ramsey lonesome: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Chinese Loans At Issue In Debt Fight

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite what you may have heard, China isn't the country's biggest creditor. America is.

The bulk of the national debt - soon to exceed a staggering $17 trillion - is held by the Federal Reserve, Social Security system, various pension plans for civil service workers and military personnel, U.S. banks, mutual funds, private pension plans, insurance companies and individual domestic investors.

China is responsible for just a shade over 7 percent of that total debt. And while it remains the single largest foreign lender (just ahead of Japan), China's been slowly trimming its holdings, down from nearly 10 percent a few years ago. Overall, all foreign investors - including national central banks - account for roughly one third of the total outstanding federal debt.

Also, China is suddenly having debt problems of its own. Heavy recent lending by its banks comes as the recovery in the world's second-largest economy seems to be stalling. The export giant posted a rare trade deficit in March.

The national debt will soon be front-and-center again as a deeply divided Congress wrestles with an expected new Obama administration request to increase the government's borrowing authority, the legislatively set debt ceiling. The higher limit would not authorize borrowing for new spending but just enables the government to pay all the bills already racked up.

The upcoming summer debate could be a repeat of the divisive debt-ceiling crisis in August 2011 when weeks of political irresolution nearly plunged the U.S. into its first-ever financial default - and did trigger a downgrade in the government's once-sterling credit rating.

Congressional leaders are already drawing lines in the sand for the next big fiscal fight. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said the only way the GOP-led House will go along with raising the country's borrowing ceiling was if President Barack Obama and the Democrats came up with a "dollar-for-dollar" amount in budget cuts.

Yet despite China's relatively shrinking share of the U.S. debt, it continues to be the top poster child for financing America's deficit spending habit, a favorite target for politicians in both parties.

It's not as if U.S. leaders approach China's bankers extending a tin cup and begging for loans. The Chinese government does what many individual investors do - it simply buys and holds widely available U.S. Treasury bills, bonds and notes.

U.S. politicians see the mountain of debt, but investors globally view U.S. Treasury securities as among the world's safest financial havens, reflected in part by their current super-low yields.

Bill Clinton in 1992 branded China's leaders the "butchers of Beijing." Texas Gov. George W. Bush eight years later blasted outgoing President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, Bush's Democrat challenger, for policies he suggested appeased Beijing.

Democrat Sen. Barack Obama, in turn, accused then-President Bush in 2008 of "taking out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children." And GOP challenger Mitt Romney last year claimed that, as president, Obama "let China run all over us." Romney vowed to declare China a "currency manipulator on Day One" if elected.

China holds just $1.22 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds and bills, or 7.3 percent of the current $16.88 trillion total national debt, according to the Treasury Department's "Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities" for February, the most recent month available.

China also holds about $200 billion in long-term securities of U.S. agencies, including bonds of nationalized mortgage holders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, although it has been steadily trimming these holdings since 2008.

Social Security holds $2.7 trillion of the debt in its trust fund, in the form of special unmarketable Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve holds a $1.7 trillion portfolio of Treasury notes and bonds, much of it accumulated over the past four years with its heavy purchase of U.S. securities to stimulate the economy and hold down interest rates.

Together, Social Security and the Fed are holding over 25 percent of the total debt.

Source: http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/584815.html

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Putting Together an Espresso Machine Is Music for Your Morning

The last thing you want to hear in the morning is noise. But when that noise comes from a beloved espresso machine? Combined with that sweet smell of coffee beans? That's sweet cup music for every morning.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Raw video: Rains, flooding punish Texas drivers

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Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2b46ce06/l/0Lvideo0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51694729/story01.htm

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Are lesbians more accepted than gay men? | The Salt Lake Tribune

ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2013 AND THEREAFTER - Sarah Toce, editor of a daily online news magazine "The Seattle Lesbian," poses for a photo Friday, April 19, 2013, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, in an alleyway that has been the site of fights and other violence against gay men. Even as society has become more accepting of homosexuality overall, longstanding research has shown more societal tolerance for lesbians than gay men, and that gay men are significantly more likely to be targets of violence. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Society ? Research shows more societal tolerance for lesbians, and gay men face more violence.

Chicago ? It may be a man?s world, as the saying goes, but lesbians seem to have an easier time living in it than gay men do.

High-profile lesbian athletes have come out while still playing their sports, but not a single gay male athlete in major U.S. professional sports has done the same. While television?s most prominent same-sex parents are the two fictional dads on "Modern Family," surveys show that society is actually more comfortable with the idea of lesbians parenting children.

And then there is the ongoing debate over the Boy Scouts of America proposal to ease their ban on gay leaders and scouts.

Reaction to the proposal, which the BSA?s National Council will take up next month, has been swift, and often harsh. Yet amid the discussions, the Girl Scouts of USA reiterated their policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, among other things. That announcement has gone largely unnoticed.

Certainly, the difference in the public?s reaction to the scouting organizations can be attributed, in part, to their varied histories, including the Boy Scouts? longstanding religious ties and a base that has become less urban over the years, compared with the Girl Scouts?.

But there?s also an undercurrent here, one that?s often present in debates related to homosexuality, whether over the military?s now-defunct "Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell" policy or even same-sex marriage. Even as society has become more accepting of homosexuality overall, longstanding research has shown more societal tolerance for lesbians than gay men, and that gay men are significantly more likely to be targets of violence.

That research also has found that it?s often straight men who have the most difficult time with homosexuality ? and particularly gay men ? says researcher Gregory Herek.

"Men are raised to think they have to prove their masculinity, and one big part about being masculine is being heterosexual. So we see that harassment, jokes, negative statements and violence are often ways that even younger men try to prove their heterosexuality," says Herek, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, who has, for years, studied this phenomenon and how it plays out in the gay community.

That is not, of course, to downplay the harassment lesbians face. It can be just as ugly.

But it?s not as frequent, Herek and others have found, especially in adulthood. It?s also not uncommon for lesbians to encounter straight men who have a fascination with them.

story continues below

"The men hit on me. The women hit on me. But I never feel like I?m in any immediate danger," says Sarah Toce, the 29-year-old editor of The Seattle Lesbian and managing editor of The Contributor, both online news magazines. "If I were a gay man, I might ? and if it?s like this in Seattle, can you imagine what it is like in less-accepting parts of middle America?"

One of Herek?s studies found that, overall, 38 percent of gay men said that, in adulthood, they?d been victims of vandalism, theft or violence ? hit, beaten or sexually assaulted ? because they were perceived as gay. About 13 percent of lesbians said the same.

A separate study of young people in England also found that, in their teens, gay boys and lesbians were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By young adulthood, it was about the same for lesbians and straight girls. But in this study, published recently in the journal Pediatrics, gay young men were almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

At least one historian says it wasn?t always that way for either men or women, whose "expressions of love" with friends of the same gender were seen as a norm ? even idealized ? in the 19th century.

"These relationships offered ample opportunity for those who would have wanted to act on it physically, even if most did not," says Thomas Foster, associate professor and head of the history department at DePaul University in Chicago.

Today?s "code of male gendered behavior," he says, often rejects these kinds of expressions between men.

We joke about the "bro-mance" ? a term used to describe close friendships between straight men. But in some sense, the humor stems from the insinuation that those relationships could be romantic, though everyone assumes they aren?t.

Call those friends "gay," a word that?s still commonly used as an insult, and that?s quite another thing. Consider the furor over Rutgers University men?s basketball coach Mike Rice, who was recently fired for mistreating his players and mocking them with gay slurs.

If two women dance together at a club or walk arm-in-arm down the street, people are usually less likely to question it ? though some wonder if that has more to do with a lack of awareness than acceptance.

"Lesbians are so invisible in our society. And so I think the hatred is more invisible," says Laura Grimes, a licensed clinical social worker in Chicago whose counseling practice caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clients.

Next Page >

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/56228624-68/gay-lesbians-says-scouts.html.csp

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Plants moderate climate warming

Apr. 28, 2013 ? As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki.

The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.

"Plants, by reacting to changes in temperature, also moderate these changes," says IIASA and University of Helsinki researcher Pauli Paasonen, who led the study.

Scientists had known that some aerosols -- particles that float in the atmosphere -- cool the climate as they reflect sunlight and form cloud droplets, which reflect sunlight efficiently. Aerosol particles come from many sources, including human emissions. But the effect of so-called biogenic aerosol -- particulate matter that originates from plants -- had been less well understood. Plants release gases that, after atmospheric oxidation, tend to stick to aerosol particles, growing them into the larger-sized particles that reflect sunlight and also serve as the basis for cloud droplets. The new study showed that as temperatures warm and plants consequently release more of these gases, the concentrations of particles active in cloud formation increase.

"Everyone knows the scent of the forest," says Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher who also worked on the study. "That scent is made up of these gases." While previous research had predicted the feedback effect, until now nobody had been able to prove its existence except for case studies limited to single sites and short time periods. The new study showed that the effect occurs over the long-term in continental size scales.

The effect of enhanced plant gas emissions on climate is small on a global scale -- only countering approximately 1 percent of climate warming, the study suggested. "This does not save us from climate warming," says Paasonen. However, he says, "Aerosol effects on climate are one of the main uncertainties in climate models. Understanding this mechanism could help us reduce those uncertainties and make the models better."

The study also showed that the effect was much larger on a regional scale, counteracting possibly up to 30% of warming in more rural, forested areas where anthropogenic emissions of aerosols were much lower in comparison to the natural aerosols. That means that especially in places like Finland, Siberia, and Canada this feedback loop may reduce warming substantially.

The researchers collected data at 11 different sites around the world, measuring the concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, along with the concentrations of plant gases, the temperature, and reanalysis estimates for the height of the boundary layer, which turned out to be a key variable. The boundary layer refers to the layer of air closest to the Earth, in which gases and particles mix effectively. The height of that layer changes with weather. Paasonen says, "One of the reasons that this phenomenon was not discovered earlier was because these estimates for boundary layer height are very difficult to do. Only recently have the reanalysis estimates been improved to where they can be taken as representative of reality."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

Journal Reference:

Pauli Paasonen, Ari Asmi, Tuukka Pet?j?, Maija K. Kajos, Mikko ?ij?l?, Heikki Junninen, Thomas Holst, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Almut Arneth, Wolfram Birmili, Hugo Denier van der Gon, Amar Hamed, Andr?s Hoffer, Lauri Laakso, Ari Laaksonen, W. Richard Leaitch, Christian Plass-D?lmer, Sara C. Pryor, Petri R?is?nen, Erik Swietlicki, Alfred Wiedensohler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Markku Kulmala. Warming-induced increase in aerosol number concentration likely to moderate climate change. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1800

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/dddfaVbmvBk/130428144921.htm

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U.S. earnings beating forecasts but jury's out on rest of season

By Caroline Valetkevitch and Ben Berkowitz

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. companies have easily beaten expectations for first-quarter earnings so far in the reporting season, but nearly half of the members of the S&P 500 are yet to announce results and they are unlikely to be as robust.

With results in from 271 of the S&P 500 companies, year-over-year earnings growth is projected at 3.9 percent, compared with a forecast for 1.5 percent growth at the start of the earnings season, Thomson Reuters data shows. That figure includes those that have reported and analyst estimates for those who have not.

The companies yet to report are expected to post an aggregate earnings decline of 0.4 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data - whereas the companies that have already reported have posted growth of 6.1 percent.

Among the biggest companies yet to report are Dow components Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Home Depot .

Some 69 percent of the S&P 500 have beaten forecasts, once again conforming to the pattern of lowering expectations enough to "surprise" by beating them. The 69 percent figure exceeds the long-term average of 63 percent. This has been the pattern for the last 15 quarters, with growth estimates at the beginning of earnings ultimately being beaten by at least a full percentage point.

From April 1 to April 24, S&P 500 earnings growth expectations fell 170 basis points for the second quarter, 130 basis points for the third quarter and 70 basis points for the fourth quarter.

"If this recent pattern holds, you're going to find that those beats will continue and therefore lead earnings season to be one of continued positive surprise," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.

So far, this has been good enough for investors. Since earnings season began with Alcoa's report on April 8, the S&P 500 has gained 1.2 percent, and it closed Friday less than 1 percent from its all-time high of 1,593.37 reached on April 11. So far this year, it has climbed nearly 11 percent.

GOING FORWARD, WITH CAUTION

Even though profits have been better than expectations, revenue forecasts have declined, a sign, once again, that companies are exceeding results on the bottom line because of reduced expenses, and not because of stellar sales. So far, just 42 percent of companies are beating revenue expectations, below the long-term average.

First-quarter revenue now is expected to fall 0.3 percent, which is worse than the forecast for 1 percent growth when the season started.

That means companies - yet again - have been able to squeeze out higher profits through cost-cutting and other measures. But that does not bode well for hiring and stands as a potential headwind to the economy in coming quarters.

"It does concern me. It's not sustainable over the medium or the long term. There's only so much companies can do to sustain growth without increasing sales," said Paul Zemsky, head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management, in New York.

There are plenty of examples of major companies that were deeply reserved about the second quarter or the remainder of the year.

Among those were Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc . Apple, until recently the world's biggest company by market value, saw its first quarterly profit decline in a decade and issued a soft outlook for the second quarter that fell short of investor hopes. The stock has lost about 40 percent of its value since September.

"The market was telling you the numbers were too high," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said of Apple's outlook, adding that it was "pretty much even worse than even I was expecting."

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-earnings-beating-forecasts-jurys-rest-season-211946052.html

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These Award-Winning Vines Are Everything a Six Second Film Should Be

Vines aren't exactly a new from of high art or anything. But while poorly edited Vine's of your friends' cats doing nothing are probably what you see most often, there are some pretty good ones, with a bit more meat to 'em. These Tribeca Vine Competition winners are a pretty good sample. They're so good you might even go "huh!" More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/-dE2Itrn1Xk/these-award+winning-vines-are-everything-a-six-second-film-should-be

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Oil slips as US growth lags expectations

NEW YORK (AP) ? The price of oil slipped after two days of strong gains as U.S. economic growth was slightly slower than expected.

By midday in New York Friday, benchmark oil for June delivery was down $1.18, or 1.3 percent, to $92.46 a barrel. Oil gained $4.46, or 5 percent, over the two prior days.

U.S. economic growth accelerated to an annual rate of 2.5 percent from January through March from an anemic pace in the previous quarter. But the markets were expecting growth of 3 percent or better.

The U.S. figure follows last week's report of slower-than-expected growth in China, raising questions about demand in the world's biggest oil-consuming countries.

At the pump, the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $3.51, down 32 cents from a year ago.

Brent crude, which is used to price oil from the North Sea used by many U.S. refiners, was down 80 cents to $102.61 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

? Gasoline fell 1 cent to $2.80 per gallon.

? Heating oil declined 2 cents to $2.86 a gallon.

? Natural gas lost 5 cents to $4.11 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-slips-us-growth-lags-expectations-161728254.html

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Roundworm quells obesity and related metabolic disorders

Friday, April 26, 2013

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, have shown in a mouse model that infection with nematodes (also known as roundworms) can not only combat obesity but ameliorate related metabolic disorders. Their research is published ahead of print online in the journal Infection and Immunity.

Gastrointestinal nematodes infect approximately 2 billion people worldwide, and some researchers believe up until the 20th century almost everyone had worms. In developed countries there is a decreasing incidence of nematode infection but a rising prevalence of certain types of autoimmunity, suggesting a relationship between the two. Nematode infection has been purported to have therapeutic effects and currently clinical trials are underway to examine worms as a treatment for diseases associated with the relevant cytokines, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and allergies.

In the study researchers tested the effect of nematode infection on mice fed a high-fat diet. Infected mice of normal girth gained 15 percent less weight than those that were not infected. Mice that were already obese when infected lost roughly 13 percent of their body weight within 10 days. Infection also drastically lowered fasting blood glucose, a risk factor for diabetes, and reduced fatty liver disease, decreasing liver fat by ~25 percent, and the weight of the liver by 30 percent.

The levels of insulin and leptin also dropped, "indicating that the mice restored their sensitivities to both hormones," says corresponding author Aiping Zhao of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. Leptin moderates appetite. As with too much insulin, too high a level of leptin results in insensitivity, thus contributing to obesity and metabolic syndrome, Zhao explains.

The mechanism of the moderation of these hormones "was associated with a parasite-induced reduction in glucose absorption in the intestine, reduced liver triglycerides, and an increase in the population of cells called "alternatively activated macrophages," which regulate glucose metabolism and inflammation," says coauthor Joe Urban of the United States Department of Agriculture. Some of these changes involved "a protein called interleukin-13 and related intracellular signaling mechanisms," he says. "This suggests that there are immune related shifts in metabolism that can alter expression of obesity and related metabolic syndrome."

The incidence of obesity has been climbing dramatically, worldwide. It is a key risk factor for many metabolic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Recent studies indicate that it is accompanied by chronic low-grade inflammation in adipose tissues, causing the release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines that contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome.

Parasitic nematode infection induces a marked elevation in host immune Th2-cells and related type 2 cytokines which, besides combating the infection, also have potent anti-inflammatory activity, according to the report.

###

Z. Yang, V. Grinchuk, A. Smith, B. qin, J.A. Bohl, R. Sun, L. Notari, Z. Zhang, H. Sesaki, J.F. Urban, Jr., T. Shea-Donohue, A. Zhao, 2013. Parasitic nematode-induced modulation of body weight and associated metabolic dysfunction in mouse models of obesity. Infect. Immun. Published ahead of print 18 March 2013, doi:10.1128/IAI.00053-13.

American Society for Microbiology: http://www.asm.org

Thanks to American Society for Microbiology 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.

This press release has been viewed 83 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127965/Roundworm_quells_obesity_and_related_metabolic_disorders

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

The ?That Dime Bag Will Be $14.50 With Tax? Gabfest

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there. Or follow us @SlateGabfest!

To listen to the discussion, use the player below:

On this week?s Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the challenges of questioning and prosecuting Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the handling of terror suspects since 9/11. They also assess fresh critiques of President Obama?s inability to negotiate with Congress, and they discuss the complexities that confront Colorado as it tries to regulate its new marijuana industry.

Here are some of the links and references mentioned during this week's show:

Topic ideas for next week? You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Mike Vuolo. Links compiled by Jeff Friedrich.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b91cc49a1d3c052d1c8f35764130acb6

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Justin Bieber Takes On The Paparazzi In 'Believe' Film Scene

Director Jon Chu tells The Los Angeles Times how the movie release has 'evolved' since earlier this year.
By Jocelyn Vena

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706425/justin-bieber-believe-movie-scene.jhtml

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Friday, April 26, 2013

Review: Bowling - Montreal Gazette

Bowling

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Starring: Catherine Frot, Laurence Arn?, Firmine Richard, Mathilde Seigner

Directed by: Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar

Running time: 90 minutes

Parental guidance: for all

Opens Friday, April 26 in French at: Beaubien and Quartier Latin cinemas

MONTREAL - I don?t go to French films for Hollywood-style entertainment en fran?ais. If I want the usual American movie formulas, I?ll get to the original source, thank you very much.

I make the detour to see films from France when I?m in the mood for smart, usually pretty chatty films about real-life people. The perfect example is prolific auteur Fran?ois Ozon?s fascinating Dans la maison, which opened last week. It?s a super intriguing look at the process of literary creation, anchored by fine performances from fine actors, most notably the absurdly talented Fabrice Luchini.

Catherine Frot is also absurdly talented, but sadly her latest vehicle, Bowling, is a rather tired riff on the kind of inspirational comedies you?ve seen a million times from Hollywood (and from most every country, when you get right down to it).

Frot was great in the recent French flick Les saveurs du Palais, playing a provincial chef brought in to cook up dinners for then-president Fran?ois Mitterand. She was perfect (and perfectly cast) as a woman who would speak her mind to anyone and who was happy to sit down and have a nice chat with the president.

But she?s miscast in Bowling. She plays Catherine, a prissy bureaucrat from Paris who?s sent to a hospital in Brittany to make it more efficient (read: cut costs) ? more specifically, to shut down the maternity ward. Naturally, she?s met with much resistance from the staff at the hospital, notably from the maternity-ward veterans Mathilde (Mathilde Seigner) and feisty Firmine (Firmine Richard). Before you know it, there?s a major protest afoot.

There?s also some major bowling to be done, since Mathilde, Firmine and their pal Louise (Laurence Arn?) are part of a bowling team competing in a local championship. Of course, for comic and dramatic fodder, Catherine joins the team, even though she?s just about the most unlikely bowler.

There are lots of fairly lame jokes along the way, including that old standby, the hapless female driver taking lessons (in what year was this screenplay written?), and the usual comic riffs on the differences between folks from the big city and the proud provincial region.

Frot is good just because she?s always good ? though we don?t buy for a second that she?s a faceless bureaucrat ? and Seigner, Richard and Arn? all bring tremendous charisma to the screen. But inspired it ain?t. Watching the bowling sequences, it?s hard not to think of that greatest of bowling films, The Big Lebowski. Let?s just say it?s not a comparison that?ll make you feel any more upbeat about this movie.

Did I mention the cheesy musical sequences with the gals singing and dancing to tunes like It?s Raining Men? No? Well, I?m mentioning them now. Enough said.

bkelly@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @brendanshowbiz

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Movie+review+Derivative+Bowling+ball+rolling/8294644/story.html

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Chris Evans Creeps Hard In Exclusive 'Iceman' Clip

If you're familiar with the work of Michael Shannon at all, you know him as an actor who can go very, very dark when he needs to. The same cannot be said for Chris Evans, who's best known for donning the red, white, and blue for Captain America. But if you have seen "The Iceman," [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/04/25/chris-evans-creeps-hard-in-exclusive-iceman-clip/

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Swedish police find drugs on Bieber tour bus

Canadian singer Justin Bieber performs on stage during the "I Believe Tour " in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, March 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Gero Breloer)

STOCKHOLM (AP) ? Swedish police say they have found drugs on board a tour bus used by pop singer Justin Bieber.

Police spokesman Lars Bystrom says a small amount of drugs and a stun gun were found when officers raided the empty bus parked under the Globen concert venue in Stockholm, where Bieber was performing Wednesday.

Bystrom said Thursday they have no suspects and no one has been arrested. He declined to identify the drug, saying it had been sent to a laboratory for an analysis.

He says police acted after smelling marijuana coming from inside the bus when it was parked outside the hotel where Bieber was staying. The drug squad was alerted and searched the bus during the concert.

The Canadian singer is in Stockholm as part of a world tour.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-25-EU-Sweden-Bieber-Drugs/id-34b93df1712e4925a9e392a11b1f7c5f

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Superintendent Voss: Evolution or Revolution?

Yesterday after school we had the staff roll out of the new Mac books for our high school staff. With this activity, we moved one step closer to the student roll out of the 1-1 project for students in grades 9-12 in January. As the faculty was opening up their computers and going through the steps of setting up their computers with network access, email, and other personal preferences I was impressed with how 'high tech' we had become. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Murray have provided key leadership in the process and demonstrated with ease some of the features of the new technology, including the servers that have been purchased to manage the devices (with the click of a mouse), the monitoring capabilities, and the abilities they had to install software remotely. All the while, Mr. Dieken was lobbying me for the next piece of software or hardware that would improve the ability of the teachers to flip instruction and ultimately have positive effects on the students' learning experience. I was impressed.

This really got me to thinking about how far we have come in education. I thought about how much has changed in just these last three years, and then I got to thinking about how much has changed since my career began. Then that morphed into what I can remember from my own school experience. Where we are now compared to where we were when I was a student is pretty mind boggling!

So, I had to begin by relying on memories that were some 30 plus years ago. It is a little fuzzy but I think the year was around 1981, which would have put me in about 4th grade. Our school had just made an investment in our very first computer. It was an early Apple model and was located in the school library. I really can't remember what it was used for, but do remember that as students we were able to use it on a limited basis. For what I can't even remember. Around the same time, the public library also got a computer. We could reserve time on the computer in half hour increments, and I can remember playing very rudimentary and archaic versions of 'video games'. Most of them consisted of responding to a line of text with a another line of text. Graphics didn't really exist yet, and if they did they were rudimentary. Our current students would find those early computers quite humorous, and in fact probably wouldn't even consider them computers at all. Basically, the computers we had access to in 1981 were more novelty than anything.

By the time I got to high school in 1986, you would think that computers had proliferated the environment. That was certainly not the case. In fact, I learned how to keyboard in high school on an electric typewriter. It kind of looked like this (same color and everything):

Yeah, that was quite the experience. A whole room of students learning to load the paper into the machine and type like crazy; click, click, click, click, DING! click, click, click, click, click DING!

If I remember correctly, our high school got it's first computer lab sometime before I graduated. Since this was well before the time where schools employed technology coordinators or computer teachers, much of what was occurring was experimental, 'flying by the seat of our pants' type of instruction. There may have been some rudimentary computer programming classes, but they weren't something that interested me all that much so can't really remember a lot about it.?

The early 1990s the world really began to change for me when I went to college. At my college, typewriters were finally replaced with computer labs. This is still before the time of Internet so we didn't know that we were on the precipice of a huge change. I remember how excited I was to be able to type and not have to worry about changing paper and the margins getting messed up. Oh, and no more changing the ribbons in the typewriters! Huge advances in technology for the college student of my day. Never mind that the printing quality was horrible and it took a very long time to print out a paper, but hey we were really moving forward! Around my junior year a buddy was able to buy a computer so my days of using the computer lab were in the rear view mirror. I remember staying up late during finals week to type up a final paper, save it to a floppy disc and then run it over to the computer lab for printing. By the time I graduated from college in 1995, computers were becoming more and more mainstream. The Internet was still pretty new, and email was used primarily people with a higher pay grade than me.?

I entered the world of work in 1995 and was one of the lucky ones to have a teaching job lined up by the time I graduated. In that first job, we had a computer on a cart that was shared with all the teachers in my hallway. There were a total of 6 of us in that wing with one computer. To me it wasn't that big of a deal because I didn't have a lot of use for a computer at that point. The school had a computer lab that had recently been installed but the school wasn't wired for the Internet. I do remember that the school board was having discussions about that, but it wouldn't come before I left for greener pastures.

That was in 1998. In my new position I had my very own computer, and every teacher in the school had their very own email account! This is when communication between parents and teachers really started to take off. I can remember getting a few emails a day and thinking this was a pretty efficient way of communicating with people. The Internet was starting to hit its stride too, I can remember some of the very early iterations of websites--which was well before the time of web video, flash, and E-Commerce was pretty new.

My first assignment in school administration was in 2004, and I was assigned my first laptop computer. Wireless technology was just becoming popular (and more predictable), so that was a huge step forward. We didn't have a wireless network in the school, so I was tethered to a network cable for a couple of years before getting a small wireless router set up in the outer office. I can remember how convenient it was to be able to work in my office and then pack up to go home and be able to continue my work seamlessly. The board also thought it was important to have a cellphone, so I had one of those too. Again, I thought that was pretty cool, but it was before Smart phones became popular. I could text, but it was very cumbersome. At the time it sure didn't seem to be that cumbersome. Toward the end of my tenure wireless technology really started to stabilize so one of my final projects before leaving was to have the wireless network installed.?

You pretty much know the story from that point forward. Printing is becoming less frequent. In a couple of minutes I will click 'publish' and this will go out to you on the Internet. Some of you will get this as an email, others may see it on my blog, and others will get it from our school website. There is even a population that will read it in the newspaper. In 1990, that probably would have been quite a feet to circulate this publication through so many venues. Now, in 2013 once I publish it goes out simultaneously to all the aforementioned media, and is available worldwide.

I still have a computer on my desk and a laptop to lug back and forth between office and home, but I wonder how much longer that will be the case. These days I am able to answer email and respond to questions with my Smart phone. I can search the Internet, call up a document from my computer, or respond to a Tweet from a student all from the same device.

The 1-1 project launch for students is just a few months away. I have likened the decision to implement this initiative into our district as the most important decision we will make for this generation of students. Others have compared to being as revolutionary to schools as the chalkboard once was. As quickly as things are moving these days, I wonder if in ten years we will look back on this time with a slight smile and shake of the head and think, "I can't believe how far we have come since the 1-1 project was such a big deal."

Source: http://superintendentvoss.blogspot.com/2013/04/evolution-or-revolution.html

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'Toggle switch' to burn fat identified

Apr. 23, 2013 ? For a long time, scientists have dreamt of converting undesirable white fat cells into brown fat cells and thus simply have excess pounds melt away. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now gotten a step closer to this goal: They decoded a "toggle switch" in mice which can significantly stimulate fat burning.

The results are now being presented in the journal Nature Communications.

Many people not only in industrialized nations struggle with excess weight -- but all fat is not alike. "Love handles" in particular contain troublesome white fat cells which store excess food. Brown fat cells are the exact opposite: they burn excess energy as the desirable "heaters" of the body. Scientists at the University of Bonn working with Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology, have spent years using animal models to explore how the undesirable white fat can be converted into sought-after brown fat. "In this way, excess pounds may be able to simply be melted away and obesity combated," says Prof. Pfeifer.

A kind of "trigger switch" spurs fat burning

The researchers have now decoded a "microRNA switch" in mice which is important for brown fat cells. Micro-RNAs are located in the genome of cells and very quickly and efficiently regulate gene activity. The researchers studied a specific microRNA: microRNA 155. The gene regulator micro-RNA 155 inhibits a certain transcription factor, that controls brown fat cell function. Surprisingly, Prof. Pfeifer and his team found that the transcription factor also regulates the levels microRNA 155 establishing a tight feed-back loop that works like a toggle switch: When the microRNA is highly expressed brown fat cell differentiation is blocked; conversely, if the transcription factor wins the upper hand, brown fat is produced at an increased level and this in turn boosts fat burning in the body.

In knockout mice, the gene for Micro-RNA 155 was silent

The researchers at Bonn University and their colleagues from the Federal Institute of Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and from the University of Regensburg worked with so-called transgenic and knockout mice in whom the gene for micro-RNA 155 was either increased or silenced. "The mechanism was already set in motion when the micro-RNA 155 was only halved in the mice," reports lead author Yong Chen, graduate student of the NRW International Graduate School BIOTECH-PHARMA. The mice then had significantly more brown fat cells available than did the control gro up -- and had even converted white fat cells into brown fat cells.

Clues to the causes of lipid metabolism diseases

The micro-RNA functions as an antagonist to the brown fat cells. "As long as enough micro-RNA 155 is present, the production of brown fat cells is blocked," says Chen. Only if it falls below a certain proportion does this brake let up; the blueprint for brown fat can be read and implemented by the cell -- the desired fat burners can develop. These findings help scientists better understand the causes of lipid metabolism diseases.

Hope for new therapies against obesity

The scientists at the University of Bonn see in their results a potential starting point for drugs to combat obesity. The researchers have clues to the fact that the results, if anything, can be transferred from mice to humans. Thus, for example, researchers in Leipzig found increased levels of micro-RNA 155 in significantly overweight patients. This corresponds to findings from animal models: A lot of micro-RNA 155 is associated with reduced fat burning. "However, we are still in the basic research stage," says Prof. Pfeifer. The path to suitable drugs is still a long one.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universit?t Bonn, via AlphaGalileo.

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

Journal Reference:

Yong Chen, Franziska Siegel, Stefanie Kipschull, Bodo Haas, Holger Fr?hlich, Gunter Meister, Alexander Pfeifer. miR-155 regulates differentiation of brown and beige adipocytes via a bistable circuit. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1769 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2742

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/2asP3gl0lPk/130423110742.htm

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Education Is My Life | Teachers: This is what we've learned.

Does this work?

In a time where everyone references PISA scores to evaluate American students, I cannot help but disregard articles like ?Teachers: Will We Ever Learn?? in the NY Times. I respect the NY Times and their ?Learning Network? series, but denounce the rhetoric aimed at teachers in America. In fact, many of the points in this article are SPOT on, but why is the title directed at teachers? The quote ?so much reform, so little improvement? is right, but none of the reform efforts have been developed by teachers? Have teachers been involved in any of the political changes? Have their opinions been asked or valued? Have students? opinions been asked or valued?

17 yr-old Nikhil Goyal is the author of the upcoming book, One Size Does Not Fit All. He says:

As a society, we aren?t realizing the true purpose of school?becoming lifelong learners and active, engaged citizens in democracy. Conformity and sticking in your shell is no longer the shortcut to success. What separates the best from the average in the world is grit, uniqueness, drive, and resilience.

For some frame of reference I point to Joe Mazza?s great piece on the Finnish school system but more importantly their culture. Too often I find myself in conversations with non-educators asking why ?we can?t just be like Finland?? Finland of course is a top nation in the vaunted 2009 PISA scores. However, what we can learn from Finland has so much more to do with lifestyle, culture, and priorities than longer school days and testing.

So, what have we learned as teachers during the NCLB years and current administration?s Rise to the Top initiative?

We?ve learned that many of our low-income students struggle, and their schools struggle to achieve high scores on these standardized tests ? and many more schools are ?in need of improvement? in 2012 than in 2001. Great schools and great teachers have been proven to take any student (regardless of background) and help them succeed. We need to care for these students and give them multiple chances to succeed, not judge them on one test taken every three years.

We?ve learned that our suburban students are tops in the world in many categories of testing, although these schools rarely actually ?teach to the test? like many of the struggling schools are forced to do. What can we do to move some of our best teachers to our struggling districts? We should be focusing on what works so well in these schools (hint: it?s not teaching to the test) and applying it elsewhere. Many of our districts have modeled what we should do, is anyone paying attention?

We?ve learned that great schools have nothing to do with public, private, or charter set ups. Instead they have to do with the leadership, teachers, and community/family involvement. Again, it starts with caring about our students, and putting them first.

We?ve learned that teaching is an evolving profession that needs professional development. But what do many schools choose to cut when finances gets tight? Professional development of course.

We?ve learned that many politicians really don?t understand our profession, and rarely ever ask us for help in making decisions that impact our system. What would happen if politicians completely overhauled the medical profession without consulting doctors, or the law profession without consulting lawyers?public outrage???

We?ve learned that bonuses and results based compensation does not work in education. Daniel Pink also points out that it doesn?t work in most other professions as well?

We?ve learned that our teachers are collaborating and working with each other more than ever. Thanks to social media and the web, our profession has never been more connected.

We?ve learned that the most corrupt people in our profession are the ones worried about test scores. They make irrational decisions because of a false pressure.

We?ve learned that most decisions in education are not left up to US, but we will continue to do the best we can given the resources and time that is provided. We don?t want bad teachers in our profession as much as we don?t want bad doctors. But we have to give them an opportunity to improve before firing. Some will not take this opportunity and will deserve to be fired. Others will take the proper training and become better teachers. There has to be training available.

We?ve learned that Randy Pausch knows what he is talking about in ?The Last Lecture? when he says: ?If you can?t learn and have fun, then I?m not sure you are clear on the definition of either? of those words. Learning should be fun. It should be challenging. It should be be inquiry-based. It should be time well spent.

I?m all for accountability, but that?s been the focus on the past fifteen years and look where has it gotten us. Maybe it?s time we start with making learning fun and meaningful, then watch how our students succeed.

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Source: http://educationismylife.com/teachers-this-is-what-weve-learned/

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The crystal's corners: New nanowire structure has potential to increase semiconductor applications

Apr. 23, 2013 ? There's big news in the world of tiny things. New research led by University of Cincinnati physics professors Howard Jackson and Leigh Smith could contribute to better ways of harnessing solar energy, more effective air quality sensors or even stronger security measures against biological weapons such as anthrax. And it all starts with something that's 1,000 times thinner than the typical human hair -- a semiconductor nanowire.

UC's Jackson, Smith, recently graduated PhD student Melodie Fickenscher and physics doctoral student Teng Shi, as well as several colleagues from across the US and around the world recently have published the research paper "Optical, Structural and Numerical Investigations of GaAs/AlGaAs Core-Multishell Nanowire Quantum Well Tubes" in Nano Letters, a journal on nanoscience and nanotechnology published by the American Chemical Society. In the paper, the team reports that they've discovered a new structure in a semiconductor nanowire with unique properties.

"This kind of structure in the gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide system had not been achieved before," Jackson says. "It's new in terms of where you find the electrons and holes, and spatially it's a new structure."

EYES ON SIZE AND CORNERING ELECTRONS

These little structures could have a big effect on a variety of technologies. Semiconductors are at the center of modern electronics. Computers, TVs and cellphones have them. They're made from the crystalline form of elements that have scientifically beneficial electrical conductivity properties. Many semiconductors are made of silicon, but in this case they are made of gallium arsenide. And while widespread use of these thin nanowires in new devices might still be around the corner, the key to making that outcome a reality in the coming years is what's in the corner.

By using a thin shell called a quantum well tube and growing it -- to about 4 nanometers thick -- around the nanowire core, the researchers found electrons within the nanowire were distributed in an unusual way in relation to the facets of the hexagonal tube. A close look at the corners of the tube's facets revealed something unexpected -- a high concentration of ground state electrons and holes.

"Having the faceting really matters. It changes the ballgame," Jackson says. "Adjusting the quantum well tube width allows you to control the energy -- which would have been expected -- but in addition we have found that there's a highly localized ground state at the corners which then can give rise to true quantum nanowires."

The nanowires the team uses for its research are grown at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia -- one partner in this project that extends to disparate parts of the globe.

AFFECTING THE SCIENCE OF SMALL IN A BIG WAY

The team's discovery opens a new door to further study of the fundamental physics of semiconductor nanowires. As for leading to advances in technology such as photovoltaic cells, Jackson says it's too soon to tell because quantum nanowires are just now being explored. But in a world where hundreds of dollars' worth of technology is packed into a 5-by-2.5 inch iPhone, it's not hard to see how small but powerful science comes at a premium.

The team at UC is one of only about a half dozen in the US conducting competitive research in the field. It's a relatively young discipline, too, Jackson says, and one that's moving fast. For such innovative science, he says it's important to have a collaborative effort. The team includes scientists from research centers in the Midwest, the West Coast and all the way Down Under: UC, Miami University of Ohio and Sandia National Laboratories in California here in the US; and Monash University and the Australian National University in Australia.

The team's efforts are another example of how UC not only stands out as a leader in top-notch science, but also in shaping the future of the discipline by providing its students with high-quality educational and research opportunities.

"We're training students in state-of-the-art techniques on state-of-the-art materials doing state-of-the-art physics," Jackson says. "Upon completing their education here, they're positioned to go out and make contributions of their own."

Additional contributors to the paper are Jan Yarrison-Rice of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; Bryan Wong of Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, Calif.; Changlin Zheng, Peter Miller and Joanne Etheridge of Monash University, Victoria, Australia; and Qiang Gao, Shriniwas Deshpande, Hark Hoe Tan and Chennupati Jagadish of the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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

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

Journal Reference:

Melodie Fickenscher, Teng Shi, Howard E. Jackson, Leigh M. Smith, Jan M. Yarrison-Rice, Changlin Zheng, Peter Miller, Joanne Etheridge, Bryan M. Wong, Qiang Gao, Shriniwas Deshpande, Hark Hoe Tan, Chennupati Jagadish. Optical, Structural, and Numerical Investigations of GaAs/AlGaAs Core?Multishell Nanowire Quantum Well Tubes. Nano Letters, 2013; 13 (3): 1016 DOI: 10.1021/nl304182j

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/Rw930UopHIw/130423135720.htm

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Ex-Congressman Weiner, a Twitter casualty, unveils new account

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Congressman Anthony Weiner is back on Twitter with a new account as he eyes a political comeback and bid for New York City mayor 2 years after he resigned in disgrace for posting a sexually suggestive image of himself on the social website.

The account, @AnthonyWeiner, gives Weiner a new slate on which to promote his public policy ideas as he publicly weighs entering the mayor's race less than five months ahead of the city's Democratic primary.

Once seen as a rising star among Democrats, Weiner, 48, established himself as a leading liberal voice in the U.S. House of Representatives and was considered a front-runner for mayor until his fall from grace. Weiner, who resigned from Congress in June 2011 before completing his seventh term, made an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2005.

After keeping a low profile, he burst back onto the political scene this month when The New York Times Magazine published a lengthy article about Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Last week, an NBC New York-Marist poll found that Weiner would enter the mayor's race in second place, behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Weiner's rehatched Twitter presence also means that he must re-build his following. While the old account, @repweiner, has 67,758 followers, the new account had fewer than 4,000 followers by late Monday afternoon, though that number was growing rapidly.

In June 2011, Weiner was ensnared in a scandal after he used Twitter to share a sexually suggestive photograph of himself with a woman, but accidentally posted it to all his "followers" on the website instead. He initially insisted that he was not behind the tweet, but admitted the mistake in a tearful news conference after other women said they had also exchanged sexually charged messages with the Congressman.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Richard Chang)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-congressman-weiner-twitter-casualty-unveils-account-214415090.html

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Chinese victim of Marathon blasts remembered

BOSTON (AP) ? Lu Lingzi was passionate about the piano, a daughter who always made her father laugh and a standout statistics student. She was killed by the Boston Marathon blasts two days after acing qualifying exams.

Friends and family on Monday night vowed not to forget the light in their lives that was extinguished too soon.

"You need us to be strong and brave," Jing Li said of her roommate, killed as she watched the marathon a week ago. "We will keep running to finish the race for you and we will try to realize your unfinished dream."

Hundreds of people packed a hall at Boston University to say goodbye to Lu, a 23-year-old graduate student. She was one of three people killed in last Monday's bombings. Gov. Deval Patrick was among the people who showed up to listen to an hour of music and stories about Lu.

Jing told the crowd how when she met Lu in April 2012 they discovered they were both from the northern part of China, both piano lovers and both without boyfriends.

"We believed we were long-lost sisters and could not wait to begin our adventure in Boston," she said. "I was so grateful that I had such a lovely sister in my life, but I had no idea that this friendship would only last one year."

Speakers recalled a bubbly young woman who loved dogs and blueberry pancakes and who was also a driven student.

Her father, Lu Jun, thanked everyone for helping the family over the recent dark days before offering a eulogy "to comfort the heavenly soul of my beloved daughter."

"She was the family's Shirley Temple, if you will, the little elf and a little jolly girl, bringing everyone in the family ceaseless laughter," said Lu Jun, who spoke in his native tongue and was followed by an English interpreter.

"She's gone but our memories of her are very much alive," her father said. "An ancient Chinese saying says every child is actually a little Buddha that helps their parents mature and grow up."

Family members accepted gifts from students. They turned and bowed to the crowd at the end of the service.

Eric Kolaczyk, director of the school's program in statistics, said Lu was an excellent student who passed her qualifying exams with "flying colors" just before her death. He said that though she will never achieve her goal of becoming a financial analyst, a scholarship set up in her name by Boston University will help others meet their goals.

"Lingzi's potential will instead be fulfilled by many others," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-victim-marathon-blasts-remembered-010008548.html

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Genetic circuit allows both individual freedom, collective good

Apr. 22, 2013 ? Individual freedom and social responsibility may sound like humanistic concepts, but an investigation of the genetic circuitry of bacteria suggests that even the simplest creatures can make difficult choices that strike a balance between selflessness and selfishness.

In a study published online this week in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Rice University's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and colleagues from Tel Aviv University and Harvard Medical School show how sophisticated genetic circuits allow an individual bacterium within a colony to act on its own while also ensuring that the colony pulls together in hard times.

"Our findings suggest new principles for collective decisions that allow both random behavior by individuals and nonrandom outcomes for the population as a whole," said study co-author Eshel Ben-Jacob, a senior investigator at CTBP and adjunct professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice. "These new principles could be broadly applicable, from the study of cancer metastasis to the study of collective decisions by humans during times of stress."

Some species of bacteria live in complex colonies that can contain millions of individual cells. An increasing body of research on bacterial colonies has found that members often cooperate -- even to the point of sacrificing their lives -- for the survival of their colony. For example, in response to extreme stress, such as starvation, most of the individual cells in a colony of the bacteria Bacillus subtilis will form spores. Spore formation is a drastic choice because it requires the cell to kill itself to encase a copy of its genetic code in a tough, impervious shell. Though the living cell dies, the spore acts as a kind of time capsule that allows the organism to re-emerge into the world of the living when conditions improve.

"This time-travel strategy of waiting and safeguarding a copy of the DNA in the spore ensures the survival of the colony," Ben-Jacob said. "But there are other, less desperate options that B. subtilis can take to respond to stress. Some of these cells turn into highly mobile food seekers. Others turn cannibalistic, and about 10 percent enter a state called 'competence' in which they bide their time and bet on present conditions to improve."

Scientists have long been curious about how bacteria decide which of these paths to pursue. Years of studies have determined that each individual constantly senses its environment and continuously sends out chemical signals to communicate with its neighbors about the choices it is making. Experimental studies have revealed dozens of regulatory genes, signaling proteins and other genetic tools that cells use to gather information and communicate with one another.

"Bacteria don't hide their intentions from their peers in the colony," said study co-author Jos? Onuchic, co-director of CTBP, Rice's Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy and professor of chemistry and biochemistry and cell biology. "They don't evade or lie, but rather communicate their intentions by sending chemical messages among themselves."

Individual bacteria weigh their decisions carefully, taking into account the stress they are facing, the situation of their peers, the statistics of how many cells are sporulating and how many are choosing competence, Onuchic said. Each bacterium in the colony communicates via chemical "tweets" and performs a sophisticated decision-making process using a specialized complex gene network composed of many genes connected via complex circuitry. Taking a physics approach, Onuchic, Ben-Jacob and study co-authors Mingyang Lu, Daniel Schultz and Trevor Stavropoulos investigated the interplay between two components of the circuitry -- a timer that determines when sporulation occurs and a two-way switch that causes the cell to choose competence over sporulation.

"We found that the sporulation timer and the competence switch work in a coordinated fashion, but the interplay is complex because the two circuits are affected very differently by noise," said Schultz, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and a former graduate student at CTBP.

Noise results from random fluctuations in a signal; every circuit -- whether genetic or electronic -- responds to noise in its own way. In the case of B. subtilis, noise is undesirable in the sporulation timer but is a necessity for the proper function of the competence switch, the researchers said.

"Our study explains how the two opposite noise requirements can be satisfied in the decision circuitry in B. subtilis," Onuchic said. "The circuits have a special capacity for noise management that allows each individual bacterium to determine its fate by 'playing dice with controlled odds.'"

Ben-Jacob said the timer has an internal clock that is controlled by cell stress. The noise-intolerant timer typically keeps the competence switch closed, but when the cell is exposed to stress over a long period of time, the timer activates a decision gate that opens brief "windows of opportunity" in which the competence switch can be flipped.

Thanks to its architecture, the gate oscillates during the window of opportunity, he said. At each oscillation, the switch opens for a short time and grants the cell a short window in which it can use noise as a "roll of the dice" to decide whether to escape into competence.

"The ingenuity is that at each oscillation the cell also sends 'chemical tweets' to inform the other cells about its stress and attempt to escape," said Ben-Jacob, the Maguy-Glass Professor in Physics of Complex Systems and professor of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University. "The tweets sent by others help regulate the circuits of their neighbors and guarantee that no more than a specific fraction of cells within the colony will enter into competence."

Onuchic said the decision-making principles revealed in the study could have implications for synthetic biologists who wish to incorporate sophisticated decision systems as well as for cancer researchers who are interested in exploring the decision-making processes that cancer cells use in choosing to become dormant or to metastasize.

"This represents a real fusion of ideas from statistical physics and biology," he said.

Lu is a postdoctoral research fellow at CTBP and Stavropoulos is a former graduate student and CTBP fellow at the University of California, San Diego. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and the Tauber Family Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University.

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

Journal Reference:

Daniel Schultz, Mingyang Lu, Trevor Stavropoulos, Jose' Onuchic, Eshel Ben-Jacob. Turning Oscillations Into Opportunities: Lessons from a Bacterial Decision Gate. Scientific Reports, 2013; 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01668

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/gz6J2r-SJZQ/130422123042.htm

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