Monday, December 31, 2012

ey yo, rpg

Hello all.

I'm completely new to this site and this community; however, I am far from new to the roleplaying game. I've been playing text-based RPs since I was about thirteen or so (nineteen now) courtesy of my sister who is an English major concentrating in creative writing. Fucking grammar Nazi.

All that aside, I'm a very relaxed individual. I love thick plot and vivid detail when writing; that being said, I post a shit ton in my posts.

I'm an avid pot smoker, partier, and music addict. I play the saxophone (and nearly every variation of saxophone) and the guitar. Not really sure what else to say, other than I am completely lost on how to do things around here. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/QE246W5Onpg/viewtopic.php

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Proper Ways To Use Mouthpiece for Snoring | Health and Fitness

By Shawn E. Kavanagh

Loud night breathing is really a frequent scenario inside the household, specifically in the bed room. Regardless of how fatigued you may be or how much you would like to snuggle up with your significant other, you just cannot drop asleep thanks to loud snoring. Despite the fact that loud night breathing isn't going to necessarily mean an individual suffers from the a lot more severe health challenge, it deprives you from sleep. Total recovery from loud night breathing will not be nonetheless fully understood but gadgets to aid lessen the sound generated are created. Among the hottest and the very least highly-priced therapies is really a mouthpiece for loud night breathing. In the event you rest and also your throat is blocked by a piece of tissue, you deliver a vibrating audio as air enters your respiratory tract.

Learn More About [How Can i Stop Snoring]

This sound can be loud and disturbing and most people assume that lying on your side will keep you from snoring; but this is not yet proven and some experts say this may actually worsen the situation. Why suffer from uncomfortable sleeping positions when you can have a silent, snore-free night with oral appliance therapy using a very good snoring appliance. This therapy usually requires the use of a plastic (usually elastic polymers) molded into a form similar to a mouthpiece or mouth guard, placed in the mouth much like dentures. The appliance holds the lower jaw forward, providing a better airway, and ultimately, ease of breathing.

Oral Appliance Therapy is common because it is cheap but experts report that its efficiency for mild to moderate cases of sleep apnea (a sleeping disorder that may also lead to snoring) is lower compared to a more complex unit called the CPAP. Nevertheless, mouth guard treatments are popular because they are easy to purchase, cheap and easy to use. If you search the Internet for snoring treatment, you might come up with such products. Consult with your doctor first and see if you do not have sleep apnea. If all you have is snoring, mouthpieces are practical solutions.

A mouth guard for snoring is made with safe materials, and approved and cleared by FDA; this ensures that you will be using non-toxic products and will not leach out harmful substances. Testimonials from happy users (as well as the relieved family members) say that such products can be immediately used, no need to set up. Because the material is elastic, it can be molded according to the pattern of your teeth and jaw so your mouth moves naturally, even during sleep. However, you can't use them if you have dentures or sensitive teeth. You will also feel a bit uncomfortable during the first times of use but you will get accustomed to it afterwards.

When snoring isn't going to impose serious well being issues, it gets to be a disturbing and uncomfortable predicament. Also, the imagined of your respective loved one particular possessing trouble respiratory is simply not wonderful information. Numerous loud night breathing options can be obtained but utilizing mouthpieces together with other oral appliances is considered the most realistic and cheapest remedy it is possible to come across. Most suppliers also provide a trial interval in which you can practical experience their merchandise for 30 days and when you will be not happy with the consequence, you can basically ship them back again. Much more has become wriiten about zquiet

Source: http://healthandfitnessabdussalamblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/proper-ways-to-use-mouthpiece-for.html

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SC State University Board of Trustees (Executive Committee) to Meet

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Source: http://orangeburg.wistv.com/news/events/54838-sc-state-university-board-trustees-executive-committee-meet

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President Obama has had enough of Congress' decision-making on how to take actio...

The Pressure's On! President Obama Scolds Congress For Fiscal Cliff Decision Delay (DETAILS)

globalgrind.com

President Obama has had enough of Congress' decision-making on how to take action with the fiscal cliff, which he addressed in a speech give yesterday. The President stated that if the two leaders of

Source: http://www.facebook.com/globalgrind/posts/386543858103713

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Washington off the mark, loses on road to Connecticut

Originally published December 29, 2012 at 8:23 PM | Page modified December 29, 2012 at 8:46 PM

HARTFORD, Conn. ? One look at that stat sheet answered most questions regarding why Connecticut beat Washington 61-53 in a nonleague game Saturday night at the XL Center.

For example, Washington (8-5) set season lows in points (53), field-goal percentage (29.7 on 19 of 64) and three-point percentage (23.5 on 4 of 17).

And Washington's seasonlong rebounding issue was a problem again as UConn (10-2) outrebounded the Huskies 40-36, only the second time Connecticut has had more rebounds than its opponent this season.

"You have to give UConn credit in that they did a good job on the boards," UW coach Lorenzo Romar said. "There were a lot of shots to be had on the backboards with us shooting a low percentage. On the offensive boards, we were able to get 14 to their seven, but that wasn't enough."

C.J. Wilcox, Washington's top scorer, was held to five points on 2-for-12 shooting.

Scott Suggs led the Huskies with 15 points,

UConn, meanwhile, had a trio of double-figure scorers in Omar Calhoun (14), Shabazz Napier (13) and Ryan Boatright (12).

"UConn came out aggressive on defense early, but the ball did not go down for us," Romar said of UConn's man-to-man defense.

Wilcox blamed himself for missing shots, especially when he had good looks at the basket.

"On a couple of those shots, they played good defense," Wilcox said. "But half of them were wide-open shots, and they just weren't falling. There weren't any excuses.

"I was surprised we weren't making shots. But it was one of those nights where the shots weren't falling. In pregame shooting, we all felt comfortable. But during the game they didn't fall."

It was the final nonconference game for Washington, which opens the Pac-12 season Saturday at Washington State.

"We're going to take what we can from the loss," Wilcox said. "It shouldn't carry over. We're going to go to practice next week and build on what we can."

"We played another team (in the Big East), Seton Hall, and we played Ohio State, who was No. 4 in the country," Romar said. "This was a game against a good, storied program from a strong conference.

"If we had been successful, it would have helped us. Now, we must get ready for our conference."

Even though Washington shot a frigid 32.3 percent (10 for 31) in the first half, it still trailed just 31-25 at intermission.

One reason UConn didn't lead by more was UW forced four turnovers in the last four minutes.

Suggs drained a three-point shot after the first of those UConn miscues to give Washington a 24-23 lead. But UConn built a five-point halftime lead by going 8 for 8 from the foul line in the final 3:57.

UConn opened the second half with a 13-4 run capped by an alley-oop jam by Calhoun.

Washington countered with a 15-5 run that sliced its deficit to 50-45 with 7:75 remaining. But a 9-1 UConn run ended Washington's chances.

"I give a lot of credit to UConn tonight," Romar said. "Down the stretch they probably turned the ball over more times than they would have liked. But, overall, they were able to do what they tried to do."

WASHINGTON 53
min fgm-a ftm-a or-t a pf pts
Simmons 32 2-8 1-2 6-10 0 2 6
N'Diaye 14 0-3 0-0 1-3 0 3 0
Gaddy 23 4-10 0-1 3-6 3 5 8
Suggs 39 5-15 3-3 0-2 4 1 15
Wilcox 34 2-12 0-0 0-2 1 1 5
Andrews 23 2-5 5-7 2-6 2 4 9
Jarreau 14 0-2 1-2 0-1 0 1 1
Kemp, Jr 21 4-9 1-1 1-4 0 3 9
200 19-64 11-16 14-36 10 20 53
Percentages: FG .297, FT .688. Three-point goals: 4-17, .235 (Suggs 2-6, Simmons 1-2, Wilcox 1-6, Andrews 0-1, Gaddy 0-2). Team rebounds: 2. Blocked shots: 3 (Wilcox, Simmons, Kemp, Jr.). Turnovers: 13 (Andrews 3, Simmons 3, Suggs 2, Gaddy 2, Jarreau, Wilcox, Kemp, Jr.). Steals: 8 (Simmons 3, Suggs 2, Gaddy, Jarreau, Andrews). Technical fouls: N'Diaye.
UCONN 61
min fgm-a ftm-a or-t a pf pts
Daniels 35 4-9 0-0 0-5 1 4 9
Olander 17 1-3 2-2 1-2 0 2 4
Boatright 32 5-11 2-4 0-2 3 3 12
Napier 36 3-10 6-8 0-8 4 2 13
Calhoun 29 6-10 2-4 0-1 2 0 14
Nolan 6 0-0 3-4 0-0 0 1 3
Wolf 17 1-2 0-1 2-9 0 1 2
Giffey 13 0-0 0-0 1-3 2 1 0
Evans 15 2-2 0-2 0-1 1 2 4
200 22-47 15-25 7-40 13 16 61
Percentages: FG .468, FT .600. Three-point goals: 2-14, .143 (Daniels 1-2, Napier 1-6, Boatright 0-2, Calhoun 0-4). Team rebounds: 9. Blocked shots: 4 (Wolf 2, Daniels, Olander). Turnovers: 17 (Napier 7, Boatright 2, Calhoun 2, Wolf 2, Daniels 2, Nolan, Evans). Steals: 6 (Napier 3, Evans 2, Wolf). Technical fouls: None.
Washington 26 27 ? 53
UConn 31 30 ? 61

Attendance: 12,720. Officials: Michael Stephens, Brian O'Connell, Mike Roberts.

Source: http://feeds.seattletimes.com/click.phdo?i=ac98e7fb2af2cab9367ce4e9247e1d99

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Would-be adoptive parents look beyond Russia

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russia's new ban on U.S. adoptions is the latest setback for hopeful American parents as countries increasingly impose restrictions.

Other countries, including China and Guatemala, have erected hurdles for adoptive families as they create their own domestic adoption programs. The signing of the Hague Convention on adoption in 2008 drastically improved regulation of the process, which had been rife with corruption. But it has also led to a slowdown in adoptions or shutdowns in some countries. Internal politics and abuse concerns are additional reasons why countries have tightened controls.

In 2004, U.S. citizens adopted 22,991 children who had been born abroad, an all-time high, according to Adoptive Families magazine. By 2011, that number had fallen to 9,319. (For a graphic view of how international adoptions have fallen in various countries, see http://link.reuters.com/tut84t)

There are still other options for Americans wanting to adopt an international child. Bulgaria, Columbia and many African nations are some of the new, go-to countries for U.S. adoptions.

But even that's not a sure thing. For would-be adoptive parents the best bet is to widen their search to include special needs kids, sibling groups and older children.

AFRICA'S ADOPTION EXPLOSION

Africa, which represented 22 percent of adoptions in 2009, is expected to be a bigger player in the future. "A decade ago, there were very few adoptions (in Africa)," according to Susan Soonkeum Cox, vice president policy and external affairs at Holt International, a Christian adoption organization. "Now, there's an explosion."

African countries seeing an increase in adoptions include South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya and Ivory Coast.

Adoptions in Ethiopia, meanwhile, have declined from a peak of 2,511 in 2010 as the country overhauled its oversight process. But it is still a viable option, Cox said.

Cox advises working with an adoption agency that has staff on the ground in Africa and other countries to handle paperwork and advocate for U.S. families.

Other countries that still welcome American adoptions include Bulgaria and Colombia, said Megan Montgomery, international adoption coordinator for Adoption Star, based in Amherst, New York. Adoption Star primarily deals with adoptions from Bulgaria, a country that has gone from five placements in 2008 to 75 adoptions in 2011.

Placements from Vietnam and Cambodia, which shuttered their U.S. adoption programs, should resume soon, adoption experts say.

FAMILIES CAN'T FLIP A SWITCH

Adoptions of Russian children peaked in 2004, according to Dale Eldridge, coordinator of adoptive services at Jewish Family Services' Adoption Choices, a non-profit adoption program based in Framingham, Massachusetts. Right now, fewer than 50 U.S. adoptions of Russian children are formally in the works while another 250 U.S. families have identified kids they would like to adopt, adoption experts said.

Unfortunately, families that already have started an adoption in Russia can't just flip a switch and redirect their efforts to another country. "I wish it was as simple as taking some families who have been waiting (for Russian children) to just move over to another country," said David Nish, chief program officer at Spence-Chapin, a U.S.-based adoption agency that finds homes for children in the United States and around the world. "But it's a whole other process."

That's because every country has its own eligibility requirements. Criteria can include parents' marital status, age of the parents, employment, financial status, medical issues, and even the age difference between the adoptive parents and adoptee child. The adoption process remains restrictive for single-sex couples.

And the cost can be prohibitive. For example, the median fee in 2011 was $8,000 for the Dominican Republic, $15,355 in Panama and $26,063 in South Africa, according to the U.S. State Department's Intercountry Adoption Annual Report. Adoption fees for many of the 30-plus countries on the State Department's list are in the range of $20,000. That's not including travel costs.

Even so, international adoptions are often cheaper than domestic ones for newborn babies, which can cost $40,000 or more.

OLDER CHILDREN

To speed up the process, would-be adoptive parents should consider a school-age child, experts say.

According to the State Department, 233,934 international adoptions were made by Americans from 1999 to 2011. Nearly 94,000 of those adoptions involved children under the age of one. Just about 20,000 children aged three or four were adopted during that period. And for kids aged 5 to 12, it was 29,712.

The benefit of adopting a school-age child is that it is easier to identify developmental and emotional problems ahead of time. "There's more you can do to prepare and put resources in place to support what they need," Spence-Chapin's Nish said.

School-aged children can be challenging if pre-adoptive experiences affect their development, he said.

A special needs child is also a possibility. One way to fast-track an international adoption may be to apply for a child with known medical or special needs, said Adoption Star's Montgomery. "For families with resources, it can be great option," Montgomery said. "Of course, you really have to find the right family to take on that kind of known medical need."

Special needs can range from a baby born with a minor medical problem, such as a cleft palate, to more serious issues, such as a heart condition, blindness or spina bifida. "It's not about families getting a child quicker," Nish said. "It's about a family accepting a child into their household that they can provide for and love and nurture."

China's Waiting Child program, which includes children who have special needs or correctable medical conditions or are part of sibling groups, has wait times that are typically much shorter than the traditional program, according to Adoptive Families magazine. In 2011, more than half of adoptions from China were through this program.

Would-be parents must be prepared to wait. The Associated Services for International Adoption, a non-profit adoption group, says the wait time for an adoption referral in China is 73 months as the country has clamped down on U.S. adoptions. "If the wait time is becoming impractical, it's better to close the intake process" and start again, advised Holt's Cox.

Tracy Downey and her husband, Jason, who live in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, tried to go the traditional international Chinese adoption route in 2006. But after waiting for 18 months to bring home a baby from China, Tracy switched gears and started combing the official Chinese list of children with special needs along with additional lists from adoption agencies and orphanages.

The Downeys have since adopted a daughter, Angel, along with two sons - Corban and Tegan - from China, all with large, potentially disfiguring moles known as a giant congenital nevi. They started the process to bring home the two boys, now aged 3-1/2, last January. It took about 10 months.

Aside from their large moles - which are on two of the children's faces and on the other's lower body - all three kids are healthy and thriving, Tracy said.

"If we wanted a non-special needs child, we'd still be waiting," Tracy said.

(Follow us @ReutersMoney or at http://www.reuters.com/finance/personal-finance; Additional reporting by Chelsea Emery and Beth Pinsker Gladstone; Editing by Linda Stern and Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/adoptive-parents-look-beyond-russia-192952945.html

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Simplify your Business Life with Simple Productivity Tools ? Lauren ...

Time yourself for efficiency

Time yourself for efficiency

Many people tend not to refer to themselves as minimalists. We simply buy, use, and collect too many things to think otherwise. Yet with all our gadgets, trinkets, and supplies, we usually find the most value in minimalist tools and methods that help increase our productivity.

Despite the appeal of multi-featured products and multitasking, I?ve found that having fewer tasks and options to focus on at a time makes getting things done a whole lot faster and easier. Here we?ll talk about three incredible tools you can use to simplify your business life, home life, and possible even your social life.

They are simple tools that focus your attention on very little at a time, and yet make sure that you excel at the little you set out to do. You?ll be able to accomplish what you need to do first, finally making time to do what you enjoy as well.

Evernote

Evernote has grown significantly since it was launched back in 2008. Reaching more than 11 million users last year, it has easily become one of the most popular productivity tools of our time.
Evernote is an organization tool for iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices. The application can also run on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and various Internet browsers. On your computer Evernote can copy selected windows on the screen, including web pages if your browser supports it. You can then mark these copies with titles and organize them into notebook, archiving them in a number of ways.

On mobile devices, items you?ve copied can be synced directly to the Evernote cloud service, so you?ll never lose any of the information that you?re organizing. You can also take pictures from your smartphone or tablet and save them directly onto your Evernote account. You can also add GPS tagging and audio comments to each of the pictures you save.

There are hundreds of ways you can use this tool to your advantage. Many companies have switched to Evernote as their central filing system, abandoning physical paperwork altogether. Students use it as a great way to take written notes and keep track of their school work. Families use it as a cheap way to store their photos through a cloud service, versus an unsecure hard drive.
As you begin to use it, you?ll notice other little ways you can be more productive with this tool. For example, let?s say you?re going to a major mall, airport or other commercial area. Before you leave the parking lot, take a picture of your car, GPS tag it, and then you can use the GPS on your mobile device to walk right back to it later.

Evernote can be a valuable productivity tool if used correctly and consistently. Give it a try for a week and see how it works. There?s no downside and its basic service is completely free.

Pomodoro Technique

Developed back in the late 1980s, the Pomodoro technique is an incredible time management system that involves working in short focused waves. The basic idea is to use a timer and work on a single task for 25 minutes without any interruption, and then take a short break for 5 minutes. This takes a lot of pressure off a particular task while discouraging unnecessary multitasking.
The Pomodoro technique allows you to make calculated progress on all of your tasks by encouraging deep concentration without distractions instead of tackling it all at once and feeling overwhelmed. It?s simple, but very effective, and keeps you focused on what?s most important.

Steps:

  • Select a take you need to accomplish today.
  • Set a timer for 25 minutes and begin working on that task.
  • When time is up, take a short 5 minute break.
  • Repeat.

Every 4 cycles, take a 25 minute break.

You?ll notice after trying it that the Pomodoro technique is very easy to remember and follow. It doesn?t require any special software, lists, or other medium. You can practice it with anything.

Zendone

Zendone is complementary software to Evernote. It further explores the organization and productivity features that Evernote offers by creating a task management system for you.
When you connect Zendone to Evernote, you?ll choose one of your Evernote folders as your main task inbox. In the future, anything that you upload to that Evernote folder will also pop up in your Zendone inbox as a task. So with Evernote you have a fantastic way to collect and organize vast amounts of content on one digital interface using text, pictures, and audio recordings.

With Zendone, you can now designate what you want to do with this information and prioritize it in the form of daily tasks. If it?s just information for the file then you can archive it for reference, but if it something you need to get done at a later date, like paying a bill or taxes, then you can title it and organize it as a task in your Zendone inbox.

Try utilizing each of these three productivity tools to your advantage. Collect and store information on Evernote while using Zendone to organize it into tasks. Then use the Pomodoro technique to accomplish those tasks. Rinse and repeat. It?s a simple way to maximize your productivity while lowering your stress. Give it a try and let us know how it worked for you in the comments below.


blogVincent H. Clarke is a Marketing Analyst for USB Memory Direct, a wholesaler of promotional USB drives. While he mostly writes about marketing and branding, he also enjoys writing about personal improvement, productivity, and start-up culture.

Source: http://www.laurenmacewen.com/2012/12/28/simplify-your-business-life-with-simple-productivity-tools/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=simplify-your-business-life-with-simple-productivity-tools

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LLC MINUTES & MAINTENACE ISSUES

A recent thread pointed out the need for an Operating Agreement which led to maintenance rquirements of an LLC.

Not only do members need to have an Operating Agreement but the corporation needs to be maintained.

Minutes of Meetings will provide evidence of how buisness is conducted through your LLC. The best way for you to lose the liability protection provided by your LLC is to mismanage the company, allowing it to remain dormant and inactive.

But, keeping minutes of meetings of a one member LLC seems silly, but the LLC really isn't you so much as a seperate corporate beast that should be fed.

Any time your company acts in a significant transaction, like buying a property, such actions need to be authorized.

While meetings may not be specifically required by law for an LLC, an LLC is a corporate entity and meetings are required for corporations. Robert's Rules have been adopted my some states as to how meetings are to be conducted, adopting the outline will show a formal attempt to conduct your business.

That said, how can we make it easier to maintain an LLC and conduct meetings as well as recording meeting activities in the minutes?

Really, I used some standard verbage to show meetings were conducted in various corporate stuructures, just going through the motions, but when significant buisness was conducted anotations were made.

In about five minutes a month, minutes could be maintained without much buisness activity.

It may take longer when significant busienss is conducted, so what do you consider significant?

I'd suggest "significant" is outlined in a good Operating Agreement, major purchases, entering contracts, withdrawl of money above amounts set for normal business expenses, admission or withdrawl of members, obtaining insurance policies, making claims against others or addressing claims against the company, letting contracts, hiring an attorney or accountant, and engaging in any business not specifically described in the Articles of Incorporation.

In such matters, common sence must prevail, what is usual and customary may not need to be addressed, say with letting contracts or hiring professionals, sending a maintenance guy over for a minor repair is usual and customary in rentals, hiring a roofing contractor to replace a roof is significant.

BTW, a roofing job might be a good example why the company should approve the work, if there is an accident, if your company did not approve the work the damages could end up being on you, while I don't have a specific case, that example was given to me by our attorney, just passing it along and I do see such being an issue.

What else do you think should be considered and how can it be simplified?

Source: http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/80608-llc-minutes-and-maintenace-issues

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Friday, December 28, 2012

SCIENCE: Wright?s Law

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/12/24/science/100000001947354/wrights-law.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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WHOI research projects awarded $5.2 million to support marine microbial research

WHOI research projects awarded $5.2 million to support marine microbial research [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Media Relations Office
media@whoi.edu
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Microbiology Initiative

There are more microbes in a bucket of seawater than there are people on Earth. Despite their abundance, humans are only just beginning to fathom the complex role marine microbes play in the ocean ecosystem.

These tiny creatures are responsible for the chemical reactions that drive Earth's marine biogeochemical cycles, yet, in terms of how and why groups of microbes interact and what the functional consequences are of those interactions, they are still considered "black boxes." An understanding of them is critical for assessing the ocean's health and productivity.

Three projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which received a total of $5.2 million in 2012 from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Microbiology Initiative, will employ scientific inquiry and the latest technology and laboratory techniques to shed light on microbes. Their work will look for answers to questions regarding the flow of nutrients through microbial food webswho eats and secretes what, where, and whenand the resulting biogeochemical transformations.

"The support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is critical to enabling a fundamental understanding of microbes' contribution to ocean health and productivity," says WHOI President and Director Susan Avery. "There is so much more to know about marine microbes' genetic diversity, how they secure nutrients, what other organisms they interact with, and the biogeochemical changes they bring about in the ocean. These new projects will contribute toward the ultimate goal of a comprehensive understanding of marine microbial communities."

For the last few decades, oceanographers have been thinking about microbes simply as components of the marine food web: they take up nutrients and are prey for larger organisms, and their abundance and diversity in the ocean depends only on the amounts and types of nutrients and predators in their environment. This view is overly simplistic, and these grants will allow WHOI investigators to look at the molecular basis for the much more complex processes that they have hypothesized are at play in the sea.

These awards target advancing understanding at inter-disciplinary interfaces in microbial oceanography by supporting the development of sophisticated technologies and methods and by testing the newly developed approaches in the field. The funded projects at WHOI include:

  • Investigating Dissolved Organic Matter in the Microbial Loop WHOI chemist Dan Repeta with Ed DeLong at MIT.
    To develop laboratory and field-based experimental systems for characterizing the roles of microbial physiology, ecology and biogeochemistry in the cycling of dissolved organic matter in the nutrient-poor ocean.
  • Identification and Quantification of New Biomarkers for Key Microbial Species WHOI chemist Elizabeth Kujawinski.
    To develop new protocols to detect the products of microbial metabolism in seawater to understand the influence of marine microbial communities and their activities on the chemical composition of their surroundings. The new procedures will enable researchers to quantify the abundance of these molecules that serve as the currency of nutrient flow among the studied microbes.
  • Infochemical Control of Microbial Carbon and Nutrient Cycling in the North Atlantic WHOI chemists Ben Van Mooy and Tracy Mincer, and WHOI biologist Matt Johnson, with Kay Bidle at Rutgers and Assaf Vardi at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
    To investigate how certain molecules or "infochemicals" that microbes use to communicate with one another influence microbial interactions and nutrient cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean. The project has the potential to create a new view of the sea where infochemical signaling governs the inter- and intra-domain microbial interactions that influence the biogeochemical fluxes of carbon and nutrients.

"The introduction of improved instrumentation for geochemical analysis and powerful new molecular biology techniques for studying genomes and gene and protein expression has given us new ways of looking at how microbes function in the marine environment," says Ajit Subramaniam, program director for the Marine Microbiology Initiative. "With Moore Foundation support, we want to enable multidisciplinary teams of scientists to identify and quantify nutrient pools in the ocean, and decipher the genetic and biochemical bases of microbial metabolism."

###

About the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation:

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established in 2000, seeks to advance scientific research, environmental conservation and patient care. The Science Program's Marine Microbiology Initiative strives to deepen our understanding of marine microbial communities. As the smallest and most abundant organisms in the Earth's oceans, marine microorganisms play a critical role in maintaining ocean health and productivity. For more information, please visit www.moore.org.


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WHOI research projects awarded $5.2 million to support marine microbial research [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Media Relations Office
media@whoi.edu
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Microbiology Initiative

There are more microbes in a bucket of seawater than there are people on Earth. Despite their abundance, humans are only just beginning to fathom the complex role marine microbes play in the ocean ecosystem.

These tiny creatures are responsible for the chemical reactions that drive Earth's marine biogeochemical cycles, yet, in terms of how and why groups of microbes interact and what the functional consequences are of those interactions, they are still considered "black boxes." An understanding of them is critical for assessing the ocean's health and productivity.

Three projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which received a total of $5.2 million in 2012 from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Microbiology Initiative, will employ scientific inquiry and the latest technology and laboratory techniques to shed light on microbes. Their work will look for answers to questions regarding the flow of nutrients through microbial food webswho eats and secretes what, where, and whenand the resulting biogeochemical transformations.

"The support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is critical to enabling a fundamental understanding of microbes' contribution to ocean health and productivity," says WHOI President and Director Susan Avery. "There is so much more to know about marine microbes' genetic diversity, how they secure nutrients, what other organisms they interact with, and the biogeochemical changes they bring about in the ocean. These new projects will contribute toward the ultimate goal of a comprehensive understanding of marine microbial communities."

For the last few decades, oceanographers have been thinking about microbes simply as components of the marine food web: they take up nutrients and are prey for larger organisms, and their abundance and diversity in the ocean depends only on the amounts and types of nutrients and predators in their environment. This view is overly simplistic, and these grants will allow WHOI investigators to look at the molecular basis for the much more complex processes that they have hypothesized are at play in the sea.

These awards target advancing understanding at inter-disciplinary interfaces in microbial oceanography by supporting the development of sophisticated technologies and methods and by testing the newly developed approaches in the field. The funded projects at WHOI include:

  • Investigating Dissolved Organic Matter in the Microbial Loop WHOI chemist Dan Repeta with Ed DeLong at MIT.
    To develop laboratory and field-based experimental systems for characterizing the roles of microbial physiology, ecology and biogeochemistry in the cycling of dissolved organic matter in the nutrient-poor ocean.
  • Identification and Quantification of New Biomarkers for Key Microbial Species WHOI chemist Elizabeth Kujawinski.
    To develop new protocols to detect the products of microbial metabolism in seawater to understand the influence of marine microbial communities and their activities on the chemical composition of their surroundings. The new procedures will enable researchers to quantify the abundance of these molecules that serve as the currency of nutrient flow among the studied microbes.
  • Infochemical Control of Microbial Carbon and Nutrient Cycling in the North Atlantic WHOI chemists Ben Van Mooy and Tracy Mincer, and WHOI biologist Matt Johnson, with Kay Bidle at Rutgers and Assaf Vardi at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
    To investigate how certain molecules or "infochemicals" that microbes use to communicate with one another influence microbial interactions and nutrient cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean. The project has the potential to create a new view of the sea where infochemical signaling governs the inter- and intra-domain microbial interactions that influence the biogeochemical fluxes of carbon and nutrients.

"The introduction of improved instrumentation for geochemical analysis and powerful new molecular biology techniques for studying genomes and gene and protein expression has given us new ways of looking at how microbes function in the marine environment," says Ajit Subramaniam, program director for the Marine Microbiology Initiative. "With Moore Foundation support, we want to enable multidisciplinary teams of scientists to identify and quantify nutrient pools in the ocean, and decipher the genetic and biochemical bases of microbial metabolism."

###

About the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation:

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established in 2000, seeks to advance scientific research, environmental conservation and patient care. The Science Program's Marine Microbiology Initiative strives to deepen our understanding of marine microbial communities. As the smallest and most abundant organisms in the Earth's oceans, marine microorganisms play a critical role in maintaining ocean health and productivity. For more information, please visit www.moore.org.


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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Two new species of orchid found in Cuba

Dec. 27, 2012 ? Researchers from the University of Vigo, in collaboration with the Environmental Services Unit at the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park (Cuba), have discovered two new species of Caribbean orchid.

The Caribbean islands have been natural laboratories and a source of inspiration for biologists for over two centuries now. Suffice to say that the studies by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the tropical archipelagos contributed to the emergence of the theory of evolution.

In this case, a Spanish research team from the University of Vigo has discovered two new species belonging to the orchid family (Orchidaceae: Laeliinae) in Cuba. They have been called Tetramicra riparia and Encyclia navarroi. The two plants were found in the eastern and western zones of the island respectively.

"The first species described, Encyclia navarroi, is an orchid with considerably large flowers. A year later we discovered the Tetramicra riparia species, with very small flowers. The latter is so named because it grows on the banks of stony streams in the mountains of Baracoa, one of the rainiest and least explored areas in Cuba," as ?ngel Vale explained. Vale is a researcher at the University of Vigo and co-author of the studies published by the journals Systematic Botany and Annales Botanici Fennici.

Darwin was very much drawn to the orchid family, and used it to propose certain hypotheses about the importance of the relations between flowers and pollinators for biodiversity. Between 25,000 and 30,000 species of these plants are estimated to exist. However, the mechanisms that explain this amazing variety are only now being discovered.

"We could highlight their extraordinary capacity to interact with different types of pollinators. Contrary to most plants, many orchids do not produce nectar or other substances to compensate insects and birds that visit them," explained the researcher.

Orchids' deceit pollination

Despite this, floral visitors are attracted by orchids' colours and shapes, which enables the plants' sexual reproduction. This is known as deceit pollination.

The University of Vigo Plant Ecology and Evolution research team, which Vale belongs to, is studying the ecological and evolutionary consequences of deceit pollination in orchids that are endemic to the Greater Antilles: Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. One of the mysteries they aim to solve is if the deceit orchids have a greater taxonomic and genetic diversity than other nectar-producing species.

Vale and his team are drawing up studies in the Antilles not only to reconstruct the evolutionary history of orchids but also to analyse the effect of pollinators in the reproduction of plants, and how this interaction has modelled the colourful aspect of these Caribbean flowers.

"Despite the fact that T. riparia's flowers have a complete central petal, just like other species that make up a subgenre endemic to Cuba; the way they grow is very similar to a more widespread group that seems to have diverged on the neighbouring island of Hispaniola. Our work provides molecular evidence of the greater relationship of T. riparia with these species on the neighbouring island. This is in consonance with the geological history of the Caribbean islands, according to which the eastern end of Cuba was in close contact with that land," pointed out Vale.

Scientists are currently trying to estimate how many millions of years ago this and other Caribbean species saw the light of day. This will enable them to test whether the ancestor of this species was already in Cuba, or if on the contrary, it evolved from an ancestor that colonised the island from neighbouring archipelagos.

"Just as with most orchids, which offer no compensation to their pollinators, Encyclia navarroi and Tetramicra riparia receive very few visits from bees. This is one of the basic reasons that guarantee the survival of these plants, and also help protect the populations of their pollinators," explained the scientist.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Plataforma SINC, via AlphaGalileo.

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


Journal References:

  1. ?ngel Vale, Danny Rojas, Yosvanis Acanda, Natividad L. S?nchez-Abad, Luis Navarro. A New Species of Tetramicra (Orchidaceae: Laeliinae) from Baracoa, Eastern Cuba. Systematic Botany, 2012; 37 (4): 883 DOI: 10.1600/036364412X656491
  2. ?ngel Vale, Danny Rojas. Encyclia navarroi (Orchidaceae), a new species from Cuba. Annales Botanici Fennici, 49: 83 - 86, 26; 2012

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/top_news/~3/UIue5KsHzb4/121227080048.htm

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Half of Americans leave landline behind

22 min.

A new study indicates that fully half of Americans are living in a household that uses only or mostly mobile phones ? but the remainder is slow to convert.

The Centers for Disease Control's?National Health Interview Study conducts in-person interviews throughout the year, asking about everything from health and insurance status to household telephones. They've put together some of the data from the first half of 2012 and the results, while not shocking, are significant.

Of the more than 20,000 households interviewed, just over half used wireless (i.e. cellular) phones for all or nearly all phone?calls ? 35.9 percent were wireless-only, and 15.9 percent had a landline but rarely used it. That adds up to 51.8 percent of all households, which is less than 2?percent more than for?the same period last year.

Why such a small increase? While younger people are adopting wireless phones as their only phone in record numbers, older folks are hanging onto their landlines. The percentage of people going wireless only steadily decreases as age increases: Only a quarter of those aged 45-64 were totally wireless, and just a tenth of those above age 64. That said, every age segment saw their wireless-only population increase by between 1 and 5 percent.

The highest percentage of wireless-only users appears to be among adults living with unrelated adult roommates ? 75.9 percent, almost three times the proportion of people living only with spouses or other adult family (but down slightly from last year's numbers).

So young people in population-dense areas, especially renters and people with low income, are happy to leave behind the expense and inconvenience of a landline. But for people who have had a landline for years, relatively few choose to abandon it.

The rest of the study, including methods and many more statistics, can be found at the CDC's website.

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

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/half-americans-leave-landline-behind-1C7753028

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Transfusions add risk in some heart attacks, finds study of patients with anemia

Dec. 24, 2012 ? When heart attack patients present in the emergency department with some degree of anemia, or anemic patients have a heart attack, physicians have a tendency, but not much guidance, about whether to provide a blood transfusion. The idea is that a transfusion could help more oxygen get to the heart. Recent national guidelines suggested that there simply isn't good evidence to encourage or discourage the common practice, but a new meta-analysis of 10 studies involving more than 203,000 such patients comes down on the side of it increasing the risk of death.

The next step for determining when the practice could be appropriate needs rigorous randomized trials that will generate more decisive, high-quality data, said lead author Dr. Saurav Chatterjee, a cardiology fellow at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the Providence VA Medical Center.

For the analysis published Dec. 24 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Chatterjee and his co-authors combined and analyzed data from studies in which anemia patients with heart attacks either received "liberal" transfusions or received more restricted versions of the treatment or no transfusions at all. Liberal transfusions were defined as cases in which patients either received two units of blood or more or had a transfusion even with a hematocrit reading (a measure of red blood cell concentration) higher than 30 percent (normal is in the low 40s).

What the researchers found, after statistical adjustments to control for important medical factors, was that the risk of death was 12 percent higher for people who received the liberal transfusions than those who did not. Moreover, the group that received liberal transfusions had twice the odds of having another heart attack.

"What we found is that the possibility of real harm exists with transfusion," Chatterjee said. "It is practiced in emergency departments all across the United States. I think it is high time that we need to answer the question definitively with a randomized trial."

Of the 10 papers that Chatterjee and his co-authors reviewed, all but one were observational studies. The only randomized trial was a small pilot experiment.

Searching for an answer

Chatterjee began the study when he was a resident at Maimonides Medical Center in New York. He noticed a paper by the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) in which the association said there was not enough clinical evidence for or against transfusions in heart attack patients.

For clinicians, the practice has always been a tough judgment call. Some transfusions are clearly necessary, for example when a patient's troubles include not just a heart attack but also severe ongoing bleeding, Chatterjee said. But transfusions also create health risks, such as an increase in potential clotting because platelets may clump together more, or from an inflammatory immune response to the introduction of blood of a "foreign" source into the body.

Chatterjee and his co-authors decided to comb the literature to determine whether, if properly combined and analyzed, existing data could provide some insight. They found 729 potentially relevant studies, but only 10 that had the right data to help answer the question.

Few as they were, Chatterjee said, the studies all told much the same story.

"One of the things that struck us is that there were very few studies in evidence of transfusion at all," Chatterjee said. "In our case, though, we found that the effect was pretty consistently harmful across the spectrum of studies, spectrum of time, and spectrum of patients that were enrolled in the individual studies."

Chatterjee said the study should not be taken to mean that transfusions should be stopped altogether for anemic heart attack patients. Instead, he said, doctors must continue exercising their clinical judgment, at least until results from a large, well-designed randomized trial can be produced. Mindful of the risk his study found, however, they might just want to shift their thinking about where the border is among borderline cases.

"Before a definitive trial is out there, we should be conservative, especially considering the high risk of harm," he said.

In addition to Chatterjee, the paper's other authors are Jorn Wetterslev of the Centre for Clinical Intervention Research in Copenhagen, Denmark; Abhishek Sharma and Edgar Lichstein of Maimonedes Medical Center; and Debabrata Mukherjee of Texas Tech University.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brown University.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Chatterjee S, Wetterslev J, Sharma A, Lichstein E, Mukherjee D. Association of Blood Transfusion With Increased Mortality in Myocardial Infarction: A Meta-analysis and Diversity-Adjusted Study Sequential Analysis. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2012; DOI: 10.1001/2013.jamainternmed.1001

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/most_popular/~3/ZFtbTHlNmQQ/121226080904.htm

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Russia Adoption Ban Against U.S. Sent To Putin After Unanimous ...

MOSCOW ? Defying a storm of domestic and international criticism, Russia moved toward finalizing a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, as Parliament's upper house voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of a measure that President Vladimir Putin has indicated he will sign into law.

The bill is widely seen as the Kremlin's retaliation against an American law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. It comes as Putin takes an increasingly confrontational attitude toward the West, brushing aside concerns about a crackdown on dissent and democratic freedoms.

Dozens of Russian children close to being adopted by American families now will almost certainly be blocked from leaving the country. The law also cuts off the main international adoption route for Russian children stuck in often dismal orphanages: Tens of thousands of Russian youngsters have been adopted in the U.S. in the past 20 years. There are about 740,000 children without parental care in Russia, according to UNICEF.

All 143 members of the Federation Council present voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the U.S. and Russian officials, activists and artists, who say it victimizes children by depriving them of the chance to escape the squalor of orphanage life. The vote comes days after Parliament's lower house overwhelmingly approved the ban.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it regretted the Russian parliament's decision.

"Since 1992, American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, providing them with an opportunity to grow up in a family environment," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement from Washington. "The bill passed by Russia's parliament would prevent many children from enjoying this opportunity ...

"It is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," he said.

Seven people with posters protesting the bill were detained outside the Council before Wednesday's vote. "Children get frozen in the Cold War," one poster read. Some 60 people rallied in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.

The bill is part of larger legislation by Putin-allied lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed U.S. law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Although Putin has not explicitly committed to signing the bill, he strongly defended it in a press conference last week as "a sufficient response" to the new U.S. law.

Originally Russia's lawmakers cobbled together a more or less a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. law, providing for travel sanctions and the seizure of financial assets in Russia of Americans determined to have violated the rights of Russians.

But it was expanded to include the adoption measure and call for a ban on any organizations that are engaged in political activities if they receive funding from U.S. citizens or are determined to be a threat to Russia's interests.

Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told the Interfax news agency that 46 children who were on the verge of being adopted by Americans would stay in Russia if the bill is approved ? despite court rulings in some of these cases authorizing the adoptions.

The ombudsman supported the bill, saying that foreign adoptions discourage Russians from adopting children. "A foreigner who has paid for an adoption always gets a priority compared to potential Russian adoptive parents," Astakhov was quoted as saying. "A great country like Russia cannot sell its children."

Russian law allows foreigners to adopt only if a Russian family has not expressed interest in a child being considered for adoption.

Some top government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against the adoption law, arguing that the measure would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations.

But Senator Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Council's foreign affairs committee, referred to the bill as "a natural and a long overdue response" to the U.S. legislation. "Children must be placed in Russian families, and this is a cornerstone issue for us," he said.

Margelov said that a bilateral Russian-U.S. agreement binds Russia to give notice of a halt to adoptions 12 months in advance. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that the president would consider the bill within the next two weeks.

The measure has become one of the most debated topics in Russia.

By Tuesday, more than 100,000 Russians had signed an online petition urging the Kremlin to scrap the bill.

Over the weekend, dozens of Muscovites placed toys and lit candles in front of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament after it approved the bill on Friday, but security guards promptly removed them. Opposition groups said they will rally against the bill on Jan. 13, and several popular artists publicly voiced their concern about the legislation.

While receiving a state award from Putin on Wednesday, film actor Konstantin Khabensky wore a badge saying "Children Are Beyond Politics." Veteran rock musician Andrey Makarevich called on Putin Monday to stop "killing children."

During a marathon Putin press conference Thursday, eight of the 60 questions the president answered focused on the bill. Responding angrily, Putin claimed that Americans routinely mistreat children from Russia.

The bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A Russian television report showed Yakovlev's blind grandmother who claimed that the U.S. family that adopted her grandson forged her signature on documents allowing them to take the boy outside Russia.

Russian lawmakers argue that by banning adoptions to the U.S. they would be protecting children and encouraging adoptions inside Russia.

In a measure of the virulent anti-U.S. sentiment that has gripped parts of Russian society, a few lawmakers went even further, claiming that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army.

Americans involved in adoption of Russian children find the new legislation upsetting.

Bill Blacquiere, president of New York City-based Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest adoption agencies in the U.S., said he hopes Putin won't sign the bill.

"It would be very sad for kids to grow up in orphanages," Blacquiere said. "And would hurt them socially, psychologically and mentally. We all know that caring for children in institutions is just not a very good thing."

Joyce Sterkel, who runs a Montana ranch for troubled children adopted abroad and has adopted three Russian children herself, said she is concerned for the estimated 700,000 children who live in state-run institutions in Russia.

"I would prefer that the Russians take care of their own children. I would prefer that people in the United States take care of their own children," Sterkel said Wednesday. "But if a suitable home cannot be found in that country, it seems reasonable that a child should be able to find a home outside."

___

Associated Press writers Matt Volz in Helena, Montana, and Libby Quaid in Washington, contributed to this report.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/russia-adoption-ban-against-us_n_2364481.html

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Fantastic Four #45, December 1965: "Among Us Hide ... the Inhumans!" (Little green footballs)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/272948521?client_source=feed&format=rss

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U.N. approves new debate on arms treaty opposed by U.S. gun lobby

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to restart negotiations on a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global trade in conventional arms, a pact the powerful U.S. National Rifle Association has been lobbying hard against.

U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because U.S. President Barack Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the November 6 election if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge U.S. officials have denied.

The NRA, which has come under intense criticism for its reaction to the December 15 shooting massacre of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, opposes the idea of an arms trade treaty and has pressured Obama to reject it.

But after Obama's re-election last month, his administration joined other members of a U.N. committee in supporting the resumption of negotiations on the treaty.

That move was set in stone on Monday when the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly voted to hold a final round of negotiations on March 18-28 in New York.

The foreign ministers of Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya and the United Kingdom - the countries that drafted the resolution - issued a joint statement welcoming the decision to resume negotiations on the pact.

"This was a clear sign that the vast majority of U.N. member states support a strong, balanced and effective treaty, which would set the highest possible common global standards for the international transfer of conventional arms," they said.

There were 133 votes in favour, none against and 17 abstentions. A number of countries did not attend, which U.N. diplomats said was due to the Christmas Eve holiday.

The exact voting record was not immediately available, though diplomats said the United States voted 'yes,' as it did in the U.N. disarmament committee last month. Countries that abstained from last month's vote included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran.

Among the top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention in last month's vote. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in the disarmament committee in support of the same resolution approved by the General Assembly on Monday.

NRA THREATENS "GREATEST FORCE OF OPPOSITION"

The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms trader, which accounts for more than 40 percent of global transfers in conventional arms - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

Obama administration officials have tried to explain to U.S. opponents of the arms trade pact that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on gun sales and ownership inside the United States because it would apply only to exports.

But NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told U.N. delegations in July that his group opposed the pact and there are no indications that

it has changed that position.

"Any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA's greatest force of opposition," LaPierre said, according to the website of the NRA's lobbying wing, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA).

LaPierre's speech to the U.N. delegations in July was later supported by letters from a majority of U.S. senators and 130 congressional representatives, who told Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that they opposed the treaty, according to the NRA-ILA.

It is not clear whether the NRA would have the same level of support from U.S. legislators after the Newtown massacre.

U.S. officials say they want a treaty that contributes to international security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation but protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade.

"We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms," a U.S. official told Reuters last month.

The United States, like all other U.N. member states, can effectively veto the treaty since the negotiations will be conducted on the basis of consensus. That means the treaty must receive unanimous support in order to be approved in March.

Arms control activists say it is far from clear that the Obama administration truly wants a strong treaty. Any treaty agreed in March would also need to be ratified by the parliaments of individual signatory nations before it could come into force.

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-approves-debate-arms-treaty-opposed-u-021426613.html

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Indian land program shows tech's limits

(AP) ? For years, Karnataka's land records were a quagmire of disputed, forged documents maintained by thousands of tyrannical bureaucrats who demanded bribes to do their jobs. In 2002, hopes emerged that this was about to change.

The southern state, home to India's technology hub in Bangalore, unveiled Bhoomi, a program that digitized Karnataka's 20 million handwritten land records. At the time, it was hailed as a landmark use of computers to cut through bureaucracy and corruption.

But a decade later, Karnataka remains plagued by land disputes that merely migrated from paper to the database, and even the program's creator says it could take 30 more years to sort it all out.

As the Indian government puts increasing faith in technology to help solve the nation's thorniest problems ? including a complete tech-based overhaul of its welfare system ? Bhoomi presents a cautionary tale: that technology, even at its most successful, can only be a part of the solution.

"(Officials) kind of look at technology to be a panacea for everything, which cannot be. The political will is the most important thing," said Rajeev Chawla, the government administrator who created Bhoomi.

For Yashoda Puttappa, Bhoomi merely marked another setback in her family's six-decade struggle to recover a plot of 1.6 hectares (four acres) she said was illegally taken from her grandfather in the 1940s as supposed repayment of a loan from a wealthy upper-caste neighbor. She feels that Bhoomi cemented the competing claim.

"In the computer, the name is of that man, the dominant caste, which is only going to make this harder," said Puttappa, a land rights activist.

Bhoomi is good, she said, for preventing future land disputes, by making it more difficult to forge documents, but it also gives a patina of legitimacy to old land grabs.

"Whatever we lost, we can't get back," she said.

In this country, a third the size of the U.S. and four times as populous, land supports hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and is often the only inheritance they pass to their children.

It has also become a hugely profitable investment, as India's expanding cities grow desperate for new space for office complexes and housing developments.

But land ownership has long been controlled by corrupt bureaucrats beholden to powerful land mafias that dispossessed the downtrodden and spawned millions of disputes.

In Karnataka, 10,000 village accountants presided over piles of stapled, crossed-out, erased and rewritten documents that had been revised so often it was nearly impossible to trace back how land was transferred ? or stolen.

Wealthy families routinely took land documents as collateral for usurious loans to the poor, Puttappa said. Upon default, they took the land, often illegally. Even if the loan was repaid, many would trick illiterate debtors into putting their thumbprints on sale documents they couldn't read, she said.

"You couldn't even fight in the courts, because you didn't have the records," Puttappa said.

Bhoomi, which means "land" in the local Kannada language, changed that. The land records were transferred to a database and the tattered paper documents declared invalid.

Farmers who used to wait days and pay bribes to village accountants to get a copy of their land records, crucial for bank loans, can now get an instant printout at 200 government kiosks across the state for 10 rupees, less than two U.S. cents. When they want to sell their land, they register at the kiosks, which put their requests in a first-come, first-serve queue that makes it far harder for officials to drag their feet in hopes of soliciting a bribe.

But even as the World Bank and others praised Bhoomi as a pioneer in e-governance, the project faced criticism.

In presenting Bhoomi with a U.N. public service award, Cabinet minister Jairam Ramesh criticized the program as "garbage in, garbage out," saying it should have cleaned up the records before digitizing them.

"We all knew it was garbage," Chawla said. "But if I tried to clean this garbage, it may take donkey's years for me, and by the time I cleaned it, more garbage would come into the system."

Instead, by putting safeguards in place to ensure the same piece of land is not sold to multiple buyers and by making the system of land sales more transparent, he hoped the garbage would slowly be squeezed out of the system as land was sold over the years.

But that could take decades, he acknowledges.

The land fight in Karadigere Kaval, a tiny village 85 kilometers (53 miles) from Bangalore, has raged since 1952, when the government gave a little under a hectare (two acres) apiece to hundreds of dalits ? so downtrodden they have no caste.

It was rich earth ? what they called "golden land" ? where almost anything could grow. But repeated droughts forced many to move away. In the late 1970s, the government redistributed the land, giving the 90 remaining families 1.6 hectares (four acres) each, according to residents and a local land rights group.

Upper-caste families insisted they had bought some of the land from migrating farmers and it was rightfully theirs. The two sides fought in the fields and in the courts.

Three dalits were killed in a battle over the land in 1980. Six years later, the upper castes won eviction notices against some dalits. The dalits convinced local officials not to serve the notices, and got a court to agree to preserve the status quo and leave them on the land. An upper caste farmer fenced off about 18 hectares (44 acres). The dalits rounded up hundreds of allies, ripped down the fence and sold off the barbed wire. Finally, in 2002, a court ruled in favor of the dalit villagers, the residents said.

Yet when Gangarangamma, a 65-year-old widow who uses one name, went to the Bhoomi office to check her land record, it showed the four acres she and her husband had farmed for decades were registered to the government, a sign the land remained in dispute. She has repeatedly complained, she said.

"(Officials) all the time say this will be fixed, but we haven't got it," she said in exasperation. "All of my generation is dead, only three of us are left, I can't say with any confidence this will be resolved before I die."

G.N. Nagaraj, a state Communist Party leader, hailed Bhoomi as "wonderful software," but it was only of "very, very small, limited help." The land mafia can still pressure the officials entering the records into the computer to help them steal land, he said.

Chawla said Bhoomi was designed to prevent new disputes from entering the system, but he acknowledged it wasn't foolproof. Officials were still required to process land sales. They could be bribed and so could witnesses identifying sellers, he said.

Bhoomi's transparency did help Goutham Venki in his fight to get back land that had been taken long ago from his great grandfather by a powerful landlord.

He and about a dozen from his community of migrant stoneworkers looked up their dispossessed land at the Bhoomi office in 2004 and found it had been registered to a real estate developer, who had just bought it from the landlord.

Venki sued ? and won. But he still had to borrow 120,000 rupees (about $220) at 60 percent interest from a loan shark to bribe bureaucrats to change the Bhoomi record back into his name.

A month later, the real estate developer appealed. And the decades' old land dispute drags on, like so many of Karnataka's land battles.

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Follow Ravi Nessman at twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-12-25-India-Tech's%20Limits/id-385667e8e826444cbb7f9d50422aaa52

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