Officials: Cyberattack suspect had bunker in Spain

MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in northeast Spain on suspicion of launching what is described as the biggest cyberattack in Internet history operated from a bunker and had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country, officials said Sunday.

The suspect traveled in Spain using his van "as a mobile computing office, equipped with various antennas to scan frequencies," an Interior Ministry statement said.

Agents arrested him Thursday in the city of Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona, complying with a European arrest warrant issued by Dutch authorities.

He is accused of attacking the Swiss-British anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.

The statement said officers uncovered the computer hacker's bunker, "from where he even did interviews with different international media."

The 35-year-old, whose birthplace was given as the western Dutch city of Alkmaar, was identified only by his initials: S.K.

The statement said the suspect called himself a diplomat belonging to the "Telecommunications and Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Republic of Cyberbunker."

Spanish police were alerted in March by Dutch authorities of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.

The Netherlands National Prosecution Office described them as "unprecedentedly serious attacks on the nonprofit organization Spamhaus."

The largest assault clocked in at 300 billion bits per second, according to San Francisco-based CloudFlare Inc., which Spamhaus enlisted to help it weather the onslaught.

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Security experts measure the attacks in bits of data per second. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused persistent outages at U.S. banking sites late last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second, one third the size of that experienced by Spamhaus.

Netherlands, German, British and U.S. police forces took part in the investigation leading to the arrest, Spain said.

The suspect is expected to be extradited from Spain to face justice in the Netherlands.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-cyberattack-suspect-had-bunker-spain-043117174.html

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Amanda Bynes Shaves Her Head (Photos)

Well look who just pulled a Britney Spears? Amanda Bynes shaved her head, well half of it anyway and shared the photo with her millions of Twitter followers. Is it me or is she really getting into the whole Twitter thing? Amanda continues to shock us all and her latest incident involves her shaving half of her head. Her decision to pull a Spears, as I like to call it, came after she received some serious criticism from the media regarding her not so great looking extensions. I have to admit they did look a little ridiculous. So what does one do if you kept getting ragged on for your looks, you change it. In Amanda’s case that meant only shaving part of her head and creating a very unique and interesting look. As she posted the pic the actress had this to say about her new hair do. I buzzed half my head like @cassie! No more old photos! This is the new me! I love it” This is not the first time the actress has shaved her head. In fact earlier this month Bynes took to Twitter, her outlet for venting and letting those that are against her [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/P3V6ybdMNLg/

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Weekend legislative threefer (Offthekuff)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301961457?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Objects from JFK assassination go on display in DC (Providence Journal)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/298266659?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Euro ministers back 10 billion euro Cyprus bailout

By Jan Strupczewski and Annika Breidthardt

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers backed a 10 billion euro bailout for Cyprus on Friday and the European Commission said it would try to help the island's economy grow again with better use of EU structural funds.

The ministerial support opens the way for several euro zone countries, including Germany and Finland to seek approval for the three-year bailout in national parliaments, so that loan agreement with Nicosia can be signed by April 24.

The first tranche of the loan - 9 billion of which will come from the euro zone and 1 billion from the International Monetary Fund - will flow to Nicosia in mid-May.

The euro zone loans will have an average maturity of 15 years and maximum maturity of 20 years.

"The Eurogroup considers that the necessary elements are now in place to launch the relevant national procedures required for the formal approval of the ESM financial assistance facility agreement for an amount of up to 10 billion euros, subject to IMF's contribution," the euro zone ministers said in a statement.

To cover its financing needs over three years, Cyprus itself will have to come up with 13 billion euros of its own, with the bulk of that sum coming from the closure of its Laiki bank and the restructuring of the Bank of Cyprus.

The amount that Cyprus would need to contribute on its own had been estimated a month ago at around 7 billion, but the two sums were not directly comparable, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference.

"People have been comparing apples with pears and coming up with oranges," Rehn said.

"If you look at these two figures of 17 billion ...and the 23 billion for program financing, they are ... not strictly comparable because the construction of the first and second, or final package are different," he said.

"The 17 billion euros is related to net financing needs ... while the larger figure, 23...is a gross financing concept," he said. The larger number also includes additional buffers to allow for weaker fiscal developments and additional costs in banks, he said.

Cyprus will also raise taxes, cut spending and implement structural reforms to improve its public finances and to be able to eventually repay its debt, that is to fall to 104 percent of GDP in 2020 from a peak of above 126 percent in 2015.

"The Eurogroup is confident that determined action in line with the reform measures spelled out in the MoU will allow the Cypriot economy to return to a sustainable path based on sound public finances, balanced growth and financial stability," the statement said.

But international lenders now forecast the Cypriot economy will contract almost 9 percent this year and almost 4 percent in next year before returning to weak growth in 2015 and 2016.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades appealed to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to do more to help revive growth in Cyprus, possibly through the use of the EU's structural funds.

Such funds are paid out from the EU's long-term budget to all of its underdeveloped regions to co-finance projects with national authorities that help them expand and bring their wealth to the EU average.

"We will try to reallocate structural funds so that we can use them as effectively as possible to support the kind of economic activities in Cyprus that will help the country to return to recovery ... for growing and investment and employment," Rehn said.

The flow of such funds is spread over the seven years of the EU budget, but can be accelerated to increase the amount of money in the earlier years at the cost of the outer ones -- this method has been employed to help Greece already.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels; editing Jeremy Gaunt)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyprus-not-asking-more-bailout-money-mulls-early-100708415--business.html

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Zuckerberg spends to pass immigration reform

BERLIN, April 11 (Reuters) - Bayern Munich have received more than 200,000 ticket requests for their Champions League semi-final game in Munich, thousands of which were made before they advanced against Juventus, the club said on Thursday. "We have been updating the figure constantly and at the moment it stands at 200,000 ticket requests for the semi-final home leg," a Bayern Munich official told Reuters. Bayern's stadium fits only 69,000 and that includes the 39,500 ticket holders and any fans travelling with their opponents. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/zuckerberg-launches-pro-immigration-reform-advocacy-group-134333401.html

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Transparent brain using hydrogel process

Apr. 10, 2013 ? Combining neuroscience and chemical engineering, researchers at Stanford University have developed a process that renders a mouse brain transparent. The postmortem brain remains whole -- not sliced or sectioned in any way -- with its three-dimensional complexity of fine wiring and molecular structures completely intact and able to be measured and probed at will with visible light and chemicals.

The process, called CLARITY, ushers in an entirely new era of whole-organ imaging that stands to fundamentally change our scientific understanding of the most-important-but-least-understood of organs, the brain, and potentially other organs, as well.

The process is described in a paper to be published online April 10 in Nature by bioengineer and psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, leading a multidisciplinary team, including postdoctoral scholar Kwanghun Chung, PhD.

"Studying intact systems with this sort of molecular resolution and global scope -- to be able to see the fine detail and the big picture at the same time -- has been a major unmet goal in biology, and a goal that CLARITY begins to address," Deisseroth said.

"This feat of chemical engineering promises to transform the way we study the brain's anatomy and how disease changes it," said Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "No longer will the in-depth study of our most important three-dimensional organ be constrained by two-dimensional methods."

The research in this study was performed primarily on a mouse brain, but the researchers have used CLARITY on zebrafish and on preserved human brain samples with similar results, establishing a path for future studies of human samples and other organisms.

"CLARITY promises to revolutionize our understanding of how local and global changes in brain structure and activity translate into behavior," said Paul Frankland, PhD, a senior scientist in neurosciences and mental health at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Toronto, who was not involved in the research. Frankland's colleague, senior scientist Sheena Josselyn, PhD, added that the process could turn the brain from "a mysterious black box" into something essentially transparent.

An inscrutable place

The mound of convoluted grey matter and wiring that is the brain is a complex and inscrutable place. Neuroscientists have struggled to fully understand its circuitry in their quest to comprehend how the brain works, and why, sometimes, it doesn't.

CLARITY is the result of a research effort in Deisseroth's lab to extract the opaque elements -- in particular the lipids -- from a brain and yet keep the important features fully intact. Lipids are fatty molecules found throughout the brain and body. In the brain, especially, they help form cell membranes and give the brain much of its structure. Lipids pose a double challenge for biological study, however, because they make the brain largely impermeable both to chemicals and to light.

Neuroscientists would have liked to extract the lipids to reveal the brain's fine structure without slicing or sectioning, but for one major hitch: removing these structurally important molecules causes the remaining tissue to fall apart.

Prior investigations have focused instead on automating the slicing/sectioning approach, or in treating the brain with organic molecules that facilitate the penetration of light only, but not macromolecular probes. With CLARITY, Deisseroth's team has taken a fundamentally different approach.

"We drew upon chemical engineering to transform biological tissue into a new state that is intact but optically transparent and permeable to macromolecules," said Chung, the paper's first author.

This new form is created by replacing the brain's lipids with a hydrogel. The hydrogel is built from within the brain itself in a process conceptually similar to petrification, using what is initially a watery suspension of short, individual molecules known as hydrogel monomers. The intact, postmortem brain is immersed in the hydrogel solution and the monomers infuse the tissue. Then, when "thermally triggered," or heated slightly to about body temperature, the monomers begin to congeal into long molecular chains known as polymers, forming a mesh throughout the brain. This mesh holds everything together, but, importantly, it does not bind to the lipids.

With the tissue shored up in this way, the team is able to vigorously and rapidly extract lipids through a process called electrophoresis. What remains is a 3-D, transparent brain with all of its important structures -- neurons, axons, dendrites, synapses, proteins, nucleic acids and so forth -- intact and in place.

Going things one better

CLARITY then goes one better. In preserving the full continuity of neuronal structures, CLARITY not only allows tracing of individual neural connections over long distances through the brain, but also provides a way to gather rich, molecular information describing a cell's function is that is not possible with other methods.

"We thought that if we could remove the lipids nondestructively, we might be able to get both light and macromolecules to penetrate deep into tissue, allowing not only 3-D imaging, but also 3-D molecular analysis of the intact brain," said Deisseroth, who holds the D.H. Chen Professorship.

Using fluorescent antibodies that are known to seek out and attach themselves only to specific proteins, Deisseroth's team showed that it can target specific structures within the CLARITY-modified -- or "clarified" -- mouse brain and make those structures and only those structures light up under illumination. The researchers can trace neural circuits through the entire brain or explore deeply into the nuances of local circuit wiring. They can see the relationships between cells and investigate subcellular structures. They can even look at chemical relationships of protein complexes, nucleic acids and neurotransmitters.

"Being able to determine the molecular structure of various cells and their contacts through antibody staining is a core capability of CLARITY, separate from the optical transparency, which enables us to visualize relationships among brain components in fundamentally new ways," said Deisseroth, who is one of 15 experts on the "dream team" that will map out goals for the $100 million brain research initiative announced April 2 by President Obama.

And in yet another significant capability from a research standpoint, researchers are now able to destain the clarified brain, flushing out the fluorescent antibodies and repeating the staining process anew using different antibodies to explore different molecular targets in the same brain. This staining/destaining process can be repeated multiple times, the authors showed, and the different data sets aligned with one another.

Opening the door

CLARITY has accordingly made it possible to perform highly detailed, fine-structural analysis on intact brains -- even human tissues that have been preserved for many years, the team showed. Transforming human brains into transparent-but-stable specimens with accessible wiring and molecular detail may yield improved understanding of the structural underpinnings of brain function and disease.

Beyond the immediate and apparent benefit to neuroscience, Deisseroth cautioned that CLARITY has leapfrogged our ability to deal with the data. "Turning massive amounts of data into useful insight poses immense computational challenges that will have to be addressed. We will have to develop improved computational approaches to image segmentation, 3-D image registration, automated tracing and image acquisition," he said.

Indeed, such pressures will increase as CLARITY could begin to support a deeper understanding of large-scale intact biological systems and organs, perhaps even entire organisms.

"Of particular interest for future study are intrasystem relationships, not only in the mammalian brain but also in other tissues or diseases for which full understanding is only possible when thorough analysis of single, intact systems can be conducted," Deisseroth said. "CLARITY may be applicable to any biological system, and it will be interesting to see how other branches of biology may put it to use."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Andrew Myers.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Kwanghun Chung, Jenelle Wallace, Sung-Yon Kim, Sandhiya Kalyanasundaram, Aaron S. Andalman, Thomas J. Davidson, Julie J. Mirzabekov, Kelly A. Zalocusky, Joanna Mattis, Aleksandra K. Denisin, Sally Pak, Hannah Bernstein, Charu Ramakrishnan, Logan Grosenick, Viviana Gradinaru, Karl Deisseroth. Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12107

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/aprD_TDWLH8/130410131223.htm

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PFT: Seahawks, Winfield closing in on contract

Getty Images

Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall has had a problematic hip dating back to his time with the Denver Broncos. It?s required multiple surgeries including another clean up procedure this offseason.

But for the first time since 2010, Marshall finally feels the injury is in the past. According to Sean Jensen of the Chicago Sun-Times, Marshall has still been bothered by the hip the last two seasons. However, following arthroscopic surgery on the hip in January, Marshall made sure to take extra time off to make sure the injury had time to fully heal.

?The good thing about the procedure I got done and when I got it done is, I got it done at the start of the offseason, and when you?re able to do something like that, you can take your time with it,? Marshall said. ?You can afford to be cautious. It?s about working smarter, and I probably could have started weeks ago, but no rush. We don?t play games until September. As long as I?m in top shape then, that?s all that matters.?

Over the last two seasons, he?s still ?felt something? in his hip. Even so, Marshall made the Pro Bowl in each of the last two seasons and was named first team All-Pro last year. He caught 118 passes for 1,508 yards and 11 touchdowns last season for the Bears. Now he?s looking forward to what he can do without the hip causing him any further discomfort.

?I?m excited to start this season 100-percent healthy and see how much better I can be, completely healthy.

?I feel so great, man.?

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/10/report-seahawks-antoine-winfield-nearing-contract/related/

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Pentagon denies report that Hagel to visit Turkey soon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon denied a report from Ankara on Wednesday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was shortly to visit Turkey, one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East region.

"While Secretary Hagel looks forward to visiting Turkey - a key U.S. ally-- as soon as a date can be arranged, he is not planning to visit Turkey this month," Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Turkish official in Ankara said that Hagel would make the visit around the time of a trip to Israel set for April 21-23. Turkey has borders with war-ravaged Syria, as well as with Iran and Iraq.

The United States has had intensive contacts with Turkey in recent months. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Turkey over the weekend for his second visit there in just over a month.

During that visit, Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a core group of the Friends of Syria should convene soon and Kerry urged Turkey to fully normalize ties with Israel.

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by David Storey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-denies-report-hagel-visit-turkey-soon-202007579.html

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Penn research shows that young children have grammar and chimpanzees don't

Public release date: 10-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Evan Lerner
elerner@upenn.edu
215-573-6604
University of Pennsylvania

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that children as young as 2 understand basic grammar rules when they first learn to speak and are not simply imitating adults.

The study also applied the same statistical analysis on data from one of the most famous animal language-acquisition experiments Project Nim and showed that Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was taught sign language over the course of many years, never grasped rules like those in a 2-year-old's grammar.

The study was conducted by Charles Yang, a professor of linguistics in the School of Arts and Sciences and of computer science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

Linguists have long debated whether young children actually understand the grammar they are using or are simply memorizing and imitating adults. One of the difficulties in resolving this debate is the inherent limitations of the data; 2-year-old children have very small vocabularies and thus don't provide many different examples of grammar usage.

"While a child may not say very much, that doesn't mean that they don't know anything about language," Yang said, "Despite the superficial lack of diversity of speech patterns, if you study it carefully and formulate what having a grammar would entail within those limitations, even young children seem very much on target."

Yang's approach was to look at one area of grammar that young children do regularly display: article usage, or whether to put "a" or "the" before a noun. He found a sufficient number of examples of article usage in the nine data sets of child speech he analyzed, but there was another challenge in determining if these children understood the grammar rules they were using.

"When children use articles, they're pretty much error free from day one," Yang said. "But being error free could mean that they've learned the grammar of article usage in English, or they have memorized and are imitating adults who wouldn't make mistakes either."

To get around this problem, Yang took advantage of the fact that most nouns can be paired with either the definite or indefinite article to produce a grammatically correct phrase, but the resulting phrases have different meanings and usages. This makes the combinations vary in frequency.

For example, "the bathroom" is a more common phrase than "a bathroom," while "a bath" is more common than "the bath." This difference has nothing to do with grammar but rather the frequency with which phrases containing those combinations are used. There are simply more opportunities to use phrases like "I need to go to the bathroom" or "the dog needs a bath" than there are phrases like "there's a bathroom on the second floor" or "the bath was too cold."

This means that the likelihood of using a particular article with a given noun is not 50/50; it is weighted toward either "the" or "a." Such lopsided combination tendencies can be characterized by general statistical laws of language, which Yang used to develop a mathematical model for predicting the expected diversity of noun phrases in a sample of speech.

This model was able to differentiate between the expected diversity if children were using grammar, as compared to if they were simply imitating adults. Due to the differences of these frequencies, an adult might only say "the bathroom" never saying "a bathroom" to a child, but that child would still be able to say "a bathroom" if he or she understood the underlying grammar.

"When you compare what children should say if they follow grammar against what children do say, you find it to almost indistinguishable," Yang said. "If you simulate the expected diversity when a child is only repeating what adults say, it produces a diversity much lower than what children actually say."

As a comparison, Yang applied the same predictive models to the set of Nim Chimpsky's signed phrases, the only data set of spontaneous animal language usage publicly available. He found further evidence for what many scientists, including Nim's own trainers, have contended about Nim: that the sequences of signs Nim put together did not follow from rules like those in human language.

Nim's signs show significantly lower diversity than what is expected under a systematic grammar and were similar to the level expected with memorization.

This suggests that true language learning is so far a uniquely human trait, and that it is present very early in development.

"The idea that children are only imitating adults' language is very intuitive, so it's seen a revival over the last few years," Yang said. "But this is strong statistical evidence in favor of the idea that children actually know a lot about abstract grammar from an early age."

###

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 10-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Evan Lerner
elerner@upenn.edu
215-573-6604
University of Pennsylvania

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that children as young as 2 understand basic grammar rules when they first learn to speak and are not simply imitating adults.

The study also applied the same statistical analysis on data from one of the most famous animal language-acquisition experiments Project Nim and showed that Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was taught sign language over the course of many years, never grasped rules like those in a 2-year-old's grammar.

The study was conducted by Charles Yang, a professor of linguistics in the School of Arts and Sciences and of computer science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

Linguists have long debated whether young children actually understand the grammar they are using or are simply memorizing and imitating adults. One of the difficulties in resolving this debate is the inherent limitations of the data; 2-year-old children have very small vocabularies and thus don't provide many different examples of grammar usage.

"While a child may not say very much, that doesn't mean that they don't know anything about language," Yang said, "Despite the superficial lack of diversity of speech patterns, if you study it carefully and formulate what having a grammar would entail within those limitations, even young children seem very much on target."

Yang's approach was to look at one area of grammar that young children do regularly display: article usage, or whether to put "a" or "the" before a noun. He found a sufficient number of examples of article usage in the nine data sets of child speech he analyzed, but there was another challenge in determining if these children understood the grammar rules they were using.

"When children use articles, they're pretty much error free from day one," Yang said. "But being error free could mean that they've learned the grammar of article usage in English, or they have memorized and are imitating adults who wouldn't make mistakes either."

To get around this problem, Yang took advantage of the fact that most nouns can be paired with either the definite or indefinite article to produce a grammatically correct phrase, but the resulting phrases have different meanings and usages. This makes the combinations vary in frequency.

For example, "the bathroom" is a more common phrase than "a bathroom," while "a bath" is more common than "the bath." This difference has nothing to do with grammar but rather the frequency with which phrases containing those combinations are used. There are simply more opportunities to use phrases like "I need to go to the bathroom" or "the dog needs a bath" than there are phrases like "there's a bathroom on the second floor" or "the bath was too cold."

This means that the likelihood of using a particular article with a given noun is not 50/50; it is weighted toward either "the" or "a." Such lopsided combination tendencies can be characterized by general statistical laws of language, which Yang used to develop a mathematical model for predicting the expected diversity of noun phrases in a sample of speech.

This model was able to differentiate between the expected diversity if children were using grammar, as compared to if they were simply imitating adults. Due to the differences of these frequencies, an adult might only say "the bathroom" never saying "a bathroom" to a child, but that child would still be able to say "a bathroom" if he or she understood the underlying grammar.

"When you compare what children should say if they follow grammar against what children do say, you find it to almost indistinguishable," Yang said. "If you simulate the expected diversity when a child is only repeating what adults say, it produces a diversity much lower than what children actually say."

As a comparison, Yang applied the same predictive models to the set of Nim Chimpsky's signed phrases, the only data set of spontaneous animal language usage publicly available. He found further evidence for what many scientists, including Nim's own trainers, have contended about Nim: that the sequences of signs Nim put together did not follow from rules like those in human language.

Nim's signs show significantly lower diversity than what is expected under a systematic grammar and were similar to the level expected with memorization.

This suggests that true language learning is so far a uniquely human trait, and that it is present very early in development.

"The idea that children are only imitating adults' language is very intuitive, so it's seen a revival over the last few years," Yang said. "But this is strong statistical evidence in favor of the idea that children actually know a lot about abstract grammar from an early age."

###

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uop-prs041013.php

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Botched SimCity launch vaults EA to second consecutive award for ?Worst Company In America?

"I like small penises," said no women interviewed for an actually scientific study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Yes, PNAS is a funny sounding acronym, and, yes, PNAS has found that size does matter ? and that women prefer "showers" to "growers."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/botched-simcity-launch-vaults-ea-second-consecutive-award-194255890.html

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Egypt's Coptic Christian pope blasts Islamist president over handling of sectarian violence.

"I like small penises," said no women interviewed for an actually scientific study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Yes, PNAS is a funny sounding acronym, and, yes, PNAS has found that size does matter ? and that women prefer "showers" to "growers."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-coptic-christian-pope-blasts-islamist-president-over-091149234.html

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Learn Many Of The Easy Steps Of Home Electrical Improvement ...

What does it take to become good at do it yourself? Could it be the equipment, set up ., or technique? It?s none of the things. It is more about research and drive. Without this stuff, you won?t get a the place to find look how you want. These tips comes in handy to help you out.

To wear up an area, add new light fixtures. Switching your current light fixtures to upgraded fixtures can present you with more light than what you have already. An electrical contractor can adjust your lights to a newer style for any relatively cheap price. You can even add pendant lights over your sinks.

Most people don?t believe with their circuit breakers until they lose power unexpectedly. The most effective things you can do to enhance the protection and efficiency of your house would be to regularly test your breakers by switching them off and on at least yearly. This clears the breaker contacts of any built-up corrosion and lets them work more effectively and safely. In case your breakers frequently trip, this could indicate potential safety issues that want an electrician.
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Make sure you pay a contractor to or electrician install a local store in the cabinet above the place that the microwave go. Unless you make this happen, you may be desperate for a place to use it during or after installing the microwave and hood vent.

Use bartering to perform your more-ambitious do it yourself goals. Discover an electrician, but would love result-oriented outlets wired in, look online for bartering opportunities in your area and do not be shy to generate your offers. You?d be surprised at the number of professional tradespeople are willing to exchange their skills for a lot of home-baked goods, a great car wash and wax job, or possibly some computer lessons or website work.

Consider getting a professional to perform the electrical work for your residence improvement project. It may seem an easy task to change out a power outlet from two prongs to three, but in case you are unfamiliar with electrical work, the safest thing to do is to have electrician conserve the rewiring to suit your needs. www.lightning-scrippsranch-electrician.info

The times of calling a plumber or electrician for minor household repairs are long gone, not to mention the outrageous costs. Today, hundreds of websites focus on sharing how-to tips and tricks, in ways that is readily understood by the most reluctant handyman. You will discover step-by-step directions and a lot of also, include video demonstrations.

If you aren?t a skilled electrician, don?t attempt and carry out the electrical work yourself. You might be inclined to run a number of electrical cords, or change the number of prongs by using an outlet, however, you shouldn?t attempt it because it is usually dangerous should you it incorrectly. For safety, engage a professional electrician to perform every one of the electrical work.

Reading those tips, you ought to have a broad notion of the required steps to become good at do it yourself. What tools will complete the task? What one can you choose? Despite your answer, know that no matter your ability, it?s possible to enhance your own home, by yourself.

Source: http://www.coffeehousegypsies.com/926-learn-many-of-the-easy-steps-of-home-electrical-improvement

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McIlroy arrives at Augusta with new confidence

Spectators take photos of Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, as he chips on the seventh green during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Spectators take photos of Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, as he chips on the seventh green during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, hits on the seventh fairway during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, catches a ball while hitting on the driving range during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, hits balls on the driving range during a practice round for the Masters golf tournament Tuesday, April 9, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) ? Three months into the season, Rory McIlroy feels as if it's already been a long year.

The splashy announcement of his Nike deal, and the commercial with Tiger Woods that raised hopes of a big rivalry. The missed cut in Abu Dhabi. The first-round exit from the Match Play Championship. Quitting halfway through the second round of the Honda Classic. The loss of his No. 1 ranking.

And now, McIlroy is ready to get started.

"I've always said the main golf season is from the start of April to the end of August, so that's when I want to play my best golf," McIlroy said Tuesday.

It all starts with the Masters.

McIlroy can't simply dismiss the last three months and the endless questions about the state of his game and his new equipment. He at least brings some measure of form to the first major championship of the year. Desperate to find his game, he added the Texas Open at the last minute and in turned out "almost perfectly." The 23-year-old from Northern Ireland didn't think about his swing, only his score. He challenged in the final round and wound up the runner-up.

Whether he's ready for Augusta National won't be known until Thursday. But at least he knows it's there.

"I've went through these patches before where I haven't played so well and the game feels quite far away, and then something clicks and then all of a sudden, it's back again," McIlroy said. "I probably should have learned more from it from last summer when I was going through those struggles. ... When I don't play my best, it's when I get into bad habits in my golf swing. Whenever my golf swing is where I want it to be, that's when I produce results.

"And that's what I've seen has started to happen over the past few weeks."

The problem has been the swing, not the clubs he was swinging.

Even so, McIlroy conceded the adjustment took some time. Woods took nearly five years before working all the Nike clubs into his bag. McIlroy did it all at once, and when he played poorly the first two months of the year, it only added to the scrutiny.

"The way I was hitting the ball at the start of the year, I needed a short game just to get myself around the golf course," McIlroy said. "Off the tee has been a big improvement. There was a little bit of an adjustment period getting the driver that really suited me. And once I got that, you gain confidence whenever you play rounds and you see yourself hitting good drives, hitting it in the fairway and setting yourself up with iron shots into the greens."

McIlroy has plenty at stake this year.

He already has two legs of the career Grand Slam, having set the scoring record at the U.S. Open when he won at Congressional in 2011, and then lapping the field at Kiawah Island last summer to win the PGA Championship. A win this year would put him exclusive company. Dating to 1960, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are the only players to win majors in three straight seasons.

Boy Wonder would love for that to happen at the Masters, and he's provided enough evidence that it could happen. McIlroy smiled when he was introduced for his news conference, and the moderator mentioned his best finish was a tie for 15th. That was in 2011, the year he took a four-shot lead into the final round, and still was leading by one shot going to the back nine until his game imploded. He closed with an 80.

A year ago, he was one off the lead going into the weekend, and this time self-destructed on the front nine. He closed with 77-76 and tied for 40th.

But there is no denying the affection McIlroy has for the Masters, which he calls his favorite major. He remembers playing Augusta for the first, so inspired by the purity of the place that he was afraid to take a divot.

Just a month ago, he was happy to make the cut and make progress. Now his goals are back where they should be.

"Would anything less than a win be a disappointment this week? Yeah, it would be," he said. "Every time you come here to Augusta, you're wanting to win that green jacket, and every time that you don't, it's another chance missed. But if I'm sitting here on Sunday night and I've finished second or if I've give it a good run, you can't be too disappointed because you've had a great tournament. But the ultimate goal is getting one of those jackets."

Among those who could be in his way is Woods, the prohibitive favorite with wins at Torrey Pines, Doral and Bay Hill in the last few months.

There was hope of a rivalry between generations, only that hasn't materialized. They only thing they have in common this year is that both have a swoosh on their shirts, both started the year by missing the cut and both have celebrity girlfriends ? tennis star Caroline Wozniacki for McIlroy, Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn for Woods.

Woods has had plenty of rivals over the years, and sees McIlroy as the next one.

"Over the course of my career, I've had a few. Certainly, Rory is this generation," Woods said. "I've had Phil (Mickelson) and Vijay (Singh) and Ernie (Els) and David (Duval) for a number of years, and now Rory's the leader of this new, younger generation. So, yes, definitely."

McIlroy isn't so sure.

Never mind that he became the first player to win consecutive PGA Tour events with Woods in the field, or that he built a big gap in the world ranking by the end of last year. Padraig Harrington once said it could be McIlroy ? not Woods ? who has the best chance of breaking Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 professional majors.

Not so fast, McIlroy replied.

"When you speak of rivals, you tend to put rivals who have had similar success," McIlroy said. "He's got 77 PGA Tour wins. I've got six. He's got 14 majors. I've got two. If I saw myself a rival to Tiger, I wouldn't really be doing him much justice."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-09-GLF-Masters-McIlroy/id-3867938709bc42f5b7fde94c38330ea0

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Harry Styles: Pantsed by Liam Payne on Stage!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/harry-styles-pantsed-by-liam-payne-on-stage/

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Avian virus may be harmful to cancer cells

Apr. 8, 2013 ? A study at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has identified a chicken-killing virus as a promising treatment for prostate cancer in humans.

Researchers have discovered that a genetically engineered Newcastle disease virus, which harms chickens but not humans, kills prostate cancer cells of all kinds, including hormone-resistant cancer cells. The work of Dr. Elankumaran Subbiah, associate professor of virology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, along with Dr. Siba Samal, associate dean and chairman of the University of Maryland's Department of Veterinary Medicine, and Shobana Raghunath, a graduate student in Subbiah's laboratory, appears in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology.

"This potential treatment is available for immediate pre-clinical and clinical trials, but these are typically not done at the university level," Subbiah said. "We are looking for commercial entities that are interested in licensing the technology for human clinical trials and treatment. Newcastle disease virus has yet to be tested as a treatment for prostate cancer in patients."

About one in six men will develop prostate cancer. Patients typically receive hormone treatments or chemotherapy, both of which have adverse side effects. Subbiah hopes that the development of new treatment methodologies will not only better fight prostate cancer, but also lessen the side effects commonly associated with hormone treatments and chemotherapy.

Newcastle disease virus affects domestic and wild bird species, especially chickens, and is one of the most economically important viruses to the poultry industry. Although it can cause mild conjunctivitis and flu-like symptoms in humans who have been in close contact with infected birds, it does not pose a threat to human health.

Scientists first documented the cancer-fighting properties of Newcastle disease virus in the 1950s, but it is only with recent advances in reverse genetics technology that they have turned to the genetically engineered virus as a possible treatment.

"We modified the virus so that it replicates only in the presence of an active prostate-specific antigen and, therefore, is highly specific to prostate cancer. We also tested its efficacy in a tumor model in vitro," Subbiah said. "The recombinant virus efficiently and specifically killed prostate cancer cells, while sparing normal human cells in the laboratory, but it would take time for this to move from the discovery phase to a treatment for prostate cancer patients."

Earlier human clinical trials for other types of cancer with naturally occurring strains of Newcastle disease virus required several injections of the virus in large quantities for success. Subbiah believes that the recombinant virus would be able to eradicate prostate cancer in much lower doses. It would also seek out metastatic prostate cancer cells and remove them. Because it is cancer cell-type specific, "the recombinant virus will be extremely safe and can be injected intravenously or directly into the tumor," Subbiah added.

Subbiah received a $113,000 concept award from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop his prostate cancer treatment under a Congressionally-directed medical research program. He is seeking additional foundation and corporate funds to take his research to the next level.

The researchers have also received a National Institutes of Health exploratory grant to develop the cell type-specific Newcastle disease virus for several other types of cancer cells, including breast, pancreas, brain, prostate, and multiple myeloma. "Although the virus can potentially treat many different types of cancer, we are focusing on these five," Subbiah said.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech. The original article was written by Michael Sutphin.

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. R. Shobana, S. K. Samal, S. Elankumaran. Prostate-Specific Antigen-Retargeted Recombinant Newcastle Disease Virus for Prostate Cancer Virotherapy. Journal of Virology, 2013; 87 (7): 3792 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.02394-12

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/6C20Bn6gPDo/130408142644.htm

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Louisville, Michigan escape shadows at Final Four

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and Michigan head coach John Beilein, left, participate in a television interview for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and Michigan head coach John Beilein, left, participate in a television interview for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Louisville's Michael Baffour, left, and Jordan Bond chat in the locker room before practice for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and Michigan head coach John Beilein, left, participate in a television interview for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino answers a question during a news conference for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Louisville plays Michigan in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Michigan head coach John Beilein speaks during a news conference for their NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Michigan plays Louisville in the championship game on Monday. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

ATLANTA (AP) ? The hoops teams at Louisville and Michigan are used to being overlooked.

The Cardinals may be a national powerhouse, but they're still considered second fiddle in their own state. The Kentucky Wildcats are the blue bloods of the bluegrass, while Louisville settles for being viewed as more of a blue-collar school.

The Michigan basketball team knows what that's like. Football rules on the Wolverines' campus ? rightly so, said Tim Hardaway Jr., given that program's long, storied history.

"We still have a ways to go," said Hardaway, Michigan's junior guard. "Football has a lot more national championships than we do."

Well, it's kind of hard to overlook either team now.

Louisville and Michigan will meet Monday night in the NCAA championship game.

The Cardinals (34-5) have lived up to their billing as the tournament's top overall seed, blowing through their first four opponents before rallying from a dozen points down in the second half to beat surprising Wichita State 72-68 in the national semifinals.

It's been quite a run for the Louisville athletic program, in general. The women's basketball team also reached the Final Four, while the football team won a Big East title and stunned Florida in the Sugar Bowl.

All the while, they're battling with Kentucky for the state's affections.

"We're not a who's who like Harvard and Yale in the alumni world," coach Rick Pitino said Sunday. "We're a blue-collar school that supports each other. One of the coolest places I've ever worked."

Pitino should know. He also worked at Kentucky, leading the Wildcats to a national title in 1996.

Now, he's got a chance to become the first coach to win championships at two schools.

"I haven't thought about it for one second," insisted Pitino, already the first coach to guide three schools to the Final Four. "We have built a brand on Louisville first. Everything we do is about the team, about the family. I'd be a total hypocrite if I said (winning another title is) really important. It really is not important. I want to win because I'm part of this team. That's it."

Football may come first at Michigan (31-7), but the Wolverines haven't exactly been pushovers on the hardwood.

They won a national title in 1989, beating Seton Hall in overtime, and they've lost three other times in the championship. The school is best known for the Fab Five, that group of five stellar recruits who led Michigan to back-to-back final appearances in 1992 and '93.

This team is cut from the same mold, with three freshmen starters and two other first-year players who made big contributions in a semifinal victory over Syracuse.

"The Fab Five was a great team. I mean, a really great team," said freshman guard Caris LeVert, who came off the bench to score eight points against the Orange. "They did some great things for our school."

But these guys can do something the Fab Five never did ? win it all.

"Just making it to the Final Four, we are going to hang up a banner in the Crisler Center," said another freshman, Glenn Robinson III. "But we aren't done. Having the chance to hang another one up for a national championship ... is all kind of surreal to us."

Both teams got to this point with crucial assists from the backups.

LeVert and Spike Albrecht ? yep, another freshman ? both hit a pair of 3-pointers in Michigan's semifinal win, points that were desperately needed with player of the year Trey Burke struggling through a brutal night. The sophomore guard made only 1-of-8 shots and finished with seven points, just the second time this season he's been held in single digits.

Burke said he'll gladly hand off the scoring duties to someone else again Monday if the Cardinals take a similar approach to Syracuse.

"Pretty much every time I got the ball, I had two people in my face," he said. "I tried not to force anything, but I probably forced two or three shots. That 3 I hit (from way out and his only basket of the game) wasn't a good shot. But I try not to force things and just look for different ways to find the open man."

Louisville, inspired by the gruesome injury to Kevin Ware but needing others to step up while he's down, got an even bigger contribution off the bench than Michigan.

Luke Hancock scored 20 points. Walk-on Tim Henderson, moving up in the rotation because of Ware's broken leg, knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers that turned the momentum when it looked as though Wichita State might pull off another shocker.

There's always a chance for the more obscure players to step up on the biggest stages.

"Those guys, not that you don't pay attention to them, but your strategy is not toward them." Pitino said. "We're all trying to stop the great players defensively, choreograph our defensive plan to stop the great players."

But there's no doubt that Michigan needs Burke to have a much better game, especially against Louisville fearsome press, just as the Cardinals will be counting on Russ Smith to lead the way. He scored 21 points in the semifinals despite a woeful night at the foul line.

Smith is on the verge of completing quite a journey, considering it looked for a while like he might not even finish his career with the Cardinals. Unhappy with his playing time and constantly sparring with Pitino, the now-junior guard considered transferring after his freshman season.

Boy, he's sure glad he stayed.

"I was leaving, but I talked to my dad and decided to come back," Smith remembered. "I decided to work hard and try to earn some minutes."

He still gets into it with Pitino from time to time ? remember, the coach dubbed him "Russdiculous" for some of the shots he puts up ? but it's hard to envision where this team might be without him.

"I just try to make winning plays," Smith said. "I don't look at myself as a point guard or a shooting guard. I look at myself as a winning player."

Pitino has tried to stress to his players the importance of winning one more game. They may hang a banner for making it to the Final Four at Louisville, too, but the best way to ensure you don't get overlooked is to win it all.

To drive that point home, he showed his team the recent documentary on North Carolina State's improbable title in 1983, the one that left coach Jim Valvano running around the court looking desperately for someone to hug, the one that his players still get together to reminisce about ? on and off camera.

"We were the No. 1 seeds. We weren't Cinderellas like N.C. State," Pitino said. "But I wanted them to understand that because (the Wolfpack) won a championship, for the rest of their lives they will sit around that table. Every year, they will get together ? for the rest of their lives."

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-07-BKC-NCAA-Championship/id-b27b55034d9f4dea8a45ec4563464c15

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Fab Sale Roundup: GILT Baby & Kids, Rue La La and More!

Check out our roundup of this week's best mommy and baby deals.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/ZMdRErn6gNA/

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What the fork is a 'fork'?

Forking code isn't a bad thing. It isn't a good thing. It's just a thing.

The past couple of days you've probably heard the word "fork" more times than you can count. Facebook forked this (even though it didn't), Amazon forks that, the Chrome team forked the whole web, and so on and so on. While everyone is talking about who's forking who, nobody is bothering to explain exactly what forking is, and why so many people have an issue with it.

Forking, or shattering, got a bit of a bad rep back 20 years or so ago, as it tended to split up developers into separate factions who weren't sharing the code with each other. In the days of things like the Gnu-Emacs/XEmacs split, this was important because there weren't nearly as many people capable of working on these big, open-source projects, and having two branches or forks meant it takes longer to add features and address issues for both sides. In some cases this still happens, I'm sure, but for the most part there are plenty of developers who can fill the void left by those that have a separate vision and will fork off code to follow it. But some folks never forget, and the stigma attached to forking forkers gets passed down. Having said all this, we can't pretend bad forks don't happen. We just need to look past the act itself before we make our decisions.

I know a few of you out there know what all this means, and are just trying to ignore all the noise, but for many it's confusing. Let's try to fix that.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/4Wp1ZsZ5b7w/story01.htm

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Swiss offer to mediate in North Korea crisis

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland has offered to mediate with North Korea as tension rises on the Korean peninsula following U.N. sanctions imposed in response to a nuclear weapon test in February.

The Swiss foreign ministry recently made contact with the North Korean authorities, a spokeswoman said, but added that there were currently no plans for any talks.

"Switzerland is willing to contribute to a de-escalation on the Korean peninsula and is always willing to help find a solution, if this is the wish of the parties, such as hosting meetings between them," she said in an emailed statement.

North Korea has issued increasingly strident warnings of imminent war with South Korea and the United States, telling diplomats on Friday to consider leaving Pyongyang.

Neutral Switzerland often mediates in international conflicts or hosts peace talks, in recent years helping broker a deal aimed at resolving a long-running conflict between Armenia and Turkey.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry said it had been involved in more than 15 sets of peace negotiations in the past seven years, including in Sudan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Nepal.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took over in December 2011 after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, is thought to have spent several years in Switzerland being educated under a pseudonym.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/swiss-offer-mediate-north-korea-100337459.html

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Philippines may allow U.S. greater military access: minister

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines is ready to help the United States as it aligns its defenses against threatened attacks by North Korea, the foreign minister said, hinting at the possibility of opening more Philippine bases to the U.S. military.

U.S. forces have previously used military bases and civilian airports in the Philippines to repair and refuel aircraft and warships deployed in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. has ships in Subic, the former home of the U.S. 7th Fleet, and aircraft at the nearby Clark airfield, another former U.S. base on the main island of Luzon.

"I think as treaty allies, if there is an attack, we should help one another, which is what the treaty alliance is all about," Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario told journalists at a main army base in Manila on Friday.

Manila signed a Mutual Defence Treaty with Washington in 1951, one of the key links in the chain of security alliances the United States has with Asia-Pacific states, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Australia.

On Friday the two countries began a fortnight of scheduled joint military exercises known as Balikatan ('shoulder to shoulder') which come amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea, where the Philippines is embroiled in a long territorial dispute with China.

"Balikatan with its complex and comprehensive set of exercises is an important contribution not only in preparing both our armed forces to work together but also in building my country's own capacity to defend itself," del Rosario said.

About 8,000 American and Filipino soldiers are taking part in this year's exercises, staging mock battles and simulating disaster responses. Nearly a dozen Asian and Pacific states are also taking part in a drill that examines how to handle vessel collisions in a busy shipping lane such as the South China Sea.

(Reporting By Manuel Mogato; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-may-allow-u-greater-military-access-minister-081312785.html

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