Are Dogs 'Kids?': Owner-dog relationships share striking similarities to parent-child relationships

June 21, 2013 ? People have an innate need to establish close relationships with other people. But this natural bonding behaviour is not confined to humans: many animals also seem to need relationships with others of their kind. For domesticated animals the situation is even more complex and pets may enter deep relationships not only with conspecifics but also with their owners. Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) have investigated the bond between dogs and their owners and have found striking similarities to the parent-child relationship in humans.

Their findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Domestic dogs have been closely associated with humans for about 15,000 years. The animals are so well adapted to living with human beings that in many cases the owner replaces conspecifics and assumes the role of the dog's main social partner. The relationship between pet owners and dogs turns out to be highly similar to the deep connection between young children and their parents.

The importance of the owner to the dog

One aspect of the bond between humans and dogs is the so-called "secure base effect." This effect is also found in parent-child bonding: human infants use their caregivers as a secure base when it comes to interacting with the environment. Until recently the "secure base effect" had not been well examined in dogs. Lisa Horn from the Vetmeduni's Messerli Research Institute therefore decided to take a closer look at the behaviour of dogs and their owners. She examined the dogs' reactions under three different conditions: "absent owner," "silent owner" and "encouraging owner." The dogs could earn a food reward, by manipulating interactive dog toys. Surprisingly, they seemed much less keen on working for food, when their caregivers were not there than when they were. Whether an owner additionally encouraged the dog during the task or remained silent, had little influence on the animal's level of motivation.

When the owner is replaced by a stranger

In a follow-up experiment, Horn and her colleagues replaced the owner with an unfamiliar person. The scientists observed that dogs hardly interacted with the strangers and were not much more interested in trying to get the food reward than when this person was not there. The dogs were much more motivated only when their owner was present. The researchers concluded that the owner's presence is important for the animal to behave in a confident manner.

Why do adult dogs behave like human children?

The study provides the first evidence for the similarity between the "secure base effect" found in dog-owner and child-caregiver relationships. This striking parallel will be further investigated in direct comparative studies on dogs and children. As Horn says, "One of the things that really surprised us is, that adult dogs behave towards their caregivers like human children do. It will be really interesting to try to find out how this behaviour evolved in the dogs with direct comparisons."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/8SeaNXWOkGA/130621095502.htm

tropic thunder carnie wilson missing reese witherspoon pregnant billy joel bent new york jets

Of Course the NSA Can Keep Inadvertently Acquired Data on US Citizens

The Guardian has obtained a series of documents which reveal that, while the NSA is expected to "minimize" collection of data suspected to belong to US citizens, any "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications can still be kept and used without a warrant.

US officials have been at pains to insist that the NSA is only supposed to target non-domestic communications. But the series of guidelines, approved by the secret FISA court and Attorney General Eric Holder back in 2009, outline how domestic US communications can be retained for five years under the right conditions:

• If communications are "reasonably believed to contain evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed"
• If communications are encrypted
• If communications are "reasonably believed" to be of use in maintaining cybersecurity

The guidelines also explain how "unminimized" communications can be handed straight over to the FBI or the CIA, if those agencies specify their own "minimization" procedures. Coming on the back of Obama happily claiming that data collection policies outlined in Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) "does not apply to any US person", it looks like the government is sending out some mixed messages. [Guardian via Verge]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/of-course-the-nsa-can-keep-inadvertently-acquired-data-528225772

heejun han donovan mcnabb donovan mcnabb lottery ticket megga millions what is autism the giver

Police raid office of prominent Russian NGO

MOSCOW (AP) ? Police are raiding the office of one of Russia's leading human rights organizations and attempting to evict it.

Dozens of police officers stormed the headquarters of the For Human Rights movement on Friday, changed the locks on the doors, and told employees to leave, Lev Ponomaryov, the group's leader, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Officials in the Moscow's mayor office said the group had rented the office from the city and the lease ended in February.

Ponomarev said the group has had a dispute over the property with the city, but has the right to remain there until a pending court case is resolved.

Russia has raided hundreds of non-governmental organizations in recent months, some under a law on "foreign agents" that activists say is aimed at stifling dissent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-raid-office-prominent-russian-ngo-132647602.html

shuttle discovery bonnie raitt internal revenue service intc tupac andrew shaw hologram

1M Brazilians fill streets with protest, violence

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? More than a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 cities Thursday in this week's largest anti-government demonstrations yet, protests that saw violent clashes break out in several cities as people demanding improved public services and an end to corruption faced tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state after a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, the driver apparently angered about being unable to drive along a street.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men, their T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But several peaceful protesters were up in the crackdown, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.

Thundering booms echoed off stately colonial buildings as rubber bullets and the gas were fired at fleeing crowds.

At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters like Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belie her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said that she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.

It exploded on top of Menezes, tore through her jeans and dug out two quarter-sized holes on the back of her thighs while also perforating a rash of small holes in her upper arm.

"I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.

She later took refuge in a hotel along with about two dozen youths, families and others said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they too took refuge inside a bar.

Despite the crackdown, protesters said they would not back down.

"I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.

Asked whether her parents knew that she was taking part in the protests, Szuster said that "they know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."

She added, though, that she wouldn't tell her father the details of the police violence she was a victim of. "If he knew, he would never let me leave the house again."

In Brasilia, police struggled to keep hundreds of protesters from invading the Foreign Ministry, outside of which protesters lit a small fire. Other government buildings were attacked around the capital's central esplanade. There, too, police resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets in attempts to scatter the crowds.

Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, in Porto Alegre in the south, in the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador.

"This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration and it is," said artist Wanderlei Costa, 33, in Brasilia. "It's a shame some people cause trouble when there is a much bigger message behind this movement. Brazil needs to change, not only on the government level, but also on the grass roots level. We have to learn to demonstrate without violence."

The protests took place one week after a violent police crackdown on a much smaller protests in Sao Paulo galvanized Brazilians to take to the streets.

The unrest is hitting the nation as it hosts the Confederations Cup football tournament with tens of thousands of foreign visitors in attendance. It also comes one month before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the nation, and ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, raising concerns about how Brazilian officials will provide security.

Mass protests are rare in this 190 million-person country, with demonstrations generally attracting small numbers of politicized participants. The ongoing, growing marches have caught Brazilian governments by surprise, but have delighted many citizens.

"I think we desperately need this, that we've been needing this for a very, very long time," said Paulo Roberto Rodrigues da Cunha, a 63-year-old clothing store salesman in Rio.

In Salvador, police shot tear gas canisters and rubber bullets to disperse a small crowd of protesters trying to break through a police barrier blocking one of the city's streets. One woman was injured in her foot.

Elsewhere in Salvador some 5,000 protesters gathered in Campo Grand Square.

"We pay a lot of money in taxes, for electricity, for services, and we want to know where that money is," said Italo Santos, a 25-year old student as he walked with friends toward the square.

Despite the energy on the street, many protesters said they were unsure how the movement would win real political concessions. People in the protests have held up signs asking for everything from education reforms to free bus fare while denouncing the billions of public dollars spent on stadiums in advance of the World Cup and the Olympics.

"It's sort of a Catch-22," Rodrigues da Cunha said. "On the one hand we need some sort of leadership, on the other we don't want this to be compromised by being affiliated with any political party."

Earlier Thursday, the protests took on the feel of a party, especially in Sao Paulo and Rio.

People of all ages, many of them draped in flags, gathered in front of the majestic domed Candelaria church in downtown Rio, while groups elsewhere pounded out Carnival rhythms or chanted slogans targeting Rio state's governor.

At one point, a police helicopter flew over the crowd, which booed and pointed green lasers at the craft.

When shirtless youths, many of them with T-shirts wrapped round their faces, pushed and jostled their way through the crowd, people spontaneously broke out into a chant of "Without violence!"

But as has been the pattern earlier this week, the clashes began once night fell.

Several city leaders have already accepted protester demands to revoke an increase in bus and subway fares in the hopes that anti-government anger cools. In Sao Paulo, where demonstrators blocked Paulista Avenue, organizers said they would turn their demonstration into a party celebrating the lower transit fares.

But many believe the protests are no longer just about bus fares and have become larger cries for systemic changes.

President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting with top advisers for Friday morning. Rousseff has been largely absent since the demonstrations broke out, making just one public statement but offering no speeches or grand gestures in an attempt to calm the situation.

"This is the start of a structural change in Brazil," said Aline Campos, a 29 year old publicist in Brasilia. "People now want to make sure their money is well spent, that it's not wasted through corruption."

___

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Bradley Brooks and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Ricardo Zuniga in Salvador contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/1m-brazilians-fill-streets-protest-violence-015146446.html

Fast And Furious 6 Tony Kanaan Hangover 3 Nina Agdal earthquake Bbc News UFC 160

Kardashian baby name: the science of how names shape us

Kardashian baby name: some studies have linked unusual names to numerous disadvantages later in life. As for the Kardashian baby name, it remains to be seen.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 21, 2013

Kardashian baby name: This 2012 photo shows singer Kanye West, left, talking to his girlfriend Kim Kardashian before an NBA basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks in Miami. A birth certificate released by the Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Health shows that the couple's daughter North West, was born last Saturday in Los Angeles.

Alan Diaz/AP

Enlarge

Kim Kardashian, for reasons that are not yet clear, has named her baby North West.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; // google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

It's an odd choice that's unlikely to much affect Kanye West's and Kardashian's little girl ? but, for a child born to non-famous parents, is a name that might critically shape who she grows up to be. Without the gilded Kardashian name to guarantee her success, that non-celebrity girl might struggle to fend off bullies, get hired, and overall surmount other people?s ? and eventually her own ? low expectations for her future.

Studies have increasingly shown that names are a highly relevant factor is how others perceive us and we perceive ourselves. In 2010, David Figlio of Northwestern University in Illinois analyzed names from millions of birth certificates for the probability that the name belonged to someone of low socioeconomic status ? children whose names met those criteria would go to be discriminated against throughout life, he found. Similarly, a 2003 study from The National Bureau of Economic Research found that resumes with White-sounding names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than resumes with African-American-sounding names.

The significance of that research has grown in recent years, as baby names have become increasingly more unusual. In 2010, a British study of some 3,000 parents found that one-in-five of them regretted the name they had selected for their children, in that case often an unusual name or one with a strange spelling. That finding wasn?t surprising to scientists, since a growing crop of studies have linked unusual names to numerous disadvantages in life.

Much of how we perceive the world is unconscious, and our latent biases against particular names are often influential in how we treat people. A 2011 informal survey that combed baby name conversations on online message boards found that the names perceived to be highly trendy are the biggest culprits in jolting those biases and that those names often end up capping our lists of the most hated names.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/8qmeDm82OMA/Kardashian-baby-name-the-science-of-how-names-shape-us

Sebastian De La Cruz nelson mandela superman flag day man of steel man of steel phil mickelson

Hong Kong skyscrapers appear to fall in real-world illusion

June 20, 2013 ? No matter how we jump, roll, sit, or lie down, our brain manages to maintain a visual representation of the world that stays upright relative to the pull of gravity. But a new study of rider experiences on the Hong Kong Peak Tram, a popular tourist attraction, shows that specific features of the environment can dominate our perception of verticality, making skyscrapers appear to fall.

The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The Hong Kong Peak Tram to Victoria Peak is a popular way to survey the Hong Kong skyline and millions of people ride the tram every year.

"On one trip, I noticed that the city's skyscrapers next to the tram started to appear very tilted, as if they were falling, which anyone with common sense knows is impossible," says lead researcher Chia-huei Tseng of the University of Hong Kong. "The gasps of the other passengers told me I wasn't the only one seeing it."

The illusion was perplexing because, in contrast with most illusions studied in the laboratory, observers have complete access to visual cues from the outside world through the tram's open windows.

Exploring the illusion under various conditions, Tseng and colleagues found that the perceived, or illusory, tilt was greatest on night-time rides, perhaps a result of the relative absence of visual-orientation cues or a heightened sense of enclosure at night. Enhancing the tilted frame of reference within the tram car -- indicated by features like oblique window frames, beams, floor, and lighting fixtures -- makes the true vertical of the high rises seem to tilt in the opposite direction.

The illusion was significantly reduced by obscuring the window frame and other reference cues inside the tram car, by using wedges to adjust observers' position, and by having them stand during the tram ride.

But no single modification was sufficient to eliminate the illusion.

"Our findings demonstrate that signals from all the senses must be consonant with each other to abolish the tilt illusion," the researchers write. "On the tram, it seems that vision dominates verticality perception over other sensory modalities that also mediate earth gravity, such as the vestibular and tactile systems."

The robustness of the tram illusion took the researchers by surprise:

"We took the same tram up and down for hundreds of trips, and the illusion did not reduce a bit," says Tseng. "This suggests that our experiences and our learned knowledge about the world -- that buildings should be vertical -- are not enough to cancel our brain's wrong conclusion."

Co-authors on the study include Hiu Mei Chow of the University of Hong Kong and Lothar Spillmann of China Medical University and the University of Freiburg.

The study was supported by grants from the Hong Kong Grant Research Council and the University of Hong Kong Seed Funding Programme for Basic Research to Chia-huei Tseng, and by awards from the Serena Yang Educational Fund and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Council) and National Science Council of Taiwan to Lothar Spillmann.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/dRZcnVKNS6Q/130620162848.htm

Rita Ora Meteor Russia jay z Oscar Pistorius Carnival Triumph charles barkley valentines

Haiti cholera mutations could lead to more severe disease

Apr. 16, 2013 ? The cholera strain that transferred to Haiti in 2010 has multiple toxin gene mutations that may account for the severity of disease and is evolving to be more like an 1800s version of cholera, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

The strain, "altered El Tor," which emerged around 2000, is known to be more virulent and to cause more severe diarrhea and dehydration than earlier strains that had been circulating since the 1960s. This study reports the altered El Tor strain has acquired two additional signature mutations during the past decade that may further increase virulence.

In addition, these newly discovered signature mutations documented in the study further link the Haitian cholera epidemic to the strain from Nepal.

The paper will be published April 16 in the journal mBio.

The new Northwestern study suggests the strain with multi-signature toxin gene mutations may trigger a unique pattern of infection accounting for the severity of disease noted during the Haiti cholera outbreak.

"The cholera strain from the 1800s epidemic did the same thing," said Karla Satchell, the senior author of the paper and an associate professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "That strain also modified its toxin genes and the cholera got worse."

Satchell has spent her career studying a single toxin of the bacterium that causes cholera, MARTX, which helps the bacteria block the body's immune defense so cholera can colonize the gut. She closely followed genomics research conducted to track the Haiti epidemic, curious to see how her toxin was affected. She was shocked to see it had completely mutated out of existence.

"Oh, my!" she recalls thinking. "My toxin has been booted out of this key strain." She postulates that this may have affected the behavior of the mutated strain in disease.

Satchell and colleagues analyzed publicly available genomic sequencing data and found this new cholera strain had accumulated some curious genetic changes during its global spread. First, the main cholera toxin that causes the diarrhea acquired genetic changes that converted the toxin to a form similar to that produced by strains prevalent during the historic cholera epidemics of the 1800s.

Surprisingly, this new strain next acquired a genetic lesion that inactivated the MARTX toxin, previously recognized to be important for evading the immune system. A third as yet uncharacterized genetic mutation in the cholera toxin followed, suggesting a mutation emerged in the cholera toxin to compensate for the loss of MARTX.

These mutations occurring in the same strain indicate that the bacterium interacts differently with the immune system than previous strains.

"Perhaps this results in the bacterium more successfully evading early detection after a person accidentally drinks cholera infected fluids," Satchell said. "Interestingly, these multiple mutations in important proteins that specifically contribute to disease could explain why this strain is causing more severe disease, although the contribution of each mutation to human infection remains to be studied."

Previously published research on the Haiti cholera strain noted the change in the bacterium's DNA and tracked its origin to Nepal, but scientists didn't ask how the changes affected the bacterium's function. In addition, scientists had believed the bacterial strains responsible for the "new wave" of cholera that engulfed Haiti and first began spreading in 2000 were functionally identical to most other strains prevalent in the environment.

Satchell's finding further confirms the strain infecting Haiti likely originated in Nepal, consistent with the conclusion from the whole genome analysis and public health studies. Strains with this unique signature of a cholera toxin with three genetic changes coupled with loss of MARTX has spread only in a very defined geographical area including India where it was first detected in 2007. It has spread through Bangladesh, Cameroon, Nepal and then into Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 2010. Even though other strains are nearly identical and barely distinguishable at the genetic level, only this very small group of isolates share this unique signature, verifying from a functional viewpoint that the strain that moved to Haiti likely originated in Nepal.

"What we discovered is that the bacterial strains responsible for the 'new wave' of cholera are not all functionally identical with minor modification as previously thought, nor are they similar to most other strains prevalent in the environment, but, in fact, the strain with multi-signature toxin gene mutations may instigate a unique pattern of infection accounting for the severity of disease noted during the Haiti cholera outbreak," Satchell said.

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 Northwestern University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Jazel Dolores and Karla J. F. Satchell. Analysis of Vibrio cholerae Genome Sequences Reveals Unique rtxA Variants in Environmental Strains and an rtxA-Null Mutation in Recent Altered El Tor Isolates 4:2. mBio, April 2013 DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00624-12

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/-d1EBiBU5Lo/130416085429.htm

the secret world of arrietty cee lo allen iverson jr smith chris anderson rondo suspended bay bridge

Increased Carbon Dioxide Levels Damage Coral Reefs

Scientists have been worried about coral reefs for years, since realizing that rising temperatures and rising ocean acidity are hard on organisms that build their skeletons from calcium carbonate. Researchers on Australia's Great Barrier Reef are conducting an experiment that demonstrates just how much corals could suffer in the coming decades.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

As we burn fossil fuels - we're talking about oil, gas and coal - carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere. Now, there are debates about how quickly that is changing the global climate, but there is no question that billions of tons of carbon dioxide have soaked into the ocean. That's making waters more acidic, which puts some ocean ecosystems at risk, particularly coral reefs. We sent NPR science correspondent Richard Harris to Australia's Great Barrier Reef to look into these consequences. His first stop was a research station on Heron Island.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Heron Island is surrounded by a reef that is home to sea turtles, sharks, rays, brilliantly colored fish, and hundreds of other species. The spectacular scenery draws snorkelers from around the world. The island also hosts one of the world's major coral reef labs, run by the University of Queensland, and research there shows that the reefs are in trouble. Scientist Sophie Dove plunges her arms into a tank the size of a kettle drum.

SOPHIE DOVE: OK. We'll start with the plates. Uh-huh.

HARRIS: She and research assistant Annamieke van den Heuvel are weighing chunks of coral.

ANNAMIEKE VAN DEN HEUVEL: Two hundred and forty-six point nine.

DOVE: Do you want to just check the zero when I take this away?

HARRIS: Dove has recreated a simplified version of the coral ecosystem in a dozen large tanks.

DOVE: And so in each tank here we basically - I can lift up the lid - this is one of our - this is our present-day tank, if you like.

HARRIS: The water temperature and the carbon dioxide levels match the conditions on the present-day reef.

DOVE: We've got little mushroom corals, fungia, brain corals, stylophera pistolata there. It's a very common coral around the world. We've got these corals that look like bunches of flowers. They're called lobophelia.

HARRIS: The corals in this tank look healthy. And as she weighs them, she seems that they've been growing since she transplanted them here nearly a year ago. Then she opens the next tank.

DOVE: We'll hop from present day, and the next one along here is the worst of the future with a thing we call business as usual or do nothing tank.

HARRIS: Dove is pumping much warmer water with lots of added carbon dioxide into this tank. This is what the world's oceans are likely to look like later in this century when the schoolchildren visiting this island today reach middle age.

DOVE: And as you look into here, it looks quite different, as you will see.

HARRIS: Oh yeah.

DOVE: OK. So there's lot of this slimy, yucky mess(ph) of cynobacteria.

HARRIS: Clumps of black gunk swirl along the surface of the tank.

DOVE: We find that cynobacterial (unintelligible) tend to do really well in the future. The slippery slope to slime seems to be the way to go.

HARRIS: Not so for the coral. Most of it has either died or turned white, which means the organisms that live inside the coral have moved out.

DOVE: So as you see, the future is not a great place. Here's - the needle(ph) coral is underneath here. It's gone. And there's really not very much left alive.

HARRIS: In all there are four sets of tanks here: the healthiest coral are in a tank that simulates pre-industrial conditions. The present day tank looks almost as good, but the coral looks progressively worse in tanks with increasing carbon dioxide and temperature.

DOVE: We can make this a little bit (unintelligible)...

HARRIS: Now, plenty of small-scale experiments in the lab have shown that corals suffer in hotter waters and in more acidic conditions. This experiment puts those two threats together, since that's what the reefs of the future will face. Dove tries to be dispassionate about her findings, but the site touches the human chord.

DOVE: I feel pretty sad when I look into this. You know, I look at the others, the control tank, and I think, well, that would be nice if we could at least stay like that.

HARRIS: But doing so would mean civilization would have to stop burning fossil fuels immediately. That's not going to happen. Instead, once the carbon dioxide concentrations get high enough in the ocean, the stony structure of the reef actually starts to dissolve. That's bad news for the vibrant life that lives on the reef.

DOVE: There's no reef building going on here. It's reef dismantling that's going on here. Maybe some fish can survive in this type of environment, but I think we're going to lose a lot of the fish capabilities, you know, for fishing and everything. So people who are trying to live off what the reef offers them, this is going to be much harder. From a tourist's point of view, I don't imagine this is something that tourists would feel that attracted to come and see.

HARRIS: And as the reefs erode, they will offer less protection from the storm surges generated by the typhoons that sweep ashore here in Australia and throughout the South Pacific.

ANDREAS ANDERSON: Millions of humans are dependent on the reefs today.

HARRIS: Andreas Anderson is a reef scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. He says increasing ocean acidity is a big threat to the millions of people who depend on the fish that in turn depend on the reef. He says experiments like the one on Heron Island suggest the reefs face bad times ahead later in this century, but the weakness of studies like this is that they change conditions for the corals in one sudden shock.

ANDERSON: So what we don't really understand is, you know, how quickly will this happen, to what extent will it happen. Will organisms be able to acclimatize or adapt to this over a longer time scale?

HARRIS: The best case is that the change will be slow.

ANDERSON: If it breaks down very rapidly, we are definitely in big problems. But if it takes thousands of years, then, you know, perhaps it's not so bad.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

HARRIS: Sophie Dove knows no experiment is perfect, but hers is designed to look for hints that corals can adapt to their new circumstances, and she doesn't see any sign of that. We will have more definitive answers soon enough because this experiment isn't simply confined to tanks at research stations - it's playing out on every coral reef in the world. Richard Harris, NPR News.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/04/17/177566615/increased-carbon-dioxide-levels-damage-coral-reefs?ft=1&f=1007

the host hoodie hoosiers temperance world bank kim kardashian flour bomb hunger games box office

Pakistan bears brunt of Iranian earthquake, 35 killed

By Gul Yousafzai

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck a border area of southeast Iran on Tuesday killing at least 35 people in neighboring Pakistan, destroying hundreds of houses and shaking buildings as far away as India and Gulf Arab states.

Communications with the sparsely-populated desert and mountain region were largely cut off, making it difficult to assess Iranian casualties. But an Iranian provincial governor later said there were no reports of deaths there so far.

"Our staff were in a meeting and we felt the ground shake," Saleh Mangi, Programme Unit Manager for Plan International in the Pakistani town of Thatta, was quoted as saying by the British office of the children's charity.

"It was horrible - we felt the movement in the chairs and even the cupboards were shaking. This is the strongest quake I have felt since the 1980s."

Pakistani officials said at least 30 people were killed and 150 injured in the town of Mashkeel in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which borders Iran.

Mohammed Ashraf, head of a health center in Mashkeel, said several hundred houses in the town had caved in. Three women and two children were also killed when their mud house collapsed in the Baluchistan district of Panjgur.

"The earthquake has killed at least five people in Panjgur," said Ali Imran, an official at the government disaster-response unit in Quetta, Baluchistan's main city.

Pakistan's army said it had deployed troops and helicopters to ferry tents, medicines and medical teams to Mashkeel.

IRAN RELATIVELY UNSCATHED

Iran appeared to have emerged relatively unscathed. National media reported that 27 people were injured and that the significant depth was the likely reason for the relatively low level of damage from a 7.8 magnitude quake.

Soon after the quake, an Iranian official told Reuters he expected hundreds of dead and state media quoted unconfirmed reports of 40 fatalities in Iran.

But Hatam Narouyi, governor of Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan province, said there were "no fatalities", the student news agency (ISNA) reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey, in a revised bulletin, said the quake hit at 1044 GMT at a depth of 82 km (51 miles). The epicenter was 198 km (123 miles) southeast of the city of Zahedan and 250 km northwest of Turbat in Pakistan.

People in the Iranian city of Zahedan poured into the streets when it struck, Fars news agency reported. Officials in Saravan, the nearest city to the epicenter, said there had been no serious damage.

Iranian Red Crescent official Morteza Moradipour said emergency crews, including dog teams to sniff through the debris for any buried survivors, had reached the area.

"Because of the strength of the earthquake we had expected to see significant damage in residential areas but the quake was at a depth of 95 km and therefore the extent of the damage was on par with earthquakes measuring magnitude 4," he said.

The U.N.'s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was in contact with authorities in Iran and "stands ready to assist upon request", a spokesman said.

NUCLEAR RISK

It was the second big quake to hit Iran in a week. On April 9, a powerful 6.3 magnitude quake struck close to the Bushehr nuclear power station, killing 37 people, injuring 850 and devastating two villages.

Most of Iran's nuclear-related facilities are located in central Iran or its west, including Bushehr, its nuclear power plant, which sits on the Gulf coast. Iran says safety standards at Bushehr are good, but some Western experts have their doubts.

"It (the quake epicenter) is far from Bushehr and other nuclear-related facilities," Iran expert Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group think-tank said.

"However, the recent tremors are ominous reminders of how earthquake prone Iran's terrain truly is and how critical it is for the Iranian government to be prepared for a nuclear emergency."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran's nuclear authority had informed it that there was no damage to the Bushehr power plant or other facilities.

Iran sits on major geological faultlines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that flattened the city of Bam, in Iran's far southeast, killing more than 25,000 people.

This quake also shook tall buildings in India's capital New Delhi, sending people running into the streets. People also evacuated buildings in Qatar and Dubai.

"I was working and my work station was shaking," said Viidhu Sekhri, 35, an underwriter at a New Delhi insurance company. "Then it was a bit shaky so we just rushed outside."

(Additional reporting by Marcus George, Yeganeh Torbati, Yara Baymoumy in Dubai; Kate Kelland in London; Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Jon Hemming and Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/strong-8-magnitude-quake-hits-iran-110149111.html

what time is the super bowl world war z groundhog day Ed Koch Groundhog Day 2013 What Time Is The Superbowl Caleb Moore

Rev. David Lewicki: John 20:1-18: How Long Does Darkness Last?

There is a pall over this morning. As this story begins in John's Gospel, "it is still dark."

It is still dark where we wake up today. Beautiful, beloved children of God awake this morning in rooms where no light will break through. Morning brings no solace. It is still dark.

WATCH How Women Are Breaking the Church's Glass Ceiling:

You know this. Your dear ones suffer from sickness that has no cure. Your own relationships are fragile to the point of breaking. Old hurts -- personal, cultural -- have not healed. Not far from the dark room where you slept, fellow human beings are hungry and enslaved.

Do we need to say more? It is still dark.

That is why this particular story, after all these years, still matters.

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Jesus while it was still dark.

The broken body of her friend had been pushed hastily inside two days before. There had been no time to prepare his corpse before the Sabbath came.

Mary arrived in the dark. The Gospels don't agree on all of the details of Easter morning, but one fact is consistent across the stories: Mary was there. Mary, from the Galilean town of Migdal, was one of Jesus' disciples. In Luke 8:2, she is described as a woman who had seven demons cast out from her -- a liberation that led her to follow Jesus. We don't know how it was that Mary -- nor any of the female disciples -- came to be an independent woman, traveling with Jesus. But with this company of women and men who befriended Jesus, and sat at his feet to learn about the Realm of God, she is free. Jesus honors women and men. They are equals. They are family.

On Easter morning, Mary arrived first at Jesus' tomb. According to John, she finds the great stone covering the entrance has been moved; she assumes the worst. Shocked and troubled, she runs to tell Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, who go to see the tomb for themselves. Both find it empty, except for Jesus' burial clothes. It is too much: their friend has been tortured and executed, and now, have they also desecrated his corpse? Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple fear for their lives. They flee to their homes.

Mary knows the danger, too: She was one of the only disciples who stayed to watch Jesus die. But she returns to the tomb again, drawn by her grief. She is weeping. She peers into the tomb for the first time. She sees angels where the men saw emptiness. "Why are you crying?" they ask. "They have taken my Lord," she says to them. Death leaves a body -- where is his body?

In that very moment, Mary turns to see the form of a man whose face she does not recognize. She assumes he is the gardener. He speaks to her: "Woman, why are you crying?" "You have taken him," Mary pleads, "Where is he?"

"Mary." Jesus calls her by her name. He knows his own -- and his own know him. "Teacher!" she replies. Death has not taken him.

"Go and tell the other disciples," Jesus says to Mary. Mary listens to Jesus. She goes immediately and declares to disciples, "I have seen the Lord." Mary Magdalene is the first one to grasp the good news and the first one to proclaim that the power of death is defeated: Christ is Risen.

This same message is spoken to us today. Christ is Risen. It is a word of life for all who hear and receive it.

Christ is Risen. Mary's proclamation has never been more important. Remember, it is still dark.

Journalist Nicholas Kristof has spent much of his life reporting from parts of the world where the dawn of morning brings neither light nor life. In 2010, Kristof and his partner Sheryl WuDunn, wrote one of our generation's most important books, "Half the Sky." It is the painful, true story of the brutality inflicted upon women and girls around the world, through slavery, sex trafficking, and legal and economic repression. Kristof and WuDann call the subjugation of women the most important moral challenge of our century. But more than a story about crimes against women, Half the Sky is, ultimately, a proclamation of hope. It represents an emerging consensus that freeing women and girls to live into their full humanity is the most important thing we can do to ensure the flourishing of humankind.

Not long ago, I participated in a church-based forum called "End Hunger Now." Each of the four experts who presented had devoted their lives to discovering the underlying causes of hunger and working to end it. To a person, they focused on the central role of empowering women. If women can work, if they can keep their earnings, and if girls can receive an education, hunger will end. John Coonrod, Vice President of The Hunger Project, declared:

"Most hungry people in our world are working women who are prevented by cultural forces from benefiting from their own labor. We can and should all be feminists!"

For the sake of the world, we should all be feminists. And given what we know about the role of independent, empowered women in the community of disciples, for the sake world, we might be "Christians."

Raymond Brown, the late, great scholar of John, writes: "In this Gospel, where light and darkness play such a role, darkness lasts until someone believes in the risen Jesus."

Therefore no darkness, no heartbreak, no grief, no injustice can long stand where the Risen Christ is proclaimed. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not -- cannot -- will not overcome the light.

This morning, we awake, and it is still dark. But carried through the darkness on the lips of a woman who has seen and believed, comes a Word.

Wake up! Morning has broken, Christ is Risen!

Editor's Note: ON Scripture - The Bible is a series of Christian scripture commentaries produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks. Each week pastors from around the country will approach the lectionary text of the week through the lens of current events, providing a religious voice that is both pastoral and prophetic.

?

Follow Rev. David Lewicki on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dlewick

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-david-lewicki/john-201-18-how-long-does-darkness-last_b_2980734.html

venus williams Freeh Report direct tv wimbledon ray allen Savages Home Run Derby 2012

The Magic Of The Thyroid Diet | Trade Finance Bank - Guthriechet's ...

The Thyroid Diet examines brands, mixes and do?

Fitness & health are thought most important within our everyday life and our every day diet plays an important part in it. The Thyroid Diet has mysterious tricks of fat loss. Thyroid diet contains food you intend to eat and lose weight immediately. Thyroid diet is the greatest for people who have weight problems as a result of thyroid problems. It can help us to go back to a wholesome weight, with no change inside our diet and exercise.

The Thyroid Diet considers manufacturers, recipes and quantity of thyroid medicines right for all of us thinking about the other lifestyle issues and products that help optimize thyroid therapy. It treats depression, handles dietary deficiencies and adjusts brain chemistry imbalances, decreases stress, fights insulin weight, treats food allergies and sensitivities, and exercise.

Thyroid diet suggests a really low-calorie diet for weight reduction in cases of hypothyroidism however it is important to maintain metabolism. Low calories and lower metabolism delivers human body in to hoard function, which is a process, thyroid patients are vunerable to. Thyroid diet indicates splitting up calories into numerous ?mini-meals? each day. The Thyroid Diet handles metabolism for Lasting Fat Loss. These thyroid problems lead to metabolic slowdown. For properly loses weight diagnosed and proper thyroid treatment is given by the Thyroid Diet.

The dietary plan has many annoying obstacles for weight loss. It gives both conventional and alternative solution for support. The Thyroid Diet has ideal dietary changes. Thyroid individual need certainly to give attention to a, high-fiber, lower-calorie diet, optimal timing of meals for maximum hormonal effect, thyroid-damaging meals to prevent, beneficial herbs and supplements. They face sudden fat gain, despite diet and exercise showing symptoms as:

- Fatigue and exhaustion

- More baldness than normal

- Moodiness

- Muscle and joint pains and aches

Hyperthyroid leads to metabolic rate that stores every fat even after rigorous diet and exercise programs. Also optimum treatment doesnt help weight problems problem for many thyroid patients. In the most common of thyroid patients, treatment alone doesnt appear to solve our being overweight. Thyroid diet is a simple, clear way that gives you the information, support and service to pursue the treatment and right diagnosis.

get more info open in a new browser window

Did you like this article? Share it below!

Source: http://www.tradefinancebank.com/the-magic-of-the-thyroid-diet/

biggie smalls lyrics azores

Source: http://guthriechet.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/the-magic-of-the-thyroid-diet-trade-finance-bank.html

doppler radar colorado rockies moonshine news channel 4 radar weather morosini death jacoby ellsbury

Kidsquash Completes 8th Season with Smiles | Tariq Mohammed's ...

March 30, 2013 ? 11:21 pm

Since the 2004 pilot of Kidsquash, we marked the completion of the 8^thKidsquash season with ten students from the Greater Boston community. They played in a friendly round robin under the supervision of Laura Gemmell, a Harvard senior and 4-time All-American on the women?s varsity squash team, Octavio Chiesa, a volunteer peer coach and myself.

Beginner junior squash players make progress at Kidsquash.

From October 2012 to March 2013, Kidsquash students gathered for Saturday morning recreational squash clinics. Thanks to donations from the Harvard Athletics Department, we were able to recognize 4 students who are newcomers to the sport with Harvard squash apparel. These students were ? Megan Yoh (Best Female Player), Seamus Buckley (Most Improved Player), Will Gladstone (Most Valuable Player) and Samuel Esquivel (Sportsmanship Award).

Many thanks to Luke Hammond, Lead Coach for Kidsquash , Mike Way, Head Squash Coach at Harvard and Coach Bajwa, Founder of Kidsquash for their guidance and support of the program. Also, thank you to Kidsquash parents and sponsors for making it a great season!

Like this:

Like Loading...

Source: http://tariqmohammed.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/kidsquash-completes-8th-season-with-smiles/

red sox white sox chuck colson ufc 145 results orrin hatch marlon byrd charles colson

Obama pitches public works spending to create jobs

MIAMI (AP) ? Trying to show that the economy remains a top priority, President Barack Obama promoted a plan Friday to create construction and other jobs by attracting private money to help rebuild roads, bridges and other public works projects.

Obama fleshed out the details during a visit to a Miami port that's undergoing $2 billion in upgrades paid for with government and private dollars. The quick trip was designed to show that the economy and unemployment are top priorities for a president who also is waging high-profile campaigns on immigration reform and gun control.

Obama said the unemployment rate among construction workers was the highest of any industry, despite being cut nearly in half over the past three years.

"There are few more important things we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over the long haul than rebuilding the infrastructure that powers our businesses and economy," Obama said. "As president, my top priority is to make sure we are doing everything we can to reignite the true engine of our economic growth ? and that is a rising, thriving middle class."

Among the proposals Obama called for, which require approval from Congress, are:

?$4 billion in new spending on two infrastructure programs that award loans and grants.

?Higher caps on "private activity bonds" to encourage more private spending on highways and other infrastructure projects. State and local governments use the bonds to attract investment.

?Giving foreign pension funds tax-exempt status when selling U.S. infrastructure, property or real estate assets. U.S. pension funds are generally tax exempt in those circumstances. The administration says some international pension funds cite the tax burden as a reason for not investing in American infrastructure.

?A renewed call for a $10 billion national "infrastructure bank."

Arriving at the expansive port in Miami, Obama stood inside a double-barreled, concrete-laced hole in the ground, touring a tunnel project that will connect the port to area highways. The project has received loans and grants under the programs Obama touted and is expected to open next summer.

The president made private-sector infrastructure investment a key part of the economic agenda he rolled out in his State of the Union address last month. In the speech, he also called for a "Fix-It-First" program that would spend $40 billion in taxpayer funds on urgent repairs.

Congressional approval is not a sure bet, considering that House Republicans have shown little appetite for Obama's spending proposals. In fact, the infrastructure bank is an idea Obama called for many times in the past, but it gained little traction during his first term.

Obama's focus on generating more private-sector investment underscores the tough road new spending faces on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers often threaten to block new spending unless it's paid for by cutting taxes or other spending. "These are projects that are helpful to the economy and shouldn't break down on partisan lines," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

But Florida Republicans, including Gov. Rick Scott, faulted Obama for being "late to the party." Before Obama arrived in Florida, Scott argued that state taxpayers have had to pick up too much of the tab for this and other port projects because the president was slow to support them.

Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters traveling with Obama that the initiatives discussed Friday will cost $21 billion, not including the $40 billion for "Fix-It-First." Krueger said any increased spending associated with the proposals would not add to the deficit.

Krueger said details of how the programs would be paid for would be included in the budget Obama is scheduled to release on April 10.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter: http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pitches-public-works-spending-create-jobs-185930569--finance.html

temple university palm sunday Kids Choice Awards 2013 Joe Weider Florida Gulf Coast Golf Channel Andy Enfield

EPA takes aim at auto emissions, sulfur in gas

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration proposed new regulations Friday to clean up gasoline and automobile emissions, claiming the new standards would provide $7 in health benefits from cleaner air for each dollar spent to implement them. The costs likely would be passed on to consumers in higher gasoline and automobile prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the new rule would reduce sulfur in gasoline and tighten automobile emission standards beginning in 2017, resulting in an increase in gas prices of less than a penny per gallon. The agency estimated it also would add $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025, but predicted it would yield billions of dollars in health benefits by slashing smog- and soot-forming pollution.

EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe said the proposal is designed to "protect the environment and public health in an affordable and practical way."

The oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats wanted EPA to delay the rule, citing higher costs. An oil industry study says it could increase gasoline prices by 6 to 9 cents a gallon.

"Consumers care about the price of fuel, and our government should not be adding unnecessary regulations that raise manufacturing costs, especially when there are no proven environmental benefits," said Bob Greco, an American Petroleum Institute official. "We should not pile on new regulations when existing regulations are working."

Environmentalists hailed the proposal as potentially the most significant in President Barack Obama's second term.

The so-called Tier 3 standards would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, by expanding across the country a standard already in place in California. For states, the regulation would make it easier to comply with health-based standards for the main ingredient in smog and soot. For automakers, the regulation allows them to sell the same autos in all 50 states.

The Obama administration already has moved to clean up motor vehicles by adopting rules that will double fuel efficiency and putting in place the first standards to reduce the pollution from cars and trucks blamed for global warming.

"We know of no other air pollution control strategy that can achieve such substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Becker said the rule would reduce pollution equal to taking 33 million cars off the road.

But the head of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, questioned the motives behind the agency's regulation, since refining companies already have spent $10 billion to reduce sulfur by 90 percent. The additional cuts, while smaller, will cost just as much, Drevna said, and the energy needed for the additional refining actually could increase carbon pollution by 1 percent to 2 percent.

"I haven't seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn't said it would cost only a penny or two more," Drevna said.

A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that lowering the sulfur in gasoline would add 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon to refiners' manufacturing costs, an increase that likely would be passed on to consumers at the pump. The EPA estimate of less than 1 cent is also an additional manufacturing cost and likely to be passed on.

A senior administration official said Thursday that only 16 of 111 refineries would need to invest in major equipment to meet the new standards, which could be final by the end of this year. Of the remaining refineries, 29 already are meeting the standards because they are selling cleaner fuel in California or other countries, and 66 would have to make modifications.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rule was still undergoing White House budget office review.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-takes-aim-auto-emissions-sulfur-gas-144338346--finance.html

netflix george h w bush Belk Led Zeppelin Ned Rocknroll Norman Schwarzkopf Avery Johnson

Amritsar: 11 men forcibly enter house, beat up girl, her family

Sponsored link: Renault Scala - now with X-TRONIC CVT

Amritsar: In a shocking incident, a group of eleven youths forcibly gained entry into the house of a 21-year-old girl whom they were following and severely beat her and her family members in Amritsar on Thursday. Police Commissioner Ram Singh said the incident took place in the evening when the boys began passing vulgar comments on seeing the girl, who was returning home after attending tuition classes.

The situation turned ugly turn when the boys followed her home where her parents rebuked them. They then manhandled the girl and her family members besides threatening them of dire consequences if the matter was reported to police, Singh said. The police official said of the total 11 accused, five have been identified and booked under various sections of IPC.

According to the family, the girl suffered a fracture in her right leg in the melee.

Google Maps

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)

Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/amritsar-11-men-forcibly-enter-house-beat-up-girl-her-family/381805-3-241.html

slither slither naacp glen campbell jerusalem artichoke bud shootout aretha franklin

Stephen Baldwin admits he failed to pay NY taxes

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012 file photo provided by the Rockland County District Attorney?s Office in New City, N.Y., actor Stephen Baldwin is shown. Baldwin is set to appear in New York court between appearances on "All-Star Celebrity Apprentice" in hopes of getting past a state tax charge. The youngest of the four acting Baldwin brothers is due Friday morning March 29, 2013 in Rockland County Court. He's accused of failing to file state income tax returns in 2008, 2009 and 2010. (AP Photo/Rockland County District Attorney?s Office, FILE)

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012 file photo provided by the Rockland County District Attorney?s Office in New City, N.Y., actor Stephen Baldwin is shown. Baldwin is set to appear in New York court between appearances on "All-Star Celebrity Apprentice" in hopes of getting past a state tax charge. The youngest of the four acting Baldwin brothers is due Friday morning March 29, 2013 in Rockland County Court. He's accused of failing to file state income tax returns in 2008, 2009 and 2010. (AP Photo/Rockland County District Attorney?s Office, FILE)

NEW CITY, N.Y. (AP) ? Stephen Baldwin admitted in court Friday that he failed to pay New York state income taxes for three years.

The actor pleaded guilty to a charge of repeated failure to file income taxes. He agreed to pay $400,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties; $100,000 of that already has been paid.

If Baldwin pays back the rest of the money within a year, the charge will be taken off his record, the judge said. If not, he'll be sentenced to five years' probation and will use that period to pay back the money.

Baldwin, the youngest of the four acting Baldwin brothers, went to court between appearances on "All-Star Celebrity Apprentice."

"Unfortunately, I got some really bad suggestions and advice ... from lawyers and accountants," Baldwin said outside court. "I'm just grateful for the opportunity to rectify this situation."

Another court appearance is planned in June.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-29-Stephen%20Baldwin/id-62cfc0f16a0d4d7082ff3cb243cb023e

royal rumble results sag awards 2012 kyra sedgwick honor killings mary tyler moore x games pro bowl 2012

Kate Nash Awards: New York, Rio De Janeiro Win Big On Singer's List

MTV's Artist to Watch crowns the best cities for food, a beautiful sunset and a rockin' audience.
By Vaughn Trudeau Schoonmaker

Kate Nash
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704616/kate-nash-girl-talk-new-york.jhtml

triple play james neal virginia tech emancipation proclamation april 16 tornadoes mitch hedberg

Facial recognition and GPS tracking: TrapWire company conducting ...

An internationally-spread Orwellian surveillance system uncovered by RT has been linked to a software company that collects the GPS coordinates of cell phone users in over 100 major cities.

The discovery of the TrapWire risk mitigation program last year and its ability to match human faces caught on camera against massive databases of intelligence led to an outcry from privacy advocates around the world. Now once again the burgeoning preponderance of Big Brother is being put into perspective.

In late 2011, members of the loose-knit hacktivist group Anonymous pilfered data from the servers of private intelligence firm Stratfor that were in turn handed over to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks for dissemination. When internal emails alluding to a service called TrapWire surfaced in the leak, an investigation uncovered a program that, according to the company?s founder, ?can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition.?

TrapWire developers Abraxas later became the subject of several investigative reports by RT and others, and further analysis revealed that that company was acquired in 2010 by technology giants Cubic Corporation of Southern California. Cubic would eventually deny any affiliation ever existed between their San Diego headquarters and the spy-program discussed by Stratfor execs, but links were nevertheless still evident. A Department of Homeland Security website, in fact, all but affirmed that TrapWire was being sold to government agencies as a product of Abraxas as recently as February 2011.

Cubic ? and to a lesser degree Abraxas ? have since been linked at least to some degree with a number of other suspicious spy products. One item, Tartan, ?exposes and quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms for objective, un-biased output,? its website claims. ?Our analysts, mathematicians and computer scientists are continually exploring new quantification, mining and visualization techniques in order to better analyze social networks.? Tartan was marketed by Ntrepid, a Northern Virginia company that?s board of directors shared four names directly involved in the finances of Abraxas. Now a blogger has uncovered yet another connection, and this one puts Cubic directly in touch with the exact whereabouts of potentially millions of Americans.

Under the radar of Cubic?s critics, earlier this year the California company acquired NextBus, a ?real-time transit information? program that helps mass transportation customers in over 100 North American cities get precise travel and traffic information about bus and rail systems. Cubic made the acquisition at a cost of just over $20 million, and with it gained yet another resource for collecting personally identifiable information: namely the exact global position coordinates for NextBus? massive user base.

NextBus bills itself as providing ?real-time passenger information solutions? by collecting GPS data volunteered by willing customers and then uses that information to help them get from point A to point B by accurately matching up transportation routes with up-to-the-second travel information. It exists to make the dreadful bus commute a little more reliable, but in doing so demands that customers sacrifice a sizeable chunk of privacy.

?While your riders stay warm and safe, they can easily find out exactly when to expect the next bus,? reads an advert from NextBus website that?s used to sell their service to major metropolitan areas across North America. The Los Angeles, California metro became NextBus? eightieth client in 2011, and joined a roster of established clients that includes Toronto, San Francisco, Washington DC and Boston.

?When you get a message from the Panopticon, the Panopticon also gets a message from you, or rather, your GPS enabled device,? writes the administrator of Female Faust, a blog where the connection between NextBus and Cubic was first written about this week.

For Cubic, though, the latest acquisition isn?t anything out of the ordinary. Cubic has been tied to services in cities around the globe that involve not just accumulating biometric data using TrapWire, but tracking the transportation habits of metro riders in New York, Chicago and other cities abroad. Cubic?s transportation division is reported to be the world?s leader when it comes to implementing automated fare collection cards and the infrastructure used in mass-transit systems across the globe, meaning TrapWire cameras in cities such as Washington, DC are just a stone?s throw from the very machines that commuters use their credit cards at to pay for bus fare?transactions done with Cubic?s own vending machines.

?Over the past decade, Cubic has implemented more than 80 percent of the major smart card systems in the US now active today,? Cubic admits by their own right. With the acquisition of NextBus, though, one major behemoth of the private surveillance sector is allowed to scoop up yet more sensitive information about customers who are likely none the wiser.

"Transit agencies and their communities worldwide are racing to utilize information more effectively ? optimizing their resources and providing intelligent travel information to their riders," says Steve Shewmaker, president of Cubic Transportation Systems, in a statement from January. "Since 1996, NextBus has been a pioneer and a market and technology leader at the forefront of this trend. As part of the Cubic family, NextBus will have the additional resources and capabilities to expand more rapidly while adding further depth to our own Nextcity vision, which emphasizes better utilization of information, wireless communications and mobile devices as key technologies for the future of public transit."

On the Cubic website, NextCity is described as a program that ?enable[s] customers to manage how they travel ? whether by train, bus, taxi, private vehicle or bike ? by providing both operators and travelers real-time, dynamic information that will make their journey faster and more reliable.?

?The NextCity platform will provide passengers and travelers with a single, whole of transport payments account meaning that no more will passengers need to maintain an account associated with a transport smartcard, one or more toll accounts, a congestion account and various methods of paying for parking. It will be integrated, seamless and convenient for the traveller.?

Thanks to Cubic?s latest acquisition, the company is being trusted with yet another trove of sensitive data. And while it?s facetious to assume that Cubic?s many divisions around the world are working in cahoots to collect and build personal profiles that scan faces, sniff out social network habits and scoop up insanely accurate GPS stats on travel patterns, the buy-out of NextBus doesn?t make a company seem any less like a prime example of how privacy is slowly but surely being eroded in the exchange for a little bit of serenity and whole lot of surveillance.

Source: http://rt.com/usa/trapwire-nextbus-surveillance-cubic-932/

elizabeth berkley lenny dykstra jenelle evans jenelle evans mlb 12 the show sabu franchise tag

Selling SEO to the C-Suite - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

?Search sits at the core of online behavior. People spend more time on the Internet than watching TV. What customers put in the search bar is the expression of intent?, said Seth Besmertnik, CEO of Conductor, and presenter at the SEO in the Boardroom: Tangible Search Metrics session at SES New York. The session emphasized the importance of executive buy-in when it comes to investing in organic search, and a wealth of tips on how to go about winning it.

A Compelling Case for Investment in Organic Search

?SEO is about optimizing content so people can find it. Many people play a role in various stages of creating content, yet SEO often has no functional ownership of this process. It is imperative to get the C-suite engaged?, said Besmertnik. Before traveling down the path of strategy and implementation, you must first sell the C-Suite on making the investment in SEO.

Organic search is the indisputable leader in driving traffic that will convert to a website. Yet, it remains among of the lowest funding priorities when it comes to the website or marketing budget. Search marketing often attracts more of the budget, despite the fact that organic search delivers a higher rate of lead to close conversion than paid search, referral, social media, or outbound marketing.

Despite the facts, ?organic search remains the most under-funded activity in web marketing?, said Besmertnik. He referenced data provided by Forrester and comScore indicating that allocation of search engine budgets is upside down.

While a mere 8 percent of search engine clicks come from paid search, 89 percent of the search budget is invested in search engine marketing. Conversely, while 92 percent of search engine clicks are organic in origin, a mere 11 percent of the search engine budget is invested in organic search.

Besmertnik shared that when his organization inquired, organizations would reveal how little they invest in organic search. He used an example of a $100,000 per month budget where 10 percent spend on organic would be considered high, a mere 1 percent of the budget allocated to organic SEO is more the norm.

This could be discouraging to those championing SEO to the leadership team within their own organization, or that of a client. Fortunately, the facts are in the favor of SEO as a qualified investment. It is just a matter of communicating them to the right people, in a way they will understand and can respond to.

Speak Their Language

Besmertnik explained, ?most technical SEO professionals fail to communicate effectively with CEOs. They dive into details about link profiles, canonical URLs, missing alt tags, etc.? A technical discussion creates a technical barrier. Resist the temptation to dazzle them with terms you may use as a technician of your craft and focus instead on terms management is familiar with and understands.

One of the easiest ways to sell anything to the CEO, CFO, CMO, CTO, CIO or any other C-level executive, is to communicate with data. At the executive level, hype and industry trends mean very little until they directly impact the competitive edge and profitability of an organization.

Use Data to Demonstrate SEO Performance

To appeal to bottom-line focused executives, performance and ROI of any investment will be more heavily scrutinized than anywhere else in the organization. Which works to your advantage, when you are prepared to sell SEO.

A million people die, it?s a statistic, one person dies and its tragic. The same applies to keywords. CEOs actually care about keywords, perhaps even including the CEO?s name. Provide granular data that enables them to identify goals and view performance.

And, never forget there is a lot of ego and emotion invested in succeeding. Besmertnik reminds us that leadership, across the board, does not want to be beat by their competition or out-performed.

SEO is on the Rise

SEO as a skillset is on the rise. The number of SEO jobs increasing over the past year or two. And, Besmertnik shared that Conductor tracks the number of people on LinkedIn with SEO in their title or description - that number has jumped from 250,000 professionals in 2011, to 500,000 professionals in 2012.

In fact, some CEOs and executives from the C-Suite may consider themselves to be the SEO. For executives and other professionals who believe they know more than then they really do, satiate their desire to be engaged with frequent sharing of information, the way they want to see it. Or, educate them on focus of big picture for results, not just granular performance of one specific keyword.

Moderator Simon Heseltine, Director of SEO at AOL, suggested, ?when the CEO or other executives show interest in being more hands-on, offer them two options to participate, based on how to be involved if they wish to be.?

ROI and Revenue

Once you?ve sold the C-Suite on SEO, it will command budgetary investment as long as it delivers. Demonstrating ROI is an imperative when it comes to organic search.

As Besmertnik explains, even if you removed every hint of organic search traffic, you?d still get some level of search traffic. So, measuring performance can be as easy as subtracting the revenue generated by doing ?nothing? from the revenue generated to determine ROI of SEO.

He presented the following equation to illustrate:

SEO Revenue
- Revenue You?d Get From Doing Nothing
= ROI from SEO Investment

The following grid was presented by Besmertnik to gauge ROI of SEO.

The top right if the chart represents the highest ROI. The bottom left represents the lowest ROI.

To be even more accurate, calculate costs of SEO that impact other roles and outcomes (cost of talent, crossover of data utilized for Paid search, programming, design, etc.) which expand the perceived value of investments made in natural search to the organization.

KPIs and Milestones

Search ranking data may not be enough to demonstrate SEO performance. To increase understanding, Besmertnik suggests referencing specific KPIs and milestones, such as how many keywords appear on page one of SERPs, rank, URLs appearing in search, competitive comparison an positioning, as well as notations of events that impact search performance (server upgrades, impact of Panda, Penguin, etc.).

Engage the C-Suite

The session could have stopped there, but there was much more ground to cover. Chuck Price, CEO of Measurable SEO, jumped right into SEO in the Boardroom. He began his presentation by emphasizing that success in SEO no longer merely means being at the top of Page 1. Although SERPs are still a good indicator of success, you cannot judge overall success by these metrics alone.

Synchronize Business and SEO

?Business and SEO must be in sync. No buy-in, no sale,? Price said. ?If you cannot achieve buy-in from C-Suite, you will not attract the budget to execute your awesome marketing plan.?

He began the discussion asking ?Remember when it was easy to demonstrate SEO value?? It used to be Page 1 Ranking = Success. Today, rankings and traffic need to yield measurable improvement in revenues and profits. Price used several key topics to illustrate exactly how SEO can positively impact the bottom line.

SEO is Multi-Faceted

Price credited Eric Schmidt of Google, author of "The New Digital Age", due to be released on April 23, 2013 with the quote ?Authorship is the next big thing?. Price explained that essentially authorship = rankings, lack of authorship = anonymity.

Price emphasizes ranking on the long tail, not just head phrases. He also mentioned the value of other assets, explaining an optimized photo can now get more clicks than a page when properly optimized.

He encourages SEO professionals to tap into visibility metrics to identify top content in order to replicate and expand it, and identify the weakest content to be eliminated or revamped. In the context of referrals, Price recommends identifying ?most linked to? content and marketing it to attract organic referrals.

Price also offered a stream of valuable tips.

How to Promote Consensus Around SEO

• Find a Cheerleader:?Leverage social media, relationships to create an internal champion for your cause.
• Objections are inevitable:?Be prepared to show ROI with Plan A, have a back-up Plan B and C if budget is an issue.
• Neutralize Naysayers:?People don't like change. Seek someone that person trusts to help you win them over.
• Offer Metrics-Based Engagement:?No performance, no payment.
• Show you have their best interest in mind:?Develop a track-record of generous contributions, and be prepared to remind them of your contribution and attention.
• Timing is Everything:?Getting it right means asking lots of questions and offering the right solution at the right time.
• Don?t Abandon Good Ideas:?If your ideas don?t get buy-in the first time, it doesn?t mean they were bad ideas. Be prepared to try later, or adapt to circumstances.
• Make Proposal Simple and Clear:?Present proposals on a single page, perhaps with a link to the details. This increases understanding of the offer.
• Co-Create the Solution with the C-Suite:?Sometimes you need to approach the project as a team, be prepared to collaborate your way to a solution.
• Best Outcomes from Relationships and Team Collaboration:?All parties are more likely to be on board with the plan, and make sure it happens.
• What?s in it For Me:?Articulate how they will benefit from the proposed solution.
• Manage What You Measure:?Invest in what will directly impact how you will measure success (rank, keywords, landing pages, organic traffic, etc.)

Price stated that he believes that achieving the top of Page 1 may require deviation from Webmaster guidelines and the risk of a penalty by Google. I would add that the comfort level with this approach may vary by organization.

3 Tools for Measuring SEO

There were three tools mentioned by Price that SEO pros may find useful:

SEO ROI and Cost of Customer Acquisition Calculator

SEO ROI Calculator

Custom Reports ? SEO Dashboard via Jill Whalen

---

Convergence Analytics: Digital Measurement in Transition
This joint report by ClickZ and Efectyv Marketing seeks to identify how the evolution of digital analytics affects and challenges practitioners, vendors, and investors. Download it today!

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2258019/Selling-SEO-to-the-C-Suite

Suzanne Barr Clint Eastwood speech Maria Montessori clint eastwood Julian Castro Blue Moon August 2012 Eddie Murphy Dead