Compound stimulates tumor-fighting protein in cancer therapy

Feb. 6, 2013 ? A compound that stimulates the production of a tumor-fighting protein may improve the usefulness of the protein in cancer therapy, according to a team of researchers, including several from the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute and College of Medicine.

TRAIL is a natural anti-tumor protein that suppresses tumor development during immune surveillance -- the immune system's process of patrolling the body for cancer cells. This process is lost during cancer progression, which leads to uncontrolled growth and spread of tumors.

The ability of TRAIL to initiate cell death selectively in cancer cells has led to ongoing clinical trials with artificially created TRAIL or antibody proteins that mimic its action. Use of the TRAIL protein as a drug has shown that it is safe, but there have been some issues, including stability of the protein, cost of the drug, and the ability of the drug to distribute throughout the body and get into tumors, especially in the brain.

"The TRAIL pathway is a powerful way to suppress tumors but current approaches have limitations that we have been trying to overcome to unleash an effective and selective cancer therapy," said Wafik El-Deiry, professor of medicine and chief of the hematology/oncology division, Penn State College of Medicine. "The TRAIL biochemical cell death pathway naturally lends itself as a drug target to restore anti-tumor immunity."

Researchers have identified a compound called TRAIL-inducing Compound 10 (TIC10) as a potential solution. TIC10 stimulates the tumor suppression capabilities of TRAIL in both normal and tumor tissues, including in the brain, and induces tumor cell death in mice. They report their findings in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

TIC10 is a small molecule. This organic compound binds to a protein and alters what the protein does.

Stimulation of TRAIL protein is sustained in both tumor and normal cells, with the normal cells contributing to the TIC10-induced cancer cell death through a bystander effect. It is effective in cancer cell samples and cell lines resistant to conventional therapies.

"I was surprised and impressed that we were able to do this," El-Deiry said. "Using a small molecule to significantly boost and overcome limitations of the TRAIL pathway appears to be a promising way to address difficult to treat cancers using a safe mechanism already used in those with a normal effective immune system. This candidate new drug, a first-in-its-class, shows activity against a broad range of tumor types in mice and appears safe at this stage."

New treatments are needed for advanced cancer, as more than half a million people in the United States will die of cancer in 2013.

"We have enough preclinical information to support the rationale for testing this new drug in the clinic," El-Deiry said.

TIC10 seems to be nontoxic to normal cells or mice even at doses 10 times higher that an observed therapeutic dose. However, more research needs to be completed to satisfy FDA requirements prior to initiation of clinical testing.

Other researchers are Joshua E. Allen, David T. Dicker, Akshal S. Patel, Nathan G. Dolloff, Kimberly A. Scata,Wenge Wang, all of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute; Gabriel Krigsfeld, Patrick A. Mayes, Luv Patel, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; Evangelos Messaris, Department of Surgery, Penn State College Medicine; Jun-Ying Zhou and Gen Sheng Wu, Wayne State University School of Medicine.

This study was funded by the American Cancer Society, Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. J. E. Allen, G. Krigsfeld, P. A. Mayes, L. Patel, D. T. Dicker, A. S. Patel, N. G. Dolloff, E. Messaris, K. A. Scata, W. Wang, J.-Y. Zhou, G. S. Wu, W. S. El-Deiry. Dual Inactivation of Akt and ERK by TIC10 Signals Foxo3a Nuclear Translocation, TRAIL Gene Induction, and Potent Antitumor Effects. Science Translational Medicine, 2013; 5 (171): 171ra17 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3004828

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/LkkHpOI2Zbs/130206162317.htm

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Senior Obesity And Weight Gain Shouldn't Be Ignored (STUDY)

Now that you're getting older, you no longer have to worry about cutting back on saturated fat or making sure you consume five to nine servings of vegetables a day, right? After all these years of counting calories, surely you no longer have to fret over your weight, right? Wrong! A new study finds that obese seniors are at greater risk of death than their younger overweight counterparts.

Previous research had indicated that an elevated BMI (Body Mass Index) at age 65 and older wouldn't impact one's lifespan and that it may actually extend it. But a new study has discovered the contrary, finding that, as obese Americans grow older, their risk of death grows greater.

Dr. Ryan Masters and Dr. Bruce Link at Columbia University?s Mailman School of Public Health, in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Powers at the University of Texas, published the results of the study online this week in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The researchers argue that previous studies of longevity and obesity were biased due to limitations of the National Health Interview Survey, or NHIS, which provides information on obesity. For example, the survey excludes those who are institutionalized, such as in a hospital or nursing home -- a segment largely made up of seniors. Consequently, the data is overrepresented by older respondents who are healthy, including the relatively healthy obese. What?s more, many obese people fail to make it to age 65 and therefore don't live long enough to participate in studies of older populations.

?Obesity wreaks so much havoc on one?s long-term survival capacity that obese adults either don?t live long enough to be included in the survey or they are institutionalized and therefore also excluded. In that sense, the survey data doesn?t capture the population we?re most interested in,? says Masters, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia?s Mailman School and the study?s first author.

In his analysis Masters studied data from nearly 800,000 adults between 1986 and 2004. The result: risk for death from obesity climbed with age.

Masters told Huff/Post50 that the level of obesity also has an impact on mortality.

"So we compared the survival of respondents with a normal or overweight BMI to respondents in [various] grades of obesity. Mortality risk increases in a successive manner, with higher BMI conferring a higher mortality risk," he said. "These results are consistent with existing evidence. So, yes, 'how' obese one is certainly matters, in a logically consistent way."

When asked how much one's mortality risk goes up due to obesity over the age of 65, Masters supplied the following information to Huff/Post50:

Grade 1 Obesity (BMI of 30.0 to 34.9):
For both men and women, grade 1 obesity increased mortality risk at 65+ years by about 40 to 60 percent (or 1.4 to 1.6 times, respectively).

Grade 2 Obesity (BMI of 35.0 to 39.9):
Men's mortality risk at 65+ years was increased by about 80-100 percent (1.8 to 2.0x).
Women's mortality risk at 65+ years was increased by about 90-100 percent (1.9 to 2.0x).

Grade 3 Obesity (BMI over 40):
Men's mortality risk at 65+ years was increased by about 160 to 260 percent (2.6 to 3.6x).
Women's mortality risk at 65+ years was increased by about 160 to 180 percent (2.6 to 2.8x).

Earlier on HuffPost50:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/senior-obesity-weight-gain-affects-longevity_n_2624987.html

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Afghan boys from nominated film to walk red carpet

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street of trinket shops in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy with bright green eyes is getting ready for a trip down the red carpet at the Oscars.

It will also be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane.

Mohammadi was plucked from the dingy streets of the Afghan capital to be one of the main stars of "Buzkashi Boys," a coming-of-age movie filmed entirely in a war zone and nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film category.

The movie is about two penniless young boys ? a street urchin and a blacksmith's son ? who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.

It's also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that banned entertainment and burned films and theaters during its five years in power.

Sam French, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Afghanistan for about five years, said his 28-minute movie was initially conceived as a way of training local film industry workers ? the first installment in his nonprofit Afghan Film Project.

"We never dreamed of having the film come this far and get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he is preparing for the Feb. 24 Academy Awards and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony.

The two boys playing the main characters ? Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz ? can barely contain their excitement about going to the Oscars.

"It will be a great honor for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot. He's also hoping to go see the cockpit during the flight.

The farthest Mohammadi has ever traveled was to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif when he was younger.

Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister. He started selling chewing gum when he was about 7 years old and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries.

He learned to speak English hustling foreigners on Chicken Street, the main tourist area in Kabul with shops selling multicolor rugs, lapis bowls and other crafts and souvenirs, and gained a reputation for being polite, helpful and trustworthy. He was even able to enroll in a private school, thanks to the generosity of some other foreigners unrelated to the film project.

In the movie Mohammadi plays the blacksmith's son, Rafi, whose father wants him to follow in his footsteps.

"His life was so much harder than mine," Mohammadi said. "The blacksmith made him go out on the streets. I came myself here (to Chicken Street). My family didn't make me come. I wanted to make money to feed myself and to feed my family. He didn't have a home. They lived in the blacksmith shop."

Ironically it's not Mohammadi but Paiz, the youngest son of a well-known Afghan actor, who plays the homeless boy Ahmad.

Paiz, also 14, already was an experienced actor: He's appeared in films since the age of 5 and has gone to the Cannes Film Festival.

Paiz and Mohammadi had a lot to learn from each other and became friends. He gave Mohammadi tips for acting and handling himself in live interviews, while Fawad taught him about life outside his sheltered surroundings.

"When I saw Fawad was such a good actor even though he was a street boy and he was so brave in acting, I was very surprised and I said to myself, 'Everybody can achieve what they desire to do,'" Paiz said during an interview this week, shivering in the snow-covered courtyard of the Afghan Film Institute while a local TV series was being filmed nearby.

French, who co-wrote the script and produced "Buzkashi Boys" with Martin Roe of the Los Angeles-based production company Dirty Robber, launched a fundraising drive that's raised almost $10,000 so far to help bring the boys to Los Angeles for the ceremony. Any extra money will be placed in a fund to provide for Mohammadi's education and help his family. The boys will travel with an escort and will stay with the extended Afghan family of one of the film's producers, French said.

French said he's aware of the pitfalls in working with child actors from developing countries.

The makers of "Slumdog Millionaire," the rags-to-riches blockbuster about three poor Indian children, have struggled to make a better life for the young stars, and four boys who acted in "The Kite Runner" had to leave Afghanistan out of concern they could be ostracized or subject to violence because of a rape scene in the movie.

French said he and others involved in the "Buzkashi Boys" took pains to involve the community and made sure to avoid any scenes that could be offensive.

"We're not filmmakers who just do a film and leave. We remain there and present," he said. "We had lots and lots of tea with lots and lots of people."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says there have been three documentary features nominees filmed at least in part in Afghanistan since 2007 ? all about the U.S. military. The Kite Runner, which was nominated for original score in 2007, was set in Afghanistan but not filmed there.

Afghanistan had a burgeoning film industry starting in the early 20th century, but it suffered from fighting during the civil war and the Taliban campaign to stamp out entertainment. Actors and film industry workers like Paiz's father and the actor who plays the blacksmith, Wali Talash, fled the country. They returned only after the 2001 U.S.-led assault that ousted the Islamic movement and its al-Qaida allies.

Talash, 56, said he hopes the "Buzkashi Boys" will show the world the rich culture of Afghanistan, which too few in the world know beyond reports of roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

"I hope if this movie wins that it will be an earthquake that will shake the industry and help Afghan filmmakers get back on their feet," he said.

Mohammadi, meanwhile, says he knows the money and fame he earned from the movie can carry him only so far. He still sells maps, though not so often as before, because he has school.

"For my work I used to know a lot of foreigners and I still do, but before they used to know me as a map seller. Now they know me as an actor," he said, waving a plastic-covered map as weary Afghans walked by on the muddy street. "Most of them take pictures with me and sometimes they buy maps from me even if they don't need any just because they spotted me in the movie."

___

Associated Press writer Steve Loeper in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Fundraising site ? https://rally.org/buzkashiboys

Film website ? http://www.buzkashiboys.com/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-boys-nominated-film-walk-red-carpet-170403187.html

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Leighton Meester and Adam Brody: Dating!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/leighton-meester-and-adam-brody-dating/

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Asian shares drop on euro zone worry, soft U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares, oil and the euro fell on Tuesday as investors took profits from recent rallies, while the yen got a respite from broad-based selling.

European markets are seen barely changed, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open up nearly flat. But a 0.1 percent gain in U.S. stock futures suggested a firm open on Wall Street.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan tumbled 0.9 percent, dragged lower by a steep 1.7 percent fall in Hong Kong shares. The pan-Asian index climbed to a 18-month high on Monday.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average closed down 1.9 percent, after scaling a 33-month high on Monday.

Positive data from China failed to brighten the bearish mood, after the Standard & Poor's 500 Index had its worst day since November on Monday on discouraging U.S. factory orders and worries that a potential political shake-up could disrupt the euro zone's efforts to resolve its debt crisis.

Analysts and traders said selling was a correction to markets rallying on receding tail risks such as growing euro zone stability and an improving global economic outlook, while global monetary easing still underpinned sentiment.

"This move in equities ... looks to be a healthy correction, nothing more," said Richard Yetsenga, Head of Global Markets at ANZ Research, adding that downside risk would likely convince major central banks globally to stick to easy policy.

In China, the HSBC services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January from December's 51.7, underlining confidence in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year, off a 13-year low of 7.8 percent hit in 2012.

"The data globally is unquestionably better but the recovery still seems gradual. (China) hit the bottom and they had a bit of a bounce but nothing much else happened. We don't really seem to have preconditions for a much stronger bounce than that (8 percent growth)," Yetsenga said.

The Australian dollar fell 0.3 percent to $1.0405 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate steady at 3.0 percent, as expected, having just cut in December. Australian shares fell 0.5 percent but trimmed some earlier losses after the RBA's rate decision.

The euro took the brunt of renewed focus on the euro zone problems, having risen 2.3 percent so far this year against the U.S. dollar, up about 5.4 percent against sterling and 1.8 percent higher against the Australian dollar.

The euro eased 0.2 percent to $1.3485, retreating further from Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday.

"Markets have been increasingly comfortable with European risks over the past few months and are largely not positioned for this increase in political problems. The outcomes in Spain and Italy are far from certain and may represent stumbling blocks for further expansion in risk appetite," Barclays Capital said in a research note.

Spain's opposition party on Sunday called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over corruption allegations, which Rajoy denies, pushing Spanish 10-year bond yields to six-week highs.

In Italy, 10-year Italian government bond yields hit their highest since late December, as chances of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining power raised worries about Rome's ability to fix its fiscal problems.

The yen took a breather, firming from lows against a broad range of currencies.

The dollar steadied at 92.36 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 93.185 on Monday, while the euro eased 0.1 percent to 124.53 yen, off its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 hit on Friday.

"Markets are broadly undergoing a correction and the euro is definitely facing profit-taking, given the pace of its climb. Worries about the euro zone debt crisis always remain a downside risk for the euro, and could push it lower to $1.32-$1.33," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "But the trend is still upward for dollar/yen, cross/yen. The dollar could reach 95 yen by the end of the month."

As long as markets hold out expectations for the Bank of Japan to implement aggressive monetary easing to beat decades of deflation in Japan, the yen will stay pressured. Any correction to the dollar's rise against the yen was also be seen as shallow, with many traders and analysts seeing a firm floor around 87-88 yen.

Asian credit markets faltered with the plunge in equities, widening the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by three basis points.

Brent crude slipped towards $115 per barrel, giving up some of its gains from the last three weeks, on renewed euro zone worries and a slightly firmer dollar.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-drop-euro-zone-worry-soft-u-034800107--finance.html

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Records: Veteran had been in mental hospital

In this April 6, 2012, photo, former Navy SEAL and author of the book ?American Sniper?, Chris Kyle poses in Midlothian, Texas. A Texas sheriff has told local newspapers that Kyle has been fatally shot along with another man on a gun range, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley)

In this April 6, 2012, photo, former Navy SEAL and author of the book ?American Sniper?, Chris Kyle poses in Midlothian, Texas. A Texas sheriff has told local newspapers that Kyle has been fatally shot along with another man on a gun range, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley)

This photo provided by the Erath County Sheriff?s Office shows Eddie Ray Routh. He was charged with murder in connection with a shooting at a central Texas gun range that killed former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/ Erath County Sheriff's Office)

View of buildings on the property of Rough Creek Lodge photographed Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013. Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were found murdered at the gun range on the property. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Richard W. Rodriguez)

In this April 6, 2012, photo, former Navy SEAL and author of the book ?American Sniper? poses in Midlothian, Texas. A Texas sheriff has told local newspapers that Chris Kyle has been fatally shot along with another man on a gun range, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley)

Map showns path of texas gunman following a double shooting

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) ? The Iraq War veteran charged with killing a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months and told authorities he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, police records show.

Eddie Ray Routh, 25, also told his sister and brother-in-law after the shootings that he "traded his soul for a new truck," according to an Erath County arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA-TV. Police said Routh was driving the truck of victim and ex-Navy SEAL Chris Kyle at the time of his arrest.

Routh is charged with one count of capital murder and two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Kyle, author of the best-selling book "American Sniper," and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range Saturday in Glen Rose. He is on suicide watch in the Erath County Jail, where he's being held on $3 million bail, Sheriff Tommy Bryant said.

Routh, a member of the Marines Corps Reserve, was first taken to a mental hospital Sept. 2 after he threatened to kill his family and himself, according to police records in Lancaster, where Routh lives. Authorities found Routh walking nearby with no shirt and no shoes, and smelling of alcohol. Routh told authorities he was a Marine veteran who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Eddie stated he was hurting and that his family does not understand what he has been through," the report says.

Routh's mother told police her son had been drinking and became upset when his father said he was going to sell his gun. She said Routh began arguing with them and said he was going to "blow his brains out."

Police took Routh to Green Oaks Hospital for psychiatric care.

Dallas police records show Routh was taken back to the same mental hospital in mid-January after a woman called police and said she feared for Routh's safety.

Green Oaks will not release patient information, citing privacy laws. Most people brought by police to the hospital are required to stay at least 48 hours.

In another brush with authorities, Lancaster police in May responded to a burglary reported by Routh's mother that included nine pill bottles. Police say Routh was involved but no other details were available.

Authorities say Routh, Kyle and Littlefield arrived at the sprawling Rough Creek Lodge about 3:15 p.m. Saturday, and a hunting guide called 911 about two hours later after discovering the bodies. Kyle and Littlefield were shot multiple times, and numerous guns were at the scene, according to the affidavit.

Routh drove to his sister's house, and told her he had killed two people and that he planned to drive to Oklahoma to evade Texas authorities, the affidavit said. Routh's sister then called police, and he was arrested after a short police pursuit in Lancaster.

Jailers used a stun gun on Routh on Sunday night after he appeared ready to assault them when they entered his cell after he refused to return his food tray, the sheriff said. Then they put Routh in a chair that restrains his arms and legs in his solitary confinement cell, Bryant said.

Bryant said Routh has an attorney but hasn't met with him at the jail in Stephenville, about 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Routh's mother and sister were unsuccessful Monday.

Sundae Hughes, an aunt of Routh's, said she watched him grow up but hasn't seen him since his high school graduation in 2006. Hughes was in disbelief that her nephew could be involved in such an incident.

"He has a kind heart (and was) someone willing to jump in and help, no matter what it was," she said.

Routh joined the Marines in 2006 and rose to the rank of corporal in 2010. His military specialty was small-arms technician, commonly known as an armorer. He had been stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and served in Iraq from 2007-08 and in the Haiti disaster relief mission in 2010.

He is now in the individual ready reserve. He could be called to duty, but it's uncommon unless he volunteers, 1st Lt. Dominic Pitrone of the Marine Forces Services public affairs office said.

Travis Cox, director of FITCO Cares ? the nonprofit that Kyle set up to give in-home fitness equipment to physically and emotionally wounded veterans ? said he believes that Kyle and Littlefield were helping Routh work through PTSD.

Cox didn't know how Routh and Kyle knew each other. He said the shooting range event was not a FITCO session.

Kyle, 38, left the Navy in 2009 after four tours of duty in Iraq, where he earned a reputation as one of the military's most lethal snipers. "American Sniper" was the No. 3 seller of paperbacks and hardcovers on Amazon as of Monday, and the hardcover was out of stock.

Littlefield, 35, was Kyle's friend, neighbor and "workout buddy," and also volunteered his time to work with veterans, Cox said.

__

Stengle reported from Midlothian, Texas. Associated Press writers Juan Carlos Llorca in El Paso, Texas; Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas; Martha Waggoner in Raleigh, N.C.; and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-04-Sniper%20Author-Shooting/id-d19c8143e9d94ff185a6313f38bf0a7a

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Video: Researchers capture key moments in cell death

Monday, February 4, 2013

Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have for the first time visualised the molecular changes in a critical cell death protein that force cells to die.

The finding provides important insights into how cell death occurs, and could lead to new classes of medicines that control whether diseased cells live or die.

Cell death, called apoptosis, is important for controlling the number of cells in the body. Defects in cell death have been linked to the development of diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative conditions. Insufficient cell death can cause cancer by allowing cells to become immortal while excessive cell death of neurons may be a cause of neurodegenerative conditions.

Dr Peter Czabotar, Professor Peter Colman and colleagues in the institute's Structural Biology division, together with Dr Dana Westphal from the institute's Molecular Genetics of Cancer division, made the discovery which is published in the latest edition of the journal Cell.

Dr Czabotar said activation of the protein Bax had long been known to be an important event leading to apoptosis, but until now it was not known how this activation occurred. "One of the key steps in cell death is that holes are punched into a membrane in the cell, the mitochondrial membrane," Dr Czabotar said. "Once this happens the cell is going to go on and die. Bax is responsible for punching the holes in the mitochondrial membrane and visualising its activation brings us a step closer to understanding the mechanics of cell death."

Using the Australian Synchrotron, Dr Czabotar and colleagues were able to obtain detailed three-dimensional images of Bax changing shape as it moved from its inactive to active form. The active form ruptures mitochondrial membranes, removing the cell's energy supply and causing cell death.

"By using the powerful X-ray beams created by the synchrotron, we obtained structures of Bax that were really exciting," Dr Czabotar said. "Bax is activated when small protein fragments called BH3-peptides bind to it. We saw that these peptides open up the Bax molecule like a key unlocking a padlock. This unlocked form of Bax can bind to another Bax molecule, which can then form larger Bax complexes that can go on to break up membranes in the cell.

"As well as explaining the detail of how cell death occurs, our research could provide clues about how to design potential new therapeutic agents that target Bax," Dr Czabotar said. "Now that we can see how Bax changes its shape to move from the inactive to the active form, it may be possible to block Bax activation, to prevent cell death in conditions such as neurodegenerative disorders, where illness is caused by excessive cell death. Similarly, agents that drive Bax into its active form could force immortal cells such as cancer cells to die, providing the basis for a potential new class of anti-cancer agents."

###

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute: http://www.wehi.edu.au/

Thanks to Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2012 file photo, Dan Savage, left, and Terry Miller pose backstage with the Governors Award for the "It Gets Better Project" at the 2012 Creative Arts Emmys at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. A new Pediatrics study found scientific evidence that it does get better for gay teens, when it comes to bullying, although young gay men fare worse than their lesbian peers. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2012 file photo, Dan Savage, left, and Terry Miller pose backstage with the Governors Award for the "It Gets Better Project" at the 2012 Creative Arts Emmys at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. A new Pediatrics study found scientific evidence that it does get better for gay teens, when it comes to bullying, although young gay men fare worse than their lesbian peers. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2010 file photo, young people participate in an anti-gay bullying candlelight vigil to commemorate the recent deaths of gay teens at The Center Project in Columbia, Mo. A new Pediatrics study found scientific evidence that it does get better for gay teens, when it comes to bullying, although young gay men fare worse than their lesbian peers. (AP Photo/The Columbia Daily Tribune, Joshua A. Bickel, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010 file photo, school buses bring students home from Hamilton Middle School in Cypress, Texas, as Brian Carter, left, Sharon Ferranti, foreground right, and others stand on a corner with signs to protest the treatment of Asher Brown, an eighth-grader at the school who killed himself at home on Sept. 23, 2010. His parents blamed his suicide on two years of bullying they say he had suffered at the school. A new Pediatrics study found scientific evidence that it does get better for gay teens, when it comes to bullying, although young gay men fare worse than their lesbian peers. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Karen Warren) MANDATORY CREDIT

CHICAGO (AP) ? It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-04-US-MED-Gay-Bullying/id-49ce0444deb342ce9117799f75497177

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Block Telemarketers and Robocalls for Good with the Raspberry Pi-Powered Banana Phone

No one likes unsolicited and unwanted calls from telemarketers or robocalls from information-collecting bots, but putting a stop to them is troublesome enough that The FTC is offering $50,000 to anyone who can stop them. This DIY project, dubbed "The Banana Phone" for reasons you can see in the video, may very well qualify for the prize.

Here's how the banana phone works. When a robocaller or automated dialer calls you, the Banana Phone picks up, plays a song (in this case, it's Raffi's earworm we all know) and while the song plays, text-to-speech tells the caller to enter a four-digit passcode in order to be connected to the actual line they're calling. Automated dialers would give up at that point, but real humans would enter the number and get connected right away.

The Banana Phone cost around $100 to build, and uses entirely off-the-shelf products, including a Raspberry Pi and an Obihai phone-to-Ethernet adapter. Alex Ruiz, the man behind the project, explains and demos the setup in the video above. Alex has a landline and uses it to protect that, but we could imagine the system could be adapted for people who use a mobile phone or VoIP service primarily (although most of those services and smartphones have built-in tools to block unwanted calls anyway.)

He says it's worked pretty well so far, but it's obviously not a perfect solution to the telemarketer problem. For one, any human in a call center can listen to the instructions and enter the passcode to bypass it and get through to you?but considering most human call centers have automated dialers that only connect after registering someone picked up, it may be pretty effective there too. Of course, if everyone had one, marketing firms would find a way around it, but for the time being, it might be a fun DIY project and a decent way?albeit amusing to your friends and family?to protect your privacy.

The Banana Phone Project: The Evolution of Caller ID | YouTube via Hack-a-Day

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/L30uZAwdBio/block-telemarketers-and-robocalls-for-good-with-the-raspberry-pi+powered-banana-phone

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Bar Refaeli Super Bowl Ad Guy: Make-Out Session Changed My Life!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/bar-refaeli-super-bowl-ad-guy-make-out-session-changed-my-life/

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HR and Recruiting Technology Predictions for 2013 | SmartRecruiting

Now that the Super Bowl is over, we take a look back on the human resources and recruiting trends, what has driven hiring and engagement innovation, and what?s in store for HR for 2013 when it comes to HR Tech and collaboration.

I?m taking an unconditional approach to workforce predictions and trends because when we speak of trends, untrendy stuff are the things that are actually trends in the industry we work, life and maybe even love. HR is not sexy and yet it is so important in the future of our business in being competitive, healthy, and successful.? Trends for actual HR practitioners is not a trend.? It?s the reality we are living now.

In 2013, HR tech and recruiting technology will shift to mobile, make relationships more real, leverage big data, and empower HR to be more than cogs in the machine:

• A shift from mobile recruiting to mobile work & life.? This trend isn?t really about having a mobile recruiting website so much as it is that the candidate and employee audience is moving to a multi-device and option-filled lifestyle. ?In addition to a mobile careers page you should be interacting with candidates on their most popular apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. We are working while living and that happens while doing many things at one time.? Television has become interactive as we tweet (over 24 million tweets during last nights Super Bowl), watch videos and check our email on the same device or multiple ones all at the same time.? Your recruiting and employee engagement strategy should be interactive and engaging on the many channels of life.

• Making relationships real.? Moving from automated relationships and the candidate experience to focusing on the actual relationship and the long-term aggregate benefit of educating, helping, and assisting job seekers even if they don?t work for us right now but possibly at a future point in time.

• Focus on data, data, and more data.? As practitioners in the industry we know the value of our role in the organization.? We often view this measure or metric as elusive for our industry.? With all the buzz surrounding big data, companies and talent departments should be focusing on understanding the business and finding ways to articulate the benefits of what they do in a way that our senior leaders understand.? Numbers are just numbers until we put real meaning behind them.? That?s part of what improved technologies and efficiencies will help us do in HR.

• Technology that makes us more than cogs in the machine.? I feel like there is a belief that HR and recruitment technologies will completely end the need for human resources and recruiters.? Automation helps us focus on the human elements of our most valuable business resource, the employee.? This technology should help elevate the human element taking us away from viewing employees as replicable cogs in the hiring machine?to employees with lives, experiences, and personalities you can?t automate.

?

What other trends are you seeing when it comes to technology, recruiting and the human capital industry?

?

?

Jessica?Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. ?She?s an author who writes at?Blogging4Jobs. When she talks, people listen.?

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to post a job, manage candidates and make the right hire.

Source: http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/hr-and-recruiting-technology-predictions-for-2013/

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The Conflict about the Conflict : Kaieteur News

The Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Linden shootings has retired to ruminate over the testimonies presented in the latest skirmish in our long running political war.
We?ve had so many CoI?s over the last sixty years but they haven?t seemed to have solved anything, have they? Why is that so?
One of the major reasons is that our politicians have studiously avoided identifying the nature of the war and so for almost half a century they have made our country bleed without offering us a chance of peace.
Because it should be self evident that if you refuse to be up front as to why you have a problem with something then on what basis would you resolve the problem? Most citizens have acquiesced in the code of silence. Our problem in Guyana is a political problem and it must have a political solution. The currency of politics is power, and politics is ultimately concerned with the competition of groups within a given society to capture and secure state power. There is nothing sinister about this struggle for power. The question is what would the power holder do with the power and would the power holder be given the legitimacy to use the power by the citizens of the country.
The composition of the competing groups varies with the nature of the divisions or cleavages in the society: all societies are split economically, most ethnically and some racially.
The nature of the political competition depends to a large extent on which of the cleavage emerge and remain as the most salient.
In Guyana you would think that we all know that our political competition is based on the fact that ethnicity (or race, which is not the same but is used synonymously) is the dominant cleavage and it not only suffuses politics but most of our other social interactions.
But yet a powerful norm has emerged that rejects the public acknowledgement of this fact. In fact, if like ROAR, one dares to raise the issue in open discourse, apart from the distaste aroused, you are immediately branded a ?racist?. The main purveyors of this obtuseness have been the politicians who have, by and large, dominated the politics of Guyana in the modern era.
Their Marxist-Leninist ideology (of whatever flavour) evidently compelled each of them to deny that when it came to protecting their political interests the Guyanese people divided themselves on ethnic lines. Our good citizens may spend 4 years and 364 days announcing ?all awe ah one? but when they went individually behind the blinds of the voting booths on election day, they divided themselves as if they were all hard-wired to some ethnic transmitters.
And the sad truth was that they are so wired. All the present political parties still mobilize along ethnic lines ? just look at their meticulous ethnic stacking of their Executive bodies.
They all define themselves as ?multiracial? parties. Meaning that these parties know that to be seen as legitimate by citizens, they had to try to convince the voters that they had representatives from all the ethnic groups in their midst and so were competent to represent all the people. But since 1957 all elections have been more or less ethnic censuses where the Indians voted for the PPP and Africans voted for the PNC. Other groups had to make their choice. Yet the parties insisted that they were multi-ethnic. Like the WPA, the AFC will eventually be shown to have been just a gesture.
The point, of course, is that since the two ethnic groups have become even more closely matched in numbers ?? the PPP and PNC each think they can win it all and so refuse to give legitimacy to the other. When you combine this view with the fact that the Civil Service, the Army and the Police are all overwhelmingly dominated by its constituency, the PNC/APNU will continue to be emboldened to threaten the status quo.
We note that in its latest ?police reform strategy? the PPP has refused to include the major recommendation of the Disciplined Forces Commission (unanimously approved by the present three parties in Parliament) for the forces to reflect the ethnic composition of the population. The APNU and AFC have both remained mum about this retrograde step.
But if PNC/APNU were to win the next elections, do they think they will be given legitimacy by Indians? Not likely. The PPP and PNC/APNU must first end the conflict about the conflict and accept that they are ethnic parties. They should get together and form a transitional real multiethnic Government of National Unity. Then they can move on to promulgate a new Constitution for the 2nd Republic of Guyana which, we suggest, ought to be constituted along Federalist principles.

Source: http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2013/02/03/the-conflict-about-the-conflict/

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Business Coaching - How Can You Create Win-Win Negotiations ...

Many people think that negotiation is a skill that only sales people need, but the reality is that everyone negotiates every day, both in business and in our daily lives. We negotiate everything from who will walk the dog this evening to what time your boss can expect that critical report to land on his desk.

Some people seem to negotiate with ease, while others feel incredible stress. Here are a few tips to eliminating the stress of negotiations and creating a win-win agreement every time

Negotiate from a position of abundance

Whether you?re negotiating a big deal or just where to go for lunch, always remember that there will be other days and other deals and you will win your fair share. Never go in to a negotiation thinking this is the only deal or the only lunch. In fact, it may help if you consider every negotiation like lunch?there?s always another one tomorrow.

Know what you can live with and what you can?t live without

If you know your bottom line, you know when to walk away from a negotiation and you know what you won?t give up. Knowing this information up front helps you focus and keeps the stress level down.

State clearly what you need or want

Negotiations are much easier if you can be upfront about what you want. Tell the other party what your budget is, or what your constraints are. Let them know what features are important to you. Now you can work together to get as close to what you want as possible.

Ask the other party what they need or want

The ideal win-win negotiation is one where both parties are open and up front about their wants and constraints. Eliminating the gamesmanship that mars so many negotiations eliminates stress and removes the need to ?win.? Oddly enough, when you remove the need for one party to win, it becomes much easier for both parties to win.

Ask yourself what?s fair and then give a little more

Most of us have a bias on our own behalf, so giving up that little extra may actually balance the scale. Even if you give more than you need to, it may pay off over time in repeat business and improved relationships.

Source: http://www.businesscoaching.com/how-can-you-create-win-win-negotiations/

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Plant scientists demonstrate new means of boosting maize yields

Feb. 3, 2013 ? A team of plant geneticists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has successfully demonstrated what it describes as a "simple hypothesis" for making significant increases in yields for the maize plant.

Called corn by most people in North America, modern variants of the Zea mays plant are among the indispensable food crops that feed billions of the planet's people. As global population soars beyond 6 billion and heads for an estimated 8 to 9 billion by mid-century, efforts to boost yields of essential food crops takes on ever greater potential significance.

The new findings obtained by CSHL Professor David Jackson and colleagues, published online February 3 in Nature Genetics, represent the culmination of over a decade of research and creative thinking on how to perform genetic manipulations in maize that will have the effect of increasing the number of its seeds -- which most of us call kernels.

Plant growth and development depend on structures called meristems -- reservoirs in plants that consist of the plant version of stem cells. When prompted by genetic signals, cells in the meristem develop into the plant's organs -- leaves and flowers, for instance. Jackson's team has taken an interest in how quantitative variation in the pathways that regulate plant stem cells contribute to a plant's growth and yield.

"Our simple hypothesis was that an increase in the size of the inflorescence meristem -- the stem-cell reservoir that gives rise to flowers and ultimately, after pollination, seeds -- will provide more physical space for the development of the structures that mature into kernels."

Dr. Peter Bommert, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Jackson lab, performed an analytical technique on several maize variants that revealed what scientists call quantitative trait loci (QTLs): places along the chromosomes that "map" to specific complex traits such as yield. The analysis pointed to a gene that Jackson has been interested in since 2001, when he was first to clone it: a maize gene called FASCIATED EAR2 (FEA2).

Not long after cloning the gene, Jackson had a group of gifted Long Island high school students, part of a program called Partners for the Future, perform an analysis of literally thousands of maize ears. Their task was to meticulously count the number of rows of kernels on each ear. It was part of a research project that won the youths honors in the Intel Science competition. Jackson, meantime, gained important data that now has come to full fruition.

The lab's current research has now shown that by producing a weaker-than-normal version of the FEA2 gene -- one whose protein is mutated but still partly functional -- it is possible, as Jackson postulated, to increase meristem size, and in so doing, get a maize plant to produce ears with more rows and more kernels.

How many more? In two different crops of maize variants that the Jackson team grew in two locations with weakened versions of FEA2, the average ear had 18 to 20 rows and up to 289 kernels -- as compared with wild-type versions of the same varieties, with 14 to 16 rows and 256 kernels. Compared with the latter figure, the successful FEA2 mutants had a kernel yield increase of some 13%.

"We were excited to note this increase was accomplished without reducing the length of the ears or causing fasciation -- a deformation that tends to flatten the ears," Jackson says. Both of those characteristics, which can sharply lower yield, are prominent when FEA2 is completely missing, as the team's experiments also demonstrated.

Teosinte, the humble wild weed that Mesoamericans began to modify about 7000 years ago, beginning a process that resulted in the domestication of maize, makes only 2 rows of kernels; elite modern varieties of the plant can produce as many as 20.

A next step in the research is to cross-breed the "weak" FEA2 gene variant, or allele, associated with higher kernel yield with the best maize lines used in today's food crops to ask if it will produce a higher-yield plant.

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---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Peter Bommert, Namiko Satoh Nagasawa & David Jackson. Quantitative variation in maize kernel row number is controlled by the FASCIATED EAR2 locus. Nature Genetics, 03 February 2013 DOI: 10.1038/ng.2534

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/top_environment/~3/33u3yq3NI_4/130203145600.htm

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New Notre Dame bells make harmonious history

PARIS (AP) ? The cathedral of Notre Dame ? French for "our lady" ? has finally got the prima donna worthy of its name.

Weighing in at six and a half tons or 6,000 kilograms of glistening bronze, this lady is no ordinary person: she's a bell named Mary.

Mary is in fact the largest ? and loudest ? of nine new, gargantuan Notre Dame bells being blessed Saturday in the cathedral's nave by Archbishop Andre Armand Vingt-Trois.

"They are beautiful (bells)... We will hear them ringing today during the celebration, and we will hear them during coming years as Notre Dame's chimes," Father Edouard, a priest from outside Paris who had come for the blessing, said.

The nine casts were ordered for the cathedral's 850th birthday ? to replace the discordant "ding dang" of the previous four 19th century chimes. After the originals bells ? including the original Mary ? were destroyed in the French Revolution, the replacements were widely said to be France's most out-of-tune church bells. There's some irony that in Victor Hugo's classic novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," the solitary bell-ringer Quasimodo was deaf.

For Catholics, as well as visitors with pitch-perfect ears, it's a historic moment for the cathedral.

"During the French Revolution, they (the original bells) were all brought down and broken except (one) and four other bells that were recast in the middle of the 19th century ... This will complete in a definitive manner the entire set of 10 bells as conceived ... in the Middle Ages," Notre Dame rector Patrick Jacquin said.

Jean-Marie, Maurice, Benoit-Joseph, Steven, Marcel, Dennis, Anne-Genevieve, Gabriel will ring together with Mary to add a harmony to the French gothic landmark, not heard since 1789.

Travelers have come far and wide to catch a glimpse of the bronze giants ? on public display until Feb. 25.

"I came from Spain, just for today to see them," 21-year-old Eugenia Santos said. "Notre Dame and the bells are famous thanks to the church and also Victor Hugo ... With more bells, maybe Quasimodo won't be so lonely anymore."

"It's a great event," Sister Dorothee Noel Raharitafitasoa, of Madagascar, said.

Testament to the international pull of Notre Dame ? with its 20 million annual visitors ? on each bell is written "Via viatores quaerit," latin for "I am the path looking for travelers."

Each dome has a unique and different patterning, some with shiny, matte and etched sections, and each chime to a beautiful different pitch.

The first time revelers will able to hear the new pealing will be on March 23, just in time for Palm Sunday and Easter week.

Mary will soon be hoisted up to the gothic south tower ready to sound out ? echoed by other eight in the north tower ? over the medieval gargoyles, historic rooftops, and the snaking Seine River.

___

Follow Thomas Adamson at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/notre-dame-bells-harmonious-history-145214554.html

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Baby Shower!

This past weekend, it was time to celebrate Baby Miller with a shower! Two dear friends hosted the party at my mom?s house. I had 20 guests including family and friends, and my aunt even joined in via Skype to watch the presents be opened.

Of course I was exhausted afterward and had to come home and take a nap but I had such a good time while I was there. It was a party I will never forget. Most of the party details were a surprise to me, which I enjoyed and I have the impression that my mom, Sarah, and Nicole had been working on the party details for awhile.

Some of the fun things we did included: decorating onesies,

playing the string game, and guessing which attributes the baby will get from Matt and me.

Of course the best part was the presents I couldn?t believe all the gifts that Baby Miller received.

Our nursery is ready to go now thanks to family and friends. The most exciting thing I got was a scrapbook from my mom for the baby. It has a bit of our family history in it, plus room for pictures of the baby shower, the baby coming home from the hospital, and the baby?s baptism. It sits on the top bookshelf in the nursery and I can?t wait to show Baby Miller when he/she is older.

All in all it was a fantastic party and I was so appreciative of all the amazing gifts my family and friends gave me and the baby. This weeks activity: Thank you cards!!!!

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?

Source: http://lifewiththemillers.com/baby-shower/

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Oil sands pollution: Why industry wants the carbon tax Harper hates ...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vilified political opponents who support a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. The oil sands industry, Canada?s fastest growing CO2 polluter, says he?s out of step.

The contradiction of an industry seeking a new tax on itself has emerged in energy-rich Canada because producers are concerned the crude they process from tar-like sands will be barred from foreign markets for releasing more carbon in its production than competing fossil fuels.

At least with a tax, you know what you?re getting

Oil companies operating in Canada such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Total SA of France and Canada?s Cenovus Energy Inc. plan to convert billions of barrels of the sticky bitumen into diesel and gasoline. Under foreign and domestic pressure, they now see a greenhouse-gas levy helping to provide access to markets and more predictable costs for Canada?s biggest export industry, which shipped $68-billion of oil in 2011.

A carbon tax ?is one of the ways to promote better performance of the industry,? Andre Goffart, president of Total?s Canadian unit, said in an interview in Calgary. ?The principles are probably agreed upon by the players. The question is, where do you put the level to incentivize the industry to go in a more efficient way??

Europe?s third-largest oil company joins a group of competitors around the world calling for a price on carbon. Many favour taxes over a cap-and-trade system to encourage cuts. After European Union emissions credits plummeted in price, securitizing CO2 has lost favour among jurisdictions considering pollution limits, said Guy Turner, director of commodities and energy economics at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.

?What You?re Getting?

?At least with a tax, you know what you?re getting,? Turner said in an interview from London. ?The cost is in effect fixed. Industry will be able to lobby for a rate of tax that it feels it can wear.?

European Union carbon permits have sunk 88% from a 2008 intraday high of 29.69 euros (US$40.30) a metric ton. Permits for December dropped 10% Thursday to close at 3.42 euros, data from the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London show.

?A carbon tax maximizes the use of markets and minimizes complexity,? Pius Rolheiser, an Imperial Oil Ltd. spokesman, said in a phone interview. ?On that basis, a carbon tax is a better approach.? Imperial, Canada?s second-largest oil producer by market value, is 70%-owned by Exxon.

Brian Ferguson, chief executive officer of Calgary-based oil-sands producer Cenovus, said last year that a carbon tax is ?probably the most effective means of regulating and addressing the cost of carbon.?

Emissions Debate

The debate in Canada over how to slow the pace of emissions from the nation?s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases echoes choices being considered around the world.

Conservative Prime Minister Harper, who said in remarks during a 2008 election campaign that a carbon tax would ?screw everybody? in Canada, favors other ways to curb greenhouse gases.

?Our government is committed to reduce GHG emissions at the industrial source rather than through an economy-distorting carbon tax regime,? Rob Taylor, a spokesman for Environment Minister Peter Kent, said in an e-mail.

The country needs to meet a 2020 commitment to lower emissions by 17% from 2005 levels under the Copenhagen Accord. Nations such as Australia and subnational governments have already chosen taxes to cut pollution.

Canada?s government introduced regulations last year that capped the amount of carbon that can be emitted by coal-fired power plants and has been negotiating with the oil-and-gas industry on similar rules.

Pricing ?Intuition?

Australia, the world?s largest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases, in July set a fixed carbon price that works much like a tax of A$23 (US$24) a ton for the country?s largest 500 emitters, including miner BHP Billiton Ltd. The Canadian province of British Columbia enacted a carbon tax in 2008 that covers about 70% of fossil-fuel consumption, making its gasoline among the most expensive in the country.

?The intuition behind carbon pricing is straightforward: we should tax things that we do not want, and making it more expensive will reduce pollution,? Marc Lee, senior economist at the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Vancouver, said in a Jan. 13 report. ?A carbon tax provides greater certainty around the price of GHG emissions, but poses a great deal of uncertainty around actual emission reductions.?

British Columbia?s carbon tax is currently pegged at $30 a ton and adds about 6.7 cents to a liter of gasoline. The tax has helped the province?s per-capita emissions decline almost 10% from 2008 to 2010, with families paying an average of $386 per household, the report said.

Hydropower Reliance

Neighbouring Alberta, home to the oil sands industry, has a carbon levy of $15 a ton for industrial emitters that exceed limits. Finland was the first country to enact a carbon tax, followed by Sweden in 1991 and a handful of other jurisdictions including the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.

Per-capita emissions in Canada, which relies on low-carbon hydropower for almost 60% of its electricity generation, are only exceeded by Australia, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia among large polluters.

?The world is monetizing carbon,? said Daniel Gagnier, president of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, an advocacy group funded by business. ?If a country looks at Canada and says your energy exports are too carbon-intensive, then it becomes an economic competitiveness issue.?

A case in point is TransCanada Corp.?s Keystone XL pipeline. The project would bring Canadian heavy crude to the Gulf Coast, helping companies earn world prices for their commodity, which currently trades at a US$31.75 discount to benchmark U.S. crude because of scant capacity to move oil from Alberta.

Lobbying Efforts

After two years of lobbying U.S. officials to approve the pipeline, the Canadian government is now watching as environmental groups, emboldened by Canada?s 2011 annulment of the Kyoto Protocol, push to derail the $5.3-billion project.

At the same time, Canadian politicians are trying to thwart EU plans to implement a carbon-reduction directive that would penalize Canadian crude.

Still, global efforts to tax carbon emissions have slowed following the 2008 recession and the failure of negotiators at United Nations-sponsored talks to create a replacement for the Kyoto climate agreement that would include China and the U.S., the world?s largest emitters.

Canada, the seventh-largest emitter, was the first of 191 signatories to withdraw from Kyoto.

For oil-sands producers, carbon pricing may be the answer to reduce risk associated with carbon regulation and access to markets, said John Stephenson, a Toronto-based fund manager.

?What business hates is a lack of clarity,? Stephenson, who helps manage $2.7-billion at First Asset Investment Management Inc., said by phone. ?Even a bad tax would be better than discussions that are endless.?

Bloomberg News

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/01/why-the-oil-sands-industry-wants-the-carbon-tax-harper-hates/

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DIY Bicycle Barometer Advises Whether to Ride Your Bike or Take Public Transit

If you're a fairweather bicycle commuter you might wish to know what the conditions will be like outside before you determine if you'll ride or take the subway, car, or bus. Maker weblog Optimise for the Common Case creator Richard J. Pope didn't wanted an easy way to make this decision so he built a "bicycle barometer" a Nanode-powered device that takes in data from weather sites and The London Underground and controls a dial that tells him whether to bicycle or ride public transit.

This data is reduced down to an analog display, modeled after a barometer, that advises the best method of transportation for that day. The info is weighted?snow will rank higher toward choosing the tube over a light rain. This is but one great example how private and public services providing APIs help develop tons of innovative projects.

If you'd like to build your own Richard provides code, instructions, and the design at his Github page you can find at the source link below.

Bicycle Barometer | Optimise for the Common Case via Hack A Day

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/eRWM3UHMGuE/diy-bicycle-barometer-advises-whether-to-ride-your-bike-or-take-public-transit

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The Sandwich Generation - Early-Retirement.org

Yesterday, 11:46 AM	? #1
Recycles dryer sheets ? Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 204	The Sandwich Generation The Sandwich Generation: Rising Financial Burdens for Middle-Aged Americans The Sandwich Generation | Pew Social & Demographic Trends "Nearly half (47%) of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent age 65 or older and are either raising a young child or financially supporting a grown child (age 18 or older). And about one-in-seven middle-aged adults (15%) is providing financial support to both an aging parent and a child. When survey respondents were asked if adult children have a responsibility to provide financial assistance to an elderly parent in need, fully 75% say yes, they do. Only 23% say this is not an adult child?s responsibility. By contrast, only about half of all respondents (52%) say parents have a responsibility to provide financial assistance to a grown child if he or she needs it. Some 44% say parents do not have a responsibility to do this. However, the survey suggests that adults in the sandwich generation are just as happy with their lives overall as are other adults. " How many in this ER community are in the sandwich generation, and contribute substantively to BOTH the parents and grown children? Do you agree with the findings of the Pew study? ' + '?' + google_ads[i].line2 + '?' + google_ads[i].line3 + '?' + '' + google_ads[i].visible_url + ' '; } } '' } if (google_ads[0].bidtype == "CPC") { /* insert this snippet for each ad call */ google_adnum = google_adnum + google_ads.length; } document.write(s); return; } google_ad_client = 'ca-pub-7757781251671730'; google_ad_channel = '3711355403'; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '6'; google_ad_type = 'text'; google_feedback = 'on'; // --> __________________
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Yesterday, 11:54 AM	? #2
Recycles dryer sheets ? Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Miraflores,Peru Posts: 408	I fit into all of the above as well as supporting a 30 y/o wife. However, If you ask this question again in a year (2014), I will be 60 and will not be able to respond in the affirmative. ' + '?' + google_ads[i].line2 + '?' + google_ads[i].line3 + '?' + '' + google_ads[i].visible_url + ' '; } } '' } if (google_ads[0].bidtype == "CPC") { /* insert this snippet for each ad call */ google_adnum = google_adnum + google_ads.length; } document.write(s); return; } google_ad_client = 'ca-pub-7757781251671730'; google_ad_channel = '3568142076'; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '6'; google_ad_type = 'text'; google_feedback = 'on'; // --> __________________ Retired Oct. 1987 age 33, Off-shored my life. "Life's been good to ME,so far"! -J.Walsh
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Yesterday, 12:08 PM	? #3
Recycles dryer sheets ? Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: GA Posts: 127	I'm in that sandwich generation but have no kids and my mom is doing just fine. If my mom needed support I would help to a certain point but I can only do so much. My wife would probably want to help her parents much more but that's their culture. __________________
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Yesterday, 12:20 PM	? #4
Administrator ? Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: New Orleans Posts: 23,626	My wife would probably want to help her parents much more but that's their culture. Culture, and family culture, make a big difference in how we handle these matters. In my family, it is almost unheard of for a parent or grown child to ask for help. But, if a parent or grown child asked for help, we would never refuse. So, I have never had to give financial assistance to a parent or grown child*. But the other side of that coin is that I never got any help for anything as a grown child, even to pay for college, and I will not ask for any help when I am older. *other than paying tuition, books, and $500/month partial living expenses for my daughter when she was in college __________________ "Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harborless immensities." - - H. Melville, 1851
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Yesterday, 12:46 PM	? #5
Full time employment: Posting here. ? Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: San Diego Posts: 513	Pour mustard on my head- I'm sandwiched. I entered parenting later in life (was 39 and 41 when I had my boys) DH is 10 years older than me. So here I am - looking at balancing ER goals, college funding goals, and dealing with eldercare issues with my in-laws. I have a 10 year old, a 12 year old, and in-laws in crisis who are 86 and 89 years old. My parents died in the last decade (fortunately they were solvent and lucid till the end.) But my husbands parents are in need. So far we built a granny flat to help with caregivier needs for them. (FIL is in a wheelchair, MIL doesn't believe in nursing homes or in home help.) She didn't like living in CA, so she moved them back to where they own a home. (Fortunately - this frees up the nice little cottage as a rental income stream - helping ER budgets.) We've already obtained emergency guardianship of FIL - because MIL refused to put him in a home and fired the in-home aides. DH is going for permanent guardianship of BOTH parents later this month. 2 of 3 "experts" (doctor and social worker) agree that MIL has dementia. We're still waiting on the psychologist report. And there is definitely expense associated with all this. It's stressful. No question about that. Juggling kids needs, parents needs, and trying to navigate family politics as an in-law. One advantage to being sandwiched... I felt we gave our kids a good role model when we actively helped with caregiving of their grandparents. Having grandparents live in a cottage in our back yard gave them lots of access - but also showed them that family takes care of family. A value I want to pass on to the boys. __________________
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Yesterday, 12:51 PM	? #6
Recycles dryer sheets ? Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 74	I'm squarely in that demographic. DW and I have a 21 year-old son with more college to go and an 18 year-old son heading to college this coming Fall. Thay both have been full-blown teenage boys, and I will leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks in terms of the challenges they have presented for DW and I. We are blessed to have all four parents still in our lives - mine 89 and 86, DW's 83 and 80. They are getting needy. As I type, I am "babysitting" the in-laws while their primary caregiver (DW's sister) is out of town for a few days. Both sets of parents are in good shape financially (so far). Honestly, they are consuming all the time we can give them though. Between teenagers and and needy elderly parents, DW and I sometimes don't feel like there is enough oxygen in the room, so to speak......... __________________ "Time wounds all heels...." - Groucho Marx
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Yesterday, 01:44 PM	? #7
Recycles dryer sheets ? Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Dallas Posts: 114	I just finished this process with the departure of my 87 year old mother. Tried everything I could in the last few years to get her to move in with DW and me. Even though we all get along great she would not do it. Thankfully, we raise two independent and successful children that have not been much of a burden once they flew away from the nest. Had that not been the case it would have been MUCH HARDER for us to accept a boomerang child than to care for a frail parent. __________________ _______________________________________________ "A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do" --Bob Dylan.
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Yesterday, 03:16 PM	? #10
Dryer sheet wannabe ? Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 21	Sandwiched but determined to RE anyway. We bought our retirement home early last year in our retirement destination and moved MIL into it. We will join her when I retire from my job this summer and she will stay with us. Four months after that DD boomeranged and is with us and will soon give us our first grandchild and will have to stay with us while she works to regain her independence. DS is doing well in college but lives at home with us to save on room and board. Wow, not how I envisioned I would enter ER! But, it offers many other opportunities to experience. I read on this site a long time ago, and can't remember where, a post that stated that ER doesn't save you from the ups and downs of life, you just don't have to go to work while you experience them. I think that is great perspective, and I'll embrace ER as I embrace my expanded family -- and as it turns out, my retirement home isn't too big after all! __________________ "Our lives are what our thoughts make them" Marcus Aurellius
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Yesterday, 03:26 PM	? #11
Dryer sheet aficionado ? Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 49	As my net worth increases my acceptance of the idea that my kids could live at home beyond college or be boomerang kids also increases. I hope that they do not pick up on this because do not think it would be good for them to know this is an option. My kids are pre-teen so I guess it may be a little early to worry about it. I expect to have to help my mom out financially one day and I am OK with that too. NMF __________________
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Yesterday, 05:23 PM	? #13
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post ? Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 2,001	Just a suggestion for any who might benefit from it: After my father died (in his late 70s), my mother (five years older than he was) decided she no longer had the energy to manager her own affairs, but still wanted independence. She was still sharp mentally, just tired physically. So she gave me durable power of attorney over everything and put all her accounts in joint ownership with me (JTWROS). For the rest of her life, she enjoyed not having to deal with any financial matters -- just told me what she wanted and told me to take care of it. She kept one credit card for restaurants and the like, but never saw a bill. When she wanted cash, she just asked me for whatever amount she wanted. Since I had total control, I invested her money prudently and it was enough to cover her expenses until she died, fifteen years later. The arrangement worked well. I had a little more work than merely managing my own finances, but I was spared the worry about what would become of hers. Assuming you are on good terms with your parent(s), I think this is something you might consider bringing up at the right time. In my case, it was totally my mother's idea -- she just felt comfortable turning control over to me. __________________
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