We know that Samsung's tablet line is growing quickly when the Galaxy Note 8.0 is shipping, the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 exists and an 8-inch Tab 3 may come soon. The company must want to drive the point home, however: it just passed another slate, the GT-P5210, through the FCC's approval process. The filing carries few details, but it's enough to confirm a 10-inch screen, a WiFi-only variant and a model name in line with the Galaxy Tab 3 family (the 7-inch unit is the P3210). There aren't any telltale signs of a rumored Atom processor, though. We're mostly wondering when the P5210 will launch in earnest. Logic suggests that Samsung's June 20th event is a good candidate, but the tech giant doesn't always wait for big occasions to release big devices.
EE, the UK's only 4G LTE carrier has announced another round of expansions, taking their total coverage up to 74 towns across the country and over 50% population coverage. The latest list sees another 13 towns in various areas of the country supported by 4G LTE.
EE customers in Ashton-under-Lyne, Chatham, Gillingham, High Wycombe, Merthyr Tydfil, Oldham, Oxford, Rochester, Runcorn, Sale, Stafford and Wigan should now be seeing 4G LTE. This follows on from the announcement of their new, 30-day LTE SIM-only contracts that offer the chance to try 4G for themselves without the weight of a long contract.
These regular expansions from EE are good news for their customers, and we still wait on for their rivals to launch their own LTE networks. Recently Vodafone stated they were aiming for a September launch, in part through not wanting to launch 4G without the iPhone. The iPhone 5 will currently only support EE LTE in the UK.
So, anyone seeing LTE for the first time on their EE iPhone 5? What do you think of the speeds you're seeing?
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2013 photo, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at a gun violence summit at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, where he outlined his proposals for federal gun control reforms. Police said Wednesday, May 29, 2013, that threatening letters containing traces of the poison ricin were opened Friday, May 24, 2013 at New York City?s mail sorting facility and Sunday, May 26, in Washington at the headquarters of the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Both were addressed to Bloomberg and contained threats referencing the debate on gun laws. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2013 photo, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at a gun violence summit at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, where he outlined his proposals for federal gun control reforms. Police said Wednesday, May 29, 2013, that threatening letters containing traces of the poison ricin were opened Friday, May 24, 2013 at New York City?s mail sorting facility and Sunday, May 26, in Washington at the headquarters of the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Both were addressed to Bloomberg and contained threats referencing the debate on gun laws. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Two threatening letters containing traces of the deadly poison ricin were sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and his gun-control group in Washington, police said Wednesday.
The anonymous letters were opened in New York on Friday at the city's mail facility in Manhattan and in Washington on Sunday at an office used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, police said.
Chief New York Police spokesman Paul Browne said preliminary testing indicted the presence of ricin in both letters but that more testing would be done. He said the threats contained references to the debate on gun laws and an oily pinkish-orange substance.
The billionaire mayor has emerged as one of the country's most potent gun-control advocates, able to press his case with both his public position and his private money.
The people who initially came into contact with the letters showed no symptoms of exposure to the poison, but three officers who later examined the New York letter experienced minor symptoms that have since abated, police said.
Browne would not comment on what specific threats were made or where the letters were postmarked. He also wouldn't say whether they were handwritten or typed and whether investigators believe they were sent by the same person.
The letters were the latest in a string of toxin-laced missives. In Washington state, a 37-year-old was charged last week with threatening to kill a federal judge in a letter that contained ricin. About a month earlier, letters containing the substance were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man was arrested in that case.
Federal officials and NYPD were investigating. Browne would not say whether the letters were believed to be linked to any other recent ricin cases.
Police said the letter in Washington, D.C., was opened by Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He was working out of the offices of The Raben Group, a Washington lobbying firm where he keeps an office. Glaze happened to open the letter while sitting outside over the Memorial Day weekend, said the firm's founder, Robert Raben.
"I'm very concerned about our employees and co-workers and clients. I'm sorry that we live in a world in which people do such awful things. Thank God, right now, everybody's physically fine," Raben said by phone Wednesday, adding that the firm would do whatever needed to ensure safety.
A mayor's spokesman also speaking for the nonprofit said he had no comment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. Symptoms can include difficulty breathing, vomiting and redness on the skin depending on how the affected person comes into contact with the poison.
Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which now counts more than 700 mayors nationwide as members. It lobbies federal and state lawmakers, and it aired a spate of television ads this year urging Congress to expand background checks and pass other gun-control measures after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The background check proposal failed in a Senate vote in April, and other measures gun-control advocates wanted ? including a ban on sales of military-style assault weapons ? went by the wayside.
Separately, Bloomberg also has made political donations to candidates who share his desire for tougher gun restrictions. His super PAC, Independence USA, put $2.2 million into a Democratic primary this winter for a congressional seat in Illinois, for example. Bloomberg's choice, former state lawmaker Robin Kelly, won the primary and the seat.
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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
At CES eyeIO claimed its software suite was "studio grade" 4K ready and it will be put to the test soon, since Sony Pictures is licensing it to deliver movies to the FMP-X1 4K media player this summer. Sony didn't have any more details to reveal about its 4K delivery plans just yet, but eyeIO's press release claims its tech is being used on 4K video (3,840 x 2,160) encodes with support for extended color gamut. Besides easier downloading / streaming on bandwidth-constrained connections, it also helps out on the server side by requiring less storage space and distributing files more efficiently. Netflix is another recent licensee of the tech, and while not all responses to some of its new streams have been positive, we'll wait and see what it can push to Sony's $699 box and the Sony 4K TVs it attaches to.
During the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union built up a network of "Naukograd" or "Science Cities". These were state-created clusters of scientists working on technologies that could help it compete with the West, especially in the field of nuclear weapons and space exploration. Those days are of course long gone, but today Russia - though now freed from the days of the old USSR - now faces a new race: how to revive its economy, compete globally in the next industrial revolution of science and technology and wean itself off its reliance on oil and gas.
Once a child turns 18, parents lose the legal ability to make decisions for their child or even to find out basic information.? Learning you cannot see your college student?s grades without his/her permission can be mildly frustrating, but a medical emergency can take this frustration to a completely different level.? The parents (or a sibling or another person) will probably have to go to court and ask for permission to obtain information about the student?s medical condition, be able to make decisions about treatment, and have access to the student?s financial records and accounts.
The following legal documents allow anyone, including a young adult, to name another person to make medical and financial decisions if someone is unable to make them for themself.? The person(s) selected should be someone the young adult knows and trusts, and a candid discussion should occur now so they know what their wishes would be. Everyone over the age of 18 should have them.
Parents may want to set an appointment with their attorney after each child?s 18th birthday.? Having these documents in place does not mean anyone expects to use them, but everyone will be glad to have them should they be needed.
?In the Event of Incapacity
*??? A Durable Power of Attorney for Heath Care gives another person legal authority to make health care decisions (including life and death decisions) if you are unable to make them for yourself.
*??? A Durable Financial Power of Attorney gives another person legal authorityto manage your assets without court interference.? A ?regular? power of attorney ends at incapacity; a ?durable? power of attorney remains valid through incapacity.? Your attorney can write it in such a way that it does not go into effect until you become incapacitated.
*??? HIPPA Authorizations give your doctors permission to discuss your medical situation with others, including family members and other loved ones.
?In the Event of Death
Most young adults do not have substantial assets, so a simple will is probably all that is needed.? It will let the young adult designate who should receive his/her assets and belongings in the event of death.? Otherwise, the laws of the state in which the young adult lives will determine this and that may not be what anyone would want.
After the Documents Have Been Signed
A little housecleaning will probably be in order.? It is important that the designated person knows where to find financial records and passwords if needed.? The young adult should consider making a list of accounts and passwords (including her computer?s password), print the list and put it in a safe place; a hard copy is important in case the computer is lost or stolen.? If an online back-up system is used, be sure to include it.? Don?t forget online accounts and social media.? If there is anything the young adult does not want someone (think, parents) to see, either get rid of it now or ask a friend to delete files or remove things if something happens.? Finally, the young adult should update these documents as life changes.
Diy ?s been around as long as there has been structures in which folks have lived in. Complete thing . our homes to become comfortable and appearance beautiful, and sometimes the only way to make it happen would be to do a little updating. You can reading to identify a few good do-it-yourself tricks for this modern age of technology and convenience.
To wear up a space, add new custom light fixtures. Altering your current custom light fixtures to upgraded fixtures can provide more light when compared with you already possess. An electrician can change your lights with a newer style for any relatively cheap price. It?s also possible to add pendant lights over your sinks. http://electrician-pros-northhills.info/northhills-electrical-services.php
A lot of people don?t believe with their circuit breakers until they lose power unexpectedly. Among the best actions to boost the safety and efficiency in your home would be to regularly try out your breakers by switching them don and doff at least once yearly. This clears the breaker contacts of the built-up corrosion and lets them work more effectively and safely. If your breakers frequently trip, this may indicate potential safety issues that require an electrician.
The days of calling a plumber or electrician for minor household repairs are gone, not to mention the outrageous costs. Today, countless websites are dedicated to sharing how-to how-to?s, in a way that is easily understood by even the most reluctant handyman. You will find step-by-step directions and a lot of also, include video demonstrations.
Consider finding a professional to perform the electrical work for your home improvement project. It may look like simple to change out a local store from two prongs to a few, but should you be unfamiliar with electrical work, the safest thing to do is on an electrician keep up with the rewiring for you personally.
Use bartering to complete your more-ambitious do-it-yourself goals. If you aren?t an electrician, but would love new outlets wired in, research on the web for bartering opportunities in the area and don?t be shy to produce your offers. Would certainly be astonished at what number of very skilled tradespeople are able to exchange their skills for many home-baked goods, an excellent carwash and wax job, or possibly some computer lessons or website work.
If you aren?t a skilled electrician, do not attempt and do the electrical work yourself. You might be tempted to run a lot of extension cords, or change the quantity of prongs with an outlet, but you shouldn?t attempt it because it is usually dangerous if you undertake it incorrectly. For safety, engage a professional electrician to perform all the electrical work. www.electrician-pros-northhills.info/northhills-electrical-services.php
Be sure to have a contractor or electrician install a power outlet within the cabinet above where the microwave should go. Unless you make this happen, you?ll be struggling to find a location to plug it in during or after setting up the microwave and hood vent.
With careful reasearch and planning, any given strength training do a little do-it-yourself with good results. It isn?t always as easy as it?s though, and one should continue but be careful. It?s not hard to end up in an undertaking and discover it is much more costly and complex of computer looked in the beginning.
We count down the best-reviewed work of the Now You See Me star.
If you were asked to name one actor capable of playing ex-cons, hitmen, and God, you'd be hard pressed to do any better than Morgan Freeman -- which is, probably not coincidentally, why he's played all those characters (among many others) over the course of his distinguished, nearly 50-year career. And even as he reaches the half-century mark as a professional actor, Freeman shows no signs of slowing down; in fact, this weekend's Now You See Me is just one of an incredible six films he's slated to appear in this year. All of which explains why we were shocked and appalled to realize we'd never given Mr. Freeman the Total Recall treatment, and knew we needed to seize upon this opportunity to repent. Hey you guys, it's time for Total Recall!
85%
On the surface, it looks like just another buddy cop movie -- in fact, with its "retiring detective partnered with unorthodox rookie" setup, it could have been a Lethal Weapon ripoff. Of course, as we all now know, David Fincher's Se7en brought its own dark twist to the genre, plunging the viewer into a bottomless pit of sorrow, rage, and moral decay -- and ultimately refusing to help them climb out at the end. Wringing mesmerizing performances from Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Kevin Spacey, Fincher enveloped audiences with an overwhelming sense of mounting gloom and dread, finally driving home the brutal loss of innocence and compassion suffered by everyone in the film. Though some critics took issue with Se7en's constant gloom and grisly violence, most scribes echoed the sentiments of Netflix's James Rocchi, who called it "a harrowingly bleak vision that haunted me in the theatres and made my flesh slick with fear even on this recent re-viewing."
85%
Handed the keys to the moribund Batman film franchise, director Christopher Nolan shucked off the cartoonish overtones of recent big-screen incarnations and boiled the character's mythos down to its essence, resulting in one of the most realistic superhero movies ever. Thankfully, Nolan didn't skimp on action-packed pyrotechnics, and as the suitably suave and tortured Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale added a greater emotional heft to the Caped Crusader (he was also ably abetted by the likes of Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, and Gary Oldman). Batman Begins signaled a bold new beginning for the franchise, and was a huge hit with audiences and pundits alike. "It's a wake-up call to the people who keep giving us cute capers about men in tights," wrote Kyle Smith of the New York Post. "It wipes the smirk off the face of the superhero movie."
87%
It goes without saying that pretty much nobody ever bought a ticket to one of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies because Morgan Freeman was part of the cast, but by the time the highly anticipated conclusion The Dark Knight Rises rolled around in 2012, it came as something of a comforting relief to see Freeman on the screen -- especially given the somewhat harrowing bleakness of Rises' storyline, which pitted Batman (Christian Bale) against a psychotic, freakishly strong supervillain named Bane (Tom Hardy). "Yes, The Dark Knight Rises," applauded Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News. "And rises. And rises some more."
89%
It isn't especially well-remembered today -- and for Freeman fans, it offers our hero the mostly thankless role of a police lieutenant who's embroiled in a murder case that's also being investigated by a TV reporter (Sigourney Weaver) and a janitor (William Hurt) -- but with that killer cast and a bit of expert late-period direction from Bullitt director Peter Yates, 1981's Eyewitness is the sort of perfectly serviceable cat-and-mouse mystery thriller that'll help you pass a painless 103 minutes on your next lazy Saturday afternoon. "Every scene develops characters," mused Roger Ebert. "And they're developed in such offbeat fidelity to the way people do behave that we get all the more involved in the mystery, just because, for once, we halfway believe it could really be happening."
90%
For Morgan Freeman fans, The Shawshank Redemption is the one movie that has it all: Plenty of kindly old wisdom for his character to impart, lots of meaningful drama prompting deep sighs and knowing smiles, and -- of course -- Freeman's expert narration tying the whole thing together. Oh, and also? This Frank Darabont adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a wrongfully imprisoned convict (Tim Robbins) whose years in lockup aren't enough to break his indomitable spirit is also really, really good. It wasn't a huge hit during its initial release, but from its painful opening act to its triumphant closing moments, Shawshank is an acknowledged classic -- and a longtime favorite for critics like Janet Maslin of the New York Times, who sighed, "Without a single riot scene or horrific effect, it tells a slow, gentle story of camaraderie and growth, with an ending that abruptly finds poetic justice in what has come before."
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Darkness or additional domain names employed for search engine results positioning reasons
Pages set up merely to rank highly with no or little use to your customers
Pages that quickly direct to another page or website
Hidden text or links.
Thing that is shown one by any page to another and an internet search engine to your users
Copy pages
Be sure to ask the search engine submission business for evidence of benefits obtained for their own site with their customers. Watch out for any company using any illegal tactics for temporary success; in fact, it is very likely that they can be banned from the most crucial se?s in time.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Chinese hackers stole the blueprints of Australia's new spy agency headquarters years ago and the breach has been dealt with since then, an opposition lawmaker said Wednesday in the first confirmation of media reports.
"These events did take place some time ago," senior opposition lawmaker George Brandis told Sky News television after a confidential briefing with Australian Security Intelligence Organization officials.
"I can say this is a very serious matter; ASIO has dealt with it; beyond that I'm not sure that there's a lot I can say," he added.
The 630 million Australian dollar ($608 million) building housing the headquarters of Australia's main spy agency is near completion in the national capital.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. television had reported on Monday night that a cyberattack on a building contractor exposed plans such as communications cabling, server locations and security systems and was traced to a Chinese server.
The government has refused to discuss specifics on the matter. When Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Parliament the ABC report was "inaccurate" on Tuesday, she refused to go into any detail.
Brandis later demanded and got a confidential briefing with ASIO Director-General David Irvine. And while he wouldn't discuss what was said, he disputed Gillard's statement.
"She said the allegations are false; that claim is wrong," Brandis said.
The government responded by criticizing Brandis for discussing in the media a confidential security briefing.
The ABC reported that China could use the blueprints to bug the building.
Des Ball, an Australian National University cybersecurity expert, told the ABC that given the breach, ASIO would either have to operate with "utmost sensitivity" within its own building or simply "rip the whole insides out and ... start again."
But The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday that the plans were stolen at least three years ago and the agency's operations were no longer at risk.
In an unsourced report, the newspaper said the breach occurred in 2009 or 2010. Although construction began in 2008, the discovery of the breach meant that ASIO had the opportunity to alter the designs of the building to reduce the risk of espionage.
The lakeside glass and concrete structure was to be completed in 2012, but has faced construction delays and cost blowouts since it was initially budgeted to cost AU$460 million.
Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, the minister in charge of the spy agency, said ASIO will move in this year.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China opposed hacking in any form and questioned what evidence the ABC report relied on.
"Since it is technically untraceable, it is very difficult to find the source and identify the hacker," Hong said. "Therefore we have no idea what is the evidence for their report in which they make the claim with such certainty."
He said countries needed to cooperate to fight hacking. "Groundless accusations won't solve the problem," Hong said.
ASIO has grown rapidly since the al-Qaida attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and needs the new headquarters to house its growing staff that has trebled to almost 1,800 in a decade.
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AP researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report from Beijing.
May 29, 2013 ? Writing in the International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, UK researchers have investigated how drivers are affected emotionally by the sounds in their car other than the noise of the engine and the road in particular the voice of their satellite navigation system (satnav).
In the 2009 Christmas special of well-known British situation comedy, The Royle Family, saw protagonists -- Denise and Dave -- arguing about whether Dave had been flirting with the satnav "lady" giving him directions to Prestatyn. It's a humorous take on our current obsession with being led along the highways and byways and our intolerance of map books, cartophobia, and pours scorn on how many of us adopt such novel technologies without even a basic understanding of their inner workings.
There is nevertheless a serious side to understanding how we interact with technology that can improve design of hardware, software and interfaces. Improved design might lead to greater understanding and accessibility. While it might not preclude in-car arguments with back-seat drivers, it might ultimately reduce the number of drivers losing their way.
Writing in the International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, UK researchers have investigated how drivers are affected emotionally by the sounds in their car other than the noise of the engine and the road. They point out that the almost ubiquitous satellite navigation system (satnav) provides realistic vocal utterances during driving. Most devices allow one to change the voice from male to female and vice versa, to have accented voices and even to choose from celebrity voices who have recorded the range of driving instructions, presumably for a well-negotiated vocal fee.
Engineers David Large and Gary Burnett of the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham, UK, recruited fifty volunteers to test their preferences and responses to different satnav voices. The tests were carried out in the safety of the scientific laboratory rather than while the volunteers were driving. They tested 12 satnav voices from the well-known Garmin and TomTom systems, vocalising 36 messages. They asked the volunteers to complete a psychometric test known as a seven-point Likert-style scale to categorise the different vocalisations -- male, female, character and celebrity -- according to how their perceived clarity of speech, their assertiveness, trustworthiness, annoyance level, how distracting they were and whether or not the volunteers would choose a particular voice for everyday use in their own satnav while driving.
The researchers report that there was a strong positive correlation among the volunteers between the ratings for trustworthiness, assertiveness and clarity of the satnav voices and whether the volunteers would use that voice. Perhaps obviously there was a strong negative correlation between whether they would choose a particular voice if they considered it to be annoying or distracting in any way. Intriguingly, the team demonstrated that for their small group of volunteers, they certainly endowed the satnav voices with personality traits even though the device is not a real person and many of the voices were computer generated.
The voices included "Tim" and "Jane" the English UK default male and female voices. Garmin's default voice and popular celebrity voice downloads -- John Cleese, Joanna Lumley, Kim Cattrall and Snoop Dogg. Two character voices "Knight Rider's KITT," a heavily synthesised character voice and that of Star Wars character Yoda with its peculiarity of sentence structure in which object precedes subject, which in turn precedes verb. Most instructions would be of the form: "You must take the first exit" whereas for the latter character voice this would be "The first exit you must take." The team describes the Yoda voice as "unique and rich with character" and "having the potential to distract, entertain and annoy," hence its inclusion among more conventional satnav voices.
"The study has demonstrated that not only do people automatically assign human-personality type characteristics to voices, but that these responses can be initiated with minimal cues and even when the voice is of computer origin and delivering routine navigational instructions," the researchers say. "Furthermore, people respond differently to different voices and make attributions based on these responses. This suggests that the social rules governing human-human interaction may also apply to human-computer interactions," they add. Such findings could have implications for the safety of any driver using a satnav and in particular professional drivers. But there are wider implications too for the use of voices, human or synthesised, in technology and robotics and how people respond to and interact with those technologies.
The hypothesis is kind of intuitive: Kids like sugary things. And since medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2009, inventive entrepreneurs have been lacing sugary things with pot. Kids can't resist sugary things, especially if they are Grandpa's?forbidden "special treats." They'll steal them, eat them, start feeling all funny inside, and maybe end up at the hospital.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Six explosions battered Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods across Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and extending a descent into the worst sectarian violence since the civil war five years ago.
The bloodletting reflects increasing tensions between Iraq's majority Shi'ite political leaders and the Sunni minority, many of whom believe they have been unfairly treated since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.
But the civil war in Syria between Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam, has aggravated the strife in Iraq. Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqi fighters alike have been crossing the border to fight on opposing sides in Syria.
No group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attacks, but Sunni Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda's Iraqi wing have increased their operations since the beginning of the year as part of a campaign to exacerbate inter-communal tensions.
A car bomb exploded in the mainly Sunni district of Binoog in north Baghdad, killing at least four people. Throughout Thursday, five other bombs killed ten people in mainly Shi'ite and Sunni districts across the capital, police said.
A further seven people, including three policemen, were killed in clashes between gunmen and security forces in the northern city of Mosul, officials said.
The surge in violence began in April when Iraqi forces raided a Sunni protest camp in the northern town of Hawija, angering Sunni leaders and triggering clashes that spread across the country.
More than 1,100 people have been killed since then, raising the risk of a relapse into outright sectarian warfare like that which killed thousands of people in 2006-2007.
Security officials blame Sunni Islamists and al Qaeda's local wing, the Islamic State of Iraq, for most of the violence.
Thousands of Sunnis have protested weekly in the streets in western provinces since December, and the country's government - split among Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurds - is caught up in disputes over how to share power.
Many Sunnis accuse Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, of sidelining their sect to shore up Shi'ite power. Shi'ite leaders counter that many Sunni leaders are working to scuttle power-sharing agreements.
Attempts to defuse the political crisis have been hampered by deep divisions within the Sunni political leadership where moderates who favor negotiations have sometimes been targeted by hardliners who want Maliki to step down.
The Sunni governors of Anbar and Salahuddin provinces both escaped assassination attempts on Thursday when their convoys were targeted by car bombs. Both men, who were unhurt, have been cooperating with Maliki to try to overcome Sunni discontent.
(Additional reporting by Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad and a reporter in Mosul; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Learning some new homemade crafts and creative hobbies can be both satisfying and exciting. And if you're looking for a little inspiration we have some exciting and creative ideas to choose from.
Even if you don't consider yourself the naturally creative type, with our easy to follow crafts you'll soon be expressing yourself and clearing a space for your memorabilia, no matter what your age or ability!
Many of these will make wonderful gifts for friends and family, and they'll save you a bundle as well! So get in touch with your forgotten creativity, fan the flames of inspiration, and get to work!
Venice Biennale seeks to capture the "unruly" world of art
LONDON (Reuters) - Blocks of ice from the Bahamas, cardboard bed clothes from Iraq and a thumping Vatican heartbeat will help the 2013 Venice Biennale attempt to capture the "unruly" world of art. The rich diversity of unexpected sights and sounds at the world's largest non-commercial art exhibition are partly a result of sheer numbers, with shows from 88 countries installed across the canal city in time for this week's opening.
Giant garbage patches of the sea become "national" art in Venice
VENICE (Reuters) - Five huge patches of rubbish floating in seas around the world will have their own unofficial national pavilion on the sidelines of the world's largest non-commercial art fair in Venice this week, thanks to artist Maria Cristina Finucci. These "garbage patches" are areas of high marine debris concentrated in the North Pacific Ocean, the exact size and content of which are hard to define, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Uruguay's Torres-Garcia tops Sotheby's NY Latam art sale
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pioneering South American abstract artists, led by Uruguay's Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Brazilian Sergio Camargo and Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez, were the top sellers at Sotheby's Latin American art auction. Torres Garcia's 1931 "Composition Constructive," fetched $1.4 million in the Tuesday evening sale, which totaled $14.7 million with records set for works by Venezuelan artists.
Mystery and science fiction author Jack Vance dead at 96
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mystery and science fiction writer Jack Vance, whose works included "The Dragon Master" and "The Last Castle," has died at age 96, according to a statement posted on his official website on Wednesday. Vance passed away at his Oakland, California, home on Sunday, according to the statement at www.jackvance.com, a site maintained by his friends and family.
Viennese artist and convicted pedophile Otto Muehl dies
VIENNA (Reuters) - Otto Muehl, one of Austria's most provocative artists who was jailed for sexual offences against minors in 1991, died on Sunday aged 87, the Austria Press Agency said. He was best known as a co-founder of Viennese Actionism, an avant-garde movement that caused outrage with its graphic images of paint-daubed, naked bodies, blood and violence.
Artist Kapoor draws on Berlin's dark history in new show
BERLIN (Reuters) - Blood-red bricks of wax are shifted by conveyor belts up metal chutes towards the centre of an atrium before thudding down and splattering like entrails, in a monumental new installation created by artist Anish Kapoor for his new show in Berlin. A giant, dark sun-like red disk hovers above the ever-growing heaps of wax splodges in "Symphony for a Beloved Sun", which opens Kapoor's first major exhibit in Berlin, running until November 24 in the Martin Gropius Bau exhibition hall.
Rare "Harry Potter" first edition fetches record auction price
(Reuters) - A unique first edition of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" annotated by author J.K. Rowling has sold for a record 150,000 pounds ($227,421) at a London charity auction, Sotheby's said on Tuesday. The 1997 book, featuring handwritten notes, 22 original illustrations and a 43-page "second thoughts" commentary by the author, fetched the highest price to date for a printed book by Rowling, Sotheby's said in a statement.
China's Ai Weiwei launches musical career with heavy metal "Dumbass" single
BEIJING (Reuters) - Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei made his first foray into the musical world on Wednesday with the release of the top single from his debut album, a song called "Dumbass" that takes inspiration from his detention in 2011. The video for the heavy metal song, which was directed by Ai with cinematography by acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Doyle, depicts Ai's 81 days in secretive detention in 2011, which sparked an international outcry.
Britain's Tate museum sets $34 million record for Constable painting
LONDON (Reuters) - The Tate Britain museum bought 19th century English painter John Constable's masterpiece "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows" for 23.1 million pounds ($34.75 million), making it one of the most expensive British paintings ever sold. The painting, dated 1831, of the towering cathedral in the middle distance under an overcast sky shot through with a rainbow had been at risk of being sold abroad and its sale sets a record for Constable, the Tate said on Thursday.
NY art dealer tied to alleged forgeries charged with tax fraud
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a New York art dealer with tax fraud in connection with the sale of paintings she claimed to be the works of celebrated abstract expressionists, but some of which the government said were fakes. Glafira Rosales, 56, faces three counts of filing false tax returns and five counts of concealing a Spanish bank account from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
Pavlof Volcano has been erupting for over a week, releasing a humongous plume of ash, steam, and smoke visible from the International Space Station. The eruption has quieted down, but seismic data suggests that it's not over.
By Liz Fuller-Wright,?Correspondent / May 24, 2013
Space station astronauts captured this picture of Pavlof Volcano on Saturday.
Courtesy of the ISS Expedition 36 crew / NASA
Enlarge
Astronauts on the International Space Station?captured jaw-dropping pictures of a volcanic eruption last Saturday. Since then, the volcano has been hidden from sight, shrouded in thick clouds.
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Pavlof Volcano has been belching ash and spewing lava since May 13, when tremors and rising surface temperatures gave way to fountains of molten rock bursting from the volcano's north flank.
When that lava hit ice and snow, it created explosive steam clouds that could be seen for dozens of miles ? and photographed from space. The steam, ash, and gas plumes have climbed over 20,000 feet into the sky, and left a grey streak stretching for a hundred miles.
Prior to last week, Pavlof hadn't erupted since 2007.
Is it over?
Pavlof has been playing it cool for the past few days, reports the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which celebrated its 25th?anniversary last month.
Though the ash eruptions have disrupted local air travel, the violence seems to have subsided for now, with a more relaxed release of ash and lava continuing steadily. Even through the clouds hiding Pavlof from sight, satellites can measure high surface temperatures indicating that the lava is still flowing.
After about a week of steady seismic rumbles,?the shaking calmed down on Tuesday morning and hasn't restarted, though a huge seismic blast this morning suggests that Pavlof had another volcanic explosion ? but through the clouds, it's hard to know just what or where.
The scientists at Alaska Volcano Observatory have the volcano threat level set at "Watch," which is one step down from the highest level, "Warning." But they caution that massive explosions ? like the one that created that giant, 20,000-foot plume ? can occur without warning.
The Aleutian Islands are sparsely enough settled that the primary hazard from volcanoes like Pavlof is that airborne ash could endanger planes flying between North America and Asia. In fact, in 1989, a wide-body passenger jet encountered an ash plume from Redoubt, another Alaska volcano, and lost power in all four engines.?Fortunately for the passengers, after the plane plummeted two miles in five minutes, the crew restarted the engines and landed safely in Anchorage, about a hundred miles away.
Why did Pavlof erupt?
Like the rest of the Aleutian Islands (and, for that matter, the Cascades), Pavlof sits on the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American plate. When the dense ocean floor runs into the less-dense continental crust, its weight pulls it down into the mantle, where the heat and pressures make it start to melt.
When rock melts, magma forms ? and when magma reaches the earth's surface, it erupts as lava. The more water or gases were trapped in the magma, the more explosive the eruption will be.
Though scientists know exactly how volcanoes form, volcanologists can't yet predict eruptions. But they've made huge strides, thanks to regular monitoring of hundreds of active volcanoes around the world.
Volcano monitoring became a political punching bag in 2009, after Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal highlighted it as "wasteful spending" in the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address. "Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in?Washington, D.C.," said Mr. Jindal. The eruption of Redoubt Volcano a month later ? the same volcano that had nearly crashed a passenger jet in 1989 ? was seen by some as a definitive response, but video monitoring shrunk in recent years due to budget pressures and the sequester.
Alaska's 52 active volcanoes once had 200 working seismic instruments. Now 80 of those instruments have fallen into disrepair and can?t be fixed because of the USGS budget cuts, the Associated Press reported last week. That means that five of Alaska's 52 active volcanoes aren?t monitored electronically at all, and the number could rise if more instruments go without maintenance.
I experienced this episode as more of a desultory placeholder designed to ease us off the manic high of last week. Maybe the drag for me was the recurring theme of indecision, which makes for a kind of constipated drama. The admen couldn?t decide between luxury margarine or cheap; Megan was caught between the maid (brunette) and her classy sister Colette (blonde); Peggy between Don and Ted, and then Ted and Abe; Don between Betty and Megan; Mel between making Arlene his girlfriend or his mother; the sons of Abraham between not laughing and not crying. Arlene had the best riff on what it?s like to be caught between two poles, when she described to Megan how she felt after landing her first job. ?Every day I would vacillate between, Arlene you?re wonderful and Arlene you?re caca.?
?Honestly, I was wonderful.?
In that willful self-hug you see into a future of Erica Jong and Marianne Williamson and eventually, Oprah. One broad theme of the late ?60s was a nation moving from prescribed roles (husband, wife, father, mother, soldier) to chosen identities (hippie, activist, lesbian, reactionary), and the latter mode requires constant reinvention and self-affirmation. Don Draper once spectacularly erased his old identity as Dick Whitman and chose a new one for himself. In this episode, several major characters were faced with a choice between something and its opposite. The losers were the ones who wavered, or became paralyzed, or land ?somewhere in the middle,? as Peggy says -- or, in Pete?s case, filled the room with their desperation. The winners were the ones who just chose to make a choice, and that act alone would imbue them with confidence and wonderfulness.
Paul, you saw the silver lining for Peggy in this episode, but I thought she was brutally treated, by both Abe and Ted. Both men make a decisive choice, and they choose against poor Peggy. Abe, that self-righteous little pecker, decides in an instant that Peggy is not ?brave? after all but ?a scared person who hides behind complacency.? His change of heart has nothing to do with anything Peggy has said or done differently; he?s just willed himself to see the people who attack him and throw rocks through his windows as the victims of the fascist pigs, and anyone who sees them differently as the enemy. And Ted, the creepy little tease, tells Peggy he?s just another clich?, in love with his prot?g?e, and the next day pretends that confession never happened, merely because he?s decided that being in love with her might get in the way of his productivity. The scene in his office is chilling. He doesn?t explain himself to Peggy, or brood, or show any signs of longing. He just bullies an alternate reality into being. ?Ready to get to work? It?s Monday morning Peggy, it?s a brand new work week,? he shouts, opening his office door as if he?s starring in an ad about a nifty new typewriter. ?Round up the team.?
As Ted is perpetually starting fresh, Don is moving backwards. I didn?t entirely buy the reunion of Don and Betty. Or maybe it?s that whenever Don goes on the road, it feels like a dream sequence. For starters, where did this Varga girl version of Betty come from? Didn?t we see her looking a little bloated on the couch just last week? How did her perpetual efforts at ?reducing? finally take hold? How is this new old Betty so full of wisdom, self-awareness, tenderness, mellowness and easy laughter? And how did Don so quickly forget about Sylvia? Also, I couldn?t really follow those mountain metaphors. ?Just because you climb a mountain, doesn?t mean you love it???? That sounds like something Andy on Parks and Rec would say.
Seth, I?m curious what you make of Roger?s predicament. I thought his daughter was a little hard on him about taking her son to the movie. Also, I?ve gotten used to watching Don stumble around blindly, but a broken Roger toting around a bag of Lincoln Logs and looking for a place to land is too much for me. I need someone to be the anchor.
A search for the body of a brain cancer patient who was on a volunteer medical flight that crashed last week and is presumed dead is going into its fourth day.
Frank and Evelyn Amerosa of Utica, N.Y., were aboard an Angel Flight on Friday night when the twin-engine aircraft went down in Ephratah, about an hour west of Albany, according to police and family members.
Rescue workers have been scouring woods and a big, murky pond where the bulk of the aircraft was submerged. Wreckage from the crash was dispersed over a large area, with pieces of the plane and documents found as far as five miles away.
John Campbell, 70, of Stamford, Conn., was flying the couple back from the Boston area, where Frank Amerosa was being treated for brain cancer, officials and family said.
The bodies of both Campbell and Evelyn Amerosa were recovered from the rural crash site. Searchers continued to look for the body of 64-year-old Frank Amerosa on Monday, authorities said.
Ephratah Town Supervisor Todd Bradt said the effort would resume Tuesday.
Frank Amerosa, a retired trucker, had been diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago.
Campbell was a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight, a nonprofit group that arranges free air transportation for the sick. Angel Flight Northeast said it has set up free air transportation and medical care for more than 65,000 children and adults on about 60,000 flights covering more than 12 million miles. It was founded in 1996.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said equipment and personnel were expected at the scene to begin pulling the fuselage from the water. Other debris has been collected from surrounding woods and fields and will be examined along with the main body of wreckage.
The Piper PA 34 departed from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., and was headed to Rome, N.Y., before it crashed just after 5 p.m. Friday, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. The plane did not issue a distress call before losing radar and radio contact, the NTSB said.
Weiss said a preliminary NTSB report on the accident will be issued in about two weeks, with a final report on the probable cause in about 18 months.
A fan in Copenhagen, Denmark, did what no one thought was a good idea when he reached out and slapped Beyonce on her backside during her concert on Monday.
It's all captured in a video on YouTube appropriately titled "The stupid guy that slapped Beyonce." As the singer strutted down the stage singing her song, "Irreplaceable," a man standing in the front row joined in for part of the chorus. "To the left, to the left, everything you own in the box to the left ..."
As Beyonce withdrew the microphone and began to retreat back upstage, the man reached out and gave JAY-Z's WIFE a slap on the rear.
"I will have you escorted out of here now ... all right?" Beyonce says to the man before launching back into the song. Here's another view from another YouTube video.
By Corrie MacLaggan AUSTIN, Texas, May 26 (Reuters) - Texas lawmakers on Sunday gave final approval to a two-year budget that restores money cut from schools in 2011, adds funds for mental health services and calls for an 8.3 percent increase in state spending over the previous cycle. The Republican-majority House on Sunday voted, 118-29, to send Governor Rick Perry the $94.6 billion spending plan for 2014-2015. The Senate, which also has a Republican majority, approved it on Saturday on a 27-4 vote. The total budget, including federal funds, is $196.9 billion, a 3.7 percent increase. "It's a great budget," House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, a Republican, said after the vote. "We gave money to public education, we gave more money to higher education, we gave state employees a pay raise. The thing we're most proud of is what we've done for mental health." Lawmakers have said that the nearly $300 million extra for mental health came in light of recent school shootings, including the December massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The budget debate was less contentious than in 2011, when lawmakers cut $4 billion from schools because of a budget shortfall. The new budget - a compromise between the House and Senate - includes an additional $3.4 billion for schools. When the Legislature convened in January, state comptroller Susan Combs said that lawmakers would have more revenue to spend than they did in the previous cycle thanks to higher-than-expected tax collections boosted by economic growth. Lawmakers were expected to consider more than $1.3 billion in tax cuts and rebates late on Sunday before the conclusion of the biennial legislative session on Monday. That includes about $1 billion in tax cuts for businesses and about $300 million in electricity rebates. Perry, a Republican, has called on lawmakers to pass tax cuts for businesses. He has the option of vetoing specific items in the budget. In another bill passed by both houses Sunday, lawmakers approved taking $3.9 billion from the state's economic stabilization fund - known as the rainy-day fund. That will leave an estimated $8 billion in the fund, which is generated mostly from oil and gas production taxes, by the end of the 2014-2015 cycle. The bill, which also will be sent to the governor, calls for spending $2 billion from the rainy-day fund to finance water infrastructure projects in a state suffering from two years of widespread drought, assuming Texas voter approval of that money this fall. It also calls for spending $185 million from the rainy-day fund to pay mostly for fighting wildfires in 2011. Of that, $15 million would go to a disaster fund to which certain communities - including the city of West, site of a fertilizer plant explosion in April - could apply. In addition, the measure would take $1.75 billion from the rainy-day fund to pay for a deferral in payments to schools, a budget tool used during the 2011 crunch. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based think tank that advocates for small government, criticized the state's spending plan and said lawmakers should not have tapped the rainy-day fund. "Texans ought to be concerned about traveling down the road of unsustainably high government spending, dealing a blow to the prosperity that has sustained our homes and communities as the rest of the nation has suffered the worst economic times since the Great Depression," Chuck DeVore, the foundation's vice president for policy, said in a statement. Texas' rapid growth - including 80,000 new public-school students each year - puts enormous demands on the state's infrastructure and budget, said Republican Senator Robert Duncan, who supported the spending plan. "The good news is, we're growing faster probably than any other state," Duncan told fellow senators on Saturday. "The bad news is, we're growing." (Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Bill Trott)
Telus may be near taking over one of its competitors, but it could soon offer an olive branch to Canadians wanting a choice in budget carriers. MobileSyrup understands that prepaid service PC Mobile (which uses Telus' network) is going postpaid on June 5th, and introducing smartphones at the same time. The provider will reportedly embrace Koodo-style installment payments, as well as frugal plans that range between $35 and $60. It should also support a range of 3G and 4G phones that mostly line up with Telus' offerings: an inventory leak shows the higher-end BlackBerry Q10, Nexus 4 and Galaxy S 4 joined by the cheap-as-chips Lumia 520. Although we doubt that PC Mobile's expansion will completely make up for a shrinking market, we can't object to a small carrier entering the big leagues.
Using 1 grant to tackle 2 diseasesPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michele Sequeira MSequeira@salud.unm.edu 505-925-0486 University of New Mexico Cancer Center
UNM Cancer Center scientist receives American Heart Association grant to discover the secrets of special blood cells
May 28, 2013 Albuquerque, NM (UNM Cancer Center) A little paper cut on your finger is much less serious than a heart attack, but in each case your blood mobilizes various types of cells to the problem site and produces new blood cells to replenish those lost. Specialized cells, called "hematopoietic stem cells," produce the new blood cells. Scientists thought hematopoietic stem cells stayed in the bone marrow but recent research has revealed that they, too, travel to the problem site: to the heart if a heart attack is in progress, or to the brain in the case of a stroke. Why these cells leave the bone marrow, how they know where to go, and what they do when they reach their target is what Jennifer Gillette, PhD, will use her $300,000 American Heart Association grant to study over the next four years. Dr. Gillette is a UNM Assistant Professor of Pathology at the UNM Cancer Center and her work could lead not only to better heart disease responses but also to improved cancer therapies.
Hematopoietic stem cells can mature into any of the blood and immune cells that course through our vessels. They are the cells that resupply your blood when you donate it or lose it as the result of an accident. They are also the cells that leukemic patients now receive directly, rather than receiving a complete bone marrow transplant. So, while they can't become a new heart muscle cell, they can become any type of new blood cell. But Dr. Gillette thinks they play a role in directing the creation of new blood vessels at the site of a crisis. She says, "we think these cells are recruited to the heart by the vascular endothelium. And by targeting those cells, the hematopoietic stem cells may increase angiogenesis to help overcome the hit that occurs during the heart attack."
The vascular endothelium are the cells that line the inside of blood vessels. When these cells are damaged in the case of a heart attack, they can secrete chemicals called chemokines to attract hematopoietic stem cells. Says Dr. Gillette, "it's sort of like a homing beacon in the blood. The hematopoietic stem cells just keep going closer and closer to where the increased concentration of the chemokine is." Part of the work that Dr. Gillette's grant supports will investigate the chemokine signals and how they attract hematopoietic stem cells.
Once at the crisis site, hematopoietic stem cells direct the healthy endothelial cells to build new blood vessels, like a team of first responders trying to get food and first aid to a stranded group of people when the road is out. Another part of the work Dr. Gillette's grant supports looks at how hematopoietic stem cells signal to other cells. Human cells have developed myriad and sophisticated ways to communicate with each other. In the case of angiogenesis, the building of new blood vessels, the Gillette lab believes this signaling process may use "exosomes" which are tiny vesicles or pouches that contain signaling molecules. Once inside the receiving cell, the signaling molecules start a cascade of changes that alter the cell's behavior. Dr. Gillette and her team will study which signaling molecules are involved in angiogenesis and which specific changes they induce.
"Ultimately," says Dr. Gillette, "we want to use this system and the drug discovery core at UNM Cancer Center to look for molecules that would enhance targeting of these cells to an injured endothelium." By enabling the hematopoietic stems cells to find the damaged endothelial cells faster and more accurately, she hopes to show that they will triage a crisis like a heart attack more effectively, reducing the long-term negative effects.
This work can apply to cancer, too. Dr. Gillette's research could shed light on important aspects about how hematopoietic stem cells might become leukemic. And, her work could also benefit people with leukemia who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplants. "These are cells that we're going to transplant back into a sick person with cancer," she says. "So, while this grant is applied to the heart," explains Dr. Gillette, "it could be applied to how we get these transplanted cells back into the bone marrow of a cancer patient more effectively and efficiently. Once in the bone marrow, hematopoietic stem cells can repopulate a leukemia patient with healthy cells, therefore improving the ability of these cells to find their way to the bone marrow is equally important for advancing transplantation therapies."
###
About the Grant
The American Heart Association is supporting the research reported in this publication under Award Number 13SDG14630080, Principal Investigator: Gillette, Jennifer. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the American Heart Association.
About the UNM Cancer Center
The UNM Cancer Center is the Official Cancer Center of New Mexico and the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the state. One of just 67 NCI-designated cancer centers nationwide, the UNM Cancer Center is recognized for its scientific excellence, contributions to cancer research and delivery of medical advances to patients and their families. Annual federal and private funding of over $65 million supports the UNM Cancer Center's research programs. The UNM Cancer Center treats more than 65 percent of the adults and virtually all of the children in New Mexico affected by cancer, from every county in the state. It is home to New Mexico's largest team of board-certified oncology physicians and research scientists, representing every cancer specialty and hailing from prestigious institutions such as MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. Through its partnership with Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, the UNM Cancer Center brings world-class cancer care to the southern part of the state; its collaborative clinical programs in Santa Fe and Farmington serve northern New Mexico. The UNM Cancer Center also supports several community outreach programs to make cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment available to every New Mexican. Learn more at http://www.cancer.unm.edu.
Michele Sequeira, UNM Cancer Center, (505) 925-0486, msequeira@salud.unm.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Using 1 grant to tackle 2 diseasesPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michele Sequeira MSequeira@salud.unm.edu 505-925-0486 University of New Mexico Cancer Center
UNM Cancer Center scientist receives American Heart Association grant to discover the secrets of special blood cells
May 28, 2013 Albuquerque, NM (UNM Cancer Center) A little paper cut on your finger is much less serious than a heart attack, but in each case your blood mobilizes various types of cells to the problem site and produces new blood cells to replenish those lost. Specialized cells, called "hematopoietic stem cells," produce the new blood cells. Scientists thought hematopoietic stem cells stayed in the bone marrow but recent research has revealed that they, too, travel to the problem site: to the heart if a heart attack is in progress, or to the brain in the case of a stroke. Why these cells leave the bone marrow, how they know where to go, and what they do when they reach their target is what Jennifer Gillette, PhD, will use her $300,000 American Heart Association grant to study over the next four years. Dr. Gillette is a UNM Assistant Professor of Pathology at the UNM Cancer Center and her work could lead not only to better heart disease responses but also to improved cancer therapies.
Hematopoietic stem cells can mature into any of the blood and immune cells that course through our vessels. They are the cells that resupply your blood when you donate it or lose it as the result of an accident. They are also the cells that leukemic patients now receive directly, rather than receiving a complete bone marrow transplant. So, while they can't become a new heart muscle cell, they can become any type of new blood cell. But Dr. Gillette thinks they play a role in directing the creation of new blood vessels at the site of a crisis. She says, "we think these cells are recruited to the heart by the vascular endothelium. And by targeting those cells, the hematopoietic stem cells may increase angiogenesis to help overcome the hit that occurs during the heart attack."
The vascular endothelium are the cells that line the inside of blood vessels. When these cells are damaged in the case of a heart attack, they can secrete chemicals called chemokines to attract hematopoietic stem cells. Says Dr. Gillette, "it's sort of like a homing beacon in the blood. The hematopoietic stem cells just keep going closer and closer to where the increased concentration of the chemokine is." Part of the work that Dr. Gillette's grant supports will investigate the chemokine signals and how they attract hematopoietic stem cells.
Once at the crisis site, hematopoietic stem cells direct the healthy endothelial cells to build new blood vessels, like a team of first responders trying to get food and first aid to a stranded group of people when the road is out. Another part of the work Dr. Gillette's grant supports looks at how hematopoietic stem cells signal to other cells. Human cells have developed myriad and sophisticated ways to communicate with each other. In the case of angiogenesis, the building of new blood vessels, the Gillette lab believes this signaling process may use "exosomes" which are tiny vesicles or pouches that contain signaling molecules. Once inside the receiving cell, the signaling molecules start a cascade of changes that alter the cell's behavior. Dr. Gillette and her team will study which signaling molecules are involved in angiogenesis and which specific changes they induce.
"Ultimately," says Dr. Gillette, "we want to use this system and the drug discovery core at UNM Cancer Center to look for molecules that would enhance targeting of these cells to an injured endothelium." By enabling the hematopoietic stems cells to find the damaged endothelial cells faster and more accurately, she hopes to show that they will triage a crisis like a heart attack more effectively, reducing the long-term negative effects.
This work can apply to cancer, too. Dr. Gillette's research could shed light on important aspects about how hematopoietic stem cells might become leukemic. And, her work could also benefit people with leukemia who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplants. "These are cells that we're going to transplant back into a sick person with cancer," she says. "So, while this grant is applied to the heart," explains Dr. Gillette, "it could be applied to how we get these transplanted cells back into the bone marrow of a cancer patient more effectively and efficiently. Once in the bone marrow, hematopoietic stem cells can repopulate a leukemia patient with healthy cells, therefore improving the ability of these cells to find their way to the bone marrow is equally important for advancing transplantation therapies."
###
About the Grant
The American Heart Association is supporting the research reported in this publication under Award Number 13SDG14630080, Principal Investigator: Gillette, Jennifer. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the American Heart Association.
About the UNM Cancer Center
The UNM Cancer Center is the Official Cancer Center of New Mexico and the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the state. One of just 67 NCI-designated cancer centers nationwide, the UNM Cancer Center is recognized for its scientific excellence, contributions to cancer research and delivery of medical advances to patients and their families. Annual federal and private funding of over $65 million supports the UNM Cancer Center's research programs. The UNM Cancer Center treats more than 65 percent of the adults and virtually all of the children in New Mexico affected by cancer, from every county in the state. It is home to New Mexico's largest team of board-certified oncology physicians and research scientists, representing every cancer specialty and hailing from prestigious institutions such as MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. Through its partnership with Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, the UNM Cancer Center brings world-class cancer care to the southern part of the state; its collaborative clinical programs in Santa Fe and Farmington serve northern New Mexico. The UNM Cancer Center also supports several community outreach programs to make cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment available to every New Mexican. Learn more at http://www.cancer.unm.edu.
Michele Sequeira, UNM Cancer Center, (505) 925-0486, msequeira@salud.unm.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
During the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union built up a network of "Naukograd" or "Science Cities". These were state-created clusters of scientists working on technologies that could help it compete with the West, especially in the field of nuclear weapons and space exploration. Those days are of course long gone, but today Russia - though now freed from the days of the old USSR - now faces a new race: how to revive its economy, compete globally in the next industrial revolution of science and technology and wean itself off its reliance on oil and gas.
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Public release date: 28-May-2013
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