Microsoft just made a major announcement that will likely take many developers by surprise. At the ALM Summit in Redmond, WA this morning, Microsoft Brian Harry just announced that its Team Foundation Server and hosted Team Foundation Service (TFS), as well as the complete Visual Studio 2012 suite (through a plugin the company is releasing today) will offer support for Git, the increasingly popular distributed revision control and source code management system invented by Linux founder Linus Torvalds.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After more than a year's delay, American schools will soon see new U.S. government rules targeting the kinds of snacks sold to students, a move nutritionists say could play an important role in fighting childhood obesity.
Anxious schools have waited more than a year to find out how sales of potato chips, candy bars, sodas and similar treats to students will be restricted. These rules on food sold outside traditional cafeteria meals are a key part of the first major overhaul on school food in more than three decades.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently told Reuters that the rules on what snacks may be offered in vending machines, school stores and the like, originally due in late 2011, are expected to be finished in the early part of this year. (http://reut.rs/URlL5N)
Officially, USDA said it expects the proposal by April, at which point a 60-day public comment period would kick in before final rules are issued - potentially for the next school year.
Vilsack said the delay was in part to give food and drink manufacturers, as well as schools, time to adjust to a revamp of cafeteria breakfasts and lunches in early 2012.
Those earlier sweeping changes, dictating more whole grains, fruits and vegetables on school menus, led to a few complaints and some hungry children. USDA later gave schools more flexibility on the new menus.
"The whole idea is that they eat more fruits and vegetables ... that's not going to happen overnight," said Gail Koutroubas, who oversees food services for the public school district in Andover, Massachusetts, near Boston.
The school nutrition overhaul seeks to make a dent in the nation's obesity epidemic at a time when government statistics show more than one-third of those younger than 18 are too heavy.
Health advocates want the snack changes to include smaller portions, reduced fat and less sugar. Acceptable drinks for most students would include low- or no-fat milks, 100 percent juices and water.
"We're not saying get rid of the vending machines. Just change what's in them," said Margo Wootan, head of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. "We, as parents, don't want our kids eating candy bars and Gatorade for lunch."
Recent USDA data shows most U.S. public schools sell snacks in some way, but access to vending machines varies.
Machines are in just 13 percent of elementary schools for young children, but are in 67 percent of middle schools, where students are around 11 to 14 years old, and 85 percent of high schools, USDA said in December.
USDA also found more than 80 percent of school districts have either restricted or banned sugary drinks. More than 75 percent also have some kind of limit or ban on snack foods.
DRINKMAKERS 'COOPERATIVE'
Tops on the list of concerns are drinks, particularly high-calorie, sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas and sports drinks that are popular among youth but cited by public health experts as empty calories with no nutritional benefit.
"The beverage industry from our perspective has been very cooperative. They understand and appreciate there has to be a different approach in terms of what's available in vending machines," Vilsack said.
Representatives from Coke and other drink makers met with White House and USDA staff last June to present industry-funded data on their voluntary effort in schools, according to one representative at the meeting.
The American Beverage Association said it wants USDA's snack rules to match the industry lobbying group's 2005 pledge to limit certain lower calorie sodas and sports drinks to mostly older students.
Cranberry growers also are pushing to allow sugar-sweetened cranberry juices, saying their fruits are too tart otherwise. Pizza companies are also seeking some exemptions.
Some health experts worry that the food and beverage industries' lobbying power will dilute the new nutrition law. They are also concerned that the delay signals a more cautious approach from the Obama administration.
Overall, food and beverage companies and groups spent more than $26 million in lobbying on a variety of issues over the last year, led by Coke and Pepsi, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
"We're very concerned," said Maya Rockeymoore, head of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program targeting childhood obesity. "Certainly sugar-sweetened beverages ... need to be completely eliminated from the equation."
Many states and schools have plowed ahead with their own standards rather than wait for USDA. About half of all U.S. states have already passed laws addressing snack items, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Money can also be an issue, since snack foods sales are often profit centers for schools, sports teams and other groups, especially given the current tight school budgets.
Advocates say the changes are necessary to help stave off a health crisis that impacts students' academic performance and even national security.
Vilsack says he has a personal stake in the issue, recalling how he was taunted as a "fatso" growing up on Pennsylvania.
"I've struggled with my weight all my life, and it's not an easy thing to deal with," Vilsack told Reuters. "And if you're dealing with it, you're dealing with a lot of consequences of feeling badly about yourself."
: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/content/d/s/t/dstechwebhost/html/njensen/deltachamber/details.php on line 14
Untitled Document
Date:
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/content/d/s/t/dstechwebhost/html/njensen/deltachamber/details.php on line 32 error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1
NTU research embraces laser and sparks cool affairPublic release date: 30-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lester Kok lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang Technological University
Latest discovery published in cover feature of top science journal Nature
Bulky and noisy air-conditioning compressors and refrigerators may soon be a thing of the past.
With the latest discovery by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), current cooling systems which uses refrigerant harmful to the ozone layer could be replaced by a revolutionary cooling system using lasers.
This discovery, published and featured on the cover of the 24 January 2013 issue of Nature, the world's top scientific journal, could also potentially lead to a host of other innovations. This includes making huge Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines, unwieldy night vision goggles and satellite cameras - all of which require extreme cooling systems - even more compact and energy saving.
This breakthrough in laser cooling technology can even lead to the development of almost sci-fi like computer chips that cool on their own, minimising heat and thus prolonging battery life for portable devices like tablets and smart phones.
Assistant Professor Xiong Qihua from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering had cooled down a semiconductor from 20 degrees Celsius down to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Before this, the cooling of semiconductors by laser has never been proven.
The material, Cadmium Sulfide, is a type of group II-VI semiconductor commonly used in solar cells, sensors and electronics.
"If we are able to harness the power of laser cooling, it would mean that medical devices which require extreme cooling, such as MRI which uses liquid helium, could do away with their bulky refrigerant systems with just with an optical refrigeration device in its place," Prof Xiong said.
"Not only that, but it would also remove the need for compressors and coolants in air-conditioning and refrigerators used in our homes and automobiles, saving space, energy and green house gases which are harmful to our ozone layer.
The potential for a compact, cost-effective, vibration-free and cryogen-less cooling system is enormous, as the global market for energy-efficient buildings is estimated to be worth over $100 billion dollars by 2017, according to reports by Global Industry Analysts (GIA).
"This also translates into the ability to build miniaturised coolers to cool infrared sensors used in satellites for imaging and build self-cooling computer chips suitable for use in portable devices like tablets and smart phones."
Prof Xiong, who leads a research team of 25 people including three undergraduates, is now looking to bring laser cooling down to liquid helium temperature at minus 269 degree Celsius. This is because in principle and theory, semiconductors can support laser cooling down to such a low temperatures.
"Our initial results published in Nature, have shown that it is possible to laser-cool a semiconductor to liquid nitrogen temperature, so we are aiming to reach an even lower temperature, such as that of liquid helium," said Prof Xiong, who had directed the research efforts of his researchers Dr. Zhang Jun and Ph.D. student Li Dehui towards this new area.
This experiment which took three years to complete was funded by NTU, Prof Xiong's National Research Foundation Fellowship grant and the Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund.
NTU's ground-breaking research into fundamental physics and sciences is one of the key components in Sustainability, one of the university's Five Peaks of Excellence, areas of research which NTU hopes to make a global mark in under its five-year strategic plan.
Such a development of a laser cooling system will also benefit other key research areas, such as Future Healthcare which is also a Peak of Excellence. Other peaks include New Media, Innovation Asia and the Best of East and West.
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. This year NTU will enrol the first batch of students at its new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which is set up jointly with Imperial College London.
NTU is also home to four world-class autonomous institutes the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).
A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.
Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north and is setting up a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.
For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg.
[ | 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.
NTU research embraces laser and sparks cool affairPublic release date: 30-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lester Kok lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg Nanyang Technological University
Latest discovery published in cover feature of top science journal Nature
Bulky and noisy air-conditioning compressors and refrigerators may soon be a thing of the past.
With the latest discovery by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), current cooling systems which uses refrigerant harmful to the ozone layer could be replaced by a revolutionary cooling system using lasers.
This discovery, published and featured on the cover of the 24 January 2013 issue of Nature, the world's top scientific journal, could also potentially lead to a host of other innovations. This includes making huge Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines, unwieldy night vision goggles and satellite cameras - all of which require extreme cooling systems - even more compact and energy saving.
This breakthrough in laser cooling technology can even lead to the development of almost sci-fi like computer chips that cool on their own, minimising heat and thus prolonging battery life for portable devices like tablets and smart phones.
Assistant Professor Xiong Qihua from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering had cooled down a semiconductor from 20 degrees Celsius down to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Before this, the cooling of semiconductors by laser has never been proven.
The material, Cadmium Sulfide, is a type of group II-VI semiconductor commonly used in solar cells, sensors and electronics.
"If we are able to harness the power of laser cooling, it would mean that medical devices which require extreme cooling, such as MRI which uses liquid helium, could do away with their bulky refrigerant systems with just with an optical refrigeration device in its place," Prof Xiong said.
"Not only that, but it would also remove the need for compressors and coolants in air-conditioning and refrigerators used in our homes and automobiles, saving space, energy and green house gases which are harmful to our ozone layer.
The potential for a compact, cost-effective, vibration-free and cryogen-less cooling system is enormous, as the global market for energy-efficient buildings is estimated to be worth over $100 billion dollars by 2017, according to reports by Global Industry Analysts (GIA).
"This also translates into the ability to build miniaturised coolers to cool infrared sensors used in satellites for imaging and build self-cooling computer chips suitable for use in portable devices like tablets and smart phones."
Prof Xiong, who leads a research team of 25 people including three undergraduates, is now looking to bring laser cooling down to liquid helium temperature at minus 269 degree Celsius. This is because in principle and theory, semiconductors can support laser cooling down to such a low temperatures.
"Our initial results published in Nature, have shown that it is possible to laser-cool a semiconductor to liquid nitrogen temperature, so we are aiming to reach an even lower temperature, such as that of liquid helium," said Prof Xiong, who had directed the research efforts of his researchers Dr. Zhang Jun and Ph.D. student Li Dehui towards this new area.
This experiment which took three years to complete was funded by NTU, Prof Xiong's National Research Foundation Fellowship grant and the Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund.
NTU's ground-breaking research into fundamental physics and sciences is one of the key components in Sustainability, one of the university's Five Peaks of Excellence, areas of research which NTU hopes to make a global mark in under its five-year strategic plan.
Such a development of a laser cooling system will also benefit other key research areas, such as Future Healthcare which is also a Peak of Excellence. Other peaks include New Media, Innovation Asia and the Best of East and West.
A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. This year NTU will enrol the first batch of students at its new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which is set up jointly with Imperial College London.
NTU is also home to four world-class autonomous institutes the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).
A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.
Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north and is setting up a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.
For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg.
[ | 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.
In this Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012 photo, amazon shipments are packaged in Koblenz, Germany. Amazon?s fourth-quarter net income fell 45 percent, as sharply higher revenue failed to keep pace with increased spending on order fulfillment and digital content, a trend that?s become the norm for the world?s largest online retailer. (AP Photo/dapd, Harald Tittel)
In this Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012 photo, amazon shipments are packaged in Koblenz, Germany. Amazon?s fourth-quarter net income fell 45 percent, as sharply higher revenue failed to keep pace with increased spending on order fulfillment and digital content, a trend that?s become the norm for the world?s largest online retailer. (AP Photo/dapd, Harald Tittel)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Amazon's fourth-quarter net income fell 45 percent, as sharply higher revenue failed to keep pace with increased spending on order fulfillment and digital content, a trend that's become the norm for the world's largest online retailer.
The company's financial results missed Wall Street's expectations ? but investors sent the world's top online retailer's stock up more than 9 percent in after-hours trading.
"It boggles the mind," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis, who attributed the stock price jump to slightly stronger-than-expected operating income. "A lot of people scratch their head at the valuation given to Amazon and the support the stock has."
The company says it has been investing a lot of its income into enhancing its distribution network, its shopping website and its Kindle business as part of a long term growth plan. It opened 20 order fulfillment centers in 2012, bringing the total to 89 worldwide.
Amazon's profit margins have been thin because of heavy investments ?and the deep discounts the company offers consumers. Even so, investors continue to be more than forgiving. Its stock price gained 45 percent in 2012. It has risen another 4 percent so far this year.
Amazon.com Inc. said Tuesday that it earned $97 million, or 21 cents per share, in the October-December period. That's down from $177 million, or 38 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue for the crucial holiday quarter grew 22 percent to $21.27 billion from $17.43 billion.
Analysts had expected earnings of 28 cents per share on revenue of $22.26 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.
"We're now seeing the transition we've been expecting," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, in a statement. "After five years, eBooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us and growing fast ? up approximately 70 percent last year."
In contrast, he added, sales of paper books saw the lowest December growth rate in the company's 17 years as a book seller ? up just 5 percent.
Though revenue fell short of expectations, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali said Amazon's profit margin was much better than expected at 24.1 percent compared with 20.7 percent a year earlier. This could signal that Amazon is starting to reap some benefits from its investments.
Amazon's operating income jumped 56 percent to $405 million from $260 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. That's much better than the company's guidance, which was for an operating loss of $490 million to an operating income of $310 million.
For the current quarter, Amazon expects revenue of $15 billion to $16.6 billion. Analysts had expected revenue of $16.86 billion.
For all of 2012, the company booked a net loss of $39 million, or 9 cents per share, down from a profit of $631 million, or $1.37 per share. The shortfall was due to a 60 cent per share loss in the third quarter of the year, which resulted from a charge related to its stake in online deals site LivingSocial. The company said it was also due to heavy spending on its Kindle business, new geographic locations and video content. It also said it hired about 50,000 temporary workers at its distribution centers across the U.S. during the holiday season.
Revenue in 2012 grew 27 percent to $61.09 billion from $48.08 billion, slightly below analysts' expectations of $62.1 billion.
Few large corporations are able to grow revenue at such a pace year after year. Apple Inc., the world's most valuable public company, is a notable example. The iPad maker increased revenue by 29 percent in 2012, to $165 billion. Still, investors punished Apple's stock after it reported earnings last week, due to signs that the company's profit margin is shrinking and its iPhone faces stiffer competition in overseas markets.
Seattle-based Amazon's shares rose $24, or 9.2 percent, to $284.35 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed down $15.69, or 5.7 percent, at $260.35.
In the devastating 2011 Japan earthquake, a sensor embedded in the ground detected the first signs of movement and immediately sent out an alert at the speed of light. Within seconds, text messages warning of impending shaking went out to roughly 50 million people.
Many people in Tokyo, 200 miles away from the epicenter, knew the quake was coming before they felt the shaking about 30 seconds later. Trains were able to slow down or stop, and not a single car derailed.
On Monday, a group of California's top geophysicists and seismologists announced an $80-million plan to create a similar earthquake early warning system in California.
It would be the first such network in the United States and marks an ambitious new safety initiative by some of California's top state and federal earthquake experts.
The U.S. is behind Japan as well as Mexico, Taiwan, Turkey and even Romania in creating early alert systems. Last year, residents in Mexico City were warned shortly before the shaking from a 7.4 quake that began near Acapulco arrived.
State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is proposing legislation to create the statewide network. California already has hundreds of ground sensors measuring earth movement, but experts said another $80 million is needed to expand and upgrade the monitors. They said the system could be up and running in two years if funding is found.
An early warning system could be particularly beneficial in Southern California, which is at risk of a major temblor on the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas is located far enough away from metropolitan Los Angeles that officials believe residents would have a one-minute warning of the huge quake.
If a temblor erupted near the Salton Sea, for instance, underground sensors along the San Andreas would send off an alert to points north and west, covering population centers in Los Angeles and San Diego. Experts said this would give time to shut off utilities, prepare emergency response personnel and slow trains.
A study released in January was the latest of many to predict a catastrophic quake on the San Andreas. This report, for the first time, raised the possibility of a mega quake across the entire fault line that would be felt from San Francisco to San Diego.
Padilla said it's time for California to build its own system, adding that $80 million is a bargain compared with the billions of dollars in damage the system could prevent.
"Think of the lives we could save. The injuries we can reduce. And the billions upon billions of damage.... If we can just reduce that by a small percentage, or a fraction, the system would more than pay for itself," Padilla said.
At a demonstration Monday at Caltech, seismologists showed how the system would work. The simulation recreated the 1933 Long Beach quake off the coast of Huntington Beach. A person in Pasadena, 40 miles away, would have about 18 seconds to prepare if an alert was issued.
In the demonstration, scientists showed the earthquake waves moving toward Pasadena from Orange County as an alarm sounded with a computerized voice repeating: "Earthquake! Earthquake! Earthquake!"
Officials said the idea would be for people to install a quake warning program on their computers and mobile devices. If a large earthquake occurred, the warning would take over the screen. Alerts would also be tied to automatic systems that could tell elevators to stop, open firehouse doors and flash notifications on freeways.
The early warning system would build upon the existing California Integrated Seismic Network that produces online maps after quakes showing their epicenter. Officials said California already has almost 1,000 earthquake sensors across the state, but the network needs an additional 200 machines and upgrades to 400 stations for the system to work.
Researchers have already developed a prototype, but it is so fragile that it probably would fail during a large quake, said Douglas Given, the early earthquake warning project coordinator with the U.S. Geological Survey. And given California's enormous number of earthquake faults, more sensor stations are needed.
But it remains unclear how much support the system has in Sacramento. California's budget picture has improved since voters approved the Proposition 30 tax increases last year.
But some politicians have warned against additional spending. And earthquake legislation has generally fared poorly in the last decade, particularly proposals that would add costs for property owners. Quake experts said the lack of a destructive temblor since the 1994 Northridge quake has lessened the pressure for quake regulations.
"Once we get another large earthquake, I'm certain everybody would say, 'We should've had it,'" said Thomas Heaton, a Caltech professor of engineering seismology.
Padilla said he was seeking funding from state and federal sources.
"It's going to be a challenge. If it was easy, it would've already been done," he said.
The concept of an early warning system is an old one. Japan developed one three decades ago so it could slow down and stop bullet trains before quakes hit. In 2007, Japan rolled out a nationwide system alerting cellphone users.
The warning system works when sensors in the ground detect the first signs of earth movement, known as P waves, that travel at the speed of sound. The more damaging shaking, called the S wave, lags behind at an even slower speed.
Although people in Japan might have received only seconds of advance warning through TV, radio or cellphones, authorities have funneled the alerts to take action automatically, like sounding an alarm at construction sites to evacuate workers, ordering crane operators to lower their loads, and opening the doors in locked CT scan rooms to allow patients to leave safely before the shaking begins.
California's earthquake scientists have long struggled to gain attention for an early warning system. Until recently, researchers were spending only about $400,000 a year developing the technology; and in 2011, they received a $6-million grant from the Palo Alto-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to continue work on it.
"We will have an earthquake warning system, but will it be before or after the next Big One?" Padilla said. "It ought to be before."
Jan. 28, 2013 ? Red coloration -- historically seen as costly in vertebrates -- might represent some physiological benefit after all, according to research published in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
Pheomelanin, which is responsible for red hair and freckles in humans and orange and chestnut coloration in other animals, is known to increase the damage to skin cells and melanoma risk when present in large amounts. Furthermore, its creation involves the consumption of glutathione, a beneficial antioxidant.
In an attempt to unearth the factors favoring the evolution of pheomelanin in spite of its costs, Ismael Galv?n and Anders P. M?ller of the University of Paris-Sud examined the survival from one breeding season to the next of a wild European population of barn swallows, as well as the annual survival rates of 58 species of American birds.
A recent hypothesis claims that the consumption of cysteine (a component of glutathione) that occurs when pheomelanin is produced can be beneficial under conditions of low stress. Cysteine, which is mainly acquired through diet, can be toxic at high levels, so the production of pheomelanin may help to sequester excess quantities of this amino acid.
Galv?n and M?ller measured birds' blood levels of uric acid and analyzed the coloration of their chestnut throat feathers (an indication of pheomelanin content). When they compared birds that had similar uric acid levels (and therefore similar capacities to excrete excess amino acids), they found that both the European barn swallows and the American birds with larger amounts of pheomelanin in their feathers survived better.
This study is the first to propose that the costs/benefits of pheomelanin may depend on prevailing environmental conditions, and its results suggest that the production of this pigment may even be beneficial in some circumstances. Given that all higher vertebrates, including humans, present pheomelanin in skin, pelage, and plumage, Galv?n and M?ller's findings increase the scant current knowledge on the physiological consequences of pheomelanin and open new avenues for research that will help us understand the evolution of pigmentation.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Ismael Galv?n, Anders P. M?ller. Pheomelanin-Based Plumage Coloration Predicts Survival Rates in Birds. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, 2013; : 000 DOI: 10.1086/668871
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.
Jewell Holte needs her husband to find the Seven Brides. If he fails, her world will come to a terrible end. If he succeeds, she will die. Can Daniel find a way to find them, and keep his wife alive? The only problem being--Jewell is already dead.
Owner:
Game Masters:
This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Seven Brides of Satan?. Anything posted here will also show up there.
Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
Okay - Possibly one of the coolest intro's ;3 Could I please reserve a bride?
"Light can be found in even the darkest places if one only remembers to turn on the lights." - Albus Dumbledore.
MissBrightside_
Member for 0 years
Post a reply
RolePlayGateway is a site built by a couple roleplayers who wanted to give a little something back to the roleplay community. The site has no intention of earning any profit, and is paid for out of their own pockets.
If you appreciate what they do, feel free to donate your spare change to help feed them on the weekends. After selecting the amount you want to donate from the menu, you can continue by clicking on PayPal logo.
LONDON (AP) ? Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday he will offer British citizens a vote on whether to leave the European Union if his party wins the next election, a move which could trigger alarm among fellow member states.
He acknowledged that public disillusionment with the EU is "at an all-time high," using a long-awaited speech in central London to say that the terms of Britain's membership in the bloc should be revised and the country's citizens should have a say.
Cameron proposed Wednesday that his Conservative Party renegotiate the U.K.'s relationship with the European Union if it wins the next general election, expected in 2015.
"Once that new settlement has been negotiated, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms. Or come out altogether," Cameron said. "It will be an in-out referendum."
The stated possibility of a referendum is expected to frustrate other EU member states currently focused on stemming the euro zone debt crisis.
Already, speculation over a vote on leaving the EU has prompted a chorus of concern from around the world, stressing the importance of the U.K.'s presence in the bloc and warning about the economic consequences of a British exit.
Even the U.S., which normally stays out of disputes among EU states, waded into the debate.
The White House said last week President Barack Obama told Cameron in a phone call that "the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union."
But Cameron stressed that his first priority is renegotiating the EU treaty ? not leaving the bloc.
"I say to our European partners, frustrated as some of them no doubt are by Britain's attitude: work with us on this," he said.
Much of the criticism directed at Cameron has accused him of trying an "a la carte" approach to membership in the bloc and seeking to play by some but not all of its rules.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Wednesday that a British withdrawal from the EU would be dangerous for both the bloc and Britain.
"Say that Europe is a soccer club. You join this soccer club, but you can't say you want to play rugby," he told France-Info radio.
Membership of the EU has given the U.K. access to the massive joint European market as well as a say in how the region should govern itself and run its financial markets. The country has also benefited from EU funds to build infrastructure such as broadband networks.
Cameron insisted Wednesday that a "one size fits all" approach to the 27-nation EU is misguided. Britain, a fiercly independent island nation, has always had a fraught relationship with the bloc. It benefits from the single market but is among 10 of the EU countries not to use the euro.
"Let us not be misled by the fallacy that a deep and workable single market requires everything to be harmonized, to hanker after some unattainable and infinitely level playing field," he said. "Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonize everything."
Even as he raised the spectre of a referendum, Cameron reiterated his view that Britain should stay in the EU.
"I speak as British prime minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part," Cameron said. "There is no doubt that we are more powerful in Washington, in Beijing, in Delhi because we are a powerful player in the European Union."
But in order to stay, the bloc needs to change, Cameron said, as he laid out a vision of a "new" EU built on five principles: competitiveness; flexibility; power flowing back to, not just away from, member states; democratic accountability; and fairness.
Taking a direct swipe at those who have warned that raising the possibility of a referendum has created uncertainty for business, Cameron will say that questions about EU membership are "already there and won't go away."
But he cautioned against holding a vote immediately, saying it would be wrong to hold a referendum "before we have had a chance to put the relationship right" and before the euro zone emerges from crisis.
The timeline he laid out mostly hinges on a Conservative victory in the next general election. Still, Cameron said legislation will be drafted before 2015 so that if his party wins, it can be introduced and passed quickly enough to ensure a vote could be held "in the first half" of the next Parliament.
The Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats after an inconclusive 2010 election. Pegging the possibility of a vote to an electoral win could be a gamble to appease increasingly vocal Conservative euroskeptics and stem the stream of voters who have jumped ship to the UK Independence Party, which advocates EU withdrawal.
___
Associated Press writer Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.
Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd
Apple SVP Eddy Cue's son works at a top email app maker.
?
What will happen with Mailbox, the new app that has everyone in Silicon Valley mega excited?
Email is one of the great unsolved problems of our day.
It's also one of the critical mobile apps that ought to be done well and built right into the core platform.
The last great mobile email app, Sparrow, got swallowed up by Google. (Insiders have whispered to us about some tragic disagreement that led to Sparrow's sale, but we've never been able to pin down the details.)
We imagine that Orchestra, the company behind Mailbox, is already getting lots of buyout and investment offers.
Here's one fact no one's mentioned about Orchestra, though, that we find really fascinating.
There's a college student named Adam Cue who works as a software engineer at Orchestra, according to his LinkedIn profile. Cue is also currently a senior at Duke University due to graduate in May.
On his Facebook profile, he lists his father as Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president who oversees Apple's iCloud Internet services, including email.
Now, we're not saying that Orchestra has an inside track to get bought by Apple because an employee's father is a senior executive at the company.
Wait, sorry?that is what we're saying.
On a practical level, the relationship will probably complicate any talks between the companies, with Cue having to recuse himself from any formal discussions. But we have to think Mailbox has been on top Apple executives' radar long before most Valley insiders had decided it was the next big thing.
Endangered Mexican howler monkeys are consuming more leaves and less fruit as a result of habitat disturbance by humans, which is forcing them to invest much more time foraging for sustenance and leading to increased 'stress' levels, as detected through hormone analysis.
The research, published today in the International Journal of Primatology, took place in the tropical rainforests of the Mexican state of Veracruz, which are being deforested and fragmented by human activity - primarily the clearing of forest for cattle raising. It shows that increases in howler monkey 'travel time' ? the amount of time needed to find requisite nourishment ? are leading to increases in levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids.
These hormones are not only indicators of stress, but are also known to relate to diminished reproductive success and lower survival rates. Researchers believe the study could serve as a model for behavioural change and resulting health implications more generally in primates living in habitats disturbed by human activities, such as deforestation.
"Howlers are arboreal primates, that is to say they spend their wholes lives in the trees", said Dr Jacob Dunn from Cambridge's Department of Biological Anthropology, who carried out the research.
"As forests are fragmented, the howlers become cut off, isolated on forest 'islands' that increasingly lack the fruit which provide an important component of their natural diet. This has led to the monkeys expending ever more time and effort foraging for food, often increasing leaf consumption when their search is, quite literally, fruitless."
Fruit occurs in natural cycles, and the monkeys will naturally revert to 'fallback' foods, including leaves, when fruit is scarce. But as habitats shrink, and fruit is harder to find, leaves from second-choice plants, such as lianas, have increased in the Mexican howlers' diet.
While leaves may sound like a plentiful resource in a rainforest, many leaves are difficult to digest and can be filled with toxins - a natural defence mechanism in most trees and plants - so the monkeys are actually forced to spend more time seeking out the right foliage to eat, such as new shoots which are generally less toxic.
"The traditional view was that the leaves exploited by howler monkeys were an abundant food source - but this is not the case," said Dunn.
"The monkeys rely much more heavily on fruit than previously believed, and when turning to foliage for food - as they are increasingly forced to do ? they have to be highly selective in the leaves they consume, visiting lots of different trees. This leads to the increased 'travel time' and consequent high levels of stress we are seeing in these primates as their habitats disintegrate."
As trying to catch the howlers to examine them would in itself be highly stressful for the animal, the best way of evaluating stress levels in wild primates is by analysing their faeces for glucocorticoid stress hormones, which are general to all vertebrates.
Through statistical modelling, the researchers were able to determine that it is the 'travel time' - rather than the increased foliage intake - causing high levels of stress.
"Monkeys in disturbed habitats suffering high levels of stress is in itself unsurprising perhaps, but now we think we know why, the root cause from the primates perspective. Our results also highlight the importance of preserving and planting fruit trees - particularly those species such as figs that can produce fruit during periods of general fruit scarcity - for the conservation of howler monkeys? said Dr Jurgi Crist?bal-Azkarate, also from Cambridge, who led the research in collaboration with Dr Joaquim Vea from the University of Barcelona.
The authors say that further studies are required to fully understand the significance of increases in stress in howler monkeys living in disturbed habitats. "Determining the full relevance of our results for the conservation of primates living in forest fragments will require long-term studies of stress hormones and survival", said Dunn.
###
University of Cambridge: http://www.cam.ac.uk
Thanks to University of Cambridge 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.
It?s no secret that smoking can take years off of your life?at least a decade, in fact. Now, new research shows that there is one simple way to change the statistics: quit. If you think it?s too late to make a difference, think again. It turns out that women can significantly reduce their risk of death by quitting smoking?and the earlier, the better.
The risks of smoking are well documented, but until now, we haven?t been able to observe the effects of both prolonged smoking and prolonged cessation in women. Women who were born around 1940 in Western cultures were the first generation to smoke substantial numbers of cigarettes throughout adult life?meaning the popularity of smoking among women reached its peak in the 1960s, much later than it did for men. As such, we haven?t had the long-term data to evaluate the impact of smoking on mortality in women?until now.
Between 1996 and 2001, researchers from the United Kingdom recruited 1.3 million women between the ages of 50 and 65 and followed them until 2011. The participants were surveyed at the beginning of the study and again about three and eight years later. At the beginning of the study, 20 percent of the women were smokers, 28 percent were former smokers, and 52 percent had never smoked.
The researchers found that women who still smoked three years into the study were nearly three times more likely to die in the following nine years than their non-smoking counterparts. Translation?two thirds of all deaths of female smokers in their 50s, 60s, and 70s are caused by smoking. The risk of death increased according to the amount smoked, but even the light smokers were at risk?and were twice as likely to die as non-smokers.
Here?s the good news: Women who had stopped smoking prior to age 40 avoided more than 90 percent of the increased risk of death associated with smoking and those who quit before age 30 were even better off?avoiding more than 97 percent of the increased risk.
The bottom line?quitting smoking does make a difference. The earlier the better, but it?s never too late to make positive changes for health. On average, women who quit by age 40 can expect to gain 10 extra years. The researchers concluded that the risks associated with smoking until age 40 and then stopping are substantial?but the risks of continuing are 10 times greater.
The math may be simple, but quitting is another story. If you?re ready to hang up the habit for good, there are a number of smoking cessation programs that can help. Make the commitment to yourself?and you may gain several extra years to enjoy your health.
Reference:
Pirie K, Peto R, Reeves GK, et al. The 21st century hazards of smoking and benefits of stopping: a prospective study of one million women in the UK. The Lancet. Published early online October 27, 2012. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61720-6
All Critics (189) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (176) | Rotten (13)
Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.
No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.
While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.
From the very first scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action.
A timely and important reminder of the agonizing human price of zealotry.
Not only is Zero Dark Thirty one of the year's best movies, it's an inspiring one to share with your daughters. That is, if they're old enough to deal with explicit torture scenes.
Gripping throughout, with an impressive central performance, this is like a Dogme 95 redo of a Chuck Norris film ...
The outcome is never in doubt, of course, but Bigelow's sublime skill as an action director comes into play as she's able to create tense shoot-outs viewed through infra-red goggles in the dead of night.
This thing is an embarrassment of riches; the jewel in director Kathryn Bigelow's crown.
It is played out in a matter-of-fact way, like a documentary. Step by step we follow the evidence with Maya as she doggedly pursues Osama Bin Laden for more than a decade.
With a little editing and some greater humanity infused into it, this could have been brilliant. 'Zero Dark Thirty' is solid and good overall, but not great. (Full Content Review for Parents also available)
I'd call it efficient. I would not call it inspired, groundbreaking, brilliant, innovative -- or even particularly effective as drama.
The fact that commentators, pundits, and politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are condemning Zero Dark Thirty is a sure sign that director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal have done something right.
What makes Zero Dark Thirty such a fascinating film is that it plays both as an engaging procedural thriller and a serious examination of the country's moral compass. It is already doing what great movies do-starting conversation.
It asks its audience: When does the risk of doing something outweigh the risk not doing anything? What are the costs of revenge? Where will the "war on terror" take us next?
Zero Dark Thirty is the perfection The Hurt Locker promised.
Zero Dark Thirty is a model of artistic restraint, a film letting fantastic history trump the need to score partisan points.
An effective and expertly made film, but a more character-driven story would've added some flesh to the bones of a great, true story.
It's particularly comparable to Zodiac, while there are also obvious parallels to Homeland, and a riveting, Call Of Duty-type finale.
This is an instant classic.
Zero Dark Thirty is a gripping, authentic-feeling account of the dark side of the war on terror.
Chastain's Maya is a red-tressed Pre-Raphaelite madonna with the cleft chin and chiseled features of an action hero.
After the lengthy torture scenes, procedural repetition takes over until the murkily-filmed Seal Team 6 raid. But Jessica Chastain is quite convincing as a CIA operative dedicated to her job.
A well-acted, well-intentioned, disjointed mess.
A well-produced and well-acted procedural/thriller film that stays focused on the frustrating nuts and bolts CIA led search for the elusive Al Qaeda leader.
A gripping, almost necessary, piece of filmmaking.
I regularly build single page web sites to provide small businesses with an internet presence. The software I use previously cost around $300 and is now available for free. This means I can now build a single page site for a clients and provide them with a link to download the software I use and they can modify their site as often as they wish.
My approach with clients is to have them provide a brochure or document which they use to promote their business and convert the brochure to an online presence. If they don?t have a brochure I ask that they think about what they?d like to share about their business and to use a product like Microsoft Word to create a brochure which I can convert to a site for them. By doing this a great deal of time and thus money is saved. If a business requires a designer to assist them then I can also provide a contact. Once I have an outline of the page the client would like on the internet I can build the site. As mentioned above the software I use is now free so if the client wishes they can maintain their own page. Making minor changes is very easy. I can also show the client how to upload their page to the internet and how to work in a structured manner to avoid many common issues. The fee for this often between one to one and a half hours.
The second aspect of having a site is the actual presence on the internet. The domain name people will use to find your business on the internet and the hosting of your page and email under your own domain name. The fee for assisting with setting up the domain name and hosting is approximately an hour.
My approach is to provide businesses with assistance. The business is not locked into me in any way. The business has full ownership over the site, domain and hosting. Once the web site is live I am there to support the business should they require assistance.
With the web site development software now available for free this makes it even easier for businesses to put their business on the internet and maintain their own site if they wish to.
If you?d like to have your business on the internet with a single page site and require assistance please don?t hesitate to call or email me. I?m able to assist people no matter where they are located in the world because the internet is accessible from almost anywhere in the world.
Kelvin Eldridge www.OnlineConnections.com.au Call 0415 910 703 to put your business on the internet.
Microsoft just made a major announcement that will likely take many developers by surprise. At the ALM Summit in Redmond, WA this morning, Microsoft Brian Harry just announced that its Team Foundation Server and hosted Team Foundation Service (TFS), as well as the complete Visual Studio 2012 suite (through a plugin the company is releasing today) will offer support for Git, the increasingly popular distributed revision control and source code management system invented by Linux founder Linus Torvalds.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tiD8MtMpp7dbymXuoNZmwTLkoNy4GyMB6jKZk_TIg52M6Kt6QPFz1QXCfcdoNYeCTefDLOKG-S0DLEtT9aec_O6CDqqwQB5nCqYczxHYc=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 30-Jan-2013
Share ] 
It?s never too late to quit.