Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine has put his Hoboken, New Jersey, penthouse on the market, reports CNBC's Kayla Tausche.
Related Links:
Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com
Top of page
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46195506/
lsu vs alabama college football college football ncaa football brian van gorder blazing saddles lsu alabama
ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2012) ? Researchers at Rice University are using carbon nanotubes as the critical component of a robust terahertz polarizer that could accelerate the development of new security and communication devices, sensors and non-invasive medical imaging systems as well as fundamental studies of low-dimensional condensed matter systems.
The polarizer developed by the Rice lab of Junichiro Kono, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of physics and astronomy, is the most effective ever reported; it selectively allows 100 percent of a terahertz wave to pass or blocks 99.9 percent of it, depending on its polarization. The research was published in the online version of the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.
The broadband polarizer handles waves from 0.5 to 2.2 terahertz, far surpassing the range of commercial polarizers that consist of fragile grids wrapped in gold or tungsten wires.
Kono said technologies that make use of the optical and electrical regions of the electromagnetic spectrum are mature and common, as in lasers and telescopes on one end and computers and microwaves on the other. But until recent years, the terahertz region in between was largely unexplored. "Over the past decade or two, people have been making impressive progress," he said, particularly in the development of such sources of radiation as the terahertz quantum cascade laser.
"We have pretty good terahertz emitters and detectors, but we need a way to manipulate light in this range," Kono said. "Our work is in this category, manipulating the polarization state -- the direction of the electric field -- of terahertz radiation."
Terahertz waves exist at the transition between infrared and microwaves and have unique qualities. They are not harmful and penetrate fabric, wood, plastic and even clouds, but not metal or water. In combination with spectroscopy, they can be used to read what Kono called "spectral fingerprints in the terahertz range"; he said they would, for instance, be useful in a security setting to identify the chemical signatures of specific explosives.
The work by Kono and lead author Lei Ren, who recently earned his doctorate at Rice, makes great use of the basic research into carbon nanotubes for which the university is famous. Co-authors Robert Hauge, a distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry, and his former graduate student Cary Pint developed a way to grow nanotube carpets and to transfer well-aligned arrays of nanotubes from a catalyst to any substrate they chose, limited only by the size of the growth platform.
While Hauge and Pint were developing their nanotube arrays, Kono and his team were thinking about terahertz. Four years ago, they came across a semiconducting material, indium antimonide, that would stop or pass terahertz waves, but only in a strong magnetic field and at very low temperatures.
At about the same time, Kono's lab began working with carbon nanotube arrays transferred onto a sapphire substrate by Pint and Hauge. Those aligned arrays -- think of a field of wheat run over by a steamroller -- turned out to be very effective at filtering terahertz waves, as Kono and his team reported in a 2009 paper.
"When the polarization of the terahertz wave was perpendicular to the nanotubes, there was absolutely no attenuation," Kono recalled. "But when the polarization was parallel to the nanotubes, the thickness was not enough to completely kill the transmission, which was still at 30-50 percent."
The answer was clear: Make the polarizer thicker. The current polarizer has three decks of aligned nanotubes on sapphire, enough to effectively absorb all of the incident terahertz radiation. "Our method is unique, and it's simple," he said.
Kono sees use for the device beyond spectroscopy by manipulating it with an electric field, but that will only become possible when all of the nanotubes in an array are of a semiconducting type. As they're made now, batches of nanotubes are a random mix of semiconductors and metallics; recent work by Erik H?roz, a graduate student in Kono's lab, detailed the reasons that nanotubes separated through ultracentrifugation have type-dependent colors. But finding a way to grow specific types of nanotubes is the focus of a great deal of research at Rice and elsewhere.
Co-authors are former Rice postdoctoral researcher Takashi Arikawa and research associate Iwao Kawayama and Professor Masayoshi Tonouchi of the Institute of Laser Engineering at Osaka University, Japan.
The Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Robert A. Welch Foundation supported the research.
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
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/~3/6iBLFNUX4zk/120130172615.htm
the thin man republic wireless space ball drops on namibia prometheus colts colts matt barkley
CHICAGO ? Teens don't tweet, will never tweet - too public, too many older users. Not cool.
That's been the prediction for a while now, born of numbers showing that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter early on.
But then their parents, grandparents, neighbors, parents' friends and anyone in-between started friending them on Facebook, the social networking site of choice for many ? and a curious thing began to happen.
Suddenly, their space wasn't just theirs anymore. So more young people have started shifting to Twitter, almost hiding in plain sight.
"I love twitter, it's the only thing I have to myself ... cause my parents don't have one," Britteny Praznik, a 17-year-old who lives outside Milwaukee, gleefully tweeted recently.
While she still has a Facebook account, she joined Twitter last summer, after more people at her high school did the same. "It just sort of caught on," she says.
Teens tout the ease of use and the ability to send the equivalent of a text message to a circle of friends, often a smaller one than they have on crowded Facebook accounts. They can have multiple accounts and don't have to use their real names. They also can follow their favorite celebrities and, for those interested in doing so, use Twitter as a soapbox.
The growing popularity teens report fits with findings from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit organization that monitors people's tech-based habits. The migration has been slow, but steady. A Pew survey last July found that 16 percent of young people, ages 12 to 17, said they used Twitter. Two years earlier, that percentage was just 8 percent.
"That doubling is definitely a significant increase," says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at Pew. And she suspects it's even higher now.
Meanwhile, a Pew survey found that nearly one in five 18- to 29-year-olds have taken a liking to the micro-blogging service, which allows them to tweet, or post, their thoughts 140 characters at a time.
Early on, Twitter had a reputation that many didn't think fit the online habits of teens ? well over half of whom were already using Facebook or other social networking services in 2006, when Twitter launched.
"The first group to colonize Twitter were people in the technology industry ? consummate self-promoters," says Alice Marwick, a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, who tracks young people's online habits.
For teens, self-promotion isn't usually the goal. At least until they go to college and start thinking about careers, social networking is, well, ... social.
But as Twitter has grown, so have the ways people, and communities, use it.
For one, though some don't realize it, tweets don't have to be public. A lot of teens like using locked, private accounts. And whether they lock them or not, many also use pseudonyms, so that only their friends know who they are.
"Facebook is like shouting into a crowd. Twitter is like speaking into a room" ? that's what one teen said when he was participating in a focus group at Microsoft Research, Marwick says.
Other teens have told Pew researchers that they feel "social pressure," to friend people on Facebook ? "for instance, friending everyone in your school or that friend of a friend you met at a football game," Pew researcher Madden says.
Twitter's more fluid and anonymous setup, teens say, gives them more freedom to avoid friends of friends of friends ? not that they're saying anything particularly earth-shattering. They just don't want everyone to see it.
Praznik, for instance, tweets anything from complaints and random thoughts to angst and longing.
"i hate snow i hate winter.Moving to California as soon as i can," one recent post from the Wisconsin teen read.
"Dont add me as a friend for a day just to check up on me and then delete me again and then you wonder why im mad at you.duhhh," read another.
And one more: "I wish you were mine but you don't know wht you want. Till you figure out what you want I'm going to do my own thing."
Different teenagers use Twitter for different reasons.
Some monitor celebrities.
"Twitter is like a backstage pass to a concert," says Jason Hennessey, CEO of Everspark Interactive, a tech-based marketing agency in Atlanta. "You could send a tweet to Justin Bieber 10 minutes before the concert, and there's a chance he might tweet you back."
A few teens use it as a platform to share opinions, keeping their accounts public for all the world to see, as many adults do.
Taylor Smith, a 14-year-old in St. Louis, is one who uses Twitter to monitor the news and to get her own "small points across." Recently, that has included her dislike for strawberry Pop Tarts and her admiration for a video that features the accomplishments of young female scientists.
She started tweeting 18 months ago after her dad opened his own account. He gave her his blessing, though he watches her account closely.
"Once or twice I used bad language and he never let me hear the end of it," Smith says. Even so, she appreciates the chance to vent and to be heard and thinks it's only a matter of time before her friends realize that Twitter is the cool place to be ? always an important factor with teens.
They need to "realize it's time to get in the game," Smith say, though she notes that some don't have smart phones or their own laptops ? or their parents don't want them to tweet, feeling they're too young.
Pam Praznik, Britteny's mother, keeps track of her daughter's Facebook accounts. But Britteny asked that she not follow her on Twitter ? and her mom is fine with that, as long as the tweets remain between friends.
"She could text her friends anyway, without me knowing," mom says.
Marwick at Microsoft thinks that's a good call.
"Parents should kind of chill and give them that space," she says.
Still, teens and parents shouldn't assume that even locked accounts are completely private, says Ananda Mitra, a professor of communication at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Online privacy, he says, is "mythical privacy."
Certainly, parents are always concerned about online predators ? and experts say they should use the same common sense online as they do in the outside world when it comes to dealing with strangers and providing too much personal information.
But there are other privacy issues to consider, Mitra says.
Someone with a public Twitter account might, for instance, retweet a posting made on a friend's locked account, allowing anyone to see it. It happens all the time.
And on a deeper level, he says those who use Twitter and Facebook ? publicly or privately ? leave a trail of "digital DNA" that could be mined by universities or employers, law enforcement or advertisers because it is provided voluntarily.
Mitra has coined the term "narb" to describe the narrative bits people reveal about themselves online ? age, gender, location and opinions, based on interactions with their friends.
So true privacy, he says, would "literally means withdrawing" from textual communication online or on phones ? in essence, using this technology in very limited ways.
He realizes that's not very likely, the way things are going ? but he says it is something to think about when interacting with friends, expressing opinions or even "liking" or following a corporation or public figure.
But Marwick at Microsoft still thinks private accounts pose little risk when you consider the content of the average teenager's Twitter account.
"They just want someplace they can express themselves and talk with their friends without everyone watching," she says.
Much like teens always have.
___
Online:
Microsoft Research: http://research.microsoft.com/
Pew: http://www.pewinternet.org
___
Martha Irvine can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org or via http://twitter.com/irvineap
free shipping day free shipping day golden globe nominations 2012 war in iraq war in iraq barbara walters government shutdown
ATHENS, Greece?? A disorderly and potentially devastating Greek debt default is looking much less likely.
Greece and investors who have bought its bonds have reached a tentative deal to significantly reduce the country's debt and pave the way for it to receive a much-needed euro130 billion bailout.
Negotiators for the investors announced the tentative agreement Saturday and said it could become final next week. If the agreement works as planned, it will help Greece remain solvent and help Europe avoid a blow to its already weak financial system, even though banks and other bond investors will have to accept multibillion-dollar losses. Still, it doesn't resolve the weakening economic conditions Greece and other European nations face as they rapidly rein in spending in order to get their debts under control.
Under the agreement, the euro206 billion worth of Greek bonds that investors own would be exchanged for new bonds worth 60 percent less.
Private investors would receive new bonds whose face value is half of the existing bonds. The new bonds would have a longer maturity and pay an average interest rate of slightly less than 4 percent. The existing bonds pay an average interest rate of 5 percent, according to the think tank Re-Define.
The deal would reduce Greece's annual interest expense on the bonds from about $10 billion to about $4 billion. And when the bonds mature, instead of paying bondholders euro206 billion, Greece will have to pay only euro103 billion.
Without the deal, which would reduce Greece's debt load by at least euro120 billion, the bonds held by banks, insurance companies and hedge funds would likely become worthless. Many of these investors also hold debt from other countries that use the euro, which could also lose value in the event of a full-fledged Greek default. This is the scenario analysts fear most and why they hope investors will voluntarily accept a partial loss on their Greek bonds.
The agreement taking shape is a key step before Greece can get a second, euro130 billion bailout from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund. Besides restructuring its debt with private investors, Greece must also take other steps before getting aid. It must cut its deficit and boost the competitiveness of its economy through layoffs of government employees and the sale of several state companies, among other moves.
This would be Greece's second bailout. The EU and the IMF signed off on a euro110 billion aid package for Greece in May 2010, most of which has already been disbursed.
Greece faces a euro14.5 billion bond repayment on March 20, which it cannot afford without additional help.
Private investors hold roughly two-thirds of Greece's debt, which has reached an unsustainable level ? nearly 160 percent of the country's annual economic output. By restructuring the debt held by private investors, Greece and its EU partners are hoping to bring that ratio closer to 120 percent by the end of this decade. Without a deal, analysts forecast that ratio ballooning to 200 percent by the end of this year as the Greek economy falters.
In return for the first bailout, Greece's public creditors ? the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank ? have unprecedented powers over Greek spending. However, Greece's problems will not be fixed simply by cutting government spending. In order to bring its debts to a more manageable level, the country must also find ways boost economic output, which would enable it to collect more taxes.
If no debt-exchange deal is reached with private creditors and Greece is forced to default, it would very likely spook Europe's ? and possibly the world's ? financial markets. It could even lead Greece to withdraw from the euro.
Sarah Ketterer, co-manager of Causeway International Value Fund, a $1.4 billion mutual fund that invests in European stocks, said the region's markets have rebounded this month largely on expectations that negotiators would reach a deal along the lines of the one being finalized now.
Any last-minute breakdown in the talks could trigger a sharp decline in European markets, she said. But a rally is unlikely if negotiations succeed.
"The equity markets have ... largely already discounted this, and you can see that in the confidence that has returned in European equities since the end of December, and especially for financial stocks," Ketterer said.
She said there "really was no other option" than reaching a deal for bondholders to take a haircut of 50 percent or more.
Ketterer said a Greek deal could help restore bond market confidence. That would help Italy manage its own debt crisis ? one that Ketterer views as more critical than Greece's because of Italy's greater size.
The investors who own Greek bonds are being represented by Charles Dallara, managing director of the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, and Jean Lemierre, senior adviser to the chairman of the French bank BNP Paribas.
___
Elena Becatoros in Athens and Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels contributed.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46175493/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/
troy taxes miracle andy whitfield kennedy demi moore roy oswalt
A solar mass is over 300,000 Earths, and Polaris is atleast 7 solar masses, adjusting for the most conservative of all estimates. It's apparent magnitude is about 1.9, while the magnitude of drop off (nolonger visible to the human eye) is defined at 7 (with 6 being relatively hard except under good conditions).
Setting aside the nuclear chemistry that will occur in the meantime (which tends to increase brightness), that Polaris is, in fact, multiple stars and the overall reduction of radiative and mass pressure that will be reducing the production/consumption rate*, I would posit even losing half of its mass, it would likely still be visible in 2000 years, which means the Northern Star will have since switched to Gamma Cephei.
So, no big loss here. Personally, I, for one, welcome our new Alrainian OverStar.
****
*You know what, I'm actually going to do these in the coming weeks. This is sound like a fun problem, even though I do a lot more in theoretical particle physics than cosmology.
Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/EU3qFy8sUDw/north-star-may-be-wasting-away
redacted banned books 30 rock anna faris amanda knox latest news brass monkey x factor auditions
Google upgrades Earth with better rendering, teaches it to sing in perfect harmony originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |
The Official Google Blog | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/google-earth-upgrade/
nome alaska alaska map bil keane storm in alaska storm in alaska asteroid eric johnson
On Friday?s episode of her OWN talk show, Rosie O?Donnell sat down with Dr. Mehmet Oz and revealed that she and her fianc?e, New York headhunter Michelle Rounds, are trying to have children.
Rosie O'Donnell: Engaged!?
"She's trying to get pregnant," O'Donnell told Oz on The Rosie Show.
Previously O'Donnell was married to Kelli Carpenter from 2004 to 2007. The former couple has four children, Blake, Parker, Chelsea and Vivienne.
O'Donnell confirmed her engagement on December 5, 2011 by announcing the happy news to her studio audience during a commercial break from The Rosie Show.
O'Donnell's interview with Dr. Oz airs next Thursday on OWN.
nebraska football online deals leap pad lauren alaina lowes best buy black friday frys ad
An Afghan solider, left, stands guard at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2012. A suicide car bomber targeting NATO-sponsored aid workers killed at least three people and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, an official said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)
An Afghan solider, left, stands guard at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2012. A suicide car bomber targeting NATO-sponsored aid workers killed at least three people and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, an official said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)
An Afghan official, left, investigates the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2012. The suicide car bomber targeting NATO-sponsored aid workers killed at least three people and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, an official said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)
A damaged vehicle, which belongs to NATO-sponsored aid workers is seen at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2012. ?The suicide car bomber targeting NATO-sponsored aid workers killed at least three people and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, an official said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)
A damaged car is seen at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2012. A suicide car bomber targeting NATO-sponsored aid workers killed at least three people and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, an official said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A suicide car bomber targeting a NATO-sponsored reconstruction team killed four Afghan civilians, including a child, and wounded 31 on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, officials said.
Three civilian international members of the aid team ? two men and one woman ? were among the wounded, said Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He said their injuries were not life threatening and did not know their nationalities.
The bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle Thursday morning as a convoy of a NATO Provincial Reconstruction Team passed by in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, Ahmadi said.
The blast ripped through the convoy of armored vehicles, knocking at least one over and charring others. The explosion also shredded nearby storefronts and damaged at least 17 civilian cars nearby, a provincial statement said.
Provincial Reconstruction Teams are joint international military-civilian units dedicated to aid projects to boost support for the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. They are sponsored by the NATO military coalition and there are 27 now operating in Afghanistan.
Afghan National Army soldier Dad Mohammad witnessed the attack while on patrol in the town.
"A car passed our vehicle and parked down the road," he said. "When the foreigners' vehicle was passing this road, it was targeted and there was an explosion."
A spokesman for NATO declined to comment on the attack, referring all questions to the Afghan provincial government.
A statement from the Ministry of Interior said the attack took place near an Education Department building, though Ahmadi initially described it as an aid office. The Ministry said the vehicles in the convoy were about 70 percent destroyed.
No one claimed responsibility for the car bomb, but Helmand has been one of the most volatile areas in the Taliban insurgency's pushback against a U.S.-led initiative to bring southern Afghanistan under greater control of the central Afghan government.
Karzai, who is on a trip meeting European leaders, condemned the attack. A statement from his office Thursday blamed "the enemy of the Afghan people" for the violence, which it called "un-Islamic and against humanity."
Elsewhere, officials said a rocket fired by Taliban insurgents killed a woman and her child in eastern Afghanistan.
Insurgents fired the mortar round during a battle Wednesday with Afghan army soldiers trying to clear militants from a stronghold in Kapisa province's Alasay district, said the provincial governor's chief of staff, Abdul Sabor Wafa.
___
Associated Press reporter Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Associated Pressjack dempsey lake malawi warren jeffs phaedra parks oklahoma earthquake new madrid fault current time
Corn Belt classic pairings released
The Corn Belt Conference basketball classic will be held on Saturday in Freeman.
The classic starts at 11 a.m. at Freeman High School with the Menno girls playing Marion. At 12:30 p.m., the Menno boys play Marion.
The Canistota girls play Bridgewater-Emery at 2 p.m. and the Bridgewater-Emery boys play Freeman at 3:30 p.m. At 5 p.m., the Freeman girls play Hanson, and at 6:30 p.m., the Canistota boys play Hanson.
All-day admission for adults is $5, and students? admission is $4.
Craion, Oral Roberts pound South Dakota
TULSA, Okla. (AP) ? Michael Craion?s double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds paced Oral Roberts to its 12th straight victory in a 97-64 decision over South Dakota on Thursday night.
Mikey Manghum scored 18 points, all on 3-pointers, and Steven Roundtree 17 for the Golden Eagles (19-4, 11-0), whose winning streaks reached 19 at home and 18 in the Summit League. Warren Niles added 11 points and Dominique Morrison 10.
Charlie Westbrook scored 23 points and Trevor Gruis 11 for the Coyotes (7-13, 2-9), who have dropped four of five.
Manghum hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Oral Roberts a 20-15 lead with 11:04 to go in the first half, and the Golden Eagles never trailed after that.
The Golden Eagles outshot the Jackrabbits 56.7 percent to 45.5 percent, held a 36-26 rebounding advantage and piled up 13 steals and 21 assists.
Oral Roberts took the first meeting 79-67 on the road Dec. 30.
Bader, Oakland, Mich., top South Dakota St. 92-87
ROCHESTER, Mich. (AP) ? Travis Bader scored 37 points and set a school record with 10 3-pointers to lead Oakland, Mich., to a 92-87 victory over South Dakota State on Thursday night.
Bader went 10 of 14 from long range, and his 3-pointer with 1:36 left gave the Golden Grizzlies the lead for good at 81-79. He also tied the best 3-point output in Division I this season.
Drew Valentine scored 19 points for Oakland (12-11, 6-5 Summit League), which has won four of five. Reggie Hamilton added 16 points and Ryan Bass 10. Corey Petros grabbed 10 rebounds.
Two players had double-doubles for the Jackrabbits (16-6, 8-2), whose three-game winning streak ended. Jordan Dykstra scored 23 points with 10 rebounds, and Nate Wolters had 21 points and 12 assists. Griffan Callahan scored 17, and Taevaunn Prince had 10 rebounds.
The Golden Grizzlies earned a season split, having lost 76-64 at South Dakota State.
Bucs hire Greg Schiano as coach
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? The Buccaneers are counting on Greg Schiano to lead them back to respectability and transform Tampa Bay into consistent winners ? much in the same way he made Rutgers matter again.
The 45-year-old former Scarlet Knights coach was hired Thursday, more than three weeks after the Bucs fired Raheem Morris following a 4-12 finish.
Celtics beat Orlando 91-83
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Paul Pierce had 24 points and 10 assists, and E?Twaun Moore added 16 points to help the Boston Celtics erase a 27-point deficit and beat the Orlando Magic for the second time this week, 91-83 on Thursday night.
Pierce and Moore had 10 points each in the fourth quarter.
Dwight Howard led the Magic with 16 points and 16 rebounds. Orlando had an 11-point lead entering the fourth quarter, but shot 2 of 17 in the final 12 minutes.
Tags: sports,?updates
Source: http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/61640/
zanesville ohio light field camera world series game 1 exotic animals exotic animals scott hall lra
MONTERREY, Mexico ? Nine people were shot to death early Thursday in the center of Monterrey, the third-largest city in Mexico and the scene of rampant drug violence in recent years.
The bodies of eight men between ages 25 and 30 were found on a street corner after neighbors reported hearing gunfire, said Adrian de la Garza, the Nuevo Leon state attorney general. The body of a woman was found nearby.
De la Garza said the crimes appeared to be linked by the type of weapon used, but provided no more details.
He didn't say if the killings were drug related.
This northern industrial city has been plagued by fighting between the Gulf and Zetas cartels, former allies that split in early 2010.
Elsewhere on Thursday, the Mexican army announced the arrest of a suspect in a 2008 bombing attempt aimed at a municipal police official in Mexico City.
The army statement said Oscar Santoyo Rodriguez, alias "El Mosco," was captured in the southern state of Oaxaca last week.
Santoyo, an alleged member of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, is accused of participating in a Feb. 15, 2008, bombing plot in the capital. The attack failed when the homemade bomb detonated prematurely, killing the man carrying it and injuring a woman who authorities said was also involved.
velasquez vs dos santos velasquez vs dos santos manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez cain velasquez vs dos santos cain velasquez vs dos santos oregon stanford
Welcome to?Just Show Me on?Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the?gadgets in your life. In today's episode we'll show you how to clear your history in?Google's Chrome web browser.
Clearing your history is a good idea if you're ever on a public computer or use a system that could be viewed by someone else. Your browser history tells people a lot, perhaps more then you'd like them to know! Clearing it is easy, and we'll walk you through the steps in our video.
Take a look at these other episodes of Just Show Me that'll help you use your Chrome web browser to the full potential:
For even more episodes of Just Show Me,?subscribe to Tecca TV's YouTube channel and?check out all our Just Show Me episodes. If you have any topics you'd like to see us cover, just drop us a line in the comments.
This article originally appeared on Tecca
More from Tecca:
lance ball lance ball kansas city chiefs chiefs kc chiefs kc chiefs judy garland
MOGADISHU, Somalia ? U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia under cover of darkness early Wednesday and crept up to an outdoor camp where an American woman and Danish man were being held hostage. Soon, nine kidnappers were dead and both hostages were freed.
President Barack Obama authorized the mission by SEAL Team 6 two days earlier, deploying the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden last year. Minutes after the president gave his State of the Union address to Congress he was on the phone with the American's father to tell him his daughter was safe.
The Danish Refugee Council confirmed the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, a Dane, were "on their way to be reunited with their families."
Buchanan, 32, and Thisted, 60, were working with a de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council when gunmen kidnapped the two in October.
The raiders came in quickly, catching the guards as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf qat for much of the evening, a self-described pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told The Associated Press by phone. Hussein said he was not present at the site but had spoken with other kidnappers who were, and that they told him nine kidnappers had been killed in the raid and three were "taken away."
The hostage rescue was carried out by the same SEAL unit, SEAL Team 6, behind the operation in Pakistan last May that killed bin Laden, two U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss the operation.
One official said that the team parachuted into the area before moving on foot to the target. The raid happened near the Somali town of Adado.
New intelligence emerged last week that Buchanan's health was deteriorating rapidly, so Obama directed his security team to develop a rescue plan, according to a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly. A Danish Refugee Council official, Mary Ann Olsen, said that Buchanan was "not that ill" but needed medicine.
"As Commander-in-Chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."
A Western official said the rescuers and the freed hostages flew by helicopter to a U.S. military base called Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been released publicly. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier just over a month ago. A key U.S. ally in this region, Djibouti has the only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts the military's Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
The timing of the raid may have been made more urgent by Buchanan's medical condition. The Danish Refugee Council had been trying to work with Somali elders to win the hostages' freedom but had found little success.
"One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved," Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Denmark's TV2 channel. Soevndal did not provide any more details. Soevndal congratulated the Americans for the raid.
The Danish Refugee Council said both freed hostages are unharmed "and at a safe location." The group said in a separate statement that the two "are on their way to be reunited with their families."
Olsen informed Thisted's family of the successful military operation and said "they were very happy and incredibly relieved that it is over." Olsen said the two freed hostages were in Djibouti and would soon be moved to a "safe haven." She said Buchanan does not need to be hospitalized.
"One of the first things Poul and Jessica were able to do was to call their families and say they were freed," Olsen said. "They will be reunited with their families as quickly as possible," Olsen said.
The head of the Danish Refugee Council, Andreas Kamm, said he would have preferred to see the two hostages freed peacefully after working with Somali groups to win the pair's freedom, "but we're happy with the outcome. This is a day of joy indeed."
The two aid workers appear to have been kidnapped by criminals and not by Somalia's al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab. As large ships at sea have increased their defenses against pirate attacks, gangs have looked for other money making opportunities like land-based kidnappings.
The Danish Refugee Council had earlier enlisted traditional Somali elders and members of civil society to seek the release of the two hostages.
"We are really happy with the successful release of the innocents kidnapped by evildoers," said Mohamud Sahal, an elder in Galkayo town, by phone. "They were guests who were treated brutally. That was against Islam and our culture ... These men have spoiled our good customs and culture, so Somalis should fight back."
Buchanan lived in neighboring Kenya before Somalia, and worked at a school in Nairobi called the Rosslyn Academy from 2007-09, said Rob Beyer, the dean of students. He described the American as quick to laugh and adventurous.
"There have been tears on and around the campus today," Beyer said. "She was well-loved by all her students."
Buchanan graduated in 2006 from Valley Forge Christian College, a small suburban Philadelphia school. The school's president, the Rev. Don Meyer, said Buchanan taught at Rosslyn as part of her studies and "fell in love with Africa."
"Ever since Jessica was captured, we all as a community have been praying for her safety and for her safe release," Meyer said. "We are also grateful that our prayers have been answered."
Buchanan and Thisted were seized in October from the portion of Galkayo town under the control of a government-allied clan militia. The aid agency has said that Somalis held demonstrations demanding the pair's quick release.
Their Somali colleague was detained by police on suspicion of being involved in their kidnapping.
The two hostages were working in northern Somalia for the Danish Demining Group, whose experts have been clearing mines and unexploded ordnance in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East.
Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighboring Kenya, and an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.
___
Associated Press reporters Julie Pace in Washington, Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Patrick Walters in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Houreld reported from Nairobi and Dozier from Washington.
___
Follow Katharine Houreld at http://twitter.com/khoureld
kendall hunter 50 50 50 50 gene simmons family jewels dream house dream house taylor martinez
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2012) ? A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, provides even more reason for people to read a book or do a puzzle, and to make such activities a lifetime habit.
Brain scans revealed that people with no symptoms of Alzheimer's who engaged in cognitively stimulating activities throughout their lives had fewer deposits of beta-amyloid, a destructive protein that is the hallmark of the disease.
While previous research has suggested that engaging in mentally stimulating activities -- such as reading, writing and playing games -- may help stave off Alzheimer's later in life, this new study identifies the biological target at play. This discovery could guide future research into effective prevention strategies.
"These findings point to a new way of thinking about how cognitive engagement throughout life affects the brain," said study principal investigator Dr. William Jagust, a professor with joint appointments at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, the School of Public Health and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "Rather than simply providing resistance to Alzheimer's, brain-stimulating activities may affect a primary pathological process in the disease. This suggests that cognitive therapies could have significant disease-modifying treatment benefits if applied early enough, before symptoms appear."
An estimated 5.4 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, but the numbers are growing as baby boomers age. Between 2000 and 2008, deaths from Alzheimer's increased 66 percent, making it the sixth-leading killer in the country. There is currently no cure, but a draft of the first-ever National Alzheimer's Plan, released this week, revealed that the U.S. government is aiming for effective Alzheimer's treatments by 2025.
The new study, published Jan. 23 in the Archives of Neurology, puts the spotlight on amyloid -- protein fibers folded into tangled plaques that accumulate in the brain. Beta-amyloid is considered the top suspect in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease, so finding a way to reduce its development has become a major new direction of research.
The researchers note that the buildup of amyloid can also be influenced by genes and aging -- one-third of people age 60 and over have some amyloid deposits in their brain -- but how much reading and writing one does is under each individual's control.
"This is the first time cognitive activity level has been related to amyloid buildup in the brain," said study lead author Susan Landau, research scientist at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the Berkeley Lab. "Amyloid probably starts accumulating many years before symptoms appear. So it's possible that by the time you have symptoms of Alzheimer's, like memory problems, there is little that can be done to stop disease progression. The time for intervention may be much sooner, which is why we're trying to identify whether lifestyle factors might be related to the earliest possible changes."
The researchers asked 65 healthy, cognitively normal adults aged 60 and over (average age was 76) to rate how frequently they participated in such mentally engaging activities as going to the library, reading books or newspapers, and writing letters or email. The questions focused on various points in life from age 6 to the present.
The participants took part in extensive neuropsychological testing to assess memory and other cognitive functions, and received positron emission tomography (PET) scans at the Berkeley Lab using a new tracer called Pittsburgh Compound B that was developed to visualize amyloid. The results of the brain scans of healthy older individuals with various levels of lifetime cognitive activity were compared with those of 10 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and 11 healthy people in their 20s.
The researchers found a significant association between higher levels of cognitive activity over a lifetime and lower levels of beta-amyloid in the PET scans. They analyzed the impact of other factors such as memory function, physical activity, self-rated memory ability, level of education and gender, and found that lifelong cognitive engagement was independently linked to amyloid deposition.
Notably, the researchers did not find a strong connection between amyloid deposition and levels of current cognitive activity alone.
"What our data suggests is that a whole lifetime of engaging in these activities has a bigger effect than being cognitively active just in older age," said Landau.
The researchers are careful to point out that the study does not negate the benefits of kicking up brain activity in later years.
"There is no downside to cognitive activity. It can only be beneficial, even if for reasons other than reducing amyloid in the brain, including social stimulation and empowerment," said Jagust. "And actually, cognitive activity late in life may well turn out to be beneficial for reducing amyloid. We just haven't found that connection yet."
Other study authors include researchers from UC San Francisco's Memory and Aging Center and Department of Neurology, and Rush University Medical Center's Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago.
The National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer's Association helped support this research.
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Berkeley. The original article was written by Sarah Yang.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123163348.htm
notre dame shane denarius moore denarius moore alley boy alley boy wanda sykes
AntiCrop is one of the more limited iPhone photo apps, but what it does is pretty cool: It extends your photos beyond their original edges. The technique used is similar to content-aware filling features you find in Adobe Photoshop Elements, which can fill in missing areas of panorama shots. It's not perfect, but for 99 cents, it?s a pretty fun feature to add to your iPhone photography kit.
A video, linked to from the app's home page, gives you a quick primer on how to use the app. To get started AntiCropping, you either open a photo from any of your iPhone's existing galleries or shoot a new picture?the choices are clear as can be from the app's home screen. (Other less useful prominent choices include rating in the App Store and Tell a Friend).
Once you've picked or shot an image, you have to choose the output size, from original down to Low?768x1024. The larger sizes will take longer to process, but I didn't find using the largest, original size on my iPhone 4S excessively time consuming.
Next, you see a smaller than usual view of the photo, surrounded by the typical cropping handles. But in this case, these are for "un-cropping." You drag them out, and magically, the added area is filled with content extended from what was at the original edge of the picture. So, the typical example is a beach, in which the water and sky are extended in the right places. You can choose from six portrait and landscape preset aspect ratios, like square, 4:3, or 16:9, or just freehand it. A preview button lets you easily compare your original with the new anticropped image. You can only extend a photo about a quarter of the image's original dimensions?it's not infinite. And by the way, AntiCrop lets you crop conventionally, as well, cutting off edges of the image.
AntiCrop's App Store page warns, "However please do not use AntiCrop to complete unpredictable picture areas?human face, buildings or other objects since the application was not designed for these kinds of tasks." Good advice. You might just fool some viewers with extending building textures, and I was surprised at how convincing some of my test results with backgrounds far less regular than beaches came out. But the key is that if it's an area that can be described as a "texture," rather than as an "object," it's probably fair game for AntiCrop. When you think about it, though, how often is a face right at the edge of a photo?
Sharing
After you've recomposed your iPhone photo in a pleasing way, AntiCrop lets you save it to your photo library, e-mail it to a friend, or share it directly to Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter (after the usual sign-in and permission granting). My test photo duly appeared on Flickr, with a plug for the app, but when I tried posting to Facebook I got an SSL error. When I tried posting to Twitter, the app shut down unexpectedly.?
The Antidote to Photo Boredom
AntiCrop is an impressive tool, especially given that it performs its magic on a handheld, rather than on a powerhouse desktop. While it's not perfect?I encountered a few crashes during testing, as noted?the app sports a clear, pleasant, usable interface, and for the most part yielded remarkable results. For 99 cents, AntiCrop delivers on its astonishing promise of adding content that wasn't previously there to your photos.
[App Store link: AntiCrop]
Read more iPhone app reviews:
??? AntiCrop (for iPhone)
??? Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 (for iPhone)
??? CameraBag 1.93 (for iPhone)
??? Camera+ 2.4VS (for iPhone)
??? Camera Genius 4.2 (for iPhone)
?? more
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/cUn-KTa7tds/0,2817,2399203,00.asp
the rum diary addams family in time statue of liberty gold rush alaska gold rush alaska the addams family
ANKARA, Turkey?? A Turkish doctor whose 25-member team performed the world's first triple limb transplant ? two arms and a leg ? says the leg has been removed due to tissue incompatibility.
Don't miss these Health stories
TODAY.com
'Miracle' baby born from single frozen sperm
An Ohio man who made no sperm and his wife, who had few eggs, have become parents thanks to a first-ever Cleveland Clinic case in which a single sperm that was frozen and injected into an egg resulted in pregnancy.
Dr. Omer Ozkan says 34-year-old Atilla Kavdir is in stable condition after the removal of the leg on Sunday, a day after it was attached. Kavdir lost his arms and right leg when he was 11 after he hit power lines outside his home with an iron rod to scare away pigeons and received an electric shock.
Ozkan said another patient who received a full face transplant from the same donor is in stable condition. It was Turkey's first face transplant.
Related stories:
Chimp attack victim speaks about new face, new hopes
First face transplant patient to Charla Nash: 'Go, girl!'
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Advertise | AdChoices Advertise | AdChoices Advertise | AdChoicesSource: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46091766/ns/health-health_care/
battlefield 3 release battle field 3 battle field 3 dana wilkey dana wilkey chuck liddell chuck liddell
JERUSALEM (AP) ? The Israeli government hopes to reach a compromise with settlers that would stave off a looming deadline to evacuate the largest unauthorized settlement enclave in the West Bank.
The 50 families in the Migron outpost live on land that is private Palestinian property. Israel's Supreme Court has ordered them to leave by March 31.
The Migron residents refusing to comply. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a compromise Sunday that would relocate the outpost to nearby land that is not privately owned.
Netanyahu's office had no comment on the timing of the move. A Migron spokesman, Itai Chemo, says the new housing would take up to two years to build.
That could allow the settlers to remain in their homes long past the impending deadline.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
JERUSALEM (AP) ? The Palestinians' top Muslim cleric is facing harsh Israeli criticism for quoting a religious text that includes passages about killing Jews.
Mufti Mohammed Hussein said his remarks at a rally for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement last week were taken out of context and that he didn't incite people to kill Jews.
The comments from the rally were posted to YouTube by an Israeli watchdog group tracking incitement.
In the video, the mufti cited a hadith, or saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, that the Earth's end of days will not happen until Muslims kill Jews in a religious battle.
Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday condemned the comments as "heinous."
Associated Pressgabby marcel the shell with shoes on ecu john wooden mirror mirror tanuki mirror mirror trailer
TOKYO (Reuters) ? Japan pledged on Friday to keep cutting purchases of Iranian crude in the clearest public offer of support yet among Asia's big buyers for U.S. efforts to tighten an international noose around Iran in an escalating dispute over its nuclear ambitions.
Other Asian buyers of Iran's crude have indicated less co-operation or been less forthright in their comments following a flurry of visits to the continent in the past two weeks by envoys of President Barack Obama, who signed a new sanctions law on New Year's Eve aimed at starving Tehran of critical oil revenues.
Asian support for U.S. sanctions is vital since the region buys more than half of Iran's daily crude exports. The European Union has committed to banning Iran crude imports.
China, Iran's biggest crude customer, rejected the U.S. sanctions as overstepping the mark and defended its extensive imports from the second-biggest oil producer in OPEC.
India, the second-biggest importer of Iranian crude, also rejected the U.S. pressure and said it would continue to trade with Tehran.
Officially, South Korea says it has yet to determine its response. But government and industry sources say the government is trying to line up alternative supplies of crude in case it is forced by the U.S. sanctions to reduce Iranian crude imports.
Washington wants Asia to cut crude imports from Iran in a bid to pressure Tehran to rein in its nuclear ambitions, which it suspects are aimed at making weapons. Iran rejects the charge and says its program is for peaceful means.
Obama sent a team to South Korea and Japan this week led by the U.S. State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, Robert Einhorn, and the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for terrorist financing, Daniel Glaser.
Other officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have visited during the last two weeks.
Einhorn made clear that the United States was looking for Asian oil buyers to cut their purchases of Iranian crude.
The United States says it will punish financial institutions that deal with Iran's central bank, the main clearing house for oil payments. However, a country can earn a waiver from the sanctions if it significantly reduces trade with Iran.
Tightening sanctions in recent years appear to be taking a toll on Iran, weakening its currency and making it increasingly difficult for importers of its oil to make international payments.
Japan told U.S. officials in Tokyo on Friday it had cut Iran crude imports by about 40 percent in the past five years, Trade Minister Yukio Edano told a press briefing.
"We also told them our understanding is that this trend is set to continue," he said. "Having said that, we asked U.S. officials to consider the Japanese situation in a flexible manner, including the consideration of a waiver from the U.S. law on sanctions. And I understand that negotiations will continue."
Fresh cuts to Japan's Iranian crude imports are likely in about three months, Akihiko Tembo, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan said on Thursday.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will hold talks with buyers in Japan of Iranian crude about cutting supplies, a ministry source said.
Cutting Iranian crude imports is particularly risky for Japan. Since the Fukushima nuclear power plants disaster last year, the world's third-biggest economy is much more reliant on energy imports. Some 10 percent of overall oil imports come from Iran.
South Korea also intends to seek a waiver from the U.S. sanctions, sources say, but in public comments has not shown any clear commitment to cutting imports.
"We have not yet set any certain policy such as reducing our crude imports from Iran. Nothing has been determined yet," Minister of Knowledge Economy, Hong Suk-woo, told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy event on Friday.
However, government and industry sources said Seoul is trying to line up alternative suppliers in case Iran purchases are shut down by the sanctions.
The battle to win support from China and India is much tougher for Washington.
China, which has long rejected unilateral sanctions against Iran, gave no hint of giving ground last week when Geithner visited Beijing to lobby for support.
However, Premier Wen Jiabao was frank this week in comments warning Tehran against any effort to acquire nuclear weapons, saying Beijing "adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons."
The sets of comments underline the tricky path Beijing is trying to steer between pressure from Washington and its allies and expectations from Iran, which sees China as a sympathetic Third World power.
India has dispatched a delegation to Tehran to work out ways to continue buying Iran's oil, worried that the current payments route through Turkey's state controlled Halkbank could become hobbled by the U.S. sanctions.
Still, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said this week that India intended to keep on importing from Iran.
"We have accepted sanctions which are made by the United Nations. Other sanctions do not apply to individual countries," he told reporters. "We continue to buy oil from Iran."
China, Japan and South Korea have made a flurry of trips in recent weeks to the Middle East, visiting the likes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who produce crude oil that could replace Iranian grade oil.
Still, the Asian buyers are wary of cutting off ties with Iran. The producer is the world's fifth-biggest crude exporter and so a vital source of fuel for Asia's economic growth.
If pushed too far, Tehran says it will close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane in the Gulf that carries a third of the world's seaborne oil trade and a route for much of the oil that heads to Asia.
(Reporting by Cho Meeyoung in Seoul; Risa Maeda, Stanley White and Tetsushi Kajimoto in Tokyo, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Ramin Mostafavi in Tehran: Writing by Neil Fullick; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/wl_nm/us_iran_asia
fleet week scarecrow festival scarecrow festival oklahoma state football oklahoma state football case mccoy case mccoy
FRIDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Adding oxaliplatin to a standard chemotherapy regimen boosts survival rates for patients with advanced colon cancer, according to a new study that bolsters previous research on the drug by looking at a broader group of patients.
"Physicians and patients should be reassured from our findings that oxaliplatin is associated with marginally but consistently superior survival for patients diagnosed before age 75 years in community settings," the study authors said in a news release.
In past studies, oxaliplatin, as an adjuvant to the established treatment of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), improved survival by up to 23 percent. But the new study looked at a different group of colon cancer patients, who were older, sicker, more racially diverse and had never participated in a controlled clinical study.
The study, led by Dr. Hanna Sanoff, an assistant professor of medicine, hematology and oncology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, appears in the Jan. 20 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Colon cancer is one of the world's deadliest diseases, with more than 100,000 Americans diagnosed last year, the researchers noted. Of these, roughly a third had an advanced -- stage 3 -- cancer, for which surgery is the principal treatment.
Surgery alone produces disease-free survival rates of between 15 percent and 50 percent five years following treatment, according to study background information. To improve their chances, patients often also undergo post-surgical chemotherapy.
Up until 2004, the drug 5-FU -- given in combination with leucovorin, which boosts its effects -- was the chemotherapy of choice for colon cancer, sparking a 26 percent drop in death rates compared to patients undergoing surgery alone.
But in 2004, several U.S. National Cancer Institute studies indicated that by adding oxaliplatin to the 5-FU mix, patients could see survival rates rise by yet another 23 percent.
The one caveat: Only a tiny slice of cancer patients (less than 2 percent) participated in those clinical trials, and those tended to be younger, healthier and less diverse than the larger general population of colon cancer patients.
To determine whether oxaliplatin would show a similar benefit among a "real-world" population of patients, the authors sifted through five cancer registries containing survival information on more than 4,000 people with stage 3 colon cancer. All were younger than 75, and all had begun chemotherapy -- either a standard regimen or in combination with oxaliplatin -- within four months of having surgery between 2004 and 2009.
Researchers compared their survival rates with those of nearly 8,300 patients who had participated in one of five different clinical trials using oxaliplatin.
The addition of oxaliplatin to standard chemotherapy protocols was found to be just as effective in prolonging survival among the community-based set of patients -- including the elderly, minorities and those with additional complicating health issues -- who were not enrolled in studies.
For her part, Dr. Felice Schnoll-Sussman, a gastroenterologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, said the finding "goes along with what we've previously known."
"So, it's not surprising," she said. "But, certainly this is positive. The analysis doesn't focus on some of the most common adverse reactions seen with this combination. But in terms of survival, it certainly supports our previously held belief that oxaliplatin increases survival and lowers the chance of cancer returning in some of those stage 3 post-surgery patients."
More information
For more on colon cancer, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
james ray williston nd williston nd mists of pandaria mists of pandaria 20 20 gunner kiel
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The United States and its European allies joined Friday in saying they would try to pressure Iran back into nuclear negotiations despite the Islamic republic's failure after three months to answer the nations' terms for talks.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. and its partners were making it clear to Tehran that it was headed down a "dangerous path" with its pursuit of nuclear weapons and threats to close off the Strait of Hormuz ? through which much of the world's fuel travels to reach international markets.
"Iran does have a choice to make," Clinton told reporters in Washington after meeting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
"It can come back to the table ... and address the nuclear program concerns that the international community rightly has, or face increasing pressure and isolation," she said. "The country can be reintegrated into the global community, able to share in the benefits, when their government definitely turns away from pursuing nuclear weapons."
Clinton spoke after the European Union released a letter it sent to Iran in October, imploring renewed talks to answer the international concerns about Iran's uranium enrichment activity. The West fears it is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the work is for energy and research purposes.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Friday the international community remained open to talks with Iran, even as a blocwide embargo on Iranian oil appeared set for approval Monday. She said world powers have shown a "continued willingness to engage" Iran, but have received no reply to their Oct. 21 offer of more talks.
The letter she sent to Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, states the overall goal of a negotiated solution that "restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."
The pressure coincided with work in European capitals ahead of the likely approval Monday in Brussels of new restrictions on Iranian oil. The embargo would immediately prohibit the signing of any new oil contracts with Iran, diplomats said, though the details of the embargo will be left for later.
The details would include the date when existing contracts to buy Iranian oil would no longer be valid. Britain, Germany and France are eager for a strong and quickly implemented embargo on Iranian oil, but financially strapped Greece benefits from low prices it pays for Iranian fuel. It wants assurances that the embargo will not become a financial burden it cannot bear.
Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged stronger, more decisive sanctions against Iran, including a continentwide freeze on international assets of Iran's central bank. In an annual speech on French diplomacy Friday, Sarkozy accused Iran of lying and denounced what he called its "senseless race for a nuclear bomb."
"Time is running out," he said. "Everything must be done to avoid" international military intervention.
Associated Pressrally squirrel rally squirrel scumbag steve scumbag steve day of the dead rocksmith blackbeard
PHILADELPHIA ? A Ukrainian hockey coach who allegedly had sexual contact with a teenage boy attending clinics in the United States frequently traveled with teens, transporting them from city to city for camps, according to court documents.
Ivan Pravilov is due in court later Friday for a detention hearing in Philadelphia. Prosecutors want Pravilov kept in custody because they believe he's a risk to flee overseas.
Pravilov was charged Tuesday with committing sex acts with a boy attending hockey clinics with him in the United States.
According to court documents, a 14-year-old boy told investigators he had sexual contact with Pravilov at an apartment in Philadelphia on Jan. 3. A second teen gave an identical account, according to the criminal complaint.
Pravilov was charged with transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity because he allegedly transported the boy from the home of a host family in Wilmington, Del.
The website for the coach's hockey school, Ivan Pravilov's Unique Hockey School, says it held a number of camps up and down the East Coast this summer.
New Jersey Devils forward Dainius Zubrus is one of his most famous proteges. Zubrus left his native Lithuania as a boy to play for Pravilov in Ukraine, and made the NHL by 18, according to his mother, Irene Zubriene. She and her son remain close to Pravilov, and the coach uses her Cherry Hill, N.J., home as a mail drop, she said.
Pravilov brings young hockey players to the U.S. for about a month at a time to train, play in tournaments and perhaps catch a college or NHL scout's eye, Zubriene said Friday. She and other families in the U.S. host the players. She said she has often had a dozen or more players stay in her downstairs living area, while Pravilov slept in an upstairs bedroom.
She does not believe the allegations and suspects they stem from lingering jealousy of Pravilov in the Ukraine.
"It's not true. It's not true," Zubriene, 60, who saw Pravilov last week, told The Associated Press during an interview Friday at her home. "He's a good man."
Pravilov had been holding practices with Ukrainian boys at The Rink at Old York Road in Elkins Park since November, rink general manager and hockey director Justin Adamski Sr. said Thursday.
Pravilov had done practices at rinks throughout the area that would give him free ice time, Adamski said.
Adamski said he never saw anything inappropriate going on between Pravilov and the boys, who were mostly between the ages of 12 and 15.
"We were giving him ice time to skate," Adamski said.
Pravilov's school had about a dozen players practicing at the same rink on Friday. A coach working with the players declined comment, saying he did not speak English.
Two vans bearing the school's logo were parked outside the rink.
Rink officials declined to discuss the matter on Friday, referring questions to a management company.
A woman who helped host families in the United States said she knew Pravilov well, having volunteered her time for the boys.
"It's still very hard to comprehend everything," said Denise Reid, a contact listed on Pravilov's website for another Philadelphia-area ice rink where he held camps. "We're devastated. We're worried for the boys."
A coach at Pravilov's school in Ukraine declined to give his name declined to comment. The Interior Ministry, which oversees the Ukrainian branch of Interpol, had no comment.
An attorney for Pravilov didn't return messages seeking comment.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson contributed to this report
.
boxer rebellion stanford football lsu football schedule lsu football schedule terrapin terrapin manny pacquiao vs marquez
