It's designed to make driving safer, particularly after a long day at work or a tiring road trip, but GM's haptic seat technology that lets you know when you start unintentionally changing lanes might be even scarier than the drift.
The system uses a windshield mounted camera to monitor the lines on the road when the vehicle is traveling faster than 35 miles per hour. And when it detects a lane change without the turn signal being used, it will cause the driver's seat to vibrate on either side so they know which direction they've started to drift and can immediately correct it. And as an added bonus, straddling two lanes with a vehicle could provide a relaxing massage, even if at the cost of enraged drivers around you. [GM]
There's an art to a good teardown. Todd McLellan, a Toronto photographer who?s disassembled everything from pianos to iPads, has perfected it.
McLellan is the son of a carpenter and an electrical technician, so he was born into a world of assembly drawings and spec diagrams. In his career as a commercial photographer, he works on campaigns for new cars and gadgets. But as an artist, he takes them apart. He works without user manuals, and often without special tools, figuring out how things are assembled as he goes. At the end of the process, he arranges the innards on a white canvas for documenting, like a naturalist archiving an interesting specimen.
That?s actually an apt metaphor, since McLellan is drawn to older, outmoded technologies?like vintage lawnmowers and typewriters?which he sees as more interesting than the gadgets we use today. ?I have a very keen interest in finding out how things work,? he said a few years back. ?I can just imagine the hands that put them together with such precision. We don't get the same thing out of current technologies and the product now don't last nearly as long.? Slowly but surely, he?s working his way up to bigger objects?his dream? To take apart a full street car.
A book of McLellan's photographs, called Things Come Apart: A Teardown Manual for Modern Living, comes out at the end of the month. In the meantime, an exhibit of the same name is on view this month at Chicago?s Museum of Science and Industry?check it out until May 19. Can't make it in person? Here are some of our favorites:
LONDON -- U.K. telecom giant and pay TV service operator BT has inked a three-year exclusive deal with broadcaster Channel 4 to partner on advertising sales for its group of sports networks.
BT recently agreed to acquire most of ESPN's U.K. channels and is set to launch BT Sport 1 and BT Sport 2 this year to compete with pay TV giant BSkyB in the field of sports programming.
Channel 4 emerged with the ad sales contract, believed to be worth around $47 million (?30 million) and up to $62 million (?40 million) if the BT Vision pay TV service hits certain subscriber growth targets, after a competitive tender process. Observers said it included Channel 5 and even BSkyB.
BT said the broadcaster's experience in third-party ad sales for brands such as UKTV, Box TV and PBS America helped it win the contract.
In addition to placing TV ads around the BT Sport programs, which include 38 exclusive live Barclays English Premier League soccer matches, Channel 4 will be charged with looking for program sponsorships and will "explore opportunities for product placement." Marc Watson, CEO of TV, BT Retail, described BT and Channel 4 as a "great fit."
Jonathan Allan, director of sales at Channel 4, said: "Alongside the Channel 4 portfolio, UKTV, Box and PBS, the addition of BT?s premium sports content gives us an unrivaled ability to target young and up-market audiences."
BT Sport has also secured the rights to live top-tier matches from Serie A soccer in Italy, Ligue 1 soccer in France, Brasileiro in Brazil and Major League Soccer in the U.S. BT Sport will also show exclusive coverage of all 69 live rugby union games from the Aviva Premiership.
Plus, BT?s acquisition of ESPN?s TV business in the U.K. and Ireland will bring the rights to show live games for the FA Cup, Scottish Premier League, Europa League and the German Bundesliga.
The BT Sport channels will be based at the iCITY development at the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford in Eastern London.
BSkyB CEO Jeremy Darroch said earlier on Thursday during his company's latest earnings conference call that he felt Sky Sports was well positioned ahead of the launch of the BT sports networks.
May 2, 2013 ? Until recently, the only primate known to hibernate as a survival strategy was a creature called the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur, a tropical tree-dweller from the African island of Madagascar.
But it turns out this hibernating lemur isn't alone. In a study appearing May 2 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers report that two other little-known lemurs -- Crossley's dwarf lemur and Sibree's dwarf lemur -- burrow into the soft, spongy rainforest floor in the eastern part of Madagascar, curl up and spend the next three to seven months snoozing underground.
By comparing the hibernation habits of eastern dwarf lemurs and their western counterparts, researchers hope to shed light on what sends hibernating animals into standby mode, and whether lemurs -- our closest genetic relatives known to hibernate -- do it differently from other hibernating animals.
"Exactly what triggers hibernation is still an open question," said lead author Marina Blanco a postdoctoral researcher at the Duke Lemur Center.
Unlike animals such as bears and ground squirrels, which hibernate to survive the cold, western dwarf lemurs hibernate to survive during western Madagascar's long dry season -- a time when temperatures top 85 degrees, trees drop their leaves and food and water are in short supply.
But the hibernation habits of Madagascar's eastern dwarf lemurs, whose homes include high-altitude forests where winter temperatures occasionally dip below freezing, were poorly known.
"It's a very different environment," Blanco said.
To find out more, Blanco and her colleagues trapped and fitted the squirrel-sized animals with temperature-sensitive radio collars before the start of the hibernation season, allowing them to find the lemurs' underground burrows and monitor their body temperature once hibernation began.
Hibernating animals tend to breathe more slowly, drop their heart rate and lower their body temperature, becoming inactive for days at a time. Dwarf lemurs are no exception.
"To the casual observer, it looks for all the world as if the animals are dead. Their bodies are cold, they are utterly still and they take a breath only once every several minutes or so," said co-author Anne Yoder, director of the Duke Lemur Center.
Western dwarf lemurs hibernate in drafty tree holes, where their body temperature fluctuates by as much as 20 degrees with the outside air. But the researchers found that eastern dwarf lemurs keep their body temperatures more constant in cozy underground burrows.
The research suggests that lemur hibernation -- and therefore primate hibernation -- may not be so different after all. "Maybe these lemurs, though they live in the tropics, look more like temperate hibernators than we thought," Blanco said.
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Marina B. Blanco, Kathrin H. Dausmann, Jean F. Ranaivoarisoa, Anne D. Yoder. Underground hibernation in a primate. Scientific Reports, 2013; 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01768
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Flightless feathered dinosaurs with parrotlike beaks and long, skinny claws that scampered around North America may have been the Darwin's finches of the Late Cretaceous era.
Fossils of at least five species of vegetarian birdlike dinosaurs known as caenagnathids have been found from West Texas to Canada with wide variation in their beak shapes and body size, giving scientists clues about how the small creatures could coexist by carving out different dietary niches.
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was famously inspired by the diversity of beak shapes among finches on the Galapagos Islands, which he took as a sign that the birds had somehow adapted to the specific environments where they lived. More recent research has shown that Darwin's finches can evolve quite quickly. For instance, one species shrunk its beak size to better compete with another bird for small seeds in a mere two decades. [Avian Ancestors: Dinosaurs That Learned to Fly]
Millions of years ago, different species of caenagnathids may have similarly adjusted their beak size across western North America.
"Each species has a different beak structure. You could have a lot of different species in one environment, because they ate different kinds of foods, which is how different species of Darwin's finches coexist," Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, said in a statement. "So, in a way, the evolution of modern dinosaurs ? birds ? provides insight into ancient, extinct dinosaurs."
Fossil collectors in Texas recently found a new species of the turkey-sized dinosaur, dubbed Leptorhynchos gaddisi, in the Aguja Formation near Big Bend National Park. The 75-million-year-old remains of this species suggest it had a more rounded chin and a less upturned beak than its Canadian relative, Leptorhynchos elegans. The short deep mandible of the new species also suggests it ate tougher, more fibrous plants than its neighbors known as Chirostenotes and Caenagnathus, researchers say.
"These are subtle differences, but they mean we're dealing with different species," Longrich said. "If you look at modern birds, one of the things that distinguishes a crow from a raven, or two types of albatrosses from each other, is the beak proportions. We can do the same thing with dinosaurs that we do with modern birds, and identify them using beak shapes."
Considering that small dinosaurs have a poor fossil record in North America, having at least five known specialized species of caenagnathids ? some of them living side-by-side ? suggests the group had relatively high diversity, the researchers say.
The findings were detailed April 26 in the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @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.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) ? A small patch of prairie sits largely unnoticed off a desolate road in southwestern South Dakota, tucked amid gently rolling hills and surrounded by dilapidated structures and hundreds of gravesites ? many belonging to Native Americans massacred more than a century earlier.
The assessed value of the property: less than $14,000. The seller's asking price: $4.9 million.
Tribal members say the man who owns a piece of the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is trying to profit from their suffering. It was there, on Dec. 29, 1890, that 300 Native American men, women and children were killed by the 7th Cavalry in the final battle of the American Indian Wars.
James Czywczynski, whose family has owned the property since 1968, is trying to sell the 40-acre fraction of the historic landmark and another 40-acre parcel for $4.9 million. He has given the Oglala Sioux Tribe until Wednesday to agree to the price, after which he will open it up to outside investors.
Earlier this month Czywczynski said he had three offers from West Coast-based investment groups interested in buying the land for the original asking price. He didn't return calls this week to The Associated Press seeking information about the prospective buyers.
The ultimatum has caused anger among many tribal members and descendants of the massacre victims.
"I know we are at the 11th hour, but selling this massacre site and using the victims as a selling pitch is, for lack of a better word, it's grotesque," said Nathan Blindman, 56, whose grandfather was 10 when he survived the massacre. "To use the murdered children, the murdered teenagers, the unborn, women screaming and running for their lives, using that as a selling pitch ... that has got to be the most barbaric thing ever to use as a selling pitch."
Czywczynski acknowledges the historical significance adds value to each parcel of land, which have each been appraised at less than $7,000 apiece, according to records reviewed by the AP.
Besides its proximity to the burial grounds, the land includes the site of a former trading post burned down during the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising, in which hundreds of American Indian Movement protesters occupied the town built at the massacre site. The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded is credited with raising awareness about Native American struggles and giving rise to a wider protest movement that lasted the rest of the decade.
The land sits on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but many of the descendants of the massacre victims and survivors are members of several different Lakota tribes, said Joseph Brings Plenty, a former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a traditional chief.
Brings Plenty said the tribes are not in a position to pay millions of dollars for the land. Although tribal members are not opposed to development that would preserve, beautify or better educate the public about the land and its history, they are opposed to commercialization, he said.
"You don't go and dance on grandma and grandpa's grave to turn a hefty dollar sign," he said.
Tribal members and descendants have reached out to President Barack Obama to make the site a National Monument, which would better guard it against development and commercialization, Brings Plenty said.
But even if an outside investor buys the land with intent to develop, there will be obstacles, said Craig Dillon, an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council member. The tribe could pass new laws preventing the buyer from actually building at the site.
"Whoever buys that is still going to have to deal with the tribe," Dillon said. "Access is going to be an issue. Development is going to be an issue. I'm not threatening anybody, but my tone is be aware you have to deal with the tribe if you purchase it."
There are nearly 2,500 national historic landmarks across the country, with the vast majority of them owned by private landowners, said Don Stevens, chief of the History and National Register Program in the Midwest Region for the National Park Service.
"We advocate for preservation and we always express concern about potential harm for their care," Stevens said, adding that the NPS does not have any legal authority.
Still, a site can lose its designation if it does not retain its physical integrity, he said. One example is Soldier Field in Chicago, which lost the designation when it was remodeled a decade ago because it changed its physical character.
As for the Wounded Knee site, Stevens said any development could potentially affect the Historic Landmark designation.
"Certainly you would hear a hue and cry about that type of thing," he said. "And certainly if we saw something going up, we'd express our concern, even if we don't have a legal jurisdiction to intercede, we'd express our concern."
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Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton .
Farrah Abraham, who attempted to play off her sex tape with male porn star James Deen as a “personal tape”, has sold the rights to her XXX tape for almost $1 million. Farrah sold her movie, entitled “Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom”, for close to a million dollars in a deal with Vivid Entertainment. The ...
Apr. 28, 2013 ? Being pregnant while young is known to protect a women against breast cancer. But why? Research in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research finds that Wnt/Notch signalling ratio is decreased in the breast tissue of mice which have given birth, compared to virgin mice of the same age.
Early pregnancy is protective against breast cancer in humans and in rodents. In humans having a child before the age of 20 decreases risk of breast cancer by half. Using microarray analysis researchers from Basel discovered that genes involved in the immune system and differentiation were up-regulated after pregnancy while the activity of genes coding for growth factors was reduced.
The activity of one particular gene Wnt4 was also down-regulated after pregnancy. The protein from this gene (Wnt4) is a feminising protein -- absence of this protein propels a fetus towards developing as a boy. Wnt and Notch are opposing components of a system which controls cellular fate within an organism and when the team looked at Notch they found that genes regulated by notch were up-regulated, Notch-stimulating proteins up-regulated and Notch-inhibiting proteins down-regulated.
Wnt/Notch signalling ratio was permanently altered in the basal stem/progenitor cells of mammary tissue of mice by pregnancy. Mohamed Bentires-Alj from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, who led this study explained, "The down-regulation of Wnt is the opposite of that seen in many cancers, and this tightened control of Wnt/Notch after pregnancy may be preventing the runaway growth present in cancer."
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Fabienne Meier-Abt, Emanuela Milani, Tim Roloff, Heike Brinkhaus, Stephan Duss, Dominique S Meyer, Ina Klebba, Piotr J Balwierz, Erik van Nimwegen and Mohamed Bentires-Alj. Parity induces differentiation and reduces Wnt/Notch signaling ratio and proliferation potential of basal stem/progenitor cells isolated from mouse mammary epithelium. Breast Cancer Research, 2013 (in press) [link]
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.
Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.
Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year's heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November's exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.
The analysis also used population projections to estimate the shares of eligible voters by race group through 2030. The numbers are supplemented with material from the Pew Research Center and George Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, a leader in the field of voter turnout who separately reviewed aggregate turnout levels across states, as well as AP interviews with the Census Bureau and other experts. The bureau is scheduled to release data on voter turnout in May.
Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America's history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
But the numbers also offer a cautionary note to both Democrats and Republicans after Obama won in November with a historically low percentage of white supporters. While Latinos are now the biggest driver of U.S. population growth, they still trail whites and blacks in turnout and electoral share, because many of the Hispanics in the country are children or noncitizens.
In recent weeks, Republican leaders have urged a "year-round effort" to engage black and other minority voters, describing a grim future if their party does not expand its core support beyond white males.
The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak GOP candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama's personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.
Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.
More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.
"The 2012 turnout is a milestone for blacks and a huge potential turning point," said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University who has written extensively on black politicians. "What it suggests is that there is an 'Obama effect' where people were motivated to support Barack Obama. But it also means that black turnout may not always be higher, if future races aren't as salient."
Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant who is advising GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible 2016 presidential contender, says the last election reaffirmed that the Republican Party needs "a new message, a new messenger and a new tone." Change within the party need not be "lock, stock and barrel," Ayres said, but policy shifts such as GOP support for broad immigration legislation will be important to woo minority voters over the longer term.
"It remains to be seen how successful Democrats are if you don't have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket," he said.
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In Ohio, a battleground state where the share of eligible black voters is more than triple that of other minorities, 27-year-old Lauren Howie of Cleveland didn't start out thrilled with Obama in 2012. She felt he didn't deliver on promises to help students reduce college debt, promote women's rights and address climate change, she said. But she became determined to support Obama as she compared him with Romney.
"I got the feeling Mitt Romney couldn't care less about me and my fellow African-Americans," said Howie, an administrative assistant at Case Western Reserve University's medical school who is paying off college debt.
Howie said she saw some Romney comments as insensitive to the needs of the poor. "A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."
The numbers show how population growth will translate into changes in who votes over the coming decade:
?The gap between non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black turnout in 2008 was the smallest on record, with voter turnout at 66.1 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively; turnout for Latinos and non-Hispanic Asians trailed at 50 percent and 47 percent. Rough calculations suggest that in 2012, 2 million to 5 million fewer whites voted compared with 2008, even though the pool of eligible white voters had increased.
?Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks "outperformed" their eligible voter share for the first time on record.
?White voters also outperformed their eligible vote share, but not at the levels seen in years past. In 2012, whites represented 72 percent of total votes cast, compared to their 71.1 percent eligible vote share. As recently as 2004, whites typically outperformed their eligible vote share by at least 2 percentage points. McDonald notes that in 2012, states with significant black populations did not experience as much of a turnout decline as other states. That would indicate a lower turnout for whites last November since overall voter turnout declined.
?Latinos now make up 17 percent of the population but 11 percent of eligible voters, due to a younger median age and lower rates of citizenship and voter registration. Because of lower turnout, they represented just 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast. Despite their fast growth, Latinos aren't projected to surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, when each group will be roughly 13 percent. By then, 1 in 3 eligible voters will be nonwhite.
?In 2026, the total Latino share of voters could jump to as high as 16 percent, if nearly 11 million immigrants here illegally become eligible for U.S. citizenship. Under a proposed bill in the Senate, those immigrants would have a 13-year path to citizenship. The share of eligible white voters could shrink to less than 64 percent in that scenario. An estimated 80 percent of immigrants here illegally, or 8.8 million, are Latino, although not all will meet the additional requirements to become citizens.
"The 2008 election was the first year when the minority vote was important to electing a U.S. president. By 2024, their vote will be essential to victory," Frey said. "Democrats will be looking at a landslide going into 2028 if the new Hispanic voters continue to favor Democrats."
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Even with demographics seeming to favor Democrats in the long term, it's unclear whether Obama's coalition will hold if blacks or younger voters become less motivated to vote or decide to switch parties.
Minority turnout tends to drop in midterm congressional elections, contributing to larger GOP victories as happened in 2010, when House control flipped to Republicans.
The economy and policy matter. Exit polling shows that even with Obama's re-election, voter support for a government that does more to solve problems declined from 51 percent in 2008 to 43 percent last year, bolstering the view among Republicans that their core principles of reducing government are sound.
The party's "Growth and Opportunity Project" report released last month by national leaders suggests that Latinos and Asians could become more receptive to GOP policies once comprehensive immigration legislation is passed.
Whether the economy continues its slow recovery also will shape voter opinion, including among blacks, who have the highest rate of unemployment.
Since the election, optimism among nonwhites about the direction of the country and the economy has waned, although support for Obama has held steady. In an October AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of nonwhites said the nation was heading in the right direction; that's dropped to 52 percent in a new AP-GfK poll. Among non-Hispanic whites, however, the numbers are about the same as in October, at 28 percent.
Democrats in Congress merit far lower approval ratings among nonwhites than does the president, with 49 percent approving of congressional Democrats and 74 percent approving of Obama.
William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, says that in previous elections where an enduring majority of voters came to support one party, the president winning re-election ? William McKinley in 1900, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 ? attracted a larger turnout over his original election and also received a higher vote total and a higher share of the popular vote. None of those occurred for Obama in 2012.
Only once in the last 60 years has a political party been successful in holding the presidency more than eight years ? Republicans from 1980-1992.
"This doesn't prove that Obama's presidency won't turn out to be the harbinger of a new political order," Galston says. "But it does warrant some analytical caution."
Early polling suggests that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton could come close in 2016 to generating the level of support among nonwhites as Obama did in November, when he won 80 percent of their vote. In a Fox News poll in February, 75 percent of nonwhites said they thought Clinton would make a good president, outpacing the 58 percent who said that about Vice President Joe Biden.
Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, predicts closely fought elections in the near term and worries that GOP-controlled state legislatures will step up efforts to pass voter ID and other restrictions to deter blacks and other minorities from voting. In 2012, courts blocked or delayed several of those voter ID laws and African-Americans were able to turn out in large numbers only after a very determined get-out-the-vote effort by the Obama campaign and black groups, he said.
Jealous says the 2014 midterm election will be the real bellwether for black turnout. "Black turnout set records this year despite record attempts to suppress the black vote," he said.
___
AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ "America at the Tipping Point: The Changing Face of a Nation" is an occasional series examining the cultural mosaic of the U.S. and its historic shift to a majority-minority nation.
Better start working on those powerball exercises. At least if Samsung's Galaxy Mega was the thing you thought your life was missing, as it's just landed at the FCC. Yeah, we know this isn't the first time, but on second time around it's the LTE-sporting AT&T-friendly GT-i9205 model. The usual lab tests show little that we didn't know already -- unless you didn't know it had LTE Band 5, dual band WiFi, NFC or GSM 850 / 1900. As the 5.8-inch isn't 4G-enabled, this means we're looking at the bigger 6.3-inch version, but still no word on if, when or how this might land on US shores. Still no harm in limbering up though, is there?
Google Glass may represent the future of wearables, but its components are a vestige of the past -- 2011, to be exact. That's according to developer Jay Lee who dug up some interesting Glass tidbits using Android Debug Bridge. Taking to his Google+ page, Lee verified that Google's smart eyewear currently runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich - a fact CEO Larry Page has apparently fessed up to -- incorporates an OMAP 4430 processor running at an unspecified frequency and is paired with about 682MB RAM (out of a likely 1GB), though it's not clear if this is a dual-core setup. For non-mobile industry historians, this particular Texas Instruments OMAP chipset hasn't been used since the Droid Bionic and Atrix 2 in 2011, making it relatively ancient by industry standards. So, what other surprises lurk beneath the Glass? We'll leave those mysteries to our EIC Tim Stevens to suss out in his Glassdiaries.
It has co-existed quietly with humans for centuries, slurping up the spillage in beer halls and gorging on the sour paste used to bind books. Now the tiny nematode Panagrellus redivivus (P.redivivus) has emerged from relative obscurity with the publication of its complete genetic code. Further study of this worm, which is often called the beer-mat worm or, simply, the microworm, is expected to shed new light on many aspects of animal biology, including the differences between male and female organisms and the unique adaptations of parasitic worms.
Using next-generation sequencing technologies, a research team led by Jagan Srinivasan, now an assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), discovered just over 24,000 putative genes encoded in the worm's DNA?nearly the same number as in the human genome. The team also measured the amount and characteristics of RNA molecules transcribed from those genes to direct cellular processes?that collection of data is called the worm's transcriptome. The genome data published by Srinivasan and colleagues marks the first time a free-living nematode outside of the widely studied C. elegans immediate family has been sequenced.
The researchers detail their findings in the paper, "The Draft Genome and Transcriptome of Panagrellus redivivus Are Shaped by the Harsh Demands of a Free-Living Lifestyle," published in the April 2013 edition of the journalGenetics.
"Humans and nematodes share a common ancestor that lived in the oceans more than 600 million years ago," Srinivasan said. "Many of the basic biological processes have been conserved over the millennia and are similar in Panagrellus and humans. So we believe there is a lot to be learned from studying this organism."
Srinivasan led the P.redivivus sequencing project while working as a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Paul Sternberg, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology at Caltech. Adler Dillman, a graduate student at Caltech, worked closely with Srinivasan on the project and shares first-author status of the new study. Sternberg is the senior author.
Srinivasan joined the WPI faculty in the fall of 2012 and has established his own research program using the microworm and its scientifically more famous cousin, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), as model systems to study the neurobiological basis of social communication and how organisms react to environmental cues.
In recent years C. elegans has emerged as a star in the biomedical research world. In 1998 it became the first multicellular organism to have its genome sequenced. The experience gained from that work was fundamental to the successful completion of the Human Genome Project. Nobel prizes in 2002, 2006, and 2008 were awarded to researchers who made extraordinary discoveries studying C. elegans.
Like C. elegans, the microworm P. redivivus is a free-living nematode found in many environments around the world. An adult microworm is about 2 millimeters long and has approximately 1,000 cells. Despite its small size, the worm is a complex organism able to do all of the things animals must do to survive. It can move, eat, reproduce, and process cues from its environment that help it forage for food, seek out mates, or react to threats. Unlike C. elegans, however, P. redivivus is a gonochoristic species, meaning it has male and female individuals who must mate to reproduce. In contrast, C. elegans has evolved to be primarily a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite, producing both eggs and sperm in the same individual. (There are some male-only C. elegans worms, but they are rare in the wild.)
"Because we see true male and female individuals, Panagrellus will be a powerful model system for studying the differences between the sexes and the processes that the organism uses to find and interact with a mate," Srinivasan said.
Both P. redivivus and C. elegans are well suited for laboratory research, Srinivasan noted. The worms are easily cultured and have a short lifecycle, growing from embryo to adult in about four days. Adults live for approximately three weeks and can produce as many as 40 offspring each day. This lifecycle makes them ideal for genetic studies. Furthermore, the worms are transparent. Under a microscope researchers can look into a worm's body and see almost every cell in the living animal. They can see the cell nuclei, tag molecules with glowing fluorescent markers, and capture images of biological processes from the moment of fertilization to maturity.
As a free-living species, the microworm is considered to be an ancestor of other small worms that have evolved into parasites and colonize specific plants or animals (including humans) to survive. Studying the differences between the microworm and parasitic species will become another important area of research, Professor Sternberg noted. "Of course we want to know more about parasitic worms, given their impact on people and the environment," Sternberg said. "To know about parasites, however, you have to know about the free-living worms to place the bizarre features of parasites into context."
The current study identified the number, location, and composition of genes and RNA transcript in the microworm, and found significant and surprising differences between the P.redivivus genome and that of C. elegans even though the worms look nearly identical to the naked eye. For example, the early analysis of the microworm genome suggests that a large collection of genes have evolved as defenses against viruses and other pathogens the worms encounter in the environment?hence the "harsh demands" of their lifestyle as referenced in the paper's title.
"Studying how the genomes differ, and what processes are driven by those differences, should prove to be insightful," Srinivasan said. "Sequencing the genome and transcriptome is an important first step in what we believe will be a rich new field of study for fundamental biological processes that control development and behavior, not only in the worms, but also in humans."
Thanks to Worcester Polytechnic Institute for this article.
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LONDON (Reuters) - A British bookmaker is taking bets on an ABBA comeback after singer Agnetha Faltskog hinted at a possible reunion for Sweden's most successful band.
Faltskog, who has come out of retirement to release a solo album called "A", was asked by German's Die Zeit Magazine if she would be open to an ABBA reunion and she responded positively.
"Maybe a charity concert? I would not say 'No' right away," she said.
Her former husband Bjorn Ulvaeus and his fellow ABBA songwriter Benny Andersson vowed in 2008 not to reform the group that broke up in 1982 after nine British No.1 hits.
The fourth member of the group whose hits included "Mamma Mia", "Super Trouper", and "Dancing Queen", was Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
But speculation about ABBA reforming has mounted in the lead-up to the opening of a ABBA museum in Stockholm in May.
British bookmakers Paddy Power seized on the speculation to offer odds of 14/1 for ABBA to perform together in 2013.
The bookmaker was offering 16/1 on ABBA opening the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, on May 16 as this was the show that propelled ABBA to fame following their 1974 win with the song "Waterloo".
"ABBA fans will be spitting out their meatballs in excitement at prospect of a reunion. Given home turf, plus the 40th anniversary of their Eurovision triumph, Paddy Power's 16/1 to open the show looks to be worth a pound of anybody's money," said a spokesman for the bookmaker.
(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)
LONDON (Reuters) - Top British fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett joined bee campaigners outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Friday to urge the government to support a proposed European Union (EU) ban on pesticides which harm bees.
Britain is currently one of a group of countries blocking attempts to introduce a Europe-wide ban on the world's most widely used insecticides, neonicotinoids, arguing their impact on bees is unclear.
A vote takes place in Brussels on April 29 on whether to ban the poisons on flowering crops.
"If there's any chance that they're killing the bees as a precautionary measure they need to be banned," Hamnett, who has campaigned against pesticides for decades, told Reuters TV.
"The British government is committing political suicide I think by not supporting this ban."
Britain, Germany and three other countries abstained from a vote earlier this year.
Hamnett questioned whether this was because two major pesticide companies, Germany's Bayer and Swiss company Syngenta, which has operations in Britain, are lobbying against the ban, saying the impact of pesticides on bees is unproven.
"Are they in bed with Syngenta or Bayer or are they just stupid?" said Hamnett.
The companies have proposed a plan which includes planting more flowering margins around fields to provide bee habitats, monitoring to detect the neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for the decline, and research into the impact of parasites and viruses.
The fashion duo then handed in a petition to Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street office, urging the government to put environmental concerns ahead of pressure from the agribusiness lobby.
"Why is government supporting big business because it doesn't help people at all? What is good for the planet is good for the economy," said Westwood.
Bees are currently suffering a sharp decline and colony collapse due to a variety of reasons.
Campaigners argue that bees are crucial for the planet as they perform a vital role in pollinating crops and their disappearance will have catastrophic effects on the world.
They want pre-emptive action taken on banning pesticides while more research is carried out to fully assess how seriously pesticides affect bees.
"This could become a really serious problem. There are parts of China where they have to pollinate fruit trees by hand because they have wiped out their insects through overuse of chemicals," said Quentin Gibon who joined the protest wearing a bee costume.
Earlier this year EU governments failed to agree a ban on three widely used pesticides linked to the decline of honeybees, but the European Commission is threatening to force such a ban through unless member states agree a compromise next week.
(Reporting by Georgina Cooper of Reuters Television, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
While on Laurence Holmes podcast on the Score on Monday night, he asked me how it was being a woman covering such a male-dominant sport as mixed martial arts. I answered that while there were some problems and I did come up against some jerks from time to time, MMA was fantastic to me. I pointed out that the few jerks were rarely fighters.
So imagine my surprise when I heard from women's groups that I've long respected that the sport I cover is full of negative attitudes against women. As New York debates legislation sanctioning MMA, women's groups have protested because of the "violent nature of MMA."
"Due to the violent nature of mixed martial arts and the surprisingly high incidence of unchallenged sexism and misogyny displayed by certain fighters, commentators and other public figures associated with this sport, the prospect of legalization in New York state raises legitimate concerns about the increased exposure of our children to this new and potentially very negative influence," stated a bill introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger, who represents much of Manhattan's east side.
Have MMA figures said and done terriblymisogynisticthings? Absolutely. But so have NFL players. So have NHL players. Both football and hockey also feature violent collisions and catastrophic injuries. Where are the protests to evict the Buffalo Bills or New York Rangers from the state?
UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, who has been lobbying for MMA's sanctioning in New York for years, thinks that these women's groups are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.
?It?s actually kind of sad,? Fertitta said. ?These women?s organizations and women?s groups stand for great things ? yet they are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.?
The union has a beef with Fertitta and his brother Frank because they own the largest non-union casinos in Las Vegas. The union has contacted women's groups to bring their attention MMA's rise and possible sanctioning in New York. But what would make more sense for the union to focus on is that fighters don't have a collective bargaining agreement and aren't unionized.
Krueger and others have pointed to links between MMA and violence when no such link has been found. There is also no discussion of how MMA has empowered women as fighters, officials, media and fans, or how women have learned self defense techniques at MMA gyms across the country. Invicta FC, a promotion run by a woman that features women's bouts, must have escaped their view.
There are real problems facing women. Sexual violence, domestic abuse, unequal pay, unequal treatment in the workplace, sexual harassment, and many other serious issues face women every day. Let's focus on how we should solve those real issues, and not a sport that has no proven link to any of these problems.
Euro, commodities recover on weak dollar, UK GDP to come
LONDON (Reuters) - The euro and commodities gained ground on Thursday as evidence of a weakening U.S. economy put the dollar under pressure, while investors waited to find out whether Britain's stagnant economy had fallen back into recession. Markets are looking to the British first-quarter gross domestic product number (GDP), due at 0830 GMT (4.30 a.m. ET), to see whether it reinforces the gloomy global economic picture painted by recent releases from Germany, China and the United States.
Soaring Barrick helps propel TSX to biggest jump in 8 months
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index jumped more than 1 percent on Wednesday, its sharpest one-day percentage gain in more than eight months, as higher commodity prices fueled a rise in shares of gold and oil and gas producers. The surge in gold-mining shares, which have languished this year, played the biggest role in driving up the market as they rose about 7 percent as physical buyers scooped up the precious metal on the back of a recent selloff.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc has hired advisers to prepare a possible $100 billion cash and stock bid to take full control of Verizon Wireless from joint venture partner Vodafone Group Plc , two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Verizon, which already owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, has not yet put forward a proposal to Vodafone but it has hired both banking and legal advisers for a possible bid, the sources said.
CP Railway profit rises on higher freight revenue
(Reuters) - Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd reported a 53 percent increase in first-quarter profit as freight revenue rose and the company improved its operating efficiency. Canada's No. 2 rail carrier said net income rose to C$217 million ($212 million), or C$1.24 per share, from C$142 million, or 82 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.
UK economy defies recession fears, grows 0.3 pct in Q1
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's economy dodged a return to recession and grew faster than expected in the first three months of this year, a relief for finance minister George Osborne. The Office for National Statistics said Britain's gross domestic product rose 0.3 percent in the first quarter after shrinking by 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter in late 2012, above forecasts for a 0.1 percent rise.
EU's Rehn: fiscal adjustment slowing down in Europe
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union countries will continue to consolidate public finances, but they can now afford to do that at a slower pace than before, because their previous efforts have won them back some market credibility, the EU's top economic official said. "We have been clear that the pace of fiscal adjustment should take into account each country-specific economic situation," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a conference in Brussels on Thursday.
Italy should ask for more room on deficit: OECD
MILAN (Reuters) - Italy is now in a position to ask the European Union to ease up on the country's deficit target, according to Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). With budget cuts blamed for a second straight year of recession in the euro zone, the EU's top economics official Olli Rehn indicated last weekend that more flexibility on tough economic targets was needed.
Delaying austerity is no easy way out: ECB's Asmussen
LONDON (Reuters) - European Central Bank Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen urged governments to push on with budget consolidation and reforms, saying there are no alternatives to those measures. Doubts over the effectiveness of setting hard targets for reducing national debt have emerged in light of a sluggish global recovery. On Monday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said austerity had reached its natural limits of popular support.
Spanish unemployment tops 6 million
MADRID (Reuters) - More than six million Spaniards were out of work in the first quarter of this year, raising the jobless rate in the euro zone's fourth biggest economy to 27.2 percent, the highest since records began in the 1970s. The huge sums poured into the global financial system by major central banks have eased bond market pressure on Spain, but the cuts Madrid has made in spending to regain investors' confidence have left it deep in recession.
ECB says ditching austerity would not help euro zone
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - ECB policymakers rebuffed suggestions that Europe should ease up on austerity and said that while the central bank has room to cut interest rates, such a move would not necessarily help the economy much. European Central Bank Vice-President Vitor Constancio said that seeking to stimulate economies by stopping measures aimed at cutting government debt could merely increase countries' borrowing costs rather than triggering growth.
New genomics center will study rheumatoid arthritis and lupus with $5.6 million grantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Fisher phyllis.fisher@gmail.com 212-606-1724 Hospital for Special Surgery
Research focus will be on developing personalized therapies
Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City has received a $5.6 million grant from The Tow Foundation to establish the Hospital for Special Surgery Genomics Center. The new center will apply genomic approaches to study two autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, with the aim of developing more effective therapies.
"Our goals are to use genomic approaches to understand the regulation and function of disease-associated genes, understand how disease-associated genetic variants contribute to disease, and identify new genes associated with autoimmune diseases," said Lionel B. Ivashkiv, M.D., associate chief scientific officer at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), who will serve as director of the new center. "We will use this new knowledge to develop more effective and personalized therapies."
Genomics is the study of an organism's complete set of genetic material, including gene sequence, structure and function, regulation of gene expression, and gene-environment interactions.
In the United States, rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling disease that destroys joints, affects approximately 3 million people. Lupus, a disease that can be very serious, affects joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs, and impacts 600,000 people in the United States. HSS is internationally known for research into these two diseases, and treats one of the world's largest populations of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus patients.
"HSS has strength in both the clinical area and the basic science area of these diseases," said Dr. Ivashkiv. "Our strength is we can have an integrated multidisciplinary approach to trying to study and understand these diseases and develop new therapies."
"We are honored that The Tow Foundation has provided a generous grant to support our continued leadership in exploring the mysteries of autoimmune disease," said Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO of Hospital for Special Surgery. "Thanks to the Tow Foundation's gift, our scientists and physicians will offer hope to our patients with these challenging diseases."
Over the last two decades, scientists have discovered that certain proteins, including tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-6, are associated with rheumatoid arthritis and have used this knowledge to revolutionize treatments for patients. Researchers have also identified proteins associated with lupus that have advanced therapies. Basic, translational and clinical investigators at HSS have worked together and been major contributors to the progress that has been made.
The HSS Genomics Center will use genomic approaches to understand the regulation and function of the genes associated with these proteins, as well as identify new genes associated with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The goal is to develop more effective treatments with fewer side effects, and researchers expect to be testing new therapeutics in animal models by year four of the grant.
The new endeavor will focus on several aspects of research including epigenetics.
"We are very excited to try to understand how genes involved in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis are regulated, because it would represent a new way to drive therapy. It is called epigenetic therapy, meaning therapy targeted around how the environment controls gene expression and thus the environmental causes of disease," said Dr. Ivashkiv.
"In recent years, researchers have identified DNA sequences previously thought to be junk DNA that regulate the expression of genes. These are affected by the environment, for example by hormones or by smoking. It turns out that a lot of susceptibility to diseases falls within these regulatory regions."
A future focus of the new center will be whole genome sequencing. "We would like to look at the genomes of individuals and try to understand how the variation in genes among different people, which occurs normally, influences that person's disease susceptibility and their response to treatment. This part of the research will be more prognostic, looking at the genetic makeup of an individual and potentially making predictions about disease prognosis and, equally important, trying to find which treatments might work the best for them. This is called personalized medicine," said Dr. Ivashkiv. "That is a very complex undertaking, but we think that would also have a very big impact on improving patient's lives."
The new center will collaborate with scientists at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), a center known for its technical, bioinformatic, and educational resources that houses genome sequencing machines. HSS is an associate founding member of the NYGC and will develop a partnership similar to the relationship of the Broad Institute with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In collaboration with NYGC, the HSS Genomics Center plans to host international research symposia every two years called Genomics of Autoimmune Diseases.
The HSS Genomics Center will have an estimated 20 scientists and will recruit four genomics fellows, a computational biologist and a senior genomics researcher who will interact closely with NYGC staff. In the future, research may expand to other autoimmune and musculoskeletal diseases.
HSS has more than 30 rheumatologists who care for an estimated 2,600 rheumatoid arthritis patients and 300 lupus patients, and many of its scientists are internationally recognized experts in their respective fields. The institution has patient registries and repositories that store patient samples and DNA linked with clinical information.
Shiaoching Gong, Ph.D., associate scientist at HSS, will serve as co-director of the HSS Genomics Center. Other key faculty include Assistant Scientists Kyung Park-Min, Ph.D.; Xiaoyu Hu, Ph.D., and Baohong Zhao, Ph.D., Senior Scientist Alessandra Pernis, M.D., Peter Jay Sharp Chair in Lupus Research; and Associate Scientist Inez Rogatsky, Ph.D., from HSS; Robert Darnell, M.D., Ph.D., director of New York Genome Center; and Olivier Elemento, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Eugenia Giannopoulou, Ph.D., computational fellow, both from the Weill Cornell Medical College Institute for Computational Biomedicine. HSS Genomics Center faculty will work closely with leading HSS SLE investigators Mary K. Crow, M.D., physician-in-chief and Benjamin M. Rosen Chair in Immunology and Inflammation Research, and Jane Salmon M.D., senior scientist and Collette Kean Research Chair.
###
The Tow Foundation, a family foundation located in Connecticut, structures grants that provide leverage to the recipients, making possible things that are far greater than what could be achieved alone. Investments focus on support of innovative programs in the areas of groundbreaking medical research, cultural institutions, higher education and vulnerable children and families, with a concentrated initiative on juvenile justice reform. For more information, visit http://www.towfoundation.org
About Hospital for Special Surgery
Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a world leader in orthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation. HSS is nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics, No. 3 in rheumatology, No. 10 in neurology and No. 5 in geriatrics by U.S. News & World Report (2012-13), and is the first hospital in New York State to receive Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center three consecutive times. HSS has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. From 2007 to 2011, HSS has been a recipient of the HealthGrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award. HSS is a member of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College and as such all Hospital for Special Surgery medical staff are faculty of Weill Cornell. The hospital's research division is internationally recognized as a leader in the investigation of musculoskeletal and autoimmune diseases. Hospital for Special Surgery is located in New York City and online at http://www.hss.edu.
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.
New genomics center will study rheumatoid arthritis and lupus with $5.6 million grantPublic release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Fisher phyllis.fisher@gmail.com 212-606-1724 Hospital for Special Surgery
Research focus will be on developing personalized therapies
Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City has received a $5.6 million grant from The Tow Foundation to establish the Hospital for Special Surgery Genomics Center. The new center will apply genomic approaches to study two autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, with the aim of developing more effective therapies.
"Our goals are to use genomic approaches to understand the regulation and function of disease-associated genes, understand how disease-associated genetic variants contribute to disease, and identify new genes associated with autoimmune diseases," said Lionel B. Ivashkiv, M.D., associate chief scientific officer at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), who will serve as director of the new center. "We will use this new knowledge to develop more effective and personalized therapies."
Genomics is the study of an organism's complete set of genetic material, including gene sequence, structure and function, regulation of gene expression, and gene-environment interactions.
In the United States, rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling disease that destroys joints, affects approximately 3 million people. Lupus, a disease that can be very serious, affects joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs, and impacts 600,000 people in the United States. HSS is internationally known for research into these two diseases, and treats one of the world's largest populations of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus patients.
"HSS has strength in both the clinical area and the basic science area of these diseases," said Dr. Ivashkiv. "Our strength is we can have an integrated multidisciplinary approach to trying to study and understand these diseases and develop new therapies."
"We are honored that The Tow Foundation has provided a generous grant to support our continued leadership in exploring the mysteries of autoimmune disease," said Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO of Hospital for Special Surgery. "Thanks to the Tow Foundation's gift, our scientists and physicians will offer hope to our patients with these challenging diseases."
Over the last two decades, scientists have discovered that certain proteins, including tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-6, are associated with rheumatoid arthritis and have used this knowledge to revolutionize treatments for patients. Researchers have also identified proteins associated with lupus that have advanced therapies. Basic, translational and clinical investigators at HSS have worked together and been major contributors to the progress that has been made.
The HSS Genomics Center will use genomic approaches to understand the regulation and function of the genes associated with these proteins, as well as identify new genes associated with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The goal is to develop more effective treatments with fewer side effects, and researchers expect to be testing new therapeutics in animal models by year four of the grant.
The new endeavor will focus on several aspects of research including epigenetics.
"We are very excited to try to understand how genes involved in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis are regulated, because it would represent a new way to drive therapy. It is called epigenetic therapy, meaning therapy targeted around how the environment controls gene expression and thus the environmental causes of disease," said Dr. Ivashkiv.
"In recent years, researchers have identified DNA sequences previously thought to be junk DNA that regulate the expression of genes. These are affected by the environment, for example by hormones or by smoking. It turns out that a lot of susceptibility to diseases falls within these regulatory regions."
A future focus of the new center will be whole genome sequencing. "We would like to look at the genomes of individuals and try to understand how the variation in genes among different people, which occurs normally, influences that person's disease susceptibility and their response to treatment. This part of the research will be more prognostic, looking at the genetic makeup of an individual and potentially making predictions about disease prognosis and, equally important, trying to find which treatments might work the best for them. This is called personalized medicine," said Dr. Ivashkiv. "That is a very complex undertaking, but we think that would also have a very big impact on improving patient's lives."
The new center will collaborate with scientists at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), a center known for its technical, bioinformatic, and educational resources that houses genome sequencing machines. HSS is an associate founding member of the NYGC and will develop a partnership similar to the relationship of the Broad Institute with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In collaboration with NYGC, the HSS Genomics Center plans to host international research symposia every two years called Genomics of Autoimmune Diseases.
The HSS Genomics Center will have an estimated 20 scientists and will recruit four genomics fellows, a computational biologist and a senior genomics researcher who will interact closely with NYGC staff. In the future, research may expand to other autoimmune and musculoskeletal diseases.
HSS has more than 30 rheumatologists who care for an estimated 2,600 rheumatoid arthritis patients and 300 lupus patients, and many of its scientists are internationally recognized experts in their respective fields. The institution has patient registries and repositories that store patient samples and DNA linked with clinical information.
Shiaoching Gong, Ph.D., associate scientist at HSS, will serve as co-director of the HSS Genomics Center. Other key faculty include Assistant Scientists Kyung Park-Min, Ph.D.; Xiaoyu Hu, Ph.D., and Baohong Zhao, Ph.D., Senior Scientist Alessandra Pernis, M.D., Peter Jay Sharp Chair in Lupus Research; and Associate Scientist Inez Rogatsky, Ph.D., from HSS; Robert Darnell, M.D., Ph.D., director of New York Genome Center; and Olivier Elemento, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Eugenia Giannopoulou, Ph.D., computational fellow, both from the Weill Cornell Medical College Institute for Computational Biomedicine. HSS Genomics Center faculty will work closely with leading HSS SLE investigators Mary K. Crow, M.D., physician-in-chief and Benjamin M. Rosen Chair in Immunology and Inflammation Research, and Jane Salmon M.D., senior scientist and Collette Kean Research Chair.
###
The Tow Foundation, a family foundation located in Connecticut, structures grants that provide leverage to the recipients, making possible things that are far greater than what could be achieved alone. Investments focus on support of innovative programs in the areas of groundbreaking medical research, cultural institutions, higher education and vulnerable children and families, with a concentrated initiative on juvenile justice reform. For more information, visit http://www.towfoundation.org
About Hospital for Special Surgery
Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a world leader in orthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation. HSS is nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics, No. 3 in rheumatology, No. 10 in neurology and No. 5 in geriatrics by U.S. News & World Report (2012-13), and is the first hospital in New York State to receive Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center three consecutive times. HSS has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. From 2007 to 2011, HSS has been a recipient of the HealthGrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award. HSS is a member of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College and as such all Hospital for Special Surgery medical staff are faculty of Weill Cornell. The hospital's research division is internationally recognized as a leader in the investigation of musculoskeletal and autoimmune diseases. Hospital for Special Surgery is located in New York City and online at http://www.hss.edu.
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.
Farrah Abraham, who attempted to play off her sex tape with male porn star James Deen as a “personal tape”, has sold the rights to her XXX tape for almost $1 million. Farrah sold her movie, entitled “Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom”, for close to a million dollars in a deal with Vivid Entertainment. The ...
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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
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