![Click here to read Maurice Sendak: "F*ck Ebooks"](http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2012/01/small_912b21f400c364ce30af49bd2e0add4f.jpg "Click here to read Maurice Sendak: "F*ck Ebooks"")
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Maurice Sendak: "F*ck Ebooks" [Video]
Warming in the Tasman Sea a global warming hot spot
Monday, January 30, 2012
Oceanographers have identified a series of ocean hotspots around the world generated by strengthening wind systems that have driven oceanic currents, including the East Australian Current, polewards beyond their known boundaries.
The hotspots have formed alongside ocean currents that wash the east coast of the major continents and their warming proceeds at a rate far exceeding the average rate of ocean surface warming, according to an international science team whose work is published in the journal Nature Climate Change today.
Paper co-author, CSIRO's Dr Wenju Cai, said that while the finding has local ecological implications in the region surrounding the hotspots, the major influence is upon the ocean's ability to take up heat and carbon from the atmosphere.
In Australia's case, scientists report intensifying east-west winds at high latitudes (45?-55?S) pushing southward and speeding up the gyre or swirl of currents circulating in the South Pacific, extending from South America to the Australian coast. The resulting changes in ocean circulation patterns have pushed the East Australian Current around 350 kilometres further south, with temperatures east of Tasmania as much as two degrees warmer than they were 60 years ago. "We would expect natural change in the oceans over decades or centuries but change with such elevated sea surface temperatures in a growing number of locations and in a synchronised manner was definitely not expected," said CSIRO's Dr Wenju Cai.
"Detecting these changes has been hindered by limited observations but with a combination of multi-national ocean watch systems and computer simulations we have been able to reconstruct an ocean history in which warming over the past century is 2-3 times faster than the global average ocean warming rate," says Dr Cai, a climate scientist at CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Research Flagship.
The changes are characterised by a combination of currents pushing nearer to the polar regions and intensify with systematic changes of wind over both hemispheres, attributed to increasing greenhouse gases.
Dr Cai said the increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been the major driver of the surface warming of the Earth over the 20th century. This is projected to continue.
He said the research points to the need for a long-term monitoring network of the western boundary currents. In March next year, Australian scientists plan to deploy a series of moored ocean sensors across the East Australian Current to observe change season-to-season and year-to-year.
###
CSIRO Australia: http://www.csiro.au
Thanks to CSIRO Australia 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/117175/Warming_in_the_Tasman_Sea_a_global_warming_hot_spot
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80 percent of 'irreplaceable' habitats in Andes unprotected
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Hundreds of rare, endemic species in the Central Andes remain unprotected and are increasingly under threat from development and climate change, according to a Duke University-led international study.
"These species require unique ecological conditions and are particularly vulnerable to changes in the environment or climate. Yet our analysis shows that region-wide, about 80 percent of the areas with high numbers of these species lack any protection," said Jennifer Swenson, assistant professor of the practice of geospatial analysis at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.
The study, published today in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal BMC Ecology, identifies and maps the geographic ranges of hundreds of species of plants and animals ? including mammals, birds and amphibians ? that are found nowhere in the world outside the Andes-Amazon basin in Peru and Bolivia.
The threat to these species has become especially severe in recent years, Swenson said, as oil and gold mining, infrastructure projects, agriculture and other human activities encroach farther into the region's biologically rich landscapes.
"This is one of Earth's most rapidly changing areas," she said.
To conduct their study, Swenson and her colleagues collected more than 7,000 individual records of endemic species locations for 115 species of birds, 55 mammals, 177 amphibians and 435 plants. They combined these with satellite images and climate, topography and vegetation data to create models, detailed to one kilometer, that mapped endemic species distributions across the entire basin ? from the forested slopes and dry inter-mountain valleys of the Andes all the way to the low-lying Amazonian wetlands and savannas.
By overlaying this data with maps showing modern political boundaries in the Andes-Amazon basin, the researchers found that only about 20 percent of the areas with high numbers of endemic species or high levels of irreplaceability fell within national parks or protected areas, and that 226 rare endemic species lacked any national-level protection at all. Irreplaceability is a term used by conservationists to denote biodiversity hotspots where high numbers of endemic species with very small ranges live. These are often among the most vital ? and vulnerable ? habitats in a region.
"Interestingly, one of the areas we identified with the highest number of bird and mammal species and one of the highest levels of irreplaceability was an unprotected region surrounding the World Heritage Site of Machu Picchu, one of the most heavily visited tourist destinations in the region," Swenson noted.
As the effects of development and climate change continue to shrink or shift geographic ranges in coming decades, some species may literally be running out of ground, she said.
"Conservation strategies across the Andes urgently need revising," she said. "There is already evidence of species migrating upslope to keep up with climate change. We hope our data will help protect this incredibly unique region."
Bruce E. Young, director of species science at the nonprofit conservation organization NatureServe, was principal co-author of the study. Twenty additional collaborators from conservation agencies and organizations in Peru and Bolivia helped gather data.
###
Duke University: http://www.duke.edu
Thanks to Duke University 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.
This press release has been viewed 84 time(s).
Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117154/___percent_of__irreplaceable__habitats_in_Andes_unprotected
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Beyonce Gets A College Course, Possible Houston Monument
Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images
Related Artists
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678096/beyonce-gets-college-course-possible-houston-monument.jhtml
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BP emails reveal company veiling spill rate (AP)
NEW ORLEANS ? On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP officials warned in an internal memo that if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer at the drill site, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day, an amount a million gallons higher than what the government later believed spilled daily from the site.
The email conversation, which BP agreed to release Friday as part of federal court proceedings, suggests BP managers recognized the potential of the disaster in its early hours, and company officials sought to make sure that the model-developed information wasn't shared with outsiders. The emails also suggest BP was having heated discussions with Coast Guard officials over the potential of the oil spill.
The memo was released as part of the court proceedings to determine the division of responsibility for the nation's worst offshore oil disaster, which began when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, 2010, killing 11 men about 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast. The first phase of the trial is set to start Feb. 27.
BP officials declined to comment on the emails late Friday.
The official amount of oil that flowed from the well was pegged at 206 million gallons from at least April 22 until the well was capped on July 15, a period of 85 days. That's a daily flow rate of about 2.4 million gallons ? two-thirds of the way to BP's projection of what could leak from the well if it was an "open hole." BP has disputed the government's estimates.
Having an accurate flow rate estimate is needed to determine how much in civil and criminal penalties BP and the other companies drilling the well face under the Clean Water Act.
In the memo, a BP official urges not to share the flow-rate projections and refers to the "difficult discussions" the company was having at the time with the Coast Guard.
Gary Imm, a BP manager, told Rob Marshall, BP's subsea manager in the Gulf, to tell the modeler doing the estimates "not to communicate to anyone on this."
"A number of people have been looking at this we already have had difficult discussions with the USCG on the numbers," Imm said in the email string, referring to the Coast Guard and flow estimates.
On April 23, 2010, the Coast Guard, relying on BP's remotely operated vehicles, said no oil was leaking from the well a mile under the sea. A day later, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry announced that oil was leaking an estimated rate of 42,000 gallons a day. The Coast Guard and BP did not divulge how they reached that figure.
In the second week after the spill, the official flow rate was increased to 210,000 gallons a day, an estimate the government continued to use until May 27.
On May 24, BP informed Congress they used an "undisclosed method to generate much higher figures" than the official estimates, according to a report from a presidential commission investigating the spill. BP estimated that the flow rates were between 210,000 gallons and 1.6 million gallons a day, the January 2011 report said.
As the spill grew into weeks and months, and soiled fishing grounds, beaches and coastal marshes, independent scientists questioned the official flow rates. Eventually, the federal government convened teams of government and independent scientists to determine how much oil leaked out of the well. They came up with an official estimate of about 2.4 million gallons of oil a day on average.
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Romney would rank among richest presidents ever (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Just how rich is Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you're in Romney territory.
He would be among the richest presidents in American history if elected ? probably in the top four.
He couldn't top George Washington who, with nearly 60,000 acres and more than 300 slaves, is considered the big daddy of presidential wealth. After that, it gets complicated, depending how you rate Thomas Jefferson's plantation, Herbert Hoover's millions from mining or John F. Kennedy's share of the vast family fortune, as well as the finer points of factors like inflation adjustment.
But it's safe to say the Roosevelts had nothing on Romney, and the Bushes are nowhere close.
The former Massachusetts governor has disclosed only the broad outlines of his wealth, putting it somewhere from $190 million to $250 million. That easily could make him 50 times richer than Obama, who falls in the still-impressive-to-most-of-us range of $2.2 million to $7.5 million.
"I think it's almost hard to conceptualize what $250 million means," said Shamus Khan, a Columbia University sociologist who studies the wealthy. "People say Romney made $50,000 a day while not working last year. What do you do with all that money? I can't even imagine spending it. Well, maybe ..."
Of course, an unbelievable boatload of bucks is just one way to think of Romney's net worth, and the 44 U.S. presidents make up a pretty small pond for him to swim in. Put alongside America's 400 or so billionaires, Romney wouldn't make a ripple.
So here's a look where Romney's riches rank ? among the most flush Americans, the White House contenders, and the rest of us:
_Within the 1 percent:
"Romney is small potatoes compared with the ultra-wealthy," said Jeffrey Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies the nation's elites.
After all, even in the rarefied world of the top 1 percent, there's a big difference between life at the top and at the bottom.
A household needs to bring in roughly $400,000 per year to make the cut. Romney and his wife, Ann, have been making 50 times that ? more than $20 million a year. In 2009, only 8,274 federal tax filers had income above $10 million. Romney is solidly within that elite 0.006 percent of all U.S. taxpayers.
Congress is flush with millionaires. Only a few are in the Romney realm, including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Kerry's ranking would climb much higher if the fortune of his wife, Teresa Heinz, were counted. She is the widow of Sen. John Heinz, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune.
Further up the ladder, top hedge fund managers can pocket $1 billion or more in a single year.
At the top of the wealth pile sits Bill Gates, worth $59 billion, according to Forbes magazine's estimates.
_As a potential president:
Romney clearly stands out here. America's super rich generally don't jockey to live in the White House. A few have toyed with the idea, most notably New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 12th richest American, worth $19.5 billion. A lesser billionaire, Ross Perot, bankrolled his own third-party campaigns in 1992 and 1996.
Many presidents weren't particularly well-off, especially 19th century leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan and Ulysses S. Grant. Nor was the 33rd president, Harry Truman.
"These things ebb and flow," said sociologist Khan. "It's not the case that all presidents were always rich."
A few former chief executives died in debt, including Thomas Jefferson, ranked in a Forbes study as the third-wealthiest president.
Comparing the landlocked wealth of early Americans such as Washington, Jefferson and James Madison, with today's millionaires is tricky, even setting aside the lack of documentation and economic changes over two centuries.
Research by 24/7 Wall St., a news and analysis website, estimated Washington's wealth at the equivalent of $525 million in 2010 dollars.
Yet Washington had to borrow money to pay for his trip to New York for his inauguration in 1789, according to Dennis Pogue, vice president for preservation at Mount Vernon, Washington's Virginia estate. His money was tied up in land, reaping only a modest cash income after farm expenses.
"He was a wealthy guy, there's no doubt about it," Pogue said, and probably among the dozen richest Virginians of his time. But, "the wealthiest person in America then was nothing in comparison to what these folks are today."
_How does Romney stand next to a regular Joe?
He's roughly 1,800 times richer.
The typical U.S. household was worth $120,300 in 2007, according to the Census Bureau's most recent data, although that number is sure to have dropped since the recession. A typical family's income is $50,000.
Calculations from 24/7 Wall St. of the peak lifetime wealth (or peak so far) of Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama add up to a total $128 million ? while Romney reports assets of up to $250 million.
If you consider only those presidents' assets while in office, without millions earned later from speeches and books, their combined total would be substantially lower, and Romney's riches would leave the pack even further behind.
___
Online:
Forbes' richest presidents list: http://tinyurl.com/82erdyb
24/7 Wall St. on presidents' net worth: http://tinyurl.com/328qyu2
___
Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.
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Thailand elephants now poached for their meat
BANGKOK?? A new taste for eating elephant meat ? everything from trunks to sex organs ? has emerged in Thailand and could pose a new threat to the survival of the species.
Wildlife officials told The Associated Press that they were alerted to the practice after finding two elephants slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand.
"The poachers took away the elephants' sex organs and trunks ... for human consumption," Damrong Phidet, director-general of Thailand's wildlife agency, said in a telephone interview. Some meat was to be consumed without cooking, like "elephant sashimi," he said.
Poachers typically just remove tusks, which are most commonly found on Asian male elephants and fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. A market for elephant meat, however, could lead to killing of the wider elephant population, Damrong said.
"If you keep hunting elephants for this, then they'll become extinct," he said.
Consuming elephant meat is not common in Thailand, but some Asian cultures believe consuming animals' reproductive organs can boost sexual prowess.
Damrong said the elephant meat was ordered by restaurants in Phuket, a popular travel destination in the country's south. It wasn't clear if the diners were foreigners.
The accusation drew a quick rebuttal from Phuket Governor Tri Akradecha, who told Thai media that he had never heard of such restaurants but ordered officials to look into the matter.
Poachers seek 'big money'
Poaching elephants is banned, and trafficking or possessing poached animal parts also is illegal. Elephant tusks are sought in the illegal ivory trade, and baby wild elephants are sometimes poached to be trained for talent shows.
"The situation has come to a crisis point. The longer we allow these cruel acts to happen, the sooner they will become extinct," Damrong said.
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The quest for ivory remains the top reason poachers kill elephants in Thailand, other environmentalists say.
Soraida Salwala, the founder of Friends of the Asian Elephant foundation, said a full grown pair of tusks could be sold from 1 million to 2 million baht ($31,600 to $63,300), while the estimated value of an elephant's penis is more than 30,000 baht ($950).
"There's only a handful of people who like to eat elephant meat, but once there's demand, poachers will find it hard to resist the big money," she cautioned.
Thailand has fewer than 3,000 wild elephants and about 4,000 domesticated elephants, according to the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department.
The pachyderms were a mainstay of the logging industry in the northern and western parts of the country until logging contracts were revoked in the late 1980s.
Domesticated animals today are used mainly for heavy lifting and entertainment.
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/46159448/ns/us_news-environment/
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Obama 'putting colleges on notice' on high tuition (AP)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? President Barack Obama fired a warning at the nation's colleges and universities on Friday, threatening to strip their federal aid if they "jack up tuition" every year and to give the money instead to schools showing restraint and value.
Obama can't proceed, though, without the OK from Congress, where the reaction of Republican lawmakers ranged from muted to skeptical. Higher education leaders worried about the details and the threat of government overreach, and one dismissed it as mere election-year "political theater."
Average tuition and fees at public colleges rose 8.3 percent this year and, with room and board, now exceed $17,000 a year, according to the College Board.
Obama delivered his proposal with campaign flair, mounting a mainstream appeal to young voters and struggling families. He said higher education has become an imperative for success in America, but the cost has grown unrealistic for too many families, and the debt burden unbearable.
"We are putting colleges on notice," Obama told an arena packed with cheering students at the University of Michigan.
"You can't assume that you'll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can't stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down."
Obama is targeting only a small part of the financial aid picture ? the $3 billion known as campus-based aid that flows through college administrators to students. He is proposing to increase that amount to $10 billion and change how it is distributed to reward schools that hold down costs and ensure that more poor students complete their education.
The bulk of the more than $140 billion in federal grants and loans goes directly to students and would not be affected.
Rising tuition costs have been attributed to a variety of factors, among them a decline in state dollars and competition for the best facilities and professors. Washington's leverage to take on the rising cost of college is limited because American higher education is decentralized, with most student aid following the student. And that's not counting the legislative gridlock.
"If you were a betting person, you would not bet on it getting done, simply because the political atmosphere in Washington is so poisonous," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, an organization that represents colleges in Washington.
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said Obama put forward "interesting ideas that deserve a careful review." But Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who leads a House panel with jurisdiction over higher education, said Obama's plan should have tackled federal regulations that she said contribute to the problem.
The top Democrat on the House education committee, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Congress has bipartisan concern about the rising costs of college and thinks the president's plan will open up a conversation about the problem. Some Republicans in the past, including Rep. Buck McKeon of California, have offered proposals similar to the president's.
Others were sharper in their critique.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary, questioned whether Obama can enforce any plan that shifts federal aid away from colleges and universities without hurting the students it is meant to help. "The federal government has no business doing this," he said.
Enacted or not, Obama's plan may have the kind of popular appeal he can use in the campaign.
In Ann Arbor, he soaked up the cheers of students as he outlined the agenda from his State of the Union speech, and gave a shout out to the popular quarterback of the school's football team. And Obama used the college-aid matter to put the onus for action on Republicans, again painting them as obstructionists and himself as the fighter for the middle class.
Mary Sue Coleman, president of University of Michigan, said schools should be challenged to find ways to restrain costs, but they can't continue to make up for state cuts. Money for state universities in Michigan dropped by 15 percent in this year's state budget, and many ? including the University of Michigan ? raised tuition to help make up for the lost support.
Obama challenged states to be more responsible, too.
"He recognizes every part of it," Coleman said. "That's what was so powerful about the speech."
Kevin Carey, policy director at the independent Education Sector think tank, said higher education leaders will surely detest Obama's plan even if they do not say so directly.
"Instead, they'll work behind the scenes to kill it," Carey predicted.
University of Washington President Mike Young said Obama showed he did not understand how the budgets of public universities work. Young said the total cost to educate college students in Washington state, which is paid for by both tuition and state government dollars, has actually gone down because of efficiencies on campus. While universities are tightening costs, the state is cutting their subsidies and authorizing tuition increases to make up for the loss.
"They really should know better," Young said. "This really is political theater of the worst sort."
Obama also wants to create a "Race to the Top" competition in higher education similar to the one his administration used on lower grades. He wants to encourage states to make better use of higher education dollars in exchange for $1 billion in prize money. A second competition called "First in the World" would encourage innovation to boost productivity on campuses.
Obama is also pushing for the creation of more tools to help students determine which colleges and universities have the best value.
Michigan was Obama's last stop on a five-day trip to sell his State of the Union agenda in politically important states.
The White House has begun facing criticism from Republicans and daily questions from reporters about the blurring of Obama's governing and campaign-style events. Presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Obama went before Michigan students to promote a policy idea.
Said Carney: "We're not going to tell people not to applaud."
___
Associated Press writers Ben Feller and Julie Pace in Washington, David Runk in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Donna Gordon Blankinship in Seattle contributed to this story. Hefling contributed from Washington.
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Adele is Setting Billboard Records on 'Fire' (omg!)
Adele is picking up where she left off in 2011 as her song Set Fire to the Rain has dethroned Rihanna's We Found Love from the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart while accomplishing a historic feat in the process.
Does Adele's New Boyfriend Equal New Music?
According to Billboard.com, Set Fire to the Rain is the third single from Adele's 21, which still leads the Billboard 200 album chart 17 weeks strong. Her two previous singles, Rolling in the Deep and Someone Like You, have also reached the top of the Hot 100 while 21 was number one on the Billboard 200, allowing Adele to become the first artist to have led the Billboard 200 simultaneously with three Hot 100 number one singles.
Adele's Thin New Look Revealed
Only nine artists had ever came close to pulling off the rare feat of having their singles and album atop both charts concurrently, with Usher being the most recent with the songs Yeah and Burn, both from his chart-topping album Confessions in 2004.
A Rare Adele Misstep
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For the birds
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Janet Wilson
janethw@uci.edu
949-824-3969
University of California - Irvine
Winged predators seek certain trees when foraging for caterpillars
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 26, 2012 Location matters for birds on the hunt for caterpillars, according to researchers at UC Irvine and Wesleyan University. Findings suggest that chickadees and others zero in on the type of tree as much as the characteristics of their wriggly prey.
Unfortunately for caterpillars, munching on tree leaves that are healthy and tasty can dramatically boost their own risk of becoming food. Study results, published online this week in The American Naturalist, show that dining on the trees that are most nutritious for caterpillars such as the black cherry can increase by 90 percent their chances of being devoured by a discerning bird.
"The jump in risk is surprising," said co-author Kailen Mooney, assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UCI. "It shows that for caterpillars, moving from one tree to the next can mean the difference between getting eaten and surviving."
The findings indicate a "neat potential pest control system," because the healthiest tree species harbor the greatest number of caterpillars, thereby offering the easiest pickings for winged predators, said lead author Michael Singer of Wesleyan. "Our study addresses basic theoretical questions in ecology, but we also want forest managers and conservation biologists to take away practical knowledge."
Mooney, who specializes in the ecology of predatory birds, said tree identification is probably learned by birds, not genetic. He added that Southern California bird species probably do the same with coastal sage scrub, determining which types of bushes afford a better chance of tasty insect treats.
With help from a small army of students, the scientists conducted a two-year experiment in Connecticut forests involving hundreds of tree branches either covered with bird-proof netting or left bare.
Mooney noted that the results illustrate a stark choice between gaining strength through a good diet but being more vulnerable to predators and remaining weaker and hungrier but more safe.
"If a caterpillar could feed on nutritious, high-quality tree species and be left alone, this would be the best of all worlds," he said. "Instead, it's faced with a trade-off. Overall, it appears that it's better to feed on poor-quality tree species and have fewer caterpillars around you than to be on a nutritious plant with many others."
###
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's second-largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4 billion. For more UCI news, visit http://www.today.uci.edu.
News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. Use of this line is available for a fee to radio news programs/stations that wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.
Contact:
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janethw@uci.edu
UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit http://www.today.uci.edu/experts. For UCI breaking news, visit http://www.zotwire.uci.edu.
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Janet Wilson
janethw@uci.edu
949-824-3969
University of California - Irvine
Winged predators seek certain trees when foraging for caterpillars
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 26, 2012 Location matters for birds on the hunt for caterpillars, according to researchers at UC Irvine and Wesleyan University. Findings suggest that chickadees and others zero in on the type of tree as much as the characteristics of their wriggly prey.
Unfortunately for caterpillars, munching on tree leaves that are healthy and tasty can dramatically boost their own risk of becoming food. Study results, published online this week in The American Naturalist, show that dining on the trees that are most nutritious for caterpillars such as the black cherry can increase by 90 percent their chances of being devoured by a discerning bird.
"The jump in risk is surprising," said co-author Kailen Mooney, assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UCI. "It shows that for caterpillars, moving from one tree to the next can mean the difference between getting eaten and surviving."
The findings indicate a "neat potential pest control system," because the healthiest tree species harbor the greatest number of caterpillars, thereby offering the easiest pickings for winged predators, said lead author Michael Singer of Wesleyan. "Our study addresses basic theoretical questions in ecology, but we also want forest managers and conservation biologists to take away practical knowledge."
Mooney, who specializes in the ecology of predatory birds, said tree identification is probably learned by birds, not genetic. He added that Southern California bird species probably do the same with coastal sage scrub, determining which types of bushes afford a better chance of tasty insect treats.
With help from a small army of students, the scientists conducted a two-year experiment in Connecticut forests involving hundreds of tree branches either covered with bird-proof netting or left bare.
Mooney noted that the results illustrate a stark choice between gaining strength through a good diet but being more vulnerable to predators and remaining weaker and hungrier but more safe.
"If a caterpillar could feed on nutritious, high-quality tree species and be left alone, this would be the best of all worlds," he said. "Instead, it's faced with a trade-off. Overall, it appears that it's better to feed on poor-quality tree species and have fewer caterpillars around you than to be on a nutritious plant with many others."
###
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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uoc--ftb012612.php
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৬ জানুয়ারী, ২০১২
Motorola sues Apple for patent infringement (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Motorola Mobility, which is seeking regulatory approval to be bought by Google Inc, has filed a new lawsuit against Apple Inc accusing the iPhone maker of infringing its technology patents.
The case filed in a Florida federal court on Wednesday is the latest turn in a bigger legal battle between Apple and Motorola Mobility, which runs its phones on Google's Android software -- the biggest rival of Apple's iOS mobile phone system.
Motorola said the patents cited in the latest lawsuit are the same ones it is fighting to protect in a different Florida lawsuit. This complaint is against two of Apple's latest products, the iPhone 4S and Apple's iCloud remote storage service for music and other media, Motorola said.
In the lawsuit, Motorola said it was suing Apple for infringing six of its patents involving technologies related to wireless antennae, software, data filtering and messaging.
A spokesperson for Apple was not immediately available for comment.
The filing follows a preliminary decision issued earlier this month by the U.S. International Trade Commission that Motorola did not violate Apple patents in another case Apple brought against Motorola.
In December, Motorola won a preliminary injunction against Apple in Germany, which could bar the sale of iPhones and iPad tablets in that country. Google agreed to buy Motorola for $12.5 billion in August in an effort to gain control of the mobile phone maker's deep portfolio of patents.
The case is Motorola Mobility Inc vs Apple Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Case No.
1:12-cv-20271-WJZ
(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Bernard Orr and Mark Porter)
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This Simple Wood Contraption Lets the iPhone 4 Film Both Sides of a Story [Video]
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বুধবার, ২৫ জানুয়ারী, ২০১২
It takes a primate supermom to raise twins
The first occurrence of twins for free-ranging Tibetan macaques has just been documented, revealing how rare survivorship of twins can be in many primate species, and how important mothers are to their success.
It?s possible that only supermom primates, humans included, can properly raise twins. In the wild, twins often die shortly after birth, or only one lives into adulthood.
PHOTOS: Monkey Faces Reveal a History
In the case of the Tibetan macaque mother of twins, described in the latest issue of the journal Primates, there is little doubt that she was qualified for the task.
?She appeared to remain quite healthy,? co-author Megan Matheson told Discovery News. ?I was very impressed when I observed her in August of 2010 running with two, by now quite large, infants hanging on!?
?At last check, the twins were still alive,? added Matheson, an associate professor of psychology at Central Washington University. ?They would be not quite 2 years old now, so still in the young juvenile stage. The twins were males, so they are not considered to be adults until 7 years of age.?
Matheson and her colleagues discovered the twins among a group of free-ranging Tibetan macaques at Huangshan, China. They studied the mother for 5 months after the birth, comparing her activities to those of other adult females with single or no offspring.
The researchers found that the mother monkey with twins spent more time foraging and resting, but that the quality of her social interactions did not seem to differ much from that of other macaque females.
In fact, she seemed to enjoy showing off her twins to others, who displayed an interest in the youngsters. For some reason, she tended to present one twin more frequently than its sibling. The researchers are not certain if that was because she is right handed, and simply handed over the twin on her right side more, or if she preferred that particular individual.
Males for this primate species, and many others, do not share parental duties. Female Tibetan macaques may mate with multiple males during the primary mating season.
?Dominant males have priority of access, but more subordinate males may sneak copulations,? Matheson said. As a result, paternity can be uncertain.
?Generally speaking, in these species where paternity uncertainty is the norm, adult males will be protective of all infants if they are threatened, but don?t necessarily favor any one for special contact,? she continued.
-
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Some female primates help out in what?s called ?aunting behavior,? but that doesn?t happen much among Tibetan macaques. Matheson suspects it?s because ?the mothers are not overly protective, and thus give the infants a lot of freedom once they?re able to move about independently. Even when they?re still nursing, the mother will retrieve infants when she leaves an area, but the infant is often exploring or playing with others while his or her mother forages.?
Successful parenting of twins among all non-human primates is rare, save for one family of South American monkeys, the Callitrichidae, which includes tamarins and marmosets. Females of this primate family routinely give birth to twins, with males providing substantial care. Sometimes mothers and dads of these primates will even raise triplets.
Among humans, studies reveal that women who deliver twins live longer, have more children than expected, bear babies at shorter intervals over a longer time, and are older at their last birth.
NEWS: Twin Births Doubled in U.S.
Shannen Robson, who led a recent study of human mothers of twins, theorizes that sturdy females are more likely to give natural birth to two instead of one.
?Having twins will not make you stronger or healthier, but stronger, healthier women are more likely to have twins naturally,? explained Robson, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.
Robson's colleague Ken Smith added, ?The prevailing view is that the burden of childbearing on women is heavier when bearing twins. But we found the opposite: women who naturally bear twins in fact live longer and are actually more fertile.?
"She also appeared to be energetically challenged by the task, and adjusted her time budget by insisting that they nurse at the same time," said Carol Berman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Buffalo. "When one approached her for nursing, she would not allow the infant to get on her nipple until the other also arrived."
The macaque mom with twins gave birth when she was still relatively young, so it?s possible that she might produce another set in future.
? 2012 Discovery Channel
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46117509/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Futures down on Greece ahead of busy earnings day (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stock index futures fell on Tuesday as talks to resolve Greece's debt crisis stumbled again and analysts pointed to a short-term top in equity markets after the S&P 500 posted five days of back-to-back gains.
Euro zone finance ministers rejected an offer by private bondholders to help restructure Greece's debt, sending negotiators back to the drawing board and raising the threat of a messy Greek default.
"The Greek debt problem is weighing a bit this morning," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "It's back to worrying about whether Greece is heading for a soft, messy or technical default."
However, Cardillo said some investors were taking profits after a strong market run, especially given the Federal Reserve's policy announcement due Wednesday. "It's a perfect excuse to take profits," he said.
A lack of bad news from Europe since late last year and signs of an improving U.S. economy have helped the S&P 500 run up over 22 percent from lows in October. Investors are now focused on U.S. earnings season, in a critical period this week and next.
S&P 500 futures fell 7.1 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures were off 44 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 10 points.
"We continue to see evidence of a short-term peak developing," said Robert Sluymer, a technical analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York. "Within the U.S. equity markets, leading groups are beginning to pause or pull back."
Sluymer saw banks as one sector that may pull back. A recent rally in the sector has encouraged investors after heavy losses last year. There was early evidence of weakness as Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) fell 1.8 percent to $7.12 in premarket trade.
DuPont (DD.N) reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit as strong agricultural sales helped offset a drop in volume in every other business unit.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) also reported fourth-quarter profits early Tuesday.
Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.O) reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter chip sales late Monday as customers in a broad array of industries replenished depleted inventories. The shares gained 1.8 percent to $33.
Computer hard drive maker Western Digital Corp (WDC.N) posted better-than-expected quarterly results late Monday and forecast a strong current quarter. The stock rose 5.1 percent to $36.47.
Earnings are due later Tuesday from Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N), McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) and Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O).
The Federal Open Market Committee begins a two-day meeting on Tuesday. The U.S. central bank will also begin a new practice of announcing policymakers' interest rate projections when the meeting ends on Wednesday in a move it hopes will bring greater public clarity to its decision-making. They are expected to start hiking interest rates again only in the first half of 2014, a Reuters poll showed.
(Reporting By Edward Krudy editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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মঙ্গলবার, ২৪ জানুয়ারী, ২০১২
Environmentalists see reason for alarm in GOP race
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, campaigns at Allstar Building Materials in Ormond Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, campaigns at Allstar Building Materials in Ormond Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, speaks at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Four years after the GOP's rallying cry became "drill, baby, drill," environmental issues have barely registered a blip in this Republican presidential primary.
That's likely to change as the race turns to Florida.
The candidates' positions on environmental regulation, global warming as well as clean air and water are all but certain to get attention ahead of the Jan. 31 primary in a state where the twin issues of offshore oil drilling and Everglades restoration are considered mandatory topics for discussion.
"It's almost like eating fried cheese in Iowa," said Jerry Karnas of the Everglades Foundation. Drilling has long been banned off Florida's coasts because of fears that a spill would foul its beaches, wrecking the tourism industry, while the federal and state governments are spending billions to clean the Everglades.
Though most expect the candidates to express support for Everglades restoration ? as Mitt Romney did in his 2008 campaign ? environmentalists are noting a further rightward shift overall among the GOP field. The candidates have called for fewer environmental regulations, questioned whether global warming is a hoax and criticized the agency that implements and enforces clean air and water regulations.
"A cycle ago, there were people who actually believed in solving some of these problems," said Navin Nayak of the League of Conservation Voters. "Now we're faced with a slate that doesn't even believe in basic science."
The candidates, of course, dispute such a characterization. But their stances have generally grown more conservative. And even when they haven't, they often offer positions that aren't in line with conservationists.
?Romney heralded the passage of stricter limits on carbon emissions in 2005 when he was governor of Massachusetts but last year said it was a mistake. He previously agreed with the scientific consensus on global warming and humans' contribution to it but now says "we don't know what's causing climate change."
?Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich supported tougher environmental regulation early in his congressional career and appeared in a 2008 TV spot with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleading for action on climate change. Now he's says appearing with the San Francisco liberal was "the dumbest thing I've done in the last couple of years" and is calling for lifting restrictions on offshore drilling and branding the Environmental Protection Agency a "job killer" that must be replaced.
?Texas Rep. Ron Paul said during his 2008 campaign that "human activity probably does play a role" in global warming. Now he calls the science on manmade global warming a "hoax."
?Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum shows fewer signs of a shift on such issues. He has called for more drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and doubts research that points to a human role in global warming, calling it "junk science."
An analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found about $2.8 million in campaign donations were made by those in the energy and natural resources sector, according to Federal Elections Commission data, with about 84 percent of it going to Republicans.
Meantime, the EPA, which is responsible for policing environmental rules, has been singled out for Republican criticism this campaign season. Paul has called for its outright elimination as part of his plan to drastically curtail the federal government. Romney has said it's "out of control." Santorum has railed against the EPA's limits on mercury from coal-fired power plants. And Gingrich has called for overhauling the EPA, saying it should be converted to an "environmental solutions agency."
Nayak says: "There's no doubt that this kind of slate of presidential candidates is one of the most regressive and most closely tied to polluters that we've seen at least in decades."
Some Republican presidents and nominees have been strong environmentalists. Teddy Roosevelt was seen as a role model to environmentalists, using his presidency to establish wildlife refuges, preserve forests, and conserve water. Richard Nixon helped create the EPA that has been vilified by his successors on the campaign trail today. And the last Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, was the chief co-sponsor of a bill that sought mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
Michelle Pautz, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who focuses on environmental policy, said the current slate of Republicans may not be giving much reason to applaud their environmental stances, but it may not matter much overall with the economy taking center stage.
"The bottom line is both with the GOP primary and looking to Obama and the general election, the green vote is a non-issue," Pautz said. "There are too many other issues crowding out the environmental ones."
But Tony Cani, the national political director for the Sierra Club, said taking what he calls "extreme" views on the environment won't play well come Nov. 6.
"They're going to be hurt with young voters, women, families, Latino voters," Cani said.
Jim DiPeso, of Republicans for Environmental Protection, said he hopes to see a shift as Election Day draws closer, but that the state of politics right now has made ecological issues untouchable.
"A lot of the more pragmatic mainstream Republicans just are trying to steer clear of the issue because it's become so politically fraught," he said.
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Jim Reeves' music royalties at issue in trial (AP)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? A trial over how music royalties of the late country singer "Gentleman" Jim Reeves should be split is set to begin this week.
Reeves was a country music sensation when he died nearly 50 years ago in a plane crash at the age of 39.
The two-day trial that begins Monday will focus on how much Terry Davis, who married Reeves' widow, should receive from royalties of up to $400,000 a year, The Tennessean reported ( http://tnne.ws/w4mgtF).
Reeves is best known for the lyric "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone" but he stayed on the charts from 1970 through 1984 because of how his widow, Mary Reeves Davis, managed his posthumous career. His most popular songs included "He'll Have To Go" and "Welcome To My World."
Terry Davis has been locked in a battle with Reeves' nephew and niece since Mary Reeves Davis died in 1999.
The case will determine if Terry Davis should receive more than the $100,000 and some land that Mary Reeves Davis left to him. Terry Davis, who was married to Mary Reeves Davis for 30 years, has cited a provision of law allowing spouses an "elective share" of an estate based on how long the marriage lasted..
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সোমবার, ২৩ জানুয়ারী, ২০১২
France's Hollande bids to lock in campaign lead (AP)
LE BOURGET, France ? The Socialist candidate for France's presidency is attempting to consolidate his front-runner status on Sunday with the most high profile appearance of his campaign so far.
Observers say Francois Hollande, a bespectacled 57-year-old career politician, needs to inject a dose of dynamism into his campaign with the afternoon speech to an expected 10,000 people at an exhibition hall outside Paris.
Hollande plans to show French voters "where I come from, the meaning of my work over the past 20 years, and how I prepared to take on this responsibility," he told Le Monde newspaper in an interview published Saturday.
Hollande has extended his lead in polls over French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his expected rival in two-round elections in April and May. But he's virtually unknown outside France, and critics say he has limited international experience to head this nuclear-armed nation.
Hollande is an affable, soft-spoken and witty former longtime party boss who was chosen as the Socialist candidate in a primary last October.
He won the job after the most anticipated Socialist front-runner, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had his is political career all but ended when he was jailed briefly in May in the United States after a New York hotel maid accused him of rape. Prosecutors later dropped the case, but Strauss-Kahn's reputation and presidential ambitions crashed.
Hollande has so far pitched his campaign on representing the anti-Sarkozy. When asked "Why you?" in an interview in October, Hollande first answered: "Because I can beat Nicolas Sarkozy."
He is known as good on the stump and a quick-witted debater, and has built his reputation as a manager and consensus-builder more than as a visionary.
He's never run a government ministry and during his tenure the party was weakened and badly fractured.
A lawmaker in the National Assembly and the governor of the central Correze region ? the same political backyard as conservative former President Jacques Chirac ? Hollande led the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008.
During that time the Socialists suffered two devastating presidential campaign defeats, including the 2002 election when Prime Minister Lionel Jospin embarrassingly failed to qualify for the presidential runoff. Hollande's former partner Segolene Royal ? the mother of his four children ? was defeated by Sarkozy in the last presidential elections in 2007.
Hollande's program calls for reversing cuts in education introduced by Sarkozy's government, a new work contract to encourage companies to hire young people and focus on reducing France's high state budget deficit. It says little about international affairs, other than calling for an unspecified "pact" with Germany, the EU's economic engine, to spur on the now-troubled European project.
___
Greg Keller can be reached at http://twitter.com/Greg_Keller
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Rapid Infant Growth Linked to Asthma in Study (HealthDay)
FRIDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Rapid growth during the first three months of life is associated with an increased risk of asthma symptoms in preschool children, a new study indicates.
The findings suggest that early infancy might be a critical period for the development of asthma, said the researchers at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.
They examined data collected from 5,125 children who were followed from the fetal stage until they were 4 years old.
The researchers found no link between fetal growth and asthma symptoms. But in children with normal fetal growth, accelerated weight gain from birth to 3 months of age was associated with increased risk of asthma symptoms, such as wheezing, shortness of breath, dry cough and persistent phlegm.
The study appears online ahead of print in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Previous research has shown an association between low birth weight and increased risk of asthma symptoms in children. This is the first study to examine specific fetal and infant growth patterns on asthma risk.
"Our results suggest that the relationship between infant weight gain and asthma symptoms is not due to the accelerated growth of fetal growth-restricted infants only," researcher Dr. Liesbeth Duijts said in a journal news release. "While the mechanisms underlying this relationship are unclear, accelerated weight growth in early life might adversely affect lung growth and might be associated with adverse changes in the immune system."
She added: "Further research is needed to replicate our findings and explore the mechanisms that contribute to the effects of growth acceleration in infancy on respiratory health. The effects of infant growth patterns on asthma phenotypes [observable characteristics] in later life should also be examined."
More information
The American Lung Association has more about children and asthma.
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Poorest smokers face toughest odds for kicking the habit
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Quitting smoking is never easy. However, when you're poor and uneducated, kicking the habit for good is doubly hard, according to a new study by a tobacco dependence researcher at The City College of New York (CCNY).
Christine Sheffer, associate medical professor at CCNY's Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, tracked smokers from different socioeconomic backgrounds after they had completed a statewide smoking cessation program in Arkansas.
Whether rich or poor, participants managed to quit at about the same rate upon completing a program of cognitive behavioral therapy, either with or without nicotine patches. But as time went on, a disparity between the groups appeared and widened.
Those with the fewest social and financial resources had the hardest time staving off cravings over the long run. "The poorer they are, the worse it gets," said Professor Sheffer, who directed the program and was an assistant professor with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at the time.
She found that smokers on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder were 55 percent more likely than those at the upper end to start smoking again three months after treatment. By six months post-quitting, the probability of their going back to cigarettes jumped to two-and-a-half times that of the more affluent smokers. The research will be published in the March 2012 issue of the American Journal of Public Health and will appear ahead-of-print online under the journal's "First Look" section.
In their study, Professor Sheffer and her colleagues noted that overall, Americans with household incomes of $15,000 or less smoke at nearly three times the rate of those with incomes of $50,000 or greater. The consequences are bleak. "Smoking is still the greatest cause of preventable death and disease in the United States today," noted Professor Sheffer. "And it's a growing problem in developing countries."
Harder to Stay Away
Professor Sheffer suggested reasons it may be harder for some to give up tobacco forever.
Smoking relieves stress for those fighting nicotine addiction, so it is life's difficulties that often make them reach for the cigarette pack again. Unfortunately, those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale suffer more hardships than those at the top ? in the form of financial difficulties, discrimination, and job insecurity, to name a few. And for those smokers who started as teenagers, they may have never learned other ways to manage stress, said Professor Sheffer.
For people with lower socioeconomic status (SES), it can be tougher to avoid temptation as well. "Lower SES groups, with lower paying jobs, aren't as protected by smoke-free laws," said Sheffer, so individuals who have quit can find themselves back at work and surrounded by smokers. Also fewer of them have no-smoking policies in their homes.
These factors are rarely addressed in standard treatment programs. "The evidence-based treatments that are around have been developed for middle-class patients," Professor Sheffer pointed out. "So (in therapy) we talk about middle-class problems."
Further research would help determine how the standard six sessions of therapy might be altered or augmented to help. "Our next plan is to take the results of this and other studies and apply what we learned to revise the approach, in order to better meet the needs of poor folks," she said. "Maybe there is a better arrangement, like giving 'booster sessions'. Not everybody can predict in six weeks all the stresses they will have later on down the road."
"Some people say [quitting] is the most difficult thing in their life to do," said Sheffer. "If we better prepare people with more limited resources to manage the types of stress they have in their lives, we'd get better results. "
###
City College of New York: http://www2.ccny.cuny.edu
Thanks to City College of New York for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116914/Poorest_smokers_face_toughest_odds_for_kicking_the_habit
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