Bradley Manning pleads guilty to 10 lesser charges

Patrick Semansky / AP file

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning steps out of a security vehicle as he is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., on Nov. 29, 2012, for a pretrial hearing.

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

FORT MEADE, Md. ? A military judge on Thursday accepted guilty pleas by ?Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 10 lesser charges against him, leaving the ex-intelligence analyst to face 12 other counts for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of government documents to the WikiLeaks website.?

The acceptance of the "naked guilty pleas" -- meaning there is no agreement between the government and the defense that would limit the sentence ? at a pre-trial hearing means that Manning faces up to 20 years in prison, even if he is ultimately acquitted of the most-serious charges against him.?

Col. Denise Lind, the military judge presiding over the case, also accepted Manning?s ?not guilty? pleas to the remaining charges, including "aiding the enemy." His court martial on those charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, is scheduled to begin on June 3.?

During the day-long pre-trial hearing, Manning acknowledged that his actions were a discredit to the service and that he knew WikiLeaks was not authorized to have the information he provided.?

At one point when Lind asked him whether he knew what he was doing was wrong, he answered simply, "Yes, your honor."

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More than an hour of Thursday's hearing was consumed by Manning's composed reading of a 35-page prepared statement that offered his first public explanation of his motives for leaking the government documents to WikiLeaks. He said he did so to ?spark domestic debate? on foreign policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.?

Manning painted himself as a young man with an "insatiable thirst for geopolitical information"?and a desire for the world to know the truth about what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he said he became increasingly disillusioned after being sent to Iraq by actions that "didn't seem characteristic" of the U.S., the leader of free world.

Manning said under oath that the first documents he sent to WikiLeaks in early 2012 were the combined information data network exchanges for Iraq and Afghanistan, which he described as the daily journals of the "on-the-ground reality" of the conflicts in Iran and Afghanistan.?

He said he sent the information while on leave and staying at his aunt's house in Potomac, Md., using a public computer at a Barnes & Noble store in Rockville or North Bethesda. He said included a brief note calling the information the most significant documents of our time, and closing with, "Have a good day."?

He said he tried to send the information to the Washington Post and the New York Times before turning to WikiLeaks. ?He said he later sent information to WikiLeaks eight other times from his personal laptop at Contingency Base Hammer in Iraq.?

Manning is facing 22 criminal charges that include "aiding the enemy" and could face a life sentence if convicted of the most serious charges.?

Manning said he decided to release the first batch information because he was depressed and frustrated, and felt "a sense of relief" when he returned to Iraq. He said he finally had a "clear conscience" because someone else knew what was happening.?

His most detailed explanation involved the release of aerial weapons team video showing airstrikes that killed some Iraqi civilians and several Reuters journalists.

?It was troubling to me" that the U.S. military in Iraq wouldn't release the video, he said. Also disturbing was the "seemingly delightful blood lust" exhibited when members of the air crew referred to the civilians as "dead bastards" and congratulated one another on their ability to kill large numbers of people. He said he was encouraged by the public response, that others were "as troubled" as he was.

In addition to the charge of aiding the enemy, Manning pleaded not guilty to counts alleging theft of U.S documents or videos -- including allegations that he stole the list of all of the emails and phone numbers of U.S. military and personnel in Iraq at the time -- unauthorized access of that information and downloading unauthorized software onto government computers.

The charges to which he pleaded guilty included intentionally causing intelligence information to be published on the Internet, improper handling of classified information and counts of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.

Specifically, Manning acknowledged that he had unauthorized possession of information, that he willfully communicated it, and that he communicated it to an unauthorized person. However, he only acknowledged that for nine specific files or pieces of information, including:?

• Combat engagement video of a helicopter gunship;
• Two Army intelligence agency memos;
• Certain records of the combined information data network exchange Iraq (which tracks all significant acts and patrol reports);
• Combined information data network exchange Afghanistan records;
• Some SOUTHCOM files dealing with Guantanamo Bay;
• An investigation into an incident in a village in Farah, Afghanistan;?
• Some Department of State cables.

Related story: WikiLeaks case: Bradley Manning seeks first public statement on motive

At his court martial, Manning?s defense is expected to argue that he considered himself a "whistleblower" and released the documents with "no malicious intent" or the intent to do "any harm to anyone." The government contends the release of the documents put some lives at risks, including the names of Afghans who were working with the U.S. military and intelligence.

Jim Miklaszewski is NBC News? Chief Pentagon Correspondent and Courtney Kube is NBC News? National Security Producer. ?

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This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:00 AM EST

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/28/17132690-judge-accepts-bradley-mannings-guilty-pleas-on-10-lesser-charges-trial-on-12-others-set-for-june?lite&

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Protein balance key in preventing cancer

Feb. 27, 2013 ? Two proteins that scientists once thought carried out the same functions are actually antagonists of each other, and keeping them in balance is key to preventing diseases such as cancer, according to new findings published in the February 25 issue of Developmental Cell by scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center. The results suggest that new compounds could fight cancer by targeting the pathways responsible for maintaining the proper balance between the proteins.

"It's our job now to understand how we can intervene therapeutically in this system, so we can restore balance when it's thrown off," says study author David L. Wiest, PhD, professor and deputy chief scientific officer at Fox Chase.

The two proteins -- "Rpl22" and "Rpl22-like1," which contribute to the process by which additional cellular proteins are made -- are created from two similar genes, leading researchers to previously believe they were performing identical functions in the body. "What we're finding is that is absolutely not true," says Wiest. "Not only are they performing different functions, they are antagonizing each other."

During the study, Wiest and his team knocked out Rpl22 in zebrafish -- a common model of human disease. Without Rpl22, the zebrafish don't develop a type of T cells (a blood cell) that helps fight infections. The same developmental defect was observed when they knocked out Rpl22-like1, indicating that both proteins are independently required to enable stem cells to give rise to T cells.

But when the researchers tried to restore T cells in zebrafish that lacked Rpl22 by adding back Rpl22-like1, it didn't work. The reverse was also true -- Rpl22 was not enough to restore function after the researchers eliminated Rpl22-like1. These results led Wiest and his team to believe that, although the proteins are both involved in producing stem cells, they do not perform the same function.

To learn more about the proteins' individual functions, the researchers looked at the levels of different proteins involved in stem cell production when either Rpl22 or Rpl22-like1 was absent. Without Rpl22-like1, cells had lower levels of a protein known as Smad1 -- a critical driver of stem cell development. And when Rpl22 disappeared, levels of Smad1 increased dramatically.

Both proteins can bind directly to the cellular RNA from which Smad1 is produced, suggesting that they maintain balance in stem cell production via their antagonistic effects on Smad1 expression, explains Wiest.

"I like to think of Rpl22 as a brake, and Rpl22-like1 as a gas pedal -- in order to drive stem cell production, both have to be employed properly. If one or the other is too high, this upsets the balance of forces that regulate stem cell production, with potentially deadly effects," says Wiest.

Specifically, too much Rpl22 (the "brake"), and stem cell production shuts off, decreasing the number of blood cells and leading to problems such as anemia. Too much Rpl22-like1 (the "gas pedal"), on the other hand, can create an over-production of stem cells, leading to leukemia.

Previous research has found that Rpl22-like1 is often elevated in cancer, including 80% of cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Conversely, researchers have found that in other cancers, the gene that encodes Rpl22 is deleted. "Either one of these events is sufficient to alter the balance in stem cell production in a way that pushes towards cancer," says Wiest.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Fox Chase Cancer Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Yong Zhang, Anne-C?cile?E. Duc, Shuyun Rao, Xiao-Li Sun, Alison?N. Bilbee, Michele Rhodes, Qin Li, Dietmar?J. Kappes, Jennifer Rhodes, David?L. Wiest. Control of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Emergence by Antagonistic Functions of Ribosomal Protein Paralogs. Developmental Cell, 2013; 24 (4): 411 DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2013.01.018

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/5ulhTnVP2Io/130227162020.htm

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The Bottom Line on Diet Soda - Shape

Diet soda is far from a health food, and if you never had another bubbly glass in your life, you wouldn?t be missing out on anything. But that doesn?t mean we should blame these zero-calorie drinks for our tighter-fitting clothing.

Some researchers have suggested that artificially sweetened beverages fuel your desire for sweets or possibly confuse hormones related to appetite and satiety, causing you to potentially overeat and thereby gain weight. A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, however, found that whether study participants drank water or diet soda, weight- loss results were similar.

Diet soda isn't the worst thing you could ever drink...
? Like it or not, we live in a nation of soda-lovers. No-calorie colas fulfill that need for a bottle of pop without causing you to pop the buttons on your slacks.
? Diet beverages provide a feeling of fullness that could keep you from eating foods and beverages that would otherwise be much higher in calories.
? A diet soda may help keep you busy at the bar while others are imbibing calorie-laden mojitos and tropical drinks, and they can also keep your hands occupied at the table to keep you from eating the warm bread and butter that everyone else is picking on.
? Diet soda is still a better choice than the real deal soda, which supplies the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar in each 12-ounce can. For those who are watching their weight or those in need of controlling diabetes, an occasional diet soda may be welcomed and squelch that desire for something sweet.

RELATED: Zero-calorie drinks can also throw off your internal furance. Learn the six ways your diet is messing with your metabolism.

...but it's far from healthy:
? Past research has shown that diet soda, and soda in general, may be responsible for leaching calcium out of your bones. This is not only bad news for obvious reasons of osteoporosis, but the bigger issue is that women are not getting enough calcium in their diets to begin with.
?For some, a no-calorie soft drink is like getting an invitation to also order higher-calorie foods. Lots of people I talk to feel less "guilty" about having that burger and fries if it came with a side of diet soda.
? The problem is not just about the diet soda you're drinking, it's also about what you're not drinking instead. For example, compared to this beverage of little nutritional value, you're better off with a skim latte, which at least provides the nine essential nutrients that are in milk, including calcium and potassium, two essential nutrients we lack.

RELATED: Diet soda isn't the only questionable beverage. Say hello to the worst drinks for your body.

My take: If you drink diet soda, you might want to change things up a bit and try some water with a splash of fruit juice or a sprig of mint as an accompaniment to your meal. And if you believe the stories that connect diet soda with weight gain, don?t switch to regular, sugary soda. You won?t need a study to tell you where that could lead. Better yet, if you swap one sugared beverage a day for water for a year, you can save hundreds of calories. This simple exchange not only can help prevent weight gain, it also can give you greater sense of well-being.

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Bonnie Taub-Dix, M.A., R.D., C.D.N., is owner of BTD Nutrition Consultants, a motivational speaker, and author of Read It Before You Eat It. As a health and nutrition blogger for US News & World Report and a media spokesperson, she has conducted thousands of interviews for television, radio, print, and web venues with a specialty in making sense of science while assuring that nutritious and delicious can coexist. She has been honored with the Academy?s 2012 Media Excellence Award and is a past recipient of their Outstanding Nutrition Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Follow her on twitter @eatsmartbd, on Facebook, and on Pinterest.

Source: http://www.shape.com/blogs/weight-loss-coach/bottom-line-diet-soda

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Experts getting ready for the next asteroid

NASA budgeted $20 million dollars last year to look for objects that may hit the earth, but some scientists say more money should be spent on detection and ways to avoid a possible collision. NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The meteor that blew up over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk 11 days ago has provided a new focus for the effort to establish an international asteroid warning system, one of NASA's top experts on the issue says.

Lindley Johnson, the executive for the Near Earth Object Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that the Feb. 15 impact is certain to become "by far the best-documented meteor and meteorite in history" ? but at the time, he and his colleagues could hardly believe it was happening.

"Our first reaction was, 'This can't be. ... This must be some test of a missile that's gone awry,'" Johnson told NBC News.

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The Chelyabinsk meteor exploded at an estimated altitude of 12 miles (20 kilometers) over the city of 1.1 million in Russia's Urals Mountains, setting off a shock wave that blew out windows, caused an estimated $33 million in property damage and injured more than 1,200 people.

It was doubly coincidental for Johnson and his colleagues: The meteor was thought to have been caused by the breakup of a 17-meter-wide (55-foot-wide), 10,000-ton asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere and released the equivalent of 500 kilotons of TNT in explosive energy. All this happened just hours before a 45-meter-wide (150-foot-wide) asteroid, capable of setting off a city-killing blast, passed within 17,200 miles (27,680 kilometers) of our planet. Adding to that coincidence, researchers from around the world were gathered in Vienna for talks aimed at moving forward with an international network to deal with ... asteroid threats!

The spectacle in Russia "certainly brought renewed interest to our efforts here," said Johnson, a leader of NASA's delegation to the Vienna talks.

He said the recommendations from the researchers were "well-received" and are moving up the ladder to the next phase in a U.N.-led process for addressing outer-space threats. An action plan could be considered by the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space during its next meeting in Vienna in June.

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Johnson summarized the three main points of the recommendations:

• Set up an international asteroid warning network, or IAWN, supported with existing detection assets but incorporating additional contributions. "The basis of such a network already exists," Johnson said, thanks to NASA, the European Space Agency, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center and the NEODyS asteroid-tracking center at the University of Pisa in Italy. NASA also has partnered with the U.S. Air Force to share tracking data about near-Earth objects. Just this week, a $25 million Canadian-built satellite known as NEOSSat was launched to look for small asteroids in Earth-threatening orbits.
• Bring the world's space agencies together in a new working group called the Space Mission Planning and Advisory Group ? also known as SMPAG (pronounced like "Same Page"). The group's purpose, Johnson said, would be to "get all the agencies on the 'same page' as far as assessing what capabilities could be brought to bear should there be a threatening asteroid detected."
• Put asteroid experts in contact with countries around the world, to advise disaster response agencies about the nature of a potential impact event ? that is, the area expected to be affected, the potential effects and the scale of the evacuation if necessary. "It's an offshoot of the warning network," Johnson said. If the asteroid behind the Russian meteor had been detected in advance, for example, the expert network might have advised emergency workers about the potential for a midair blast and the resulting shock wave (although Johnson said he was "surprised" by the shock wave's effect).

Until last year, NASA spent about $4 million a year to track near-Earth objects, or NEOs, and Johnson said the program "has accomplished quite a bit in the relatively short time that it's been in existence." About 95 percent of the potentially threatening asteroids bigger than a kilometer (half-mile) wide have been detected. However, now NASA is working on charting the asteroids down to a width of 100 meters (330 feet). To fund that more difficult task, the annual funding level for NEO research was raised to $20 million a year.

NASA is using that money to beef up its capabilities for spotting smaller asteroids, through programs such as the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, which is due to get $5 million over the next five years. Less than a million dollars a year is going toward studies aimed at figuring out what to do if a threatening asteroid is found, Johnson said. After all, you have to identify the risky rocks before you can do anything about them. The potential strategies range from diverting it gently with the aid of?gravity tractors or space paintball guns, to blasting it with nukes, Bruce Willis-style.

"It really depends on the scenario that we'd be faced with," Johnson said. "It depends on how big the object is. It depends on how long we have to do something about it. And if we do the search-and-detection job right, we will find a potential hazard many years if not decades before it becomes an immediate threat. There may be technologies available at that time that we never thought about. I don't get too worked up about trying to find an immediate technology that we've got to have right now to do that. Our focus is to find them as early as we can, and have the maximum amount of time to do something about it."

Update for 7:30 p.m. ET Feb. 26: Looking for a practical tip? The large majority of the people injured by the meteor blast were hurt by flying glass, which led Johnson to give this advice during a Vienna news conference: "When you see a white flash and a large trail in the sky, it's probably not a good time to stand at the window and look at it, because it may be a blast coming."

Update for 8:15 p.m. ET Feb. 26: As reported in Technology Review's Physics arXiv Blog, Colombian researchers used video from dashboard cameras and other sources to reconstruct the orbital path of the Russian meteor?? and they classified it as an Apollo asteroid, a type of space rock whose path crosses Earth's orbit. That's consistent with NASA's analysis, which said the asteroid traced an orbit that ranged between the main asteroid belt and the region of outer space inside Earth's orbit.

"The preliminary orbit indicates it takes about 2.1 years to go around the sun once ... so this thing was out at its farthest distance from the sun roughly a year ago," Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told reporters during a Feb. 15 teleconference.

The space rock was on its way back out toward the main asteroid belt, coming from Earth's sunward side, when it entered the atmosphere and blew up. That's why it wasn't possible to predict the impact in advance: At a width of 55 feet, the object was too small to show up in traditional sky surveys, and it would have been lost in the sun's glare during its final approach.

So far, searchers have recovered just bits and pieces of the shattered space boulder. "The largest I've heard is a kilogram and a half," or about three pounds, Johnson told NBC News.?

Yekaterina Pustynnikova / Chelyabinsk.ru via AP

Click through scenes from Russia's Chelyabinsk region, where a huge meteor fireball set off alarms, injured hundreds of people and caused a factory roof to collapse.

More about asteroids:

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

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:23 PM EST

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17105332-after-studying-russian-meteor-blast-experts-get-set-for-the-next-asteroid?lite

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Australian Muslim activists lose free speech case

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Australia's highest court on Wednesday narrowly rejected the case of two Muslim activists who argued they had a constitutional free-speech right to send offensive letters to families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Iranian-born Man Horan Monis, a self-styled Sydney cleric also known as Sheik Haron, was charged with 12 counts of using a postal service in an offensive way and one count of using a postal service in a harassing way over three years until 2009. Amirah Droudis was charged with aiding and abetting the offences. They face potential maximum prison sentences of 26 years and 16 years respectively if convicted.

The six judges of the High Court split on whether the charges were compatible with Australians' right to free speech. When the nation's highest court is tied, an appeal is dismissed and the lower court decision stands.

That sends the charges to a lower court where they will be heard on a date to be set.

Monis allegedly wrote letters critical of Australia's military involvement in Afghanistan and condemning the dead soldiers. He also allegedly wrote to the mother of an Australian official killed in a terrorist bomb blast in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2009 and blamed Australian government foreign policy for the tragedy.

His lawyer David Bennett argued in the High Court last year that the letters were "purely political." He argued the charges were invalid because they infringed on Australians' right to freedom of political communication.

The Australian Constitution doesn't include an equivalent of the U.S. First Amendment. But the High Court has held for decades that the constitution contains an implied right to free speech because such political communication is essential to democracy. This right is not as extensive as that guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The pair had appealed in the High Court the unanimous ruling of three judges of the New South Wales state Court of Appeal in December 2011.

"Whilst at one level the letters are critical of the involvement of the Australian military in Afghanistan, they also refer to the deceased soldiers in a denigrating and derogatory fashion," their judgment said.

Prof. Anne Twomey, a Sydney University constitutional lawyer, said the High Court's tied decision offered little legal precedent on the extent that offensive speech can be prohibited in Australia.

She said the issues could be tried again in a different case. Two of the seven judges on the High Court will have changed before the next such case is heard.

"It's rather unpredictable" how the court would rule on a similar case, Twomey said. "The area of offensive speech has always been difficult."

Only six judges heard the case because the seventh, Justice William Gummow, intended to retire in October last year before the trial was likely to be completely heard.

One of the judges who would have upheld the appeal on free speech grounds, Justice John Dyson Haydon, retires in March.

It is a crime under Australian federal law to use a postal service to communicate a message that "reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive."

Twomey said Monis and Droudis might not have been charged if the letters had been hand delivered.

Federal authorities have limited criminal jurisdiction in Australia and relied in this prosecution on its powers over national postal and electronic communications.

Australia has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan which is the biggest military contribution to the war of any country outside NATO. Australia has suffered 39 casualties over the past decade in Afghanistan and another 249 Australian soldiers have been wounded.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/australian-muslim-activists-lose-free-speech-case-062857877.html

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SES New York Keynote Speaker Says Internet is TV's Best Friend ...

The Internet didn?t kill TV! According to Mike Proulx, the Internet has become TV?s best friend. Proulx will be the opening keynote speaker at SES New York 2013. The leading event for experienced marketing and advertising professionals will take place March 25-28, 2013, at the New York Marriott Marquis.

Proulx is a Senior Vice President and the Director of Social Media at Hill Holliday, a renowned advertising agency based in Boston, where he leads a team with a focus on cross-channel integration, emerging and social media. He has spent the last 17 years working at various interactive, high-tech, and new media companies on the agency-side, client-side, and as an entrepreneur. He has spoken at dozens of events and has been widely featured in the press including The New York Times, Fast Company, TV Guide, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Mashable, BuzzFeed, and NPR.

Proulx conceived, produced, directed, and co-host the TVnext summit, which took place in early 2011 and 2012. He is the co-author of Social TV, a best-selling book from Wiley publishing that launched in February of 2012. He is also the host of the social TV web series, ?The Pulse on Lost Remote?. He holds a Master?s degree in Computer Information Systems from Bentley University and in 2012 was named the Ad Club?s Media All Star.

His opening keynote is titled, ?Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile.?

Search Engine Watch (SEW) asked Mike Proulx (MP) five questions about his upcoming keynote. Here are his answers:

SEW: How does the convergence of television with the web, social media, and mobile change our behaviors and shake up our long standing beliefs about TV?

MP: There are those who believe that television is a traditional medium with an impending death. The web, social media, and mobile have evolved TV into a multi-screen experience that transcends devices. Not only are we watching more television than ever before, we?re interacting with programming on the ?second screen? in ways that enrich storylines and bring us together to virtually co-view. The modern era of television is a new media that?s more social, more connected, and more portable?and because of this TV is more alive than it?s ever been.

SEW: How has social media created a new and powerful "backchannel" and why does this fuel the renaissance of live broadcasts?

MP: There are a ton of posts happening in social media about any given TV show as it airs. Since Twitter is open and public, it acts as television?s backchannel filled with real-time commentary and conversation ? And it?s not just about TV series but also TV commercials giving producers and marketers instant feedback about their content. Live television events are seeing some of the highest ratings in years and social media brings a level of community and connection to TV watching the likes of which the medium has never before experienced.

SEW: Can you give us some examples of how mobile devices allow us to watch and interact with television whenever and wherever we want?

MP: Tablets, smartphones, and laptops enable television?s portability but it?s apps like HBO Go, ABC Player, Xfinity Remote, and CNN that deliver ?TV? content via those devices. And in the 4G world of mobile, we can watch TV in places once inconceivable. My favorite spot? Laying out on the roof deck on a warm summer night with my iPad in hand streaming HBO?s The Newsroom.

SEW: Why would ?connected TVs? blend web and television content into a unified big screen experience that will bring us back into our living rooms?

MP: Apple TV, Roku, Boxee TV, Google TV, Samsung Smart TVs, etc. stream online video (that was once relegated to our computer screens) onto the ?big screen? of our living rooms. HD YouTube clips suddenly come to life in ways that are far more impactful and dynamic than tiny smartphone screens further blurring the lines of what?s ?TV.? While the notion of TV everywhere lets us watch TV at will regardless of our physical location, the increasingly seamless ability to channel streaming video through the TV set makes the living room that much more compelling.

SEW: With the television landscape changing, why should brands approach the medium once labeled ?traditional? as new media?

MP: TV has become mashed up with the Web, social media, and mobile. Television networks, providers, brands, and agencies must continue to unshackle themselves from dated business and advertising models and rediscover television as a new medium. This means planning television and digital together to tell stories across devices and engage viewers with TV experiences not just TV shows. The speed, scale, and degree of change that has and is happening create enormous opportunity for those brands who have the courage to innovate.

SES New York 2013 offers a variety of conference passes and on-site training. If you register by Thursday, March 7, 2013, you can save up to $600 on Platinum or All Access passes.

For more information, click on Rates and Registration Details. Group discounts for 4 or more pass holders from the same company are also available by contacting [email?protected] and are the best value for the lowest price possible.

I should disclose that SES New York is a client of my agency. But, trust me, TV is not dead yet.

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Become an Expert Digital Marketer at SES New York
March 25-28, 2013: With dozens of sessions on Search, Social, Local and Mobile, you'll leave SES with everything and everyone you need to know. Hurry, early bird rates expire February 21. Register today!

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2250850/SES-New-York-Keynote-Speaker-Says-Internet-is-TVs-Best-Friend

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A game plan for climate change

Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
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Contact: Scott Smith
ssmith@wcs.org
718-220-3698
Wildlife Conservation Society

Pilot project helps scientists, managers, and conservationists pro-actively prepare for a changing climate

Researchers have successfully piloted a process that enables natural resource managers to take action to conserve particular wildlife, plants and ecosystems as climate changes.

The Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) framework is a practical approach to assessing how future changes in air and water temperatures, precipitation, stream flows, snowpack, and other environmental conditions might affect natural resources. ACT enables scientists and managers to work hand-in-hand to consider how management actions may need to be adjusted to address those impacts.

"As acceptance of the importance of climate change in influencing conservation and natural resource management increases, ACT can help practitioners connect the dots and integrate climate change into their decisions," said WCS Conservation Scientist, Dr. Molly Cross. "Most importantly, the ACT process allows practitioners to move beyond just talking about impacts to address the 'What do we do about it?' question."

The ACT framework was tested during a series of workshops at four southwestern United States landscapes (see map) that brought together 109 natural resource managers, scientists, and conservation practitioners from 44 local, state, tribal and federal agencies and organizations. The workshops were organized by the Southwest Climate Change Initiative, representing The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), the Western Water Assessment, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

One example comes from the Bear River basin in Utah, where workshop participants looked at how warmer air and water temperatures and decreased summer stream flow might affect native Bonneville cutthroat trout habitat and populations. The group strategized that restoring the ability of fish to move between the main stem of the Bear River and cooler tributaries, protecting cold-water habitat, and lowering the depth of outflow from reservoirs to reduce downstream water temperatures could help maintain or increase trout population numbers as climate changes.

Participants in another workshop considered the impacts of reduced snow-pack and greater variability in precipitation on stream flows in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. To maintain sufficient water in the system and support aquatic species and riparian vegetation, attendees identified options such as restoring beaver to streams, building artificial structures to increase the storage of water in floodplains, and thinning the density of trees in nearby forests to maximize snowpack retention.

"The ACT process helps workshop participants move beyond the paralysis many feel when tackling what is a new or even intimidating topic by creating a step-by-step process for considering climate change that draws on familiar conservation planning tools," Cross said. "By combining traditional conservation planning with an assessment of climate change impacts that considers multiple future scenarios, ACT helps practitioners lay out how conservation goals and actions may need to be modified to account for climate change."

The results will help land managers as well as people. "Climate change impacts livelihoods and threatens the water supplies of many of our communities," says Terry Sullivan, The Nature Conservancy's New Mexico state director. "We hope that this tool will be utilized to help make decisions which will lead to healthy and sustainable watersheds, and ultimately sustain water supplies for farms and cities."

ACT workshops have been used to launch climate change planning at 11 locations in the United States for more than 15 wildlife, plant, and ecosystem targets (for details see http://www.wcsnorthamerica.org/ConservationChallenges/ClimateChange/ClimateChangeAdaptationPlanning.aspx). Feedback given by workshop attendees indicates that the ACT approach was successful in increasing participants' capacity to address climate change in their conservation work.

"We need to see more practitioners applying approaches like ACT if biological diversity and ecosystem services are to be maintained in a rapidly changing world," Cross added.

###

Results from the workshops are published in the February 2013 volume of the journal Conservation Biology (available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01954.x/pdf). Authors include Molly Cross of WCS, Patrick McCarthy and David Gori of TNC, Gregg Garfin of the University of Arizona; and Carolyn Enquist of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network and The Wildlife Society.

The ACT planning process is described in detail in the September 2012 edition of Environmental Management (available at http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00267-012-9893-7). Authors include:

• Molly Cross, WCS;
• Erika Zavaleta, University of California, Santa Cruz;
• Dominique Bachelet, Conservation Biology Institute;
• Marjorie Brooks, Southern Illinois University;
• Carolyn Enquist, The Wildlife Society and the U.S.A. National Phenology Network;
• Erica Fleischman, University of California, Davis;
• Lisa Graumlich, University of Washington;
• Craig Groves, TNC;
• Lee Hannah, Conservation International;
• Lara Hansen, EcoAdapt;
• Greg Hayward, U.S. Forest Service;
• Marni Koopman, Geos Institute;
• Joshua Lawler, University of Washington;
• Jay Malcolm, University of Toronto;
• John Nordgren, Kresge Foundation;
• Brian Petersen, Michigan State University;
• Erika Rowland, WCS;
• Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo;
• Sarah Shafer, U.S. Geological Survey;
• Rebecca Shaw, Environmental Defense Fund; and
• Gary Tabor, Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

---

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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: 27-Feb-2013
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Contact: Scott Smith
ssmith@wcs.org
718-220-3698
Wildlife Conservation Society

Pilot project helps scientists, managers, and conservationists pro-actively prepare for a changing climate

Researchers have successfully piloted a process that enables natural resource managers to take action to conserve particular wildlife, plants and ecosystems as climate changes.

The Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) framework is a practical approach to assessing how future changes in air and water temperatures, precipitation, stream flows, snowpack, and other environmental conditions might affect natural resources. ACT enables scientists and managers to work hand-in-hand to consider how management actions may need to be adjusted to address those impacts.

"As acceptance of the importance of climate change in influencing conservation and natural resource management increases, ACT can help practitioners connect the dots and integrate climate change into their decisions," said WCS Conservation Scientist, Dr. Molly Cross. "Most importantly, the ACT process allows practitioners to move beyond just talking about impacts to address the 'What do we do about it?' question."

The ACT framework was tested during a series of workshops at four southwestern United States landscapes (see map) that brought together 109 natural resource managers, scientists, and conservation practitioners from 44 local, state, tribal and federal agencies and organizations. The workshops were organized by the Southwest Climate Change Initiative, representing The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), the Western Water Assessment, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

One example comes from the Bear River basin in Utah, where workshop participants looked at how warmer air and water temperatures and decreased summer stream flow might affect native Bonneville cutthroat trout habitat and populations. The group strategized that restoring the ability of fish to move between the main stem of the Bear River and cooler tributaries, protecting cold-water habitat, and lowering the depth of outflow from reservoirs to reduce downstream water temperatures could help maintain or increase trout population numbers as climate changes.

Participants in another workshop considered the impacts of reduced snow-pack and greater variability in precipitation on stream flows in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. To maintain sufficient water in the system and support aquatic species and riparian vegetation, attendees identified options such as restoring beaver to streams, building artificial structures to increase the storage of water in floodplains, and thinning the density of trees in nearby forests to maximize snowpack retention.

"The ACT process helps workshop participants move beyond the paralysis many feel when tackling what is a new or even intimidating topic by creating a step-by-step process for considering climate change that draws on familiar conservation planning tools," Cross said. "By combining traditional conservation planning with an assessment of climate change impacts that considers multiple future scenarios, ACT helps practitioners lay out how conservation goals and actions may need to be modified to account for climate change."

The results will help land managers as well as people. "Climate change impacts livelihoods and threatens the water supplies of many of our communities," says Terry Sullivan, The Nature Conservancy's New Mexico state director. "We hope that this tool will be utilized to help make decisions which will lead to healthy and sustainable watersheds, and ultimately sustain water supplies for farms and cities."

ACT workshops have been used to launch climate change planning at 11 locations in the United States for more than 15 wildlife, plant, and ecosystem targets (for details see http://www.wcsnorthamerica.org/ConservationChallenges/ClimateChange/ClimateChangeAdaptationPlanning.aspx). Feedback given by workshop attendees indicates that the ACT approach was successful in increasing participants' capacity to address climate change in their conservation work.

"We need to see more practitioners applying approaches like ACT if biological diversity and ecosystem services are to be maintained in a rapidly changing world," Cross added.

###

Results from the workshops are published in the February 2013 volume of the journal Conservation Biology (available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01954.x/pdf). Authors include Molly Cross of WCS, Patrick McCarthy and David Gori of TNC, Gregg Garfin of the University of Arizona; and Carolyn Enquist of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network and The Wildlife Society.

The ACT planning process is described in detail in the September 2012 edition of Environmental Management (available at http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00267-012-9893-7). Authors include:

• Molly Cross, WCS;
• Erika Zavaleta, University of California, Santa Cruz;
• Dominique Bachelet, Conservation Biology Institute;
• Marjorie Brooks, Southern Illinois University;
• Carolyn Enquist, The Wildlife Society and the U.S.A. National Phenology Network;
• Erica Fleischman, University of California, Davis;
• Lisa Graumlich, University of Washington;
• Craig Groves, TNC;
• Lee Hannah, Conservation International;
• Lara Hansen, EcoAdapt;
• Greg Hayward, U.S. Forest Service;
• Marni Koopman, Geos Institute;
• Joshua Lawler, University of Washington;
• Jay Malcolm, University of Toronto;
• John Nordgren, Kresge Foundation;
• Brian Petersen, Michigan State University;
• Erika Rowland, WCS;
• Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo;
• Sarah Shafer, U.S. Geological Survey;
• Rebecca Shaw, Environmental Defense Fund; and
• Gary Tabor, Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/wcs-agp022713.php

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New tool for measuring frozen gas in ocean floor sediments

Feb. 26, 2013 ? A collaboration between the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the University of Southampton is to develop an instrument capable of simulating the high pressures and low temperatures needed to create hydrate in sediment samples.

Dr Angus Best of NOC and Professors Tim Leighton and Paul White from the University of Southampton's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) have been awarded a grant of ?0,8 million by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to investigate methods for assessing the volume of methane gas and gas hydrate locked in seafloor sediments.

Dr Best, who is leading the project, explained: "Greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, are trapped in sediments beneath the seafloor on continental shelves and slopes around the world. Currently, there are only very broad estimates of the amount of seafloor methane and hydrate."

The team plan a series of experiments on a range of sediment types, such as sand and mud. They intend to map out the acoustic and electrical properties of differing amounts of free methane gas and frozen solid methane hydrate.

The laboratory-based approach adopted by the team will involve the development of a major new Acoustic Pulse Tube instrument at NOC. Using acoustic techniques and theories developed by the ISVR team, they aim to provide improved geophysical remote sensing capabilities for better quantification of seafloor gas and hydrate deposits in the ocean floor.

"Not much is known about the state of gas morphology -- bubbles. Muddy sediments show crack-like bubbles, while sandy sediments show spherical bubbles. Only dedicated lab experiments can hope to unravel the complex interactions. By creating our own 'cores' of sediment material in a controlled environment where we know the concentrations of methane or carbon dioxide, we can create models to help us with in situ measurements on the seafloor."

There is significant interest in sub-seafloor carbon-dioxide storage sites. Methane hydrates are a potential energy resource that could be exploited in future. They may also contribute to geo-hazards such as seafloor landslides -- it is thought that earthquakes and the release of gas hydrates caused the largest-ever landslide, the Storegga Slide, around 8,000 years ago.

Professor Leighton said: "The three of us have collaborated in recent years in an experiment that used acoustics to take preliminary measurements of gas in the muddy sediments revealed at low tide. Those measurements, and the acoustic theory we developed to interpret the data, provided exactly the foundation we needed to undertake this critically important study that will be relevant to the seabed in somewhat deeper waters.

"As a greenhouse gas, methane is 20 times more potent per molecule than carbon dioxide. There is the potential for climate change to alter sea temperatures and cause more methane gas to be released from seabed hydrates into bubbles which reach the atmosphere. It is therefore vital that we have the tools to quantify and map the amount of methane that is down there."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Oceanography Centre.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/-9rE1CtWiNQ/130226113440.htm

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FDA expands approval of Bayer cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration on Monday expanded approval of a Bayer cancer pill to treat tumors of the intestinal tract that don't respond to other treatments.

The drug is called Stivarga and regulators approved it to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors that cannot be surgically removed and no longer respond to other FDA-approved drugs.

The FDA previously approved Stivarga to treat colorectal cancer. It works by blocking several enzymes that promote cancer growth.

The FDA approved the drug for the new use based on a study of nearly 200 patients who were randomly assigned to take Stivarga or a placebo pill.

Patients taking the drug experienced a nearly four month delay in the growth of their tumors compared to taking placebo.

The most common side effects of Stivarga in clinical trials included liver damage, severe bleeding, blistering and peeling of skin, high blood pressure, heart attacks and perforations.

Other drugs approved to treat intestinal tumors include Gleevec, from Novartis, and Sutent, made by Pfizer Inc.

Bayer HealthCare is a subsidiary of Germany's Bayer AG

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-expands-approval-bayer-cancer-195130061.html

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Reversing trend, world music revenue inches upward

LONDON (AP) ? More than a decade after online file swapping tipped the music industry into turmoil, record executives may finally be getting a sliver of good news.

Industry revenue is up. A measly 0.3 percent, but it's still up.

"For the global music business, it is hard to remember a year that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air," said Frances Moore, whose International Federation of the Phonographic Industry put together the figures released Tuesday.

"These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade," she said in a statement. "They show the music industry has adapted to the Internet world."

That adaptation has been a long time coming. Online song sharing popularized by services such as Napster at the turn of the millennium seriously destabilized the industry, which reacted with a barrage of lawsuits and lobbying. But the war on piracy failed to stem the tide of free music, and by the time executives finally began making legal music available through download services such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes, the industry was in a free fall.

Since its 1999 peak, the global music industry's revenues have crashed more than 40 percent. Tuesday's figures, which show a rise in global revenue from $16.4 billion in 2011 to $16.5 billion in 2012, are the first hint of growth in more than a decade.

Mark Mulligan, of U.K.-based MIDiA consulting, warned that Tuesday's figures did not mean the industry had put its misery years behind it.

"We're probably near the bottom," he said, "but it's so marginal we could easily have another year or two where it could get worse."

The physical music market continues to contract, losing another $500 million in revenue between 2011 and 2012, according to Tuesday's IFPI figures. The industry group has placed its bets on downloads, streaming, and subscription services to make up for lost ground, but there's still a long way to go.

Downloads and streaming audio now account for most of the music sold in the United States and Scandinavia, but physical music ? everything from vinyl records to DVDs ? still accounts for the majority of industry revenue worldwide.

Mulligan said he believed some of the lost revenue may never be recovered, with many casual users who used to buy the odd CD turning to free services such as YouTube, television music channels, or Internet radio instead.

"This is a case of managed decline," he said, predicting "a sustainable but smaller market built around more engaged music fans."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reversing-trend-world-music-revenue-inches-upward-130158433.html

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Finding the Best Tattoo Designs - ArticlesWide.com

The tattoos are around us for a while. Although nobody can tell the exact moment when the man started to make tattoos, the oldest tattoo on human skin has an age of 3500 years. Traditionally, there are many persons thinking that tattoos had a medical purpose, resembling with acupuncture today. Others considered the tattoos as important for rituals. Today, those legends disappeared, and the tattoos are used only in decorative purposes. However, you will have to browse different tatoo designs before finding a model that you really like.

If you have decided that you want one of the tattoos available in a certain collection, the next step would be to choose a model. You might have a vague idea about what would be suited for you. If you need to help a friend to find the right model, take your time. For more information please visit:- click here and tatoo designs with names Many people spend months thinking about what model they want, so before making the final decision, you should check the vast number of models.

1. Check online. There are many interesting models on the specialized websites, as well as samples and images that could serve as a model for what you need. It would be a good idea to check the websites that does not offer only models, but also customizing engines. Moreover, you will need support if you are looking for a special model, and this way, you can be sure that your model is unique, and that it has not been used by anybody else.

2. Read design magazines. There are many models and images in the photo albums. Yu might find an image or a design that you would like to transform in a tattoo. The transformation of an image in a tattoo might be a difficult task, and only a specialist could determine if the respective image can be transformed in such way. A good advice is to use images and photos from magazines, but you should use those only as inspiring ideas.

3. Look for art collections that could be transformed in tattoos. The fast art of tattoos is a collection of models that serve as reference for the tattoo artists. Those collections were hanged on the walls of the professional tattoos, so people could easily choose the models that they wanted.

4. Ask your friends sure, they would probably not want you to have the same model, and you dont want this either. However, if they are happy about the services offered by one saloon or the other, they could guide you to the best available specialist that could really do a great job for you.

if they are happy about the services offered by one saloon or the other, they could guide you to the best available specialist that could really do a great job for you.

Source: http://www.articleswide.com/article/18066-Finding_the_Best_Tattoo_Designs.html

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2 dead as wind-whipped winter storm pounds Great Plains; stay off ...

Hurricane force winds blew into Texas creating a 'historic' blizzard and whiteout conditions in the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle. Kansas also saw its share of snow as the storm blew north, and blizzard warnings are in effect. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

A deadly snowstorm packing hurricane-force wind pummeled the Great Plains on Monday, the second bout of fierce winter weather there in less than a week. Authorities pleaded with people to stay off the roads.

Wind gusts of 75 mph were recorded at the airport in Amarillo, Texas, and up to a foot and a half of snow was on the ground ? the most in at least 110 years. At least one city fire truck was stuck.

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?This is a really nasty blizzard,? said Greg Postel, a meteorologist with The Weather Channel.

The storm was being blamed for at least two deaths: In the town of Woodward, Okla., heavy snow caused a roof to collapse, killing one person inside the home, Oklahoma Highway Patrol told NBC News. And in northwest Kansas, a 21-year-old man was killed when his SUV overturned on an icy patch of Interstate-70, according to Kansas Emergency Management officials.

Full coverage from weather.com

National Guard units set out to help drivers stranded along Interstate 40, but the state said that troopers couldn?t get to everyone because of the whiteout. The wind whipped the snow into 10-foot drifts.

Amarillo had 17 inches of snow on the ground at mid-afternoon, threatening its single-day record of 18.1 inches, set in 1934.

Larry Phillips / Southwest Daily Times via AP

City crews remove snow early on Monday in Liberal, Kan., which is under a blizzard warning until Tuesday at midnight.

Authorities closed highways in the Oklahoma panhandle, which was bracing for more than a foot of snow. The University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University canceled afternoon classes.

In Kansas, which was expecting up to 2 feet of snow through Tuesday, Gov. Sam Brownback extended a state of emergency from last week.

?This storm has the potential to be more dangerous than last week?s storm,? he said. His advice to drivers: ?Stay off the road unless it?s absolutely critical.? For those who had to drive, he suggested packing charged phones and emergency kits.

The storm last week dumped more than 14 inches of snow on Wichita, Kan., its second-highest total on record. Parts of Kansas got a foot and a half, and parts of Missouri more than a foot.

Jamie Squire / Getty Images

Tow-truck driver Tyson House helps trucker Gary Wheeler after his vehicle slid off the road in Greensburg, Kan., during last week's storm.

Joe Pajor, a public works official, told NBC affiliate KSN in Wichita that this storm would create driving conditions ?that are basically unprecedented for the traveling public.?

The storm?s reach extended to the Southeast. The National Weather Service said it could spawn tornadoes Tuesday in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

FedEx said the storm was causing delays for deliveries in 15 states, as far east as Pennsylvania and as far north as Minnesota.

The storm also threatened to dump 6 inches of snow on Chicago through Tuesday.

The same weather system blanketed Colorado on Sunday. About 200 flights were canceled at the airport in Denver, and Gov. John Hickenlooper told non-essential state workers to report two hours late Monday.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:39 AM EST

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17084324-2-dead-as-wind-whipped-winter-storm-pounds-great-plains-stay-off-roads-authorities-warn

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Landmark civil rights law faces critical Supreme Court test

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images, file

U.S. Supreme Court members (first row L-R) Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Associate Justice Elena Kagan.

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By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will consider whether a landmark civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act, remains constitutionally valid, given the growth in the political power of minority voters and candidates.

Civil rights groups fear the court's conservatives are prepared to gut what the ACLU calls "the most important piece of civil rights legislation Congress has ever enacted."

The justices will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday and rule sometime before the current court term ends in late June.

Passed by Congress in 1965 and renewed four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision of the law requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making any changes to their election procedures ? from congressional redistricting to changing the locations of polling places.

The law was at the core of last year's successful efforts to block strict voter photo ID laws in Texas and South Carolina and to prevent Texas from redrawing its legislative and congressional boundaries in a manner that challengers claimed would have discriminated against minority voters.

"The last election vividly showed that voter suppression and voting discrimination are not just problems of the past. They continue to undermine our democratic process," says the ACLU's Steve Shapiro.

The challenge to the law comes from Shelby County, Alabama, a mostly white suburb south of Birmingham.? It argues that the pre-clearance requirement ? which covers nine entire states and 66 counties or townships in seven others ? is unconstitutional.

The areas covered by the law, it says, include some localities that have made substantial reforms but leave out other parts of the country that have failed to root out discrimination at the polls.

"Florida has been forced into pre-clearance litigation to prove that reducing early voting from 14 days to 8 is not discriminatory, when states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania have no early voting at all," says Bert Rein of Washington, DC, the lawyer for the county.

While the history of blatant discrimination at the polls justified renewing the law in the past, Shelby County says, Congress failed to marshal enough evidence in 2006 to justify extending it for another 25 years.? "At most, the 2006 legislative record shows scattered and limited interference with voting rights, a level plainly insufficient" to sustain the pre-clearance requirement, Rein says.

Since 1990, adds Alabama?s Attorney General, Luther Strange, African Americans in the state have registered and voted in larger percentages than in states outside the South.

?African Americans hold seats in the legislature at percentages that are roughly commensurate with Alabama?s 26 percent African-American population,? Strange says.

But the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund says the current map is a close enough fit to cover the areas of greatest concern.? "Congress is not a surgeon with a scalpel when it acts to legislate across the fivty states, but it can reasonably attack discrimination where it finds it," the group says.

If the law were struck down, civil rights groups fear the areas covered by the law would revert to their old habits.

Warns the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human rights, ?There is a significant risk of backsliding and a likelihood that millions of minority voters will face new barriers to the exercise of their most fundamental human right.?

President Obama expressed a similar sentiment in a radio interview last week. If covered jurisdictions no longer had to defend their electoral changes in advance, Obama said, civil rights groups would be forced to file lawsuits after voting changes were already in place.

?There are some parts of the country where obviously folks have been trying to make it harder for people to vote. So generally speaking, you?d see less protection before an election with respect to voting rights,? Mr. Obama said.

The Justice Department, which is defending the law before the Supreme Court, argues that the coverage formula is flexible, allowing local governments to bail out of the pre-clearance requirement if they can demonstrate they have not discriminated against minority voters for at least ten years.

During the past three decades, 38 bailouts have been granted, freeing 196 local jurisdictions of the preclearance requirement, the Justice Department says.? They include the first ever granted from parts of Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, four of the states that are otherwise covered by the law.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court strongly suggested that several justices had doubts about its constitutionality, given recent electoral reforms. "Things have changed in the South," the court said in 2009.? "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."

The court then went on to reject a constitutional challenge to the pre-clearance requirement, but it strongly suggested Congress should update the coverage formula.? Because, however, no changes have since made, the court may prepared to go the rest of the way this time.

Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17077448-landmark-civil-rights-law-faces-critical-supreme-court-test?lite

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Long-Lost Continent Found under the Indian Ocean

The beaches of Mauritius contain fragments of a type of rock typical of ancient continental crust ? rock which could have been brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions. Image: http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.9116.1361551494!/image/HIRES%2042-32415022%20reduced.jpg

The drowned remnants of an ancient microcontinent may lie scattered beneath the waters between Madagascar and India, a new study suggests.

Evidence for the long-lost land comes from Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometers east of Madagascar. The oldest basalts on the island date to about 8.9 million years ago, says Bj?rn Jamtveit, a geologist at the University of Oslo. Yet grain-by-grain analyses of beach sand that Jamtveit and his colleagues collected at two sites on the Mauritian coast revealed around 20 zircons ? tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that are exceedingly resistant to erosion or chemical change ? that were far older.

The zircons had crystallized within granites or other igneous rocks at least 660 million years ago, says Jamtveit. One of these zircons was at least 1.97 billion years old.

Jamtveit and his colleagues suggest that rocks containing the wayfaring zircons originated in ancient fragments of continental crust located beneath Mauritius. They propose that geologically recent volcanic eruptions brought shards of the crust to Earth?s surface, where the zircons eroded from their parent rocks to pepper the island?s sands. The team's work is published today in Nature Geoscience.

Crustal remains
The paper also suggests that not just one but many fragments of continental crust lie beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean. Analyses of Earth?s gravitational field reveal several broad areas where sea-floor crust is much thicker than normal ? at least 25 to 30 kilometers thick, rather than the normal 5 to 10 kilometers.

Those crustal anomalies may be the remains of a landmass that the team has dubbed Mauritia, which they suggest split from Madagascar when tectonic rifting and sea-floor spreading sent the Indian subcontinent surging northeast millions of years ago. Subsequent stretching and thinning of the region?s crust sank the fragments of Mauritia, which together had comprised an island or archipelago about three times the size of Crete, the researchers estimate.

The team chose to collect sand, rather than pulverize local rocks, to ensure that zircons inadvertently trapped in rock-crushing equipment from previous studies did not contaminate their fresh samples. The nearest known outcrop of continental crust that could have produced the Mauritian zircons is on Madagascar, far across a deep sea, Jamtveit notes. Furthermore, the zircons came from Mauritian sites so remote that it is unlikely that humans carried them there.

?There?s no obvious local source for these zircons,? says Conall Mac Niocaill, a geologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who was not involved in the research.

Also, it does not seem as if the zircons rode to Mauritius on the wind, says Robert Duncan, a marine geologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. ?There?s a remote possibility that they were wind blown, but they?re probably too large to have done so,? he adds.

Other ocean basins worldwide may well host similarly submerged remains of ?ghost continents?, Mac Niocaill notes in an accompanying News & Views article. Only detailed surveys of the ocean floor, including geochemical analyses of their rocks, will reveal whether the splintered and now submerged Mauritia has any long-lost cousins, he suggests.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on February 24, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=47d787e593f8cff9374c4a8995c30744

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Can Scientists (and Wasps) Save Orange Juice? [Slide Show and Video]

Image:

For my March feature on a disease that is threatening the U.S. citrus industry (?The End of Orange Juice?), I spent time with researchers and growers who are working to stop this bacterial illness, which leaves fruit green and bitter and kills trees. Known as huanglongbing (HLB)? -- Chinese for yellow dragon disease -- it is caused by bacteria that hide in the salivary glands of invasive insects known as Asian citrus psyllids. The pests arrived in the U.S. in the late 1990s and have spread the disease by injecting germs into plants as they feed on sap from their leaves. There is no cure for the disease.?

Huanglongbing, which is also called citrus greening, was first spotted in Florida?the heart of America?s orange juice industry -- in 2005 and has since spread to Georgia, South Carolina, Texas and southern California. Nearly every commercial grove in Florida has been infected, costing the state billions of dollars and thousands of lost jobs. Late in 2012, the first Asian citrus psyllid was spotted in California?s commercial groves--which grow nearly 80 percent of all the fresh oranges produced in the U.S.--most likely heralding the arrival of the disease.?

? View the Slide Show

Scientists are looking at many different approaches to managing and eradicating the disease. Many say the only long-term solution will be genetic modification, which is still years away. In the meantime, entomologists are using biological control -- the practice of releasing living organisms to prey on pests -- as a means of keeping psyllid populations in check in residential areas where pesticide sprays have failed. (In Los Angeles, for example, psyllids multiplied so quickly on backyard citrus trees that state authorities couldn?t keep pace). Mark and Christina Hoddle, entomologists at the University of California, Riverside, have imported tiny wasps from Pakistan to feast on Asian citrus psyllids and have released them at more than 100 sites in Los Angeles, Riverside, and Orange and San Bernardino counties. (The wasps do not sting humans). In this video, Christina releases a vial of wasps--29 females and 15 males--on a curry bush in the parking lot of a Los Angeles hotel. (Curry is a citrus relative). The site may seem random, but in fact the Hoddles used state data to identify this site as being particularly infested with Asian citrus psyllids, which Christina calls ?ACP? for short in this clip. She also talks about having previously scouted the shrub to make sure it has plenty of psyllid nymphs at the 4th and 5th instars, which are the two life stages that the wasps attack.

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Doing good is good for you: Volunteer adolescents enjoy healthier hearts

Feb. 25, 2013 ? Giving back through volunteering is good for your heart, even at a young age, according to University of British Columbia researchers.

For their study, published February 25 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers from UBC's Faculty of Education and Department of Psychology wanted to find out how volunteering might impact physical health among adolescents.

"It was encouraging to see how a social intervention to support members of the community also improved the health of adolescents," says Hannah Schreier, who conducted this research during her doctoral studies at UBC.

Researchers split 106 Grade 10 students from an urban, inner-city Vancouver high school into two groups -- a group that volunteered regularly for 10 weeks and a group that was wait-listed for volunteer activities. The researchers measured the students' body mass index (BMI), inflammation and cholesterol levels before and after the study. They also assessed the students' self-esteem, mental health, mood, and empathy.

The volunteer group of students spent one hour per week working with elementary school children in after-school programs in their neighborhood. After 10 weeks they had lower levels of inflammation and cholesterol and lower BMIs than the students who were wait-listed.

"The volunteers who reported the greatest increases in empathy, altruistic behaviour and mental health were the ones who also saw the greatest improvements in their cardiovascular health," says Schreier, now a postdoctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of mortality in Canada and the United States. The first signs of the disease can begin to appear during adolescence. Previous studies show that psychosocial factors, such as stress, depression and wellbeing, play a role in the disease.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of British Columbia.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Hannah M. C. Schreier. Effect of Volunteering on Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in AdolescentsA Randomized Controlled TrialVolunteering and Cardiovascular Disease Risks. JAMA Pediatrics, 2013; : 1 DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.1100

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/t9hBPGyOioE/130225162229.htm

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President Obama vs. GOP in a sequester showdown

President Obama must demonstrate why?the Republicans? austerity economics and trickle-down economics are dangerous, bald-faced lies, Reich writes.

By Robert Reich,?Guest blogger / February 25, 2013

President Barack Obama addresses the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday. President Obama has the bully pulpit, Reich writes, and Americans trust him more than they do congressional Republicans.

Charles Dharapak/AP

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The White House apparently believes the best way to strengthen its hand in the upcoming ?sequester? showdown with Republicans is to tell Americans how awful the spending cuts will be, and blame Republicans for them.

Skip to next paragraph Robert Reich

Robert is chancellor?s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. Time Magazine?named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including ?The Work of Nations,? his latest best-seller ?Aftershock: The Next Economy and America?s Future," and a new?e-book, ?Beyond Outrage.??He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

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It won?t work. These tactical messages are getting in the way of the larger truth, which the President must hammer home: The Republicans? austerity economics and trickle-down economics are dangerous, bald-faced lies.

Yes, the pending spending cuts will hurt. But even if some Americans begin to feel the pain when the cuts go into effect Friday, most won?t feel it for weeks or months, if ever.

Half are cuts in the military, which will have a huge impact on jobs (the military is America?s only major jobs program), but the cuts will be felt mainly in states with large numbers of military contractors, and then only as those contractors shed employees.?