Business, labor get deal on worker program

FILE - In this May 17, 2012 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Big business and major labor unions appeared ready Friday, March 29, 2013 to end a fight over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to upend negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants already in the U.S. Schumer, who's been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiators are "very close, closer than we have ever been, and we are very optimistic." He said there were still a few issues remaining. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this May 17, 2012 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Big business and major labor unions appeared ready Friday, March 29, 2013 to end a fight over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to upend negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants already in the U.S. Schumer, who's been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiators are "very close, closer than we have ever been, and we are very optimistic." He said there were still a few issues remaining. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Several southwest Michigan pastors along with immigrant families and members of the general public take part in a pray-in for immigration reform event outside of Representative Fred Upton's office in downtown Kalamazoo on Friday, March 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group, Matt Gade ) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

Several southwest Michigan pastors along with immigrant families and members of the general public take part in a pray-in for immigration reform event outside of Representative Fred Upton's office in downtown Kalamazoo on Friday, March 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group, Matt Gade ) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Big business and labor have struck a deal on a new low-skilled worker program, removing the biggest hurdle to completion of sweeping immigration legislation allowing 11 million illegal immigrants eventual U.S. citizenship, labor and Senate officials said Saturday.

The agreement was reached in a phone call late Friday night with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who's been mediating the dispute.

The deal resolves disagreements over wages for the new workers and which industries would be included. Those disputes had led talks to break down a week ago, throwing into doubt whether Schumer and seven other senators crafting a comprehensive bipartisan immigration bill would be able to complete their work as planned.

The deal must still be signed off on by the other senators working with Schumer, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, but that's expected to happen, according to a person with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity. With the agreement in place, the senators are expected to unveil their legislation the week of April 8. Their measure would secure the border, crack down on employers, improve legal immigration and create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already here.

It's a major second-term priority of President Barack Obama's and would usher in the most dramatic changes to the nation's faltering immigration system in more than two decades.

"The strength of the consensus across America for just reform has afforded us the momentum needed to forge an agreement in principle to develop a new type of employer visa system," Trumka said in a statement late Saturday. "We expect that this new program, which benefits not just business, but everyone, will promote long overdue reforms by raising the bar for existing programs."

Schumer said: "This issue has always been the dealbreaker on immigration reform, but not this time."

The AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, longtime antagonists over temporary worker programs, had been fighting over wages for tens of thousands of low-skilled workers who would be brought in under the new program to fill jobs in construction, hotels and resorts, nursing homes and restaurants, and other industries.

Under the agreement, a new "W'' visa program would go into effect beginning April 1, 2015, according to an AFL-CIO fact sheet.

In year one of the program, 20,000 workers would be allowed in; in year two, 35,000; in year three, 55,000; and in year four, 75,000. Ultimately the program would be capped at 200,000 workers a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by a new federal bureau pushed by the labor movement as an objective monitor of the market. One-third of all visas in any year would go to businesses with under 25 workers.

A "safety valve" would allow employers to exceed the cap if they can show need and pay premium wages, but any additional workers brought in would be subtracted from the following year's cap.

The workers could move from employer to employer and would be able to petition for permanent residency after a year, and ultimately seek U.S. citizenship. Neither is possible for temporary workers now.

The new program would fill needs employers say they have that are not currently met by U.S. immigration programs. Most industries don't have a good way to hire a steady supply of foreign workers because there's one temporary visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers but it's capped at 66,000 visas per year and is only supposed to be used for seasonal or temporary jobs.

Business has sought temporary worker programs in a quest for a cheaper workforce, but labor has opposed the programs because of concerns over working conditions and the effect on jobs and wages for U.S. workers. The issue helped sink the last major attempt at immigration overhaul in 2007, which the AFL-CIO opposed partly because of temporary worker provisions, and the flare-up earlier this month sparked concerns that the same thing would happen this time around. Agreement between the two traditional foes is one of many indications that immigration reform has its best chance in years in Congress this year.

After apparent miscommunications earlier this month between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce on the wage issue, the deal resolves it in a way both sides are comfortable with, officials said.

Workers would earn actual wages paid to American workers or the prevailing wages for the industry they're working in, whichever is higher. The Labor Department would determine prevailing wage based on customary rates in specific localities, so that it would vary from city to city.

There also had been disagreement on how to handle the construction industry, which unions argue is different from other industries in the new program because it can be more seasonal in nature and includes a number of higher-skilled trades. The official said the resolution will cap at 15,000 a year the number of visas that can be sought by the construction industry.

Schumer called White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on Saturday to inform him of the deal, the person with knowledge of the talks said. The three principals in the talks ? Trumka, Donohue and Schumer ? agreed they should meet for dinner soon to celebrate, the person said.

However, in a sign of the delicate and uncertain negotiations still ahead, Rubio sent a letter Saturday to Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., calling for a deliberate hearing process on the new legislation and cautioning against a "rush to legislate." Rubio and a number of other Republicans are striking a tricky balance as they simultaneously court conservative and Hispanic voters on the immigration issue.

Separately, the new immigration bill also is expected to offer many more visas for high-tech workers, new visas for agriculture workers, and provisions allowing some agriculture workers already in the U.S. a speedier path to citizenship than that provided to other illegal immigrants, in an effort to create a stable agricultural workforce.

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Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-30-US-Immigration/id-3ab302e410fa4032b3baba1833cfb98f

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Filmmaker who rescued Romanian orphans is killed

ENCINITAS, Calif. (AP) ? A documentary filmmaker known for helping rescue children from squalid Romanian orphanages in the early 1990s was fatally shot following an apparent dispute over the trimming of shrubbery outside his Southern California home, officials said Friday.

John Charles Upton Jr., 56, was found dead Thursday on a dirt path in the yard of his Encinitas home. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department said detectives arrested Michael Vilkin, 61, on suspicion of murder. He was being held without bail, pending arraignment Tuesday.

Upton, after learning of the plight of Romanian orphans, publicized the brutal conditions and was instrumental in bringing an estimated two dozen orphans to America for medical care and adoption.

Vilkin, in an interview conducted in county jail, told KGTV in San Diego he fired gunshots in self-defense after Upton menaced him with a gun during a dispute over foliage.

Vilkin said he owns vacant property next to Upton's home, and the two men had a disagreement over trimming shrubs.

"I did not go to him," Vilkin told the station. "He came to me threatening and pulled a gun (on) me."

A statement from the department said a dispute between the two men led to the shooting, which was under investigation.

Upton's brother, Michael Upton, told U-T San Diego that his brother and Vilkin previously argued about trees.

Upton's work in Romania also gained the attention of influential activists, inspiring billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson and actress Jessica Lange to help rescue youngsters from Romania.

Upton went on to create an online network of films about charitable causes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/filmmaker-rescued-romanian-orphans-killed-231935649.html

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The Daily Roundup for 03.29.2013

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/the-daily-roundup-for-03-29-2013/

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Federal foster care bill could prevent Muslims being placed with non ...

One step from the?Islamic Adoption Laws recently adopted in Spain. via Societal Health: H.R. 102 the Rehab and Ahmed Amer Foster Care Improvement Act ? Miami healthy living | Examiner.com.

In a facebook post dated yesterday, Mrs. Rehab Amer wrote, ?Be the voice for the voicelss by informing your representatives to co-sponsor H.R. 102 to protect all innocence nationwide.?

Mrs. Amer and her husband, Ahmed, struggled for two decades after losing three children to a state foster care system in the United States. The Ahmer?s were estranged from their children after they were put in foster care by the state of Michigan?s Child Protective Services, following the accidental death of their two-year-old son Samier in 1985. Samier suffered from a brittle bone disease and died from injuries that he suffered in a fall.

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One of the Ahmer?s estranged children, Mohammed Ali, now goes by the name Adam Stamper after being raised by a Christian family in a foster home apart from his original Muslim heritage. He was one of three children taken away by the state after they accused Mrs. Amer of killing her son Samier. Mrs. Amer was unable to get her kids back and was also pregnant with her fouth child, Zinabe, who was taken away by the state only one day after she was born and after Rehab was already aquitted. The family says that years of neglect, estrangement, and abuse by foster care parents and state officials resulted in the children completely losing touch with their family, as well as their culture and religious background.

Mrs. Amer was able to turn her tragedy into a positive for families across Michigan, however, as she and her family saw the ?Amer Act? signed into law in December 2010. The law allows children to be placed with relatives in circumstances such as theirs and for special consideration to be given in regards to religion and culture. Nabih Ayad, a lawyer who filed a civil suit on behalf of the Amers against a Michigan foster home in their case, and many others have spoke about the injustices of the situation, as has the Congress of Arab American Organizations Spokesman Osama Siblani, who originally helped raise funds to aid the Amer?s in their struggle to fight for justice.

The Federal Amer Act Bill was introduced nationwide in June 2012. The bill, if passed, will allow children who are taken away by Child Protective Services the right to live with other family members, instead of being exposed to different environments that could differ from their upbringing. Another highlight of the bill includes keeping the children within the same religious environment that their parents had practiced as well.

This doesn?t bode well for young children born into Muslim families, particularly in honor beating cases.

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Filed under: Alerts, Creeping Sharia, Immigration, Legal, Media, Michigan, News, Politics, Religion, Sharia Tagged: | Creeping Sharia, islam, law, Media, Muslim, News, Random, Religion, Sharia

Source: http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/federal-foster-care-bill-to-prevent-muslims-being-placed-with-non-muslim-families/

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MLB polishes At Bat 13 on iOS and Android ahead of Opening Day, brings app to BlackBerry Z10

With the 2013 season looming just around the corner, it's only natural for Major League Baseball to make sure its various applications on different platforms are all ready to go come this weekend. And as it did with MLB.tv on Xbox Live a couple days ago, MLB's now also updated the At Bat Android and iOS apps, leaving behind the spring training features from last month and making room for ones that are tailored for this year's Opening Day and forward. For subscribers, this means things such as multi-platform live audio, more video highlights, a virtual archive of classic games and a revamped news section within the apps. What's more, MLB has kept its promise of bringing At Bat 13 to the BB10 crowd, giving BlackBerry Z10 owners the ability to download the app starting today. Clearly, it's that time of the year again, that time where your Yankees-cheering friends tell you all about how A-Rod, when fit, is the best player in the game. Or, if they're Giants fans, how they really, really, hope the tale of Samson's hair won't apply to Tim Lincecum.

Filed under: Misc, Home Entertainment, Software, Mobile

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Guest Post: The Knowledge Economy's Two Classes of Workers ...

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

The knowledge economy has important implications for both workers and organizations.

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Setting aside that our economy is by and large organized to benefit a State-financial Elite and the technocrat Caste that serves them,?let's consider the two classes of worker in what Peter Drucker labeled the Knowledge Economy in his 1993 book?Post-Capitalist Society.

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At the risk of simplifying Drucker's nuanced account, here is a precis:

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The Marxist class division of labor vs. capitalist/management no longer adequately describes the new economy, as knowledge workers own "the means of production" which is first and foremost knowledge. Corporations and government offer an organization within which workers can apply their knowledge (i.e. the means of production in a knowledge economy).

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Since the new economy is no longer characterized by capital vs. labor, it is a post-capitalist economy.

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Knowledge workers are a minority of the workforce; the majority are service workers, either skilled or low-skilled.

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Economist Robert B. Reich divides the workforce into similar categories: "symbolic analysts" (knowledge workers) and two classes of service workers: "routine producers" and "in-person servers."

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Since the service workers own and leverage less capital (knowledge), their ability to create surplus value and thereby demand high wages is intrinsically lower than the knowledge workers.

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This creates a structural tension, as society has to establish a way to maintain the wages of the service workers in an economy where the value and income they can generate by their labor is capped.

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The other root cause of our present difficulties with the workforce might be termed a general lowering of employees' frustration tolerance.Many employees, particularly the younger ones, are increasingly reluctant to put up with factory conditions.?Despite the significant improvements we've made in the physical environment of our plants. Because they are unfamiliar with the harsh economic facts of earlier years, they have little regard for the consequences if they take a day or two off.

For many, the traditional motivations of job security, money rewards, and opportunity for personal advancement are proving insufficient.

Large numbers of those we hire find factory life so distasteful they quit after only brief exposure to it.?The general increase in real wage levels in our economy has afforded more alternatives for satisfying economic needs.

There is also, again especially among the younger employees, a growing reluctance to accept a strict authoritarian shop discipline. This is not just a shop phenomenon, rather is a manifestation in our shops of a trend we see all about us among today's youth.

More money, time and effort than ever before must now be expended in recruiting and acclimatising our quality control programs have been put to severe tests; large numbers of employees remain unmoved by all attempts to motivate them; and order in the plants is being maintained with rising difficulty.

That this is not simply a bosses' problem was expressed by youthful Gary Bryner, President of the Lordstown local of the UAW (July 25, 1972):

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There are symptoms of the alienated worker in our plant-- the absentee rate, as you said, has gone continually higher. Turnover rate is enormous. The use of alcohol and drugs is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. So has apathy within our union movement towards union leaders and towards the Government ... (The worker) has become alienated to the point where he casts off the leadership of his union, his Government...?He is disassociated with the whole establishment.

Here's the key quote from this excellent historical essay:

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Modern capitalism can, by and large, cope with the traditional type of economic problem, for instance those dealt with by Marx, it can continue to develop production.?It is in difficulties, however, when confronted with a massive resistance to its values, priorities and whole pattern of authority.

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In the traditional labor vs. capital framework, we expect the resistance to come from labor;?in the knowledge economy, that resistance is arising from those who own and control the means of production, the knowledge workers themselves.

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This has important implications for corporations, non-profit organizations and government alike.?In Drucker's view,?"Every organization has to build in organized abandonment of everything it does. Increasingly, organizations will have to plan abandonment rather than try to prolong the life of a successful policy, practice or product."

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In other words, creative destruction is the necessary result of constant, purposeful innovation. Any organization which fails to do so will become obsolete. The same can be said of those providing the knowledge capital to the organizations, the knowledge workers.

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One consequence that none dare speak is the absolute reduction of any functional need for layers of management, or anything resembling traditional management.The Internet is a tool for eliminating management, along with generally needless/useless meetings and the other sources of unproductive friction in modern corporate and government organizations.

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Management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes.Valve says the secret of their management-free environment is hiring good people. That sounds right to me. We don't have any weak contributors in our start-up so we have never felt a need for management.
One of the interesting aspects of better global communications, better access to information, and better mobility is that collectively it reduces the risk of making hiring mistakes. When employers were limited to hiring people who lived nearby, and the only information at their disposal was lie-filled resumes, every growing company would necessarily absorb a lot of losers. But now that entrepreneurs can hire the best people from anywhere in the world, we have for the first time in human history the ability to create teams so capable they require no management structure. That's new.

I think the manager-free model only works for a business that has high margins and depends more on creating hits than cutting costs. The videogame business fits that model, as do many Internet businesses. And in both cases entrepreneurs can hire from anywhere in the world.

So here's my summary: Management only exists to compensate for its own poor hiring decisions. The Internet makes it easier to locate and then work with capable partners. Therefore, the need for management will shrink - at least for some types of businesses - because entrepreneurs have the tools to make fewer hiring mistakes in the first place.

Management won't entirely go away, but as technology makes it easier to form competent teams without at least one disruptive or worthless worker in the group, the need for management will continue to decline.

Even organizations based on rigid command hierarchies such as the U.S. military are finding that decentralized command decisions based on proximity to information flow, field intelligence and detailed knowledge of local assets trump sclerotic centralized command structures in getting demonstrable results.

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If this is true in sprawling bureaucracies, it is certainly true in smaller organizations.

This is the economy that every worker has to understand if they want to navigate it to their own benefit.?Every enterprise and organization that wants the most productive workers has to understand that their task is not "managing labor," it is offering workers of all levels opportunities to be effective and to contribute.

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In my view, each worker is an enterprise, and the less time, energy and money wasted on management and friction, the more time and energy there will be for wealth creation or value creation, and as a result, more money available for wages.

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Via correspondent Rui N.P.:?America: A Nation of Permanent Freelancers and Temps.

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Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-29/guest-post-knowledge-economys-two-classes-workers

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Practice Fusion Seeking to Heal One of the ... - Yahoo! Finance

In a world where everyone is connecting online, doctors and hospitals have been struggling to streamline decades of disconnected data. Electronic health records (EHR) are the way of the future. A 2011 McKinsey & Company study suggested that the health care industry could save $300 billion a year with the better data management that EHR provides. San Francisco-based Practice Fusion is trying to fix the data problem and is a leader in the industry, putting you health records online and making them accessible to doctors.

CEO Ryan Howard launched the company in 2005 after running into his own problems transferring his health records. "In 1999 I drove from New Hampshire to San Francisco, and I realized during the transition that I had a struggle getting my health records," he explains. "As I dug into this further I realized that the average patient sees 19 different doctors in their lifetime and that there's 200,000 deaths a year because this information is not available."

Practice Fusion handles every step of your doctors visit beginning with scheduling your appointment. When you arrive and a nurse takes your vitals, like weight, blood pressure, allergies, and your ailment, that is added to the Practice Fusion system, creating a personalized medical record that can be shared with any doctor that may need it. It's even connected to most pharmacies so when you leave the office your medication will be ready to pick up.

"It's the most efficient place for [pharmaceutical companies ] to come and have a dialog with doctors. The laboratories, it's the most efficient place for them to come and connect with doctors," says Howard.

And perhaps the best part, it's free for doctors and patients. As for profit, it's all about the data.

"It's the largest, highest transaction health care platform in the United States," says Howard. "So we know what type of drugs are being written on the platform, why doctors are writing particular drugs. We know different standards of care. We can identify the best doctors in the country and take that standard and apply it to all the other doctors as well. So there?s a number of different things that the data at scale brings to the market where there?s a monetization opportunity."

Practice Fusion now has over 150,000 medical professionals, mostly at smaller private practices, and tens of millions of patients in their system.

"Eighty-percent of all doctors are in offices of eight or less [employees], that's really where we thrive," Howard says. "There's about 400 competitors...but one out of four doctors choosing an electronic health record in that market today chooses practice fusion, so we are by far one of the, if not the de facto market players out there."

And the competition could get even more fierce next year as millions of uninsured Americans are due to enter the health care system as Obamacare takes full effect.

"It will definitely help the business," Howard contends, "making sure that the 40 million patients that are uninsured today are getting treatment and care is something we can definitely help with...We're able to free up a lot of the doctor's inventory to make it available to those 40 million patients that need to be treated."

And Practice Fusion is banking on that growth. Literally.

"We've raised roughly 66 million dollars, we have Peter Thiel in the founders fund, Artis Capital and some other top tier firms with the company," he says. "I think in this current market and with the current growth of the company, an IPO is very potential in the future and I think that's something we'll talk about over the next couple of years."

So Howard has the funding, the demand, and the drive to take his company public. The question is whether Practice Fusion can maintain their lead and continue to grow profits in this super competitive industry.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/putting-health-records-online-could-mean-big-money-151850908.html

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Cash shortage stretches to sea bed

29 March 2013 Last updated at 20:00 ET By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst

The government has admitted moving slowly to protect wildlife in the seas because of the cost.

The environment minister Richard Benyon said that in the current financial squeeze he cannot designate as many areas for protection as he would like.

He said he was hoping to confirm the designation of the current tranche of 31 Marine Protected Zones under a consultation that ends on Sunday.

Environmentalists have accused the government of dragging its feet.

This is because 127 zones were originally nominated for protection after a compromise deal agreed with other users of the sea.

Jolyon Chesworth from the Wildlife Trusts said: "We are disappointed at the rate of progress. The government has an international obligation to protect wildlife in the seas.

Continue reading the main story

I want to do as many zones as we can for as little as we can?

End Quote Richard Benyon Environment minister

"The marine environment is not as obvious to people as it is when they see wildlife walking through a woodland or downland but it's just as important and equally worthy of protection.

"The 127 zones were only nominated after very long discussions with anglers, sailors and the fishing industry. We are now being asked to compromise on a compromise."

But Mr Benyon told the BBC that with cuts to the Defra budget, the cost of making scientific assessments and then developing rules for the use of different areas could not be dismissed.

"We are constrained by a hugely expensive process at a time when we have little money in government", he said.

"I want to do as many zones as we can for as little as we can. People have waited many years for this; we will designate the first tranche in September and will announce the next lot for consultation then."

Environmentalists are worried that the UK might slither back from its international commitment to create an ecologically coherent network of sites.

They are angry that several key sites have been left out of the first tranche on the grounds that insufficient evidence was supplied to justify them.

Sailors' fears

Mr Chesworth said that in his south of England region there was a cast-iron case for designating, among others, Bembridge Levels on the Isle of Wight - home of the stalked jellyfish and Poole Harbour - a key breeding ground for sea horses.

But both of these zones have been contested by sailors who fear that new rules will prevent them anchoring on sensitive sites. One boat owner on the Isle of Wight told Mr Benyon that the designations were "bonkers".

Boaters are the mainstay of the local economy and have lived in harmony with wildlife for decades, he said.

John Pockett from the Royal Yachting Association told the BBC: "We fear we won't be able to anchor our yachts; we fear we won't be able to train our next Ben Ainslie (the Olympian) because we won't be able to anchor marker boats."

Sailors are not the only ones protesting. In some areas fishing crews object to MPZs, even though they are supposed to provide a breeding ground for fish stocks to recover.

Conservationists warn that recently revealed chalk arches off the North Norfolk coast could be destroyed by one careless pass of a trawl net.

A further complication is the fact that UK jurisdiction ends six nautical miles from the shore, even though its responsibility for wildlife stretches further.

"It would be terrible to stop our own fishermen from exploiting a sensitive areas then allow boats of other nationalities to come in", Mr Benyon said. "We are trying to negotiate this with Brussels."

The proposals stem from the 2009 UK Marine Bill. If all the sites had been approved, just over a quarter of English waters would end up under some kind of protection. Currently, the total is way under 1%.

Globally just 0.6% of the world's oceans have been protected, compared to almost 13% of our planet's land area.

Marine author Callum Roberts told the BBC: "There's no way you'll have an effective network of marine-protected areas the way we are going. It's undermining trust."

But public sector cutbacks are a reality. And the government insists that the state of the economy will inevitably be felt on the sea bed, like everywhere else.

Follow Roger on Twitter

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21967189#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Curry's big night sends Duke past Spartans 71-61

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski directs his team during the second half of a regional semifinal against Michigan State in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski directs his team during the second half of a regional semifinal against Michigan State in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Duke guard Tyler Thornton (3) reacts after a regional semifinal against Michigan State in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013, in Indianapolis. Duke won 71-61. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Duke forward Mason Plumlee (5) goes up with a shot against Michigan State forwards Branden Dawson (22) and Adreian Payne (5) during the second half of a regional semifinal in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Duke guard Seth Curry (30) drives around Michigan State guard Gary Harris (14) during the second half of a regional semifinal in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Michigan State forward Derrick Nix (25) talks to head coach Tom Izzo during the second half of a regional semifinal against Duke in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Mike Krzyzewski already holds the NCAA record for most wins by a coach.

Thanks to Seth Curry's big scoring night, Krzyzewski could finish the weekend by tying one of John Wooden's records.

Curry scored 29 points, tied the school record for most 3-pointers in an NCAA tournament game and led the Duke Blue Devils past Michigan State 71-61, putting Krzyzewski within one win of his 12th Final Four appearance. All Duke has to do is beat top-seeded Louisville in the NCAA tournament's Midwest Regional final ? something it already has done.

"We were fortunate to win that game. They've been playing the best basketball in the country," Krzyzewski said, referring to Duke's 76-71 victory Nov. 24. "I love their two guards. I think they're great kids and they're dynamic. But they're deep. They're a deep team. We can't turn the ball over against them."

Duke (30-5) can create its own set of problems as the Spartans found out Friday night.

Curry knocked down six of his first seven 3s before missing his final two to tie a school record that had been attained six other times, most recently by Jason Williams on March 22, 2001, against UCLA. He had plenty of help, too. Rasheed Sulaimon scored 16 points, making 12 of 14 from the free-throw line, also tying a school record for free throws made in a tourney game. Mason Plumlee added 14 points and seven rebounds in the return to his home state.

And if Krzyzewski earns career win No. 958 on Sunday against top-seeded Louisville, he will break a second-place tie with North Carolina's Dean Smith and move into a tie with Wooden for most Final Four appearances by a head coach in NCAA history.

Krzyzewski isn't the only one chasing a milestone.

A win would also move Louisville coach Rick Pitino into a tie for fourth all-time with Roy Williams and he is trying to get the Cardinals back to the Final Four for the second straight year.

Clearly, Louisville (32-5) has a few advantages. The game in Indianapolis will be played about 100 miles from campus and another heavily-partisan Cardinals crowd is expected at Lucas Oil Stadium.

But Louisville will face a team that was ranked No. 1 earlier this season and in the same venue it lost as the top seeded team in the Midwest Region just four years ago to Michigan State. Plus, they'll be facing a Duke team that is clicking on all cylinders.

"If a team's game plan is to just to be tough or physical with us, that's not going to win," Plumlee said.

The Spartans (27-9) learned that lesson the hard way.

They focused, as usual, on dominating the middle.

Instead, Curry's 3-point barrage loosened things up, and forced Michigan State to play catch-up most of the second half.

His sixth 3 of the night broke a 38-38 tie early in the second half, sending Duke on a 9-0 run. The Blue Devils never trailed again.

"Honestly, I was just trying to help my shot. I got a few to go early," Curry said. "I feel like every time I take a shot, it's going to go down and nothing felt different tonight."

The Spartans were led by Keith Appling, who scored 16 points despite playing with a brace over his injured right shoulder. Adreian Payne added 14 points and 10 rebounds, but it wasn't nearly enough against Curry & Co.

Coach Tom Izzo was hoping that his only son's prediction, that Duke would beat Michigan State in the regional semis, would be wrong. Instead, the younger Izzo got it right.

"They're a good team, they played well, Curry hurt us, no question about it," Izzo said. "We didn't quit, we hung in there. I thought we played poorly for us, but the better team won tonight."

The game was billed as an entertaining contest between two of college basketball's most successful coaches ? and it lived up to the hype.

The first half was played to a near draw with four ties and eight lead changes.

Michigan State grabbed an 18-17 lead on Derrick Nix's tip-in with 9:52 left in the first half, but Curry then scored nine points in an 11-2 run for the Blue Devils. He was fouled by Travis Trice while attempting a 3-pointer and made all three free throws to make it 28-20 with 4:59 remaining.

Back came the Spartans, who clamped down on defense and closed to 32-31 at halftime.

But Curry's early second-half scoring spree was all the Blue Devils needed. Michigan State pulled within seven with 1:32 to go, but couldn't get any closer after trailing by as much as 13 in the second half.

"We knew we would have to play at that level. They're a little more athletic than we are," Krzyzewski said. "We had to try to match that and tonight we were able to do that. I'm glad it's not a seven-game series because I'm not sure we'd be able to continue to do it. But tonight we were able to do it."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-30-BKC-NCAA-Michigan-St-Duke-Folo/id-d8f416f6bbc0440db6b025b42a31eb8f

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Richard Griffiths Dies, Harry Potter Actor was 65

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/richard-griffiths-dies-harry-potter-actor-was-65/

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Muslims vanish as Buddhist attacks approach Myanmar's biggest city

By Jason Szep

SIT KWIN, Myanmar (Reuters) - The Muslims of Sit Kwin were always a small group who numbered no more than 100 of the village's 2,000 people. But as sectarian violence led by Buddhist mobs spreads across central Myanmar, they and many other Muslims are disappearing.

Their homes, shops and mosques destroyed, some end up in refugee camps or hide in the homes of friends or relatives. Dozens have been killed.

"We don't know where they are," says Aung Ko Myint, 24, a taxi driver in Sit Kwin, a farming village where on Friday Buddhists ransacked a store owned by the town's last remaining Muslim. "He escaped this morning just before the mob got here."

Since 42 people were killed in violence that erupted in Meikhtila town on March 20, unrest led by hardline Buddhists has spread to at least 10 other towns and villages in central Myanmar, with the latest incidents only about a two-hour drive from the commercial capital, Yangon.

The crowds are fired up by anti-Muslim rhetoric spread over the Internet and by word of mouth from monks preaching a movement known as "969". The three numbers refer to various attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. But it has come to represent a radical form of anti-Islamic nationalism which urges Buddhists to boycott Muslim-run shops and services.

Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. There are large Muslim communities in Yangon, Mandalay and towns across Myanmar's heartland where the religions have co-existed for generations.

But as violence spreads from village to village, the unleashing of ethnic hatred, suppressed during 49 years of military rule that ended in March 2011, is challenging the reformist government of one of Asia's most ethnically diverse countries.

Dusk-to-dawn curfews are in effect in many areas of Bago, the region where Sit Kwin lies, while four townships in central Myanmar are under a state of emergency imposed last week.

"I will not hesitate to use force as a last resort to protect the lives and safeguard the property of the general public," President Thein Sein said in a nationally televised speech on Thursday, warning "political opportunists and religious extremists" against instigating further violence.

The unrest has made almost 13,000 people homeless, according to the United Nations. State-run media reports 68 people have been arrested.

RUMOURS

The trouble in Sit Kwin began four days ago when people riding 30 motorbikes drove through town urging villagers to expel Muslim residents, said witnesses. They then trashed a mosque and a row of Muslim shops and houses.

"They came with anger that was born from rumors," said one man who declined to be identified.

Further south, police in Letpadan have stepped up patrols in the farming village of 22,000 people about 160 km (100 miles) from Yangon.

Three monks led a 30-strong group towards a mosque on Friday. Police dispersed the crowd, many of whom carried knives and staves, and briefly detained two people. They were later released at the request of township officials, police said.

"I won't let it happen again," said police commander Phone Myint. "The president yesterday gave the police authority to control the situation."

The abbot who led the protest, Khamainda, said he took to the streets after hearing rumors passed by other monks by telephone, about violence between Buddhists and Muslims in other towns. He said he wanted revenge against Muslims for the destruction by the Taliban of Buddhist statues in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan in 2001.

"There is no problem with the way they live. But they are the minority and we are the majority. And when the minority insults our religion we get concerned," he told Reuters. "We will come out again if we get a chance."

Letpadan villagers fear the tension will explode. "I'm sure they will come back and destroy the mosque," says Aung San Kyaw, 35, a Muslim. "We've never experienced anything like this."

Across the street, Hla Tan, a 67-year-old Buddhist, shares the fear. "We have lived peacefully for years. Nothing can happen between us unless outsiders come. But if they come, I know we can't stop them," he said.

North of Sit Kwin, the farming town of Minhla endured about three hours of violence on both Wednesday and Thursday.

About 300 people, many from the nearby village of Ye Kyaw, gathered on Wednesday afternoon. The crowd swelled to about 800 as townsfolk joined, a Minhla policeman told Reuters. They then destroyed three mosques and 17 shops and houses, he said. No Buddhist monks were involved, said witnesses.

"VERY NERVOUS"

The mob carried sticks, metal pipes and hammers, said Hla Soe, 60, a Buddhist who runs an electrical repair shop in Minhla. "No one could stop them," he said.

About 200 soldiers and police eventually intervened to restore a fragile peace. "I'm very nervous that it will happen again," he said.

About 500 of Minhla's township's 100,000 people are Muslims, said the police officer, who estimated two-thirds of those Muslims had fled.

However, Tun Tun is staying. "I have no choice," says the 26-year-old, whose tea shop was destroyed and looted by Buddhists, one armed with a chainsaw.

He plans to rebuild his shop, whose daily income of 10,000 kyat ($11) supports an extended family of 12. On the wall of his ransacked kitchen is a portrait of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He did not believe she could do anything to help.

Tun Tun traced the rising communal tension in Minhla to speeches given on February 26 and 27 by a celebrated monk visiting from Mon State, to the east of Yangon. He spoke to a crowd of 2,000 about the "969 movement", said Win Myint, 59, who runs a Buddhist community centre which hosted the monk.

After the 969 talks, Muslims were jeered and fewer Buddhists frequented his tea shop, said Tun Tun. Stickers bearing pastel hues overlaid with the numerals 969 appeared on non-Muslim street stalls across Minhla.

President Thein Sein's ambitious reform program has won praise, but his government has also been criticized for failing to stem violence last year in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, where officials say 110 people were killed and 120,000 were left homeless, most of them Rohingya Muslims.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar said on Thursday he had received reports of "state involvement" in the recent violence at Meikhtila.

Soldiers and police sometimes stood by "while atrocities have been committed before their very eyes, including by well-organized ultra-nationalist Buddhist mobs", said the rapporteur, Tomas Ojea Quintana. "This may indicate direct involvement by some sections of the state or implicit collusion and support for such actions."

Ye Htut, a presidential spokesman and deputy minister of information, called those accusations "groundless". "In fact, the military and the government could not be concerned more about this situation," he said in a Facebook post.

Late on Friday, three monks were preparing to give another "969" speech in Ok Kan, a town 113 km (70 miles) from Yangon.

(Additional reporting by Min Zayar Oo; Editing by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslims-vanish-buddhist-attacks-approach-myanmars-biggest-city-034801049.html

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How hard is it to 'de-anonymize' cellphone data?

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The proliferation of sensor-studded cellphones could lead to a wealth of data with socially useful applications ? in urban planning, epidemiology, operations research and emergency preparedness, among other things. Of course, before being released to researchers, the data would have to be stripped of identifying information. But how hard could it be to protect the identity of one unnamed cellphone user in a data set of hundreds of thousands or even millions?

According to a paper appearing this week in Scientific Reports, harder than you might think. Researchers at MIT and the Universit? Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, analyzed data on 1.5 million cellphone users in a small European country over a span of 15 months and found that just four points of reference, with fairly low spatial and temporal resolution, was enough to uniquely identify 95 percent of them.

In other words, to extract the complete location information for a single person from an "anonymized" data set of more than a million people, all you would need to do is place him or her within a couple of hundred yards of a cellphone transmitter, sometime over the course of an hour, four times in one year. A few Twitter posts would probably provide all the information you needed, if they contained specific information about the person's whereabouts.

The first author on the paper is Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a graduate student in the research group of Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Science Sandy Pentland. He's joined by C?sar Hidalgo, an assistant professor of media arts and science; Vincent Blondel, a visiting professor at MIT and a professor of applied mathematics at Universit? Catholique; and Michel Verleysen, a professor of electrical engineering at Universit? Catholique.

Focusing the debate

Hidalgo's group specializes in applying the tools of statistical physics to a wide range of subjects, from communications networks to genetics to economics. In this case, he and de Montjoye were able to use those tools to uncover a simple mathematical relationship between the resolution of spatiotemporal data and the likelihood of identifying a member of a data set.

According to their formula, the probability of identifying someone goes down if the resolution of the measurements decreases, but less than you might think. Reporting the time of each measurement as imprecisely as sometime within a 15-hour span, or location as imprecisely as somewhere amid 15 adjacent cell towers, would still enable the unique identification of half the people in the sample data set.

But while its initial application may be discouraging, de Montjoye and Hidalgo hope that their formula will provide a way for researchers and policy analysts to reason more rigorously about the privacy safeguards that need to be put in place when they're working with aggregated location data.

"Both C?sar and I deeply believe that we all have a lot to gain from this data being used," de Montjoye says. "This formula is something that could be useful to help the debate and decide, OK, how do we balance things out, and how do we make it a fair deal for everyone to use this data?"

Everybody's different

In the data set that the researchers analyzed, the location of a cellphone was inferred solely from that of the cell tower it was connected to, and the time of the connection was given as falling within a one-hour interval. Each cellphone had a unique, randomly generated identifying number, so that its movement could be traced over time. But there was no information connecting that number to the phone's owner.

The researchers randomly selected a representative sampling from the set of 1.5 million cellphone traces and, for each trace, began choosing points at random. For 95 percent of the traces, just four randomly selected points was enough to distinguish them from all other traces in the database. In the worst (or, from another perspective, best) case, 11 measurements were necessary.

The researchers suspect that similar relationships might hold for other types of data. "I would not be surprised if a similar result ? maybe requiring more points ? would, for example, extend to web browsing," Hidalgo says. "The space of potential combinations is really large. When a person is, in some sense, being expressed in a space in which the total number of combinations is huge, the probability that two people would have the same exact trajectory ? whether it's walking or browsing ? is almost nil."

###

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice

Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127503/How_hard_is_it_to__de_anonymize__cellphone_data_

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Black bears: Here, gone, and back again

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Scott Smith
ssmith@wcs.org
718-220-3698
Wildlife Conservation Society

Nevada's black bears rapidly reoccupying former range

A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has pieced together the last 150 years of history for one of the state's most interesting denizens: the black bear.

The study, which looked at everything from historic newspaper articles to more recent scientific studies, indicates that black bears in Nevada were once distributed throughout the state but subsequently vanished in the early 1900s. Today, the bear population is increasing and rapidly reoccupying its former range due in part to the conservation and management efforts of NDOW and WCS.

Compelled in part by dramatic increases in human/bear conflicts and a 17-fold increase in bear mortalities due to collisions with vehicles reported between the early 1990s and mid- 2000s, WCS and NDOW began a 15-year study of black bears in Nevada that included a review of the animal's little-known history in the state.

Over the course of the study, black bears were captured both in the wild and at the urban interface in response to conflict complaints. The captured animals used in the study (adult males and females only) were evaluated for multiple physiological indicators including condition, sex, reproductive status, weight, and age, prior to being released. From the information gathered, the population size in the study area was estimated to be 262 bears (171 males, 91 females). Confirmed sightings and points of capture from 1988 to present were mapped and presented in the report to illustrate current population demographics, and will be used to inform bear management in Nevada.

"It's critical to understand the population dynamics in a given area in order to make informed decisions regarding management," said WCS Conservation Scientist Jon Beckmann. "This includes decisions on everything from setting harvest limits to habitat management to conservation planning in areas where people will accept occupation by bears. We used this long-term study to determine if reported incidences were due to an increasing or expanding bear population, or people moving to where bears are located. The answer is both."

The study area extended from the Carson Range of the Sierra Nevada eastward to the Virginia Range and Pine Nut Mountains, and from Reno south to Topaz Lakean area collectively referred to as the Carson front. Because many captures were in response to conflicts, the urban interfaces of cities and towns of the Lake Tahoe Basin were included.

Nevada's Black Bear History Unraveled

In looking to integrate information on the historical demographics of black bears into their study, the authors found that little published scientific research or data was available and that the species' history in Nevada went largely ignored until 1987 when complaints arising from sightings and road collisions with vehicles began.

Historical records compiled by retired NDOW biologist Robert McQuivey that included old newspaper articles, pioneer journals dating as far back as 1849, and NDOW records that had long been unavailable, were reviewed and confirmed that black bears were present throughout the state until about 1931. At that point, the authors concluded that "the paucity of historical references after 1931 suggest extirpation of black bears from Nevada's interior mountain ranges by this time."

"The historical records paint a very different picture of Nevada's black bear than what we see today. This new perspective is a good indication of what bear management in this state could involve should the population continue to expand," said the study's lead-author Carl Lackey of NDOW.

The authors believe that while over-hunting and conflicts with domestic livestock contributed to the bear's local extinction in the Great Basin, landscape changes due to clear-cutting of forests throughout western and central Nevada during the mining booms of the late 1800s played an important role as well. But as fossil fuels replaced timber as a heat and energy source, forestry and grazing practices evolved, and reforestation and habitat regeneration occurred in parts of the their former range, the bears rebounded.

Using the information gathered in their review of historic documents, the scientists mapped the distribution of black bears within the interior of Nevada during the 1800s and early 1900s. They recommend that historical range maps for the species in North America be revised to include the information produced as part of the study.

###

The study, Bear Historical Ranges: Expansion of an Extirpated Bear Population, appears in the current online edition of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Co-authors include Carl W. Lackey of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, Jon P. Beckmann of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and James Sedinger of the University of Nevada, Reno.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Scott Smith
ssmith@wcs.org
718-220-3698
Wildlife Conservation Society

Nevada's black bears rapidly reoccupying former range

A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has pieced together the last 150 years of history for one of the state's most interesting denizens: the black bear.

The study, which looked at everything from historic newspaper articles to more recent scientific studies, indicates that black bears in Nevada were once distributed throughout the state but subsequently vanished in the early 1900s. Today, the bear population is increasing and rapidly reoccupying its former range due in part to the conservation and management efforts of NDOW and WCS.

Compelled in part by dramatic increases in human/bear conflicts and a 17-fold increase in bear mortalities due to collisions with vehicles reported between the early 1990s and mid- 2000s, WCS and NDOW began a 15-year study of black bears in Nevada that included a review of the animal's little-known history in the state.

Over the course of the study, black bears were captured both in the wild and at the urban interface in response to conflict complaints. The captured animals used in the study (adult males and females only) were evaluated for multiple physiological indicators including condition, sex, reproductive status, weight, and age, prior to being released. From the information gathered, the population size in the study area was estimated to be 262 bears (171 males, 91 females). Confirmed sightings and points of capture from 1988 to present were mapped and presented in the report to illustrate current population demographics, and will be used to inform bear management in Nevada.

"It's critical to understand the population dynamics in a given area in order to make informed decisions regarding management," said WCS Conservation Scientist Jon Beckmann. "This includes decisions on everything from setting harvest limits to habitat management to conservation planning in areas where people will accept occupation by bears. We used this long-term study to determine if reported incidences were due to an increasing or expanding bear population, or people moving to where bears are located. The answer is both."

The study area extended from the Carson Range of the Sierra Nevada eastward to the Virginia Range and Pine Nut Mountains, and from Reno south to Topaz Lakean area collectively referred to as the Carson front. Because many captures were in response to conflicts, the urban interfaces of cities and towns of the Lake Tahoe Basin were included.

Nevada's Black Bear History Unraveled

In looking to integrate information on the historical demographics of black bears into their study, the authors found that little published scientific research or data was available and that the species' history in Nevada went largely ignored until 1987 when complaints arising from sightings and road collisions with vehicles began.

Historical records compiled by retired NDOW biologist Robert McQuivey that included old newspaper articles, pioneer journals dating as far back as 1849, and NDOW records that had long been unavailable, were reviewed and confirmed that black bears were present throughout the state until about 1931. At that point, the authors concluded that "the paucity of historical references after 1931 suggest extirpation of black bears from Nevada's interior mountain ranges by this time."

"The historical records paint a very different picture of Nevada's black bear than what we see today. This new perspective is a good indication of what bear management in this state could involve should the population continue to expand," said the study's lead-author Carl Lackey of NDOW.

The authors believe that while over-hunting and conflicts with domestic livestock contributed to the bear's local extinction in the Great Basin, landscape changes due to clear-cutting of forests throughout western and central Nevada during the mining booms of the late 1800s played an important role as well. But as fossil fuels replaced timber as a heat and energy source, forestry and grazing practices evolved, and reforestation and habitat regeneration occurred in parts of the their former range, the bears rebounded.

Using the information gathered in their review of historic documents, the scientists mapped the distribution of black bears within the interior of Nevada during the 1800s and early 1900s. They recommend that historical range maps for the species in North America be revised to include the information produced as part of the study.

###

The study, Bear Historical Ranges: Expansion of an Extirpated Bear Population, appears in the current online edition of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Co-authors include Carl W. Lackey of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, Jon P. Beckmann of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and James Sedinger of the University of Nevada, Reno.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/wcs-bbh032813.php

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Gut-Microbe Swap Helps with Weight Loss

A bacterial transplant in mice has been shown to provide some of the benefits of gastric bypass surgery without putting the animals under the knife

By Nicola Jones and Nature magazine

Here the taxonomy of gut bacteria in mice that have received gastric bypass (red) is compared to that of mice kept at the same weight (blue) and of others that were not kept on a diet (green). Image: Science Translational Medicine/AAAS

Obese people considering gastric bypass surgery to help trim their fat might one day have another option: swallowing a new supply of gut bacteria. A study in mice suggests that weight loss after bypass surgery is caused not by the operation itself, but at least in part by a change in the amounts of various species of microbes in the gut.

A bypass operation separates off a small part of the stomach and connects that directly to the intestines. Recipients tend to feel less hungry, fill up more quickly and burn more calories at rest, and they often lose up to 75% of their excess fat. Counter-intuitively, this is thought to be caused by a change in metabolism, rather than by the reduced size of the stomach.

Gut microbes are thought to be part of this picture. People who have had bypasses are known to experience changes in the selection of microbes in their guts. Fat people have been shown to host a different selection of gut bacteria from people who are obese, and transferring the gut bacteria of fat mice into thin ones can cause the thin mice to pack on extra weight. But no one knew whether the microbes in bypass patients changed because they got thin, or if the patients got thin because the microbes changed.

Chop and change
To investigate, Lee Kaplan, director of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues gave about a dozen obese mice bypass surgery. As expected, the mice lost about 29% of their body weight, and kept it off despite a high-fat diet. New conditions in their bodies ? such as a change in bile acids ? allowed a different set of gut bacteria to thrive.

The researchers then took faecal samples from the mice that had been operated on, and put bacteria from them into the guts of mice specially bred without any gut flora. These mice, which were not obese, lost 5% of their weight without any changes to their diet. The results are reported in Science Translational Medicine.

The effect is impressively large, says Randy Seeley, an obesity researcher at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, particularly given that sterile mice almost always gain weight when given any kind of gut flora. The fact that the mice getting the second-hand bacteria did not lose as much weight as those that had surgery suggests that other factors are also at work; these could include hormonal changes.

The results are promising for obesity treatments, but there are still hurdles to overcome. ?You can?t just take a pill of the right bacteria and have them stick around,? says Seeley. If the gut?s environmental conditions don?t change, then the original microbes come back, he says. Kaplan says that the next steps are to isolate the four bacteria types that the study found to be at play and introduce them into obese mice or people. Antibiotic treatments might help the new bacteria to stick. ?I believe it?s possible,? says Kaplan.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on March 27, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b5aeffc26bd0cbb192e4e92698c948d7

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US court sides with EPA in Michigan pollution case

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- A federal appeals court says government regulators can take action when they fear a power company construction project might significantly increase air pollution, without waiting to see if they were right.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued DTE Energy in 2010 because the company replaced key boiler parts at its Monroe Unit 2 without installing pollution controls that are required whenever a utility performs a major overhaul. DTE said the project was only routine maintenance.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman threw out the suit, saying EPA went to court too soon.

But the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision Thursday. In a 2-1 ruling, the court says the law doesn't block EPA from challenging suspected violations of its regulations until long after power plants are modified.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-court-sides-epa-michigan-174148034.html

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S.Africa's Mandela back in hospital with lung infection

By Brian Homewood March 28 (Reuters) - Swiss champions FC Basel, renowned for their youth development programme, face a constant battle to stop teenage players moving to English, Spanish and Italian clubs. President Bernhard Heusler told Reuters in an interview that parents often do not listen to the club when warned against taking their sons elsewhere. "We get enormous pressure from outside, including English clubs," said Heusler before adding Basel were powerless to stop their youngsters leaving before the age of 16. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africas-mandela-back-hospital-070540290.html

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Family Home and Life: Spring Thaw Color Palette

Yes please Pin anything you want, I love that! Also I am thrilled to have you link to me and yes, you may use a picture to link also...but please!!! Do not use photos of the kids! It is copying my post and/or my pics to use on your blog or anywhere else that I consider theft.

Source: http://www.familyhomeandlife.com/2013/03/spring-thaw-color-palette.html

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How Natural Gas Pipelines Could Boost Hydrogen

EarthTechling:

A new report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy on blending hydrogen into natural gas pipelines ? an idea being explored in Germany ? suggests it could be a worthwhile strategy to pursue

Read the whole story at EarthTechling

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/hydrogen-natural-gas-pipelines_n_2957123.html

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Apple adds new 'Why you'll love iPad' section to their website

Following Apple's new 'Why you'll love iPhone' campaign, they have now done the same for the iPad. The new page on Apple's site highlights both the iPad and iPad mini and why existing users already love it.

Apple's main focus seems to be on the features that set the iPad and iPad mini apart with a strong emphasis on the availability of apps, battery life, and LTE. Interestingly, out of all the features that Apple has decided to tout, the first feature they decided to list were some statistics for how many users are currently using iPads and how many school systems and government agencies have or plan to deploy iPads.

Unlike their iPhone campaign, Apple didn't decide to compare it to other tablets on the market but instead highlight the features that they think highlight why people already love iPad. Hit the link below to see all the features Apple chose in their entirety.

Source: Apple

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/naMTTk3z1qc/story01.htm

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Amazon intros X-Ray for TV, helps you remember those 'Game of Thrones' actors

Amazon's continuing the steady X-Ray takeover of media today by extending the feature to its TV selection. The latest implementation of the concept, which has already made its way to the company's e-book offerings, offers up similar functionality to its movie counterpart, harnessing IMDB data to offer up contextual information on actors. The feature's available as of today for "most popular TV shows" on the company's Instant Video offering (some of which are also a part of its Prime video selection). And it's a solid list, too, including: Justified, Downton Abbey, The West Wing, Sons of Anarchy, Falling Skies, American Horror Story, Grey's Anatomy, Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lost, Glee, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. More info on the feature can be found below.

Filed under: Amazon

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/amazon-x-ray-tv/

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WWE Main Event results: Champions collide and The Bellas return to action!

Kane vs. Antonio Cesaro: WWE Main Event, March 27, 2013Sheamus discusses The Shield: WWE Main Event, March 27, 2013AJ Lee attacks Kaitlyn: Raw, March 25, 2013Team Hell No vs. The Prime Time Players: Raw, March 25, 2013The Undertaker vs. Kane: WrestleMania 20, WWE App Exclusive, March 22, 2013Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler: Raw, March 18, 2013Team Hell No vs. Primo & Epico: Raw, March 18, 2013

HERSHEY, Pa. ? With less than two weeks until WrestleMania 29, WWE Main Event featured WWE Tag Team Champion Kane battling U.S. Champion Antonio Cesaro, the debut of Brodus Clay and Tensai?s new tag team name and The Bella Twins? return to in-ring action!

Kane def. Antonio Cesaro?

In less than two weeks at WrestleMania 29, Kane & Daniel Bryan defend the WWE Tag Team Titles against the untested duo of Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston. In preparation for the battle, The Big Red Monster faced United States Champion Antonio Cesaro in the featured contest on WWE Main Event while Daniel Bryan joined The Miz and Michael Cole on commentary.

Watch: Kane battles Cesaro |?WWE Main Event Photos

As the contest wavered back and forth, AJ Lee skipped her way around the ring. No doubt wanting to distract The Big Red Monster, AJ was stopped in her tracks by Kane?s partner Bryan, who prevented the devilish Diva from further diverting his partner?s attention. Despite her best efforts, AJ was unable to dodge her former beau, allowing The Big Red Monster to focus his attention on the dangerous United States Champion and execute a Chokeslam on the Swiss-born Superstar to secure the victory.

Watch: Sheamus affirmed his commitment to stopping The Shield alongside Big Show and Randy Orton at WrestleMania.

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Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwemainevent/2013-03-27/results

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