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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
New BlackBerry Campaign Is Proof RIM Has Entirely Lost It [BlackBerry]
International Development - Finance Volunteer Head Office
Introduction
Save the Children?s Finance team provides a full centralised finance function to the organisation as a whole. This includes financial accounting, management accounting and treasury management. This allows Save the Children to be accountable to its stakeholders for money received and spent, as the charity seeks to make real and lasting change in children?s lives.
Why volunteer with Save the Children in our Finance Team?
Through volunteering with the Finance team at Save the Children you will be given the support, training and a chance to develop your skills working in the head office finance team of a leading international development agency.
The role in brief
We plan to match your responsibilities to develop your skills and experience, but it may include:
? Dealing with the post, filing, mail-outs, Remittance Advices
? Processing invoices onto our accounting system
? Following up queries; statement reconciliations
? Data integrity work
? Word and Excel spreadsheet work
? Work flow recording, Tracking payments & payroll administration
? Ad hoc duties, Standing Orders, Direct Debits, audit-related queries
Your background
If you are working towards a financial qualification or a finance / business graduate we would be keen to hear from you. Alternatively you could be looking to move to the non-profit sector from the commercial sector.
Hours: We are flexible around your availability, but we envisage it will be for one or more days a week. This may last for a couple of weeks or up to 3 months, depending on your availability. We can discuss this later.
Location: Save the Children?s head office in Farringdon
Expenses: We pay reasonable travel and lunch costs
Additional Information
Please be aware that applications may be viewed and applicants contacted prior to the close date.
If you want further information on the application process click here
We work with children, communities and governments all over the world and we believe in the right person for the job regardless of where you come from and how you identify yourself. We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
Source: http://www.devex.com/en/jobs/finance-volunteer-head-office-20559
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Ian Abercrombie, Mr. Pitt on "Seinfeld", dies at 77 (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES, Jan 29 (TheWrap.com) ? Ian Ambercrombie, the classically trained British stage actor best known to American TV audiences as Elaine Benes' nutty boss Mr. Pitt on "Seinfeld," died of a heart attack Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 77.
Abercrombie appeared on several other U.S. TV shows. He played the 800-year-old Professor Crumbs on "Wizards of Waverly Place and a butler on "Desperate Housewives," and made guest appearances on "Twin Peaks," "Dynasty" and "Days of Our Lives."
He appeared in a number of movies, including "Stalag 17," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "The Prisoner of Zenda," with Peter Sellers.
He did voiceover work in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties" and "Rango," and had completed "Green Lantern" for the Cartoon Network just before he died.
As Mr. Pitt in Seinfeld, he was known for his obsession with socks and quirky habits like eating candy bars with a knife and fork.
He is survived by his wife, Gladys.
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17th body found on wrecked Italy cruise ship
NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
GIGLIO, Italy-- Rough seas delayed the planned start Saturday of a salvage operation to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship off Italy?s Tuscan coast.
Recovery operations continued, however, and on Saturday yielded a 17th body: A woman who wasn't wearing a life jacket was found by divers on the submerged sixth floor deck, civil protection officials said.
The Concordia ran aground on Jan. 13 off the port of the island of Giglio after the captain deviated from his planned route and gashed the hull of the ship on a reef. Some 4,200 passengers and crew endured a panicked evacuation after the abandon ship alarm didn't sound until the ship had capsized so much that some life boats couldn't be lowered.
Sixteen people remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead. The body discovered Saturday has not yet been identified.
DigitalGlobe
With heavy seas and strong winds forecast to continue, work on removing more than 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel aboard the capsized ship may be held up for days, according to a spokesman for SMIT, the Dutch company that is managing the operation.
"Starting operations depends on the weather conditions," Martijn Schuttevaer told reporters. "The forecast is for the bad weather to last until Tuesday and we don't expect to be able to recommence activities until the middle of the week."
A barge carrying pumping equipment that was attached to the capsized ship was withdrawn after strong winds and high waves worsened conditions for the divers working on the huge wreck.
Pier Paolo Cito / AP
Italian police scuba divers sail around the grounded Costa Concordia on Friday.
The accident, expected to trigger the most expensive maritime insurance claim ever, has set off a legal battle in which U.S. and Italian lawyers are preparing class-action and individual lawsuits against the operator, Costa Cruises.
In a bid to limit the fallout, Costa, a unit of Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise ship operator, has offered the more than 3,000 passengers $14,460 each in compensation on condition they drop any legal action.
The Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest, suspected of causing the accident by steering too close to shore, and faces charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation was complete.
The ship's first officer, Ciro Ambrosio, has also been questioned by prosecutors but the company itself has not been implicated in the investigation at this stage.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Siemens Enterprise Communications' OpenScape Cloud Services ...
SUNNYVALE, CA, Jan 09, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) ?Fortinet(R) /quotes/zigman/115092/quotes/nls/ftnt FTNT -0.35% ? a leading network security providerand the worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions? today announced that Siemens Enterprise Communications, a premierglobal provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, has deployedmultiple FortiGate-1240B network security appliances to help secureits OpenScape Cloud Services. Fortinet?s devices are uniquely meetingthe provider?s stringent requirements in terms of performance,functionality and reliability.
As a provider of voice and communications solutions, SiemensEnterprise Communications offers easy-to-implement, reliable andsecure Unified Communications (UC) solutions to customers of allsizes around the world. When Siemens Enterprise Communicationslaunched its OpenScape Cloud Services to extend its voice and UCservices to customers using a public cloud, the company looked atsetting up secure and reliable IT and communications infrastructuresas well as high-availability data centers in Germany and in the US.
The requirements for Siemens Enterprise Communications? OpenScapeCloud Services were high in terms of security and reliability, aswell as performance and scalability. In parallel, the securitysolution needed to provide rich functionality to supportvoice-over-IP (VoIP), UC and application data.
Thanks to a long track record in successfully securing the dataenvironment of Siemens Enterprise Communications? enterprisecustomers, Fortinet?s FortiGate network appliances were part of themarket solutions subject to the provider?s nine-month evaluation andwere ultimately selected to secure its communications cloud services.
?The decisive factor was Fortinet?s outstanding success in thepreceding tests,? said Andreas Seum, Vice President ConvergedNetworks & Security at Siemens Enterprise Communications. ?Also,Fortinet?s expertise in the provider and carrier sector, in additionto the personal support contributed to our decision. At last, on atechnical level, the FortiGate appliance proved to uniquely functionin compliance with the SIP standard and support all the voice and UCapplication functionalities without impairing the performance orreliability of our communications solutions.?
In Germany and in the US, Siemens Enterprise Communications deployedmultiple clusters of FortiGate-1240B network security appliances forhigh availability, ensuring the reliable protection and controlledaccessibility of its data centers. The FortiGate clusters act ascentral firewalls for the OpenScape Cloud Services and primarilyprovide firewall, VPN, IPS, and SIP VoIP security.
The FortiGate appliances? high performance allows Siemens EnterpriseCommunications to meet all operations requirements, including highloads during peak periods and possible disruptions, withoutnoticeable constraints. With a very low latency, Fortinet?sappliances are ideal for the provider?s new voice services, since nodelay is incurred during voice traffic.
?Siemens Enterprise Communications is a long-standing customer ofours, and we are very pleased to now secure their latest cloudcomputing service,? said Patrice Perche, senior vice president ofInternational Sales & Support at Fortinet. ?Our technology integrateskey high-performance functionalities, such as VoIP security andvirtualization, which uniquely help carriers and service providerssecure cloud infrastructures and deliver cloud security services.?
About Fortinet ( fortinet.com ) Fortinet /quotes/zigman/115092/quotes/nls/ftnt FTNT -0.35% is aworldwide provider of network security appliances and the marketleader in unified threat management (UTM). Our products andsubscription services provide broad, integrated and high-performanceprotection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the ITsecurity infrastructure. Our customers include enterprises, serviceproviders and government entities worldwide, including the majorityof the 2010 Fortune Global 100. Fortinet?s flagship FortiGate productdelivers ASIC-accelerated performance and integrates multiple layersof security designed to help protect against application and networkthreats. Fortinet?s broad product line goes beyond UTM to help securethe extended enterprise ? from endpoints, to the perimeter and thecore, including databases and applications. Fortinet is headquarteredin Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices around the world.
Copyright Copyright 2012 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. Thesymbols (R) and (TM) denote respectively federally registeredtrademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., itssubsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet?s trademarks include, but arenot limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard,FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer,FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP,FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiAP,FortiDB and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respectiveowners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements orcertifications herein attributed to third parties, and Fortinet doesnot independently endorse such statements. Nothing in the newsrelease constitutes a warranty, guaranty, or contractually bindingcommitment. This news release may contain forward-looking statementsthat involve uncertainties and assumptions. If the uncertaintiesmaterialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, results may differmaterially from those expressed or implied by such forward-lookingstatements and assumptions. All statements other than statements ofhistorical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-lookingstatements. Fortinet assumes no obligation to update anyforward-looking statements, and does not intend to update theseforward-looking statements.
Media Contacts: Rick Popko Fortinet, Inc. 408-486-7853 mailto:
Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.
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Syria: Are Captured Iranians Military Men or Engineers? (Time.com)
Claims that Iranians and Lebanese Hizballah members are aiding President Bashar Assad's troops in their ferocious crack down against dissent are almost as old as the 10-month Syrian uprising. Yet despite the thousands of amateur videos that have captured so much of the gruesome, bloody repression, precious little evidence has emerged to back the allegations of foreign assistance, beyond the assertions of antigovernment activists and the testimony of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence.
On Thursday, al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite channel, broadcast amateur footage purportedly showing five of seven Iranians captured by Syrian military defectors belonging to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the besieged central city of Homs. A Syrian rebel who gave his name as Abu Bassem told the channel that the seven were nabbed by the FSA's Farouk Brigade on two separate occasions. Five of the men were allegedly Iranian soldiers, operating as snipers under the direct supervision of Syria's much feared Air Force Intelligence branch in Homs, Bassem told al-Jazeera in a phone call from the city, while the other two were civilians working at a local power plant in Jandar, near Homs. (See photos of protests in Syria.)
Five of the men are shown in a six-minute, 20-second snippet. Bearded and cloaked in black, they sit against a white wall, with a lone rifle propped up between the second and third man. A scrolling red ticker on the screen says that they are Iranian Revolutionary Guards and calls on "all Iranian Revolutionary Guards to immediately withdraw from Syrian territory." One of the five men holds up a laminated photo identification card. The Enduring America website posted a Farsi-to-English translation of his comments: "My name is Sajjad (Haider Ali) Aminan and I am a member of the revolutionary armed forces of Iran. I am leader of a five-member special team. I entered Syria on Oct. 16, 2011. The others entered Syria on different dates."
The men then all state their names: Ahmad Aziz Askari, Hasan Hasani, Majid Qanbari, Kyumars Qobadi. One says that they have killed "many civilians in the city of Homs, including many women and children."
The footage then cuts to two laminated photo ID cards, showing their back and front, as well as three passports. The pages are flipped, one by one, including all of the blank pages. (Read "The Arab League to Syria's President: It's Time for You to Go.")
Is this proof of Iran sending military reinforcement to prop up its main Arab ally? Or could something else be happening there? On Dec. 21, Syrian state media reported that eight foreign engineers, including five Iranians, were abducted "by terrorists" as they traveled on a company bus to their place of work, the Jandar power plant on the outskirts of Homs. The nationalities of the other three engineers were not stated. Shortly afterward, Iran's Press TV reported that "two more Iranian experts, who were trying to clarify the situation of the five abducted engineers," were kidnapped. Their whereabouts are unknown. On Jan. 2, an unknown group called the Movement Against the Expansion of Shiism in Syria sent a claim of responsibility for the abductions to the Agence France-Presse office in Nicosia, Cyprus.
The men in the video bear a resemblance to the five engineers abducted in December, as portrayed in a photo circulated in the Syrian and Iranian press. Their names also appear to match. The men, who are all dressed casually in jeans, jackets and track pants pose alongside a man identified as their Syrian cook. They are not the only Iranians nabbed in Syria. "Eleven Iranian pilgrims traveling by road to Damascus were kidnapped by an unknown group," Ramin Mehmanparast, spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying on Thursday by the state news agency IRNA. "We call on the Syrian government to use all means ... to release the Iranian nationals," he said. (Read "The Crisis in Syria: No Immunity for Bystanders.")
Sectarian tensions have been rising in the multiethnic, multisectarian patchwork of the Syrian state as the death toll spirals beyond 5,000. Resentment toward Assad and some of his Alawite co-religionists is strong among certain quarters of the majority Sunni population. Although Alawites, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, comprise some 12% of Syria's 22 million people, they are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of Syria's political, business and military communities. There is also rising anger toward Assad's staunchest regional backers, Shi'ite Iran and the Shi'ite Lebanese militant group Hizballah (Party of God), which is now frequently referred to by Syrian activists, refugees and defectors alike as the "party of the devil." It's not inconceivable that a busload of Iranian pilgrims were nabbed by antigovernment elements, perhaps as bargaining chips.
Bassem of the FSA's Farouk Brigade stressed during his interview with al-Jazeera that he and his group were not against Shi'ites. "We are not sectarian," he said. "We ask Iran to admit they sent members of Revolutionary Guards to Syria. He said that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had until Jan. 28 to withdraw all Revolutionary Guards from Syria.
Pressed by the anchor about what would happen should the deadline lapse, Bassem said: "We are not terrorists, criminals or killers. We are against anyone who threatens innocent Syrians. We caught these people, they were armed. They are snipers. They were killing our Syrian brethren. We will try, God willing, to return them to their families safely, but given the difficult circumstances Homs is experiencing, we cannot guarantee their safety."
Watch TIME's video "Why They Protest: Egypt, Libya and Syria."
Read "Syria: Who Is the Real President Assad?"
View this article on Time.com
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
TurboTax Premier Online (2011)
As much as personal tax preparation software and Web sites have evolved over the last 20-plus years, they still can't anticipate every possible user question or accommodate every imaginable tax scenario.
But Intuit's TurboTax family of sites comes closer than anyone.
The big takeaway this year is not what's in TurboTax. It's where it's available: everywhere. Intuit's new mobile offerings make it possible for you to sweat every detail of your 1040 while you're in your home office, riding the train to work, sitting in a restaurant?anywhere. The entire TurboTax line has been optimized for the Apple iPad, and additional apps are available for the iPhone and Android operating systems.
The other significant piece of news for the 2011 tax year is the availability of tax professionals (CPAs, Enrolled Agents, and tax lawyers) for questions from taxpayers. Unlike in the past, these phone calls and online chats are free, and you can request as many as you'd like.
Little has been done to the core site itself, with one big exception: It's faster. All of those pretty fonts and icons and graphics have had impact on performance in previous years, but I was pleased to see that speed was improved this go-round.
Versions Galore
I reviewed TurboTax Premier Online 2011. As always, you don't have to pay until you print or e-file, and pricing remains the same as the 2010 versions: $49.95 for the federal version, and still a whopping $36.95 for state. Though the state version imports the data you so carefully prepare in the federal edition, there's not nearly as much to it. Granted, every state has different tax laws and they change every year, but this still seems excessive. No other online tax product is as expensive as TurboTax, all things considered.
Each TurboTax site looks and works much like the ones a step lower on the Intuit food chain. But as you go up the chain, each level adds on its own extras and is increasingly sophisticated. Conveniently, you can start your prep on one and transfer your work to another if you find the first one lacking. Competitors also offer multi-tier product lines with in-place upgrading.
A free e-file is included with each of these products:
- TurboTax Federal Free Edition Online. Actually contains many major forms and schedules, including the 1040, 1040A and 1040EZ; Schedules A and B; several 1099s; and a whole host of others, but it lacks the powerhouse Schedules C-F and step-by-step guidance. State version, $27.95.
- TurboTax Basic Online. Adds step-by-step help. Federal, $19.95; state $36.95.
- TurboTax Deluxe Online. Handles more complex deductions, like home mortgages, medical expenses, charitable donations and childcare expenses. Also hunts down those you may have missed. Federal, $29.95; state, $36.95.
- TurboTax Premier Online. Comes with special guidance and resources for taxpayers who have investments and/or rental property. Federal, $49.95; state, $36.95.
- TurboTax Home & Business Online. Basic, Deluxe and Premiere include the Schedule C/EZ (a simplified version of the Schedule C), but this top-of-the-line personal tax prep site is the best choice for sole proprietors, consultants, 1099 contractors or single-member LLCs who want extra guidance on entering business income and expenses. Also lets you prepare unlimited W-2 and 1099-MISC forms. Federal, $74.95; state, $36.95.
CD-based desktop versions are still available, but they're significantly more expensive. H&R Block and TaxACT, too, have desktop versions, but CompleteTax is online-only. For example Premier costs $89.95 direct for the CD or download version.
Guiding You Through
Intuit likes to call TurboTax a GPS for your taxes. It's an apt description. Thanks to a clear navigational system and a plethora of help resources, you always know where you are, how to get where you're going, and you can ask questions if you're lost or don't understand the freeway signs.
The opening screens ask for your personal information (address, Social Security number, etc.), providing blank fields, check boxes and drop-down lists here and throughout the site (if you're missing information as you proceed through the site, you can flag it with the tool provided and come back to it later). The program divides the 1040 into its assorted forms and schedules, taking your answers and doing any calculations necessary, and then dropping them into the correct fields in the background.
Moving on, you'll visit each of four more sections: Federal Taxes, State Taxes, Wrap-Up and Print & File. You'll do the lion's share of your work in the first, as it's divided into:
- Wages & Income (salaries, interest and dividends, investments, retirement funds, etc.)
- Deductions & Credits (mortgage interest and property taxes, home energy credits, child and dependent care, charitable donations, medical expenses, estimated taxes, etc.)
- Other Tax Situations (Alternative Minimum Tax, Underpayment Penalties, Nanny and Household Employee Tax, etc.)
- Federal Review (list of topics you may have missed; TurboTax will take you to the appropriate screen and bring you back to the review if you've forgotten something)
- Error Check (TurboTax examines your return for errors and opens a small window displaying the related area of the form, so you can fix it)
The Wrap-Up section does a final review, estimates your risk of an audit (no guarantees, of course, but you can pay $39.95 for representation in case the worst happens) and provides some suggestions for next year's tax planning. Every site offers its own version of these tasks, and while I've never found this follow-up to be particularly enlightening, TurboTax does it as well as anyone.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/OlS4nUc5m1A/0,2817,2379132,00.asp
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Economy likely ended 2011 with strong growth
A sold sign is seen in fron of a new home in Jefferson, Pa., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The economy likely grew at annual rate of 3 percent in the October-December quarter, according to a survey by FactSet. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A sold sign is seen in fron of a new home in Jefferson, Pa., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The economy likely grew at annual rate of 3 percent in the October-December quarter, according to a survey by FactSet. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A weak year for the economy likely ended on a hopeful note.
The economy likely grew at annual rate of 3 percent in the October-December quarter, according to a survey by FactSet. The Commerce Department will release the actual figure Friday.
The gain would represent modest improvement from this summer, when the economy grew just 1.8 percent. However, even with the strong finish, economists believe the economy expanded just 1.7 percent for the whole year ? roughly half the growth in 2010.
And growth is expected to slow in the first three months of this year. A key reason is wages have failed to keep pace with inflation. That will likely force many consumers to pull back on spending after splurging over the holidays.
Consumer spending is important because it makes up 70 percent of economic activity.
Businesses are also expected to reduce spending in the first quarter after building up their stockpiles in the final months of 2011.
Richard DeKaiser, a senior economist at Parthenon Group, expects just 2 percent annual growth in the January-March quarter. But Kaiser says that should be the weakest quarter. He expects the economy to gain strength in each quarter and grow 2.6 percent for the entire year.
The year is off to a good start. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December. The unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent last month ? the lowest level in nearly three years ? after the sixth straight month of solid hiring.
People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence is rising. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough improvement to make some economists predict a turnaround has begun.
Still, many economists worry that a recession in Europe could dampen demand for U.S. manufactured goods, which would slow growth. And without more jobs and better pay, consumer spending is likely to stagnate.
The Federal Reserve signaled this week that a full recovery could take at least three more years. In response, it said it would probably not increase its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 at the earliest ? a year and a half later than it had previously said.
The central bank also slightly reduced its outlook for growth this year, from as much as 2.9 percent forecast in November down to 2.7 percent. The Fed sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2 percent this year.
DeKaiser said part of his optimism stems from a view that housing sales and prices will rise moderately this year. That should lift the battered construction industry, which ended last year with three months of gains in single-family home construction.(backslash)
At the moment, housing remains the weakest part of the economy. New-home sales fell last month, and total sales for 2011 were the lowest on records dating back to 1963.
"I think the clouds will gradually lift over housing. Rising home prices will make consumers feel wealthier and this will translate into stronger consumer spending," DeKaiser said.
.
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Carnival sued by crew member over cruise ship disaster (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Carnival Corp, whose luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Italy, was sued by a crew member in a first of what may be multiple U.S. lawsuits seeking class-action status over the disaster, court documents show.
Lawyers for Gary Lobaton, who was a crew member on board the Costa Concordia, said in a court filing that he was not aware of the "dangerous conditions" of the cruise ship until it was too late to abandon the ship.
The lawsuit sought to determine whether Carnival deviated from international safety standards when operating the cruise ship.
"Costa Concordia's Captain, Francesco Schettino, delayed the order to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats," Lobaton's lawyers said in the filing.
Lobaton, who sued Carnival individually and on behalf of all others similarly affected by the cruise disaster, had sought damages from the company, according to the court filing.
Lobaton had also requested the court to assign class-action status to the lawsuit.
The 114,500-tonne ship capsized off the Tuscan coast, which left 11 people dead and 22 missing.
According to a January 24 BBC report, the number of dead has risen to 16.
Carnival could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.
The case is Gary Lobaton vs Carnival Corp, Case No. 1:12-cv-00598, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Optimal basketball shooting rate proposed based on mathematical model
ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? NBA players may be too conservative with their shots, according to a comparison with a theoretical model describing shot selection reported Jan. 25 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The author, Brian Skinner of the University of Minnesota, aimed to create a model that could take into account multiple factors to determine when it was worth taking a shot. "Strategic decisions in basketball have long been made based on the intuition of the coach or players, but as advanced quantitative analyses are increasingly applied to the game it is becoming clear that many of the conventional, intuitive ideas for basketball strategy are misguided or suboptimal," says Skinner.
The results show that, when significant time is remaining in a possession, only higher quality shots should be taken, and this cutoff for shot quality decreases as the time remaining decreases. However, even though the optimal model suggests that only high quality shots should be taken early in a possession, the study finds that NBA players may go to an extreme and be overly reluctant to shoot the ball early in a possession, therefore missing out on scoring opportunities.
The model takes into account factors including the perceived probability that a given shot will go in and the number and quality of shot opportunities the offense will have in the future in a given possession. It does, however, have some limitations, such as the assumption that shot opportunities arise randomly in time, which call for care in the interpretation of the results.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.
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Journal Reference:
- Brian Skinner. The Problem of Shot Selection in Basketball. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (1): e30776 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030776
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/~3/i_NqoHyAYTM/120125172312.htm
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Alaska Airlines ends decades-old prayer card tradition (Reuters)
SEATTLE (Reuters) ? Alaska Airlines, America's seventh-largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic, said on Wednesday that it would end a decades-old tradition of handing out prayer cards with its in-flight meals.
The prayer cards, which the Seattle-based airline began offering in the 1970s after an executive spotted them on another airline, were intended to serve as a marketing strategy and to put passengers at ease, a spokeswoman said.
The airline sent an e-mail to its frequent flyers on Wednesday explaining the change, which takes effect February 1.
"This difficult decision was not made lightly. We believe it's the right thing to do in order to respect the diverse religious beliefs and cultural attitudes of all our customers and employees," Alaska Air Group Chairman and CEO Bill Ayer and Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden wrote to customers.
"Religious beliefs are deeply personal and sharing them with others is an individual choice."
The quotes came from the Book of Psalms, part of both Jewish and Christian tradition, such as Psalm 118, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever."
The airline has offered meals only on flights longer than four hours and, since 2006, only to first-class passengers - up to 16 people per flight. The airline carries 16.5 million passengers per year.
The decision prompted dozens of comments on the airline's Facebook page, mostly from people expressing disappointment with the change.
Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said the company's leaders made the decision last fall, after several years of reviewing the rise in customer complaints.
"The idea of removing the card had come up several times over the past few years and prompted thoughtful discussion," she said. "When the issue came up again last fall, after carefully considering all sides, it was agreed that eliminating the card was simply the right thing to do."
Egan could not say whether the rise in complaints was related to limiting the distribution of the cards to first-class passengers.
"Over the years, we've received comments from customers who were comforted by the card, but many others felt as though religion was not appropriate on an airplane and preferred not to receive one," she said.
"We've seen an uptick in the number of passengers who just simply don't appreciate getting a prayer card on the meal tray."
(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Cynthia Johnston)
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Conference peers 20 years into Broadway's future
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, The Palace Theatre marquee and billboards advertising Broadway shows are seen in Times Square, in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, The Palace Theatre marquee and billboards advertising Broadway shows are seen in Times Square, in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, a Broadway street sign is seen in Times Square in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, billboards advertising Broadway shows are seen in Times Square in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, a theatergoer buys Broadway tickets at the Times Square TKTS discount ticket booth in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. Many agreed on at least one thing: Change is coming.
They discussed everything from Broadway's aging audience, its fragmented and maddening ticketing systems, the often poor experience it gives patrons, the power of social networks to harness fans and the continuing need to attract world-class talent.
The 13 speakers at the one-day inaugural TEDxBroadway included Jujamcyn Theaters president Jordan Roth, "Sleep No More" producer Randy Weiner, Citibank's social media strategist Frank Eliason and author Juan Enriquez. While some speakers made bold predictions, others demurred.
"I think it's safe to say that 20 years from now, Broadway will be a street in New York," said Kara Larson, founder of Arts Knowledge, a marketing consulting firm. She said people will continue to go there to take in a show. "Beyond that, I'm not willing to go."
Eliason warned that Broadway has become too much like a top-down business and needs to make a better human connection with its audience, which is bombarded by other rival entertainment. "You feel like they're rushing you in and rushing you out," he said. "That human connection is extraordinarily important."
The event, in front of about 200 attendees and peppered by short video clips from actor Neil Patrick Harris, was held in the off-Broadway complex's New World Stages, in the theater where "Million Dollar Quartet" is performed. Organizers hope it will be the first of many annual conclaves.
TEDx events are independently organized but inspired by the nonprofit group TED ? standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design ? that started in 1984 as a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading." Video of the Broadway event is likely to be made available later.
The gathering was the brainchild of three men: Ken Davenport, a writer, director, producer and industry pioneer; Jim McCarthy, the CEO of ticket discounter Goldstar; and Damian Bazadona, the founder of Situation Interactive, an online marketing firm.
"How will our shows be created? How will they be marketed? Who's going to come see them? These were all the questions that Jim, Damian and I sat around one day asking each other. And the only answer that we could all agree on was that we had no idea," Davenport said. "None. So what we decided to do is invite some of the smartest people we knew into this room today and ask them those same questions."
Patricia Martin, an expert on commerce and culture, predicted a new flowering of cultural energy as long as the stories Broadway tells are told with love. "It must lift our spirits and it must help us be compassionate," she said.
Weiner, whose immersive, genre-bending "Sleep No More" is playing off-off-Broadway has routinely sold out due to enthusiastic word-of-mouth, said his experience may help other producers. His marketing cost for "Sleep No More" is zero.
"The show is the marketing. It's about unifying the show, the experience, the marketing ? that is in many ways why the show has been so successful," he said, urging fellow producers to sink money into the experience. "There's something to be learned in that for Broadway."
Bazadona said that Broadway shows can overcome their limited supply by embracing different platforms beyond the four walls of a theater, opening the door to the idea of broadcasting a show on screens far away. "To me, innovative development is the best path to artist development," he said.
Barry Kahn, CEO of dynamic ticket pricing company Qcue, made a plea for the box offices to try and work together and not compete. Many theatergoers, he said, just want to see any Broadway show and the cutthroat battles between each theater's box offices drags the whole industry down.
"We have a common goal," he said. "If we compete against each other, we're going to drive each other all out of business. But if we work together, we can all be better off."
One of the most popular speakers was Vincent Gassetto, the principal of a public middle school in the Bronx whose students recently were treated to a performance of the "Spider-Man" musical and came home buzzing about it. For many, it was their first Broadway show.
Gassetto urged listeners not to overlook this diverse and enthusiastic talent pool as arts funding shrivel. "They're going to be your writers, your producers, they're going to be your actors and, at the very least, they're going to be your audience members," he said.
Other speakers included former Lincoln Center Director Gregory Mosher, who predicted that the subscription model for theater would soon become extinct, and Joseph Craig, a marketing expert, said lessons should be learned about how a dusty and dirty Las Vegas turned itself around in the late 1980s to become a booming draw in the late 1990s.
Roth stressed one key thing that makes Broadway different from other entertainment ? it is live. He underlined how important the live experience must remain for Broadway to remain a destination hub. "If we don't, whether we're telling stories we make up or stories we license, we will be cultural derivatives ? non-essentials," he said.
"If we do, we'll thrive on our cultural primacy. Not because we do it better than any other medium, but because we do what no other medium can do. We do it live. And that's original."
___
Online:
http://www.goldstar.com/tedxbroadway
___
Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Travel photo of the day: Mist on the Delaware River
Submitted by Nicki McManus / UGC
Delaware River near Milford, Pa.
Nicki McManus hadn't planned on capturing this early morning image of geese on the Delaware River when she took it in the fall of 2010.?
McManus and her husband, who live in Wantage, N.J., were driving to photograph Hidden Lake, which is located toward the southern end of the Delaware Water Gap National Park. The couple had pulled over to make a phone call and McManus wandered around the river's edge, at the Dingmans Ferry boat launch.
"That morning was very cool, as most fall days in the middle of October, causing the mist to rise off the river," McManus told TODAY.com. "I was walking around with my camera, and as always, looking for a shot. When I turned to my right, I saw the geese gathered there on the shore just asking to be photographed."
McManus is a professional freelance photography who mostly shoots landscapes. But she also has a "passion for old barns, and anything else from days gone by." To see more of her work, visit her website.
McManus holds a special place in her camera for the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area: "It has so much to offer. There are countless hiking trails, beautiful views, and many, many photo [opportunities]."
Do you have some photos you want to share? Submit them for a chance to be featured in the weekly gallery by clicking here.
You can also join our It's a Snap Facebook community and share your photos with others by clicking here.
More photos:
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
How protein networks stabilize muscle fibers: Same mechanism as for DNA
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Dr. Wolfgang Linke
wolfgang.linke@rub.de
49-234-322-9101
Ruhr-University Bochum
Research team with RUB involvement reports in Genes and Development
The same mechanism that stabilises the DNA in the cell nucleus is also important for the structure and function of vertebrate muscle cells. This has been established by RUB-researchers led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Linke (Institute of Physiology) in cooperation with American and German colleagues. An enzyme attaches a methyl group to the protein Hsp90, which then forms a complex with the muscle protein titin. When the researchers disrupted this protein network through genetic manipulation in zebrafish the muscle structure partly disintegrated. The scientists have thus shown that methylation also plays a significant role outside the nucleus. They published their results in Genes and Development.
Methylation in the nucleus
Enzymes, called methyltransferases, transfer methyl (CH3) groups to specific sections of the DNA in the nucleus. In this way, they mark active and inactive regions of the genes. However, not only DNA but also nuclear proteins incur methylation, mostly at the amino acid lysine. Methylated lysines on nuclear proteins promote the formation of protein complexes that control, for example, DNA repair and replication. However, methyltransferases are not only found in the nucleus, but also in the cellular fluid (cytoplasm). Yet, it is not well established which proteins they methylate in the cytoplasm and how this methylation may affect function.
Shown for the first time: methylation in the cytoplasm promotes protein complex formation
The researchers first identified an enzyme which is mainly present in the cytoplasm and which methylates the amino acid lysine (Smyd2). Then they searched for interaction partners of the enzyme Smyd2 and found the heat shock protein Hsp90. The scientists went on to show that Smyd2 and methylated Hsp90 form a complex with the muscle protein titin. "Titin is the largest protein in the human body and known primarily for its role as an elastic spring in muscle cells" explains Linke. "Precisely this elastic region of titin is protected by the association with methylated Hsp90."
Titin requires protection by methylated proteins
In skeletal muscle cells of the zebrafish, Linke's team explored what happens when the protection by the methylated heat shock protein is repressed. By genetic manipulation they altered the organism in such a way that it no longer produced the enzyme Smyd2, which blocked the methylation of Hsp90. Without methylated Hsp90, the elastic titin region was unstable and muscle function strongly impaired; the regular muscle structure was partially disrupted.
###
Bibliographic record
L.T. Donlin, C. Andresen, S. Just, E. Rudensky, C.T. Pappas, M. Kruger, E.Y. Jacobs, A. Unger, A. Zieseniss, M.-W. Dobenecker, T. Voelkel, B.T. Chait, C.C. Gregorio, W. Rottbauer, A. Tarakhovsky, W.A. Linke (2012): Smyd2 controls cytoplasmic lysine methylation of Hsp90 and myofilament organization, Genes and Development, doi: 10.1101/gad.177758.111
Further information
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Linke, Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Phone: +49/234/32-29101
wolfgang.linke@rub.de
Click for more
Cardiovascular Physiology at RUB
http://www.py.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/kardp/Index.html.en
Figure online
A figure related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2012/pm00017.html.en
Editor
Dr. Julia Weiler
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 23-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Dr. Wolfgang Linke
wolfgang.linke@rub.de
49-234-322-9101
Ruhr-University Bochum
Research team with RUB involvement reports in Genes and Development
The same mechanism that stabilises the DNA in the cell nucleus is also important for the structure and function of vertebrate muscle cells. This has been established by RUB-researchers led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Linke (Institute of Physiology) in cooperation with American and German colleagues. An enzyme attaches a methyl group to the protein Hsp90, which then forms a complex with the muscle protein titin. When the researchers disrupted this protein network through genetic manipulation in zebrafish the muscle structure partly disintegrated. The scientists have thus shown that methylation also plays a significant role outside the nucleus. They published their results in Genes and Development.
Methylation in the nucleus
Enzymes, called methyltransferases, transfer methyl (CH3) groups to specific sections of the DNA in the nucleus. In this way, they mark active and inactive regions of the genes. However, not only DNA but also nuclear proteins incur methylation, mostly at the amino acid lysine. Methylated lysines on nuclear proteins promote the formation of protein complexes that control, for example, DNA repair and replication. However, methyltransferases are not only found in the nucleus, but also in the cellular fluid (cytoplasm). Yet, it is not well established which proteins they methylate in the cytoplasm and how this methylation may affect function.
Shown for the first time: methylation in the cytoplasm promotes protein complex formation
The researchers first identified an enzyme which is mainly present in the cytoplasm and which methylates the amino acid lysine (Smyd2). Then they searched for interaction partners of the enzyme Smyd2 and found the heat shock protein Hsp90. The scientists went on to show that Smyd2 and methylated Hsp90 form a complex with the muscle protein titin. "Titin is the largest protein in the human body and known primarily for its role as an elastic spring in muscle cells" explains Linke. "Precisely this elastic region of titin is protected by the association with methylated Hsp90."
Titin requires protection by methylated proteins
In skeletal muscle cells of the zebrafish, Linke's team explored what happens when the protection by the methylated heat shock protein is repressed. By genetic manipulation they altered the organism in such a way that it no longer produced the enzyme Smyd2, which blocked the methylation of Hsp90. Without methylated Hsp90, the elastic titin region was unstable and muscle function strongly impaired; the regular muscle structure was partially disrupted.
###
Bibliographic record
L.T. Donlin, C. Andresen, S. Just, E. Rudensky, C.T. Pappas, M. Kruger, E.Y. Jacobs, A. Unger, A. Zieseniss, M.-W. Dobenecker, T. Voelkel, B.T. Chait, C.C. Gregorio, W. Rottbauer, A. Tarakhovsky, W.A. Linke (2012): Smyd2 controls cytoplasmic lysine methylation of Hsp90 and myofilament organization, Genes and Development, doi: 10.1101/gad.177758.111
Further information
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Linke, Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Phone: +49/234/32-29101
wolfgang.linke@rub.de
Click for more
Cardiovascular Physiology at RUB
http://www.py.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/kardp/Index.html.en
Figure online
A figure related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2012/pm00017.html.en
Editor
Dr. Julia Weiler
[ | 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/2012-01/rb-hpn012312.php
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Worley wins WCup giant slalom, Vonn 4th
France's Tessa Worley, center, winner of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, smiles on the podium with second placed Italy's Federica Brignone, left, and third placed Viktoria Rebensburg, of Germany, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
France's Tessa Worley, center, winner of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, smiles on the podium with second placed Italy's Federica Brignone, left, and third placed Viktoria Rebensburg, of Germany, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
France's Tessa Worley celebrates after winning an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
France's Tessa Worleyl powers past a gate during the first run of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Austria's Elisabeth Goergl powers past a gate during the first run of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, powers past a gate during the first run of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)
KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia (AP) ? Tessa Worley of France won a World Cup giant slalom on Saturday after first-run leader Elisabeth Goergl of Austria crashed at the bottom of the second run.
World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn finished fourth, just missing the podium by three-hundredths of a second despite a spectacular recovery to prevent a crash near the end of the race.
"I skied the top well, but it was very bumpy at the bottom," Vonn said. "I did my best, but it just wasn't good enough for first."
Worley clocked 2 minutes, 3.02 seconds down the course to beat Federica Brignone of Italy, who finished in 2:03.58. Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany was third in 2:03.91.
Tina Maze, the home favorite and reigning world champion, finished fifth. Vonn increased her lead in the overall standings to 296 points ahead of Maze.
Vonn, who won her first giant slalom in the season opener in October, had two solid runs in her generally weakest event. However, she needed to put her hand on the snow a few gates from the finish to steady herself and lost time.
Worley trailed Goergl at the end of the first run, and it looked as if the Austrian was going to push her all the way before falling shortly before the finish line.
A perfect second run ensured Worley finished more than a half-second ahead of Brignone to claim her sixth World Cup victory and first in more than a year. All her triumphs have come in the giant slalom.
"It was a tough race but fun," Worley said. "The snow was great, but it was difficult and very technical. It was a pretty short run, so you needed to be at top tempo from start to finish."
Rebensburg had a fantastic second run to make up lost time after finishing seventh in the first, 0.88 seconds off the pace.
Kathrin Zettel of Austria, who won the giant slalom and the slalom in 2010, finished ninth after a poor second run.
The event was scheduled for Maribor but moved because of lack of snow. Last year's event was canceled because of weather.
A slalom will be held Sunday, with 16-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin in the event. She finished third in the Lienz slalom in December.
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Delek says government rejects collateral for HSBC loan (Reuters)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) ? Israeli conglomerate Delek Group (DLEKG.TA) said on Sunday that the collateral to back an HSBC (HSBA.L) loan for its gas exploration units had been rejected by Israel's Petroleum Commissioner.
Last month, Delek Drilling (DEDRp.TA) and Avner Oil Exploration (AVNRp.TA) received a $250 million non-recourse loan from HSBC for the development of the Tamar and Leviathan natural gas sites off Israel's Mediterranean Coast and other expenses.
The companies sought to use the partnership rights in the Leviathan project as collateral but the regulator rejected the plan, Delek said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
"The commissioner noted ... that if the partnerships decide to submit a new application, they would have to include clarifications with regard to the Tamar lease work and development financing plan and provide supporting documents," Delek said.
"The partnerships are considering additional steps, which include resubmission of an application with the new requirements."
The Tamar prospect, which contains an estimated 9.1 trillion cubic feet of gas, is due online in 2013, with Tamar expected to supply Israel's gas needs for more than 15 years. A nearby site, Leviathan, is nearly twice as large and due to be online around 2017.
Delek and Avner are part of a group led by U.S.-based Noble Energy (NBL.N) developing natural gas wells off Israel's Mediterranean coast.
Noble holds 36 percent of Tamar, while Delek and Avner own 15.625 percent each and Isramco Negev (ISRAp.TA) holds 28.75 percent.
The reliance on Israeli gas has intensified since supplies from Egypt have been erratic as militants have attacked the pipeline between Egypt and Israel 10 times in the past year.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Ex-New England Conservatory conductor apologizes
BOSTON (AP) ? The director and conductor of the nation's oldest independent music school is apologizing for hiring a convicted sex offender to film classes and concerts without seeking permission from supervisors.
Benjamin Zander spent 45 years at the New England Conservatory and directed its Youth Philharmonic Orchestra until he was fired just over a week ago.
He said Friday on his website that he supported videographer Peter Benjamin at his sentencing and after his release because he saw his earnest determination to turn his life around.
The founder of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra said he did so without inquiring into the exact nature of the charges, adding that "this was a grave oversight."
Benjamin went to prison after a 1994 conviction on charges including child rape, but says he's reformed now.
Zander apologized for upsetting the school community and beyond.
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Student dies after tweeting, 'Thank you God'
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C.?? A student at Gardner-Webb University has died after she collapsed in class on her 21st birthday.
A spokesman says Ariane Noelle Patterson was in a religion class at the Boiling Springs school when she collapsed Tuesday afternoon.
Patterson tweeted that day, ?Thank you God for another year of life.?
Spokesman Noel Manning says Patterson's cause of death is under investigation. He says the school is investigating whether Patterson had previous health problems.
Manning says an emergency medical technician who is a student in the class and nurses helped with CPR until an ambulance arrived.
Patterson died at Cleveland Regional Medical Center in Shelby.
She was a senior majoring in religious studies and went to high school in Rutherford County.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46054377/ns/local_news-charlotte_nc/
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Obama sings a tune, steals the online show (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama stole the online show on Friday after singing a tune during a campaign fundraiser at New York City's famed Apollo Theater.
After Rev. Al Green warmed up the audience for Obama on Thursday night, the president surprised the audience -- and his staff -- by crooning the opening bars of Green's soul classic "Let's stay together."
"I'm - so in love with you," he sang, earning rapturous applause from the 1,400 people who each had paid between $100 and $200 to attend the Democratic fundraiser ahead of the presidential election in November.
"Don't worry Rev., I cannot sing like you. I just wanted to show my appreciation," Obama added, as he stood on a stage at the theater that helped launch the careers of Michael Jackson, James Brown and Ella Fitzgerald.
The video of Obama singing was a hit online on Friday and Al Green was one of the top ten topics trending on Twitter.
"I have worked for President Obama for 5 years and until last night, I had no idea that he could sing," said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer in a tweet.
(Reporting by Alister Bull, editing by Michelle Nichols)
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Dirty Dancing: Dung Beetles Get Down to Walk the Line
News |
Mind & Brain
The meticulous insects pirouette atop their dung balls to get their bearings and correct navigational errors
?| January 18, 2012
JITTERBUG: Scientists had not investigated the dung beetle's dance until now.
Image: Emily Baird, Lund University
As a dung beetle rolls its planet of poop along the ground it periodically stops, climbs onto the ball and does a little dance. Why? It's probably getting its bearings. A series of experiments published in the January 18 issue of PLoS ONE shows that the beetles are much more likely to perform their dance when they wander off course or encounter an obstacle. Until now, no one had any idea what a jitterbugging dung beetle was up to.
Emily Baird of Lund University in Sweden and her colleagues study how animals with tiny brains?such as bees and beetles?perform complex mental tasks, like navigating the world. The dung beetle intrigues Baird because it manages to roll its dung ball in a perfectly straight line, even though it pushes the ball with its back legs, its head pointed at the ground in the opposite direction. If the six-legged Sisyphus can't see where it's going, how does it stay on its course?
Every now and then, a dung beetle stops rolling, mounts its ball and pirouettes. Baird noticed that dung beetles do not dance as often in the lab, where they roll around on flat surfaces, as they do in the field, where the terrain is rough and rocks and clumps of grass often obstruct the beetles' paths. She guessed that by climbing onto a ball of dung four or five times its height, a beetle gets a pretty good vantage point from which to correct any navigational mistakes. But it was only an intuition?she needed evidence.
At a farm in South Africa Baird collected adult Kheper nigroaeneus (a species of dung beetle that "rolls") and placed them in plastic tubs with soil and fresh cow dung. Once the beetles balled up some dung, Baird transferred them to smooth terrain and placed a plastic tube in their paths. A lightweight door hung from one end of the tube, like a tiny cat-flap. Sometimes Baird allowed the door to swing freely as the beetles pushed their ball through the tube; other times Baird secured the door so the beetles could not pass. All 22 beetles in the first experiment mounted their balls and spun around when they encountered a locked door, whereas only one beetle danced when the door swung open. In a similar test, Baird created a small drop-off in the beetles' paths with tubes of different heights. Fifty percent of the beetles that dropped from one tube to the other danced on their dung balls, whereas only 8 percent of the unimpeded beetles danced. Baird thinks that hitting a roadblock triggers the beetles to survey their surroundings and double-check that they are still moving away from the dung pile in a straight line.
To test whether beetles dance if they sense they are off-course, but do not encounter an obstacle, Baird changed the direction the beetles were rolling with semicircular tubes. 17 of 21 beetles that found themselves veering off track stopped to dance on their dung balls. Only two of 21 beetles that Baird left alone danced.
In one of two especially telling experiments, Baird waited for beetles to enter the plastic tubes and then quickly flipped the tube 180 degrees so the beetles were moving in the opposite direction from which they entered the tube. Nineteen of 40 beetles danced after the switcheroo and 18 of those 19 started pushing their dung balls in the original direction, correcting for the flip. Still, Baird had not figured out exactly how dancing helps dung beetles stay their course. Her final experiment offered a clue: The top of a dung ball may be the best place for a beetle to check its progress in relation to the position of the sun. Baird shadowed the beetles from the sun with a wooden board and reflected sunlight onto the beetles with a mirror to simulate a shift of the sun's position by 180 degrees. Nineteen of 32 beetles danced when subjected to the mirror illusion and 15 of those 19 started rolling in the opposite direction.
From previous research, Baird knows that dung beetles can see polarized light and that when she places tiny hats on the beetles to block their view of the sky, they become extremely disoriented. She thinks that the beetles rely on visual cues in the sky to keep in a straight line and that when they climb onto their dung balls, they take "snapshots" of the sky and compare what they see to snapshots stored in their memories. "If you want to maintain a straight line, you can't really use landmarks nearby because they can seem to change a huge amount even if you move slightly," Baird says. "You need a cue that is very far away and extremely reliable. The sun's position and polarization patterns are compass cues of the sky. Even on an overcast day, you can still use polarization patterns as compass cues."
In two weeks Baird is returning to South Africa to study dung beetles in the field. This time, instead of confining beetles to the lab, she wants to see how far beetles roll outdoors before they stop to dance. She is particularly interested in how long beetles keep rolling on flat ground. Rather than construct an expensive outdoor arena free of pebbles and grass, Baird plans to use the local tennis court.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=83c3cbe00d3679e67007c25a3a554e06
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Friday, January 20, 2012
The perfect storm: Three ways to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions ? short of war
Partly by design and partly by happenstance, a three-pronged US strategy for checking Iran's nuclear program and the regime in Tehran is emerging: an unprecedented combination of sanctions, covert action, and a Syria-inspired protest movement within Iran.
Partly by design and partly by happenstance, a US grand strategy for checking Iran?s nuclear ambitions ? and for thwarting Iran?s Islamic revolutionary government more broadly ? may now be crystallizing.?
Skip to next paragraphThe three-pronged strategy presents a viable alternative to the calls by some in the US for military strikes and direct action to foment regime change in Iran. A combination of intensified economic sanctions and covert action, together with a successful Iranian protest movement could thwart Tehran?s reported push for nuclear weapons without direct American intervention.
The most visible component of the strategy is a set of intensifying sanctions. They are founded in a series of UN Security Council resolutions reflecting the international consensus that Iran?s nuclear program must be curbed. And the United States and other Western nations are reinforcing these sanctions by imposing even tougher measures, among them what seems to be a largely successful embargo on certain ?keystone? nuclear commodities needed for Iran?s uranium enrichment program.
In the latest developments, the US has designated the Central Bank of Iran as a ?primary money laundering concern? under the USAPATRIOT Act. As a result of that sanction and Great Britain?s penalizing Iran for the wrecking of the British embassy in Tehran, Iran is being isolated from the international banking system, with severe consequences for the Iranian dinar.
Worse is to come, as new US legislation takes effect that will penalize any foreign bank that does business with Iran to facilitate its sales of crude oil. The complementary unfolding plan for Western countries to curtail purchases of Iranian crude oil will strike a body blow to the Iranian economy.
While the stated purposes of these economic sanctions is to pressure Iran to return to the nuclear negotiating table, US officials have been explicit in declaring that for Washington, at least, the sanctions have broader goals. In particular, the Obama administration hopes to force Iran to end its support for international terrorism and its glaring human rights abuses.
In effect, Washington has used the nuclear issue as a rallying point to impose sanctions that seek to undermine the Iranian regime at large. Some have suggested that the unstated goal of the current round of sanctions is really to foment regime change in Tehran. A frequent Western tactic has been to blackball entire organizations linked to the regime ? such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, and various Iranian banks ? once even a small fraction of their activities is found to have provided direct support for the country?s nuclear program.
The second component of a US strategy, more directly targeted against Iran?s nuclear program, is covert operations, some directly involving Washington, others conducted by Israel or, perhaps, Saudi Arabia, but all contributing to what appears to be a slow-down in Iran?s nuclear advances. These operations have included the Stuxnet computer worm, which destroyed 1,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at Iran?s Natanz nuclear complex beginning in late 2009 or early 2010.
They have also included a series of targeted killings of leading Iranian nuclear scientists ? a disturbing dimension of covert operations in which Washington has categorically denied involvement.
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