Nokia, Nokia. Who's there? Lumia. Lumia who? Stay tuned this afternoon to learn the answer, even though we're not promising the funniest punchline in the world. What we can promise you, however, is in-depth coverage of Nokia World 2011 and everything else that happened in the wireless industry over the past week. Each week seems to be as crazy as the last, which always makes for an entertainment podcast. Special guest Steve Litchfield and Host Myriam Joire are delivering the rants in a British accent, and co-host Brad Molen may toss out a beef or two in his own native western US dialect. Sadly, it's the same dialect he uses every week. Regardless, reconvene here at 5PM ET (2PM PT, 10PM UK)!
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers report that a combination of fatty acids expands the heart cells of a well-fed snake, a finding that holds promise for treating human heart disease and other ailments.
KABUL, Afghanistan ? A suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy in Kabul, killing at least four people, Afghan officials said. In the south, a man wearing an Afghan military uniform turned his weapons on NATO and Afghan troops, killing two NATO service members, the U.S.-led coalition said.
The Taliban promptly claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, which took place near Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings on the southwest outskirts of the capital. NATO said there were "several" causalities among its forces and Afghan civilians, but did not provide details.
The attack was the deadliest of three separate incidents Saturday that targeted either the U.S.-led coalition or Afghan government offices in the country.
The Afghan Ministry of Interior said three Afghan civilians and one policeman died in the Kabul attack. The Taliban claim came shortly after the attack in a text message to media outlets.
In the restive south, an area traditionally viewed as the Taliban's stronghold, NATO said a man in an Afghan military uniform turned his weapon on coalition and Afghan forces, killing two. The shooter was killed, the coalition said in the statement that provided no other details.
The bombing on the outskirts of Kabul appeared to target a NATO convoy that included a military bus.
NATO and Afghan forces sealed off the area as rescuers rushed about the attack site, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Two NATO helicopters landed to airlift casualties while coalition troops using loudspeakers ordered bystanders to evacuate the area. Heavy black smoke poured from the bus, which was engulfed in a fireball.
Later, U.S. troops were seen carrying three black body bags from the bus' burned wreckage, which eyewitnesses said had been sandwiched in the convoy between mine-resistant armored coalition vehicles. The troops also were seen carrying a badly charred body from the bus.
The incident was reminiscent of another similar attack on a NATO convoy in May 2010. In that incident, a suicide bomber struck the convoy, killing 18 people, including five American troops and a Canadian. The Taliban, at the time, said the vehicle was packed with 1,650 pounds (750 kilograms) of explosives.
Earlier Saturday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up as she tried to attack a local government office in the capital of Kunar province, a hotbed of militancy in northeast Afghanistan along the Pakistan border.
Abdul Sabor Allayar, deputy provincial police chief, said the guards outside the government's intelligence office in Asad Abad became suspicious of the woman and started shooting, at which point she detonated her explosives.
There were no other casualties in that attack.
Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces conducted operations earlier this month, killing more than 100 insurgents in an effort to curb violence in rugged areas of Kunar where the coalition and Afghan government have a light footprint.
Farther south along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Afghan and coalition forces captured two leaders of the Haqqani network and two other suspected insurgents in Sarobi district of Paktika province, the coalition said.
Haqqani fighters, who are affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaida, are heavily rooted in Paktika and neighboring Paktia and Khost provinces.
One of the captured leaders provided insurgent fighters with funding, weapons, supplies and hideouts, and the other coordinated attacks against Afghan forces, the coalition said.
___
Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.
FILE - In this April 6, 2009 file photo, Ruth Madoff is escorted by private security as she leaves the Metropolitan Correctional Center after visiting her husband, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff , in New York. Ruth Madoff and her son Andrew will speak publicly for the first time about Bernie Madoff on "60 minutes" airing Sunday, Oct. 30 at 7pm ET/PT. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
FILE - In this April 6, 2009 file photo, Ruth Madoff is escorted by private security as she leaves the Metropolitan Correctional Center after visiting her husband, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff , in New York. Ruth Madoff and her son Andrew will speak publicly for the first time about Bernie Madoff on "60 minutes" airing Sunday, Oct. 30 at 7pm ET/PT. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The wife of disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff says the couple tried to kill themselves after he admitted to his loved ones that he'd stolen billions of dollars in the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Ruth Madoff, who'll appear on Sunday's episode of CBS' "60 Minutes" in her first interview since her husband's December 2008 arrest, says they had been receiving hate mail and "terrible phone calls" and were distraught.
"I don't know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening," she says in the interview, according to excerpts released by CBS.
She says it was Christmas Eve, which added to their depression, and she decided: "I just can't go on anymore."
She says the couple took "a bunch of pills" including the insomnia prescription medication Ambien, but they both woke up the next day. She says the decision was "very impulsive" and she's glad they didn't die.
The couple's son Andrew Madoff also will talk about his experience.
Another son, Mark Madoff, hanged himself by a dog leash last year on the anniversary of his father's arrest. Like his parents, he had swallowed a batch of sleeping pills in a failed suicide attempt 14 months earlier, according to his widow's new book, "The End of Normal: A Wife's Anguish, A Widow's New Life."
Bernie Madoff was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, the morning after his sons notified authorities through an attorney that he had confessed to them that his investment business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He admitted cheating thousands of investors. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C.
Madoff, who's in his 70s, ran his scheme for at least two decades, using his investment advisory service to cheat individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors.
An investigation found Madoff never made any investments, instead using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients ? and to finance a lavish lifestyle for his family. Losses have been estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.
Einstein researcher helps lead consortium for $10 million 'X Prize' to sequence genomes of 100 centenariansPublic release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kimberly Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine
October 26, 2011 (BRONX, NY) Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, will help lead a newly formed centenarian consortium for the Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Medco. The $10 million dollar incentivized prize competition, which was announced today, challenges teams of scientists and entrepreneurs to sequence the complete genomes of 100 healthy centenarians in 30 days. Intended to help usher in an era of personalized medicine and learn from the genetic advantages of the exceptionally long-lived, the competition tasks teams with delivering medical quality genome sequencing results for $1,000 per centenarian.
As one of the leaders of the centenarian consortium, Dr. Barzilai will help identify and collect the 100 centenarian genomes to be sequenced. Known as the Medco 100 Over 100, the genomes will be donated by 100 vital and independent individuals who are aged 100 or older and have participated in a centenarian study, like Dr. Barzilai's Longevity Genes Project. One of Dr. Barzilai's participants, 105-year old Irving Kahn who founded a successful New York City-based value investment firm and still works daily participated in today's X PRIZE announcement event.
Dr. Barzilai, who has been studying the healthy elderly since 1998, implicated several "longevity genes" in humans. His research on more than 500 centenarians of Ashkenazi Jewish descent established, among other findings, that the gene variant that leads to high HDL, or "good cholesterol," is linked to healthy aging and extreme longevity.
"Understanding the genetic makeup that protects these healthy centenarians from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cancer and other diseases associated with aging is necessary if we all want to live disease-free into an advanced old age," said Dr. Barzilai, the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research and director of the NIH-funded Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging at Einstein. "By sequencing the genomes of these healthy centenarians and making the results available to scientists this contest will be a powerful tool in helping us decode the genetic underpinnings of healthy aging and develop drugs that can mimic the protections these individuals have."
"The assistance of Dr. Barzilai and the other centenarian consortium members have been critical for creating this contest," said Grant Campany, senior director of the AGXP. "Without them we would not have the genomic material for this invaluable research that may bring us one step closer to realizing the promise of personalized medicine."
The 30-day Archon Genomics X PRIZE competition begins on Thursday, January 3, 2013; winners will be announced that spring.
###
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2009-2010 academic year, Einstein is home to 722 M.D. students, 243 Ph.D.students, 128 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 350 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has 2,775 fulltime faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2009, Einstein received more than $155 million in support from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Through its extensive affiliation network involving five medical centers in the Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island - which includes Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for Einstein - the College of Medicine runs one of the largest post-graduate medical training programs in the United States, offering approximately 150 residency programs to more than 2,500 physicians in training. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu
[ | 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.
Einstein researcher helps lead consortium for $10 million 'X Prize' to sequence genomes of 100 centenariansPublic release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kimberly Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine
October 26, 2011 (BRONX, NY) Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, will help lead a newly formed centenarian consortium for the Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Medco. The $10 million dollar incentivized prize competition, which was announced today, challenges teams of scientists and entrepreneurs to sequence the complete genomes of 100 healthy centenarians in 30 days. Intended to help usher in an era of personalized medicine and learn from the genetic advantages of the exceptionally long-lived, the competition tasks teams with delivering medical quality genome sequencing results for $1,000 per centenarian.
As one of the leaders of the centenarian consortium, Dr. Barzilai will help identify and collect the 100 centenarian genomes to be sequenced. Known as the Medco 100 Over 100, the genomes will be donated by 100 vital and independent individuals who are aged 100 or older and have participated in a centenarian study, like Dr. Barzilai's Longevity Genes Project. One of Dr. Barzilai's participants, 105-year old Irving Kahn who founded a successful New York City-based value investment firm and still works daily participated in today's X PRIZE announcement event.
Dr. Barzilai, who has been studying the healthy elderly since 1998, implicated several "longevity genes" in humans. His research on more than 500 centenarians of Ashkenazi Jewish descent established, among other findings, that the gene variant that leads to high HDL, or "good cholesterol," is linked to healthy aging and extreme longevity.
"Understanding the genetic makeup that protects these healthy centenarians from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cancer and other diseases associated with aging is necessary if we all want to live disease-free into an advanced old age," said Dr. Barzilai, the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research and director of the NIH-funded Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging at Einstein. "By sequencing the genomes of these healthy centenarians and making the results available to scientists this contest will be a powerful tool in helping us decode the genetic underpinnings of healthy aging and develop drugs that can mimic the protections these individuals have."
"The assistance of Dr. Barzilai and the other centenarian consortium members have been critical for creating this contest," said Grant Campany, senior director of the AGXP. "Without them we would not have the genomic material for this invaluable research that may bring us one step closer to realizing the promise of personalized medicine."
The 30-day Archon Genomics X PRIZE competition begins on Thursday, January 3, 2013; winners will be announced that spring.
###
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2009-2010 academic year, Einstein is home to 722 M.D. students, 243 Ph.D.students, 128 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 350 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has 2,775 fulltime faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2009, Einstein received more than $155 million in support from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Through its extensive affiliation network involving five medical centers in the Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island - which includes Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for Einstein - the College of Medicine runs one of the largest post-graduate medical training programs in the United States, offering approximately 150 residency programs to more than 2,500 physicians in training. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu
[ | 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.
New York ? Expect the president, eager to distract voters from his embarrassing record on the economy, to repeatedly tout his foreign policy successes
Conventional wisdom predicts that the 2012 presidential election will be primarily about jobs and economic growth, and that doesn't bode well for the incumbent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's been more than 70 years since we re-elected an incumbent president with unemployment above 8 percent. Even though the official jobless rate under Ronald Reagan went higher than we have seen under Barack Obama (10.8 percent in November and December 1982), it dropped below 9 percent 13 months before the 1984 election, and descended to 7.2 percent in June 1984, with the economy gaining a stunning 6.55 million jobs in just 19 months, averaging a gain of 345,210 jobs per month during that period. ?
No one expects that kind of job growth in this cycle. It's highly unlikely that the economy will move from a liability to an asset for President Obama or the Democrats. If conventional wisdom and electoral history hold, Obama will be a one-term president. But what if he could turn voters' attention away from the sputtering economy and make 2012 into an election based on a perceived strength in foreign policy and his performance as a war president?
If conventional wisdom and electoral history hold, Obama will be a one-term president.
Undoubtedly, Obama's team will want to highlight non-economic issues, especially those that potentially provide contrast with Republican hopefuls. This will be especially true for the current crop of GOP frontrunners, two of whom have extensive private-sector records of financial success (Mitt Romney and Herman Cain), and the other with a public-sector record of managing a job-creating environment (Rick Perry). The obvious choice for differentiation will be foreign policy, especially Obama's record on military action.
That does have some potential for Obama. The president has racked up some impressive scores on the battlefield in the war on terror, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. The stepped-up drone strikes in Pakistan has crippled the leadership of al Qaeda, and Obama's order to kill pirates holding Americans hostage gave an early indication that this president would not shrink from wielding American power???at least on some occasions. He also clearly wanted to claim some credit for the death of Moammar Gadhafi, which was enabled by Western military strikes, if not directly creditable to them.
It doesn't hurt that Obama's potential rivals also seem to be talking about everything but the economy. The big takeaway topics from recent Republican presidential debates have ranged from HPV vaccinations to hostage negotiation with terrorists, and from the finer points of book publishing and between-edition edits to the ins and outs of subcontracted lawn care. Only when Herman Cain hit a big polling updraft did the Republican presidential candidates get around to seriously discussing economic policy during the debates, even if all they did initially was attack Cain's plan. ?
However, Obama will have some problems in using foreign policy to distract from America's economic woes. First, while Obama gets credit for taking out bin Laden, voters expected an American president to take that shot if the opportunity presented itself. Obama got a momentary boost in polling from the success of the mission, but the short duration of that bump tells the story of how successful an "I Got Bin Laden" campaign strategy will be in 2012. That will also be true of the withdrawal from Iraq, which took place on George W. Bush's timetable rather than Obama's. The killing of Awlaki proved a lot more politically difficult, as civil libertarians on both sides of the partisan divide questioned whether Obama had overstepped the law in targeting an American citizen for a military strike, even though most Americans seemed to have no trouble with the decision.
The case of Gadhafi is even murkier. While no one will miss the brutal tyrant, we may not like what follows next, either. Already the new regime in Tripoli has announced the imposition of certain elements of Sharia law ahead of any democratic reforms, and the death of the dictator at the hands of the militia that captured him doesn't give a lot of confidence about the discipline of the new government's security apparatus. Thousands of shoulder-fired missiles have gone missing, and the U.S. says that terrorist groups are trying their best to get their hands on these weapons, mostly Soviet-era SA-7s that work well against civilian and military aircraft at lower altitudes. It won't take more than one or two successful shots at American aircraft?by terrorists?with these weapons to remind people how the missiles got out onto the open market in the first place.
A debate on foreign policy would also inevitably return focus to Obama's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, and that won't be a good topic for the incumbent. Obama's inept handling of the issue of building in Jerusalem in the early months of his presidency gave Mahmoud Abbas an excuse to bail out of direct negotiations, even though Abbas had never made the issue a deal-breaker before Obama's intervention. The president's demand for Israel to return to 1967 "borders" as a condition of negotiation???rather than a result of direct negotiation with the Palestinians???earned him a lecture from Benjamin Netanyahu and rebukes from Senate Democrats. Even Hamas rejected Obama's demand (although obviously for different reasons), making Obama look foolish and unschooled on the issues.
Lastly, though, the American voters won't allow Obama or his eventual Republican challenger to change the subject too often. While foreign policy and national security will surely be important topics in the 2012 election, they will not override the personal experience of so many Americans living through the worst economy in decades, especially with their homes devalued to the point of being albatrosses rather than assets, and little hope in sight for significant growth. Voters demanded change based on economic and fiscal policy in both 2008 and 2010, and it's a safe bet that 2012 will be fought on the exact same lines.
View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week
Other stories from this topic:
Like on Facebook?-?Follow on Twitter?-?Sign-up for Daily Newsletter
A new study has shed light on the process by which fruit flies develop with their body proportions remaining constant. The study, conducted by the research group of Professor Markus Affolter at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and Sven Bergmann's group at the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Lausanne, has demonstrated that the morphogen Dpp and the feedback regulator Pentagone are key factors responsible for proportional tissue growth in wings of a fruit fly. This process keeps the body plan of the fruit fly Drosophila constant. Their research results, published October 25 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, might also be important for organ growth in other organisms.
One of the most interesting and perhaps mysterious questions in developmental biology is to understand how organisms develop from an embryo to an adult with their body proportions remaining constant over generations. External factors such as nutrition and temperature generally impact the overall size of an organism, but leave body proportions unaffected. Fish kept in too small aquaria, for example, just grow proportionally smaller and flies kept under starving conditions have proportionally smaller heads, abdomens, legs and wings. The phenomenon of keeping proportions during growth is called 'scaling' and has been subject of study for decades. Indeed, how scaling is achieved has, until recently, not been very well understood.
In an attempt to solve open questions regarding scaling, Affolter's and Bergmann's research groups have made a large step forward. In the new study they analyze the scaling process of the Drosophila wing; more specifically the insect's wing imaginal disc, the precursor tissue of the adult wing. Using a combination of experimental and mathematical approaches, they could demonstrate that the morphogen called Decapentaplegic (Dpp) plays a central role in regulating and scaling wing growth and patterning via the regulation of Pentagone. A morphogen produces different cellular responses depending on its concentration, and the two groups found that, as the disc grows, the Dpp response expands and scales with the tissue size. Naturally, the morphogen itself needs to be regulated and controlled. In this study, they identify Pentagone, one of Dpp's recently discovered transcriptional targets, as the first negative feedback controller responsible for scaling. Hence, scaling is achieved in the wing due to the feedback loop between the signaling activity of Dpp and its regulator Pentagone. Besides this, Affolter's and Bergmann's groups could also show that scaling is not perfect at all positions during wing disc growth and that scaling of the target gene domains is best where they have a function.
Affolter's and Bergmann's groups used the wing of the fruit fly Drosophila as a model to study scaling quantitatively during growth. Similar to the micro-macro link ? a term used in social sciences ? scaling is defined as the preservation of proportions of gene expression domains with tissue size during growth. In other words, proportions found on the micro-level of gene expression are found on the macro-level of wing formation. "Better insight into the molecular control of scaling will have large consequences for the understanding of how nature has developed such robust body plans", explains Affolter.
###
Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org
Thanks to Public Library of Science 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.
TOLEDO, Ohio ? Joe the Plumber is plunging into politics because he thinks it's about time America had a few mechanics, bricklayers and, yes, plumbers in Congress.
Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher was thrust into the political spotlight after questioning Barack Obama about his economic policies during the 2008 presidential campaign. He officially launched his campaign for Congress in Ohio on Tuesday night.
Wurzelbacher said he's running as a Republican in Ohio's 9th U.S. House district, a seat now held by Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving Democratic woman in the House. She's expected to face a primary challenge from Rep. Dennis Kucinich after Ohio's redrawn congressional map combined their two districts into one that appears heavily tilted toward Democrats.
Wurzelbacher has become an icon for many anti-establishment conservatives and has traveled the country speaking at tea party rallies and conservative gatherings since becoming a household name.
"Americans deserve all kinds of people representing them," he said. "Not just an elite, ruling class."
He said he's seeking office because he's seen too many people forced out of their homes and leave Ohio because of the poor economy.
"All I'm asking for is a fair shake," he said.
Wurzelbacher insisted that he's not trying to capitalize on his fame. "I've been Joe the Plumber for three years now," Wurzelbacher said. "I haven't made millions of dollars off it."
Republicans who recruited him to run in what is a blue-collar district stretching from Toledo to Cleveland think his fame will help bring in enough money to mount a serious challenge. He set up a website to raise money within the last week.
Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman Rob Frost, who had announced he would seek the GOP nomination, dropped out last week, clearing the way for Wurzelbacher.
"People have said this is a guy who took his 15 minutes of fame and turned it into a half hour," said Lucas County GOP Chairman Jon Stainbrook. "But you've got a guy who's out there and people are relating with him."
He'll appeal to people who are tired of politics as usual, Stainbrook said. "He's tapped into this sentiment that things in Washington are screwed up," Stainbrook said
Politicians, Wurzelbacher said, too often try to patch problems instead of fixing them. "I'm not the kind of plumber who uses duct tape," he said
Wurzelbacher, 37, went from toiling as a plumber in suburban Toledo three years ago to media sensation in a matter of days after questioning Obama about his tax policies and being repeatedly cited by Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain in a presidential debate.
He campaigned with McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, but he later criticized McCain and said he did not want him as the GOP presidential nominee.
Since then, he's written a book, worked with a veterans' organization that provides outdoor programs for wounded soldiers and traveled the country speaking at tea party rallies and conservative gatherings.
He said he's also been building houses and working as a plumber.
Wurzelbacher has shown a disdain for politicians ? both Democrat and Republican.
"Being a politician is as good as being a weatherman," Wurzelbacher said at a tea party rally last year in Nevada. "You don't have to be right, you don't have to do your job well, but you'll still have a job."
He said on Tuesday that he decided to enter politics as a Republican because he figured he'd have no chance to win as an independent.
"Is it the lesser of two evils?" he said. "I don't know."
ROSAT, the latest manmade object to fall from the heavens and threaten humanity's safety, has apparently burned up in Earth's atmosphere. The 1 in 2,000 chance of death from above we had all feared never materialized. More »
Published on: Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 12:01 am
Dr. David Luban, a professor of law and philosophy at Georgetown University and acting director of its Center on National Security and the Law, will present his thinking on the topic of human dignity in a 4:30 p.m. lecture Thursday, Oct. 27, in the Frey Moot Courtroom of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in downtown Minneapolis.
The lecture, free and open to the public, is the next in an ongoing series on what it means for humans to possess dignity. The title of the lecture is ?The Dignifier and the Dignified: Human Dignity from Autonomy to Relations.?
Dr. David Luban
The series is sponsored by the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy, which is a collaboration between St. Thomas? School of Law and Center for Catholic Studies. The institute?s goal is to assemble a collection of lectures into one volume that can serve as a resource for those interested in a strenuous investigation of the topic of human dignity.
Luban has been visiting professor and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Legal Ethics at Yale Law School, and Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Stanford Law School.? He also has held visiting appointments at Dartmouth College, the University of Melbourne and Harvard Law School.
He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and won awards for his legal ethics scholarship from the New York State Bar and the American Bar Foundation. Last spring Luban was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Luban has published more than 150 articles; his books, which include the 2007?Legal Ethics and Human Dignity,?have been translated into Chinese and Japanese. He is a frequent speaker at universities in the United States and has lectured in 10 other countries.
Go to the Murphy Institute website for more information and to register. The institute is applying for continuing legal education credits.
This article was posted at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 and is filed under See/Hear/Do.
DEAD SEA, Jordan (Reuters) ? Libyans should be allowed to vote within eight months to elect a national council that would draft a new constitution and form an interim government, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Saturday as he prepared to step down.
After the death of Muammar Gaddafi this week, the priority was to remove weapons from Libyan streets, restore stability and order and begin a process of national reconciliation, Jibril said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
"The first election should take place within a period of eight months, maximum, to constitute a national congress of Libya, some sort of parliament," he said.
"This national congress would have two tasks -- draft a constitution, on which we would have a referendum, and the second to form an interim government to last until the first presidential elections are held," said Jibril.
The National Transitional Council (NTC) that led the fight against Gaddafi has said it plans to declare the full "liberation" of Libya Sunday after the killing of Gaddafi by fighters who overran his home town Sirte.
Jibril, an expatriate academic who strikes a modern, Western-friendly image, told Reuters Saturday that he planned to step down "today," a move he had planned to make once the country was under full government control.
He said Gaddafi's death left him feeling "relieved and reborn."
Commenting on the disgust felt by many at the sight of Gaddafi's blood-stained, bullet-holed body, he told Reuters: "People in the West don't understand the agony and pain that the people went through during the past 42 years.
Jibril said Gaddafi's body, which lay unburied in a meat locker in the city of Misrata Saturday, would be buried within 48 hours in accordance with Islamic practice.
Gaddafi's demise was the main goal that united the rag-tag militias and defected army battalions that have battled his forces since an uprising began in February.
PARTING WARNING
Libya's future stability will require the NTC that appointed Jibril -- comprised of secular liberals, Islamists and tribal elders -- to prove a willingness to compromise, a quality that was anathema under Gaddafi's system of one-man rule.
Progress would depend on two things, said Jibril.
"First what kind of resolve the NTC will show in the next few days, and the other thing depends mainly on the Libyan people -- whether they differentiate between the past and the future," he said.
"I am counting on them to look ahead and remember the kind of agony they went through in the last 42 years."
Jibril said the north African country, which Gaddafi turned into a major energy exporter, needed a vision for finding another source of income because Libya had already consumed 62 percent of its oil.
"We need to seize this very limited opportunity," he said. "We should use this time properly to build an alternate economy as fast as possible."
Some Libyan officials have said countries that failed to back a NATO bombing campaign that helped dislodge Gaddafi, including Russia, China and Germany, or were slow to denounce Gaddafi, such as Italy, could lose out in Libyan oil deals.
Libya's National Oil Corporation said this week it had summoned Russian energy group Gazprom to a meeting in Tripoli to discuss what the Libyans said was a breach of investment obligations.
In a warning to Libya's future leaders, Jibril said the next government must not to allow politics to influence the award of oil contracts.
"I can advise the coming interim government that the economic rule should be the rule. It's very dangerous to have contracts based on politics," he said.
Posted on 23 October 2011. Tags: north east england, northumbria university, regional development agency, sunderland north, vehicle aerodynamics
In 1984 Nissan established a Factory in Sunderland, North East England. In the past eight years this factory has been Europe?s most efficient car plant. Since then Nissans overall investment in the region has been approximately ?2.1bn (.1bn). The level of commitment by Nissan has propelled the North East of England as one of the top places in Europe to relocate automotive businesses as well as the expansion opportunities available.
Nissans decision to move to the North east has prompted over 150 automotive companies to relocate or start up in the region and the industry now has a combined workforce of 18,000 skilled people. Companies in the car or car component industry can take advantage of the regions large and skilled workforce with great employment skills in the automotive industry.
In addition to the employable skills enjoyed in the region, the industry is also supported through the Institute of Automotive and Manufacturing Advance practice at the University of Sunderland which is recognised worldwide as a one of the leaders in its field. Its research includes materials and structural analysis, manufacturing systems and ergonomics. There is also Durham University?s Centre for Automotive Research; here they have expertise in vehicle aerodynamics and hybrid vehicles.
Located in nearby Newcastle upon Tyne is Northumbria University. The design school contributes to the industrial design of automotive products.
The North East of England also boasts a wide range of specialist industrial support. This includes the NEPA programme which looks at lean automotive manufacturing; The Regional Centre for Manufacturing Excellence; The Automotive Academy; and the Automotive Centre for Excellence. These resources are made available to businesses that are looking to set up in the region. The regional development agency, One NorthEast, have a dedicated team who help businesses from all over Europe and around the world to look at the opportunities available to business looking to relocate and take advantages of what the North East has to offer.
So the North East of England is a region that can support new and existing businesses that are looking for expansion opportunities or relocation opportunities in the Automotive industry. With a highly skilled workforce and support and collaboration available for the regions local Universities the North East has established itself as one of Europe?s prime locations for the Automotive industry.
If you would like to know more about these business opportunities then the best place to get advice is through the Invest North East England team at One NorthEast.
NEW YORK ? Folk music legend Pete Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City's tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.
The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out a verse as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.
They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines.
At the circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of "We are the 99 percent" and "We are unstoppable, another world is possible." Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane ? to cheers from the crowd.
At the center of the circle, Seeger and Amram were joined by `60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie in a round of "We Shall Overcome," a protest anthem made popular by Seeger.
After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to tell the crowd: "The words are simple: I could be happy spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-ays."
During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour fashion like his grandfather, walked among the protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of the accordion, banjos, and guitars.
At the front of the throng, marchers held American flags and a large blue flag that said: "Revolution Generation ... Debt is Slavery." Along the way, the crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others of the protest era.
Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan among a few young people, and has grown to thousands around the country and the world. An Associated Press-GfK poll says more than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more ? 58 percent ? say they are furious about America's politics.
ANKARA, Turkey ? About 10,000 elite Turkish soldiers were taking part in a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey and across the border in Iraq on Thursday, making it the nation's largest attack on the insurgents in more than three years, the military said.
The offensive was began Wednesday after Kurdish rebels carried out raids near the Turkey-Iraq border that killed 24 Turkish soldiers and wounded 18, the insurgents' deadliest one-day attacks against the military since the mid-1990s.
The military said in a statement Thursday that 22 battalions, or about 10,000 soldiers, were taking part in the offensive in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, but it did not say how many were in each country.
NTV television said most of the troops were believed to be in Iraq.
It was Turkey's largest such offensive since February 2008, when thousands of ground forces staged a weeklong offensive into Iraq on snow-covered mountains.
The military said the soldiers in the current operation are commandos, special forces and paramilitary special forces ? making it an elite force trained in guerrilla warfare. They are being reinforced by F-16 and F-4 warplanes, Super Cobra helicopter gunships and surveillance drones.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to share details of the military's offensive. The military only said the offensive was concentrated in five separate areas it did not identify.
"Our goal is to achieve results with this operation," Erdogan told a nationally televised news conference. "The military is determinedly carrying out this (operation), both from the air and the ground."
The military said the offensive was launched because the rebels had staged Wednesday's deadly simultaneous attacks on eight separate targets, including military and police outposts.
In its first comment since those attacks and the start of Turkey's offensive, Iraq's government on Thursday condemned the rebel attacks and promised to stop them from using Iraqi territory for future attacks against Turkey.
"The Iraqi government stresses again that Iraq will not be a haven or a shelter to any foreign armed and terrorist group," the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website, adding that both Baghdad and the regional Kurdish government in northern Iraq "are committed to secure the borders" to prevent the repetition of such attacks.
A senior Iraqi Kurdish official, Nechirvan Barzani, was in Ankara and expected to be received by Erdogan shortly.
The Kurdish rebel attack outraged many Turks and fueled nationalist sentiment. Thousands of high school students, carrying Turkish flags, marched in the streets of the Turkish capital on Thursday.
"Tooth for tooth, blood for blood, vengeance!" students chanted in support of the military as they marched through the affluent Tunali Hilmi district. At one point, the students stopped traffic to sing the national anthem as some shopkeepers joined them and passers-by stood still in respect.
The Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq are mostly stable and prosperous. But to Turkey, which has a large Kurdish minority, they also are an inspiration and a support base for the Kurdish rebels.
Turkey's Kurdish rebel conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since the insurgents took up arms for autonomy in the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast in 1984.
___
Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad, Iraq contributed.
MONDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A trusted hairdresser may be privvy to your deepest secrets -- your age, your real hair color and maybe even the name of your plastic surgeon. Your stylist also may be the first to spot the telltale signs of deadly skin cancer.
"Hairdressers and barbers can potentially play a key role in detection of early melanoma if they are trained on how to look at the skin for atypical moles and lesions while they are taking care of their customer's hair," said Alan C. Geller, a senior lecturer in Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead researcher of a new study.
"They have a unique view of these high-risk sites," Geller said. If they see something questionable, they can suggest their client see a primary care physician or a dermatologist."
About 6 percent of all melanomas, the deadliest type of skin cancer, are found on the scalp and neck, and these cancers accounted for 10 percent of all melanoma deaths in the United States from 1973 to 2003. With a hairdresser's help, potentially cancerous abnormalities can be detected early, when they are most treatable, the researchers said.
Already, many hair professionals say they do examine their clients' head, neck and face, according to the study, published in the October issue of the Archives of Dermatology. And many more expressed interest in doing so, the survey found.
"I've had numerous referrals from hairdressers," said Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "They notice, because that's what they're doing all day long."
For the study, Geller's team reviewed surveys completed by 203 professional hairdressers from 17 salons in the Houston area. The hairdressers were asked how often they looked for abnormal moles on the head, neck and face of their customers, among other questions.
In the previous month, about 37 percent of the hairdressers said they had looked at the scalps of half their customers; nearly 29 percent had examined the necks of more than half their clients and about 15 percent had checked the faces of more than 50 percent of customers. The head and neck probably were examined more often than faces because hairdressers and barbers spend more time behind their customers than in front of them, the researchers said.
The greater the hairdressers' own awareness of good skin protection practices, the more likely they were to examine a customer's skin, the study found.
Fifty-eight percent of the hairdressers said they had recommended at least one client to see a doctor for an abnormal mole.
Sixty-nine percent said they were "somewhat" or "very likely" to give customers a pamphlet on skin cancer. In addition, about half said they were "very" or "extremely" interested in taking part in a skin cancer education program, the researchers found.
Moreover, 25 percent said they "often" or "always" share general health information with their customers.
But fewer than one-third actually had any formal training about skin cancer.
Dr. Shasa Hu, an assistant professor in the department of dermatology and cutaneous surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, agreed that hairdressers and barbers can play a significant role in detecting skin cancer early.
"There is a need for public education on skin cancer," Hu said. "This is a great way to expand education about skin cancer."
"We don't want hairdressers diagnosing skin cancer; we want hairdressers to pay attention to their customer's scalp and behind the ears and neck, basically areas that customers cannot access easily, and point out any suspicious lesions so that customers can go to a physician," Hu said.
Melanoma of the head and neck is particularly lethal. For early-stage melanoma of the head or neck, the five-year survival rate is about 83 percent, compared with just over 92 percent for early-stage melanoma found on other areas of the body, the researchers said.
The study has some limitations, the authors said, and should be considered a preliminary assessment of existing practices. Only one salon chain was included in the survey, so additional research is needed, they said.
Still, with hairdressers clearly doubling as lay health advisers, future programs should be developed to give them expert training, the researchers said.
More information
For more information on skin cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 524
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 526
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 619
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 621
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 652
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 697 Lern2Playhttp://www.lern2play.com Lern2Play.com features a large MMORPG Forum with over 265,000 posts. Active MMORPG and MMO community and MMO Games Forums. Join now to talk about Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Star Wars Galaxies and more.enhttp://www.lern2play.com/images/lern2play/misc/rss.jpgLern2Playhttp://www.lern2play.com http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106669-multi-dirty-girl-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html The 1911 Revolution 2011 DVDRip XviD AC3-playXD FShttp://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106668-the-1911-revolution-2011-dvdrip-xvid-ac3-playxd-fs.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106667-multi-crazy-stupid-love-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106666-multi-cowboys-and-aliens-2011-dvdrip-1-single-link.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106665-multi-courageous-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106664-multi-contagion-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106663-multi-conan-the-barbarian-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106662-multi-colombiana-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106661-multi-cars-2-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106660-multi-captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011-eng-dvdrip.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106659-multi-bucky-larson-born-to-be-a-star-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106658-multi-blackthorn-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106657-multi-beats-rhymes-and-life-the-travels-of-a-tribe-called-quest-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106656-multi-apollo-18-2011-eng-dvdrip-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106655-multi-anonymous-i-2011-dvd.html
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 524
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 526
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 619
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 621
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 652
Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/lern2pla/public_html/external.php on line 697 Lern2Playhttp://www.lern2play.com Lern2Play.com features a large MMORPG Forum with over 265,000 posts. Active MMORPG and MMO community and MMO Games Forums. Join now to talk about Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Star Wars Galaxies and more.enhttp://www.lern2play.com/images/lern2play/misc/rss.jpgLern2Playhttp://www.lern2play.com http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106669-multi-dirty-girl-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html The 1911 Revolution 2011 DVDRip XviD AC3-playXD FShttp://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106668-the-1911-revolution-2011-dvdrip-xvid-ac3-playxd-fs.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106667-multi-crazy-stupid-love-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106666-multi-cowboys-and-aliens-2011-dvdrip-1-single-link.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106665-multi-courageous-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106664-multi-contagion-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106663-multi-conan-the-barbarian-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106662-multi-colombiana-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106661-multi-cars-2-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106660-multi-captain-america-the-first-avenger-2011-eng-dvdrip.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106659-multi-bucky-larson-born-to-be-a-star-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106658-multi-blackthorn-2011-dvd-eng-dvdrip-hq-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106657-multi-beats-rhymes-and-life-the-travels-of-a-tribe-called-quest-2011-dvd.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106656-multi-apollo-18-2011-eng-dvdrip-1-link-no-rar.html http://www.lern2play.com/movies-tv-and-music/106655-multi-anonymous-i-2011-dvd.html
Former White House spokesman and one of the president?s closest confidantes: Obama for America Campaign adviser, Robert Gibbs. Then, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN). Finally, our roundtable: former Tennessee congressman, Harold Ford, Jr. (D); columnist for the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan; columnist for the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne; and host of CNBC?s Closing Bell, Maria Bartiromo.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ut133zWJ9aFJx50h-2rkxISBMMXKMVsM6EAUlc-chIdSthpG51QG6xXOU4K305AI6kF3d-XN3KgIUMpKQAB3jsOBd7lQbpd63oaXc2l5Q=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Oct-2011
Share ] 
