Senator comes out: During the debate over marriage equality language in the Nevada state constitution, state Senator Kelvin Atkinson stood up and said, 'I'm gay.'
By Sandra Chereb,?Associated Press / April 23, 2013
Nevada state Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D) of North Las Vegas, seen here at a 2011 budget hearing, had a coming out of sorts when he announced, 'I'm black. I'm gay,' at the Legislature in Carson City, Nev. during last night's debate over same-sex marriage.
Cathleen Allison / AP / File
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The?Nevada?Senate, after an hour-long, soul-searching debate about equality, love, and marriage passed a resolution late Monday repealing the state's heterosexual definition of marriage, the first step in a long process to recognize?gay?marriage.
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In emotional comments, senators told of family members who are?gay; their own conflicts between religion and social justice. For Sen. Kelvin Atkinson (D) of North Las Vegas, it was a coming out of sorts when he announced to many, "I'm black. I'm?gay."
Senate Joint Resolution 13 repeals a constitutional provision enacted by voters in 2002. It also declares that Nevada?recognizes all marriages, regardless of gender.
The resolution was approved on a 12-9 vote, with Sen. Ben Kieckhefer (R) of Reno voting with the Democratic majority. It now goes to the Assembly.
If passed by lawmakers this year and in 2015, it would go to voters in 2016 for ratification.
"This is a vote to let the people vote for equality," said Sen. Pat Spearman (D) of North Las Vegas. A black, lesbian minister, Spearman talked passionately of growing up in the 1960s in the deep south, being spit on because she was black.
"I know what it feels like when people want to push separate but equal," Spearman said. "Separate is not equal."
Sen. David Parks, a Las Vegas Democrat who was the first openly?gay person elected to the?Nevada?Legislature, urged his colleagues' support.
"There is no threat; no threat to one's marriage or their own personal views," Parks said. "Passage of SJR13 will begin the positive process toward fairness and equality."
The measure, he said, will allow voters to decide "so that someday soon I may have the same rights you are entitled to."
For many Republicans, the vote came down to whether marriage should be in the constitution at all. The original version of the resolution called only for repealing the Protection of Marriage Act passed by voters in 2002 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
They objected to expanding the measure to sanction same-sex marriage.
"It is regrettable that it has come to this," said Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson (R) of Henderson, adding he and others in the Republican caucus supported the original version of SJR13.
LONDON (AP) ? Remember when tweeting was for the birds?
The BBC is hoping to revive that simpler time with "Tweet of the Day" ? an early-morning radio program dedicated to British birdsong.
Veteran naturalist David Attenborough will host the 90-second show, which will feature the song of a different bird each weekday, along with background on the species' behavior and habits.
The show on the BBC's main speech station, Radio 4, may be best appreciated by those who rise with the birds. "Tweet of the Day" will be broadcast at 5:58 a.m.
The BBC said Wednesday that 265 different birds will be featured during the year-long series, which begins next month with a recording of the cuckoo. Attenborough will host for the first month, and be followed by other BBC presenters.
Majority of children readmitted to hospital following stem cell transplantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Irene Sege irene.sege@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-7379 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within six months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells were twice as likely to be readmitted as children who received their own stem cells.
"No one had ever looked at these data in children," said Leslie E. Lehmann, MD, clinical director of pediatric stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC). "This is very important information and will allow us to counsel families appropriately, as well as try to devise interventions that reduce the rate of readmissions."
The study by Lehmann and Harvard Medical School student David Shulman is being presented at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology in Miami, April 24-27.
A record review of 129 children from 2008 to 2011 revealed that 64 percent had at least one hospital readmission within 180 days of transplant. The source of the donor cells was a key predictor: 79 percent of patients receiving transplants from a related or unrelated donor were readmitted compared to 38 percent who received their own cells (autologous transplant). The mean number of readmissions was 2.4, indicating that for some children, discharge after transplant is just the beginning of a long process characterized by repeated hospital stays.
Fever without a documented source of infection accounted for 39 percent of the readmissions; 24 percent were for infections and 15 percent for gastrointestinal problems.
"Most of the patients went on to be successfully treated and ultimately did very well," commented Lehmann.
"We hope these findings can eventually lead to identifying a group of low-risk children who could be managed at local hospitals rather than transplant centers, reducing costs and inconvenience to families."
Lehmann said the goal is to identify which patients could be safely treated without requiring an admission to the hospital.
###
The study was conducted without outside funding.
Written by Richard Saltus, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Since 1947, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have provided comprehensive care for children and adolescents with cancer through Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. The two Harvard Medical School affiliates share a clinical staff that delivers inpatient care at Boston Children's and outpatient therapies at Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic. The Boston Children's inpatient pediatric cancer service has 33 beds, including 13 designated for stem cell transplant patients.
Boston Children's is also the site of DF/CHCC inpatient clinical translational research in pediatric malignancies and has long supported the operation of an effective and productive stem cell transplant service. It has a long history of investment in and support of both clinical and basic cancer research, with more than $7.3 million in National Cancer Institute research support and 47,000 square feet of space devoted to cancer research. It is a recognized center of excellence in angiogenesis, cellular/molecular immunology, cancer genetics, and molecular signaling research.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Majority of children readmitted to hospital following stem cell transplantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Irene Sege irene.sege@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-7379 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within six months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells were twice as likely to be readmitted as children who received their own stem cells.
"No one had ever looked at these data in children," said Leslie E. Lehmann, MD, clinical director of pediatric stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC). "This is very important information and will allow us to counsel families appropriately, as well as try to devise interventions that reduce the rate of readmissions."
The study by Lehmann and Harvard Medical School student David Shulman is being presented at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology in Miami, April 24-27.
A record review of 129 children from 2008 to 2011 revealed that 64 percent had at least one hospital readmission within 180 days of transplant. The source of the donor cells was a key predictor: 79 percent of patients receiving transplants from a related or unrelated donor were readmitted compared to 38 percent who received their own cells (autologous transplant). The mean number of readmissions was 2.4, indicating that for some children, discharge after transplant is just the beginning of a long process characterized by repeated hospital stays.
Fever without a documented source of infection accounted for 39 percent of the readmissions; 24 percent were for infections and 15 percent for gastrointestinal problems.
"Most of the patients went on to be successfully treated and ultimately did very well," commented Lehmann.
"We hope these findings can eventually lead to identifying a group of low-risk children who could be managed at local hospitals rather than transplant centers, reducing costs and inconvenience to families."
Lehmann said the goal is to identify which patients could be safely treated without requiring an admission to the hospital.
###
The study was conducted without outside funding.
Written by Richard Saltus, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center
Since 1947, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have provided comprehensive care for children and adolescents with cancer through Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. The two Harvard Medical School affiliates share a clinical staff that delivers inpatient care at Boston Children's and outpatient therapies at Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic. The Boston Children's inpatient pediatric cancer service has 33 beds, including 13 designated for stem cell transplant patients.
Boston Children's is also the site of DF/CHCC inpatient clinical translational research in pediatric malignancies and has long supported the operation of an effective and productive stem cell transplant service. It has a long history of investment in and support of both clinical and basic cancer research, with more than $7.3 million in National Cancer Institute research support and 47,000 square feet of space devoted to cancer research. It is a recognized center of excellence in angiogenesis, cellular/molecular immunology, cancer genetics, and molecular signaling research.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Maybe rocker Greg Kihn was being prophetic in his 1981 hit, "The Breakup Song," with its chorus, "They don't write 'em like that anymore." An Indiana University professor's new paper looks at how people write to break up today, including through texts, emails and social media.
According to a new research article by Ilana Gershon, associate professor of communication and culture in IU's College of Arts and Sciences, part of what makes the breakup stories she collected into American stories is that the medium seems so important to the message when breaking off relationships.
"It wasn't until after I had collected many breakup stories that I realized my students had told me something quite revealing that would come up time and time again. ... American undergraduates focus on the 'how' of a breakup when describing their breakups, not the 'why' or the 'who,'" Gershon said.
Her paper, "Everytime We Type Goodbye: Heartbreak American Style," published in the journal Anthropology Now, discusses how the narratives of breakups in the United States differ from those in other countries.
Gershon also is the author of the 2010 book, "The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media" (Cornell University Press), which argued that Facebook and other forms of social networking have radically changed the playing field of dating today.
She interviewed 72 people at length for her paper, including 66 undergraduate college students who communicate frequently with new technologies. She found that when American college students tell their breakup stories, they consist of a string of conversations, and people always describe when anyone switched media to continue the conversations.
"The medium used for the conversation mattered enough to be almost always mentioned," Gershon said. "People would invariably mark when a different medium was used, explaining when communication shifted from voicemail to texting to Facebook and then to phone."
Her results differ from other ethnographic research done elsewhere, such as in Japan and Britain, where the story often focuses on justifying why the relationship had to end. Character was the emphasis overseas, not the method.
"The American undergraduates I interviewed were not discussing their breakups in terms of the right balance of dependence, or even the kind of people who might break up," Gershon added.
"The closest an interviewee came to describing herself as a particular type of person was a woman who decided not to show anyone else the text breakup message her ex had sent her. Even this example shows that U.S. undergraduates were using the 'how' of the breakup as the narrative frame to explore what an end of the relationship might mean for them."
In many cases, the young people Gershon interviewed were looking for validation that it had been a bad breakup and the medium was crucial evidence.
In the paper, Gershon cited one example of a breakup done through a text message. "Rebecca" wanted to talk on the phone with her former boyfriend to have what she considered a "proper ending to the relationship."
"As in most of the narratives I collected, the 'how' of the breakup was the central focus of Rebecca's story," Gershon said. "This 'how' stood in for other questions that haunted Rebecca as well -- namely why her ex-boyfriend decided to break off the relationship.
"Rebecca and others did not focus on the 'why' of the breakup or the 'who' of the breakup, although this course would come up in the narratives as secondary themes," she said. "By focusing on the 'how,' she was able to avoid these often unanswerable questions -- unanswerable questions like why the breakup had happened in the first place and who really was to blame."
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday backed a plan that would temporarily eliminate spending cuts disrupting U.S. air travel, while lawmakers in Washington scrambled to avoid blame as the impact of the reductions began being felt across the country.
Airlines pushed for the government to act as flight delays increased and planes stacked up at airports, with one chief executive saying, "We can't do this for long."
With Republicans and conservative commentators blaming President Barack Obama for using the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration to score political points, the White House said it supported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposal to replace the reductions by claiming savings from the drawdown of war spending.
"We support this effort to allow both sides to find a longer-term solution that replaces the sequester permanently in a balanced way so we can stop these harmful cuts that are hurting our economy and middle-class families across the country," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.
The administration would support the move as a temporary measure even though it does not raise revenues, Carney said.
Congressional Republicans have rejected the proposal, saying counting war savings is an accounting gimmick, but complaints about the air traffic delays have thrust sequestration back into the spotlight.
EFFECTS ADDING UP
Thousands of flights have been held on the ground, some for as long as two hours, since the Federal Aviation Administration began furloughing air-traffic controllers on Sunday. The intermittent delays have slowed travel at major hubs like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, caused flight cancellations and stirred concern a chunk of the nation's economy could suffer if the situation persists or worsens.
For business travelers and tourists, the slowdown means missed connections and meetings. Private planes used by businesses are waiting while controllers first guide commercial flights into hubs, and they are carrying more fuel as a safety precaution, in case they are held in the air.
US Airways, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have warned that furloughs could cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue. The airline industry says it helps generate more than $1 trillion in economic activity in the United States annually and supports 10 million jobs.
"We can't do this for long without having major disruption to the flying public," US Airways CEO Doug Parker said in an interview. He said he called government officials at the airline's hubs last week, and that Congress and the Obama administration were trying to limit the damage.
The requirements have put pressure on FAA chief Michael Huerta, who was questioned in congressional hearings in the past two weeks about furloughs and the closures of smaller towers.
Huerta says the cuts are the only way to trim the agency's budget, and he said on Wednesday that flight delays had not been as bad as feared.
But industry critics said the FAA had not been forthcoming with information. "We didn't get a detailed briefing until Tuesday - a week ago Tuesday," said Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the trade organization Airlines for America, or A4A.
Last Friday, A4A sought to block the furloughs in court, and the Air Line Pilots Association joined the A4A in launching a website that directs visitors to email or call congressional members on the issue. The ALPA represents nearly 53,000 pilots at airlines in the United States and Canada.
More than 12,000 people have used it to voice concerns since it went live on Friday. A map showing congressional districts shows large pockets of opposition in Chicago, the Northeast and California. Most of those posting comments oppose furloughs.
CONGRESS LASHES OUT
"These cuts simply punish everyone rather than specifically target the great number of outdated, wasteful and duplicative functions being funded with our taxpayer dollars," Iowa Republican Tom Latham said. "In short, arbitrary, non-targeted, across-the-board cuts are no way to run a government."
Members of Congress are offering a measure that would allow the FAA to transfer funds between accounts to minimize disruptions to air travel.
The sequestration cuts are the legacy of Republican efforts to pressure the Obama administration into spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation's debt limit. The White House and lawmakers agreed to hold up the threat of the reductions, which affect defense and non-defense spending equally, as incentive to reach a broader deficit-reduction deal.
When that deal never materialized, the cuts took effect on March 1. Although the administration broadly advertised the negative impact they would have, those effects were not evident right away.
Flight delays this week have revived the issue. Carney blamed Republicans on Wednesday for underestimating the negative impact of the spending reductions.
"Republicans in Congress made a political tactical decision to embrace the sequester," he said. Cuts proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would bite even more deeply than those under the sequester, he added.
But some Republican conservatives expressed support for the sequestration cuts on Wednesday, saying that they were long overdue.
"I don't understand this fascination with the Democrats right now with the sequester, and frankly some Republicans as well," Republican Representative Raul Labrador said.
(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs in Scottsdale, Arizona; Editing by Ben Berkowitz, Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
If your nerves are a bit frazzled chances are you live in West Virginia. According to the new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released earlier today, residents of this state are the most stressed out in the nation.
Gallup has been tracking the daily stress levels of Americans since 2008. To find out how much the average citizen feels emotional and psychological stress and enjoys life on a daily basis, they polled more than 350,000 people by phone ? despite the fact that numerous studies show increased phone usage can increase anxiety.
Besides West Virginians, more people who live in Rhode Island, Kentucky, Utah and Massachusetts reported a case of frayed nerves the previous day. In all those states over 40 percent of those surveyed admitted they felt some level of stress the day before being interviewed.
West Virginia is ranked the most stressed state in the nation. Photo credit: Getty Images.
And more people from Rhode Island, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia seem to be having a miserable time. Nearly 20 percent of people in those states told interviewers they did not enjoy themselves the day before.
Hawaiians, on the other hand, are mellow compared with those who live in the lower 48. For the second year in a row, they seemed to be the most immune to emotional stress and more likely to feel enjoyment. A mere 32 percent of Hawaiians reported feeling stressed out and nearly 90 percent said they were enjoying life. (President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.)
Other states with the fewest anxious residents included Louisiana, Iowa, Mississippi and Wyoming. After Hawaii, the states with the highest reported enjoyment levels were Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota and Idaho.
The researchers aren?t clear what the association is between stress and enjoyment but many of the states with the highest stress levels were also states where people seemed to be having the least fun. And rankings have remained fairly consistent, with stress levels in all states remaining statistically unchanged in 2012 compared with 2011.
For example, Hawaii has ranked as the state with the lowest percentage of residents reporting stress on the prior day all five years the survey has been conducted. West Virginia, Kentucky, and Utah, have each ranked within the top five most stressed states for the past five years. West Virginia ranked as the most stressed state in 2012, Kentucky was the top state for stress in 2008 and 2011, and Utah was the top state for stress in 2009 and 2010.
Residents in other high-stress states, Kentucky and West Virginia, were also among the least likely to experience enjoyment. Both of these states have appeared among the bottom five states for experiencing enjoyment at least three times since Gallup began reporting this measure, including last year?s poll.
Regionally, states with stress levels at or above 42 percent were clustered in the Northeast and Midwest, but also included Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Utah is unique in that it routinely ranks among both the highest stress and highest enjoyment states. The researchers said they believed this underscores the complex relationship between stress and other emotions.
On average, 40.6 percent of Americans reported feeling stressed ?yesterday? in this year?s survey and almost 85 percent reported feeling enjoyment ?yesterday.? To see where your state ranked, click here.
Toronto-based Wave, the online finance software startup that has built a growing business around a freemium model of cloud-based accounting, is launching its new iOS payroll application today. The tool is a companion to the company?s web-based payroll platform, adding a much-needed mobile element to the overall product suite and building on the recent launch of the receipt scanner applications the company debuted earlier this month.
The iOS payroll app is designed to help SMB owners to run their entire payroll process from their iPhones, without having to jump on?the?desktop to do things like view a payroll history, run a new cycle, pay stubs and receive notifications to remind them of tasks that need completion. Notifications can be set for employees, too, to alert you exactly them a payment has been received. The app is debuting on Android, but CEO Kirk Simpson told me that the company is working on an Android version, too, with the intention of releasing that later this year.
The mobile app has been one of the top requests from Wave?s 600,000 current subscribers, and adds to Wave?s?continuing?efforts to build out that part of its business. Its freemium model appears to be working well so far, with the basic accounting tools available to all via an ad-supported revenue model, and additional tools, including the payroll suite, available on volume-based pricing. Moving mobile, which is a huge area of potential growth for SaaS-based offerings, si a good way for Wave to keep up with new players and stay ahead of legacy offerings.
November 16, 2010
C$18.5M
Wave is an integrated online solution designed for small businesses. There are several tools that work together, so small business owners have the insights and tools they need, all with one login. 1) Accounting by Wave is totally free. It?s a full double-entry accounting app, with financial dashboards, reporting, bank connections to avoid manual entry, and more. Guest collaborator features allow you to collaborate with a trusted accountant, bookkeeper or business partner, all in real time. Track multiple businesses...
When Logitech announced keyboard folios for the iPad and iPad Mini less than a month ago, it thought it had all bases covered: keyboard, stand, cover. One important group of people weren't considered in the design brief, however: so-called spillers, those with an uncanny ability to bring gadgets and beverages together. It's no wonder, then, that Logitech has been quick to come up with the FabricSkin keyboard folio to cater for this demographic. In addition to the "liquid-repellent FabricSkin surface" that coats the folio, there are a couple of new color schemes to choose from, and the Bluetooth keyboard is now without openings, similar to the Surface Touch Cover, so fluid can't work its way in between the keys. You'll be paying a premium for that peace of mind, though, as the FabricSkin folio for the iPad 2 and up (no iPad Mini version), set to launch in May, is now available to pre-order from Logitech for $149 (or £129) -- $50 more than the standard cover. Still, if there's a good chance you'd hydrate a normal folio eventually, the FabricSkin model is almost like getting a replacement at half price. We'll drink to that.
Drug developers may have a new tool to search for more effective medications and new materials.
It's a computer algorithm that can model and catalogue the entire set of lightweight, carbon-containing molecules that chemists could feasibly create in a lab.
The small-molecule universe has more than 10^60 (that's 1 with 60 zeroes after it) chemical structures. Duke chemist David Beratan said that many of the world's problems have molecular solutions in this chemical space, whether it's a cure for disease or a new material to capture sunlight.
But, he said, "The small-molecule universe is astronomical in size. When we search it for new molecular solutions, we are lost. We don't know which way to look."
To give synthetic chemists better directions in their molecular search, Beratan and his colleagues -- Duke chemist Weitao Yang, postdoctoral associates Aaron Virshup and Julia Contreras-Garcia, and University of Pittsburgh chemist Peter Wipf -- designed a new computer algorithm to map the small-molecule universe.
The map, developed with a National Institutes of Health P50 Center grant, tells scientists where the unexplored regions of the chemical space are and how to build structures to get there. A paper describing the algorithm and map appeared online in April in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The map helps chemists because they do not yet have the tools, time or money to synthesize all 10^60 compounds in the small-molecule universe. Synthetic chemists can only make a few hundred or a few thousand molecules at a time, so they have to carefully choose which compounds to build, Beratan said.
The scientists already have a digital library describing about a billion molecules found in the small-molecule universe, and they have synthesized about 100 million compounds over the course of human history, Beratan said. But these molecules are similar in structure and come from the same regions of the small-molecule universe.
It's the unexplored regions that could hold molecular solutions to some of the world's most vexing challenges, Beratan said.
To add diversity and explore new regions to the chemical space, Aaron Virshup developed a computer algorithm that built a virtual library of 9 million molecules with compounds representing every region of the small-molecule universe.
"The idea was to start with a simple molecule and make random changes, so you add a carbon, change a double bond to a single bond, add a nitrogen. By doing that over and over again, you can get to any molecule you can think of," Virshup said.
He programed the new algorithm to make small, random chemical changes to the structure of benzene and then to catalogue the new molecules it created based on where they fit into the map of the small-molecule universe. The challenge, Virshup said, came in identifying which new chemical compounds chemists could actually create in a lab.
Virshup sent his early drafts of the algorithm's newly constructed molecules to synthetic chemists who scribbled on them in red ink to show whether they were synthetically unstable or unrealistic. He then turned the criticisms into rules the algorithm had to follow so it would not make those types of compounds again.
"The rules kept us from getting lost in the chemical space," he said.
After ten iterations, the algorithm finally produced 9 million synthesizable molecules representing every region of the small-molecule universe, and it produced a map showing the regions of the chemical space where scientists have not yet synthesized any compounds.
"With the map, we can tell chemists, if you can synthesize a new molecule in this region of space, you have made a new type of compound," Virshup said. "It's an intellectual property issue. If you're in the blank spaces on our small molecule map, you're guaranteed to make something that isn't patented yet," he said.
The team has made the source code for the algorithm available online. The researchers said they hope scientists will use it to immediately start mining the unexplored regions of the small molecule universe for new chemical compounds.
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Duke University: http://www.duke.edu
Thanks to Duke University for this article.
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Apr. 23, 2013 ? The overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture can wreak havoc on waterways, health and the environment.
An international team of scientists aims to lessen the reliance on these fertilizers by helping beans and similar plants boost their nitrogen production, even in areas with traditionally poor soil quality.
Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory report as an advance article April 5 for the Metallomics journal of The Royal Society of Chemistry on how to use X-ray analysis to map a path to increasing the amount of nitrogen that legumes deposit into the soil.
Cultivation of legumes, the plant family that includes peas, beans, alfalfa, soybeans, and peanuts, is one of the main ways farmers add natural nitrogen to agricultural fields. Rotating bean and corn crops to take advantage of the nitrogen beans deposit in the soil has long been a global farming tradition. Legumes use iron in the soil to carry out a complex chemical process called nitrogen fixation, which collects atmospheric nitrogen and converts it into organic forms that help the plant grow. When the plant dies, the excess nitrogen is released back into to the soil to help the next crop.
But often legumes are grown in areas with iron-depleted soil, which limits their nitrogen fixation. That's where research can lend a hand. The Argonne-UPM team has created the world's first model for how iron is transported in the plant's root nodule to trigger nitrogen fixation. This is the first step in modifying the plants to maximize iron use.
"The long-term goal is to help sustainable agriculture practices and further diminish the environmental damage from overuse of nitrogen fertilizers," said Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero, lead author of the paper from UPM. "This can be done by maximizing the delivery of essential metal oligonutrients to nitrogen-fixing rhizobia."
The research team, which included Lydia Finney and Stefan Vogt from the APS, used high-energy X-rays from the 8-BM and 2-ID-E beamlines of the APS to track the distribution of minute iron amounts in the different developmental regions of rhizobia-containing roots. This is the first high-energy X-ray analysis of plant-microbe interactions.
X-rays, such as those from the APS, provided a high sensitivity to elements and a high spatial resolution not attainable by other means. Full details can be found in the paper Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules.
In future studies at the APS, Gonzalez-Guerrero hopes to identify and characterize the key biological proteins responsible for iron transportation. That would give researchers targets to manipulate and screen for new legume varieties with increased nitrogen-fixation capabilities and higher nutritional value.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Argonne National Laboratory. The original article was written by Tona Kunz.
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Journal Reference:
Benjam?n Rodr?guez-Haas, Lydia Finney, Stefan Vogt, Pablo Gonz?lez-Melendi, Juan Imperial, Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero. Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules. Metallomics, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C3MT00060E
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.
JERUSALEM (AP) ? On Chuck Hagel's inaugural visit to Israel as U.S. defense secretary, Syria surpassed Iran as the security threat of greatest urgency to the U.S.' closest Mideast ally. That quite unexpectedly gave the new Pentagon chief a temporary respite from the delicate duty of tempering Israeli warnings about attacking Iran to stop it from building a nuclear bomb.
Israeli leaders see Iran's nuclear ambitions as a threat to their country's very existence, given Tehran's vow to wipe it off the map. But Syria suddenly has emerged so prominently that it overshadowed Iran during Hagel's three days in Israel.
That explains, in part, why Hagel repeatedly stressed in public Israel's right to defend itself and to decide on its own, if necessary, whether and when to attack Iran. He gave less emphasis than usual by American officials to Washington's wish that diplomacy and sanctions be given more time to persuade Iran to change course.
Notably, Israel's new defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said at a joint news conference with Hagel on Monday that he, too, thinks non-military means ought to be pursued further.
"By one way or another, the military nuclear project of Iran should be stopped," Yaalon said. "Having said that, we believe that the military option, which is well discussed, should be the last resort anyhow." He added, "There are other tools to be used and to be exhausted, whether it is diplomacy, economic sanctions, or even more support of the opposition in Iran."
Hagel seemed to sense slightly less urgency in the Israeli concern about Iran, although he by no means dismissed the problem. One year ago, Hagel's predecessor, Leon Panetta, was letting it be known that he feared Israel could attack Iran in a matter of weeks. Washington worries that such a strike could ignite a wider war in which it would be difficult for the U.S. to avoid getting involved.
That was before the Syrian civil war had reached the point of widespread concern that its illicit stockpiles of chemical weapons could pose a threat to Israel and other neighbors.
Jordan, too, is worried about transfers of Syrian chemical weapons. Hagel stopped briefly in Jordan Tuesday.
"The United States and Jordan share mutual concerns about the ongoing crisis in Syria and continue to consult closely on a number of issues including chemical weapons and the demands posed by the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence," Pentagon press secretary George Little said after Hagel's meeting in Amman.
Little said the Pentagon has provided more than $70 million to Jordan this year to help secure its border and prevent the transfer of chemical weapons from Syria.
Hagel ended his day in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who also serves as the Saudi defense minister. Little said they discussed a proposed sale of advanced U.S. missiles for Saudi F-15 fighters as well as mutual concerns about Iran's nuclear program and the violence in Syria.
The Israelis see immediate dangers in the Syrian civil war, not only in the threat along Israel's northeastern border but also in the grim possibility that Syrian chemical weapons could fall into the hands of extremists. Israel says each of those possibilities is a "red line" beyond which it would have to act.
The concern is that if President Bashar Assad is overthrown, any of the Islamic extremist groups trying to oust him could turn his extensive arsenal against Israel.
A senior Israeli military intelligence official said Tuesday that Assad has repeatedly used chemical weapons against insurgent groups. It was the first such public claim by Israel and appeared to increase pressure on Washington and other Western countries to intervene in Syria.
President Barack Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer." Little, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday the U.S. government is still assessing reports of Syrian chemical weapons use, adding that such acts would be "entirely unacceptable." He did not elaborate on possible U.S. actions.
The White House said Tuesday the U.S. hasn't yet come to the conclusion that Assad has used chemical weapons even though close U.S. allies say he has.
In his assessment, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, told a security conference in Tel Aviv that Assad has used chemical weapons multiple times, including near Damascus, the capital, last month.
During Hagel's visit, Israeli leaders still emphasized the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran ? as did Hagel. But to a degree not foreseen when Hagel arrived in Israel over the weekend, the threat posed by Syria's chemical weapons overshadowed Iran.
Hagel wrapped up his visit Tuesday by meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who greeted him with a brief but pointed caution about resolving the Iran problem. He complained of Iran arming terrorist groups with sophisticated weapons, and its "attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons."
"This is a challenge that Israel cannot accept, and as you and President Obama have repeatedly said, Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat," Netanyahu said.
___
Associated Press writer Ariel David contributed to this report.
Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
LONDON (AP) ? Rights campaigners are taking aim at a British military policy that puts the U.K. in the same league as North Korea and Iran: recruiting soldiers under the age of 18.
Two groups said in a report published Tuesday that Britain's military is wasting up to 94 million pounds ($143.4 million) a year training recruits who are under 18. They argued that it is an unnecessary drain on taxpayers at a time of austerity and urged an end to the practice.
Britain is the only member of the European Union and only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council that allows military recruitment from the age of 16 ? though soldiers cannot deploy until they turn 18. Most countries recruit from the age of 18, though Britain and a handful of other countries, including Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe, allow the recruitment of younger soldiers.
Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch said it costs the U.K. military ? which has borne severe cuts under government austerity measures ? twice as much to train a soldier recruited at 16 than it does at 18 due to longer training requirements and higher dropout rates.
They called on Britain's Ministry of Defense to revisit its "outdated" policy of recruiting minors.
"Recruiting minors into the army is a practice from a bygone era," said David Gee of Forces Watch. "It's not just young recruits who pay the price for outdated MoD policies - taxpayers do too."
Britain's Ministry of Defense rejected the report, saying it does not agree with its interpretation of figures and will not alter its recruitment policy. It added that the report ignored the benefits a military career affords young people.
"We take pride in the fact that our armed forces provide challenging and constructive education, training, and employment opportunities for young people equipping them with valuable and transferable skills," it said in a statement.
The report by the rights groups said figures showed that initial training for minors lasts either 23 or 50 weeks while adult recruits can complete a similar "phase one" course in 14 weeks. Plus, at any given time, around 150 soldiers are fully trained but too young to be deployed, the report said, arguing that paying those salaries is a waste of taxpayer funds.
Citing Ministry of Defense figures, the report said that in 2010-2011 it cost an estimated minimum of 88,985 pounds ($135,000) to recruit and train each new soldier between the ages of 16 and 17-and-a-half, compared with 42,818 pounds for each adult recruit.
Data also showed that 37 percent of minors dropped out during training, compared with 28 percent of adult recruits, the report said.
Over the past decade, Britain's Defense Select Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights ? a British parliamentary committee ? and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child have urged the Ministry of Defense to review its minimum recruitment age.
However, the Ministry of Defense also said Tuesday that its policies on under-18-year-olds are "robust" and comply with international law.
"We remain fully committed to meeting our obligations under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and have taken steps to bestow special safeguards on young people under the age of 18," it said.
Britain's military is shrinking from 102,000 troops to 82,000 by the end of the decade ? part of efforts to make steep cuts to public spending ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron.
The report Tuesday from ForcesWatch and Child Soldiers International also noted the "numerous ethical and legal concerns" related to recruiting minors.
Campaigners such as Child Soldiers International have long argued that the military is targeting high-risk youth for recruitment and failing to give them the needed skills or high-standards of education promised to them, leaving them in the lurch when they ultimately exit the military.
While British soldiers cannot participate in combat until they turn 18, in a handful of cases over the past few years some minors have slipped through.
In January 2012, the Ministry of Defense acknowledged that a soldier was mistakenly sent to fight on the front line in Afghanistan when he was still 17 years old.
_____
Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd
Apple is set to release their Q2 2013 financial results, and conduct their usual conference call, today at 2pm PDT, 5pm EDT. Most times the only news we get out of it is how many more billions Apple made, and what kind of shots Tim Cook took at competitors and analysts asking about TVs for the umpteenth time. Today's narrative will, of course, be focused -- or unfocused -- around Apple is doomed.
Apple wil still earn billions, way more than competitors who enjoy huge market and media support while seldom if even earning a nickel of profit. And there's a good chance they'll be killed for it.
Either way, we'll be back later to sort through all of it, and try to attach some sanity to the narrative. If you want to follow along, you can listen live or catch the recording later via the link below.
The Nest thermostat has already gone through a hardware revision or two and found its way onto plenty of physical and virtual store shelves, but parent company Nest Labs is eager to get it into even more households in short order. The Palo Alto company has just announced that it has teamed up with energy providers from across the country that will see new climate-control services (not to mention some rebates) go live for customers in a handful of markets.
Contact: Anna Mikulak amikulak@psychologicalscience.org 202-293-9300 Association for Psychological Science
Infants who sweat less in response to scary situations at age 1 show more physical and verbal aggression at age 3, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Lower levels of sweat, as measured by skin conductance activity (SCA), have been linked with conduct disorder and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Researchers hypothesize that aggressive children may not experience as strong of an emotional response to fearful situations as their less aggressive peers do; because they have a weaker fear response, they are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.
Psychological scientist Stephanie van Goozen of Cardiff University and colleagues wanted to know whether the link between low SCA and aggressive behaviors could be observed even as early as infancy.
To investigate this, the researchers attached recording electrodes to infants' feet at age 1 and measured their skin conductance at rest, in response to loud noises, and after encountering a scary remote-controlled robot. They also collected data on their aggressive behaviors at age 3, as rated by the infants' mothers.
The results revealed that 1 year-old infants with lower SCA at rest and during the robot encounter were more physically and verbally aggressive at age 3.
Interestingly, SCA was the only factor in the study that predicted later aggression. The other measures taken at infancy mothers' reports of their infants' temperament, for instance did not predict aggression two years later.
These findings suggest that while a physiological measure (SCA) taken in infancy predicts aggression, mothers' observations do not.
"This runs counter to what many developmental psychologists would expect, namely that a mother is the best source of information about her child," van Goozen notes.
At the same time, this research has important implications for intervention strategies:
"These findings show that it is possible to identify at-risk children long before problematic behavior is readily observable," van Goozen concludes. "Identifying precursors of disorder in the context of typical development can inform the implementation of effective prevention programs and ultimately reduce the psychological and economic costs of antisocial behavior to society."
###
Co-authors on this research include Erika Baker, Katherine Shelton, Eugenia Baibazarova, and Dale Hay of Cardiff University.
This research was supported by studentships from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, and by a grant from the Medical Research Council.
For more information about this study, please contact: Stephanie van Goozen at vangoozens@cf.ac.uk.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Low Skin Conductance Activity in Infancy Predicts Aggression in Toddlers 2 Years Later" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Anna Mikulak amikulak@psychologicalscience.org 202-293-9300 Association for Psychological Science
Infants who sweat less in response to scary situations at age 1 show more physical and verbal aggression at age 3, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Lower levels of sweat, as measured by skin conductance activity (SCA), have been linked with conduct disorder and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Researchers hypothesize that aggressive children may not experience as strong of an emotional response to fearful situations as their less aggressive peers do; because they have a weaker fear response, they are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.
Psychological scientist Stephanie van Goozen of Cardiff University and colleagues wanted to know whether the link between low SCA and aggressive behaviors could be observed even as early as infancy.
To investigate this, the researchers attached recording electrodes to infants' feet at age 1 and measured their skin conductance at rest, in response to loud noises, and after encountering a scary remote-controlled robot. They also collected data on their aggressive behaviors at age 3, as rated by the infants' mothers.
The results revealed that 1 year-old infants with lower SCA at rest and during the robot encounter were more physically and verbally aggressive at age 3.
Interestingly, SCA was the only factor in the study that predicted later aggression. The other measures taken at infancy mothers' reports of their infants' temperament, for instance did not predict aggression two years later.
These findings suggest that while a physiological measure (SCA) taken in infancy predicts aggression, mothers' observations do not.
"This runs counter to what many developmental psychologists would expect, namely that a mother is the best source of information about her child," van Goozen notes.
At the same time, this research has important implications for intervention strategies:
"These findings show that it is possible to identify at-risk children long before problematic behavior is readily observable," van Goozen concludes. "Identifying precursors of disorder in the context of typical development can inform the implementation of effective prevention programs and ultimately reduce the psychological and economic costs of antisocial behavior to society."
###
Co-authors on this research include Erika Baker, Katherine Shelton, Eugenia Baibazarova, and Dale Hay of Cardiff University.
This research was supported by studentships from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, and by a grant from the Medical Research Council.
For more information about this study, please contact: Stephanie van Goozen at vangoozens@cf.ac.uk.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Low Skin Conductance Activity in Infancy Predicts Aggression in Toddlers 2 Years Later" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
[ | 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.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick hugs President Barack Obama as Obama was introduced to speak at the "Healing Our City: An Interfaith Service" at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, Thursday, April 18, 2013. The service is dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed in Monday?s bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick hugs President Barack Obama as Obama was introduced to speak at the "Healing Our City: An Interfaith Service" at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, Thursday, April 18, 2013. The service is dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed in Monday?s bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, right, greets marathoners Rick Hoyt, bottom, and his father Dick before the ceremonial first pitch in a baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals in Boston, Saturday, April 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The governor of Massachusetts says he has no idea what motivated the terrorists who exploded two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Speaking Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," Deval (deh-VAL') Patrick said it's hard to imagine why someone would deliberately harm, quote "innocent men, women and children in the way that these two fellows did."
Patrick also said law enforcers believe the immediate threat ended when the police killed one of the alleged terrorists and captured the other. The two men were brothers whose family had come to the U.S. from Russia.
Three people were killed and more than 180 injured when two bombs, apparently fashioned out of pressure cookers, exploded Monday about four hours into the race.
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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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