Apr. 9, 2013 ? Hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, is the primary cause of heart disease. It is caused by calcium accumulation in the blood vessels, which leads to arteries becoming narrow and stiff, obstructing blood flow and leading to heart complications. Although many risk factors for atherosclerosis have been identified, the cause is not known and there is currently no way to reverse it once it sets in. In a new study published 9th April in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers have characterized the cells responsible for driving this calcium build-up in vessel walls.
The process of calcium accumulation in blood vessels resembles bone formation and involves maintaining a balance between bone-forming cells called osteoblasts and bone-destroying cells called osteoclasts. In the new study, Hyo-Soo Kim and colleagues characterize the origin of a population of vascular calcifying progenitor cells, and the potential of these cells to differentiate into different cell types.
"We show that vascular calcifying progenitor cells in the artery have the potential to become either osteoblasts or osteoclasts," said Dr Kim of Seoul National University. "And a certain chemical can push these cells towards becoming osteoclasts, which leads to the softening of the blood vessels."
The researchers sorted cells from the aortas of mice into two groups. Both groups originated from bone marrow and expressed a cell surface protein, called Sca-1, but only one group expressed another cell surface protein called PDGFR?. They found that the cells which only expressed Sca-1 could become either osteoblasts or osteoclasts, whereas the cells which expressed both Sca-1 and PDGFR? were committed to an osteoblastic lineage.
The team then treated the cells with a protein called PPAR?, which is known to promote the formation of osteoclasts and inhibit the formation of osteoblasts. When treated with PPAR?, only Sca-1 expressed cells preferentially differentiated into osteoclast-like cells. Furthermore, in vivo study demonstrated that, while bidirectional cells that were injected into mouse models of atherosclerosis increased the severity of calcium build-up in arteries, cells that were then treated with a drug activating PPAR? markedly decreased this effect and even reversed the calcification.
"These findings suggest that a subtype of calcifying progenitor cells offer a new therapeutic target for the prevention of calcification," said Dr Kim. "This opens up the possibility of new drug development to inhibit the hardening of the arteries, and thereby reduce the risk of heart disease."
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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? A Florida couple suspected of kidnapping their two sons from the woman's parents are in Cuba, authorities said Monday.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office received information that the Hakken family had arrived on the island nation, according to a news release. Investigators say they're working with the FBI and the U.S. State Department to verify their reports.
It wasn't immediately clear what, if anything, authorities could do to retrieve the family from Cuba.
A State Department official said the department is aware of the case and is in contact with local authorities. The official said a high priority is the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas, especially children "who are our most vulnerable citizens."
"The Department works with parents and foreign governments to resolve these difficult cases," the official said.
The sheriff's office alleges that Joshua Michael Hakken entered his mother-in-law's house north of Tampa early Wednesday, tied her up and fled with his sons, 4-year-old Cole and 2-year-old Chase.
Federal, state and local authorities had been searching by air and sea for a boat Hakken recently bought. The truck that Hakken, his wife Sharyn and the boys had been traveling in was found late Thursday, abandoned in a parking garage in Madeira Beach. Authorities say they had been looking up and down the entire Gulf coast from Pensacola to the Keys and the Intracoastal Waterway. An Amber Alert for the boys has been issued in Florida, Louisiana and other states.
The boys had been living since last year with their maternal grandparents, who were granted permanent custody Tuesday. Joshua Hakken lost custody of his sons last year after a drug possession arrest in Louisiana, and he later tried to take them from a foster home at gunpoint, authorities have said. Authorities have previously characterized the Hakkens as "anti-government."
The Hillsborough Sheriff's office has issued an arrest warrant for Joshua Hakken on charges of kidnapping and several other counts.
Microsoft's relatively often finding ways to encourage software development in various fields, and the company's latest venture has it setting footsteps near the Great Wall. According to a report by news agency Xinhua, the software (and hardware) company has reached a deal with China's Hainan government that will see it build an innovation center in this territory. Focusing on IT development and skills in tourism and agriculture, this new property will be the first of its type in China, and Microsoft has high hopes that the joint efforts can, aside from becoming a crossroads of knowledge, also "boost the region's efforts to become a major international tourist destination." Frankly, seeing as how the highly populated nation doesn't appear to be slowing down its all-around growth anytime soon, it wouldn't surprise us if Redmond decides to start setting up more of these in the years to come.
Apr. 8, 2013 ? There's an epic battle taking place that's not on the national radar: intercellular competition. While it's not an Olympic event, new research from UC Santa Barbara demonstrates that this microscopic rivalry can be just as fierce as humans going for the gold.
Christopher Hayes, UCSB associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, along with postdoctoral fellow Sanna Koskiniemi, graduate student James Lamoureux, and others, examined the role certain proteins, called rearrangement hotspots (Rhs), play in intercellular competition in bacteria. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rhs proteins and related YD-peptide repeat proteins are present in a wide range of bacterial species and other organisms, including human beings, where they help establish communications between neurons in the brain when the visual system is developing. Hayes and his team found that Rhs proteins enable Dickeya dadantii 3937, a phytopathogenic bacterium causing soft rot diseases on many crops, to compete with members of its own kind through touch-dependent killing.
While Rhs have been recognized for more 30 years, their function has been enigmatic. This new research sheds light on the mystery. Rhs proteins possess a central repeat region, characteristically the YD-repeat proteins also found in humans, as well as variable C-terminal sequences, which have toxin activity. C-terminal regions are highly variable between bacterial strains even in the same species, indicating that a wide variety of weapons are deployed.
"Bacteria almost always have a different Rhs toxins," explained Hayes. "No one really knows why, but perhaps the toxins are rapidly evolving, driven by intercellular competition. In essence, these cells are fighting it out with each other. It's like an arms race to see who has the best toxins."
Cellular competition is analogous to that between humans and reflects a scarcity of resources. Like people, bacteria need a place to live and food to eat. "We think these systems are important for bacterial cells to establish a home and defend it against competitors," said Hayes. "In fact, bacteria have many systems for competition. And as we uncover more mechanisms for intercellular competition, we realize this is a fundamental aspect of bacterial biology."
These findings demonstrate that Rhs systems in diverse bacterial species are toxin delivery machines. "We have been able to show that gram-negative (Dickeya dadantii) as well as gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis) bacteria use Rhs proteins to inhibit the growth of neighboring bacteria in a manner that requires cell-to-cell contact," said Koskiniemi, the paper's lead author.
The toxic part of Rhs at the tip (the C-terminal region) is delivered into target cells after cell-to-cell contact. Some toxic tips destroy DNA and others destroy transfer RNA, which is essential for protein synthesis. These toxin activities help the bacteria expressing them to outcompete other members of the same species not carrying an antidote.
This work may help scientists design Rhs-based bacterial probiotics that kill specific pathogens but leave most normal flora unharmed. The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health and by fellowships from the Carl Tryggers and Wenner-Gren Foundations.
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'Chat heads' feature missing from this developer build; full official app available for free on Friday
MoDaCo's Paul O'Brien has thrown together a trio of files with which you can get a half-working version of Facebook Home onto your phone -- five days before it'll be available to everyone as a free download.
We've played with it for a few minutes now, and it'll basically give you the look and feel of Facebook Home. But it doesn't quite match the performance (at least on our Nexus 4) that we saw on the HTC First, nor on the Galaxy Note 2 we used it on at Facebook's launch event lasts week. It's also lacking the "chat heads" messaging -- that's a huge part of Facebook Home. There's also no Google Search bar in the app drawer. That's consistent with the installed version of Facebook Home we used on a Galaxy Note 2 at Facebook HQ, but it's different than what you'll find on the HTC First. (Edit: Ah. There's a toggle for that in the settings, it seems.)
So, again, this is a dev version off a leaked ROM -- not the official release. If you're just dying to see what all the fuss is about (and, again, Facebook Home looks really nice), Paul's got full instructions at the link below.
Update: Looks like Facebook might have killed things on its end, as our Coverfeed has gone blank.
Legislation can curb discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment situationsPublic release date: 8-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Antidiscrimination laws can have a significant positive impact on how gays and lesbians are treated in employment situations, according to new research from Rice University. The study on public awareness of sexual-orientation employment-antidiscrimination laws is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for the likely impact of pending antidiscrimination legislation.
"In many U.S. states and localities (including much of Texas), gays and lesbians remain unprotected from employment discrimination," said Laura Barron, a 2008 Rice alumna and now personnel research psychologist for the U.S. Air Force and the study's lead author. "And in the debate over national antidiscrimination legislation, some lawmakers have sought to justify opposition to ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) by suggesting that antidiscrimination legislation would not effectively reduce discrimination if enacted. Our research findings directly dispute this claim."
The study revealed that:
Public awareness and support of sexual-orientation laws is heightened in communities with (versus without) antidiscrimination legislation.
Gay and lesbian job applicants experience significantly less interpersonal discrimination in areas with (versus without) this protective legislation, even when statistically controlling for religious and political views.
Training that informs interviewers that sexual-orientation employment discrimination is legal or illegal in their community directly affects their treatment of gay and lesbian applicants.
Mikki Hebl, professor of psychology at Rice and the study's co-author, said these findings have important implications for the current national debate on gay rights.
"Given the absence of conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of antidiscrimination laws, many elected officials have been hesitant to support ENDA and similar legislation," she said. "However, with these new findings, we believe that some lawmakers may feel compelled to reconsider their views on this topic."
The study was conducted in three parts.
In the first study, the researchers documented public awareness of sexual-orientation employment-antidiscrimination laws by contacting 111 households by phone in five cities in a major metropolitan area in the southwestern U.S. Two of these cities have citywide sexual-orientation antidiscrimination laws and three do not.
In the second study, study participants (recruited from Rice psychology classes) applied for 295 retail jobs in cities with and without legal protection within the same metropolitan area. The participants were instructed to wear hats that read "Texan and Proud" or "Gay and Proud," but they did not know which hat they were assigned to wear. The participants then entered businesses to inquire about employment opportunities and covertly audio-recorded their conversations with prospective employers. The interactions were evaluated on the basis of perceived friendliness, helpfulness and hostility by the study's participants and independent raters who later reviewed the audio recordings.
In the third study, the researchers conducted a lab experiment to determine if the effects of the second study were the same in a controlled setting free of outside influences. As part of a longer training on interviewing skills, 229 participants were told that employers could or could not legally discriminate based on sexual orientation. The participants then interviewed "applicants" (Rice students) whose resumes listed experience with a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender student organization and receipt of a gay and lesbian student award. The conversations were recorded and evaluated on the same criteria as the second study.
The researchers hope their findings will inform the legislative debate on gay rights by providing empirical evidence on the potential impact of national antidiscrimination legislation.
"This piece of research clearly demonstrates that regardless of your beliefs on gay rights, antidiscrimination legislation can be very effective in reducing interpersonal discrimination," Hebl said.
###
"THE FORCE OF LAW: The Effects of Sexual Orientation Antidiscrimination Legislation on Interpersonal Discrimination in Employment" will appear in an upcoming edition of Psychology, Public Policy and Law and is available online at http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2012-13791-001. The research was funded by Rice University, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the UCLA Williams Institute.
For more information, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at 713-348-6327 or david@rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Related Materials:
Rice University Department of Psychology: http://psychology.rice.edu/
Laura Barron photo (Credit: Rice University): http://bit.ly/12q8r7G
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Legislation can curb discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment situationsPublic release date: 8-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Antidiscrimination laws can have a significant positive impact on how gays and lesbians are treated in employment situations, according to new research from Rice University. The study on public awareness of sexual-orientation employment-antidiscrimination laws is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for the likely impact of pending antidiscrimination legislation.
"In many U.S. states and localities (including much of Texas), gays and lesbians remain unprotected from employment discrimination," said Laura Barron, a 2008 Rice alumna and now personnel research psychologist for the U.S. Air Force and the study's lead author. "And in the debate over national antidiscrimination legislation, some lawmakers have sought to justify opposition to ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) by suggesting that antidiscrimination legislation would not effectively reduce discrimination if enacted. Our research findings directly dispute this claim."
The study revealed that:
Public awareness and support of sexual-orientation laws is heightened in communities with (versus without) antidiscrimination legislation.
Gay and lesbian job applicants experience significantly less interpersonal discrimination in areas with (versus without) this protective legislation, even when statistically controlling for religious and political views.
Training that informs interviewers that sexual-orientation employment discrimination is legal or illegal in their community directly affects their treatment of gay and lesbian applicants.
Mikki Hebl, professor of psychology at Rice and the study's co-author, said these findings have important implications for the current national debate on gay rights.
"Given the absence of conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of antidiscrimination laws, many elected officials have been hesitant to support ENDA and similar legislation," she said. "However, with these new findings, we believe that some lawmakers may feel compelled to reconsider their views on this topic."
The study was conducted in three parts.
In the first study, the researchers documented public awareness of sexual-orientation employment-antidiscrimination laws by contacting 111 households by phone in five cities in a major metropolitan area in the southwestern U.S. Two of these cities have citywide sexual-orientation antidiscrimination laws and three do not.
In the second study, study participants (recruited from Rice psychology classes) applied for 295 retail jobs in cities with and without legal protection within the same metropolitan area. The participants were instructed to wear hats that read "Texan and Proud" or "Gay and Proud," but they did not know which hat they were assigned to wear. The participants then entered businesses to inquire about employment opportunities and covertly audio-recorded their conversations with prospective employers. The interactions were evaluated on the basis of perceived friendliness, helpfulness and hostility by the study's participants and independent raters who later reviewed the audio recordings.
In the third study, the researchers conducted a lab experiment to determine if the effects of the second study were the same in a controlled setting free of outside influences. As part of a longer training on interviewing skills, 229 participants were told that employers could or could not legally discriminate based on sexual orientation. The participants then interviewed "applicants" (Rice students) whose resumes listed experience with a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender student organization and receipt of a gay and lesbian student award. The conversations were recorded and evaluated on the same criteria as the second study.
The researchers hope their findings will inform the legislative debate on gay rights by providing empirical evidence on the potential impact of national antidiscrimination legislation.
"This piece of research clearly demonstrates that regardless of your beliefs on gay rights, antidiscrimination legislation can be very effective in reducing interpersonal discrimination," Hebl said.
###
"THE FORCE OF LAW: The Effects of Sexual Orientation Antidiscrimination Legislation on Interpersonal Discrimination in Employment" will appear in an upcoming edition of Psychology, Public Policy and Law and is available online at http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2012-13791-001. The research was funded by Rice University, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the UCLA Williams Institute.
For more information, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at 713-348-6327 or david@rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Related Materials:
Rice University Department of Psychology: http://psychology.rice.edu/
Laura Barron photo (Credit: Rice University): http://bit.ly/12q8r7G
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
While the world's largest atom smasher was busy finding the Higgs boson particle ? thought to explain why other particles have mass ? physicists have been quietly building giant underground laboratories deep beneath the Earth.
No, scientists aren't hiding the next James Bond supervillain down there. Instead, they are working more than a mile beneath the Earth's crust to find some of the universe's most elusive particles.?
The layers of rock may harbor evidence of a new force and shield delicate experiments from cosmic rays and other high-energy particles, allowing ultrarare particles to reveal themselves. From the unparticle to WIMPs, here are some mysterious particles that could be lurking underground.
The unparticle
Physicists are hunting for a new fundamental force within Earth's mantle. The unparticle, which behaves both as photons and mass-bearing particles do, could be responsible for long-range spin interactions, a new force that causes the electrons in atoms to align their spins over long distances.
To find evidence of the new force, researchers mapped out the electron density and spin within the Earth's mantle and are now investigating whether these subterranean electrons are affecting how neutrons and electrons spin in two experiments separated by about 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers). If the electrons in the mantle are transmitting a force to those particles in lab experiments, it should change the frequency at which they spin. Then the new force would join gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces in dictating the behavior of the universe. [50 Amazing Facts About Planet Earth]
Dark-matter particles
The universe is filled with invisible stuff called dark matter, whose gravitational pull is thought to keep galaxies from flying apart. Leading theories propose that dark matter is made up of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, that rarely interact with ordinary matter.
Several labs, including the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Detector in Homestake, S.D., rely on the Earth's crust to shield experiments from cosmic rays that could drown out the few interactions of WIMPs with regular atoms. So far, traces of WIMPs have been few and far between, but with several experiments ongoing, evidence of WIMPs could be revealed within the next few years.
Solar neutrinos
Physicists at Gran Sasso National Laboratory, a particle detector buried a mile beneath an Italian mountain, have caught solar neutrinos in the act of changing types, or ?flavors.? The sun's nuclear reactions create these chargeless particles, but leading theories suggest they change flavor as they traveled to the Earth. As a result, physicists looking for certain flavors of solar neutrinos have measured fewer ?solar neutrinos of those flavors than they expected.
Solar neutrinos rarely interact with matter, but by shooting beams of the particles 454 miles (731 km) from the physics lab CERN to the underground lab in Gran Sasso, physicists managed to catch the particles in the act of changing flavor. The finding confirms that neutrinos do change flavor as they travel from the sun.
Finding geoneutrinos
Neutrinos may form at the sun, but they also are produced from radioactive elements within Earth's mantle. The Gran Sasso Lab also has isolated some of these so-called geoneutrinos, which form when radioactive uranium or thorium decays. The new particles could explain how much heat forms inside the Earth, driving the motion of tectonic plates. To catch these geoneutrinos emanating from the Earth's mantle, the researchers use an oil-based fluid that scintillates, or gives off light, when subatomic particles bump into the fluid. The researchers identified the geoneutrinos because they emit a positron followed by a neutron when bumping into the atoms of the fluid, which gives of a characteristic flash of light.
Nucleon decay
Although many subatomic particles break down into other particles, so far no one has caught the decay of protons or neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms. Nucleon decay is predicted by Grand Unified Theories that seek to explain everything in physics.
To find evidence of this rare decay, scientists at the Super-Kamiokande experiment under Mount Kamioka in Japan have spent several years hunting for nucleon decay. Even if it takes protons one hundred hundred thousand million billion trillion (or 10 raised to the 34th power) years to decay, the detectors should be able to find at least a few of these events. So far, though, Super K still hasn't found any evidence of proton decay.
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose.?Follow?LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Two more people have contracted bird flu in Shanghai, China's health ministry said on Saturday, as authorities closed live poultry markets and culled birds to combat a new virus strain that has killed six people.
State-run Xinhua news agency said authorities planned to slaughter birds at two live poultry markets in Shanghai and another in Hangzhou after new samples of the H7N9 virus were detected in birds at the three sites.
More than 20,000 birds have been culled at another Shanghai market where traces of the virus were found this week.
Officials in Shanghai, China's financial hub, closed all the city's live poultry markets on Saturday, emptying food stalls.
All poultry trading was banned in Nanjing, another eastern Chinese city, although local officials said they had not found any trace of the bird flu virus and declared that chicken on the retail market was safe to eat, official media reported.
The new strain of bird flu has infected 18 people in China, all in the east. Six people have died in an outbreak that has spread concern overseas.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 10 infected people were severe cases and two were mild cases. It reiterated there was no evidence of ongoing human-to-human transmission of the virus.
"More than 530 close contacts of the confirmed cases are being closely monitored. In Jiangsu, investigation is ongoing into a contact of an earlier confirmed case who developed symptoms of illness," the Geneva-based WHO said in a statement on Saturday.
There were no signs of panic in Shanghai, where four of the six people died, and people generally said they were not worried. But the culling, which has been widely publicized, did underline for some how close to home the issue had become.
"Now it's just downstairs," said Liu Leting, a user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter which has more than 500 million users.
"Suddenly I discover that I'm living in an epidemic zone!"
In one city restaurant, a waitress said they planned to stop serving chicken because of the outbreak.
"After we sell out the chicken in stock, we will not buy new chicken and will stop serving chicken dishes for the time being," said the waitress, who declined to be identified.
While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were taking extra precautions.
Hong Kong's government said it was intensifying surveillance of travelers and poultry coming into the city.
China's Food and Drug Administration said it had fast-tracked approval for intravenous anti-influenza drug Peramivir, developed by the U.S.-listed biotechnology firm BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Peramivir is in medical trials to prove its effectiveness against type-A and type-B influenza, the administration said in a statement. The H7N9 strain belongs to the type-A group.
Shanghai authorities have stressed the H7N9 virus remained sensitive to the drug Tamiflu and those who were diagnosed early could be cured. Tamiflu is made by Roche Holding AG.
China and Hong Kong were badly hit by a 2002-2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that started in China and killed about one-tenth of the 8,000 people infected worldwide.
(Additional reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong, and Vivi Lin and Reuters TV in Shanghai, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Richard Meares)
DENVER, N.C. (AP) ? Two young children trapped when dirt fell on them at a home construction site Sunday were not expected to be found alive and crews expected to work through the night to recover their bodies, a fire official said.
A father of one of the children called 911 at about 6 p.m. to report what happened, said Lincoln County Emergency Services public information officer Dion Burleson. Crews were on the scene in minutes, but couldn't get to the 7-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl, Burleson said.
Crews used shovels and climbing gear trying to get to the children at the Denver neighborhood. Emergency personnel from several places, including nearby Charlotte, were on the scene late Sunday.
Video from WSOC-TV shows backhoes scooping dirt from a deep hole surrounded by dirt. Equipment surrounded the hole. Burleson said it is hard to estimate how far down the children might be.
The man who called was the father of at least one of the children, Burleson said. Neighbors told WBTV that the children were cousins.
This is "devastating for both the family members and responders who are on the scene," Burleson said. "This is a tragic night in Denver."
BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) --- The United States government is currently running close to $17 trillion in debt.?On Friday?many people were talking about how to get the country out of it.
The grassroots group 'Fix the Debt Maine' held a meeting in the?morning at Husson University. The?awareness group?is co-chaired by former Maine governor John Baldacci who led the discussion.
Baldacci says the national debt is strangling economic growth in the?United States?in more ways than one. The group says about $400 billion is added onto it each year in interest payments. Baldacci says budgeting that debt will mean less money for federal programs such as education and defense over the years. It would also bring further increases in interest rates for things like car and home loans.
The former governor says he feels the only way for the nation to climb out of debt?is if both Republicans and Democrats in Washington work together.
"When I was in Congress {working with}?Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich..we had a Congress that addressed the debt and deficit," Baldacci said, "and frankly it's part of that experience that leads me to believe that if we can get this package put together in a comprehensive approach and get our debt and deficit on a downward trend then our economy will see a great bump."
The gathering was small at Husson?Friday morning but nationally many people are backing 'Fix the Debt'. The group has collected about 250,000 petition?signatures across the U.S.?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Amid mounting tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had been planned for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a senior defense official told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The official said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test until sometime next month because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis. Hagel made the decision Friday, the official said.
The test was not connected to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises that have been going on in that region and have stoked North Korean anger and fueled an escalation in threatening actions and rhetoric.
North Korea's military warned earlier this week that it was authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. And South Korean officials say North Korea has moved at least one missile with "considerable range" to its east coast ? possibly the untested Musudan missile, believed to have a range of 1,800 miles. U.S. officials have said the missile move suggests a North Korean launch could be imminent and thus fuels worries in the region.
Pyongyang's moves come on the heels of the North's nuclear test in February, and the launch in December of a long-range North Korean rocket that could potentially hit the continental U.S. Added to that is the uncertainty surrounding the intentions of North Korea's new young leader, Kim Jong Un.
Meanwhile, North Korea has been angered by increasing sanctions and ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which have included a broad show of force ranging from stealthy B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters to a wide array of ballistic missile defense-capable warships. The exercises are scheduled to continue through the end of the month.
This past week, the U.S. said two of the Navy's missile-defense ships were moved closer to the Korean peninsula, and a land-based system is being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month. The Pentagon last month announced longer-term plans to beef up its U.S.-based missile defenses.
While Washington is taking the North Korean threats seriously, U.S. leaders continue to say that they have seen no visible signs that the North is preparing for a large-scale attack.
The defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the Minuteman 3 test delay and requested anonymity, said U.S. policy continues to support the building and testing of its nuclear deterrent capabilities. And the official said the launch was not put off because of any technical problems.
The globe-circling intercontinental ballistic missiles make up one of the three legs of America's nuclear arsenal. There are about 450 Minuteman 3 missiles based in underground silos in the north-central U.S. The other two legs of the nuclear arsenal are submarine-launched ballistic missiles and weapons launched from big bombers, such as the B-52 and the stealthy B-2.
The traditional rationale for the "nuclear triad" of weaponry is that it is essential to surviving any nuclear exchange.
FRIDAY, April 5 (HealthDay News) -- Current college athletes are twice as likely to be depressed as former athletes, researchers have found.
The findings suggest the need for further research to learn more about depression among college athletes, the Georgetown University investigators said.
For the study, they examined questionnaires completed by 117 current and 163 former college athletes who had participated in Division I NCAA-sponsored sports. The current athletes played in 10 different sports and the former athletes had played in 15 different sports.
Nearly 17 percent of current athletes had questionnaire scores consistent with depression, compared with 8 percent of former athletes, according to the study published online recently in the journal Sports Health.
"We expected to see a significant increase in depression once athletes graduated, but by comparison it appears the stress of intercollegiate athletics may be more significant than we and others anticipated," senior investigator Dr. Daniel Merenstein, an associate professor of family medicine and human science at Georgetown University Medical Center, said in a university news release.
These stressors include things such as overtraining, injury, pressure to perform, lack of free time, or trying to juggle athletics and schoolwork.
"College in general is a potentially stressful time for many students. The additional stress of playing high-level sports appears to add to that stress," Merenstein said.
He advised parents, friends and coaches to pay attention to changes in behavior, weight and sleep of college athletes, and of all students.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about college students and depression.
SOURCE: Georgetown University, news release, April 2, 2013
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The Lomography Belair X 6-12 Jetsetter ($299.99 direct) is a bold design from a company known for its toy cameras. It's an interchangable lens camera that captures 6-by-12-centimeter images on standard 120 medium format film. Previously you'd have search out a specialized camera from the likes of Linhof or Horesman to get such a big, wide negative. And those cameras sell for several thousand dollars, even on the used market.
For only a few hundred dollars, don't expect the Belair to operate with the same precision as its expensive competition, and you won't get the same image quality out of its compact plastic lenses as you will from a German-made Rodenstock optic that can cover a large format negative. The plastic lenses that are included with the Belair will satisify the needs of film lovers looking to make smaller prints or share on the Web, but they don't resolve as much fine detail as a glass lens would. There are a pair of Russian-made glass lenses available for the Belair for shooters who desire a bit more detail in their images.
The Belair is currently available in two editions. We reviewed the metal-bodied Jetsetter, which has a tan leatherette covering. There's also the plastic City Slicker model ($249.99), which has a black body and black leatherette. The two models are functionally identical, but if you plan on shooting with the camera on a regular basis it's not a bad idea to spend the extra money on the metal version. The Jetsetter's two-tone look is a bit more retro than the all-black City Slicker. The tan leatherette is on the lower end of the quality spectrum; it's easily dented and feels a bit slick in the hand. If you want a covering that will hold up better and give you a better grip, the folks at CameraLeather?should be able to hook you up with an uncut sheet that you can easily cut to size with an exacto knife. Lomography even has an online tutorial about how to recover the Belair yourself.
When collapsed, the camera measures 3.5 by 7 by 2 inches (HWD) without a lens or finder attached. The finder and lens add about an inch to each the height and depth, and the depth is 5 inches when the bellows are extended for shooting. The lens board extends outward with a single press of a button on the bottom of the Belair, but closing it back up is a bit trickier. You need to hold down buttons on the top and bottom of the hinge mechanism and push the lens board back towards the body. Some care is required to push the board back evenly, but it's a skill that is mastered pretty quickly.
Loading film is straightforward, there are two catches on the bottom plate that allow you to remove the back and load the roll. Film masks for 6-by-9 and 6-by-6 shooting are included if you'd rather not shoot in 6 by 12. You'll only get six shots per roll when shooting at the widest format, so narrowing the camera's field of view will help you get more frames out of each roll. Shooting in 6 by 9 extends your roll to eight shots, and your photos will be captured at a more print-friendly aspect ratio. Shooting square gives you twelve shots per roll.
The included optical viewfinders have markings to show each of the narrower formats, but they're a bit hard to see. If you find yourself shooting in something other than 6 by 12 with regularity you may want to use a thin strip of tape to better mark the frame line, just be careful to use a type that won't leave a sticky residue on the front of the viewfinder. Viewfinder framing is approximate, and just what the camera captures will vary based on your distance from the subject. It's best to frame a little bit loose, just to be safe.
Physical controls are minimal. There's a dial to set the desired ISO; it ranges from 100 to 1600 in one-stop increments, and there's a bulb setting that will keep the shutter open as long as you hold the release down. There's no manual shutter speed dial, aside from the bulb, you'll have to rely on the meter to deliver a correct exposure; the meter requires two LR44 batteries to operate. There's no way to preview the shutter speed before you fire a shot, so you'll have to trust your photographic skills (or a handheld light meter) to decide whether you'll want to use a tripod for a particular shot or if hand holding will do. The Belair takes photos in a single exposure without any sort of lens movement?so you won't have to worry about holding the camera steady as its lens swings from one end to other like you do with the Horizon Kompakt.
A simple dial advances the film; you'll need to peer through the frame window on the rear of the camera to determine how many times to turn it to advance to the next frame. This red window is familiar to medium format shooters; it shows you the frame numbers that are printed on the film's backing paper.?There's a standard hot shoe for a flash, but you'll have to experiment with your particular strobe and film to get your exposures down as the camera's meter will always assume that you're not using a flash. You may prefer to set the ISO much higher than the actual film speed for a shorter exposure that relies heavily on the illumination provided by your flashgun. Or you could set the meter to the actual ISO, which will generally result in a longer exposure in dim environments where you use the flash. This can be a fun effect, as you'll the flash exposure will freeze the motion of your subject, but the long exposure will surround it by a bit of motion blur.?
The Belair ships with a 58mm f/8 and a 90mm f/8 lens. Both feature plastic optics and can be stopped down to f/16. Each is impressively small, especially when you consider the size of the 6-by-12 negative. The 58mm provides a field of view that's not too far off from a 21mm lens on a full-frame digital or 35mm film camera. I did notice a good deal of barrel distortion when shooting with the 58mm, but I was able to fix it pretty easily in Lightroom by setting the distortion slider to +40 and lines that curved outwards straightened. If you're wet printing in a darkroom you'll just have to live with this; to get a lens that wide in this format that is perfectly corrected for distortion requires you to start looking at those pricey Linhof and Horseman cameras.?
The 90mm is a bit narrower, its equivalent focal length is about 32mm. You'll have to focus by scale, that is by approximating the distance between the film plane and your subject. There are marks on each lens for 1 meter, 1.5 meters, 3 meters, and infinity. There is also a pair of glass lenses available, although we haven't had a chance to review them as of yet. The Belairgon 90mm f/8 and 114mm f/8 have just been released and are each priced at $199.
We didn't run formal resolution tests on the included lenses?this isn't a camera that you buy if you're concerned about test charts. To my eye the images had decent sharpness, especially when shooting at f/16. I could see larger text with ease, but the ability to capture extremely fine detail and texture isn't there. The images don't have the low-fi look that you get from the Diana F+, but they also won't keep up with medium-format shots from the good glass you get from classic medium format cameras big lenses. It will be interesting to see how much detail that Lomo's glass lenses bring to the table.
The Lomography Belair X 6-12 Jetsetter is a refreshing change of pace for Lomography. Even though it ships with plastic lenses, it is not at all a toy camera?the images are a bit too refined for that. They aren't tack sharp, but the dreamy, hazy "Lomo look" is nowhere to be found. Distortion is a bit of an issue with the ultra-wide 58mm lens, but it's easily corrected if you're working with the photos digitally. A manual shutter setting would go a long way to improve the functionality for shooters who like to use a flash, and a shutter speed indicator would be a welcome addition. If shooting in a panoramic format is appealing to you and you're a fan of medium format film, the Belair is right up your alley. If you can't live without technical perfection in a camera, spend the money and get a Horseman SW-612 system?just realize that even used, they can sell for thousands of dollars.
Samsung Galaxy S4 to be available in Singapore in May (we're checking on other Asian countries, too)
The S4 in black and white. (Credit: Jacqueline Seng/CNET Asia) According to a Samsung spokesperson, the Galaxy S4 will be available in Singapore next month but did not confirm a date or a launch event. HardwareZone earlier reported a launch date of April 26, citing anonymous sources. Speaking with us at a hands-on session of the S4, he said that the company is in talks with the three telcos--StarHub, SingTel and M1--regarding a launch event. Due to the popularity of the handset, long lines are expected to form at the launch, as we saw last year with the S3 . We also found out that the model to be launched in Singapore will come with the 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor , instead of an Exynos 5 Octa.
Full article: http://asia.cnet.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-to-be-available-in...
Sunrisers Hyderabad, with some help from that marauding fast bowler Dale Steyn, rose from the ashes of the Deccan Chargers to post their first ever victory in the Indian Premier League at the first time of asking.
Playing in their own backyard at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium, the brand new franchise pulled off a 22-run win over Pune Warriors India in a low-scoring encounter, which lacked the fizz and panache that you normally expect of an IPL game.
Needing just 127 for a win, after Pune's bowlers had restricted the Sunrisers to 126 for six from their 20 overs, the away side fumbled and stumbled to a forgettable loss, crashing to 104 all out in 18.5 overs.
The problem with chasing a low total is that sometimes you don't know whether to go all out in the first six overs, or start cautiously, keeping the wickets intact knowing that you can chase down the total in the last few overs.
PWI, the wooden spooners of last season, probably went about it the wrong way, taking a little too much time to get their runs on the board -- although they were up against the best bowler in the world in Steyn in the opening overs - as Robin Uhtappa and Manish Pandey, in particular, got stuck a little.
Once Uthappa, a free flowing batsman at his best, got out for a 22-ball 24, it was all the Sunrisers as Pune made a complete mess of their chase.
Steyn, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra and Thisara Perera all bowled admirably, tying down the away team's batsmen while also picking up wickets at regular intervals, which in turn increased the pressure with every passing over.
At 50 for four in 11.2 overs, the Sunrisers were in complete control, before Pune threatened a mini-revival through Ross Taylor and Abhishek Nayar.
However, once Nayar and Taylor fell to the bowling of Mishra and Ashish Reddy respectively, the curtains were as good as drawn on the Pune innings as Steyn (three for 11) finished things off in style, picking up the final three wickets in four balls.
In the first innings, the bowlers strangled the Sunrisers with great effect, restricting them to a sub-par total.
The opening partnership of Parthiv Patel and Akshath Reddy showed much promise, with the pair putting together 34 runs in a little over five overs.
Once Patel got out, clean bowled to Ashok Dinda, skipper Kumar Sangakkara (15 in 16 balls) and Reddy went along slowly but surely building that platform for the final assault in the last few overs.
However, as is the case with this Sunrisers team - the franchise might be different, but it is essentially the same squad, which finished second bottom last season - there was not enough quality once the Sri Lankan veteran lost his wicket to the excellent Rahul Sharma.
Sharma (one for 21) and the rest of the bowlers took complete control of the middle overs, with Cameron White and Reddy finding it hard to even find the singles, as dot balls became very much the norm rather than the exception, as is normally the case in T20 cricket.
Once Reddy and White lost their wickets, the Sunrisers were precariously placed at 83 for four, desperately needing someone to play that little gem of an innings.
Perera, a man who is well capable of doing just that, threatened to cut loose with a couple of monster hits, but his 18-ball 30 just wasn't enough to propel the Sunrisers to a total nearing 140, as Dinda (two for 29) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (one for 17) bowled the last couple of overs admirably.
Two of the most common hardware issues with the iPhone are failures related to the Home button and Power button. This can present as either of these buttons becoming hard to press, not reading presses at all, or they can intermittently work. If you aren't up for a Home button or Power button DIY repair to fix the issue permanently, there is a way around them by using the Assistive Touch accessibility feature. This will give you a virtual Home button and Power button that can supplement the hardware. It isn't the most ideal solution but if you need a quick one, this is it.
Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone.
Now tap on General.
Scroll down and tap on Accessibility.
Scroll down again and tap on Assistive Touch under the Physical & Motor section.
Turn Assistive Touch to On.
You'll now notice a white dot appear on your screen that will remain there. You can tap on this to expand the Assistive touch menu. The Home option will allow you to tap it in the place of a physical Home button and be returned to the Home screen from wherever you are. To access the Power button function, tap on the Device menu and then tap on the Lock Screen icon and your screen will shut off.
While Assistive Touch isn't the perfect solution, it can definitely make your iPhone functional again until you can either get it repaired or get a replacement.
I recently came across an article by writer Vanessa Vaselka, which lamented the lack of female road narratives in pop culture. Her thesis -- that travel tales told by women, but which don't concern?violence and victimization, are unlikely?to be given a fair shake by media consumers -- was beautifully conveyed.
And on the surface, it was very compelling: I wanted to stand in solidarity with Vaselka, if only for the whole gay-traveler-who-doesn't-travel-like-a-typical-gay-traveler thing I embody. The story I'm trying to tell is even more unrepresented than hers!
But each time I returned to the American Reader website -- and I returned several times -- I found myself more and more put off by piece, and less convinced that Ms. Vaselka had any credibility in making the argument she was attempting to make.
I mean, how can you lament society's addiction to over-sensationalized road narratives when you introduce yourself by casually mentioning that you hitchhiked with a serial killer, and lived to tell GQ about it?
The dissonance between the "traveler" archetype the public craves and the one we travelers actually embody is not a result of the gender, sexuality or race of a particular narrator. It's because today's traveler -- and, indeed, today's travel -- is fundamentally different than it has been at any point in even recent history.
More specifically, the problem lies in the fact that?literature's?most ubiquitous road narratives, from Siddhartha, to Heart of Darkness,?to?The Tropic of Capricorn, depict carefree (and often careless) vagabonds who take the road with reckless abandon -- and, more importantly, without Internet -- jettisoning their previous existences, along with all the caution, connections and calculation that went along with them.
Because of the degree of separation yesterday's best-known nomadic heros were able to maintain from the lives they had before they set out, they could not only wriggle themselves into the types of compromising situations that would make even the most obedient desk monkey check his vacation balance, but to convey them in a way that seems disarmingly quotidian.
If I sound bitter, it's because I kind of am: I set out on my "big trip" only once I had secured a gig that would ensure I could pay for my travel without going into debt. (A gig which, incidentally, required me to connect to the Internet for at least a few hours every day.)
As more and more travelers, regardless of whether or not they travel professionally like I do, discover that a nomadic life is not just for the trust fund kids and the poor ones who just don't give a fuck, the correlation of being "on the road" with the sorts of things that happened in On The Road is becoming weaker and weaker.
This is not to say that those of us who follow our hearts, minds and souls onto planes, trains and automobiles do not encounter experiences worth writing about.?Just last week, for example,?I flew to Las Vegas on a whim to meet an Australian man I had only previously known for two-and-a-half days, and drove across California with him.
What is true, as far as I've been able to tell in my own experiences and those of other travelers I know, is that an element of melodrama and of?spontaneity -- which may or may not be the same element that drew millions to theaters to watch Emile Hirsch strut around the country like a piece of beef jerky in the film version of Into the Wild a few years ago -- has disappeared.
And I guess I just don't know why that's such a bad thing.
I mean, getting on a plane to attempt to forge a relationship with someone you barely know, who lives literally on the other side of the planet is scary enough. Is it so wrong to want a return flight, a loose itinerary and play-by-play text messages while you wait for him to pick you up at the airport as collateral?
The problem with Vanessa Vaselka's article -- which, in spite of its probably unintentional hypocrisy, I still very much recommend you check out -- is not that her heart, or even her mind, is in the wrong place for wanting the sort of story she tells to be better represented.
It's that the extreme narrative she's claimed as her own clings to a paradigm that has shifted significantly, possibly to the point where it is no longer valid at all.
There is, as far as I've been able to tell, a third travel way, so why can't we start writing about it? I have a feeling the public will want to read what we have to say, even if we're not narrowly escaping truck stop slaughter.
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Follow Robert Schrader on Twitter: www.twitter.com/leavyrdailyhell
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Public release date: 8-Apr-2013
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