Chuck Hagel Faces His Biggest Critics Today

Thursday in Washington could see the most contentious confirmation hearing of Barack Obama's presidency, as former Senator Chuck Hagel fights for his chance to be the next Secretary of Defense.?At least seven of the 12 members on the Senate Armed Services Committee have expressed some reservations on Hagel's nomination and a few have stated outright that they plan to vote against him. That may not be enough to shut down his appointment, but it could lead to some fireworks today as the Republican committee members get their chance to challenge him directly. Unlike John Kerry, Hagel didn't make a lot of friends during his time in the Senate and will not get the benefit of a rubber-stamp coronation.

RELATED: Meet Chuck Hagel, Your 'Likely' New Secretary of Defense

So why do his haters want to keep Hagel?a brave enlisted man, a decorated veteran, and a former Senator like themselves?from running the Pentagon? Two reasons, really: Israel and Iran, two nations for which Hagel does not appear to share the appropriate level of concern.

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For Israel, the problem is that?Hagel has in the past seemed indifferent, or worse, openly hostile to Israeli leaders and the "Jewish lobby," as he unfortunately referred to it supporters. With Iran, he hasn't been hostile enough, voting against sanctions several times as a Senator, and arguing that engagement with their?government?and "containment" of their nuclear program was the better course of action. Obviously, being insufficiently angry with Iran is another sign you don't care enough about?Israel, but the intertwined issue of how Chuck Hagel feels about our Friends and our Enemies will make up the bulk of the questioning.

RELATED: Obama Launches the Untouchable Hagel Defense

Another matter of concern will Hagel's opinions about the future of the military. He's complained in the past about the "bloated" Armed Forces, and may look to?shrink?the defense budget rather than expand it?an almost blasphemous idea in the Armed Services committee, which has never had any problem giving our army more money. You can also expect a lot of questions about his priorities for war planning: fast, nimble, and computer-heavy or big, loud, and powerfully destructive?

RELATED: The People Who Are Actually Saying They Oppose Chuck Hagel

It doesn't even really matter that Hagel's most?controversial comments happened years ago, or that Congress still controls his budget, or that not all Americans agree with the Republican approach to foreign policy. The hearing is as much about voicing official objections to the Obama administration's?behavior as it about taking down Chuck Hagel. And even if they can't find out Hagel's mind, maybe they can't learn something about the President's?

RELATED: Chuck Hagel: A Highly Controversial Nominee Almost Certain to Be Confirmed

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Because Democrats control the Senate and therefore the committee (and even most opposition members are inclined to defer to the president on political appointees) the odds are slim that Hagel will not become the next Secretary of Defense. That doesn't mean that doesn't mean the Senators who will grill him today can't make the rest of his morning?and the next four years?very uncomfortable.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chuck-hagel-faces-biggest-critics-today-125625005.html

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Israel attacks arms convoy in Syria, U.S. confiirms

WASHINGTON -- Israeli warplanes struck targets Wednesday outside Damascus,? the Syrian capital,? according to Syrian and Western reports, amid? rising international fear that President Bashar Assad will lose control of his nation?s stockpiles of chemical and advanced weapons.

A Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the airstrike hit a truck convoy believed to be carrying antiaircraft weapons for Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.? The shipment was thought to have included Russian-made SA-17 missiles, the official said.? If such weapons were obtained by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, it could weaken Israel?s regional military power and hinder its ability to launch airstrikes in Lebanon.

Syrian state media, while also reporting an Israreli airstrike, denied that the target was a weapons shipment for Hezbollah, instead claiming that a military research facility and adjacent building had been destroyed. It said two people were killed and five were injured in the dawn attack.
Syria did not say what kind of research took place at the center in Jamraya, northwest of the capital.

Israeli officials declined to comment on the reports. But such a strike would mark Israel?s most aggressive military action in Syria during the nearly two-year uprising against Assad?s rule.

Israeli officials have been sounding alarms in recent days that Syria?s weapons might fall into the hands of militant groups that could use them against Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised that concern during a Cabinet meeting this week and officials have repeatedly said that any transfer of Syria?s dangerous weapons outside the country might trigger a military response.

Israel has tried to steer clear of the Syrian conflict, fearing that any actions it might take, such as supporting opposition forces or launching a military strike, could backfire or become propaganda fodder? for Damascus. Syrian officials have long charged that U.S. and ?Zionist? forces are behind the rebellion against Assad. Each side in the Syrian conflict has portrayed itself as an implacable enemy of Israel.

There is also fear that an Israeli strike could draw others into the Syrian conflict. Iran, Syria?s close ally, said this week that any foreign attack against Syria would be regarded as an attack on Iran.

In addition to chemical weapons, Israeli officials have been particularly worried about Syria?s stockpile of SA-17 antiaircraft missiles.

Israel often refuses to confirm or deny its activities in the region, partly out of a belief its silence might reduce the pressure on its enemies to respond.

In recent weeks, Israelis warned that Assad is losing control over his chemical weapons and that military action might be taken.

Amid the renewed warnings, Israelis living in the northern part of the country near the borders with Syria and Lebanon have been swarming into post offices and other distribution centers to pick up government-issued gas masks.

Israel relocated two of its five Iron Dome missile-interception systems to the northern part of the country, though military officials said the move was not related to fear of impending attacks.

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Times staff writers Sanders reported from Jerusalem and McDonnell from Beirut.

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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-wn-israel-convoy-20130130,0,6118916.story?track=rss

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Ask the Experts: Can Aging Be Controlled?

Judith Campisi began her career studying cancer, but now investigates the molecular causes of aging Image: Berkeley Lab

Scientists have long thought that aging could be caused by molecular damage that accumulates in our bodies over the course of time. The damage is an unavoidable by-product of breathing oxygen and other metabolic processes that are necessary to life. Eventually, damaged cells stop working, or worse, adopt new functions that trigger cancerous growth or degrade important tissues in the brain, skin and other organs.

But as Melinda Wenner Moyer reports in the February issue of Scientific American, investigators have conducted several experiments over the past few years that challenge this so-called oxidative stress theory of aging. For example, a tiny mouselike creature known as the naked mole rat manages to live up to 30 years (about 10 times longer than a similarly sized mouse) despite accumulating a much greater level of oxidative damage in its tissues than other rodents.

These and other often surprising results have led to a boom in research on aging in the past few years, as investigators learn more about the inner workings of the cells at the molecular and genetic levels.

Scientific American spoke to Judith Campisi, a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for a quick overview of the field. You can read more about Campisi?s research on cell senescence as one possible cause of aging in the August 2012 issue of Scientific American.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Why is it so hard to figure out what causes aging?
In many ways we already know what causes aging. We just don't know what causes aging in the kind of molecular detail that would allow us to intervene in large meaningful ways. It's not even clear that once we solve those mysteries we will be able to intervene in aging or dramatically extend longevity.

I started my career studying cancer. Look at all the things we have learned since the 1970s about how cancers form in the body. And yet, still the best cures we have for most cancers are sledgehammers. Biology is complex?and this is a reality that the public has to come to grips with and our legislators have to come to grips with.

I predict aging will follow the same trajectory as cancer research. Why is aging so difficult to figure out? It's because it's a really tough problem. I think it's tougher than cancer. The time has come to really wallow in the complexities.

How many different causes of aging do you think there will turn out to be?
I don't think there will be hundreds of causes of aging. But I don't think there will be just one, either, or we would have gotten a handle on it by now. It's sort of like asking me what the stock market would be tomorrow. I could give you an answer but you'd be crazy to believe me!

How about just a couple causes of aging?
Well, we know that there is molecular damage and what I will refer to as genetic damage?although that doesn't necessarily mean a mutation. By genetic damage, I am referring to both changes in the genes themselves as well as in the epigenetic switches that regulate how the genes are expressed.

Why does this damage occur? Basically, there are two main reasons: One, breathing oxygen is dangerous to your health. Your body makes certain harmful compounds just as a result of breathing oxygen. Two, the cells inside your body make mistakes when they divide. Most of the cells in your body are not dividing at any given time. Many have the ability to divide but? don't. But when a cell does divide, it has to copy three billion base pairs of DNA exactly right. Inevitably mistakes happen and cells become damaged.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=82eb79587e95b822fd187e2522eeb131

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From gulags to dusty donkeys, Google Maps reveals Earth's mysteries

15 hrs.

Rosa Golijan , NBC News

On Monday, Google officially updated North Korea on Google Maps. Thanks to crowd-sourced data, the area is no longer blank, but instead includes markings for just about everything???right down to the locations of its prison camps. This isn't the first time Google Maps (and its 3-D counterpart, Google Earth) helped reveal previously obscured ??or even unknown ??geography.

In late 2011, Google Maps images called attention to strange patterns etched into the surface of China's Gobi Desert. There were speculations that the patterns were related to weapons-testing sites or even messages from aliens,?but?the?consensus,?according?to?Natalie Wolchover?of?Life's?Little?Mysteries,?was?that?they?were?satellite?calibration?patterns.?

Another pattern found not far from there, a?"Stonehenge-like arrangement of objects radiating outward, with fighter jets parked at its center,"?is?likely?used to test radar from space.

A year later, yet another mysterious pattern was spotted in yet another Chinese desert.?LiveScience's?Tia Ghose?reported?that?these?were?the?result?of?geological surveys for nickel mines.

Google Earth, another aspect of Google's geo project,?has also?helped an?archaeologist discover ancient Egyptian ruins.Much of the excitement over that discovery evaporated though as ? after some initial confusion regarding whether they ruins were previously undiscovered pyramids or other formations ? it turned out that at least some other researchers were already aware of this point of interest.

Thanks to Google Maps' Street View, folks have been exploring areas they may never see in person. For example, thousands of images from Australia's Great Barrier Reef and other coral locales were stitched together into 360-degree panoramas, so that anyone can take a trip from the comfort of his or her own desk.

"This will allow the 99.9 percent of the population who have never been diving to go on a virtual dive for the first time," said Richard Vevers, project director for the Catlin Seaview Survey (which worked in partnership with Google to capture images for these panoramas), told NBC News?when the project was first publicized.

Ancient Mexican monuments such as Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza and Palenque are also included in virtual tours, along with?countless businesses which, as part of an extension to the Google Street View project, allow users to virtually explore building interiors.

Sometimes Google's mapping products can cause controversy. When?a data glitch related to Google Earth's underwater seafloor imagery led to the appearance of a grid-like pattern, some proclaimed it?must indicate the existence of Atlantis. The "evidence" of the mythical city's presence disappeared as soon as Google incorporated fresh data and smoothed over imaging artifacts.

At least one mapping controversy ended with new research, however.?When a Nicaraguan general?alleged that Google Maps displayed erroneous borders between his country and Costa Rica. The secretary general of the Organization of American States was sent in to examine the area and resolve the cartographic drama.

And then there was that time a?Google Street View car ran over a donkey ? or at least appeared to. ?"Over the last 24-hours concerned members of the public and the media have been speculating on the fate of a donkey pictured in Street View in the Kweneng region of Botswana,"?wrote?Google's?Kei?Kawai?in?a?blog?post.?Fortunately?for?Google,?the?car?took?many?photos,?and?a?review?of?them?clearly?showed?the?donkey?moving?aside?safely.?"I'm pleased to confirm the donkey is alive and well."

Google's not above showing us what's behind the curtain in its own data centers, either. Thanks to Street View tours of the interiors of the company's previously unseen buildings, we now know that Stormtroopers and R2 units guard our precious data.

Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/gulags-dusty-donkeys-google-maps-reveals-earths-mysteries-1B8166498

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Chill out ? prostate cancer cells thrive on stress

28 January, 2013

By Staff Writer
NYR Natural News

Natural Health News?? A diagnosis of prostate is a pretty stressful event.

Now a study from researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center indicates that stress is not just an emotional side effect of the diagnosis; it also can reduce the effectiveness of prostate cancer drugs and accelerate the growth of prostate cancer.

The findings are published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The? team tested the effects of behavioural stress in two different mouse models of prostate cancer.

Stress reduces effectiveness of drug therapy

One model used mice that were implanted with human prostate cancer cells and treated with a drug that is currently in clinical trial for prostate cancer treatment. When the mice were kept calm and free of stress, the drug destroyed prostate cancer cells and inhibited tumour growth. However, when the mice were stressed, the cancer cells didn?t die and the drug didn?t work.

In the second model, mice with a genetic predisposition to develop prostate cancer were used. When these mice were repeatedly stressed, the size of prostate tumours increased. When the mice were treated with bicalutamide, a drug currently used to treat prostate cancer, their prostate tumours decreased in size. However, if mice were subjected to repeated stress, the prostate tumours didn?t respond as well to the drug.

According to the researchers epinephrine, a hormone also known as adrenaline, sets off the cellular chain reaction that controls cell death. Considering that prostate cancer diagnosis increases stress and anxiety levels, stress-induced activation of the signalling pathway that turns off the cell death process may lead to a vicious cycle of stress and cancer progression.

Yet in both models in which the mice were given beta-blocker, stress did not promote prostate tumour growth. One of the actions of beta-blockers is to inhibits the activation? epinephrine.

Better ways to destress

Here?s where the researchers thinking goes a bit awry, by suggesting that beta-blockers should be supplied to prostate cancer patients to improve the effectiveness of anti-cancer therapies. Beta blockers come with a whole host of adverse effects including fatigue, stomach upset, dizziness as well as depression, shortness of breath and loss of sex drive.

Stress reduction is an important part of any kind of cancer regime?? and is really best incorporated in our lifestyle before we get sick.

A study in 2006 have shown for instance that a regime of non-pharmacological stress reduction ? including?meditation, yoga and Tai Chi exercises?? and a plant-based diet were effective in significantly reducing the PSA rate, indicating a reduction in the rate of progression of the prostate cancer.

Similar results were found in a 2011 when diet, physical activity, and stress reduction (in this case meditation) slowed prostate tumour promotion and disease progression.

Lowering levels of other stress hormones

Reducing levels of other stress hormones can be beneficial too. In one 2004 study researchers investigated the relationships between a mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation program for early stage breast and prostate cancer patients and quality of life, mood states, stress symptoms, and levels of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS) and melatonin.

The participants were enrolled in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that incorporated relaxation, meditation, gentle yoga, and daily home practice. After 8 weeks the participants experienced enhanced quality of life and decreased stress symptoms.

Source: http://www.nyrnaturalnews.com/mind-body/2013/01/chill-out-prostate-cancer-cells-thrive-on-stress/

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Mass cancer mapping centre opens

28 January 2013 Last updated at 11:33 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

The devastating changes that turn healthy tissue into cancer are to be investigated in the biggest centre of its kind in the NHS.

The laboratories at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) will use information in tumour DNA to help find the best "personalised" treatments.

Its director said this was not science fiction and would be day-to-day practice in the NHS within a decade.

The centre will also investigate how cancers become resistant to drugs.

The field of cancer research is moving rapidly away from defining a cancer by where it is in the body - one type of breast cancer can have more in common with an ovarian cancer than another cancer in the breast.

Instead scientists and doctors are looking deeper at what is going wrong inside cancerous cells - a tumour can have 100,000 genetic mutations and these alter over time.

Rapid advances in being able to sequence the genetic code of patients are allowing breakthroughs in understanding which mutations transform a healthy cell into a cancerous one.

Identifying the mutations can then be used to choose the best treatment. The most famous example of this is the drug Herceptin, which is used in breast cancers with a certain genetic abnormality.

The new centre will test samples from patients at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.

The ICR's director, Prof Alan Ashworth, said: "None of this is science fiction. This is now happening. We think we're pioneering the clinical application of this by setting up the Tumour Profiling Unit, but one would think this would be absolutely routine practice for every cancer patient - and that's what we're aiming to bring about."

Treatment is futile

One great challenge with cancer treatment is resistance. Promising drugs suddenly fail after a few months.

Prof Ashworth described it as a "bit like the game whack-a-mole" with a new method of resistance popping up every time a drug kicks a cancer down.

The Tumour Profiling Unit will repeatedly test cancer samples to see how the tumour changes in an attempt to understand resistance.

Other challenges for the field include storing the data. The genetic codes of one million cancer patients would take up the same amount of space as YouTube.

Implementing this form of genetic testing into the NHS is another issue. The test results would need to be made available rapidly and in a way that is easy for doctors to interpret and decide on treatments.

The government has recently announced that up to 100,000 patients with cancer and rare diseases in England are to have their entire genetic code sequenced to aid research.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21235103#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Salmonella linked to ground beef sickens 16: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(Reuters) - Sixteen people across five states have fallen ill from Salmonella poisoning, several from a raw ground-beef dish served at a single restaurant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday.

Local, state and federal health and regulatory officials said the likely cause of the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak was Jouni Meats Inc and Gab Halal Foods, both of Michigan.

Most the people sickened were in the Midwest - two in Illinois, one in Iowa, three in Wisconsin and nine in Michigan, where the meat shops are located, the CDC said. One sick person was identified in Arizona.

Seven people reported eating a raw ground-beef dish at a restaurant, the CDC said, adding that roughly half of the people were hospitalized, although none died.

"The restaurant served raw beef to customers and had acquired the raw beef from two retailers," the CDC said in a statement, without naming the restaurant.

Last week Jouni Meats recalled approximately 500 pounds of ground beef and Gab Halal Foods recalled about 550 pounds of ground beef, the CDC said.

Jouni Meats sold the meat, used to make a raw Middle Eastern ground beef dish called kibbeh, without a label between December 4 and 9 to customers, including a Detroit-area restaurant, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Gab Halal Foods also sold bags of ground beef in clear plastic at around the same time to customers and the same restaurant, located in Macomb County, local and federal officials said.

Khalil Jouni, owner of Jouni Meats, on Monday said he believed the ground beef had been safe when he distributed it and may have become tainted somewhere down the line.

"I produce meat to other restaurants, and my customers, and none of them got sick," Jouni said. "I make sure everything is very clean."

Gab Halal Foods, which Jouni said is owned by his brother, could not be reached for a comment.

The illness from the food-borne organism usually causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. It can be fatal for the elderly, young children and those with weakened immune systems.

The CDC warned people not to eat raw or undercooked beef and to return or throw out recalled products.

"This is especially important for children under the age of 5 years, older adults and people with weakened immune systems because these people are at a higher risk for serious illness," the CDC said.

(Reporting By Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Maureen Bavdek and Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/salmonella-linked-ground-beef-sickens-16-five-states-193902704.html

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What we need is a filter ? Butterflies and Wheels

Cath Elliott writes about What it?s like to be a victim of Don?t Start Me Off?s internet hate mob.

Note from Helen Lewis, who republished the post on her New Statesman blog:

Note from Helen: Cath Elliott?s Blog, An Occupational Hazard, was one of the pieces which inspired me to collect together the experiences of female bloggers about online abuse. I thought Cath was incredibly brave to write about the hatred she was subjected to ? particularly since it was deliberately as humiliating and obscene as possible.

Funnily enough, her internet tormentors were from a site called Don?t Start Me Off! ? which was taken offline last week by its owner after the unwelcome glare of publicity fell on it when Mary Beard spoke out about the thread about her posted there. As Richard White, the site?s owner, is now claiming that he has been badly misrepresented, I thought it was important to hear what it was really like to be harassed by DSMO. Here?s Cath, in a post originally published on her blog yesterday.

Yes Richard White who said ?we never try to hurt people?s feelings.? He actually said that.

In his sniveling non-apology to Professor Mary Beard, who has recently been the victim of the DSMO hate mongers, White also stated: ?We do not go out to be offensive?. He then implied that the only reason Beard had seen the vile comments about her was because she?d obviously gone on to the Internet specifically to look for them.

According to White, the trolls at DSMO were never actually trolls in the true Internety sense of the word because they never went after anyone off the site. They didn?t for instance harass anyone on Twitter or Facebook; they all stayed safely within the confines of the DSMO comment threads.

Well, as I?m sure you?ll understand when you see the nearly two years worth of abuse and harassment I?m about to detail here, I read that Guardian interview with White with a mounting sense of disbelief.

So did I, though at the same time I read it also with a sense of weary, disgusted familiarity. Yes of course he bullshits, yes of course he denies it, yes of course he?s dishonest and self-serving.

In the piece I posted back in April 2011 ? An Occupational Hazard? ? in which I detailed the abuse I?d received on that site, I said: ?Of course I realise that by posting this piece I?m no doubt giving them enough ammunition to start the whole sick cycle off again, but so be it.? And I was right: that?s exactly what they did.

In the comment thread under the original piece someone claiming to head the moderating team at DSMO posted what looked very much like an apology: ?Firstly I wish to apologise to Cath if some of the comments did offend her? he said, ?I, for one, will try to watch out for the comments that upset Cath so much, but such is the nature of some people on the internet I feel we can only do our small part to stop the maliciously intent.?

And yet two months later, in June 2011, just when I thought things were starting to die down over DSMOgate, here?s the comment that Richard ?Ricardo? White, the site owner remember, tried to post to this blog:

?Hi Cath I just thought that I?d clarify that the semi-apology on this page didn?t come from me. I think maybe you thought it did. For the avoidance of doubt, I wouldn?t apologise to you if I were tied to a chair and about to be beaten to death by a gaggle of your acolytes, armed to the teeth with heavy duty dildos.

You see, you?re in the criticism business and we all know you just love to dish it out. I?m in that business too and as any primary school child knows, if you dish it out, you have to be prepared to take it too. You seem to be unfamiliar with this concept. I?ve been on the receiving end more times than you could imagine. Rightly so, too.

Unlike you, I don?t expect never to be challenged. Does this bother me? I can honestly say, not one iota. Your brand of hilarious left-wing nincompoopery is absolutely ripe for ridicule. You love to portray yourself as the victim, but you?re nothing of the sort. You and your fellow arch ?Liberals? are in truth the least liberal people on earth. You ruthlessly defend your own opinions and will not accept any criticism or suggestion that you may be wrong. Is this the free society you long for? Is freedom in Cathland purely selective? It would seem so. I imagine that, to you, Joseph Stalin was just a cuddly, misunderstood champion of the poor. So here it is, Cath. I don?t give a shit if you?re offended. As long as you?re dishing it out, you?re going to be taking it too, whether you like it, or not. Now, polish those shoes, straighten that blazer and tie and get ready for assembly.?

Uh huh. It?s all there. The ?you write in public so you deserve anything we feel like dishing out? bit. The confusion of ?challenging? with trashing, insulting, degrading, and similar bullying tactics. The unabashed announcement that ?you?re going to be taking it.?

And then there are the comments. There?s a guy there persistently interpreting Elliott?s claim that rapists aren?t somehow radically and obviously different from the normal guy in the street as a claim that all guys in the street are rapists. Oy.

I wish somebody would invent a filter. A really good, effective filter.

?

Source: http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/01/what-we-need-is-a-filter/

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From Reagan to Obama, how we have changed as a nation (CNN)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/279873574?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Top Medical Issues in Sports Women Want To Be Aware Of

Posted on : 27-01-2013 | By : mary | In : Health Tips

0

With recent advances in women?s sports medicine, girls and women can learn to safely take part in any sport or type of exercise they choose. While some people start getting interested in sports medicine only after they?ve had an injury, you should also learn as much as you can as a preventative measure, so you can avoid problems in the future. Even though each sport has different risks so does each player of that sport which is why it?s so important to make sure you are listening to your body.

Finding a physician who specializes in women?s sports medicine is important for any woman who is going to exercise or participate in sports regularly. Some believe that these doctors are only necessary after an injury, but the fact s that a sports medicine specialist can offer advice to help you prevent injuries. If you have areas that are more problematic for you, such as your knees or back, a sports medicine doctor can give you proper advice on treating and preventing recurrence of these conditions.

If you do have a serious injury, these are the doctors who can suggest the best course of treatment. One thing to consider when choosing a sports medicine physician is whether or not he/she is experienced and respected in his field (a good reputation counts). Men and women are both susceptible to a common sports-related injury like a stress fracture. These are very small breaks in bones, and usually occur from repetitive stress activities, such as running or jumping. These breaks normally occur in the lower half of the body, such as the feet or legs. This problem can also occur in the arms if you engage in repetitive activities such as rowing or pitching. Building up your tolerance and endurance gradually is a great way to prevent this injury when starting a new activity. Make sure to see a doctor promptly if you suspect any kind of fracture.

Nutrition plays a large role in sports medicine, and women can prevent and even reverse many conditions by paying attention to their diets and adding certain supplements. Maintaining bone health is very important for women, so they need to make sure they are getting enough calcium. MSM, glucosamine and chondroitin are normally found together in a formula, are very helpful if you are active. Supplements that are good for your heart and bone health are fish oil capsules. You will have stronger bones by eating a healthy and balanced diet and taking some supplements. The information above gives us a clear picture of the fact that women?s health and sports medicine covers a wide range of conditions. It?s easier to prevent the conditions when you have a greater awareness of them to begin with. If any of these happen to you be sure to seek medical advice rather than getting discouraged. Just take it one day at a time and allowing yourself time to heal.

Source: http://www.metroliners.org/top-medical-issues-in-sports-women-want-to-be-aware-of

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Small Talk: Small business uneasy about tax collection bills | The ...

In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, photo, CEO and President Mike Faith of Headsets.com checks his inventory in his offices in San Francisco. Headsets.com, might have to hire two staffers to handle the administrative work if what's called remote tax collection becomes law, says Faith. The company has operations in California and Tennessee, but sells to all 50 states. Currently, federal law only requires the company to collect tax in those two states. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Small-business owners may be closer to losing an advantage they?ve enjoyed during the e-commerce boom ? being exempt from collecting sales tax in states where they?re not located. And they?re worried they will have to spend more money in the process.

Under federal law, a state or local government cannot force a company to collect sales tax on a purchase unless the business has a physical presence in that state. The physical presence could range from an actual store to an office, warehouse or distribution center. The sale could be conducted online, over the phone or through mail-order.

The arrangement saves money for shoppers who use price comparison websites or mobile apps, and those who spend time surfing for the best overall deal.

But Washington lawmakers currently have several bills in the works that would end all that by forcing companies to collect the tax. Businesses are split over the issue.

On one side are small retailers who say they wouldn?t be able to bear the costs of collecting the tax and filing reports states and local governments require. They?re worried they?ll have to buy software, hire staffers and deal with the hassle of keeping up with collecting tax from states and thousands of municipalities.

Headsets.com, for instance, might have to hire two staffers to handle the administrative work if what?s called remote tax collection becomes law, says CEO Mike Faith. The company has operations in California and Tennessee, but sells to all 50 states. Currently, federal law only requires the company to collect tax in those two states.

Faith expects the law would force him to hire workers to help his San Francisco-based company comply with it. "It?s useless employment. It doesn?t add value to the company It?s just another cost burden."

On the other side are in-state sellers and larger retailers with physical locations dotted across the country who sometimes lose business to competitors who don?t have to collect the tax. Even if two retailers charge the same amount for an item, many shoppers choose the seller that doesn?t collect taxes.

"It?s a problem that needs to be addressed. It?s an un-level playing field," says David French, a National Retail Federation lobbyist.

And on yet another side, are state and local governments that stand to collect billions in uncollected revenue if a bill makes it through Congress. States have wanted the tax money for decades and are particularly anxious for it now because tax revenue is down following the recession. The payoff could be substantial. In 2012, there was as much as $11.4 billion in uncollected taxes on Internet sales alone, according to University of Tennessee researchers.

story continues below

State and local government officials have wanted to change the law for years, even before the catalog boom of the 1980s and the Internet boom of the ?90s.

Small-business owners have resisted along the way. They argue that the burden of keeping up with the estimated 15,000 different sales tax rates charged by the 7,500 to 9,600 jurisdictions made up of states, counties, cities and towns, is just too much.

They have a point. Knowing how much to tax, and where, can be complicated. For example, Elgin, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, is located in two counties, Cook and Kane. In Cook County, Elgin?s sales tax on general merchandise is 9.25 percent. In Kane, it?s 8.25 percent. The state?s base sales tax is 6.25 percent.

What is taxed also varies widely. In Massachusetts, baby oil is tax-free, but baby lotion and powder aren?t. In states including New York, there?s a tax on shipping charges on items. Others, including California, don?t charge if you get merchandise delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or delivery services like UPS and FedEx.

The effort to change the law intensified as the growth of the Internet increased and companies? out-of-state sales volume swelled. Many sellers felt protected by a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that states could not force out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax. But the court, in effect, invited Congress to create a law that would give the states the authority to require that taxes be collected.

States have a lot of incentive to go after the revenue. The combined budgets of all the states had deficits of more than $100 billion a year from 2009 through 2012, primarily because of the drop in tax receipts during and after the recession, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an organization that studies tax issues.

Three separate bills were introduced in the last Congress that would authorize the states to require remote sellers to collect taxes. In the Senate, the Marketplace Fairness Act had bipartisan support but did not come to a vote. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of the bill?s sponsors, has told The Associated Press the bill was tabled because of concerns by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., about the burdens tax collection would place on companies in his state, where there is no sales tax.

Joyce Rosenberg covers small business for The Associated Press.

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/55692690-79/tax-states-sales-state.html.csp

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Long Distance Human relationships The truth : Relationship Advice ...

You must put them upwards, though, or women are going to speculate why you didn?t. The first guideline is to ensure that they have been considered within no less than six months. Exactness is every thing. Only article two to four images. It does not matter if the site allows 25; picture overburden is a big no-no. The very last rule is the central on. You shouldn?t post photos you have having a friend inside it. Some women could imagine your friend is sweeter and entirely ignore you.

A successful relationship, essentially, lasts a very long time. Let?s face it, many of us never meet up with anyone expecting that we will marry he or she and separation and divorce them subsequently. When we get into relationships, we intend to make these people last. That is why it?s critical that we could see our companions in our upcoming. Do you see your partner on your side in aging? If the truth is no, than the relationship is not well worth saving, it is due to stop pretty soon.

Men might not exactly discuss that they are feeling having anyone, and might not acknowledge the changes themselves. As a result of interpersonal conditioning, they tend not to focus on their tension with their close friends, unlike women, who tend to obtain support using women Good Relationship With Hickory Hollow Farm .

It can?t possibly be understood, as it?s every bit as confusing as it thinks! And then you want to fix of which for your ex!

?Dr. Phil? is sure to drop in history being a no-nonsense relationship expert plus the epitome of personal branding with its finest. McGraw emerged on top of the national scene by making frequent guest performances on The Oprah Show where he had been an instant struck with the market. His good sense approach to couples counseling, colourful euphemisms, and ?average guy? attractiveness has attained the bestselling author a family group name and standing as the king of day time television.

Co-existing personality disorders along with other mental illnesses also take part in the role with what bulimics do with relationships. It is not unheard of when people using bulimia have obsessive-compulsive problem, depression, stress and anxiety, borderline personality condition, panic disorders, self-mutilation, alcohol addiction, drug addiction as well as other nice review on hickoryhollowfarm.net.

We frequently notice people enquire about rebound human relationships. Yet, how can you really know in the event the new someone that you?re dating is prepared for a real relationship or just about the rebound? Is this fact person willing to handle your time and money of your believe in and sensations ?

?But,? you say, ?Fred and Thelma started dating when he was wedded and they?re?Inch As a Relationship Trainer, I see marketing campaign results as well, as well as the odds from this lasting are extremely, very small. I?m not saying I love this scenario much more than you choose to do, but the divorce proceedings rate with regard to second partnerships is even higher than divorce rate for first partnerships; and worse yet for thirds. I do not like the odds, do you?

Get rid of your older templates in addition to learn from people that know , tactic people afresh; exercise your current creative control over the thoughts and also feelings anyone focus on; tap into your current heart strength and endeavor to always enhance yourself within your relationships. Fundamental essentials simple steps that may help you create brand-new, wonderful, love-filled relationships after divorce.

Source: http://oister.org/?p=3565

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Get More Out of Your Windows Taskbar with Its Built-In Toolbars

Hearing the words "extra toolbars" may make you squirm in fear, but a few readers show us how handy Windows' built-in taskbar toolbars can be.

We recently showed you three useful tricks for organizing your messy Windows taskbar, and you guys came out in full force with lots of your own tips. Multiple readers, though, wrote tips about the taskbar's capacity for extra toolbars?a tip that's old as dirt, but we haven't covered since the XP days, so we thought it time to revisit it.

To create a new toolbar, first create a folder with shortcuts to the apps you want on your new toolbar. Then, right-click on the taskbar , and go to Toolbars > New Toolbar. Choose the folder you just created and drag it wherever you like on the taskbar (you may need to right click and uncheck "Lock the Taskbar" to do this).

So what can you do with this feature? A few readers offer some suggestions. JessAskin likes to use it to create built-in separators:

No need for fancy software to create a separator. Just create a desktop folder called Toolbars, and inside that, more folders such as Audio, Work and Art. Put your shortcuts into each subfolder (for example, put Audacity and CDEx into Audio, Word and Komposer into Work, and Photoshop and a shortcut to your fave art website in Art). Add each subfolder as a toolbar and voila! You have a sectioned taskbar with each of your grouped apps! Double-height your taskbar, and you've got even more room.

Stevenholt68 creates a double taskbar with even more room for his favorite apps:

I love this trick and have used it for several years. I don't like a cluttered desktop that has program icons on it, so my desktop only has files and folders for stuff I am currently working on. I take shortcuts to all my programs and put the shortcuts inside a folder. Then, I turn that folder into a toolbar and drag my taskbar and drag it upward to make it double-height. It shows up like this, then I right click on that toolbar and make the icons small.

And, of course, you can always compress those shortcuts down into a Start-like menu using Quick Launch, as done by RepentTheEndIsExtremelyFkingNigh:

Someone please tell me you can use quick launch on Windows 8, because I hate desktop shortcuts, pinning them or having to look through my Start Menu.

(Yes, you can still use Quick Launch in Windows 8).

There you have it: just a few more ways you can keep your taskbar clean, organized, and useful using nothing but Windows' built-in features.

Every week, we receive tons of reader tips, often in response to tips we've posted. Our Tip of the Week showcases our favorite tip from you that improves upon something else we've shared, shows us another way to do something, or otherwise deserves more attention than our regular tips roundups. Got a tip to share? Post it over at our tips forum or send it to us at tips@lifehacker.com.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ZroRgNLM62I/get-more-out-of-your-windows-taskbar-with-its-built+in-toolbars

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Disney says JJ Abrams to direct next 'Star Wars'

FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2013 file photo, J.J. Abrams arrives at the Winter TCA Fox All-Star Party at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. According to multiple reports, Abrams is set to direct the next installment of ?Star Wars,? which Disney has said will be ?Episode 7? and due out in 2015. Disney bought ?Star Wars? maker Lucasfilm last month for $4.06 billion. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2013 file photo, J.J. Abrams arrives at the Winter TCA Fox All-Star Party at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. According to multiple reports, Abrams is set to direct the next installment of ?Star Wars,? which Disney has said will be ?Episode 7? and due out in 2015. Disney bought ?Star Wars? maker Lucasfilm last month for $4.06 billion. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? It's official. The force is with J.J. Abrams.

The Walt Disney Co. issued a statement Friday night confirming reports that had been circulating for two days that Abrams, Emmy-award-winning creator of TV's "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" movie, has been pegged to direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" franchise.

"J.J. is the perfect director to helm this," said Kathleen Kennedy, the movie's producer and president of Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last month for $4.06 billion.

"Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," Kennedy said in the statement.

The movie will have a script from "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt and a 2015 release.

Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in the original trilogy, will work as a consultant on the new project.

Abrams has already headed the reboot of another storied space franchise, "Star Trek," for rival studio Paramount Pictures. The next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," is set to hit theaters May 17.

But he has long been known as a "Star Wars" devotee. Abrams spoke about the plot of the original "Star Wars" in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007, and reportedly became enamored of "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof partly because Lindelof was wearing a "Star Wars" T-shirt when they first met.

In 2009, Abrams told the Los Angeles Times: "As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was."

In Friday night's statement he called it an "absolute honor" to get the job.

"I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid," Abrams said.

Lucas himself said in the statement that "I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-26-US-Star-Wars-JJ-Abrams/id-b9e9240159484cdb83ad55a5c930bbc6

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Egypt to vaccinate after polio found in sewer

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Health Ministry will carry out a vaccination campaign for children in several Cairo areas after polio was recently found in the capital's sewage.

The World Health Organization says a wild poliovirus was discovered in samples taken from sewage in the impoverished Cairo districts of Ezbet el-Haggana and Dar el-Salam and is believed to have been transmitted from Pakistan.

The Egyptian Health Ministry's head of preventive medicine says the ministry will start vaccinating children under 5 in those neighborhoods on Feb. 3. The campaign will be broadened around Cairo in the first week of March, Amr Qandil said Thursday.

Egypt was declared polio free after its last case in May 2004, and Qandil said no new cases have been reported.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-vaccinate-polio-found-sewer-170027617.html

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Synthetic corkscrew peptide kills antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria

Friday, January 25, 2013

An engineered peptide provides a new prototype for killing an entire category of resistant bacteria by shredding and dissolving their double-layered membranes, which are thought to protect those microbes from antibiotics.

The synthetic peptide was effective in lab experiments against antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, which cause a variety of difficult-to-treat, potentially lethal infections such as pneumonia and sepsis.

The team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported its findings online in advance of print this week at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"The antibiotic pipeline against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative problem pathogens is a major unmet need in contemporary medicine; as such, our new antimicrobial agent holds immediate promise," said co-senior author Wadih Arap, M.D., professor in MD Anderson's Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and the David H. Koch Center.

Arap, Renata Pasqualini, Ph.D., also a co-senior author, professor in genitourinary medical oncology and the Koch center, and colleagues have previously constructed peptide combinations that are in development against cancer and white fat cells.

"The prototype introduced here as an antibiotic candidate has a unique mechanism of action and translational applications readily identified," Pasqualini said.

Gram-negative bacteria that are highly resistant to existing treatments include E. coli, Acinetobacter baumanii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and kebsiella pneumonia. These infections are often present in health care settings and most threatening to people with weakened immune systems.

The spiral peptide called KLAKLAKKLAKLAK acts against bacteria by puncturing their lipid bilayer membranes and has only low toxicity toward mammalian cells. These antimicrobial peptides, however, are subject to routine destruction by host enzymes or those generated by the microbe. Combating that effect by increasing the dose heightens both toxicity to other cells and cost.

D- KLAKLAKKLAKLAK destroys microbes, biofilms

Arap, Pasqualini and colleagues engineered a version of KLAKLAKKLAKLAK to use in their combination therapies but had not tested the peptide alone as an antibiotic.

The peptide is made of L-amino acids, the building blocks of life, which makes them vulnerable to destruction. The researchers synthesized a peptidomimetic ? a version of the peptide using D-amino acids with a reversed peptide sequence, making it more durable.

In a series of lab experiments, the researchers found that D-KLAKLAKKLAKLAK:

• Kills a variety of strains of E. coli, A. baumanii and P. aeruginosa, including multi-drug resistant strains.
• Works against Gram-negative bacteria at all phases of growth, including dormant cells that are prone to become resistant.
• Causes dose-dependent damage to the bacterial membrane resulting in its dissipation and cell death.
• Specifically disrupts lipids found in Gram-negative bacteria membranes while not affecting membranes in eukaryotic cells ? cells with the nucleus and other structures enclosed in separate membranes found in mammals and other non-microbial life.
• Works in combination with the antibiotic piperacillin at lower doses to kill bacteria.
• Eliminates biofilms, layers of combinations of microbes that adhere to surfaces and provide an ideal setting for bacterial growth.

Next step: Animal model experiments

Arap and Pasqualini note that developing D- KLAKLAKKLAKLAK as a drug will next require experiments in animal models of sepsis and other infections to further gauge the peptide's effectiveness and side effects.

In their cancer and anti-obesity research, the D-peptide is used with targeting agents to hit specific cells. Large preclinical studies in mice, rats and monkeys showed low toxicity at treatment-level concentrations. Their cancer drug in a first-in-human phase I clinical trial revealed side effects that were predictable, dose-dependent and reversible. Even so, toxicity may differ when it's used against bacterial infections.

The peptide was not effective against Gram-positive bacteria, which have thicker cell walls but are generally more vulnerable to antibiotics and the immune system than are Gram-negative bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria include those that cause anthrax, tuberculosis, strep throat and such treatment-resistant infections as Staphylococcus aureus.

Gram-negative bacteria, which have thinner membranes but are generally more resistant to antibiotics or immune system attack, also include those that cause typhoid fever, cholera, gonorrhea, syphilis and lyme disease.

###

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org

Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 47 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126451/Synthetic_corkscrew_peptide_kills_antibiotic_resistant_Gram_negative_bacteria

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IAEA stresses Iran nuclear "dialogue", Tehran defiant

VIENNA/ZURICH (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog signaled on Friday it would keep trying to secure Iran's cooperation with a long-stalled investigation, but a senior Iranian lawmaker suggested Tehran would only cooperate it if it won sanctions relief in return.

The comments by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who chairs parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, add to Western suspicions that Iran may be using its talks with the U.N. agency as a bargaining chip to win concessions from world powers.

"Lifting sanctions against Iran is a national right of ours ... If we are supposed to have more cooperation with the Agency, Westerners should know that this is a two-way road," parliamentary news agency Icana quoted him as saying.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has been trying for a year to negotiate a framework agreement with Iran that would enable the Vienna-based IAEA to resume its investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research by the Islamic Republic.

Iran, a major oil producer which is facing tightening Western sanctions, says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that Western and Israeli intelligence information pointing to possible weapon aims is forged and baseless.

The IAEA's talks with Iran are separate from, but still closely linked to broader negotiations between Tehran and six major powers aimed at reaching a diplomatic settlement to the decade-old dispute and avert the threat of a Middle East war.

Only the powers can decide to ease sanctions on Iran and their immediate demand is that Tehran curbs its uranium enrichment, work which can have both civilian and military uses, and shuts an underground nuclear facility.

Both Iran and the powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia - say they want to resume talks after a seven-month hiatus. But they have yet to announce a date and venue for their next meeting.

The IAEA and Iran failed in two days of talks last week to bridge their differences on how the investigation should be conducted and a new session has been scheduled for February 13.

In a meeting with Israel's president this week, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano underlined the need to resolve differences with Iran diplomatically, the U.N. agency said on Friday, rather than war as Israeli leaders have mooted.

MILITARY SITE ACCESS

Israel, widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has threatened possible military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Amano told Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Thursday that the U.N. agency had intensified "dialogue" with Tehran, the IAEA said.

That was a reference to the IAEA's push since January last year, so far fruitless, to gain access to sites, officials and documents in Iran it says it needs for its inquiry.

Amano "made clear the Agency's commitment to dialogue, and the need to resolve issues with Iran by diplomatic means", the IAEA said in a statement.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, speaking on Thursday at Davos, sounded pessimistic on the prospect of Iran yielding to diplomatic pressure, which he deemed insufficient.

"There is a need for much more drastic sanctions ... something that you cannot easily convince the Russians and the Chinese to join," Barak said.

He sought to play down the destabilizing impact of any future war on Iran, saying a "surgical operation" would suffice and suggesting the United States was well-placed to launch it.

"Under this administration, the Americans, on orders from the White House, I believe, the Pentagon, have prepared quite sophisticated, fine, extremely fine 'scalpels'," Barak said.

Analysts say any brewing or actual military action against Iran will dim the chance of Iran opening up to U.N. investigators and spur Tehran to expel IAEA inspectors tasked with ensuring civilian safeguards on Iran's nuclear activity.

The IAEA's priority is to inspect the Parchin military facility, southeast of the capital, where it believes explosives tests relevant for nuclear weapons development may have taken place, perhaps a decade ago. Iran denies this.

Parchin "is a recognized military site and not engaged in our country's nuclear activities," Iran's state Press TV quoted Boroujerdi as saying.

He said there was no reason at this time to increase Iran's cooperation with the IAEA, "first because the inspection of Parchin is not among our commitments (under an existing nuclear safeguards agreement with the U.N. agency) and also because we are facing increasing sanctions."

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iaea-israel-iran-nuclear-row-must-resolved-peacefully-112019249.html

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What "Salt to Taste" Actually Means

"Salt to taste" can be a confusing instruction in recipes, since "taste" isn't a concrete measurement. Cooking blog the Kitchn lets us know what this oft-confused phrase really means.

"Salt to taste" doesn't mean "try to make your dishes salty." Instead, keep in mind what salt does as a seasoning: it reduces bitterness, and brings out the flavors of other, more subtle ingredients.

If you have a dish that tastes flat or bitter, a little salt might be the only fix you need. Before adding more spices or seasonings, try just adding a teaspoon or a healthy three-fingered pinch of salt. Taste again and see if the flavors have improved. Add a little more. Taste again.

And never forget the most important part: the tasting. Hit the link to read more.

What It Really Means to "Salt to Taste" | The Kitchn

Photo by Jonathan_W.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/5Hh9wy6rGxs/what-salt-to-taste-actually-means

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Starship Enterprise petition fizzles out

NASM

This model of the fictional Starship Enterprise was used in the weekly hourlong "Star Trek" TV series that aired September 1966 to June 1969. It is now on display in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

If the Death Star went up against the Starship Enterprise, who would win? When it comes to White House petition drives, it's the Death Star.

The petition calling on the federal government to build a fully operational "Star Wars" battle station attracted more than 34,000 signatures, forcing the White House to issue a hilarious response. But?a similar petition supporting a real-life version of Captain James T. Kirk's favorite ride?fell far short of the 25,000-signature requirement when the one-month deadline passed on Monday.

At last count, the Enterprise petition had 7,200 signatures, according to its creator, a Trek fan known publicly as BTE-Dan.?"I?m disappointed that it didn't reach 25,000, because I would have genuinely liked to have seen the Obama administration respond to it," Dan told NBC News in an email.?

---

Dan is the webmaster behind the "Build the Enterprise" website?? and he says he's serious about wanting NASA to do a feasibility study for an Enterprise-like spaceship.

"I really do think that building an interplanetary spaceship that follows the form of the USS Enterprise would be uniquely inspirational to Americans, and people around the world, too," he wrote. "Once its construction started in space, people would be fascinated by it, and it would constantly be in the news. And it might well inspire a new generation of Americans to study the STEM subjects [science, technology, engineering, math]."

Dan likes the basic idea behind the Obama administration's "We the People" program, which provides an opportunity for petitioners to get a response from the White House if enough people sign on.

"Unfortunately, having a short 30-day window to?gather signatures makes the petition system geared to getting high signature counts mainly for the most emotionally charged current events of the moment, like pro-gun control, or anti-gun control, or the desire of some to deport Piers Morgan," he said. "People are motivated by humor, too, like in the Piers Morgan case and for the Death Star petition, and there is nothing wrong with having some fun with the petitions. But I?d like to see the system changed so that more substantive petitions get considered."

Maybe the problem was that BTE-Dan's proposal was too substantive, especially for a concept that sounds like classic science fiction. The same issue might be working against another space-themed petition, calling on the federal government to build a nuclear thermal rocket. (NASA actually pursued a nuclear-rocket development program in the 1960s, and may do so again.) That campaign has attracted fewer than 2,300 of the required 25,000 signatures with 10 days to go before the deadline.

One thing's for sure: It'll be even harder for slightly wacky petitions like the Death Star plea, or an earlier effort to crack the alien conspiracy, to make their way into the spotlight in the future. That's because the White House raised the signature requirement from 25,000 to 100,000 last week. BTE-Dan's effort just might stand as the most ambitious effort to build a real-life Starship Enterprise until the year 2063 ? when eccentric genius?Zefram Cochrane?achieves the first warp drive flight and brings the Vulcans in for first contact.

More about starships and petition drives:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/23/16665671-its-dead-jim-white-house-petition-to-build-starship-enterprise-fizzles?lite

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Banning Cats in New Zealand is Not the Solution: I Have a Better ...

New Zealand wants to ban cats, or at least a group there, led by environmentalist Gareth Morgan. I've been to New Zealand, and I understand that the native wildlife - particularly bird life - greatly have no defense against feral cats, or owned cats allowed outdoors (which are most owned cats there). Making matters more threatening to avian live, many native New Zealand birds are flightless.

Morgan wants to ban future cat ownership, allowing current owned cats to be 'grandfathered,' but no more cats when the current cats die. He doesn't explain his plan where all the shelter cats would go.

The local SPCA is no better, their executive director Bob Kerridge says "I believe in nature doing it's thing." He says he's 'ok' with the idea of cats doing whatever they do outside, even if that means killing native wildlife, however precarious the threatened species is.

Letting nature play out isn't an acceptable response since cats aren't indigenous to New Zealand. If they were, there would be a balance. Since some birds are flightless, this not only makes them more threatened by the cats, but also their chicks because they are ground nesters.

What's wrong with these people? Both sides are wrong!

Indeed, there are a lot of cats in New Zealand.?A 2011 survey by the New Zealand Companion Animal Council found that 48 percent of households in New Zealand owned at least one cat, a higher number than in other developed nations. The survey put the total cat population at 1.4 million. This means cats are valued in this country, people love them, and clearly choose to share their lives with them - for all their many benefits.

As I said, I understand the problem. I realize the real threat to native wildlife. There is a solution, though, is easy:

1) Keep pet cats indoors: Currently most cats in New Zealand are indoor/outdoor. Kept inside only, they obviously are no longer a threat to wildlife, or an annoyance to neighbors (also a problem), and the cats are safer as well. I don't know the percent of cats spayed/neutered in New Zealand, but it's not as high as in America, for example.

2) Initiate agressive trap, nueter and return to deal with feral cats: Volunteers set traps to capture feral cats. Once caught, the cats are given an overall quick health once over. Any cats suffering ill health may be put out of their misery. Kittens that are young enough do go to the SPCA to be adopted. While the vast majority of cats are spay/neutered, and in America vaccinated for rabies (rabies in not an issue in New Zealand). Ultimately, not being able to reproduce, the cats would die off.

There is?unnecessary?hate being perpetuated in this ridiculous?campaign? Morgan called on his countrymen ay to make their current cat their last in order to save the nation's unique bird species. He set up a website, called Cats To Go. The site once?depicted a tiny kitten with red devil's horns. The opening line: "That little ball of fluff you own is a natural born killer." Yes, cats are predators - but take the actions I describe above, and the problem will be solved over time. And immediately, there will be impact. Yes, sometimes answers are that simple. I can't understand why the Kiwi's aren't seeing that.

?

Filed under: cats, pets, Spay/Neuter, TNR - trap, neuter, return

Tags: cats and birds, New Zealand bans cats, outlawing cats, Steve Dale archives, TNR, trap neuter return

Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2013/01/banning-cats-in-new-zealand-is-not-the-solution-i-have-a-better-plan/

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Watering fields in California boosts rainfall in Southwest

Irrigation has downstream effects on climate and runoff to Colorado River

By Erin Wayman

Web edition: January 22, 2013

Farmers in California help make it rain in the American Southwest, a new computer simulation suggests. Water that evaporates from irrigated fields in California?s Central Valley travels to the Four Corners region, where it boosts summer rain and increases runoff to the Colorado River, researchers report online January 12 in Geophysical Research Letters.

This climate link may be crucial to the 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River for drinking water. That number could nearly double in the next 50 years at the same time that droughts are projected to become more common in the Southwest. Since the Central Valley?s supply of irrigation water faces an uncertain future, it?s important to examine how shortfalls in California might affect climate change in the region, says study coauthor Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine.

?We have to understand these connections better to deal with changes in water availability,? he says.

The Central Valley is one of the world?s most productive agricultural regions. More than 50,000 square kilometers of the valley are irrigated, equaling one-sixth of all irrigated land in the United States.

A study in 2011 showed that watering the area?s crops cools local temperatures and increases humidity. But the work didn?t find any larger climate ties outside the region, because it relied on a regional climate simulation, which has trouble estimating conditions along the boundaries of a study area, Famiglietti says.

To overcome this problem, Famiglietti and Min-Hui Lo, now at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, simulated global climate over a 90-year period. They added in 350 millimeters of water ? coming from groundwater and surface reservoirs ? to the Central Valley between May and October each year. The researchers say that?s a realistic amount of irrigation based on published agriculture and climate data.

The simulations revealed that evaporation doubles in the Central Valley when there?s irrigation. That water vapor circulates to the Southwest during the summer monsoon season, which naturally brings rain to the area. ?The monsoon is like a big campfire burning away over the Southwest,? Famiglietti says. ?The irrigation acts as fuel on the fire.? In addition to bringing more water to the atmosphere, the water vapor brings more energy. And it changes the regional circulation, drawing in even more water vapor from the Gulf of Mexico.

Together, these changes intensify the monsoon season, resulting in a 15 percent increase in rainfall in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona and a 28 percent increase in runoff to the Colorado River compared with simulations lacking irrigation. Some of the water returns to California via the All-American Canal, which brings water from the Colorado River to Southern California, the simulation suggests.

?It?s a nice first step,? says hydrologist Michael Puma of Columbia University. ?And it?s a link that we need to investigate quite a bit more.? Many other variables, such as sea surface temperatures, also influence climate in the Southwest. To better estimate the strength of irrigation?s effect in the real world, more complex simulations that take these other factors into account are needed, Puma says.

The study also highlights the importance of investigating irrigation?s role in climate in other parts of the world, as well as other ways in which people?s use of water might have unintended consequences, Famiglietti says.?What we do with water management really has an impact on climate ? locally, regionally and globally.?

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Suggested Reading

S. Perkins. Crop irrigation could be cooling Midwest. Science News. Vol. 177, February 13, 2010, p. 15 [Go to]

S. Perkins. Going down: climate change, water use threaten Lake Mead. Science News. Vol. 173, February 23, 2008, p. 115. [Go to]

S. Perkins. Hey, it?s cooler near the sprinklers. Science News. Vol. 171, March 17, 2007, p. 174. [Go to]

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/347691/title/Watering_fields_in_California_boosts_rainfall_in_Southwest

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