is free, and you can subscribe to a premium service, called Pandora One, from directly inside the app.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Daily vitamin C supplements don't lower uric acid as much as drugs used to treat high levels of the acid that's responsible for gout, says a new study from New Zealand.
"It's not that the vitamin C didn't reduce the uric acid level at all, it's just so small that it wouldn't make a difference from the patients' perspectives," said Dr. Lisa Stamp, the study's lead author from the University of Otago in Christchurch.
Previous studies had found that people who eat the most vitamin C were at a decreased risk for developing gout, a form of arthritis caused by the crystallization of uric acid in joints. It's believed the vitamin increases the amount of uric acid excreted through a person's urine.
Few studies, however, have looked at whether vitamin C would lower uric acid levels in people already suffering with the pain and swelling of gout, or if it would lead to additional uric acid reductions in people who are already on medication.
For the new study, which was published in Arthritis & Rheumatism and funded by The Health Research Council of New Zealand, the researchers recruited 20 gout patients who were already on medicine and another 20 who were not.
The 20 participants who were on medication were taking allopurinol, which is marketed as Aloprim and Zyloprim. They were told to either increase their dose of the medicine or also take 500 milligrams of vitamin C supplements every day.
The 20 participants who were not already taking medication were either started on allopurinol or told to take a 500-milligram vitamin C supplement every day.
At the beginning of the eight-week study, the amount of uric acid in the participants' blood was 9 milligrams per deciliter on average. The researchers said a healthy uric acid level falls below 6.5 milligrams per deciliter.
In both cases, participants who started taking vitamin C - with or without medication - did not see a significant decrease in uric acid levels.
There was, however, a significant decrease in the uric acid levels of people who started on allopurinol - about 3 milligrams per deciliter - and in those who were on the drug but increased their doses - about a 1.6 milligrams per deciliter decrease.
"It still appears you're probably better off taking whatever uric acid lowering treatment your doctor would prescribe," Stamp said.
OBESITY AND BEER
She added that there could be a few reasons why they didn't see an association between vitamin C and decreased uric acid levels.
"It may be that just in gout patients that the effect of vitamin C would be too weak," she said.
But Dr. Tim Bongartz, a rheumatologist from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said it's difficult to make any firm conclusions from the new study, because it would take about 200 participants in each group to see a difference.
"So the results of the study don't tell you much," said Bongartz, who was not involved with the new study.
He added that even if the study could reproduce the results of past studies of people without gout, it probably wouldn't bring people's uric acid levels below the threshold of 6.5 milligrams per deciliter. But it doesn't mean medication is the only answer.
"It does not always have to be medication. There are many other measures that can help people drop uric acid levels. The most important one is in obese individuals to drop weight," Bongartz said.
Another way, according to both Bongartz and Stamp, is to cut back on alcohol - especially beer.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/14uAxjS Arthritis & Rheumatism, online May 16, 2013.
MZI Resources mzi.com.au/ Full MZI Resources profile here
MZI Resources (ASX: MZI) is a mineral sands company focused on the high value minerals of zircon, rutile and leucoxene. It has a mineral sands operation in the Northern Territory and an advanced project at Keysbrook, Western Australia.
MZI Resources making "significant progress" on debt funding for Keysbrook mineral sands project
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 by Proactive Investors
(ASX: MZI) has revealed it is making "significant progress" towards completion of the debt funding arrangements for its Keysbrook mineral sands project in Western Australia.
This ensures MZI remains on track to secure credit approved offers from its two mandated Joint Lead Arranging banks.
The banks have requested additional information on offtake contracts struck for Keysbrook as well as construction arrangements.
With this, MZI said it is confident that it will complete these matters to the satisfaction of the JLAs and receive binding offers of debt finance.
More favourable terms and low OPEX
The slow down in construction activity in WA?s resources sector has been a blessing as MZI is likely to achieve more favourable terms for Keysbrook, including the possibility of striking a fixed-price, lump-sum turn-key contract for the development of Keysbrook.
This would provide greater certainty in respect to development costs and schedules and more desirable security arrangements.
Importantly, the current market conditions could also reduce forecast operating costs for Keysbrook, it will conduct a formal tender process for an alternative Keysbrook contract mining strategy.
A Port Services Agreement with the Bunbury Port Authority and other project related commercial contracts are also being finalised.
?
Proactive Investors Australia is the market leader in producing news, articles and research reports on ASX ?Small and Mid-cap? stocks with distribution in Australia, UK, North America and Hong Kong / China.
Andrew McCrea's Research Reports Sign up to Andrew McCrea's Research Reports and Receive Latest Research & Flash Trades Receive Proactive Investors Newsletter, Investor Forum Invites Receive Proactive Investors Newsletter, Event Invites, Special Stock Notifications
WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? A 33-year-old Polish man received a face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest time frame to date for such an operation.
Face transplants are extraordinarily complicated, relatively rare procedures that usually require extensive preparation, typically months or years. But medical officials said the Polish patient's condition was deteriorating so rapidly that a transplant was seen as the only option. The patient is now being watched for any potential infections.
The patient worked at stonemason's workshop, where in April a machine used to cut stone severely damaged his face and crushed his upper jaw. The man, identified only as Grzegorz, received intensive treatment at a hospital in Wroclaw, but an attempt to reattach his own face failed, doctors said.
So he was taken to the Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology in Gliwice, which is the only place in Poland licensed to do face transplants and has experience in facial reconstruction for patients disfigured by cancer. Doctors at the center said the 27-hour face and bone transplant was performed May 15 soon after a matching donor was found.
The surgery reconstructed the face, jaws, palate and the bottom of the man's eye sockets. Pictures show surgery stitches running from above the patient's right eye, under the left eye and around the face to the neck. The donor was a 34-year-old man.
The head of the team of surgeons and other specialists, Dr. Adam Maciejewski, said it was the world's first life-saving face transplant carried out so soon after the damage. Face transplants are usually a last resort after conventional reconstructive and plastic surgeries have been tried.
But Maciejewski and other doctors said the surgery was the patient's only shot at survival ? prior to the operation the man faced danger from infections because of the tremendous damage to his mouth area and the skull bone. The man also could not breathe on his own nor eat.
"We assume the surgery will allow the patient to return to normal life," Maciejewski said. "He will be able to breathe, to eat, to see."
However, surgeon Dr. Michal Grajek told The Associated Press that the patient still runs a risk of infection, and medical workers are using drugs to ward off any potential viral, bacterial or skin infections.
For now, the patient is in sterile isolation, but he has already started the rehabilitation process. He will stay on special drugs for the rest of his life to prevent rejection of his new face.
A picture of the patient taken Tuesday, six days after the surgery, showed him giving a thumbs-up sign from his hospital bed.
More than two dozen transplants of the face or parts of the face have been performed around the world. The first one was a partial face transplant in a woman maimed by her dog in France in 2005.
From a fan standpoint, as the great unwashed considered Major League Soccer and franchise No. 20, the league always looked more interesting with an expanded geographical footprint.
It made perfect sense from the outside; Major League Soccer stretching into the American southeast, specifically, had a certain sex appeal. Plus, more TV markets couldn?t hurt, right?
But for Major League Soccer?s deciders, this was a strategic choice all about dollars and good financial sense ? something near and dear to those who keep answering cash calls for an 18-year-old operation that continues to dwell collectively in red ink.
What that ultimately means is TV contracts. That and greater media awareness, too, which helps drive sponsorships and, ultimately, further enhanced TV contracts.
Do not underestimate this as you consider that NYCFC, as of today, is now officially laying tracks in preparation for pulling into MLS station in 2015: All of Major League Soccer?s current TV deals end at the conclusion of the 2014 season. That means with NBC Sports, ESP and Spanish-language Univision.
(MORE: Manchester City, Yankees will own and operate Major League Soccer?s 20th franchise)?
All the deals will be negotiated beginning ? well, right about now. They will all be in place by this time next year, or not much later than that. And now, thanks to today?s massive announcement, they will all that much more lucrative.
Speaking of lucrative:
A Major League Soccer expansion fee beyond the Big Apple runs about $40 million right now. Almost two years ago, MLS commissioner Don Garber set the NYC expansion price at $100 million. You don?t need much of a calculator to see about $60 million reasons why current owners would prefer this ordering of expansion, right?
That?s more cash in the here and now. Plus, by adding in one other ownership group before NYC?s $100 million gets tossed into the pool, the current owners? split would be further divided (and by a new ownership group that didn?t share in the cash calls over the last few years.)
Further, the Yankees and Sheikh Mansour, Manchester City?s owner and a man of seriously ridiculous money, represent the kind of deep pockets MLS has long sought.
(MORE: Notes on today?s big announcement)
No offense at all to Orlando or Miami or any other Richie Rich-types out there who have enough money to buy into the MLS game ? but perhaps not the level of money MLS is looking for at this point.
This has been a problem before in MLS ? possibly even more than even close MLS observers are aware. MLS owners don?t want to deal with that mess any more.
(MORE: Implications of the ?sister-club? relationship between City and NYCFC)
>>>there are certain dates that resonate across the country as dates. 9/11 for example,
everybody knows
what you mean if you say 9/11 or
september 11th
. for generations just saying
december 7th
had about the same effect everyone knew what you meant if you just said that date. for the people of newtown, connecticut, it's the same. the date for them which will always mean the same thing now forever is
december 14th
. that's the kind of context you needed if you want to understand the
front page
of the oklahoman newspaper today. worse than
may 3rd
. the monster returned. when you say
may 3rd
in
oklahoma
, it's one of those dates everyone knows what you're referring to.
may 3rd
,
1999
, when an outbreak of tornadoes careened through texas and
oklahoma
and one of those tornadoes, an f-5 with winds speeds over 300 miles an hour, drove straight through moore,
oklahoma
, and
bridge creek
and other
oklahoma city
suburbs. that one twister that day in
1999
took the lives of three dozen people and injured hundreds of people and now the same place has been hammered again. but since
may 3rd
, since the storm 14 years ago that changed the meaning of that date in
oklahoma
forever, since then, something important has changed in that region. it's technological. it turned out to be really important for some people yesterday and that story is next. are
The importance of getting adequate omega-3s in our diet has been drilled into our heads. ?These fatty acids are crucial to consume, as they?ve been shown to help reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and protect against inflammation, heart disease, and even cancer,? says Samantha Lynch, R.D. But these essential nutrients are mostly found in foods like fatty fish and eggs?not exactly vegan-friendly.
However, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is a type of omega-3 found in plentiful amounts in plant sources such as soy, walnuts, canola oil, and chia, flax, and hemp seeds and their oils. And experts say as long as you get adequate ALA, you don?t need to worry about two other types of omega-3s, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which are found in non-vegan sources.
?If you?re a vegan and in good health, your body can most likely convert high amounts of plant-sourced ALA into EPA and DHA,? Lynch says. ?Plus, thanks to the health benefits of avoiding meats and dairy, vegans and vegetarians are already at a much lower risk than meat-eaters for issues like inflammation and heart disease.?
Still, it?s crucial that vegans follow a careful meal plan and make sure to consume a variety of omega-3-rich foods most days of the week, says Sarah Krieger, M.P.H., R.D.N., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
RELATED: Get your ALA the tasty way with these quick and easy chia seed recipes.
?Aim to consume about 1,100mg of ALA daily, which is the recommended adequate intake for women,? Krieger says. (Higher amounts are recommended for women who are pregnant or nursing.) If you?re vegan, you can find ALA in sources such as:
4 teaspoons ground flaxseed or flaxseed meal (2,470mg)
1 teaspoon flax oil (2,420mg)
2 tablespoons walnuts (2,470mg)
1 tablespoon chia (2.440mg)
1 teaspoon help seed oil (833mg)
As long as you eat well, you don?t need to supplement, but talk to a registered dietitian if you have any concerns, Lynch says. For example, if you?re newly vegan, have a hard time integrating omega-3 sources into your diet, or have had health issues in the past, you may want to consider taking an additional DHA supplement.
If you decide to pop a pill, look for one that has 200 to 400mg of DHA, Lynch advises. Two vegan supplements that don?t include fish oil that Lynch recommends are Deva Omega-2 DHA Softgels and Ovega-3. Whatever you choose, be sure the supplement has been verified by an independent third party, such as the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention or Consumer Lab.
May 22, 2013 ? A revelation of how photoreceptive cells in the eye distinguish between different light sources could pave the way for a novel class of optical devices.
Millions of years of evolution have molded our eyes into highly sensitive optical detectors, surpassing even many human-made devices. Now, Leonid Krivitsky and his co-workers at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and the A*STAR Institute of Medical Biology, Singapore, have shown that the photoreceptor cells found in the retina are even sensitive to the statistical properties of light. This ability could be harnessed in 'bioquantum' interfaces, a novel class of optical devices that use biological systems to detect the quantum nature of light.
Light comprises discrete bundles of energy known as photons. A 40-Watt light bulb, for example, creates more than 1019 (a one followed by 19 zeros) visible photons every second. Nevertheless, attenuated sources that generate light pulses containing just a few photons are also useful. In such ultralow-intensity light pulses, the statistical distribution of photons emitted in a single pulse depends on the light source.
Warm light sources such as light-bulb filaments generate photons in bunches. Lasers, in contrast, create photons randomly -- each is emitted independently of the next. Krivitsky and his co-workers experimentally demonstrated that rod photoreceptor cells in the eye can distinguish between pulses of light from either a laser or a thermal light based only on these differing distributions. "Showing that such cells can assess photon statistics provides hope for accessing the quantum properties of light using biodetectors," says Krivitsky.
Krivitsky and his team trapped a photoreceptor cell from a frog on the end of a suction pipette. Then they fired green-light laser pulses at the cell through an optical fiber. The same device could also imitate a thermal light source when they placed a rotating disk of ground glass and an aperture into the beam path.
They observed that rhodopsin molecules in the cell absorbed the incoming photons, which generated an ion current. The researchers amplified and measured this current as the average number of photons in each light pulse increased. They noticed a much sharper increase in detected current for the laser light than the pseudothermal pulses. This is because, while the average photon number is the same, an individual pseudothermal pulse was more likely to have a low number of photons. The photon distribution of the laser pulses, on the other hand, was much narrower.
The two types of photon emitters investigated in these experiments are examples of 'classical' light sources. "The next step is to investigate quantum light, such as pulses with a fixed number of photons," notes Krivitsky.
The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Data Storage Institute and the Institute of Medical Biology
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A wave of attacks killed at least 95 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 240 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.
The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-2007, when Sunni and Shiite militias carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood. Still, Monday's attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.
Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.
Iraq's Shiite majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.
But the renewed violence in both Shiite and Sunni areas since late last month has fueled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare. Monday marked the deadliest day in Iraq in more than 20 months, and raised the nationwide death toll since last Wednesday alone to more than 240 people, according to an AP count.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused militant groups of trying to exploit Iraq's political instability to exacerbate sectarian tensions at home, and blamed the recent spike in violence on the wider unrest in the region, particularly in neighboring Syria. At the same time, he pledged Monday that insurgents "will not be able to bring back the atmosphere of the sectarian war."
Many Sunnis here contend that much of the country's current turmoil is rooted in decisions made by al-Maliki's government, saying his administration planted the seeds for more sectarian tension by becoming more aggressive toward Sunnis after the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011.
The worst of Monday's violence took place in Baghdad, where 10 car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 48 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said. In the bloodiest attack, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.
The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.
"How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?" asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. "Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before."
"We're fed up with them and we can't tolerate this anymore," he added.
The predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there ? one outside a restaurant and another at the city's main bus station ? killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of city's health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.
A parked car bomb later struck Shiite worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in the southern city of Hillah, killing nine and wounding 26, according to police and health officials said.
In the town of Balad, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing 13 Iranians and one Iraqi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the fact that they all occurred in Shiite areas raised the suspicion that Sunni militants were involved. Also, Sunni insurgents, particularly al-Qaida in Iraq, are known to employ such large-scale bombings.
Monday's violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold and the birthplace of the protest movement.
A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13, while in Anbar gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, police and army officials said.
Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 bodies dumped in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight policemen who were kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
___
Associated Press writer Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra contributed to this report.
Jolla has finally taken the wraps off the smartphone hardware that will be paired with its "unlike" Sailfish UI. Being a startup is challenging enough in any business sector but Jolla is seeking to compete in the fiercely competitive smartphone space against Samsung and Apple. So it's hard not to dismiss their efforts as too late. But it's a lot harder to accuse them of doing too little.
Human-like opponents lead to more aggression in video game players, UConn study findsPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tom Breen tom.breen@uconn.edu 860-486-0890 University of Connecticut
Researchers say results help fill in details about risk factors and aggression regarding games
Video games that pit players against human-looking characters may be more likely to provoke violent thoughts and words than games where monstrous creatures are the enemy, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Wake Forest University.
"The Perception of Human Appearance in Video Games: Toward an Understanding of the Effects of Player Perceptions of Game Features," published in the May 2013 issue of Mass Communication and Society, comes as lawmakers and the public are freshly debating the possible risks that violent games may pose to impressionable players.
"It's important to think in terms of risk factors," says Kirstie Farrar, associate professor of communication at UConn and the lead researcher on the study. "The research clearly suggests that, among other risk factors, exposure to violent video games can lead to aggression and other potentially harmful effects."
In the study, 148 participants played the first-person shooter Quake 3 Revolution, in which the gamer battles onscreen opponents whose appearance can range from human-like to completely non-human, such as a giant floating eyeball. Farrar and colleague Rory McGloin, an assistant professor-in-residence, along with Wake Forest professor Marina Krcmar, a former UConn faculty member, then used a series of tests to measure participants' levels of verbal, cognitive, and physical aggression.
Participants who battled what they perceived as human-looking characters in the game were more likely to have aggressive thoughts and words than those who had shot down monstrous nonhuman characters.
"The more human players perceived the aggressive targets to be, the more verbally aggressive they were and the more violent words they generated," the study says. "Although we predicted that less human targets would result in more aggression, players seemed to be more aggressive after perceiving more human targets."
The prospect that fighting human-looking characters can provoke more aggression than unleashing violence against characters with no real-world counterparts could have implications for debates over gaming, especially as video games become more sophisticated and immersive, Farrar says.
"A lot of games are becoming incredibly easy to customize now," she said. "I can upload pictures of myself into a game, for example. Or I can upload pictures of people I don't like."
But the study also notes there was no significant increase in levels of physical aggression after fighting human-looking video game characters, something that suggests social prohibitions against violent acts remain strong.
"There are obvious consequences for physical violence," McGloin says. "But we're much more tolerant as a society of aggressive thoughts, as long as they don't lead to aggressive behavior."
Farrar and McGloin have plans to develop the research, including a study that uses realistic-looking gun-shaped controllers to see if that has any effect on players' aggression. They also want to research more fully whether playing frequently changes how gamers react to violence in video games. In previous work, the researchers found that frequent players of violent video games are more aggressive overall and more attracted to violent games.
As lawmakers in Connecticut and elsewhere contemplate studying the effects of violent games, the researchers say that the more data available, the better.
"We can talk about violent video games and aggression all day, but we need to be careful," McGloin says. "We're not going to find one answer and be able to say, 'This game's good, this game's bad.' It's never going to be that simple."
###
[ | 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.
Human-like opponents lead to more aggression in video game players, UConn study findsPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tom Breen tom.breen@uconn.edu 860-486-0890 University of Connecticut
Researchers say results help fill in details about risk factors and aggression regarding games
Video games that pit players against human-looking characters may be more likely to provoke violent thoughts and words than games where monstrous creatures are the enemy, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Wake Forest University.
"The Perception of Human Appearance in Video Games: Toward an Understanding of the Effects of Player Perceptions of Game Features," published in the May 2013 issue of Mass Communication and Society, comes as lawmakers and the public are freshly debating the possible risks that violent games may pose to impressionable players.
"It's important to think in terms of risk factors," says Kirstie Farrar, associate professor of communication at UConn and the lead researcher on the study. "The research clearly suggests that, among other risk factors, exposure to violent video games can lead to aggression and other potentially harmful effects."
In the study, 148 participants played the first-person shooter Quake 3 Revolution, in which the gamer battles onscreen opponents whose appearance can range from human-like to completely non-human, such as a giant floating eyeball. Farrar and colleague Rory McGloin, an assistant professor-in-residence, along with Wake Forest professor Marina Krcmar, a former UConn faculty member, then used a series of tests to measure participants' levels of verbal, cognitive, and physical aggression.
Participants who battled what they perceived as human-looking characters in the game were more likely to have aggressive thoughts and words than those who had shot down monstrous nonhuman characters.
"The more human players perceived the aggressive targets to be, the more verbally aggressive they were and the more violent words they generated," the study says. "Although we predicted that less human targets would result in more aggression, players seemed to be more aggressive after perceiving more human targets."
The prospect that fighting human-looking characters can provoke more aggression than unleashing violence against characters with no real-world counterparts could have implications for debates over gaming, especially as video games become more sophisticated and immersive, Farrar says.
"A lot of games are becoming incredibly easy to customize now," she said. "I can upload pictures of myself into a game, for example. Or I can upload pictures of people I don't like."
But the study also notes there was no significant increase in levels of physical aggression after fighting human-looking video game characters, something that suggests social prohibitions against violent acts remain strong.
"There are obvious consequences for physical violence," McGloin says. "But we're much more tolerant as a society of aggressive thoughts, as long as they don't lead to aggressive behavior."
Farrar and McGloin have plans to develop the research, including a study that uses realistic-looking gun-shaped controllers to see if that has any effect on players' aggression. They also want to research more fully whether playing frequently changes how gamers react to violence in video games. In previous work, the researchers found that frequent players of violent video games are more aggressive overall and more attracted to violent games.
As lawmakers in Connecticut and elsewhere contemplate studying the effects of violent games, the researchers say that the more data available, the better.
"We can talk about violent video games and aggression all day, but we need to be careful," McGloin says. "We're not going to find one answer and be able to say, 'This game's good, this game's bad.' It's never going to be that simple."
###
[ | 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.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. officials say they have identified five men they believe might be behind the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. The officials say they have enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists ? but not enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers.
So the officials say the men remain at large while the FBI gathers more evidence. The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House's aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and toward trying them as criminals in a civilian justice system.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive briefings publicly.
The biggest news of the day made its way out of Microsoft's Redmond headquarters a few hours ago, but there's plenty more to see just 150 miles to the north in Vancouver, British Columbia. SID's Display Week exhibition kicked off this morning, giving us an opportunity to get hands-on with some pretty nifty prototypes from LG and Samsung, including that first manufacturer's 5-inch flexible plastic OLED panel and a brilliant 3,200 x 1,800-pixel laptop display from the latter. We'll be scouring the floor over the days to come, on the hunt for similar innovations, many of which will likely find their way into our smartphones, laptops and living rooms later this year and beyond.
Protip: Use our "SID2013" tag to see this week's hottest Display Week news!
TeamSnap, a company that provides tools for managing sports teams, has today announced that it is acquiring Weplay, a social networking site for athletes, parents and coaches to help facilitate coordination for events, games, practices, etc. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Samsung has announced it's got a new 13.3-inch display with a staggering 3200 x 1800 resolution ready to plop into new Ultrabooks. Take that, MacBook Retina and Chromebook Pixel.
Vladislav Surkov was once one of the president's most influential and deft advisers. His forced resignation suggests the Kremlin may be pursuing blunter ways of manipulating the political landscape.
By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / May 8, 2013
Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov speaks before the state of the nation address at the Kremlin in Moscow in this 2011 photo. Surkov, who was once Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief political strategist and dubbed the Kremlin's puppet master, resigned on May 8.
Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Enlarge
Vladislav Surkov, the former theater arts major who took on the job of stage-managing Russian democracy on behalf of Vladimir Putin, was abruptly shown the Kremlin door Wednesday.?Most analysts see the move as a sign that an increasingly heavy-handed Mr. Putin has no further use for Mr. Surkov's elaborate and relatively gentle methods of manipulating the political landscape.
Skip to next paragraph Fred Weir
Correspondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Surkov, an influential Putin advisor who helped sculpt Russia's so-called "sovereign democracy" system, told the Moscow daily Kommersant that he had tendered his resignation on April 26, but will only discuss the reasons for his departure "when it is appropriate."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested to the Kommersant FM radio station that he had been pushed out the door due to poor job performance.?
"[His resignation] is related to the high-priority task of implementing presidential decrees," Mr. Peskov said.
Often referred to as the "grey cardinal" of the Kremlin, Surkov's star had been falling since a massive protest movement hit Moscow streets in December 2011. It had been triggered by the near-universal allegations of electoral fraud committed by Surkov's own brainchild ? the pro-Kremlin United Russia party ? in parliamentary polls.
He was subsequently eased out of his role as Putin's deputy chief of staff and given the thankless-by-definition job of deputy prime minister in charge of modernizing Russia's economy.
"His resignation testifies to the fact that there is a real political crisis in the country. Different bureaucratic structures are at war with each other, and Russia is becoming increasingly ungovernable," says Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the independent Institute of Globalization and Social Movement Studies in Moscow. ?
"Surkov had his own vision. He tried to control the process, to reconcile different structures, and he lost," he adds.
Surkov had been a Kremlin fixture since Putin's first presidential term and is widely regarded as the chief architect of the Putin-era system of "sovereign democracy," whose basic idea is that the political system headed by Putin is the direct outgrowth of Russia's own history and public dynamics ? not an import from anywhere else ? and is therefore democracy.
Critics, and even many independent analysts, quickly substituted the more descriptive term "managed democracy."?The phrase evoked the Kremlin's aggressive role in landscaping Russia's political garden ??weeding out pesky opposition parties and independent politicians, concentrating official resources and state media attention behind the ruling United Russia party, and generally altering rules of the game to favor pro-Kremlin outcomes.?
In addition to fathering United Russia, Surkov created a bouquet of pro-Kremlin public organizations, such as the youth movement Nashi and a state-supported assembly of tame civil society groups called the Public Chamber.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Is the tea party getting its groove back? Shouts of vindication from around the country suggest the movement's leaders certainly think so.
They say the IRS acknowledgement that it had targeted their groups for extra scrutiny ? a claim that tea party activists had made for years ? is helping pump new energy into the coalition. And they are trying to use that development, along with the ongoing controversy over the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attacks and the Justice Department's secret seizure of journalists' phone records, to recruit new activists incensed about government overreach.
"This is the defining moment to say 'I told you so,' " said Katrina Pierson, a Dallas-based tea party leader, who traveled to Washington last week as the three political headaches for President Barack Obama unfolded.
Luke Rogonjich, a tea party leader in Phoenix, called the trio of controversies a powerful confluence that bolsters the GOP's case against big government. "Suddenly, there are a lot of things pressing on the dam," said Rogonjich.
It's unclear whether a movement made up of disparate grassroots groups with no central body can take advantage of the moment and leverage it to grow stronger after a sub-par showing in last fall's election had called into question the movement's lasting impact. Republicans and Democrats alike say the tea party runs the risk of going too far in its criticism, which could once again open the door to Democratic efforts to paint it as an extreme arm of the GOP.
"Never underestimate the tea party's ability to overplay its hand," said Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee. "Just because there is universal agreement that the IRS went too far, that should not be misread as acceptance of the tea party's ideology of anger."
At the very least, furor over the IRS devoting special attention to tea party groups claiming tax-exempt status is giving the tea party more visibility than it has had in months, and it's providing a new rallying cry for tea party organizers starting to plot how to influence the 2014 congressional elections. The law allows tax-exempt organizations to lobby and dabble in politics as long as their primary purpose is social welfare.
The tax-agency scandal ? it has led to the acting IRS commissioner's ouster, a criminal investigation and Capitol Hill hearings ? seems to validate the tea party's long-held belief among supporters that government was trampling on them specifically, a claim dismissed by ousted commissioner Steven T. Miller. He has called the targeting "a mistake and not an act of partisanship."
Nevertheless, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., elected in 2010 with tea party backing, said the IRS scandal "confirms many of the feelings that led to the tea party movement in the first place."
"What's happened here is a reminder of, this is what happens when you expand government," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That and the disaster that is Obamacare is going to be a real catalyst in 2014 and beyond."
Tea party activists hope they also can drive support ahead of the elections by stoking widespread suspicions that the Obama administration and State Department are hiding key details about the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The seizure of Associated Press phone records also plays into their argument that government is too intrusive.
Tea party activists have tried to take advantage of the issues that have put some of their central tenets ? limited government and civil liberties ? in the spotlight.
From around the country last week, they headed Washington to hold a news conference on the Capitol steps and meet with members of Congress. Those who stayed home jammed House and Senate phone lines with calls urging congressional action as the IRS saga unfolded. An email from Teaparty.org that was sent to activists proclaimed: "We've worked so hard these past few years and it's paying off! We're witnessing the unraveling of a presidency at an unprecedented rate."
Freedomworks, a national tea party group, spent the week circulating petitions for congressional hearings and encouraging leaders of local groups who believe they have been targeted by the IRS to include their story on a national database to build the case against the agency.
"Perhaps all this attention will break something loose," said Jim Chiodo, an activist from Holland, Mich.
It wasn't long ago that the tea party was the hot new political kid on the block, bursting onto the national scene during the contentious summer debate over health care in 2009. Over the next few years, the loosely affiliated conservatives and civil libertarians would leave their mark on the 2010 elections by helping Republican candidates win Senate races in Florida, Kentucky, Utah and Wisconsin and scores of House races.
Those victories resulted in House and Senate Republican caucuses getting pushed to the right in legislative battles, making life difficult for Obama and his Democrats in an era of divided government.
But the movement's success was muted in 2012 when Republicans nominated the establishment-backed Mitt Romney for president, though he did little to inspire the tea party. He lost, and so did many tea party-backed House and Senate candidates.
Now, tea party activists say they are emboldened and won't be afraid to recruit candidates to run in Republican primaries against incumbents who appear to go easy on the Obama administration, particularly in light of the IRS scandal.
"It's one of those issues we should just raise hell about," said Nashville Tea Party leader Ben Cunningham.
Some say they're now even more suspicious of government than before.
"I personally feel so vindicated," said Mark Falzon, a New Jersey tea party leader. But he added: "What's scaring me now is what's going on below the water line that we're not seeing."
Republicans say that the tea party will have an opportunity come 2014 to make its mark again, particularly with Obama not at the top of the ticket. Also, they say that with Obama's health care law going into effect and with the slew of latest controversies, they now have concrete issues to point to when arguing against government overreach.
"Suddenly, this is a very real demonstration of too much power ceded to government bureaucrats," said Matt Kibbe, president of Freedomworks. "This is no longer theoretical."
___
Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Boston and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Follow Thomas Beaumont on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Tom_Beaumont
In many respects Google Hangouts is impressive?it brings together Google's disparate chat options rather neatly?but you should think twice about using it if you rely on making Google Voice calls from your computer.
It's just a quick kiss, but it's a long step forward for Archie Comics' only openly gay characterKevin Keller.
The Riverdale teen finds his life turned upside down after locking lips with his boyfriend, Devon, in Pop Tate's diner, drawing the ire of at least one disapproving Riverdale mom.
The woman "gets very offended and kind of pitches a bit of a fit," said Dan Parent, who writes and draws the issue, "Kevin Keller" No. 10 that is released Aug. 7.
"Kevin is kind of used to that, but Veronica records the whole thing and of course uploads it to the Riverdale equivalent of YouTube and that starts a bit of a debate," said Parent.
For Archie Comics it's a bit of art imitating life. Parent said he wrote the story after efforts to remove a comic magazine showing Keller getting married drew at complaints. One Million Moms, a project of The American Family Association, asked Toys R Us not to display "Life With Archie" No. 16 near its checkout aisles. Toys R Us did not, and the issue went on to sell out its print run.
Parent called the new story a "playful poke" at the protest.
Keller debuted in "Veronica" No. 202 in September 2010. It resulted in Archie Comics' first-ever second printing. It was quickly followed by a four-issue miniseries and the current monthly title.
Publisher and co-CEO Jon Goldwater said the fact that any kiss is being shown in the pages of an Archie Comics book is a step in and of itself.
"There aren't that many on-panel kisses in the pages of Archie, but you often see the lipstick on Archie's face afterward," he said.
Goldwater said Keller's character has let the company weave in contemporary issues to its imaginary world.
"We certainly pride ourselves on being contemporary, but that's not the reason why we're showing 'The Kiss.' Just like when Kevin first told Jughead he was gay, it was in the natural course of conversation," said Goldwater. "We are creating this in the same way. It's just part of the story."
Jolla has finally taken the wraps off the smartphone hardware that will be paired with its "unlike" Sailfish UI. Being a startup is challenging enough in any business sector but Jolla is seeking to compete in the fiercely competitive smartphone space against Samsung and Apple. So it's hard not to dismiss their efforts as too late. But it's a lot harder to accuse them of doing too little.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 20-May-2013
Share ] 
