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Source: http://www.today.com/id/7358550/ns/today-entertainment/

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Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow, with Cuba among possible destinations

By James Pomfret and Lidia Kelly

HONG KONG/MOSCOW (Reuters) - An aircraft believed to be carrying Edward Snowden landed in Moscow on Sunday after Hong Kong let the former U.S. security contractor leave the territory, despite Washington's efforts to extradite him to face espionage charges.

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Snowden was heading for a "democratic nation" which it did not name, although a source at the Russian airline Aeroflot said he would fly on within 24 hours to Cuba and then planned to go to Venezuela.

Moscow airport officials said the flight from Hong Kong had landed but could not immediately confirm Snowden was on board. However, a source at Aeroflot said he had booked a seat on the service.

Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency, had been hiding in Hong Kong since leaking details about U.S. surveillance activities to news media.

A spokesman for the government of Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to China in 1997, said it had let Snowden depart because a U.S. request to have him arrested did not comply with the law.

The United States wanted him to be extradited to face trial and is likely to be furious about his departure. In Washington, a Justice Department official said it would seek cooperation with countries Snowden may try to go to.

"It's a shocker," said Simon Young, a law professor with Hong Kong University. "I thought he was going to stay and fight it out. The U.S. government will be irate."

A source at Aeroflot said Snowden would fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then planned to go on to Venezuela. The South China Morning Post earlier said his final destination might be Ecuador or Iceland.

The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website said it helped Snowden find "political asylum in a democratic country".

It added in an update on Twitter that he was accompanied by diplomats and legal advisers and was travelling via a safe route for the purposes of seeking asylum.

"The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person," former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, legal director of WikiLeaks and lawyer for the group's founder Julian Assange, said in a statement.

"What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange - for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest - is an assault against the people."

Assange has taken sanctuary in the Ecuadorean embassy in London and said last week he would not leave even if Sweden stopped pursuing sexual assault claims against him because he feared arrest on the orders of the United States.

U.S. authorities have charged Snowden with theft of U.S. government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.

The United States had asked Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) of China, to send Snowden home.

"The U.S. government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr Snowden," the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

"Since the documents provided by the U.S. government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR government has requested the U.S. government to provide additional information ... As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

It did not say what further information it needed.

The White House had no comment.

CHINA SAYS U.S. "BIGGEST VILLAIN"

Although Hong Kong retains an independent legal system, and its own extradition laws, Beijing has control over its foreign affairs. Some observers see Beijing's hand in Snowden's sudden departure.

Iceland refused on Friday to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden, a former employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at an NSA facility in Hawaii.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier this month that Russia would consider granting Snowden asylum if he were to ask for it and pro-Kremlin lawmakers supported the idea, but there has been no indication he has done so.

The South China Morning Post earlier quoted Snowden offering new details about the United States' spy activities, including accusations of U.S. hacking of Chinese mobile telephone companies and targeting China's Tsinghua University.

Documents previously leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies, including Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

China's Xinhua news agency, referring to Snowden's accusations about the hacking of Chinese targets, said they were "clearly troubling signs".

It added: "They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age."

Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador are all members of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America who pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials.

(Additional reporting by Fayen Wong in Shanghai, Nishant Kumar in Hong Kong and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow, and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Anna Willard and David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-nsa-contractor-snowden-leaves-hong-kong-moscow-080843121.html

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Jon Stewart appears on Egypt's 'Daily Show'

17 hours ago

CAIRO - Jon Stewart took his politically engaged American satire to Cairo on Friday, appearing on a show hosted by the man known as "Egypt's Jon Stewart," who has faced investigation for insulting the president and Islam.

Among barbs aimed at Egypt's ruling Islamists and others, Stewart praised host Bassem Youssef for taking risks to poke fun. "If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke," he said, "then you don't have a regime."

Youssef is a cardiologist whose online comedy clips inspired by Stewart's "Daily Show" won him wild popularity and a prime-time TV show after the 2011 revolution that ended military rule. He paid tribute to his guest as a personal inspiration as the pair traded gags over Stewart's impressions of a visit to Cairo.

Stewart in turn played down any difficulties his wit created for him in the United States, telling Youssef: "I tell you this, it doesn't get me into the kind of trouble it gets you into. I get in trouble, but nowhere near what happens to you."

With Egypt still in ferment and elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi facing off against liberals who fear he plans to smother personal freedoms, Youssef was released on bail after being questioned in March over alleged insults to Mursi and the channel he appears on was threatened with losing its licence.

Criticising such moves, which have also drawn reproaches for Egypt from the U.S. government, Stewart said: "A joke has never shot tear gas at a group of people in a park. It's just talk.

"What Bassem is doing ... is showing that satire can still be relevant, that it can carve out space in a country for people to express themselves. Because that's all democracy is."

He took aim at Mursi's controversial decision this week to name a member of a hardline Islamist movement blamed for a massacre of tourists at Luxor in the 1990s as governor of that city. Having been brought into the studio hooded and presented as a "spy," he spoke a few words in Arabic before saying Egypt's president had honoured him: "I am now the mayor of Luxor."

Stewart also appeared to take a gentle dig at the opposition, who hope demonstrations planned for June 30 can force Mursi from power after just a year in office. It took Americans 100 years before a president was impeached for the first time, Stewart said: "For you guys to do it in one year, it's very impressive."

Perhaps the biggest laugh in the studio, though, was for a simple crack at Egypt's perennial traffic chaos: "I know this is an ancient civilisation," he said. "Have you thought about traffic lights?"

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/cairo-egypts-jon-stewart-hosts-daily-shows-jon-stewart-6C10418946

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US to Hong Kong: Don't delay Snowden extradition

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration on Saturday sharply warned Hong Kong against slow-walking the extradition of Edward Snowden, reflecting concerns over a prolonged legal battle before the government contractor ever appears in a U.S. courtroom to answer espionage charges for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs.

A formal extradition request to bring Snowden to the United States from Hong Kong could drag through appeal courts for years and would pit Beijing against Washington at a time China tries to deflect U.S. accusations that it carries out extensive surveillance on American government and commercial operations.

The U.S. has contacted authorities in Hong Kong to seek Snowden's extradition, the National Security Council said Saturday in a statement. The NSC advises the president on national security.

"Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case," White House national security adviser Tom Donilon said in an interview with CBS News. He said the U.S. presented Hong Kong with a "good case for extradition."

However, a senior administration official issued a pointed warning that if Hong Kong doesn't act soon, "it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law." The official was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and insisted on anonymity.

Hong Kong's government had no immediate reaction to the charges against Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who admitted providing information to the news media about the programs. Police Commissioner Andy Tsang told reporters only that the case would be dealt with according to the law. A police statement said it was "inappropriate" for the police to comment on the case.

A one-page criminal complaint against Snowden was unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., part of the Eastern District of Virginia where his former employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered, in McLean. He is charged with unauthorized communication of national defense information, willful communication of classified communications intelligence information and theft of government property. The first two are under the Espionage Act and each of the three crimes carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on conviction.

The complaint is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in two highly classified surveillance programs, gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.

Snowden told the South China Morning Post in an interview published Saturday on its website that he hoped to stay in the autonomous region of China because he has faith in "the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate."

A prominent former politician in Hong Kong, Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said he doubted whether Beijing would intervene yet.

"Beijing would only intervene according to my understanding at the last stage. If the magistrate said there is enough to extradite, then Mr. Snowden can then appeal," he said.

Lee said Beijing could then decide at the end of the appeal process if it wanted Snowden extradited or not.

Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution.

Hong Kong lawyer Mark Sutherland said that the filing of a refugee, torture or inhuman punishment claim acts as an automatic bar on any extradition proceedings until those claims can be assessed.

"Some asylum seekers came to Hong Kong 10 years ago and still haven't had their protection claims assessed," Sutherland said.

Hong Kong lawmakers said that the Chinese government should make the final decision on whether Snowden should be extradited to the United States.

Outspoken legislator Leung Kwok-hung said Beijing should instruct Hong Kong to protect Snowden from extradition before his case gets dragged through the court system.

Leung urged the people of Hong Kong to "take to the streets to protect Snowden."

The Obama administration has now used the Espionage Act in seven criminal cases in an unprecedented effort to stem leaks. In one of them, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged he sent more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and other materials to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. His military trial is underway.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges against Snowden.

"I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S."

But the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower advocacy group, said Snowden should be shielded from prosecution by whistle-blower protection laws.

"He disclosed information about a secret program that he reasonably believed to be illegal, and his actions alone brought about the long-overdue national debate about the proper balance between privacy and civil liberties, on the one hand, and national security on the other," the group said in a statement.

Michael di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990 to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel are historically quite good."

"In my time, I felt the degree of cooperation was outstanding to the extent that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," di Pretoro said.

The U.S. and Hong Kong have a standing agreement on the surrender of fugitives. However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition proceeding.

The success or failure of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honor the extradition request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.

Disclosure of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board and as his intelligence chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.

The five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room, questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked controversy.

One program collects billions of U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably some Americans in the process, who use major Internet service providers, such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-hong-kong-dont-delay-snowden-extradition-214453115.html

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Over A Year After New Content Policies, ?Self-Harm Social Media? Still Thrives

About a year and a half ago, just in time for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week,?Tumblr took a hard stance?against blogs on its network that encouraged "self harm." This includes those that glorify or?promote anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders, the company said, as well as those focused on self-mutilation and suicide. The company also said it would revise its Content Policy, and start showing Public Service Announcements (PSAs) when users search for certain keywords on the site, like "thinspo" or "proana," for example.?Other services like Pinterest and Instagram soon followed suit.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/twCr7offVA8/

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Shaky Cueto bests Mets in return from DL

By HOWIE RUMBERG

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 11:04 p.m. ET May 20, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) - Things weren't going well for Johnny Cueto in his return from the disabled list, so he had a conversation - with himself.

That's all it took.

Cueto responded to the pep talk by striking out six of his last seven batters, then Jay Bruce helped make him a winner by hitting a tiebreaking home run that carried the Cincinnati Reds to a 4-3 victory over the New York Mets on Monday night.

"I asked myself, `What was going on, what happened?"' Cueto said through a translator. "I told myself I have to start pitching the way I am. Then after that, I said, `That is me."'

Brandon Phillips had a two-run single for his first career hit off Shaun Marcum in 13 at-bats. Phillips also made two sparkling plays in the field to help the Reds bounce back from a stunning 3-2 loss to the Phillies in which closer Aroldis Chapman gave up two home runs.

Chapman, the Reds' fifth reliever, struck out two - one on a 99 mph fastball - in a perfect ninth for his ninth save. He had blown his two previous save chances.

"Got to get back on the horse, right away," manager Dusty Baker said. "Otherwise it festers and grows."

Cueto (2-0) started for the first time since leaving his outing April 13 in the fifth inning with a strained left upper-back muscle. Making his fourth start of the season, the Reds' ace gave up three hits and three runs with eight strikeouts in five innings. But he walked four, including one in the third, when Marlon Byrd touched him for a three-run homer.

"I knew you just couldn't keep getting in trouble like that, walking guys without centering one, but that's just what happened," Baker said. "But he came back and pitched well."

After the homer, Cueto struck out four in a row with a fastball that reached the mid-90s.

His counterpart, Marcum (0-5), rarely reached 86 mph in pitching at least six innings for the second straight start after failing to finish five in any of his first three starts with the Mets. Still, he remains winless in his first season in New York.

Slumping Mets first baseman Ike Davis slid deeper into his monthlong funk, going 0 for 3 and being called for interference in the field when he was clipped at first by Joey Votto, who was making a turn toward second base in the Reds' three-run first inning.

Davis was lifted in a double switch after striking out in the sixth, his second strikeout of the night. He has two hits in his last 36 at-bats, and only one RBI in May.

Marcum appeared headed for another early exit after a 20-minute top of the first. He walked Shin-Soo Choo leading off. After an out, Votto, the NL player of the week, hit a smash that ricocheted off first base and into right field. As he made his turn at first, Votto nudged Davis, who was nonchalantly standing near the bag, watching the play. Votto was tagged out at second but Davis was charged with an error for interference and Votto was awarded second.

"I was looking for the ball and I took a couple of steps," Davis said. "That's why I was there longer than I should've been."

Phillips followed with a two-run single and Bruce doubled in a run, extending his hitting streak to 11. Marcum struck out Todd Frazier and Xavier Paul, and walked off to mock cheers.

"We've been through this now for what, five starts? I get hit, it's location. I made four or five mistakes today and they all got hit," Marcum said. "Got to limit the mistakes."

The right-hander did not give up another hit until Paul singled with two outs in the fourth.

Bruce broke the tie with a scorching line drive into the right-field seats leading off the sixth.

"Woo, that was a missile," Baker said.

Mets manager Terry Collins took a chance on putting strikeout-prone Rick Ankiel in the second spot in the order because he was 7 for 16 against Cueto, and Ankiel led off the third with a single. David Wright walked and, after Lucas Duda struck out, Byrd sent a drive to left field for his fourth homer this year.

Byrd came in 6 for 11 against Cueto.

The Mets loaded the bases in the first on two walks and a single by Duda, bringing up Davis.

The scoreboard operator urged fans to cheer on Davis, and many of the 23,038 in attendance made some noise. Davis hit a sharp grounder toward second, but Phillips dived to his right to stop it and then threw out Davis.

"I hit one ball hard - at the wrong guy, a Gold Glover," Davis said.

Phillips then showed why he's a three-time Gold Glove winner in the fifth, making a long run into center field for a basket catch with his back to the plate. It was a very difficult play, but he made it look easy.

"I practice that," Phillips said.

Collins and reliever LaTroy Hawkins were ejected by plate umpire Tom Hallion after the top of the seventh for disputing a call that Phillips was hit by a pitch. Collins and Hawkins insisted the ball hit the knob of the bat and not Phillips' hand.

NOTES: The Mets signed RHP David Aardsma to a minor league contract. He requested his release from the Miami Marlins organization Wednesday. The former Seattle closer missed all of 2011 and made only one appearance late last season with the Yankees. He will report to Triple-A Las Vegas. ... The Reds sent INF Neftali Soto to Triple-A Louisville to make room for Cueto. ... The Mets will host military appreciation night on Sunday. The Mets have given out more than 3,800 tickets to military personnel and their families for the game against Atlanta.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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The man who no longer matters

Posnanski: Albert Pujols' at-bats used to be buzzworthy, must-watch events. Now, they're not. Here's the result of his struggles the past few years.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/51947422/ns/sports-baseball/

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Send In Your Questions For Ask A VC With Mayfield Fund's Navin Chaddha

This week on TechCrunch TV's Ask A VC show, we have Mayfield Fund's Managing Director Navin Chaddha in the studio. As you may remember, you can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we?ll ask them during the show.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BIPlPbx1O4c/

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Women's reproductive ability may be related to immune system status

Monday, May 20, 2013

New research indicates that women's reproductive function may be tied to their immune status. Previous studies have found this association in human males, but not females.

The study appears in the American Journal of Human Biology.

An animal's energetic resources must be carefully allocated, said University of Illinois anthropology professor Kathryn Clancy, who led the new research. The body's first priority is maintenance, which includes tasks inherently related to survival, including immune function, she said. Any leftover energy is then dedicated to reproduction. There is a balance between resource allocation to maintenance and reproductive efforts, and environmental stressors can lessen available resources, said Clancy, who co-directs the Laboratory for Evolutionary Endocrinology at Illinois.

The study participants were a group of healthy, premenopausal, rural Polish women who participate in traditional farming practices. The researchers collected the women's urine and saliva samples during the harvest season, when physical activity levels are at their peak. This physical work constrains available energetic resources. In previous studies, the highest levels of ovarian suppression occurred during the harvest season.

Researchers measured participants' salivary ovarian hormone levels daily over one menstrual cycle. They also tested urine samples for levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a commonly used marker of inflammation.

"Depending on the other factors that you look at alongside it, CRP can tell you about immune function or it can tell you about psychosocial stress, because CRP has been correlated to both of those things in other populations," Clancy said.

The researchers observed a negative relationship between CRP and progesterone in the Polish women ? in women with high CRP, progesterone was low. Further, the researchers found that estradiol and the age of first menstruation were the strongest predictors of CRP levels.

Clancy noted that it is too early to tell whether these correlational relationships indicate a causal relationship in which inflammation suppresses ovarian hormones. However, she believes that there are two possible pathways that explain these results.

"One is that there is an internal mechanism, and this local inflammation drives higher levels of CRP, and that is what's correlating with the lower progesterone," she said. "The other possibility is that there is an external stressor like psychosocial or immune stress driving allocation to maintenance effort, which in turn is suppressing ovarian hormones."

Clancy believes that her research will help women "understand their bodies better."

"From an anthropological perspective, these trade-offs are really important because they help us understand the timing of different life events: Why does someone hit puberty when they do, why do they begin reproducing when they do, why do they space babies the way they do?" Clancy said.

"It's really interesting to see the interplay between a person's intentions about when and why to have children, and then their own body's allocations to reproduction or not," Clancy said.

###

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu

Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 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/128305/Women_s_reproductive_ability_may_be_related_to_immune_system_status

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Resistance to last-line antibiotic makes bacteria resistant to immune system

May 21, 2013 ? Bacteria resistant to the antibiotic colistin are also commonly resistant to antimicrobial substances made by the human body, according to a study in mBio?, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Cross-resistance to colistin and host antimicrobials LL-37 and lysozyme, which help defend the body against bacterial attack, could mean that patients with life-threatening multi-drug resistant infections are also saddled with a crippled immune response. Colistin is a last-line drug for treating several kinds of drug-resistant infections, but colistin resistance and the drug's newfound impacts on bacterial resistance to immune attack underscore the need for newer, better antibiotics.

Corresponding author David Weiss of Emory University says the results show that colistin therapy can fail patients in two ways. "The way that the bacteria become resistant [to colistin] allows them to also become resistant to the antimicrobials made by our immune system. That is definitely not what doctors want to do when they're treating patients with this last line antibiotic," says Weiss.

Although it was developed fifty years ago, colistin remains in use today not so much because it's particularly safe or effective, but because the choices for treating multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and other resistant infections are few and dwindling. Colistin is used when all or almost all other drugs have failed, often representing a patient's last hope for survival.

Weiss says he and his colleagues noted that colistin works by disrupting the inner and outer membranes that hold Gram-negative bacterial cells together, much the same way two antimicrobials of the human immune system, LL-37 and lysozyme, do. LL-37 is a protein found at sites of inflammation, whereas lysozyme is found in numerous different immune cells and within secretions like tears, breast milk, and mucus, and both are important defenses against invading bacteria. Weiss and his collaborators from Emory, the CDC, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta set out to find whether resistance to colistin could engender resistance to attack by LL-37 or lysozyme.

Looking at A. baumannii isolates from patients around the country, they noted that all the colistin-resistant strains harbored mutations in pmrB, a regulatory gene that leads to the modification of polysaccharides on the outside of the cell in response to antibiotic exposure. Tests showed a tight correlation between the ability of individual isolates to resist high concentrations of colistin and the ability to resist attacks by LL-37 or lysozyme.

This was very convincing, write the authors, that mutations in the pmrB gene were responsible for cross-resistance to LL-37 and lysozyme, but to get closer to a causative link between treatment and cross-resistance, they studied two pairs of A. baumannii isolates taken from two different patients before and after they were treated for three or six weeks with colistin. The results helped confirm the cross-resistance link: neither strain taken before treatment was resistant to colistin, LL-37, or lysozyme, but the strains taken after treatment showed significant resistance to colistin and lysozyme. (One post-colistin isolate was no more or less resistant to LL-37 than its paired pre-colistin isolate.) Like the resistant strains tested earlier, both post-colistin isolates harbored crucial mutations in the pmrB gene that apparently bestow the ability to resist treatment.

The authors point out that the apparent link between resistance to colistin and cross-resistance to antimicrobial agents of the immune system could well extend to other pathogens that are treated with colistin, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Weiss says he plans to follow up with studies to determine whether this bears out.

For Weiss, the problems with colistin are symptomatic of a much larger trio of problems: increasing levels of drug resistance, cuts in federal funding for antibiotic research, and lack of incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in antibiotic R&D. "We don't have enough antibiotics, and it's really important for the research community and the public to support increases in funding for research to develop new antibiotics," says Weiss.

"We got complacent for a while and the bugs are becoming resistant. This is something we can reverse -- or make a lot better -- if we have the resources."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/GvkR-4TrerQ/130521011230.htm

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Dear American Consumers: Please don t start eating healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry

Dear Consumers: A disturbing trend has come to our attention. You, the people, are thinking more about health, and you're starting to do something about it. This cannot continue.

Sure, there's always been talk of health in America. We often encourage it. The thing is, we only want you to think about and talk about health in a certain way--equating health with how you look, instead of outcomes like quality of life and reduced disease risk. Your superficial understanding of health has a great influence over your purchasing decisions, and we're ready for it, whether you choose to go low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free or inevitably give up and accept the fact that you can't resist our Little Debbie snacks, potato chips and ice cream novelties. Whatever the current health trend, we respond by developing and marketing new products. We can also show you how great some of our current products are and always have been. For example, when things were not looking so good for fat, our friends at Welch's were able to point out that their chewy fruit snacks were a fat free option. Low fat! Healthy! Then the tide turned against carbohydrates. Our friends in meat and dairy were happy to show that their steaks, meats and cheeses were low-carb choices. Low carbs! Healthy! But we're getting uneasy. In 2009, Congress commissioned the Inter-agency Working Group (IWG) to develop standards for advertising foods to children. The IWG included the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Congress identified these organizations as having "expertise and experience in child nutrition, child health, psychology, education, marketing and other fields relevant to food and beverage marketing and child nutrition standards." We were dismayed when the IWG released its report in 2011. The guidelines said that foods advertised to children must provide "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet." For example, any food marketed to children must "contain at least 50% by weight one or more of the following: fruit; vegetable; whole grain; fat-free or low-fat milk or yogurt; fish; extra lean meat or poultry; eggs; nuts and seeds; or beans." This report was potentially devastating. These organizations, experts in nutrition, were officially outlining what constituted "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet." Thankfully, we have a ton of money and were able to use it to get the IWG to withdraw the guidelines. In a public comment posted on the FTC website, our friends at General Mills pointed out that under the IWG guidelines, the most commonly consumed foods in the US would be considered unhealthy. Specifically, according to General Mills, "of the 100 most commonly consumed foods and beverages in America, 88 would fail the IWG's proposed standards." So you see? If you people start eating the way the nutrition experts at the CDC and USDA recommend that you eat, that would delegitimize almost 90 percent of the products we produce! Do you realize how much money that would cost us? According to the General Mills letter, if everyone in the US started eating healthfully, it would cost us $503 billion per year! That might affect our ability to pay CEOs like General Mills' Ken Powell annual compensations of more than $12 million. But revamping the food environment will also cost you money. The General Mills letter stated "a shift by the average American to the IWG diet would conservatively increase the individual's annual food spending by $1,632." Sure, we've heard talk about costs to the individual that arise from being obese. One 2010 paper from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services estimated that the annual costs to an individual for being obese can be upwards of $8,000. We like to think of this as a small price to pay for consumer freedom. Of course, we don't necessarily want you to be unhealthy. It's just that it's so much more profitable to provide foods that happen to be unhealthy. We've been able to industrialize the food system so that we can produce massive amounts of the cheapest ingredients available, in the cheapest, most efficient way possible. On top of that, we understand human biology. Humans evolved in situations in which food was scarce. This led to an evolutionary adaptation that causes you to crave salty, sugary and fatty foods. Consuming foods with these characteristics actually lights up the same pleasure centers in the brain as cocaine. Who wouldn't play upon that biological craving to increase profits? If one company didn't, their competitors would, so we all kind of have to do it. We are also able to provide you with perceived value. Because it doesn't cost us that much more to make a soda, say, 42 ounces instead of 22, we can almost double the size of a beverage and only charge you 20 percent more. How could you resist a deal like that? You can't. Trust us, we know. So you see, dear consumer, everything is fine. We've got a good thing going here. There's no need for you to start worrying about the industrial food system. If you do start thinking about your weight, check out our line of Healthy Choice frozen meals. If that doesn't work, our friends over in the pharmaceutical industry, the health and fitness industry and the healthcare industry will be happy to help you to continue to fulfill your role as an American Consumer. Images: by the author ? Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dear-american-consumers-please-don-t-start-eating-155100012.html

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Car bombs in Baghdad, south Iraq kill at least 34

BAGHDAD (AP) ? A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed at least 34 people on Monday, Iraqi officials said.

The attacks are the latest in a recent spike of bombings that has hit both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the past week. The bloodshed has raised fears of a return to the widespread sectarian violence of 2006-2007 that brought the country to the edge of civil war.

In the Iraqi capital, nine car bombs went off, striking at bus stops, market places and in the streets of Shiite areas during the busy morning hours, killing 24 people and wounding 112, according to police officials.

In the southern city of Basra, two car bombs ? one near a restaurant and the other at a bus stop ? killed at least 10 people and wounded 27, according to police officials in the oil-rich city.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts but such large-scale bombings bear the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Hospital officials in Baghdad and Basra confirmed the casualty tolls. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Tensions have been intensifying In Iraq since the country's minority since Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government, including random detentions and neglect.

The protests, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in the country's north on April 23.

Majority Shiites control the levers of power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.

___

Associated Press writer Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-bombs-baghdad-south-iraq-kill-least-34-080910314.html

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Apple's WWDC honey-do list, as dictated by the internet

According to the internet, Apple has to everything everyone else has ever done, plus make real everything science fiction has ever imagined, or WWDC 2013 will be a disappointment, and Apple will again and forever be doomed. No pressure there. But what exactly is this unattainable goal being set for Apple? Justin Willaims of Carpeaqua has placed tongue firmly in cheek and laid it plain.

With WWDC just a few weeks away, I thought it?d be beneficial to the Internet at large to compile a working list of everything that is expected of Apple during their Keynote and subsequent ?State of the Union? addresses in order to appease the Internet. Failure to introduce each and every one of these features and updates will result in another stock price plummet, calls for Tim Cook?s ouster and an infinite amount of comments on tech blogs decrying that Android is superior to Apple?s iOS.

I have several favorites. Give the whole things a read, then tell me yours.

Source: Carpeaqua

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/vRFE4YPHv-4/story01.htm

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French president signs gay marriage into law

PARIS (AP) ? French President Francois Hollande has signed a law authorizing gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, after months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate.

His signature means the first gay marriages may be celebrated in France within about 10 days. Hollande's office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a day after the Constitutional Council struck down a challenge to the law.

Hollande, a Socialist, had made legalizing gay marriage one of his campaign pledges last year. While polls for years have shown majority support for gay marriage in France, adoption by same-sex couples is more controversial. The bill prompted months of widespread protests, largely by conservative and religious groups. Some were marred by clashes with police. It became a flashpoint for frustrations at the increasingly unpopular Hollande.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/french-president-signs-gay-marriage-law-081553190.html

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Watch This Badass Pilot Save the Day With a Ballsy No-Wheel Landing

Last night, the pilot of US Airways Express Flight 4560 was having some bad luck. The landing gear on his turboprop twin-engine plane just wouldn't go all the way down. So with some quick thinking and righteous piloting skills, he went in for a wheelless, sparky touchdown, and pulled it off without a hitch.

After trying the landing gear a bunch of times and failing to get it fully deployed, the pilot?named Edward Powers according to witnesses?decided that a carefully controlled skid was the way to get out of the sky safely and minimize any dangerous veering on the runway. In preparation, he circled Newark airport until he was out of fuel, to minimize the chance of a fire, and took her down with all due care. A nearby air traffic control tower caught the footage.

It's hard to make out much more than the rain of sparks, but there were plenty, and the plane was accordingly doused in foam the second it came to a stop. But thanks to Powers' fuel-burning circles and piloting skills, there was no fire at all. In fact, there weren't even any injuries among the 34 passengers and crew.

A spokesman for US Airways told The Daily Mail that the NSTB will be looking into the cause of the incident, but also gave Power's some well-earned compliments:

The landing of the aircraft on the ground safely is testament to how well our crews are trained. They are trained to think quickly and assess the situation and act with the utmost professionalism.

Or in other words: "Awesome job, you badass." [The Daily Mail]

Images by sugznj and MacusSolis7

Source: http://gizmodo.com/watch-this-badass-pilot-save-the-day-with-a-ballsy-no-w-508503845

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LG Nexus 4 shows up in white at Google I/O (hands-on)

A checkerboard-style glitter pattern with a white background? Yes, please. We've always been impressed by the elegant look and feel of LG's Nexus 4, announced alongside Android 4.2 last October, and now Google is making an ivory version of the device available to (hopefully) the masses. The twist: it still hasn't been officially announced, despite the fact that a conference like I/O would be the perfect time and place to do so. While Google chose not to take advantage of the situation to show the unicorn Nexus to the world, real-life units have been discovered floating around Moscone West. Androidandme's Taylor Wimberly happened upon one of them at the show and was gracious enough to give us a brief moment or two with the device.

There isn't any surprise associated with this particular beaut, as it's packing the same design and specs as we've already seen in the original black model (sorry, LTE hopefuls). The pattern on the back actually doesn't stand out as much as it does on the black version, as it happens to blend in with the white a little more. We also noticed the same set of tiny nubs on the bottom that mysteriously appeared on the black version a few months ago. Lastly, the white Nexus is rumored to be the first device with Android 4.3 when it officially launches, but this particular version we saw only sports 4.2.1. There's not much else for us to write about the new color, but let's face it -- you're here for the pictures, which you can gaze upon below.

Gallery: LG Nexus 4 in white at Google I/O

Myriam Joire contributed to this post.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Google, LG

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/kUH0fg3mafs/

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Desktop Diaries: Daniel Kahneman

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Flora Lichtman is here with our video pick. Flora, you have the next installment in our Desktop Diaries series in which you get to know scientists by asking them about their desk trinkets.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: That's right.

FLATOW: And who do we have today?

LICHTMAN: It's Daniel Kahneman today. He's a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and the author of "Thinking Fast and Slow," which you may have seen on many of the best book lists of the year, The Economist's lists and The New York Times' book reviews list. And Dr. Kahneman let us stop by his New York City apartment for the Desktop Diary. But here's the thing, Ira.

DR. DANIEL KAHNEMAN: No. No, desk. I haven't used a desk for many years.

LICHTMAN: And that's not all.

KAHNEMAN: I have always emphasized the willingness to discard.

LICHTMAN: So it's challenging.

FLATOW: Oh, gee, what a challenge, a Desktop Diary with no desk.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: No desk. No trinkets.

FLATOW: No trinkets. No desk.

LICHTMAN: Very clean this workspace.

FLATOW: Does he at least have a medal to go with the Nobel Prize? They gave him a medal?

LICHTMAN: Well, it's funny you should ask that. That was the first thing I wanted to see. We had to sort of ask him questions, get to know each other, but all I wanted to see was what the Nobel Prize looks like.

FLATOW: Right.

LICHTMAN: So eventually, we started talking about it and I asked, do you get a physical thing? I'm thinking like the Olympic...

FLATOW: Sure. Like put it around your neck.

LICHTMAN: ...they put around your neck.

FLATOW: Sure. Right.

LICHTMAN: And he said, oh, yeah, they do. And I can go get it for you. Let me show it you. So Dr. Kahneman walks over to the other room and the door slightly ajar. They don't really want to, you know, invade his personal space; this is home.

FLATOW: Right. Right.

LICHTMAN: But it becomes clear little by little that we're not finding it.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: There are some rummaging around.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: I lost the medal.

LICHTMAN: It was amazing.

FLATOW: Honey, have you seen the medal?

LICHTMAN: It was amazing.

FLATOW: Way back, yeah.

LICHTMAN: Yeah. It was amazing. He didn't initially find it. But his wife knew where it was and so...

FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR with a great story from Flora Lichtman about looking for a Nobel Prize medal. And you say he did, eventually, find?

LICHTMAN: It was so charming, though. You know, he was like, I haven't taken it out in that long, which makes sense, although I feel like I'd be sleeping with it, like, under my pillow or something, making myself feel better every day by looking at it. But anyway, we eventually saw it, and it's much bigger than an Olympic medal.

FLATOW: Yeah.

LICHTMAN: It seemed to me it was quite large. And they also give you this other nice stuff, so he had a sort of dossier of pictures and...

FLATOW: Give you chocolate coins, too.

LICHTMAN: Really? I didn't know - those maybe were gone by now. It was 2002 when Dr. Kahneman got this award. But just to give you a sense of what Dr. Kahneman has done.

FLATOW: Right.

LICHTMAN: So he's a psychologist and he's done a lot of observational research over the course of his career on how people make decisions. But he got the Nobel Prize for economic sciences. And the reason is because before his work, one of the sort of basic tenants of economics and, you know, economists can - will know this story better than I do. But the basic premise is that people operated in their self-interest and that there are - people can be rational decision makers, you know, except maybe when passion or love or fear is involved. And what Dr. Kahneman and his colleague, Amos Tversky, showed was that people make irrational decisions all the time.

FLATOW: Really?

LICHTMAN: That there - yeah, I know.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: Well, look, it hasn't been show before.

FLATOW: He got the prize for that.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: They showed it through observation. So I wanted you to give you an example of one of the demonstrations that they did. This is Dr. Kahneman's favorite, he said.

KAHNEMAN: My personal favorite is what I've called now regressive prediction, that is that people make absurdly, extreme predictions on the basis of very weak evidence. If I tell you about this graduating senior and I call her Julie that she read at age four. And I ask you what's a GPA? You have an answer. An answer comes to mind. I mean, you know, that's ridiculous. And somehow, it's a very narrow range of answers, and it's that sort of answer that comes to everybody's minds. So I think that's my favorite. I find it mostly - a lot of it - I find amusing and sort of interesting being an observer. But I don't ask myself a lot until it mean about mankind or humankind or whatever. I don't.

LICHTMAN: So you get this sense that...

FLATOW: Yeah.

LICHTMAN: ...you know, we - you shouldn't have an answer to something like that. These - the fact that Julie could read at age four shouldn't suggest to you a GPA 20 years down or 15 years down the line.

FLATOW: Great point. Yeah.

LICHTMAN: Yeah.

FLATOW: Yeah. And it's our Video Pick of the Week. It's up there on our website at sciencefriday.com. It's Desktop Diaries, a challenge to Flora this week...

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: ...having no desktop and no diary.

LICHTMAN: What a wonderful interview.

FLATOW: And a great...

LICHTMAN: What a great...

FLATOW: ...this great interview, little slice of life when he lived in the Upper West Side, was it?

LICHTMAN: No. The Village.

FLATOW: The Village.

LICHTMAN: Yeah. It was a beautiful...

FLATOW: Wow.

LICHTMAN: Just for that, it might be worth looking.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: And check out all of other Desktop Diaries. We've done so many over the years. You know, Temple Grandin, Oliver Sacks, many - E.O. Wilson.

FLATOW: Many Desktop Diary - E.O. Wilson and they're there. And if you think - do you think you know what's on Brian Greene's desktop, for example, another spare one, right?

LICHTMAN: Exactly. I think...

I remember the Brian Greene shoot vividly when I got there and I said there's nothing here. We're in this (unintelligible). But other ones, we have lots of trinkets.

FLATOW: Lots of...

LICHTMAN: And they really end up being a kind of nice - they are windows to people's soul.

FLATOW: And we have a couple in the works, right?

LICHTMAN: We do. Jill Tarter. We met with who - you heard on the program last week and Tim White. So look forward to the - more coming up.

FLATOW: And they make up trinkets what we didn't have on the desktop this time. All right.

LICHTMAN: Thanks, Ira.

FLATOW: Thank you, Flora.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/17/184775922/desktop-diaries-daniel-kahneman?ft=1&f=1007

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Sociologist Lyn Spillman Awarded Two Book Prizes // News ...

Lyn Spillman, a professor in Notre Dame?s Department of Sociology, has been awarded two book prizes from the American Sociological Association for her work Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations (University of Chicago Press).

The Mary Douglas Prize honors the best book in the field of cultural sociology, and the Viviana Zelizer Award recognizes the best book in economic sociology.

Winning ?best book? awards in both economic sociology and cultural sociology is no easy feat, says Professor Rory McVeigh, department chair. ?It is not unlike producing a spirit of bipartisanship in Congress. It takes extraordinary scholarship to bridge these two fields of study so effectively.

?While winning these two awards is very impressive, I am quite certain that this is just the beginning in terms of awards and recognition for Solidarity in Strategy,? he adds. ?This is one of those rare books that people will still be reading and discussing in sociology graduate seminars 50 years from now.?

Exploring New Territory

Solidarity in Strategy is one of the first in-depth explorations of the role of trade associations in economic culture.

Supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Spillman compiled her own database of more than 4,400 associations. She then chose 25 groups to study further, collecting information about their activities and analyzing their business culture from multiple points of view.

According to Spillman, the function of trade associations is much more collegial than cutthroat. The primary focus of these disparate groups?including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the International Concrete Repair Institute?is to promote camaraderie, professionalism, and sociability. Her findings challenge the idea that capitalism is motivated solely by the pursuit of profit and self-interest.

?Even at the heart of capitalist business, culture is important,? she says. ?A purely strategic approach isn?t sustainable.?

Affecting Economic Outcomes

Spillman has long been intrigued by economic sociology, she says. ?As a sociologist, I?m struck by the fact that economic actions like working, buying, selling, saving, and giving are a fundamental part of everyday life. All spheres of society, from family to religion to politics, involve economic action, and social groups can affect economic outcomes.?

The financial crisis in 2008 brought a new wave of interest to the growing field, she says.

Capitalizing on that interest and drawing on her research for Solidarity in Strategy, Spillman designed and began teaching a new undergraduate class on economic sociology. ?There is always great discussion in that class, and a nice mix of students, including business and economics majors as well as sociology majors.?

Spillman also brings her research into courses on cultural sociology, her primary area of interest and expertise. ?Now, when I teach that,? she says, ?I include a whole new topic?economic life?to explore how and why culture is important.?

Contributing to Two Fields

Spillman is continuing her work in economic sociology with two new research initiatives. One project, which builds on a theme from her book, explores how culture influences the degree to which people are driven by profit and self-interest.

The other project examines how the media presents economic issues. ?I?m working together with a group exploring the norms and values that emerge when topics like foreign investment, financial innovations, corporate social responsibility, and inequality are discussed in the media,? she says.

In August, Spillman will attend the American Sociological Association?s annual meeting, where she will be presented with both prizes for Solidarity in Strategy.

?I?m thrilled and honored to win these awards,? she says. ?I am a cultural sociologist first and foremost and wanted to make a contribution to both cultural and economic sociology.

?Economic sociology is such an exciting field right now, and the recognition of my colleagues really means a lot.?

with contributions from Sara Burnett

Learn More >

Source: http://al.nd.edu/news/40069-sociologist-lyn-spillman-awarded-two-book-prizes/

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The Indigo Girl's Amy Ray Talks Performance, Tattoos, and ...

If you want to be a song writer, you gotta spend a lot of time writing. If you want a following, you've got to spend time touring.

Read More: amy ray, Indigo Girls, interviews, Q&A, virginia symphony

The Indigo Girls Amy Ray (Left) and?Emily Saliers (Right)

The Indigo Girl?s are returning to?Virginia?for a number of shows this season. The usually?acoustic?folk duo, known for their powerful lyrics, political message, and song writing prowess, will play in Norfolk May 31st with the Virginia Symphony at the Chrysler Hall (GET TICKETS HERE)?as part of a select few dates?accompanied?by a cities native ensemble. Amy Ray, one half of the openly lesbian Indigo Girls, spoke with GayRVA over the phone to discuss their many Virginia shows, her?experience?with symphonies, Richmond tattoos, and her long history with grassroots activism.

?

GayRVA: You?re playing with the VA Symphony, how did you all set that up?

Amy Ray: We?ve been doing these symphony shows for the last year. We met an organization called CMI that puts pop artists together with symphonies. They helped with arraignments, and we got 19 songs done. We got the sheet music, the scores, and the symphony gets it ahead of time. We show up and run through it one time and then perform it live that night. It?s a lot of fun, but you never know whats gonna happen. Its exciting and challenging, its been really awesome for us, to get on our toes and all.

?You all rely so much on acoustic guitars, and your shows can be very intimate, do you like these large ensembles or prefer the closer, smaller settings when you play live?

The symphony is a whole other thing ? its 70-100 people playing behind you ? its very large. Its an incredible experience; the biggest band you?ll ever play with. It feels super intimate because the audience picks up on the fact that you?ve had one practice that afternoon and you?re seeing each other for the first time ? so there is a vulnerability to the show. There?s a lot of people playing, but theres this?vulnerability, so I think there is an intimacy that still exists, that vulnerability makes it intimate, it?s very emotional.

You all are playing 3 times here in VA in the next month, how did that work out?

I don?t now, I don?t think about tour markets really? we go through cycles were we play ares a lot, and then we wont come back for a while. But we?ve played Norfolk and Richmond for years. We don?t get to play Charlottesville that much, so its always fun to pop back there. And of course, Wolf Trap, we play almost every summer ? and its a great venue and its a fun gig.

Obviously there has been a lot going on with LGBT issues, and marriage equality specifically. Do you feel, as LGBT issues advance, do you feel LGBT music and musicians have advanced? You all have been involved in this cause for some time, but do you feel like the rest of the music industry has caught up?

?

It?s interesting because there?s still radio and media that hang on to the old model of demographics and market research and i don?t think its going anywhere. And these systems are inherently homophobic still. It distills everything to these numbers and demographics and there is still so much homophobia in our society, even though we?ve made all these advancements. Anybody that has any ind of if otherness to them, if they are a minority, or if they are gay, anything, gets sort of put in this category of otherness and does not get promoted the same way, to be honest.

I think, in the old model, there?s still a lot of that going on, but the new model, with the internet and online radio and shows that try and bring attention to bands that aren?t looked at as much, there?s a new set of gatekeepers, if you will. Both of these things are going on simultaneously right now. Just like our country, were you can have a president that is pro-gay rights, but then you can still have towns and parts of the US that have very backward laws and haven?t evolved yet, figured it out, or gotten brave enough. It can be polarizing when you?re in the middle of a movement, and things are kind of changing rapidly. It can be very polarizing when people aren?t very comfortable with change and they react as such.

In music, yea know, I still have young musician friends that are afraid to come out, and so that really hasn?t changed. And they come out in their personal lives, and its not like the heaviness that existed in the 80?s when we thought we would all lose our familes. That still happens, yea know? But the focus they are having now is more pragmatic and business focused. ?I don?t want to be put in a niche, I wanna be seen for my music and not my gayness? and thats kind of the conversation that?s always going on.

You?ve got a number of tattoos, and you know Richmond is kind of at tattoo town?

I knew that actually

Yea, we have something like the highest tattoos parlors per capita. But what do your tattoos mean to you? Why do you have tattoos??

I don?t get them on a whim? at all, I don?t have a bunch of little ones, I have a few big ones. A huge one on my arm, a big one on my back and chest, and one on my fore arm. Most of them are pretty big, and they took a long time to do ? 25 hours total for one ? and for me they mark either a death, or a love, or the big things in life, you know? I?ve often wanted to, on a whim, get a little tattoo in every city, but i never have time.

That would be bad ass, there?s a tumblr in there somewhere..

I know, right? (laughs)

We got a question from one of our readers, Amanda Capley asks whats the most important life lesson you?ve learned, what advice would you give someone after all your years of experience??

Listening is more important that talking, but everyone knows that, thats like something your mom would teach you but you don?t believe it till you?re in your 50?s (laughs).

I think its that there is no one way to do things ? that?s what I?ve really learned. There?s no one formula to get successful or have a career. I think the core of it is, if you want to be a song writer, you gotta spend a lot of time writing. If you want a following, you?ve got to spend time touring. And how you achieve that is your own thing ? everyone goes about it differently.

So what are you listening to these days? Anything important you think people should be catching on to?

Oh god, there?s so much good music (laughs) I?m constantly excited about music, I need to make a list. Some friends of mine are in a band, there young, the are all 17-21, called Of Razzel Tomorrow, they remind me of R.E.M. or Elvis Costello, really throw back pop songwriting ? pop alt. Mitch Easter just produced a record for them and it?s really good. I listen to that a lot. I like that new country alt group, Shovels and Rope, i really like them a lot. They are really good, i like what they?re doing.

So you?ve been involved in LGBT and human rights issues for some time, and I know the LGBT movement has changed a lot of the years. Specifically, this pursuit of marriage equality differs from earlier concerns over health care and greater human rights ? what do you think of this change in priorities, from social justice issues to marriage equality??

I?ll say I?ve thought that in the past, I?ve been one of the people who have not wanted to put all my energy into marriage equality, and spend more time on issues about racism and classism within our own community ? suicide rates among queer youth, and drug abuse ? this hard core grassroots community stuff.

In the past, I felt like the marriage equality issue was a sort of a middle-class white issue, but i don?t feel that way as much right now.

When you look at it, yea now, HRC was so big in the marriage equality movement and they are so associated with this big corporate, moneyed movement, while the grassroots groups were working on the hardcore street issues that were very hard. But, of late, I?ve felt like many of the grass roots groups have managed to find an inroad into why marriage equality is important around immigration issues.

If you marry these two things together, you?ve got so many gay families that are separated because of immigration issues, and when you look at how hard it is, as two gay people aren?t married, to protect each other, issues around kids and adoption, hospitalization, and health care benefits ? issues that can save money for people who don?t have a lot. ?In that way, I think it is sort of a multi-class issue. The reality is, If you can?t get married, there?s a lot of things you can?t do that cost a lot of money to protect your families.

So my thinking has expanded a lot, and I think when marriage equality is recognized, it trickles down and makes people more comfortable with other LGBT issues. I?m definitely an advocate of pouring resources into these communities where people are still getting murdered because they?re gay, or beat up cause they?re trans. These are hardcore issues that are still very important to me ? Issues around race, someone who?s gay and hispanic, and undocumented- there?s a lot piled onto that one person.

Its hard for a lot of folks, especially in Virginia, were we can?t even get equal protections for LGBT state employees ? We?ve covered general assembly meetings here at GayRVA where politicians are sitting there ignoring people pouring their hearts out about how they don?t feel safe at work.?

The real fight is on the community level, and Richmond has always made me think, yea know, about good progressive folks who are fighting the good fight, swimming up stream (laughs)

I remember, the little north george town I live in, its so hard in that way. About 4 years ago, we had a town meeting. There;s a military college near me and this guy who had been an officer was asked to leave because he was gay. So the military came and held this meeting And people from both sides of the issue got 2 minutes to talk and you weren?t allowed to insult anyone.

Oh wow..

It was so interesting ? everyone lined up and sat on their side and we all knew each other. And it was great ? it was a great dialog. I learned a lot about why people feel the way they do about gay people, and they learned a lot about me. If we can just keep having those dialogs, thats where the real evolution comes. I believe in the small format, important community stuff.

Source: http://www.gayrva.com/arts-culture/the-indigo-girls-amy-ray-talks-performance-tattoos-and-grassroots-activism/

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Through the eyes of a burglar: Study provides insights on habits and motivations, importance of security

May 16, 2013 ? One way to understand what motivates and deters burglars is to ask them. UNC Charlotte researcher Joseph Kuhns from the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology did just that. He led a research team that gathered survey responses from more than 400 convicted offenders that resulted in an unprecedented look into the minds of burglars, providing insight into intruders' motivations and methods.

The study, "Understanding Decisions to Burglarize from the Offender's Perspective," was funded by the Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation (AIREF), under the auspices of the Electronic Security Association (ESA), the largest trade association for the electronic life safety and security industry.

"This study broadens our understanding of burglars, their motivations and their techniques," Kuhns said. "It also helps us to understand gender differences in offending motivations and techniques. By asking the burglars what motivates and what deters them, we believe this research can help people better understand how to protect themselves against these crimes and help law enforcement more effectively respond."

In addition to Kuhns, other researchers were Kristie Blevins, Ph.D., Eastern Kentucky University; and Seungmug "Zech" Lee, Ph.D., Western Illinois University. UNC Charlotte students Alex Sawyers and Brittany Miller also assisted.

The researchers delved into the decision-making processes and methods of 422 incarcerated male and female burglars selected at random from state prison systems in North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio. This investigation explored offender motivation; target selection considerations; deterrence factors; burglars' techniques; and gender differences in motivations, target selection and techniques.

Findings included:

? When selecting a target, most burglars said they considered the close proximity of other people -- including traffic, people in the house or business, and police officers; the lack of escape routes; and signs of increased security -- including alarm signs, alarms, dogs inside, and outdoor cameras or other surveillance equipment.

? Approximately 83 percent said they would try to determine if an alarm was present before attempting a burglary, and 60 percent said they would seek an alternative target if there was an alarm on-site. This was particularly true among the subset of burglars who were more likely to spend time deliberately and carefully planning a burglary.

? Among those who discovered the presence of an alarm while attempting a burglary, half reported they would discontinue the attempt, while another 31 percent said they would sometimes retreat. Only 13 percent said they would always continue with the burglary attempt.

? Respondents indicated their top reasons for committing burglaries was related to the need to acquire drugs (51 percent) or money (37 percent), which was often used to support drug habits. Only one burglar indicated interest in stealing firearms, which is a common misperception.

? About half reported burglarizing homes primarily, while 31 percent typically committed commercial burglaries.

? Most burglars reported entering open windows or doors or forcing windows or doors open. About one in eight burglars reported picking locks or using a key that they had previously acquired to gain entry.

? About 12 percent indicated that they typically planned the burglary in advance, 41 percent suggested it was most often a "spur of the moment" event, and the other 37 percent reported that it varied.

A considerable portion of the research dealt with differences between male and female burglars. For example, men tended to plan their burglaries more deliberately and were more likely to gather intelligence about a potential target ahead of time. Women appeared to be more impulsive overall, engaging in "spur-of-the-moment" burglaries.

Women also indicated a preference for burglarizing homes and residences during the afternoon, while men tended to focus on businesses in the late evenings. Drug use was the most frequently reported motive given by women, at 70 percent, while men cited money as their main motivation.

In one consistent finding across males and females, alarms and surveillance equipment had similar impact on target selection. However, female burglars were more often dissuaded from attempting a burglary if they noticed signs suggesting that a particular location was protected by alarms.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/consumer_behavior/~3/nOCA3Z7o1Zw/130516160916.htm

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