Saturday, May 25, 2013

Energy secretary calls for review of US natural gas exports

Ernest Moniz was officially sworn in as secretary of the Department of Energy Tuesday and called for a further review of the proposals before making any final decisions on liquefied natural gas exports. This has somewhat dampened the momentum following the Department of Energy?s (DOE) decision last Friday to conditionally approve a Texas liquefied natural gas export project, Alic writes.

By Jen Alic,?Guest blogger / May 24, 2013

The Excelsior arrives at the Freeport LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) terminal in Houston. We are most likely to see more natural gas export approvals this year, and beyond, Alic writes, but it?s not going to be a sudden opening of the market.

Steve Campbell/Houston Chronicle/AP/File

Enlarge

While the hints over the past weeks have favored expanded US natural gas exports, the confirmation of Energy Security Ernest Moniz has delayed a final decision on the process, with 19 export applications on hold for more in-depth review.

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This has somewhat dampened the momentum following the Department of Energy?s (DOE) decision last Friday to conditionally approve a?Texas LNG project.

Then?on Tuesday, Moniz was officially sworn in and called for a further review of the proposals before making any final decisions. The review he?s waiting for concerns the potential impact expanded exports would have on domestic natural gas supplies and prices. The question Moniz poses is whether the existing impact study finished last year uses data that is too old.? That study, courtesy of the DOE, established that even in the event of higher domestic prices, natural gas exports would be economically beneficial to the country.?

Health Insurance Suggestions That Can Make A Positive Change ...

Having good health insurance policy is a crucial part of staying wholesome.This post can guide you store to get the best health care insurance plan.

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Source: http://offbrain.net/?p=2834

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Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Friday, May 24, 2013

Iran pushes ahead with nuclear plant that worries West

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran is pressing ahead with the construction of a research reactor that Western experts say could eventually produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon if Tehran decides to make one, a U.N. report showed on Wednesday.

In another development likely to worry the United States and its allies, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had added to its capacity to refine uranium, which can also provide the fissile core of a bomb if enriched to a high level.

The IAEA also said Iran had asphalted a part of a military site, Parchin, that the U.N. agency wants to visit.

That will fuel Western suspicions that Tehran is trying to remove traces of possible nuclear arms-related experiments there, perhaps a decade ago, something Iran denies.

It would now probably be "very difficult" for U.N. inspectors to find any traces at Parchin even if they were allowed access, which Iran has so far refused, one diplomat familiar with the country's nuclear program said.

The quarterly IAEA report was issued amid apparent deadlock in diplomatic efforts to resolve a decade-old dispute that threatens to trigger a new war in the Middle East.

Washington said Iran was "advancing its enrichment program in blatant violation of its international obligations".

"This report marks an unfortunate milestone with regard to Iran's illicit nuclear activities," U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

Iran denies accusations that it is seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons, saying it needs nuclear technology for energy and medical purposes and that it is Israel's arsenal that threatens peace.

Western concerns about Iran are focused largely on uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow.

But experts say the research reactor under construction near the central town of Arak may also be a proliferation issue as it could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel were reprocessed, something Iran says it has no intention of doing.

Iran has transported the reactor vessel - which would contain the fuel - to the heavy water plant but has not yet installed it, the IAEA report issued to member states said.

Other major components for the reactor, including control room equipment, have yet to be put in place there, it added.

STOCKPILE BELOW ISRAELI "RED LINE"

The Islamic Republic plans to commission the plant in the first quarter of 2014 and expects it to become operational in the third quarter, the IAEA said.

Israel, which has threatened to attack Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop Tehran's nuclear drive, bombed Iraq's atomic reactor in 1981 and a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

"Once the reactor operates, it could spawn more than enough weapons-grade plutonium for a bomb per year, should Iran ever decide to do that," said nuclear expert Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank, adding Israel "might be tempted to try to repeat" what it did in Iraq and Syria.

The IAEA report said Iran had installed hundreds more centrifuges at its Natanz plant since February, underlining Tehran's defiance of Western demands to curb the activity.

They included complete or partial installation of more than 500 advanced centrifuges which, once operational, would enable Iran to speed up the accumulation of refined uranium.

But, in a development that could help buy time for diplomacy to try and resolve the dispute, the report showed limited growth in Iran's most sensitive nuclear stockpile, medium-enriched uranium, and it remained below an Israeli "red line".

Tehran's holding of uranium gas refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent - a relatively short technical step from weapons-grade - is closely watched as the Jewish state says it must not amass enough for one bomb if enriched further.

"Iran has not yet made the decision to pursue nuclear weapons, and if it were to do so, it remains years away from a deliverable arsenal," said the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-pushes-ahead-nuclear-plant-worries-west-060137318.html

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Two volcanoes erupting in Alaska: Scientists are monitoring and providing alerts on Pavlof and Cleveland volcanoes

May 24, 2013 ? Two of Alaska's most active volcanoes -- Pavlof and Cleveland -- are currently erupting. At the time of this post, their activity continues at low levels, but energetic explosions could occur without warning.

Located close to the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, Pavlof is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, having erupted more than 40 times since the late 1700's.

Pavlof has been erupting since May 13, 2013, with relatively low-energy lava fountaining and minor emissions of ash, steam, and gas. So far, volcanic ash from this eruption has reached as high as 22,000 feet above sea level. The ash plume has interfered with regional airlines and resulted in trace amounts of ash fall on nearby communities. The ash plume is currently too low to impact commercial airliners that fly between North America and Asia at altitudes generally above 30,000 feet.

Cleveland, located on Chuginadak Island in the Aleutian Islands, is also one of Alaska's most persistently active volcanoes. It has exhibited some sign of unrest almost annually since the early 1980's, with at least 19 confirmed eruptive events since then.

The current episode of eruptive activity at Cleveland has been characterized by single, discrete explosions, minor ash emissions, and small flows of lava and debris on the upper flanks of the volcano. On several occasions, ash-producing explosions have occurred reaching as high as 35,000 feet.

A small lava dome formed in the summit crater of Cleveland volcano in late January, 2013. At that time, the dome was about 300 feet in diameter and remained that size until a brief eruption on May 4 explosively removed a portion of the dome. The presence of a lava dome increases the possibility of an explosive eruption, but it does not necessarily indicate that one will occur.

Start with Science

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for monitoring and issuing timely warnings of potential volcano activity. The USGS and its partners operate five volcano observatories, and monitoring of these two volcanoes is coordinated through the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO).

AVO is a joint program of the USGS, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the State of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

Scientists at AVO were able to detect unrest at both Pavlof and Cleveland volcanoes that confirmed eruptive activity was occurring. AVO immediately sent notifications out to emergency-management authorities and those potentially affected.

When Will the Eruptions Stop?

Volcanic eruptions can last weeks to months, and sometime years, so the exact timing is unknown for when these two volcanoes will rest. AVO will continue to monitor them and provide updates in the event of future activity.

Detecting Signs of Unrest

Signs that the volcanoes were becoming restless were determined through a combination of monitoring data.

At Pavlof, a strong thermal signal was observed in satellite data at the summit that coincided with elevated seismic levels. Soon after these observations were made, more satellite data and pilot reports indicated that ash emissions were occurring.

At Cleveland volcano, explosions from the summit vent were detected by an infrasound array and seismic instruments on Umnak Island about 80 miles to the east, and later a thermal feature was observed at the summit in satellite imagery, which indicated hot material at or near the surface. The pressure sensors in the infrasound array pick up air waves generated by volcanic explosions. Because of the relatively slow speed of these waves, it took nearly 40 minutes to detect the explosion from that distance and issue an alert.

Ash Cloud Forecasts

AVO's analysis of the eruption, including the amount of ash and the duration of the explosive phases, are key inputs into the forecasts by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service (NWS) of where the ash cloud will form and drift. These forecasts by NWS are used by the aviation industry to avoid flying into the ash.

The USGS developed a new ash cloud dispersal and fallout tool -- a computer model known as Ash3d -- that is being employed by AVO. The tool details where, when, and the amount of ash fall that is expected to occur. This information helps guide decisions on whether planes can safely land or depart, health warnings, potential impacts to infrastructure, and even when ash will stop falling and cleanup can begin.

Monitoring Tools

Pavlof is monitored with on-the-ground seismic stations (although only three of the seven instruments are currently operational), satellite remote sensing, and web cameras operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). A regional infrasound network operated by the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute has also helped detect explosions from Pavlof and Cleveland volcanoes.

Cleveland does not have a local seismic network and is monitored using only distant seismic and infrasound instruments and satellite data. Without local seismic instrumentation, scientists cannot forecast eruptions and smaller eruptions can be missed, especially because in the Aleutians, clouds commonly obscure the volcanoes in satellite data.

Updated Alerts and Webcams

Visit the AVO website (http://avo.alaska.edu/) for updated alerts and activity reports on Pavlof (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Pavlof.php) and Cleveland (http://avo.alaska.edu/activity/Cleveland.php) volcanoes. Virtually travel to these locations through an AVO webcam of Cleveland volcano (http://avo.alaska.edu/webcam/Cleveland.php) and a FAA webcam located in Cold Bay about 37 miles west of Pavlof (http://akweathercams.faa.gov/sitelist.php).

Alaska has 31% of all Active Volcanoes in the United States

Alaska's volcanoes make up about 31% of all active volcanoes in the United States. There are 52 that have been active within the last 10,000 years and can be expected to erupt again. At present, 28 are monitored with ground-based instrumentation, and all are monitored daily using satellite remote sensing.

See a full list (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/) of all volcanoes in Alaska and view an interactive map (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/map/index.php?monvolcs=on&othervolcs=on) of their location.

Although most of the volcanoes in Alaska are remote and not close to populated areas, millions of dollars of air freight and 20,000-30,000 people fly over active Alaskan volcanoes daily traveling between North America and Asia. In fact, the Anchorage International Airport is ranked the fifth busiest air cargo hub in the world based on tonnage. In addition to the threat that volcanic ash poses for aviation safety, the economic impacts due to disruption of air traffic can be substantial. One study estimated costs of five billion dollars from the week-long closure of European airspace caused by the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallaj?kull volcano in 2010.

USGS Science for Volcano Hazards

USGS science is helping keep what are natural events from turning into major disasters.

The United States has approximately 169 active volcanoes, and more than half of them could erupt explosively. When the violent energy of a volcano is unleashed, the results can be catastrophic. Lava flows, debris avalanches, and explosive blasts have devastated communities. Noxious volcanic gas emissions have caused widespread lung problems. Airborne ash clouds from explosive eruptions have caused millions of dollars damage, including causing engines to shut down in flight.

To keep communities safe, it is essential to monitor volcanoes so that the public knows when unrest begins and what hazards can be expected. USGS efforts have improved global understanding of how volcanoes work and how to live safely with volcanic eruptions.

The USGS Volcano Hazards Program (http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/) operates a total of five volcano observatories in cooperation with universities and state agencies. They are the Cascades Volcano Observatory, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, California Volcano Observatory, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and Alaska Volcano Observatory. USGS also monitors and reports on volcanoes in the northern Marianas Islands.

In April, 2013, AVO celebrated 25 years of monitoring and studying Alaska volcanoes.

Learn More

Find out about the National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS) (http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/publications/2009/nvews.php), which is a proposed national-scale plan to ensure that volcanoes are monitored at appropriate levels given their associated threats.

Watch a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X64IhvYYlw) about USGS science on volcano hazards.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/Ylh9qmVdgkc/130524180252.htm

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Get $50 Off an iPhone at Best Buy From Sunday

From Sunday, Best Buy is knocking $50 off the price off the price of iPhones for four weeks.

The deal applies to the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 on two-year contracts with Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. So, if you've been umm-ing and ahh-ing, now might be the time to stump up some cash.

There will also be a series of Memrorial Day offers, too: a Galaxy S3 on AT&T or Sprint will cost $50; an HTC Droid DNA on Verizon $50; and an HTC One X on AT&T will be free. Better than a kick in the face. [All Things D]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/get-50-off-an-iphone-at-best-buy-from-sunday-509681810

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Yahoo Acquires Gaming Infrastructure Startup PlayerScale ...

Another day, another acquisition by Yahoo.

Yahoo said this morning it?s acquired PlayerScale, a California-based startup that makes software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming. Financial details haven?t been disclosed.

PlayerScale, which was self-funded and cash-flow positive as of this past January, was founded in 2009. According to a VentureBeat article also from January, the company had a staff of 14. It?s not clear yet how many staff are involved and will be joining Yahoo ? we?ve reached out for details and will update this with any information we receive. Update: Yahoo tells us that 7 people from PlayerScale are joining Yahoo as part of the transaction.

The four-year-old PlayerScale says its platform now has more than 150 million players, which marks significant growth from just this past January when our own Anthony Ha reported the platform had crossed the 100 million user line. For now this does not look like a straight acqui-hire situation, as both Yahoo and PlayerScale say the gaming platform will remain active post-acquisition and continue to be developed.

Here is a statement provided by Yahoo PR:

?The team has built an incredible gaming platform that is used by over 150 million players worldwide. We intend to continue to support and grow PlayerScale?s technology, and we look forward to building great new experiences on Yahoo! using the PlayerScale platform.?

And here is PlayerScale CEO Jesper Jensen?s blog post on the deal:

?Today is a great day ? both in our journey with PlayerScale and for users of our Player.IO product. We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo!. And don?t worry, we?re not going anywhere. Our platform will continue to support the same great games that you love playing today ? and in fact, it will only get better from here!

Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today?s biggest successes. In working with the folks at Yahoo!, it has become clear that we share this passion.

We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day. In the last four months alone, we have increased our daily user growth rate by almost sixty percent. With Yahoo!?s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before. We will continue to support our existing product and deliver new services to help you grow and manage your success in cross-platform gaming ? whether it?s casual, social or mobile.

Today marks a milestone for PlayerScale and I want to sincerely thank the team, our developers and millions of users for the adventure so far and can promise there will be more to come.

- Jesper Jensen?


PlayerScale? develops software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming. Their backend software gives gaming publishers and aggregators the ability to scale titles across casual, social and mobile platforms in a rapid and seamless manner. The PlayerScale software incorporates a data analytics tool that provides developers with information to understand user behavior and track users and revenue across mobile and web-based properties, giving developers the ability to increase monetization and rapidly introduce new games into the market. PlayerScale supports Flash, Unity 3D,...

? Learn more

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/yahoo-acquires-gaming-platform-startup-playerscale/

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Now Open: Lox, Stock & Barrel (Get It?) at Phoodie.info: The New ...

There?s not a whole lot going on when it comes to dining in the Parkway/ Logan Square area. Ok, there is Whole Foods but who really wants to scarf down possibly mislabeled take-out in a grocery store?

Restauranteur Jeff Katz recognized the need for more options and siezed the opportunity by recently opening Lox, Stock & Barrel. (Some of y?all might recognize it as Philly Pub n? Grub.) Drawing from his deli-centric childhood, Katz has created an old school style menu featuring Nova Scotia Lox, brisket, roast beef, blintzes and potato pancakes. The menu also features diner classics such as a variety of sandwiches and milkshakes. The bar is a work in progress but there?s plans for craft beers and home made speciality cocktails.

Best part? Lox, Stock & Barrel is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night.

Lox, Stock & Barrel, 2001 Hamilton Street, Philadelphia, (215) 563-2424

Source: http://www.phoodie.info/2013/05/22/now-open-lox-stock-barrel-get-it/

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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Doctors save Ohio boy by 'printing' an airway tube

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

It's the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine, making body parts in the lab.

In the case of Kaiba (KEYE'-buh) Gionfriddo, doctors didn't have a moment to spare. Because of a birth defect, the little Ohio boy's airway kept collapsing, causing his breathing to stop and often his heart, too. Doctors in Michigan had been researching artificial airway splints but had not implanted one in a patient yet.

In a single day, they "printed out" 100 tiny tubes, using computer-guided lasers to stack and fuse thin layers of plastic instead of paper and ink to form various shapes and sizes. The next day, with special permission from the Food and Drug Administration, they implanted one of these tubes in Kaiba, the first time this has been done.

Suddenly, a baby that doctors had said would probably not leave the hospital alive could breathe normally for the first time. He was 3 months old when the operation was done last year and is nearly 19 months old now. He is about to have his tracheotomy tube removed; it was placed when he was a couple months old and needed a breathing machine. And he has not had a single breathing crisis since coming home a year ago.

"He's a pretty healthy kid right now," said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where the operation was done. It's described in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Independent experts praised the work and the potential for 3-D printing to create more body parts to solve unmet medical needs.

"It's the wave of the future," said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "I'm impressed by what they were able to accomplish."

So far, only a few adults have had trachea, or windpipe transplants, usually to replace ones destroyed by cancer. The windpipes came from dead donors or were lab-made, sometimes using stem cells. Last month, a 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe received one grown from her own stem cells onto a plastic scaffold at a hospital in Peoria, Ill.

Kaiba had a different problem ? an incompletely formed bronchus, one of the two airways that branch off the windpipe like pant legs to the lungs. About 2,000 babies are born with such defects each year in the United States and most outgrow them by age 2 or 3, as more tissue develops.

In severe cases, parents learn of the defect when the child suddenly stops breathing and dies. That almost happened when Kaiba was 6 weeks old at a restaurant with his parents, April and Bryan Gionfriddo, who live in Youngstown, in northeast Ohio.

"He turned blue and stopped breathing on us," and his father did CPR to revive him, April Gionfriddo said.

More episodes followed, and Kaiba had to go on a breathing machine when he was 2 months old. Doctors told the couple his condition was grave.

"Quite a few of them said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive. It was pretty scary," his mother said. "We pretty much prayed every night, hoping that he would pull through."

Then a doctor at Akron Children's Hospital, Marc Nelson, suggested the experimental work in Michigan. Researchers there were testing airway splints made from biodegradable polyester that is sometimes used to repair bone and cartilage.

Kaiba had the operation on Feb. 9, 2012. The splint was placed around his defective bronchus, which was stitched to the splint to keep it from collapsing. The splint has a slit along its length so it can expand and grow as the child does ? something a permanent, artificial implant could not do.

The plastic is designed to degrade and gradually be absorbed by the body over three years, as healthy tissue forms to replace it, said the biomedical engineer who led the work, Scott Hollister.

Green and Scott Hollister have a patent pending on the device and Hollister has a financial interest in a company that makes scaffolds for implants.

Dr. John Bent, a pediatric specialist at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said only time will tell if this proves to be a permanent solution, but he praised the researchers for persevering to develop it.

"I can think of a handful of children I have seen in the last two decades who suffered greatly ... that likely would have benefited from this technology," Bent said.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/doctors-save-ohio-boy-printing-airway-tube-210701707.html

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Businessweek Profiles Google X

Last February, Astro Teller, the director of Google?s (GOOG) secretive research lab, Google X, went to seek approval from Chief Executive Officer Larry Page for an unlikely acquisition. Teller was proposing that Google buy Makani Power, a startup that develops wind turbines mounted on unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft tethered to the ground like a kite. The startup, Teller told Page, was seeing promising results, and, he added proudly, its prototypes had survived all recent tests intact.

Page approved Google X?s acquisition of Makani, which was being completed for an undisclosed amount at press time. He also had a demand. ?He said we could have the budget and the people to go do this,? Teller says, ?but that we had to make sure to crash at least five of the devices in the near future.?

As the polymath engineers and scientists who work there are fond of saying, Google X is the search giant?s factory for moonshots, those million-to-one scientific bets that require generous amounts of capital, massive leaps of faith, and a willingness to break things. Google X (the official spelling is Google [x]) is home to the self-driving car initiative and the Internet-connected eyeglasses, Google Glass, among other improbable projects.

The biggest moonshot of all may be the skunk works itself: With X, Google has created a laboratory whose mandate is to come up with technologies that sound more like plot contrivances from Star Trek than products that might satisfy the short-term demands of Google?s shareholders. ?Google X is very consciously looking at things that Google in its right mind wouldn?t do,? says Richard DeVaul, a ?rapid evaluator? at the lab. ?They built the rocket pad far away from the widget factory, so if the rocket blows up, it?s hopefully not disrupting the core business.?

Since its creation in 2010, Google has kept X largely hidden from view. Over the past month, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to many of X?s managers and project leaders, who work with abundant resources and few of the constraints that smothered similar corporate research efforts in the past. ?Anything which is a huge problem for humanity we?ll sign up for, if we can find a way to fix it,? Teller says.

“Anything which is a huge problem for humanity we’ll sign up for”Illustration by Rami Neimi?Anything which is a huge problem for humanity we?ll sign up for?

Google X seeks to be an heir to the classic research labs, such as the ?Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb, and Bletchley Park, where code breakers cracked German ciphers and gave birth to modern cryptography. After the war, the spirit of these efforts was captured in pastoral corporate settings: AT&T?s (T) Bell Labs and Xerox (XRX) PARC, for example, became synony?mous with breakthroughs (the transistor and the personal computer among them) and the inability of each company to capitalize on them.

That was last century. NASA?s budget has been clipped by 11 percent since 1990. Companies are pulling back on basic research as well, preferring to buy disruptive innovation when they see it in startups. ?I?m pessimistic,? says John Seely Brown, the former director of PARC. ?It?s shocking how much research is no longer being done. We have no understanding of how fast China is catching up. I think we are a very complacent nation.?

Google X occupies a pair of otherwise ordinary two-?story red-brick buildings about a half-mile from Google?s main campus. There?s a burbling fountain out front and rows of company-issued bikes, which employees use to shuttle to the main campus. Inside one of the buildings, frosted glass covers the conference room windows. A race car tricked out with self-driving technology is parked in the lobby. The car doesn?t actually work; it was put there as an April Fools? joke. Some of the hallway whiteboards are filled with diagrams of that multigenerational nerd fantasy: space elevators. Media outlets have speculated that Google X is working on such contraptions, which would involve giant cables that connect the earth to orbiting space platforms. Google X is working on no such project, but employees have embraced the concept. It keeps every?one guessing.
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Sitting in the passenger seat of a Google driverless car is a test of faith. The car, a white Lexus RX450h with a $65,000 laser range finder on the roof, is cruising at 55 miles per hour on Silicon Valley?s crowded 101 freeway when a giant bus passes?as it happens, a double-decker Google bus, ferrying employees home. As the car weaves to get out of the way, Chris Urmson, the head of the autonomous cars project, is unperturbed. ?Google believes in and enables us to do things that wouldn?t be possible in academia,? says Urmson, a former assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon, his hands resting comfortably in his lap. Google co-founders Page and Sergey Brin ?have this idea that incremental improvements are not good enough. The standard for success is whether we can get these into the world and do audacious things.?

“Incremental improvements are not good enough”Illustrations by Rami Neimi?Incremental improvements are not good enough?

Last year, Brin, Google?s director of special projects, predicted his company?s self-driving cars will be on the market in five years. Urmson nervously calls that deadline ?exciting? and reveals his own target. ?I have a 9-year-old son who gets his driver?s license in seven years,? he says. ?So I have to be better than that.?

If it weren?t for the robo-cars, there might be no such thing as Google X. The lab?s origins reach back to 2005, when Page first met the Stanford computer scientist ?Sebastian Thrun at the Darpa Grand Challenge, where Thrun?s team of graduate students was competing to send an autono?mous vehicle through a 7-mile obstacle course in the Mojave Desert. The two men shared a belief in the promise of artificial intelligence and robotics and became friends. Two years later, Page convinced Thrun and several of his students to help with its Street View mapping project.

Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of Google XPhotograph by Ian Allen for Bloomberg BusinessweekSebastian Thrun, co-founder of Google X

Thrun had grown disenchanted with the pace of academia, where professors are motivated to publish papers rather than build products. He started the self-driving car project at Google in early 2009. Page and Brin gave him a target: Build one that could flawlessly drive 1,000 miles of open California highways and serpentine city streets. Thrun and his team of a dozen engineers met that goal in 15 months. Their car successfully navigated the jammed streets of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, and the lower span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, where the car had no GPS reception.

As progress exceeded their expectations, Thrun, Brin, and Page began to talk about expanding the project into a full-fledged research lab. For Page and Brin, it was a way to indulge their longtime interest in technologies beyond search?which generated $44 billion in revenue last year?while keeping the perennially restless Thrun in the fold. ?The Google founders were deeply impressed with Sebastian?s ability to be a great scientist who also gets stuff done,? says Teller, a former student and friend of Thrun?s, who joined Google X from a hedge fund, Cerebellum Capital. ?Google X was to some extent created as a home for self-driving cars, and literally it was an enticement for Sebastian to stay.?

Thrun always thought of corporate labs as playgrounds for lifetime employees who were overly absorbed by the abstractions of pure research. He wanted to focus on research that was at least commercially plausible and let talent come and go as projects evolved. Thrun says he seriously considered calling the new group the Google Research Institute, but that carried exactly the kind of sleepy connotations he was trying to avoid. Google X, he says, was a placeholder, a variable to be filled in later.

Babak Parviz, creator of Google GlassPhotograph by Ian Allen for Bloomberg BusinessweekBabak Parviz, creator of Google Glass

Brin decreed early on that the new lab would focus most of its energies on creating hardware. The company?s board of directors funded Google X in January 2010. (Google does not disclose the lab?s budget, but its R&D budget was $6.8 billion in 2012, up 79 percent since 2010.) Google Glass was X?s second project. Babak Parviz, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Washington, who was working on wearable computers, caught the attention of Brin and Page with a paper about the possibility of contact lenses with built-in electronics that could project images onto the wearer?s eye. Combining cars and wearable computing in Thrun?s budding laboratory somehow seemed appropriate. The first Google Glass prototype was a 10-pound head-mounted display with multiple cables snaking down to a box attached to the wearer?s belt.

The latest incarnation of Glass weighs about the same as a normal pair of glasses and is considerably more discreet. The device, which is currently available only to developers, costs $1,500, hangs the equivalent of an HD display over the right eye, and is capable of taking photos and video, displaying e-mail, and subjecting its owner to ridicule. Critics have piled on about Google Glass?s dorkiness?it?s been called a Segway for your face?and, more seriously, its potential for surreptitious surveillance. Parviz wants the world to see Glass in the context of Google X: It?s aimed at making access to knowledge so fast and seamless that it ?fundamentally changes the meaning of knowing things.?

Teller compares Glass to the first Apple (AAPL) personal computer. ?We are proposing that there is value in a totally new product category and a totally new set of questions,? he says. ?Just like the Apple II proposed, Would you reasonably want a computer in your home if you weren?t an accountant or professional? That is the question Glass is asking, and I hope in the end that is how it will be judged.?
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Although still young, Google X already has a tradition. As a project evolves beyond the scope of the lab or fails to pan out, the researchers gather for a formal graduation ceremony, complete with diplomas and mortarboards emblazoned with the letter X, to bid goodbye to the people who worked on the project. Last year a team had a graduation after it finished building a neural network that runs on thousands of computers which could learn by surfing the Web.

Astro Teller, Google X’s “captain of moonshots”Photograph by Levon Biss for Bloomberg BusinessweekAstro Teller, Google X?s ?captain of moonshots?

Thrun himself graduated from Google X in 2012. He left to form the startup Udacity, which is bringing college courses online. Thrun says Udacity?s focus is ?much more of a people problem than a tech?nology problem, and it didn?t fit into Google X.? While Thrun retains an advisory role at the lab, Teller took over as its primary manager, reporting directly to Brin.

In its early years, Thrun?s intuition and Page?s and Brin?s interests guided the agenda. It was Teller who first articulated X?s mission, in a conversation with Page. Teller was trying to put more definition behind the lab?s purpose and asked Page, Were they a research center? No, that sounded boring, Page ?responded. Were they an incubator for new com?panies? No.

Finally Teller asked, ?Are we taking moonshots?? Page replied, ?Yes, that?s it.?

Teller says things like, ?We are serious as a heart attack about making the world a better place? with a straight face. He compares Google X to Willy Wonka?s chocolate factory, a magical workshop that needs to be insulated from the world?s judgmental eyes. He recently printed up yellow and green ?Save the Oompa Loompas? stickers, which are popular around the lab.

Teller got the nickname ?Astro? (real name: Eric) when his high school soccer teammates suggested his spiky haircut looked like AstroTurf. Now 42, he has a shoulder-length ponytail, a salt-and-pepper goatee, and a remarkable, intellectual pedigree. Both of his grandfathers won Nobel prizes. His maternal grandfather, Gerard Debreu, was an economist; his paternal grandfather, the famed and controversial physicist Edward Teller, worked on the Manhattan Project and is considered the father of the atomic bomb (as well as a model for Dr. Strangelove). Astro was close to Edward, who died in 2003. Edward?s troubles after the war, when he was ostracized from the scientific community for testifying against J. Robert Oppenheimer in a security clearance hearing, ?is a ?reminder to me to make sure you do what you love,? Teller says. His grandfather ?spent most of his time being a scientific politician and an organization builder because he believed it was critical for democracy and humanity. But he really wished he could have gone in the corner and been a scientist.?

Megan Smith, VP of Google X and co-creator of Solve for XPhotograph by Ian Allen for Bloomberg BusinessweekMegan Smith, VP of Google X and co-creator of Solve for X

Teller has turned his sky?s-the-limit thinking into Google X?s most visible export. Last March he spoke at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Tex., telling a packed auditorium, ?The world is not limited by IQ. We are all limited by bravery and creativity.? Last year, with longtime Google executive Megan Smith, he co-founded the company?s annual, invitation-only conference, Solve for X, a two-and-a-half-day gathering of a hundred or so big thinkers. At the recent session in February at CordeValle, a golf resort south of San Jose, speakers covered topics such as inflatable robots, eye examinations that can detect the early onset of Alzheimer?s disease, and nuclear fusion reactors. ?There is really only one guarantee and that is if we don?t try, nothing is going to happen,? said Charles Chase, a senior program manager for Lockheed Martin?s (LMT) advanced development program, Skunk Works, who gave the fusion talk.

Absurdity is not a barrier to considerationIllustration by Rami NeimiAbsurdity is not a barrier to consideration

When he?s not evangelizing for Google X, Teller spends much of his time surveying new ideas for the lab. Absurdity is not a barrier to consideration. Teller and colleagues say they?ve spent time contemplating levitation and teleportation. The latter was nixed as an area for further study in part because any unique item that you would want to teleport?a Picasso, say?would have to be completely destroyed before it could be reconstituted on the other end.

Some of the real projects in Google X sound almost as outlandish. Makani Power?s newest airborne turbine prototype, called Wing 7, is a 26-foot-long carbon-fiber contraption with four electricity-generating propellers that flies in circles at altitudes of 800 to 2,000 feet, sending power down a lightweight tether to a base station. ?If we?re successful, we can get rid of a huge part of the fossil fuels we use,? says Damon Vander Lind, the startup?s chief engineer. Vander Lind acknowledges it might not work, but: ?If you don?t take that chance, and put a decade of your life trying to do it, no progress will get made.?

Then there?s X?s still-secret project to bring Internet access to undeveloped parts of the world. A decade ago, David Grace, a senior research fellow at the University of York, spearheaded a project to mount broadband transmitters on high-altitude balloons, as part of a multicountry initiative backed by the European Commission, called the Capanina Consortium. The initiative never progressed beyond the experimental stage. Grace now says that he has heard that Google is working on such balloon-based broadband technology.

Last month, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt made the surprising pronouncement that ?by the end of the decade, everyone on earth will be connected to the Internet.? Skeptics immediately noted that 60 percent of the world is not yet online and that there are many countries without even reliable telecommunications grids. Teller won?t confirm or even discuss such a project, though he concedes that wiring the planet would fall squarely into Google X?s purview. Grace says, ?It does need the Googles of the world to push this forward.?
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While Teller runs the day-to-day operations at X, he reports to Brin. (?Sergey is Bruce Wayne, and I?m Lucius Fox,? Teller says.) Colleagues say that since Page became CEO in late 2011, Brin spends most of his time immersed in the technical details of several projects at Google X. Although he declined several requests to speak for this story, on a typically bucolic day at the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., Brin happens by a reporter and two Google spokes?people eating lunch outside and spontaneously joins the group. ?I think I?m going to spend most of my time now on cars,? he says, by way of introduction. Asked about Google Glass, a project he championed and which he has been photographed testing on the New York City subway, he points to the device perched on his nose and says, ?You know, this is basically done.?

Inside the Moonshot FactoryIllustration by Rami NeimiInside the Moonshot Factory

Now he?s ready to throw himself into driverless cars. Part of Brin?s charm is that he speaks in flat, logical sentences that are as dull as timber. But when he gets going on a soliloquy, he can build a pretty astonishing house. Autonomous cars may seem like a gimmick, he begins, but when you consider all the time that people won?t be devoting to their rearview mirrors, and all the efficiencies that come from cars that could be zipping between errands rather than idling in parking lots, the world looks like a very different place. Car ownership would be unnecessary, because your car (maybe shared with your neighbors) will act like a taxi that?s summoned when needed. The elderly and the blind could be thoroughly integrated into society. Traffic deaths could be eradicated. Every person could gain lost hours back for working, reading, talking, or searching the Internet. If it all comes to fruition?a big and fascinating if?Brin could be one of the few entrepreneurs to have changed the world twice.

Brin?s presence at the lab is one of Google X?s most powerful assets. ?At some other company, you might imagine a senior vice president who feels inevitable pressure to claw back the smartest researchers to go put out a fire elsewhere,? says DeVaul, who helps Teller survey possible new projects. ?Sergey?s direct involvement is one of the ways this environment gets supported.? As a result, Google X is both growing in ambition and stock?piling an impressive roster of technical talent.

Mary Lou Jepsen, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, joined last year as the head of the Google X Display Division, where she is presumably developing screens for the coming wave of devices that, like Glass, will perch on or otherwise cling to our bodies. Andrew Conrad, formerly the chief scientist of LabCorp, the blood-screening firm, joined Google X this spring to work on an undisclosed project. Jeff Huber, the longtime Google executive who most recently ran Google?s mapping and commerce divisions, also moved to X in March but did not specify his area of research.

The expansion of Google X is enough to give some Google investors a touch of heartburn. Brian Wieser, an analyst at the Pivotal Research Group, calls Google X a ?benign to positive? factor for shareholders but wonders why the company doesn?t license technology such as Google Glass. ?When it comes to creating businesses that are arguably a strategic overreach and likely margin-eroding, that is when you get concerned,? he says. Other investors remember that the founders? ranging curiosity is what led to winning bets on businesses that seemed irrelevant at the time?Android, for example, which runs on 75 percent of all smartphones shipped around the world in the first quarter, according to the research firm IDC. ?It?s a culture that has enabled them to not get caught flat-footed by transitions,? says Nabil Elsheshai, an analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, which holds Google stock.

Teller says he wants Google X to be judged not only on its financial return but on the progress it makes toward clean energy or wiring the world, or on its other projects. ?We are still in our adolescence,? he says. ?We are still figuring out how to do things, like how to kill projects or amplify them when we decide they need to go into the next stage.? For now, X will take on two or three new moonshots a year. ?If there?s an enormous problem with the world, and we can convince ourselves that over some long but not unreasonable period of time we can make that problem go away, then we don?t need a business plan,? Teller says. ?We should be focused on making the world a better place, and once we do that, the money will come back and find us.?

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-22/inside-googles-secret-lab

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Triple H injury update

After a?savage Steel Cage battle with Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules on Sunday, a physically battered Triple H was unable to continue in his match against impressive new Paul Heyman client Curtis Axel on Monday night's Raw.

On Tuesday, WWE.com spoke with WWE physician Dr. Michael Sampson, who gave an update on the status of The Cerebral Assassin.

"After the pay-per-view match on Sunday, we advised (Triple H) on Monday that he shouldn't wrestle because of head and jaw trauma he suffered from the sledgehammer attack by Brock Lesnar," Dr. Sampson explained to WWE.com. "Obviously, we saw what happened Monday night: He went against medical advice and tried to wrestle. Luckily, he pulled himself out."

After further evaluation, Sampson said The Game is still exhibiting some post-concussion symptoms and he'll be held out of action until WWE's medical staff can conduct further neurological tests.

"At this point, the neurological exams are all normal," Sampson added. "But we will continue to employ neuropsychological testing to get a better idea how he?s doing mentally, as far as reaction time, thought process and so on."

Sampson noted the additional neurological tests will likely be conducted near the end of this week, once The Game's headache has subsided.

Check back with WWE.com for any future medical updates on Triple H as they become available.

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Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-05-20/triple-h-injury-update

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Global, local issues for Iran in upcoming election

Main domestic and international issues facing Iran ahead of its June 14 presidential election:

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NUCLEAR QUESTION: Four rounds of revived talks between Iran and world powers since last year have produced no important headway in the Tehran's impasse with the West. The U.S. and allies worry Iran's uranium enrichment could lead to atomic weapons, which could shift the balance of power in the region and give allies such as Hezbollah access to nuclear material. Iran denies it seeks nuclear arms, often citing a religious edict by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejecting such weapons. Iran says it only seeks nuclear reactors for energy and medical applications. But it refuses to consider giving up any part of the "nuclear cycle," which includes processing and enriching uranium. Israel has said it keeps options open to attack Iran's nuclear sites, but Washington and other Western allies appear committed for now to a combination of diplomacy and economic sanctions to pressure Tehran.

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SANCTIONS: International sanctions led by the U.S. and European Union have sharply increased in recent years, targeting Iran's vital oil exports and limiting its access to global financial networks for trade payments. Oil sales ? Iran's main foreign currency source ? have been cut by more than half, although shipments still go to major Asian markets such as China and India under U.S. waivers. On July 1, the U.S. could put in motion tighter sanctions seeking to limit gold sales to Iran, which has become a critical financial lifeline. Much of the gold trade has flowed through U.S. allies Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Iranian leaders claim they can ride out sanctions through a "resistance economy" that encourages domestic manufacturing and sale of refined petroleum products, which are not covered by sanctions.

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ECONOMY: Iran's economy has been locked in a downward spiral from a mix of sanctions and domestic fiscal mismanagement, blamed on outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies of subsidies and handouts. The national currency, the rial, has plummeted in value from about 10,000 to the U.S. dollar two years ago to more than 35,000. This has driven up inflation with prices for some goods tripling. Unemployment is officially at 13 percent, but most economists believe it could be more than twice that figure.

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OPPOSITION: Years of widespread crackdowns have left the opposition movement shattered and without a guiding hand. Authorities have placed under house arrest the leaders of the protest movement after Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 re-election. No serious attempts have been made to mobilize street demonstrations since early 2010. In the intervening years, Iran's Revolutionary Guard has grown in power and expanded its networks, including paramilitary groups known as the Basij corps that are present in nearly every town or neighborhood around the country.

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U.S. RELATIONS: Despite hopes for a breakthrough after U.S. President Barack Obama's election in 2008, no significant progress has been made to end the more than three-decade diplomatic freeze. Iranian and U.S. envoys have had contact during nuclear talks, and the two countries found a common cause earlier this year to keep wrestling on the 2020 Olympic program after the International Olympic Committee dropped the sport from its core program. Many of the Iranian presidential candidates have suggested the possibility of a less-antagonistic relationship with Washington, but any such decision rests with the supreme leader.

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REGIONAL ROLE: The future of Syrian President Bashar Assad is a pivotal issue for Iran. Without Assad, Iran stands to lose its main Arab ally in the region. It also could cut the easy supply lines to Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. But, in other areas, Tehran has deepened crucial ties. Iran's influence spills out from both sides of its borders into Iraq and Afghanistan. It also has embarked on a military buildup to challenge U.S. and Gulf Arab forces. Iran has announced a series of purported advances, including drones and a fighter jet, but military analysts question the authenticity of some of the claims.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-local-issues-iran-upcoming-election-183246449.html

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Xbox One pre-order notification is live: here's where to sign up

Xbox One preorder notification is live here's where to sign up

How much? When? Where? Who cares? If you aren't exactly interested in knowing how much the impending Xbox One will cost you -- let alone when it'll actually hit your doorstep -- you can sign up to be notified of your opportunity to pre-order the console right now. To be clear, this isn't a sign-up for a pre-order. It's just a sign-up to be notified of pre-orders officially opening up. So really, what's to lose? Hit the source link below in order to share your email address, and you'll get a $10 Microsoft online store credit for your trouble. (Or, you can hit the Amazon link for those needing an excuse to make better use of their Prime subscription.)

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Source: Microsoft, Major Nelson (Twitter), Amazon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-pre-order-notification-is-sign-up/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Scientists uncover how grapefruits provide a secret weapon in medical drug delivery

May 21, 2013 ? Lipids (right panel first three tubes) derived from grapefruit. GNVs can efficiently deliver a variety of therapeutic agents, including DNA, RNA (DIR-GNVs), proteins and anti-cancer drugs (GNVs-Drugs) as demonstrated in this study.

Grapefruits have long been known for their health benefits, and the subtropical fruit may revolutionize how medical therapies like anti-cancer drugs are delivered to specific tumor cells.

University of Louisville researchers have uncovered how to create nanoparticles using natural lipids derived from grapefruit, and have discovered how to use them as drug delivery vehicles. UofL scientists Huang-Ge Zhang, D.V.M., Ph.D., Qilong Wang, Ph.D., and their team today (May 21, 2013), published their findings in Nature Communications.

"These nanoparticles, which we've named grapefruit-derived nanovectors (GNVs), are derived from an edible plant, and we believe they are less toxic for patients, result in less biohazardous waste for the environment, and are much cheaper to produce at large scale than nanoparticles made from synthetic materials," Zhang said.

The researchers demonstrated that GNVs can transport various therapeutic agents, including anti-cancer drugs, DNA/RNA and proteins such as antibodies. Treatment of animals with GNVs seemed to cause less adverse effects than treatment with drugs encapsulated in synthetic lipids.

"Our GNVs can be modified to target specific cells -- we can use them like missiles to carry a variety of therapeutic agents for the purpose of destroying diseased cells," he said. "Furthermore, we can do this at an affordable price."

The therapeutic potential of grapefruit derived nanoparticles was further validated through a Phase 1 clinical trial for treatment of colon cancer patients. So far, researchers have observed no toxicity in the patients who orally took the anti-inflammatory agent curcumin encapsulated in grapefruit nanoparticles.

The UofL scientists also plan to test whether this technology can be applied in the treatment of inflammation related autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.

A Common Sense Approach

Zhang said he began this research by considering how our ancestors selected food to eat.

"The fruits and vegetables we buy from the grocery today were passed down from generation to generation as favorable and nutritious for the human body. On the flip side, outcomes were not favorable for our ancestors who ate poisonous mushrooms, for example," he said. "It made sense for us to consider eatable plants as a mechanism to create medical nanoparticles as a potential non-toxic therapeutic delivery vehicle."

In addition to grapefruit, Zhang and his team analyzed the nanoparticles from tomatoes and grapes. Grapefruits were chosen for further exploration because a larger quantity of lipids can be derived from this fruit.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/cX9NdHi9O30/130521132217.htm

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Avril Lavigne Says Wedding Planning Is 'Full-Time Job'

'Here's to Never Growing Up' singer tells MTV News about her upcoming celebration with Nickelback's Chad Kroeger.
By Christina Garibaldi

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707673/avril-lavigne-wedding-plans-chad-kroeger-nickelback.jhtml

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Monday, May 20, 2013

ASUS Zenbook Infinity Ultrabook to appear at Computex 2013 with Gorilla Glass 3 lid

ASUS Zenbook Infinity Ultrabook to appear at Computex 2013 with Gorilla Glass 3 lid

ASUS' Transformer Book hybrid may have just graduated from our review testing, but the company already has a new product to tempt you. The Zenbook Infinity will be the "world's first Ultrabook with a lid made form Corning Gorilla Glass 3" and will be revealed in full at Taipei's Computex 2013 in a few weeks. It'll measure in at just 15.5mm thick -- a full 14 percent thinner than previous Zenbooks. Next-generation Gorilla Glass will cover the outer lid and the keyboard surround, although you can expect to see that familiar concentric circle pattern beneath that protection. ASUS says the Ultrabook will launch Q3 2013, but we can expect to see the full specs before then.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ZBeI9YpHtfM/

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Work Stress, Unhealthy Lifestyle Impact Coronary Arteries | Psych ...

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on May 20, 2013

Work Stress, Unhealthy Lifestyle Impact Coronary ArteriesThe results of a new research study could provide the impetus to improve or adopt a healthy lifestyle ? especially?for those with stressful jobs.

As reported in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), researchers discovered people with job stress and an unhealthy lifestyle are at higher risk of coronary artery disease than people who have job stress but lead healthy lifestyles.

Researchers studied the effect of a healthy lifestyle on reducing the effects of stress on coronary artery disease by reviewing seven cohort studies from a European initiative that included more than 100,000 people.

Subjects were disease-free during the 15-year study period (1985-2000), ranged in age from 17 to 70 (mean 44.3) years, and resided in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden and Finland. More than half (52 percent) were women.

Of the total participants, nearly 16,000 individuals (16 percent) reported job stress, which was determined from specific job-related questions in the studies.

The investigators defined three lifestyle categories based on smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity/inactivity and obesity (body mass index).

A ?healthy lifestyle? had no lifestyle risk factors, ?moderately unhealthy lifestyle? had one risk factor and ?unhealthy lifestyle? included 2 to 4 lifestyle risk factors.

A total of 1,086 participants had incident events of coronary artery disease events during the followup period.

The 10-year incidence of coronary artery disease was 18.4 per 1000 people for people with job strain and 14.7 for those without job strain.

People with an unhealthy lifestyle had a significantly higher 10-year incidence rate (30.6 per 1000) compared to those with a healthy lifestyle (12.0 per 1000). The incidence rate was 31.2 per 1000 for participants with job strain and an unhealthy lifestyle but only 14.7 for those with job strain and a healthy lifestyle.

?The risk of coronary artery disease was highest among participants who reported job strain and an unhealthy lifestyle; those with job strain and a healthy lifestyle had about half the rate of this disease,? said researcher Mika Kivim?ki, Ph.D.

?These observational data suggest that a healthy lifestyle could substantially reduce the risk of coronary artery disease risk among people with job strain.?

Evidence from randomized controlled trials has shown that lifestyle changes such as weight loss and stopping smoking can reduce the risk of disease.

?In addition to stress counseling, clinicians might consider paying closer attention to lifestyle risk factors in patients who report job strain,? the authors conclude.

Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal

Stethoscope shaped as a person photo by shutterstock.

APA Reference
Nauert PhD, R. (2013). Work Stress, Unhealthy Lifestyle Impact Coronary Arteries. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 20, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/05/20/work-stress-unhealthy-lifestyle-impact-coronary-arteries/55063.html

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Source: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/05/20/work-stress-unhealthy-lifestyle-impact-coronary-arteries/55063.html

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Video shows kidnapped Egyptian security officers

CAIRO (AP) ? Seven men purported to be the members of Egypt's security forces kidnapped by suspected militants last week appeared in a video posted online Sunday and urged the government to secure their release by meeting their captors' demands.

The video, posted on YouTube, is the first sign of the six policemen and one border guard since they were pulled by gunmen from the taxis they were traveling in from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to Cairo on Thursday. Egyptian security officials said they believed the men in the clip were the missing personnel and that authorities were treating the matter seriously.

The kidnapping highlights how much security has collapsed in the northern part of Sinai since the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak. Criminal gangs, militants and local tribesmen disgruntled with what they say is state-sponsored discrimination have exploited the security vacuum to smuggle weapons, attack security forces and kidnap tourists for use as bargaining chips with authorities to push for the release of captive relatives.

In the video, the men, blindfolded and holding their hands on their heads, introduce themselves one by one. One of the men addresses the Egyptian president and defense minister, and asks them to free Sinai militants held in Egyptian prisons.

The speaker identifies himself as Cpl. Ibrahim Sobhi Ibrahim and says: "The demands of the brothers Mr. President is the release of political prisoners from Sinai. Please, Mr. President, release them quickly. We can no longer tolerate torture."

The men then plead at the end of the video: "Rescue us Mr. President. We can't take it. Rescue us, people."

It was not immediately clear who posted the video, which was uploaded to a YouTube account created Sunday.

An Egyptian security official identified the captives in the video as the missing personnel. He said a copy of the video was sent to security agencies. He said it was not immediately clear who sent the video. Another security official in Cairo said families and friends of the captives were called in to identify their relatives.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The names of five of the missing also correspond with names previously obtained by The Associated Press.

Security officials say the kidnapping appears to have been motivated by claims made by the mother of a man held in prison that her son had been tortured by authorities. The prisoner, Ahmed Abu Sheta, was convicted of attacking a police station in 2011 that killed police officers.

Authorities have been in contact with the kidnappers through mediators. The kidnappers have demanded the release of several militants held in Egyptian jails, officials say.

President Mohammed Morsi said in a statement released Sunday that there is "no room for dialogue with the criminals" responsible for kidnapping the seven security personnel. The statement followed a meeting he had with politicians from largely Islamist groups to brief them on efforts to secure the captives' release.

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Associated Press writer Ashraf Sweilam contributed to this report from Southern Sinai.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video-shows-kidnapped-egyptian-security-officers-161501440.html

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