Friday, November 30, 2012

White House 'cliff' offer gets GOP cold shoulder

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House is seeking $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade and an immediate infusion of funds to aid the jobless, help hard-pressed homeowners and perhaps extend the expiring payroll tax cut, officials said Thursday as talks aimed at averting an economy-rattling "'fiscal cliff" turned testy.

In exchange, the officials said, President Barack Obama will support an unspecified amount of spending cuts this year, to be followed by legislation in 2013 producing savings of as much as $400 billion from Medicare and other benefit programs over a decade.

The offer produced a withering response from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, after a closed-door meeting in the Capitol with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. "Unfortunately, many Democrats continue to rule out sensible spending cuts that must be part of any significant agreement that will reduce our deficit," he declared.

Boehner added, "No substantive progress has been made between the White House and the House" in the two weeks since Obama welcomed congressional leaders at the White House.

Democrats swiftly countered that any holdup was the fault of Republicans who refuse to accept Obama's campaign-long call to raise tax rates on upper incomes.

At the White House, presidential press secretary Jay Carney said, "There can be no deal without rates on top earners going up." Taking a confrontational, at times sarcastic tone, he said, "This should not be news to anyone on Capitol Hill. It is certainly not news to anyone in America who was not in a coma during the campaign season."

With barely a month remaining until a year-end deadline, the hardening of positions seemed more likely to mark a transition into hard bargaining rather than signal an end to efforts to achieve a compromise on the first postelection challenge of divided government.

Boehner suggested as much when one reporter asked if his comments meant he was breaking off talks with the White House and congressional Democrats.

"No, no, no. Stop," he quickly answered.

"I've got to tell you, I'm disappointed in where we are, and disappointed in what's happened over the last couple weeks. But going over the fiscal cliff is serious business."

Republican aides provided the first description of the White House's offer, although Democratic officials readily confirmed the outlines.

Under the proposal, the White House is seeking passage by year's end of tax increases totaling $1.6 trillion over a decade, including the rate hikes sought by Obama.

Obama also asked for approval by year's end of $30 billion to renew expiring jobless benefits, $25 billion to prevent a looming Jan. 1 cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and an undisclosed amount to help homeowners hit by the collapse in real estate values.

The White House also wants a new stimulus package to aid the economy, with a price tag for the first year of $50 billion, as well as an extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut that is due to end on Dec. 31, or some way to offset the impact of its expiration.

In political terms, the White House proposal is a near mirror image of what officials have said Republicans earlier laid down as their first offer ? a permanent extension of income tax cuts at all levels, an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility and steps to curtail future growth in Social Security cost-of-living increases.

In exchange, the GOP has offered to support unspecified increases in revenue as part of tax reform legislation to be written in 2013.

The GOP said the White House was offering unspecified spending cuts this year. Those would be followed next year by legislation producing savings from Medicare and other benefit programs of up to $400 billion over a decade, a companion to an overhaul of the tax code.

For the first time since the Nov., 6 elections, partisan bickering seems to trump productive bargaining as the two sides maneuvered for position.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters, "We're still waiting for a serious offer from Republicans," the Nevada Democrat said at a news conference.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was more emphatic.

Referring to a meeting at the White House more than a week ago, he said both sides agreed to a two-part framework that would include a significant down payment in 2012, along with a plan to expand on the savings in 2013.

"Each side said they'd submit a down payment. We have. Our preference is revenue. What is theirs?" he said, speaking of the Republicans.

The White House also circulated a memo that said closing loopholes and limiting tax deductions ? a preferred Republican alternative to Obama's call to raise high-end tax rates ? would be likely to depress charitable donations and wind up leading to a middle class tax increase in the near future.

At issue is a bipartisan desire to prevent the wholesale expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and the simultaneous implementation of across-the-board spending cuts. The potential spending reductions, to be divided between military and domestic programs, were locked into place more than a year ago in hopes the threat would have forced a compromise on a deficit reduction deal before now.

Economists in and out of government warn that sending the economy over the "cliff" would trigger a recession.

To avoid the danger, Obama and Congress are hoping to devise a plan that can reduce future deficits by as much as $4 trillion in a decade, cancel the tax increases and automatic spending cuts and expand the government's ability to borrow beyond the current limit of $16.4 trillion.

In the first few days after the elections, Boehner said he was willing to accept a deal that included new revenues, a long-time Democratic demand, and Obama has said he will sign on to savings from Medicare, Medicaid and other benefit programs that Democrats have long defended from proposed Republican cuts.

At the same time, both sides have worked to tilt the bargaining table to their advantage. As part of that effort, Obama travels to Pennsylvania on Friday to campaign for his tax proposal.

Boehner, who will begin a second term as House speaker early next month, has appealed to his rank and file to remain united. At a closed-door meeting this week, he displayed polling data that showed the public would rather see loopholes closed than rates raised as a means of raising revenue for the government.

At the same time, there are tremors within the GOP ranks, with a small number of Republicans saying they are willing to let tax rates rise at upper incomes in view of the election returns, and others predicting legislation to that effect would pass the House if put to a vote.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Julie Pace, Alan Fram, Stephen Ohlemacher and Andrew Taylor contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-cliff-offer-gets-gop-cold-shoulder-231714835--finance.html

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Nintendo president 'very sorry' for the Wii U's frustrating set-up process

Nintendo president sorry for the Wii Us frustrating setup process

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has apologized for the Wii U's time-consuming day one update -- a compulsory patch that takes as long as an hour to download and which prevents users from accessing the Miiverse, play Wii Games or use Hulu Plus. In an interview with IGN, the company president said that he was "very sorry," and that he feels users should be able to "use all of the functions [of a console] as soon as they open the box." He added that people can expect further, incremental software bumps that'll add functionality to the system over time, and that new Mario and Zelda games would be announced just as soon as the company had worked out how to produce games that utilize the console's unique hardware.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Via: Electronista, The Verge

Source: IGN


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/huXszDU0pKc/

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Obama to host Romney at White House on Thursday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will host Mitt Romney for a private lunch at the White House on Thursday, their first meeting since Obama defeated him in this month's presidential election.

The encounter follows Obama's promise, in the aftermath of the bitterly fought November 6 election, to consult the former Republican governor of Massachusetts by the end of the year. It also comes amid Obama's efforts to work out with congressional leaders a way to avoid a looming "fiscal cliff" that could push the U.S. economy back into recession.

"Governor Romney will have a private lunch at the White House with President Obama in the private dining room," the White House said of the meeting, which will be closed to the media. "It will be the first opportunity they have had to visit since the election."

Obama's talks with Romney will be sandwiched between a series of events this week in which he is making his case to Americans to raise taxes on wealthy Americans while extending tax cuts for the middle class - an approach that his former Republican rival strongly opposed during the campaign.

Obama's Democrats and their Republican foes remain deadlocked over dramatic, year-end tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff that will kick in unless a deal is struck.

Seeking to make good on his post-election pledge to reach across the political aisle, Obama told a November 14 news conference he wanted to "sit down and talk" to Romney to hear his ideas and see whether they could work together.

Obama said he could envision a future role in public service for Romney but had no specific "assignment" for him.

Romney, in a conference call with donors after the election, was widely reported to have said that Obama won by using targeted initiatives to reward specific constituencies, including African-Americans, Latinos and young people.

Obama, who won a decisive victory after a bruising campaign, had sought to depict Romney as out of touch with ordinary Americans and intent on shielding the rich from higher taxes.

Romney had accused Obama of failed economic policies and wasteful spending to promote big government.

(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-host-romney-white-house-thursday-152857397.html

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Video: Tsunami debris washes up in Hawaii

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50002132/

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How to manage email marketing campaigns? | Bosco Anthony ...

There has been many email marketing trends online lately when it comes to managing email campaigns. While many companies use different styles to writing emails and marketing you will find some consistent trends across the board. As a business it is recommended you try some of the following strategies when it comes to email marketing.

  • Template Emails ? We are going through the world of customization where personalized template emails can do more for engagement and prompts a call to action.
  • Personalized Messages ? Email still has that personalized feeling where your audience will appreciate an email catered to them, their needs or their personal beliefs. Make your clients feel like they are in the spot light.
  • List Throttling ? Email Marketing to your lists throughout a period of time rather than at one given time. This will help with metrics and engagement.
  • Content Strategy ? Email Marketing copy writing needs to have more content integrated in it with context. It is important to engage your lists and capture their attention.
  • Target Call to Action ? A specific call to action will help define intelligence on an email campaign. Avoid scattering your call to actions or not having one completely.

Are you following any of these best practices?

?

Source: http://www.boscoanthony.com/email-marketing-management-trends/

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Changes in nerve cells may contribute to the development of mental illness

Changes in nerve cells may contribute to the development of mental illness [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 28-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Mount Sinai Press Office
newsmedia@mssm.edu
212-241-9200
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Research provides new insight on how social isolation reduces production of myelin

Reduced production of myelin, a type of protective nerve fiber that is lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis, may also play a role in the development of mental illness, according to researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Myelin is an insulating material that wraps around the axon, the threadlike part of a nerve cell through which the cell sends impulses to other nerve cells. New myelin is produced by nerve cells called oligodendrocytes both during development and in adulthood to repair damage in the brain of people with diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

A new study led by Patrizia Casaccia, MD, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Genetics and Genomics; and Neurology at Mount Sinai, determined that depriving mice of social contact reduced myelin production, demonstrating that the formation of new oligodendrocytes is affected by environmental changes. This research provides further support to earlier evidence of abnormal myelin in a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including autism, anxiety, schizophrenia and depression.

"We knew that a lack of social interaction early in life impacted myelination in young animals but were unsure if these changes would persist in adulthood," said Dr. Casaccia, who is also Chief of the Center of Excellence for Myelin Repair at the Friedman Brain Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "Social isolation of adult mice causes behavioral and structural changes in neurons, but this is the first study to show that it causes myelin dysfunction as well."

Dr. Casaccia's team isolated adult mice to determine whether new myelin formation was compromised. After eight weeks, they found that the isolated mice showed signs of social withdrawal. Subsequent brain tissue analyses indicated that the socially isolated mice had lower-than-normal levels of myelin-forming oligodendrocytes in the prefrontal cortex, but not in other areas of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls complex emotional and cognitive behavior.

The researchers also found changes in chromatin, the packing material for DNA. As a result, the DNA from the new oligodendrocytes was unavailable for gene expression.

After observing the reduction in myelin production in socially-isolated mice, Dr. Casaccia's team then re-introduced these mice into a social group. After four weeks, the social withdrawal symptoms and the gene expression changes were reversed.

"Our study demonstrates that oligodendrocytes generate new myelin as a way to respond to environmental stimuli, and that myelin production is significantly reduced in social isolation," said Dr. Casaccia. "Abnormalities occur in people with psychiatric conditions characterized by social withdrawal. Other disorders characterized by myelin loss, such as MS, often are associated with depression. Our research emphasizes the importance of maintaining a socially stimulating environment in these instances."

At Mount Sinai, Dr. Casaccia's laboratory is studying oligodendrocyte formation to identify therapeutic targets for myelin repair. They are screening newly-developed pharmacological compounds in brain cells from rodents and humans for their ability to form new myelin.

Dr. Casaccia is the recipient of the Neuroscience Javits Award by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National Institutes of Health, who also funded this research (R37-NS42925-10) along with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

###

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by US News and World Report.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nation's oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, US News and World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 14th on its elite Honor Roll of the nation's top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and US News and World Report and whose hospital is on the US News and World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/.

Find Mount Sinai on:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mountsinainyc

Twitter: @mountsinainyc

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/mountsinainy


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Changes in nerve cells may contribute to the development of mental illness [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 28-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Mount Sinai Press Office
newsmedia@mssm.edu
212-241-9200
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Research provides new insight on how social isolation reduces production of myelin

Reduced production of myelin, a type of protective nerve fiber that is lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis, may also play a role in the development of mental illness, according to researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Myelin is an insulating material that wraps around the axon, the threadlike part of a nerve cell through which the cell sends impulses to other nerve cells. New myelin is produced by nerve cells called oligodendrocytes both during development and in adulthood to repair damage in the brain of people with diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

A new study led by Patrizia Casaccia, MD, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Genetics and Genomics; and Neurology at Mount Sinai, determined that depriving mice of social contact reduced myelin production, demonstrating that the formation of new oligodendrocytes is affected by environmental changes. This research provides further support to earlier evidence of abnormal myelin in a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including autism, anxiety, schizophrenia and depression.

"We knew that a lack of social interaction early in life impacted myelination in young animals but were unsure if these changes would persist in adulthood," said Dr. Casaccia, who is also Chief of the Center of Excellence for Myelin Repair at the Friedman Brain Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "Social isolation of adult mice causes behavioral and structural changes in neurons, but this is the first study to show that it causes myelin dysfunction as well."

Dr. Casaccia's team isolated adult mice to determine whether new myelin formation was compromised. After eight weeks, they found that the isolated mice showed signs of social withdrawal. Subsequent brain tissue analyses indicated that the socially isolated mice had lower-than-normal levels of myelin-forming oligodendrocytes in the prefrontal cortex, but not in other areas of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls complex emotional and cognitive behavior.

The researchers also found changes in chromatin, the packing material for DNA. As a result, the DNA from the new oligodendrocytes was unavailable for gene expression.

After observing the reduction in myelin production in socially-isolated mice, Dr. Casaccia's team then re-introduced these mice into a social group. After four weeks, the social withdrawal symptoms and the gene expression changes were reversed.

"Our study demonstrates that oligodendrocytes generate new myelin as a way to respond to environmental stimuli, and that myelin production is significantly reduced in social isolation," said Dr. Casaccia. "Abnormalities occur in people with psychiatric conditions characterized by social withdrawal. Other disorders characterized by myelin loss, such as MS, often are associated with depression. Our research emphasizes the importance of maintaining a socially stimulating environment in these instances."

At Mount Sinai, Dr. Casaccia's laboratory is studying oligodendrocyte formation to identify therapeutic targets for myelin repair. They are screening newly-developed pharmacological compounds in brain cells from rodents and humans for their ability to form new myelin.

Dr. Casaccia is the recipient of the Neuroscience Javits Award by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National Institutes of Health, who also funded this research (R37-NS42925-10) along with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

###

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by US News and World Report.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nation's oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, US News and World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 14th on its elite Honor Roll of the nation's top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and US News and World Report and whose hospital is on the US News and World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/.

Find Mount Sinai on:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mountsinainyc

Twitter: @mountsinainyc

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/mountsinainy


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/tmsh-cin112812.php

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Galapagos Tortoise 'Lonesome George' may have had relatives after all

Genetic samples showed that some tortoises recently DNA tested were hybrids that had a parent like Lonesome George from the subspecies Chelonoidis abingdoni.

By Megan Gannon,?LiveScience News Editor / November 26, 2012

A giant tortoise named 'Lonesome George' is seen in the Galapagos islands, an archipelago off Ecuador's Pacific coast in 2008. Lonesome George, the late reptile prince of the Galapagos Islands, may be dead, but scientists now say he may not be the last giant tortoise of his species after all.

Galapagos National Park/AP

Enlarge

The death of Gal?pagos tortoise Lonesome George this summer was thought to mark the extinction of a subspecies, but a new study hints that the reptile may not have been the last of his kind after all.

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Researchers from Yale University recently trekked to the northern tip of Isabella Island, the largest of the Gal?pagos, and collected DNA from more than 1,600?giant tortoises. The genetic samples showed that 17 of these tortoises were hybrids that had a parent like?Lonesome George?from the subspecies?Chelonoidis abingdoni.

What's more, five of those hybrids were juveniles, suggesting purebred?C. abingdoni?tortoises may still be roaming a remote part of the island.

"Our goal is to go back this spring to look for surviving individuals of this species and to collect hybrids," Yale ecology researcher Gisella Caccone said in a statement. "We hope that with a selective breeding program, we can reintroduce this tortoise species to its native home."

But even if examples of?C. abingdoni?are found on Isabella Island, how did they get there? Lonesome George's species is native to?Pinta Island, 37 miles (60 kilometers) across the seas from the Volcano Wolf area on Isabella Island where the hybrid samples were collected.

These tortoises are massive, reaching nearly 900 pounds (408 kilograms) and almost 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length, and the researchers don't think ocean currents carried them between the islands. The team does suspect, however, that 19th-century sailors did.

Volcano Wolf is nearby Banks Bay, where naval officers and whalers marooned giant tortoises picked up from other islands after they were no longer needed for food. Researchers have previously found other hybrid turtles in the region with genetic ancestry of another tortoise,?C. elephantopus, which was thought to be lost. This species was native to Floreana Island, where it was hunted to extinction some 150 years ago. But the new evidence suggests several members must have been brought to Isabella Island, where they mated with?C. becki?tortoises.

The new findings are detailed in the journal Biological Conservation.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter?@livescience. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/loHlWzNT1g0/Galapagos-Tortoise-Lonesome-George-may-have-had-relatives-after-all

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Chinese terra cotta warriors had real, and very carefully made, weapons

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Chinese terra cotta warriors had real, and very carefully made, weapons
The 7,000 soldiers buried with Qin Shi Huang in 210 B.C. were made of clay. But the bronze weapons the terra cotta army carried into the enormous tomb complex near Xi?an in western China were the real things: tens of thousands of swords, axes, spears, lances and crossbows, all as capable of spilling blood as anything Qin?s real army wielded when they triumphed, ending centuries of war and uniting China under a single rule for the first time

Source: Washington Post
Posted on: Tuesday, Nov 27, 2012, 10:21am
Views: 11

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125494/Chinese_terra_cotta_warriors_had_real__and_very_carefully_made__weapons

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Mitch Ditkoff: Flowers First, Business Second

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-ditkoff/buying-flowers_b_2174583.html

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'Rizzoli & Isles' star has done some crime fighting in real life

Source: http://ausxip.com/sashaalexander/2012/11/rizzoli-isles-star-has-done-some-crime-fighting-in-real-life.html

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Business Blog / Interview with GelaSkins Artist Sylvie Demers by ...

We're currently running a contest with the awesome folks at GelaSkins to see who will join them as their next artist. Earlier this year, we ran a similar contest and the talented COLOURlover that won was Sylvie Demers. Since her winning design was selected, Sylvie has become an artist with GelaSkins, and you can now buy her designs on their website.

She was kind enough to answer a few questions for us and we're excited to share our conversation with you guys. Thanks Sylvie!

How has the experience been as an artist for GelaSkins?

Exciting for sure! I was so surprised to win this contest. I didn't know what to expect. I can say, couple of months later, that working with Gelaskins is smooth and easy. Every one of the team has been so nice and helpful. They took me by the hand and took care of every detail. The only thing I had to do was to propose some patterns, let them choose what they thought was more likely to sell and wait for the royalties!

Where do you go to find inspiration?

First, within! I meditate every day to let the creativity flow, and then, seeing beauty around you comes easily... Books, magazines, and Pinterest are part of my daily routine for inspiration. Travels also help. I was in Nevada two months ago and the colors and textures of the desert are still in my mind.

What are the apps and/or tools you can't live without?

I'm in love with my new Bamboo tablet from Wacom. I use it with Inkscape (a free program that allows you to draw directly in .svg) or Corel draw. The Seamless Studio is so convenient, too, for creating patterns... inexpensive and user-friendly!

How has the COLOURlovers community helped you as a designer?

It keeps me going! The instant feedback that is given when I put a new template online is priceless. People are so generous. Comments, "likes" or "faves" give me the pulse about my creations. I'm sure that I'm not the only one having experienced the addictive nature of COLOURlovers! I crave for people's reactions... I like to make the other COLOURlovers enthusiastic when they play with my templates. Thanks to everyone who makes this community so vibrant.

What most excites you about what you're working on right now?

I've always being attracted to colors and forms... I've experimented with acrylic painting since summer and I'm having so much fun! After working with watercolor for a long time, I found a new way to express my love of colours! When I sell a painting and see happiness in the buyer's eye, it fulfills me completely.

Creating new patterns for Gelaskins after Christmas will be a lot of fun too.

Check out the rest of Sylvie's work available on GelaSkins.

Want a shot at becoming the next GelaSkins artist? Enter your designs here until Monday, 12/3.

Team creativemarket.comBlog & Social Media Editor ~ COLOURlovers
Community Builder ~ Creative Market
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Source: http://www.colourlovers.com/business/blog/2012/11/26/interview-with-gelaskins-artist-sylvie-demers

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Eurozone, IMF reach deal to reduce Greek debt

BRUSSELS (AP) ? The 17 European Union nations that use the euro have struck an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a program to reduce Greek debt and put Athens on the way to get the next installment of its much-needed bailout loans.

The first disbursement is set to take place Dec. 13, said Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the eurogroup of finance ministers, after Tuesday's decision.

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, said markets should pay heed. "It will certainly reduce the uncertainty and strengthen confidence in Europe and in Greece."

This was the third time in the last two weeks that finance ministers from the eurozone had tried to hammer out a deal on the next installment of bailout money ? some ?44.6 billion ($57.8 billion).

In Athens, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras welcomed it as a great victory. "As Greeks, we fought together. And tomorrow a new day begins for all Greeks."

And the EU lauded all Greeks for holding their country back from the brink.

"We strongly believe in the Greek capacity to recover. The Greek people are courageous people. They are willing to bring their country back on the path of growth," Juncker said.

The so-called troika of the European Central Bank, IMF and the European Commission, which is the 27-country EU's executive arm, have twice agreed to bail out Greece, pledging a total of ?240 billion ($310 billion) in rescue loans ? of which the country has received about ?150 billion ($195 billion) so far. In return for its bailout loans, Greece has had to impose several rounds of austerity measures and submit its economy to scrutiny.

Greece is predicted to enter its sixth year of recession shortly and has a quarter of its workforce out of a job, and there had been fears it might be forced to drop out of the eurozone, destabilizing other countries in the process.

The main aim of the bailout program is to right Greece's economy and get it to a point where it can independently raise money on the debt markets. It has been clear for months that the country is far from achieving that goal. The talks have centered on trying to get Greece back on the path to sustainability by reaching an agreement on how the country's debt load can be reduced.

Juncker said the agreement includes:

? A plan to reduce Greece's debt level to 124 percent of its gross domestic product by 2020 and below 110 percent by 2022. The IMF had originally insisted on a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120 percent by 2020.

?A cut of 100 basis points on the interest rate charged to Greece by other eurozone member states ? excluding those that are also receiving bailouts.

?A 15-year extension of the maturities of loans from other countries and the eurozone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, and a deferral of interest payments by Greece on EFSF loans by 10 years.

"This is not just about money," Juncker said. "It is the promise of a better future for the Greek people and for the euro area as a whole."

The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, also said the agreement was significant.

"We wanted to make sure that Greece was back on track," Lagarde said. "If you put it all together it is a significant amount."

Greece will get ?34.4 billion ($40.84 billion) straight away and the rest in separate installments in January, February and March.

The political agreement reached Tuesday will have to be submitted to parliaments in some countries. After that, the finance ministers plan to hold another meeting, either in person or by telephone, to give final approval to the disbursement.

___

Pan Pylas in London, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report. Don Melvin can be reached at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eurozone-imf-reach-deal-reduce-greek-debt-021714621--finance.html

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A Conversation With Roy Y. Calne: Organ Transplant Pioneer Talks About Risks and Rewards

Sir Roy Calne is a pioneer of organ transplants ? the surgeon who in the 1950s found ways to stop the human immune system from rejecting implanted hearts, livers and kidneys. In 1968 he performed Europe?s first liver transplant, and in 1987 the world?s first transplant of a liver, heart and lung.

This fall, along with Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Pittsburgh, he received a 2012 Lasker Award for ?the development of liver transplantation, which has restored normal life to thousands of patients with end-stage liver disease.?

We spoke for two hours immediately before the awards ceremony. An edited and condensed version of the interview follows.

When you were studying medicine in early-1950s Britain, what was the prevailing attitude toward organ transplantation?

It didn?t exist! While a medical student, I recall being presented with a young patient with kidney failure. I was told to make him as comfortable as possible because he would die in two weeks.

This troubled me. Some of our patients were very young, very deserving. Aside from their kidney disease, there was nothing else wrong with them. I wondered then if it might be possible to do organ transplants, because kidneys are fairly simple in terms of their plumbing. I thought in gardening terms. Might it not be possible to do an organ graft, replacing a malfunctioning organ with a healthy one? I was told, ?No, that?s impossible.?

Well, I?ve always tended to dislike being told that something can?t be done. I?ve always had a somewhat rebellious nature. Just ask my wife.

When did you first think it might be a real possibility?

Around 1957. I was teaching anatomy at Oxford. I attended a lecture there by the great biologist Sir Peter Medawar, who showed slides of successful skin grafts between white mice and black mice. Though he insisted that there was ?no clinical application whatsoever,? I wondered, ?Why couldn?t we do something like that with kidneys??

Afterwards, I began to devote myself to the two main obstacles to transplantation. One was surgical and the other immunological. In America, at that time, Tom Starzl, then at Colorado, and Francis Moore at Harvard were separately working on the surgical techniques. But I was in Britain, and there was no one there who could teach me. And so I worked out the surgical problem for myself. I taught myself how to transplant kidneys in dogs.

Once I?d done that, the big problem was to find some way to prevent the immune system from rejecting the transplanted organs. I sought some way to make the immune system temporarily malleable, as it is in the fetus. If you performed the transplant during a period of plasticity, the hope was that you could avoid rejection. In those days, the only described method for doing that was X-ray irradiation, shutting down the immune system by destroying it.

Well, that didn?t work. It just made the dogs desperately ill and it didn?t stop rejection. That led me to wonder if there wasn?t some other method of immunosuppression we could consider ? a drug perhaps?

How long did it take you to find something effective?

The first sign that we might have something came in 1959, when we tried the anti-leukemia drug 6-mercaptopurine with dogs who?d had kidney grafts. Some lived quite a long time. And this was a big step. It changed something that had been total failure to a partial success. Even Peter Medawar thought we were on to something.

But cyclosporine was the real watershed. We tested it in my laboratory at the University of Cambridge during the mid-1970s. By 1977, it had moved the success rate from 50 percent to 80 percent. That really changed attitudes. Before cyclosporine, you had only 10 centers around the world doing organ transplants. Afterwards, it was 1,000. And now we had a whole new problem: not enough donor organs to meet demand.

Is there any solution to the shortage of donor organs?

I think an ?opt out? program would work better than what you currently have in the United States. They are doing this in Spain, and it has worked very well. It offers the option for people to say ?no? to have their organs used after death. If they don?t take it, this is regarded as permission. This changes the atmosphere and the perception.

Are you intrigued by the ethical questions your discoveries have brought?

Well, one of the reasons we have them is that the results are so good. If we hadn?t had successes, we wouldn?t have ethical concerns.

Still, it?s one thing to transplant organs from deceased donors and another to pressure people to donate while alive. My profession has been very cavalier about taking organs from live donors ? especially livers. Sometimes adults are willing to donate half their livers because of tremendous pressure from their families. With half a liver, there?s a definite mortality rate, probably around 1 percent, maybe 2 percent, for the donor.

I?ve seen tremendous disruption in families where a wife said, ?My husband wants to give half his liver to his brother, but he?s the breadwinner in our family and I don?t want him to do it.?

What about the growth of ?transplant tourism,? where patients from wealthy countries travel to poorer ones to find organs?

That?s terrible ? verges on the criminal, really. We?ve heard stories where a well-respected surgeon is asked to go to a third world country, and he gets there and the recipient has cirrhosis and the donor is his ?cousin.? In fact, the donor is probably some poor peasant who is apparently being paid for it. One hears of disasters where the surgeon has to work in countries with poor facilities and both the donor and the recipient have died. The surgeon returns home to this horrible news.

These kinds of events can occur in countries where power is abused. We can just imagine what would have happened in Nazi Germany if organ transplantation had existed in the 1930s.

You did a lot of your early experiments on dogs and pigs. What do animal rights activists think of your work?

They once sent me a bomb. I was suspicious and phoned up the army ? who blew it up. This was right around the time cyclosporine was first being used. A BBC director did a program on a child who?d been saved with it. And after that, I had no more trouble with animal rights. Not because they loved me. But that they thought it wouldn?t do them any good if they killed someone treating children.

The Lasker prize, which you and Tom Starzl just won, is often called the Pre-Nobel. Were the Lasker judges saying to Stockholm, ?Hey, isn?t it time you honored this world-changing discovery??

Well, I don?t know how they work in Stockholm. If you look at the amount of good that resulted from organ transplantation it fits very much into what Alfred Nobel wanted the prize to be used for.

I get a lot of satisfaction a different way. I have a patient and it?s been 38 years since his transplant. He?s just come back from a 150-mile trek bicycling through the mountains. That?s my reward.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/science/organ-transplant-pioneer-talks-about-risks-and-rewards.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Monday, November 26, 2012

Australia Military Sex Abuse Claims: Government Expresses Regret ...

The Australian government, through Defence Minister Stephen Smith, has apologised to the country?s military personnel, who have been sexually mistreated or otherwise maltreated, during their military service.

The Defence Minister expressed an apology in Parliament on behalf of the government, subsequent to hundreds of claims of sexual abuse and rape from the members of the Australian military, historical and present.

An inquest into the Australian military sex abuse allegations has been initiated by the government. A compensation fund has also been established by the government to assist the victims of military sex abuse. The Australian military sex abuse allegations stretch across 60 years and are being viewed as a stain on the Australian military reputation.

The Defence Minister has asserted that young male and female Australian soldiers have undergone sexual, physical and mental mistreatment from their military colleagues. This behaviour was unjustifiable and wasn?t in sync with the principles of a broadminded and diverse Australian society.

In the last two years, the Australian government, headed by Labour PM Julia Gillard, has commenced and continued a process to reform the Australian military culture. Attempts have been initiated by the Australian government to make the military more accepting of female soldiers.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith has accepted claims that military officers misused their positions of trust through sexually abusive behaviour. Some military officers refused to take action against their colleagues, who were perpetrating abusive behaviour.

Stephen Smith proclaimed that retired judge, Len Roberts-Smith, has been appointed as the head of the inquiry into the Australia military sex abuse allegations. More than 1000 complaints of military sexual abuse had been received by the government, with the earliest ones dating back to the 1950s.

The Defence Minister cautioned that some sexual abuse perpetrators could still be in the Australian military.

Australian Defence Force (ADF) Chief Lieutenant, General David Hurley, has vowed to cooperate with the inquiry into the Australian military sex abuse allegations. Hurley has uttered that the perpetrators of abuse in the military have failed to comprehend that military rank is a privilege and not a license for violent or arrogant behaviour.

Related articles:
South Pacific Sandy Island is ghost island, say Australian scientists
Australia to make world?s largest marine parks
No Schapelle Corby deal with Indonesia, says Australia

About the author

Meera Takkar Meera Takkar The most recent acquisition to GND, Meera cut her teeth working within Baroda?s eventful news arena. She has put her name to many headline news items, spanning from war reports in the Middle East to the Royal Wedding in 2011.

Tags: Australia

Source: http://www.globalnewsdesk.co.uk/rest-of-the-world/australia-military-sex-abuse-allegations/02587/

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Food and travel outshine ?traditional? retail as sales rise 3.6%

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Within 2 years of national title win, Auburn fires football coach

AUBURN, Ala. (AP) ? Auburn coach Gene Chizik was fired Sunday after the Tigers' rapid fall from a national champion to a winless Southeastern Conference season.

The Tigers endured the worst slide within two years of winning a national championship of any team since the Associated Press poll started in 1936 and hadn't lost this many games since going 0-10 in 1950. The decision came 17 months after Auburn gave Chizik a contract worth some $3.5 million annually through 2015 with a hefty buyout.

"After careful consideration and a thorough evaluation of our football program, I have recommended that Coach Chizik not be retained," Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs said in a statement. "President (Jay) Gogue has accepted my recommendation. Earlier this morning, I informed Gene that he will not return as head coach."

The players were informed in a team meeting Sunday. Jacobs scheduled a news conference for later in the afternoon.

"I'm extremely disappointed with the way this season turned out and I apologize to the Auburn family and our team for what they have had to endure," Chizik said. "In my 27 years of coaching, I have gained an understanding of the high expectations in this profession. When expectations are not met, I understand changes must be made.

The Tigers went from 14-0 with a perfect SEC record with Cam Newton leading the offense in 2010 to 3-9 and 0-8, losing their final three league games by a combined 150-21. Auburn was blown out by Texas A&M (63-21) and Georgia (38-0) but the finale was even more painful for Tigers fans.

No. 2 Alabama cruised to a six-touchdown halftime lead en route to a 49-0 demolition Saturday that could easily have been much worse. It was still the second-most lopsided Iron Bowl in history, behind only the Tide's 55-0 win in 1948.

"While we experienced a tremendous low in 2012, I will always be proud of the incredible highs that we achieved, including three bowl victories, an SEC championship and a national championship," Chizik said.

He was 33-19 in four seasons and 15-17 in SEC games.

Auburn said the total buyout for Chizik and his assistant coaches is $11.09 million. Chizik's buyout will total $7.5 million and be paid in monthly installments for the next four years.

The deal calls for Chizik to make "reasonable" efforts to land a new job, with that salary deducted from the buyout.

Auburn tight end Philip Lutzenkirchen said players gave Chizik a standing ovation after the team meeting and that the coach was tough on himself. Lutzenkirchen also understands the reality of life in the SEC.

"Not winning a conference game isn't going to cut it wherever you are in this league," he said.

Defensive tackle Jeff Whitaker said, "It's kind of crazy right now. I had a special bond with Coach Chizik."

Chizik had sandwiched two 8-5 seasons around the national title, but never approached the success of 2010, when Newton won the Heisman Trophy. The Tigers were 7-17 in SEC games outside of 2010 during his tenure.

His hiring was criticized by some fans after Chizik went 5-19 in two seasons at Iowa State and lost the last 10 games of his first head coaching job.

Jacobs was heckled at the airport after making the hire.

Chizik had been defensive coordinator on unbeaten teams at Auburn and Texas.

A search committee comprised of former Heisman Trophy winners Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson and former Tigers fullback Mac Crawford will assist Jacobs, the school said.

A transition year might have been expected.

Chizik had to replace the offensive and defensive coordinators after last season. Chizik made an ill-fated switch from Gus Malzahn's no-huddle, spread offense to a pro-style system with the hiring of former Temple offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler.

The Tigers struggled in the transition, partly because of shaky quarterback play. Auburn finally turned to freshman Jonathan Wallace ? the season's third starter ? for the final four games.

Auburn ranked at or near the bottom of the SEC in every major statistical category offensively and defensively.

Chizik's tenure was marred by off-the-field problems, too, to the extent that Chizik had employees of a private firm run curfew checks on players this season.

Four members of the 2010 national championship team were arrested on robbery charges in March 2011. Antonio Goodwin was convicted in April and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Dakota Mosley, Michael McNeil and Shaun Kitchens are awaiting trial.

Two-time 1,000-yard rusher Mike Dyer transferred to Arkansas State with Malzahn after being indefinitely suspended before the bowl game.

Freshman quarterback Zeke Pike was arrested in June for public intoxication and later dismissed from the team. Starting center Reese Dismukes was suspended for the opener against Clemson following a public intoxication arrest.

Auburn is also the subject of an NCAA investigation that includes the recruitment of Memphis running back Jovon Robinson.

Memphis City Schools said in August that the NCAA had contacted the school district regarding allegations involving a former Wooddale High School athlete, identified by the Memphis Commercial Appeal as Robinson. A school guidance counselor resigned after admitting to creating the fake transcript.

The Birmingham News reported on Wednesday that NCAA investigators had interviewed at least one assistant coach and several players during the week leading up to the Iron Bowl.

Chizik's contract includes a clause that it wouldn't owe the buyout money if he is fired for cause, including findings of major rules violations or significant or repetitive violations" involving him or his program.

Chizik and Auburn have weathered past NCAA scrutiny. The governing body closed investigations into the recruitment of Newton and allegations from four former players that they were paid thousands of dollars during their college careers.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/auburn-fires-gene-chizik-3-9-season-192037021--spt.html

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John Lewis weekly sales up 11 percent, hit November record

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest department store group John Lewis saw sales rise 11 percent in the week to November 24 compared to a year ago, marking the first time ever that November sales rose above 100 million ($160 million).

The company said on Sunday that department store sales in the week totaled 109.6 million pounds, 19.6 percent above the previous week's figure.

A John Lewis spokeswoman said the figure included online sales, which were 34.6 percent higher than a year ago.

Overall sales were driven by strong demand for technology products such as tablet computers, radios, cameras and coffee-making machines, as well as items for the home such as furnishings and Christmas trees.

"We are extremely pleased to have achieved such a strong uplift in sales," said Maggie Porteous, head of selling operations. "There is no doubt that Christmas sales are really beginning to take off."

John Lewis has been outperforming rivals and the wider market because its generally more affluent customers have been less affected by Britain's economic downturn.

($1 = 0.6246 British pounds)

(Reporting by Laurence Fletcher; Editing by Sophie Walker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/john-lewis-weekly-sales-11-percent-hit-november-152812614--finance.html

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Obama?s pick for CIA could affect drone program (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/266116164?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Friday, November 23, 2012

Give The Gift of a Custom Gaming PC with These Builds

Give The Gift of a Custom Gaming PC with These Builds Is there a gamer on your holiday shopping list? Maybe someone you just want to get your game on with, or someone who's been complaining their old system isn't up to the demands of the latest titles, like Dishonored, Hitman: Absolution, or Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? Hook them up with a custom-built gaming PC this holiday season and they'll love you forever.

We've featured some great all-around PC builds before, but we're going to focus in on gaming this time around. Whether you just want to give the gift of passable frame rates or you're giving away the fine whiskey and caviar of the gaming PC world, we're breaking down our suggested builds into three categories:

  1. A modest but powerful machine that can play anything you throw at it, but with a few compromises.
  2. A solid and powerful gaming system that'll let you turn up the effects and enjoy the most all of your favorite titles have to offer.
  3. The Crazypants Gaming Build: A high-end, ultra-powerful rig that won't blink at today's games?or anything else you do with it?and probably won't blink at tomorrow's GPU and CPU-testing tasks either.

We'll throw down some parts here that we think will work in most cases, but in case you have specific brand loyalties or prefer to make adjustments, we'll provide customization options so you can tweak each build as you wish. Keep in mind that prices are accurate at the time of writing, but can change at any time, especially around this time of year.

The Modest and Affordable Rig

Give The Gift of a Custom Gaming PC with These Builds This entry level system hovers around the $500 mark, and it'll still play anything you throw at it. Older titles will fly with all of the settings turned up and even newer titles will give you decent frame rates and smooth gameplay, although you may need to make some compromises in the graphics settings of the most intensive titles. Most notably, we give the nod to AMD's second generation APUs, which are quickly approaching Intel's processors in quality at a much lower cost:

Upgrade Options

If you want to take this build to the next level, here are some affordable upgrades you can swap out or add to the components above for a beefier, more powerful system.

That's all there is here. The beauty of AMD's APUs is that you don't need a graphics card and they come with AMD's graphics built-in and on-board. We didn't even have to go with the A8 here, we could have backed up to the A6 to save a few bucks. Plus, if you run into something that the APU isn't good enough for, you can always add a card later (like the 1GB/2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX560 Ti for $160/$180) without paying for one now that you'd have to toss out. This overclockable A8 APU is DirectX 11-capable and can be tweaked to offer even more graphics performance when you're not using the CPU so you're not bound in one area or the other. Plus, omitting a discrete graphics cards keeps the cost down. Way down.

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($395.93)

The Powerhouse

Give The Gift of a Custom Gaming PC with These Builds Most PC gamers I know walk a very fine line when building their systems. They want machines that can play the titles they love now, but are also up to the challenge of some of the games they know are on the horizon and are coming soon. They're willing to spend more to futureproof as much as they can, but don't want to throw money away at the same time. If that sounds like you, this is the build for you:

Upgrade Options

There's no doubt about it, this machine will fly. When we asked you what computer parts you wanted for the holidays, you noted that OCZ, one of our favorite SSD manufacturers is in the middle of some financial trouble. We still love their drives, but if that makes you nervous, that Crucial in the upgrade options section makes a fine replacement, and if you don't need that much space, this Crucial 128GB m4 SSD ($100) will do the trick as well. We also stuck with 4GB of RAM, per our standard recommendation, but don't hesitate to add more if budget allows, especially if you run VMs or use apps that can leverage the additional RAM.

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($871.40)

The Crazypants Gaming Rig

Give The Gift of a Custom Gaming PC with These Builds Finished parking your Bentley? Ride your Segway up to the PC parts store and pick up the components for this ultimate gaming rig. It's super-fast, water-cooled, and has many best in slot components we could find easily, no compromises made and money no object. It's not for everyone, but if little Timmy deserves only the best (yes, we know you're "Little Timmy") this holiday season, this is the system to build:

Upgrade Options

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($2739.01)

It's hard to believe this behemoth could possibly be upgraded further, but...to be fair we held back a little bit so we had somewhere to go. Seriously, this machine won't blink at anything you throw at it, and anything you're likely to throw at it likely won't even come close to using most of the resources available in this build.

The motherboard in this build is so expensive because it's an overclocker's dream and comes with pretty much every possible port on the board than you could possibly ever want or need, and if you really wanted to, you could spend $4000 just on the video cards and run them in quad-SLI. We picked the Cooler Master HAF X as the case because you voted it as your favorite, but you could go crazier if you choose. It's ridiculous, and we love it.

Putting Them All Together

Once you've got the parts, consult our computer building guide to learn how to put them together and get everything up and running nicely so that special person can just plug it in, power it on, and spend hours this holiday season getting their game on. Don't forget to check out the Steam sales to grab some affordable titles to put your rig to the test, and happy holidays!

A special thanks goes out to everyone who provided suggestions last week! It made putting together these guides a lot easier, and a better fit for you.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5962684/give-the-gift-of-a-custom-gaming-pc-with-these-builds

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Herbivore defense in ferns

Thursday, November 22, 2012

They dominated the earth for 200 million years and numerous different species can still be found all over the world: mosses, horsetails and ferns. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found out that bracken ferns (Pteridium aquilinum) do not release any volatiles when they are attacked ? unlike many of the now dominant and evolutionary younger flowering plants. Such an emission of volatile compounds may attract the pest insects' enemies, such as ichneumon wasps or predatory bugs, that parasitize herbivores. Nevertheless, volatile emission could be also elicited in fern fronds, if they had been treated with plant hormone jasmonic acid. Jasomonic acid induces the synthesis of volatile substances in flowering plants. This suggests that ferns can in principle mobilize this kind of defense reaction. However, they do not use this indirect defense to fend off herbivores.

Only few herbivores attack ferns

Ferns are so-called vascular cryptogams, because they don't produce flowers and seeds like the currently largest group of plants, the spermatophytes or seed plants. Ferns reproduce and spread entirely via spores. Their metabolic activities and especially their defenses against herbivores, however, are similarly efficient in comparison to flowering plants. Ferns can be found in large populations all over the world, although their evolutionary age is more than 400 million years.

Botanists consider the bracken fern Pteridium aquilinum as one of the most widely distributed plant species. It can be found in the most different habitats. Herbivores attack bracken ferns strikingly less often than flowering plants. One explanation for this phenomenon could be that fern fronds contain especially toxic substances that keep pest insects at bay: Chemical composition analysis detected indanones, cyanogenic glycosides and tannins, amongst other substances. But can those "living fossils" also use indirect defenses against their enemies, like other plants do?

Defense mechanisms in bracken fern include indirect defenses. However, herbivory does not induce them

Beans, corn, cotton, poplar trees, tobacco plants and potatoes: These and other flowering plants are known to produce the plant hormone jasmonic acid in their leaves after herbivore attack. Jasmonic acid stimulates the synthesis of volatile substances, such as compounds of the terpenoid family. This defense strategy can be used by plants to attract the enemies of herbivorous insect larvae. Venkatesan Radhika, PhD student in the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry of the institute, wanted to find out, whether bracken ferns could also emit these attractants when they were attacked. She used larvae of two insect herbivore species to damage the fern fronds: fern specialist Strongylogaster multifasciata and the generalist herbivore Spodoptera littoralis, which feeds on many different plants. She also used a robotic device, MecWorm, which continuously punched a limited area of the fern frond with a metal bolt, thereby mimicking the mechanical wounding caused by feeding herbivores. The result: The fern fronds release only very small amounts of volatile compounds, if at all. Even the signal molecule jasmonic acid could hardly be detected in the fronds.

However, if fern fronds were directly treated with jasmonic acid, they responded like the leaves of flowering plants and they released a typical odor bouquet. The scientists studied this effect in more detail and discovered that the release of volatile terpenoids from the fern could even be induced by treatment with early precursors of jasmonic acid synthesis (OPDA and linolenic acid). Biochemical experiments revealed that these volatile terpenoids are produced by the same metabolic pathway already known from flowering plants. "It is likely that the herbivory-induced accumulation of jasmonic acid is not sufficient to trigger the production of volatile compounds in our experiments," says Wilhelm Boland, director of the department.

Could it be possible that ferns do not need indirect defenses by means of volatile emission? Is the presence of highly toxic substances in the fern fronds sufficient to fend off herbivores? "We can only speculate," says Boland. Indirect defense strategies may have evolved from originally direct defenses (e.g. in the Chinese ladder brake, Pteris vittata) or, on the other hand, in the context of pollinator attraction to volatiles, which is a trait that has naturally evolved in flowering and seed-producing plants and not in flowerless ferns, the scientist continues. It remains fascinating though, that even without apparent indirect defenses bracken ferns successfully colonize our planet to this day. [JWK/AO]

###

Venkatesan Radhika, Christian Kost, Gustavo Bonaventure, Anja David, Wilhelm Boland (2012). Volatile emission in bracken fern is induced by jasmonates but not by Spodoptera littoralis or Strongylogaster multifasciata herbivory. PLOS ONE, 20. November 2012; doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048050

Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology: http://www.ice.mpg.de

Thanks to Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125415/Herbivore_defense_in_ferns_

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