LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) ? Authorities say they discovered a budding marijuana-growing operation after residents of a Lincoln house called police to report the theft of marijuana pipes.
The Lincoln Journal Star reports (http://bit.ly/TBcgDU ) that officers were called to the house Saturday morning. Residents had reported that two people, one of them armed with a handgun, forced their way inside the house and took two hookah pipes.
Officers questioning the residents noticed marijuana, paraphernalia and several bottles of fertilizer. They also saw light shining from under a door barred with a padlock and a power cord snaking into the room.
After getting a search warrant, police say they found three marijuana plants, grow lights and other equipment.
Police arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of manufacturing marijuana and ticketed his roommates for having marijuana paraphernalia.
___
Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com
Research In Motion Ltd is changing its name to BlackBerry, the company announced on Wednesday, in move to refresh its tarnished image as it begins marketing a re-engineered line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones.?
The announcement, made by Chief Executive Thorsten Heins as the company formally launched the BlackBerry 10, signals the company's hopes for a streamlined identity as it embarks on a make-or-break drive to regain lost ground in the smartphone market it once dominated.?
"BlackBerry is how we're known pretty much everywhere across the world other than North America, so we have an iconic global brand and when you have such a powerful brand, you want to make it central," said Frank Boulben, BlackBerry's chief marketing officer, in an interview.?
The switch underscores the close attention the company is paying to marketing as it launches a product considered crucial to its survival. In the past, it was roundly criticized for botching the launch of the PlayBook tablet and other devices.?
RIM's aging line-up of devices has competed poorly in recent years against the likes of Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung's wide array of Galaxy devices.?
As the company counters with its new line, the name change will allow it to leverage the value of the BlackBerry brand - still a powerful asset in spite of RIM's fall from grace.?
"Previously we had Research In Motion, BlackBerry, Bold, Curve, Torch, PlayBook - and that dilutes the BlackBerry brand, which is a fantastic asset," Boulben said. "Moving to a branded house model allows us to focus our marketing on one name only."??
That could be crucial for the company, which has undergone a management overhaul changes and a major restructuring, leading up to the launch of its re-engineered line of devices on Wednesday.?
"We thought now was the perfect time to accompany that real change with symbolic change," said Boulben, adding that RIM will change its Nasdaq ticker to "BBRY" and its Toronto Stock Exchange ticker symbol to "BB" in a matter of days.?
The company will undergo a legal name change after its shareholders pass a resolution to that effect later this year, said a spokeswoman. Until then the company will do business as BlackBerry.?
Boulben said the company would have a focused marketing push behind the revamped smartphones - a stylish touch-screen device and a more traditional physical keyboard device that many of its die-hard fans adore.?
In keeping with its branding strategy, the new devices will also follow a simple naming structure, said Boulben.?
"We want our employees to say, 'I work for BlackBerry.' Our customers to say, 'I own a BlackBerry.' Our shareholders to say, 'I own BlackBerry stock,'" said Boulben. "We want to become what I'd call a branded house versus a house of brands."?
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli jets bombed a convoy on Syria's border with Lebanon on Wednesday, sources told Reuters, apparently targeting weapons destined for Hezbollah in what some called a warning to Damascus not to arm Israel's Lebanese enemy.
"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, adding that the consignment may well have included anti-aircraft missiles.
The overnight attack, which several sources placed on the Syrian side of the border, followed warnings from Israel that it was ready to act to prevent the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad leading to Syria's chemical weapons and modern rockets reaching either his Hezbollah allies or his Islamist enemies.
A source among the Syrian rebels said an air strike around dawn (0430 GMT) blasted a convoy on a mountain track about 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of where the main Damascus-Beirut highway crosses the border. Its load probably included high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, but not chemical weapons.
"It attacked trucks carrying sophisticated weapons from the regime to Hezbollah," the source said, adding that it took place inside Syria, though the border is poorly defined in the area.
A regional security source said the target was weaponry given by Assad's military to fellow Iranian ally Hezbollah:
"This episode boils down to a warning by Israel to Syria and Hezbollah not to engage in the transfer of sensitive weapons," the source said. "Assad knows his survival depends on his military capabilities and he would not want those capabilities neutralized by Israel - so the message is this kind of transfer is simply not worth it, neither for him nor Hezbollah."
With official secrecy shrouding the event, few details were corroborated by multiple sources. All those with knowledge of the event - from several countries - spoke anonymously.
There was no comment from the Israeli or Syrian governments nor Hezbollah. Israel's ally the United States declined all comment. A Lebanese security source said its territory was not hit, though the army reported a heavy presence of Israeli jets through the night after days of unusually frequent incursions.
Such a strike would fit Israel's policy of pre-emptive covert and overt action to curb Hezbollah and does not necessarily indicate a major escalation of the war in Syria. It does, however, indicate how the erosion of the Assad family's rule after 42 years is seen by Israel as posing a threat.
Israel this week echoed concerns in the United States about Syrian chemical weapons, but its officials say a more immediate worry is that the civil war could see weapons that are capable of denting its massive superiority in airpower and tanks reaching Hezbollah; the group fought Israel in 2006 and remains a more pressing threat than its Syrian and Iranian sponsors.
Wednesday's strike could have been a rapid response to an opportunity. But a stream of Israeli comment on Syria in recent days may have been intended to limit surprise in world capitals.
The head of the Israeli air force said only hours before the attack that his corps, which has an array of the latest jet bombers, attack helicopters and unmanned drones at its disposal, was involved in a covert "campaign between wars".
"This campaign is 24/7, 365 days a year," Major-General Amir Eshel told a conference on Tuesday. "We are taking action to reduce the immediate threats, to create better conditions in which we will be able to win the wars, when they happen."
JETS OVER LEBANON
In Israel, where media operate under military censorship, broadcasters immediately relayed international reports of the strike. Channel Two television quoted what it called foreign sources saying the convoy was carrying anti-aircraft missiles.
Israeli jets routinely fly over Lebanon and there have been unconfirmed reports in previous years of strikes on Hezbollah arms shipments. An attack inside Syria could be diplomatically provocative, however, since Assad's Iranian ally said on Saturday that it would view any strike as an attack on itself.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from Tehran, which Israel views as its principal enemy and with which it is engaged in a bitter confrontation over Iran's nuclear program.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, set for a new term after an election, told his cabinet that Iran and turmoil in Arab states meant Israel must be strong: "In the east, north and south, everything is in ferment, and we must be prepared, strong and determined in the face of all possible developments."
The Israeli military confirmed this week that it had lately deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket-interceptor system to around the northern city of Haifa, which came under heavy Hezbollah missile fire during a brief war in 2006.
Israel's refusal to comment on Wednesday is usual in such cases; it has, for example, never admitted a 2007 air strike on a suspected Syrian nuclear site despite U.S. confirmation of it.
By not acknowledging that raid, Israel may have ensured that Assad did not feel obliged to retaliate. For 40 years, Syria has offered little but bellicose words against Israel. A failing Assad administration, some Israelis fear, might be tempted into more action, while Syria's Islamist rebels are also hostile to Israel and could present a threat if they seize heavier weapons.
Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom said on Sunday that any sign that the Syrian army's grip on its presumed chemical weapons stocks was slipping could trigger Israeli intervention.
But Israeli sources said on Tuesday that Syria's advanced conventional weapons, much of it Russian-built hardware able to destroy Israeli planes and tanks, would represent as much of a threat to Israel as chemical arms in the hands of an enemy.
Interviewed on Wednesday, Shalom would not be drawn on whether Israeli forces had been in action in the north, but he described the country as part of an international coalition seeking to stop spillover from Syria's two-year-old insurgency.
Recalling that President Barack Obama had warned Assad of U.S. action if his forces used chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel Radio: "The world, led by President Obama, who has said this more than once, is taking all possibilities into account.
"Any development ... in a negative direction would be something that needs stopping and prevention."
LEBANON WAR
During the 2006 war in Lebanon, Israel's air forced faced little threat, though its navy was taken aback when a missile hit a ship. Israeli tanks suffered losses to rockets, and commanders are concerned Hezbollah may get better weaponry.
In what might have been a sign of seeking to reassure major powers, Israeli media reported this week that the country's national security adviser was despatched to Russia and military intelligence chief to the United States for consultations.
Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London saw any strike on Wednesday as intended to deliver a signal rather than heralding a major escalation from Israel.
"The Israelis are sending a message not just to Hezbollah but also to Assad's forces that they have no wish to get dragged in, but chemical weapons and certain types of missiles are a red line for them, and that regime forces ought to signal, in turn, to Hezbollah that they should proceed with caution," he said.
Worries about Syria and Hezbollah have sent Israelis lining up for government-issued gas masks in recent days. According to the Israel post office, which is handling distribution of the kits, demand roughly trebled this week.
"It looks like every kind of discourse on this or that security matter contributes to public vigilance," its deputy director Haim Azaki told Israel's Army Radio. "We have really seen a very significant jump in demand."
(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Will Waterman and David Stamp)
Android/iOS: If you want to know what the weather is like, you can always look outside, but if you're headed across town or across the state, you may want to know what the weather is like at your destination before you leave. Nooly is a new app for iOS and Android that promises to give you super-precise conditions and forecasts, using NOAA's own data.
Nooly's approach is to use local weather information from individual weather stations to try and give you a more accurate forecast?not just whether there's a chance of precipitation for your zip code, but whether your neighborhood, or the part of town you're headed to, will get any rainfall today based on their current conditions. The app promises accurate conditions without 0.4 square miles of your current location, updated every five minutes.
Nooly is fresh out of beta, so it's not the prettiest weather app on the block, but it's definitely functional. We tested it, and the forecasts are accurate and there's plenty of weather data to dig through if you want. Nooly pulls data from NOAA radar, NOAA and NASA satellites, and nearby weather stations to offer forecasts that a relevant specifically to where you are and where you plan to be. The app often offers multiple forecasts for different parts of town, because conditions vary widely even in small areas. It has some work to do to compete with other big apps in the field, but focusing on accuracy and local forecasts may be the way to do it.
Check out the video above for a quick primer on how the app works. For now, Nooly is only available in the US and Canada. It's free, and available now for iOS in the iTunes App Store and for Android at Google Play.
From roast tomato soup and baked eggs to shrimp and grits, Brooklyn Supper bloggers (and real life couple!) Brian Campbell and Elizabeth Stark share their yummy, easy-to-make recipes.
If you're an independent band, or actor, or clown, or really creative of any stripe, you're probably looking for a gig. But try as you might, finding that gig is tough. But what if there were a platform that gave creatives their very own LinkedIn or CareerBuilder? In a down economy, where millions are struggling to find regular work, any site that helps musicians connect with gigs at places like SXSW, Bonnaroo or MTV, or helps actors, dancers and performers line up spots in film, TV and beyond, is a step in the right direction. That is the reason why, in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners, Backstage decided to shell out about $15 million to acquire the Boston-based Sonicbids. For those unfamiliar, Backstage (besides being a place that I'm not allowed) is a 50-year-old entertainment industry brand known for publishing a weekly trade rag and bimonthly industry directory/digest, among other things. Essentially, the company's goal is to help those working in the performing arts connect with casting directors, job opportunities and career advice.
Our favorite Russian blogger, who's admittedly often wrong on a few little things, says he has the low-down on a new Vertu smartphone coming in February. It'd be the first release since Nokia sold the luxury brand to a private equity firm last year, and Eldar Murtazin claims the rumored switch from Symbian to Android is definitely a go-er. He also reckons the handset will cost around $4,000, which is loose change compared to some previous Vertus -- like the $27k model shown above. There are no further details to report, aside from a fleeting reference to the legacy of Nokia's 8800 slider, so don't go converting your Swiss francs just yet.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti are separating after 11 years of marriage.
Judd's spokeswoman confirmed a Tuesday report from People magazine that the 44-year-old actress and 39-year-old Scottish race car driver are ending their marriage.
The star of such films as "Double Jeopardy" and "Kiss the Girls" says in a statement that the pair will "always be family" and will continue to cherish their relationship based on love, integrity and respect.
Last year, Judd starred in the ABC series "Missing" and attended the Democratic National Convention as a Tennessee delegate.
Franchitti has won the Indianapolis 500 race three times.
The couple wed in a private ceremony in Scotland in 2001.
BERLIN (AP) ? Missing: One golden cookie, weighing around 44 pounds (20 kilograms).
Suspect: The Cookie Monster?
The rectangular gilded bronze sculpture was part of a statue gracing the facade of German cookie bakerBahlsen's Hannover office.
How the century-old symbol was taken remains unclear, but police say witnesses reported having seen two men with a ladder in the area earlier this month.
The company has offered ?1,000 ($1,350) for information leading to the cookie's recovery.
A police statement said a local newspaper received a picture Tuesday showing someone in an outfit similar to Sesame Street's Cookie Monster holding a golden cookie.
The sender wrote to demand cookies be delivered to children at a city hospital.
Police aren't sure if it's the same cookie, or a real claim of responsibility.
Jan. 29, 2013 ? Ridges in impact craters on Mars appear to be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water. Water flowing beneath the surface suggests life may once have been possible on Mars.
Networks of narrow ridges found in impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.
The study, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The research was conducted by Lee Saper, a recent Brown graduate, with Jack Mustard, professor of geological sciences.
The ridges, many of them hundreds of meters in length and a few meters wide, had been noted in previous research, but how they had formed was not known. Saper and Mustard thought they might once have been faults and fractures that formed underground when impact events rattled the planet's crust. Water, if present in the subsurface, would have circulated through the cracks, slowly filling them in with mineral deposits, which would have been harder than the surrounding rocks. As those surrounding rocks eroded away over millions of years, the seams of mineral-hardened material would remain in place, forming the ridges seen today.
To test their hypothesis, Saper and Mustard mapped over 4,000 ridges in two crater-pocked regions on Mars, Nili Fossae and Nilosyrtis. Using high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers noted the orientations of the ridges and composition of the surrounding rocks.
The orientation data is consistent with the idea that the ridges started out as fractures formed by impact events. A competing hypothesis suggests that these structures may have been sheets of volcanic magma intruding into the surrounding rock, but that doesn't appear to be the case. At Nili Fossae, the orientations are similar to the alignments of large faults related to a mega-scale impact. At Nilosyrtis, where the impact events were smaller in scale, the ridge orientations are associated with each of the small craters in which they were found. "This suggests that fracture formation resulted from the energy of localized impact events and are not associated with regional-scale volcanism," Saper said.
Importantly, Saper and Mustard also found that the ridges exist exclusively in areas where the surrounding rock is rich in iron-magnesium clay, a mineral considered to be a telltale sign that water had once been present in the rocks.
"The association with these hydrated materials suggests there was a water source available," Saper said. "That water would have flowed along the path of least resistance, which in this case would have been these fracture conduits."
As that water flowed, dissolved minerals would have been slowly deposited in the conduits, in much the same way mineral deposits can build up and eventually clog drain pipes. That mineralized material would have been more resistant to erosion than the surrounding rock. And indeed, Saper and Mustard found that these ridges were only found in areas that were heavily eroded, consistent with the notion that these are ancient structures revealed as the weaker surrounding rocks were slowly peeled away by wind.
Taken together, the results suggest the ancient Martian subsurface had flowing water and may have been a habitable environment.
"This gives us a point of observation to say there was enough fracturing and fluid flow in the crust to sustain at least a regionally viable subsurface hydrology," Saper said. "The overarching theme of NASA's planetary exploration has been to follow the water. So if in fact these fractures that turned into these ridges were flowing with hydrothermal fluid, they could have been a viable biosphere."
Saper hopes that the Curiosity rover, currently making its way across its Gale Crater landing site, might be able to shed more light on these types of structures.
"In the site at Gale Crater, there are thought to be mineralized fractures that the rover will go up and touch," Saper said. "These are very small and may not be exactly the same kind of feature we studied, but we'll have the opportunity to crush them up and do chemical analysis on them. That could either bolster our hypothesis or tell us we need to explore other possibilities."
The research was supported by a grant from NASA's Rhode Island Space Grant Consortium and through a NASA subcontract with the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University.
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 Brown University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Lee Saper, John F. Mustard. Extensive linear ridge networks in Nili Fossae and Nilosyrtis, Mars: Implications for fluid flow in the ancient crust. Geophysical Research Letters, 2013 DOI: 10.1002/grl.50106
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.
BOSTON (Reuters) - A bankruptcy judge on Monday froze the assets of the owners of the pharmacy linked to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak.
Orders signed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Henry Boroff temporarily restrict the owners of New England Compounding Center (NECC) from selling their luxury homes or spending up to $21 million they received last year in salary and shareholder distributions.
NECC filed for bankruptcy protection in December after U.S. authorities shut down its pharmacy operations amid a meningitis outbreak that has killed 44 people and sickened nearly 700 others, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Boroff also ordered three companies affiliated with NECC, including Ameridose LLC, from paying money to the individual owners. Ameridose has paid money to NECC, though, to fund its legal defense and bankruptcy counsel, court filings show.
"This is a victory for the creditors committee," said Anne Andrews of Andrews & Thornton of Irvine, California, a co-chair of the creditors committee.
The judge's rulings came in response to an emergency motion of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors. The group launched an investigation after the payments to the owners were revealed January 18 in court filings. The creditors' group, which includes meningitis victims, then sought and received court orders that restrict the sale of owners' real estate and spending down their bank accounts, according to court papers.
Recent disclosures show how privately-held NECC's largest shareholder Carla Conigliaro, for example, received nearly $9 million in 2012, according to court papers.
In addition, Barry Cadden, NECC's chief pharmacist, received about $3.2 million in 2012, filings show. His wife, Lisa Cadden, received about $2.8 million. Greg Conigliaro, a recycling entrepreneur who is Lisa Cadden's brother and Carla Conigliaro's brother-in-law, received about $1.6 million, court papers show.
In a statement issued after the payments were revealed, NECC said a large portion of the distributions to owners were for taxes that were coming due.
"The cash flow patterns and expenditures identified as part of the Chapter 11 process were consistent with the routine operations of NECC throughout 2012," NECC said last week. The company also said there were no indications the pharmacy would experience financial distress in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Last year, NECC shipped thousands of vials of a fungus-tainted steroid to medical facilities throughout the United States, according to authorities. More than 14,000 people have been exposed to the drugs, which were typically injected to ease back pain.
(Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Discovering the missing 'LINC' to deafnessPublic release date: 28-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: ghunka@aftau.org ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Mutation in a genetic protein prevents hearing, reports a Tel Aviv University researcher
Tel Aviv Because half of all instances of hearing loss are linked to genetic mutations, advanced gene research is an invaluable tool for uncovering causes of deafness and one of the biggest hopes for the development of new therapies. Now Prof. Karen Avraham of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University has discovered a significant mutation in a LINC family protein part of the cells of the inner ear that could lead to new treatments for hearing disorders.
Her team of researchers, including Dr. Henning Horn and Profs. Colin Stewart and Brian Burke of the Institute of Medical Biology at A*STAR in Singapore, discovered that the mutation causes chaos in a cell's anatomy. The cell nucleus, which contains our entire DNA, moves to the top of the cell rather than being anchored to the bottom, its normal place. Though this has little impact on the functioning of most of the body's cells, it's devastating for the cells responsible for hearing, explains Prof. Avraham. "The position of the nucleus is important for receiving the electrical signals that determine proper hearing," she explains. "Without the ability to receive these signals correctly, the entire cascade of hearing fails."
This discovery, recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, may be a starting point for the development of new therapies. In the meantime, the research could lead towards work on a drug that is able to mimic the mutated protein's anchoring function, and restore hearing in some cases, she suggests.
From human to lab to mouse
Prof. Avraham originally uncovered the genetic mutation while attempting to explain the cause of deafness in two families of Iraqi Jewish descent. For generations, members of these families had been suffering from hearing loss, but the medical cause remained a mystery. Using deep genetic sequencing, a technology used to sequence the entire human genome, she discovered that the hearing impaired members of both families had a mutated version of the protein Nesprin4, a part of the LINC group of proteins that links the cell's nucleus to the inner wall of the cell.
In the lab, Prof. Avraham recreated this phenomenon by engineering the mutation in single cells. With the mutation in place, Nesprin4 was not found in the area around the cell nucleus, as in healthy cells, but was spread throughout the entire cell. Investigating further, she studied lab mice that were engineered to be completely devoid of the protein.
Created in Singapore, the mice were originally engineered to study the biology of LINC proteins. The fact that they were deaf came as a complete surprise to researchers. Without this protein serving as an anchor, the cell nucleus is not located in the correct position within inner ear cells, but seems to float throughout. This causes the cells' other components to reorient as well, ultimately harming the polarity of the cells and hindering electrical signals. It's a mutation that took a heavy toll on the cells' ability to transfer sound signals, explains Prof. Avraham, rendering the mice deaf.
Given the similarity between mouse and human inner ear cells, researchers predict that the same phenomenon is occurring in human patients with a mutation in the Nesprin4 gene.
Looking for a wider impact
Prof. Avraham says that she and her collaborators are the first to reveal this mutation as a cause of deafness. "Now that we have reported it, scientists around the world can test for mutations in this gene," she notes. The mutation could indeed be a more common genetic cause of deafness in a number of populations. And because Nesprin4 belongs to a family of proteins that have been linked to other diseases, such as muscular coordination and degeneration disorders, this could prove a ripe area for further research.
At TAU, the research was supported by the National Institutes of Health NIDCD and Israeli Center of Research Excellence, I-CORE.
###
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | 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.
Discovering the missing 'LINC' to deafnessPublic release date: 28-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: ghunka@aftau.org ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Mutation in a genetic protein prevents hearing, reports a Tel Aviv University researcher
Tel Aviv Because half of all instances of hearing loss are linked to genetic mutations, advanced gene research is an invaluable tool for uncovering causes of deafness and one of the biggest hopes for the development of new therapies. Now Prof. Karen Avraham of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University has discovered a significant mutation in a LINC family protein part of the cells of the inner ear that could lead to new treatments for hearing disorders.
Her team of researchers, including Dr. Henning Horn and Profs. Colin Stewart and Brian Burke of the Institute of Medical Biology at A*STAR in Singapore, discovered that the mutation causes chaos in a cell's anatomy. The cell nucleus, which contains our entire DNA, moves to the top of the cell rather than being anchored to the bottom, its normal place. Though this has little impact on the functioning of most of the body's cells, it's devastating for the cells responsible for hearing, explains Prof. Avraham. "The position of the nucleus is important for receiving the electrical signals that determine proper hearing," she explains. "Without the ability to receive these signals correctly, the entire cascade of hearing fails."
This discovery, recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, may be a starting point for the development of new therapies. In the meantime, the research could lead towards work on a drug that is able to mimic the mutated protein's anchoring function, and restore hearing in some cases, she suggests.
From human to lab to mouse
Prof. Avraham originally uncovered the genetic mutation while attempting to explain the cause of deafness in two families of Iraqi Jewish descent. For generations, members of these families had been suffering from hearing loss, but the medical cause remained a mystery. Using deep genetic sequencing, a technology used to sequence the entire human genome, she discovered that the hearing impaired members of both families had a mutated version of the protein Nesprin4, a part of the LINC group of proteins that links the cell's nucleus to the inner wall of the cell.
In the lab, Prof. Avraham recreated this phenomenon by engineering the mutation in single cells. With the mutation in place, Nesprin4 was not found in the area around the cell nucleus, as in healthy cells, but was spread throughout the entire cell. Investigating further, she studied lab mice that were engineered to be completely devoid of the protein.
Created in Singapore, the mice were originally engineered to study the biology of LINC proteins. The fact that they were deaf came as a complete surprise to researchers. Without this protein serving as an anchor, the cell nucleus is not located in the correct position within inner ear cells, but seems to float throughout. This causes the cells' other components to reorient as well, ultimately harming the polarity of the cells and hindering electrical signals. It's a mutation that took a heavy toll on the cells' ability to transfer sound signals, explains Prof. Avraham, rendering the mice deaf.
Given the similarity between mouse and human inner ear cells, researchers predict that the same phenomenon is occurring in human patients with a mutation in the Nesprin4 gene.
Looking for a wider impact
Prof. Avraham says that she and her collaborators are the first to reveal this mutation as a cause of deafness. "Now that we have reported it, scientists around the world can test for mutations in this gene," she notes. The mutation could indeed be a more common genetic cause of deafness in a number of populations. And because Nesprin4 belongs to a family of proteins that have been linked to other diseases, such as muscular coordination and degeneration disorders, this could prove a ripe area for further research.
At TAU, the research was supported by the National Institutes of Health NIDCD and Israeli Center of Research Excellence, I-CORE.
###
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | 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.
ZAATARI, Jordan (AP) ? A wave of 21,000 Syrian refugees in the past week, moving into northern Jordan at about five times the usual daily rate, has overwhelmed this crowded camp already struggling with flooding, short supplies and tent fires.
As newly arrived refugees unpacked on Monday, one family's tent went up in flames after kerosene spewed onto a nearby heater. Black smoke poured into the sky. The family's meager possessions were incinerated. In a sign of frustration, some refugees pelted a fire truck with stones, cracking its windshield, saying the firefighters were slow to respond.
"Almost every day, one or two tents catch fire," said 22-year-old Abu Anis, who like most refugees interviewed at the camp asked to be identified by his nickname because he feared retaliation against relatives still living in Syria. "Thank God, other people haven't been hurt because the tents are so close together."
The United Nations says the huge influx of Syrian refugees crossing into neighboring Jordan during the past week was larger than anticipated and left its agencies, already suffering from a funding shortfall, reeling under the influx. U.N. officials are crying out for more funding as they rush to build showers, toilets and a school for the newcomers.
The UNICEF representative to Jordan, Dominque Hyde, said more than 21,000 Syrian refugees arrived at Jordan's sole refugee camp just in the past week.
"We were expecting larger numbers in the new year, but not the 3,000 a day that have been coming across to Zaatari camp," she said.
New arrivals ? most of them coming from southern Syria where fighting has been intense ? were crossing into Jordan at about five times the rate anticipated, according to Andrew Harper of the U.N. refugee agency in Jordan. Until recently, an average of 700 refugees arrived at the desert facility each day.
International donors have pledged less than 3 percent to a $1 billion U.N. appeal made last month to aid the more than 670,000 Syrian refugees estimated to have fled to surrounding countries during the 22-month uprising to topple President Bashar Assad. The U.N. says it hopes a donor conference for Syrian refugees Wednesday in Kuwait will rectify the dire funding situation.
Harper said the Jordanian government has done what it can to provide protection to the 320,000 Syrian refugees it now hosts, but it cannot continue to bear the strain. The U.N. refugee agency said Syrian refugees in Jordan required about $500,000 in assistance. About one-fifth the refugees live in the camp, while the rest shelter in mainly northern communities.
Crossing into Jordan was frightening for Abu Nidal, a 50-year-old farmer from near the Golan Heights. He and 180 others, including women and children, were forced to row across territory flooded by waters from the Yarmouk River.
"The women and children were so afraid because the small boats were rickety and the water (was) deep," he said. "It took eight hours, but we finally arrived safely with the help of the young men and the Jordanian army."
Hyde said the influx to the camp means more showers, toilets, shelters, and schools need to be built. And more refugees also means a rising demand for water in Jordan, already the fourth most water scarce country in the world. She described the sharp increase in refugees as "daunting."
"You can see that many children at Zaatari ? called the 'kids' camp' because they make up the greatest numbers here ? don't have socks or even shoes in the dead of winter," she said as children played on swings and slides nearby.
Hyde said 24,000 Syrian refugee children entered Jordan in the past month alone ? the highest number ever.
"This means that we need to be building a new school immediately," she said, expressing hope that a new one could be constructed by mid-February.
Classes are to resume at the existing school on Feb. 5, but desperate refugees moved in earlier this month because howling winter winds blew their tents down and others were flooded. They say they are still awaiting alternative accommodations. Other camp residents have started jokingly describing the school as "occupied territory."
"We've had officials come and visit ? even the Bahraini government who built the school ? and still no one has responded to our needs for new housing," said Abu Mohamed, a 35-year-old businessman who is staying in the school where about two dozen people share a single classroom partitioned by rows of desks.
"They haven't given us heaters, tents or trailers," said the man who fled fighting in the Syrian capital, Damascus, with his family of four. "Rain is forecast again. Doctors tell us at the camp hospital that our children are sick from the cold."
Anne Richard, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, says that as more Syrians pour out of their homeland, more countries are needed to contribute assistance.
Last year, the U.S. contributed $220 million to assist Syrian refugees. Speaking Monday in the Jordanian capital, Richard said the U.S. would announce additional funding for Syria at the conference in Kuwait, but declined to provide details.
Another Abu Walid, 46, from the southern Syrian town of Dara'a, said that as much as he and the other refugees need the aid, what they really want is an end to nightmarish killing, rape and shelling back home. His 16-year-old son was killed in Syria by shrapnel from artillery tank fire as he walked home from work.
"We want this awful crisis to end and to return home," said the slender man, a wool scarf tied around his neck to ward off the cold.
"The world is sleeping. It's failing us. ... How can it continue to turn its back on us every day as more and more are killed inside Syria?"
Africa?s elephant slaughter continues, as described in this short dispatch from the marine conservationist Carl Safina, who?s ventured far from his usual oceanic domain to do research for his next book. He offered the photographs and note below as a ?Your Dot? sketch ahead of a long post he plans to publish on his blog next week:
The call comes on a Sunday morning as we?re eating breakfast outdoors in the Save the Elephant research camp in Samburu reserve in central Kenya. David Daballen rises to his feet to answer it, walking from the table as he talks. Moments later he returns, announcing, ?Another elephant, just discovered killed, right across the river in Buffalo Springs, right inside the park, right off the road.? Last month, poachers killed 29 elephants from this population in 31 days.
We drive to the carcass. It?s Philo. Philo was a young male elephant, fifteen years old, only halfway to being a viable contender for breeding rights.
Four days ago, Ike Leonard captured Philo?s last portrait. The photo shows Philo as a promising young bull showing a bit of teenage swagger. Ike, an elephant keeper with Disney?s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, had come here to help with research, and?so that he might enhance the welfare of the captive elephants he cares for in Orlando?to observe ?how wild elephants live.? What we are also observing is how wild elephants are dying.
There?s much more on Dot Earth on the ivory trade driving this spasm of poaching.
Cr?me fra?che, a cultured heavy cream, is a staple in French cuisine, and is often used in many sauces since unlike many dairy products it does curdle when heated. It is less sour and thicker than U.S.-style sour cream.
European labelling regulations don't allow any ingredients other than cream and bacterial cultures to be used in authentic cr?me fra?che, but if you're fresh out of bacterial cultures you can add two tablespoons of organic yogurt or buttermilk to one cup of heavy cream and leave it out for 12-24 hours until it reaches the desired consistency. This recipe comes from culinary weblog Blue Kale Road and was used as a topping for a Chocolate Espresso Souffle but cr?me fra?che is also used in chef Gordan Ramsay's famous scrambled egg recipe that we've previously covered.
Don't forget to refrigerate your cr?me fra?che after it is ready?it'll keep up to a month that way.
Chocolate Espresso Souffles with Homemade Creme Fraiche | Blue Kale Road via Punk Domestics
We love fitness trackers. From the Fitbit Flex to the Basis band, strap us in so we can start tracking our every activity and improve our physical health. Unfortunately, our excitement for wearable technology isn't shared among the ...
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Novak Djokovic came up with his best tennis when it mattered most to reassert his grand slam dominance over Andy Murray on Sunday and become the first man to win three successive Australian Open titles in the professional era.
The Serbian world number one played 171 minutes of cat and mouse with his British rival before pouncing when the U.S. Open champion blinked and racing away to a 6-7 7-6 6-3 6-2 victory.
There was no ripping off of the shirt and no victory roar like Rod Laver Arena witnessed last year, but there was no disguising Djokovic's delight at claiming a fourth title at Melbourne Park.
His three successive titles were a first since Roy Emerson won his fifth straight in 1967, while a quartet of crowns matches Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, the latter being on hand to present him with the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup.
"What a joy, it's an incredible feeling to win this trophy again. This is definitely my favorite grand slam. I love this tournament. I love this court," said Djokovic, who lost to Murray at Flushing Meadows in September.
"Every tournament, especially the major tournaments, is very special (but) winning it three in a row, it's incredible."
The similarity of playing style meant the match, although studded with some brilliant rallies, was not the classic that fans have come to expect from grand slam finals in the golden age of men's tennis.
So little separated the two 25-year-old baseliners, however, that two hours and 51 minutes of the contest had passed before the first break of serve.
Crucially, it went to Djokovic and 49 minutes later he was celebrating his sixth grand slam title.
For Murray, hampered by a badly blistered toe, distracted at a key moment by a white feather and physically compromised by his four-hour semi-final against Federer, it was a third final defeat in four years in Australia.
The Scot took some solace from the fact that this match was a much tighter affair than his defeats by Federer in 2010 and Djokovic in 2011.
"There's going to be some obvious reasons for me feeling a little bit better," said Murray, who was hoping to become the first Briton to win the title since Fred Perry in 1934.
"The last few months have been the best tennis of my life. I made the Wimbledon final, won the Olympics, won the U.S. Open. I was close here as well. It was close.
"I know no one's ever won a slam the immediate one after winning their first one. It's not the easiest thing to do and I got extremely close."
SLIGHT EDGE
Djokovic needed nearly six hours to beat Rafa Nadal in last year's final and few were betting on a pre-midnight finish after the first two sets on Sunday took 133 minutes to get through.
The Serbian's aggression gave him a slight edge in the first set and he claimed five break points only for Murray to save them all and then scoot through the tiebreak 7-2.
Murray took the momentum into the second set, where he won the first seven points to earn his first three break points but he fluffed his chances and Djokovic saved his serve.
"After that I felt just mentally a little bit lighter and more confident on the court than I'd done in the first hour or so," said Djokovic.
A white feather which drifted down from the birds nesting in the rafters distracted Murray when he was serving during the tiebreak and he double faulted on his way to losing it 7-3.
"At this level it can come down to just a few points here or there," said Murray. "Probably my biggest chance was at the beginning of the second set, I didn't quite get it.
"When Novak had his chance at the end of the third, he got his."
Djokovic opened the key third set game with a brilliant winner that just caught the back of the line at the end of a 36-shot rally.
He closed it out to go 5-3 ahead when Murray smacked a forehand into the net tape and then won seven of the next nine games to claim the title.
"I didn't expect an easy match," said Djokovic. "You never get the grand slam trophy in an easy way. You have to earn it."
There was more success for 25-year-olds earlier in the day when Australians Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden clinched the mixed doubles title, beating Czech pair Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak 6-3 7-5.
The day belonged to Djokovic, however.
"I'm just trying to play this game with 100 percent of devotion, love, passion, and fun also," he said. "I mean, 25 years-old and I won six grand slams and have a lot of trophies.
"It's amazing. I'm just trying to embrace this moment and enjoy it as much as I can and see where tomorrow brings me."
DALLAS (Reuters) - Boy Scouts of America is discussing ending a longstanding ban on gay members and whether to allow local organizations to decide their own policy, a spokesman said on Monday.
The organization has been under attack from gay rights groups and some parents for discriminating against gay members and gay leaders.
"The BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation," spokesman Deron Smith said in an email to Reuters.
"The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue," the spokesman said.
(Writing by Greg McCune; Editing by Paul Thomasch)
Jan. 27, 2013 ? NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, also known as the Space Network, will get an upgrade this month when the agency launches the first of a new generation of communications satellites to connect man of NASA's spacecraft to their control centers and mission data centers.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 is due to loft the TDRS-K spacecraft Jan. 29 on a course to geosynchronous orbit where the spacecraft will have a wide view of Earth. From that position, the spacecraft will provide communications with NASA's fleet of Earth-orbiting science spacecraft, including the International Space Station and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
The advanced spacecraft, known as TDRS, is needed to ensure the communications network is able to provide critical services to user spacecraft in the next decade.
"We have some aging satellites, so we need new spacecraft to go in there and help carry more of the data," said Diana Calero, mission manager for NASA's Launch Services Program, or LSP, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The processing for this mission included the standard in-depth reviews but also took into account extra engineering sessions to investigate whether the underperformance of an upper stage engine during an earlier, non-NASA launch would occur during the TDRS ascent, said Tim Dunn, NASA launch director. The Centaur upper stage used by the Atlas V uses an engine similar to the one that underperformed during a Delta IV launch last year.
"Our engineers and analysts from the Launch Services Program, working alongside the United Launch Alliance engineers, we've been methodically reviewing data and working very closely on flight clearance for the TDRS-K mission, so that's been our biggest challenge to date," Dunn said.
The TDRS spacecraft is large and looked impressive as it stood with its large steerable antennas folded over top of each other inside a processing hangar at Astrotech in Titusville, Fla. The spacecraft, built by The Boeing Company in El Segundo, Calif., arrived in Florida on Dec. 18 on an Air Force C-17 transport plane. Following testing, fueling and launch preparations, it was positioned inside a two-part payload fairing and taken to Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Onboard thrusters will provide the final propulsion to reach geosynchronous orbit following separation from the Centaur upper stage.
"The antennas are furled and they have a certain amount of days that they can stay furled," Calero said. "If they pass that, then the antennas, when they're deployed, they can actually degrade in space and so we have to play close attention to how long they stay furled. So it was really challenging trying to schedule the shipping of the spacecraft with the moving launch date. We're still watching it very closely."
TDRS-K will be the 11th TDRS launched by NASA since it began building the space-borne network in 1983. The most recent spacecraft launched in 2002 on an Atlas IIA.
Orbiting about 22,300 miles above Earth, positioned roughly over Hawaii, TDRS-K will use its antennas to receive and transmit signals from a wide range of spacecraft to Earth in several frequency bands.
Even rockets carrying spacecraft carry TDRS-compatible communications gear and transmit telemetry during ascent through the orbiting network instead of ground stations, an advancement that saves money by not having to field specialized aircraft and ships or maintain a string of remote stations to monitor a launch.
The number of TDRS satellites required to serve NASA's orbiting fleet of scientific spacecraft has grown from the original architecture of two to six to service the requirements of a diverse set of users.
"All the Hubble images come through TDRS, all the video that we see from the space station and the astronauts and the video we saw from the shuttle, it all comes through TDRS, and then we have all the Earth-orbiting satellites, all that data comes through TDRS," said Paul Buchanan, deputy project manager for TDRS.
The communications constellation replaced the ground stations positioned on Earth so NASA could communicate with astronauts in orbit. That system allowed contact only when the spacecraft passed within range of the antennas, however. With TDRS satellites in place, controllers have near-constant contact with spacecraft.
"If you roll back in history maybe 30, 40 years, back in Mercury days and Apollo there were no TDRS satellites for communication so you had outages between the ground stations," Buchanan said. "We didn't want the outages, we wanted continuous (communications), so that's what motivated the desire for the Space Network."
"We've had to decommission two spacecraft in the last few years due to the electronics degradation after 20, 25 years," Buchanan said. "We're launching now for an immediate need and replenishment schedule."
When their service life is up, the TDRS satellites are boosted about 250 miles higher into what's called a disposal orbit.
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 NASA.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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.
I am just getting back into roleplaying and I am looking for a like minded roleplayer to share a storyline with.
I really enjoy realistic settings in roleplays and like a mature storyline that has some depth to it. I would like someone who is able to commit to a roleplay and see it through. Although I am only just getting back into roleplaying I can still maintain a good quality post.
It would be nice if you could play either male or female so if there is more than one roleplay we're not always playing the same gender :)
I have roleplayed about animals, love, war, drama, disaster and many more topics so if you are interested in creating a realistic roleplay I'd love to hear from you.
Just send me a message and we can discuss some ideas :)
Swimming is the fourth most popular sports activity in the United States and a good way to get regular aerobic physical activity . Just two and a half hours per week of aerobic physical activity, such as swimming, bicycling, or running can decrease the risk of chronic illnesses. This can also lead to improved health for people with diabetes and heart disease. Swimmers have about half the risk of death compared with inactive people. People report enjoying water-based exercise more than exercising on land. They can also exercise longer in water than on land without increased effort or joint or muscle pain.
Water-Based Exercise and Chronic Illness
Water-based exercise can help people with chronic diseases. For people with arthritis, it improves use of affected joints without worsening symptoms. People with rheumatoid arthritis have more health improvements after participating in hydrotherapy than with other activities. Water-based exercise also improves the use of affected joints and decreases pain from osteoarthritis.
Water-Based Exercise and Mental Health
Water-based exercise improves mental health. Swimming can improve mood in both men and women. For people with fibromyalgia, it can decrease anxiety and exercise therapy in warm water can decrease depression and improve mood. Water-based exercise can improve the health of mothers and their unborn children and has a positive effect on the mothers? mental health. Parents of children with developmental disabilities find that recreational activities, such as swimming, improve family connections.
Water-Based Exercise and Older Adults
Water-based exercise can benefit older adults by improving the quality of life and decreasing disability. It also improves or maintains the bone health of post-menopausal women.
?A Good Choice
Exercising in water offers many physical and mental health benefits and is a good choice for people who want to be more active. When in the water, remember to protect yourself and others from illness and injury by practicing healthy and safe swimming behaviors.
There was a man on the radio this week talking about his sextant ? which was over 100 years old when he bought it some time ago. This was the only navigation instrument available to sailors for over a century. When searching for info for this entry I found a reference to Robin Knox Johnson?s circumnavigation of the globe 44 years ago ? he had no radio, a barometer from a pub and a sextant. How things have changed! GPS, now on most mobile phones can locate your position to within a metre or so. Sextants rely on the knowing the exact time to calculate the position in fact the British admiralty sponsored the development of the first accurate timepiece that could go to sea ? pendulum clocks aren?t much use in a seaway! The balance wheel was the solution to this problem. GPS rely on timing, too, but rather more precisely that a maritime chronometer. The basis for GPS is a series of satellites that orbit the earth ? not in synchronous orbits like communications satellites ? but with a period of just under 12 hours. These are equipped with extremely accurate atomic clocks. A GPS receiver will receive signals from at least four satellites and will calculate the distance from each based on the time take for the signal to reach the receiver from the satellite. It then calculates the position based on a mathematical principle called trilateration. This involved calculating the intersecton of the four or more spheres that are defined by the timings. Thinking of this in 3 dimensions is quite tricky (I always have to get an orange out when I try to think of the geometry of the earth!) In two dimensions, it?s a little simpler: here?s a local example. Suppose I?m 2.81 miles from Gt Missenden, 2.59 miles from Wendover and 3.33 miles from Princes Risborough. The first distance gives me a circle.?
The second ties the position down to two possible points The third fixes me at Little Hampden Now try to imagine this in three dimensions ? intersections of spheres. The calculation to achieve a position is pretty complicated. GPS devices can also calculate the position in a number of formats including the GB OS grid reference. I?ve put a map on the waymark outside outside our house with a grid reference read from my GPS. Lots of walkers stop to look ? but I?m not sure if the reference means anything to many of them!
Android/iOS: If you want to know what the weather is like, you can always look outside, but if you're headed across town or across the state, you may want to know what the weather is like at your destination before you leave. Nooly is a new app for iOS and Android that promises to give you super-precise conditions and forecasts, using NOAA's own data. 
If you're an independent band, or actor, or clown, or really creative of any stripe, you're probably looking for a gig. But try as you might, finding that gig is tough. But what if there were a platform that gave creatives their very own LinkedIn or CareerBuilder? In a down economy, where millions are struggling to find regular work, any site that helps musicians connect with gigs at places like SXSW, Bonnaroo or MTV, or helps actors, dancers and performers line up spots in film, TV and beyond, is a step in the right direction. That is the reason why, in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners, 
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 28-Jan-2013
Share ] 
Cr?me fra?che, a cultured heavy cream, is a staple in French cuisine, and is often used in many sauces since unlike many dairy products it does curdle when heated. It is less sour and thicker than U.S.-style sour cream. 
