angelic cope: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

APNewsBreak: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo has book deal

NEW YORK (AP) ? Andrew Cuomo, the popular governor and a possible presidential contender in 2016, has a book deal.

HarperCollins told The Associated Press on Monday that Cuomo will write "a full and frank account" about his private life and the "profound moments" of his first term in office, including signing gay-marriage legislation. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Cuomo, a Democrat who hasn't declared his plans for 2016, was represented by a man with much experience in handling presidents and presidential contenders, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, whose clients include President Barack Obama and another possible 2016 candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Cuomo book is scheduled for next year, when Clinton also has a book expected.

Earlier Monday, Cuomo dismissed reports that he would not seek the presidency should Clinton run, saying that he was focused on being governor.

Cuomo's deal may complicate plans for a biography on the governor signed up by HarperCollins last year. HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Monday that the book, by New York Post reporter and state editor Fredric Dicker, was still under contract. The Post and HarperCollins are part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Cuomo, 55, was secretary of Housing and Urban Development during President Bill Clinton's administration and served four years as New York's attorney general before being elected governor in 2010. He has signed legislation allowing gay couples to marry in the state, helped secure financial aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy and signed tough gun control legislation into law after the deadly Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting.

In the book, Cuomo will write about being the father to three girls, his role in establishing housing for the homeless and the legacy of his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Monday's announcement did not mention Cuomo's marriage to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and their bitter divorce in 2005. The publisher declined to comment on whether Cuomo would write about Kennedy, the mother of his children.

Cuomo now lives with Food Network star Sandra Lee.

___

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-ny-gov-andrew-cuomo-book-deal-031009941.html

Jaguars new uniforms glenn beck AJ Clemente Thor 2 Trailer Administrative Professionals Day After Earth Ryan Lochte

Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

NASA is exploring ways to send a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. In a first test, three tiny satellites are now on orbit and beeping back at Earth. Why the idea could be an aid to scientific research.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 24, 2013

NASA's Phonesat aims to demonstrate the ability to launch one of the lowest-cost, easiest-to-build satellites ever flown in space ? capabilities enabled by using off-the-shelf consumer smart phones.

Courtesy of NASA

Enlarge

That's no smart phone in your pocket or purse; that's the heart and soul of a satellite.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Three satellites, to be exact, released into orbit on Sunday with the launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s new Antares rocket, the latest addition to NASA's stable of space-station resupply vehicles.

The tiny satellites, each occupying a cube four inches on a side, represent an experiment in using cheap but powerful off-the-shelf technology to run a new generation of small, affordable science satellites.

Two of these orbiters, which NASA has dubbed Phonesat 1.0, use the electronics and sensors packaged in a Google Nexus One smart phone to serve as on-board computers. Accelerometers that normally tell the phones which way you've oriented the screen now gather information on the satellites' orientation in space. And the cameras? Yep, snapshots of Earth from 156 miles up.

The third satellite, a prototype for Phonesat 2.0, uses a more powerful Nexus S, which also has a built-in gyroscope. Ultimately, engineers plan to use that extra capability to control solar panels and to control the spacecraft's orientation, instead of just recording it.

The notion of using a smart phone's innards to run a satellite grew out of informal hallway chatter, recalls James Cockrell, project manager for Phonesat at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

The benchmark people often use as a point of comparison for the power of their favorite laptop or smart phone is the primitive computing power used in the Apollo program, which landed humans on the moon and brought them back safely in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Indeed, Mr. Cockrell describes a trip to the Internet that netted him the electronic-circuit diagram for the navigation and control computer used in Apollo's Lunar Excursion Module.

"Oh my goodness, you could build it in your basement" with a circuit board and a few transistors, he says.

A couple of years ago, he says, an engineer at NASA-Ames was drawing a similar comparison between his smart phone and today's satellites during an informal hallway chat. The engineer noted that a smart phone's processor is 10 to 15 times more powerful than the processors used in a conventional satellite's computer. A smart phone has much more memory. And it boasts a GPS receiver, gyroscopes, and accelerometers ? the sensors needed for navigation and to control a satellite's orientation.

"He said: 'I don't know why we couldn't make a satellite our of a smart phone,' " Cockrell recalls. Although it took a bit of additional salesmanship to convince folks higher up the organizational food chain, the Phonesat project was born.

The satellites cost about $3,500 each. The initial goals were modest: Survive the launch and beep at Earth.

So far, the satellites have successfully relayed their health ? operating temperatures, battery status, and other key indicators ? via small external transmitters.

"We call this our Sputnik moment," Cockrell says, referring to the simple "I'm alive" beeps that the world's first artificial satellite sent back to Earth in 1957.

As of Monday night, the two Phonesat 1 orbiters started taking pictures. Each satellite selected one image to beam back to Earth.

Before the beaming could begin, the image had to be cut into pieces. And yes, there's now an app for that.

And where NASA's flagship missions to the far reaches of the solar system use the agency's global Deep Space Network for communications, Phonesats are using what you could call NASA's cheap-and-not-so-deep space network ? ham-radio operators worldwide.

So far, some 100 hams have registered at www.phonesat.org, a site the program has set up to receive the packets. As of Tuesday evening, Cockrell estimated that the website had collected more than 300 packets, which computers on Earth must sort through to eliminate duplicates. Ultimately the mosaic will be assembled and displayed online.

The three Phonesats are expected to reenter the atmosphere and vaporize at the end of their 10- to 14-day romp on orbit.

The project already has Phonesats 3.0 and 4.0 on the drawing boards, an effort that eventually could pay dividends for space research, explains Bruce Yost, who heads the Edison Small Satellite Flight Demonstration Program at NASA-Ames.

NASA is exploring concepts for sending a flotilla of small satellites to a destination, rather than one large orbiter. The arrangement would allow sensors from several satellites to take measurements simultaneously around an entire planet to unravel the processes at work on the surface or in an atmosphere.

"If each one of those little pieces of the puzzle costs millions of dollars, then you're not really making any headway" toward getting such a mission approved, Mr. Yost explains. Given the private sector's heavy investment in phone R&D and the capabilities that have emerged, the argument goes, why keep satellite-control technology development in-house and reinvent the wheel?

Earth is likely to be an early target for such "swarm" exploration, Yost says. Scientists studying and forecasting space weather are interested in lofting a flotilla of satellites that could make simultaneous measurements of the solar wind or solar storms and their influence on various parts of the Earth's magnetic field.

Cockrell and his team also are working on an eight-spacecraft flotilla to test the feasibility of this idea of satellite swarms, Yost says.

Perhaps it's fitting that the first smart phones in space run on the Android operating system. There's no word on when or if iPhones will get a crack at serving as the seed around which a satellite grows. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/-gOZelEbRBk/Tiny-satellites-cellphones-cheaper-eyes-in-the-sky-for-NASA

renee zellweger catherine zeta jones charlize theron barbra streisand barbra streisand hugh jackman Aly Raisman

Utah excels in economy and business: Chamber of Commerce report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When it comes to economic growth and business strength, there may be no better U.S. state than Utah, according to a report set to be released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday.

The business association found that Utah, population 2.8 million, ranked third among all states in overall economic performance - a measure of how states' economies have fared over time in terms of jobs, gross domestic product, productivity and income.

Moreover, Utah was the only state to make the top 10 lists for all five of the "policy" areas the Chamber assessed - exports, innovation and entrepreneurship, business climate, talent pipeline and infrastructure.

"Utah is the strongest job growth performer behind North Dakota ... The state is becoming known as a professional services and finance center," said the Chamber. "Manufacturing is a competitive advantage for the state. Over the past decade, Utah's manufacturing sector saw a slight increase in employment during a time when national manufacturing employment contracted by 22.51 percent."

Utah's unemployment rate is one of the lowest among the states at 4.9 percent in March 2013, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Each year the Chamber ranks states according to various economic and business measures for its "Enterprising States" report. This year, fortune seemed directly tied to technology and engineering across the five areas the Chamber evaluates.

For exports, Utah came in third after Louisiana and Texas, primarily because it is a major supplier to the world of electronic memory circuits, aircraft engines and parts, vehicle airbags and X-ray equipment, according to the Chamber.

Utah had top rankings in entrepreneurship mostly because it is establishing high-tech businesses at a fast rate.

The Chamber also considered Utah strong in the "talent pipeline" area, which looks at both education and training as well as job assistance programs after the state legislature approved funds to foster more engineering graduates and software developers.

Technology was even a factor for Utah's top ranking in infrastructure, with the Chamber emphasizing Utah's high-speed data connections alongside the high quality of the state's bridges.

For the business climate measure, which assesses the influence of government-related costs on local businesses, the Chamber put Utah sixth because of its high small-business lending activity, low taxes and laws.

Technology also gave Maryland and Virginia a boost in the Chamber's report.

The Chamber ranked Maryland first in entrepreneurship, largely because of its research and development and its science and technology employment growth, and Virginia third partly for having the highest share of businesses in high-tech industries.

Still, the extraction and the commodities boom continues to prove crucial for jobs, business and incomes in most states.

North Dakota's "stratospheric growth" from the oil and natural gas industry put it first on the list of economic performance, followed by Texas, which has added 41,000 jobs in natural resources extraction in the last two years, according to the Chamber.

Three other energy heavyweights completed the top 10 economic performance list, with Wyoming fourth, Oklahoma seventh and Louisiana eighth.

The Chamber of Commerce is not the only one to notice that certain states are bounding ahead as the recovery from the 2007-09 recession unfolds. Earlier this month, Standard & Poor's Ratings Service said it expected to find the strongest growth this year in the Rocky Mountain region, including Utah and Wyoming, and in the West South Central area encompassing Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

(Reporting By Lisa Lambert; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/utah-excels-economy-business-chamber-commerce-report-040329836.html

Solomon Islands Mary Leakey Side Effects bob marley weather the walking dead the walking dead

Monday, April 29, 2013

Prague blast tied to leaky pipe. How big a threat are natural gas explosions?

An explosion in Prague has been linked to a natural gas leak, offering a violent reminder of the extensive energy infrastructure under our feet. Should the Prague explosion and other natural gas incidents have us worried?

By David J. Unger,?Correspondent / April 29, 2013

Firemen work at the scene of a strong blast in a building in the centre of Prague, Czech Republic, Monday. Serious natural gas pipeline incidents are relatively rare, but when they happen, the results can be catastrophic.

Stanislav Zbynek/CTK/AP

Enlarge

A powerful blast in central Prague early Monday shook the city and?left 35 injured. According to the Czech capital's mayor, it was the result of a leaky natural gas pipe.?

Skip to next paragraph

Victoria Beckham plans UK store as juggles family and fashion

By Li-mei Hoang

LONDON (Reuters) - British fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham said life as a working mother is a struggle but she relishes the challenge and plans to expand her empire with a retail store in London.

As mother to three boys - Brooklyn, 14, Romeo, 10, and Cruz, 8 - and to 21-month-old daughter Harper, Beckham said balancing her family life and career was a constant juggle.

"The children are my priority and always have been and always will be so it's a little bit of a juggling act," she told the Vogue Festival at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

"I really enjoy being a mum, I love my kids more than anything, but I love doing what I do as well and it's just getting the balance right which is not easy, at all."

With her second son Romeo appearing in the latest Burberry campaign and football star husband David Beckham fronting an underwear campaign for H&M, 39-year-old Beckham is busy.

But she said she was keen to build further on her success in fashion with plans to open her first retail store in London.

"This is where I want to have my first store ... I'd like to do something that is really new, really fresh. Something a little bit conceptual but not too much," she said without giving any more details.

Beckham, who made her name as pop singer Posh Spice in the 1990s British all-girl band, entered into fashion in 2004 with American denim brand Rock and Republic, co-designing jeans, skirts and knitwear before launching her own line in 2006.

As a model she has also appeared in campaigns for designers Marc Jacobs and Dolce and Gabanna.

She introduced her Victoria Beckham collection of dresses in 2008 which was well received by the fashion industry and is now a regular fixture on the New York Fashion Week circuit.

Beckham, whose designs are worn by actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway as well as singer Beyonce Knowles, said she wanted women to be empowered and confident in her clothes.

"A lot of thought goes into everything I design to make a women feel the best that she can feel," she said.

"Women are always going to feel a little bit insecure. There is a lot of pressure on women to look a certain way and I want to help women feel good about themselves."

Beckham's comments on body image came ahead of a debate on body size at the festival where models Daisy Lowe and David Gandy shared their experiences of working in fashion.

Earlier this month British Vogue magazine signed a 10-point agreement with trade union Equity to ensure that models will not work more than 10 hours a day and to ensure their working conditions in a studio or on location are healthy.

This comes as part of a wider initiative by the fashion industry to encourage a healthier approach to body image.

In February, the Council of Fashion Designers of America issued new guidelines at New York Fashion Week to stop the use of underage and underweight models from walking the runways.

"I think it's important for women to not just focus on the fantasy and the ideal, but actually what is right for themselves because everyone's bodies are different and all of them are beautiful in their own way," said Lowe.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/victoria-beckham-plans-uk-store-juggles-family-fashion-202441886.html

gordon hayward gas prices rising stars challenge star trek 2 kathy ireland brooke mueller all star weekend

The Woman Who Received the First Successful Womb Transplant Is Now Six Weeks Pregnant

Derya Sert, a 22-year-old Turkish woman, is officially six-weeks into a normal, healthy pregnancy. The absolutely remarkable part? Sert was born without a womb and received the first successful uterus transplant ever.

Saturn Is Closest to Earth on Sunday: See It Live Online

The best view of Saturn available to Earth dwellers in six years should be on Sunday (April 28), with the planet reaching its opposition point, when Earth lies directly between it and the sun.

You can watch the celestial show live online via the Slooh Space Camera, which will be broadcasting a feed from its telescopes in Spain's Canary Islands. You can?watch the Saturn webcast live on SPACE.com?beginning at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday (0130 GMT Monday).

The giant planet should put on a spectacular show, with its famous icy rings tilted at a perfect angle for viewing. During Saturn's close approach to Earth, the planet will be exceptionally bright, reaching about the same brightness as famous stars such as Betelgeuse. The ringed giant should be visible all night long on April 27 and 28, and its shadow will fall so that neither the east nor west side of the rings is darkened.

"Saturn is widely regarded as the most beautiful planet in the known universe," Bob Berman, contributing editor and monthly columnist for Astronomy magazine, said in a statement. "And this is the day that it is largest and hence potentially clearest not just for all of 2013, but for the past half dozen years, thanks to the greatly improved viewing tilt of its famous rings. The famous inky-black gap separating its broad white 'B' ring from its narrower 'A' ring, called the Cassini Division, should be striking."

Berman will appear as a commentator on the Slooh webcast, along with Slooh engineer Paul Cox, who will be controlling the Slooh telescopes robotically from the United Kingdom, and other experts.

Saturn's position will also give skywatchers a chance to view a mysterious storm brewing on the planet. [Stunning Photos of Saturn's Weird Vortex Storms]

"Surrounding the Saturn north pole, which is now angled toward us better than has been seen for the past two decades, lies a bizarre hexagon, each of whose six sides is larger than our entire planet Earth," Berman said. "The origin of this long-lived feature is utterly mysterious, and although its location at the very 'top' of Saturn makes it impossible to see from Earth through any telescope including Hubble, thanks to the sideways viewpoint we always have, it has given Saturn's north pole a new notoriety. No doubt, some viewers will 'tune in' to gaze at Saturn close-up and in true color on this day of its closest approach, merely because of that baffling feature."

To view the planet with your naked eye or through a telescope, stargazers in North America should look halfway up the southern sky around midnight. Saturn will shine to the left of the bright blue star Spica in the constellation Virgo.

You can also follow the Slooh webcast live via the?Slooh Space Camera website.

Editor's Note:?If you snap an amazing photo of Saturn and its rings and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a story or image gallery, please send comments and images to managing editor Tariq Malik at?spacephotos@space.com.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter and Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/saturn-closest-earth-sunday-see-live-online-124011909.html

deep impact miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy usssa baseball alex o loughlin the godfather cape breton

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Rolling Stones to play "surprise" LA gig ahead of U.S. tour

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones will play a "surprise" gig for fans in Los Angeles on Saturday, a week ahead of kicking off a U.S. tour to mark 50 years in the music business.

Hundreds of fans, alerted on the band's Twitter account, lined up from as early as 5 a.m. on Saturday to get hold of the $20 dollar tickets for the concert at the 320 person capacity Echoplex club in Los Angeles.

Tickets were distributed by a lottery system and, according to the band's Twitter account, sold out swiftly.

The veteran British rockers will officially launch a 17-date North American "50 and Counting" tour on May 3 in Los Angeles, after playing a handful of dates in London, Paris and New York at the end of 2012.

Tickets for the Los Angeles opening concert at the Staples Center arena went on general sale on April 15 and were still available on Saturday at prices up to $600 each.

Guitarist Mick Taylor, who played with the Stones from 1969 to 1974, will join frontman Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and drummer Charlie Watts, as a guest on the North American tour, the band said in a statement.

For the official tour, the Stones will play on a specially designed stage in the shape of their iconic tongue-and-lips logo, allowing Jagger to get up close to fans.

As was the case last year, the set list is expected to focus on classic Stones hits like "Gimme Shelter," "Paint it Black" and "Jumping Jack Flash."

Later this summer, The Rolling Stones will play London's Hyde Park, and for the first time in their long career, the Glastonbury music festival in England.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rolling-stones-play-surprise-la-gig-ahead-u-003931681.html

Waldo Canyon fire nba finals K Michelle roger clemens multiple sclerosis falling skies rodney king

Alexander Gustafsson, Daniel Cormier, Anderson Silva: Who should Jon Jones fight next?

To the surprise of few, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones held onto his championship belt with a first-round TKO of Chael Sonnen on Saturday night. Part of the reason it was no surprise is that finishing fights is what Jones does. He won four of his last five fights by stoppage. He improves with every fight. Against Sonnen, he used Sonnen's strength of wrestling to control him on the way to the TKO.

Can anyone beat this guy? Here are a few contenders.

Alexander Gustafsson: He's one of the few elite, light heavyweight fighters who hasn't faced Jones. Like Jones, he uses his height and length to keep opponents at bay. He's ready for a fight now because he was pulled from a bout with Gegard Mousasi earlier this month because of a cut. Gustafsson is also who Jones wants to face.

"A lot of people think I've been successful because I appear to be larger than my opponents, and with Alexander, that would be no more," Jones said at the post-UFC 159 news conference. "That's who I would like to fight next."

Gustafsson is in:

Congratz @jonnybones Champ! Heal up good now so we

? Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) April 28, 2013

Can do this ;)

? Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) April 28, 2013

Daniel Cormier: The Strikeforce grand prix heavyweight champ had a successful UFC debut against Frank Mir. As a two-time Olympic wrestler with knockout power, he has the skills to stop Jones. UFC president Dana White said Cormier would get an immediate title shot if he were to drop down. The weight drop is the biggest question. Cormier wrestled at 211 lbs., and suffered from kidney failure the last time he tried to get to that weight. It won't be an easy cut for him.

Anderson Silva: White said he received a call from the middleweight champ right after the Jones bout, asking for a superfight with either Jones or Georges St-Pierre. White wouldn't confirm who Silva was asking for, but why would he ask for a bout with GSP right after watching Jones fight? It's the superfight MMA fans want, but Silva has Chris Weidman in July first.

[Photos: Jon Jones pummels Chael Sonnen, suffers gruesome injury]

Time off: This is likely Jones' next contender. During Saturday night's fight, he broke his toe in an ugly fashion. Even with Gustafsson, Silva and Cormier waiting for a fight, Jones needs to heal.

Related UFC video on Yahoo! Sports

What do you want Jones to do next? Speak up on Facebook or on Twitter.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/alexander-gustafsson-daniel-cormier-anderson-silva-jon-jones-150515611.html

duggar miscarriage roman holiday belize adele lyrics best new artist 2012 grammys foo fighters

Court rejects Pussy Riot member's early release

ZUBOVA POLYANA, Russia (AP) ? A Russian court on Friday rejected a plea for early release from prison by a member of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, whose provocative songs and prosecution have made them a symbol of the country's opposition movement.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who has been in custody since her arrest last March, is serving a two-year sentence handed down after the band staged an irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral.

She and two other band members were sentenced to prison terms on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. She sought early release after serving half her sentence, a provision allowed by law.

Another of the convicted band members, Yekaterina Samutsevich, had her sentence suspended on appeal last year.

Tolokonnikova, dressed in a Soviet-style dark prison uniform with a white scarf around her neck, told the court that the prison colony where she is serving her sentence did not support her plea of early release because she "didn't repent." Russian law does not make repentance a condition for an early release.

In its deposition, the prison colony described Tolokonnikova as "insensitive to ethics and conscience and thinking only about herself."

The prison colony also listed a penalty that Tolokonnikova received for failing to say hello to a prison official while she was in the hospital and noted that she was once reprimanded for her refusal to go out for a walk while she was held in a Moscow jail.

Defense lawyers urged the court to release Tolokonnikova so that she can take care of her 5-year-old daughter. Attorney Dmitry Dinze also complained that prison officials seem unable to provide proper conditions to treat her persistent headaches.

___

Nataliya Vasilyeva and Jim Heintz contributed to this report from Moscow.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-rejects-pussy-riot-members-early-release-163601890.html

kim kardashian flour matt forte jeremy shockey new orleans saints ireland vangogh yield

Saturday, April 27, 2013

free books online Anne McKinney ? Real-Resumes for Real Estate ...

? Welcome to the Real-Resumes Series. The Real-Resumes Series is a series of books
which have been developed based on the experiences of real job hunters and which
target specialized fields or types of resumes. As the editor of the series, I have carefully
selected resumes and cover letters (with names and other key data disguised, of course)
which have been used successfully in real job hunts. That?s what we mean by ?Real-
Resumes.? What you see in this book are real resumes and cover letters which helped
real people get ahead in their careers.

The resumes and cover letters in this book are designed to be of most value to people
already in a job hunt or contemplating a career change. If we could give you one word of
advice about your career, here?s what we would say: Manage your career and don?t
stumble from job to job in an incoherent pattern. Try to find work that interests you,
and then identify prosperous industries which need work performed of the type you
want to do. Learn early in your working life that a great resume and cover letter can
blow doors open for you and help you maximize your salary.

Download:

http://rapidshare.com/files/226879031/dd03.rar

Source: http://www.99980.net/business/free-books-online-anne-mckinney-real-resumes-for-real-estate-property-management-jobs/

crystal harris Texas A Texas A&m cotton bowl Fiscal cliff deal kathy griffin jadeveon clowney

iBuyPower Valkyrie CZ-17

The iBuypower Valkyrie CZ-17 ($1,399 list) is a large, purpose-built performance laptop, and there's no doubt that you're carrying a lot of performance hardware with you. It's a true desktop replacement, with upgradable components, space for multiple hard drives, and a huge 1080p screen. If you need a big performance system for not a lot of money, relatively, then consider the Valkyrie a good choice for under $1,500.

Design and Features
The Valkyrie is an unsubtle, unapologetic gaming laptop. As such it is a huge mass of black plastic with lots of lighted accents including the keyboard, lid, speakers, and the system's trackpad. The system measures about 2.5-by-17-by-12 inches (HWD) and tips the scales at 8.56 pounds. This is a beefy system that will strain your back or the airline tray if you deign to travel with the system. This is larger in every dimension compared with the Editors' Choice for entry-level gaming laptops, the MSI GX60 1AC-021US ($1,299 list), but in the grand scheme of things they're both par for the course when it comes to moderately priced enthusiast gaming rigs.

The Valkyrie comes with a full-size backlit keyboard with numeric keypad. Like the MSI GX60, the Valkyrie has a few quirks: The Start button is to the right of the space bar instead of the left, and the placement of the numeric keypad pushes the arrow keys to the left in relation to the return key. Both will make you retrain your muscle memory if you're used to standard desktop keyboards. The Valkyrie has a much shallower trackpad than the MSI GX60, which will make the trackpad easier to use during day-to-day use and with Windows 8 commands. However, the trackpad isn't one of the better ones out there, registering mouse movements while we typed on the keyboard. Most gamers would be more comfortable using a USB 2.0 mouse for gaming sessions and day to day.

The Valkyrie has a decent selection of I/O ports, including two USB 2.0 ports on the right for accessories like mice and three USB 3.0 ports on the left for hard drives. The other ports include a SD card reader, multiple audio jacks, a Kensington lock port, Ethernet (with Killer brand network card), VGA, eSATA, and a HDMI port. It lacks newer ports like Thunderbolt and mini-DisplayPort, but the system has a good collection of current and legacy ports.

One neat feature is that the WASD keys and arrow keys are outlined in red, since these are the most important keys for many FPS, RPG, and MMO games. It would have been nice if iBuypower had incorporated a way to darken the other keys not in use or light the WASD keys in a different color, like on the Samsung Series 7 Gamer ($1,899). In any case, the system is easy to use in a darkened room, especially if you have a flashy mouse. There's a row of soft-touch keys above the keyboard, which let you eject the DVD drive, turn off the display, put the system into airline mode, toggle the keyboard lighting, open the media player, or activate the cooler boost. Cooler boost will help in a hot room, but the switch seemed to simply make the system louder in our air-conditioned lab.

In addition to the Gigabit Ethernet, the Valkyrie comes with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, but no 5GHz bands. The system comes with a DVD burner, though we wish our review unit had the optional Blu-ray drive for 1080p movies. Movies and games displayed smoothly on the system's 17.3-inch 1,920 by 1,080 display. While they're in the same price range, the Valkyrie CZ-17 and MSI GX60 give you a lot more screen real estate than the ultraportable Editors' Choice Maingear Pulse 11 ($1,349) and it's Clevo-chassis brothers, the AVADirect Clevo W110ER ($1129) and former EC Eurocom Monster 1.0 ($1,605). The trio of systems that are built on the Clevo W110ER chassis are limited to a 1,366-by-768 resolution on their 11-inch screens. The Clevo W110ER siblings and the tablet-based Razer Edge Pro ($1,450) are made more for portability, and the MSI GX60 and this Valkyrie CZ-17 are built around their huge screens. At least all of these choices, including the Valkyrie, come with removable or supplemental batteries, bucking the trend to make everything sealed and non-serviceable.

Speaking of serviceability, the Valkyrie CZ-17 comes with a service manual to guide users through CPU, memory, and hard drive upgrades. The system comes with three free slots for up to 32GB of memory total, and you won't have to remove the included 8GB in our test unit. There's even space for a second internal hard drive, which means you can upgrade to a SSD later. Note that if you do open your Valkyrie CZ-17 for service, you will void the one-year warranty.

Performance
The Valkyrie CZ-17 comes with an Intel Core i7-3630QM processor, 8GB of memory, 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX discrete graphics, and a 7,200rpm 750GB SATA hard drive. All of these components work together to give the system excellent marks on the multimedia tests like Handbrake, CineBench, and Photoshop CS6. In fact, the system runs through the Handbrake and Photoshop tests as fast as many high-end multimedia desktop PCs.

However, the biggest disappointment with the system was its 3D gaming scores. While it's smoothly playable at the medium quality settings at 1,366-by-768 resolution, the games we tested (Aliens vs. Predator and Heaven) were just under the 30fps (frames per second) barrier, denoting that you will occasionally see some stuttered frames as we did during testing. The EC for entry-level gaming laptops, the MSI GX60 1AC-02US was 10 frames per second faster on both tests. Those extra 10 FPS yield smoother gameplay. Unfortunately for the iBuypower, that means that the MSI GX60 is a much better gaming platform, even though the Valkyrie topped the MSI GX60 by a good measure on the multimedia and day-to-day performance tests. The MSI simply has a better AMD Radeon HD 7970M GPU, while the iBuypower has a much faster Intel Core i7 CPU. Those are the tradeoffs you need to consider at this price point.

The Valkyrie system has a turbo function key combination (FN-F1), which ran an on screen animation to tell us that it was active. The manual describes it as Over-Clocking. However, when we tried running Aliens vs. Predator again with both the turbo and cooler boost functions active the score on the high quality test only went up by 0.2 FPS. This is a negligible improvement, and as such we'd describe these settings as all show, no go.

The Valkyrie's quad-core processor, large screen, and other battery-draining features kept the system to a scant 2 hours 19 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's not even enough to finish the first of the Lord of the Rings movie, the Fellowship of the Ring. Basically, this means that you really need to keep close to a power outlet when you use the Valkyrie.

The iBuypower Valkyrie CZ-17 is a great multimedia laptop with some gaming prowess. The big problem is that for $100 less, the EC-winning MSI GX60 has much better gaming performance. And, if I'm not mistaken, that's why you would buy a humungous gaming rig over a thin and light ultrabook with excellent multimedia performance. Thus the GX60 holds on to its Editors' Choice award, but consider the Valkyrie if you're going to spend a lot of time in between gaming sessions editing photos, videos, and the like.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the iBuypower Valkyrie CZ-17 with several other laptops side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? iBuyPower Valkyrie CZ-17
??? Acer Aspire S7-191-6640
??? HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook
??? Gigabyte P2742G-CF1
??? Acer Aspire V5-571PG-9814
?? more

laptop

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/HOLsWA7h4OU/0,2817,2418233,00.asp

Michael Clarke Duncan Nazanin Boniadi Deval Patrick Dedication 4 labor day college football scores khan academy

Black 30000mAh External Portable Power Bank Smartphone Cell ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.allmobileaccessories.co.uk/black-30000mah-external-portable-power-bank-smartphone-cell-mobile-power-source-22-00-allmobileaccessories-co-uk/

this means war bobby brown suzanne somers colbert colbert report legionnaires disease underwear bomber

Friday, April 26, 2013

New study confirms link between weight loss and blood pressure for individuals with specific genetic polymorphisms

Apr. 25, 2013 ? Your genetic makeup can help determine how well your body will respond to weight loss efforts aimed at controlling high blood pressure, a new study confirms.

The multi-institutional study, led by researchers at The Cardiovascular Institute, part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, may help clarify how hypertension develops and progresses in certain individuals and also identify people for whom weight loss programs are most likely to help reduce blood pressure. Results were published in the current issue of Hypertension 2013;61:857-863.

The Trial of Nonpharmacologic Interventions in the Elderly (TONE) looked at 21 polymorphisms that have been identified as relating to hypertension, obesity, and diabetes mellitus to see what impact weight loss and sodium-reduction programs would have on blood pressure. Polymorphisms are the elements of a person's DNA that make it different from another's and allow for diversity in such varied areas as eye color, hair texture, and even blood type. The TONE study identified several polymorphisms that relate to weight sensitivity with regard to hypertension, according to principal investigator John B. Kostis, MD, John G. Detwiler professor of cardiology, professor of medicine and pharmacology, associate dean for cardiovascular research, and director of The Cardiovascular Institute of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The study sheds some light on an issue that has received little attention in the past, the researchers said.

"There are more than a thousand papers discussing the question of what the impact is on blood pressure of decreasing the amount of salt you consume in your diet -- what is called salt sensitivity. But, there is nobody talking about weight sensitivity, and weight loss is equally or more important in controlling blood pressure," Dr. Kostis said.

"Our work describes the variability of blood pressure drop in response to weight loss, according to a number of genetic polymorphisms," added William J. Kostis, PhD, MD, clinical and research fellow in medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Cardiology Division, alumnus of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and member of The Cardiovascular Institute, who was the first author of the study.

Participants in the TONE study -- individuals age 60 to 80 who were already taking one or two anti-hypertensive medications -- were randomly assigned to one of four interventions: ? Intensive dietary intervention focused on sodium reduction ? Weight loss program ? Combination of weight loss and sodium-reduction programs ? Attention control, in which individuals attended meetings that discussed dentistry, podiatry, or other topics unrelated to hypertension, weight loss, or sodium reduction

Regardless of the intervention, participants' levels of anti-hypertensive medication remained the same throughout, to remove medication changes as a variable.

"The study showed that both weight loss, if individuals are overweight, and decreased sodium intake may each lead to lower blood pressure, and the combination of weight loss and sodium restriction is more effective than either strategy alone," noted Dr. William Kostis.

Physicians can put these findings to use today through a blood test or even saliva test that measures genotype, Dr. John Kostis said. They can compare the patient's genetic background with the polymorphisms that have been identified in the study and counsel patients accordingly, offering advice as to which type of intervention may be more successful in lowering that patient's blood pressure, he said.

"With genomic studies becoming more widespread and less expensive, evaluating weight sensitivity may be one way to identify individuals who may benefit more from weight loss, as compared with other types of lifestyle interventions, like cutting salt from their diet," Dr. William Kostis said.

"Analysis of the polymorphisms also may give an indication of how much of a drop in blood pressure a person should expect, if he or she were to lose a given amount of weight," Dr. John Kostis added.

In addition to Dr. John Kostis and Dr. William Kostis, the research team included Nora M. Cosgrove, RN; Jerry Q. Cheng, PhD; and Yingzi Deng, MD, MS, from The Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey, part of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Colleagues from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; Wake Forest School of Medicine; The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, also contributed to the study.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, via Newswise.

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

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/~3/QjQkk5As1GI/130425164407.htm

ben roethlisberger Diwali elmo Kevin Clash Walmart Black Friday 2012 Paula Broadwell Tilted Kilt

Lee DeWyze Returns to American Idol, Finds "Silver Lining"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/lee-dewyze-returns-to-american-idol-finds-silver-lining/

justin timberlake gerard butler danielle fishel daylight savings Daylight Savings Time 2013 DeAndre Jordan Oz the Great and Powerful

Calculated Risk: AIA: Architecture Billings Index indicates increasing ...

by Bill McBride on 4/24/2013 09:47:00 AM

Note: This index is a leading indicator primarily for new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment.

From AIA: More Positive Momentum for Architecture Billings

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) is reflecting a steady upturn in design activity. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the March ABI score was 51.9, down from a mark of 54.9 in February. This score reflects an increase in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 60.1, down from the reading of 64.8 the previous month.
?Business conditions in the construction industry have generally been improving over the last several months,? said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. ?But as we have continued to report, the recovery has been uneven across the major construction sectors so it?s not a big surprise that there was some easing in the pace of growth in March compared to previous months.?
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the Architecture Billings Index since 1996. The index was at?51.9 in February, down from 54.9 in February. Anything above 50 indicates expansion in demand for architects' services, and this was the eight consecutive month with a reading above 50.

Every building sector is now expanding and new project inquiries are?strongly positive (down from February, but still at 60.1). Note: This includes commercial and industrial facilities like hotels and office buildings, multi-family residential, as well as schools, hospitals and other institutions.

According to the AIA, there is an "approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending" on non-residential construction.? This index?suggests?some increase in CRE investment in the second half of 2013.

Source: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/04/aia-architecture-billings-index.html

The Campaign Kinesio tape randy travis Allyson Felix Kourtney Kardashian Baby Girl Ashton Eaton London 2012 basketball

Kate Middleton Blue Dress: Could She Be Any Cuter?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/kate-middleton-blue-dress-could-she-be-any-cuter/

duke university whale shark whale shark platypus platypus overboard east of eden

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Starbucks second-quarter profit rises

(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp reported higher quarterly profit on Thursday, helped by strength in the United States, its top market, despite an industry-wide spending downturn in February due to a U.S. payroll tax increase that lowered take-home pay.

The world's biggest coffee chain reported net earnings of $390.4 million, or 51 cents per share, for the fiscal second quarter that ended on March 31. That compares with $309.9 million, or 40 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $3.56 billion.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller in New York and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles. Editing by Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/starbucks-second-quarter-profit-rises-201803004--finance.html

kansas ohio state wrestlemania results womens final four josh hutcherson google april fools office space shell houston open

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

UK in dark mood as new recession may be confirmed

LONDON (AP) ? Recession may just be a word. But in Britain it may become a habit ? and a dangerous one at that.

It's possible that official figures on first quarter economic growth, to be released Thursday, could put the country back in recession, and tension is building.

Although economists on average expect growth of 0.1 percent on the quarter, they warn it would take the smallest statistical variation to put the figure in negative territory. That would place the country in recession, technically defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

Another recession ? the third since the 2008 financial crisis ? is already being referred to with foreboding in the media as a "Triple Dip." Experts warn that its confirmation would create a wave of negative media attention that would scare consumers away from spending, feeding into a vicious cycle that has the economy flat-lining.

"It's psychological ? this is all psychological," said Cary Cooper, a professor at Lancaster University Management School. "It's about the message that those figures send to consumers and small businesses."

The government desperately wants a strong number to justify its increasingly criticized policy of painful spending cuts. But recent indicators on Britain's economy, the third-largest in the 27-country EU after Germany and France, have been disappointing.

Inflation is rising, cutting into people's standard of living. Unemployment is up. Two international ratings agencies have downgraded the country's credit grade from the top level AAA, warning about the government's fiscal policies.

The government, which has long played on its AAA rating as a sign of its economic might, has been pursuing a harsh program of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit, which at 7.4 percent of annual economic output is more than twice the EU's 3 percent limit. Like many governments across Europe that have been scarred by the bond market turmoil that forced Greece and four other countries to need rescue loans, Britain is focusing on reducing debt quickly, even at the cost of short-term economic pain.

What some governments and economists are slowly realizing, however, is that they may have underestimated the damage such austerity would do.

There's long been pressure domestically in Britain to ease off the budget cuts, but in the past few days the International Monetary Fund also chimed in. The fund, whose views carry weight as it is involved in all of Europe's sovereign bailout programs, has pressured Treasury chief George Osborne to slow down the austerity measures in hopes of reviving the economy, whose output last year was worth 1.4 trillion pounds ($2.1 trillion at current exchange rates).

As the debate rages on, no other person than the national spiritual leader ? the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby ? has waded in and used a word no want wants to hear: Depression.

Welby has unusual standing in the world of money because in a previous life he served as an oil industry executive and now sits on the parliamentary banking standards committee. He told an audience at the heart of government in Westminster on Monday that there was an issue of confidence and trust ? and there is need to rebuild both.

"I would argue that what we are in at the moment is not a recession, but essentially some kind of depression and it therefore takes something very, very major to get out of it in the same way as it took something major for us to get into it," he said.

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to record lows and pumped money into the financial system in the hope that will encourage banks to lend money more cheaply. But the results have been mixed and experts say there is only so much a central bank can do to create jobs.

On Wednesday, the Bank of England and the Treasury extended until January 2015 a program to boost lending and help the economy. The program offers funding at low interest rates to banks on condition that those rates are passed on to small businesses and households. Its results so far have been mixed, however.

Even if the economy dodges recession, the daily reality for many Britons remains tough.

The Trussell Trust, a food bank network, said it fed more than 350,000 people in the year ending in March ? more than double the 128,000 served in the previous 12-month period. Tim Boyce, a retired investment banker who runs a south London branch, said he's seeing the people behind those numbers. Inside a frosty church that's opened its doors to the desperate, he watches as they come for emergency handouts of rice, pasta and beans.

"Most people don't realize the extent of poverty," he said as he sipped coffee to keep the edge off the chill. "It's hiding in plain view."

Take the cases of Kevin Bishenden, 50, and his wife, Nicola, 40. He's an upholsterer who says that no one wants to hire someone his age. She says she just can't find work. The only reason they aren't homeless is that Britain's welfare state manages to keep a roof over their heads.

But they've slowly been shedding all their possessions, together with memories of a past life. First a bike, then stuff from the kitchen. All the DVDs are going, though even Star Trek only gets you a few pennies. They've already sold their wedding rings.

He lamented a new council tax payment of 15 pounds ($22.80) that came into effect as part of government austerity plans. His exhaustion was plain as he tried to imagine paying for it.

"Where's that supposed to come from?"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-dark-mood-recession-may-confirmed-065201173--finance.html

fabrice muamba collapse prometheus trailer patrice oneal shamrock slainte the quiet man yellow cab

Yelp Partners With Locu, Allowing Businesses To Post Menus, Daily Specials & Photos To Yelp In Real Time

Local business data provider?Locu?is announcing a partnership with Yelp today, in order to help update Yelp’s menus and other listings data with Locu’s real-time information directly from businesses. This will allow restaurants on Locu to distribute their menus and daily specials to Yelp, but it will also help Locu further expand into other verticals beyond restaurants alone. The move comes on the heels of Locu’s partnership earlier this spring with WordPress maker Automattic, which allowed restaurants to more easily add their Locu-powered menus to their WordPress blogs. The company has also been busy rolling in support for other third parties, including OpenTable, TripAdvisor and CitySearch. The startup, backed by $4 million in Series A funding, extracts data from business websites then makes it available in a structured format, including via its API. Business owners who claim their pre-populated Locu profile, or who sign up for the service on their own, will have access to edit the data as need be, then push it out to their own website, mobile site, Facebook page, WordPress blog, and other local directories, like, as of now, Yelp. The benefit to using Locu over traditional local business listing providers, explains co-founder and CEO Rene?Reinsberg, is the speed with which Locu can serve updates. “If you look at the historical providers, typically how they work is once a week, once a month, and in some cases once a day – but that’s really the exception – the provider would get a feed and updates,” he says. “The concept here [with Locu] is to have a real-time functionality.” “That’s where we need to be headed anyway,” adds?Reinsberg, “because today a lot of searches are happening on mobile phones so they’re immediate – you’re looking for something right now.” For restaurants, which are still the majority of Locu’s user base, the Yelp integration means they’ll be able to have their current menu, including daily specials, seen by Yelp users on both web and mobile.?Their menus will appear on profile pages for businesses with Yelp’s data layered on top, including photos. Here’s an example. Locu now has over 15,000 merchants on its platform. The company offers a freemium service, where paid users have a set of additional premium options, templates, and support?for $25 per month. This includes the ability to trial Locu Takeout, an online ordering option for restaurants, as well as publish photos to Facebook, OpenTable, and now,

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dysX9skq6Dg/

easter bunny easter april fools pranks atlanta braves Happy Easter Game Of Thrones Season 3 campfire

3 Doors Down bassist enters rehab following arrest

A?photo released by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department is Robert Todd Harrell. Harrell, bassist with the rock band 3 Doors Down has been charged with vehicular homicide by intoxication after an interstate crash claimed the life of another motorist Sunday April 21, 2013, in the Nashville area, police said. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Nashville Police Department)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? An attorney says 3 Doors Down bassist Robert Todd Harrell has checked himself into drug treatment after being charged with killing someone while driving under the influence.

Attorney Ed Ryan says he could not disclose where Harrell is being treated.

Harrell is facing multiple charges, including vehicular homicide by intoxication. Authorities say he caused a fatal interstate crash in a Nashville suburb last weekend. Records show authorities discovered that Harrell had numerous narcotics on him while he was being processed into the Nashville jail.

Police say the 41-year-old bassist was speeding down Interstate 40 in his Cadillac CTS when he clipped the back of a pickup truck, causing a crash that killed the driver of the truck.

The bassist is due in court next month and is free on bond.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-24-3%20Doors%20Down%20Bassist/id-220263f086f3445085c69e5e7c94fdbf

bo jackson hanukkah justin tv justin tv Sarah Savage Jaimie Alexander Army Navy Game

Use of anti-epileptic drug during pregnancy associated with increased risk of autism

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Maternal use of valproate (a drug used for the treatment of epilepsy and other neuropsychological disorders) during pregnancy was associated with a significantly increased risk of autism in offspring, according to a study in the April 24 issue of JAMA. The authors caution that these findings must be balanced against the treatment benefits for women who require valproate for epilepsy control.

"Anti-epileptic drug exposure during pregnancy has been associated with an increased risk for congenital malformations and delayed cognitive development in the offspring, but little is known about the risk of other serious neuropsychiatric disorders," according to background information in the article.

Jakob Christensen, Ph.D., of Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues evaluated the association between maternal use of valproate during pregnancy and the risk of autism spectrum disorder and childhood autism in offspring. The population-based study included all children born alive in Denmark from 1996 to 2006. National registers were used to identify children exposed to valproate during pregnancy and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (childhood autism [autistic disorder], Asperger syndrome, atypical autism, and other or unspecified pervasive developmental disorders). Data were analyzed and adjusted for potential confounders (factors that can influence outcomes) such as maternal age at conception, paternal age at conception, parental psychiatric history, gestational age, birth weight, sex, congenital malformations, and parity. Children were followed up from birth until the day of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, death, emigration, or December 31, 2010, whichever came first.

The analysis included 655,615 children born from 1996 through 2006. The average age of the children at end of follow-up was 8.8 years. During the study period, 5,437 children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, including 2,067 with childhood autism. The researchers identified 2,644 children exposed to antiepileptic drugs during pregnancy, including 508 exposed to valproate. The authors found that use of valproate during pregnancy was associated with an absolute risk of 4.42 percent for autism spectrum disorder and an absolute risk of 2.50 percent for childhood autism.

"In this population-based cohort study, children of women who used valproate during pregnancy had a higher risk of autism spectrum disorder and childhood autism compared with children of women who did not use valproate. Their risks were also higher than those for children of women who were previous users of valproate but who stopped before their pregnancy," the researchers write.

"Because autism spectrum disorders are serious conditions with lifelong implications for affected children and their families, even a moderate increase in risk may have major health importance. Still, the absolute risk of autism spectrum disorder was less than 5 percent, which is important to take into account when counseling women about the use of valproate in pregnancy."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The JAMA Network Journals.

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

Journal Reference:

Jakob Christensen et al. Anti-Epileptic Drug During Pregnancy Associated With Increased Risk of Autism. JAMA, April 23, 2013

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/~3/w-OeQJ8eV_c/130423161855.htm

madden cover obama slow jams the news metta world peace ron artest gladys knight private practice deion sanders

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Sen. Baucus Angers Dems by Retiring (ABC News)

Share With Friends:

| Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301003125?client_source=feed&format=rss

dionne warwick patricia heaton arsenic and old lace leslie varez ward solar storms uganda

Strengthening legumes to tackle fertilizer pollution

Apr. 23, 2013 ? The overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture can wreak havoc on waterways, health and the environment.

An international team of scientists aims to lessen the reliance on these fertilizers by helping beans and similar plants boost their nitrogen production, even in areas with traditionally poor soil quality.

Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory report as an advance article April 5 for the Metallomics journal of The Royal Society of Chemistry on how to use X-ray analysis to map a path to increasing the amount of nitrogen that legumes deposit into the soil.

Cultivation of legumes, the plant family that includes peas, beans, alfalfa, soybeans, and peanuts, is one of the main ways farmers add natural nitrogen to agricultural fields. Rotating bean and corn crops to take advantage of the nitrogen beans deposit in the soil has long been a global farming tradition. Legumes use iron in the soil to carry out a complex chemical process called nitrogen fixation, which collects atmospheric nitrogen and converts it into organic forms that help the plant grow. When the plant dies, the excess nitrogen is released back into to the soil to help the next crop.

But often legumes are grown in areas with iron-depleted soil, which limits their nitrogen fixation. That's where research can lend a hand. The Argonne-UPM team has created the world's first model for how iron is transported in the plant's root nodule to trigger nitrogen fixation. This is the first step in modifying the plants to maximize iron use.

"The long-term goal is to help sustainable agriculture practices and further diminish the environmental damage from overuse of nitrogen fertilizers," said Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero, lead author of the paper from UPM. "This can be done by maximizing the delivery of essential metal oligonutrients to nitrogen-fixing rhizobia."

The research team, which included Lydia Finney and Stefan Vogt from the APS, used high-energy X-rays from the 8-BM and 2-ID-E beamlines of the APS to track the distribution of minute iron amounts in the different developmental regions of rhizobia-containing roots. This is the first high-energy X-ray analysis of plant-microbe interactions.

X-rays, such as those from the APS, provided a high sensitivity to elements and a high spatial resolution not attainable by other means. Full details can be found in the paper Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules.

In future studies at the APS, Gonzalez-Guerrero hopes to identify and characterize the key biological proteins responsible for iron transportation. That would give researchers targets to manipulate and screen for new legume varieties with increased nitrogen-fixation capabilities and higher nutritional value.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Argonne National Laboratory. The original article was written by Tona Kunz.

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

Journal Reference:

Benjam?n Rodr?guez-Haas, Lydia Finney, Stefan Vogt, Pablo Gonz?lez-Melendi, Juan Imperial, Manuel Gonzalez-Guerrero. Iron distribution through the developmental stages of Medicago truncatula nodules. Metallomics, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C3MT00060E

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/WFDVPPsK7IM/130423161911.htm

earl csco big bend national park leon russell meredith vieira prop 8 maria menounos

Black HTC One peeks out of AT&T and Sprint web stores, promises to be available soon

Torn between getting an HTC One right now and waiting for that sleek black variant? We know the feeling, and the folks at Sprint and AT&T aren't making it easier: both providers have tossed up a product page for the color. Unfortunately, a solid street date is nowhere to be seen -- Sprint only promises that it'll be available "soon." The tease won't make the wait any more bearable, but if you want to ogle that press image a bit more, check out the product pages at source.

Filed under: Cellphones, HTC, Sprint, AT&T, AMD