In the wake of the recent discussions about copyright sparked by Pinterest’s Terms of Service , I thought it would be informative to answer the question, “How do artists protect their work online?”
Here are the answers from a spectrum of science-artists.
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Public release date: 30-Mar-2012
Share ] Contact: Toni Baker
tbaker@georgiahealth.edu
706-721-4421
Georgia Health Sciences University
AUGUSTA, Ga. Researchers want to help the Army better camouflage its soldiers and break the enemy's efforts to hide.
"We want to make our camouflage unbreakable and we want to break the camouflage of the enemy," said Dr. Jay Hegde, neuroscientist in the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.
Hegde and GHSU Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Xing Chen are using a relatively simple technique they developed to teach civilian volunteers to break camouflage. They flash a series of camouflage pictures on a computer screen, providing about a half second after each to spot, for instance, a face in a sea of mushrooms. A green light signals a correct answer and a red light signals an incorrect answer. The computer-generated images include distractions to make the difficult task even more challenging.
They are finding that an hour of daily training in as little as two weeks results in proficiency for 60 percent of the mostly college and graduate school students who have signed up for their training. The Army's current approach is taking soldiers into battlefield situations to hone these skills.
As part of a three-year grant from the Office of Army Research, the researchers want to determine which parts of the brain light up when trained snipers break camouflage.
"We need to figure out how the expert camouflage-breakers do it," Hegde said. "We want to figure out what parts of the brain are most responsive when people break camouflage and, a related experiment is what part of the brain changes its response when people learn to break camouflage." Their techniques include functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure blood flow activity as an indicator of brain cell activity.
Figuring out which parts of the brain are involved could give the Army and others a better way to identify future first-rate snipers and objectively assess instructional efforts.
"If you are the Dean of the Army Sniper Corps and want to develop top-notch snipers, you don't want to spend a year training them before giving up on half of them," Hegde said. A brain scan could help signal whose relevant areas are well developed and, consequently, have natural skill.
Early evidence points toward two regions of the temporal lobe, found on either side of the brain and known to have a role in speech and vision. A region called the fusiform gyrus which plays a role in facial recognition and lights up when people become experts at recognizing various objects, such as a particular bird species may be important in breaking camouflage as well.
Hegde suspects that expertise at breaking camouflage stems from the fusiform gyrus in combination with some other area(s) of the brain. And, because good recognition skills don't typically translate from one area to another, he also suspects that the parts of the brain involved vary with the object of their attention. For example, the ability to easily recognize the make and model of a car doesn't guarantee skill at breaking camouflage and Hegde notes that some military snipers aren't good at game-hunting.
Vision happens when light enters the retina where photoreceptor cells turn it into signals that are interpreted by the brain. "If there is a whole lot of light falling on them, they send a lot of signals, beep, beep, beep," he said in rapid succession. "If there is a little bit of light they fire slowly." The brain connects the dots to form a familiar face or landscape. Camouflage complicates the task the difference between recognizing a mountain goat against a clear blue sky and finding a moth among a pile of fall leaves.
"Here is the beautiful thing that we are finding out: if you know what you are looking for, the next time you can break the camouflage of the moth. Without knowing what you are looking for, the picture also is ambiguous," Hegde said.
###
Hegde also is a faculty member in the GHSU College of Graduate Studies and Vision Discovery Institute.
[ | 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: 30-Mar-2012 Share ] Contact: Toni Baker
tbaker@georgiahealth.edu
706-721-4421
Georgia Health Sciences University
AUGUSTA, Ga. Researchers want to help the Army better camouflage its soldiers and break the enemy's efforts to hide.
"We want to make our camouflage unbreakable and we want to break the camouflage of the enemy," said Dr. Jay Hegde, neuroscientist in the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.
Hegde and GHSU Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Xing Chen are using a relatively simple technique they developed to teach civilian volunteers to break camouflage. They flash a series of camouflage pictures on a computer screen, providing about a half second after each to spot, for instance, a face in a sea of mushrooms. A green light signals a correct answer and a red light signals an incorrect answer. The computer-generated images include distractions to make the difficult task even more challenging.
They are finding that an hour of daily training in as little as two weeks results in proficiency for 60 percent of the mostly college and graduate school students who have signed up for their training. The Army's current approach is taking soldiers into battlefield situations to hone these skills.
As part of a three-year grant from the Office of Army Research, the researchers want to determine which parts of the brain light up when trained snipers break camouflage.
"We need to figure out how the expert camouflage-breakers do it," Hegde said. "We want to figure out what parts of the brain are most responsive when people break camouflage and, a related experiment is what part of the brain changes its response when people learn to break camouflage." Their techniques include functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure blood flow activity as an indicator of brain cell activity.
Figuring out which parts of the brain are involved could give the Army and others a better way to identify future first-rate snipers and objectively assess instructional efforts.
"If you are the Dean of the Army Sniper Corps and want to develop top-notch snipers, you don't want to spend a year training them before giving up on half of them," Hegde said. A brain scan could help signal whose relevant areas are well developed and, consequently, have natural skill.
Early evidence points toward two regions of the temporal lobe, found on either side of the brain and known to have a role in speech and vision. A region called the fusiform gyrus which plays a role in facial recognition and lights up when people become experts at recognizing various objects, such as a particular bird species may be important in breaking camouflage as well.
Hegde suspects that expertise at breaking camouflage stems from the fusiform gyrus in combination with some other area(s) of the brain. And, because good recognition skills don't typically translate from one area to another, he also suspects that the parts of the brain involved vary with the object of their attention. For example, the ability to easily recognize the make and model of a car doesn't guarantee skill at breaking camouflage and Hegde notes that some military snipers aren't good at game-hunting.
Vision happens when light enters the retina where photoreceptor cells turn it into signals that are interpreted by the brain. "If there is a whole lot of light falling on them, they send a lot of signals, beep, beep, beep," he said in rapid succession. "If there is a little bit of light they fire slowly." The brain connects the dots to form a familiar face or landscape. Camouflage complicates the task the difference between recognizing a mountain goat against a clear blue sky and finding a moth among a pile of fall leaves.
"Here is the beautiful thing that we are finding out: if you know what you are looking for, the next time you can break the camouflage of the moth. Without knowing what you are looking for, the picture also is ambiguous," Hegde said.
###
Hegde also is a faculty member in the GHSU College of Graduate Studies and Vision Discovery Institute.
[ | 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.
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?It?s a topic that really emerged in the last two years. You can?t pull it from their hands,? Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children?s Technology Review, said this week at a New York panel titled ?Baby Brains and Video Games.?
According to a late 2011 survey of 2,200 parents and children in Britain and the United States, 15 percent of kids between three and eight had used their parents? iPad. Nine percent had their own iPad, while 20 percent had their own iPod.
The same study, by the marketing agency Kids Industries, found 77 percent of parents believed that using tablets was beneficial for their children and the same number thought the gadgets helped develop creativity.
Amid warnings from some researchers that tablets can cause developmental difficulties and problems including autism or attention deficit disorder, experts at the forum recommended not rushing to judgment.
?Technology maybe fosters some things and dampens others,? Rosemarie Truglio, from the children?s TV producers Sesame Workshop, said. ?It?s definitely about balance.?
Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the New American Foundation, said that critics blaming devices like the iPad for child developmental problems should differentiate ?between a cause and an association.?
Still, Guernsey, author of ?Screen Time: How Electronic Media ? From Baby Videos to Educational Software ? Affects Your Young Child,? urged parents to establish limits on use of electronic devices.
?Can they focus on a conversation, not look a screen for 30 minutes?? she asked.
Truglio noted that ?researchers have proven they need adult-child interaction,? in addition to the electronic helper. ?Interactive doesn?t mean educational,? she said.
Annie Murphy Paul, author of ?How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives,? said there?s no need to panic.
?Your brain is changing all the time, each time you learn something new,? she said.
But Paul said she strictly controls her own offspring?s access to such devices and remains concerned ?about the value? for small children.
For Buckleitner, it?s all a question of balance. Don?t let the iPad become an electronic babysitter. But it can be ?a shelf of toys. It could be a lot things,? she said. ?Trust your gut.?
(c) 2012 AFP
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Robert and Sharon Carver (WILLIAM BERRY/staff)
?He never met a stranger.?
That?s how Robbie Carver describes his dad, Robert, of Carver?s Country Kitchen. Robert Carver passed away recently after a battle with pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed last December.
Most people remember Robert smiling and joking at the cash register each day at this homey meat-and-three. Robbie laughs, ?He couldn?t cook a lick.? Those duties were left in the hands of Robert?s wife, Sharon. Yet, Robert didn?t completely escape kitchen responsibilities. His jobs included cleaning collards, peeling potatoes, prepping rutabagas and making the iced tea.
According to his son, Robert was an entrepreneur all of his life. When he moved to Atlanta from his native Douglas, Georgia in 1979, he started a small grocery store here, which became a restaurant in 1990. Somewhere along the way, Carver?s Country Kitchen gained icon status as throngs of people jostled for parking spots just to grab a helping of meatloaf or a plate of collards, mac & cheese and black eyed peas.
Each person who came through the door at Carver?s was a friend to Robert. ?He felt like he?d known them forever,? says Robbie. Therefore, the family invites those who knew and loved Robert to join them this weekend for a memorial service in his honor. ?He was so close to everyone, so we wanted to open it to everyone.?
The service will be held tomorrow, Mar. 31, at 4 p.m. at the Georgia Tech Catholic Center (172 4th St. N.W., Atlanta). Parking will be available in the lower level parking deck at the corner of 4th Street and Britton Drive. The restaurant will host a reception following the service.
Carver?s Country Kitchen has reopened for business after closing for the few days following Robert?s death. Robbie Carver is currently working at the restaurant until Sharon can return to the kitchen to serve up customer favorites.
In the words of one mourner on the restaurant?s Facebook page, ?Our cornbread is at half mast??
?by Jenny Turknett, Food and More blog
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Today's martial arts instructor is not that different from the traditional instructor who originated from the Asian societies. They are still required to express an old school philosophy where tactics, self-control, history and physical conditioning are mastered with dignity and discipline. If you are interested in this type of career, you will no doubt find that when you start to discuss the benefits of having a career as a Martial Arts Instructor Canberra, it?s hard to stop once you have started.
The art of war in those days concentrated on hand to hand combat and it was considered to be an honor to become a student of any form of martial arts. These arts were further refined using tools like swords, knives, chains, staffs, javelins and the bow and arrow.
Today we do not usually need these type of tools anymore, because the firearm has mainly taken over their role in advanced fighting. There are, however, still those individuals who are highly trained in warfare using the weapons mentioned above. They are usually employed in highly sophisticated military reconnaissance teams or as instructors in training centers.Let us not mince words, a martial arts instructor has a tough job. A typical working day would entail you doing the following:
You will need to draw up lesson plans in advance and discuss these with the center's management. Some days you will have to teach skills like warm-ups, conditioning, sparring, stretching, the history of martial arts and the philosophy underlying the discipline. You will also have to keep track of your students' progress by implementing a monitoring system.
You could, for instance, have one on one feedback sessions as well as group sessions to iron out problems they have with various moves and to instill pride and honor in your students.For you to actually teach a class of students you will need to have a good anatomical knowledge, the ability to teach others and share your knowledge in a fun but authoritative manner and you should not be shy to speak in front of an audience. You would also need a large dose of patience because your students might just be starting off learning a new skill and they would need a lot of time invested in their training. It goes without saying that your level of fitness has to be high as your students will scrutinize your actions with a fine tooth comb and keep you on your toes every minute of the session.
There will also no doubt be some administrative duties which you have to perform. These are usually set by the club or center management. Ad hoc promotions, demonstrations and advertising projects will also form part of your duty from time to time, as it is always important to sustain the promotional aspect of any business. Depending on how big your training center is, you might have to travel to other centers to present special workshops or help set up a new outlet.
Your chances of finding a job in this industry would be quite good if you not only had excellent martial arts qualifications, but also good organizational skills and some marketing abilities. This would most probably put you on a short-list of candidates to hire.
This is no doubt an extremely rewarding but challenging career to embark on. You are going to become the focal point in many people's lives. They all have different reasons for enrolling in a martial arts class. No matter what these reasons are, you will have to help with their emotional development depending on the age group of the class as well as their fitness and skills progress.
A high level of excellence and dedication is what sets the great instructor apart from the rest. He has to be prepared to walk a road with his students. Discuss the benefits of having a career as a Martial Arts Instructor Gold coast with someone in the industry. You will find that the pros far outweigh the few cons there are. It is a journey you will embark on which brings not only control and focus into your own life, but can also allow you to travel the world as you teach your gift.
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One of the effects of the recent recession is that home improvement contractors are now offering their services for considerable lower fees. This means that the cost of home improvement is not as high as it used to be and a lot of homeowners are taking advantage of it.
After you might have decided on a home improvement project for your house, the first stage is the planning stage. You need to have a clear idea of what improvements you would like to do and where everything should be. If you are adding a new patio, have a clear vision for the design of the patio and put your plans down in a concise manner. After that you will need to determine the cost of home improvement.
The cost of home improvement depends a lot on the materials that will be needed for each project. Things like the cost of wood, pipes, paint, tiles and the like all reflect on the cost of home improvement.
Therefore in determining the cost of home improvement, you need to settle on what materials you would need for the project.
Professional services will also impact on the cost of home improvement. You need to take into consideration building costs, installation and fitting prices, plumber, electrician, painters, decorators and other home improvement professionals? fees will all go into the cost of home improvement. It might be useful to find out current industry prices and the cost of materials so that you have an idea when you are planning.
On the other hand, bearing in mind that costs and prices could vary, depending on the home improvement project you are undertaking, you should get a home improvement company to handle most of your home improvement needs. The reason for this is that a home improvement company will already have the materials needed for your home improvement project and might have discounts on offer.
Furthermore, you could get cost estimates from them for the cost of materials and the cost of labor. Finally, they will have a competitive warranty program to protect you should anything go wrong with your home improvement.
Home improvement is a necessity if you are a home owner. The cost of home improvement will always depend on your budget and what sort of work you want done on your home. The projects will cost a bit of money but the cost of home improvement is seen as an investment towards the value of the house. When and if you do eventually decide to put your home on the market, your home improvement will significantly increase the value of your home.
Find More Home Improvement Articles
Source: http://www.heatrecoveryinternational.com/2012/03/30/cost-of-home-improvement/
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Posted by publisher on March 29th, 2012
Given that a great number of borrowers have much less than ideal credit score and traditional lenders for example banks are not able to underwrite their commercial real estate loans, there are several private lenders who?ve walked in to provide funds required by entrepreneurs to start out or develop their business or their need for industrial equipment financing. Many of these lenders can be found online.
Banks requires economic statements. Although your annual financial statements may not matter a lot to you nevertheless for banks, they?re deemed a wealth of details. You must not apply for finance if the economic statements you might have aren?t up to date. You must as a result prepare and obtain you accounts and figures when determining to make application for a loan.? In the past, people that desire to get started a business go to banks due to the diverse loan packages and commercial loan rates they offer you to possible borrowers.
However their needs are stringent that most loan applications get declined. At this time, banks are starting to loosen up just a little bit due to intense competition. There are various lenders on the market who are providing reasonable rates of interest and are lenient with their needs.? In quite a few situations, lenders would want you to be within the business for two years or far more just before they start out considering you for a business loan.
You will discover some lenders although requiring you to be 3-5 in operation. The cause for this is that substantial number of businesses tends to fail during the initial 5 years of operation. Also, if you have not been inside the business for at the least two years, you will not have any financial statement or tax returns of which they are going to need to appear at to estimate your cash flow. One more thing is that it takes two years or extra for a business to start off showing profits so they are able to high quality for the loans
Both comments and pings are currently closed.Source: http://thetradereview.com/2012/03/29/know-the-standard-criteria-for-commercial-loans/
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Online business is booming and continues to grow every year. Consumers buy everything from storage cabinets to imported food online. There is no stopping this trend and the sooner retailers realize it the better for them. Many large bricks-and-mortar chain store CEO?s are bemoaning the fact that they are losing revenue to online businesses such as Amazon. This kind of attitude is not helping and the only way to ensure continued company profits is to bow to consumer demand and open an online presence. Stores that have both physical properties and virtual real-estate are ideally positioned to take advantage of all customer shopping preferences.
Already existing stores are ideally positioned to take advantage of the internet boom. Stores that sell merchandise such as storage closets for instance, are in the position to easily fulfill customer orders since they already have distribution channels. Some customers prefer to pick up their storage cabinets in person at the store after ordering online, while others are willing to pay the shipping fee to have their purchase delivered. Being successful in business is all about giving the customer as many choices as possible.
Business owners can realize savings because ordering online is an easy process and can be accomplished by automated software. There is no need to deal with salespeople when the ordering software takes care of all the details. Taxes and shipping costs are immediately calculated and the order is processed very quickly. Once the order is complete it is sent to the fulfillment center where it can be shipped out to customers as soon as it is received. Most stores already have shipping and receiving areas, and if not, it is easy to implement.
Stores that offer customers a choice of shopping methods have a higher customer satisfaction and retention rate. When customers already trust a brand they continue to buy that brand especially if it is made easy for them. Not everyone wants to go to a store to choose storage cabinets and if they can do so online they will have no reason to shop at a competing website. Customers like shopping at local or national businesses that have an online presence. It gives them a feeling of safety since the store is known and if they need to return purchases they can go right to the store. Having an online presence makes sense for business owners.
Source: http://thewonderbarnj.com/?p=15
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Hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act begin on March 26. The law has yet to take full force, and key aspects, health experts argue, remain fundamentally misunderstood by the public
?| March 23, 2012?|
Image: Flickr/kokopinto
The U.S. Supreme Court is a busy place this time of year. So when the justices announced that, starting March 26, they would hear six hours of arguments on the health care reform law?the most time it has dedicated to any one case in decades?the gravitas of the issue became clear to all.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is perhaps the most profound change to health care since Medicaid was instituted in 1965. "This case deserves the hype it's getting," says Gregory Magarian, a law professor at Washington University in Saint Louis School of Law.
The case is not just a political lightning rod?and whatever decisions emerge from the Court in the early summer will likely do little to diffuse the partisan tensions around the issue. What's really at stake in the case is individuals' access to health care.
Signed into law March 23, 2010, PPACA is expected to expand access to health care to an additional 32 million uninsured people in the U.S.?unless all or part of it is struck down by the Supreme Court.
"If this law's thrown out, I think we're resigned to the status quo, which is a lot of people without access to health care for a long time," says Larry Levitt, an expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy analysis organization. "I don't think there's any question about what lack of access to health care means: people get treated later, and some people die earlier as a result."
That also means continued health care cost increases, an expenditure that already eats up some $2.6 trillion a year?about a fifth of all U.S. spending.
At issue are two major provisions: the requirement that everyone have health insurance?the so-called individual mandate?and an expansion of Medicaid benefits, which would help more people afford insurance in the first place. "If the Court rejects either or both of those, it would have far-reaching implications for how health care reform would work?or even if the law would work at all," Levitt says. With fewer people insured, premiums would become even more expensive.
One of the unusual things about the legal challenge is that most of the law's big changes have not yet gone into effect, which has muddied the debate about how it will likely affect people's lives in practice. The individual mandate, for example, is not slated to begin until 2014. As more provisions are rolled out, Magarian notes, the law's benefits for individuals will likely become clearer to many. "For a lot of people this law is going to be a desirable thing on a personal level." he says.
From a public health perspective, the only argument against the law is that it should be even more aggressive in ensuring that people have access to affordable health care, says John McDonough, a professor at Harvard University's School of Public Health.
The Court will be hearing arguments about four segments of the law over the course of three days. What is at stake for each of these issues?
Individual health
Much of the outcry about the PPACA has centered on a need to preserve individual rights?that is, no law should require that people get health coverage. But the case before the court, Magarian explains, "isn't about that at all." The question in front of the Court pertains to state rights. "I think that would surprise a lot of people." This confusion, he posits, might be behind some of the recent polls that show about two thirds of Americans favor repealing the whole law part and parcel. As Levitt points out, if the Court overturns the PPACA, the states are well within their constitutional bounds to require their residents to purchase health insurance (as they already do with auto insurance).
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=44d0eb6956c6987e58ad5996b66490a7
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PARIS (AP) ? French authorities have no evidence that al-Qaida commissioned a French gunman to go on a killing spree that left seven people dead, or that he had any contact with terrorist groups, a senior official said Friday.
France's prime minister and other officials have been fending off suggestions that anti-terrorism authorities fell down on the job in monitoring 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, who had been known to them for years before he went on three deadly shooting attacks this month from a motorcycle.
Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent, was killed in a dramatic gunfight with police Thursday after a 32-hour standoff at his Toulouse apartment with police. Prosecutors said he filmed himself carrying out the attacks that began March 11, killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers with close-range shots to the head. Another Jewish student and another paratrooper were wounded.
A senior official who is close to the investigation into Merah told The Associated Press there was no sign he had "trained or been in contact with organized groups or jihadists."
Merah had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and prosecutors said he had claimed contacts with al-Qaida and to have trained in the Pakistan militant stronghold of Waziristan. He had been on a U.S. no-fly list since 2010.
The official said Merah might have made the claim because al-Qaida is a well-known "brand." The official said authorities have "absolutely no element allowing us to believe that he was commissioned by al-Qaida to carry out these attacks."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's spy chief, meanwhile, said Friday that Merah had told negotiators that he only attacked the Jewish school after missing his original target ? a French soldier.
Ange Mancini, Sarkozy's intelligence adviser, said on French TV that Merah said he had wanted to kill a soldier Monday in Toulouse but arrived too late and instead besieged a Jewish school nearby.
Mancini told France-24 TV that "it wasn't the school that he wanted to attack," calling the school shooting "opportunistic."
That account appears to contradict Merah's claim to negotiators that he went on his rampage to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children as well as to protest the French army's involvement in Afghanistan and a French law banning Islamic face veils.
A little-known jihadist group claimed responsibility for one of the killings. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Internet messages, said Jund al-Khilafah, based in Kazakhstan, said "Yusuf of France" had led an attack Monday, the day of the Jewish school shootings.
The French official said the claim appeared opportunistic.
Investigators looking for possible accomplices decided Friday to keep Merah's older brother, his mother and the brother's girlfriend in custody for another day for further questioning, the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The head of the DCRI intelligence agency was quoted in the Le Monde newspaper as saying there was little sign that Merah's family was involved. Bernard Squarcini said Merah told police that he didn't trust his brother or mother. Police also said his mother declined to get involved in police negotiations Wednesday with her son, saying she had no influence over him.
Merah was questioned by French intelligence officers last November after his second trip to Afghanistan, and was cooperative and provided a USB key with tourist-like photos of his trip, the senior official said.
The official said when Merah was under surveillance last year, he was not seen contacting any radicals and went to nightclubs, not mosques. People who knew him confirmed that he was at a nightclub in the last few weeks.
Merah told negotiators during the police standoff that he was able to buy an impressive arsenal of weapons thanks to years of being involved in petty theft, the official said.
The picture painted by the official and the chief of the DCRI intelligence agency was of a self-radicalized young man with signs of a split personality.
For years, intelligence services have worried most of all about lone-wolf terrorist who radicalize alone and operate below the radar. Merah told police during the standoff that he was trained "by a single person" when he was in Waziristan, Squarcini was quoted as saying in Le Monde.
"Not in training centers, where he could have been singled out because he spoke French," Squarcini was quoted as saying.
Some politicians, French media and Toulouse residents questioned why authorities didn't stop Merah before he started his killing spree.
Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande said questions need to be asked about a "failure" in counterterrorist monitoring. Other candidates did the same, and even French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said "clarity" was needed on why he wasn't arrested earlier.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told RTL radio Friday that authorities "at no moment" suspected Merah would be dangerous despite his long record of crime and his time in prison.
"The fact of belonging to a Salafist (ultraconservative Muslim) organization is not unto itself a crime. We must not mix religious fundamentalism and terrorism, even if naturally we well know the links that unite the two," Fillon said.
In response to the slayings, Fillon said President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government is working on new anti-terrorism legislation that would be drafted within two weeks.
Families of the victims expressed frustration that Merah was not taken alive.
"Imad's parents feel that the justice they were expecting was stolen from them," said Mehana Mouhou, lawyer for the family of the first paratrooper killed, Imad Ibn-Ziaten. "His mother wanted an answer to the question, 'why did he kill my son?'"
The chief of the elite RAID police unit, which conducted the raid, told French media on Friday that he was probably killed by a sniper.
"We tried to exhaust him all night before retaking the apartment," Amaury de Hauteclocque was quoted as saying by Le Monde. His commandos slipped into the apartment but Merah was waiting for them.
"I'd given the order to only fire back with stun grenades. But as he moved through the apartment he tried to kill my men who were on the balcony. It's probably one of the snipers that got him," he said.
He said on RTL radio that 15 men had taken part in the assault and described the apartment like "a battle zone," with furniture piled up as a barricade.
He said if they had wanted to nab Merah "dead or alive," police would have stormed his apartment immediately instead of waiting 32 hours.
"If we have four injured among my men, it's because we tried until the end to get him alive," he said.
___
Angela Charlton in Paris and Sarah DiLorenzo in Toulouse contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/official-no-sign-french-suspect-had-al-qaida-123920571.html
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A glow coming from the glassy shell of microscopic marine algae called diatoms could someday help us detect chemicals and other substances in water samples. And the fact that this diatom can glow in response to an external substance could also help researchers develop a variety of new, diatom-inspired nanomaterials that could solve problems in sensing, catalysis and environmental remediation.
Fluorescence is the key characteristic of a new biosensor developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The biosensor, described in a paper published this week in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, includes fluorescent proteins embedded in a diatom shell that alter their glow when they are exposed to a particular substance.
"Like tiny glass sculptures, the diverse silica shells of diatoms have long intrigued scientists," said lead author and molecular biologist Kate Marshall, who works out of PNNL's Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim, Wash. "And the way our biosensor works could make diatoms even more attractive to scientists because it could pave the way for the development of novel, synthetic silica materials."
Diatoms are perhaps best known as the tiny algae that make up the bulk of phytoplankton, the plant base of the marine food chain that feeds the ocean's creatures. But materials scientists are fascinated by diatoms for another reason: the intricate, highly-ordered patterns that make up their microscopic shells, which are mostly made of silica. Researchers are looking at these minuscule glass cages to solve problems in a number of areas, including sensing, catalysis and environmental remediation.
PNNL Laboratory Fellow and corresponding author Guri Roesijadi found inspiration for this biosensor in previous work by other researchers, who showed it's possible to insert proteins in diatom shells through genetic engineering. Using that work as a starting point, Roesijadi, Marshall and their PNNL colleagues aimed to use fluorescent proteins to turn diatoms into a biosensor. They specifically aimed to create a reagent-less biosensor, meaning one that detects a target substance on its own and without depending on another chemical or substance.
Well-equipped diatom
As a test case, the PNNL team inserted genes for their biosensor into Thalassiosira pseudonana, a well-studied marine diatom whose shell resembles a hatbox. The new genes allowed the diatoms to produce a protein that is the biosensor.
At the heart of the biosensor is the ribose-binding protein, which, as the name suggests, attaches to the sugar ribose. Each ribose-binding protein is then flanked by two other proteins ? one that glows blue and another that glows yellow. This three-protein complex attaches to the silica shell while the diatom grows.
In the absence of ribose, the two fluorescent proteins sit close to one another. They're close enough that the energy in the blue protein's fluorescence is easily handed off, or transferred, to the neighboring yellow protein. This process, called fluorescence resonance energy transfer, or FRET, is akin to the blue protein shining a flashlight at the yellow protein, which then glows yellow.
But when ribose binds to the diatom, the ribose-binding protein changes its shape. This moves the blue and yellow fluorescent proteins apart in the process, and the amount of light energy that the blue protein shines on the yellow protein declines. This causes the biosensor to display more blue light.
Microscopic light show
Regardless of whether or not ribose is bound to the diatom's biosensor, the biosensor always emits some blue or yellow glow when it's exposed to energy under a microscope. But the key difference is how much of each kind of light is displayed.
The PNNL team distinguished between light from the two proteins with a fluorescence microscope that was equipped with a photon sensor. The sensor allowed them to measure the intensities of the unique wavelengths of light given off by each of the fluorescent proteins. By calculating the ratio of the two wavelengths, they could determine if the diatom biosensor was exposed to ribose, and how much of ribose was present.
The team also succeeded in making the biosensor work with the shell alone, after it was removed from the living diatom. Removing the living diatom provides researchers greater flexibility in how and where the silica biosensor can be used. The Office of Naval Research, which funded the research, believes biosensors based on modifying a diatom's silica shell may prove useful for detecting threats such as explosives in the marine environment.
"With this research, we've made our important first steps to show it's possible to genetically engineer organisms such as diatoms to create advanced materials for numerous applications," Marshall said.
###
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: http://www.pnnl.gov/news
Thanks to DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/118691/Diatom_biosensor_could_shine_light_on_future_nanomaterials
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Source: http://www.fantasytailgateblog.com/?p=15
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It's no secret that few men are on Pinterest. The virtual bulletin board site has taken the female sector of the Internet by storm but left many men feeling as if they'd stepped into a tearoom instead of the corner sports bar.
This week has seen the launch of two men's answer to Pinterest: a new site called Dart It Up. No need to be on your best behavior here, guys. Its motto (including the asterisk) is: "Share and save cool sh*t."
Dartitup.com was created by two friends, Brandon Harris and Michael Byrne, who were both recently engaged and watched their fiancees become obsessed by Pinterest. They tried to join in but said the site was too girly.
"Every picture was either a hairdo or a flower," Harris told TechNewsDaily. "I pin my man cave tips and no one cares."
Dart It Up works like Pinterest but adds a man's perspective. And that doesn't just mean beer, cars and sports.
"The average man is not interested in posting his content all day. He needs a challenge," Harris said.
Dart It Up has self-made boards like Pinterest, but it also includes challenge boards where anyone can "dart" photos, such as "Life or Death: things a man can't live without." Challenge boards are an all-out cage match between Dartitup users. The guy whose dart gets the most "likes" and "redarts" (people who have "darted it" to their own boards) wins and is named to the "Challenge Hall of Fame."
Members also can add to community debate boards that will result in Top 10 lists for categories such as "Top HDTVs of 2012" and "Bad Ass Actors."
Pinterest tells its users to be nice, but Harris says there are no rules on Dart It Up ? yet. So far, they have been unnecessary, but he says he wants the site to stay clean.
"We know guys are inclined to post pics of scantily clad women, so our rule will be to keep it tasteful," he said.
The site is only 3 days old, and new features will be added shortly. Harris says Dart It Up will integrate Facebook so members can post activity to their timelines. The team is working on an iPhone app so guys can dart stuff on the fly, and it'll add a points system to fuel competition. Eventually, private boards will be available as well as public ones.
Do we really need a separate site for men? Harris says yes, because men don't feel comfortable talking about guy stuff in front of girls.
"I don't want to put up a sign that says Boys Only," he said. "But we really kind of need it."
? 2012 TechNewsDaily
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46797920/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
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Dear Lucky Diamond
Dear Lucky,
I?m an indoor cat that hates to leave my house. MEOW ? my parent is trying to get me to go on vacation and I can?t fathom it ? considering it takes a lot for me to even leave my favorite designer cat bed. What to do? My owner seems really excited about this trip but I?m turning into one big scaredy cat.
? Lissy, Richmond, VA
Dear Lissy,
Before I became a world traveler, I had natural fears about traveling too! At first when my pet parent Wendy told me to pack my toys, I hid under the couch (I?m a small Maltese ? I fit).? Vacations can be a dog?s dream ? trust me! New parks, new dog friendly furry faces, and let me tell you I have never received so many treats and pets from all the foreigners who thought I was absolutely adorable! He-he?
For more information on traveling with pets visit: http://www.animalfair.com/home/top-ten-pet-tr?-entire-family
If you have a doggy dilemma or? a confused cat looking for advice, don?t hesistate to ask Dearlucky.com @ [email?protected].
For the Best the Pet Lifestyle and animal welfare has to offer follow Wendy and Lucky Diamond on Facebook, Twitter, and right here at AnimalFair.com!
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Source: http://www.animalfair.com/home/dear-lucky-travel-pet-5/
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The battle lines in Syria tear through towns, dividing neighborhoods, splitting street from street and turning neighbor against neighbor. So it is hardly surprising that elements of the armed rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime have been accused of engaging in acts just as ruthless as those perpetrated against them. In an open letter to the nominal political and military leaders of the Syrian opposition, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged some of Assad's opponents of "gross human-rights abuses," including kidnappings, torture and executions of security personnel and civilians -- the same kind of charges the United Nations and activist groups have leveled against Assad's minions.
The HRW letter details examples and names some of the groups allegedly involved and the geographical regions they operate in. It cites video evidence and says that "some of the attacks targeting Shi'as and Alawites appear to be motivated by sectarianism." In one example, "Marwan," an Alawite from the Karm el-Zeitoun neighborhood of Homs, says armed men entered his neighborhood on Jan. 23 and kidnapped his elderly parents from their home. In a phone call, the gang's leader, "Abees," demanded money and weapons in return for Marwan's parents. The son told HRW he called Abees the next day. "He said to stop calling and that they had killed my parents. After that, we saw a video on YouTube showing their dead bodies," Marwan told the rights group. "Myself, I am a supporter of the government, but this is a sectarian crime, and it has to do with money."
(PHOTOS: Inside Syria: Photographs by Rodrigo Abd)
The report appears to support observations by journalists in the field. Despite the insistence otherwise of Internet- and media-savvy opposition members, the Syrian uprising has taken an ugly sectarian turn. In travels across Syria extending to almost all of its borders, TIME has repeatedly heard sectarian slurs against members of Assad's Alawite sect. Although there are Alawite, Christian and Druze members of the opposition, to Syrians these days -- just as in Iraq and Lebanon before -- a person's religious identity is often the first and sometimes main determinant of his or her assumed politics. And in Syria, as in Iraq and Lebanon, that is the fine line between safety and danger.
HRW said that "the Syrian government's brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups." The group's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, adds that "opposition leaders should make it clear to their followers that they must not torture, kidnap or execute under any circumstances."
But the opposition leaders, both military and political, cannot even speak in unison. The Syrian National Council, the de facto political representative group, and the leadership of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is sequestered in a refugee camp in Turkey, have bickered and sniped at each other for months, leaving protesters and fighters to fend for themselves. "They're all thinking about their positions after the fall of the regime," one defector in southern Turkey tells TIME, "but none of them are thinking about how we are going to get there or about us, the ones doing the fighting."
(MORE: How a New York City[EN]Based Activist Group Became a Player in Syria)
Among the activists and fighters on the ground, there is widespread and growing resentment of the so-called leaders of the opposition in exile. FSA units have to rely on themselves to find weapons and funding. The depth of anger was perhaps best expressed in a short video released this week in which a small group of men in civilian garb stand in two neat rows in front of an olive tree, scarves concealing their identities. The clip is not unlike countless others purporting to show members of the FSA, except that none of the nine men in it have any weapons. Some carry lemons instead of grenades; others hold sticks as if they were rifles. One wields a hammer. "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate ... We, the free men of Idlib, announce the formation of the 'We Hope to Be Armed' brigade," the speaker says. "We do not have any weapons. We ask the National Council and the commander of the Free Army to fulfill their lying promises and to stop serenading the revolutionaries on the ground without sending weapons, because your serenades are killing us."
There is much debate within the Syrian opposition, in all its varied forms, about arming. Some fear it may increase the bloodshed (and potentially rights abuses) rather than stem it. But could undersupplied fighters seek funding through the ransoms available by way of kidnapping? Some members of the opposition say the real battle should be to persuade Syrians who are still publicly aligned with the regime, especially minorities, to break away from it -- something the HRW document is hardly likely to help facilitate. Predictably, some Syrians took to social media to lambaste the messenger on Tuesday, March 20, claiming that not all human-rights violations are equal. But there was introspection as well. As one commentator on Twitter said, "today's revolutionary is tomorrow's policeman." But at this point, tomorrow still looks like a long way away.
MORE: One Year into Syria's Bloody Rebellion, the Assads Are Eating Fondue and Watching Harry Potter
View this article on Time.com
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sins-opposition-rights-violations-assads-enemies-211038639.html
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Dan Aykroyd may be stuck in his quest to resurrect Ghostbusters, but now he's resurrecting the past for a new movie endeavor.
The actor-writer-director wrote on his Facebook page late Monday night that he is working with his former?Saturday Night Live castmate?Chevy Chase.
"Chevy (Chase) and I are about to start work on a script concept for a comedy movie," Aykroyd wrote. "Cannot say too much about the concept, but the joy of working with him again is one that I am extremely excited about. Chevy is one of my favourite people, and one of the great anarchistic and physically committed comedians in the business."
PHOTOS: Top 10 Grossing Films
This pairing directly contrasts Aykroyd's struggle with another SNL castmember, Bill Murray, who refuses to star in a revival of the Ghostbusters franchise.
The pair has worked together on a movie set before, as Chase starred in Aykroyd's 1991 directorial debut, Nothing but Trouble.
Currently, Chase co-stars on the NBC sitcom Community, and Aykroyd was featured in the 2010 animated comedy Yogi Bear and will have a role in the upcoming Will Ferrell-Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924781/news/1924781/
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With temperatures rising far above normal for this time of year, the famous Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms have already started to bloom. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
By Jane L. Levere, msnbc.com contributor
This year's National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., kicking off Tuesday, is the centennial celebration and is expected to bring record-breaking numbers of tourists and revenue to the city.?The festival runs through April 27 ? a five-week celebration rather than the usual two.?
Washington Mayor Vincent C. Gray called the festival??one of the biggest events, if not the biggest event of the year for Washington, D.C.?
Gray is hopeful visitor revenues during the festival could reach $200 million, ?since the economy is better and this year is the centennial,? he told msnbc.com. In 2011, the festival generated $126 million in tourist dollars.
No projections have been made for the number of visitors this year. However, for a frame of reference, about 1 million visitors attend the festival on typical years when the event is two weeks long.
The festival began in 1912, when Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo presented 3,000 cherry trees to the city of Washington, D.C., in honor of the lasting friendship between the United States and Japan. The gift was coordinated with help from officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Geographic Society; first lady Helen Herron Taft; and Dr. Jokichi Takamine, a chemist who founded Sankyo Co., Ltd., a company now known as Daiichi Sankyo, which sponsors the festival.
The 3,000 trees were planted in the Tidal Basin; almost 100 of these still survive. The Japanese government gave first lady Lady Bird Johnson an additional 3,800 trees in 1965, which were also planted in the Tidal Basin. These were joined last year by more than 160 additional trees, planted at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, located in the Tidal Basin.
The National Park Service predicts the peak bloom period?will be March 20-23 with an average peak bloom date of April 4. The trees are expected to bloom into April throughout the city and some of its suburbs.
Gary Cameron / Reuters
This year marks 100 years since the gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki.
The centennial festival is bringing many firsts, including a nationally syndicated broadcast of the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade on April 14. The parade will be co-hosted by ABC News special correspondent and former TODAY anchor?Katie Couric and "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek.
Also new this year is a ?City in Bloom? campaign: The National Building Museum, Newseum, Dulles International Airport, Southwest Waterfront and other buildings will have special pink or blossom lighting from March 28 to April 1, while 240 Capitol One bank branches (Capitol One is sponsoring the campaign)?will distribute a ?Petal Pass,? with discounts for tickets and merchandise. The United States Postal Service will issue a dual ?Forever? stamp in honor of the centennial, while National Geographic has published a new book to mark the anniversary, ?Cherry Blossoms:? The Official Book of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.?
Diana Mayhew, president of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, said a record number of Washington, D.C. restaurants and hotels are participating in festival-related promotions, including more than 100 restaurants ??up from 83 last year ??and 55 hotels.
Destination DC, the city?s tourism promotion organization, is providing toll-free telephone service (877-44-BLOOM) for inquiries about the festival. "Phones continue to ring with interest," said Elliott Ferguson, Destination DC's president and CEO. "I'd like to say it's going to be phenomenal, bring a lot of international business."
Mayor Gray predicted the centennial festival would provide ?a tremendous boost to our image as a welcoming place and as an international city. It demonstrates, too, what the 100-year relationship between the United States and Japan and Washington and Tokyo has done ? it?s served us in good times and in bad times.?
Explore history, freedom and fun in our nation's capital.
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