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Source: http://www.facebook.com/pncnews/posts/657912280886773
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Thursday, August 1, 2013
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
INCREDIBLE VIDEO: Tornado tears through Italy's Milan province
?2013, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
WPEC CBS 12 provides local news, weather, sports, traffic and entertainment for West Palm Beach and nearby towns and communities in South Florida including the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast, serving Stuart, Royal Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Port St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, Wellington, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, Greenacres, Belle Glade, Palm Beach, and Riviera Beach.
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Manning acquitted of aiding enemy, still may face long jail term
By Medina Roshan
FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) - A military judge on Tuesday found U.S. soldier Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge he faced for handing over documents to WikiLeaks, but he still likely faces a long jail term after being found guilty of 19 other counts.
Colonel Denise Lind ruled the 25-year-old Army private first class was guilty of five espionage charges, among many others, for the largest unauthorized release of classified U.S. data in the nation's history.
The trove of documents, including battlefield videos and diplomatic cables, was a huge boost to the profile of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website and its founder Julian Assange. Tuesday's verdict could be a blow to his efforts to encourage people with access to secret information to release it publicly.
Supporters of Manning were heartened by the not guilty ruling on the most serious charge, though WikiLeaks said the conviction represented "a very serious new precedent."
Manning, who was working as a low-level intelligence analyst in Baghdad when he was arrested three years ago, could face up to 136 years in military prison. Lind will take up the question of his sentence on Wednesday.
The U.S. government was pushing for a life sentence without parole, which would have come if Manning had been convicted of aiding the enemy by leaking of information that included battlefield reports from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
It viewed the action as a serious breach of national security, while anti-secrecy activists praised it as shining a light on shadowy U.S. operations abroad.
"The verdict is certainly a chilling one for investigative journalism, for people who might come into information that they believe should be part of the public discourse," said Michael Bochenek, director of law and policy at Amnesty International. "The message is that the government will go after you."
MANNING AND SNOWDEN
Manning's case is one of two prominent ones involving high-profile leaks, illustrating the limits of secrecy in the Internet age. Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has been holed up in the transit area of a Moscow airport for more than a month, despite U.S. calls for Russian authorities to turn him over.
Army prosecutors contended during Manning's court-martial that U.S. security was harmed when WikiLeaks published videos of a 2007 attack by an American Apache helicopter gunship in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff, diplomatic cables and secret details on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
Manning's leaks to the site in 2009 and 2010 put the international spotlight on Assange.
Manning showed little reaction during the hearing, which lasted only about five minutes.
A crowd of about 30 Manning supporters gathered outside Fort Meade, where the court-martial was held. One of them, Nathan Fuller, said it was a relief that Manning had been acquitted of the most serious charge but expressed concern over the stiff sentence he could still face.
"The remaining charges against him are still tantamount to life in prison. That's still an outrage," Fuller said. "He's equated with spies and traitors."
But two top U.S. Congressmen from a House intelligence committee praised the verdict.
"Justice has been served today. PFC Manning harmed our national security, violated the public's trust, and now stands convicted of multiple serious crimes," said Representatives Michael Rogers, a Republican who chairs the committee and Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat and its ranking member.
"There is still much work to be done to reduce the ability of criminals like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden to harm our national security," they said in a joint statement.
Manning, originally from Crescent, Oklahoma, opted to have his case heard by a judge, rather than a panel of military jurors.
During the court-martial proceedings, military prosecutors called the defendant a "traitor" for publicly posting information that the U.S. government said could jeopardize national security and intelligence operations.
Defense lawyers described Manning as well-intentioned but naive in hoping that his disclosures would provoke a more intense debate in the United States about diplomatic and military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Writing by Scott Malone; editing by Gunna Dickson)
(This story was refiled to remove the word all from the first paragraph)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-soldier-braces-judges-verdict-wikileaks-case-090713484.html
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Is Lazarus Part Of The Crime Syndicate Of America? - Bleeding Cool ...
From Justice League Of America #4, a look at the latin motto used by the Secret Society Of Super Villains, there to prepare the way for the Crime Syndicate Of Evil.
?
But who else might be using the coin? From the sold-out Lazarus #2 from Image, a wall emblem in a disc shape using the exact same line.
Now, the creators Greg Rucka and Michael Lark used to tell stories of the DC criminal classes in Gotham Central.Are the Carlyle Family also members of the Secret Society Of Super-Villains, with Lazarus being lined up to take down Batman?
Could this really be a coincidence?
Probably.
Source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/07/30/is-lazarus-part-of-the-crime-syndicate-of-america/
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Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Inhalable gene therapy may help pulmonary arterial hypertension patients
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The deadly condition known as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which afflicts up to 150,000 Americans each year, may be reversible by using an inhalable gene therapy, report medical researchers.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/whRO3dgLYpw/130730101602.htm
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Exclusive: Signs of declining economic security
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused ? on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."
"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.
"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."
While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.
The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as experiencing unemployment at some point in their working lives, or a year or more of reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.
Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.
"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty. He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama's election, while struggling whites do not.
"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front," Wilson said.
___
Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.
More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 percent of the nation's destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.
Sometimes termed "the invisible poor" by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.
Buchanan County, in southwest Virginia, is among the nation's most destitute based on median income, with poverty hovering at 24 percent. The county is mostly white, as are 99 percent of its poor.
More than 90 percent of Buchanan County's inhabitants are working-class whites who lack a college degree. Higher education long has been seen there as nonessential to land a job because well-paying mining and related jobs were once in plentiful supply. These days many residents get by on odd jobs and government checks.
Salyers' daughter, Renee Adams, 28, who grew up in the region, has two children. A jobless single mother, she relies on her live-in boyfriend's disability checks to get by. Salyers says it was tough raising her own children as it is for her daughter now, and doesn't even try to speculate what awaits her grandchildren, ages 4 and 5.
Smoking a cigarette in front of the produce stand, Adams later expresses a wish that employers will look past her conviction a few years ago for distributing prescription painkillers, so she can get a job and have money to "buy the kids everything they need."
"It's pretty hard," she said. "Once the bills are paid, we might have $10 to our name."
___
Census figures provide an official measure of poverty, but they're only a temporary snapshot that doesn't capture the makeup of those who cycle in and out of poverty at different points in their lives. They may be suburbanites, for example, or the working poor or the laid off.
In 2011 that snapshot showed 12.6 percent of adults in their prime working-age years of 25-60 lived in poverty. But measured in terms of a person's lifetime risk, a much higher number ? 4 in 10 adults ? falls into poverty for at least a year of their lives.
The risks of poverty also have been increasing in recent decades, particularly among people ages 35-55, coinciding with widening income inequality. For instance, people ages 35-45 had a 17 percent risk of encountering poverty during the 1969-1989 time period; that risk increased to 23 percent during the 1989-2009 period. For those ages 45-55, the risk of poverty jumped from 11.8 percent to 17.7 percent.
Higher recent rates of unemployment mean the lifetime risk of experiencing economic insecurity now runs even higher: 79 percent, or 4 in 5 adults, by the time they turn 60.
By race, nonwhites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 percent. But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measure are among whites, with more than 76 percent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.
By 2030, based on the current trend of widening income inequality, close to 85 percent of all working-age adults in the U.S. will experience bouts of economic insecurity.
"Poverty is no longer an issue of 'them', it's an issue of 'us'," says Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who calculated the numbers. "Only when poverty is thought of as a mainstream event, rather than a fringe experience that just affects blacks and Hispanics, can we really begin to build broader support for programs that lift people in need."
The numbers come from Rank's analysis being published by the Oxford University Press. They are supplemented with interviews and figures provided to the AP by Tom Hirschl, a professor at Cornell University; John Iceland, a sociology professor at Penn State University; the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute; the Census Bureau; and the Population Reference Bureau.
Among the findings:
?For the first time since 1975, the number of white single-mother households living in poverty with children surpassed or equaled black ones in the past decade, spurred by job losses and faster rates of out-of-wedlock births among whites. White single-mother families in poverty stood at nearly 1.5 million in 2011, comparable to the number for blacks. Hispanic single-mother families in poverty trailed at 1.2 million.
?Since 2000, the poverty rate among working-class whites has grown faster than among working-class nonwhites, rising 3 percentage points to 11 percent as the recession took a bigger toll among lower-wage workers. Still, poverty among working-class nonwhites remains higher, at 23 percent.
?The share of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods ? those with poverty rates of 30 percent or more ? has increased to 1 in 10, putting them at higher risk of teenage pregnancy or dropping out of school. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 17 percent of the child population in such neighborhoods, compared with 13 percent in 2000, even though the overall proportion of white children in the U.S. has been declining.
The share of black children in high-poverty neighborhoods dropped from 43 percent to 37 percent, while the share of Latino children went from 38 percent to 39 percent.
?Race disparities in health and education have narrowed generally since the 1960s. While residential segregation remains high, a typical black person now lives in a nonmajority black neighborhood for the first time. Previous studies have shown that wealth is a greater predictor of standardized test scores than race; the test-score gap between rich and low-income students is now nearly double the gap between blacks and whites.
___
Going back to the 1980s, never have whites been so pessimistic about their futures, according to the General Social Survey, a biannual survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Just 45 percent say their family will have a good chance of improving their economic position based on the way things are in America.
The divide is especially evident among those whites who self-identify as working class. Forty-nine percent say they think their children will do better than them, compared with 67 percent of nonwhites who consider themselves working class, even though the economic plight of minorities tends to be worse.
Although they are a shrinking group, working-class whites ? defined as those lacking a college degree ? remain the biggest demographic bloc of the working-age population. In 2012, Election Day exit polls conducted for the AP and the television networks showed working-class whites made up 36 percent of the electorate, even with a notable drop in white voter turnout.
Last November, Obama won the votes of just 36 percent of those noncollege whites, the worst performance of any Democratic nominee among that group since Republican Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide victory over Walter Mondale.
Some Democratic analysts have urged renewed efforts to bring working-class whites into the political fold, calling them a potential "decisive swing voter group" if minority and youth turnout level off in future elections. "In 2016 GOP messaging will be far more focused on expressing concern for 'the middle class' and 'average Americans,'" Andrew Levison and Ruy Teixeira wrote recently in The New Republic.
"They don't trust big government, but it doesn't mean they want no government," says Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who agrees that working-class whites will remain an important electoral group. His research found that many of them would support anti-poverty programs if focused broadly on job training and infrastructure investment. This past week, Obama pledged anew to help manufacturers bring jobs back to America and to create jobs in the energy sectors of wind, solar and natural gas.
"They feel that politicians are giving attention to other people and not them," Goeas said.
___
AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Debra McCown in Buchanan County, Va., contributed to this report.
___
Online:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-signs-declining-economic-security-195015309.html
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WarGames: Google vs. Apple
Illustration by Robert Neubecker
Reminder: Matt Yglesias and Farhad Manjoo are wargaming a fanciful, definitely-not-actually-true version of what might happen if Google and Apple went to war. You can see how the battle began here.
As of Nov. 8, 2013, Google has:
Cash on hand: $50 billion
Personnel: 45,000
Territory controlled: Office buildings, server farms, the political sympathies of the Republican Party in the United States, and the governments of India, Mexico, Brazil, and all of South America.
Larry Page is in his solar when he learns about the attacks. He?s spent the better part of the day trying to download The Art of War but the stupid Wi-Fi router seems to be crapping out again. That?s when the red phone rings. It?s just one ring, though. One ring is OK, only a power outage. Those happen once a year.
Then it rings again. Two rings. Two rings has only happened once before. Two rings means one of the datacenter watchtowers has been taken out. But that?s not terrible. There are other watchtowers. There are electrified fences and armed guards and a brutal logic puzzle-based lock, too.
Then the red phone rings once more. Three rings. Three rings means the servers have been hit, that data has been lost. Three rings has never happened. Three rings is never supposed to happen.
Page picks up the red phone. Joe Kava, Google?s data center chief, is ready with a plan. ?Don?t worry,? he tells Page. The destroyed site in Oregon was the company?s only datacenter in a hostile blue state. Kava has heard from the governors of Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, and North and South Carolina, where Google?s five remaining American datacenters are located. The Republicans can?t stomach Apple?s lawlessness, and they move to dispatch National Guard troops to protect Google?s servers.
But Kava also has a backup in case the governors don?t come through, and for use in hostile regions across the globe. ?We?ve gone mobile,? he says. Since 2006, when Google began building its own data centers, it has been preparing for just this sort of disaster (and every other sort, including zombies and aliens). In 2008 Google was awarded a patent for modular, portable, shipping-container based server racks?picture them as huge, pre-fab Lego blocks of servers that can be moved and snapped into the grid to be restarted once more. Even its data centers? heating and cooling systems are modular and portable. Only Page and a few others at Google know where these huge rigs are constructed, so the manufacturing sites are safe from attack. Page authorizes Kava to spend whatever he needs in order to keep cranking out enough server containers. They?ll be placed anywhere and everywhere Google can find access to the grid?in friendly states across the U.S., in South American slums, in Asian high-rises, sometimes with the cooperation of locals and other times completely discreetly. Google has always had more server space than it needed, and now it will have even more, even more widely distributed. ?Don?t worry about the data,? Kava tells Page before he hangs up. ?The data is everywhere.?
But that?s little consolation. Page closes his eyes. He pictures all the precious data at the Oregon center going up in smoke. He feels violated. Apple doesn?t realize what it?s done. No one goes after Larry Page?s data and gets away with it.
The short-term plan is straightforward. Page knows that Apple has a single central point of failure: All of its mobile devices run on processors manufactured by Samsung, which is also Apple?s fiercest competitor in the mobile device business. Apple has been trying to find other chip providers for years, but that plan has been delayed by technical snafus. Meanwhile Samsung has every reason to side with Google?the Korean company?s mobile devices run on Android. Page texts Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun with a blunt ultimatum: ?Stop selling to apple or we cut u off from android.? The next day, Samsung announces that it will no longer make processors for Apple. The iPhone will have no brain.?
And if Apple wants a ground war, Page will be happy to indulge. But he won?t use bulldozers to do it. Apple makes most of its devices using CNC lathes, which etch slabs of aluminum into the parts for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. These lathes run on software. And who understands software better than Google engineers? Page calls up half a dozen of his best coders. They?re shuttled to the GooglePlex immediately, where they write a virus that can infect Apple?s CNC lathes. All of Apple?s production occurs in a handful of factory towns in China. When the virus is ready, Google?s on-the-ground teams?disguised as StreetView car drivers?smuggle the code into Apple?s factories. It?s no more difficult than it was for the Israelis to use USB sticks to plant Stuxnet in Iran?s nuclear facilities. On Nov. 8, Page issues the order and the virus is activated. In each factory, the lathes perform one final job and then overheat themselves and shut down forever. A single sheet of aluminum rolls off the assembly line, Google?s logo etched into its face.
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Monday, July 29, 2013
Chromecast exploit reveals Android DNA and potential Google TV functionality
Based on Google?s own words at the announcement and the devices very name, Chromecast, it would be a reasonable assumption that the highly sought after new $35 dongle from Google was running some variant of Chrome OS. The people at GTVHacker have found that instead the Chromecast is instead running a stripped down version of Google TV which makes it an Android device.
Before you get your hopes up you won?t be installing your favorite Android apps on it anytime soon. Here?s the relevant quote:
To be specific, it?s actually a modified Google TV release, but with all of the Bionic / Dalvik stripped out and replaced with a single binary for Chromecast. Since the Marvell DE3005 SOC running this is a single core variant of the 88DE3100, most of the Google TV code was reused. So, although it?s not going to let you install an APK or anything, its origins: the bootloader, kernel, init scripts, binaries, are all from the Google TV.GTVHacker
The upshot of their findings is that Chromecast could potentially be turned into a tiny Google TV. Having owned a Google TV for the last couple years I?m actually not entirely sure that?s preferable to seeing what Google has in mind for the Chromecast, but hey I?m never one to get between people and their tech tinkering.
You can watch their video below or if you want to read more about what they did or roll the dice and try it yourself hit the source link below for full instructions.
Via: Engadget
Source: GTVHacker
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Bridgestone Americas Tire Operation, union come to agreement on new contract
Company officials at the Bridgestone Americas Tire Operation reached tentative agreements with the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy Allied Industrial Service Workers International Union before a midnight deadline Friday, according to a news release.
The agreements affect five plants across the country, including one in Des Moines.
More than 1,300 Des Moines workers will continue to build Ag Tires under the old contract until the new one is ratified.
Details of the new agreement have not been released, but there was a dispute over wages and pensions.
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Sunday, July 28, 2013
The power source for NASA's Curiosity Rover barely outputs enough energy to power a ceiling fan!
They generate electrical power to the spacecraft by converting heat generated by the decay of plutonium -238 fuel into electricity by using something called thermocouples. Altogether, thermocouples have been used for a combined time of over 300 years in RTGs and remarkably they have never ceased to generate power.
Other things that use thermocouples are air conditioning units, fridges, and medical thermometers. They are most used, as seen in the examples, for temperature regulating devices. They are simply made with two plates of two different metals that conduct electricity when joined by closing off the electrical circuit and kept at different temperatures.
(Source)
Source: http://www.omg-facts.com/Technology/The-Power-Source-For-NASAs-Curiosity-Rov/58046
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Russian cargo ship docks with space station
MOSCOW (AP) ? Russia's space agency says that its cargo ship has docked successfully with the International Space Station.
Roscosmos says the unmanned Progress M-20M spacecraft moored at the station Sunday about six hours after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The docking was performed in automatic mode.
The agency says the ship has delivered about 2.4 metric tons of supplies to the space outpost, including fuel, food, water and scientific equipment.
The 2011 retirement of the U.S. shuttle fleet has left Russia's Soyuz spacecraft as the sole means to ferry crews to and from the space outpost. The unmanned cargo version of the Soyuz, the Progress, delivers the bulk of station supplies.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-cargo-ship-docks-space-station-105417552.html
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Get the Samsung Galaxy S4 on Sprint for under $100 from Amazon
The promotion lasts Sunday 7/28 through Thursday 8/1, includes waived activation fee
Those looking to make the switch over to Sprint have a chance to land a nice deal on one of the hottest phones of the season. Amazon will be offering the Samsung Galaxy S4 to new Sprint customers for $99.99, down from the current price of $139.99. To sweeten the pot even more, they will even waive the $36 activation fee.
The deal starts this Sunday, 7/28, and will continue through Thursday, 8/1. The Galaxy S4 comes with 16GB of internal storage (with less than you'd expect available to the user, but there's an update for that) and is being offered in both the white and black varieties.
For those still undecided if this is the phone to get when switching to Sprint, get out the full Samsung Galaxy S4 review.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/HNz8G9Bq8-Y/story01.htm
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Saturday, July 27, 2013
Your Car Insurance Might Cost More Based on Education or Work Status
When you get insurance, a variety of factors go into determining how much your premiums will cost. Some companies, however, include your education level and work status and may charge you more for it.
According to a recent report, companies like GEICO, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, and Farmers will charge you more if you only have a high school degree or do more "blue collar" work. As the report states:
GEICO often charges a factory worker with a high school degree far higher annual premiums than a plant supervisor with a college degree ? 45% more in Seattle ($870 vs. $599), 40% more in Hartford ($1299 vs. $926), 33% more in Oakland ($922 vs. $693), 23% more in Louisville ($2200 vs. $1791), 21% more in Chicago ($1013 vs. $840), and 20% more in Baltimore ($1971 vs. $1647).
The report also shows that some companies?including State Farm, Allstate, USAA, and Travelers?don't use education or work status in their premium calculations at all. Of course, you may not be able to just ask your insurance company if they're charging you extra because you don't have a degree, but if you're in one of these positions, be sure to shop around more to make extra sure you get the best deal possible.
Consumer Federation of America Report (PDF) | via Three Thrifty Guys
Photo by Edgar Zuniga.
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Obama: In America, no war should ever be forgotten
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Six decades after the Korean War ended, President Barack Obama said Saturday that American veterans deserved a better homecoming from a war-weary nation and that their legacy is the 50 million people who live freely in a democratic South Korea.
"Here in America, no war should ever be forgotten, and no veteran should ever be overlooked," he said in a speech at the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, where ceremonies marked the 60th anniversary of the end of hostilities on the peninsula.
Obama said the conflict didn't unite or divide the country the same way World War II or the Vietnam War did, respectively, and that U.S. veterans came home to neither parades nor protests because "there was, it seemed, a desire to forget, to move on" by Americans tired of battle.
But they "deserved better," Obama said, adding that, on Saturday's anniversary, "perhaps the highest tribute we can offer our veterans of Korea is to do what should have been done the day you came home."
He appealed for people to pause and let these veterans "carry us back to the days of their youth and let us be awed by their shining deeds." In the audience of several thousand on a sunny and humid morning were dozens of American and Korean veterans of the war. Obama asked them to stand and be recognized.
The 1950-1953 war had North Korean and Chinese troops on one side against U.S.-led United Nations and South Korean forces. It ended on July 27, 1953, 60 years ago Saturday, with the signing of an armistice.
A formal peace treaty was never signed, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war and divided at the 38th parallel between its communist north and democratic south. More than 36,000 Americans were killed in the conflict. The U.S. still has 28,500 troops based in the south.
Yet the costs of the war continue to mount even amid relative peace.
Hostility remains between the two Koreas and between the North and the United States, which still has no formal diplomatic relations with the communist nation. That antagonism is rooted in the U.S. commitment to take a lead role in defending the South should war again break out on the peninsula.
Washington also has tried for years to wean its ally off its dependence on the U.S. military, setting and then delaying target dates for switching from U.S. to Korean control of the forces that would defend the South against a possible new attack from the North.
Another legacy is the challenge of accounting for the roughly 7,900 U.S. servicemen still listed as missing in action.
Obama said the war is a reminder that a country's obligation to its fallen and their families endures long after battle. He pledged that the U.S. would not rest "until we give these families a full accounting of their loved ones."
Obama also alluded to the Korean War sometimes being called the "forgotten war" and noted long-standing suggestions that it was fought for naught, summed up in the phrase "die for tie." He disputed that characterization, saying "today, we can say with confidence that war was no tie. Korea was a victory."
When 50 million South Koreans live in freedom in stark contrast to the dire conditions endured by their countrymen in the North, "that's a victory. That's your legacy," he said.
___
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-america-no-war-ever-forgotten-185356604.html
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No death penalty for Snowden if convicted, US says
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Striving to get Edward Snowden back to America, U.S., Attorney General Eric Holder has assured the Russian government the U.S. has no plans to seek the death penalty for the former National Security Agency systems analyst.
In a letter dated Tuesday, the attorney general said the criminal charges Snowden now faces in this country do not carry the death penalty and the U.S. will not seek his execution even if he is charged with additional serious crimes.
Holder's letter followed news reports that Snowden, who leaked details of top secret U.S. surveillance programs, has filed papers seeking temporary asylum in Russia on grounds that if he were returned to the United States he would be tortured and would face the death penalty.
Snowden has been charged with three offenses in the U.S., including espionage, and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
The attorney general's letter was sent to Alexander Vladimirovich Konovalov, the Russian minister of justice.
Holder's letter is part of a campaign by the U.S. government to get Snowden back. When Snowden arrived at Moscow's international airport a month ago, he was believed to be planning simply to transfer to a flight to Cuba and then to Venezuela to seek asylum. But the U.S. canceled his passport, stranding him. Besides applying for temporary asylum in Russia, he has said he'd like to visit the countries that offered him permanent asylum ? Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
Some Russian politicians, including parliament speaker Sergei Naryshkin, have said Snowden should be granted asylum to protect him from the death penalty. If Snowden were to go to a country that opposes the death penalty, providing assurances that the U.S. won't seek it could remove at least one obstacle to his return to America.
"I can report that the United States is prepared to provide to the Russian government the following assurances regarding the treatment Mr. Snowden would face upon return to the United States," Holder wrote. "First, the United States would not seek the death penalty for Mr. Snowden should he return to the United States." In addition, "Mr. Snowden will not be tortured. Torture is unlawful in the United States."
Bruce Fein, a lawyer representing Edward Snowden's father, criticized Holder.
"Today the attorney general stated ? apparently thinking he was being conciliatory ? that if Edward Snowden were returned to the United States we wouldn't kill him or torture him. Those are concessions only in the mind of someone who's very biased," said Fein.
He said an impartial prosecutor would have said that Snowden is entitled to a presumption of innocence and that he would guarantee Snowden a fair trial by ensuring it was held in a venue that wasn't populated by NSA contractors.
The attorney general said that if Snowden returned to the U.S. he would promptly be brought before a civilian court and would receive "all the protections that United States law provides."
Holder also said that "we understand from press reports and prior conversations between our governments that Mr. Snowden believes that he is unable to travel out of Russia and must therefore take steps to legalize his status. That is not accurate; he is able to travel."
Despite the revocation of Snowden's passport on June 22, he remains a U.S. citizen and is eligible for a limited validity passport good for direct return to the United States, said the attorney general.
Snowden, who is believed to have been staying at the Moscow airport transit zone since June 23, applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week.
A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Russia has not budged from its refusal to extradite Snowden. Said Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will." There is no U.S.-Russia extradition treaty.
Peskov also said that Putin is not involved in reviewing Snowden's application or in discussions with the U.S. of his future with the U.S., though the Russian Security Service, the FSB, had been in touch with the FBI.
Snowden has not overtly threatened to release more damaging documents, though a journalist with whom he has been working, Glenn Greenwald, has said that blueprints detailing how the NSA operates would be made public if something should happen to Snowden.
Putin has said that if Snowden releases any more of the materials, Russia will not grant him temporary asylum.
There's little chance Snowden will be able to use what information he has as a bargaining chip to negotiate his prosecution or extradition.
The government must take the position: "We don't negotiate with extortionists," said Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division and former secretary of homeland security. Chertoff said he can't recall a case in which the U.S. government has caved under this type of threat.
U.S. officials have said what Snowden already has released will harm national security, though it's too early to tell what damage has been done. The U.S. intelligence community has a good idea of what other documents he has.
___
AP reporter Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-death-penalty-snowden-convicted-us-says-213552147.html
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Thursday, July 25, 2013
Cookbook author carried flame for the home cook | Food & Drink ...
Originally published July 24, 2013 at 5:30 AM | Page modified July 24, 2013 at 7:18 AM
Marion Cunningham was a cookbook author who tirelessly championed home cooking. She served, too, as den mother of sorts to a pack of chefs, journalists, authors, restaurateurs and food purveyors who helped create the modern American food scene.
That this housewife and mother from Walnut Creek, Calif., whose woes included alcohol and agoraphobia, was able, in late middle age, to rise above her troubles, find herself and begin forging a successful food career in the 1970s was an inspiration for the many who saw her as a mentor.
?In a time when men totally dominated the business and women were considered housewives, and women?s food was strictly for the little lady in the kitchen, Marion combined the virtues of the housewife and cookbook author with a real strong American bent and a power base,? says Ruth Reichl, an author, journalist and former editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. ?She was totally connected to chefs, restaurateurs and other food people. She gave a kind of legitimacy to American food and the food American women cooked for their families.?
Cunningham?s heart was in the home, a theme that comes through in her cookbooks, the most famous of which was her acclaimed retooling of ?The Fannie Farmer Cookbook? in 1979.
Believing, as she wrote in the introduction to ?The Breakfast Book,? published in 1987, that there was no ?greater inducement to conversation than sitting around a table and sharing a good meal,? Cunningham set out to show readers how, whether they were clueless adults (through her book ?Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham?) or curious children (?Cooking with Children: 15 Lessons for Children, Age 7 and Up, Who Really Want to Learn to Cook?) or aspiring bakers (?The Fannie Farmer Baking Book?).
?Marion understood the confusion people felt,? says Kim Severson, author of ?Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life.?
?She was teaching people to cook and carrying the flame for the home-cooked family dinner and for supermarket ingredients.?
But, unlike so many of today?s ?homey? recipes, which rely too much on shortcuts and canned goods, Cunningham?s home cooking ?had real construct, real value,? says Clark Wolf, president of an eponymous, New York City-based food and restaurant consultancy.
Judith Jones, the legendary Knopf editor, gave Cunningham her big break with the ?Fannie Farmer? rewrite. James Beard, the so-called dean of American cooking, recommended Cunningham, who had been his student and assistant.
Beard invited Jones to read the letters he had exchanged with Cunningham on food and cooking. Jones was struck by what she read. Cunningham?s writing, she recalls, had a ?nice voice,? and there was a real sense of learning in the give-and-take.
?I trusted James Beard. I saw what I trusted in those letters,? she says. ?Marion?s responses and suggestions were always modestly put, but sure.?
Cunningham?s modesty and sense of fun were vividly demonstrated to Reichl on their first meeting at a party for Beard, an occasion retold in Reichl?s memoir, ?Tender at the Bone.? At one point, Reichl asked if Cunningham is ?an important person too.?
?Oh, no, dear,? Cunningham said. ?I?m the last living home cook. I?ve just revised the twelfth edition of ?Fannie Farmer.???
You?ve got to adore a woman like that. And much of the food world did, mightily, until her death at the age of 90 in July 2012 from complications stemming from Alzheimer?s disease.
?Marion was the glue who kept the food world together,? Reichl says. ?She was remarkable in her reach, and that was partly due to her personality. She was a warm, social person, and she managed to know everyone and connect everyone.?
?The biggest lesson she taught me was to follow my passion,? Reichl adds. ?Look what it did for her. She decided food was the thing for her, and she followed it to an entirely new destiny.?
Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/foodwine/2021456047_cunningham24xml.html
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Joseph Karp named Florida Legal Elite | PRLog
?
PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 22, 2013 - PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- Florida elder law attorney Joseph S. Karp has been recognized in the 2013 edition of Florida Trend?Florida Elite status is based on peer review. Members of the Florida Bar are asked to name which attorneys they hold in the highest regard, and who they would recommend to others.
Mr. Karp holds both state and national certification in elder law. He is rated "AV" by Martindale Hubbell, the highest rating possible for both legal expertise and ethical conduct. A past president and charter member of the American Association of Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorneys, he is also admitted to practice law in New York.
Mr. Karp is the principal of The Karp Law Form, an elder law, estate planning and probate pactice with offices in, Palm Beach Gardens, Boynton Beach and Port St. Lucie, Florida. You can lfind answers to your legal concerns at The Karp Law Firm's website, http://www.karplaw.com.
Source: http://www.prlog.org/12179367-joseph-karp-named-florida-legal-elite.html
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Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Baxter of California for Ronin Limited Edition Handwash
Baxter of California?collaborates with Ronin restaurant in Hong Kong for a limited edition hand wash. The hand wash consists of coconut, blackcurrant, jojoba oil and aloe for a sensual and deep-cleansing formula. It is available online?or?at Ronin Hong Kong.
Source: http://www.selectism.com/2013/07/23/baxter-of-california-ronin-handwash-2013/
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RESAAS adds Southern California's Home Living Real Estate to ...
Services () has added Southern California-based firm Home Living Real Estate to its social networking platform as the company continues to expand its network.?
Based out of Fullerton Brea in northern Orange County, the real estate agency works with agents and brokers that are part of the National and California Association of Realtors.?
, whose social network is designed to allow real-time updating of property listings as well as the ability to sync with social media sites such as () and Twitter, is growing steadfast in its popularity, continually adding broker after broker to its platform across the U.S. and Canada.?
Known as real estate broadcasts, ' reblasts engine automatically generates all of an agency's real estate workflow into social content that is instantly pushed out to the platform and other social networks. Last month, the company said it planned to raise $2 million to meet with demand and expand its platform into Europe.
last Thursday said that GlobeWest, a real estate development and project marketing firm, will be marketing their listings and connecting with agents on its social networking platform, marking the first time a real estate project marketing company has setup a group on .?
When using , Home Living Real Estate agents will receive their own branded agent page and the firm will have its own page in order to broadcast information and remain in constant contact with its members.
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Skipping Breakfast a Recipe for Heart Disease, Study Finds - Health ...
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) ? Men who skip breakfast have a 27 percent higher risk of suffering a heart attack or developing heart disease than those who start the day with something in their stomach, according to a new study.
The study confirms earlier findings that have linked eating habits to elevated risk factors for heart disease, the Harvard researchers said.
?Men who skip breakfast are more likely to gain weight, to develop diabetes, to have hypertension and to have high cholesterol,? said Eric Rimm, senior author and associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
For example, breakfast skippers are 15 percent more likely to gain a substantial amount of weight and 21 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, earlier studies have reported.
The new study, published July 22 in the journal Circulation, found that these men also indulged more heavily in other unhealthy lifestyle choices. They were more likely to smoke, engage in less exercise and drink alcohol.
?We?ve focused so much on the quality of food and what kind of diet everyone should be eating, and we don?t talk as often on the manner of eating,? said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. ?This study is not even discussing the type of food. It?s just talking about behavior and lifestyle choice. Part of heart-healthy living is eating breakfast because that prevents you from doing a lot of other unhealthy things.?
For the new report, researchers analyzed data culled from a 16-year study of nearly 27,000 male health professionals that tracked their eating habits and overall health from 1992 to 2008. During the study period, 1,572 of the men developed heart disease.
The study also found a 55 percent increased risk of heart disease in men who regularly indulge in late-night snacking. However, the researchers did not consider this a public health risk because few men reported eating after they?d gone to bed.
Rimm said there are several possible explanations why skipping breakfast can have such a drastic effect on heart health.
The Harvard study found that men who skip breakfast do not pick up another meal later in the day, which Rimm said indicates that they tend to ?feast? on higher-calorie meals when they do eat. Previous studies have found that feasting can result in high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure, compared with nibbling smaller meals.
?It?s the extra strain on the body of eating more calories during the few times in a day they do eat,? he said.
The type of food that a person consumes during breakfast also might be a factor. ?Breakfast is typically a time when people tend to eat a healthy meal,? Rimm said. ?By skipping a meal that usually features fiber or fruit or yogurt, you?re missing out on an occasion where people can get healthy nutrients.?
Younger men tend to skip breakfast more frequently than older men, the investigators found, which leads to another possible explanation. ?It may be in line with the fact that these are men who are rushing out to stressful jobs and not eating along the way,? Rimm said, noting that stress is bad for heart health and is associated with negative lifestyle choices such as drinking or smoking.
The study did not include women, but Steinbaum believes the same pattern likely occurs in women who skip breakfast. ?There haven?t been any studies independently on women, but I would suspect we would find the same outcomes,? she said.
Rimm said the study reinforces the age-old emphasis on breakfast as a key to good health.
?There is so much we know about reducing risk of heart disease, and some things like exercise or quitting smoking take quite a bit of effort,? Rimm said. ?But it is easy without a big huge financial or time commitment to have breakfast, even if it is a bowl of oatmeal or a bit of cereal before you start the day.?
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has tips on healthy eating.
Source: http://news.health.com/2013/07/22/skipping-breakfast-a-recipe-for-heart-disease-study-finds/
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Monday, July 22, 2013
Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Nerval's Lobster writes "In June, Steven Spielberg predicted that Hollywood was on the verge of an 'implosion' in which 'three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing to the ground.' The resulting destruction, he added, could change the film industry in radical and possibly unwelcome ways. And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.' These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets. Hollywood's more reliant than ever on analytics to predict how movies will do, and even Google has taken some baby-steps into that arena with a white paper describing how search-query patterns and paid clicks can estimate how well a movie will do on its opening weekend, but none of that data seems to be helping Hollywood avoid shooting itself in the foot with a 'Pacific Rim'-sized plasma cannon. In other words, analytics can help studios refine their rollout strategy for new films—but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/I0TsID2hUws/story01.htm
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Sex chromosome shocker: The 'female' X a key contributor to sperm production
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Matt Fearer
fearer@wi.mit.edu
617-452-4630
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Painstaking new analysis of the genetic sequence of the X chromosomelong perceived as the "female" counterpart to the male-associated Y chromosomereveals that large portions of the X have evolved to play a specialized role in sperm production.
This surprising finding, reported by Whitehead Institute scientists in a paper published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, is paired with another unexpected outcome: despite its reputation as the most stable chromosome of the genome, the X has actually been undergoing relatively swift change. Taken together, these results suggest that it's time to reexamine the biological and medical importance of the X chromosome.
"We view this as the double life of the X chromosome," says Whitehead Institute Director David Page, whose lab conducted this latest research.
"The X is the most famous, most intensely studied chromosome in all of human genetics. And the story of the X has been the story of X-linked recessive diseases, such as color blindness, hemophilia, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy," Page adds. "But there's another side to the X, a side that is rapidly evolving and seems to be attuned to the reproductive needs of males."
Page's lab, best known for its pioneering investigations of the Y chromosome, embarked on a rigorous comparison of the mouse and human X chromosomes, in part to test the longstanding biological tenet that the gene content of X chromosomes is conserved and shared across mammals. However, to render such a comparison valid, the lab had to upgrade the human X reference sequence, which was originally assembled as a mosaic of sequences from the X chromosomes of at least 16 people. This composite left the reference with errors and gaps that fail to capture so-called ampliconic regions containing segments of nucleotides that are virtually identical. Such near-complete identity prevents recognition of tiny but important differences.
To set the sequence straight, the lab turned to the unique sequencing method Page had developed with collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis to help navigate the structural complexities of the Y chromosome. As Page reported roughly a decade ago, the Y contains several regions of large palindromesareas of mirror-imaged genetic sequences. Such regions defy elucidation via conventional sequencing approaches, which simply cannot detect extremely subtle genetic differences found hidden among the "mirrors." In response, Page and colleagues devised what is known as SHIMS (single-haplotype iterative mapping and sequencing) to establish a definitive reference DNA sequence of the Y chromosome.
Using SHIMS, the lab greatly improved the human X reference sequence, accurately assembling three large amplicons, identifying previously unknown palindromes, and ultimately shortening the entire length of the sequence by eliminating four major gaps. These important updates will now be incorporated into the reference sequence of the human X for use by the greater scientific community.
Upgraded reference in hand, the lab discovered that, as might have been expected, the mouse and human X chromosomes have nearly 95% of their X-linked, single-copy genes in common. Almost all of these genes are expressed in both sexes. Strikingly, however, the lab identified approximately 340 genes that are not shared between the two species. Fittingly, most of these genes reside in ampliconic regions of the X and appear to have been acquired independently during the 80 million years since mouse and human diverged from a common ancestor. Expression analyses revealed that these genes are active almost exclusively in testicular germ cells, where, at a minimum, they likely contribute to sperm production. Further exploration of these X-ampliconic regions and their associated genes is warranted.
"This is a collection of genes that has largely eluded medical geneticists," says Jacob Mueller, a postdoctoral researcher in Page's lab and first author of the Nature Genetics paper. "None of these genes has been associated with a Mendellian trait. Now that we're confident of the assembly and gene content of these highly repetitive regions on the X chromosome, we can start to dissect their biological significance."
Adds Page: "These genes are more likely to have roles in diseases that are related to reproduction, infertility, perhaps even testis cancer. There's a whole other book to be written about this aspect of the X."
###
This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants HG00257 and HD064753).
Written by Matt Fearer
David Page's primary affiliation is with Whitehead Institute, where his laboratory is located and all his research is conducted. He is also a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Full Citation:
"Independent specialization of the human and mouse X chromosomes for the male germline"
Nature Genetics, online publication, July 21, 2013
Jacob L. Mueller (1), Helen Skaletsky (1,2), Laura G. Brown (1,2), Sara Zaghlul (1), Susan Rock (4), Tina Graves (4), Katherine Auger (5), Wesley C. Warren (4), Richard K. Wilson (4), David C. Page (1,2,3).
1. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3. Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4. The Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
5. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 21-Jul-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Matt Fearer
fearer@wi.mit.edu
617-452-4630
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Painstaking new analysis of the genetic sequence of the X chromosomelong perceived as the "female" counterpart to the male-associated Y chromosomereveals that large portions of the X have evolved to play a specialized role in sperm production.
This surprising finding, reported by Whitehead Institute scientists in a paper published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, is paired with another unexpected outcome: despite its reputation as the most stable chromosome of the genome, the X has actually been undergoing relatively swift change. Taken together, these results suggest that it's time to reexamine the biological and medical importance of the X chromosome.
"We view this as the double life of the X chromosome," says Whitehead Institute Director David Page, whose lab conducted this latest research.
"The X is the most famous, most intensely studied chromosome in all of human genetics. And the story of the X has been the story of X-linked recessive diseases, such as color blindness, hemophilia, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy," Page adds. "But there's another side to the X, a side that is rapidly evolving and seems to be attuned to the reproductive needs of males."
Page's lab, best known for its pioneering investigations of the Y chromosome, embarked on a rigorous comparison of the mouse and human X chromosomes, in part to test the longstanding biological tenet that the gene content of X chromosomes is conserved and shared across mammals. However, to render such a comparison valid, the lab had to upgrade the human X reference sequence, which was originally assembled as a mosaic of sequences from the X chromosomes of at least 16 people. This composite left the reference with errors and gaps that fail to capture so-called ampliconic regions containing segments of nucleotides that are virtually identical. Such near-complete identity prevents recognition of tiny but important differences.
To set the sequence straight, the lab turned to the unique sequencing method Page had developed with collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis to help navigate the structural complexities of the Y chromosome. As Page reported roughly a decade ago, the Y contains several regions of large palindromesareas of mirror-imaged genetic sequences. Such regions defy elucidation via conventional sequencing approaches, which simply cannot detect extremely subtle genetic differences found hidden among the "mirrors." In response, Page and colleagues devised what is known as SHIMS (single-haplotype iterative mapping and sequencing) to establish a definitive reference DNA sequence of the Y chromosome.
Using SHIMS, the lab greatly improved the human X reference sequence, accurately assembling three large amplicons, identifying previously unknown palindromes, and ultimately shortening the entire length of the sequence by eliminating four major gaps. These important updates will now be incorporated into the reference sequence of the human X for use by the greater scientific community.
Upgraded reference in hand, the lab discovered that, as might have been expected, the mouse and human X chromosomes have nearly 95% of their X-linked, single-copy genes in common. Almost all of these genes are expressed in both sexes. Strikingly, however, the lab identified approximately 340 genes that are not shared between the two species. Fittingly, most of these genes reside in ampliconic regions of the X and appear to have been acquired independently during the 80 million years since mouse and human diverged from a common ancestor. Expression analyses revealed that these genes are active almost exclusively in testicular germ cells, where, at a minimum, they likely contribute to sperm production. Further exploration of these X-ampliconic regions and their associated genes is warranted.
"This is a collection of genes that has largely eluded medical geneticists," says Jacob Mueller, a postdoctoral researcher in Page's lab and first author of the Nature Genetics paper. "None of these genes has been associated with a Mendellian trait. Now that we're confident of the assembly and gene content of these highly repetitive regions on the X chromosome, we can start to dissect their biological significance."
Adds Page: "These genes are more likely to have roles in diseases that are related to reproduction, infertility, perhaps even testis cancer. There's a whole other book to be written about this aspect of the X."
###
This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants HG00257 and HD064753).
Written by Matt Fearer
David Page's primary affiliation is with Whitehead Institute, where his laboratory is located and all his research is conducted. He is also a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Full Citation:
"Independent specialization of the human and mouse X chromosomes for the male germline"
Nature Genetics, online publication, July 21, 2013
Jacob L. Mueller (1), Helen Skaletsky (1,2), Laura G. Brown (1,2), Sara Zaghlul (1), Susan Rock (4), Tina Graves (4), Katherine Auger (5), Wesley C. Warren (4), Richard K. Wilson (4), David C. Page (1,2,3).
1. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3. Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4. The Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
5. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/wifb-scs071813.php
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