Hello! I'm so excited these days! My sweet Ella and James are 36 weeks tomorrow! Just unbelievable! Jess went to the doctor yesterday to find they're staying put for now. He did schedule a c section for November 15, which is 38 wks1 day. They were both head down @ week 32, but babies move an now Ella is breach. ;(The nursery is close to completion, just a few odds and ends to finish. Oh, I have more good news last ultrasound about 10 or so days, Ella is weighing 5lbs am James is weighing 5lb3oz! Yeah so proud!
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I wanted to share some pictures from my beautiful baby shower! My sister Jacey and Aunt Kathy hosted it with the help of my mom and mother in law! What a special day for me, it was great! Family,friends,food and presents for the babies!
ARCHAR, Bulgaria?? On the banks of the Danube, in the northwest corner of Bulgaria, lie the remnants of an ancient Roman settlement called Ratiaria, host to a priceless cultural heritage. Craters pockmark the huge site, evidence of a scourge threatening one of the world's great troves of antiquities: looters digging for ancient treasure to sell on the black market.
Archaeologist Krasmira Luka, who heads a team excavating part of the 80 hectare (200 acre) site, says the area has been repeatedly raided by thieves who dig pits looking for ancient coins and jewelry. Everything else, including precious ceramic vessels and other historically significant artifacts, is smashed to pieces.
"Destroying the items is not just a crime, it's an irreparable tragedy," Luka said, looking out at a moonscape littered with shards of ceramics or glassware destroyed by the diggers. "The day after our team leaves the site, the diggers are in place. It's an uneven battle."
Located on the crossroads of many ancient civilizations, Bulgaria is ranked by its scholars as behind only Italy and Greece in Europe for the numbers of antiquities lying in its soil. But Bulgaria has been powerless to prevent the rape of its ancient sites, depriving the world of part of its cultural legacy and also costing this impoverished Balkan nation much-needed tourism revenue.
Police reports indicate that every day up to 50,000 people are engaged in treasure hunting raids across Bulgaria, a country of 7.3 million. According to Angel Papalezov, a senior police officer, hundreds of thousands of artifacts are smuggled out of the country every year, with dealers hauling in up to $40 million.
But Ratiaria is the most drastic example of the looting that has been going on over the last 20 years, since the fall of communism. The first excavations here were carried out by Bulgarian archaeologists between 1958 and 1962. They were renewed in 1976 by an Italian team, but lack of funding forced them to leave the site in 1991.
Western experts call Ratiaria a world-class archaeological site that is under grave threat.
"Ratiaria has a great archaeological and historical significance not just of regional and national importance to Bulgaria but internationally for the study of the Roman Empire," said Jamie Burrows, an archaeologist at the Nottingham University, who has spent several years working at Ratiaria.
"Such a site could have been Northwest Bulgaria's 'Pompeii', bringing wealth to a poor region in need of such tourism," he said in an email to The Associated Press. "Without quick efficient action this opportunity may sadly be missed."
Ancient sites were protected during communist times by a strong fear of the omnipresent police and harsh punishments for any law-breaking activity. Since the collapse of the totalitarian system, many have taken up looting to earn a living. Organized by local mafia, looting squads that have mushroomed all over the country are well equipped with metal detectors, bulldozers, tractors and even decommissioned army vehicles.
Bulgaria hosts some of the most unique and vulnerable cultural resources in Europe.
In addition to the numerous Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement mounds, there are significant remains of Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine urban centers. Perhaps most notable among Bulgarian antiquities are the remains of the Thracians, a powerful warrior kingdom conquered only by Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire. The best known Thracian remains in Bulgaria are tombs and burial mounds which contain stunning gold and silver work.
In early October, some 5,000 Roman items were handed over to the National History Museum in Sofia. They were seized at a border crossing with Serbia, just few miles (kilometers) west of Ratiaria.
Presenting the collection, museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov said that he was glad to have the lost treasure back ? but also saddened because it was proof of how widespread illegal treasure hunting was in Bulgaria.
Through the broken windows of a deserted house on the Ratiaria site, there are pits up to three meters deep dug by looters under the floor.
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"It was bought by looters who have used it as a shelter where they can dig without being bothered by police," Luka said. If they get caught, they usually claim they are on their way to hand over the find to the museum.
Coins and other treasures found by looters are sold to people who smuggle them abroad. Roman items from Ratiaria can be found in auction houses and antiquity collections around the world. For the looters in a part of Bulgaria declared by Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency, as "the European Union's poorest region," the site represents an almost irresistible temptation.
Luka told the story of three men from the nearby village or Archar, who had found a golden coin and sold it to smugglers for 1,500 euro, which equals the amount of four monthly average salaries in Bulgaria. "Months later the same coin was sold in Germany at a price many times higher," Luka said.
"But it is not only the looters with the shovels who are responsible," Luka said, "there are a lot of people up the chain, and they enjoy the highest protection." Over the last two decades, she said, organized crime groups have constantly bribed police officers, prosecutors and local officials who have sheltered their illegal activities. Those who usually get caught and sentenced, however, are from the lowest level of the well-organized scheme.
With more than 50 percent of the 2,700 inhabitants of Archar jobless, Mayor Emil Georgiev seems unable to stop the daily attacks of looters seeking the treasure that is supposed to change their life.
"Usually they work late at night or at weekends or holidays," the mayor said, adding that some 20 villagers have been convicted over the last year and ordered to serve different terms of probation by performing community service.
"Recently we received government funds that guarantee jobs for just eight people who will work as guards at the archaeological site," Georgiev said, raising his shoulders when asked how such a small group can protect the huge area.
In Vidin, the main city of the region, the newly appointed district governor, Tsvetan Asenov, said that preserving the archaeological site and opening it up for tourists was one of his priorities, but complained that this was not easy in a time of acute economic crisis.
Experts say they have no way to gauge the extent of the pillaging.
"There are hundreds of tombstones and statues in local museums, but what we don't know exactly is how many more such relics were smuggled out of the country and are now in Italy, Munich or Vienna," said Rumen Ivanov, Roman History professor at the National Institute of Archaeology.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - For many U.S. companies, the earnings period has been scary enough. For those with big overseas operations, it has been a horror show.
Corporate America overall is struggling, with year-over-year earnings expected to decline for the first time in three years. But in a big switch from last year, a high proportion of overseas business is no longer a ticket to big earnings - and, in fact, has been a hindrance.
"It's how the worm turns," said Uri Landesman, president at Platinum Partners in New York. "Right now, the U.S. is not super-exciting, but relatively speaking, it's doing well. Anybody who is doing a lot of business overseas, things are slow."
The slowed growth overseas, particularly in Europe, has hurt U.S. companies' sales. The U.S. economy is growing at a middling 2 percent at an annual rate that compares favorably with the 17-nation euro zone, which is expected to have fallen into recession in the third quarter.
A Thomson Reuters analysis of third-quarter earnings shows a big difference in results between U.S. companies with the most international sales and those with the least.
A basket of 39 S&P 500 companies among those having the highest percentage of sales from overseas are expected to see earnings decline 8.5 percent from a year ago. That's based on actual results from 24 companies and estimates for the rest, according to the Thomson Reuters data.
Meanwhile, earnings for companies in a basket of 38 S&P 500 among those with the lowest overseas sales, including Southwest Airlines and UnitedHealth Group , now show an increase of 11.1 percent from a year ago. That's based on actual results from 15 companies and estimates for the rest.
Overall, the earnings of Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> companies are expected to decline 1.2 percent in the third quarter.
The disparity has emerged as S&P 500 companies suffer through their worst earnings season in three years. Just 37 percent of the 272 companies that have reported so far have exceeded revenue expectations - far short of the long-term average of 62 percent. By comparison, about 63 percent have exceeded earnings forecasts, just above the long-term average.
ULTRA-CAUTIOUS INVESTORS
That so many companies are falling short on revenues suggests cost-cutting will eventually run its course. A rebound in revenue in the fourth quarter "may be at risk in the absence of some improvement," Greg Harrison, Thomson Reuters corporate earnings research analyst, wrote on Friday.
It gets worse. So far there have been 37 earnings warnings for the fourth quarter and just 4 positive announcements - the worst ratio since Thomson Reuters started keeping data in 1996.
"The tone has gone from cautious in July to ultra-cautious in November," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
About 47 percent of S&P 500 sales come from abroad and a little over 14 percent from Europe, according to S&P data.
Europe has been repeatedly cited by companies as a reason for weak third-quarter results. Among the latest was Coca-Cola Enterprises , which said on Thursday weakness in Europe hurt results and said it was restructuring parts of its finance and sales operations.
Technology companies account for the bulk of the 39 companies with the most international sales. Among those that have already reported is International Business Machines which earlier this month posted a quarterly revenue miss and barely beat analyst expectations for earnings.
Like IBM, the biggest disappointments this reporting period have been on the revenue side. S&P 500 companies' revenue for the third quarter is expected to slip 0.6 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.
But for those 39 companies with the most international exposure, revenue is seen down 10.8 percent from a year ago. For the companies with the least, it's seen up 2.7 percent.
Smaller-capitalization companies are showing a similar profile.
"We have noticed that so far, small cap companies that are missing on revenues tend to have some international exposure (median international exposure of about 10 percent), while those who are beating on revenues tend to have domestic revenue biases," Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a research note this week.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
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James Cromwell as Dr. Arden in this week's episode of 'American Horror Story: Asylum.'
Photo by Michael Becker/FX.
Every week in?Slate?s?American Horror Story TV club, J. Bryan Lowder will have an IM conversation with a different?AHS fan. This week, he rehashes episode 2.2 with Abby Ohlheiser, a Slatecontributor.
J. Bryan Lowder: Good evening, Abby! The final thwack of Sister Jude's cane on Kit Walker?s bare bottom is still resonating in my ears. How are you feeling after that failed escape attempt?
Abby Ohlheiser: It seems like this season is carrying over the kinky spirit of the latex suit from the ?Murder House? story line, at least.
Lowder: Someone on the production team clearly has an interest in S&M. I thought this episode's demonic possession subplot was a pretty compelling take on the old Exorcist trope. What say you?
Ohlheiser: Definitely, especially considering the way in which the possession scene threw a spotlight on the science/religion duality that I'm sure we're going to see a lot more of as this season continues. This episode had me at the MAN OF SCIENCE forcing a nun to eat the candy apple (of knowledge of good and evil).
Lowder: I know, right? That candy apple was really tweaking me out, and lo and behold if Sister Mary didn't "fall" (possessed herself, I believe) by the end of the episode.
Ohlheiser: The good doctor likes to wield his symbols with a pretty heavy hand?I also chuckled at the giant knife in the dinner scene later on. It's delightful.
Lowder: I like the science/religion conflict too, especially now that we have Zachary Quinto as the good doctor Thredson to complicate ?reason? a little more beyond the mad-scientist cliche of Dr. Arden. I was really taken with the arbitrariness of his diagnosis of Kit; it seemed just as groundless as the religious dogma he's so critical of.?"Acute clinical insanity?: What does that even mean?
Ohlheiser: I wrote down that exact question! It sounds like a whole lot of "I don't know." I also thought it was great in this episode how they brought out some of the internal tension in Jude's character: She started to get a bit Walter White-esque in the electroshock therapy scene. And Holy Moly on her back story as a lush lounge singer!
Lowder: Commenters weren't convinced last week that Jude is morally complicated, but I think this episode clearly shows that to be the case. She exhibits such a riveting mix of sadism and mercy?or at least sympathy. The electroshock scene you mention was key for that, but it was evinced elsewhere as well. She's always overstepping moral boundaries and regretting it and trying to atone. It's all very Catholic, which I guess makes sense.
Ohlheiser: I buy that Jude is a true believer, or at least really good at repenting.
Lowder: Speaking of Catholicism, I wanted to note that the demonic possession is the first truly supernatural event we've seen this season (I'm counting aliens as natural). Ryan Murphy has stated that the horror this season comes more from real-life situations (forced incarceration, medical malpractice, etc.) than from ghosts and goblins. What do you think about that choice? I'm kind of into the balance so far?I hope Sister Mary's apparent possession doesn't become too much of a driving force going forward.
Ohlheiser: I was disappointed to see the exorcist fly across the room, actually, for that exact reason. While clearly possessed teenagers are great ways for writers to get some expository information out on the main characters (like that "I'm glad I gave you up" comment he made to Threadson), I was kind of hoping someone would at least mention schizophrenia or some other explanation for the boy's behavior before we went right into the supernatural. But maybe that's the X-files fan in me getting ahead of myself on this one.
Lowder: I have to admit that I love that demon-knowing-your-dark-secrets-trope. It reminded me of Stephen King's Storm of the Century. There's something far more violent and creepy about that kind of violation than physical harm, at least to my mind. One last theme I'd like to pull out?one I mentioned last time?is this show?s very unique feminist streak. I think we saw that again tonight in both Shelley?s little back-story about just loving sex and being the victim of misogyny, as well as in Sister Jude's being excused from the room during the exorcism for not being "strong enough." Do you find this theme compelling at all, or out of place? Female desires of all kinds are clearly marked as frightening to those around them in this show's universe.
Ohlheiser: I find it extremely compelling, because it connects nicely into the knowledge and power undertones of the show. It was really interesting to me, for example, that the demon in the possession scene tells Jude "It drives you crazy, doesn't it? To be the smartest person in the room...but with no real power." Of course, when she's found in the room with the boy after being told not to go in there, her excuse is "I was weak."
Lowder: I'm wondering if Jude's last admission of frailty is going to get her in trouble with her beloved (be-lusted?) Monsignor on the next episode.
Ohlheiser: Speaking of which, I'm also wondering if in Sister Jude?s red negligee, the writers are playing with the plot of Bette Davis's Jezebel?the film where a red dress leads to the complete destruction of the protagonist's life, and then her repentance.
Lowder: Ooh! Given Murphy's camp credentials, I'd bet a night in Briarcliff that he's seen every Bette Davis movie. Maybe our commenters can scour it for more clues. But before we go, I have to ask it: Is Dr. Arden our friend Bloody Face? The show is certainly pushing us that way, which makes me inclined to doubt it?
Ohlheiser: I'm also thinking it's a fake-out. Bloody Face reminds me, I'd completely forgotten about Wendy. I wonder when we'll find out what happened to her.
Lowder: Good question. I fear she may gone the way of Adam Levine, which is to say?probably?dead. But you never can tell on this show.
Ohlheiser: Yeah, I'd hate to lose Clea DuVall so early on in the series, so I'm hoping against my better instinct that there's a reason the writers have left her fate ambiguous. Or maybe it's just their sadistic side coming out once again.
Lowder: I fear the latter?there?s enough sadism in this show to make the Marquis de Sade wince.?
Thursday: What other writers and Slate commenters thought about Episode 2.
Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Students learn how mutations help reveal the function of particular genes
When Pamela Padilla's professors owned up to not knowing the answers to many questions in biology, she saw that as an opportunity, a door opening into interesting realms. "I liked that professors said, 'Well, we don't know that,'" says Padilla, now an associate professor of biology at the University of North Texas (UNT). Throughout her career, Padilla has tried to lead other would-be scientists to such opportunities, "to make students think more independently about what we don't know."
Padilla's lab module Worm Mutants allows students to formulate their own questions and lay out their own experimental plans. Because of its effectiveness at getting students to think about and experience the processes and concepts involved, rather than having them learn them by rote, Worm Mutants has been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI).
Science's IBI Prize was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Worm Mutants will be published on October 26.
"We want to recognize innovators in science education, as well as the institutions that support them," says Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science. "At the same time, this competition will promote those inquiry-based laboratory modules with the most potential to benefit science students and teachers. The publication of an essay in Science on each winning module will encourage more college teachers to use these outstanding resources, thereby promoting science literacy."
Padilla grew up around a ranch in New Mexico, becoming interested in animals and science from an early age. She loved biology but was also interested in geology, astronomy and engineering. On her way to becoming the first person in her family to attend college and the first scientist in her extended family, Padilla had reached her sophomore year in high school when a geology teacher told her she should consider science as a career.
She credits a graduate school mentor at the University of New Mexico, who had a degree in poetry as well as in the sciences, and a post-doc mentor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with demonstrating an aspect of science that often gets overlooked: creativity. "If you're interested in being a scientist, then you need to ask your own questions," Padilla says. "How do you teach creativity? I always ask myself that."
Padilla says she feels strongly that it is her responsibility to teach and lead others to research. "I have been helped along the way," she says. "I didn't have the resources to get a PhD. I have to pay that back. Anyone who gets grants, scholarships, we're responsible to do this."
Unlike most genetics classes, in which known outcomes are re-created through a series of steps, Worm Mutants gets students to think about what regulates certain traits of Caenorhabditis elegans at a genetic level. Students choose a biological process that interests them, such as how neurons function to regulate muscle movement. They then try to identify a worm mutant that doesn't move normally. They communicate about their work by writing a research proposal describing background, hypotheses, methods, preliminary data collection (identifying their mutants), data interpretation, and possible future work. The final research proposals, which include the students' own ideas and conclusions, show an understanding of the concept of a genetic screen as well as the nature of scientific inquiry.
"Through application of approaches used by geneticists," says Melissa McCartney, editorial fellow at Science, "students determine the parameters of their experiments, collect and analyze data that they deem necessary, and draw their own conclusions."
Because there is no guarantee that students will be able to identify a mutant demonstrating the trait in which they are interested, there are no right or wrong answers in the lab module. There is only inquiry and experimentation, with no predetermined outcome, and students are graded on participation, proposal content, and a team-based presentation. "It challenges them," says Padilla, "because they're so used to, 'Learn this, and you'll get such and such a grade.' This is about learning how to think."
Most students rise to the occasion, though, and are "really happy that we trust them to do something that's scientifically interesting," Padilla says. They often like the idea that they can find something new, and learn about the collaboration and work associated with real research. They also learn that mutants aren't necessarily freakish sci-fi creatures with three heads. To encourage students' creativity, Padilla allows them to present their work using smart phones and video, resulting in some humorous YouTube videos, including one entitled, "Geneticists Say the Darndest Things" and a rap about Drosophila.
Ultimately, the students learn key genetic concepts through the Worm Mutants course. "I think we teach them more in this class that I was exposed to," says Padilla. "They do learn and appreciate genetic models."
Regarding her IBI award and the corresponding essay that will be published in Science, Padilla says that she hopes, "it could spark other faculties' interest to improve the delivery of information, so that students are encouraged to think creatively. I'm especially thinking about students in large classes and the state universities that might not have the best funding.
"How do we reach the students at big school like UNT? I'm interested in reaching large numbers of students."
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
[ | 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.
Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Students learn how mutations help reveal the function of particular genes
When Pamela Padilla's professors owned up to not knowing the answers to many questions in biology, she saw that as an opportunity, a door opening into interesting realms. "I liked that professors said, 'Well, we don't know that,'" says Padilla, now an associate professor of biology at the University of North Texas (UNT). Throughout her career, Padilla has tried to lead other would-be scientists to such opportunities, "to make students think more independently about what we don't know."
Padilla's lab module Worm Mutants allows students to formulate their own questions and lay out their own experimental plans. Because of its effectiveness at getting students to think about and experience the processes and concepts involved, rather than having them learn them by rote, Worm Mutants has been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI).
Science's IBI Prize was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Worm Mutants will be published on October 26.
"We want to recognize innovators in science education, as well as the institutions that support them," says Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science. "At the same time, this competition will promote those inquiry-based laboratory modules with the most potential to benefit science students and teachers. The publication of an essay in Science on each winning module will encourage more college teachers to use these outstanding resources, thereby promoting science literacy."
Padilla grew up around a ranch in New Mexico, becoming interested in animals and science from an early age. She loved biology but was also interested in geology, astronomy and engineering. On her way to becoming the first person in her family to attend college and the first scientist in her extended family, Padilla had reached her sophomore year in high school when a geology teacher told her she should consider science as a career.
She credits a graduate school mentor at the University of New Mexico, who had a degree in poetry as well as in the sciences, and a post-doc mentor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with demonstrating an aspect of science that often gets overlooked: creativity. "If you're interested in being a scientist, then you need to ask your own questions," Padilla says. "How do you teach creativity? I always ask myself that."
Padilla says she feels strongly that it is her responsibility to teach and lead others to research. "I have been helped along the way," she says. "I didn't have the resources to get a PhD. I have to pay that back. Anyone who gets grants, scholarships, we're responsible to do this."
Unlike most genetics classes, in which known outcomes are re-created through a series of steps, Worm Mutants gets students to think about what regulates certain traits of Caenorhabditis elegans at a genetic level. Students choose a biological process that interests them, such as how neurons function to regulate muscle movement. They then try to identify a worm mutant that doesn't move normally. They communicate about their work by writing a research proposal describing background, hypotheses, methods, preliminary data collection (identifying their mutants), data interpretation, and possible future work. The final research proposals, which include the students' own ideas and conclusions, show an understanding of the concept of a genetic screen as well as the nature of scientific inquiry.
"Through application of approaches used by geneticists," says Melissa McCartney, editorial fellow at Science, "students determine the parameters of their experiments, collect and analyze data that they deem necessary, and draw their own conclusions."
Because there is no guarantee that students will be able to identify a mutant demonstrating the trait in which they are interested, there are no right or wrong answers in the lab module. There is only inquiry and experimentation, with no predetermined outcome, and students are graded on participation, proposal content, and a team-based presentation. "It challenges them," says Padilla, "because they're so used to, 'Learn this, and you'll get such and such a grade.' This is about learning how to think."
Most students rise to the occasion, though, and are "really happy that we trust them to do something that's scientifically interesting," Padilla says. They often like the idea that they can find something new, and learn about the collaboration and work associated with real research. They also learn that mutants aren't necessarily freakish sci-fi creatures with three heads. To encourage students' creativity, Padilla allows them to present their work using smart phones and video, resulting in some humorous YouTube videos, including one entitled, "Geneticists Say the Darndest Things" and a rap about Drosophila.
Ultimately, the students learn key genetic concepts through the Worm Mutants course. "I think we teach them more in this class that I was exposed to," says Padilla. "They do learn and appreciate genetic models."
Regarding her IBI award and the corresponding essay that will be published in Science, Padilla says that she hopes, "it could spark other faculties' interest to improve the delivery of information, so that students are encouraged to think creatively. I'm especially thinking about students in large classes and the state universities that might not have the best funding.
"How do we reach the students at big school like UNT? I'm interested in reaching large numbers of students."
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
[ | 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.
Home > Business, Economy, News Item, Trends > Spain?s Pain could Hit Here
CNNMoney reports the third quarter in Spain has seen a shrinkage of 0.4 percent in both government and household spending. The fourth largest economy in the Eurozone contracted 1.7 percent year-over-year for Q3 2012, compared to 1.3 percent in the second quarter. A 25 percent unemployment rate and the government?s plans for more austerity measures to reduce debt have led to angry protests in the streets. As MHProNews has learned, the interdependence of the global economy can have far reaching effects. In the past months, investors have responded to the ups and downs of Eurozone members when dealing in the U.S. stock market, given that the EU is one of our very largest trading partners.
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Amazon has just released its earnings for the third quarter of the year and it looks like it's slightly off analysts' expectations. The company reported $13.18 billion in revenue (a growth of 27 percent) and an operating loss of $28 million, with net income standing at a loss of $274 million. As Amazon notes, though, a chunk of that, some $169 million, comes from losses resulting from its investment in LivingSocial -- it says the figure is "primarily attributable to its impairment charge of certain assets, including goodwill." Expectedly, the company still isn't offering any specific numbers for device sales, noting only that the Kindle Fire HD is the number one selling product across Amazon worldwide, and that the next two bestselling products worldwide are the Kindle Paperwhite and the $69 Kindle. As for its outlook for the next quarter, the company is expecting net sales of between $20.25 billion and $22.75 billion, and operating income of anywhere from a loss of $490 million to a profit of $310 million. You can find the company's full breakdown of all the numbers at the link below.
DARPA's latest challenge kicked off yesterday at the agency's conference center in Arlington, Va. The Pentagon research division wants semiautonomous robots that can perform human chores such as driving vehicles, letting themselves into buildings, and repairing equipment, with the stated purpose of creating bots that could help in disaster-response efforts.
Inspiration for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, or DRC, comes in part from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster following the tsunami of March 2011, program manager Gill Pratt says. "During the first 24 hours there were several opportunities for intervention to help make the disaster less severe," Pratt tells PM, "but unfortunately people could not go into that zone because the radiation was too high... So DARPA's question with the DRC is ?What advances in robotic technology can be made to improve our collective resilience during the first few days of a disaster?' "
DARPA aims to create those advancements through competition. The agency is giving teams only two years to pull off the construction and operation of robots that are more capable and more flexible than any built before. The machines will have to operate mostly on their own in areas where communication with human operators may be spotty or intermittent?perhaps only good enough to convey broad commands such as "drive that vehicle" or "remove this pile of rubble." DARPA calls this capability supervised autonomy, and it's a big challenge in itself that will require advances in artificial intelligence?even without DARPA's added requirement for extreme flexibility.
DARPA is still determining the specific tasks the robots will have to perform, but they are likely to include driving a vehicle, getting out of the vehicle to climb over rubble, opening a door, climbing a ladder, using power tools to break down a wall, other basic repair tasks. That means the robots will have to incorporate sophisticated planning capabilities as well as the ability to automatically balance and remain stable while traveling over a variety of surfaces, and most likely decide for themselves how to use dexterous appendages (like hands) to operate tools designed for humans. While DARPA stresses that the winning bots don't have to be humanoid, it seems probable that they will at least approximate human appearance, since they will have to operate in human-created environments and use our tools. Arms, legs, hands, and optical sensors spaced for 3D vision seem par for the course.
Seven already-selected teams on Track A, from Carnegie Mellon University, Virginia Tech, NASA, and elsewhere, are tasked with building the actual robots. Those came together at yesterday's meeting, from which the press was barred. There are also 11 Track B teams that will be working on software to run the robots. That includes groups from Lockheed Martin, the University of Kansas, RE2, and others. Teams in both tracks are receiving DARPA funding to complete their work.
And there's Track C of the DRC, which provides for open competition among teams from around the world that want to compete in creating software for driving a humanoid robot. If accepted, teams will have access to an open-source DRC Simulator being developed through the Open Source Robotics Foundation, or OSRF. The simulator is a virtual environment, still in beta testing, that will incorporate computer models of robots and sample environments in which they can operate. Team members will be able to log in to upload software to simulated robots, test code, and see how well the virtual bots can handle DARPA-assigned tasks.
The DRC Simulator builds on tools that have already been in development by OSRF, including its Robot Operating System and Gazebo simulator. "When everyone has access to good tools that handle the basics of programming a robot," OSRF CEO Brian Gerkey tells PM, "we'll have a much broader base of engineers inventing robot applications. And that's what we really need: more good ideas for what robots can do in our lives."
A DRC qualifying event in May 2013 will pit Track B and Track C teams head-to-head. A pared-down field will compete in a Virtual Robotics Challenge in June. Up to six winning teams will then be assigned their own Government Furnished Equipment (or GFE) robot, otherwise known as ATLAS. ATLAS is in development by Boston Dynamics, which is famous for developing BigDog, a four-legged robotic pack animal capable of scrambling after soldiers through just about any terrain with their gear.
ATLAS's predecessor robot, Pet-Proto, already displays a disturbingly human-like ability to clomp up and down stairs on two legs and climb over obstacles with the help of two armlike appendages. "ATLAS and Pet-Proto are quite different," Boston Dynamics founder and president Marc Raibert tells PM. ATLAS should be even more capable?for example, by incorporating hands. ATLAS also includes 28 hydraulically activated joints and a sensor array for a head that includes a laser range finder and 3D cameras. At 180 pounds and 69 inches tall, the machine is roughly the same size and weight as a man. Like its predecessor, however, it will rely on a tether for external power. It also runs hot, requiring cooling water to circulate through its body at the rate of 2 gallons per minute.
The winning Track B and Track C teams will each get up to $750,000 to continue their work, leading up to a physical challenge in which robots will have to perform real-world tasks in what DARPA terms an authentic disaster scenario. Up to eight top teams could win $1 million each in that challenge, which will put them in the running for a $2 million top prize to be awarded in a second physical challenge.
Now, if you're independently wealthy and feel like financing your own team, the challenge allows for a go-for-broke Track D that invites teams to build their own hardware and software for competition in the two physical challenges.
All of this promises to dramatically advance the state of the art in robotics. "The field of robotics has just scratched the surface so far," says Raibert. "You ain't seen nothing yet!"
Michael Belfiore is the author of The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs and is a frequent PM contributor.
The federal government filed a civil lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. (BAC), alleging the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets saddled taxpayers with losses by misrepresenting the quality of home loans it sold to mortgage-finance firms Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) .
The action, filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, seeks at least $1 billion in damages. The filing represents a novel effort by the government to defray costs tied to the 2008 bailout of Fannie and Freddie, and potentially opens a new front against a banking industry already dealing with hefty legal costs.
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The government alleges Countrywide, which Bank of America acquired in 2008, dismembered quality control and checks on loan quality in 2007 through 2009, in a process called "the Hustle" that aimed to boost the speed at which it originated and sold loans to the companies. The mortgage unit falsely continued to claim the loans qualified for insurance from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the complaint alleges.
A Bank of America spokesman didn't provide immediate comment. Bank of America shares, up 70% this year, were up six cents in midday trading Wednesday at $9.41.
The government is suing Bank of America under the Federal False Claims Act, which has become a popular tool for prosecutors seeking to hold banks accountable for alleged mortgage misdeeds and calls for triple damages when the government can show taxpayers were ripped off.
This is the second suit Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has brought against banks it accused of duping the federal insurance programs this month. Two weeks ago, his office sued Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the biggest U.S. mortgage company, of recklessly issuing mortgages and leaving the Federal Housing Administration to pick up the tab.
Fannie and Freddie, while backed by taxpayers since the 2008 bailout, aren't part of the government. Previous suits have been brought on behalf of government agencies such as Medicare and the FHA.
Fannie and Freddie were publicly traded entities before their market funding evaporated in the early stages of the financial crisis, forcing their effective nationalization. Taxpayers have since poured $142 billion into the companies, which along with other government agencies financed nine out of 10 home loans written last year. Fannie and Freddie don't make loans but guarantee regular principal and interest payments to mortgage-bond investors.
[More from WSJ.com: J.P. Morgan Gets Stung by China Downturn]
Wednesday's suit was also brought under a federal statute known as the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, which was enacted in 1989 following a wave of bank failures triggered by the savings-and-loan crisis.
Last year Fannie's and Freddie's regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sued 18 major banks including Bank of America, accusing them of violating federal securities law and other laws in the sale of residential private-label mortgage-backed securities. The seven biggest U.S. commercial banks have recognized or set aside $76 billion in mortgage-related legal costs since 2008, according to analysts at Credit Suisse Group (CSGN.VX).
Fannie Mae stopped buying or guaranteeing new loans delivered by Bank of America this past February amid an impasse over billions in defaulted mortgages that Fannie said Bank of America was obligated to repurchase. Negotiations over resolving the dispute are ongoing, according to both parties.
Bank of America briefly became Fannie's top client following its acquisition of Countrywide. It accounted for 20% of all loans Fannie bought or backed in 2009, but that share had fallen below 10% by the third quarter of 2011, and below 3% in the fourth quarter, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.
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The action isn't Bank of America's first False Claims Act suit. In February, Bank of America agreed to a $1 billion settlement of False Claims Act fraud allegations tied to Federal Housing Administration-backed loans brought by the Eastern District of New York. The bank settled without admitting wrongdoing. Three other large banks have agreed to pay a total of more than $490 million in similar cases, each accepting responsibility for "certain conduct."
The suit follows in a long line of legal headaches for Bank of America. Last month, the bank agreed to pay $2.43 billion to settle claims it misled investors about the acquisition of brokerage firm Merrill Lynch & Co., the largest settlement of a shareholder claim by a financial-services firm since the upheaval of 2008 and 2009.
The lawsuits continue to underscore how the hasty acquisitions made during the height of the financial crisis by Kenneth Lewis, then the bank's chief executive, still haunt it today. Decisions to buy mortgage lender Countrywide and Merrill have forced Bank of America, run since 2010 by Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, to shoulder some $42 billion in litigation expenses, payouts and reserves, according to company figures.
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NEW YORK -- A paid informant for the New York Police Department's intelligence unit was under orders to "bait" Muslims into saying incriminating things as he lived a double life, snapping pictures inside mosques and collecting the names of innocent people attending study groups on Islam, he told The Associated Press.
Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bengali descent who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture." He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.
"We need you to pretend to be one of them," Rahman recalled the police telling him. "It's street theater."
Rahman, who said he plans to move to the Caribbean, said he now believes his work as an informant against Muslims in New York was "detrimental to the Constitution." After he disclosed to friends details about his work for the police -- and after he told the police that he had been contacted by the AP -- he stopped receiving text messages from his NYPD handler, "Steve," and his handler's NYPD phone number was disconnected.
Rahman's account shows how the NYPD unleashed informants on Muslim neighborhoods, often without specific targets or criminal leads. Much of what Rahman said represents a tactic the NYPD has denied using.
The AP corroborated Rahman's account through arrest records and weeks of text messages between Rahman and his police handler. The AP also reviewed the photos Rahman sent to police. Friends confirmed Rahman was at certain events when he said he was there, and former NYPD officials, while not personally familiar with Rahman, said the tactics he described were used by informants.
Informants like Rahman are a central component of the NYPD's wide-ranging programs to monitor life in Muslim neighborhoods since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Police officers have eavesdropped inside Muslim businesses, trained video cameras on mosques and collected license plates of worshippers. Informants who trawl the mosques -- known informally as "mosque crawlers" -- tell police what the imam says at sermons and provide police lists of attendees, even when there's no evidence they committed a crime.
The programs were built with unprecedented help from the CIA.
Police recruited Rahman in late January, after his third arrest on misdemeanor drug charges, which Rahman believed would lead to serious legal consequences. An NYPD plainclothes officer approached him in a Queens jail and asked whether he wanted to turn his life around.
The next month, Rahman said, he was on the NYPD's payroll.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not immediately return a message seeking comment about Tuesday. He has denied widespread NYPD spying, saying police only follow leads.
In an Oct. 15 interview with the AP, however, Rahman said he received little training and spied on "everything and anyone." He took pictures inside the many mosques he visited and eavesdropped on imams. By his own measure, he said he was very good at his job and his handler never once told him he was collecting too much, no matter whom he was spying on.
Rahman said he thought he was doing important work protecting New York City and considered himself a hero.
One of his earliest assignments was to spy on a lecture at the Muslim Student Association at John Jay College in Manhattan. The speaker was Ali Abdul Karim, the head of security at the Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn. The NYPD had been concerned about Karim for years and already had infiltrated the mosque, according to NYPD documents obtained by the AP.
Rahman also was instructed to monitor the student group itself, though he wasn't told to target anyone specifically. His NYPD handler, Steve, told him to take pictures of people at the events, determine who belonged to the student association and identify its leadership.
On Feb. 23, Rahman attended the event with Karim and listened, ready to catch what he called a "speaker's gaffe." The NYPD was interested in buzz words such as "jihad" and "revolution," he said. Any radical rhetoric, the NYPD told him, needed to be reported.
Talha Shahbaz, then the vice president of the student group, met Rahman at the event. As Karim was finishing his talk on Malcolm X's legacy, Rahman told Shahbaz that he wanted to know more about the student group. They had briefly attended the same high school in Queens.
Rahman said he wanted to turn his life around and stop using drugs, and said he believed Islam could provide a purpose in life. In the following days, Rahman friended him on Facebook and the two exchanged phone numbers. Shahbaz, a Pakistani who came to the U.S. more three years ago, introduced Rahman to other Muslims.
"He was telling us how he loved Islam and it's changing him," said Asad Dandia, who also became friends with Rahman.
Secretly, Rahman was mining his new friends for details about their lives, taking pictures of them when they ate at restaurants and writing down license plates on the orders of the NYPD.
On the NYPD's instructions, he went to more events at John Jay, including when Siraj Wahhaj spoke in May. Wahhaj, 62, is a prominent but controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of authorities for years. Prosecutors included his name on a 3 ?-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged. In 2004, the NYPD placed Wahhaj on an internal terrorism watch list and noted: "Political ideology moderately radical and anti-American."
That evening at John Jay, a friend took a photograph of Wahhaj with a grinning Rahman.
Rahman said he kept an eye on the MSA and used Shahbaz and his friends to facilitate traveling to events organized by the Islamic Circle of North America and Muslim American Society. The society's annual convention in Hartford, Conn, draws a large number of Muslims and plenty of attention from the NYPD. According to NYPD documents obtained by the AP, the NYPD sent three informants there in 2008 and was keeping tabs on the group's former president.
Rahman was told to spy on the speakers and collect information. The conference was dubbed "Defending Religious Freedom." Shahbaz paid Rahman's travel expenses.
Rahman, who was born in Queens, said he never witnessed any criminal activity or saw anybody do anything wrong.
He said he sometimes intentionally misinterpreted what people had said. For example, Rahman said he would ask people what they thought about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, knowing the subject was inflammatory. It was easy to take statements out of context, he said. He said wanted to please his NYPD handler, whom he trusted and liked.
"I was trying to get money," Rahman said. "I was playing the game."
Rahman said police never discussed the activities of the people he was assigned to target for spying. He said police told him once, "We don't think they're doing anything wrong. We just need to be sure."
On some days, Rahman's spent hours and covered miles in his undercover role. On Sept. 16, for example, he made his way in the morning to the Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, snapping photographs of an imam and the sign-up sheet for those attending a regular class on Islamic instruction. He also provided their cell phone numbers to the NYPD. That evening he spied on people at Masjid Al-Ansar, also in Brooklyn.
Text messages on his phone showed that Rahman also took pictures last month of people attending the 27th annual Muslim Day Parade in Manhattan. The parade's grand marshal was New York City Councilman Robert Jackson.
Rahman said he eventually tired of spying on his friends, noting that at times they delivered food to needy Muslim families. He said he once identified another NYPD informant spying on him. He took $200 more from the NYPD and told them he was done as an informant. He said the NYPD offered him more money, which he declined. He told friends on Facebook in early October that he had been a police spy but had quit. He also traded Facebook messages with Shahbaz, admitting he had spied on students at John Jay.
"I was an informant for the NYPD, for a little while, to investigate terrorism," he wrote on Oct. 2. He said he no longer thought it was right. Perhaps he had been hunting terrorists, he said, "but I doubt it."
Shahbaz said he forgave Rahman.
"I hated that I was using people to make money," Rahman said. "I made a mistake."
In this iPhone app, players pretend to smoke a cigarette and then pass it to their friends.
You can do just about anything with your phone these days. Take an electrocardiogram. Confess your sins. Even smoke a cigarette
Yup, you read that correctly. Android and Apple offer apps that let you light and smoke a virtual cigarette. You simply blow into the microphone, or onto the screen, and an image of a cigarette glows red and "burns."
Some apps time how long it takes to puff the whole fag, while others have a virtual ashtray that pops up messages like, "Would be even better with a beer in your hand!"
Public health researchers at the University of Sydney have found 107 apps on iPhones and Androids with pro-smoking messages, including these so-called smoking simulators.
Many of the apps are free to download and target children or teens by using cartoons, games and celebrities.
The researchers, who describe the apps this week in the journal Tobacco Control, say these games violate the World Health Organization's bans on smoking advertisements. They call for more regulation of the apps' content and distribution.
It has been clear for a while that cigarette ads have a dramatic effect on kids. So much so, that tobacco companies are forbidden from advertising directly to them. In the U.S., the tobacco industry can't sponsor sports teams, give away t-shirts or even advertise on TV.
But now it looks like tobacco companies have found a loophole in these regulations through the smartphone apps.
Besides the simulators, there are also photo galleries of cigarettes for wallpapering your phone, instructions for rolling cigarettes into various shapes and tobacco "shops" where you can build your own cigarettes.
By far, the smoking simulators are the most popular, at least in terms of downloads. The researchers found 36 simulators on the iPhone and 10 on Android. At least 6 million users downloaded the Android simulators by February 2012, accounting for nearly 99 percent of the pro-smoking downloads.
Another iPhone app, called Puff Puff Pass, depicts a virtual smoking sessions with friends, allowing you to pass a cigar or cigarette around the room. "Addictive gameplay, almost as addictive as smoking for real," the app's description reads at the iPhone Store.
Such interactive games may be worse for kids than billboards and magazine ads, says Barbara Loken, a consumer psychologist at the University of Minnesota. "They increase the involvement or engagement of the participant, even more than advertisements," Loken tells Shots in an email. This "may make the participant even more likely to take up smoking."
Ironically, some of pro-smoking Android apps landed in the Health and Fitness category because they claim to help stop smoking.
But Loken says that an app would have to depict smoking in negative light for it to facilitate quitting. "If anything, [the apps] normalize smoking," Loken says. "Kidsare at a stage where their forming their identity. The apps can provide ... a way of making smoking normal among peer groups."
There's plenty of research out there showing how smoking in movies impacts tobacco use in teens, Loken says. Most studies have found that the greater number of movies viewed, the more likely a person will uptake smoking.
A similar effect may occur with these smartphone apps, Loken says. So she thinks they should be restricted, too.
The only regulation right now is a warning of mature content when you download some apps on the iPhone. And, users must enter their birthdays for apps distributed by Marlboro. But for many smoking simulators and games, finding and installing them is as easy for kids as playing Angry Birds.
Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
Tonight's third and final presidential debate will focus entirely on international politics and foreign policy. ?Expect?Benghazi to be one of the major issues, a subject on which, for the first time in nearly a month, the Obama administration will have the upper hand.
"The Romney campaign had the high ground on this issue for weeks. They lost that high ground at the second debate by alleging, suggesting the Obama administration had misled the American public on Benghazi," says Josh Rogin, of Foreign Policy's The Cable.
"It took the president 14 days before he called the attack on the embassy an act of terror," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said at that debate. Obama had in fact called it an act of terror the day after the attack, though the administration spent the next two weeks avoiding the term terror, blaming the attack ?on an anti-Muslim video and claiming some of it was spontaneous.
Still, "there's no real evidence that they misled, it's possible they were just wrong. And President Obama seized on that and called that offensive and...now the president has regained the moral high authority on this issue."
"Of course the administration's argument that they were just incompetent and not misleading is not a perfect argument," says Rogin with a laugh, "but that's the one they're going with."
At tonight's debate Romney will have to focus on the fact "that the administration did make intelligence mistakes and security mistakes in the lead up to the attack, and the communication and messaging mistakes in the follow-up after the attack," says Rogin.
Tune in to ABCNews.com tonight for livestreaming coverage of the final 2012 Presidential Town Hall Debate in Boca Raton, Fla.
Beyond Benghazi, Rogin says Romney will make the case that there is a clear contrast between him and President Obama on three big issues: The use of American power abroad, its stance with Israel, and defense spending and the future of the nation's military spending.
Obama, however, has sent more troops to Afghanistan and involved the United States in Libya. Obama may be more multilateral than others would be, but the United States remains a player on the world stage.
"There's a gap here between Romney's rhetoric and the policies that he would set out that would actually be different from the Obama administration," says Rogin. "If you look at specific issues like Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, what a Romney administration would do if elected is not so different from what the Obama administration is doing right now, which is a very centrist, realist approach to national security."
What the Romney campaign does do, is blame the Obama administration for not doing enough.
"It's their creative sort of way of saying that our policies going forward aren't much different, but they somehow would have been more effective had they been in office," says Rogin.
For more, check out this week's episode of Political Punch.
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Public release date: 25-Oct-2012
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CNNMoney reports the third quarter in Spain has seen a shrinkage of 0.4 percent in both government and household spending. The fourth largest economy in the Eurozone contracted 1.7 percent year-over-year for Q3 2012, compared to 1.3 percent in the second quarter. A 25 percent unemployment rate and the government?s plans for more austerity measures to reduce debt have led to angry protests in the streets. As MHProNews has learned, the interdependence of the global economy can have far reaching effects. In the past months, investors have responded to the ups and downs of Eurozone members when dealing in the U.S. stock market, given that the EU is one of our very largest trading partners.
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