US-MUSIC Summary

Country singer George Jones dead at 81

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Jones, a classic country singer with a voice full of raw honky-tonk emotion and a life full of honky-tonk turmoil, died on Friday at age 81, his spokesman said. Jones, whose career spanned more than six decades and included hits such as "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Window Up Above," died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville.

Mamma Mia! Bookie offers odds on ABBA reunion

LONDON (Reuters) - A British bookmaker is taking bets on an ABBA comeback after singer Agnetha Faltskog hinted at a possible reunion for Sweden's most successful band. Faltskog, who has come out of retirement to release a solo album called "A", was asked by German's Die Zeit Magazine if she would be open to an ABBA reunion and she responded positively.

African diva Angelique Kidjo wins Songlines Best Artist award

LONDON (Reuters) - African diva Angelique Kidjo was named Best Artist in Songlines magazine's annual world music awards on Friday, lauded for her high-energy shows and her championing of social causes. French veterans Lo'jo, who mix French folk with African and Arabic sounds, picked up the Best Group award and the young Zimbabwean band Mokoomba was chosen as top Newcomer.

Psy knocked from top of Korean charts by 63-year-old singer

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean rapper Psy, whose latest video "Gentleman" tracked global megahit "Gangnam Style" by going viral on the Internet, has been knocked from the top of the music charts in his native country by a 63-year-old easy listening pop singer. "Gangnam Style", which holds the YouTube record for most views with more than 1.5 billion, catapulted the sunglassed Korean with the garish jackets to world stardom and made him one of the best-known faces to grace the growing K-pop music scene.

Documentary about deceased British singer Amy Winehouse in the works

(Reuters) - A documentary is in the works about the late British soul singer Amy Winehouse and it features previously unseen material, the film's distributor said on Wednesday. The film, which will include archival footage never seen by the public, will be directed by Briton Asif Kapadia, whose 2010 film "Senna," about Brazilian auto racer Ayrton Senna, won a BAFTA for best documentary.

Kurdish singer sparks identity debate on Arab talent show

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A singer from Iraq's Kurdistan region has made it through to the semi-final of an Arab talent contest, igniting heated debates over Iraqi identity and politicizing the popular TV show. A panel of judges praised 24-year-old Parwaz Hussein and she was voted through to the next round of "Arab Idol", in which aspiring popstars from Morocco to Bahrain compete for a recording contract.

Justin Bieber shrugs off "rumors" after Swedish drug find

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Teen idol Justin Bieber on Thursday seemed to shrug off the latest controversy surrounding his European tour after Swedish police said they had found drugs on his tour bus but could not link them to any single person. Bieber, 19, has made headlines in the past two months for showing up late for his own London concert, walking shirtless through airport security in Poland, posting a cartoon of himself in bed with a young woman, and expressing the hope that Holocaust victim Anne Frank would have been a "belieber" like his millions of fans.

Michael Jackson wrongful death trial set to get underway Monday

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The civil trial over the death of Michael Jackson is set to get formally underway next week after jury selection was completed on Tuesday in the $40 billion case that pits the pop star's mother against concert promoters AEG Live. Six alternate jurors were chosen on Tuesday following the selection a day earlier of a jury of six men and six women for what is expected to be an emotional three-month trial.

Fall Out Boy outsells Kid Cudi for top spot on Billboard chart

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. rock band Fall Out Boy topped the Billboard 200 weekly best-selling album chart for the second time in their five-album career, besting rapper Kid Cudi. "Save Rock and Roll" sold 154,000 copies in its debut week, according figures on Wednesday from Nielsen SoundScan, outpacing Kid Cudi's "Indicud," which sold 136,000 copies in its first week.

Singer Lauryn Hill gets reprieve on tax evasion sentencing

NEWARK (Reuters) - Grammy Award-winning singer Lauryn Hill was given a two-week reprieve on her sentencing for federal tax evasion on Monday as a federal judge admonished her defense counsel for failing to come up with most of the tax money promised prior to her scheduled hearing. Hill, a solo artist and a member of the Fugees rap trio, pleaded guilty in June 2012 to failure to file federal tax returns from 2005-2007, when she earned $1.8 million. She faces up to a year in prison for each charge.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-music-summary-002757123.html

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Not 'brainwashed': American women who converted to Islam speak ...

S. Deneen Photography

Lauren Schreiber, 26, converted to Islam in 2010 after a study-abroad trip. She and others want to dispel stereotypes that have sprung up after news reports about Katherine Russell, 24, the U.S.-born wife of suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

By JoNel Aleccia, Senior Writer, NBC News

When an American convert to Islam was revealed as the wife of the dead Boston bombing suspect, Lauren Schreiber wasn?t surprised at what came next.

Comments from former acquaintances and complete strangers immediately suggested that 24-year-old Katherine Russell, a New England doctor?s daughter, must have been coerced and controlled by her husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week in a firefight with police.

?She was a very sweet woman, but I think kind of brainwashed by him,? reported the Associated Press, quoting Anne Kilzer, a Belmont, Mass., woman who said she knew Russell and her 3-year-old daughter.

That kind of assumption isn?t new to Schreiber, 26, a Greenbelt, Md., woman who became a Muslim in 2010.

?The moment you put on a hijab, people assume that you?ve forfeited your free will,? says Schreiber, who favors traditional Islamic dress. ?

The Boston terror attack and the questions about whether Russell knew about her husband?s deadly plans have renewed stereotypes and misconceptions that U.S. women who have chosen that faith say they want to dispel.

?It?s not because somebody made me do this,? explains Schreiber, who converted after a college study-abroad trip to West Africa. ?It?s what I choose to do and I?m happy.?

Rebecca Minor

Rebecca Minor, 28, of West Hartford, Conn., converted to Islam five years ago. Wearing a hijab "reminds me to be a good person," she said.

Her view is echoed by Rebecca Minor, 28, of West Hartford, Conn., a special education teacher who converted to Islam five years ago. When her students, ages 5 to 8, ask why she wears a headscarf, she always says the same thing:?"It's something that's important to me and it reminds me to be a good person," says Minor, who is secretary for the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut.?

Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to studies by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In 2011, about 1.8 million U.S. adults were Muslim, and about 20 percent had converted to the faith, Pew researchers say. Of those converts, about 54 percent were men and 46 percent were women. About 1 in 5 converts mentioned family factors, including marrying a Muslim, as a reason for adopting the faith.?

Accusations are 'harsh'
Women convert for a wide range of reasons -- spiritual, intellectual and romantic -- says Yvonne Haddad, a professor of the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University.

?Islam is attractive to women that the feminist movement left behind,? says Haddad, who co-authored a 2006 book, ?Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today.?

Women like Lindsey Faraj, 26, of Charlotte, N.C., say that wearing a headscarf and other traditional Islamic garb in public often leads people to assume she sacrificed her American life to please a man.

?'You must have converted in order to marry him,' I hear it all the time,? says Faraj, who actually converted simultaneously with her husband, Wathek Faraj, who is from Damascus, about four years ago.?

She?s also heard people say that her husband is allowed to beat her, that she?s not free to get a divorce, that she and her two children, ages 4 months and 2, are subservient to the man. Such concepts are untrue, of course, she says.

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Lindsey Faraj, 26, of Charlotte, N.C., converted to Islam four years ago. She says it was thoughtful, heart-felt choice that changed her life.

?In the beginning, it did offend me a lot,? says Faraj, who grew up in a Christian family in Florida. ?But now as my sense of my new self has grown, I don?t feel offended.?

She?s able to joke, for instance, about the woman who screamed insults from a passing car.

?They screamed: ?Go back to your own country? and I thought, ?It doesn?t get more white than this, girl,?? says Faraj, indicating her fair features.?

Like all stereotypes, such views are steeped in fear, says Haddad.

?Accusations of brainwashing are harsh,? she says. ?They cover up the fact that we don?t comprehend why people like ?us? want to change and be like ?them.??

All three women say they came to Islam after much thought and spiritual searching.

Islam 'entered my heart'
Schreiber, who is a community outreach and events coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says she was drawn to the religion after meeting other Muslims on her trip abroad before graduating from St. Mary's College of Maryland in 2009.?

She grew up in an agnostic family where she was encouraged to discover her own faith.?

"It was, whatever you decide to do -- temple, church, mosque -- I support you finding yourself," says Schreiber. She's now married to a Muslim man, Muhammad Oda, 27, whose parents were both converts to Islam. She said came to the faith before the relationship.??

Faraj, a stay-at-home mom, says she never saw herself "as a religious person, in the least," but became enthralled after trying to learn more about Islam before a visit to see her husband's family.?

?The concept of Islam hit me,? Faraj recalls. ?It was just something that entered my heart.?

Minor, who is single, says she was intrigued by Islam in college, when she was?close friends with?a deployed?American Marine but had Muslim friends at school.

"I saw a huge discrepancy in the negative things I heard coming from my?(friend)?and the actions I could see in my co-workers," she recalls. After spending 18 months learning about Islam, she decided to convert.?

The response from family and friends has been overwhelmingly supportive, Minor says.?

"The more you can do to educate people about Islam, not by preaching, but by actions, the better," she says.?

Reports that Katherine Russell might have been embroiled in an abusive relationship, or that her husband intimidated her aren?t an indictment of Islam, Haddad says.?

"Abusive men come in all colors, nationalities, ethnicities and from all religions," she says. "No one says that Christianity teaches abuse of women because some Christian men are abusive."

Schreiber says she frequently gets comments from people surprised to see her fair skin and hear her American accent from beneath a scarf. She says she appreciates it when people actually ask questions instead of making assumptions.

?I just want people to know that there are American Muslim women who wear hijab by choice because they believe in it and it feels right to them, not because anyone tells them to.?

Related stories:?

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/26/17897741-not-brainwashed-american-women-who-converted-to-islam-speak-out

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'We stand with you and we do not forget'

WACO, Texas (AP) ? President Barack Obama consoled a rural Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion, telling mourners Thursday they are not alone in their grief and they will have the nation's support to rebuild from the devastation.

"This small town's family is bigger now," Obama said during a memorial service at Baylor University for victims of last week's explosion in nearby West, Texas, that killed 14 and injured 200. Nearly 10,000 gathered to remember the first responders killed in the blast, a crowd more than triple the size of West's entire population of 2,700.

"To the families, the neighbors grappling with unbearable loss, we are here to say you are not alone. You are not forgotten," Obama said to applause. "We may not all live here in Texas, but we're neighbors too. We're Americans too, and we stand with you."

The April 17 explosion left a crater more than 90 feet wide and damaged dozens of buildings, displacing many residents from their homes. The Insurance Council of Texas estimates it caused more than $100 million in damage, and crews were sifting the rubble to search for clues to what caused the explosion or whether foul play was involved.

The blast came about 20 minutes after a fire was reported at West Fertilizer. Ten of those killed were first responders who sped out to the nighttime blaze.

The memorial service honored those first responders and two civilians who tried to fight the fire and were posthumously named volunteer first responders. Among the dead were brothers Douglas and Robert Snokhous, West High School graduates who volunteered together for the town's fire department for more than 13 years.

As Obama spoke, the gymnasium lit up with the flashes of cameras and cellphones, glimmering like stars in the dimly lit room. The president spoke for 16 minutes, quoting scripture and lauding the men whose flag-draped coffins laid before him. "When you got to the scene, you forgot fear and you fought that blaze as hard as you could, knowing the danger," Obama said.

The service opened with a photo slideshow set to country music and projected onto a movie screen. It showed images of the men from their childhood, their weddings and other moments throughout lives filled with children and friends. Mourners were given programs with full-page profiles of each of the victims, describing their lives, their values and their faith.

Both the president and first lady Michelle Obama wiped away a tear as bagpipes sounded "Amazing Grace."

"How does one find such love to be willing to lay down your life so that others may live?" asked Texas Sen. John Cornyn, speaking on behalf of the state's congressional delegation. "This will forever be the legacy of those who ran toward the fire last week."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry eulogized the unpaid first responders, lamenting that each had a personal story and journey that drew to a close too soon.

"These are volunteers. Ordinary individuals blessed with extraordinary courage and a determination to do what they could to save lives," he said. "They're the ones who proudly said 'not on my watch' in the moments immediately following that explosion."

Perry's remarks were followed by video of the victims' grim-faced family members remembering their lives and expressing pride for their heroism. The brother-in-law of Cody Dragoo, another volunteer firefighter, remembered how Dragoo would leave notes for his wife, Patty, when he was traveling, and how he loved hunting and NASCAR.

Obama added his appearance at the memorial service onto a long-planned trip to Texas for Thursday's opening of George W. Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University. Bush sent his sympathies in a statement read at the service by Baylor President Ken Starr, the former special prosecutor who investigated President Bill Clinton.

Obama's solemn reflections at the memorial required an abrupt shift in tone by the president, whose morning in Dallas was filled with smiles, music and pageantry as he and the other four living presidents celebrated one of their own. Less than an hour later, Obama was airborne over West, circling the scene of the explosion ? still a harrowing site more than a week after tragedy first touched the small Texas town.

From his helicopter, Obama saw what looked like a massive construction site, with cranes and dozens of vehicles dotting a wide swath of brown earth. Piles of burnt rubble and scorched earth were clearly visible. Obama could also see the school field first responders used as a staging ground.

Obama has made such a trip countless times before, touring damage and consoling survivors of other disasters including Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and a string of mass shootings. It was just one week ago that Obama was in Boston, offering solace to the nation at a memorial for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, another larger-than-life tragedy that compounded the nation's grief the same week as the explosion in West.

After the service, the president and first lady were planning to visit privately with relatives and friends of firefighters killed in the explosion, the White House said.

Fire trucks and other first responders' vehicles paraded through Waco en route to the ceremony at Baylor's sports arena. The vehicles entered under an archway formed by the ladders from two fire trucks with an American flag hung between them. Many of the mourners wore the uniforms of police, firefighters and paramedics and wiped tears from their eyes.

Brian Crawford, fire chief in the Dallas suburb of Plano, attended with 11 others from his department even though they live 100 miles from West.

"With these unfortunate circumstances, it's time to show we are all a family," Crawford said. "These were our brothers and they paid the price."

As the service drew to a close, a bell was rung once for each victim, reverberating through the hall and setting off a long moment of silence.

Then, with hushed sobs breaking the quiet, a loudspeaker re-enacting a dispatcher's radio identified the victims one by one, calling each firefighter to duty for the last time:

"Until we meet again. Dispatch clear."

___

Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-consoles-families-survivors-texas-blast-191048180.html

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PFT: EJ Manuel goes to Bills at No. 16, first QB taken

AP

Don Banks of SI.com thinks the Bills? choice of QB E.J. Manuel means the read option will be part of their offense.

Said Dolphins coach Joe Philbin of first-round pick Dion Jordan, ?We?ve got to get our hands on him a little bit (and) work with him a little bit to find out what is his ideal weight and those type of things. I?m not going to sit here and say that we want him to be 265 pounds. We?ll see. Maybe his body isn?t going to function and do some of the things he can at that (weight). He may be able to.?

Patriots DT Vince Wilfork raised $235,000 at his draft party, 10 percent of which will go to marathon bombing victims with the rest to go to fight diabetes.

Two defensive players in the first round suggests coach Rex Ryan?s influence isn?t totally gone with the Jets.

The Ravens website calls trading up in the second round a possibility.

The Bengals didn?t reach for a tackle in the first round with Andre Smith still unsigned.

The Steelers were worried that the Saints would pick LB Jarvis Jones before they had a chance.

WR DeAndre Hopkins is the fourth straight player to come out of college early to be drafted by the Texans in the first round.

Colts DE Bjoern Werner is the first NFL first rounder to call his selection ?unglaublich,? which translates from German as ?beyond belief.?

The Jaguars look to be sitting pretty at the top of the second round.

G Chance Warmack thinks he convinced the Titans to pick him during a private workout.

What?s on the wish list for the Broncos on Friday?

T Eric Fisher said being drafted first overall by the Chiefs was like winning the lottery.

Said Raiders CB D.J. Hayden of whether he thought his career was over when his inferior vena cava was severed last season, ?I did. I definitely did. [It lasted] about a week, and I was just wondering if I would walk straight again. That?s what was on my mind; it was walking straight. I wasn?t worried about life after football. I wasn?t worried about life after college. I was just worried about walking.?

A negative review of the Chargers? decision to draft T D.J. Fluker.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said the two players the team considered trading up to get both were off the board in the top 10.

Giants OL Justin Pugh started all 34 games he played at Syracuse.

Even new Eagles T Lane Johnson thought the Dolphins were trading up to take him on Thursday night.

A look at defensive back options for the Redskins in the coming rounds.

Bears G.M. Phil Emery called Kyle Long the most athletic guard to come out in the last 12 years.

John Niyo of the Detroit News believes drafting DE Ziggy Ansah was a risk worth taking for the Lions.

The Packers highlighted the versatility of DE Datone Jones after drafting him on Thursday.

A bold offseason continued with the Vikings grabbing three players in the first round.

Falcons G.M. Thomas Dimitroff proved again that he isn?t afraid to make big moves to secure players he wants.

The Panthers didn?t waste much time before handing in the card picking DT Star Lotulelei in the first round.

Need might not be the driver when the Saints make their next pick in the third round.

The Buccaneers didn?t do any drafting, but they had quite a draft party.

G Jonathan Cooper said he was shocked the Cardinals picked him because he doesn?t read the mock drafts that projected him as a top 10 pick.

Trading up for WR Tavon Austin says that the Rams aren?t rebuilding anymore.

The 49ers ?absolutely? have a player in mind with the 34th pick.

The Seahawks are ready to jump into the draft after a quiet first night.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/25/e-j-manuel-is-the-first-quarterback-selected-by-the-buffalo-bills-with-16th-pick/related/

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'Taxels' convert mechanical motion to electronic signals

Apr. 25, 2013 ? Using bundles of vertical zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have fabricated arrays of piezotronic transistors capable of converting mechanical motion directly into electronic controlling signals. The arrays could help give robots a more adaptive sense of touch, provide better security in handwritten signatures and offer new ways for humans to interact with electronic devices.

The arrays include more than 8,000 functioning piezotronic transistors, each of which can independently produce an electronic controlling signal when placed under mechanical strain. These touch-sensitive transistors -- dubbed "taxels" -- could provide significant improvements in resolution, sensitivity and active/adaptive operations compared to existing techniques for tactile sensing. Their sensitivity is comparable to that of a human fingertip.

The vertically-aligned taxels operate with two-terminal transistors. Instead of a third gate terminal used by conventional transistors to control the flow of current passing through them, taxels control the current with a technique called "strain-gating." Strain-gating based on the piezotronic effect uses the electrical charges generated at the Schottky contact interface by the piezoelectric effect when the nanowires are placed under strain by the application of mechanical force.

The research will be reported on April 25 in the journal Science online, at the Science Express website, and will be published in a later version of the print journal Science. The research has been sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Any mechanical motion, such as the movement of arms or the fingers of a robot, could be translated to control signals," explained Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents' professor and Hightower Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This could make artificial skin smarter and more like the human skin. It would allow the skin to feel activity on the surface."

Mimicking the sense of touch electronically has been challenging, and is now done by measuring changes in resistance prompted by mechanical touch. The devices developed by the Georgia Tech researchers rely on a different physical phenomenon -- tiny polarization charges formed when piezoelectric materials such as zinc oxide are moved or placed under strain. In the piezotronic transistors, the piezoelectric charges control the flow of current through the wires just as gate voltages do in conventional three-terminal transistors.

The technique only works in materials that have both piezoelectric and semiconducting properties. These properties are seen in nanowires and thin films created from the wurtzite and zinc blend families of materials, which includes zinc oxide, gallium nitride and cadmium sulfide.

In their laboratory, Wang and his co-authors -- postdoctoral fellow Wenzhuo Wu and graduate research assistant Xiaonan Wen -- fabricated arrays of 92 by 92 transistors. The researchers used a chemical growth technique at approximately 85 to 90 degrees Celsius, which allowed them to fabricate arrays of strain-gated vertical piezotronic transistors on substrates that are suitable for microelectronics applications. The transistors are made up of bundles of approximately 1,500 individual nanowires, each nanowire between 500 and 600 nanometers in diameter.

In the array devices, the active strain-gated vertical piezotronic transistors are sandwiched between top and bottom electrodes made of indium tin oxide aligned in orthogonal cross-bar configurations. A thin layer of gold is deposited between the top and bottom surfaces of the zinc oxide nanowires and the top and bottom electrodes, forming Schottky contacts. A thin layer of the polymer Parylene is then coated onto the device as a moisture and corrosion barrier.

The array density is 234 pixels per inch, the resolution is better than 100 microns, and the sensors are capable of detecting pressure changes as low as 10 kilopascals -- resolution comparable to that of the human skin, Wang said. The Georgia Tech researchers fabricated several hundred of the arrays during a research project that lasted nearly three years. The arrays are transparent, which could allow them to be used on touch-pads or other devices for fingerprinting. They are also flexible and foldable, expanding the range of potential uses.

Among the potential applications:

? Multidimensional signature recording, in which not only the graphics of the signature would be included, but also the pressure exerted at each location during the creation of the signature, and the speed at which the signature is created.

? Shape-adaptive sensing in which a change in the shape of the device is measured. This would be useful in applications such as artificial/prosthetic skin, smart biomedical treatments and intelligent robotics in which the arrays would sense what was in contact with them.

? Active tactile sensing in which the physiological operations of mechanoreceptors of biological entities such as hair follicles or the hairs in the cochlea are emulated. Because the arrays would be used in real-world applications, the researchers evaluated their durability. The devices still operated after 24 hours immersed in both saline and distilled water.

Future work will include producing the taxel arrays from single nanowires instead of bundles, and integrating the arrays onto CMOS silicon devices. Using single wires could improve the sensitivity of the arrays by at least three orders of magnitude, Wang said. "This is a fundamentally new technology that allows us to control electronic devices directly using mechanical agitation," Wang added. "This could be used in a broad range of areas, including robotics, MEMS, human-computer interfaces and other areas that involve mechanical deformation."

This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant CMMI-0946418, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) under grant FA2386-10-1-4070, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences under award DE-FG02-07ER46394 and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences under grant KJCX2-YW-M13. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of DARPA, the NSF, the USAF or the DOE.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications, 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. Wenzhuo Wu, Xiaonan Wen, Zhong Lin Wang. Taxel-addressable matrix of vertical-nanowire piezotronic transistors for active/adaptive tactile imaging. Science, 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1234855

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_science/~3/-jrj0Z-Yh-E/130425142247.htm

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eat sleep dream love food: Diet Review: Paleo Diet

One question I often get asked is what I think of various?diets. The Paleo diet is one of these, and seems to have become very popular amongst fitness circles, cafes and even restaurants. But do we really have to go back in time to become healthy individuals, and is this diet really sustainable in the long term? These are just a couple of questions I posed to Bronwyn Goddard, who has kindly put her white dietetic coat on to give us a review of this ever-so-popular diet.
I am so delighted to introduce Brownyn as today's guest blogger. Not only is Bronwyn a dedicated student at the Queensland?University of Technology (the same university that I studied at), but Bronwyn and her family are also very close to my heart. You see, it was many years ago that I met Bronwyn, back when we were both training hard as gymnasts in Brisbane. Thanks to facebook we've stayed in touch, and it was not so long ago that I was over the moon to find out that Bronnwyn had pursued a career in dietetics.

Bronwyn is currently studying nutrition and dietetics at QUT in Brisbane. She enjoys every opportunity to travel the world, experiencing a variety of weird and wonderful cuisines as she goes. Bronwyn aspires to work internationally, improving the lives and nutrition of underprivileged children living in third world countries.?
Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn


Introducing the Paleo Diet?

The Atkins diet, Tony Ferguson, the grapefruit diet, the one-food-diet, the Dukan diet, the blood type diet? the list goes on! With so many different diets on the market ? many claiming to be the new ?miracle weight loss diet?, how do you know which one to follow, which one gives the best results, and which is the healthiest? Let?s take a closer look at the Paleo diet and see how it measures up.

What is the Paleo Diet?

The paleolithic diet, more commonly referred to as the ?paleo? diet, is an increasingly popular weight loss diet. ?Paleolithic? refers to the ?early phase of the Stone Age, lasting about 2.5 million years, when primitive stone implements were used?. Accordingly, the paleo diet is an extension of this, encouraging us to eat as our ancient ancestors did ? hopefully without needing to use primitive stone implements in the process!

What makes the Paleo Diet popular?

The paleo diet markets itself by claiming that our ancestors (who followed this diet day-in day-out) were free of many diseases now very common throughout society. These include obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis - just to name a few. Some research suggests that the paleo diet reduces ?bad? cholesterol levels ? preventing cardiovascular disease. This may have some merit, as cholesterol levels are affected by certain types of fats consumed in our diet. The typical Western diet consists of many processed foods, including processed meats, takeaway foods and baked goods, which often contain high amounts of saturated or trans-fats, more commonly known as the ?bad? fats. On the other hand, the paleo diet is rich in nuts, seeds, and fish, all of which contain unsaturated fats or ?good? fats. These have been found to have the opposite effect, improving cholesterol levels. Whilst our ancient ancestors were free of these various chronic diseases, their life expectancy was also much shorter than it is today ? so many would not live long enough to develop these diseases.

Is the Paleo Diet good for us?

If we rewind 35,000 years, and consider the diet of our ancestors; at first glance it seems relatively healthy. After all, the paleo diet is rich in fresh meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts, all of which are components of a healthy diet. To its credit, the paleo diet is free from refined sugars and processed foods, which are consumed in abundance in the typical western diet. However, the paleo diet restricts dairy foods, cereals, grains and legumes, which are very nutritious and important components of a balanced diet. Research suggests that both dietary changes and increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to the increased prevalence of chronic disease throughout society since Paleolithic times. Dietary changes include the introduction of trans-fats into food production, reduced intake of various vitamins, antioxidants and dietary fibre and increased intake of carbohydrate foods with a high glycaemic index. As the paleo diet restricts processed foods, and encourages whole foods, it is no surprise that people following this diet have improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels, with or without weight loss.

Whilst the paleo diet promotes positive dietary changes through reducing intake of processed foods, it is unbalanced and restricts core food groups which can lead to poor health outcomes. For example, restricting dairy foods can compromise bone health, as dairy foods (such as milk, yoghurt and cheese) are rich in calcium. As calcium is essential for maintaining bone strength, in the long term, poor calcium intake can contribute to the development of osteoporosis later life.

Is the paleo diet a suitable weight loss diet?
They say variety is the spice of life, and as the paleo diet is reasonably restrictive in the types of foods you can eat - it is likely that such a restrictive diet will get pretty boring, pretty quickly. Typically, high protein diets such as the paleo diet cause rapid weight loss. This is because these diets often restrict carbohydrate foods ? which break down into glucose and provide ?fuel? for our brain and body to function properly. When we don?t eat enough carbohydrates, our body compensates, and gets its ?fuel? by breaking down our muscle stores. The rapid weight loss experienced reflects this loss of muscle mass, not body fat. In addition, the paleo diet also restricts dairy foods which contain calcium - a very important nutrient for our bone health. There is a very strong association between poor calcium intake and the risk of osteoporosis in later life.
The paleo diet does promote healthy food choices, such as lean meats, foods high in healthy fats including fish, nuts and seeds, and there is no reason why these foods shouldn?t be incorporated into your usual diet. When it comes to sustainable, long term weight loss, it really is about having ?everything in moderation?. Incorporating these elements of the paleo diet into your everyday life is a great idea ? aiming for 2 serves of fresh fruit and 5 serves of fresh vegetables a day, opting for lean cuts of meat, having 2-3 serves of fish each week and limiting the amount of processed foods in your diet are all common elements of the paleo diet and a nutritious, balanced diet. ?The difference is not restricting food groups, such as dairy foods, cereals and grains, and legumes. Eating a variety of foods from all of the food groups will not only maintain variety and excitement in your diet, it will also ensure you receive all the nutrients you need to live a healthy and happy life! Editor's comment:

Thanks Bron! I have no doubt that this will help answers a lot of questions for our readers. At the end of the day my thoughts are that reducing nutrient-poor, highly processed foods with added salt and sugar can only be a good thing, BUT don't forget to add wholegrains, legumes and dairy to your meals to bring them to complete fulfillment.??Any questions for Bron? Feel free to post below!

?

Source: http://eatsleepdreamlovefood.blogspot.com/2013/04/diet-review-paleo-diet.html

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New York was Boston suspects' next target

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Boston Marathon bombers were headed for New York's Times Square to blow up the rest of their explosives, authorities said Thursday, in what they portrayed as a chilling, spur-of-the-moment scheme that fell apart when the brothers realized the car they had hijacked was low on gas.

"New York City was next on their list of targets," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his older brother decided on the spot last Thursday night to drive to New York and launch an attack. In their stolen SUV they had five pipe bombs and a pressure-cooker explosive like the ones that blew up at the marathon, Kelly said.

But when the Tsarnaev brothers stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of Boston, the carjacking victim they were holding hostage escaped and called police, Kelly said. Later that night, police intercepted the brothers in a blazing gunbattle that left 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead.

"We don't know if we would have been able to stop the terrorists had they arrived here from Boston," the mayor said. "We're just thankful that we didn't have to find out that answer."

The news caused New Yorkers to shudder with the thought that the city may have narrowly escaped another terrorist attack, though whether the brothers could have made it to the city is an open question. They were two of the most-wanted men in the world, their faces splashed all over the Internet and TV in surveillance-camera images released by the FBI hours earlier.

Dzhokhar, 19, is charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing April 15 that killed three people and wounded more than 260, and he could get the death penalty. Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston, would not comment on whether authorities plan to add charges based on the alleged plot to attack New York.

Investigators and lawmakers briefed by the FBI have said the Tsarnaev brothers ? ethnic Chechens from Russia who had lived in the U.S. for about a decade ? were motivated by anger over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Based on the younger man's interrogation and other evidence, authorities have said it appears so far that the brothers were radicalized via Islamic jihadi material on the Internet instead of any direct contact with terrorist organizations, but they warned that it is still not certain.

Dzhokhar was interrogated in his hospital room Sunday and Monday over a period of 16 hours without being read his rights to remain silent and have an attorney present. He immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered the room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to a U.S. law enforcement official and others briefed on the interrogation.

Kelly and the mayor said they were briefed on the New York plot on Wednesday night by the task force investigating the Boston bombing.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in a CNN interview that the city should have been told earlier.

"Even though this may or may not have been spontaneous, for all we know there could be other conspirators out there, and the city should have been alerted so it could go into its defensive mode," he said.

Asked about the delay, Bloomberg said: "There's no reason to think the FBI hides anything. The FBI does what they think is appropriate at the time, and you'll have to ask them what they found and what the actual details of the interrogation were. We were not there."

Kelly, citing the interrogations, said that four days after the Boston bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers "planned to travel to Manhattan to detonate their remaining explosives in Times Square."

"They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they hijacked after they shot and killed the officer at MIT," the police commissioner said. "That plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station."

A day earlier, Kelly said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had talked about coming to New York "to party" after the attack and that there wasn't evidence of a plot against the city. But Kelly said a later interview with the suspect turned up the information.

"He was a lot more lucid and gave more detail in the second interrogation," Kelly said.

Kelly said there was no evidence New York was still a target. But in a show of force, police cruisers with blinking red lights were lined up in the middle of Times Square on Thursday afternoon, and uniformed officers stood shoulder to shoulder.

"Why are they standing like that? This is supposed to make me feel safer?" asked Elisabeth Bennecib, a tourist and legal consultant from Toulouse, France. "It makes me feel more anxious, like something bad is about to happen."

Above the square, an electronic news ticker announced that the Boston Marathon suspects' next target might have been Times Square.

Outside Penn Station, Wayne Harris, a schoolteacher from Queens, said: "We don't know when a terrorist attack will happen next in New York, but it will happen. It didn't happen this time, by the grace of God. God protected us this time."

In 2010, Times Square was targeted with a car bomb that never went off. Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad had planted a bomb in an SUV, but street vendors noticed smoke and it was disabled. Shahzad was arrested as he tried to leave the country and was sentenced to life in prison.

With tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funding at stake, Bloomberg and Kelly have repeatedly sought to remind the public that New York remains at the top of terrorists' wish list. They have said the city has been targeted in more than a dozen plots since 9/11.

Kelly said Dzhokhar was photographed in Times Square with friends in April 2012 and was in the city again in November 2012, but "we don't know if those visits were related in any way to what he described as the brothers' spontaneous decision to hit Times Square."

He said the police intelligence division is trying to establish Dzhokhar's movements in the city and determine who might have been with him.

Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev brothers' father said he is leaving Russia for the U.S. in the next day or two, but their mother said she was still thinking it over.

Anzor Tsarnaev has expressed a desire to go to the U.S. to find out what happened with his sons, defend the hospitalized son and, if possible, bring the older son's body back to Russia for burial.

Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer, said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested, but was still deciding whether to go.

___

Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-boston-suspects-planned-attack-york-182015679.html

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Just Sing It Raises $1M For Its iPhone Karaoke App, With Users Recording 500K Songs In Two Weeks

The makers of Just Sing It have announced that they raised $1 million in funding. I wrote about the app when it launched earlier this month. At the time, CEO Alec Andronikov told me that his vision is to create a truly addictive social experience ? users don't just share karaoke performances, they actually play a game where they have to guess what the other person is singing, and they can win virtual coins that unlock additional content. Ultimately, he said he wants to use karaoke as the hook for a broader social platform.

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

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Video: Twitter's Password Problem

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Arkansas governor signs private insurance option into law

By Suzi Parker

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Arkansas's Democratic governor signed into law on Tuesday a plan to extend health insurance to more of the state's low-income residents in a move that could offer a model for other states wrestling with opposition to the federal government's Medicaid expansion plan.

The Arkansas law uses federal Medicaid funds to buy private insurance for about 250,000 state residents who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or $15,415 per year. The insurance would be purchased through a health insurance exchange that the federal government is due to begin operating with Arkansas at the start of next year.

Arkansas officials plan to travel to Washington in the coming weeks to present their plan to federal officials to gain necessary approval.

"Our work is just beginning," Governor Mike Beebe said after signing the bill. "There's a lot of i-dotting, t-crossing and follow ups that have to occur."

The Arkansas plan has drawn interest from some conservatives in Republican-controlled states such as Texas and Louisiana because it would use federal rather than state funds to buy private insurance as a way to help the most vulnerable citizens without expanding Medicaid.

The Arkansas plan has been closely watched around the United States as an alternative to President Barack Obama's sweeping Medicaid expansion, a major provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that aims to extend health coverage to at least 12 million low-income Americans by the end of the decade.

Marilyn Tavenner, the U.S. health official who oversees Medicaid and Medicare and the implementation of the health reform law, said earlier this month that U.S. officials were talking to a handful of states about setting up a program similar to Arkansas's.

Arkansas U.S. Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat, commended "Republicans and Democrats for working together to improve access to healthcare and using the funding provided through the Affordable Care Act to benefit the people and economy of Arkansas."

Obama's healthcare reform law has run into stiff political resistance in Republican-controlled states, particularly in the South, where leaders have been unwilling to expand Medicaid or set up their own health exchanges.

Provisions of the healthcare reform law have been challenged in court cases around the country. In a landmark ruling last June, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the Affordable Care Act on constitutional grounds but allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion.

The expansion has since been accepted by governors in about half of the 50 U.S. states.

(Editing By Brendan O'Brien, Cynthia Johnston and Eric Beech)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arkansas-governor-signs-private-insurance-option-law-014915160.html

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iPhone 5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S4: Which should you buy?

Apple's iPhone 5 has been around going on 6 months now, but Samsung's Galaxy S4 has only just now hit the streets, and already we're being asked the question -- which one should you buy?

Never mind the iPhone 5 is last year's model, until Apple announces a new one this is the phone that's sitting on the shelves next to the Galaxy S4 and that makes the question a real one for real people. And luckily, it's a fairly easy one to answer, because both phones are different enough -- philosophical opposites in many cases -- they'll likely appeal to different audiences.

I attended the Samsung Galaxy S4 event in NYC with Phil Nickinson, and had a chance to try out the phone then. I've also had a chance to use it this week while Alex Dobie was working on his comprehensive Samsung Galaxy S4 review. So while I haven't gone as in-depth as those guys, I've had the chance to form some opinions.

The Galaxy S4 has a 5-inch SAMOLED screen compared to the iPhone 5's 4-inch LED IPS in-cell display. On size and size alone, the Galaxy S4 wins. If all you want is as much screen real estate possible this side of a phablet, the Galaxy S4 takes it hands down. If you want a smaller display that's easier to fit on tight hipster pockets or use one-handed, the iPhone 5 will be more to your liking. Samsung also cleans Apple's Retina clock with a 1920x1080 (1080p) display, compared to Apple's 1136x640.

When it comes to display technology, however, the iPhone 5 cremes the Galaxy S4. Not only does Apple use in-cell display to make the pixels look like they're part of the glass, IPS LED LCD -- sorry for all the initials -- just looks and works better. Samung sticks with SAMOLED, which, like OLED in general, just isn't great for displays. It does save on power and produce nice blacks, but it remains overly saturated, subject to an annoying blue-shift, and just doesn't hold up as well under direct sunlight. Also, Samsung has stuck with an odd sub-pixel arrangement -- some variant or another of PenTile -- and while it's very difficult to see at that resolution, it's still not as good as the traditional RGB layout.

Samsung has also stuck with plastic for their casing, which not only doesn't feel as good as the plastics used by HTC and Nokia, it feels downright cheap compared to the aluminum and glass casing of the iPhone 5, and the aluminum used in the new HTC One. Samsung's plastic does make it easier for them to include a door for a removable battery and SD card, but I'm happy enough to recharge my phone when I need to, and I'd rather not have a cheap-feeling experience all day, every day, when I'm using it.

The software is a mixed bag as well. I love that Samsung is trying so many things and experimenting with so many things. Sure, some of them are beyond wacky, but some of them might just be wonderful as well. Companies that throw things against the wall do sometimes find what sticks, and that's how we get the future faster.

I just wish they'd hire some really good designers to give the icons and interface a once-over because it still comes off as an afterthought, inconsistent and utilitarian.

Overall, it's a good improvement over last year's Galaxy S3. Some are calling it a Galaxy S3S, similar to Apple's S-class iPhone updates, but the screen size increase and some of the other hardware features make it more than that. Just not a lot more.

However, it remains a largely uninspired and un-opinionated phone. The beige box of mobile. It'll be a best seller, no doubt about it. Maybe even the best seller this year. But If you don't want an iPhone 5 -- and there are some valid reasons for not wanting an iPhone 5 -- I wouldn't recommend a Galaxy S4. If you love phones and you love Android, I'd recommend an HTC One far, far more.

But don't take my word for it, read Alex's review, and then come back and let me know what you think.

• Samsung Galaxy S 4 review

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/0pb9VvkKCfg/story01.htm

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From outsiders to bombing suspects in Boston

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

Police keep watch near the scene where Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured last Friday, hiding in a backyard boat. Tsarnaev, 19, was charged on Monday with carrying out the bombing with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week in a gunbattle. Tsarnaev could get the death penalty. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sought to embrace American lives after emigrating from Russia ? joining a boxing club, winning a scholarship and even seeking U.S. citizenship. But their uncle last week angrily called them "losers" who failed to feel settled even after a decade of living in the United States.

The disparity between the brothers' struggle to assimilate in the U.S. and their alleged bombing of the Boston Marathon reflects what counterterror experts describe as a classic pattern of young first- or second-generation immigrants striking out after struggling to fit in. The U.S. has long been worried about people in America who are not tied to any designated terrorist group but who are motivated by ideologies that lead them to commit violent acts. Some are motivated by radical religious interpretations; others feel ostracized by their communities.

Three U.S. officials involved in the investigation said the brothers had no links to any terrorist groups. After interrogating Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday, U.S. officials have concluded, based on a preliminary interrogation and other evidence, that they were motivated by their faith_apparently an anti-American, radical version of Islam. Another official called them aspiring jihadists. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a police shootout Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, and he could face the death penalty if convicted.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican briefed on the investigation, described the two brothers as "a couple of individuals who become radicalized using Internet sources," but said it was too early to say they had no contact with foreign groups.

The FBI briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. The session was closed, but members spoke to reporters after it was over.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an ardent reader of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda, two of the officials said. He frequently looked at extremist sites, including Inspire magazine, an English-language online publication produced by al-Qaida's Yemen affiliate. The magazine has endorsed lone-wolf terror attacks.

The psychological aspects of radicalization have been studied for years, and while there are some similarities among terrorism cases, there is not a single profile of a violent extremist in the U.S.

Complicating the challenge is that the threat often is rooted in an ideology protected by the Constitution.

Violent extremists can feel caught between two worlds ? the one their families left behind to seek better opportunities, and the other in which they feel trapped.

On the Russian social networking site Vkontakte, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev described his world view as "Islam" but his personal goals as "career and money" ? a far more capitalistic goal than Muslim teachings that wealth ultimately belongs to God.

"There's a sort of weird identity crisis," said Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based expert on jihadism and radicalization for the global intelligence company Stratfor. "In many ways, these people are radicalized of extreme religious persuasions in the West that's not even reflective of what's back home. So they're sort of frozen in time, where they're rejecting the reality in front of them."

The brothers emigrated in 2002 or 2003 from Dagestan, a Russian republic that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from the region of Chechnya.

It's still not clear what investigators believe motivated Tamerlan and Dzhokhar to attack.

The brothers' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, vehemently dismissed any suggestion that the bombings, which killed three and wounded at least 180, were motivated by religious views. He called the men "losers" who felt "hatred to those who were able to settle themselves."

"Anything else to do with religion, with Islam ? it's a fraud, it's a fake," Tsarni told reporters. He said someone possibly "radicalized them, but not my brother who just moved back to Russia, who spent his life bringing bread to the table."

Tsarni also told reporters he hadn't spoken to his nephews in months.

One of the brothers' neighbors, Albrecht Ammon, recalled an encounter in which the older brother argued with him about U.S. foreign policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and religion.

Ammon said Tamerlan described the Bible as a "cheap copy" of the Quran, used to justify wars with other countries.

"He had nothing against the American people," Ammon told The Associated Press. "He had something against the American government."

Dzhokhar, on the other hand, was "real cool," Ammon said. "A chill guy."

The cases of homegrown and first-generation terror suspects in the U.S. are few, but the U.S. intelligence community has long been concerned about such potential attackers, particularly the threat posed by people like the Tsarnaev brothers who have no formal terror ties.

"And what makes them especially worrisome is that they're really difficult for us to detect and, therefore, to disrupt," Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in June 2011 about homegrown violent extremists.

The U.S. intelligence director's office has declined to provide official government data on homegrown terrorists, or comment on the Tsarnaev brothers and the investigation into the bombings.

But an August 2011 White House policy paper on countering and preventing violent extremism in the U.S. said that while the numbers remain limited, "violent extremists prey on the disenchantment and alienation that discrimination creates, and they have a vested interest in anti-Muslim sentiment."

Kenneth Wainstein, who served as the White House homeland security adviser and a top Justice Department lawyer under President George W. Bush, said homegrown and newly immigrated militants develop their extreme views over time and are often borne out of sense of isolation. It's a problem that has not been as prevalent in the United States as in Europe, which has a larger number of ethnic and nationalist divisions.

"But I think we have seen, over the last few years, some pretty clear and sobering examples of people inspired by overseas terror groups and terror propaganda," Wainstein said Friday, before Dzhokhar was captured. "They fit more in the category of where you have people who are radicalized here without any apparent connection overseas. A kid can go into his room get radicalized on the Internet without direct connect with anyone overseas, or even without going down the street to the radical preacher. That makes it very hard to detect that person, and poses a significant problem for the intelligence community and law enforcement."

Investigators also are looking at the six months Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent last year in his ancestral homeland in the predominantly Muslim provinces of Dagestan and Chechnya to see whether he was radicalized by the militants in the area who have waged a low-level insurgency against Russian security forces for years.

While there, he regularly attended a mosque and spent time learning to read the Quran, but "did not fit into the Muslim life," said his aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

She said he seemed more American than Chechen.

___

Associated Press writers Pete Yost and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Arsen Mollayev, in Makhachkala, Russia, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP and Eileen Sullivan at https://twitter.com/esullivanap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-23-US-Boston-Marathon-Homegrown-Threats/id-cbd104b84b0f4504a9c1116aab4c9132

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Sony PS4 share button the result of one first-party developer's eureka moment

To share or not to share was never a question for the creation of the PS4 -- it was always more about the how. Right from the start, Sony's upcoming, next-gen console had been planned with a social networking bent, but as Shuhei Yoshida, the company's head of Worldwide Studios, revealed to Edge, the decision to build a Share button into the DualShock 4 was the result of one first-party developer's eureka moment, not a cross-SCEI compromise. All credit is due Nathan Gary, creative director at Santa Monica Studio (best known for its God of War series), who successfully pitched the concept of a dedicated controller button to the PS4 team; an idea that was not only quickly met with unanimous praise, but also immediately implemented into the final product. It's yet further proof that Sony's learned from its past PS3 fumbling and has crafted a machine for developers, by developers.

Filed under: Gaming, Sony

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Source: Edge

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/23/sony-ps4-share-button/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Apple patent outs system for turning video game choices into comic books, is all about Mass Effect

Commander Shepard is not someone we expected to pop up in an Apple patent from 2009 (granted today), but here we are, staring into his icy visage. He and the rest of the Normandy's crew are used as just one example of a system that Apple patented, which turns game story choices into a unique comic book (nevermind the fact that Mass Effect comics exist on their own). Of course, like with so many of these patents, it's possible this system'll never see the light of day, but we'd like to detail it all the same for the sheer strangeness of its ambition.

Essentially, the results of a player's in-game choices are used to populate a post-game comic book-style story -- progress, character info, settings, dialogue, achievements and screenshots are all pumped into an algorithm alongside the results of said variables, metrics from your playthrough, and your performance therein. The comic could be pushed to the cloud directly from your game console or PC, according to images included with the patent, which could then be pulled back down to a variety of devices (a tablet it shown, as well as standard televisions and PC monitors). Apparently Apple couldn't identify a good storytelling example from its own iTunes App Store, as Commander Shepard and co. are the only example given of a game use case. Again, it's rather unlikely we'll see this stuff pop up in Apple products anytime soon (if ever), but it's quite a concept nonetheless. That watch patent, however ... that's another story.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Apple

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Source: USPTO

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/j45OKRsEQs4/

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Richie Havens, RIP (Powerlineblog)

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Radioactive bacteria targets metastatic pancreatic cancer

Apr. 22, 2013 ? Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a therapy for pancreatic cancer that uses Listeria bacteria to selectively infect tumor cells and deliver radioisotopes into them. The experimental treatment dramatically decreased the number of metastases (cancers that have spread to other parts of the body) in a mouse model of highly aggressive pancreatic cancer without harming healthy tissue. The study was published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're encouraged that we've been able to achieve a 90 percent reduction in metastases in our first round of experiments," said co-senior author Claudia Gravekamp, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology & immunology at Einstein who studies new approaches to treating metastatic cancer. "With further improvements, our approach has the potential to start a new era in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer."

Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest of cancers, with a five-year survival rate of only 4 percent. The National Cancer Institute predicts that this year, 45,220 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed and 38,460 people will die from the disease. Pancreatic cancer confined to the pancreas can be treated through surgery. But early pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect, since it rarely causes noticeable signs or symptoms. Most pancreatic cancer cases are diagnosed only after the cancer has spread (metastasized), typically resulting in jaundice, pain, weight loss and fatigue. But there is no cure for metastatic pancreatic cancer, and treatment focuses mainly on improving quality of life.

Several years ago, scientists observed that an attenuated (weakened) form of Listeria monocytogenes can infect cancer cells, but not normal cells. In a 2009 study, Dr. Gravekamp discovered the reason: The tumor microenvironment suppresses the body's immune response, allowing Listeria to survive inside the tumors. By contrast, the weakened bacteria are rapidly eliminated in normal tissues. (Listeria in its wild form causes foodborne illnesses, particularly in immunocompromised people.)

Scientists later showed that Listeria could be harnessed to carry an anti-cancer drug to tumor cells in laboratory cultures, but this concept was never tested in an animal model. These findings prompted Dr. Gravekamp to investigate Listeria-tumor interactions and how Listeria could be used to attack cancer cells.

The idea of attaching radioisotopes (commonly used in cancer therapy) to Listeria was suggested by Ekaterina Dadachova, Ph.D., professor of radiology and of microbiology & immunology at Einstein and the paper's co-senior author. Dr. Dadachova, who is also the Sylvia and Robert S. Olnick Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research, is a pioneer in developing radioimmunotherapies -- patented treatments in which radioisotopes are attached to antibodies to selectively target cells including cancer cells, microbes or cells infected with HIV. When the antibodies bind to antigens that are unique to the cells being targeted, the radioisotopes emit radiation that selectively kills the cells.

Working together, Drs. Gravekamp and Dadachova coupled a radioactive isotope called rhenium to the weakened Listeria bacteria. "We chose rhenium because it emits beta particles, which are very effective in treating cancer," said Dr. Dadachova. "Also, rhenium has a half-life of 17 hours, so it is cleared from the body relatively quickly, minimizing damage to healthy tissue."

Mice with metastatic pancreatic cancer were given intra-abdominal injections of the radioactive Listeria once a day for seven days, followed by a seven-day "rest" period and four additional daily injections of the radioactive bacteria. After 21 days, the scientists counted the number of metastases in the mice. The treatment had reduced the metastases by 90 percent compared with untreated controls. In addition, the radioactive Listeria had concentrated in metastases and to a lesser extent in primary tumors but not in healthy tissues, and the treated mice did not appear to suffer any ill effects.

The treatment may have the potential for clearing an even higher percentage of metastases. "We stopped the experiment at 21 days because that's when the control mice start dying," said Dr. Dadachova. "Our next step is to assess whether the treatment affects the animals' survival."

"At this point, we can say that we have a therapy that is very effective for reducing metastasis in mice," Dr. Gravekamp noted. "Our goal is to clear 100 percent of the metastases, because every cancer cell that stays behind can potentially form new tumors." The researchers expect the treatment could be improved by fine-tuning the treatment schedule, using higher doses of radiation, or by piggybacking additional anti-cancer agents onto the bacteria. Einstein has filed a patent application related to this research that is currently available for licensing to partners interested in further developing and commercializing this technology.

This work was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Aging (AG023096-01 and CA129470-01), both parts of the National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Wilber Quispe-Tintaya, Dinesh Chandra, Arthee Jahangir, Matthew Harris, Arturo Casadevall, Ekaterina Dadachova, and Claudia Gravekamp. Nontoxic radioactive Listeriaat is a highly effective therapy against metastatic pancreatic cancer. PNAS, April 22, 2013 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1211287110

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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/izDQ1gQFZXo/130422154753.htm

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