Abrakadoodle Art Education Opens First Unit in ... - Franchising.com

Children's art and creativity programs set to get underway in Northwest Arkansas this spring.

March 29, 2013 // Franchising.com // Reston, VA - Abrakadoodle Remarkable Art Education is expanding its reach to children with the addition of its first franchise unit in Arkansas. The mother/daughter duo Cora J. and Joy Davis of Fayetteville will be providing a wide range of art programs to include visual arts classes, camps, workshops, as well as in-school field trips, special events and arty parties at schools, community centers, faith-based locations and other sites that serve children throughout Northwest Arkansas to include Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale.

"We are delighted to welcome Joy and Cora to our award-winning Abrakadoodle franchise system," said Rosemarie Hartnett, CFE, President and Co-Founder of Abrakadoodle, Inc. "They bring impressive educational backgrounds and a true passion for education and creative literacy, which I am confident will help ensure their tremendous success in a community that values art, culture and creativity."

"Creative literacy is very important for children," stated Cora J. Davis, Director of Abrakadoodle-Northwest Arkansas. "Abrakadoodle will provide an educationally-rich learning environment enabling children to develop skills and imagination." Married to Paul, mother of three (Kendrick, Vanessa and Joy) and grandmother of two young children (Kennedy and Katelynn), Cora brings to Abrakadoodle 15 years of K-5 teaching experience, as well as a BS in Elementary Education, a Master's in Education, and she is working on her PhD in Public Policy and Education at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. She explained that her daughter Joy approached her about the opportunity to operate a well-respected art education franchise, an idea she met with enthusiasm.

""I always dreamed of owning my own business," Joy Davis, Director of Abrakadoodle-Northwest Arkansas remarked. Joy discovered Abrakadoodle when she read a business magazine and saw a fit with Abrakadoodle's creative concept. From a long line of educators, Joy brings a BS in Biology and a Master's in Operations Management. "Through Abrakadoodle, we will stimulate creativity in children, which they will carry with them throughout their lives. I find that very exciting!"

To learn more about art programs or to bring Abrakadoodle classes and activities to your location, please go to www.abrakadoodle.com/AR01/ or contact Joy Davis at jdavis@abrakadoodle.com or 479-856-6651.

Abrakadoodle was the first American franchise company to bring a comprehensive, standards-based art education program to children in the U.S. More than just a drawing program, Abrakadoodle embraces art in its broadest scope - from public art to all types of painting, sculpture, animation, paper and fabric art, digital photography and more. Abrakadoodle students develop a fine arts vocabulary as they learn about the styles and techniques of such artists as Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso, Ansel Adams, as well as contemporary artists through its Artist of Distinction program. Abrakadoodle students use an abundance of creative materials (bamboo brushes, sculpting materials, fabric, watercolor, acrylics, and more) to explore the visual arts. Students often take home framed, labeled original creations that extend the learning at home, as well as boost self-confidence.

Abrakadoodle classes employ a "process art" methodology. These classes not only inspire a child's imagination, but they also build motor, language and cognitive skills. Abrakadoodle students develop an appreciation for art and a sense of craftsmanship. Research suggests that getting an early start in the arts can make a real difference in the lives of children, not only in terms of increased academic achievement but also greater problem solving, leadership capabilities, and confidence.

About Abrakadoodle

Abrakadoodle was co-founded in 2002 by award-winning educator/franchise developer Mary Rogers, CFE, MA.Ed, and children's services franchising expert Rosemarie Hartnett, CFE. Abrakadoodle is the most comprehensive creativity and art education company of its kind, offering extensive visual arts classes, camps and parties for children ages 20 months to 12 years old. Abrakadoodle has received seven First Place Awards from Nickelodeon's Parent Picks Awards for "Best Art Program to inspire your child's inner Picasso." Recently Abrakadoodle also received seven additional nominations for "Best Kids Party Entertainer" and "Best Kids Party Place."

SOURCE?Abrakadoodle

Contact:

Joy Davis
Director
479-856-6651
jdavis@abrakadoodle.com

Karin Machusic
Director of Public Relations
(Mobile) 925-708-2179
Karin@abrakadoodle.com

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Pirate perch probably use chemical camouflage to fool prey

Mar. 28, 2013 ? It?s a nocturnal aquatic predator that will eat anything that fits in its large mouth.

Dark and sleek, it hides beneath the water waiting for prey. A Texas Tech University researcher says the target will never know what hit them because they probably can?t smell the voracious pirate perch.

After careful investigations, William Resetarits Jr., a professor of biology at Texas Tech, and Christopher A. Binckley, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Arcadia University, found that animals normally attuned to predators from their smell didn?t seem to detect the pirate perch. It could be the first animal discovered that is capable of generalized chemical camouflage that works against a wide variety of prey.

The team published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal The American Naturalist.

Thankfully, at five-and-a-half inches long, only insects, invertebrates, amphibians and other small fish need worry about the danger hiding near the bottom among the roots and plantlife, Resetarits said.

?We use the term ?camouflage,? because it is readily understandable,? he said. ?What we really are dealing with is some form of ?chemical deception.? The actual mechanism may be camouflage that makes an organism difficult to detect, mimicry that makes an organism difficult to correctly identify, or cloaking where the organism simply does not produce a signal detectable to the receiver.?

Resetarits said pirate perch aren?t really perch at all, but related to the Amblyopsid cave fish family. Fossils from this fish date back about 24 million years ago.

They make their homes in freshwater ponds and streams in the Eastern United States. Once considered for the aquarium market, the fish got its name because of its penchant for eating all tank mates.

?Pirate perch have some unique aspects to their morphology and life history, but they are generalist predators, and so should have been avoided by prey animals like all the other fish tested,? he said. ?For some reason, they weren?t avoided at all.?

To test their theory, Resetarits and Binckley ran a series of experiments in artificial pools housing 11 different species of fish, including pirate perch.

The fish were kept at bay at the bottom of the pools with screens so that they could not prey on the beetles and tree frogs that colonized the water.

When it came to choosing a pool, the beetles and frogs consistently steered clear of the water with other fish species in them, most likely because they could smell the presence of fish in the water. However, they had no qualms about moving into pools containing the pirate perch.

?We were incredibly surprised,? Resetarits said. ?It took a while for us to pull this all together. When we first observed it with tree frogs, we were very surprised and puzzled. But when the same lack of response was shown by aquatic beetles, we were quite literally flabbergasted. We continued to do experiments with other fish and always got the same results. All fish except pirate perch were avoided.?

Exactly what the pirate perch is doing to hide isn?t yet known, he said. Researchers want to determine how the pirate perch are either scrambling chemical signals or masking their odor. Once they have identified chemical compounds that might explain the behavior, they will return to the field to test with the same tree frogs and beetles as well as other organisms known to respond to fish chemical cues, such as mosquitoes and water fleas.

?We will also test whether this chemical deception works against the pirate perch?s own predators,? Resetarits said. ?Of course, other critical questions that we are working on include just how much advantage in terms of prey acquisition do pirate perch gain as a result of chemical deception. Does this phenomenon occur in closely related species, such as cavefish? Are there prey species that have found a way around the chemical deception? There are many questions now, and I think we have just scratched the surface.

?I think the most important aspect is not the bizarre, just-so story, but the fact that there is no reason to believe that chemical camouflage is less common than visual camouflage. Humans? sense of smell is just not very sophisticated, so we can?t simply ?notice? examples of chemical camouflage the way we do visual camouflage. I think chemical camouflage is likely quite common. We are starting pursuit of the larger question, starting with close relatives of pirate perch.?

Find Texas Tech news, experts and story ideas at www.media.ttu.edu and on Twitter @TexasTechMedia.

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Journal Reference:

1. William J. Resetarits, Christopher A. Binckley. Is the Pirate Really a Ghost? Evidence for Generalized Chemical Camouflage in an Aquatic Predator, Pirate PerchAphredoderus sayanus. The American Naturalist, 2013; : 000 DOI: 10.1086/670016

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/most_popular/~3/c5NbMbTJghI/130329085941.htm

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Seven Tips for Making Nutrition and Fitness Greater Priorities

We live busy lives, shuttling back and forth between home, jobs, social events, and many other commitments. At times, we feel there is no time to exercise, or we have no choice but to grab the convenient food over the healthy food.

I completely understand these feelings, and experience them myself. When I'm in full-time writing mode, I feel like all I can do is write, go to work, spend time with my wife, and then write some more before going to bed.

We're tricking ourselves in to thinking our time and options are limited. Even if our time is (which is a separate post entirely), our options don't have to be. We need to be a little better at starting small, balancing our needs, and planning. The benefits of a healthier diet and active lifestyle are well-documented, stimulating both brain power and productivity. In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg names exercise one of the keystone habits that empower a healthy, productive life. Exercise fuels the ability to make other habit changes in your life possible, including diet.

Start Small

The first and biggest lie is the mindset that you need to make life-changing, wholesale changes to make a difference. Not so! Even if your diet and fitness habits are non-existent, you can begin to make small changes which can snowball into big results. Consider snow or rain. One flake or drop of water isn't going to make a big difference, and is easy to dismiss. But compounded by consistency and quantity, they accumulate into a force of nature.

Here's a little sub-list for you, little ways you can start small in fitness and food. Start with any of these once a week, or every 2-3 days. Starting small will keep you motivated for the next opportunity.

• Go for a 10 minute walk or a 5 minute run
• Swing a kettlebell 10 times
• Do 10 squats, then 10 pushups
• Drink 1 liter of water instead of soda
• Eat 1 salad a week

Resist the temptation to start big, because big starts normally end in big crashes. If you go for a big workout or run, you'll be sore and need to rest even longer, or risk injury. If you eat incredibly healthy for a few days, the sugar craving will be too much to resist, along with the thought of "I've been eating so healthy anyway!" So start small, and allow the snowball to grow.

Food Over Fitness

Many people, myself included, tend to flip the equation, prioritizing fitness over food. We use our exercise as an excuse to eat whatever we want and burn the calories off later. While the plan isn't bad, it's very short-sighted. A healthy diet combined with regular exercise is clearly the best way to live, instead of constantly trying to burn off the donuts you ate.

Food is one of the constants of our lives, something we truly can't function without. Fueling yourself with good food simply makes sense. When you combine healthy eating with your exercise, you'll notice you feel even better! Elite athletes understand this balance, and though they routinely burn over 2,000 calories in a workout, don't immediately go refuel with soda, fried chicken, and ice cream.

Plus, when a day comes up where finding your exercise time is difficult, making smart choices with your meals will help keep your body and mind in top shape. So when the choice is in front of you, choose the right food. I won't drop a diet plan bomb on you now, and certainly there is a lot of information on what to eat. We tend to make eating over-complicated, even healthy eating! So here are a few simple rules to keep in mind.

• Eat as many whole foods as possible, i.e. fruits & vegetables.
• Eat lean cuts of meat.
• Eat smaller portions, but a little more often.
• Drink plenty of water.

Move In a Way That's Fun

If you don't enjoy running, don't run. If you don't enjoy lifting weights, don't lift weights. Move in a way you enjoy, and you'll see the benefits much quicker. Your exercise won't be a burden because it's fun! Maybe it's a dance class, yoga, hiking, canoeing, martial arts, cycling, soccer, or tennis. If you stop forcing the workouts, following what you're "supposed" to be doing, then the habit won't take hold. I enjoy running, but only on trails. I enjoy lifting weights, but not in slow, uni-directional ways (bench press). I also enjoy mixing up my workouts, keeping them fresh and interesting by trying new things. Bottom line: Do what moves you.

Follow the Pareto Principle (AKA the 80/20 Rule)

Disclaimer: This isn't the Pareto Principle exactly. But the 80/20 mindset is helpful when figuring out what kind of grace you can extend to yourself when your food and fitness isn't measuring up. Basically, if you're eating well in 80% of your meals, you can be flexible in the other 20%. If you exercise most of the week, don't stress out over taking a couple of days off.

CrossFit offers a pretty solid principle for their workouts. 3 days on, 1 day off. Not quite 80%, but close enough. If you're taking care of your body and mind 75-80% of the time, you'd have to do a lot of damage in the remaining time to screw it up. One more suggestion though, from my own experience: mix up your rest and cheat days so they don't occur at the same time. Being able to workout on a day you've eaten some unhealthy food will help negate the bad calories, and eating well on a day you're resting will increase the benefits of your rest.

Buy a Kettlebell

A kettlebell is far and away the most important and useful piece of equipment I own. The functionality of a KB design allows it to be used in so many more ways than a dumbbell or barbell. You can swing, carry, press, power clean, and tons more. Since the bulk of the weight lies directly beneath the handle, the weight displacement allows gravity to pull the weight in a more natural manner. Classic dumbbells place the weight on the sides, making some exercises awkward or impossible.

If you own just one piece of equipment, make it a kettlebell. The good people at FringeSport offer great prices and free shipping, which is pretty much unheard of. Gals, start around 15 lbs or less if you're not used to weights. Guys, 25-30 lbs is a good starting point. If you want, go to your local sporting goods store and feel one out, then save some money and buy from FringeSport.

Eat More Color

Have you ever admired the rich color palette of fruits and vegetables? Orange, after all, is both a fruit and a major color. Dark greens, apple red, or banana yellow? Ever noticed the basic color names on the Apple palette?Simply increasing the diversity of colors on your plate will help you eat healthier, even if that's all you do! No, Skittles don't count. Red meat, sweet potatoes, spinach salad, and squash? Nailed it.

Embrace a Routine

If figuring out a daily workout just adds more stress to your life, don't do that either! Write one workout you're going to do for the week, and then simply do only that. I find I don't work out well in the morning because I haven't planned anything. I need something concrete to get out of bed for. If our goal is to wake up and move around for 15 minutes, let's have a plan for it, and just do it for a week! I mentioned that enjoy mixing up my workouts, but it's comforting to know there's something I can fall back on that I know will bear results.

If you're interested, join me this week in the following routine! No equipment required, ha! Your excuses have been reduced to ash.

• Monday: 25 pushups, 25 squats, 25 burpees, 25 box jumps
• Tuesday: Repeat
• Wednesday: Run or walk for 15-30 minutes
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: 25 pushups, 25 squats, 25 burpees, 25 box jumps
• Saturday: Repeat, or your choice of cardio

*Scale number of reps or duration of cardio to your pace. Doing a little is better than doing nothing.

If you do want more variety, check out TheSimpleGym.com. Morgan writes 4 workouts every week and puts up a video of the movements so you can see how they're done.

In a go big or go home lifestyle, we tend to overcomplicate matters, and the ways we move and eat are at the top of the list. We want to say we finished a killer workout or are on a fad diet, because it makes us interesting. Consider instead the snowball effect, building flake by flake until you're a force of nature.

7 Tips for Prioritizing Your Food and Fitness?Matt Ragland

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Matt Ragland is a writer and adventure junkie, helping people align their priorities and choices with what they really love. He wrote a workbook called Choose What You Love, and it's free for LifeHacker readers. Click here to get it, and follow Matt on Twitter @mattragland.

Image remixed from risteski goce (Shutterstock) and pixabay.

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/GltC3muRIX4/seven-tips-for-making-nutrition-and-fitness-greater-priorities

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Test Drive A Renault, Get A Private Show From ... - Business Insider

Experiential ads are taking over.

Renault UK allowed two unsuspecting people to test drive its new Clio model with a fake car sales person.

When the drivers stopped at an intersection, they were asked to they try the "va va voom" button on the car's dash.

Upon doing so, they were immediately transported to Paris in the form of an impromptu piece of street theater ? via a kissing couple, an Eiffel Tower backdrop, baguette and rose vendors, and then dancing girls and guys.

The two ads ? one featuring dancing women in lingerie, the other topless men ??embraces the trend of immersive "experiential" ads that plunge everyday consumers into strange situations, which are filmed for YouTube. Belgian agency Duval Guillaume popularized the trend when it released a video last year for TNT, in which people in a random European square were bombarded by biker gangs, gun fights, and other dramatic scenarios after pushing a red button. The TNT spot now has more than 44 million views.

The Renault ad incorporates not only the button pushing, but another ingredient of a recently successful experiential ad: a test drive gone wrong.

Pepsi's most successful social video ever, released earlier this month, had race car driver Jeff Gordon dress up and take a used car salesman on a high octane, terrifying test drive. (It also turned out to be completely fake, but that didn't stop it from becoming a viral success.)

Renault's carefully planned ad was created by Manning Gottlieb OMB and Unruly's Social Video Lab. Unruly is a social company that tracks online videos that go viral and breaks down the causes of its success.

This is Unruly's first time working with a company on making an ad that it thinks will go viral.

One significant difference between Renault's campaign is that both TNT and Pepsi only had one video meant to appeal to both sexes. Renault broke its campaign into two videos: one aimed at mainly at guys (featuring women in lingerie) and the other mostly at women (starring a batch of shirtless dudes). Will this decrease or increase the overall sharing?

Here's the other ad:

And here's the TNT ad by Duval Guillaume:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/test-drive-a-renault-get-a-private-show-from-dancing-girls-2013-3

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Australian Fitness & Health Expo {+ Giveaway}

Last year, for the first time, I attended the Australian Fitness & Health Expo?in Sydney. Packed with all the latest gym equipment, training aids, apparel, music, boxing equipment and nutritional products,?this event is the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere!?

This year the?Australian Fitness & Health Expo?will be held on April 20-21 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre and I'm?definitely?attending again!

Last year highlights were for me the Healthy Eating Zone and the Zumba Main Stage with live demonstrations. It was also great fun to try and discover many new health foods and by the end of the day I had collected quite a few samples and brochures!

Giveaway

Like last year, I have teamed up with the Australian Fitness & Health Expo??again?and have not one but 3?double-passes to giveaway to three lucky Sydney-based readers?to attend the event!?Each double pass is worth $59.

To enter?:

Head-over to?Mademoiselle Slimalicious? Facebook Page?(make sure you LIKE the page if you haven't already) and leave a?comment on my?Facebook page?wall telling me?why you would like to attend the expo and who you would like to go with!

Giveaway is open to residents of NSW (Australia) and closes on?15th April 2012 at?9 pm?(EAST).?The winners will be?announced?on Facebook shortly after the end of the competition. Prizes kindly donated by Australian Fitness & Health Expo, total prize pool value: $118

Image credit: Australia Fitness & Health Expo website

Source: http://www.mslimalicious.com/2013/03/australian-fitness-health-expo-giveaway.html

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Lufkin, Nacogdoches school districts explain educator-student re ...

EAST TEXAS (KTRE) -

Within the first three months of this year there have already been 26 cases of inappropriate relationships involving teachers and their students in Texas. The chief of staff at the U.S. department of education keeps track of each case along with the 200 cases nationwide this year.

You may recall the case of the former Mineola teacher, Joann Stephens, who had an inappropriate relationship with a then 15-year-old student for years as they stayed in contact with each other through text messages.

During her trial in April 2011 the judge told her, "The reason this is a crime is because the legislature decided it is very important that teachers understand the students in their care are not to be objects of their sexual affection."

Suzy Ragan feels a lot of people don't realize there is no privacy when communicating electronically.

"I think that our culture is going in that direction where we have more electronic communication, but I think we just need to be reminded of what's appropriate and what's not," Suzy Ragan, Lufkin H.S. social studies department head, said.

While text messaging students is considered inappropriate communication in many employee handbooks for Texas educators, it's also a warning that social network communication should be avoided.

East Texas school districts continue to monitor teachers' personal social media pages to make sure nothing inappropriate is going on.

"We have a social media policy that has some standards for communications between educators and students. Educators can't communicate with students between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.," Coby Wilbanks, Nacogdoches ISD Policy Specialist, said.

This same policy was broken by former Hudson ISD teacher, Clark Lewing, who plead guilty to improper relationships outside of the classroom. He stated he knew the then 14-year-old student a year before having relations with her in 2008. Knowing a student and being able to communicate with them outside of school is only acceptable in certain circumstances.

"There are exceptions for social and family relationships. The educator may have a relationship with a student that's a niece of nephew, or maybe they work with students at a church, or at boy scouts, or some other community organization and there are exceptions for that," Wilbanks said.

These exceptions are places into a policy to maintain appropriate educator - student relationships.

Copyright 2013 KTRE. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.ktre.com/story/21811525/lufkin-and-nacogdoches-explain-educator-student-relationship-policies

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Business Owners in Ottawa Soon to Benefit from ... - Franchising.com

OTTAWA, Ontario - March 27, 2013 // PRNewswire // - The Alternative Board (TAB) will open a new office in Ottawa for the benefit of private business owners in Canada's capitol city to provide them with their very own board of directors. The Alternative Board (TAB) is the world's largest franchise system providing peer advisory boards and coaching services for business owners. TAB seeks interested and qualified individuals to operate the Ottawa office which brings TAB's proprietary tools and methods to help business owners there. Interested applicants may complete the contact form at http://www.thealternativeboard.com/franchise-opportunity/apply.

Operating a current TAB office in the North York region near Toronto, Phil Spensieri looks forward to the new Ottawa TAB office and its addition to the business economy there. "As the capitol city of Canada, Ottawa is a perfect site for TAB's next franchise office and hub for private business owners there," Phil said. "TAB provides a medium for these owners to get together in a safe environment to really work on solving each other's challenges, not to mention celebrating and learning from successes."

Allen Fishman , Founder and Executive Chairman of The Alternative Board, shared his excitement relating to TAB's expansion in Ontario: "We view Ottawa as an area where we will continue The Alternative Board's mission of helping small and midsize business owners achieve work-life balance while leading their companies to their maximum potential." Mr. Fishman has authored two books appearing on the Wall Street Journal's best-sellers list and knows firsthand the best practices for small business coaching and peer boards.

About The Alternative Board

The Alternative Board currently operates in seven countries, including the United States, bringing together owners of non-competing businesses in half-day monthly board groups of up to 10 members. Each meeting, under the guidance of a TAB Certified facilitator, is conducted in a confidential "think-tank" atmosphere, and additional one-on-one business coaching is provided as well. TAB delivers real world advice to help business owners stay focused on what matters most. Since its inception in 1990, more than 15,000 businesses have benefited from The Alternative Board services. For more information visit www.TheAlternativeBoard.com.

Contact:

Philip Spensieri
TAB York Region
The Alternative Board
(905) 475-4119
Philip@TABYorkRegion.com

SOURCE The Alternative Board

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Gun control backers struggle to win some Democrats

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It would seem a lobbyist's dream: rounding up votes for a proposal backed by more than 8 in 10 people in polls. Yet, gun control supporters are struggling to win over moderate Democrats in their drive to push expanded background checks for firearms purchasers through the Senate next month.

Backed by a $12 million TV advertising campaign financed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gun control groups scheduled rallies around the country Thursday aimed at pressuring senators to back the effort. President Barack Obama was meeting at the White House with gun violence victims.

Moderate Senate Democrats like Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are shunning Bloomberg as a meddling outsider while stressing their allegiance to their own voters' views and to gun rights. While saying they're keeping an open mind and support keeping guns from criminals and people with mental disorders, many Democrats are avoiding specific commitments they might regret later.

"I do not need someone from New York City to tell me how to handle crime in our state. I know that we can go after and prosecute criminals without the need to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding North Dakotans," Heitkamp said this week, citing the constitutional right to bear arms.

Heitkamp does not face re-election next year, but Pryor and five other Senate Democrats from Republican-leaning or closely divided states do. All six, from Southern and Western states, will face voters whose deep attachment to guns is unshakeable ? not to mention opposition from the still potent National Rifle Association should they vote for restrictions the NRA opposes.

"We have a politically savvy and a loyal voting bloc, and the politicians know that," said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the NRA, which claims nearly 5 million paying members.

The heart of the Senate gun bill will be expanded requirements for federal background checks for gun buyers, the remaining primary proposal pushed by Obama and many Democrats since 20 first-graders and six women were shot to death in December at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada already has given up any hope of winning majority support for reimposing a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for ammunition.

Today, the background checks apply only to sales by the nation's roughly 55,000 federally licensed gun dealers. Not covered are private transactions like those at gun shows and online. The Senate measure is still evolving as Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., use Congress' two-week recess to negotiate for additional support in both parties.

Expanding background checks to include gun show sales got 84 percent support in an Associated Press-GfK poll earlier this year. Near universal background checks have received similar or stronger support in other national polls.

Polls in some Southern states have been comparable. March surveys by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found more than 9 in 10 people in Florida and Virginia backing expanded background checks, the same margin found by an Elon University Poll in North Carolina in February.

Analysts say people support more background checks because they consider it an extension of the existing system. That doesn't translate to unvarnished support from lawmakers, in part because the small but vocal minorities who oppose broader background checks and other gun restrictions tend to be driven voters that politicians are reluctant to alienate.

"It's probably true that intense, single-issue gun voters have been more likely to turn out than folks who want common-sense gun laws," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group that Bloomberg helps lead. Glaze, however, said he believes that has changed somewhat since Newtown and other recent mass shootings.

Several moderate Democrats are holding back as they assess the political landscape. They're also waiting to see exactly what the Senate will consider.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Wednesday his state's voters tell him, "Don't take away our rights, our individual rights, our guns." Begich said he opposes a strict proposal requiring background checks for nearly all gun sales but will wait to see whether there is a bipartisan compromise he can support.

The problems faced by gun control supporters go beyond the challenge of winning moderate Democrats. GOP opponents are sure to force Democrats to get 60 of the Senate's 100 votes to win, and there are only 53 Democrats plus two independents who generally support them.

Also targeted by Bloomberg's ads are 10 Republicans, including Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, home of ex-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded in a mass shooting; the retiring Saxby Chambliss of Georgia; and moderate Susan Collins of Maine.

In another indicator of hurdles facing gun control forces, the Senate voted 50-49 last week to require 60 votes for any legislation narrowing gun rights. The proposal lost because 60 votes in favor were required, but six Democrats voted for the proposal, offered by conservative Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

"It confirms there's no such thing as an easy gun vote," said Jim Kessler, a senior vice president of the centrist Democratic group Third Way.

Underscoring the uncertainty about moderate Democrats:

?Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is "still holding conversations with Virginia stakeholders and sorting through issues on background checks" and proposals to ban assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines, spokesman Kevin Hal said.

?Pryor said of Bloomberg's ads: "I don't take gun advice from the mayor of New York City. I listen to Arkansans." Spokesman Michael Teague said Pryor opposes universal background checks but could favor expanding the requirement to gun show sales.

?Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., told the Greensboro News & Record she favors expanded background checks, but said her vote would depend on the measure's details. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., answered, "Yes," when the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette asked whether he supports gun show background checks.

The gun bill also increases penalties for illegal gun sales and slightly boosts aid for school safety.

More abrupt changes like an assault weapons ban generally get slight majorities in polls. Democratic leaders decided to omit it from the Senate bill because such a provision lacks enough votes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gun-control-backers-struggle-win-democrats-065637861--politics.html

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Anderson Cooper not replacing Matt Lauer on "Today," NBC says

By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sorry, Anderson Cooper fans: NBC denies he's taking over for Matt Lauer on "Today."

In fact, according to "Today" executive producer Alex Wallace, NBC doesn't have plans to get rid of Lauer at all.

"We are not considering replacing Matt Lauer," Wallace said in a statement. "As we've said before, Matt is the best in the business. We want him in the 'Today' show anchor chair for many years to come."

The statement followed a Deadline Hollywood report that top NBC executives recently reached out to Cooper about replacing Lauer, but that Lauer objected and complained to Cooper.

Last April, Lauer signed a long-term contract to remain on "Today." (New York Magazine reports he negotiated a $25 million annual fee after threatening to jump ship to ABC.)

But that hasn't stopped speculation that Lauer is on his way out.

Cooper is in high demand as a theoretical replacement these days. Earlier this month, the New York Post reported that Cooper was in consideration to replace longtime "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek when he retires. (Interestingly, Lauer was also mentioned as a possible replacement for Trebek.)

However, a person close to Cooper told TheWrap that he was not approached about hosting the game show.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/anderson-cooper-not-replacing-matt-lauer-today-nbc-222115058.html

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Cancer biologists find DNA-damaging toxins in common plant-based foods

Mar. 27, 2013 ? In a laboratory study pairing food chemistry and cancer biology, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center tested the potentially harmful effect of foods and flavorings on the DNA of cells. They found that liquid smoke flavoring, black and green teas and coffee activated the highest levels of a well-known, cancer-linked gene called p53.

The p53 gene becomes activated when DNA is damaged. Its gene product makes repair proteins that mend DNA. The higher the level of DNA damage, the more p53 becomes activated.

"We don't know much about the foods we eat and how they affect cells in our bodies," says Scott Kern, M.D., the Kovler Professor of Oncology and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "But it's clear that plants contain many compounds that are meant to deter humans and animals from eating them, like cellulose in stems and bitter-tasting tannins in leaves and beans we use to make teas and coffees, and their impact needs to be assessed."

Kern cautioned that his studies do not suggest people should stop using tea, coffee or flavorings, but do suggest the need for further research.

The Johns Hopkins study began a year ago when graduate student Samuel Gilbert, working in Kern's laboratory, noted that a test Kern had developed to detect p53 activity had never been used to identify DNA-damaging substances in food.

For the study, published online February 8 in Food and Chemical Toxicology, Kern and his team sought advice from scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture about food products and flavorings. "To do this study well, we had to think like food chemists to extract chemicals from food and dilute food products to levels that occur in a normal diet," he says.

Using Kern's test for p53 activity, which makes a fluorescent compound that "glows" when p53 is activated, the scientists mixed dilutions of the food products and flavorings with human cells and grew them in laboratory dishes for 18 hours.

Measuring and comparing p53 activity with baseline levels, the scientists found that liquid smoke flavoring, black and green teas and coffee showed up to nearly 30-fold increases in p53 activity, which was on par with their tests of p53 activity caused by a chemotherapy drug called etoposide.

Previous studies have shown that liquid smoke flavoring damages DNA in animal models, so Kern's team analyzed p53 activity triggered by the chemicals found in liquid smoke. Postdoctoral fellow Zulfiquer Hossain tracked down the chemicals responsible for the p53 activity. The strongest p53 activity was found in two chemicals: pyrogallol and gallic acid. Pyrogallol, commonly found in smoked foods, is also found in cigarette smoke, hair dye, tea, coffee, bread crust, roasted malt and cocoa powder, according to Kern. Gallic acid, a variant of pyrogallol, is found in teas and coffees.

Kern says that more studies are needed to examine the type of DNA damage caused by pyrogallol and gallic acid, but there could be ways to remove the two chemicals from foods and flavorings.

"We found that Scotch whiskey, which has a smoky flavor and could be a substitute for liquid smoke, had minimal effect on p53 activity in our tests," says Kern.

Liquid smoke, produced from the distilled condensation of natural smoke, is often used to add smoky flavor to sausages, other meats and vegan meat substitutes. It gained popularity when sausage manufacturers switched from natural casings to smoke-blocking artificial casings.

Other flavorings like fish and oyster sauces, tabasco and soy sauces, and black bean sauces showed minimal p53 effects in Kern's tests, as did soybean paste, kim chee, wasabi powder, hickory smoke powders and smoked paprika.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (CA62924) and the Everett and Marjorie Kovler Professorship in Pancreas Cancer Research.

In addition to Kern, Gilbert and Hossain, other scientists involved in the research include Kalpesh Patel, Soma Ghosh, and Anil Bhunia from Johns Hopkins.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine, via Newswise.

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. M. Zulfiquer Hossain, Samuel F. Gilbert, Kalpesh Patel, Soma Ghosh, Anil K. Bhunia, Scott E. Kern. Biological clues to potent DNA-damaging activities in food and flavoring. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 2013; 55: 557 DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2013.01.058

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/rIaA_10aDzM/130327163302.htm

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Abbyy FineReader Touch

Businesses have been making increasing use of smart phones and tablets as work tools. Thanks to Abbyy FineReader Touch, remote workers can use iPhones and iPads to snap images of documents and upload them to Abby's cloud-based FineReader Online service to save it in various searchable, editable formats. Though it's no substitute for a desktop optical character recognition (OCR) program, this iOS app does let you scan and convert documents from anywhere, which is very handy.

Abbyy is a provider of OCR, PDF, and document conversion software, including the Editors' Choice FineReader 11, as well as older versions (FineReader 6 and 9) that are frequently bundled with the scanners we test. Though those solutions are for the desktop, Abbyy also offers mobile apps, including Abbyy FineReader Touch.

The FineReader Touch Interface
The app's iPhone interface is a black screen with toolbars on the top and bottom. Once you've scanned documents, a list of them, giving the date and time of the scan, file name and type, length of time available on the server for each document, appears in the center of the screen. The button at top left gives you the status of the document you're scanning. At top right is a search button (though it searches on documents, not text).

The tab at top center shows the balance of document conversions you have available to you. (You start with 100). Touching the tab takes you to the store, where you can buy more: $2.99 for 20 pages, $4.99 for 50 pages, $6.99 for 100 pages, and $9.99 for 200 pages.

At bottom left is an information tab, which provides Help, lets you email Abby for support; lets you rate the app, and tells you about other Abbyy apps. At bottom right, the gear icon lets you change settings. At bottom center, the camera icon lets you image a document with your iPhone's camera.

From the FineReader Online site, you can also upload saved documents for conversion to Word, Excel, PDF, PDF/A, RTF, TXT, and OpenDocument Text formats. You can access the documents you've converted, open and save them, or export them to Google Docs, Evernote, or Dropbox. After 14 days, your documents will be automatically deleted from the FineReader site.

Testing
I used my iPhone 5 to image text pages (printed from Word documents), tables, magazine pages, and other documents in FineReader Touch, and save them in appropriate formats (Word .docx is default). Text recognition of one-page documents scanned to Word format took an average of 44 seconds per page. That's much slower than typical desktop-based OCR speeds, but keep in mind that you're not likely to be using FineReader Touch to scan documents en masse.

OCR results were generally good. FineReader could recognize text down to 6 pt on our standard Times New Roman and Arial test pages in documents imaged in good lighting. The FineReader cloud also did a good job in converting most of the saved documents I sent to it, though occasionally a document with unusual formatting would stump it.

Abbyy FineReader Touch is optimized for the iPhone 5, but it also works with the iPhone 4 and 4S, as well as recent iPods touch, and all iPads except for the first-generation model. Though although the app is compatible with the iPad 2, I wasn't surprised that OCR performance was abysmal, given the device's primitive 0.9-megapixel camera. It undoubtedly would have done better with the 3- and 5-megapixel cameras of the most recent two iPads (and the iPad mini's 5-megapixel camera). Even with the iPhone 5, lighting and document/camera positioning had some effect on scan quality.

Abbyy FineReader Touch has its limitations. It's most accurate with recent iPhones and iPads with higher-resolution cameras, and shooting for OCR requires good lighting, and some care in positioning the documents. Many portable scanners already come with OCR software, are faster, and working through the cloud may be an extra step if you're scanning and converting a series of documents to your hard drive. As a paid service, its costs could add up if you scan a lot of documents. Documents handled through the FineReader cloud are given generic names based on the date and the number of documents uploaded to FineReader (by all users) on that date, so you'll have to go back and change them to a more usable name.

However, these quibbles shouldn't detract from its usefulness to people who may need to make quick scans of documents to readable text while in the field: scholars, researchers?secret agents, for that matter. For them, ABBYY FineReader Touch may be the best solution for their mobile scanning needs.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/w1FBd2hXDrQ/0,2817,2417192,00.asp

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CASIS wants to send your research project into space, give Engadget readers $100 off the application fee

We already told you about the CASIS and MassChallenge startup accelerator partnership aiming to find the next great research project to send into space, and give that project over $100,000 to help bring it to fruition. Now, Engadget wants to help make it easier for you, dear reader, to get your idea into orbit by offering the chance to trim $100 off the $199 application fee.

The process is simple: you click the source link below and fill out a short form outlining your idea and providing your contact info. Then, should CASIS like what it sees, it'll send out promo codes to ten of you to be used when submitting the full application on the MassChallenge website. Sound good? Well, hop to it folks, because CASIS is looking to deliver the promo codes by April 1st. Not that you should need much incentive to jump on the opportunity... we're talking about sending your pet project into space, after all.

Filed under: Science

Comments

Source: Research proposal form

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/casis-research-space-application-promo/

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Google TV's PrimeTime app update welcomes Amazon Prime content

An update to the PrimeTime Android app for Google TV has been released, bringing with it some bug fixes, as well as a "subscription selector" which means Netflix, HBO Go and Amazon Prime content now shows up as free if you're paying for any of those services. Wait, Amazon Prime content, you say? Well yes, we did, as the Amazon Prime Instant Video catalogue has been worked into the new version of the guide and recommendation app. Yet more ways to make sure we're up to date with The Good Wife? Sounds fine to us.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, HD, Amazon

Comments

Source: Google Play store

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/28/google-tv-primetime-app-update-adds-amazon-prime-content/

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Discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Excess carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere created by the widespread burning of fossil fuels is the major driving force of global climate change, and researchers the world over are looking for new ways to generate power that leaves a smaller carbon footprint.

Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found a way to transform the carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere into useful industrial products. Their discovery may soon lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from the carbon dioxide in the air that is responsible for trapping the sun's rays and raising global temperatures.

"Basically, what we have done is create a microorganism that does with carbon dioxide exactly what plants do?absorb it and generate something useful," said Michael Adams, member of UGA's Bioenergy Systems Research Institute, Georgia Power professor of biotechnology and Distinguished Research Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

During the process of photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to transform water and carbon dioxide into sugars that the plants use for energy, much like humans burn calories from food.

These sugars can be fermented into fuels like ethanol, but it has proven extraordinarily difficult to efficiently extract the sugars, which are locked away inside the plant's complex cell walls.

"What this discovery means is that we can remove plants as the middleman," said Adams, who is co-author of the study detailing their results published March 25 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. "We can take carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants and extracting sugars from biomass."

The process is made possible by a unique microorganism called Pyrococcus furiosus, or "rushing fireball," which thrives by feeding on carbohydrates in the super-heated ocean waters near geothermal vents. By manipulating the organism's genetic material, Adams and his colleagues created a kind of P. furiosus that is capable of feeding at much lower temperatures on carbon dioxide.

The research team then used hydrogen gas to create a chemical reaction in the microorganism that incorporates carbon dioxide into 3-hydroxypropionic acid, a common industrial chemical used to make acrylics and many other products.

With other genetic manipulations of this new strain of P. furiosus, Adams and his colleagues could create a version that generates a host of other useful industrial products, including fuel, from carbon dioxide.

When the fuel created through the P. furiosus process is burned, it releases the same amount of carbon dioxide used to create it, effectively making it carbon neutral, and a much cleaner alternative to gasoline, coal and oil.

"This is an important first step that has great promise as an efficient and cost-effective method of producing fuels," Adams said. "In the future we will refine the process and begin testing it on larger scales."

###

University of Georgia: http://www.uga.edu

Thanks to University of Georgia 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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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127479/Discovery_may_allow_scientists_to_make_fuel_from_CO__in_the_atmosphere

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Dusting for prints from a fossil fish to understand evolutionary change

Mar. 27, 2013 ? In 370 million-year-old red sandstone deposits in a highway roadcut, scientists have discovered a new species of armored fish in north central Pennsylvania.

Fossils of armored fishes like this one, a phyllolepid placoderm, are known for the distinctive ornamentation of ridges on their exterior plates. As with many such fossils, scientists often find the remains of these species as impressions in stone, not as three-dimensional versions of their skeletons. Therefore, in the process of studying and describing this fish's anatomy, scientists took advantage of a technique that may look a lot like it was stolen from crime scene investigators.

Dr. Ted Daeschler has shown the fossil and made a rubber cast by pouring latex into its natural impression in the rock. Once the latex hardened, Daeschler peeled it out and dusted its surface with a fine powder to better show the edges of the bony plates and the shapes of fine ridges on the fish's bony armor -- a lot like dusting for fingerprints to show minute ridges left on a surface. With this clearer view, Daeschler and colleagues were better able to prepare a detailed scientific description of the new species.

This placoderm, named Phyllolepis thomsoni, is one of two new Devonian fish species described by Daeschler in the Bicentennial issue of the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, with different co-authors. The other new species is a lobe-finned fish discovered in northern Canada.

Both the Pennsylvania placoderm and the Canadian lobe-finned fish species are from the late Devonian period, at a time long before dinosaurs walked the Earth -- but, geologically speaking, not long before the very first species began to walk on land. Daeschler studies Devonian species in particular to help describe the evolutionary setting that gave rise to the first vertebrate species with limbs. He has dug for Devonian species in Pennsylvania since 1993, and in northern Canada since 1999.

Daeschler, a vice president and associate curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, and an associate professor in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences, and co-author Dr. John A. Long, a leading authority on placoderms from Flinders University in Australia, named the species in honor of Dr. Keith S. Thomson.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Drexel University. The original article was written by Rachel Ewing.

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

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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/DHOvUao5kcU/130327104154.htm

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Facial recognition and GPS tracking: TrapWire company conducting ...

An internationally-spread Orwellian surveillance system uncovered by RT has been linked to a software company that collects the GPS coordinates of cell phone users in over 100 major cities.

The discovery of the TrapWire risk mitigation program last year and its ability to match human faces caught on camera against massive databases of intelligence led to an outcry from privacy advocates around the world. Now once again the burgeoning preponderance of Big Brother is being put into perspective.

In late 2011, members of the loose-knit hacktivist group Anonymous pilfered data from the servers of private intelligence firm Stratfor that were in turn handed over to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks for dissemination. When internal emails alluding to a service called TrapWire surfaced in the leak, an investigation uncovered a program that, according to the company?s founder, ?can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition.?

TrapWire developers Abraxas later became the subject of several investigative reports by RT and others, and further analysis revealed that that company was acquired in 2010 by technology giants Cubic Corporation of Southern California. Cubic would eventually deny any affiliation ever existed between their San Diego headquarters and the spy-program discussed by Stratfor execs, but links were nevertheless still evident. A Department of Homeland Security website, in fact, all but affirmed that TrapWire was being sold to government agencies as a product of Abraxas as recently as February 2011.

Cubic ? and to a lesser degree Abraxas ? have since been linked at least to some degree with a number of other suspicious spy products. One item, Tartan, ?exposes and quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms for objective, un-biased output,? its website claims. ?Our analysts, mathematicians and computer scientists are continually exploring new quantification, mining and visualization techniques in order to better analyze social networks.? Tartan was marketed by Ntrepid, a Northern Virginia company that?s board of directors shared four names directly involved in the finances of Abraxas. Now a blogger has uncovered yet another connection, and this one puts Cubic directly in touch with the exact whereabouts of potentially millions of Americans.

Under the radar of Cubic?s critics, earlier this year the California company acquired NextBus, a ?real-time transit information? program that helps mass transportation customers in over 100 North American cities get precise travel and traffic information about bus and rail systems. Cubic made the acquisition at a cost of just over $20 million, and with it gained yet another resource for collecting personally identifiable information: namely the exact global position coordinates for NextBus? massive user base.

NextBus bills itself as providing ?real-time passenger information solutions? by collecting GPS data volunteered by willing customers and then uses that information to help them get from point A to point B by accurately matching up transportation routes with up-to-the-second travel information. It exists to make the dreadful bus commute a little more reliable, but in doing so demands that customers sacrifice a sizeable chunk of privacy.

?While your riders stay warm and safe, they can easily find out exactly when to expect the next bus,? reads an advert from NextBus website that?s used to sell their service to major metropolitan areas across North America. The Los Angeles, California metro became NextBus? eightieth client in 2011, and joined a roster of established clients that includes Toronto, San Francisco, Washington DC and Boston.

?When you get a message from the Panopticon, the Panopticon also gets a message from you, or rather, your GPS enabled device,? writes the administrator of Female Faust, a blog where the connection between NextBus and Cubic was first written about this week.

For Cubic, though, the latest acquisition isn?t anything out of the ordinary. Cubic has been tied to services in cities around the globe that involve not just accumulating biometric data using TrapWire, but tracking the transportation habits of metro riders in New York, Chicago and other cities abroad. Cubic?s transportation division is reported to be the world?s leader when it comes to implementing automated fare collection cards and the infrastructure used in mass-transit systems across the globe, meaning TrapWire cameras in cities such as Washington, DC are just a stone?s throw from the very machines that commuters use their credit cards at to pay for bus fare?transactions done with Cubic?s own vending machines.

?Over the past decade, Cubic has implemented more than 80 percent of the major smart card systems in the US now active today,? Cubic admits by their own right. With the acquisition of NextBus, though, one major behemoth of the private surveillance sector is allowed to scoop up yet more sensitive information about customers who are likely none the wiser.

"Transit agencies and their communities worldwide are racing to utilize information more effectively ? optimizing their resources and providing intelligent travel information to their riders," says Steve Shewmaker, president of Cubic Transportation Systems, in a statement from January. "Since 1996, NextBus has been a pioneer and a market and technology leader at the forefront of this trend. As part of the Cubic family, NextBus will have the additional resources and capabilities to expand more rapidly while adding further depth to our own Nextcity vision, which emphasizes better utilization of information, wireless communications and mobile devices as key technologies for the future of public transit."

On the Cubic website, NextCity is described as a program that ?enable[s] customers to manage how they travel ? whether by train, bus, taxi, private vehicle or bike ? by providing both operators and travelers real-time, dynamic information that will make their journey faster and more reliable.?

?The NextCity platform will provide passengers and travelers with a single, whole of transport payments account meaning that no more will passengers need to maintain an account associated with a transport smartcard, one or more toll accounts, a congestion account and various methods of paying for parking. It will be integrated, seamless and convenient for the traveller.?

Thanks to Cubic?s latest acquisition, the company is being trusted with yet another trove of sensitive data. And while it?s facetious to assume that Cubic?s many divisions around the world are working in cahoots to collect and build personal profiles that scan faces, sniff out social network habits and scoop up insanely accurate GPS stats on travel patterns, the buy-out of NextBus doesn?t make a company seem any less like a prime example of how privacy is slowly but surely being eroded in the exchange for a little bit of serenity and whole lot of surveillance.

Source: http://rt.com/usa/trapwire-nextbus-surveillance-cubic-932/

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'Journey' takes top honors at the Game Developers Choice Awards ...

Award shows are a dime a dozen.? Almost every industry in the world has some form of award show, from the insurance industry to fashion designers to the sports world. There are so many award shows that there is an award during an award show that honors award shows.? It?s very meta.?

There are plenty of award shows, but some carry more weight than others.? This is true of every field, and in gaming the award show held every year during GDC is among the most respected in the industry.?

The nominees are selected by game professionals, and the winners are chosen by members of the International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), a group comprised of 700 specially selected game developers.?

The show also selects a person or people to honor with a Lifetime Achievement Award, an Ambassador Award is given to a person that has proven to be a strong advocate for the industry, and a Pioneer Award to honor someone that developed a breakthrough technology.

The awards are all selected by people that know gaming from the inside out, and their opinion carries the weight that only a peer that knows exactly how difficult the job at hand can be.? Hosted by Double Fine Production founder, Tim Schafer, this year, thatgamecompany?s downloadable masterpiece Journey?was the big winner, taking home six awards.? Six.? Out of ten.? You could call it a successful evening.?

The Lifetime Achievement Award went to BioWare founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, for what should be obvious reasons.? The Ambassador Award went to Chris Melissinos, who recently acted as guest curator to the Smithsonian?s exhibit ?The Art of Video Games,? while the Pioneer Award went to Steve ?Slug? Russell.? Russell has been credited with creating Spacewar!, the first earliest known digital video game, in 1962.

A complete list of the nominees and winners can be found below (the winners are in bold and italics).

Best Audio
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games/Devolver Digital)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Assassin?s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Best Debut
Humble Hearts (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
Polytron Corporation (Fez)
Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan)
Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light)
Fireproof Games (The Room)

Best Game Design
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)

Best Downloadable Game
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Trials: Evolution (RedLynx/Microsoft Studios)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Technology
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
PlanetSide 2 (Sony Online Entertainment)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch/Activision)
Assassin?s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game
Gravity Rush (SCE Japan Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hero Academy (Robot Entertainment)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
The Room (Fireproof Games)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (Sora/Nintendo)

Best Narrative
Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Entertainment/2K Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Virtue?s Last Reward (Chunsoft/Aksys Games)

Best Visual Arts
Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Innovation
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment)
ZombiU (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)

Game of the Year
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/journey-takes-top-honors-at-the-game-developers-choice-awards/

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Prekindergarten program boosts children's skills

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Boston Public Schools' prekindergarten program is substantially improving children's readiness to start kindergarten, according to a new study of more than 2,000 children enrolled there. The program uses research-based curricula and coaching of teachers, is taught primarily by masters-level teachers, and is open to any child regardless of family income.

The study, out of Harvard University, appears in the journal Child Development. Some of the study's findings on the effects of the program are the largest found to date in evaluations of large-scale public prekindergarten programs.

Researchers found that the program substantially improved children's language, literacy, math, executive function (the ability to regulate, control, and manage one's thinking and actions), and emotional development skills citywide. Children in the program were 4 and 5 years old and from racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. While all students who participated benefited, the improvements were especially strong for Latino children.

Preschool has been shown to help prepare children for kindergarten and is an increasing priority among federal, state, and local policymakers. But many preschool programs struggle to attain good instructional quality.

"We can draw several important lessons from our findings about factors that support quality in prekindergarten," notes Christina Weiland, incoming assistant professor at the University of Michigan's School of Education, who was at Harvard when she led the study.

First, the combination of explicit, evidence-based curricula (in language/literacy and math) and in-classroom coaching of teachers as part of professional development likely played a major role in improving student outcomes. Investing in such quality supports for prekindergarten teachers may lead to gains in students' school readiness, the study found.

Second, implementing consistent math, language, and literacy curricula might build children's executive function skills. "Our results suggest that curricula in these areas may also improve such domains as executive functioning, even without directly targeting them," according to Weiland. "Interestingly, research shows that these kinds of skills -- which reflect early brain development, the ability to focus, and behavior -- are critical to children's success down the road."

Third, students in the program also may have benefited from having more mixed-income peers than is typical in most public prekindergarten programs, which are means tested and therefore tend to include mostly low-income students.

"Given the particularly large impacts for Latinos, a group that tends to be underenrolled in preschool programs, efforts to increase the enrollment of Latino children in high-quality prekindergarten programs such as the one studied here may be beneficial," Weiland adds.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Research in Child Development, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Journal Reference:

1. Christina Weiland, Hirokazu Yoshikawa. Impacts of a Prekindergarten Program on Children's Mathematics, Language, Literacy, Executive Function, and Emotional Skills. Child Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12099

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Dg2wGEGWtJQ/130328080227.htm

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UK university pension scheme builds on infrastructure mandate

Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-university-pension-scheme-builds-infrastructure-mandate-190638653--sector.html

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Memories of near death experiences: More real than reality?

Mar. 27, 2013 ? University of Li?ge researchers have demonstrated that the physiological mechanisms triggered during NDE lead to a more vivid perception not only of imagined events in the history of an individual but also of real events which have taken place in their lives! These surprising results - obtained using an original method which now requires further investigation - are published in PLOS ONE.

Seeing a bright light, going through a tunnel, having the feeling of ending up in another 'reality' or leaving one's own body are very well known features of the complex phenomena known as 'Near-Death Experiences ' (NDE), which people who are close to death can experience in particular. Products of the mind? Psychological defence mechanisms? Hallucinations? These phenomena have been widely documented in the media and have generated numerous beliefs and theories of every kind. From a scientific point of view, these experiences are all the more difficult to understand in that they come into being in chaotic conditions, which make studying them in real time almost impossible. The University of Li?ge's researchers have thus tried a different approach.

Working together, researchers at the Coma Science Group (Directed by Steven Laureys) and the University of Li?ge's Cognitive Psychology Research (Professor Serge Br?dart and Hedwige Dehon), have looked into the memories of NDE with the hypothesis that if the memories of NDE were pure products of the imagination, their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., sensorial, self referential, emotional, etc. details) should be closer to those of imagined memories. Conversely, if the NDE are experienced in a way similar to that of reality, their characteristics would be closer to the memories of real events.

The researchers compared the responses provided by three groups of patients, each of which had survived (in a different manner) a coma, and a group of healthy volunteers. They studied the memories of NDE and the memories of real events and imagined events with the help of a questionnaire which evaluated the phenomenological characteristics of the memories. The results were surprising. From the perspective being studied, not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events.

The brain, in conditions conducive to such phenomena occurring, is prey to chaos. Physiological and pharmacological mechanisms are completely disturbed, exacerbated or, conversely, diminished. Certain studies have put forward a physiological explanation for certain components of NDE, such as Out-of-Body Experiences, which could be explained by dysfunctions of the temporo-parietal lobe. In this context the study published in PLOS ONE suggests that these same mechanisms could also could also 'create' a perception - which would thus be processed by the individual as coming from the exterior - of reality. In a kind of way their brain is lying to them, like in a hallucination. These events being particularly surprising and especially important from an emotional and personal perspective, the conditions are ripe for the memory of this event being extremely detailed, precise and durable.

Numerous studies have looked into the physiological mechanisms of NDE, the production of these phenomena by the brain, but, taken separately, these two theories are incapable of explaining these experiences in their entirety. The study published in PLOS ONE does not claim to offer a unique explanation for NDE, but it contributes to study pathways which take into account psychological phenomena as factors associated with, and not contradictory to, physiological phenomena.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Li?ge, via AlphaGalileo.

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Journal Reference:

1. Marie Thonnard, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Serge Br?dart, Hedwige Dehon, Didier Ledoux, Steven Laureys, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse. Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e57620 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057620

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/nU6TwYi_i1I/130327190359.htm

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