Jean Soriano, 18, has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in a southern Nevada crash that killed five members of a California family and injured the suspect and three other people.
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By Martin Griffith, The Associated Press
Five members of a Southern California family were killed in southern Nevada when their van was rear-ended by an 18-year-old driver who was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, authorities said.
The five dead were among seven family members who were in the van, authorities said. The other two ? the 40-year-old female driver and a 15-year-old boy ? were hospitalized in critical condition.
The van was carrying a couple, their children and some aunts and uncles, he said. Killed were three men in their 40s, a teenage female and an adult female.???
Jean Soriano of California was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Loy Hixson said.
The crash happened at about 3 a.m. Saturday on Interstate 15 near the Utah line. Soriano's sport utility vehicle struck the van from behind, causing both vehicles to spin out of control and roll near Mesquite, some 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, investigators said.
A 23-year-old passenger in Soriano's SUV was treated at the hospital and released.
Authorities believe Soriano was returning from a visit with family in Utah to his home in California at the time of the wreck, Hixson said. They didn't immediately release his hometown or the names or hometowns of the victims.
Beer bottles were found in the SUV, Hixson said, and troopers performed a blood-alcohol test on Soriano at the hospital. The results won't be known for a couple of weeks, he said.
Hixson said only two of the seven people in the van were wearing seat belts. The five who were not buckled in were ejected, but one survived.
"Unfortunately, so many in the van weren't wearing seat belts, and some might have survived had they been wearing them," Hixson said. "We see it so many times where people can survive simply by having a seat belt on."
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? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will visit his long-time foe South Sudan for the first time since its independence next week, an official said on Friday, cementing new deals on oil and border security between the two countries.
The African neighbours agreed this month to resume cross-border oil flows and defuse tensions that have plagued them since South Sudan seceded in July 2011 following an agreement which ended decades of civil war.
Bashir had originally planned to visit Juba a year ago but canceled the trip when border skirmishes between the countries' armies in April brought them close to a full-blown conflict.
He has now accepted an invitation from his southern counterpart Salva Kiir to go to South Sudan's capital Juba next week, Bashir's spokesman Imad Said told Reuters. He gave no date.
The two countries went their separate ways without resolving a long list of disputes over the ownership of disputed territory, the legal status of each others' citizens and how much the landlocked south should pay to transport its oil through Sudan.
Juba shut down its entire oil output of 350,000 barrels a day in January last year at the height of the dispute over pipeline fees - a closure that had a devastating effect on both struggling economies.
Under the new deals, both sides agreed to restart the oil flow, grant their citizens free residency in the other country, boost border trade and encourage close cooperation between their central banks.
They also withdrew their troops from their shared border as agreed in a deal brokered by the African Union in September.
Both sides still need to decide on who owns Abyei and other disputed regions.
Bashir last visited Juba on July 9, 2011 to attend the ceremony marking South Sudan's separation.
Around two million died in the decades-long civil war between Khartoum and Sudan's south, fueled by religion, oil, ethnicity and ideology. It ended in a 2005 peace deal that paved the way for the southern secession.
Electric cigarettes might possibly be the safest replacement of the smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes has many health threats similar to cancer. Cigarette smoking is actually addictive habit and most folks who have tried to give up cigarettes didn?t work advertising online. Now a new electronic cigarette ended up being developed that needs to all chain smokers to stop. An electric cigarette is usually called an e-cigarette or electronic cigarette. It will be the Best Method of not using tobacco when all the other attempts have failed. An electronic cigarette resembles swimming pool is important of the traditional cigarette.
It includes a liquid within which vaporizes with heat and produces the issue of a traditional cigarette. The fluid within is addressed as an e-liquid. The consumer experiences the first feeling of traditional smoking without the harmful effects.
A huge variety of known as would finally be obtainable in marketplace like the 510 ecigarette the actual functioning of all of the the product is comparable to. An e-cigarette has three parts; a mouthpiece associated with a cartridge containing the e-liquid, heating unit plus a rechargeable battery. The cigarette heats up a power which heats the e-liquid. The fluid then vaporizes producing nicotine vapours which provide the conventional smoking experience. The consumer inhales the nicotine vapours while using mouthpiece from the device. Some people who smoke the e-cigarette think that the aroma and flavour looks like that of a traditional cigarette. Safety from credit card won?t be able to even tell the difference.
Resulting from its increasing popularity, many companies have started production electronic Cigarette. These vary in design and value. With variations in design, there?s also a huge variety of flavours in your consumer to choose from. Available flavours include vanilla, coffee, chocolate, strawberry and in some cases the more common tobacco flavour. Also, different e-liquids can also be found. These vary in strength of nicotine content. Some are low whilst others are sturdy. However this is all impacted by a choice of your specific. Most smokers have said quite possibly place to control simply how much nicotine they smoke considering the e-liquid. This will assist to managing and managing their nicotine addiction. It can be becoming public knowledge those funds used on electric powered smokes is considerably below what that allocated to the standard tobacco cigarettes. The cartridges containing the e-liquid would be refilled easily. Nicotine refills replace the purchasing of cigarettes. One refill is one of the just like a pack of traditional cigarettes. The price tag range depends on a variety of brands available in the market.
{If you need to get the electronic cigarettes, it is best that you study the market industry for all kinds of brands available. It is a sensible way forawrd to compare the prices and styles associated with business. You can actually easily have the ideal e-cigarette for your self by comparing brides. Always remember the cost of the earliest starter kits, nicotine refills, different flavours and the strength if e-liquids. Purchase a digital cigarette now and save your self, others you deal with and the environment via the damages of a cigarettes cigarette. The electric cigarette will never harm people around you by the risk of passive smoking.
The spring iOS and OS X developer and designer conference season is in full swing and this year more the schedule looks jam packed.
NSConf has already wrapped up in Leicester, England, where it sounds like a good time was had by all. Run by Steve Scott, and with presenters like Evan Doll, Michael Jurewitz, Craig Hockenberry, Daniel Jalkut, Daniel Pasco, Manton Reece, Rob Rhyne, and Emily Loop, that was never in any doubt. Hopefully the sessions will be available soon.
If you missed it though, there are several more coming our way soon.
?ll - April 12-18, Dublin, Ireland - is run by Paul Campbell of Hypertiny abd Dermot Daly of Tapadoo. This year's slate of speakers includes Lex Friedman, Don Melton, Jennifer Brook, Matthew Panzarino, Jaimee Newberry, Matt Gemmel, and panels with Dave Wiskus, Neven Mrgan and Jim Dalrymple.
NSNorth - April 19-21, Ottawa, Canada - is being held by Dan Byers and Philippe Casgrain. Speakers lined up include Guy English, Luc Vandal, Sam Vermette, Rob Rhyne, Gus Mueller, Caroline Sauve, and more.
One more thing - May 24, Melbourne, Australia - is put on by Anthony Agius and Lauren Watson of MacTalk. Speakers include Lex Friedman, Jaimee Newberry, Dave Wiskus, Louise Duncan, and many more.
And, of course, Apple should be capping it all off in June with WWDC 2013...
All of the events have lots of valuable information to share and many of them still have tickets available. So, head on over and grab yours now.
(If I missed listing your event let me know ASAP and I'll add it in.)
In a predictably insane but still unsettling development, North Korea has declared its interest in showering the US mainland with missiles. The bluster comes on the heels of an American stealth bomber show of force, and is largely just posturing. More »
Mar. 28, 2013 ? Marital conflict is a significant source of environmental stress for children, and witnessing such conflict may harm children's stress response systems which, in turn, may affect their mental and intellectual development.
These conclusions come from a new study by researchers at Auburn University and the Catholic University of America. The study appears in the journal Child Development.
Researchers looked at 251 children from a variety of backgrounds who lived in two-parent homes. The children reported on their exposure to marital conflict when they were 8, providing information on the frequency, intensity, and lack of resolution of conflicts between their parents. The study gauged how children's stress response system functioned by measuring respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of activity in the parasympathetic branch of the body's stress response system. RSA has been linked to the ability to regulate attention and emotion. Children's ability to rapidly solve problems and quickly see patterns in new information also was measured at ages 8, 9, and 10.
Children who witnessed more marital conflict at age 8 showed less adaptive RSA reactivity at 9, but this was true only for children who had lower resting RSA. In addition, children with lower baseline RSA whose stress response systems were also less adaptive developed mental and intellectual ability more slowly.
"The findings provide further evidence that stress affects the development of the body's stress response systems that help regulate attention, and that how these systems work is tied to the development of cognitive ability," explains J. Benjamin Hinnant, assistant professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America and one of the researchers.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Research in Child Development, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
J. Benjamin Hinnant, Mona El-Sheikh, Margaret Keiley, Joseph A. Buckhalt. Marital Conflict, Allostatic Load, and the Development of Children's Fluid Cognitive Performance. Child Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12103
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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.
The market for kosher products is surging ? driven by growing interest among non-Jews ? and with it interest in making kosher cooking more upscale.?
By Christa Case Bryant,?Staff writer / March 25, 2013
Chef Yochanan Lambiase, who in 2004 established the world's first kosher culinary institute, explains what to look for in a fish at a shop in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market.
Christa Case Bryant / The Christian Science Monitor
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The press of humanity at Jerusalem?s Machane Yehuda market just might cause the uninitiated visitor to do a face-plant in a heap of eggplants.
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Jerusalem bureau chief
Christa Case Bryant is The Christian Science Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, providing coverage on Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as regional issues.
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On the eve of Passover, which begins in Israel with tonight?s traditional seder meal, the?shuk?is jammed with everyone from hippie tourists to religious Jews with black hats and tight side curls. Amid the shouts of vendors and the swish of plastic bags, the ultra-Orthodox and ultra-modern jockey for everything from live fish to fresh garlic stalks to rich Israeli cheese and artisan breads. Nearly everything (except the bread) is labeled ?Kosher for Passover.?
?It?s the new and old noodling together. I love the feel of the past and the progression of the future,? says Yochanan Lambiase, a fifth-generation chef who fairly glides through the aisles of Machane Yehuda as he explores the magnificent palette with a small group of journalists. ?That?s very much Israeli society.??
While most of the shoppers here are Jewish, it?s no longer just Jews who are buying food grown and packaged in accordance with Jewish law, especially in North America.
Vegetarians, vegans, Hindus, Seventh-Day Adventists, and even Muslims have been increasingly choosing kosher products, driving a 64 percent growth in the US kosher market from 2003 to 2008, when it was estimated to be worth $12.5 billion. Since then the increase has been more gradual, but kosher foods remain one of the most steadily growing sectors of the expanding ethnic food market in North America, according to a March 2012 Agri-Trade Service report.?
?I feel the kosher food industry has reached a pinnacle, and now we have to move it into the 21st?century,? says chef Lambiase, who established the world?s first kosher culinary institute in the world here in Jerusalem in 2004 and is co-launching a new tour of the Mahane Yehuda market with?guide Cliff Churgin.
Mr. Lambiase sees himself as a pioneer of sorts. He was raised in a secular British home, and his kosher career was sparked by a love of cooking rather than of Jewish law, which forbids the consumption of pork and shellfish; requires that meat and dairy dishes be kept separate; and has strict rules governing the slaughter of animals.
But he quickly became drawn in by the religious aspects. ?Kosher isn?t anything to do with physical health, it has to do with spiritual health,? says Lambiase, who follows the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic branch of Judaism.?Today, he sees other newly observant Jews as playing a role in bringing kosher food to the gastronomic attention of the world.
?I think there?s been a huge revival in Jewish religiosity over the past 10 years and ? Jewish people normally know what good food is and they?re not going to take [their non-Jewish friends] out for gefilte fish.??
He heads back to his culinary institute, journalists in tow. We are more adept with our pens than with chef's knives, but he and fellow kosher chef Zev Beck are patient.
Despite the cilantro flying, tomatoes squirting on chef Beck?s jeans, and a stray garlic bulb rolling under the stainless-steel tables, after a couple of hours the rich aroma of fresh bread,?shakshoukas?(poached eggs in a spicy tomato base), and broiled eggplants garnished with homemade tahina wafts through the school.
If Lambiase and Mr. Beck can teach even journalists to be kosher cooks, their prospects for expanding the global ranks of kosher chefs look promising.
Mar. 27, 2013 ? A revolutionary atmospheric-pressure plasma boosts adhesion of polymer films for roll-to-roll solar-cell production.
Mass manufacture of photovoltaic materials is often achieved inexpensively by screen printing organic solar cells onto plastic sheets. The polymer known as poly(ethylene terephthalate), or PET, is a key part of the technology. Well known as the inexpensive plastic used to make soda bottles, PET has garnered increasing use as an optoelectronic substrate because of its strength and flexibility. But printing conductive solar-cell coatings onto PET is a challenge: it has a non-reactive surface and is frequently contaminated with static electric charges, which makes adhesion to other materials difficult.
Linda Wu from the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and co-workers have now devised an innovative plasma treatment to 'activate' PET surfaces for improved bonding during roll-to-roll processing1. The team's experiments with 'diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge' (DCSBD) technology show that large-area PET sheets can be microscopically abraded and chemically modified to increase surface adhesion nearly instantaneously, thanks to plasma ions generated under open-air conditions.
Plasma treatments can quickly clean the surfaces of PET and other plastics2 without affecting their underlying properties or appearance. Normally, this technology requires clean rooms and vacuum chambers to turn noble gases into polymer-scrubbing plasma ions. The DCSBD technique, on the other hand, operates at atmospheric pressure and generates its plasma from ordinary air molecules. It achieves this through an inventive system of parallel, strip-like electrodes embedded inside an alumina ceramic plate. Applying a high-frequency, high-voltage electric field to these strips produces a thin and very uniform plasma field from ambient gases close to the ceramic plate (see image). The planar arrangement of this device makes it simple to treat only the top of the substrate using DCSBD in roll-to-roll lines.
When the researchers treated a PET substrate with a DCSBD plasma source, they saw immediate changes to the polymer surface: single-second plasma exposure times were sufficient to transform it from a water-repellent to a water-attractive surface. These modifications occurred uniformly over the entire PET substrate and provided improved adhesion power that lasted for more than 300 hours. X-ray and atomic force microscopy revealed that the short plasma bursts increased the proportion of surface polar groups and significantly enhanced microscale roughness.
Wu notes that the DCSBD technology is safe to touch, easy to operate, and can be deployed in humid and dusty industrial environments. The team is currently investigating if the high power densities present in these atmospheric plasmas can be exploited for future nanomaterial deposition applications.
The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
Tom?? Homola, Jind?ich Matou?ek, Be?ta Hergelov?, Martin Kormunda, Linda Y.L. Wu, Mirko ?ern?k. Activation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) surfaces by atmospheric pressure plasma. Polymer Degradation and Stability, 2012; 97 (11): 2249 DOI: 10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2012.08.001
Tom?? Homola, Jind?ich Matou?ek, Be?ta Hergelov?, Martin Kormunda, Linda Y.L. Wu, Mirko ?ern?k. Activation of poly(methyl methacrylate) surfaces by atmospheric pressure plasma. Polymer Degradation and Stability, 2012; 97 (6): 886 DOI: 10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2012.03.029
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.
NEW YORK (AP) ? A huge international effort involving more than 100 institutions and genetic tests on 200,000 people has uncovered dozens of signposts in DNA that can help reveal further a person's risk for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer, scientists reported Wednesday.
It's the latest mega-collaboration to learn more about the intricate mechanisms that lead to cancer. And while the headway seems significant in many ways, the potential payoff for ordinary people is mostly this: Someday there may be genetic tests that help identify women with the most to gain from mammograms, and men who could benefit most from PSA tests and prostate biopsies.
And perhaps farther in the future these genetic clues might lead to new treatments.
"This adds another piece to the puzzle," said Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research U.K., the charity which funded much of the research.
One analysis suggests that among men whose family history gives them roughly a 20 percent lifetime risk for prostate cancer, such genetic markers could identify those whose real risk is 60 percent.
The markers also could make a difference for women with BRCA gene mutations, which puts them at high risk for breast cancer. Researchers may be able to separate those whose lifetime risk exceeds 80 percent from women whose risk is about 20 to 50 percent. One doctor said that might mean some women would choose to monitor for cancer rather than taking the drastic step of having healthy breasts removed.
Scientists have found risk markers for the three diseases before, but the new trove doubles the known list, said one author, Douglas Easton of Cambridge University. The discoveries also reveal clues about the biological underpinnings of these cancers, which may pay off someday in better therapies, he said.
Experts not connected with the work said it was encouraging but that more research is needed to see how useful it would be for guiding patient care. One suggested that using a gene test along with PSA testing and other factors might help determine which men have enough risk of a life-threatening prostate cancer that they should get a biopsy. Many prostate cancers found early are slow-growing and won't be fatal, but there is no way to differentiate and many men have surgery they may not need.
Easton said the prospects for a genetic test are greater for prostate and breast cancer than ovarian cancer.
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide, with more than 1 million new cases a year. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer, with about 900,000 new cases every year. Ovarian cancer accounts for about 4 percent of all cancers diagnosed in women, causing about 225,000 cases worldwide.
The new results were released in 13 reports in Nature Genetics, PLOS Genetics and other journals. They come from a collaboration involving more than 130 institutions in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. The research was mainly paid for by Cancer Research U.K., the European Union and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Scientists used scans of DNA from more than 200,000 people to seek the markers, tiny variations in the 3 billion "letters" of the DNA code that are associated with disease risk.
The scientists found 49 new risk markers for breast cancer plus a couple of others that modify breast cancer risk from rare mutated genes, 26 for prostate cancer and eight for ovarian cancer. Individually, each marker has only a slight impact on risk estimation, too small to be useful on its own, Easton said. They would be combined and added to previously known markers to help reveal a person's risk, he said.
A genetic test could be useful in identifying people who should get mammography or PSA testing, said Hilary Burton, director of the PHG Foundation, a genomics think-tank in Cambridge, England. A mathematical analysis done by her group found that under certain assumptions, a gene test using all known markers could reduce the number of mammograms and PSA tests by around 20 percent, with only a small cost in cancer cases missed.
Among the new findings:
? For breast cancer, researchers calculated that by using all known markers, including the new ones, they could identify 5 percent of the female population with twice the average risk of disease, and 1 percent with a three-fold risk. The average lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is about 12 percent in developed countries. It's lower in the developing world where other diseases are a bigger problem.
? For prostate cancer, using all the known markers could identify 1 percent of men with nearly five times the average risk, the researchers computed. In developed countries, a man's average lifetime risk for the disease is about 14 to 16 percent, lower in developing nations.
?Markers can also make a difference in estimates of breast cancer risk for women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations. Such women are rare, but their lifetime risk can run as high as 85 percent. Researchers said that with the new biomarkers, it might be possible to identify the small group of these women with a risk of 28 percent or less.
For patients like Vicki Gilbert of England, who carries a variation of the BRCA1 gene, having such details about her cancer risk would have made decision-making easier.
Gilbert, 50, found out about her genetic risk after being diagnosed with the disease in 2009. Though doctors said the gene wouldn't change the kind of chemotherapy she got, they suggested removing her ovaries to avoid ovarian cancer, which is also made more likely by a mutated BRCA1.
"They didn't want to express a definite opinion on whether I should have my ovaries removed so I had to weigh up my options for myself," said Gilbert, a veterinary receptionist in Wiltshire. "...I decided to have my ovaries removed because that takes away the fear it could happen. It certainly would have been nice to have more information to know that was the right choice."
Gilbert said knowing more about the genetic risks of cancer should be reassuring for most patients. "There are so many decisions made for you when you go through cancer treatment that being able to decide something yourself is very important," she said.
Dr. Charis Eng, chair of the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, who didn't participate in the new work, called the breast cancer research exciting but not ready for routine use.
Most women who carry a BRCA gene choose intensive surveillance with both mammograms and MRI and some choose to have their breasts removed to prevent the disease, she said. Even the lower risk described by the new research is worrisomely high, and might not persuade a woman to avoid such precautions completely, Eng said.
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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report from London.
This article aims to provide valuable information that will help small business owners to leverage the benefits of launching their business online. Is it really easy for them to handle their business and online stuff together? Well? I would say it?s not that easy, though it?s not that much harder as well!
Starting a local business and expecting local customers from offline marketing techniques like word of mouth publicity, local daily ads and other offline stuff is understandable but running your business online and targeting customers and sales on the web is another thing and it requires special tactics. I am going to explain some of those tactics in this article that will give you immense knowledge, confidence and determination to get started with your business online.
Steps to put your business online:
The foremost step is to have a neat and clean website depicting your business specifications and services. Many a times I have seen people giving not much preference to the design of the website and that results in a shady image online. You can easily find information regarding how to create a website on Google. I would suggest that you hire a web designer to do that task for you. Just book a nice domain name for your website and book a hosting space from a credible hosting provider. This is a simple and common thing which many small business owners do not tend to focus on ? so make sure you get your basics right.
Once your website is ready online, let?s get started with local SEO or in other words, local promotion within and nearby your area. To begin with, create an account on Google Places to list your business online. You can visit www.google.com/placesand sign in with your Gmail account details.
Once you are on the listing page, you will need to enter information like company name, address, website URL, phone numbers and other things. Make sure you enter all the information correctly. Google will then verify your information through a telephone call before creating map listing of your company. This process may take couple of weeks. You can also do a basic yahoo directory listing as per your category and?geographic location.
Once placement of your business on Google Places is done, it is your job to encourage your current customers to take out some time to visit your Google Places profile and provide honest reviews about your products and services. A Google Places account with customer reviews stands ahead of your competitors and also instills a sense of credibility and reliability in new potential customers.
The next step is to collate a list of local business websites wherein you can enter your company details. Some useful local business websites can be Yellow Pages, Craigslist, SuperPages, Insider Pages, and others. These websites will help spread your company?s presence online. Make sure you are mentioning your company address and phone numbers in all these local websites so that the potential customer can easily contact or reach you.
You should keep your website up-to-date with all the information you want to pass on to your customers. Outdated websites tend to get lost in the overcrowded online marketplace.
Do not forget to make your presence social through social media websites, as they prove to be a real destination to get targeted customers for your products or services. I would say this is the perfect platform to show the USP of your company and the products you offer. You can create your company pages on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and other social networking websites and showcase your products and special festive deals, if any. Doing regular updates of your social accounts with special deals will attract hoards of people to like your page and to become your ultimate customers.
If you have a product-based business, then you can tie up with other e-commerce websites to list your products as such e-commerce or shopping websites have gigantic traffic that gives you a good chance to reap good amount product sales. This will further help in generating company awareness among the populace.
You can also leverage classified ad websites like eBay, Craigslist and others to sell your products. It may require more time than you expected to create and maintain these accounts and that could become a problem for you. Later on, you?ll be able to afford a dedicated person who will do the marketing for you through classified ad websites.
I do not think that the above mentioned points require much money and time to give a real boost to your online business. I haven?t mentioned any technicalities whatsoever such as On-Site Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Paid Advertising and so on. Google can make things happen in two ways ? simple way or the technical way!
Let?s first get started with the simple way and when you will get time and money for the resources, you can always go for the technical method.
Conclusion
If you are one of those small business owners who think that you need to hire an SEO expert to bring your business online, will you will at least ?forget that perception and give this a try yourself?
You don't have to know Shel Silverstein to know that trees are exceptionally giving. They're responsible for our homes, paper, air, furniture and, now, energy -- the "clean" kind, that is. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have jointly devised a patent-pending method to build organic solar cells using plant-derived substrates. Known as cellulose nanocrystal substrates (or CNC), these solar cells benefit from being truly disposable, eliminating the waste that results from the use of alternative materials like petroleum or glass. The CNC-made cells are not only transparent enough to allow light to pass into an embedded semiconductor, but they also dissolve when submerged into water, thus earning the esteemed recyclable distinction.
Although this is undoubtedly a breakthrough for clean energy tech, it's by no means a near-future reality. Apparently, current cells can only yield a 2.7-percent conversion efficiency rate, which falls far below the 10-percent threshold met by rival fabrication methods (i.e., petroleum and glass). So, there's still significant work to be done before the team can improve production and achieve parity with those less "recyclable" options. Until that time, consider this a comforting reassurance that a clean fuel era is well within reach.
A squabble between a group fighting spam and a Dutch company that hosts Web sites said to be sending spam has escalated into one of the largest computer attacks on the Internet, causing widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world, John Markoff and Nicole Perlroth write on Wednesday in The New York Times.
Millions of ordinary Internet users have experienced delays in services like Netflix or could not reach a particular Web site for a short time. However, for the Internet engineers who run the global network, the problem is more worrisome. The attacks are becoming increasingly powerful, and computer security experts worry that if they continue to escalate, people may not be able to reach basic Internet services, like e-mail and online banking.
The dispute started when the spam-fighting group, called Spamhaus, added the Dutch company Cyberbunker to its blacklist, which is used by e-mail providers to weed out spam. Cyberbunker, named for its headquarters, a five-story former NATO bunker, offers hosting services to any Web site ?except child porn and anything related to terrorism,? according to its Web site.
A spokesman for Spamhaus, which is based in Europe, said the attacks began on March 19, but had not stopped the group from distributing its blacklist.
Patrick Gilmore, chief architect at Akamai Networks, a digital content provider, said Spamhaus?s role was to generate a list of Internet spammers. Of Cyberbunker, he added: ?These guys are just mad. To be frank, they got caught. They think they should be allowed to spam.?
Mr. Gilmore said that the attacks, which are generated by swarms of computers called botnets, concentrate data streams that are larger than the Internet connections of entire countries. He likened the technique, which uses a long-known flaw in the Internet?s basic plumbing, to using a machine gun to spray an entire crowd when the intent is to kill one person. The so-called distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks have reached previously unknown magnitudes, growing to a data stream of 300 billion bits per second.
Questioned about the attacks, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, an Internet activist who said he was a spokesman for the attackers, said in an online message that, ?We are aware that this is one of the largest DDoS attacks the world had publicly seen.? Mr. Kamphuis said Cyberbunker was retaliating against Spamhaus for ?abusing their influence.?
Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...
Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...
iOS: CARROT, the to-do app with the personality of a crazed robot, has added a few new features, including reminders, recurring tasks, and Siri integration. The celebrate the update, CARROT is free today.
We're fans of CARROT because it makes your to-do list fun (and a little terrifying) by shaming you into getting things done. Every time you complete a task on your to-do list you level up, and that unlocks new features. This new update makes CARROT a lot more useable as a full-fledged to-do list. You can set reminders and due dates for any task when you reach level 18, create recurring tasks at level 28, and you get Siri sync at level 24. It's an interesting approach to a to-do list, and if you've been shying away because of the lack of more advanced features now might be the time to give it another look.
CARROT: The Todo List with Personality (Currently free, usually 99?) | iTunes App Store
Penn Researchers attach Lyme disease antibodies to nanotubes, paving way for diagnostic devicePublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
Early diagnosis is critical in treating Lyme disease. However, nearly one quarter of Lyme disease patients are initially misdiagnosed because currently available serological tests have poor sensitivity and specificity during the early stages of infection. Misdiagnosed patients may go untreated and thus progress to late-stage Lyme disease, where they face longer and more invasive treatments, as well as persistent symptoms.
Existing tests assess the presence of antibodies against bacterial proteins, which take weeks to form after the initial infection and persist after the infection is gone. Now, a nanotechnology-inspired technique developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania may lead to diagnostics that can detect the organism itself.
The study was led by professor A. T. Charlie Johnson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences along with graduate student Mitchell Lerner, undergraduate researcher Jennifer Dailey and postdoctoral fellow Brett R. Goldsmith, all of Physics. They collaborated with Dustin Brisson, an assistant professor of biology who provided the team with expertise on the bacterium.
Their research was published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
"When you're initially infected with the Lyme disease bacterium, you don't develop antibodies for many days to a few weeks," Johnson said. "Many people see their physician before antibodies develop, leading to negative serological test results. And after an initial infection, you're still going to have these antibodies, so using these serological diagnostics won't make it clear if you're still infected or not after you've been treated with antibiotics."
The research team's idea was to flip the process around, using laboratory-produced antibodies to detect the presence of proteins from the organism. This is an extension of previous work Johnson's lab has done connecting other biological structures, such as olfactory receptors and DNA, to carbon nanotube-based devices.
Carbon nanotubes, rolled-up lattices of carbon atoms, are highly conductive and sensitive to electrical charge, making them promising components of nanoscale electronic devices. By attaching different biological structures to the exteriors of the nanotubes, they can function as highly specific biosensors. When the attached structure binds to a molecule, that molecule's charge can affect the electrical conduction of the nanotube, which can be part of an electrical circuit like a wire. Such a device can therefore provide an electronic read-out of the presence, or even concentration, of a particular molecule.
To get the electrical signal out of these nanotubes, the team first turned them into transistor devices.
"We first grow these nanotubes on what amounts to a large chip using a vapor deposition method, then make electrical connections essentially at random," Johnson said. "We then break up the chip and test all of the individual nanotube transistors to see which work the best."
In their recent experiment, Johnson's team attached antibodies that naturally develop in most animals that are infected with the Lyme disease bacterium to these nanotube transistors. These antibodies naturally bind to an antigen, in this case, a protein in the Lyme bacterium, as part of the body's immune response.
"We have a chemical process that lets us connect any protein to carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes are very stable, so we have a very reactive compound that binds to the nanotube and also has a carboxylic acid group on the other end. For biochemists, getting any kind of protein to bind to a carboxylic acid group is just child's play at this point, and we have worked with them to learn how to perform this chemistry on the side wall of nanotubes. "
After using atomic-force microscopy to show that antibodies had indeed bound to the exteriors of their nanotube transistors, the researchers tested them electrically to get a baseline reading. They then put the nanotubes in solutions that contained different concentrations of the target Lyme bacteria protein.
"When we wash away the solution and test the nanotube transistors again, the change in what we measure tells us that how much of the antigen has bound," Johnson said. "And we see the relationship we expect to see, in that the more antigen there was in the solution, the bigger the change in the signal."
The smallest concentration the nanotube devices could detect was four nanograms of protein per milliliter of solution.
"This sensitivity is more than sufficient to detect the Lyme disease bacterium in the blood of recently-infected patients and may be sufficient to detect the bacterium in fluids of patients that have received inadequate treatment," Brisson said.
"We really want the protein we are looking to detect to bind as close to the nanotube as possible, as that is what increases the strength of the electrical signal," Johnson said. "Developing a smaller, minimal version of the antibody what we call a single chain variable fragment would be a next step.
"Based on our previous work with single chain variable fragments of other antibodies, this would probably make such a device about a thousand times more sensitive."
The researchers suggested that, given the flexibility of their technique for attaching different biological structure, eventual diagnostic tools could incorporate multiple antibodies, each detecting a different protein from the Lyme bacterium. Such a setup would improve accuracy and cut down on the possibility of false-positive diagnoses.
"If we were to do this type of test on a person's blood now, however, we would say the person has the disease," Johnson said. "The first thought is that if you detect any protein coming from the Lyme organism in your blood, you are infected and should get treatment right away."
###
This research was supported by the Department of Defense U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the National Institutes of Health, Penn's Nano/Bio Interface Center, the National Science Foundation and Penn's Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter.
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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.
Penn Researchers attach Lyme disease antibodies to nanotubes, paving way for diagnostic devicePublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
Early diagnosis is critical in treating Lyme disease. However, nearly one quarter of Lyme disease patients are initially misdiagnosed because currently available serological tests have poor sensitivity and specificity during the early stages of infection. Misdiagnosed patients may go untreated and thus progress to late-stage Lyme disease, where they face longer and more invasive treatments, as well as persistent symptoms.
Existing tests assess the presence of antibodies against bacterial proteins, which take weeks to form after the initial infection and persist after the infection is gone. Now, a nanotechnology-inspired technique developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania may lead to diagnostics that can detect the organism itself.
The study was led by professor A. T. Charlie Johnson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences along with graduate student Mitchell Lerner, undergraduate researcher Jennifer Dailey and postdoctoral fellow Brett R. Goldsmith, all of Physics. They collaborated with Dustin Brisson, an assistant professor of biology who provided the team with expertise on the bacterium.
Their research was published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
"When you're initially infected with the Lyme disease bacterium, you don't develop antibodies for many days to a few weeks," Johnson said. "Many people see their physician before antibodies develop, leading to negative serological test results. And after an initial infection, you're still going to have these antibodies, so using these serological diagnostics won't make it clear if you're still infected or not after you've been treated with antibiotics."
The research team's idea was to flip the process around, using laboratory-produced antibodies to detect the presence of proteins from the organism. This is an extension of previous work Johnson's lab has done connecting other biological structures, such as olfactory receptors and DNA, to carbon nanotube-based devices.
Carbon nanotubes, rolled-up lattices of carbon atoms, are highly conductive and sensitive to electrical charge, making them promising components of nanoscale electronic devices. By attaching different biological structures to the exteriors of the nanotubes, they can function as highly specific biosensors. When the attached structure binds to a molecule, that molecule's charge can affect the electrical conduction of the nanotube, which can be part of an electrical circuit like a wire. Such a device can therefore provide an electronic read-out of the presence, or even concentration, of a particular molecule.
To get the electrical signal out of these nanotubes, the team first turned them into transistor devices.
"We first grow these nanotubes on what amounts to a large chip using a vapor deposition method, then make electrical connections essentially at random," Johnson said. "We then break up the chip and test all of the individual nanotube transistors to see which work the best."
In their recent experiment, Johnson's team attached antibodies that naturally develop in most animals that are infected with the Lyme disease bacterium to these nanotube transistors. These antibodies naturally bind to an antigen, in this case, a protein in the Lyme bacterium, as part of the body's immune response.
"We have a chemical process that lets us connect any protein to carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes are very stable, so we have a very reactive compound that binds to the nanotube and also has a carboxylic acid group on the other end. For biochemists, getting any kind of protein to bind to a carboxylic acid group is just child's play at this point, and we have worked with them to learn how to perform this chemistry on the side wall of nanotubes. "
After using atomic-force microscopy to show that antibodies had indeed bound to the exteriors of their nanotube transistors, the researchers tested them electrically to get a baseline reading. They then put the nanotubes in solutions that contained different concentrations of the target Lyme bacteria protein.
"When we wash away the solution and test the nanotube transistors again, the change in what we measure tells us that how much of the antigen has bound," Johnson said. "And we see the relationship we expect to see, in that the more antigen there was in the solution, the bigger the change in the signal."
The smallest concentration the nanotube devices could detect was four nanograms of protein per milliliter of solution.
"This sensitivity is more than sufficient to detect the Lyme disease bacterium in the blood of recently-infected patients and may be sufficient to detect the bacterium in fluids of patients that have received inadequate treatment," Brisson said.
"We really want the protein we are looking to detect to bind as close to the nanotube as possible, as that is what increases the strength of the electrical signal," Johnson said. "Developing a smaller, minimal version of the antibody what we call a single chain variable fragment would be a next step.
"Based on our previous work with single chain variable fragments of other antibodies, this would probably make such a device about a thousand times more sensitive."
The researchers suggested that, given the flexibility of their technique for attaching different biological structure, eventual diagnostic tools could incorporate multiple antibodies, each detecting a different protein from the Lyme bacterium. Such a setup would improve accuracy and cut down on the possibility of false-positive diagnoses.
"If we were to do this type of test on a person's blood now, however, we would say the person has the disease," Johnson said. "The first thought is that if you detect any protein coming from the Lyme organism in your blood, you are infected and should get treatment right away."
###
This research was supported by the Department of Defense U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the National Institutes of Health, Penn's Nano/Bio Interface Center, the National Science Foundation and Penn's Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
How would you like to die?? How would you like to be remembered?? And what?s the best death you?ve ever seen?
It?s difficult thinking about these questions, let alone verbalizing answers. There are consequences, though, for trying to avoid the inevitable.? Some 70 percent of Americans say they would prefer to die at home, yet only 30 percent actually do.? Dying in a hospital, perhaps with unplanned or unwanted treatment, can be hugely expensive for patients? families and for taxpayers: The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2009, the 1.6 million Medicare patients who died that year accounted for 22.3% of total hospital expenditures.
A new project, Let?s Have Dinner and Talk about Death, aims to give people the opportunity to broach what might be perhaps the toughest subject of all over a table rather than a hospital bed rail. ?It?s built around the idea that mealtime discussions offer a convivial forum for participants to talk about, quite simply, how they would like to die.? Hopefully, expressing wishes out loud will lead to having an end-of-life plan in place with family and healthcare providers.
"How would you like to be remembered?"
The concept cames from chef Michael Hebb, a TEDMED 2013 speaker, and Scott Macklin, a Teaching Fellow and Associate Director at the University of Washington?s (UW) Digital Media program. ?Hebb says humans have an innate urge to communicate over a meal:
The table and the fire are where we first concentrated calories by cooking. It is where we as a species made a massive evolutionary exchange, trading big bellies and small brains for small bellies and big brains, thus beginning a long history of the table shaping our culture ? from its genesis eating together and talking together are undeniably linked to our physical, mental and cultural DNA.
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Clearly, many things have happened during the history of eating together; wars have ended, countless marriages have been proposed? but most importantly, it is the place where relationships are most reliably deepened. There is a safety and comfort among food and drink, and a sense that issues of gravity can be discussed ? in fact, the main event of any shared meal is not the cuisine, it is the conversation.
A web site devoted to the experience, www.deathoverdinner.org, which will be fully operational this summer, will share ideas for hosting dinners devoted to morbidity and will invite users to share their stories in its online community. It?s also the basis of a new UW course. The enterprise is a division of the non-profit Engage With Grace, and two TEDMED partners, Shirley Bergin and Jonathan Ellenthal, are advisors.
Michael Hebb
And what?s the ideal menu for such a dinner?? First, Hebb says, serve something you know how to cook.
Unless you are a culinary wizard I wouldn?t suggest molecular gastronomy, or any new kitchen terrain. Make something that makes you happy, both to prepare and to eat. The obvious response is comfort foods.? My only caution here is that I think the meal should be as in-season and healthy as possible. Heavy cream and starched-based dishes often do not allow for nimble emotions and conversation.
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If you drink adult beverages, have them handy, but I wouldn?t say this is a night to empty many bottles. The most important thing here is to have the conversation. If you have a fireplace and can set the table in its glow, great. But even if it means eating takeout on the couch, connecting with loved ones around these issues is the goal, and these conversations will make our lives more poignant and meaningful.
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For more about the project, visit www.deathoverdinner.org and follow #deathoverdinner.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre squared off on Sunday's "Meet The Press" over the assault weapons ban being debated in Congress.
"I don't think there's ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn't eventually understood and done the right thing," Bloomberg, who has become one of the most vocal gun control advocates in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, said in a taped interview with NBC's David Gregory.
"We are going to have a vote for sure on assault weapons and we're going to have a vote on background checks," Bloomberg continued. "And if we were to get background checks only, it wouldn't be as good as if we got both, but we demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We've got the plan, we're going to get the vote. And now it's incumbent on us to make our voices heard."
To do so, the billionaire mayor said he's spending $12 million on an advertising campaign?set to launch in 10 states on Monday?that touts tighter gun laws.
"I think I have a responsibility, and I think you and all of your viewers have responsibilities, to try to make this country safer for our families and for each other," he said. "And if I can do that by spending some money and taking the NRA from being the only voice to being one of the voices, so the public can really understand the issues, then I think my money would be well spent, and I think I have an obligation to do that."
LaPierre says Bloomberg would be better off spending his money elsewhere.
"He's going to find out this is a country of the people, by the people and for the people," LaPierre told Gregory. "And he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. They don't want him in their restaurants, they don't want him in their homes. They don't want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can't buy America."
[Related: NRA's LaPierre slams critics of school gun plan]
The NRA chief criticized the gun control legislation currently on Capitol Hill, calling the proposed universal background checks a "speed bump" for law-abiding gun owners.
"The whole thing, universal checks, is a dishonest premise. There's not a bill on the Hill that provides a universal check. Criminals aren't going to be checked," LaPierre said. "The mental health records are not in the system, and they don't prosecute any of the criminals that they catch. ... It slows down the law abiding and does nothing to anybody else."
LaPierre then reiterated the NRA's post-Newtown plea for armed security officers in every American public school. "Not a mom or dad wants to drop their kid off at school and leave their kids unprotected."
iOS: CARROT, the to-do app with the personality of a crazed robot, has added a few new features, including reminders, recurring tasks, and Siri integration. The celebrate the update, CARROT is free today. ![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
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How would you like to die?? How would you like to be remembered?? And what?s the best death you?ve ever seen?
