Raw Five-Point Preview: July 1, 2013

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Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-07-01/five-point-preview

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Higher genetic risk tied to lifetime asthma suffering

June 28, 2013 ? Children with more genetic risks for asthma are not only more likely to develop the condition at a young age, but they are also more likely to continue to suffer with asthma into adulthood. The finding reported by Duke University researchers is one of the latest to come from a 40-year longitudinal study of New Zealanders.

"We've been able to look at how newly discovered genetic risks relate to the life course of asthma at an unprecedented level of resolution," said Daniel Belsky, a postdoctoral fellow at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.

Earlier studies had linked several genes to small increases in asthma risk. Belsky, along with Duke's Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffit and others, wanted to know whether those individual risks literally add up. They looked to the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, an effort to examine the behavior and health -- including lung function -- of 1,037 individuals who have been tracked since their birth in Dunedin, New Zealand during a 12-month period from 1972-1973.

Belsky and his colleagues calculated a genetic risk score for each of 880 individuals in the Dunedin cohort by summing the number of risk variants each of them carried. They then asked whether those scores were related to the development and course of asthma from early childhood through midlife.

Indeed, they were. Those at higher genetic risk developed asthma earlier in life than did those with lower risk. Among the Dunedin study participants who developed asthma in childhood, those with higher genetic risk scores were also more likely to suffer with persistent asthma into adulthood. They more often had allergic reactions associated with severe and persistent asthma and developed problems with lung function.

Their quality of life suffered too, as those with higher genetic risk missed work and school more often and were more often admitted to the hospital because of asthma.

Belsky said there is still a long way to go before genetic risk scores like this one can be used in routine medical practice. In the meantime, the study could lead to a better understanding of the biology of asthma and advance research to devise new treatment and prevention strategies.

In the United States, 26 million people suffer from asthma, including more than 7 million children, according to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. Those numbers are growing every year at a cost of billions of dollars.

"It will be important to explore how these genetic risks play out in environments that differ in terms of air pollution or other important, modifiable factors," Belsky said.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/l44zyn7thWo/130628092151.htm

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NYC's Met doing away with metal admission button

NEW YORK (AP) ? Tiny metal buttons in delicious-sounding colors like poupon, hubba bubba and piglet have served as The Metropolitan Museum of Art's admission ticket for 42 years. But starting Monday, the 1-inch disks will be replaced by a paper ticket with detachable sticker.

It's all about the money ? the buttons have become too expensive to produce.

"The cost has been increasing exponentially over the years," said Harold Holzer, the museum's spokesman. "It's gone up tens of thousands of dollars in the last five years."

When the museum first started using the buttons, it had about 1 million visitors annually. Today it has 6 million.

"It seems impractical to tie ourselves to an archaic, quaint ? even if it's well liked ? system," he added.

The buttons are making their exit on the same day that the Met is switching to a seven-day-a-week schedule. The museum ? which has a recommended admission of $25 for adults, meaning visitors may pay what they wish ? had been closed Mondays.

"The message is not changing, the medium is changing," Holzer said.

In 1997, a student at Parson School of Design created a dress with the buttons for a project using recycled objects. It features three of the 16 colors the buttons came in. The piece was donated to the museum and is in storage.

Like the buttons, the paper tickets will eventually come in an assortment of colors. The first will be el mar blue. They also will contain a date (something the buttons lacked) and be emblazoned with the same "M'' design used on the buttons, adapted from a 16th-century illustration based on a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing.

"With just a flip of a computer switch," the paper tickets will allow the museum to issue timed-entry tickets for such special shows as the wildly popular Alexander McQueen costume exhibition in 2011, Holzer said.

"It gives us a great deal of agility," he said. "Agility beats nostalgia every time."

Asked if the button might become an art object worthy of museum display, Holzer quipped: "It's been displayed about a hundred million times if you count all the visitors who've worn it. It's maybe time for a rest."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nycs-met-doing-away-metal-admission-button-143836805.html

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CHART OF THE DAY: Vine Sharing Plummets ... - Business Insider

Instagram's decision to add video may have snuffed out Vine. At least, temporarily.?

According to data from Topsy, which tracks Twitter sharing, Vine video sharing has collapsed on Twitter.?

As Matt McGee at Marketing Land notes, since Instagram added video there's been a 70% drop in Vine video shares on Twitter.

BI

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-vine-sharing-plummets-after-instagram-launches-video-2013-6

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NYC's Met doing away with metal admission button

NEW YORK (AP) ? Tiny metal buttons in delicious-sounding colors like poupon, hubba bubba and piglet have served as The Metropolitan Museum of Art's admission ticket for 42 years. But starting Monday, the 1-inch disks will be replaced by a paper ticket with detachable sticker.

It's all about the money ? the buttons have become too expensive to produce.

"The cost has been increasing exponentially over the years," said Harold Holzer, the museum's spokesman. "It's gone up tens of thousands of dollars in the last five years."

When the museum first started using the buttons, it had about 1 million visitors annually. Today it has 6 million.

"It seems impractical to tie ourselves to an archaic, quaint ? even if it's well liked ? system," he added.

The buttons are making their exit on the same day that the Met is switching to a seven-day-a-week schedule. The museum ? which has a recommended admission of $25 for adults, meaning visitors may pay what they wish ? had been closed Mondays.

"The message is not changing, the medium is changing," Holzer said.

In 1997, a student at Parson School of Design created a dress with the buttons for a project using recycled objects. It features three of the 16 colors the buttons came in. The piece was donated to the museum and is in storage.

Like the buttons, the paper tickets will eventually come in an assortment of colors. The first will be el mar blue. They also will contain a date (something the buttons lacked) and be emblazoned with the same "M'' design used on the buttons, adapted from a 16th-century illustration based on a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing.

"With just a flip of a computer switch," the paper tickets will allow the museum to issue timed-entry tickets for such special shows as the wildly popular Alexander McQueen costume exhibition in 2011, Holzer said.

"It gives us a great deal of agility," he said. "Agility beats nostalgia every time."

Asked if the button might become an art object worthy of museum display, Holzer quipped: "It's been displayed about a hundred million times if you count all the visitors who've worn it. It's maybe time for a rest."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nycs-met-doing-away-metal-admission-button-143836805.html

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Work during vacation? Half of Americans do.

More than half of US employees say they take business calls or check their work e-mails while on vacation. The convenience of laptops and mobile devices make vacation-time work easier than ever, but researchers say there is such a thing as too much work.

By Akane Otani,?Contributor / June 27, 2013

Tourists flock to the beach in southern Spain last month. More than half of US employees say they regularly check their e-mails and make business calls while they are on vacation.

Jon Nazca/Reuters/File

Enlarge

Unplug from your job? Fuhgeddaboudit!

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?Whether aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean?or a Jeep in the Sahara, more than half of American employees regularly check in on work while vacationing, according to a new study conducted by Pertino, a cloud networking software company.

Technology advances have enabled employees to go far beyond texting and e-mailing their colleagues on the go and actually work on documents. The catch: It is becoming harder for people to drop their work in their downtime.

?The Information Age has enabled unprecedented levels of employee productivity from the corner office to the factory floor, but it has also created a dependency on the applications, files, and data that employees depend on every day to get their job done. This can actually lead to anxiety when an employee is disconnected for a protracted period of time,? says Todd Krautkremer, vice president of marketing at Pertino, based in Los Gatos, Calif.

Some 64 percent of men say they work on vacation; 57 percent of women say the same, according to the Pertino study.

The desire to ward off work-related anxiety has led many employees to take their laptops, smartphones, and tablets on the road with them ? even to places that do not even come close to resembling an air-conditioned cubicle.

For instance, 36 percent of the employees surveyed say they have worked while basking in the sun on the beach. More unconventionally, 31 percent of US employees say they have worked from bathroom stalls, according to the study.

?If you have ability to be connected to your work at any time on any device, it does change way you work and you vacation,? Mr. Krautkremer says. ?Before, we would never have stood in lines at airports and pulled files beyond a firewall to take a quick look at them.?

Keeping a ready eye on every tweet and alert while ostensibly enjoying time off from work, however, can strain relationships or lead to burnout. Workaholics tend to have less time to spend with their families, lower satisfaction within their marriages, and even reduced health, researchers from the University of West Florida concluded in a 2008 study.

Although employees may assume that working around the clock will at least boost their job performance, some studies suggest that people who constantly work are actually less satisfied with their careers, the researchers said.

It is also possible that workaholics are less likely to enjoy the time they do have to relax, the researchers said, since most workaholics ?spend the majority of their waking hours involved in work-related activities and thoughts.?

Acknowledging that it is easy to get lost inside a ?workaholic world,? Mr. Krautkremer, says designating time for both work and nonwork activities is crucial. Mr. Krautkremer, for instance, says he does much of his work early in the morning ??then ?systematically unplugs? for the rest of the day.

?It?s all about setting whatever rhythm works for you,? he says.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/qbD7roqdivk/Work-during-vacation-Half-of-Americans-do

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Chicago prepares for concealed weapons

CHICAGO (AP) ? This city, where violent street gangs shoot it out dozens of times a week despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on guns, now faces a new challenge: Well-meaning citizens with the legal right to hit the streets with loaded firearms, whenever they want.

As Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn mulls whether to sign off on eliminating the country's last concealed carry ban, the question in Chicago is whether it will matter in the crime-weary city. Will a place that long had some of the nation's tightest restrictions on handguns be more at risk? Or will it be safer with a law that can only add to the number of guns already on the street?

Neighborhood leaders, anti-crime activists and police officials worry about additional mayhem in Chicago. But other residents, including some who live in Chicago's more violent areas, believe more guns will allow them to defend themselves better.

"We just had a weekend where something like 48 people were shot, seven died," said Otis McDonald, 79, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court tossing out Chicago's strict gun ban three years ago. "Now law abiding citizens like myself ... can carry them when they want to and not carry them when they don't want to, and the people out there who will do us harm won't know when we got them and when we don't."

At City Hall, where Chicago's anti-gun campaign has centered for years, the reaction to concealed carry legislation has been relatively quiet. The reasons seem to boil down to this: The city can do little about stopping the law because a federal appeals court ordered Illinois to end its public possession ban by this summer.

"We would prefer to have the (gun) bans we've always enacted... (but) it's the best we could do based upon the mandate we have," said Alderman Patrick O'Connor.

The bill sitting on Quinn's desk is a hard-fought compromise between conservative downstate lawmakers who opposed most gun restrictions and anti-gun lawmakers from Chicago and other urban areas. The legislation requires state police to issue a concealed-carry permit to any gun owner with a state-issued Firearm Owners Identification card, and who passes a background check, pays a $150 fee and undergoes 16 hours of training.

It's not as stringent as concealed carry laws in California, New York and a handful of others states, which give law enforcement authorities more power to deny permits. But it's more restrictive than earlier proposals by gun rights advocates, including one that would have superseded all local gun restrictions. For example, it won't wipe out Chicago and Cook County's ban on assault weapons.

Most significantly for gun control advocates, the legislation does prohibit guns in places like schools, buses, trains, bars and government buildings.

"If you think about all the prohibited places there are ... I don't think you will see an overwhelming number of people actually (carrying weapons) because it becomes such a headache," said state Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago lawmaker and lead negotiator on the bill who represents President Barack Obama's former state senate district.

But other city officials aren't so assured. Superintendent Garry McCarthy calls a requirement that people go through only 16 hours of training before they are issued a concealed carry permit "woefully inadequate" because about the only thing people can learn in that time is how to "point and fire a weapon" and not when they can legally do so.

"Our officers receive six months of training in the police academy and then three months on the streets and at the end of the day we make mistakes frequently," he said.

Another concern by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is the provision in the bill that calls for law enforcement and prosecutors to object to a governor-appointed panel if they suspect applicants are dangerous. In Cook County, where there are 358,000 registered gun owners, Dart said he's worried gang members and others who shouldn't have guns will slip through the cracks and be granted permits.

Quinn, a Chicago Democrat, has been quiet on his intentions with the legislation, his office saying he's "reviewing the bill carefully." But what he decides may be moot, given that the Legislature passed it by wide enough margins to override any veto.

Once the law is in place, Dart said he expects a flood of applications for permits, something that happened in November 2011 in Wisconsin, where within hours of becoming the 49th state to have a concealed carry law, tens of thousands of people downloaded applications. By the end of 2012, the state had issued nearly 110,000 permits.

During 2012, the first full year the law was in effect, Milwaukee's total for homicides and rapes remained virtually the same as the year before. As for robbery, the kind of crime that concealed carry supporters say would be reduced if more regular citizens had weapons, Milwaukee saw a 17.2 percent drop between 2011 and 2012. But police say so far this year the number of robberies has climbed by 19 percent.

Whether the law will have similar effects in Chicago is a matter of contention. Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest and activist on the city's South Side, doesn't believe criminals will hesitate out of some concern their victims might be armed.

"You are going to see a lot more gun fights and you are going to see people using guns as their first line of defense when they are confronted. To think guns are suddenly going to be the answer to violence in the city or the state, it's absurd," Pfleger said.

But Richard Pearson, Illinois State Rifle Association executive director, predicts Chicago's crime rate will fall. He argues that both sides in the gun debate will be watching closely what transpires.

"What goes on in Chicago is a very big deal because of their history of resisting firearm use," Pearson said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-prepares-concealed-carry-gun-law-193704212.html

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GDP up only 0.1 per cent in April. Resource sector and construction ...

Here at Maclean's, we appreciate the written word. And we appreciate you, the reader. We are always looking for ways to create a better user experience for you and wanted to try out a new functionality that provides you with a reading experience in which the words and fonts take centre stage. We believe you'll appreciate the clean, white layout as you read our feature articles. But we don't want to force it on you and it's completely optional. Click "View in Clean Reading Mode" on any article if you want to try it out. Once there, you can click "Go back to regular view" at the top or bottom of the article to return to the regular layout.

To recap:

• Canada?s gross domestic product inched up a modest 0.1 per cent in April after adjusting for inflation, Statistics Canada said today. It was the fourth consecutive month of positive growth but a slowdown from the 0.3 per cent monthly gain recorded on average between January and March.
• Growth was mostly in the service sector, which saw aggregate output expand by 0.3 per cent, led by the finance industry and wholesale trade. An abnormally large 3.4 per cent gain in the arts and recreation industry reflected the extended NHL season after a four-month lock-out that ended in January, Statistics Canada noted.
• Goods producing industries contracted by 0.3 per cent, largely as a result of a 1.5 per cent drop in the natural resource sector.
• Oil and gas extraction activity fell?2.7 per cent in April, after growing at a healthy clip in March (1.7 per cent) and February (1.1 per cent). Output at potash and coal mines declined by 0.6 per cent.
• Another source of drag was the construction industry, which recorded a 0.4 per cent dip as building activity in both the residential and commercial real estate market slowed.

What the analysts are saying:

• ?All said, we anticipate Canadian economic growth to fall below trend,? writes TD?s Francis Fong, who predicts second-quarter GDP growth to come in at 1.6 per cent. That would be considerably below the 2.5 per cent pace of the first three months of the year and slightly more pessimistic than the Bank of Canada?s 1.8 per cent growth forecast for the April-to-June period. Fong, though, predicts that,?as the impact of the U.S. automatic spending cuts wanes, a pickup in growth south of the border later this year should translate into a healthier 2-2.5 per cent annualized growth for Canada.
• RBC?s Paul Ferley has a more positive take on second-quarter growth, which he pins at 2.1 per cent.
• The drop in oil and gas sector activity, says CIBC?s Emanuella Enenajor, potentially reflects production challenges after maintenance at Fort-McMurray, Alta.
• TD?s Fong writes that the resource sector slump was ?likely impacted by the heavy commodity price correction seen in April.?

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/06/28/gdp-up-meagre-0-1-per-cent-in-april-as-the-resource-sector-and-construction-weigh-on-growth/

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PFT: Hernandez clears waivers, now free agent

AP

At at time when the authorities and the Patriots have taken stunning and decisive action against Aaron Hernandez, the National Football League has done nothing.

The NFL will continue to do nothing, until it has a reason to do something.

?NFL clubs were advised today that if Aaron Hernandez enters into a player contract prior to the resolution of the charges pending against him, the contract will not be approved or take effect until Commissioner Roger Goodell holds a hearing,? the league said in a statement forwarded to PFT by NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.? ?The purpose of the hearing would be to determine whether Hernandez should be suspended or face other action prior to the charges being resolved.?

The league?s position makes sense.? Why suspend a guy who is unemployed, and currently unemployable?? The league?s stance makes teams even less likely to be interested in Hernandez, since it makes clear that, if anyone tries to give the guy a job, they?ll first have to deal with persuading Goodell to let them employ Hernandez.

As a result, Hernandez?s status won?t be relevant unless and until he is cleared on murder charges.? And things could get interesting if he?s acquitted in an O.J. Simpson-style outcome, where half of the country or more believes that, even though he was found not guilty, he still did it.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/27/aaron-hernandez-clears-waivers/related/

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Straight from the horse's toe: The world's oldest genome

Scientists have reconstructed the genome of a horse that lived some 700,000-years-ago, mapping out the evolutionary history of the modern horse.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 26, 2013

A Przewalski's horse is shown in Khomyntal, western Mongolia, in one of three reintroduction sites. From a tiny fossil bone found in the Yukon, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient horse about 700,000 years old. The researchers also found new evidence that the endangered Przewalski's horse, found in Mongolia and China, is the last surviving wild horse.

Claudia Feh/Przewalski's Horse Association via Nature/AP

Enlarge

Researchers have sequenced the genome of a horse that lived some 700,000 years ago ? the oldest genome ever sequenced ? making it possible to reconstruct an evolutionary narrative of the modern horse, whose journey through history has been intimately bound to our own.

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According to a study published in the current ?issue of the scientific journal, Nature, the genome, of an ancient horse that lived in what is now Canada?s Yukon, is about 10 times older than the previous oldest genome, of a human that lived about 70,000 years ago. That means the hindsight of paleogenomics has been dialed backwards some 630,000 years from where it was, offering up the extraordinary possibility that scientists may be able to reproduce our prehistoric record in greater detail than ever before, tracing not just the evolution of horses but ? tantalizingly ? of humans.

"We have beaten the time barrier,? said evolutionary biologist Ludovic Orlando of the University of Copenhagen, a lead author of the study, in a statement.??All of a sudden, you have access to many more extinct species than you could have ever dreamed of sequencing before.?

Discovered in 2003, the ancient horse bones were bound in the world?s oldest known permafrost at Canada?s remote Thistle Creek site. A multinational team of scientists, headed by Dr. Orlando and Eske Willerslev, also of the University of Copenhagen, then extracted DNA from one of the animal?s toes after determining that the bone was a promising candidate to still have viable DNA: had the DNA not been kept cold and dry, it would have not survived those more than half-million years.

Sequencing DNA as fantastically old as that of the ice-encased horse is tough work, and the successful mapping of its genome is a testament to just how far sequencing technology has come, since the first genome, of a virus that infects bacteria, was sequenced in 1976.?

The scientists mulled over fragmented and deteriorating DNA, building from disjointed strings of just 25 individual letters a complex genome that is billions of bases long. And since the DNA had accumulated bacteria tenants during its long, icy repose, scientists also had to ferret out which sequences belonged to the horse, and which to the bacteria.

That complex sequencing needed fact checking. To confirm the horse?s age, scientists compared it to younger horses? genomes, sequencing a DNA sample from the frozen bones of a horse some 43,000-years-old, as well as samples from a donkey, five modern domestic horses, and a wild horse native to Mongolia. They say they are now confident that the horse is a staggering 700,000 years old.?

Scientists had once believed that horses had followed a simple, linear evolutionary road ? the sort that can be easily printed onto a T-shirt ? growing from a tiny version to the modern domesticated horse, frolicking cowboy astride it. But recent developments have complicated that linearity, suggesting that the horse?s evolution looked less like a T-shirt design and more like an unruly river, swelling to enormous volumes and pitching over waterfalls, and splitting off into tributaries, some with dead-ends.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/2Tiw_48E2ug/Straight-from-the-horse-s-toe-The-world-s-oldest-genome

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Japan conversation robot ready for outer space

AAA??Jun. 26, 2013?7:16 AM ET
Japan conversation robot ready for outer space
By AZUSA UCHIKURABy AZUSA UCHIKURA, Associated Press??

Humanoid communication robot Kirobo, left, talks with Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota Motor Corp., during a press unveiling in Tokyo Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The world?s first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched. Developers from the Kirobo project, named after ?kibo? or hope in Japanese and ?robot,? gathered to demonstrate the humanoid robot?s ability to talk. Kirobo, jointly developed by organizations including Dentsu Inc., Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage Co. and Toyota., is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on August 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Humanoid communication robot Kirobo, left, talks with Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota Motor Corp., during a press unveiling in Tokyo Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The world?s first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched. Developers from the Kirobo project, named after ?kibo? or hope in Japanese and ?robot,? gathered to demonstrate the humanoid robot?s ability to talk. Kirobo, jointly developed by organizations including Dentsu Inc., Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage Co. and Toyota., is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on August 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Humanoid communication robot Kirobo is shown during a press unveiling in Tokyo Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The world?s first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched. Developers from the Kirobo project, named after ?kibo? or hope in Japanese and ?robot,? gathered to demonstrate the humanoid robot?s ability to talk. Kirobo, jointly developed by organizations including Dentsu Inc., Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on August 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Humanoid communication robot Kirobo, center, talks with Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota Motor Corp., during a press unveiling in Tokyo Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The world?s first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched. Developers from the Kirobo project, named after ?kibo? or hope in Japanese and ?robot,? gathered to demonstrate the humanoid robot?s ability to talk. Kirobo, jointly developed by organizations including Dentsu Inc., Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage Co. and Toyota., is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on Aug. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Humanoid communication robots, Kirobo, bottom left, and Mirata, bottom right, are held by Tomotaka Takahashi, left, CEO of Robo Garage Co. and project associate professor from the University of Tokyo, and Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota Motor Corp., during a press unveiling in Tokyo Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The world?s first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched. Developers from the Kirobo project, named after ?kibo? or hope in Japanese and ?robot,? gathered to demonstrate the humanoid robot?s ability to talk. Kirobo, jointly developed by organizations including Dentsu Inc., Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage Co. and Toyota., is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on August 4, 2013. Kirobo's land-based counterpart Mirata is not designed to go outer space but has the ability to learn through conversations it has. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

TOKYO (AP) ? The world's first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched.

Developers from the Kirobo project, named after "kibo" or hope in Japanese and "robot," gathered in Tokyo Wednesday to demonstrate the humanoid robot's ability to talk.

"Russia was the first to go outer space, the U.S. was the first to go to the moon, we want Japan to be the first to send a robot-astronaut to space that can communicate with humans," said Yorichika Nishijima, the Kirobo project manager.

The experiment is a collaboration between advertising and PR company Dentsu Inc., the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Robo Garage and Toyota Motor Corp.

Tomotaka Takahashi, CEO of Robo Garage Co. and associate professor at the University of Tokyo, said he hopes robots like Kirobo that hold conversations will eventually be used to assist astronauts working in space.

"When people think of robots in outer space, they tend to seek ones that do things physically," said Takahashi. "But I think there is something that could come from focusing on humanoid robots that focus on communication."

Because Kirobo does not need to perform physical activities, it is smaller than most robots that go into space. Kirobo is about 34 centimeters tall (13 inches) and weighs about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds).

Its land-based counterpart Mirata looks almost identical but is not designed to go into outer space. Instead, it has the ability to learn through the conversations it has.

During the demonstration, Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota, asked Kirobo what its dream was.

"I want to create a future where humans and robots can live together and get along," it answered.

Kirobo is scheduled to be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center on August 4, 2013.

___

Follow Azusa Uchikura on Twitter at www.twitter.com/auchikura

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-06-26-Japan-Robonaut/id-73736276605c45ddb60b7d6d5dc8e006

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New Air Force Leader Becomes Highest-Ranking Openly-Gay Person in Defense Dept

Fanning

Undersecretary of the Air Force for just two months, Eric Fanning is now the acting civilian leader of the military branch after the retirement Friday of Air Force Secretary Michael Donley made him the highest-ranking openly-gay person at the Defense Department.

Fanning, having started his career in the Pentagon in the '90s, will fill the role until President Obama nominates an official replacement.

"'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was implemented when I got [to the Pentagon]," Fanning said in an interview with the Washington Blade. "I didn't know what I was going to do if we didn't get the repeal through because some people couldn't work because they were openly gay or lesbian."

Although never subjected to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as a civilian leader, Fanning said the changes that have occurred regarding gays in the military so far have been encouraging, especially since his return to the Pentagon in 2009.

Referring to the 2010 repeal of the law that prohibited gays from serving openly, he said, "It made this last round more rewarding just to see the change in the attitudes in the senior uniform leadership."

The decisions about two cases before the Supreme Court regarding gay rights are expected to be released this week and will have a significant impact on the Defense Department, said Fanning, including the ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act, which currently prohibits same-sex spouses from receiving military benefits.

"In some ways, DOMA, which I think is a terrible law, made the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' easier because it took some of the more emotional issues off the table." Fanning told the Washington Blade. "But in terms of extending benefits, I think everyone who serves in uniform should have full access to legal benefits, and so, DOMA is the main roadblock to that."

As acting secretary, Fanning has vast influence over the Air Force, including organizing, training, equipping and providing for the welfare of 333,000 people on active duty, 178,000 people in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, and 182,000 civilians in the military branch.

He also oversees the Air Force's budget of more the $110 billion annually.

"I think that the military is stronger, institutions are stronger, and society is stronger the more inclusive that we are," Fanning said. "So wherever we can root out discrimination, I think it's a positive thing."

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/air-force-leader-becomes-highest-ranking-openly-gay-180616855--abc-news-politics.html

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Uncertainty over the benefits of feeding birds in winter

June 24, 2013 ? Wild bird populations are generally thought to benefit from being given additional food in winter but our understanding of the effects of such food provision is incomplete.

The results of a new study, carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), has found that feeding wild blue tits in winter resulted in less successful breeding during the following spring.

The research, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that woodland blue tits that were provided with fat balls as a supplementary food during the winter months went on to produce chicks that were smaller, of lower body weight and which had lower survival than the chicks of birds that did not receive any additional food.

Dr Jon Blount from Biosciences at the University of Exeter who led the research said: "Our research questions the benefits of feeding wild birds over winter. Although the precise reasons why fed populations subsequently have reduced reproductive success are unclear, it would be valuable to assess whether birds would benefit from being fed all year round rather than only in winter. More research is needed to determine exactly what level of additional food provisioning, and at what times of year, would truly benefit wild bird populations."

Dr Kate Plummer, lead author of the paper, said: "There could be a number of different explanations for our results. One possibility is that winter feeding may help birds in relatively poor condition to survive and breed. Because these individuals are only capable of raising a small number of chicks, they will reduce our estimation of breeding success within the population. But more research is needed to understand whether winter feeding is contributing to an overall change in the size of bird populations."

It is estimated that around half of UK householders feed birds in their gardens. This equates to around 50-60 thousand tonnes of bird food provisioned each year and contributes to a thriving bird food industry.

Jane Lawler, Marketing Director at Gardman, commented: "As the wider scientific evidence shows, feeding wild birds with appropriate foods delivers a range of positive benefits. A number of unanswered questions remain, however, and this is why we have been supporting this and other research, using the information gained to inform our products and the advice that we provide to our customers."

The three year study was conducted across nine woodland sites in Cornwall. During winter, populations of blue tits were left unfed, given plain fat balls or given fat balls enriched with vitamin E -- a vitamin commonly present in bird food such as nuts and seeds. Nest boxes and bird feeders were distributed around the woodland study sites and reproductive success was investigated by checking the nest boxes in the spring to determine the number of eggs laid and the growth and survival of chicks.

Studies elsewhere have shown that feeding wild birds in winter can have almost immediate benefits for survival and can enhance future breeding success, so the latest results provide important new information and inform the debate around the role that feeding wild birds may play in their population processes. Whether providing food is detrimental or beneficial to wild bird populations, it is clear that more research is needed to better understand its effects.

The study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Royal Society, Gardman Ltd and the BTO.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/wcdq5VhRpT8/130624111011.htm

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The Very Best Web Marketing Tips To Help You Succeed | Product ...

by admin on Monday, June 24th, 2013 | Comments Off

Your internet marketing venture can be extremely profitable if you take time to learn everything you can and apply it to your strategy. Before you get started in online marketing, take the time to understand how to make your business profitable. Continue reading for some great ideas that will have you well on your way to finding success.

An important piece of knowledge that you should obtain about any internet marketing program is how they track orders from external websites. If your affiliate ID isn?t connected to the order, either by the client directly calling or mailing the company that processes the orders, you might end up losing large amounts of your commission.

Tell your readers that you are an affiliate marketer from the outset. Your readers won?t hold it against you if you are up-front about it. Affiliate marketing, like any other business, demands honesty. Explaining to your readers why you are subscribing to online marketing programs will help them see how the products are related to the content of your website.

Joining several different affiliate programs that share one target customer base can be a way to get better results out of your affiliate marketing campaign. Utilizing different sites/programs that are focused on the same market will give your customers a broader selection of choices and increase your sales.

While there are affiliates that accomplish various tasks through emails, you can spend countless hours simply staring at your inbox. Save yourself some time by copying and pasting these emails to Notepad and keeping that page open while you work on the assigned tasks. Referring to a single document will increase productivity.

Use less-obvious ways of linking to affiliates. Certain techniques can help you weave affiliate links throughout your text without making the links obvious. Use these thechniques as best you can, but avoid trying to deceive any of your readers. Let viewers know beforehand that they will be clicking on an affiliate link so they don?t feel manipulated.

People will eventually unsubscribe from your emails, and you will need to go out and find new customers. To get and keep new customers, only send them your best emails that are sure to grab their attention from the very first contact.

Carefully consider which products you will link to before proceeding. It may take a while to figure out the best way to configure your affiliate links, but once you have found a successful method you will see more profits.

Keep your target audience and your web marketing goals in mind when you choose your affiliate partners. When you do this, your prospective customers will see that you know what you are talking about, and you understand what they need. This will increase traffic to your website.

While online marketing has the potential to generate impressive profits, success is unlikely without knowledge and skills. You should want your site or blog to rank as high in search as you can. You can then earn better links from affiliates and profits.

Remember that customer satisfaction will drive the success of your affiliate network. You must work on meeting your readers needs. Knowing why people choose to do business with you can be very helpful. What is catching their attention?

Using trivia questions on banner ads can be quite effective in increasing site traffic. Users will have to visit your website to get the correct answer to the question. many cannot resist clicking an ad like that. Entice your customers by offering them discounts whenever they answer a question correctly.

One you?ve selected the products you are going to sell for your affiliate partners, you want to ensure that you?re marketing to the correct target audience. If your product is inexpensive, simply casting a wide marketing net may generate sales. Products that cost more require more concerted selling efforts to get sold at all.

Remember that with affiliate promotion lifetime commissions are very rare. Looking for these programs is still worthwhile, however, because the potential payoff is so good. Affiliate programs pay a percentage of the purchase price of products that customers referred by the affiliate bought. Generally, a commission is paid if a product is bought withing a specific time frame. That?s why a lifetime commission program is so desirable.

You should consider using videos, pictures, or any other visual aids to make your product more visible. People will want to buy your product because it is so appealing. Try to make a very specific review. People want specifics.

In some cases, a vendor will attempt to scam you via a tracking system of their own design. Just look for tracking systems that are legit and offer proof that it works.

You should always keep your internet marketing efforts positive. Do not even use phrases with a negative slant in wording. g.

In order to be successful in internet marketing, you must believe in the product, and believing in it means being a satisfied user of the particular product as well. If you use the product yourself, then it is very easy to post in-depth reviews and articles that might drive sales. Discuss how it has helped you in different message boards. Whenever you post something online, always insert an affiliate link. This provides readers with a simple way to purchase items and increases sales.

If you take the time to plan your next move and keep these tips in mind, you are going to see the positive outcome that you were hoping for when you decided to get involved. So make a action plan ? including these tips ? and get to work!

Blue widgets is a complex topic, which is why you should take the time to research it some more. Luckily, you will be able to find all the information you need right here. Get out there and implement this information.

Source: http://productlaunchformula4.net/the-very-best-web-marketing-tips-to-help-you-succeed/

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Lego figurines: No more Mr. Nice Toy?

Many Legos' facial expressions have shifted from happy and contented in the 1970s, to scowling, frowning, or snarling since the late 80s, says a social robotics researcher.

By Marc Lallanilla,?LiveScience.com / June 15, 2013

An ad pictures a Clark Kent Lego character imagining his Superman alter ego. A New Zealand-based researcher says Lego faces have shifted since 1989 from more contented smiles to more angry scowls.

Youtube capture from Lego ad / LiveScience

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Lego, maker of the plastic toy pieces and figures that spawned a global empire, isn't playing nice anymore.

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That's the finding of a recent study, which showed that an increasing number of?Lego figures'?faces are scowling, frowning, or snarling rather than smiling.

In the 1970s, when Lego added human figures to their successful line of construction blocks, most of the figures wore happy, contented expressions,?The Guardian?reports.

But all that started to change in 1989, according to Christoph Bartneck, a?social robotics?researcher at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and lead author of the study.

Bartneck found a greater variety in the facial expressions of Lego figures after 1989. He and his colleagues separated the expressions into six general categories: disdain, confidence, concern, fear, happiness, and anger.

Over time, the authors observed a trend: The proportion of happy faces decreased, while the proportion of angry faces increased. Their study will be presented at the First International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction in Sapporo, Japan, in August.

Most Lego sets are sold with a particular theme, such as pirates or Harry Potter. "It is our impression that the themes have been increasingly based on conflicts," the authors wrote in their study paper. "Often, a good force is struggling with a bad one."

While the study stops short of analyzing the effect that scowling, angry figures could have on children, this may be an important and overlooked avenue of research.

"Children's toys and how they are perceived can have a significant impact on children," the authors wrote. "We cannot help but wonder how the move from only positive faces to an increasing number of negative faces impacts ... how children play."

Lego isn't overly concerned about the effects that facial expressions on its toys might have on the kids who play with them. "The conflict between good and evil is nothing new," Lego spokesman Roar Rude Trangb?k told The Guardian. "But the characters always have classic Lego humor ? the good guys always win in the end."

Follow Marc Lallanilla on?Twitter?and?Google+. Follow us?@livescience,?Facebook?&?Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013?LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Pb4C1ghgxwE/Lego-figurines-No-more-Mr.-Nice-Toy

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Absolute Knowledge

Is it possible to know anything absolutely?

I would think the best candidate for absolute knowledge would be binary propositional logic: we can know that a tautology ("A is A") is always true, that a contradiction ("A is not-A") is always false, that a fact must be true or false ("A or not-A"), that a fact cannot be neither true nor false ("not-[A and not-A])", and that a fact cannot be both true and false ("A xor not-A").

But before it looks like I can do this infinitely, some people believe that even this goes too far. The Law of the Excluded Middle states that a fact must be either true or false, and not neither or both. In some situations it is useful to ignore this law, so the realm of the absolutely known shrinks down to the Law of Identity (A=A) and Aristotle's Law: the Law of Non-Contradiction ("A is not not-A")

The second best candidate for absolute knowledge is that which is self-evidently true. An example for this comes from Descartes. He proposed, for the sake of argument, that the whole of reality is ruled by an insatiably cruel demon, instead of a kind and loving God. This demon does everything in his power to confuse our senses and leave us in ignorance. What, asked Descartes, can we know for certain?

His answer is "Cogito ergo sum" -- "I think therefore I am." We can know that we are doubting. But many people believe that he was ill-equipped to handle the fall-out from this heightened level of doubt.

Where Descartes fails, say some, is that he was unsuccessful in bringing God back once everything had been doubted. His argument for God is so weak in comparison to the rest of his work that these scholars even suspect Descartes was a closet atheist. He never intended to bring God back: epistemology -- the human enterprise designed to examine knowledge claims and various knowledge systems -- topples revealed religion.

Metaphysics might be another candidate for self-evident truths. Can't we know, apart from experience (a priori), that everything in the universe has a cause? Can't we know that the universe is infinite?

I emphatically do not believe that science and religion are occupied by absolute truths. Any scientist worth a magic bean knows that he or she is not seeking that: absolute truths are not empirical. Science is pragmatic. It's about prediction and solving real-world problems. And religion seems to me to be mostly interested in comforting people than pursuing truth at all costs.

The last candidate I can think of is mathematics. Is mathematics absolutely known? Is anything?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/vJb3OzkA3zo/viewtopic.php

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Jeb Bush: Immigrants are ?more fertile?

Jeb Bush speaks Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. (Mary F. Calvert/Reut??

Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, had a lot to say at Friday's Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. But the thing that has everyone talking: his description of immigrants as "more fertile" than native-born Americans.

Bush, a recurring potential candidate for president, is fluent in Spanish, married a Mexican-born woman and has a strong contingent of Hispanic support in Florida. When he said at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., that immigrants are "more fertile," and so can replenish the country's population with young people, he likely misspoke, although it's true that immigrant women have a higher fertility rate than women born in the U.S.

The line overrode his other remarks?even one suggesting that the United States model itself after Canada on immigration.

Noting that immigrants create more businesses than do individuals born in the United States, he said, "Canada is the place that we might want to look to"?referring to a country often attacked by conservatives as an example of a socialist state. "They have more economic immigrants, and they have seen sustained economic growth because of it."

Bush in general championed reform ideas not held by most of the conservatives who shared the stage. And unlike the speaker who preceded him?tea party conservative Michele Bachmann?Bush offered full support for immigration reform.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he was greeted with tepid and sometimes absent applause from the mostly evangelical Republican audience at the J.W. Marriott hotel.

"The one way we can build the demographic pyramid is to fix a broken immigration system to allow more people to come to learn English, to play by our rules, to embrace our values and to pursue their dreams in our country with a vengeance to create more opportunities for all of us," Bush said. "This is a conservative idea. And if we do this, we will rebuild our country in a way that will allow us to grow. If we don?t do it ? we will be in decline."

Bush drew the most applause during his speech for unrelated comments on the value of education.

Bush's speech was in sharp contrast to Bachmann's remarks. The congresswoman stridently argued against the bipartisan immigration effort working its way through Congress and warned of what she described as a dangerous fast-tracking of the bill, noting the July 4 target date for Senate passage and August target date for the president's signature.

"That's a breathtaking speed to get a bill of this magnitude through the United States Congress. Why is it of such great magnitude? Because we are looking at the legalization of over 30 million illegal aliens," Bachmann said.

The bill, yet to be hashed out by the full Senate, includes a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations living in the U.S.

Bachmann also argued that the system to check for legalization status would be destroyed under the bill and that blacks and Hispanic-Americans would suffer the most if the bill passed because of increased job competition.

"This is not an anti-immigrant speech," she said.

Republican former Rep. Allen West, who spoke after Bush and Bachmann, also railed against the immigration reform bill, saying it would further "exacerbate problems" in the beleaguered black society of America.

One additional speaker advocated for immigration reform on Friday: the evangelical Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He warned the audience not to "drink the Kool-Aid" about the current immigration bill and pressed for more conservative outreach to Hispanics.

In an interview with Yahoo News after his speech, Rodriguez offered support for Bush, saying "Jeb Bush gets it." And he used Bachmann as an example of the wrong path forward on immigration for the Republican Party.

"If her argument wins this day, she will be responsible along with [former Colorado Rep.] Tom Tancredo, [Wisconsin Rep.] James Sensenbrenner?those names will go down in history as the reason why Hispanics voted Democrat, not the other way around, for the next 57 years," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said Bachmann's speech on Friday did serve to highlight conservative concerns including what Rodriguez believes is a "great mischaracterization" of facts related to the legislation, including that the border will be more porous.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/jeb-bush-champions-immigration-reform-canada-conservative-conference-145326767.html

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Colorado fire: Is global warming one of the culprits?

Firefighters are beginning to get a handle on the massive Black Forest wildfire near Colorado Springs ? the most destructive fire in the state?s history.

Cooler temperatures and some rain helped increase the contained area from just five percent Thursday to 30 percent Friday, authorities reported.

Still, the fire has been devastating: Two people killed and 38,000 evacuated, 473 homes destroyed as the blaze moved through 25 square miles of forests and woodland neighborhoods.

RECOMMENDED: Wildfire season: 7 ways you can help save lives and property

The Black Forest Fire in Colorado is part of a pattern in the West: increased construction in the ?wildland-urban interface,? as it?s called.

Most homeowners adhere to zoning codes and other regulations requiring them to cut back trees, shrubs, and other natural fuels that can send fires racing through developed areas. Here in the mountains of southern Oregon, crews frequently are seen thinning the forested watershed above town.

Lightning strikes spark most wildfires, and unpaved roads into national forests and wilderness areas provide access to arsonists as well as to hunters and campers. (What started the Black Forest Fire is yet to be determined, but El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa suspects human causation.)

Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.

But experts now have little doubt that climate change has become a major factor in the number and intensity of wildfires.

?Today, western forests are experiencing longer wildfire seasons and more acres burned compared to several decades ago,? says Todd Sanford, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). ?The greatest increase has occurred in mid-elevation Northern Rockies forests, which are having higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier snowmelt. These conditions are linked to climate change.?

?In general, climate change is increasing the risk for longer wildfire seasons and more area burned,? he says.

The UCS reports that wildfires in the western US have been increasing in frequency and duration since the mid-1980s, occurring nearly four times more often, burning more than six times the land area, and lasting almost five times as long.

?As the climate warms, moisture and precipitation levels are changing, with wet areas becoming wetter and dry areas becoming drier,? the organization reports. ?Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snow-melt typically cause soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood of drought and a longer wildfire season, particularly in the western United States. These hot, dry conditions also increase the likelihood that, once wildfires are started by lightning strikes or human error, they will be more intense and long-burning.?

To those tasked with preventing and fighting wildfires, climate change has become a major challenge.

?On average, wildfires burn twice as many acres each year as compared to 40 years ago. Last year, the fires were massive in size, coinciding with increased temperatures and early snow melt in the West,? US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in testimony last week. ?The largest issue we now face is how to adapt our management to anticipate climate change impacts and to mitigate their potential effects.?

In its report accompanying Mr. Tidwell?s testimony, the Forest Service detailed the increasing costs of fire-fighting.

Costs of fire suppression have increased to consume nearly half of the entire Forest Service budget. In fiscal year 1991, fire activities accounted for about 13 percent of the total agency budget. In fiscal year 2012, it was more than 40 percent. Since fiscal year 2000, the 10-year average cost has risen almost every year ? from a little more than $540 million to more than $1 billion in 2010 and beyond.

During the past 10 years, the Forest Service has made fire transfers from non-firefighting accounts to pay for fire suppression costs six times, ranging from a low of $100 million in fiscal year 2007 to a high of $999 million in fiscal year 2002, and totaling approximately $2.7 billion. Of that total, $2.3 billion was repaid but led to disruptions within many Forest Service programs.

In Colorado, meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture has designated six counties as primary natural disaster areas and six more as contiguous disaster areas due to ongoing severe drought conditions, US Senator Michael Bennet (D) of Colorado announced this week.

?Despite some relief earlier this year, right now we?re seeing how quickly our weather can get hot and dry, creating hazardous fire and drought conditions,? Sen. Bennet said.

RECOMMENDED: Wildfire season: 7 ways you can help save lives and property

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-fire-global-warming-one-culprits-162119050.html

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Pure Emergence: Tom Beddard?s Amazing Fractal Architecture

Though we have previously covered the amazing fractal creations of Tom Beddard, we thought it would be worth revisiting his work to find some examples of his architectural explorations. As we?ve discussed many times, parametric modeling is becoming more popular in the architecture world, thanks largely to Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects. While many amazing projects have resulted from the meeting between programming and building, parametricism becomes more awe-inspiring and, paradoxically, more rigorous when it is freed from the constraints of human inhabitation.

Beddard?s work definitely moves beyond the realistic to a realm of pure mathematical intricacy. Yet, something ties these images back to architecture, making them recognizable as potential buildings or cities. Of course, much of the magic lies at Beddard?s adept rendering skills, which make the images pop with shadows and subtle tone. This gray zone between realism and abstraction seems to be a theme of the work. As Beddard writes:

I have a fascination with the aesthetics of detail and complexity that is the result of simple mathematical or algorithmic processes. For me the creative process is writing my own software and scripts to explore the resulting output in an interactive manner. The best outcomes are often the least expected!

See more images at Architizer. Some of the scripts used to generate these images are available on Beddard?s website.

Source: http://architizer.kinja.com/pure-emergence-tom-beddard-s-amazing-fractal-architect-513432428

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Google's Doodle Is a Lovely Maurice Sendak Birthday Tribute

When Maurice Sendak died in 2012, there were plenty of moving tributes?both written and crafted?celebrating his legacy. But today, which would have been his 85th birthday, Google has added another wonderful tribute to the list: a Google Doodle that leads us through his most-loved stories.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/xDGltKKQUAg/googles-doodle-is-a-lovely-maurice-sendak-birthday-tri-512263294

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DNA-altering enzyme is essential for blood cell development

Public release date: 10-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jillian Hurst
press_releases@the-jci.org
Journal of Clinical Investigation

The expression of specific genes is partially dictated by the way the DNA is packed into chromatin, a tightly packed combination of DNA and proteins known as histones. HDAC3 is a chromatin-modifying enzyme that regulates gene expression, chromatin structure, and genome instability and it has previously been shown to associate with the oncoproteins that drive leukemia and lymphoma. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Scott Hiebert and colleagues at Vanderbilt University examined the role of HDAC3 in the development of blood cells (hematopoiesis) by disrupting its expression in mice. Loss of Hdac3 nearly eliminated all blood immune cells and caused mild anemia. Hiebert and colleagues observed that, in the absence of Hdac3, stem and progenitor cells, which give rise to blood cells, failed to grow normally. These studies identify a role for HDAC3 in stem cell functions and possibly bone marrow failure syndromes, in which the bone marrow fails to produce blood cells.

###

TITLE: HDAC3 is essential for DNA replication in hematopoietic progenitor cells

AUTHOR CONTACT: Scott Hiebert
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA
Phone: 615.936.3582; Fax: 615-936.1750; E-mail: scott.hiebert@vanderbilt.edu

View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/60806?key=51732e44292f61add1c3

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 10-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jillian Hurst
press_releases@the-jci.org
Journal of Clinical Investigation

The expression of specific genes is partially dictated by the way the DNA is packed into chromatin, a tightly packed combination of DNA and proteins known as histones. HDAC3 is a chromatin-modifying enzyme that regulates gene expression, chromatin structure, and genome instability and it has previously been shown to associate with the oncoproteins that drive leukemia and lymphoma. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Scott Hiebert and colleagues at Vanderbilt University examined the role of HDAC3 in the development of blood cells (hematopoiesis) by disrupting its expression in mice. Loss of Hdac3 nearly eliminated all blood immune cells and caused mild anemia. Hiebert and colleagues observed that, in the absence of Hdac3, stem and progenitor cells, which give rise to blood cells, failed to grow normally. These studies identify a role for HDAC3 in stem cell functions and possibly bone marrow failure syndromes, in which the bone marrow fails to produce blood cells.

###

TITLE: HDAC3 is essential for DNA replication in hematopoietic progenitor cells

AUTHOR CONTACT: Scott Hiebert
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA
Phone: 615.936.3582; Fax: 615-936.1750; E-mail: scott.hiebert@vanderbilt.edu

View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/60806?key=51732e44292f61add1c3

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/joci-dae060313.php

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