What are the rules on hands-free cellphone use for commercial ...

Q. We have several employees who drive commercial motor vehicles. We have heard that there are rules about the use of cellphones by those drivers. How do those rules affect us?

A. In January 2012, a joint rule issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Admin??is??tra??tion (PHMSA) took effect. The rule restricts commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers from holding a mobile telephone to conduct a voice communication, dialing a mobile telephone by pressing more than a single button or reaching for a mobile phone in an unacceptable and unsafe manner.

That means a CMV driver who wants to use a mobile phone while driving must use a compliant mobile telephone (such as a hands-free device) located close to the driver.

The rule provides stiff penalties for both drivers and companies that allow their drivers to use hand-held mobile telephones while driving. Violating the rule counts against the list of violations that can disqualify a driver from holding a commercial driver?s license. Six violations in a three-year period can result in license suspensions of six months, 12 months or even a lifetime.

Employers that allow drivers to use mobile telephones in violation of the rule face a maximum penalty of up to $11,000.

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Korean operators warn Europe of "curse" of 4G networks

BARCELONA (Reuters) - South Korean telecom executives have a message for European cousins who have long looked on in envy at the highly connected Asian market: Be careful what you wish for.

South Korea, the world's most wired country with 30 percent of its 50 million mobile users on superfast networks, has inspired many European operators ahead of their own rollout of networks based on LTE, or fourth-generation technology.

But SK Telecom Co Ltd , the country's largest operator with more than half of the market, and second player KT Corp , told Reuters that although the rollout of faster networks had been good for consumers, they were still struggling to make money on the technology 18 months after launch.

"Our European colleagues complain that the explosion in data has not fully happened for them, that it did not come to reality," Suk-Chae Lee, the head of KT Corp, told Reuters at the Mobile World Congress on Tuesday.

"In Korea, they are data crazy. We have unprecedented demand. We cannot handle it. But the issue we have is that they are not willing to pay enough. So, the fundamental problem is, can we make any money out of it?"

South Korea is often held up by European governments as the model they would most like to replicate, with superfast networks enabling millions of people to shop online, communicate and become more productive.

The country has three operators who have been forced to fight for every consumer, spending heavily on marketing and handset subsidies and continually offering more for less to lure in and keep their subscribers.

"The traffic increases but the revenue does not necessarily follow," SK's chief technology officer Jae W Byun said in an interview.

"We have seen about a $13 increase in average revenue per user compared with 3G. So, it is good money, but it may not be enough to justify the huge investment needed in LTE."

Byun added that the profitability of LTE would improve as SK expects the number of subscribers on the technology to grow to 60 percent by the end of the year, from 30 percent currently.

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European operators such as Telefonica SA and France Telecom SA , weighed down by regulation, competition and economic woes, are betting that the billions of dollars of investment needed for 4G networks will eventually be offset by an increase in customer prices.

Their optimism will be tested when 4G services reach more subscribers in Germany, France, Scandinavia and Britain this year.

In contrast, in the United States AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc are surfing the 4G wave to grow sales and profits, but that has much to do with the fact that they have a combined 70 percent share of their home market.

The lessons from Korea are not all harsh, though.

SK's Byun said rolling out faster networks could enable a mobile operator ranked number two or three to become market leader because the improvement to the consumer is so significant.

But he also noted that once one operator launched 4G, others had to follow quickly or face being left behind.

"If you want to change the game, then take a risk and invest," said Byun.

Customers of both firms on average consume 1.8 to 1.9 gigabytes of data per month, with users spending hours watching video on YouTube, browsing the web and social networking on smartphones and tablets.

According to research from Cisco, an average smartphone user on slower 3G networks consumes around 342 megabytes. South Korea's leap to 1.8 gigabytes followed an 80 percent jump in mobile data traffic on 2G, 3G and 4G networks in 2012.

"LTE is very beneficial to the people but still the big question remains, can we go on?" KT's Suk-Chae Lee said. "It is a blessing to customers but it is a curse on the operators."

The problem will likely get worse, with analysts at Citi predicting 70 percent of the country's mobile users would be on 4G networks by 2014.

SK says it cannot predict when the network will break even because it depends on marketing costs. Its rival noted that with technology developing so quickly, companies have to continually develop new infrastructure, giving less time to recoup the cost.

"The question remains, how do you build out a network while ensuring that the builder gets a minimum return for their investment?" KT's Suk-Chae Lee said. "It is a dilemma."

(Additional reporting by Miyoung Kim in Seoul; Editing by Dan Lalor and David Holmes)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/korean-operators-warn-europe-curse-4g-networks-115105261--finance.html

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JPMorgan to cut up to 17,000 jobs by end of 2014

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Tuesday that it plans to cut 17,000 jobs by the end of 2014, representing about 6.6 percent of the company's overall workforce, as the bank sheds staff that helped it deal with bad home loans.

The bank is optimistic that it can generate record income this year and is planning to add 4,000 employees in commercial and investment banking and credit cards to help it win business, bank executives said at an investor conference.

That hiring will be more than offset by job cuts in areas like mortgage servicing and retail banking, where the bank is positioning for a recovering housing market and new forms of branch banking. The net impact of the additions and cuts will be 17,000 fewer employees on the bank's payrolls.

The job cuts reflect the pressure that banks are under, even as the U.S. housing market and overall economy show signs of recovery. Many banks are looking to automate more of their businesses to make their staff more productive and improve profits.

For example, at JPMorgan's branches, where it plans to cut about 6,000 tellers and other employees, the bank hopes customers will use automated teller machines for every day transactions and that remaining staff can focus on higher-margin activities like selling wealth management services.

JPMorgan is one of the few big U.S. banks that is still adding branches to its network, but it is hoping to staff the branches with fewer workers. The bank's 5,614 branches have 63,500 employees, representing about a quarter of JPMorgan Chase's total. Chase's branch network is second to Wells Fargo & Co's in size.

For overall staffing levels, JPMorgan Chase had 258,965 employees globally at the end of 2012. Its headcount rose following the financial crisis to 262,882 in the second quarter of 2012 from 219,569 in the first quarter of 2009. Since last year's second quarter, staffing levels have drifted lower.

JPMorgan Chase overall earned $21.9 billion last year, excluding accounting charges linked to changes in the value of its debt. The bank said it has the potential to earn about $27.5 billion, thanks in part to efficiency gains. It aims to cut overall expenses by $1 billion in 2013.

To reach the $27.5 billion profit figure, the bank is also counting on costs for lawsuits to fall as disputes over bad mortgages are resolved, as well as seeing a one percentage point rise in interest rates, said Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake.

The profit scenario also depends on the bank not being hit by another trading debacle like the $6.2 billion loss last year on derivatives trades placed by the London Whale, the nickname given a London-based JPMorgan trader for the size of the positions.

Chief Executive Jamie Dimon acknowledged that many of his top lieutenants who spoke to investors on Tuesday were in new jobs after changes he made last year in his management team and the bank's divisions.

"It is a little bit too much change in one year," Dimon said. "Some of it was the Whale. Some of it was the re-org" to better align product divisions with customer interests, he said.

All of the top executives, however, have been at the company several years and know its businesses, Dimon said.

JPMorgan Chase shares were down 0.2 percent at $47.60 at the close of trading on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By David Henry; Additional reporting by Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina; Writing by Dan Wilchins; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jpmorgan-chase-cut-4-000-jobs-2013-010505461--sector.html

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Hibbert ejected for fight in Pacers-Warriors game

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Indiana center Roy Hibbert was ejected and four other players received technical fouls after a skirmish between the Pacers and Golden State Warriors spilled into the seats behind the baseline.

The Warriors' David Lee, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson also were called for technicals, along with Indiana forward David West.

It began when Lee and Hibbert exchanged shoves under the basket after a missed shot with 6:10 remaining in the fourth quarter. Curry tried to push Hibbert away and was shoved to the court as the fight went from the key to the foul line.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-26-BKN-Pacers-Hibbert-Ejected/id-c8a00ba1f5f346759bde2ac228fca649

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Research update: Chemists find help from nature in fighting cancer

Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sarah McDonnell
s_mcd@mit.edu
617-827-7637
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Inspired by a chemical that fungi secrete to defend their territory, MIT chemists have synthesized and tested several dozen compounds that may hold promise as potential cancer drugs.

A few years ago, MIT researchers led by associate professor of chemistry Mohammad Movassaghi became the first to chemically synthesize 11,11'-dideoxyverticillin, a highly complex fungal compound that has shown anti-cancer activity in previous studies. This and related compounds naturally occur in such small amounts that it has been difficult to do a comprehensive study of the relationship between the compound's structure and its activity research that could aid drug development, Movassaghi says.

"There's a lot of data out there, very exciting data, but one thing we were interested in doing is taking a large panel of these compounds, and for the first time, evaluating them in a uniform manner," Movassaghi says.

In the new study, recently published online in the journal Chemical Science, Movassaghi and colleagues at MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) designed and tested 60 compounds for their ability to kill human cancer cells.

"What was particularly exciting to us was to see, across various cancer cell lines, that some of them are quite potent," Movassaghi says.

Lead author of the paper is MIT postdoc Nicolas Boyer. Other authors are MIT graduate student Justin Kim, UIUC chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother and UIUC graduate student Karen Morrison.

Improving nature's design

Many of the compounds tested in this study, known as epipolythiodiketopiperazine (ETP) alkaloids, are naturally produced by fungi. Scientists believe these compounds help fungi prevent other organisms from encroaching on their territory.

In the process of synthesizing ETP natural products in their lab, the MIT researchers produced many similar compounds that they suspected might also have anti-cancer activity. For the new study, they created even more compounds by systematically varying the natural structures adding or removing certain chemical groups from different locations.

The researchers tested 60 compounds against two different human cancer cell lines cervical cancer and lymphoma. Then they chose the best 25 to test against three additional lines, from lung, kidney and breast tumors. Overall, dimeric compounds those with two ETP molecules joined together appeared to be more effective at killing cancer cells than single molecules (known as monomers).

The structure of an ETP natural product typically has at least one set of fused rings containing one or more sulfur atoms that link to a six-member ring known as a cyclo-dipeptide. The researchers found that another key to tumor-killing ability is the arrangement and number of these sulfur atoms: Compounds with at least two sulfur atoms were the most effective, those with only one sulfur atom were less effective, and those without sulfur did not kill tumor cells efficiently.

Other rings typically have chemical groups of varying sizes attached in certain positions; a key position is that next to the ETP ring. The researchers found that the larger this group, the more powerful the compound was against cancer.

The compounds that kill cancer cells appear to be very selective, destroying them 1,000 times more effectively than they kill healthy blood cells.

The researchers also identified sections of the compounds that can be altered without discernably changing their activity. This is useful because it could allow chemists to use those points to attach the compounds to a delivery agent such as an antibody that would target them to cancer cells, without impairing their cancer-killing ability.

Complex synthesis

Now that they have some initial data, the researchers can use their findings to design additional compounds that might be even more effective. "We can go in with far greater precision and test the hypotheses we're developing in terms of what portions of the molecules are most significant at retaining or enhancing biological activity," Movassaghi says.

###

The research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Written by: Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sarah McDonnell
s_mcd@mit.edu
617-827-7637
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Inspired by a chemical that fungi secrete to defend their territory, MIT chemists have synthesized and tested several dozen compounds that may hold promise as potential cancer drugs.

A few years ago, MIT researchers led by associate professor of chemistry Mohammad Movassaghi became the first to chemically synthesize 11,11'-dideoxyverticillin, a highly complex fungal compound that has shown anti-cancer activity in previous studies. This and related compounds naturally occur in such small amounts that it has been difficult to do a comprehensive study of the relationship between the compound's structure and its activity research that could aid drug development, Movassaghi says.

"There's a lot of data out there, very exciting data, but one thing we were interested in doing is taking a large panel of these compounds, and for the first time, evaluating them in a uniform manner," Movassaghi says.

In the new study, recently published online in the journal Chemical Science, Movassaghi and colleagues at MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) designed and tested 60 compounds for their ability to kill human cancer cells.

"What was particularly exciting to us was to see, across various cancer cell lines, that some of them are quite potent," Movassaghi says.

Lead author of the paper is MIT postdoc Nicolas Boyer. Other authors are MIT graduate student Justin Kim, UIUC chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother and UIUC graduate student Karen Morrison.

Improving nature's design

Many of the compounds tested in this study, known as epipolythiodiketopiperazine (ETP) alkaloids, are naturally produced by fungi. Scientists believe these compounds help fungi prevent other organisms from encroaching on their territory.

In the process of synthesizing ETP natural products in their lab, the MIT researchers produced many similar compounds that they suspected might also have anti-cancer activity. For the new study, they created even more compounds by systematically varying the natural structures adding or removing certain chemical groups from different locations.

The researchers tested 60 compounds against two different human cancer cell lines cervical cancer and lymphoma. Then they chose the best 25 to test against three additional lines, from lung, kidney and breast tumors. Overall, dimeric compounds those with two ETP molecules joined together appeared to be more effective at killing cancer cells than single molecules (known as monomers).

The structure of an ETP natural product typically has at least one set of fused rings containing one or more sulfur atoms that link to a six-member ring known as a cyclo-dipeptide. The researchers found that another key to tumor-killing ability is the arrangement and number of these sulfur atoms: Compounds with at least two sulfur atoms were the most effective, those with only one sulfur atom were less effective, and those without sulfur did not kill tumor cells efficiently.

Other rings typically have chemical groups of varying sizes attached in certain positions; a key position is that next to the ETP ring. The researchers found that the larger this group, the more powerful the compound was against cancer.

The compounds that kill cancer cells appear to be very selective, destroying them 1,000 times more effectively than they kill healthy blood cells.

The researchers also identified sections of the compounds that can be altered without discernably changing their activity. This is useful because it could allow chemists to use those points to attach the compounds to a delivery agent such as an antibody that would target them to cancer cells, without impairing their cancer-killing ability.

Complex synthesis

Now that they have some initial data, the researchers can use their findings to design additional compounds that might be even more effective. "We can go in with far greater precision and test the hypotheses we're developing in terms of what portions of the molecules are most significant at retaining or enhancing biological activity," Movassaghi says.

###

The research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Written by: Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/miot-ruc022713.php

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Sony's Xperia Tablet Z Can Really Make a Splash

Sony introduced the Xperia Tablet Z on Monday, touting its thin form factor and powerful components at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Sony has been in the tablet market since 2011, when it introduced the Android-powered Tablet S, but the company now seems to be making a more serious play.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/28f312b3/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C773850Bhtml/story01.htm

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Watch Live: Obama on perils of cuts

As the country inches closer to the March 1 sequester deadline, President Barack Obama on Tuesday travels to Newport News, Va., to illustrate what he and the administration believe will be the devastating economic impacts of the spending cuts.

Obama will use Newport News Shipbuilding, which supplies materials to all 50 states, to press his case for Republicans to compromise on tax increases for the wealthiest Americans and some corporations, and pass a budget to avoid the sequester?across-the-board cuts set to occur in the absence of a budget.

Newport News is a place "where workers will sit idle when they should be repairing ships, and a carrier sits idle when it should be deploying to the Persian Gulf," Obama told governors gathered at the White House on Monday for the National Governors Association annual meeting.

Tuesday's trip is the latest effort by the White House to argue against the sequester. Some Republicans have indicated they would allow it to go into effect should Congress fail to agree on a federal budget that they feel adequately reduces spending and the deficit.

In addition to Obama's speech on Monday to the nation's governors?during which he implored them to urge their congressional delegations to find a budget compromise?the sequester was tackled by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during Monday's White House briefing. There, she warned that lines for customs and border crossings will significantly increase and trade will slow down due to spending cuts necessitated by the sequester.

The president is set to speak in Virginia at 1:05 p.m. ET.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-address-sequester-newport-news-va-151526997--politics.html

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Augmented Reality, Wearable Electronics and the Postal Service's ...

In my previous blog post, I commented on the United States Postal Service and its announced plans for five-day delivery, discussing the importance of hard-copy communication and a commitment to deliver such communication on a daily basis. In extending this commentary, I claim no nostalgia for daily mail delivery, rather simply recognition that such communication has its unique position as a vehicle for superb brand engagement.

The Postal Service is not standing still in the digital age.

Last October, when the Postal Service announced its intention to raise rates this past January, it also announced its schedule for postage promotions through 2013. And in the mix is a bevy of technology-driven, multichannel "positioning" of direct mail that leverages mobile and interactive channels.

Discounts
Look at this selected line-up from the USPS promotion calendar:

• March-April 2013: Mobile Coupon/Click-to-Call
  This promotion seeks to increase the value of direct mail by further highlighting the integration of mail with mobile technology in two specific ways. First, the promotion would encourage mailers to integrate hard-copy coupons in the mail with mobile-optimized platforms for redemption. Second, the promotion will drive consumer awareness, and increased usage, of mail containing mobile barcodes with "click-to-call" functionality.

  Provides a 2-percent discount on the qualifying postage for First-Class Mail and Standard Mail presort or automation letters, postcards and flats sent during the established program period that include a two dimensional mobile barcode inside or on the mailpiece. The barcode must either lead the recipient to a coupon that can be stored on a mobile device, or enable the recipient to connect by telephone to another person or call center via a mobile device.

• August-September 2013: Emerging Technology
  This promotion is designed to build on the successes of past mobile barcode promotions by promoting awareness of how innovative technology?such as near-field communication, augmented reality and authentication?can be integrated with a direct mail strategy to enhance the value of direct mail.

  Provide a 2-percent discount on the qualifying postage for First-Class Mail and Standard Mail presort or automation letters, postcards, and flats that are sent during the established program period and include print that allows the recipient to engage in one of the following:
  

  • an augmented reality experience facilitated by a smartphone or computer,
  • authentication of the recipient's identity, or
  • an experience facilitated via Near Field Communication.

To receive the discount, mailers must comply with the eligibility requirements of the program.

• November-December 2013: Mobile Buy-it-Now
  This promotion will encourage mailers to adopt and invest in technologies that enhance how consumers interact and engage with mail, and demonstrate how direct mail can be a convenient method for consumers to do their holiday shopping.

  Provides a 2-percent discount on the qualifying postage for First-Class Mail and Standard Mail presort or automation letters, postcards, and flats which include a mobile barcode inside or on the mailpiece that facilitates a mobile optimized shopping experience. To receive the discount, the qualifying mail must be sent during the established program period by mailers that comply with the eligibility requirements of the program

Augmented Reality
Next, in January during the media-frenzy of Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, this Venture Beat post appeared, reporting on a USPS mobile app that uses "augmented reality" (subject of the August-September 2013 promotion) to integrate direct mail promotions with interactive programming on a mobile device and give recipients an enhanced digital experience with the mail piece. In augmented reality, a physical ad and an interactive ad comes together by way of an app, developed by Aurasma, rather than a QR Code. Augmented reality can be applied to any visual cues.

The apps keep coming.? Associated Press then reported that Val-Pak, the company that sends blue envelopes stuffed with coupons, also wants consumer households to save money while driving. Valpak has partnered with Roximity, a Denver-based app developer, to bring coupons and deals to drivers of newer-model Fords and Lincolns who use the voice-controlled Sync AppLink connected to their mobile phone. The app allows people to hear about personalized deals from stores, restaurants and other businesses as they drive. The "coupon" appears on the driver's smartphone and can be redeemed once the car is stopped.

Wearable Electronics
And how can you keep it all connected?the mail, the apps, the augmented reality, the mobile coupons? Why through wearable electronics, of course, article courtesy of The Atlantic Wire. The fashion verdict may be out, but the Postal Service is clearly thinking hard on how to keep mail relevant in an increasingly digital?and mobile?age.

I still maintain that the six or seven direct mail pieces I receive a day are precious real estate. They represent a tiny portion of the thousands of advertisements and brand "touches" I'm exposed to each and every day. Yet this is advertising that is largely targeted, and one with which I have a tactile experience?reading, responding, recycling as I deem appropriate. This is a powerful consideration, one that I certainly pay closer attention to. Will I be running to the app store to integrate this experience with my smartphone? Not anytime soon, but a hoodie for my iPod, ThinkPad and Samsung to tote and plug into would be nice.

Source: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/blog/augmented-reality-wearable-electronics-postal-services-future

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Manhunt for Vegas shooter widens to East Coast

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A manhunt has widened to southeastern U.S. states for a 26-year-old ex-convict identified as the prime suspect in a shooting and fiery crash that killed three last week on the Las Vegas Strip, police said Monday.

Ammar Harris used to live in South Carolina and Georgia, he was convicted in Atlanta in 2005 of marijuana possession, and he was arrested in Miami in December on a reckless driving charge, according to public records.

Harris also was arrested in June 2010 in Las Vegas on pandering, kidnapping, sex assault and coercion charges stemming from allegations that he was a pimp. He sometimes goes by the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris.

Investigators believe Harris was the driver and the gunman who fired shots from a black Range Rover SUV into a Maserati, killing an aspiring rapper and causing a crash and explosion that killed two people when a taxi exploded in a fireball before dawn Thursday at the heart of the Strip.

"We have him identified," Las Vegas police Capt. Chris Jones said. "Now the focus is on locating and apprehending him. We're getting help all over the place."

A SWAT team didn't find Harris at his home after the SUV was found parked Saturday in the garage of a gated apartment complex a couple of blocks east of the Strip.

The SUV had been sought as the getaway vehicle in the shooting and six-vehicle, chain-reaction crash on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Bally's and Flamingo resorts.

Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was mortally wounded when the dark gray Maserati he was driving was peppered by gunfire from the SUV. Taxi driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Wash., died in the taxi.

Police say the triple homicide stemmed from an altercation between Cherry and Harris in a valet area of the upscale Aria resort a block south of the crash scene at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

A passenger in the Maserati was wounded in the arm, and four people from four other vehicles were treated for non-life-threatening injuries after the crash

Police released a photo of Harris taken following his arrest in Las Vegas in the prostitution case. The disposition of the case wasn't immediately known.

The photo showed Harris with tattoos on his right cheek and words on his neck above an image that appeared to depict an owl with blackened eyes. Jones said Harris should be considered armed and dangerous.

Las Vegas police sought help during the search for the Range Rover from local and federal authorities in Nevada and neighboring states of Arizona, California and Utah.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/search-widens-suspect-vegas-strip-162131712.html

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AfterShokz Bluez ? Open ear wireless Bluetooth headphones

I work in an office environment in IT. I often have people come to my desk to ask questions and I talk to my co-workers next to me in my cube quad. Wearing in or over ear headphones isn’t an option for me for two reasons. One, I don’t like in-ear style earphones in the [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/02/25/aftershokz-bluez-open-ear-wireless-bluetooth-headphones/

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Cuba's Raul Castro announces retirement in 5 years

Cuba's new Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel, right, listens to Cuba's President Raul Castro during the closing session at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Raul Castro accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last as Cuba's president and tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, as vice-president and first in the line of succession. Diaz-Canel has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution. At center Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Cuba's new Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel, right, listens to Cuba's President Raul Castro during the closing session at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Raul Castro accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last as Cuba's president and tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, as vice-president and first in the line of succession. Diaz-Canel has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution. At center Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuba's President Raul Castro talk during the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuba's President Raul Castro attend the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Newly appointed Cuba's Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel participates in the closure session of the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Raul Castro accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last as Cuba's president and tapped rising star Diaz-Canel, 52, as vice-president and first in the line of succession. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Newly appointed Cuba's Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel, bottom center, and Cuba's President Raul Castro, bottom left, participate in the closing session of the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Raul Castro accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last as Cuba's president and tapped rising star Diaz-Canel, 52, as vice-president and first in the line of succession. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

HAVANA (AP) ? Raul Castro announced Sunday that he will step down as Cuba's president in 2018 following a final five-year term, for the first time putting a date on the end of the Castro era. He tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top lieutenant and first in the line of succession.

The 81-year-old Castro also said he hopes to establish two-term limits and age caps for political offices including the presidency ? an astonishing prospect for a nation led by Castro or his older brother Fidel since their 1959 revolution.

The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now a heartbeat from the presidency and has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the heady days of the revolution.

"This will be my last term," Castro said, his voice firm, shortly after National Assembly elected him to a second term.

In his 35-minute speech, Castro hinted at other changes to the constitution, some so dramatic that they will have to be ratified by the Cuban people in a referendum. Still, he scotched any idea that the country would soon abandon socialism, saying he had not assumed the presidency in order to destroy Cuba's system.

"I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba," he said. "I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it."

Castro fueled interest in Sunday's legislative gathering after mentioning on Friday his possible retirement and suggesting lightheartedly that he had plans to resign at some point.

It's now clear that he was serious when he promised that Sunday's speech would have fireworks, and would touch on his future in leadership.

Cuba is at a moment of "historic transcendence," Castro told lawmakers in speaking of his decision to name Diaz-Canel to the No. 2 job, replacing the 81-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who fought with the Castros in the Sierra Maestra.

Castro praised Machado Ventura and another aging revolutionary for offering to leave their positions so that younger leaders could move up.

Their selflessness is "a concrete demonstration of their genuine revolutionary fiber ... That is the essence of the founding generation of this revolution."

Castro said that Diaz-Canel's promotion "represents a definitive step in the configuration of the future leadership of the nation through the gradual and orderly transfer of key roles to new generations."

"Our greatest satisfaction is the tranquility and serene confidence we feel as we deliver to the new generations the responsibility to continue building socialism," he added.

On the streets of Havana, where people often express a jaded skepticism of all things political, there was genuine excitement.

"This is the start of a new era," said Roberto Delgado, a 68-year-old retiree walking down a street in the leafy Miramar neighborhood. "It will undoubtedly be a complicated and difficult process, but something important happened today."

"I'm mesmerized," added Regla Blanco, 48. "You thought that with all these old men, it would never end. I am very satisfied with what Raul said. He is keeping his promise."

Since taking over from Fidel in 2006, Castro has instituted a slate of important economic and social changes, expanding private enterprise, legalizing a real estate market and relaxing hated travel restrictions.

Still, the country remains ruled by the Communist Party and any opposition to it lacks legal recognition.

Castro has mentioned term limits before, but he has never said specifically when he would step down, and the concept has yet to be codified into Cuban law.

If he keeps his word, Castro will leave office no later than 2018. Cuban-American exiles in the United States have waited decades for the end of the Castro era, although they will likely be dismayed if it ends on the brothers' terms.

Nevertheless, the promise of a change at the top could have deep significance for U.S.-Cuba ties. The wording of Washington's 51-year economic embargo on the island specifies that it cannot be lifted while a Castro is in charge.

When Raul Castro hinted at his retirement plans on Friday, it earned a sharp response from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from Florida, who called it a ploy.

"If dictator Raul Castro states that he will retire in five years, there will still be no real change for the Cuban people so long as the Castro brothers remain in any form of leadership position, even behind the scenes," she said. "The U.S. should not change its policy of isolation of the Cuban regime."

Fidel Castro is 86 and retired, and has appeared increasingly frail in recent months. He made a surprise appearance at Sunday's gathering, receiving a thunderous ovation from lawmakers.

Some analysts have speculated that the Castros would push a younger member of their family into a top job, but there was no hint of that Sunday.

While few things are ever clear in Cuba's hermetically sealed news environment, rumblings that Diaz-Canel, an electrical engineer by training and ex-minister of higher education, might be in line for a senior post have grown.

In recent weeks, he has frequently been featured on state television news broadcasts in an apparent attempt to raise his profile.

He also traveled to Venezuela in January for the symbolic inauguration of Hugo Chavez, a key Cuban ally who had been re-elected president but was too ill to be sworn in.

The 612 lawmakers sworn in Sunday also named Esteban Lazo as the National Assembly's first new chief in 20 years, replacing Ricardo Alarcon.

Lazo, who turns 69 on Tuesday, is a vice president and member of the Communist Party's ruling political bureau. Parliament meets only twice a year and generally passes legislation unanimously without visible debate.

The legislature also named as vice presidents of the ruling Council Machado Ventura; comptroller general Gladys Bejerano; second Vice President Ramiro Valdes; Havana Communist Party secretary Lazara Mercedes Lopez Acea; and Salvador Valdes Mesa, head of Cuba's labor union.

___

Anne Marie-Garcia and Paul Haven contributed to this report.

___

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-24-Cuba-President/id-95b19c1f34b74b0ba8f18df67c4e809a

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Wyoming Human Trafficking Ban To Become Law Next Week

WASHINGTON -- Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) said Saturday he is planning to sign legislation that will make his state the last in the nation to ban human trafficking.

Mead told The Huffington Post that he will sign the bill next week after a routine review by the state attorney general. The bill, which would make human trafficking a state crime and give local law enforcement more power to make arrests, passed the state legislature last week after a push by international anti-human trafficking advocates. A federal law already bans human trafficking in the United States, but advocates say that companion state laws are necessary to empower local law enforcement and offer social services to victims.

"We did not want to be the only state without that," Mead said.

In town for the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association, Mead said that his state had not implemented a ban because of what he called a high degree of cooperation between local, state and federal law enforcement. He said that while he was Wyoming's U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush, he enforced the federal human trafficking ban effectively there without needing a state law to do so. Yet while he believes federal law enforcement has continued to do a good job upholding the ban, he worries about what may happen in the future.

"I don't know who will be U.S. attorney in 10 to 15 years," Mead said.

State Rep. Cathy Connolly (D-Laramie) told HuffPost in a phone interview that the state law is needed to address what she described as several loopholes in the federal ban, involving the definition of severe abuse during trafficking and the requirement for victims to have crossed state lines. She said her bill would allow state law enforcement to handle cases that do not leave Wyoming and use a lower threshold for abuse than what is currently the federal standard. The ban would also allow the state to provide better social services to victims, she said, and treat prostitutes involved in trafficking as victims rather than criminals.

Connolly said there were several reasons it had taken Wyoming so long to pass the ban, including a belief among some that the crime did not occur in the state.

"In Wyoming we don't consider ourselves as a place where trafficking happens," she said. "This is a recognition that it does happen here."

Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino, a United Nations goodwill ambassador focused on human trafficking, has criticized Wyoming for lacking a state ban. In December, Sorvino singled out the state during a speech to the National Conference of State Legislatures on the trafficking. Sorvino also pressed her case to state Sen. John Hastert (D-Green River) when they discussed the issue during the NCSL meeting.

"To be the last state in the nation -- you have to wake up and smell the coffee," Sorvino told Hastert.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/23/wyoming-human-trafficking-ban_n_2750660.html

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Women's Nordic Skiing at NCAA Central Region Championships at Houghton, Mich.

Women's Nordic Skiing at NCAA Central Region Championships Houghton, Mich.

The Gustavus women's nordic skiing team will compete in the NCAA Central Region Championships in Houghton, Michigan on Saturday, February 23 and Sunday, February 24.

Give a gift to Gustavus Nordic Skiing

Source: https://gustavus.edu/calendar/women-s-nordic-skiing-at-ncaa-central-region-championships-2/35692

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Scientists find genes linked to human neurological disorders in sea lamprey genome

Feb. 24, 2013 ? Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have identified several genes linked to human neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury, in the sea lamprey, a vertebrate fish whose whole-genome sequence is reported this week in the journal Nature Genetics.

"This means that we can use the sea lamprey as a powerful model to drive forward our molecular understanding of human neurodegenerative disease and neurological disorders," says Jennifer Morgan of the MBL's Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. The ultimate goals are to determine what goes wrong with neurons after injury and during disease, and to determine how to correct these deficits in order to restore normal nervous system functions.

Unlike humans, the lamprey has an extraordinary capacity to regenerate its nervous system. If a lamprey's spinal cord is severed, it can regenerate the damaged nerve cells and be swimming again in 10-12 weeks.

Morgan and her collaborators at MBL, Ona Bloom and Joseph Buxbaum, have been studying the lamprey's recovery from spinal cord injury since 2009. The lamprey has large, identified neurons in its brain and spinal cord, making it an excellent model to study regeneration at the single cell-level. Now, the lamprey's genomic information gives them a whole new "toolkit" for understanding its regenerative mechanisms, and for comparing aspects of its physiology, such as inflammation response, to that of humans.

The lamprey genome project was accomplished by a consortium of 59 researchers led by Weiming Li of Michigan State University and Jeramiah Smith of the University of Kentucky. The MBL scientists' contribution focused on neural aspects of the genome, including one of the project's most intriguing findings.

Lampreys, in contrast to humans, don't have myelin, an insulating sheath around neurons that allows faster conduction of nerve impulses. Yet the consortium found genes expressed in the lamprey that are normally expressed in myelin. In humans, myelin-associated molecules inhibit nerves from regenerating if damaged. "A lot of the focus of the spinal cord injury field is on neutralizing those inhibitory molecules," Morgan says.

"So there is an interesting conundrum," Morgan says. "What are these myelin-associated genes doing in an animal that doesn't have myelin, and yet is good at regeneration? It opens up a new and interesting set of questions, " she says. Addressing them could bring insight to why humans lost the capacity for neural regeneration long ago, and how this might be restored.

At present, Morgan and her collaborators are focused on analyzing which genes are expressed and when, after spinal cord injury and regeneration. The whole-genome sequence gives them an invaluable reference for their work.

Morgan, Bloom, and Buxbaum collaborate at the MBL through funding by the Charles Evans Foundation. Bloom is based at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research/Hofstra North Shore-Long Island Jewish in New York. Buxbaum is from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Marine Biological Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jeramiah J Smith, Shigehiro Kuraku, Carson Holt, Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Ning Jiang, Michael S Campbell, Mark D Yandell, Tereza Manousaki, Axel Meyer, Ona E Bloom, Jennifer R Morgan, Joseph D Buxbaum, Ravi Sachidanandam, Carrie Sims, Alexander S Garruss, Malcolm Cook, Robb Krumlauf, Leanne M Wiedemann, Stacia A Sower, Wayne A Decatur, Jeffrey A Hall, Chris T Amemiya, Nil R Saha, Katherine M Buckley, Jonathan P Rast, Sabyasachi Das, Masayuki Hirano, Nathanael McCurley, Peng Guo, Nicolas Rohner, Clifford J Tabin, Paul Piccinelli, Greg Elgar, Magali Ruffier, Bronwen L Aken, Stephen M J Searle, Matthieu Muffato, Miguel Pignatelli, Javier Herrero, Matthew Jones, C Titus Brown, Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, Kaben G Nanlohy, Scot V Libants, Chu-Yin Yeh, David W McCauley, James A Langeland, Zeev Pancer, Bernd Fritzsch, Pieter J de Jong, Baoli Zhu, Lucinda L Fulton, Brenda Theising, Paul Flicek, Marianne E Bronner, Wesley C Warren, Sandra W Clifton, Richard K Wilson, Weiming Li. Sequencing of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome provides insights into vertebrate evolution. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2568

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/~3/31_IzH_8VG8/130224142915.htm

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6 leaking tanks are Hanford nuke site's latest woe

FILE - In this July 14, 2010 photo, workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation work around a a tank farm where highly radioactive waste is stored underground near Richland, Wash. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/Shannon Dininny, File)

FILE - In this July 14, 2010 photo, workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation work around a a tank farm where highly radioactive waste is stored underground near Richland, Wash. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/Shannon Dininny, File)

FILE -- In this March 23, 2004 file photo, workers at the tank farms on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash., measure for radiation and the presence of toxic vapors. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/Jackie Johnston, File)

FILE -- In this Feb. 19, 2013 file photo, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., right, tours a facility to treat contaminated groundwater with Energy Department manager Matt McCormick on the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. The facility is a key to cleaning up the highly contaminated site. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/Shannon Dininny, File)

FILE -- This photo provided by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, shows the construction of a "tank farm" to store nuclear waste in 1944 on the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. It is one of collection of photos documenting life in and around the reservation from 1943-1967. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/U.S. Department of Energy, File)

FILE -- In this Sept. 18, 2012 file photo, then-Gov. Chris Gregoire makes her way down a set of stairs at the Hanford Vitrification Plant in Richland, Wash. Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news "disturbing." (AP Photo/The Tri-City Herald, Richard Dickin, File) LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL RADIO OUT KONA

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) ? Federal and state officials say six underground tanks holding a brew of radioactive and toxic waste are leaking at the country's most contaminated nuclear site in south-central Washington, raising concerns about delays for emptying the aging tanks.

The leaking materials at Hanford Nuclear Reservation pose no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take perhaps years for the chemicals to reach groundwater, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

But the news has renewed discussion over delays for emptying the tanks, which were installed decades ago and are long past their intended 20-year life span.

"None of these tanks would be acceptable for use today. They are all beyond their design life. None of them should be in service," said Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group. "And yet, they're holding two-thirds of the nation's high-level nuclear waste."

Just last week, state officials announced that one of Hanford's 177 tanks was leaking 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers. So far, nearby monitoring wells haven't detected higher radioactivity levels.

Inslee then traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss the problem with federal officials, learning in meetings Friday that six tanks are leaking.

The declining waste levels in the six tanks were missed because only a narrow band of measurements was evaluated, rather than a wider band that would have shown the levels changing over time, Inslee said.

"It's like if you're trying to determine if climate change is happening, only looking at the data for today," he said. "Perhaps human error, the protocol did not call for it. But that's not the most important thing at the moment. The important thing now is to find and address the leakers."

Department of Energy spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler said there was no immediate health risk and that federal officials would work with Washington state to address the matter.

Regardless, Sen. Ron Wyden, the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, will ask the Government Accountability Office to investigate Hanford's tank monitoring and maintenance program, said his spokesman, Tom Towslee.

The federal government built the Hanford facility at the height of World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The remote site produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and continued supporting the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal for years.

Today, it is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, still surrounded by sagebrush but with Washington's Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco several miles downriver.

Several years ago, workers at Hanford completed two of three projects deemed urgent risks to the public and the environment, removing all weapons-grade plutonium from the site and emptying leaky pools that held spent nuclear fuel just 400 yards from the river.

But successes at the site often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges. Nowhere have those challenges been more apparent than in Hanford's central plateau, home to the site's third most urgent project: emptying the tanks.

Hanford's tanks hold some 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste ? enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools ? and many of those tanks are known to have leaked in the past. An estimated 1 million gallons of radioactive liquid has already leaked there.

The cornerstone of emptying the tanks is a treatment plant that will convert the waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The plant, last estimated to cost more than $12.3 billion, is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule. It isn't expected to begin operating until at least 2019.

Washington state is imposing a "zero-tolerance" policy on radioactive waste leaking into the soil, Inslee said. So given those delays and the apparent deterioration of some of the tanks, the federal government will have to show that there is adequate storage for the waste in the meantime, he said.

"We are not convinced of this," he said. "There will be a robust exchange of information in the coming weeks to get to the bottom of this."

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, both Democrats, have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed.

Wyden, D-Ore., toured the site earlier this week. He said he shares the governors' concerns about the integrity of the tanks but he wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend scarce money.

Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site ? and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy ? will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington, D.C.

The federal government already spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup ? one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department report released this week calls for annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort.

There are legal, moral and ethical considerations to cleaning up the Hanford site at the national level, Inslee said, adding that he will continue to insist that the Energy Department completely clean up the site.

___

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-23-Hanford%20Leak/id-b1124fd3828b4b65882468d695211937

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Edward Gorey Google Doodle Celebrates Illustrator's 88th Birthday

Google is celebrating the 88th birthday of artist, writer, and illustrator Edward Gorey with a homepage doodle that pays homage to some of his more notable creations.

Google's doodlers drew Gorey sitting on the "G" in the search giant's logo, surrounded by the various characters he created. There's the creature from The Doubtful Guest, the cat who made an appearance in Category: Fifty Drawings, and more.

The doodle is crafted in Gorey's signature style. As the New York Review of Books said last year, "Gorey's work tends to combine whimsically grim storylines with dour yet dancerly protagonists."

Gorey was born in 1925, and by the time he passed away in 2000 at the age of 75, he had crafted more than 100 original works, illustrated the books of numerous well-known authors, and even dabbled in set and costume design.

As the New York Times noted in Gorey's obituary, "Gorey was as instantly identifiable as his work. Toweringly tall, he had a white beard and frothy hair, an earring in each lobe and rings on most of his fingers. When he lived in New York, he often wore a raccoon coat, although later in life he became sheepish about wearing fur."

Gorey published his own books, starting in 1953. The Times credited Gorey's relationship with Andreas Brown, owner of Gotham Books Mart, with jumpstarting Gorey's career. The bookstore sold many of Gorey's books and other collectibles, and things really took off for the artist in the 1970s with the arrival of his first anthology.

In the 80s, Gorey crafted the animated credits for the PBS Mystery series, which introduced him to millions of television viewers, according to The Edward Gorey House - his former home in Masschusetts that is now a museum.

Edward Gorey House will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Vinegar Works, a trio of stories, with an exhibit that opens April 18. "All three books would eventually define Gorey's style, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies became his most enduring work," the museum said.

For more of Google's doodles, see the slideshow below. Recently, the company has honored Frank Zamboni, the first computer programmer Ada Lovelace, Amelia Earhart, as well as artist Keith Haring, zipper pioneer Gideon Sundback, and even commemorated its own 14th birthday with a birthday cake doodle.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415751,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05079TX1K0000993

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Is Age 25 Too Late To Start Cervical Cancer Screening?

A recent research by the Society of Gynecologic Oncology and the Society of Canadian Colposcopists has claimed that age 25 is perhaps too late to start identifying cervical cancer. It has been said in the SOGC report that there are fair chances that before pap testing is started, precancerous and cancerous lesions have started developing already.

They have apparently suggested that women must start cervical cancer screening at the age of 21 instead and must start going through it every two to three years.

However, the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, which has unveiled national guidelines in early January, has suggested women to put a gap of three years between screenings, and it must go on till the age of 69.? Though women have been told to go for annual Pap smears, the interval between the screenings has been extended in recent years in some countries.

It has further been shared by Dr. Jennifer Blake, CEO of SOGC, that by identifying lesions in young girls prematurely, such abnormal cells can be removed in the biopsy itself. However, if things get worse, and treatment is the only option then, a large part of an otherwise healthy cervix had to be removed, which affects woman's fertility.

?

Source: http://topnews.net.nz/content/226407-age-25-too-late-start-cervical-cancer-screening

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Megan Fox, Michael Bay Reunite for 'Ninja Turtles' Reboot

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Megan Fox will star in Paramount's "Ninja Turtles," a reboot of the iconic comic book and TV series, producer Michael Bay said on his personal blog Thursday. Just two years ago, Bay fired Fox from "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" after Fox compared the director's on-set persona to Hitler.

Fox had starred in the first two films in the franchise, and Bay later told GQ magazine that the two had patched things up. "We Are Bringing Megan Fox Back Into The Family," he wrote on Thursday.

Fox will play April O'Neil, the human friend of the Ninja Turtles, and the casting of Fox signals progress for a delayed production. Paramount and Bay postponed the start of production last year because they didn't feel the script was ready. Having cast Fox, the project now needs a male lead.

Jonathan Liebsman is directing the film, a live-action take on the anthropomorphic turtles.

Bay is producing under his Platinum Dunes banner. The Turtles, which began in a comic, have been the subject of TV series and movies, both live-action and animated.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/megan-fox-michael-bay-reunite-ninja-turtles-reboot-171427751.html

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Digging For Dirt

Digging For Dirt

Selena Gomez Channels Her Badass Side in Pantsuit?[The Frisky] Lady Gaga Getting Hip Surgery?[HollyWire] Eileen Davidson Returns to The Young & The Restless?[Right Celebrity] Mariah Carey Hates Eliminating People on American Idol?[The Celebrity Cafe] Colin Farrell Sports a Skrillex Look?[The Blemish] Christina Aguilera’s Pink Princess Castle Finally Sold?[The Huffington Post] Tim Tebow Cancels Appearance at ...

Digging For Dirt Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/02/digging-for-dirt-14/

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No Duty To Defend Against Chinese Drywall Claims, Alabama Federal Judge Says

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