Time to Raise the MBL Cap for Credit Unions? - Small Business ...

Fred Becker, President and CEO of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU), is calling upon Senate leaders to pass a bill to raise the credit union member business lending cap (MBL) from 12.25 percent of assets to 27.5 percent. Increasing this cap would allow credit unions to make more capital available for small business loans, which can be a profitable part of a credit union?s portfolio.

The bipartisan Credit Union Small Business Jobs Bill, S. 2231, introduced by Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), and retiring Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), would increase the MBL cap from 12.25 percent of assets to 27.5 percent for eligible credit unions.

When Congress passed the Credit Union Membership Access Act in 1998, it created restrictions on the ability of credit unions to offer member business loans by a credit union?s member business lending to 12.25 percent of total assets. Research has proven that the cap hinders credit union lending to small business and does little, if any, harm to banks and other institutions.

In January 2001, the Treasury Department released a study, ?Credit Union Member Business Lending? which found that ?Business lending is a niche market for credit unions. Overall, credit unions are not a threat to the viability and profitability of other insured depository institutions.?

Last year, the SBA?s Office of Advocacy also found that bank lending was largely unaffected by changes in credit union business lending, and that credit unions have the ability to offset declines in bank business lending during a recession (James A. Wilcox, The Increasing Importance of Credit Unions in Small Business Lending, Small Business Research Summary,?SBA Office of Advocacy, No. 387. Sept. 2011).

Becker suggests raising the MBL ceiling in combination with legislation to extend full coverage of noninterest-bearing transaction accounts. Banking trades are seeking extension of the ?transaction account guarantee? program that was implemented under the Dodd-Frank Act. NAFCU advocated parity for credit unions, which was included in the final Dodd-Frank bill. Currently, $1.4 trillion in noninterest-bearing account balances covered under Dodd-Frank are in line to lose their federal coverage. The 100 percent deposit and share insurance coverage for these accounts is set to expire on Dec. 31 at midnight.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Becker wrote:

?This would certainly have unintended consequences on smaller financial institutions and could very well lead to businesses shifting funds away from their community-based financial institutions.?

NAFCU believes that combining the two measures into one:

?. . .would not be a win-win proposition for the American people and our economy.?

I agree. ?Credit unions have the capital to help America?s small businesses thrive. The outdated MBL cap limits their ability to help stimulate the economy by providing credit to startups and expanding small businesses.

Unlock Money Photo via Shutterstock

About Rohit Arora

A frequently quoted expert on small business lending and recently named the ?Top Entrepreneur of 2011? by Crain?s New York Business, Rohit Arora is CEO of Biz2Credit, which connects small business owners with 400 lenders, credit rating agencies and service providers. Since 2007, Biz2Credit has secured $400 million in funding for small businesses across the U.S. via its safe, efficient online platform.

?

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/11/raise-the-mbl-cap-for-credit-unions.html

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CyanogenMod 10.1 nightlies now available for Nexus 4

At this point in time, ownership of Google's much sought-after Nexus 4 is still the pride of few, with most eager users stuck in delivery and ordering limbo. But for those of you who do lay claim to that unassuming slab of LG design, CyanogenMod's ready and willing to share some nightly perks. Released as a response to unofficial third party ROMs, experimental (read: unstable) builds of CM10.1 (built upon Android 4.2) are now available on the outfit's site. For now, these nightlies will be Nexus 4-only, but there are plans to open'em up to Nexus 10 owners soon. There's no word on when that final, polished 10.1 build will be ready for all Android devices, so for now, the keys to CM10.1 belong to a small group of privileged folks.

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iTunes 11 still launching this week, was delayed due to engineering issues

After its introduction during the September iPhone and iPod event, iTunes 11 was delayed from its initial October launch date to sometime in November. A more radical departure than previous updates, which included Genius Playlists and the ill-fated Ping social music network, iTunes 11 boats a new, more iOS 6 like interface, and deeper, tighter iCloud. When Apple announced the delay, they said iTunes 11 was taking longer than expected to get right. Jessica E. Lessin of The Wall Street Journal adds a little to that:

The new iTunes has been delayed a month by engineering issues that required parts to be rebuilt, according to people who have seen it.

The WSJ also believes Apple will honor their new launch window and ship iTunes 11 this week, which means tomorrow or Friday. This all comes as part of a profile of Apple senior vice president of internet services, Eddy Cue. Cue, who has traditionally had responsibility for iTunes, the iTunes Store, and the App Store, was given iCloud (then MobileMe), and more recently Maps and Siri following less than successful user experiences following their respective launches.

Services is likely the biggest challenge facing Apple in the near future, and even with Cue's reputation as "Mr. Fixit", he's got his work cut out for him.

Hopefully the extra time spent on iTunes 11 will have been well spent.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Skid & the Too Tiny Tunnel (Hardcover)
By Jeffery Stoddard

Review & Description

Skid, the littlest yellow tractor in the equipment yard, wants to be mighty like the giant bulldozers, tall cranes, and massive diggers who tower over him. But all the big machines tell him he is just a dinky tractor with a putt-putt engine. While they are busy building a new road through the mountain, Skid is left behind to take out the garbage.

When disaster strikes and a tunnel the machines are digging collapses, Pillar, the biggest bulldozer, is left trapped in the rubble. Only a small opening is left at the tunnel entrance and the only one who can fit through the opening is Skid who is afraid of the dark.

Now it's up to the tiniest tractor to save the day. Can Skid find the courage to do what he was made to do and prove that he doesn't have to be big to be mighty? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV

Read more

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Source: http://heavy-equipment-tools-home.blogspot.com/2012/11/skid-too-tiny-tunnel-hardcover.html

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Source: http://tropopause-fannie.blogspot.com/2012/11/heavy-equipment-tools-home-improvement.html

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Mix masters: Scientists image the molecular structure of polymer blends

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? Using an enhanced form of "chemical microscopy" developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), researchers there have shown that they can peer into the structure of blended polymers, resolving details of the molecular arrangement at sub-micrometer levels. The capability has important implications for the design of industrially important polymers like the polyethylene blends used to repair aging waterlines.

Polyethylene is one of the most widely produced and used polymers in the world. It's used in many familiar applications -- milk bottles, for instance -- but the NIST research is motivated by a more critical application: water pipes. Aging water infrastructure is a significant national issue. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that in the United States there are over 240,000 water main breaks per year, leaks wasting 1.7 trillion gallons of water per year, and costs to taxpayers of $2.6 billion per year.

Polyethylene pipes are one potential solution. They're relatively inexpensive to make and install, and they have negligible corrosion issues and a predicted service life of up to a century under ideal conditions. Unfortunately, current test standards do not address service life under field conditions, especially for fusion joints in the pipes. This uncertainty has slowed the use of large diameter polyethylene pipe.

The industry standard for polyethylene pipes is a blend of two different forms of the polymer, a medium-weight, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and a high molecular weight "linear low-density polyethylene" (LLDPE). Combining the two, says NIST materials scientist Young Jong Lee, dramatically improves the toughness, strength and resistance to fracture of the polymer.

The problem for quantitative service-life prediction is understanding exactly why that is. Developing the necessary predictive models has been hindered by knowing just how the HDPE and LLDPE molecules blend together. They are so close chemically that X-ray or electron imaging -- the usual go-to techniques for molecular structure -- can't readily distinguish them.

The NIST team is using a variation of Raman spectroscopy, which can distinguish different chemical species -- and measure how much of each -- by analyzing the frequencies associated with the different vibrational modes of each molecule. The exact mix of these frequencies is an extremely discriminating "fingerprint" for any particular molecule without help of fluorescence labeling. Raman spectroscopy using focused laser beams has been used as a chemical microscope, able to detail the structure of complex objects by mapping the chemical composition at each point in a three-dimensional space.

The NIST instrument, called "BCARS" (broadband coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering) microscopy, uses a pair of lasers to gather Raman data at least 10 times faster than other Raman imaging methods, a critical feature because of the vast amount of data that must be gathered to understand such highly structured blend systems. The extra trick is to substitute deuterium ("heavy hydrogen") for hydrogen atoms in the HDPE component. The deuterium strongly shifts the Raman spectrum, making it easy to distinguish the two components. By controlling the polarization of the light, the technique provides additional details on the local crystal orientation of molecules in the polymer. The images show, for example, the formation of microscopic spherical regions of partial crystallization with the LLDPE more concentrated towards the center.

"This is a fast, three-dimensional chemical imaging technique that's particularly useful for studying microstructures of polymeric materials," says Lee. The group currently is using BCARS to find the correlation between microscopic structures with characteristics of deformation and thermal fusion on polyethylene pipes.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Young Jong Lee, Chad R. Snyder, Aaron M. Forster, Marcus T. Cicerone, Wen-li Wu. Imaging the Molecular Structure of Polyethylene Blends with Broadband Coherent Raman Microscopy. ACS Macro Letters, 2012; 1 (11): 1347 DOI: 10.1021/mz300546e

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Nanotech 'second skin' could protect soldiers from chemical threats

17 hrs.

Devin Coldewey , NBC News

Advances in nanotech have allowed research into materials that actively detect and shut out harmful molecules, or even shed layers like real skin. It?could be a lifesaver for soldiers and emergency workers.

A soldier in the field has lots of protection: A helmet, flak jacket, armored panels and so on. But when it comes to chemical and biological warfare, that equipment is virtually useless. Gases and bacteria can penetrate or simply cling to soldier's garments and gear, wreaking havoc later despite being highly diffuse.

The risk can't be mitigated entirely, but polymer scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on a "second skin" made of?smart materials that would be a far more effective and sophisticated defense than we have now.

They call the fabric they're working on a "hybrid functional material," and it's made of a combination of carbon nanotubes and specially?designed nanoparticles. It's designed not just to block out unwanted agents, like poisonous gas molecules and spores, but to be normally breathable as well in less dangerous situations.

At a molecular level, the nanotubes are aligned vertically and arranged to form pores just a few nanometers wide. While ordinary air can pass through these tiny "nanopores," larger molecules and organisms like viruses simply don't fit.

There are smaller threats, however: Nerve agents and mustard gas would go right through even such tiny gaps. The nanomaterial?membrane?would be coated with "responsive functional groups," special molecules designed to respond to the presence of such deadly toxins. Activated molecules would trigger the nanopores to shut completely.

Lastly, in the case of agents that tend to stick around instead of diffusing, such as anthrax, the material will be designed to slough them?off, mimicking human skin. That way a garment exposed to infection wouldn't bring it back to, or out of, a hospital or base.

The leader of the research team is LLNL's Franceso Fornasiero, who is working closely with UMA's Kenneth Carter and James Watkins and others. They've just received a $1.8 million five-year grant to research how to manufacture these nanomaterials in bulk, and they estimate that new nano-uniforms could be in the field within 10 years.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC?News Digital. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/nanotech-second-skin-could-protect-soldiers-chemical-threats-1C7291458

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British troops in Afghanistan use 3D camera to assess wounds

Gaining expert medical?diagnoses in a war zone can be tricky, but British troops in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, are using a portable 3D imaging camera to assess the nature of war wounds received by soldiers.

The camera, made by Oxford-based medical technology firm Eykona, is designed to build a three dimensional image of a wound, and uses specially-designed software to measure the size and depth of the trauma with extreme accuracy.

The 3D model provides definitive evidence for medics to assess fresh wounds and also to understand if and how the wound is healing, allowing them to adjust the treatment plan accordingly and with far more efficiency than ever before.

Related Articles on Techworld

The images can even be shared with other doctors and clinicians through server or cloud-based hosting, in cases where a second opinion is required.

?The Eykona System proved useful in Bastion to show medical team members who were not present in the operating theatre what casualties wounds looked like before we applied dressings,? said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Jeffery, a consultant plastic surgeon who recently returned from a three month tour in Afghanistan.

The Eykona unit replaces current would analysis techniques including naked eye assessment, tracing paper and pencil, dipstick depth measurement and relatively invasive resin casts.

The device is also being used at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where military casualties are treated.

?It is often difficult to judge the size of a wound and gain an understanding of if it is healing over time. The Eykona System allows multiple objective measurements of these wounds to be carried out to track the healing progress,? said Jeffery.

Dr James Paterson, one of the inventors of the Eykona 3D imaging device, added that it is essential for medical personnel to be able to understand the exact nature of wounds inflicted by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) so as to properly determine the sort of therapy required to treat them.

?Apart from wounds received directly from IEDs, recovering military personnel may also develop ulcerations from paralysis or prosthetic limb use, all of which require long term wound care and Eykona?s technology can assist with the evaluation of these wounds,? he said.

An Eykona camera costs around ?5,000, including the software and carry case. More information can be found here.

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Video: Getting to 218 votes

>>> of the president's strategy to rally support for his plan to raise taxes on people that make over $250,000. today the president hosts small business owners, but the big event perhaps is friday. that's when the president takes his message on the road with a campaign style tour of a pennsylvania business. the goal, increase public pressure on republicans to support his plan. how speaker john boehner is pushing back. today his office released a statement saying the target of the president's rally should be the congressional democrats who want to raise tax rates on small businesses rather than cut spending. the white house in the meantime defends the public campaign and told chuck todd within the last hour it's doing all it can to strike a deal as soon as possible.

>> isn't everybody just killing time until the deadline comes?

>> no. it doesn't seem like killing time to me, chuck.

>> it's the final week and the jet fumes and people get out of school and people will hammer it out?

>> he has not waited for people to start smelling the jet fuels at a national airport . he's active ly put forward a plan.

>> another issue, how to get to the 218 votes needed to get a deal through the house if both parties are claiming a mandate. here's the challenge aaccording to our first read team. take a look. 205 house republican incumbents ran for re-election. 93% of them won. what's more, 117 of them won by getting at least 60% of the vote. in other words, house republicans were elected by a different electorate than the presidential and key senate contests. let me bring in nbc news deputy editor dominico. i thought that was a great explainer in first read, because that's what it boils down to, those numbers.

>> the house is different than the senate. the house has to deal with primaries potentially from the right. the senate, they have to be elected statewide. if you drill down even further, 88% of all of those house members won with at least 55% of the vote. so in a 55% race, it's not that close. it's a 10-point race. you're looking at maybe 20, 23 people who are elected with less than 55% of the vote. that's closer to what democrats are really trying to aim for.

>> absolutely. let's talk a little bit about what speaker boehner was saying, his reaction to the president going out, p if you will, to the people on friday. i think it's a toy factory. they make among other things the angry bird game or something. it's interesting because presidential historian doris kerns good win says he needs it to use the people like with other great presidents in our history.

>> when we heard him signal this during the campaign that he knows change doesn't come from inside washington , it comes from oulsd. i think that he signaled that early on during that fiscal cliff negotiation, if he were to get re-elected, he sees at least a little bit of leverage there, if not a mandate to be able to go and campaign outside to put pressure on house republicans who might be thinking about maybe signing onto something but not totally sure if they will. use some of that outside pressure to try to sway them to be more open

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/49983045/

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The Myth Of The Obama Cave-In | Mother Jones

Mother Jones:

With the "fiscal cliff" looming, the conventional wisdom is that the president capitulated during the last tax cut fight. Here's what really happened.

Read the whole story at Mother Jones

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Video: Top Cyber Monday deals on electronics, travel, style

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'We're lucky': Nordic land rising faster than sea

Alister Doyle / Reuters

Hans Lindberg, a 56-year-old Swede, points toward an area of reeds that has risen from the Baltic Sea, forming a land bridge to what used to be an island where he spent his summers as a child in the early 1960s.

By Reuters

LULEA, Sweden -- A Stone Age camp that used to be by the shore is now 125 miles from the Baltic Sea. Sheep graze on what was the seabed in the 15th century. And Sweden's port of Lulea risks getting too shallow for ships.

In contrast to worries from the Maldives to Manhattan of storm surges and higher ocean levels caused by climate change, the entire northern part of the Nordic region is rising and, as a result, the Baltic Sea is receding.

"In a way we're lucky," said Lena Bengten, environmental strategist at the Lulea Municipality in Sweden, pointing to damage from superstorm Sandy that killed more than 200 people from Haiti to the United States.

The uplift of almost 0.4 inches a year, one of the highest rates in the world, is part of a continuing geological rebound since the end of the Ice Age removed a vast ice sheet from regions around the Arctic Circle.

As sea levels rise, Kiribati eyes 6,000 acres in Fiji as new home

"It's a bit like a foam-rubber mattress. It takes a while to return to normal after you get up," said Martin Vermeer, a professor of geodesy at Aalto University in Finland. Finland gains 2.7 sq miles a year as the land rises.

In the Lulea region just south of the Arctic Circle, mostly flat with pine forests and where the sea freezes in winter, tracts of land have emerged, leaving some Stone Age, Viking and medieval sites inland.

That puts human settlements gradually out of harm's way from sea flooding, unlike low-lying islands from Tuvalu to Kiribati or cities from New York to Shanghai. Facebook is investing in a new data center in Lulea on land that was once on the seabed.

A recent study published in the journal 'Nature' suggests the U.S. may experience a 5 ft. rise in sea level given all of the fossil fuel that has already been burned. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

But rising land also means costs. Lulea is planning to deepen its port by 2020 to let in bigger ships and offset land rise at a cost of 1.6 billion Swedish crowns ($237.86 million).

"Even if we didn't have the ambition to have larger ships we would still have to do it on a smaller scale just to compensate for the land rise," said Roger Danell, head of the port.

Alister Doyle / Reuters

A view of the Swedish Baltic Sea port of Lulea Nov. 14, 2012.

Shallower port
Dredging just for existing ships would cost $60.46 million as the water gets shallower at the port that was last deepened in the 1970s, construction manager Jeanette Lestander said. Main exports are iron ore and the main import is coal.

But a projected rise in sea levels due to global warming means dredging to offset land rise for the next 40 years will be slightly less than in the 1970s.

Splits between rich, poor nations persist as climate talks open in Doha

"The rate of sea-level fall will be slowing," Lestander said during a visit to the port. The future sea fall is estimated at 0.28 inches a year from 0.35 inches.

In the north of Sweden, 125 miles inland and 558 feet above current sea level, archaeologists recently found a 10,700 year-old Stone Age hunters' camp near Pajala that was originally by the Ancylus Lake, the forerunner of the Baltic Sea.

"We carbon-dated burnt bones from a fireplace," archaeologist Olof Ostlund at the Norrbottens museum said. The hunters would have been near the retreating ice sheet that was once 1.9 miles thick.

In the past century, as the climate has warmed, sea level rise has accelerated. Scientists predict it will only increase, and they're studying changes in the ocean and land to better understand how and why the water is rising. NBC's Anne Thompson reports for "Changing Planet," produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Activists hope storm-struck US will deliver at Doha climate talks

Experts examined sediments that showed the camp was on the shore of the former giant lake, briefly isolated from the North Sea by land uplift in the south before breaking through again.

Lulea's old town, with a 15th century church and bright red-painted wooden houses, was originally built on an island for safety when it was as an outpost of the then Swedish-Finnish Kingdom to counter Russian influence near the Arctic Circle.

Now the village is high and dry, out of sight of the sea. Sheep graze on a field in what used to be the port. In one spot, Sweden's coastline has risen about 984 feet since the Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago.

Water receding after Biblical flood?
The falling water level puzzled people for generations. Some Christians believed it was caused by still-receding waters after the Biblical story of Noah who built an Ark to rescue the world's animals from a God-sent flood.

Elsewhere in the world, many nations are worried by potential costs if sea levels rise in line with scenarios by the U.N. panel of climate scientists for a gain of 7-24 inches this century after 6.7 inches in the last century.

The panel says that rising temperatures, caused by emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, are the cause.

The U.N. projection excludes the possibility of an acceleration of the melt of Greenland and Antarctica, because that is uncertain.

Even so, many experts expect a quickening thaw and say that sea levels could rise in total by 3.3 feet this century.

Experts say human-produced carbon dioxide is playing a big role in the warming of the atmosphere, which is having a major effect on the world's oceans. Warmer oceans results in rising sea levels and more powerful hurricanes ? but reversing the effects of global warming could take decades. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.

Ice melt found across 97 percent of Greenland, satellites show

Near Lulea, local resident Hans Lindberg, 56, looks out of the wooden seaside cabin that his parents built in 1960 toward what was then the island of Kalkholmen a few hundred yards away.

"We could look out from here and only see the sea," he said, pointing to a muddy bank where reeds are growing and linking the island to the mainland. Residents of the former island say they fear the link may bring unwanted visitors -- perhaps burglars.

Alister Doyle / Reuters

Lindberg shows a family photo from the early 1960s of two girls playing in a sandpit that used to be at his parents' summer cottage near Lulea.

"You can walk to the island now. When I was young my father had a heavy boat that we could pull through the shallow part of the channel. That's now impossible," he said.

As evidence of the change, he shows a faded album with a black and white photo of two young girls -- his sister and cousin -- playing in a sandpit in the 1960s by the cabin.?It shows an open sea with no sign of the muddy causeway.

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High Carb Diets Newly Linked With Higher Colorectal Cancer ...

By Curt Pesman

Low-carb (and lower sugar) diets may soon look a lot better to colorectal cancer survivors. In a recent data-rich study of more than 1000 stage III colon cancer survivors, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that those who consistently ate a high-carbohydrate, sugar-laden diet appeared to have markedly higher recurrence rates of their disease than patients whose diets were more varied and contained less-sugar. The results were published in the Nov. 7 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The main finding after surveying and following 1,011 patients during and 6 months after chemotherapy? That those who reported having the highest dietary levels of carbohydrate intake (and related glycemic load) also had an 80 percent increased risk of colon cancer recurrence or death compared with those who had the lowest carb diets.

?But because cancer patients (and health-minded others) are advised not to make a nutritional or lifestyle change based on just one research study or peer-reviewed journal article, it?s worth noting that in the Feb. 7^th issue of Nature, doctors from the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) argued that sugar effects are so detrimental that the substance should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco to protect consumers? health.?

Robert H. Lustig, M.D., professor of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at UCSF, and colleagues stated that beyond fueling a global obesity problem, sugar in all forms contributes to 35 million deaths annually worldwide due to diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

So how might excess sugar and high-carbohydrate diets lead to the formation of rogue cancer cells? ?In light of our and other?s research, we theorize that factors including a high glycemic load [resulting in excess glucose or sugar byproduct throughout the bloodstream] may stimulate the body?s production of insulin,? Jeffrey Meyerhardt, M.D., M.P.H., of Dana-Farber, said. In turn, this ?may increase the proliferation of cells and prevent the natural cell-death process in cancer cells that have metastasized from their original site.?

Dr. Meyerhardt noted that the Dana-Farber study doesn?t prove that high-carb, high glycemic diets cause recurrence of colon cancer. But the strong association between high glycemic load and higher recurrence rates?especially in obese patients? strongly suggests that these dietary factors do play a role. ?Our findings may offer useful guidance for patients and physicians in ways of improving patient survival after treatment.?

Sources: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published online Nov. 7, 2012?, ?and Nature 482, 27?29 (02 February 2012)

Source: http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/research_news/2012/11/high_carb_diets_newly_linked_with_higher_colorectal_cancer_recurrence

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ComScore: Black Friday online spending rings in at a record $1.04 billion

Considering the parody-worthy dangers of America's busiest shopping day, it's no surprise to hear that online consumerism is on the rise. According to ComScore, 57.3 million Americans took their wallets to digital storefronts on Black Friday, spending a record $1.04 billion in the process. "With Black Friday online sales up 26 percent and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8 percent, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon," stated ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. The organization also noted that digital content sales are on the rise, too, citing a 29 percent increase in the category over the same period last year. Finally, Fulgoni projected Cyber Monday sales in excess of $1.5 billion, based on observations culled from the years past. Read on for ComScore's official numbers.

Continue reading ComScore: Black Friday online spending rings in at a record $1.04 billion

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Report ? Importance of Effective Business Communication at ...

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SEO and Internet Marketing: The Top 10 Rules In Link Popularity ...

The time period "hyperlink popularity" refers to a web sites online visibility and the variety of hyperlinks the various search engines can find pointing to a website. The introduction of hyperlink popularity metrics helped the various search engines to control spam by shifting their rating algorithm from purely on-web page elements to off-web page elements corresponding to counting inbound links.

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Hacking For The Sake Of It: ?Eboz? Downed Google, Apple, 300 Other Pakistani Sites, And Many More Just To Show It Can?

Pakistan's internet-using population were slammed today with a systematic take-down of local versions of some of the world's biggest names in tech, and several hours after first going down, Google.pk, Google.com.pk, Yahoo.pk, Apple.pk, Microsoft.pk still do not appear to be working. In all,?it appears that?279 other sites?in Pakistan were hacked by a group that appears to be Turkish and calls itself Eboz. Little else is known about Eboz, but it appears that Eboz has been hacking into many other sites, with Pakistan merely today's target.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-od6YDXwKZY/

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Patriots feast on Jets

AP

The man with the biggest talk and the biggest television set in Texas said he didn?t think his coach has ?lost the team,? but it?s clear Jerry Jones isn?t happy with the way things have gone.

After yesterday?s 38-31 loss to the Redskins, which dropped them to 5-6 and marked the fourth straight home game they?ve trailed by double digits, Jones made it clear he expects success.

?That would be real difficult right now because you would have to point to things like comebacks, and that?s hollow when you are not winning the game,? Jones said, via Tim McMahon of ESPNDallas.com. ?Or last week, we win one [against the Browns] and we have to come back to win it, but we don?t win it playing well. So that?s hollow right now.?

Talk of coach Jason Garrett?s future is valid, not just because he?s the coach of the Cowboys, but because he?s 18-17 as a head coach.

?I don?t want to be talking about looking through,? Jones said. ?Our expectations were to compete for the playoffs and then whatever else we can get when you get there, compete for. We know you?ve got to be playing well when you get there.

?We?ve had some setbacks on some injuries, but that?s not the difference out here right now at all.?

The Cowboys have already been linked to a pair of big-fish names already (Sean Payton and Mike Holmgren) and that talk isn?t going to slow down until or unless they string together some wins.

?Yeah, I expect success,? Jones said when asked if a lack of success could force him to consider changes this offseason. ?Now, I don?t have any implied or anything that I?ve said, ?Success, a level of success, or else.? I?m not going there and haven?t ? and haven?t gone there in my mind.

?I expected to come in here and win today. And I expected to win again and to win again. Under those circumstances, you don?t have to think about those things.?

OK, then. Happy Thanksgiving Jason.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/22/pats-keep-humming-with-49-14-win-over-jets/related/

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Scientists describe elusive replication machinery of flu viruses

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2012) ? Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a major advance in understanding how flu viruses replicate within infected cells. The researchers used cutting-edge molecular biology and electron-microscopy techniques to "see" one of influenza's essential protein complexes in unprecedented detail. The images generated in the study show flu virus proteins in the act of self-replication, highlighting the virus's vulnerabilities that are sure to be of interest to drug developers.

The report, which appears online in Science Express on November 22, 2012, focuses on influenza's ribonucleoprotein (RNP). RNPs contain the virus's genetic material plus the special enzyme that the virus needs to make copies of itself.

"Structural studies in this area had stalled because of the technical obstacles involved, and so this is a welcome advance," said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI and senior author of the report with TSRI Professors of Cell Biology Bridget Carragher and Clint Potter. "The data from this study give us a much clearer picture of the flu virus replication machinery."

Unveiling the Mystery of RNPs

At the core of any influenza virus lie eight RNPs, tiny molecular machines that are vital to the virus's ability to survive and spread in its hosts. Each RNP contains a segment -- usually a single protein-coding gene -- of the RNA-based viral genome. This viral RNA segment is coated with protective viral nucleoproteins and has a structure that resembles a twisted loop of chain. The free ends of this twisted loop are held by a flu-virus polymerase enzyme, which handles the two central tasks of viral reproduction: making new viral genomic RNA, and making the RNA gene-transcripts that will become new viral proteins.

Aside from its importance in ordinary infections, the flu polymerase contains some of the key "species barriers" that keep, for example, avian flu viruses from infecting mammals. Mutations at key points on the enzyme have enabled the virus to infect new species in the past. Thus researchers are eager to know the precise details of how the flu polymerase and the rest of the RNP interact.

Getting those details has been a real challenge. One reason is that flu RNPs are complex assemblies that are hard to produce efficiently in the lab. Flu polymerase genes are particularly resistant to being expressed in test cells, and their protein products exist in three separate pieces, or subunits, that have to somehow self-assemble. Until now, the only flu RNPs that have been reproduced in the laboratory are shortened versions whose structures aren't quite the same as those of native flu RNPs. Researchers also are limited in how much virus they can use for such studies.

The team nevertheless managed to develop a test-cell expression system that produced all of the protein and RNA components needed to make full-length flu RNPs. "We were able to get the cells to assemble these components properly so that we had working, self-replicating RNPs," said Robert N. Kirchdoerfer, a first author of the study. Kirchdoerfer was a PhD candidate in the Wilson laboratory during the study, and is now a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of TSRI Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire.

Kirchdoerfer eventually purified enough of these flu RNPs for electron microscope analysis at TSRI's Automated Molecular Imaging Group, which is run jointly by Carragher and Potter.

Never Seen Before

The imaging group's innovations enable researchers to analyze molecular samples more easily, in less time, and often with less starting material. "We were able, for example, to automatically collect data for several days in a row, which is unusual in electron microscopy work," said Arne Moeller, a postdoctoral research associate at the imaging group who was the other first author of the study.

Electron microscopes make high-resolution images of their tiny targets by hitting them with electrons rather than photons of light. The images revealed numerous well-defined RNP complexes. To Moeller and his colleagues' surprise, many of these appeared to have new, partial RNPs growing out of them. "They were branching -- this was very exciting," he said.

"Essentially these were snapshots of flu RNPs being replicated, which had never been seen before," said Kirchdoerfer. These and other data, built up from images of tens of thousands of individual RNPs, allowed the team to put together the most complete model yet for flu-RNP structure and functions. The model includes details of how the viral polymerase binds to its RNA, how it accomplishes the tricky task of viral gene transcription, and how a separate copy of the viral polymerase assists in carrying out RNP replication. "We're now able to take a lot of what we knew before about flu virus RNP and map it onto specific parts of the RNP structure," said Kirchdoerfer.

The new flu RNP model highlights some viral weak points. One is a shape-change that a polymerase subunit -- which grabs viral RNA and feeds it to the polymerase's active site on a second subunit -- has to undergo during viral gene transcription. Another is key interaction between the polymerase and viral nucleoproteins. Flu RNPs are long and flexible, curving and bending in electron microscope images; and thus the structural model remains only modestly fine-grained. "You wouldn't be able to design drugs based on this model alone," said Kirchdoerfer, "but we now have a much better idea of how flu RNPs work, and that does suggest some possibilities for better flu drugs."

The study, "Organization of the Influenza Virus Replication Machinery," was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (AI058113, GM095573) and the Joint Center for Innovation in Membrane Protein Production for Structure Determination (P50GM073197). TSRI's Automated Molecular Imaging Group includes the National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources (2P41RR017573-11) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Biomedical Technology Resource Centers (9 P41 GM103310-11).

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Aussie carrier Telstra publishes new update schedule

Australian network operator Telstra has published an announcement on the status of software updates for some of its major Android handsets, including the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Nexus. Many handsets can look forward to receiving ICS or Jelly Bean updates before the end of the year, however some have slipped into early 2013.

Here's a breakdown of what Telstra customers can expect in the weeks ahead --

• Galaxy S2 4G - Ice Cream Sandwich update expected Dec. 10
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Jelly Bean (4.1) expected to be approved in December. Availability TBC.
• HTC One XL - Jelly Bean (4.1) expected to land before end of year.
• HTC One S - Jelly Bean (4.1) due in early 2013.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 - "Showstopper" bug uncovered in testing the Jelly Bean (4.1) firmware means this update isn't expected before early 2013.
• Sony Xperia U - ICS update to launch Dec. 17.
• Motorola RAZR HD - Jelly Bean (4.1) update expected Dec. 17.
• Motorola RAZR M - Jelly Bean (4.1) update expected Feb. 8, 2013.

Many of these updates lag behind the international versions of these handsets -- for example, the international Galaxy S3 got Jelly Bean over a month ago, while the Galaxy Nexus is already on Android 4.2 in other territories. In any case, hopefully Aussies can take solace in the fact that update schedules are available to them -- that's more than many other carriers offer.

Source: Telstra, via: Ausdroid

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/siUMwmUwhoA/story01.htm

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