Global genome effort seeks genetic roots of disease

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2012) ? By decoding the genomes of more than 1,000 people whose homelands stretch from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Americas, scientists have compiled the largest and most detailed catalog yet of human genetic variation. The massive resource will help medical researchers find the genetic roots of rare and common diseases in populations worldwide.

The 1000 Genomes Project involved some 200 scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions. Results detailing the DNA variations of individuals from 14 ethnic groups are published Oct. 31 in the journal Nature. Eventually, the initiative will involve 2,500 individuals from 26 populations.

"With this resource, researchers have a roadmap to search for the genetic origins of diseases in populations around the globe," says one of the study's co-principal investigators, Elaine Mardis, PhD, co-director of The Genome Institute at Washington University. "We estimate that each person carries up to several hundred rare DNA variants that could potentially contribute to disease. Now, scientists can investigate how detrimental particular rare variants are in different ethnic groups."

At the genetic level, any two people are more than 99 percent alike. But rare variants -- those that occur with a frequency of 1 percent or less in a population -- are thought to contribute to rare diseases as well as common conditions like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Rare variants may also explain why some medications are not effective in certain people or cause side effects such as nausea, vomiting, insomnia and sometimes even heart problems or death.

Identifying rare variants across different populations is a major goal of the project. During the pilot phase of the effort, the researchers found that most rare variants differed from one population to another, and that they developed recently in human evolutionary history, after populations in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas diverged from a single group. The current study bears this out.

"This information is crucial and will improve our interpretation of individual genomes," says another of the study's co-principal investigators, Richard K. Wilson, PhD, director of The Genome Institute and a pioneer in cancer genome sequencing. "Now, if we want to study cancer in Mexican Americans or Japanese Americans, for example, we can do so in the context of their diverse geographic or ancestry-based genetic backgrounds."

Results of the new study are based on DNA sequencing of the following populations: Yoruba in Nigeria; Han Chinese in Beijing; Japanese in Tokyo; Utah residents with ancestry from northern and western Europe; Luhya in Kenya; people of African ancestry in the southwestern United States; Toscani in Italy; people of Mexican ancestry in Los Angeles; Southern Han Chinese in China; Iberian from Spain; British in England and Scotland; Finnish from Finland; Colombians in Columbia; and Puerto Rican in Puerto Rico.

All study participants submitted anonymous DNA samples and agreed to have their genetic data included in an online database. To catalog the variants, the researchers first sequenced the entire genome -- all the DNA -- of each individual in the study about five times. Surveying the genome in this way finds common DNA changes but misses many rare variants.

Then, to find rare variants, they repeatedly sequenced the small portion of the genome that contains genes -- about 80 times for each participant to ensure accuracy -- and they looked closely for single letter changes in the DNA sequence called SNPs (for single-nucleotide polymorphisms).

Using special tools developed to analyze and integrate the data, the researchers discovered a total of 38 million SNPs, including more than 99 percent of the variants with at frequency of at least one percent in the participants' DNA samples. They also found numerous structural variations, including 1.4 million short stretches of insertions or deletions and 14,000 large DNA deletions.

SNPs and structural variants can help explain an individual's susceptibility to disease, response to drugs or reaction to environmental factors such as air pollution or stress. Other studies have found an association between small insertions and deletions and diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

The 1000 Genomes Project has generated massive amounts of genomic data. Simply recording the raw information took up some 180 terabytes of hard-drive space, enough to fill more than 40,000 DVDs. All of the information is freely available on the Internet through public databases.

"This tremendous resource builds on the knowledge of the Human Genome Project," says co-author George Weinstock, PhD, associate director of The Genome Institute. "Scientists and, ultimately, patients worldwide will benefit from the extensive effort to understand the shared features and geographic diversity of the human genome."

In addition to The Genome Institute, other research centers involved in the project include: the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England; BGI Shenzhen in China; the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin; and Illumina, Inc., in San Diego.

The research is supported, in part, by a grant (U54HG3079) from the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to The Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. Other funding sources include: the Wellcome Trust; Medial Research Council; British Heart Foundation; National Basic Research Program of China; the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Max Planck Society; Swiss National Science Foundation.

The 1000 Genomes Project Consortium. An integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes. Nature. Oct. 31, 2012.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis, via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

1. The 1000 Genomes Project Consortium. An integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes. Nature, October 31, 2012 DOI: 10.1038/nature11632

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/top_news/top_health/~3/_lY8iWLizHk/121031141723.htm

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In Myanmar's volatile west, sectarian violence worsens

YANGON (Reuters) - Hundreds of homes burned and gunfire rang out as sectarian violence raged for a fifth day between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in western Myanmar on Thursday, testing the country's nascent democracy.

Security forces struggled to stem Myanmar's worst communal unrest since clashes in June killed more than 80 people and displaced at least 75,000. The latest violence has spread over several towns, including commercially important Kyaukpyu, where a multibillion dollar China-Myanmar pipeline starts.

The violence is one of the biggest tests yet of a new reformist government that has vowed to forge unity in one of Asia's most ethnically diverse countries.

The United Nations called for calm in volatile Rakhine State, citing reports of hundreds of houses destroyed since Sunday and large numbers of people seeking refuge in over-crowded camps near the state capital, Sittwe.

"The U.N. is gravely concerned about reports of a resurgence of inter-communal conflict in several areas in Rakhine State which has resulted in deaths and has forced thousands of people including women and children to flee their homes," Ashok Nigam, U.N. resident and humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, said in a statement.

Access to Rakhine State was restricted and information hard to verify, but witnesses said at least three people were killed on Thursday, bringing this week's death toll to at least five. There were widespread unconfirmed reports of razed and burning homes, gunfights and Rohingya fleeing by boat.

A representative of the Wan Lark foundation, which helps ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, said local people told him trouble had flared in the early hours of Thursday in Kyauk Taw, a town north of the state capital, Sittwe.

"Fires started in Pike Thel village. About 20 houses were burned. There was gunfire reported and, as far as we know, three Rakhines were shot dead on the spot," Tun Min Thein told Reuters by telephone.

CHINA INVESTMENT

A senior official from the Rakhine State government also said three people had been killed in Kyauk Taw. Witnesses reported soldiers arriving and at least one road closed.

In Yathedaung, a town northwest of Sittwe, security forces opened fire in a Rohingya district and about 10 houses were burned, Tun Min Thein added, reporting what he had been told by locals. Fires also were seen in Pauktaw, a town east of Sittwe.

That followed violence in Kyaukpyu, about 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Sittwe, where official media said one person had been killed, 28 wounded and 800 houses burned down.

The area is crucial to China's most strategic investment in Myanmar: twin pipelines that will stretch from Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal to China's energy-hungry western provinces, bringing oil and natural gas to one of China's most undeveloped regions.

Rohingyas are officially stateless. Buddhist-majority Myanmar's government regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh has refused to grant Rohingyas refugee status since 1992.

Around 50 boats carrying Rohingyas were reported to have left the Kyaukpyu area on Wednesday and were spotted apparently heading for Sittwe, Tun Min Thein said.

It was unclear what set off the latest arson and killing that started on Sunday. In June, tensions had flared after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims, but there was no obvious spark this time.

Sittwe was the scene of violence in June but has escaped the latest unrest. Thousands lost their homes in June and many Rohingyas left or were moved out of the town by the authorities.

Curfews were imposed in Minbya and Mrauk Oo north of Sittwe from Monday after violence there. It was unclear if the authorities had extended that to other areas.

Thein Sein's government has negotiated ceasefires with most ethnic rebel groups that have fought for autonomy for half a century but has done nothing to address the Rohingya problem.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International have called on Myanmar to amend or repeal a 1982 citizenship law to end the Rohingyas' stateless status.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun and Reuters staff reporters; Writing by Alan Raybould and Jason Szep; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/myanmars-volatile-west-sectarian-violence-worsens-115416828.html

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San Francisco?s Spectacular Hypocrisy

Hetch Hetchy Valley as it appeared before it was transformed into a reservoir, in Yosemite National Park, California

Photo by Isaiah West Taber/Wikimedia Commons.

In San Francisco, concern for the environment is a dearly held civic virtue. The Sierra Club was founded here 120 years ago; San Francisco?s mayor issued the first Earth Day proclamation in 1970; and, more recently, San Franciscans have embraced everything from organic food and compostable plastics to hybrid cars and bike lanes. But the green city has a dark secret.

For the better part of a century, San Francisco has stored its tap water 180 miles away, in the heart of Yosemite National Park. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which holds 117 billion gallons of water behind a 312-foot dam, drowned a glacial valley that early conservationist John Muir described as ?one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain mansions.? The reservoir has been a sore spot with environmentalists for decades.

On Election Day, the city will vote on whether to take the first step toward draining Hetch Hetchy and restoring the valley. A controversial ballot initiative introduced by a single-issue spin-off of the Sierra Club, called Restore Hetch Hetchy, would force the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to spend $8 million?less than 1 percent of the agency?s annual budget?to study alternatives to the city?s current water system. The ultimate goal is a second ballot initiative, in 2016, that would let voters decide whether to drain the reservoir. In a state as arid as California, giving up water storage is a perilous proposition, but polling earlier this year showed the measure has an even chance among San Francisco voters.

City leaders are a different story.

Local officials are usually open to ambitious, well-intentioned proposals. This is the city, after all, that is fighting childhood obesity by banning Happy Meal toys. San Francisco forbids plastic bags at retail stores; it has tried to place cancer warnings on cellphones; and it has had its own local version of universal health care since 2007. Public nudity is considered a form of free expression.

But considering an alternative to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir seems to be too outrageous for San Francisco. City Hall, local representatives, business groups, and newspapers have lined up against the proposal, calling it ?stupid? and a costly boondoggle. They warn that draining Hetch Hetchy could destroy the Bay Area as we know it.

?As insane as this is, it is, in fact, insane,? sputtered the usually mild-mannered Mayor Ed Lee when the initiative was announced.

But the idea is not crazy. And refusing to discuss it shows a stubborn lack of foresight.

Muir and other early conservationists considered the Hetch Hetchy Valley the ?exact counterpart? of the majestic Yosemite Valley, which is the site of El Capitan and Half Dome. But the Hetch Hetchy Valley?s high granite walls made it an attractive spot for a reservoir. San Francisco lobbied Congress for permission to dam the valley for years and finally succeeded in 1913?in part by capitalizing on sympathy for victims of the 1906 earthquake. Along with rights to the water, the city won a perpetual lease on the land. The decision was controversial then?200 newspapers around the country published screeds against it?but the O?Shaughnessy Dam went up across the Tuolumne River anyway, and the first water was delivered in 1934. Today, Hetch Hetchy is the largest of San Francisco?s eight reservoirs, storing water for the city and other municipalities across the Bay Area.

The gravity-powered system that carries Tuolomne River water from Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco, across two-thirds the width of the state, is a marvel of engineering. But it?s also an artifact of the early 20^th century, an era when taming nature was a national obsession and rapidly growing California municipalities fought over water resources. Los Angeles took its desperate hunt for water all the way to the Owens Valley, more than 200 miles away, famously using subterfuge to acquire water rights from hapless farmers. By setting its sights on Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco was able to remain above such sordid tactics. But over the years, the smug city has come to see the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir not just as a savvy acquisition but as a ?birthright,? to quote former mayor Dianne Feinstein.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=a8f6dd6b8630a84586de855369da8556

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U.S. military hypersonic aircraft trial set for 2013

By Mary Slosson

Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:48pm EDT

(Reuters) - The last of four unmanned experimental U.S. military aircraft designed to fly at six times the speed of sound is expected to be tested next year, the program manager said on Wednesday, months after its predecessor broke up during a trial.

The third test flight of the craft, known as the Waverider or X-51A, broke apart over the Pacific Ocean seconds into a test flight in August. U.S. Air Force officials said at the time they did not know if or when their fourth aircraft would fly.

Preliminary results from an investigation into what went wrong during the August flight indicate that a "random vibration issue" caused one of the control fins to deploy early, the X-51 program manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Charlie Brink, told reporters on a conference call.

"I can't say conclusively that's it, but it's looking more and more like the cause," Brink said, adding that investigators quickly ruled out a software or power malfunction as a cause of the aircraft's break up.

The Waverider was designed to reach speeds of Mach 6 or above, six times the speed of sound and fast enough to zoom from New York to London in less than an hour.

Analysts say the military has its eye on using the Waverider program to develop missiles with non-nuclear warheads that could strike anywhere in the world within an hour.

Results from the investigation into the third aircraft's failed test flight are expected to be complete in mid-December, Brink said.

"I'm fairly confident that in the next couple of months we'll have the investigation complete and we'll move on. We're already preparing the fourth flight vehicle. We're doing those things in parallel," he said.

Engineers are already modifying the final test X-51A to be ready in late spring or early summer of 2013, he said.

PROGRAM DETAILS CLASSIFIED

The aircraft is known as the Waverider because it stays airborne, in part, with lift generated by the shock waves of its own flight. The Boeing Co's Phantom Works division performed design and assembly on the aircraft, according to the military.

Four X-51A aircraft were built for the military, one of which flew for more than three minutes at nearly five times the speed of sound during a 2010 test flight, the Air Force said.

The experimental aircraft are expected to crash at the end of test flights in any case, and are not considered retrievable.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne designed the X-51A's "scramjet" engine, which uses the forward motion of the craft to compress air for fuel combustion, according to a description of the project from the military.

After being dropped from a B-52 bomber, a solid-rocket booster is used in the initial phase of the plane's flight to bring it up to speeds that can allow its engine to take over, by drawing in air through the craft's forward momentum.

The cost of the experimental aircraft has not been disclosed because many details of the program are classified.

In 2004, NASA reached a speed of Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 miles per hour, with a jet-powered aircraft. But that vehicle, known as X-43, only flew for a few seconds and its copper-based engine was not designed to survive the flight.

Engineers have hoped to see the hypersonic X-51A travel for five minutes of powered flight. For protection from extreme heat, it uses insulation tiles, similar to those on the NASA space shuttle orbiters, according to a 2011 military description of the project.

Hypersonic flight is normally defined as beginning at Mach 5, which is five times the speed of sound.

(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/vGYhcWEDHQA/us-usa-hypersonic-flight-idUSBRE89O02020121025

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5 Bizarre Business Decisions Social Media Could Have Prevented ...

These days it?s difficult to imagine the business world without its obligatory Facebook and Twitter pages; almost every company has them as they help one-to-one customer support and other business decisions. Decades ago, however, industry moguls weren?t in the same position. Connecting with the public was difficult and often not even attempted; as a consequence some businesses suffered greatly due to a lack of communication. Here we take a look at half a dozen examples of such bad decisions, and what could have happened had social media been around.

The Coca Cola Re-Brand

In April of 1985 one of the biggest brands in the world made an almost catastrophic blunder. The decision was made to tamper with the famous recipe following the continued success of rival Pepsi?s marketing plan ?The Pepsi Challenge?, which showing alarming signs the public preferred the taste to Coca Cola. Paranoid Chief Executive Roberto Goizueta launched New Coke in an attempt to win over old and new customers alike. This didn?t go to plan.

After three months of boycotting, hostility and general vitriol from customers, the company?s head executives re-released the original version as Coke Classic. To their bemusement this went on to outsell every other drink on the market!

The Solution: It seems, at the time, customers may have preferred the taste of Pepsi, but their loyalty lay with Coca Cola. A simple Twitter campaign could have solved this! ?Remember why you love @CocaCola!? would send the customers hurtling to the shops. Or the soft-drinks giant could simply ask its millions of followers if they would like a new taste range.

Atari?s E.T. Disaster

In 1982 Steven Spielberg?s film E.T proved a huge success; inevitably, spin-offs began in numerous industries. The burgeoning video games industry wanted in on this, so market leader Atari created an adaptation for their Atari 2600.

The game was rushed through production in five weeks. Meantime, anticipating vast Christmas sales, Atari ordered over four million cartridges to be produced. On its release the game performed well on a commercial level, but was critically maligned, and once customers realised just how awful the game was they sent their copies back in disgust.

With millions of E.T. cartridges finding their way back home to Atari?s headquarters, the dismayed company took the extreme measure of burying them all in the Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill! The failure of E.T. is attributed to their eventual downfall in the videogame market.

The Solution: A number of simple activities could have saved this disaster, but when the worst came to the worst Atari could have avoided the need to use a landfill. Tweets, and a vigorous Facebook campaign, would have informed customers to dispose of the cartridges sustainably to save public face.

Donkey Kong VS King Kong

In 1982 the growing success of video game company Nintendo attracted the attention of movie giant Universal City Studios. They contended the Japanese firm?s popular arcade game, Donkey Kong, was a breach of their copyright for King Kong.

A brief court battle later and Nintendo won after their lawyer, John Kirby, highlighted the rights to King Kong were in the public domain. MCM had not helped their cause by proving the point themselves when releasing a King Kong film decades earlier. Nintendo received a hefty sum from Universal Studios, the latter being criticised for their attitude towards litigation. The incident was also voted one of the ?dumbest? moments in video game history.

The Solution: A round of e-mails, Tweets, Google searching and foresight could have avoided this humiliation for MCM. The moral of the story here is to always research. Thoroughly. Something easier to do than ever thanks to the internet age!

Missing The Beatles

Decca Records messed up the biggest opportunity in music history, circa 1961.
A Decca executive by the name of Mike Smith had heard a Liverpudlian group, The Beatles, and believed they had displayed significant talent to warrant their signing. They were invited to audition in London, which the band duly did.

Shortly after their New Year?s Day try out, Decca executive Dick Rowe contacted the band?s manager, Brian Epstein, and informed him, ?Not to mince words, Mr. Epstein, but we don?t like your boys? sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished.?

The Solution: Little would have stopped The Beatles being signed. A campaign of Tweets, Facebook updates, and much more would have raised public awareness for the band. As for Mr. Rowe; a search across the internet could have established just what was really popular!

AOL?s Billion Dollar Blunder

In 2009 AOL parted company with Time Warner after 8 years in a business merger which proved, unequivocally, to be one of the most disastrous in history.

AOL bought the firm for $160 billion in 2001 and immediately began losing money. Business insiders have pointed out the losses were due to a lack of understanding about the future of the internet. One of the more expensive errors of theirs was to buy out social media site Bebo in 2008. For $850 million! At the time the firm had 40 million users; in the two years following AOL?s takeover this figure plummeted to 12 million. Undeterred, AOL continues to fight on to this day!

The Solution: Using Google Analytics, or SEO Moz, would have shown the stunning growth of Facebook and its effect on other social media formats. Again, thorough research of Bebo and its figures could have averted this disaster.

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Alex Morris works for an ink cartridge shop in Manchester where he keeps an eye on Ink and toner cartridges. We haven?t had any strange business decisions? yet.

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Posted on: October 24, 2012

Related Posts

Source: http://www.dreamgrow.com/5-bizarre-business-decisions-social-media-could-have-prevented/

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Giants rout Cardinals 9-0, head to World Series

Score and situation: They may have used the most painful (and wet) route to get there, but the torture-minded San Francisco Giants are headed back to the World Series. A 9-0 romp over the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS on Monday night earned the Giants a Fall Classic date with the Detroit Tigers and ran the team's record in elimination games to 6-0 this postseason. The final out came as rain poured down on AT&T Park and ended in an appropriate fashion as Matt Holliday popped out to Game 2 run-in mate Marco Scutaro.

The Giants are the 11th team in postseason history to overcome a 3-1 deficit in a seven-game series and the first since the 2007 Boston Red Sox came back to beat the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS. (St. Louis fans should be familiar with such heartbreak. The 1996, '85 and '68 Cardinals also blew 3-1 leads while going on to lose the series.)

Leading lads: Scutaro capped ?off his series MVP performance with a 3 for 4 night and led a Giants lineup that saw every starter notch at least one hit. Brandon Belt put an exclamation point on the whole affair, launching a moonshot home run to right field in the bottom of the eighth inning.

[Related: The 2012 World Series schedule is set]

The numbers of Giants starter Matt Cain were not eye-popping, but the righthander did exactly what he needed to do, striking out four and spreading five hits and a walk over 5 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball. Four relievers ? Jeremy Affeldt, Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo ? then took the team the rest of the way home.

(Getty Images)Head hangers: Kyle Lohse answered a lot of questions for the Cardinals this season, but the free agent-to-be bombed in what might be his last start for St. Louis. The 34-year-old righthander gave up five earned run and failed to record an out in the third inning before getting yanked. The six relievers behind him hardly faired any better, though it didn't make a difference with the offense the Cardinals had been sending to the plate. St. Louis was shut out for the second time in three games and managed only one run in its Game 6 defeat.

St. Louis rookie shortstop Pete Kozma had a particularly bad night, breaking the wrong way on a key play, making a bad throw home on another and going 0 for 3 with two strikeouts at the plate.

Key play: Hunter Pence's awkwardly-hit double faked out Kozma and brought home a total of three runs to start the five-run third inning.

Interesting stat: Though the NLCS went seven games, it featured only one lead change and that was when Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the third in Game 3. San Francisco outscored St. Louis 27-2 in its four wins while St. Louis outscored San Francisco 17-8 in its three victories.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy San Francisco Giants championship merchandise]

What they'll be talking about: How do the Giants keep on doing this? They overcame a 2-0 deficit in the NLDS to beat the Cincinnati Reds and have now staged a 3-1 comeback against the St. Louis Cardinals. It was the first Game 7 victory in Giants postseason history. The collapse has to sting for Cardinals fan, though the bitter feelings will eventually be softened with more viewing of that 2011 World Series title DVD and a great organization that produces postseason trips on a frequent basis.

What's next: The Giants will welcome the Detroit Tigers to AT&T Park for Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday night. It's the second time in three years that the Fall Classic will begin in San Francisco.

Are you ready for the World Series?
Follow @bigleaguestew,?@KevinKaduk and the BLS Facebook page!

(AP)

Related MLB video from Yahoo! Sports:

Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
? Jim Leyland costumes are all the rage in Detroit
? Bears defense comes up big in 13-7 win over the Lions | Photos
? Lionel Messi: A model who would rather be playing football
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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/nlcs-game-7-never-die-giants-cap-classic-034555543--mlb.html

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Spanish soprano suffers minor stroke

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Squeeze a ball to ease sports performance anxiety. - Exercise ...

Thomas Barwick / Getty Images

Squeeze a ball to ease sports performance anxiety.

Do you hit bank shot after bank shot in your driveway but toss up nothing but bricks when playing hoops with the guys? Run like the wind every morning but have lead legs in an actual 10K race? You're not alone. Plenty of guys practice like pros, but then completely cave when others are watching or when a prize ? or personal pride ? is on the line.

Here's why: "Many athletes choke under pressure because they attempt to consciously control a motor skill that has become completely automated," explains Jurgen Beckmann, chair of the Institute of Sport Psychology at the Technical University of Munich. In other words, while popping off a jump shot might be second nature to you, when swooshing it really matters, you fixate too much on the motion, which ends up throwing you off your game. "Focusing on the verbal representation of an activity interferes with the smooth flow of that activity," Beckmann says. "This results in a performance that's below the athlete's potential."

According to Beckmann's recent research, if you want to stop cracking under pressure and become more clutch, you should squeeze a small ball or clench your fist before the big game or race. His team found that right-handed athletes who did this with their left hand prior to a high-pressure situation performed better than right-handers who did so in their right hand. Beckmann says this is because the upper extremities are usually controlled by the opposite side of the brain, meaning the right hand is connected to the left hemisphere and the left hand to the right hemisphere. Therefore, when you're overly focused on a task at hand ? and you're right-handed ? the left side of your brain is most likely activated. To counter this and bring you back into balance, Beckmann says you want to increase activation of the right hemisphere. "Clenching the left hand does the job by stimulating the motor cortex of the right hemisphere," he explains.

Beckmann came to these conclusions by examining right-handed semi-pro soccer players, judo experts, and experienced badminton players first during practice and then in simulated pressure situations, such as taking penalty shots in front of a large, cheering crowd and being videotaped for coaches' evaluations. Before each experiment, the researchers had some athletes squeeze a ball in their left hand or clench their left fist for 30 seconds and asked the others to do so in their right hands. In all three tests, the left-hand squeezers played better in the big event than the right-hand clenchers, and in some cases they even outdid their own practice performance.

"We think this technique should prevent choking in technically complex sport activities," Beckmann says. "But we're currently studying its effects on musicians and the elderly who have problems maintaining their balance. For all these activities, an automization should result in smoother and better performance."

Source: http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/exercise/a-new-grip-on-choking-20121023

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Earnings preview: Boeing to report 3Q results

Boeing Co. reports third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, but investors probably won't be as interested in the last quarter as much as in what's happening with the aircraft maker's new 787s, and with possible defense spending cuts from the government.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Boeing is a huge company that makes commercial and military planes, as well as satellites and other defense products. So it has a lot of moving parts. But there are two areas that are creating the most suspense for investors right now: The 787 and possible defense cuts.

WHY IT MATTERS: Boeing's profits could take big swings in either direction depending on how those two issues turn out. Boeing is aiming to speed up 787 production to 10 planes per month by the end of next year. It's also aiming to deliver planes that it has already built but need reworking. Delivering planes means it gets paid, and can start booking profits from them. More delays, or a failure to make the plane as quickly as hoped, will push that revenue farther out.

Boeing and other defense contractors are also staring down the potential for severe, automatic military spending cuts in January unless Congress agrees to an alternative for cutting the deficit. But it's a good bet that those alternatives won't lead to increased military spending, either. With Europe ratcheting back spending because of the debt crisis there, the defense industry is less stable than usual.

WHAT'S EXPECTED: Analysts forecast a profit of $1.12 per share, with revenue of $20.07 billion, according to FactSet.

LAST YEAR'S QUARTER: Net income rose 31 percent to $1.1 billion, or $1.46 per share, on strength in its defense business. Revenue rose 4 percent to $17.73 billion.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/earnings-preview-boeing-report-3q-results-110151916--finance.html

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Bond is back! See the latest pictures from the 'Skyfall' premiere in London, Eng...

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Reliance Blinks at Funding $40 million "Crossbones" With NBC

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Indian media giant Reliance has teamed up with NBC to finance one of the broadcast network's new shows, a 10-episode pirate adventure series titled "Crossbones," but is backing off its $40 million production cost, an individual close to the project has told TheWrap.

Through its newly-formed independent studio Georgeville Television, Reliance agreed to finance three-quarters, or $30 million, of "Crossbones," a tale of pirates from 18th century England based on Colin Woodard's "The Republic of Pirates," according to three individuals close to the project. NBC agreed to finance the remaining $10 million.

But Reliance, whose other Hollywood investments have offered mixed to weak returns, has been rethinking its financial commitment and is seeking to reduce it by nearly half, one of those individuals said.

"Everybody agreed on a $40 million budget. And everyone agreed it was (split) 10 and 30," said the individual. "They are renegotiating. The question is where will it end."

Georgeville CEO Marc Rosen declined to comment for this story. NBC also declined to comment, as did producer Walter Parkes. One executive close to the negotiations said the discussions were still ongoing and at a delicate stage. An NBC executive said the deal was complete, and Reliance had not changed its role.

The show storyline follows an undercover assassin sent to a pirate state led by Blackbeard, the infamous pirate. According to NBC, It is expected to start shooting in Puerto Rico next spring. It does not yet have an air date.

NBC chief Bob Greenblatt worked with outside financiers when he was at Showtime for series including "The Tudors" and "Spartacus," and while the practice is common in film, it is unusual for broadcast television.

Reliance has loomed large on the entertainment landscape for the past few years, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in DreamWorks to uncertain profits and placing millions into talent deals by CAA that have not yielded any films.

Reliance agreed to give DreamWorks an additional $200 million in April, but the new deal calls for the studio to make fewer films.

Reliance also bought a majority stake in IM Global, a foreign sales company that has recently moved into movie production. Its most recent release, "Dredd," a 3D remake of the 1995 Sylvester Stallone movie, was a box office flop, costing $50 million to produce and so far taking in $23 million worldwide including $13 million domestically.

Georgeville Television launched in May with support form Motion Picture Capital, a London-based company backed by Reliance.

Georgeville, run by former Heyday Films executive Marc Rosen, is the studio behind "Crossbones," a show thought up by "Luther" creator Neil Cross and produced by Parkes and Laurie MacDonald.

While Georgeville is still involved and has an offer out for the lead role, its financial commitment remains a matter of disagreement.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reliance-blinks-funding-40-million-crossbones-nbc-220024920.html

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A Note From Girl Scouts of Alaska's New CEO | alaskapublic.org

This is my second week on the job as Girl Scouts of Alaska?s new Chief Executive Officer. I?m excited about the coming year and looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible.

I?m making arrangements to visit many of the communities Girl Scouts of Alaska serves. It?s important that I meet and talk with as many of you as possible about what?s working and what you might like to see improve, so that we can best support you in delivering the Girl Scout Leadership Experience. Stay tuned for more details about where I?ll be visiting and when.

Juliette Gordon Low speaks with some of Girl Scouts?
earliest adult volunteers.

In the meantime, I thought I?d share with you a little bit about myself and why I wanted to be CEO of Girl Scouts of Alaska.

My family called Fairbanks home when I was a teenager. I spent summers working on the first all-women?s fire-fighting crew for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), interning for Alaska?s congressman, and working on a research project for the Alaska Native Corporations at the University of Alaska?s Institute for Social and Economic Research.

During the academic year I earned a degree in economics at Princeton. Following graduation, I worked in Washington at the Congressional Budget Office and then headed to Harvard Business School where I earned a Masters in Business Administration. While I was in business school, the Rhodes Scholarship opened applications to women. I attended Oxford as Alaska?s first female Rhodes Scholar where I earned a doctorate in economics, writing my thesis about bidding theory and oil and gas lease auctions.

Since then, I have focused on business, working for a management consulting firm, a large bank, and a small mergers and acquisitions firm. Throughout those years, I always volunteered to help children?s after-school programs ? mostly children?s sports and recreation programs ? grow and flourish.

Juliette Gordon Low understood the value of girls participating in sports and recreation. With the help of volunteer Edith Johnston, Girl Scouting?s first basketball tournament took place in Savannah, Georgia in 1912.

I understand what it is to be a volunteer and what it takes to offer successful after-school programs to children. Our girls deserve the very best we can offer and I look forward to working with you to bring an outstanding range of experiences to Alaska?s girls.

I feel privileged to have this opportunity to work with you to make a difference for girls in Alaska. As you know, the programs and services delivered by Girl Scouts wouldn?t be possible without our 1,500 volunteers to serve as mentors, role models, chaperones, and friends to girls.

Just as we always ask the girls what they want in order to keep our programs relevant and interesting to girls, I want to keep an open dialogue with our volunteers, to ensure that you, too, are engaged and have the resources to support the incredible experience of sharing your knowledge and wisdom with girls.

Collectively, volunteers contribute thousands of service hours to Girl Scouts.

I?m interested in hearing from you. In the coming weeks and months, start looking for my Facebook posts on the Girl Scouts of Alaska Facebook page, and on our blog. Feel free to comment and respond directly to me. I?ll do my best to answer your questions and I always welcome your input and ideas.

I look forward to sharing this exciting journey with you!

- Sue Perles

Source: http://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/10/22/a-note-from-girl-scouts-of-alaskas-new-ceo/

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Asphalt 7: Heat (for Android)

Who said phones can't deliver console-quality gaming? Asphalt 7: Heat ($4.99 direct, though it's on sale for 99 cents) gives you exactly the kind of arcade racing experience you've been hoping for. It's also the nicest-looking game in the series. Asphalt 7: Heat isn't a simulator, but it's definitely a great buy for old-school Ridge Racer and Outrun fans, or anyone who wants a real arcade-style racing game?without excuses.

Pedal to the Pile Carpeting
Asphalt 7: Heat is a 1.37GB download from Google Play, and there's also an iOS version available. I tested Asphalt 7: Heat on a stock, freshly-formatted Samsung Galaxy S III running Android 4.0. There are 60 different cars you can drive on 15 tracks, set in various cities such as London, Paris, and Rio. You start off with a Fiat 500 Abarth. Gradually, you move up the line to a BMW Z4 M Coupe, a Nissan 370Z, and later, Aston Martins and Lamborghinis, unlocking more cars and upgrading them as you go along. The latest update includes the 2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo and the refreshed 2013 Hyundai Genesis.

Cars are separated into six different tiers based on their performance characteristics; each event you race in is limited to a single tier. You can also customize the paint, decals, and window tint of each car, as well as upgrade its performance with virtual money you win as you play. But upgrades aren't always worth it; increasing top speed by just 2 km/h cost $18,000, which is ridiculous. Sometimes you get a free car just for one event; I was thrilled to take the wheel of an Audi TT after driving the Fiat, and moving to the second tier starts you off with a fast BMW 1 Series M Coupe.

Knock 'Em Down and Take 'Em Out
You steer your car by tilting the handset right or left, and the car accelerates automatically. Tap toward the left side of the screen, and it will light up a brake pedal icon and slow the car. The right side of the screen is the nitro boost area; tap it for a seven-second overboost. Do it with a full boost gauge, and the screen turns blue with neon blue accents, and you hear a prominent whoosh sound as you charge forward. You can also drift by braking and tilting the handset at the same time, which is fun, although it slows you down considerably.

There are 15 leagues and 150 races to complete. You also get a series of goals ahead of each event, such as completing three career events, earning three stars in any one event, and collecting 10 dollar pick-ups. As you complete goals, new ones appear, such as drifting a certain total distance during an event, wrecking less often, or "knocking down" a certain number of opponents by causing them to crash. Meanwhile, power ups are strewn throughout the course. Some of them add to your nitro boost, while others give you prize money. ?Push it too hard?say, crash into an oncoming car head-on, or hit a building?and you'll wreck, although aside from wasting a few seconds, it doesn't have much effect on the game itself.

The computer-controlled AI offers a moderate level of difficulty, and a new multiplayer mode lets you race with up to five friends, either online or locally. Overall, there's a nice sense of accomplishment as you move through the various events. And between the races, time-trials, and position elimination modes, there's enough variety to keep you engaged.

Stellar Visuals?With One Problem
Asphalt 7: Heat is one of the most impressive-looking racers I've seen on a phone. The 30-second-ish intros at the beginning of each event deliver a nice feel for the city you're about to race in; you can also abort these sequences and skip right to the countdown. On the road, there's plenty of detail in the dense urban environments, including nicely textured pavement, building structures, and sun glare, and the car models are all easily recognizable.

Draw-in distances are sometimes a little short. But worse is the uneven frame rate, which becomes more common during races with computer-controlled opponents. Usually, the game delivered 30 frames per second and above. But I caught many short periods of less than that, and even split-second hang-ups that were just long enough to be noticeable and irritating. I also saw a few bugs; on one course, some drone cars disappeared as I approached them, although most events worked perfectly.

The soundtrack is somewhat characterless electronic techno, with a steady, pulsing beat and no vocals. It's well-produced, at times sounding Daft Punk-esque. Sound design is pretty thorough as well. Each car has a distinct engine note; the BMW 1 Series M Coupe had a smooth, throaty, high-RPM bark appropriate for a twin-turbo straight six, while the Fiat 500 Abarth belched and rasped at high RPMs, and the Audi TT surged with its quiet, refined turbo four. All the standard skid-out, collision crunches, and power-up sounds are present and accounted for.

55 MPH Is No Fun?Unless You're Still In First Gear
There's very little here that's new. But even so, Asphalt 7: Heat delivers plenty of racing excitement. If you can ignore occasional interruptions in the frame rate, the game delivers an awesome sense of speed; it's tough not to feel the adrenaline rush as you play. It feels closer to that of a triple-A console title than it does a throwaway game?and a good one, too. That's an easy marker for an Editors' Choice award if you ask us.

More Mobile Game Reviews:
??? Silversword (for iPad)
??? Comedy Central's Indecision Game (for iPad)
??? Bad Piggies (for Android)
??? Hello Kitty Cafe (for Android)
??? Amazing Alex (for iPhone)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/L4f4yO5dQeM/0,2817,2411189,00.asp

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Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2012) ? Get ready for a fascinating eating experience in the center of our galaxy. The event involves a black hole that may devour much of an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2.

A supercomputer simulation prepared by two Lab physicists and a former postdoc suggests that some of G2 will survive, although its surviving mass will be torn apart, leaving it with a different shape and questionable fate.

The findings are the work of computational physicist Peter Anninos and astrophysicist Stephen Murray, both of AX division within the Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate (WCI), along with their former postdoc Chris Fragile, now an associate professor at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and his student, Julia Wilson.

They came up with six simulations, using the Cosmos++ computer code developed by Anninos and Fragile, which required more than 50,000 computing hours on 3,000 processors on the Palmetto supercomputer at Clemson University in Columbia, S.C.

Previous simulations of the upcoming event had been done in two-dimensions, but the Cosmos++ code includes 3D capability, as well as a unique "moving mesh" enhancement, allowing the simulation to more-efficiently follow the cloud's progression toward the black hole.

The black hole is known as Sgr A*. "Sgr" is the abbreviation for Sagittarius, the constellation near the center of the Milky Way. Most galaxies have a black hole at their center, some thousands of times bigger than this one.

"While this one is 3-to-4 million times as big as our sun, it has been relatively quiet," according to Murray. "It's not getting fed very much." Contrary to their name, black holes can appear very bright. That's because gas orbiting them loses energy via friction, getting hotter and brighter as it spirals inward before falling into the black hole.

The composition of the G2 cloud is still a mystery.

Astronomers originally noticed something in the region in 2002, but the first detailed determinations of its size and orbit came only this year. The dust in the cloud has been measured at about 550 Kelvin, approximately twice as hot as the surface temperature on Earth. The gas, mostly hydrogen, is about 10,000 Kelvin, or almost twice as hot as the surface of the sun.

Its origin is still unknown.

Murray says: "The speculation ranges from it having been an old star that had kind of a burp and lost some of its outer atmosphere, to something that was trying to be a planet and couldn't quite manage it because the environment was too hot."

As the cloud approaches the black hole and begins to fall into what Murray describes as "a gravity well" beginning next September, it will begin to shed energy, causing it to heat to incredibly high temperatures, visible to radio and X-ray telescopes on Earth as well as orbiting satellites such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

But it won't be a collision course.

The point at which a stellar object can no longer escape being swallowed by a black hole is known as the Schwarzschild radius, a quantity whose value depends on the black hole's mass, the speed of light and the gravitational constant.

The cloud will actually pass far enough away that it will escape the point of no return by approximately 2,200 Schwarzschild radii, which in this case is about 200 times as far as Earth is from the sun.

But the supercomputer simulations show that the cloud will not survive the encounter.

According to Anninos: "There's too much dynamical friction that it experiences through hydrodynamic instabilities and tidal stretching from the black hole. So a lot of its kinetic energy and angular momentum will be dissipated away and it will just sort of break up into some sort of incoherent structure. Much of it will join the rest of the hot accretion disk around the black hole, or just fall and get captured by the black hole. It will lose a lot of its energy but not all of it. It will become so diffuse that it's unlikely that any remnant of the gas will continue on its orbital track."

The close encounter will take several months. The entire event is predicted to last less than a decade.

The simulation is posted on the Web. It shows the cloud modeled as a simple gas sphere, near the point in its orbit where it was first discovered. As it approaches Sgr A*, a process known as tidal stretching increasingly distorts the cloud. By the end of 2012, the cloud will be nearly five times longer than it is wide.

Along with tidal stretching, the cloud also experiences resistance in the form of ram pressure as it tries to plow through the hot interstellar gas that already fills the space around Sgr A*. The interactions of G2 with this background gas cause further disruptions to the cloud from Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. Collectively, these effects act to strip some material from the cloud and feed it into Sgr A*.

An article describing the simulation research will appear in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

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

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/AiyPlh_Chfc/121022145447.htm

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Building blocks of Angkor Wat were shipped in by canal

IT IS never too late to find a shortcut. Centuries after the construction of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, archaeologists have uncovered traces of a series of canals that suggest the 5 million tonnes of sandstone used to build the temples took a far shorter route than previously thought.

The sandstone blocks each weigh up to 1.5 tonnes and originate from quarries at Mount Kulen. It was thought they were taken 35 kilometres along a canal to Tonl? Sap Lake, rafted another 35 km along the lake, then taken up the Siem Reap River for 15 km, against the current.

Thinking this was unlikely, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, used satellite images to search for a shortcut. The canals they discovered led from the foot of Mount Kulen to Angkor - a gentle 34-km route, as opposed to the arduous 90-km trek previously suggested. The pair also uncovered more than 50 quarries at the foot of Mount Kulen and along the route. The stones they found matched those in the temples (Journal of Archaeological Science, doi.org/jhf).

Uchida believes all the stone used for the monuments was probably transported along these canals.

Mitch Hendrickson of the University of Illinois, Chicago, says Uchida's theory could be confirmed by searching for blocks that fell overboard into the canals. He believes the canals were used for several purposes, including the transportation of important minerals such as iron.

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Strong connection found between death of child and mortality of mother

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2012) ? The death of a child is a tragic event for a family, bringing with it feelings of numbness, anger, guilt and denial. And, unfortunately, for many families, the loss becomes too much to bear.

A new study co-conducted by a researcher at Rochester Institute of Technology uncovers the strong connection between the death of a child and the mortality of the mother, regardless of cause of death, gender of the child, marital status, family size, income or education level of the mother.

Javier Espinosa, assistant professor in RIT's College of Liberal Arts and an expert in health and labor economics, compiled results from nine years of research after studying more than 69,000 mothers, ages 20 to 50. According to Espinosa, the impact to mother mortality is strongest in the two years immediately following the child's death. In fact, Espinosa's research suggests that mother mortality increases 133 percent after the death of a child.

"To my knowledge, this is the first study to empirically analyze this issue with a large, nationally represented U.S. data set," Espinosa says. "The evidence of a heightened mortality rate for the mother, particularly in the first two years of the child's passing, is especially relevant to public health policy and the timing of interventions that aim to improve the adverse health outcomes mothers experience after the death of a child."

Espinosa's results, "Maternal bereavement: The heightened mortality of mothers after the death of a child," co-written by William Evans from the University of Notre Dame, were recently published in the journal Economics and Human Biology.

Espinosa has also conducted extensive research on spousal mortality in which his studies lead to the conclusion that men who are grieving from a wife's death experience a 30 percent increase in mortality. For women, there is no heightened mortality due to the death of a spouse, but there remains a correlation between the timing of the wife's and husband's deaths. Espinosa believes he understands why this happens, given the data are based on a sample of married people born between 1910 and 1930.

"When a wife dies, men are often unprepared. They have often lost their caregiver -- someone who cares for them physically and emotionally, and the loss directly impacts the husband's health," he says. "This same mechanism is likely weaker for most women when a husband dies. Therefore, the connection in mortalities for wives may be a reflection of how similar mates' lives become over time."

Espinosa, who earned his doctorate in economics from University of Maryland at College Park, is an expert in health economics -- the sub-discipline of economics that deals with the efficient allocation of health-care resources.?

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Journal Reference:

1. Javier Espinosa, William N. Evans. Maternal bereavement: The heightened mortality of mothers after the death of a child. Economics & Human Biology, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2012.06.002

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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/top_news/top_health/~3/nJ5rMMBOA7U/121020162641.htm

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PST: Mata amazing in Chelsea's victory

Man of the Match: In one of the season?s best games, Juan Mata gave one of the campaign?s best individual performances. Two nice second half finishes turned a 2-1 Blues deficit into a 3-2 lead, with a great individual effort to strip Kyle Walker and set up Daniel Sturridge producing the match?s final goal. On a night where Chelsea?s other attackers failed to make their mark, Mata led his team to big derby victory.

Packaged for takeaway:

• Coming off another impressive London derby performance, Chelsea provided more proof that last season?s sixth place finish was an aberration (not part of a trend). They were exactly as good as the final score. Their vulnerability in defense combined with a potency going forward that led to great Saturday morning entertainment.
• How much John Terry?s absence had to do with that vulnerability will be debated (or, perhaps overshadowed by the four goals). The captain started his four-game suspension today, with Gary Cahill sliding into the starting XI. By now, he and partner David Luiz are familiar with each other, which makes it more difficult to explain why Spurs looked to capable of moving through them at any time in the second half.
• In the first half, though, Chelsea was able to dictate how the game was played, getting an early goal from Cahill to take a 1-0 lead into intermission. Though most of the first period, Chelsea held a three-to-two possession advantage.
• Their only goal, however, came on a mistake by William Gallas, whose weak clearance fell right to Cahill just above the circle. The England international volleyed into the top of the goal, giving Brad Friedel (back in the starting XI) no chance to prevent the opener.
• The game changed at halftime. Spurs came out a different team. They dominated play, getting goals from Gallas and Jermain Defoe within nine minutes of the whistle. Though those would be their final goals of the match, they?d go on to outshoot Chelsea 15-6 over the game?s final 45 minutes.
• For Chelsea, however, it was all about execution, converting on three of their last six shots. More accurately, it was all about Juan Mata?s execution. The Spaniard?s equalizer camw off another terrible clearance for Gallas, while the game winning goal featured a nice near-post finish of an Eden Hazard pass, Mata making a good run to get behind Gallas.
• Those defensive breakdowns are going to obscure the fact that Spurs performed relatively well, particularly with Gareth Bale and Moussa Demb?l? unavailable. He both men been at Andre Villas-Boas?s disposal, Spurs may have been able to keep up in a shootout. On Saturday, however, they needed one more threat.?Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson provided minimal contributions.
• Without it, Spurs fell victim to what?s becoming Chelsea?s?modus operandi ? being carried by one of their attackers. Early in the season, it was Eden Hazard. We saw Oscar do it against Juventus. Today, it was Mata. At any point, one of those players can step up, control a game, and lead Chelsea to victory, even when they?re facing the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham.
• Spurs need to get their defense back. They need Younes Kaboul healthy. They need Benoit Assou-Ekotto healthy. They need the ability to bench Gallas or Kyle Walker.
• The only concerns for Chelsea: Their defense and their inability to prove more dangerous with the possession they had in the first half. Will this team always be at its best on the counter, when they can play a game that protects that defense? And if so, will they always be in danger of replicating the Juventus game?

Source: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/20/chelsea-tottenham-spurs-english-premier-league/related/

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The Big Screen

David Thomson's 'The Big Screen' tells the story of the rise and decline of an art form that once played a central role in human life.

October 19, 2012

The Big Screen By David Thomson Farrar, Straus and Giroux 608 pp.

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By Troy Jollimore, for?The Barnes and Noble Review

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The story of the movies is the story of -? fill in the blank. America? Our lives? Modernity itself? Any of these would be an overstatement, but a provocative one; and after all, the movies themselves encourage, even demand, provocative overstatement. It must be their oversized images, the vastness of the emotions they, and we, project onto the screen. (Put aside the fact that the screens are getting smaller. I'll come back to that.) So David Thomson's The Big Screen is a big book about a big subject ? a big-picture view of the big pictures ? and its subtitle makes a big promise.

In fact, Thomson has been working for years on the fulfillment of that promise, on telling the story of the movies. His compelling, highly readable, and highly opinionated body of work includes "The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood"; "Have You Seen??: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films"; "Biographical Dictionary of Film"; and "Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts" ? as well as biographies of figures including David O. Selznick, Orson Welles, and Gary Cooper. He's also written whole volumes on key films: Hitchcock's "Psycho," Howard Hawks's "The Big Sleep," and many others.

"The Big Screen" begins not with Thomas Edison or the Lumi?re brothers, but with the photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge is most famous now for having invented stop-action photography and for using it to prove that a galloping horse sometimes lifts all four legs off the ground at once. But he matters for other reasons, too. For Thomson, Muybridge's photographic series provoked and relied on a kind of fascination with the image that was something new, something whose relation to desire and voyeurism would be essential to motion pictures:

He shot people, but he also shot light, air, and passing time. He took special pleasure in the splay and splash of water poured out of a jug or tossed on a little girl. The wonder of seeing the commonplace in the light was more thoroughly celebrated by Eadweard Muybridge than by anyone before him. It's still the case that his sequences fill viewers with awe and excitement, no matter that they have no story or purpose. The pictures feel ravished by the play of light on ordinary physicality and by the tiny, incremental advances through time.? Take whatever example you like from subsequent cinema, and its inheritance from Muybridge can be felt ? take Astaire and Rogers spinning together in "Let's Face the Music and Dance" in "Follow the Fleet" (1936); take the door closing on John Wayne's Ethan Edwards at the end of "The Searchers" (1956); or think of that instant from Chris Marker's "La Jet?e" (1962) when the still picture of the young woman comes to life briefly and she looks at being looked at.? Before the official invention of the movies (though many were on that track, and Thomas Edison took note of Muybridge's work), so many elements of cinema had been identified: time, motion, space, light, skin. And watching.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/GvjriZyvTE4/The-Big-Screen

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Earlier puberty seen in boys, just like in girls

CHICAGO (AP) ? When it comes to the birds and the bees, some parents may want to have that talk with their boys a little sooner than they expected.

Researchers have found signs of puberty in American boys up to two years earlier than previously reported ? age 9 on average for blacks, 10 for whites and Hispanics. Other studies have suggested that girls, too, are entering puberty younger.

Why is this happening? Theories range from higher levels of obesity and inactivity to chemicals in food and water, all of which might interfere with normal hormone production. But those are just theories, and they remain unproven.

Doctors say earlier puberty is not necessarily cause for concern. And some experts question whether the trend is even real.

Dr. William Adelman, an adolescent medicine specialist in the Baltimore area, says the new research is the first to find early, strong physical evidence that boys are maturing earlier. But he added that the study still isn't proof and said it raises a lot of questions.

Earlier research based on 20-year-old national data also suggested a trend toward early puberty in boys, but it was based on less rigorous information. The new study involved testes measurements in more than 4,000 boys. Enlargement of testes is generally the earliest sign of puberty in boys.

The study was published online Saturday in Pediatrics to coincide with the American Academy of Pediatrics' national conference in New Orleans.

Dr. Neerav Desai, an adolescent medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said he's seen a subtle trend toward slightly earlier puberty in boys. He said it's important for parents and doctors to be aware so they can help children emotionally prepare for the changes that come with puberty.

Doctors generally consider puberty early if it begins before age 8 in girls and before age 9 in boys.

Boys are more likely than girls to have an underlying physical cause for early puberty. But it's likely that most, if not all, of the boys in the study were free of any conditions that might explain the results, said lead author Marcia Herman-Giddens, a researcher at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Problems such as thyroid abnormalities and brain tumors have been linked to early puberty. But boys with chronic medical conditions or who were using medicines that could affect puberty were excluded from the research.

In girls, early puberty has been linked with increased chances for developing breast cancer, but whether it poses health risks for boys is uncertain. Some scientists think early testes development may increase the risk for testicular cancer, but a recent research analysis found no such link.

"If it's true that boys are starting puberty younger, it's not clear that means anything negative or has any implications for long-term," said Adelman, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on adolescence.

For the new study, researchers recruited pediatricians in 41 states who participate in the academy's office-based research network. Doctors asked parents and boys aged 6 to 16 to take part during regular checkups. The visits took place between 2005 and 2010.

Half of the boys were white. The rest were almost evenly divided among blacks and Hispanics.

On average, white boys started puberty at age 10, a year and a half earlier than what has long been considered the normal average. For black boys, the average age of 9 was about two years earlier than in previous research. Among Hispanics, age 10 was similar to previous research that only involved Mexican-American boys. The new study included boys from other Hispanic backgrounds.

Testes enlargement was seen at age 6 in 9 percent of white boys, almost 20 percent of blacks and 7 percent of Hispanics.

Pubic hair growth, another early sign of puberty, started about a year after testes enlargement in all groups but still earlier than previously thought.

In girls, breast development is the first sign, and recent research suggested that it starts at age 7 in about 10 percent of white girls, 23 percent of blacks and 15 percent of Hispanics. That's substantially higher than rates reported more than a decade ago.

But some experts have questioned methods used in studies in girls, noting that the age when girls start menstruating has not changed much and remains around age 12 on average.

Dr. Dianne Deplewski, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Chicago, has not seen any increase in boys referred to her for signs of early puberty. She said it's possible that the new study results were skewed by families who brought their boys to the doctor because they already had concerns about their health.

The study had other limitations. Testes were measured just once, and doctors weren't randomly recruited but volunteered to participate. That means it's possible that those with early maturing patients were overly represented, but Herman-Giddens said it's unlikely boys in the study were different from those in the general U.S. population.

She said the research methods weren't perfect but that they're the best to date. She also stressed that the results shouldn't be used to establish a "new normal" for the start of puberty in boys.

"Just because this is happening doesn't mean this is normal or healthy," the researcher said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

Puberty: http://tinyurl.com/7mmntdz

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2012-10-20-Boys-Early%20Puberty/id-f672658d4e1f4ce49b378e41f934cde9

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