You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan lashed out at President Barack Obama on Sunday, saying the commander in chief does not have a full grasp of the budget problems facing the U.S. economy.
"I don't think that the president actually thinks we have a fiscal crisis," Ryan told NBC's David Gregory on "Meet The Press" in his first live interview since the 2012 presidential campaign, when he was Mitt Romney's running mate.
Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman repeatedly criticized President Obama's understanding of the national debt. "The president got his additional revenues," Ryan said. "So that's behind us."
The former Republican vice presidential candidate said that while Democrats may have gotten higher taxes on the wealthy as part of the New Year's deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, that's all they'll get.
"Are we for raising revenues? No we're not," Ryan said. "If you keep raising revenues, you're not going to get decent tax reform."
Ryan also addressed a pair politically-divisive issues: immigration reform and gun control. Via NBC:
Ryan, who has praised a bipartisan set of immigration reforms offered by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, said he was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform this year. But Ryan said that Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike would closely watch Obama's speech on Tuesday in Nevada on that topic.
And of the president's gun control measures, Ryan suggested openness to embracing some measures--like requiring universal background checks on gun sales--while expressing skittishness toward other elements of the plan, like the ban on assault weapons.
And as far as his political aspirations for 2016 are concerned, Ryan said it's too early for him to talk about.
"I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do," Ryan said. "I'll decide later about that."
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Thousands of people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims and messages such as "Ban Assault Weapons Now," joined a rally for gun control on Saturday, marching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.
Leading the crowd were marchers with "We Are Sandy Hook" signs, paying tribute to victims of the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other city officials marched alongside them. The crowd stretched for at least two blocks along Constitution Avenue.
Participants held signs reading "Gun Control Now," ''Stop NRA" and "What Would Jesus Pack?" among other messages. Other signs were simple and white, with the names of victims of gun violence.
About 100 residents from Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers, traveled to Washington together, organizers said.
Participant Kara Baekey from nearby Norwalk, Conn., said that when she heard about the Newtown shooting, she immediately thought of her two young children. She said she decided she must take action, and that's why she traveled to Washington for the march.
"I wanted to make sure this never happens at my kids' school or any other school," Baekey said. "It just can't happen again."
Once the crowd arrived at the monument, speakers called for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition and for universal background checks on gun sales.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the crowd it's not about taking away Second Amendment gun rights, but about gun safety and saving lives. He said he and President Barack Obama would do everything they could to enact gun control policies.
"This is about trying to create a climate in which our children can grow up free of fear," Duncan said. "This march is a starting point; it is not an ending point ... We must act, we must act, we must act."
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s non-voting representative in Congress, said the gun lobby can be stopped, and the crowd chanted back, "Yes, we can."
"We are all culpable if we do nothing now," Norton said
James Agenbroad, 78, of Garrett Park, Md., carried a handwritten sign on cardboard that read "Repeal the 2nd Amendment." He called it the only way to stop mass killings because he thinks the Supreme Court will strike down any other restrictions on guns.
"You can repeal it," he said. "We repealed prohibition."
Molly Smith, the artistic director of Washington's Arena Stage, and her partner organized the march. Organizers said that in addition to the 100 people from Newtown, buses of participants traveled from New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. Others flew in from Seattle, San Francisco and Alaska, they said.
While she's never organized a political march before, Smith said she was compelled to press for a change in the law. The march organizers support Obama's call for gun control measures. They also want lawmakers to require gun safety training for all buyers of firearms.
"With the drum roll, the consistency of the mass murders and the shock of it, it is always something that is moving and devastating to me. And then, it's as if I move on," Smith said. "And in this moment, I can't move on. I can't move on.
"I think it's because it was children, babies," she said. "I was horrified by it."
After the Connecticut shootings, Smith began organizing on Facebook. The group One Million Moms for Gun Control, the Washington National Cathedral and two other churches eventually signed on to co-sponsor the march. Organizers have raised more than $50,000 online to pay for equipment and fees to stage the rally, Smith said.
Lawmakers from the District of Columbia and Maryland rallied the crowd, along with Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund and Colin Goddard, a survivor from the Virginia Tech massacre.
Goddard said he was shot four times at Virginia Tech and is motivated to keep fighting for gun control because what happened to him keeps happening ? and nothing's been done to stop it.
"We are Americans," he said, drawing big cheers. "We have overcome difficulties when we realize we are better than this."
Smith said she supports a comprehensive look at mental health and violence in video games and films. But she said the mass killings at Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., all began with guns.
"The issue is guns. The Second Amendment gives us the right to own guns, but it's not the right to own any gun," she said. "These are assault weapons, made for killing people."
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March on Washington for Gun Control: http://www.guncontrolmarch.com/
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Follow Brett Zongker at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat
Kristen Bell is suing the owners of a Los Angeles tequila bar for breach of contract. The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” actress filed the lawsuit against the Meridian Restaurant group on Friday after investing $20,000 into the company’s bar L’Scorpion in July 2005. The 32-year-old actress, along with four other investors in the bar, claims the ...
?I love Las Vegas.? I love New Media.? What?s not to love?? ? Guy Kawasaki
Day two of NMX Las Vegas kicked off with a fireside chat between Mark Fidelman (@markfidelman) and Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki).? Guy is well known for his work at Apple, as founder of Alltop, as well as his books and speaking.
In the interview Guy discussed everything from the devices he uses to what he?d like to change about social platforms.? However, the highlight of the conversation was surrounding Guy?s new book APE: How to Publish a Book.
What Is APE? APE is a book for authors looking to stray from traditional publishing in favor of self-publishing.
Why Guy Wrote APE After taking the more traditional route with his book Enchantment, Guy ran into a roadblock.? He took an order for 500 copies of the eBook version of his book, but the publisher could not fill the order.? That inspired Guy to self-publish his next book, What the Plus! a book about Google+.
As Guy was going through the process of self-publishing his book he found that it was more difficult than he had anticipated.? APE helps other authors looking to self publish throughout the publishing process.
The Stigma Attached To Self-Publishing In the past, self-publishing was reserved for authors that had been rejected by a traditional publisher.? Because the work wasn?t perceived as good enough to be picked up, authors were forced to invest on their own.? According to Guy a more accurate term for the new era of self-publishing is ?artisanal publishing?.?? Similar to the way that an artisan cheese or wine may be prepared in a small batch with lots of TLC.
Unfortunately many still believe that the majority of books that are self-published are filled with crap. ?To be honest, there are a lot of books published under a more traditional model that are also filled with crap. ?Guy shares, ?I believe the more people writing books the better the business will be.?
Marketing A Self-Published Book Is Tricky The key to understanding how self-publishing functions is acknowledging that marketing the book is going to be the hardest part. ?Many authors either don?t understand how to market, or detest marketing. ?When marketing a self-published book it is essential that you leverage your own networks and marketing know-how to get your book in the hands of the people that you want reading it.
You can even begin planting the seed before your book is published. ?Utilize your existing social networks to begin sharing reputable stories and articles about the topic you?ll be writing about. ?That way when your book is released your followers will already view you as being knowledgeable on the topic.
How Guy Kawasaki Got 50 Reviews The Day His Book Went On Sale Before releasing APE, Guy sent a request to ?4 million of his closest friends? asking if they could review the format of his book and provide feedback. ?A little while later he also sent a request to the same group of friends asking if they would like to read his manuscript and send back their edits. ?Two hundred and fifty of the people that Guy reached out to agreed to read his book, and did end up submitting edits.
Guy reached out those that reviewed his manuscript and asked if they would mind creating a review as soon as the book became available for purchase. ?Of the 250, fifty of them wrote a review immediately. ?Why? Because they?d already read the book and had been involved in creating it. ?Each of the 250 people that sent Guy edits were also included in the credits for the book as a way of showing his appreciation.
Using Social Media For Book Promotion Guy believes that social networking is a means to an end. ?His strategy involves providing great and useful content to his followers constantly and promoting your own agenda only from time to time.
The investment of time and resources that goes into self-publishing your own book is not to be taken lightly. ?To truly find success with self-publishing you need to have:
A topic people want to read about
The drive and know-how to market your book appropriately
An online network that you can tap into to spread the word
To say Xperia Z is "waterproof" may be pushing it: You can't take it scuba diving. But you can dump an entire bottle of water on it, and I'd lay odds it would do better than any iPhone when falling into a toilet for a second or two.
And that's not the most impressive thing about the new flagship Android phone from Sony. With a 13-megapixel camera, and a quad-core Qualcomm?Snapdragon S4 Pro?processor, and a 5-inch full-1080p "reality" display, yeah, it's got a lot to brag about. Not to mention the fact that it's only 7.9 millimeters thick, and?made of two slabs of sturdy, tempered glass. It's quite the machine.
I played around with one tonight, and it really moves fast. Its photo album can fly through month after month, year after year, at a blinding pace, and when you shoot, it uses intelligent-auto settings, along with facial-recognition, for nice sharp pictures on the fly. I especially liked how using the flash would create an image that doesn't look like your subject is being strobe tortured. I also liked that?the high dynamic range was always on for more balanced shots in weird lighting conditions ? unless you turn it off.
In addition to that water?resistance, it also resists dust. It will run Android 4.1?Jelly Bean (but not Android 4.2 Jelly Bean). I'm a little nervous about the unreported battery life, though the press release does mention a "stamina" mode that "can?improve standby time?by four times or more by automatically shutting down battery-draining apps?whenever the screen is off and starting them up again when the screen is back on." Good news there, maybe.?
Perhaps its crowning charm is its use of near-field communication ? of late, a technology generally associated with mobile payments ? to send music to speakers, photos to hard drives, and video to TVs, with a simple, wireless, magical little tap. It's a neat touch.
So what's wrong with it? No carrier. No price. No specific?U.S. release date announced ? just a global launch promised in the first quarter of 2013. Something tells me it may be a while before this phone turns up on Verizon's doorstep, let alone yours.
Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. He'll?be at the Consumer Electronics Show through?Friday?in Las Vegas, so feel free to tweet him?up?at?@wjrothman, and?join our conversation on Facebook.
While it's not fair to directly?compare Google's Nexus Q to Asus' new Google TV powered?Qube, it is difficult to not giggle at the strange geometry involved with Google related products. Circles on Google+, a sphere-shaped Nexus Q and now the Qube???which is ... cube-shaped.
The Qube has built-in motion and voice control, meaning that you can wave and yell at it to your heart's delight. And if that isn't satisfying, you can always control the Qube by rotating it?? which seems rather fun initially???or by using an Android tablet or smartphone.
There's support for Google Play, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, HBO Go, and various other apps???Chrome may be a particularly appealing app for some on this device?? as well as an included 50GB of cloud storage space.
The Qube is expected to hit shelves this spring and will cost about $150.
Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.
The amount of rainfall affects the number of infant infections leading to hydrocephalus in Uganda, according to a team of researchers who are the first to demonstrate that these brain infections are linked to climate.
Hydrocephalus -- literally "water on the brain" -- is characterized by the build-up of the fluid that is normally within and surrounding the brain, leading to brain swelling. The swelling will cause brain damage or death if not treated. Even if treated, there is only a one-third chance of a child maintaining a normal life after post-infectious hydrocephalus develops, and that chance is dependent on whether the child has received the best treatment possible.
"The most common need for a child to require neurosurgery around the world is hydrocephalus," said Steven J. Schiff, the Brush Chair Professor of Engineering, director of the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering and a team member.
In sub-Saharan Africa, upward of 100,000 cases of post-infectious hydrocephalus a year are estimated to occur. The majority of these cases occur after a newborn has suffered from neonatal sepsis, a blood infection that occurs within the first four weeks of life, the researchers reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.
Benjamin C. Warf, associate professor of neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, noticed that about three or four months after an infant in East Africa had an infection like neonatal sepsis, the child would often return to the clinic with a rapidly growing head -- hydrocephalus. Schiff joined Warf to help figure out what caused this disease so frequently.
Schiff and colleagues tracked 696 hydrocephalus cases in Ugandan infants between the years 2000 and 2005. The researchers obtained localized rainfall data for the same time frame through NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather satellites using the African Rainfall Estimation Algorithm developed at the U.S. NOAA Climate Prediction Center.
Uganda has two peak rainfall seasons, in spring and fall. By comparing the data from NOAA and the hydrocephalus cases, the researchers found that instances of the disorder rose significantly at four different times throughout the year -- before and after the peak of each rainy season, when the amount of rainfall was at intermediate levels. In Uganda an intermediate rainfall is about 6 inches of rain per month.
Schiff and colleagues previously noted that different bacteria appear associated with post-infectious hydrocephalus at different seasons of the year. While the researchers have not yet characterized the full spectrum of bacteria causing hydrocephalus in so many infants, they note that environmental conditions affect conditions supporting bacterial growth, and that the amount of rain can quench bacterial infections. The moisture level clearly affects the number of cases of hydrocephalus in this region of East Africa.
"Hydrocephalus is the first major neurosurgical condition linked to climate," said Schiff, who is also professor of neurosurgery, engineering science and mechanics, and physics, and a faculty member of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. "This means that a substantial component of these cases are almost certainly driven from the environmental conditions, and that means they are potentially preventable if we understand the routes and mechanisms of infection better."
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Penn State: http://live.psu.edu
Thanks to Penn State for this article.
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Iran is reportedly developing ?intelligent software? that will allow government officials to control access to social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, letting Iranians access those networks in a government-approved fashion.
The idea of the controlling software seems to be allowing Iranian citizens to use social media for government-approved purposes while prohibiting citizens from using it to spread messages of dissent or organize protests.
News of the software was first reported by a local Iranian outlet, then picked up by the Agence France-Presse.
?Smart control of social networks will not only avoid their disadvantages, but will also allow people to benefit from their useful aspects,? police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghadam told the 7Sobh daily as quoted by the AFP. ?The designing of intelligent software to control social networking websites? is in the works, he added.
Iran?s ?online police? have already been monitoring online communications since at least 2011. Iran?s government has repeatedly blocked access to foreign services such as Gmail, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, though many Iranians use Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology to breeze past the barrier and get online.
Twitter, among other networks, was a popular organizational and messaging tool during Iran?s ?Green Revolution? of 2009-2010.
Iran has also been working on a ?national intranet? for several months. The idea? Cut ties with the global Internet as much as possible while still preserving the ability to use Internet-style communications for doing business within the country.
The United States, meanwhile, has been actively working to help Iranians get online.
Iran?s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?s office recently set up a Facebook account.
Do governments have an interest in policing the Internet? Or should citizens be allowed unfettered access to the web? Share your thoughts in the comments.
[Editor's note:? With the hiring cycle seven days old and only two head-coaching jobs filled, we thought it would make sense to wipe the slate clean and provide a fresh, one-stop update as to all current vacancies.]
Arizona Cardinals:? Looking for both a coach and a G.M., the Cardinals have interviewed defensive coordinator Ray Horton and Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy.? They plan to interview Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden.? The Cardinals also sought permission to interview Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley, but to date Haley has not accepted.? Cardinals V.P. of player personnel Steve Keim is regarded as the leading candidate to be promoted to the position of G.M.
Buffalo Bills:? The Bills hired Syracuse coach Doug Marrone.
Carolina Panthers:? The Panthers announced coach Ron Rivera will return.
Chicago Bears:? G.M. Phil Emery continues to pursue a wide variety of candidates, most of which have offensive backgrounds.? They include Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy, Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman, Texans offensive coordinator Rick Dennison, Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, Falcons special-teams coordinator Keith Armstrong, Buccaneers offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan, Saints offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, Cowboys special-teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis, Packers offensive coordinator Tom Clements, and Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell.? (It eventually will be easier to list the offensive coordinators whom the Bears haven?t interviewed.)
Cleveland Browns:? With Chip Kelly out of the mix, the Browns have ?rebooted? their search.? Currently, the Browns are looking at Cardinals defensive coordinator Ray Horton, former Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt, Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, and Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman.
Jacksonville Jaguars:? Candidates for the vacant G.M. job include Falcons director of player personnel Dave Caldwell, Cardinals V.P. of player personnel Steve Keim, 49ers director of player personnel Tom Gamble, and Giants director of college scouting Marc Ross.? There have been conflicting reports regarding whether coach Mike Mularkey will be retained; it?s believed that the next G.M. will make a final decision.
Kansas City Chiefs:? The Chiefs have hired coach Andy Reid.? Packers director of operations John Dorsey and former Browns G.M. Tom Heckert are among the candidates to replace Scott Pioli as G.M.
New York Jets:? 49ers director of player personnel Tom Gamble is believed to be the leading candidate.? Other candidates include Giants director of college scouting Marc Ross and Falcons director of player personnel Dave Caldwell.
Philadelphia Eagles:? With Chip Kelly opting to stay at Oregon, the Eagles? current candidates include Falcons defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, Falcons special-teams coordinator Keith Armstrong, Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, and Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy.? The Eagles also are reportedly interested in Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden.
San Diego Chargers:? Chargers director of player personnel Jimmy Raye and Colts vice president of football operations Tom Telesco are considered to be the top candidates for the G.M. job.?? Coaching candidates include Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, but that process won?t get rolling until the Chargers have a new G.M.
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Lost luggage is a seemingly unavoidable inevitability for the frequent traveller. Millions of bags either get left behind, sent to the wrong city or simply disappear completely every year. GlobaTrac has created Trakdot Luggage to give the constant flyer a little more of a sense of security. The palm-sized plastic device slips discreetly into your duffle or suitcase and updates the owner on its location via an app, SMS, email or the Trakdot website. Sadly the apps are not live in Play or the iTunes app store, so we can't tell you much about their functionality, outside of some specialized alerts that are promised, like a notification when your bag hits the claim carrosel. On the site you can set up customized text and email notifications or view location pins via Google Maps.
The preproduction box we handled was stunningly light, though we wouldn't be surprised if the device packed on a little weight when the final version hits shelves in March. Rather than rely on battery draining GPS, the Trakdot Luggage relies on a quad-band GSM chip and triangulation, which allows it to last up to two weeks on a fresh pair of AAs, which are generously included in the packaging. The Trakdot luggage will $49.95, though a one time activation fee of $8.99 and an annual service fee of $12.99 will be required to keep it functional. Check out the gallery below and the PR after the break for more.
One step up in Epson's line from the Editors' Choice Epson WorkForce WF-3520, the Epson WorkForce WF-3540?is similar to its less expensive sibling in most ways, but more appropriate for a different level of use.?Both of these inkjet MFPs are aimed primarily at busy micro or small offices. But where the WF-3520 is also a reasonable choice for a personal or home office printer, it's hard to picture the WF-3540 in that role. It offers double the paper capacity, making it far more likely to wind up as a shared printer in a micro or small office with particularly heavy-duty needs. That's enough to put it in a different category, where it's also an Editors' Choice.
Aside from paper capacity, the two models are functionally nearly identical. As with the WF-3520, the WF-3540 offers Ethernet and Wi-Fi for easy sharing on a network. It also offers the same basic MFP features, starting with printing and faxing from, as well as scanning to a computer, including over a network, and working as a standalone copier and fax machine. Other useful conveniences include printing from and scanning to a USB memory key and printing directly from a PictBridge camera.
As with the WF-3520 also, the WF-3540 supports printing through the cloud, assuming the printer is connected to your network, and it supports Apple AirPrint for printing over Wi-Fi. Unlike the WF-3520, it adds support for Wi-Fi Direct, which lets you connect to the printer even if you don't have a Wi-Fi access point on your network.
Paper Handling and Printer Size The single most important difference between the two models is the WF-3540's higher paper capacity, at 500 sheets. With two 250-sheet drawers, it's easy to keep two kinds of paper loaded, for easy switching between, say, legal and letter size. Alternatively, you can load the same paper in both drawers and set the printer to switch to the second drawer when the first runs out. Beyond that, the WF-3540 includes a duplexer (for two-sided printing), and a single-sheet manual feed.
For scanning, the printer offers a letter-size flatbed and a 30-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that can handle up to legal-size pages. And since the ADF also duplexes, scanning one side and then turning the page over, you can use it in combination with duplex printing to copy both single- and double-sided documents to your choice of single- or double-sided copies.
As you might expect from its paper capacity, the WF-3540 is a little big to share a desk with. However, at 12.1 by 17.7 by 22.2 inches (HWD) with the paper tray fully open, it's surprisingly compact for its level of paper handling. It's worth mention also that the printer body is only 16.8 inches deep, so it shouldn't be hard to find enough room for it even in a small office.
Setup and Speed Setup is standard fare. For my tests, I connected the printer to a wired network and installed the drivers and software on a Windows Vista system.
I timed the printer on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 4.5 pages per minute (ppm). That counts as tied with the WF-3520, which isn't surprising, since Epson rates both printers at the same speed. More significantly, it makes the WF-3540 fast for the price. For comparison, the Canon Pixma MG6220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-in-One managed only 2.9 ppm, and the Editors' Choice HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-One, came at 3.4 ppm. Photo speed was also reasonably fast, averaging 1 minute 12 seconds for a 4 by 6.
Output Quality and Other Issues Output quality for the WF-3540 is a mixed bag, with the printer scoring reasonably well for an inkjet with graphics and photos, but with text near the low end of the scale for an inkjet, although still good enough for most purposes. Unless you have a particularly critical eye or an unusual need for small fonts, you shouldn't have any complaints about the text.
Graphics quality was at the high end of the range that includes the vast majority of inkjet MFPs, making the output good enough for virtually any business use, including PowerPoint handouts or the like going to important clients or customers. Depending on your level of perfectionism, you may consider it suitable for marketing materials, like trifold brochures.
Photo quality in my tests was good enough for most business purposes as well, and roughly equivalent to what you might expect from drugstore prints. Also worth mention is that despite the similarities between the WF-3540 and the Epson WF-3520, the WF-3520 scored a touch better for text quality on our tests, while the WF-3540 scored better for graphics and photos. The differences may simply be a matter of individual variation from one unit to the next, but they were enough to be noticeable for all three types of output.
One other feature that demands mention is the WF-3540's 3.5-inch color touch-screen control panel, which is a welcome improvement over the Epson WF-3520's smaller LCD plus buttons. Although there no functional difference between the two, the touch screen is easier to use and another addition that helps make the WF-3540 worth the higher price.
As with the Epson WF-3520, finally, although the WF-3540's level of output quality takes a little of the shine off the printer, there's plenty here to make up the difference, from the long list of MFP features to fast printing to the easy-to-use touch screen control panel. Add in the excellent paper handling, and the Epson Workforce WF-3540 is an easy pick for Editors' Choice for a micro or small office with suitably heavy-duty needs.
The final contingent of reinforcements under current deployment plans, a group of around forty soldiers from Cameroon, departs by truck after arriving to bolster the multinational central-african regional force known as FOMAC which now numbers around a thousand troops, at the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Facing an insurgency by a new rebel coalition, Central African Republic President Bozize consolidated military power under his control Thursday after dismissing his own son as acting defense minister along with his army chief of staff. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
The final contingent of reinforcements under current deployment plans, a group of around forty soldiers from Cameroon, departs by truck after arriving to bolster the multinational central-african regional force known as FOMAC which now numbers around a thousand troops, at the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Facing an insurgency by a new rebel coalition, Central African Republic President Bozize consolidated military power under his control Thursday after dismissing his own son as acting defense minister along with his army chief of staff. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
A Chadian soldier fighting in support of Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, sits on a truck in a convoy of other Chadian soldiers near Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. After troops under Bozize seized the capital in 2003 amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, he dissolved the constitution and parliament, and now a decade later it is Bozize himself who could be ousted from power with rebels having seized more than half the country and made their way to the doorstep of the capital in less than a month. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
FILE - A Saturday, Dec. 8, 2012 photo from files showing Malians demonstrating in favor of an international military intervention to regain control of the country's Islamist-controlled north, in Bamako, Mali. The placard at center reads 'No negotiation with the rebels in the north.' Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries many Americans would struggle to find on a map are both gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. So why are neighbors rushing troops into Central African Republic after only a few weeks, while Mali is still awaiting military help from its region nearly one year after its political chaos began? (AP Photo/Harouna Traore, File)
FILE - A Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 photo from files showing a man carrying a sign reading "No to the destructive soldiers of ECOWAS" as Malians opposed to a military intervention to retake Mali's Islamist-controlled north march in the streets of the capital, Bamako, Mali. Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries many Americans would struggle to find on a map are both gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. So why are neighbors rushing troops into Central African Republic after only a few weeks, while Mali is still awaiting military help from its region nearly one year after its political chaos began? (AP Photo/Harouna Traore, File)
The final contingent of reinforcements under current deployment plans, a group of around forty soldiers from Cameroon, departs by truck after arriving to bolster the multinational central-african regional force known as FOMAC which now numbers around a thousand troops, at the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Facing an insurgency by a new rebel coalition, Central African Republic President Bozize consolidated military power under his control Thursday after dismissing his own son as acting defense minister along with his army chief of staff. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) ? Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries are gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. Neighboring countries are rushing troops into Central African Republic only a few weeks after rebels started taking towns but Mali's government is still awaiting foreign military help nearly one year after the situation there began unraveling. Here's a look at why there's been quick action in one country, and not in the other.
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THE INSURGENTS
The simple answer lies in the vastly different challenges faced by intervention forces. Northern Mali is home to al-Qaida-linked militants who are stocking weapons and possess stores of Russian-made arms from former Malian army bases as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The local and foreign jihadists there are digging in and training forces in preparation for jihad and to repel an invasion. Central African Republic, by contrast, is dealing with home-grown rebels who are far less organized and have less sophisticated weapons.
The numbers of troops being sent to Central African Republic are relatively small ? Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon are each sending about 120 soldiers. The rebels stopped their advances toward the capital on Dec. 29, perhaps at least in part because of the presence of the foreign troops who have threatened to counterattack if the rebels move closer to Bangui, the capital. In Mali, it will take far more than the 3,000 African troops initially proposed for a military operation to be successful in ousting the militants, analysts say.
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THE MISSION
The military objectives are also a stark contrast. In Central African Republic, neighboring nations have a mandate to help stabilize the region between rebel-held towns and the part of the country that is under government control. The intervention force will fire back if fired upon, but so far are not being asked to retake the towns already in rebel hands.
The mission in Mali that foreign forces are slowly gearing up for is far more ambitious. It involves trying to take back a piece of land larger than Texas or France where militants are imposing strict Islamic law, or Shariah. Making things even more complicated there: A military coup last year that created chaos and enabled the rebels to more easily take territory has left the country with a weak federal government and the country's military with a broken command-and-control structure, and with its leaders reluctant to give real power to the civilians.
"In Mali you have a very undefined mission. What does it mean to retake the country and give it back to government forces that were not able to hold it in the first place?" noted Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Central African Republic's situation "is a more limited, defined and frankly somewhat easier mission in the military sense," she said.
___
THE TERRAIN
Northern Mali is a scorching desert that is unfamiliar to many of the troops who would be coming from the West African regional bloc of countries known as ECOWAS. By contrast, Central African Republic's neighbors already have been pulled into past rebellions in the country.
Chadian forces helped propel President Francois Bozize into power in 2003 and they have assisted him in putting down past rebellions here.
"These forces ? particularly the Chadians ? have been there before," Cooke said. "They know the players, they have an interlocutor in Bozize however fragile he is. This is familiar territory to them."
The Economic Community of Central African States, or ECCAS, also already had established a peacekeeping force in Central African Republic known as MICOPAX.
"From the beginning, they knew that they needed to have troops on the ground. MICOPAX was already there, had already been deployed there. There was already a structure in place," said Thierry Vircoulon, project director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.
___
DIFFERING MOTIVATIONS
The rebels in Central African Republic are made up of four separate groups all known by their French acronyms ? UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK. They are collectively known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, but have previously fought one another. For instance, in September 2011 fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead and more than 700 homes destroyed. Insurgent leaders say a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army wasn't fully implemented and are demanding payments to former combatants among other things. Rebel groups also feel the government has neglected their home areas in the north and particularly the northeast, said Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service.
In northern Mali, the Islamist rebels are motivated in large part by religion. Al-Qaida fighters chant Quranic verses under the Sahara sun , displaying deep, ideological commitment. They consider north Mali as "Islamic territory" and say they will fight to the death to defend it. They also want to use the territory to expand the reach of al-Qaida-linked groups to other countries. This would seem to make other countries more motivated to intervene in Mali than in Central African Republic, but the challenges are so steep and convoluted that an intervention mission is still on the drawing board.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Saturday warned Iraq against sectarian extremism after two weeks of protests by Sunni Muslims against Baghdad's Shi'ite-led government.
The street protests across Iraq's Sunni heartland have strained the Arab state's fragile political balance and renewed fears of intensified sectarian strife.
"We are convinced that Iraq will not stabilize until it starts handling issues without sectarian extremism... Until these issues are addressed, we don't think there will ever be stability in Iraq, which pains us," Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh.
Iraq's Arab majority is mostly Shi'ite but the country was dominated by Sunnis under former strongman Saddam Hussein and much of the fighting since he was deposed has fallen along sectarian lines.
Sunni Saudi Arabia has a tense relationship with Baghdad and senior princes have previously described Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as being in hock to Shi'ite Iran, in comments to U.S. diplomats released by WikiLeaks.
Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, is locked in a struggle for regional influence with fellow OPEC-member Iran, backing opposing sides in Syria and Lebanon, where Shi'ite parties are allied to Tehran.
Riyadh also accuses Tehran of fomenting unrest in Bahrain and Yemen, and of instigating protests among Saudi Arabia's own Shi'ite minority, charges Iran denies.
Former Saudi intelligence head Prince Muqrin described Maliki as "an Iranian 100 percent" in comments to visiting U.S. officials relayed in a July 2008 embassy cable released by the WikiLeaks website.
(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
KITCHENER ? Dog adoptions have been halted temporarily at the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society while two puppies that came down with diarrhea are treated.
The measure was taken Wednesday after staff isolated the two puppies who were brought in a week before Christmas from a rural area, said Jack Kinch, the humane society?s executive director.
It isn?t yet clear what caused the diarrhea. Kinch said it could be a change in food, the stress of adjusting to the humane society environment, or parvovirus, a highly contagious disease that most often affects puppies.
The humane society inoculated other dogs kept in pens near the puppies if there was any doubt they had previously had shots.
The puppies are under a vet?s care.
?Rather than put other dogs at risk we?ve suspended adoptions,?? Kinch said. ?We want to protect them and the rest of the population.??
He expects adoptions will reopen by the weekend.
Cats are not at risk, he said.
Any animals that come into the shelter aren?t released for adoption for five days. That provides time for owners to reclaim their pets, Kinch said.
During that period, animals are checked by a veterinarian and staff members monitor their health and behaviour.
Last summer, the humane society was forced to close its doors to the public for several weeks following a suspected ringworm outbreak. Ringworm is a fungus that causes skin infection and loss of fur on animals. It can be passed to humans.
Three cats and a dog were euthanized to protect the rest of the animals. The society spent more than $50,000 to manage and treat the disease. It lost more than $40,000 in adoption revenue.
Kinch said it?s not rare to isolate dogs due to suspicion of parvovirus.
?In the rural community, we find that animals ? are more likely to be exposed to certain things than animals from an urban community,?? he said. ?Farm dogs usually receive a different level of vet care than house dogs.??
Before releasing dogs for adoption, the society tests them to ensure they interact well with other animals and people, Kinch said.
?We will not knowingly adopt out an animal that?s aggressive or unsafe to be around people,?? he said.
At a moment when many angry Indians are demanding that the rapists of a young woman who died this week be hung, one group encourages women to tackle social attitudes.
By Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar,?Correspondent / January 4, 2013
An Indian student shouts slogans seeking punishment for rapists of the 23-year-old student, during a protest in Bangalore, India, Friday.
Aijaz Rahi/AP
Enlarge
Among the many anti-rape protests that have been held in Indian cities over the past few weeks, something has stood out at a demonstration this week: Protest signs that didn?t cry shame or call for the death penalty, but pledged personal action.
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?I pledge to intervene when I see a woman being harassed,? read one slogan on signs held by both men and women on New Year's Day. Another sign held by a young woman read, ?I pledge to stare back.??
The ?Safe City Pledge? demonstrations were organized by?a collective called Blank Noise, which has been talking about sexual harassment in India for almost a decade now.
It is that long experience, says founder Jasmeen Patheja, that accounts for their unusual slogans. Amid the calls for better policing to prevent violent crime against women, the group wanted to also highlight how everyone contributes to ? and can thus help change ? a culture of sexism.
?It?s easy to blame the government and the police, but they also represent certain social mindsets, attitudes that we may be perpetuating,? Ms. Patheja says.
In recent weeks, some of those attitudes have been on display as political and civic leaders have faulted Westernization (read: sexual permissiveness) for violence against women.
On Friday, a leader from a Hindu nationalist party said that rapes ?happen in India, not Bharat? (the Hindi name for the country), while another suggested that women are being punished for ?crossing the line.? A survey from earlier this year showed that a fair chunk of both Indian men and women believed that wife beating was acceptable. ? ? ? ? ??
A younger, urban generation isn?t necessarily free from these attitudes either. ?We may all contribute to the problem in invisible ways,? Patheja says. ?When we say ?Boys will be boys,? or when we share sexist jokes or make mothers and sisters part of [curse words].?
One of the most common problems that Indian women face is harassment in public spaces.
?Eve teasing,? the lighthearted term used for everything from lewd comments to groping to stalking, is so routine that when Patheja started Blank Noise as part of a virtual project at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore in 2003, she found few of her peers wanted to talk about it.
?There was a sense that it was just part of life, that there was nothing you could do about it,? she says. ? ? ? ? ???
Patheja and others started a blog to provide an anonymous space for women to share their experiences. They also began organizing public events. The idea was not to be an advocacy group, says Patheja, but to ?trigger a public dialogue that wasn?t didactic, through a series of approaches both blog-based and on-the-ground interventions.? Blank Noise also encouraged young women to confront street harassment in an effort to ?reclaim the city.?
That approach challenges the conventional idea that women should protect themselves by staying away from the public sphere, and a recent trend among the Indian middle-class to segregate themselves from chaotic urban environments through gated communities and private transport. Signs at Tuesday?s demonstration included pledges to ?use public transport even when private transport was available.?
Today, the Blank Noise project has a presence across nine cities, hundreds of volunteers and a large Facebook presence, though getting boots on the ground remains a challenge. More than 10,000 people were invited via Facebook to take part in Tuesday?s protest across the country.
In Mumbai, about 30 showed up. ?It?s easier to click ?like? and more difficult to get out on the street,? says Patheja. ?But we don?t worry much about that anymore. Even that one click means that someone has decided to engage.??
What is most important, she suggests, is the change she has seen in the past decade. Last month, the supreme court called for wide-ranging measures to curb harassment in public places.? ?There is now a greater willingness to talk about the issue,? she says, ?and less of an inclination to trivialize it.?
Job growth and wage growth should be the central focus of economic policy, not deficit reduction,?Reich writes.
By Robert Reich,?Guest blogger / January 4, 2013
In this December 2012 photo a job seeker leaves his contact information with a potential employer during a job fair in New York. We?re a very long way from the job growth we need to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession, Reich writes.
Mary Altaffer/AP/File
Enlarge
The news today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is that the U.S. job market is treading water.
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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The number of new jobs created in December (155,000), and percent unemployment (7.8), were the same as the revised numbers for November.
Also, about the same number of people are looking for work (12.2 million), with additional millions too discouraged even to look.
Put simply, we?re a very long way from the job growth we need to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. That would be at least 300,000 new jobs per month.
All of which means job growth and wage growth should be the central focus of economic policy, not deficit reduction.?
All Critics (51) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (2)
"Sister" avoids sentimental indulgence. There's no room for wallowing in this spare, almost ascetic exercise ...
French-born director and co-screenwriter Ursula Meier balances the scenario's bleak, wrenching aspects with a stirring confidence in the redemptive power of love.
Seydoux perfectly captures the anger and self-defeat of ill-educated, hedonistic, man-chasing young women who live on the fringes.
L?a Seydoux fulfills Louise, and Kacey Mottet Klein, as Simon, is one more to join the pantheon of film's excellent child actors.
Haunting and sad. And absolutely worth seeing.
The chemistry between the two leads is a razor's-edge dance: feral, childish, tender and always complex.
We come away relieved and somehow chastened, the same way we might feel after having our pocket picked by a true artist.
The storytelling is exciting and the characters well-observed.
For the most part a distant film, Sister supplies a full behavioral experience that's riveting at times, with lead performances by Lea Seydoux and Kacey Mottet Klein communicating isolation in bravely vulnerable ways.
Emotionally engaging and impeccably crafted
Klein and Seydoux give such naturalistic performances that they're never overwhelmed by the spectacle.
"Sister" is loose and episodic, but held together with nicely sketched characters.
[A]voids bathos. . .reveals unexpected depth in a heartbreaking bond. . . Different classes conflict [in] adjacent spaces . . .in spare, realistic Dardennes' style.
Meier draws out wonderfully naturalistic performances from her young stars, with Mottet Klein particularly good as the young roustabout Simon ...
It comes over like a subtle short story and is well acted.
Meier's portrait of Simon ... is richly atmospheric and never sentimental.
An enigmatic, heartfelt account of a vulnerable young boy's yearning for a better life.
Most intriguing is how the writers and director have transformed what's essentially a rather dark, bleak story into something involving and emotionally resonant, all without ever turning sentimental.
It is an interesting and well-made movie, though with an uncertain ending.
Sister gradually reveals pattern in its tapestry of everyday life.
An expert piece of storytelling with a host of strong character turns and thematic depth to burn.
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Rare form of active 'jumping genes' found in mammalsPublic release date: 3-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Much of the DNA that makes up our genomes can be traced back to strange rogue sequences known as transposable elements, or jumping genes, which are largely idle in mammals. But Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified a new DNA sequence moving around in bats the first member of its class found to be active in mammals. The discovery, described in a report published in December on the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers a new means of studying evolution, and may help in developing tools for gene therapy, the research team says.
"Transposable elements are virtually everywhere in nature, from bacteria to humans," says Nancy Craig, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes investigator and professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. "They're often seen as parasites, replicating themselves and passing from generation to generation without doing anything for their hosts. But in fact they play an important role in fueling adaptation and evolution by adding variability to the genome."
As their name suggests, jumping genes can move from place to place in the genome, sometimes even inserting themselves into the middle of another gene. Some work by replicating themselves and inserting the copies into new places in the genome retroviruses such as HIV are comprised of this type of jumping gene, which enables the host cell to be hijacked to make more virus particles. Another class of jumping genes, known as "DNA cut-and-paste," doesn't make copies, but instead cuts itself out of one site in the genome before hopping into another. Craig explains that in mammal genomes, most jumping genes are of the copy-and-paste variety, and most of these are fossils, mutated to the point where they can no longer move about. Although some remnants of cut-and-paste jumping genes have been unearthed in mammals, until now, all of them have been inactive.
Craig's team made its discovery while studying piggyBac, an active cut-and-paste jumping gene from insects. PiggyBac got its name because it hitched a ride from one host to another on a virus. While studying how the jumping gene works, the researchers also used computational methods to search for piggyBac-like DNA sequences in the genomes of some species, including that of the little brown bat. There they found a sequence similar to piggyBac, one that didn't appear to have collected mutations that would make it inactive. Sure enough, near-identical copies were sprinkled throughout the genome, indicating that the sequence had jumped relatively recently. Craig named the find piggyBat. Her team also found that piggyBat can move within bat cells, other mammalian cells and yeast, showing that it is indeed a still-active DNA element.
Many organisms have developed systems to decrease the frequency at which jumping genes move, Craig says. Such systems are a component of immunity, protecting mammals from retroviruses, as well as from the risk that jumping genes will wreak havoc by interrupting an important gene.
Over time, the protective systems have made most mammalian jumping genes inactive. The finding that a bat species is host to an exception, combined with the fact that bats are particularly susceptible to viruses, may indicate that the systems that protect us from dangerous genetic material are not as well-developed in bats, Craig says. But whatever the reason for its presence, piggyBat "opens up a window for studying jumping gene regulation in a mammal where the element is still active," she says.
This future research should yield insights on the workings of jumping genes themselves, as well as on the protective systems that keep them in check, Craig says. Ultimately, her group hopes to custom-design jumping genes that can be used for targeted, safe and effective gene therapy, delivering genes needed to treat disease.
###
Other authors on the paper are Rupak Mitra, Ph.D., and Xianghong Lia, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Aurlie Kapusta, Ph.D., and Cdric Feschotte, Ph.D., of the University of Utah School of Medicine; and David Mayhew and Robi D. Mitra, Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number R01DA025744), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant number 1R01NS076993), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant number GM077582) and the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.
Link to the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/12/13/1217548110
Q&A with Nancy Craig: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/institute_basic_biomedical_sciences/about_us/scientists/nancy_craig.html
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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.
Rare form of active 'jumping genes' found in mammalsPublic release date: 3-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Much of the DNA that makes up our genomes can be traced back to strange rogue sequences known as transposable elements, or jumping genes, which are largely idle in mammals. But Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified a new DNA sequence moving around in bats the first member of its class found to be active in mammals. The discovery, described in a report published in December on the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers a new means of studying evolution, and may help in developing tools for gene therapy, the research team says.
"Transposable elements are virtually everywhere in nature, from bacteria to humans," says Nancy Craig, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes investigator and professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. "They're often seen as parasites, replicating themselves and passing from generation to generation without doing anything for their hosts. But in fact they play an important role in fueling adaptation and evolution by adding variability to the genome."
As their name suggests, jumping genes can move from place to place in the genome, sometimes even inserting themselves into the middle of another gene. Some work by replicating themselves and inserting the copies into new places in the genome retroviruses such as HIV are comprised of this type of jumping gene, which enables the host cell to be hijacked to make more virus particles. Another class of jumping genes, known as "DNA cut-and-paste," doesn't make copies, but instead cuts itself out of one site in the genome before hopping into another. Craig explains that in mammal genomes, most jumping genes are of the copy-and-paste variety, and most of these are fossils, mutated to the point where they can no longer move about. Although some remnants of cut-and-paste jumping genes have been unearthed in mammals, until now, all of them have been inactive.
Craig's team made its discovery while studying piggyBac, an active cut-and-paste jumping gene from insects. PiggyBac got its name because it hitched a ride from one host to another on a virus. While studying how the jumping gene works, the researchers also used computational methods to search for piggyBac-like DNA sequences in the genomes of some species, including that of the little brown bat. There they found a sequence similar to piggyBac, one that didn't appear to have collected mutations that would make it inactive. Sure enough, near-identical copies were sprinkled throughout the genome, indicating that the sequence had jumped relatively recently. Craig named the find piggyBat. Her team also found that piggyBat can move within bat cells, other mammalian cells and yeast, showing that it is indeed a still-active DNA element.
Many organisms have developed systems to decrease the frequency at which jumping genes move, Craig says. Such systems are a component of immunity, protecting mammals from retroviruses, as well as from the risk that jumping genes will wreak havoc by interrupting an important gene.
Over time, the protective systems have made most mammalian jumping genes inactive. The finding that a bat species is host to an exception, combined with the fact that bats are particularly susceptible to viruses, may indicate that the systems that protect us from dangerous genetic material are not as well-developed in bats, Craig says. But whatever the reason for its presence, piggyBat "opens up a window for studying jumping gene regulation in a mammal where the element is still active," she says.
This future research should yield insights on the workings of jumping genes themselves, as well as on the protective systems that keep them in check, Craig says. Ultimately, her group hopes to custom-design jumping genes that can be used for targeted, safe and effective gene therapy, delivering genes needed to treat disease.
###
Other authors on the paper are Rupak Mitra, Ph.D., and Xianghong Lia, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Aurlie Kapusta, Ph.D., and Cdric Feschotte, Ph.D., of the University of Utah School of Medicine; and David Mayhew and Robi D. Mitra, Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number R01DA025744), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant number 1R01NS076993), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant number GM077582) and the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.
Link to the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/12/13/1217548110
Q&A with Nancy Craig: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/institute_basic_biomedical_sciences/about_us/scientists/nancy_craig.html
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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.
Kristen Bell is suing the owners of a Los Angeles tequila bar for breach of contract. The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” actress filed the lawsuit against the Meridian Restaurant group on Friday after investing $20,000 into the company’s bar L’Scorpion in July 2005. The 32-year-old actress, along with four other investors in the bar, claims the ...
?I love Las Vegas.? I love New Media.? What?s not to love?? ? Guy Kawasaki
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Public release date: 3-Jan-2013
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