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Thursday, January 31, 2013
Why I play violent video games ? The Phoenix | Bowden Gaming
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Malcolm Brodie, renowned sports journalist, dies aged 86
Malcolm Brodie, the renowned football writer who covered Northern Ireland at three World Cups, has died at the age of 86. Photograph: William Cherry/presseye.com
Veteran Belfast-based awarding winning sports journalist Malcolm Brodie, who covered every World Cup since 1954, has died at the age of 86.
The Scots-born football writer received a string of plaudits from Fifa as well as an MBE for his services to the game for six decades.
Brodie was the author of an acclaimed book on the now defunct Belfast Celtic and was a respected football commentator on the international scene.
Jim Gracey, the Belfast Telegraph Group's sports editor, where Brodie worked from after the second world war, said: "He was a wonderful man and a wonderful journalist who must have taught generations of sports reporters, myself included.
"He had a contacts book like no other. Everybody in soccer ? from Pele to Sir Alex Ferguson ? knew him. The man was beyond a legend."
Brodie was also a regular sports broadcaster and became a household name during Northern Ireland's travels to the World Cup, first in 1958 and later in Spain in 1982 and Mexico four years later.
On duty in Mexico, Brodie was reported to have filed his opening sentence of the Northern Ireland v Brazil game, which the South Americans won 4-0, by repeating the words "Magnifico, Magnifico, Magnifco" in praise of the Brazilians performance against his adopted country.
The typist taking down his copy from a crackling phone line in Mexico was reported to have shouted back to Brodie: "It's OK Malcolm, I head the word 'Magnifico' the first time you said it."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/30/malcolm-brodie-sports-journalist-dies-86
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Humans were kaput, so they got wiped out. That simple. With humans out of the way, the creatures that were in hiding can come out and rise to a great era. There are territory issues, naturally.
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In Philadelphia, Bringing Health Education to Beauty Salons ...
!["Built around the natural conversations that take place among women in beauty salons, [my Schweitzer project] provides opportunities for these women to talk about—and learn about—healthy living," Sanders says.](http://schweitzerfellowship.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/anjelica-sanders.jpg?w=201&h=300)
?Built around the natural conversations that take place among women in beauty salons, [my Schweitzer project] provides opportunities for these women to talk about?and learn about?healthy living,? Sanders says.
Last year, the Philadelphia Inquirer featured Schweitzer Fellow Kenji Taylor?s work to bring hypertension screenings to West Philadelphia?s African-American barbershops.Now, Schweitzer Fellow Anjelica Sanders is implementing a community-based health education effort in the same vein as Taylor?s: she?s bringing health education to beauty salons in low-income Philadelphia neighborhoods, with the goal of promoting conversations?and action?about healthy living.
?Raised in a family of hairdressers, I am extremely familiar with the salon environment,? says Sanders, one of this year?s Schweitzer Fellows and a student in St. Joseph?s University Graduate Health Education Program. ?I saw an opportunity to involve African-American women in conversation about health and fitness in an environment where they were comfortable and engaged in great amounts of dialogue.?
ASF: Why did you decide to develop your particular project?
AS: During my undergraduate career, I learned about our society?s obesity epidemic. In many cases, complications from obesity?including diabetes, hypertension, heart attack, and stroke?can be prevented, managed, and even reversed through lifestyle changes.
But you cannot choose an option that you do not know exists. As an African-American from urban Philadelphia, with a grandmother who suffers from preventable, manageable, reversible type II Diabetes Mellitus, I wanted to make it my goal to educate and enlighten people on leading healthy lifestyles so they might eventually make the choice to do so.
I had already begun thinking of many creative approaches to health education in urban communities?specifically low-income, low educational/literacy level ones. When I had the opportunity to apply to become an Albert Schweitzer Fellow in Greater Philadelphia, I jumped right in.
For my Schweitzer project, I came up with Black Women BIO: Beauty Inside & Out (BWBIO) in partnership with the Philadelphia Black Women?s Health Alliance. Built around the natural conversations that take place among women in beauty salons, BWBIO provides opportunities for these women to talk about?and learn about?healthy living.
By talking about health in the context of a beauty routine that women are already invested in, we can connect women with health resources and promote health and beauty from the inside out. What?s on the outside doesn?t matter, and won?t last, if you are not taking care of what is going on in the inside. I hope that my project sparks salon conversations about healthy living: Who?s working out and eating better? Who?s living longer and has noticed an increased quality of life?
ASF: What do you hope will be the lasting impact of your project on the community it serves?
AS: I hope that my project will not only educate people, but also empower them. I hope it will build awareness of the health disparities that face the African-American community, and make people want to take action.
It is common knowledge that members of low-socioeconomic communities have less available resources to live healthy lifestyles?but do these people know what options they do have? Do they know that they can get enjoyable, meaningful workouts right in their homes?and that even though it costs more to buy healthy foods, it is ultimately more cost-effective to do so? I hope the women who participate in my program share what they learned on all levels and apply much of the information in their daily lives.
During the end of my Fellowship year, to sustain health inside the beauty salon, I plan to go on a ?Healthalize the Salon? campaign throughout Philadelphia that provides the opportunity for salon owners and individual stylists to create a health station within their salon.
The stations will offer accessible, easy-to-read resources on healthy lifestyles so that when conversation about health and fitness arises, the stylist can say, ?Oh, go over to our health station; there?s a section about getting started on a fitness plan,? or ?Go over to our health station; there?s a section that lists free health clinics in the area.?
ASF: What do you think is the most pressing health-related issue of our time, and how do you think it should be addressed?
AS: ?I believe that obesity is the most pressing health-related issue of our time, especially in regards to the relationship it has with so many other diseases and conditions such as type II Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attack, osteoarthritis, and stress. I believe the issue should be examined and addressed from all angles: physical, psychological, and sociological. I think health professionals and policy makers should lead by example and show how good healthy living can be!
ASF: What has been the most surprising element of your experience as a Schweitzer Fellow so far?
AS: Honestly, the most surprising element of my experience as a Schweitzer Fellow has been my repeated encounters with people who are committed to service. I have never been surrounded by so many people who have an interest in the greater good, for more than themselves and their loved ones.
In the five months that I have been a Fellow, I have been delighted to come across not only individuals who want to do something about the many issues faced in our society, but the many organizations that are actually already out there fighting for something or helping those in need.
To know that there are others who care about health disparities makes me feel like there is hope, especially if we can be united through opportunities such as The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.
ASF: What does being a Schweitzer Fellow (and ultimately a Schweitzer Fellow for Life) mean to you?
AS: Being a Schweitzer Fellow means being a part of a group of people who care. It means that I am not alone in identifying and wanting to address disparities. Ultimately, I am not alone in taking action. Becoming a Fellow for Life just expands the experience. I will be a part of an extremely large group of people with international impact. I look forward to being able to connect with community service-minded professionals nationally and internationally and building meaningful relationships that will continue to impact the greater good.
Click here to learn more about the Greater Philadelphia Schweitzer Fellows Program and our work to develop leaders, create change, and improve health in vulnerable communities. We are supported entirely by charitable donations and grants.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Gauge of business spending plans edges higher
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gauge of business investment plans improved in December, a sign companies were betting the economy will pick up despite fears over tighter fiscal policy.
The Commerce Department said on Monday that non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for investment plans, edged up 0.2 percent last month.
Many economists expected businesses to invest more timidly late last year because of uncertainty over government spending cuts and tax increases, which had been scheduled to kick in this month. Congress ultimately struck a last-minute deal to avoid or postpone most of the austerity measures.
Despite the uncertainty, Monday's data pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand.
"It certainly seems to us that companies are slowly but surely expanding," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.
In a further sign of business confidence, the November reading on capital spending plans was revised higher to show a 3 percent gain, up from the 2.6 percent rise reported a month ago.
A second report showed a measure of upcoming home resales took a breather in December, declining 4.3 percent. Still, the housing sector posted a rebound last year and economists expect it will add to growth again in 2013.
The business spending data pushed down prices for U.S. government debt, while giving the dollar a lift against the yen. But stock prices opened lower.
New orders for overall durable goods - long lasting factory goods from toasters to automobiles - jumped 4.6 percent in December, beating economists expectations of a 1.8 percent gain.
The gains were broad based, with orders for machinery, cars and primary metals all increasing.
"There's a lot more confidence," said Wayne Kaufman, an analyst at John Thomas Financial in New York.
Orders surged for civilian aircraft and military goods, although those two categories tend to be quite volatile.
Despite the stronger-than-expected demand at the nation's factories, economists think economic growth cooled in the fourth quarter as companies slowed the pace at which they re-stocked their shelves.
Analysts polled by Reuters expect a report on gross domestic product due on Wednesday will show the economy expanded at a mere 1.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, down from a 3.1 percent rate in the previous three months.
However, Monday's report on new orders for long-lasting factory goods suggested businesses are feeling stronger demand from consumers, and are responding by buying more machines to meet that demand. TD Securities economist Millan Mulraine said capital investment likely added to economic growth in the fourth quarter.
(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington, and by Leah Schnurr and Ryan Vlastelica in New York; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gauge-business-spending-plans-edges-higher-133926858--business.html
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Refugees again, Palestinians flee Syria's war
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, Palestinian children who fled their houses in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, sitting inside a children library, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, Palestinian children who fled their houses in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, sitting inside a children library, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, a Palestinian family who fled thier home in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, look out through the window, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, Palestinian children who fled their houses in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, sitting inside a children library, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, a Palestinian woman who fled her home in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, carries her children inside a school, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In this Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 photo, a Palestinian woman who fled her home in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in south Damascus, feeds her baby inside a school, at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived decades-old debate over the Palestine refugees' 'right of return' to their homes that are now in Israel, adding to the complexity the conflict whose sectarian and ethnic overtones have spilled over into neighboring countries raising fears of a regional war. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
EIN EL-HILWEH, Lebanon (AP) ? When Syrian warplanes bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus last December, Umm Sami rounded up her three sons, shut the windows and locked the doors so they could neither hear nor heed the call to arms by rebels and pro-government gunmen fighting in the streets.
Then she told her sons they were leaving their home in the Yarmouk refugee camp in the Syrian capital for neighboring Lebanon, where they would wait out Syria's civil war.
"There will be no more martyrs for Palestine in my family," the 45-year-old widow said. "This war is a Syrian problem."
Now safe in Lebanon, Umm Sami and her family have joined thousands of other Palestinian refugees who have found shelter in the country since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad erupted nearly two years ago. The conflict has left more than 2 million people internally displaced, and pushed 650,000 more to seek refuge abroad.
Umm Sami's resolve to keep her sons out of the fight in Syria ties into a deep-rooted sentiment among a generation of Palestinian refugees who say they are fed up with being dragged into the region's conflicts on a promise of getting their own state.
The Palestinian exodus from Syria has also revived a decades-old debate over the refugees' right of return to their homes that are now in Israel. That has added another layer of complexity to a conflict already loaded with sectarian and ethnic overtones that have spilled over into neighboring countries, raising fears of a regional war.
Palestinians living in Arab countries ? including the half-million refugees in Syria ? are descendants of the hundreds of thousands who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948. Having scattered across the Middle East since then, Palestinians consistently have found themselves in the middle of the region's conflicts.
After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein, hundreds of Palestinians were killed as the Sunni and Shiite militias fought for dominance of the country. Iraq's Shiite majority saw Saddam, who like most Palestinians was a Sunni Muslim, as a patron of the stateless Palestinians, granting them rights the dictator denied his own citizens because they were of the rival sect.
About 1,000 Palestinians fled the 2004-07 sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad, living in a refugee camp near the Syrian border before being resettled in third countries.
During Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, Palestinians played a major role, fighting alongside Muslim militiamen against Christian forces.
Umm Sami, who was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon before the war, was twice forced to flee the fighting, most notably in 1982 when her family escaped the Sabra and Chatilla camps during the notorious massacre of Palestinians there by Christian militias.
She would eventually bury her father, two brothers and her husband ? all fallen fighters ? before leaving for Syria and settling with her four sons in Yarmouk, one of nine Palestinian camps in Syria.
Her youngest son died in a traffic accident while serving in the Palestinian unit of the Syrian army just weeks before the anti-Assad revolt started in March 2011. None of her other sons joined the revolution, she said, because "they don't want to die."
Unlike in Lebanon, where Palestinians are cramped into notoriously lawless camps, banned from all but the most menial professions and barred from owning property, Palestinians in Syria are well integrated and enjoy full citizenship rights, except for the right to vote.
But when the uprising against Assad erupted in the southern province of Daraa in March 2011, some Palestinians living in a camp there joined in the peaceful protests. When the fighting spread to the northern city of Aleppo in last summer, some took up arms against the regime.
In Damascus, most stayed on the sidelines, but as the civil war reached Yarmouk late last year, a densely populated residential area just 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the heart of the capital, most residents backed the rebels. Some groups, however, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, opted to fight alongside Assad's troops.
Palestinian officials say more than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the Yarmouk fighting. Most of the camp's 150,000 inhabitants have fled, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Some of them have found safe haven in areas of Damascus and other Syrian cities, but most have escaped to camps in Lebanon.
"We go from catastrophe to catastrophe, from refugee camp to refugee camp, but at least we are alive," Umm Sami said in Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, near the southern port city of Sidon. She and her sons, who are all in their 20s and university graduates, fled Yarmouk with only the clothes on their backs, leaving behind a two-bedroom apartment and jobs that paid the bills.
Now, they are jobless in Lebanon, officially barred from legal employment, and left to live off help from relatives and handouts from the camp's mosques.
Ein en-Hilweh normally houses 65,000 people, but since mid-December, when a flood of refugees from Yarmouk started arriving, the population has steadily grown by several hundred a day, putting a further strain on resources.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to their homeland. Last week, he said that Israel agreed to allow 150,000 Palestinians refugees from Syrian into the West Bank and Gaza ? as long as they relinquished the right of return to what is now Israel. Abbas said he refused.
With no end to the Syria conflict in sight, residents of Ein el-Hilweh have started building a camp within a refugee camp for their compatriots escaping the violence across the border.
They've converted the camp's children's library into housing for dozens of families. Reading rooms, offices, hallways and even bathrooms have been partitioned with makeshift walls, boards and even blankets as families try to carve out space to cook, eat and sleep.
In the library's front yard, a new structure is being built to house at least 10 more families.
"We do what we can to help and find them a home, because they are not going back to Syria soon," said Sheik Jamal Khatab, who oversees the registration of refugees and distribution of aid.
The biggest challenge facing the Palestinian refugees, Khatab said, is not to be dragged into the Syrian civil war ? on either side. He also warned that the hardship awaiting Palestinians after the war ends will be tougher than the one they have been living as stateless people.
"It's in our interest not to interfere in this conflict, even though the Syrian regime is a tyrannical regime," he said. "We are not Syrians, and any side that will win this war will consider us enemies."
___
Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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Breast Cancer Gene May Be Tied to Early Menopause - Drugs.com ...
TUESDAY Jan. 29, 2013 -- Women with the BRCA gene, who are already at greater risk for breast and ovarian cancer, may also be at increased risk for early menopause, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found a harmful mutation in the BRCA gene may give women fewer childbearing years and may also increase their risk of infertility. And heavy smokers who carry the mutation may go through menopause even earlier than non-smoking women with the mutation.
The researchers suggested that women with the BRCA mutation consider having children at a younger age. They noted that doctors should encourage their patients who carry this mutation to get fertility counseling in addition to their other medical treatments.
"Our findings show that mutation of these genes has been linked to early menopause, which may lead to a higher incidence of infertility," study senior author Dr. Mitchell Rosen, director of the UCSF Fertility Preservation, said in a university news release. "This can add to the significant psychological implications of being a BRCA ... carrier, and will likely have an impact on reproductive decision-making."
In conducting the study, which was published online Jan. 29 in the journal Cancer, the researchers examined information on 400 female carriers of mutations in the BRCA gene who lived in northern California. Most were white. The age at which these women went through menopause was compared to that of nearly 800 women living in the same area who did not carry a BRCA mutation.
The study revealed that women with the mutation experienced menopause at age 50 on average. In comparison, menopause for women without the mutation began at about 53. Women who smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily who carried the mutation went through menopause even earlier, with onset at age 46 on average. The researchers pointed out that only 7 percent of white women living in the region experienced menopause by that age.
Mutations in either of the genes BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 are the most identified inherited cause of breast cancer. Women with these mutations are five times more likely to develop breast cancer than those without the mutations, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
The researchers noted that more studies are needed on the link between BRCA mutations and risk for infertility. They pointed out that data on the natural age of menopause among women with these mutations is limited since many opt to undergo surgery to remove at-risk tissue, including their breasts and ovaries, after they have children.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute provides more information on the BRCA gene.
Posted: January 2013
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Source: http://www.drugs.com/news/breast-cancer-gene-may-tied-early-menopause-42813.html
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Monday, January 28, 2013
Green Blog: Market for Bear Bile Threatens Asian Population
European Pressphoto Agency Bears await food on a farm in Fujian Province in China that is run by the pharmaceuticals maker Guizhentang. The company legally makes tonics from bear bile.The six bears that arrived this month at Animals Asia, an animal rescue center in China, had the grisly symptoms of inhumane ?bile milking.? Greenish bile dripped from open fistulas used to drain gall bladders; teeth were broken and rotted from gnawing on the bars of tiny cages.
Four of the bears have since had surgery to remove gall bladders damaged by years of unhygenic procedures to extract their bile, which is coveted for its purported medicinal properties. One bear?s swollen gall bladder was the size of a watermelon.
The latest batch of bears was rescued from an illegal farm by the Sichuan Forestry Department and joins 279 other bears at the center, near Chengdu in southwestern China. With luck, these bears will recover at the sanctuary. But thousands on farms, both legal and illegal, continue to suffer in wretched conditions, and countless others living in the wild across Asia are threatened by poaching and their illegal capture.
Bear bile contains a chemical called ursedeoxycholic acid, long used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat gallstones, liver problems and other ailments. There are an estimated 10,000 farmed bears in China, 3,000 in Vietnam, at least 1,000 in South Korea and others in Laos and Myanmar.
Tigers, rhinos and elephants are notoriously poached to satisfy high demand in Asia for their parts, which are falsely assumed to have medicinal properties. Experts warn that sun bears and Asiatic black bears, known colloquially as ?moon bears,? are on a similar route to endangerment, although their plight draws less media attention. ?No bears are extinct, but all Asian ones are threatened,? said Chris Shepherd, a conservation biologist and deputy regional director of the wildlife trade group Traffic who is based in Malaysia.
To address the threat, the demand for bear bile must be sharply reduced, Dr. Shepherd, a conservation biologist told hundreds of researchers at the International Conference on Bear Research and Management, an annual event held recently in New Delhi.
Reducing demand would require a multi-pronged effort, experts say. That would mean enforcing existing laws, arresting and prosecuting violators, promoting synthetic and herbal alternatives, and closing illegal farms.
Chinese celebrities like the actor Jackie Chan and the athlete Yao Ming have both spoken out against the bear bile industry to raise public awareness about poaching and the inhumane conditions typically found on farms. Bears often live for years in coffin-like cages in which they are unable to stand or turn around.
The bile is extracted through catheters inserted into the abdomen, with needles or by bringing the gall bladder to the skin?s surface, where it will leak bile if prodded.
Legal farming was conceived as a way of increasing the supply of bile to reduce the motivation for poaching wild bears, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But there is no evidence that it has done so, it noted in a resolution passed last September, and there is concern among conservationists that it ?may be detrimental.?
The resolution also called on countries with legal bear farms to close down the illegal ones, to ensure that no wild bears are added to farms; to conduct research into bear bile substitutes (there are dozens of synthetic and herbal alternatives) and to conduct an independent peer-reviewed scientific analysis on whether farming protects wild bears.
Some groups argue that the increased supply of farmed bile has only exacerbated demand. ?Because a surplus of bear bile is being produced, bile is used in many non-medical products, like bear bile wine, shampoo, toothpaste and face masks,? Animals Asia says. Since bear farming began in China in the early 1980?s, bear bile has been aggressively promoted as a cure-all remedy for problems like hangovers, the group added.
In mainland China and Japan, domestic sales of bear bile are legal and theoretically under strict regulation as prescription products. But such sales are illegal in Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and the international trade is illegal as well.
Yet a 2011 report from Traffic indicated that bear bile products were on sale in traditional medicine outlets in 12 Asian countries and territories.
Nonprescription bear bile products like shampoo or toothpaste are illegal in China yet are readily available for purchase, conservationists say. Tourists from South Korea, a country that has decimated its own wild bear population, are major buyers in China and Vietnam even though taking bear bile products across borders is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.
?Farms have drawn in bile consumers by creating a huge market ? bile is cheap,? said David Garshelis, a research scientist at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources who is co-chairman of the I.U.C.N.?s bear specialist group.
In Vietnam, a milliliter of bile might sell for $3 to $6; about 100 milliliters can be extracted from a bear each day, according to Annemarie Weegenaar, bear and director of the veterinarian team at Animals Asia?s Vietnam center.
In four years, the I.U.C.N. is to issue a report on whether bear farms threaten wild populations. Meanwhile, demand appears to be spreading further afield in Asia and is now growing in Indonesia, largely as a result of demand from the Chinese and Korean communities there, said Gabriella Fredriksson, a conservation biologist based in Sumatra. A low-level poacher can sell a gall bladder from a bear caught in a simple snare and then killed for about $10.
So far the biggest threat to bears in Indonesia is loss of habitat from forest fires and the conversion of land to palm oil plantations. But in the last few years, poaching has increased, said Dr.
Fredriksson, who has been there 15 years.
She cautioned that bears in Indonesia could also become highly threatened. ?Fifty years ago, bears were doing well in Cambodia and Laos,? she said. ?Now there?s hardly any left.?
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Social Security commissioner to leave in February
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue says he will step down in February after completing his six-year term. Astrue's departure gives President Barack Obama the opportunity to name a new head to the federal government's largest program.
Astrue's term was marked by increasingly dire warnings about the long-term financial health of the massive retirement and disability program. Astrue also worked to reduce backlogs of people applying for disability claims.
The trustees who oversee Social Security project that the program's trust funds will run dry in 2033. At that point, Social Security will collect only enough in taxes to pay 75 percent of benefits. As commissioner, Astrue is also a trustee.
Astrue has urged Congress to shore up the program's finances but has not publicly endorsed any solutions.
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'Argo' wins Producers Guild Awards
Ben Affleck arrives at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
Ben Affleck arrives at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
Amanda Seyfried arrives at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
Nicole Kidman, left, and Naomi Watts arrive at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
Anne Hathaway arrives at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
Nicole Kidman, left, and Naomi Watts arrive at the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP Images)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? "Argo" continues to shake up the Oscar race by taking the top honor at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.
Ben Affleck, coming off winning Golden Globe Awards for best motion picture drama and director for the real-life drama, received the award handed out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
"I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm still working as an actor," he said in his acceptance speech.
Affleck also stars in "Argo" as the CIA operative who orchestrated a daring rescue of six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. George Clooney and Grant Heslov share the producer award with Affleck as "Argo" beat out the Civil War saga "Lincoln," which has a leading 12 Academy Awards nominations.
Other nominees in the PGA movie category were "Les Miserables," ''Zero Dark Thirty," ''Beasts of the Southern Wild," ''Django Unchained," ''Life of Pi," ''Moonrise Kingdom," ''Silver Linings Playbook," and Skyfall."
Along with honors from other Hollywood professional groups such as actors, directors and writers guilds, the producer prizes have become part of the preseason sorting out contenders for Academy Awards.
The big winner often goes on to claim the best-picture honor at the Oscars on Feb. 24.
Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" won the guild's animation category, beating "Brave," ''Frankenweenie," ''ParaNorman" and "Rise of the Guardians."
"Searching for Sugar Man" took the documentary prize, beating "A People Uncounted," ''The Gatekeepers," ''The Island President," and "The Other Dream Team."
Showtime's "Homeland" won the producer's award for television drama series, which beat out "Breaking Bad," ''Downton Abbey," ''Game of Thrones," and "Mad Men."
The ABC sitcom "Modern Family" took the prize for best comedy series for the third straight year, beating "30 Rock," ''The Big Bang Theory," ''Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Louie."
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Sunday, January 27, 2013
'2-D' electronic devices, may be possible: Fine patterns made with single-atom-thick graphene and boron nitride
Jan. 27, 2013 ? Rice University scientists have taken an important step toward the creation of two-dimensional electronics with a process to make patterns in atom-thick layers that combine a conductor and an insulator.
The materials at play -- graphene and hexagonal boron nitride -- have been merged into sheets and built into a variety of patterns at nanoscale dimensions.
Rice introduced a technique to stitch the identically structured materials together nearly three years ago. Since then, the idea has received a lot of attention from researchers interested in the prospect of building 2-D, atomic-layer circuits, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan. He is one of the authors of the new work that appears this week in Nature Nanotechnology. In particular, Ajayan noted that Cornell University scientists reported an advance late last year on the art of making atomic-layer heterostructures through sequential growth schemes.
This week's contribution by Rice offers manufacturers the possibility of shrinking electronic devices into even smaller packages. While Rice's technical capabilities limited features to a resolution of about 100 nanometers, the only real limits are those defined by modern lithographic techniques, according to the researchers. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.)
"It should be possible to make fully functional devices with circuits 30, even 20 nanometers wide, all in two dimensions," said Rice researcher Jun Lou, a co-author of the new paper. That would make circuits on about the same scale as in current semiconductor fabrication, he said.
Graphene has been touted as a wonder material since its discovery in the last decade. Even at one atom thick, the hexagonal array of carbon atoms has proven its potential as a fascinating electronic material. But to build a working device, conductors alone will not do. Graphene-based electronics require similar, compatible 2-D materials for other components, and researchers have found hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) works nicely as an insulator.
H-BN looks like graphene, with the same chicken-wire atomic array. The earlier work at Rice showed that merging graphene and h-BN via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) created sheets with pools of the two that afforded some control of the material's electronic properties. Ajayan said at the time that the creation offered "a great playground for materials scientists."
He has since concluded that the area of two-dimensional materials beyond graphene "has grown significantly and will play out as one of the key exciting materials in the near future."
His prediction bears fruit in the new work, in which finely detailed patterns of graphene are laced into gaps created in sheets of h-BN. Combs, bars, concentric rings and even microscopic Rice Owls were laid down through a lithographic process. The interface between elements, seen clearly in scanning transmission electron microscope images taken at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, shows a razor-sharp transition from graphene to h-BN along a subnanometer line.
"This is not a simple quilt," Lou said. "It's very precisely engineered. We can control the domain sizes and the domain shapes, both of which are necessary to make electronic devices."
The new technique also began with CVD. Lead author Zheng Liu, a Rice research scientist, and his colleagues first laid down a sheet of h-BN. Laser-cut photoresistant masks were placed over the h-BN, and exposed material was etched away with argon gas. (A focused ion beam system was later used to create even finer patterns, down to 100-nanometer resolution, without masks.) After the masks were washed away, graphene was grown via CVD in the open spaces, where it bonded edge-to-edge with the h-BN. The hybrid layer could then be picked up and placed on any substrate.
While there's much work ahead to characterize the atomic bonds where graphene and h-BN domains meet and to analyze potential defects along the boundaries, Liu's electrical measurements proved the components' qualities remain intact.
"One important thing Zheng showed is that even by doing all kinds of growth, then etching, then regrowth, the intrinsic properties of these two materials are not affected," Lou said. "Insulators stay insulators; they're not doped by the carbon. And the graphene still looks very good. That's important, because we want to be sure what we're growing is exactly what we want."
Liu said the next step is to place a third element, a semiconductor, into the 2-D fabric. "We're trying very hard to integrate this into the platform," he said. "If we can do that, we can build truly integrated in-plane devices." That would give new options to manufacturers toying with the idea of flexible electronics, he said.
"The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the general process," Lou added. "It's robust, it's repeatable and it creates materials with very nice properties and with dimensions that are at the limit of what is possible."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- C. Drexler, S. A. Tarasenko, P. Olbrich, J. Karch, M. Hirmer, F. M?ller, M. Gmitra, J. Fabian, R. Yakimova, S. Lara-Avila, S. Kubatkin, M. Wang, R. Vajtai, P. M. Ajayan, J. Kono, S. D. Ganichev. Magnetic quantum ratchet effect in graphene. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2012.231
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/Z5aTSo83LOQ/130127134208.htm
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The Avatar's Bender Academy
The Avatar, has created an Academy for young benders in Republic City to master their elements. Only the finest students are accepted.
Owner:
Game Masters:
This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?The Avatar's Bender Academy?. Anything posted here will also show up there.Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.Hello!
I'd like to reserve an Earth Bender from the Earth Kingdom. xD
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MaliceInWonderland - Member for 5 years
MaliceInWonderland wrote:Hello!I'd like to reserve an Earth Bender from the Earth Kingdom. xD
Will be looking forward to seeing your character!
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
DarknessToDeath23 wrote:I'd love to reserve a fire bender, please?
Sure no problem! Will be looking forward to seeing your Character!
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
may i reserve an Air bender from republic city? :o
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PsychicBastard - Member for 1 years
PsychicBastard wrote:may i reserve an Air bender from republic city? :o
Sure!
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
Are only benders allowed or are non benders welcome too? :]
I should go.
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Bromander Shepard - Member for 1 years
Nevermind.
I like the idea for this roleplay but perhaps it's not one I'd like to actually join. However, have fun everyone! :)
~ wanderer.
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Wanderer - Member for 1 years
"-Unlimited space for people to join."
Doesn't this mean that you don't have to reserve? I'm confused.
Timezones....................
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0neTailedf0x - Member for 1 years
Bromander Shepard wrote:Are only benders allowed or are non benders welcome too? :]
Only benders, I don't know what non benders would do, they'd probably be bored. xD
[Yes I know non benders can have weapon talents but it's just for benders]
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
0neTailedf0x wrote:"-Unlimited space for people to join."
Doesn't this mean that you don't have to reserve? I'm confused.
Yes, you do not need to reserve, I don't know why people are reserving xD There can be more than one of the same type of bender!
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
Wanderer wrote:Nevermind.I like the idea for this roleplay but perhaps it's not one I'd like to actually join. However, have fun everyone! :)
Why not may I ask?
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pepperx3 - Member for 0 years
I'd like to reserve a female water bender from the south pole please! I'll hve it up in a bit! Thanks! :D
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Starlight77 - Member for 1 years
Post a reply
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