Friday, February 22, 2013

Ravens C Matt Birk retires after 15 seasons in NFL

(AP) ? Matt Birk has decided to retire after 15 seasons in the NFL, the last winning a Super Bowl title with the Baltimore Ravens.

Birk announced his retirement Friday at Battle Grove Elementary School.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh says the 36-year-old center played the best of his four seasons in Baltimore this past year.

A sixth-round draft selection in 1998, Birk played 11 seasons in Minnesota before going to Baltimore. He went to six Pro Bowls and played 210 regular-season games with 124 consecutive starts, including the playoffs. Birk also has agreed to donate his brain and spinal cord to the Center for Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University's School of Medicine for head trauma research.

Ravens receiver Torrey Smith tweeted Friday that Birk was truly a great role model and parent.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-22-FBN-Ravens-Birk-Retires/id-14d58edb0edb437886b5e7910cce1b22

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Source: http://www.ecprogress.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=13630

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Japan names 28-man squad for 2013 World Baseball Classic

Japan names 28-man squad for 2013 World Baseball Classic

Two-time defending champion Japan said yesterday that it has already chosen its 28 players for circulation in this year?s World Baseball Classic. Its title defense begins on March 2 at Fukuoka Dome against Brazil in Group A, which also includes Cuba and China. Unfortunately, two key players are not part of the roster after declining their call-ups.

Ichiro Suzuki, who is currently playing for the New York Yankees, and Yu Darvish, who is currently playing for the Texas Rangers, are both stationed in the United States and would have a difficult time preparing and playing with the national team having that kind of situation. So, national team manager Koji Yamamoto had to choose his players from the 33 candidates playing in domestic professional leagues. His 13-member pitching staff is led by 24-year-old right-hander Masahiro Tanaka, who was part of the Japan side during the 2009 tournament. He had a record of 10-4 with a 1.87 ERA last season playing for the Rakuten Eagles. Japan?s offense will be led by Shinnosuke Abe, who hit .340 with 104 RBIs and 27 home runs last season to help the Yomiuri Giants win the Japan Series.

In 2006, Japan beat Cuba, while in 2009, it beat South Korea, making it the winner of the first two championships. For this year?s tournament, two teams from Group A will proceed to the second round to be held from March 8-12 at Tokyo Dome. The final round will be at San Francisco on March 17-19.

[via NBC Sports]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JapanDailyPress/~3/svWuJo4zQZs/japan-names-28-man-squad-for-2013-world-baseball-classic-2123805

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Texas executes man who set his ex-girlfriend on fire

AUSTIN, Texas/ATLANTA (Reuters) - A man convicted of killing his former girlfriend by dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire was put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Thursday, the state's first execution of the year.

Carl Henry Blue, 48, was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m. local time at the state penitentiary at Huntsville, said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Blue was convicted of killing ex-girlfriend Carmen Richards-Sanders, 38, in her apartment in Bryan, Texas, in 1994 as she was getting ready to leave for work. His execution was the second in the country this year. Texas leads the United States in total executions.

According to court records, Blue threw open the door to Richards-Sanders' apartment, tossed gasoline on her and another man who was in the home at the time and set the two of them ablaze with a lighter.

"I told you I was gonna get you," Blue said to Richards-Sanders, according to a court summary of the case.

The male victim survived his injuries, but Richards-Sanders died 19 days later due to organ failure caused by burns over 40 percent of her body.

After turning himself in to the police, Blue said the incident was a prank and that he had not intended to kill his ex-girlfriend, said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

In Georgia, Thursday's scheduled execution of a man convicted of fatally shooting two Mercer University students in 1995 was delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court considered his last-minute appeal.

Attorneys for Andrew Allen Cook, 38, argued the state's method of lethal injection violated state and federal law.

Cook was convicted of killing college students Michele Lee Cartagena, 19, and Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, as they sat in a parked car next to a lake near Macon, according to court records. Cook fired 14 shots at the couple with an AR-15 rifle and five shots from a 9-millimeter Ruger handgun.

"The murders were completely random," according to court records. "Cook did not know the victims, and there was no interaction between Cook and the victims before he killed them."

After Cook became a suspect, investigators enlisted the help of his father, a veteran FBI agent, to help track him down. Cook admitted the killings to his father, who testified against his son at trial.

(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Additional reporting by James B. Kelleher and Kevin Gray; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-executes-man-convicted-killing-ex-girlfriend-1994-015138135.html

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Sweeping Dust from a Cosmic Lobster

Feb. 20, 2013 ? Located around 8000 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), NGC 6357 -- sometimes nicknamed the Lobster Nebula [1] due to its appearance in visible-light images -- is a region filled with vast clouds of gas and tendrils of dark dust. These clouds are forming stars, including massive hot stars which glow a brilliant blue-white in visible light.

This image uses infrared data from ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. It is just a small part of a huge survey called VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) that is imaging the central parts of the Galaxy. The new picture presents a drastically different view to that seen in visible-light images -- such as the image (http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1015a/) taken with the 1.5-metre Danish telescope at La Silla -- as infrared radiation can penetrate much of the covering of dust that shrouds the object [2].

One of the bright young stars in NGC 6357, known as Pismis 24-1, was thought to be the most massive star known -- until it was found to actually be made up of at least three huge bright stars, each with a mass of under 100 times that of our Sun. Even so, these stars are still heavyweights -- some of the most massive in our Milky Way. Pismis 24-1 is the brightest object in the Pismis 24 star cluster, a bunch of stars that are all thought to have formed at the same time within NGC 6357.

VISTA is the largest and most powerful survey telescope ever built, and is dedicated to surveying the sky in infrared light. The VVV survey is scanning the central bulge and some of the plane of our galaxy to create a huge dataset that will help astronomers to discover more about the origin, early life, and structure of the Milky Way.

Parts of NGC 6357 have also been observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope. Both telescopes have produced visible-light images of various parts of this region -- comparing these images with this new infrared image above shows some striking differences. In the infrared the large plumes of red-hued material are much reduced, with tendrils of pale, purple gas stretching out from the nebula in different areas.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by European Southern Observatory - ESO.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/RsvYqQKPyu4/130220084734.htm

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Google's stock price breaks $800 for 1st time

FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2012, file photo, a man raises his hand during at Google offices. Google's stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2013, amid renewed confidence in the company's ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile device market. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2012, file photo, a man raises his hand during at Google offices. Google's stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2013, amid renewed confidence in the company's ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile device market. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

(AP) ? Google's stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday amid renewed confidence in the company's ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile device market.

The milestone comes more than five years after Google's shares initially hit $700. Not long after breaking that barrier in October 2007, the economy collapsed into the worst recession since World War II and Google's stock tumbled into a prolonged malaise that eventually led to a change in leadership.

Besides enriching Google's employees and other shareholders, the company's resurgent stock is an implicit endorsement of co-founder Larry Page. He replaced his managerial mentor, Eric Schmidt, as CEO in April 2011. Google's stock has risen by about 35 percent since Page took over. By contrast, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed by 15 percent over the same stretch. Most of Google's gains have occurred in the past seven months.

In morning trading, Google's stock was at $801.99, up 1.2 percent, or $9.10.

The significance of crossing the $800 threshold is largely symbolic. If Google had its way, the stock wouldn't even be priced near these levels. The company, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., had hoped to split its stock last year in a move that would have at least temporarily halved the trading price by doubling the total number of outstanding shares. But the proposed stock split was put on hold until Google resolves a shareholder lawsuit alleging that the stock split unfairly cedes too much power to Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin. Page and Brin have been the company's largest shareholders since its inception. A trial on the lawsuit is scheduled to begin June 17 in a Delaware state court.

Assuming more investors wouldn't have bought the stock had it split, the company's market value probably wouldn't have changed from its current level of about $265 billion.

There is little dispute among analysts that Google appears well positioned for many years of prosperity. The reasons: Its Internet search engine remains the hub of the Web's biggest marketing network; its YouTube video site has established itself as an increasingly attractive advertising vehicle; and its free Android software is running on more than 600 million smartphones and tablet computers to create even more opportunities to sell ads.

The lower prices attached to mobiles ads have raised recurring concerns on Wall Street about the decline in the average rate paid for ads that run alongside Google's search results. The company, though, is trying to reverse the trend with upcoming changes to its ad system that will prod more marketers to buy mobile ads when they are creating campaigns for desktop and laptop computers.

Opinions about Google weren't as upbeat a few years ago. Although Google weathered the Great Recession better than most companies, its revenue growth slowed and its stock plummeted to as low as $247.30 near the end of 2008.

Things looked so bleak in 2009 that Google took the rare step of re-pricing stock options that had been doled out to its employees to give them a chance to make more money when the shares rebounded. The program allowed Google workers to swap their old stock options for new ones with an exercise price of about $308.

Even after the economy snapped out of the recession toward the end of 2009, Google's stock began to lag the rest of the market. Investors began to wonder if the company was losing its competitive age as it morphed from a hard-charging startup to giant organization with thousands of employees working in dozens of offices scattered around the world.

At the same time, Facebook was emerging as the Internet's fastest growing company in a meteoric rise. The social networking company had some people convinced it would eventually become a more important advertising vehicle than Google's search engine.

Perceptions have changed since Page became CEO. Under Page's leadership, Google has streamlined its decision-making and operations while closing dozens of services. It established its own toehold in social networking with the 2011 introduction of Google Plus.

Meanwhile, Facebook Inc. has lost much of the luster that made its initial public offering of stock one of the biggest in U.S. history. Since going public at $38, Facebook's stock has sunk 25 percent.

By contrast, Google's stock has never slipped below its August 2004 IPO price of $85.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-02-19-Google%20Stock/id-951b98bbcdbc4a1280be3f51ce2471f8

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Austrian lesbian couple win European adoption ruling

STRASBOURG (Reuters) - A lesbian couple who want to jointly raise one partner's child have won their case at the European Court for Human Rights, which ruled that Austria's adoption laws discriminated against gay people on that issue.

The case was brought in 2007 by the unnamed women, both born in 1967. They live with one partner's son, who was born out of wedlock in 1995.

The couple had lost a legal battle in Austria that sought to challenge the fact that an unmarried man or woman in a heterosexual relationship could adopt and jointly raise their partner's child, while that right was not extended to gay couples.

The European court found that the difference in treatment was based on sexual orientation. "No convincing reasons had been advanced to show that such difference in treatment was necessary for the protection of the family or for the protection of the interests of the child," it said in a statement.

The ruling is final, so Austria must comply with it. The court also ordered the country to pay the applicants 10,000 euros ($13,400) in damages and more than 28,000 euros in costs and expenses.

($1 = 0.7490 euros)

(Reporting by Michael Shields and Thomas Calinon; Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/austrian-lesbian-couple-win-european-adoption-ruling-142026096.html

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Homes for sale in Green Acres, Downers Grove, Illinois

None

The data relating to real estate for sale on this website comes in part from the Broker Reciprocity program of Midwest Real Estate Data LLC. Real Estate listings held by brokerage firms other than MRED Smart-Frame IDX Demo are marked with the MRED Broker Reciprocity logo or the Broker Reciprocity thumbnail logo (the MRED logo) and detailed information about them includes the names of the listing brokers. Some properties which appear for sale on this website may subsequently have sold and may no longer be available. Information Deemed Reliable but Not Guaranteed. The information being provided is for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.

? 2013 Midwest Real Estate Data LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.trulia.com/blog/marcoamidei/2013/02/homes_for_sale_in_green_acres_downers_grove_illinois

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Express Scripts 4Q profit jumps 74 percent

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? Mail-order and online druggist Express Scripts said on Monday its earnings jumped almost 74 percent as more people used generic drugs and it continued to absorb Medco Health Solutions.

Express Scripts Holding Co. acquired Medco last April, making it the largest pharmacy benefits manager by far. It now manages more than a billion prescriptions every year.

The company's outlook for this year also topped Wall Street expectations.

Express Scripts earned $504.1 million, or 61 cents per share, in its fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31. Its adjusted earnings were $1.05 per share, slightly better than the $1.02 per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue more than doubled to $27.41 billion. Analysts predicted $27 billion.

In the fourth quarter a year ago, it earned $290.4 million, or 59 cents per share. Revenue was $12.1 billion.

The company's $29.1 billion acquisition of Medco made it big enough to handle the prescriptions of more than one in three Americans. Revenue and prescription counts have swelled. In the most recent quarter, the number of claims it handled more than doubled to almost 411 million.

Pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs, run prescription drug plans for employers, insurers and other customers. They process mail-order prescriptions and handle bills for prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies. They also negotiate lower drug prices and make money by reducing costs for health plan sponsors and members.

More people used generic drugs, increasing Express Scripts' profitability. Generics boost pharmacy profits because there's a wider margin between the cost for the pharmacy to purchase the drugs and the reimbursement received.

Chairman and CEO George Paz called 2012 a "monumental year" for the company because of the Medco acquisition and its progress in integrating the two companies.

Moreover, Express Scripts and Walgreen Co., the nation's largest drugstore chain, resumed doing business last September after a split of nearly nine months. Walgreen fills prescriptions for Express Scripts, but the companies stopped doing business after they failed to agree on terms of a new contract.

Shares rose 21 percent to close the year at $54, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose about 13 percent.

For all of 2012, it earned $1.31 billion, or $1.76 per share. Revenue for the year doubled to $93.86 billion.

The St. Louis company projected adjusted earnings this year of $4.20 to $4.30 per share. However, it said it doesn't know yet how much it will spend on integrating Medco. Analysts were expecting a profit of $3.73 per share.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-18-Earns-Express%20Scripts/id-98aee5ed3ef4460db10a70a7c6846a59

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Vine Expanding Staff, Prepping Android App


Video-sharing app Vine might be coming to an Android device near you, if a recent job posting is any indication.

In the weeks since its debut, Vine's popularity has exploded, reaching a level that can no longer be maintained by its three-person engineering team.

Co-founder Colin Kroll tweeted today that the Twitter-owned company is looking to expand its New York City-based team by adding six new jobs.

One of those positions is a lead Android engineer who will be responsible for "lead development of the first version of Vine for Android."

The post does not reveal any details about when an Android app would hit Google Play. But the engineer would work with Product Design to build an attractive user interface, mentor other mobile engineers, and contribute ideas for new features.

Those applying for the position must have an intimate understanding of the Android platform, more than seven years of object-oriented software development experience, and three or more years of developing high performance Android apps ? especially those using a camera and video playback. Also, they must love to hack.

Qualified engineers can apply online to work in Vine's new office near Union Square in Manhattan.

Vine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other job openings include dev-ops engineer, lead iOS engineer, product designer, software engineer, and software engineer front-end.

"Vine is a product of the team behind it and we're always looking for talented, collaborative individuals," the company said on its jobs site. "Even if you don't see the role you're looking for above, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at jobs@vine.co."

Earlier this month, Vine slapped a 17+ rating on the iOS app's version 1.0.5 update after a spate of pornographic clips hit the service. One of those videos mistakenly landed at the top of the Editor's Picks list before being removed and blamed on "human error."

The update also allowed users to block offensive profiles as well as share videos to Twitter and Facebook.

For more, see PCMag's review of Vine for iPhone and the slideshow above. Also check out Twitter's Vine App: How to Use It and Infographic: The Rise of Mobile Video on Social Networks.

For more from Stephanie, follow her on Twitter @smlotPCMag.

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/breakingnews/~3/p6bYbBE8CQA/0,2817,2415600,00.asp

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Pistorius: Lover caught in tragedy or killer?

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) ? Oscar Pistorius portrayed himself as a lover caught in tragedy, wielding a pistol and frightened as he stood only on his stumps, then killed his girlfriend after mistaking her for an intruder on Valentine's Day.

Prosecutors, however, said the double-amputee Olympian committed premeditated murder, planning the slaying, then firing at Reeva Steenkamp as she cowered behind his locked bathroom door with no hope of escape.

"She couldn't go anywhere," Prosecutor Gerrie Nel told a packed courtroom Tuesday. "It must have been horrific."

Weeping uncontrollably, Pistorius listened as his words were read out in court by his attorney during the opening of a two-day bail hearing, his first public account of the events surrounding the shooting death of Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star who had spoken out against violence against women.

"I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated murder, as I had no intention to kill my girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp," Pistorius said in the sworn affidavit. "I deny the aforesaid allegation in the strongest terms."

It was the first time that the prosecution and Pistorius provided details of their radically divergent accounts of the killing, which has shocked South Africans and fans worldwide, who idolized the 26-year-old track star known as the Blade Runner for overcoming his disability to compete in last summer's London Olympics.

Nel said Pistorius committed premeditated murder when he rose from his bed after a fight with Steenkamp, pulled on his prosthetic legs and walked about 20 feet from his bedroom to the locked toilet door and pumped it with four bullets, three of which hit the model.

That contradicted the runner's statement, read aloud by defense attorney Barry Roux, who described how the couple spent a quiet night together in the athlete's upscale home in a gated community in the capital of Pretoria, then went to sleep around 10 p.m.

Sometime before dawn, Pistorius said he awoke, and walking only on his stumps, pulled a fan in from an open balcony and closed it. That's when he said he heard a noise and became alarmed because the bathroom window, which had no security bars, was open and workers had left ladders nearby.

"It filled me with horror and fear," Pistorius said in the statement.

"I am acutely aware of violent crime being committed by intruders entering homes," he said. "I have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries before. For that reason I kept my firearm, a 9 mm Parabellum, underneath my bed when I went to bed at night."

Too frightened to turn on a light, Pistorius said, he pulled out his pistol and headed for the bathroom, believing Steenkamp was still asleep "in the pitch dark" of the bedroom.

"As I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable, I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself," he said, adding that he shouted to Steenkamp to call the police as he fired at the closed toilet door.

It was then, Pistorius said, that he realized Steenkamp was not in bed.

He said he pulled on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the toilet door before finally giving up and bashing it in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over but still alive. He said he lifted her bloodied body and carried her downstairs to seek medical help.

But it was too late. "She died in my arms," Pistorius said.

"We were deeply in love and I could not be happier," the athlete said. "I know she felt the same way. She had given me a present for Valentine's Day but asked me only to open it the next day."

Pistorius broke down in sobs repeatedly as his account was read, prompting Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair to call a recess at one point.

"Maintain your composure," the magistrate said. "You need to apply your mind here."

"Yes, my lordship," Pistorius replied, his voice quivering.

Nair adjourned the case until Wednesday without ruling on whether Pistorius would be granted bail. However, he said the gravity of the charge ? which carries a mandatory life sentence ? meant the athlete's lawyers must offer "exceptional" reasons for bail to be granted, making his release unlikely.

Roux, the defense attorney, said there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder," he said.

The prosecutor disagreed.

"It is our respectful argument that 'pre-planning' or premeditation do not require months of planning," Nel said. "If ... I ready myself and walk a distance with the intention to kill someone, it is premeditated."

Hundreds of miles from the Magistrate's Court, a memorial service was held for Steenkamp in the south coast city of Port Elizabeth. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service and cremation.

Relatives recalled how the model with a law degree had campaigned against domestic violence and had planned to don black for a "Black Friday" protest in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was recently gang-raped and mutilated.

What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around, and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," said her uncle, Mike Steenkamp.

South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against women and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council, which said at least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million.

Since the shooting, several of Pistorius' sponsors have dropped him. On Tuesday, Clarins Group, which owns Thierry Mugler Perfumes, said it would withdraw all advertising featuring the Olympian. A cologne line with the company, called A(asterisk)Men, bears his image.

___

Associated Press writer Michelle Faul in Johannesburg and AP photographer Schalk van Zuydam in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP. Gerald Imray can be reached at www.twitter.com/geraldimrayAP.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pistorius-lover-caught-tragedy-killer-225359378--oly.html

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Monday, February 18, 2013

2013 NFL Draft: North Carolina G Jonathan Cooper

We turn back to the offensive line and look at guard prospect Jonathan Cooper.

Our highlighted player this Sunday is Jonathan Cooper, a guard out of North Carolina, in yet another attempt at "throw a drafted player at the wall and hope he sticks." Just like the draft and free agency are about identifying players and increasing your team's chances of having a useful player through having multiple possibilities, thus is our evaluation even entering the draft.

Cooper's another in the growing trend of guards that push themselves into the first round. He uses good leverage against his matchup and is a very smooth athlete, even if he doesn't have the power to stand up to stronger defensive tackles when his leverage breaks down. He's also a year removed from shoulder surgery. But Cooper's intelligence, athleticism (blocks well on the move) and leverage make him a pretty safe pick.

Cooper's currently ranked as the 22nd overall prospect and second overall interior lineman. Mock drafts have him going to the Niners at 31 (Rob Rang), to the Colts at 24 (WalterFootball), 28 to the Broncos (Draftek) and to the Bears at 20 (SB Nation). WalterFootball also had the Bears taking Cooper in one of their earlier mocks.

If you're looking for interior offensive line help, how does Cooper strike your fancy?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Source: http://www.windycitygridiron.com/2013/2/17/3997122/2013-nfl-draft-north-carolina-g-jonathan-cooper

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Rihanna mixes high street with high fashion at London show

LONDON (Reuters) - Pop star Rihanna launched her first clothing line with British high street retailer River Island on Saturday, in one of the most highly anticipated events of London Fashion Week.

Models strutted in a line through a tiered catwalk of five square compartments, pausing in each to showcase midriff-bearing mesh tops and yellow shift dresses.

Denim tank tops were teamed with slouchy jeans, while thigh-high slits featured heavily in the figure-hugging dresses and monochrome skirts.

Rihanna followed the conventions of catwalk shows, appearing momentarily at the end of the display to take bow from the centre of the stage.

The boyish, casual designs are Rihanna's first with River Island, a clothing chain which traces its history on Britain's high streets back 64 years and is known for its youthful clientele.

"I loved it - it's so Rihanna, it's got Rihanna's name all over it," said model Tolula Adeyemi from Los Angeles, who was in the crowd. "I kind of want the whole collection, it's got plenty of swag."

The fashion credentials of the high street have grown in recent years, as more household clothing brands inch onto the catwalks of major fashion centers.

The Barbados-born singer has already made a foray into fashion, teaming up with Armani Jeans in 2011.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rihanna-mixes-high-street-high-fashion-london-show-234417009.html

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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Edmonton Oilers stop part of Don Cherry's plan to celebrate HNIC anniversary across Canada

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Don Cherry and Ron MacLean dropped the puck before the first instalment of the Battle of Alberta in Calgary this season. (Stuart Dryden, QMI Agency)

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EDMONTON?-?

It was the first stop on the Ron & Don Road Show to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Hockey Night In Canada.

The Edmonton Oilers were in Calgary to play the Flames on the eighth day of the lockout-shortened season and just prior to the game they brought out Ron MacLean and Don Cherry to perform the ceremonial opening faceoff.

There was an overwhelming response as the fans used the opportunity to express what they felt about the place HNIC has had in their lives and to welcome Grapes and that other fella who have been the face of Saturday night telecasts for so much of that run.

?We won?t be doing that again,? said Cherry.

?I kinda felt funny out there, with the players looking at me dropping the puck. After all these years, I?m still an old player and I couldn?t help but think how I?d feel about some guy out there in a plaid suit dropping the puck.

?Yeah, people told me the response from the crowd was something. But you don?t really know that out on the ice. It really felt funny.

?The previous time I dropped the puck it was in Boston and 6-foot-7 Zdeno Chara was out there and I felt like I came to his knees. But in Calgary for that game ? Ron didn?t like it, either. It felt like we thought we were big shots being out there like that.?

So tonight when the Ron & Don Road Show plays Rexall Place, there will be none of that.

?We?ll do the setup on the ice before the game and after the first period I?ll go into the stands to do our segment. Howabout that instead? I got a real beauty of a suit, too. Blue. And not just a jacket. A suit.?

It was actually Cherry?s idea to go out on the road for a visit to each Canadian city in the league when Hockey Night was thinking of ideas on how to celebrate their 60th. But that was long before the lockout.

?It?s tough when you only have half a season to get it done,? he said.

Cherry did a game in Winnipeg last night to work it all in.

?I don?t think I?ve ever done a Friday night game before, but I really wanted to go to Winnipeg.?

Cherry said going out to do games on the road like this didn?t used to be such a special occasion.

?I thought it would be a good idea because I think some people think we?ve kind of become Hockey Night In Toronto.

?We used to do it all the time. We probably went to Edmonton more often than anywhere else back then, because of the team they had and the number of games we did there in the playoffs.?

Cherry remembers two incidents rather well.

?Once, the night before the game, Glen Sather took me to a friend?s place place. The guy had an English bull terrier just like my Blue. He had his dog with an Oilers sweater on and he had me sit and take a picture.

?Well, the next day it?s in the Edmonton Sun. On the front page! I got a lot of hassle over it, too.

?I went on TV that night and said ?Blue, I know you love Toronto and Boston and I know you must be dispirited and down seeing that picture of me. And, Blue, I just want you to know that bitch doesn?t mean a thing to me.?

?Well ? I thought it was funny. But a lot of people didn?t.?

Cherry still thinks it was funny.

But another one that came out of his mouth once when he was here, he should never have said.

?It was a game there against Chicago and Dr. Randy Gregg of the Oilers went in on a breakaway and flubbed the shot. I said ?With hands like that you wouldn?t want to have him working on your heart.?

?My mother called me. She told me I never should have said that. That?s the only thing I ever said on TV I really regretted.?

Cherry said he used to love going to Sherlock Holmes pub ?back when I used to be able to go to a bar. And I spent a lot of time in the Westin Hotel sauna.?

He said it?s good to get back out West again, especially this year with the 60th anniversary, because it reinforces the connection between the nation and HNIC. And it reminds him of to what extent the show is about Canada and not Toronto.

I figured it was appropriate to pass on Taylor Hall?s quote from earlier this year.

Talking about the number of games jammed together in such a short span on the 48-game post-lockout schedule, Hall inadvertently tossed out the quote which may have said it all about this 60th anniversary season.

?I never know what day of the week it is unless we?re playing on Hockey Night In Canada.?

Follow me on Twitter.com/sunterryjones

terry.jones@sunmedia.ca

Source: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2013/02/15/edmonton-oilers-stop-part-of-don-cherrys-plan-to-celebrate-hnic-anniversary-across-canada

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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Jon Stewart Interviews Susan Rice On Benghazi - Business Insider

Comedy Central

Daily Show host Jon Stewart challenged U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Thursday, asking her about the mixed messages from the Obama administration about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.?

Rice highlighted many of the same talking points she has peddled since the attack. Rice caught the ire of Republicans for her appearances on Sunday news shows in the days following the attack, when she suggested that the attacks were a spontaneous demonstration in response to an obscure anti-Muslim?YouTube?video. Of course, those claims turned out to false. Rice was considered to be nominated for Secretary of State, but she withdrew her nomination amid rising tension.

Stewart pressed Rice, saying that the Sunday show explanations and the administration's other initial responses were "odd."

"It does look like there?s a great deal of confusion there," Stewart told Rice.

"There is always confusion when you have a tragedy of that sort and Americans are killed," Rice said. "The bigger tragedy is we've spent all of these months trying to figure out the origin of some talking points ? which were cleared at the highest level of the intelligence community ? and, in my opinion, not enough time doing the service that we owe to our fallen colleagues."

At the end of the interview, Stewart asked Rice if she wanted to respond directly to her critics.

"They're dead wrong," Rice said. "And they are, in fact, doing a disservice to those we lost."

Watch the full interview in the clips below:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-susan-rice-benghazi-obama-2013-2

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ScienceOnline2013 interview with Karyn Traphagen

Every year I ask some of the attendees of the ScienceOnline conferences to tell me (and my readers) more about themselves, their careers, current projects and their views on the use of the Web in science, science education or science communication. So now we continue with the participants of ScienceOnline2013. See all the interviews in this series here.

Today my guest is Karyn Traphagen, the Executive Director of ScienceOnline (blog, Twitter).

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific and other) background?

I was born in New Jersey (please don?t hold that against me).

I suppose, in retrospect, I was one of the Apollo generation kids and that has affected me more than I realized. I clearly remember being a very young child and standing by some adults who were debating whether or not we would really get to the moon and back. I grew up with the Gemini missions and Apollo missions. My entire elementary school would gather in the gymnasium around one television to watch launches and splashdowns.

After I started kindergarten we stayed in the same house until I graduated from high school (remarkable when you learn that I have moved 26 times since then). I was the oldest of four girls. My father was part of my life until I was in middle school (and then he entered my life again after I had my own children), but it was my mother who really instilled in me the interest and discipline and confidence that make me so curious and adventurous.

One of my favorite memories is constructing furniture with my mom. In those days there were no IKEA designers with clear instructions. We had all those foreign diagrams and crazy languages to guide us. I learned at an early age how to persevere, tinker, and make it work. I guess you could say we had a Maker culture and DIY house before the terms were popularized.

I also had an amazing chemistry set (which no doubt is illegal these days).? Of course, all the illustrations were of boys, but that didn?t bother me one bit. I had a picture of my mom before she was married and she was working in a lab with all manner of science glassware. I thought that was the best picture ever of my mom. Even though she stopped working in the lab to get married and have us kids, I thought it was perfectly normal to want to do science. It didn?t even occur to me that I couldn?t figure these things out. I also had a small mirror microscope that was nearly impossible to get to work. But I still had slides and slides of samples I collected. Even today my office is full of geologic and botanical specimens I?ve collected.

It wasn?t until later in life that I realized we were really poor growing up because I always thought we had the most amazing house. It was a tiny rental duplex. But we had file cabinets full of paper, pens, glue, tape, crayons, cardboard, glitter, and all sorts of creative stuff. What I didn?t realize was that it was all cast-offs from mailing rooms and offices (the paper was discarded stationary and onion skin paper for carbon copies). So, again, my mom was ahead of the times with re-purposing and recycling even before the first Earth Day had been organized.

Speaking of Earth Day, I can remember as a young girl how much I loved that first festival. My best friend and I were so impressed that we started our own Anti-Pollution Club. I doubt we really did very much to affect the trash and pollution in our town, but I know it did change us.

Another thing that changed me was the monthly arrival of the National Geographic magazine. Someone must have given us a subscription, because I?m sure we couldn?t have afforded it. But I (absolutely) loved reading about Jane Goodall. I wanted to go sit in the jungle and be like her. I would lose myself in the photos of space and dive in the ocean with Jacques Cousteau. I would crawl down into the earth with the stories about insects and their habits. And volcanoes! Who knew, at that time, that I would live in Hawai?i for a while and get to walk on newly cooled lava and then watch red hot lava flow into the ocean? My love of science owes a debt of gratitude to NatGeo for the visual imagery and stories they brought to me.

In high school, I was part of the ?advanced track.??This meant that I had double periods of math and double periods of science every year. Double periods of math! I was invited to be part of the school?s Math League team. I hardly noticed that there were only two girls on the team. Double periods of science meant lots and lots of labs. Let?s just say that having a lab partner who sutured our fetal pig back together each night should give you a glimpse of the kind of classmates I had. But I also played violin, taught myself guitar, and sang in the choir. I became a thespian and loved drama (apparently, both on stage and off). You see, it was just the beginning of my interest in everything. I owe it to my mom that I always thought that if I was interested in something I could just go out and learn it and do it. So, I just kept doing that.

I graduated from high school early. In part, because of a dare/challenge. There were three of us who thought it would be great to graduate early (no idea why we thought that at first). The school told us ?No, you can?t do that. It isn?t allowed, it?s never been done.? Hmmpff. That?s one of the surest ways to get me to try to make something happen. So, we looked at the specific policies and rules in place, and found a loophole that would allow us to graduate in three years (by doubling up on some coursework). We appealed to the school board, and they agreed. We were the first to do that. It also meant that I was in the graduating class of female students who were first invited to apply to West Point. I didn?t go to West Point, or any of the other amazing opportunities I was offered. Instead, my education and career ?trajectory? began to look more like I was tacking in a sailboat.

The short story is Life and Family (capital L and F) became priorities for various reasons. The result is that along the way I got married, had 2 daughters (both awesome), had my 2 youngest sisters come into our house under our guardianship, had my other sister live with us for a time while she finished her undergrad degree, ran several entrepreneurial endeavors, learned a lot of new things, and moved a lot.

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present? And future?

Trajectory assumes a smooth path that obeys the law of gravity and as I?ve already noted, my journey has taken a rather torturous, meandering route. But (and please forgive me for this), as Tolkien?s oft-quoted poem says: ?Not all those who wander are lost.?

While meandering, I hiked and backpacked all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks (becoming an ADK46er along with my husband and our 2 daughters). I have taught physics to high school students, undergrads, & grad students. I did research with cadavers to help develop a tibia index to make more biofidelic crash test dummies. I coded. I studied (and taught) ancient languages and their writing systems, like Ugaritic, Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, and Babylonian. I studied Tolkien linguistics (and created a Tengwar Primer). I created miniature medieval calligraphy pieces (with period techniques for pigments and gilding). Less academic, I taught myself how to make molds of my own ears so I could design elf ear prosthetics. Yes, really.

I coached a cross country team. I bicycled a few century rides. I went to South Sudan to help train teachers whose lives had been disrupted by decades of war. I studied in Stellenbosch, South Africa. I taught English during some summers in Hungary. I took students on week-long sailing trips in the Bahamas. I worked at the Museum of Life and Science (Durham, NC) with the Animal Department?lemurs and snakes and bears, oh my!

And, then my life also took a turn back to Space. I?ve been to several NASATweetups (now called NASAsocials) where I was able to meet people like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson (& amazing NASA people) while we watched rockets launch missions to the moon and Mars. My name is on a chip on the Mars Curiosity rover! I absolutely love how NASA has re-invented itself in the public eye.

Eventually, all the experiences and education came together in a kind of perfect storm that led me to Bora and Anton and ScienceOnline.

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

ScienceOnline! It?s an amazing privilege to represent the ScienceOnline community and work to build the projects, tools, and resources that create the opportunities for conversation, community, and collaborations. I?m so grateful for my friendship with Bora and Anton and for their trust in me and their encouragement to take the momentum from the last 7 years of conferences and move forward, as an organization, in new and exciting directions.

We have topical events (ScienceOnline: Oceans; ScienceOnline: Climate and more) being developed. Regional events around the world are springing up. Tools and resources (such as ScienceSeeker are being developed. And then, of course there are the logistics of a new organization to work on.

I think the distinctives that characterize our events are our focus on conversation and relationships. There are many valuable science conferences and associations that are more presentation focused, but we prioritize face-to-face meetings between people who have met or work together online so that they can build relationships which will lead to new collaborations and better science communication.

What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most? You are obviously a veteran blogger. And you?ve been using Twitter for at least two years longer than I have. What platforms and what types of online activity you found most useful, or most gratifying to use? How does blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook? Do you find all this online activity to be a net positive (or even a necessity) in what you do? What new platforms or method of online communication, if any, are you excited about?

I don?t blog as much as used to, or as much as I would like. My current personal blog is stay-curious.com and I still have all these ideas, but a lack of time. I?ve been writing for ScienceOnline (organization documents, grants, policy, copy for projects, etc) but it?s not the same! I miss having time to introduce people to aspects of the world they live in that they may not have noticed.

Twitter has been a wonderful way to stay involved online with content creation when I don?t have the time to do long blog posts. I think the various social media platforms are invaluable for data acquisition, data sharing, data analysis, science outreach, professional development, community, and communication. I like to explore ways to exploit the tools in ways their creators never imagined. A good example of this is how Fraser Cain (of Universe Today) took the Google+ hangouts to a completely new level with virtual star parties. I don?t think the Google developers ever dreamed that telescopes would stream live images of distant worlds into our homes via G+ hangouts. This excites me for the future because there are tools we haven?t even created yet and new ways of sharing information and community still to discover.

I?m most excited about the platforms we have yet to create.

I can?t imagine not being online. But I do sometimes need to unplug (albeit briefly). I love to get out in nature to hike, explore, collect small things. I like to be alone. I like to think. I?m training for the Rocketman Triathlon which will have the bicycle portion go through the launchpads at Kennedy Space Center! Oh, and I?ll be doing the triathlon with Camilla Corona, the NASA mascot for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). She?s a rubber chicken. After that, I?m looking forward to exploring Alaska in May.

What is the best aspect of ScienceOnline for you, now that you are the Executive Director? How is it different from when you were just an attending participant?

Well, I?m an introvert (amazing how many of the attendees seem to claim this trait). It has become much easier to talk to people because they all know who I am now. It is harder for me to remember all the new people though! I have some ideas for next year to help with this (but I?m not telling yet!)

I love the creative details that I?ve been able to bring to life at the conferences, but I?m so excited to be thinking big picture, to draw in all my previous experiences/skills and work to enable others to bring out their own potential and skill.

I?ve been most surprised by the opportunities to mentor. I guess I keep thinking ?Who am I to give counsel or advice? I?m still growing up!? But apparently, I guess I have lived a fair bit and done a few things and it may be helpful to a handful. So, yes, I do enjoy encouraging and listening to some of the members of our community who have come to me in that way.

I know you always have surprises for all of us ? including some that even Anton and I don?t know about until the conference starts! Is there one of those little surprises that you are willing to reveal in advance, right now?

I do love to surprise and delight people. At tweetups I often bring toys (as you know!) to give people something fun to try out and play with. For the conference(s), I try to think of ideas to keep it fresh, to make it fun, to make people more likely to think creatively. I work hard at cultivating an atmosphere that allows conversation. Sometimes breaking down the ?professional? barriers by playing with some origami or LEGO blocks at a table helps people to interact in a more casual and engaging way.

What does the future hold?

If I knew that, do you think I would tell you? All I can say is that I?m always ready for an adventure.

Thank you so much! It is exciting to see ScienceOnline move into the new future under your leadership.

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=9f2ad440cc5125c2419ad2048d0fea84

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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

N. Korea calls nuke test 'first response'

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? Defying U.N. warnings, North Korea on Tuesday conducted its third nuclear test in the remote, snowy northeast, taking a crucial step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile capable of striking the United States.

North Korea said the atomic test was merely its "first response" to what it called U.S. threats, and said it will continue with unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity" if Washington maintains its hostility.

The underground test, which set off powerful seismic waves, drew immediate condemnation from Washington, the U.N. and others. Even its only major ally, China, summoned the North's ambassador for a dressing-down.

President Barack Obama, who was scheduled to give a State of the Union address later Tuesday, said nuclear tests "do not make North Korea more secure." Instead, North Korea has "increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction," he said in a statement.

North Korea claimed the device was smaller than in previous tests; Seoul said it likely produced a bigger explosion.

The test was a defiant response to U.N. orders to shut down atomic activity or face more sanctions and international isolation. It will likely draw more sanctions from the United States and other countries at a time when North Korea is trying to rebuild its moribund economy and expand its engagement with the outside world.

Several U.N. resolutions bar North Korea from conducting nuclear or missile tests because the U.N. Security Council considers Pyongyang a would-be proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and its nuclear testing a threat to international peace and stability. North Korea dismisses that as a double standard, and claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, which has been seen as enemy No. 1 since the 1950-53 Korean War. The U.S. stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect its ally.

Tuesday's test is North Korea's first since young leader Kim Jong Un took power of a country long estranged from the West. The test will likely be portrayed in North Korea as a strong move to defend the nation against foreign aggression, particularly from the U.S.

"The test was conducted in a safe and perfect way on a high level, with the use of a smaller and light A-bomb, unlike the previous ones, yet with great explosive power," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said, confirming speculation that seismic activity near Kilju around midday was a nuclear test.

North Korea was punished by more U.N. sanctions after a December launch of a rocket that the U.N. and Washington called a cover for a banned missile test. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful, and successful, bid to send a satellite into space.

The timing of the test is significant. It came hours before Obama's speech and only days before the Saturday birthday of Kim Jong Un's father, late leader Kim Jong Il, whose memory North Korean propaganda has repeatedly linked to the country's nuclear ambitions.

This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, and in late February South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye will be inaugurated.

In Pyongyang, where it was snowing Tuesday, North Koreans gathered around televisions to watch a 3 p.m. TV broadcast announcing the nuclear test.

The test shows the world that North Korea is a "nuclear weapons state that no one can irritate," Kim Mun Chol, a 42-year-old Pyongyang citizen, told The Associated Press in the North Korean capital. "Now we have nothing to be afraid of in the world."

The National Intelligence Service in Seoul told lawmakers that North Korea may conduct an additional nuclear test and test-launch a ballistic missile in response to U.N. talks about imposing more sanctions, according to the office of South Korean lawmaker Jung Chung-rae, who attended the private meeting. Analysts have also previously speculated that Pyongyang might conduct multiple tests, possibly of plutonium and uranium devices.

North Korea is estimated to have enough weaponized plutonium for four to eight bombs, according to American nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker.

It wasn't immediately clear to outside experts whether the device exploded Tuesday was small enough to fit on a missile, and whether it was fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium. A successful test would take North Korean scientists a step closer to building a nuclear warhead that can reach U.S. shores ?seen as the ultimate goal of North Korea's nuclear program.

In 2006, and 2009, North Korea is believed to have tested devices made of plutonium. But in 2010, Pyongyang revealed a program to enrich uranium, which would give the country a second source of bomb-making materials ? a worrying development for the U.S. and its allies.

"This latest test and any further nuclear testing could provide North Korean scientists with additional information for nuclear warhead designs small enough to fit on top of its ballistic missiles," Daryl Kimball and Greg Thielmann wrote on the private Arms Control Association's blog. "However, it is likely that additional testing would be needed for North Korea to field either a plutonium or enriched uranium weapon."

Uranium would be a worry because plutonium facilities are large and produce detectable radiation, making it easier for outsiders to find and monitor. However, uranium centrifuges can be hidden from satellites, drones and nuclear inspectors in caves, tunnels and other hard-to-reach places. Highly enriched uranium also is easier than plutonium to engineer into a weapon.

Monitoring stations in South Korea detected an earthquake in the North with a magnitude of 4.9 and the South's Defense Ministry said that corresponds to an estimated explosive yield of 6-7 kilotons.

The yields of the North's 2006 and 2009 tests were estimated at 1 kiloton and 2 to 6 kilotons, respectively, spokesman Kim Min-seok said. By comparison, U.S. nuclear bombs that flattened Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II were estimated at 13 kilotons and 22 kilotons, respectively, Kim said.

The test is a product of North Korea's military-first, or songun, policy, and shows Kim Jong Un is running the country much as his father did, said Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group think tank.

The decision to push ahead with a test will be a challenge to the U.N. Security Council, which recently punished Pyongyang for launching the December long-range rocket. In condemning that launch and imposing more sanctions on Pyongyang, the council had demanded a stop to future launches and ordered North Korea to respect a ban on nuclear activity ? or face "significant action" by the U.N.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the test in a statement. The Security Council met later to discuss its response.

China expressed firm opposition to the test but called for a calm response by all sides. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi summoned North Korea's ambassador and delivered a "stern representation" and demanded that North Korea "swiftly return to the correct channel of dialogue and negotiation," the ministry said in a statement.

The other part of a credible North Korean nuclear deterrent is its missile program. While it has capable short and medium-range missiles, it has struggled in tests of technology for long-range missiles needed to carry bombs to the United States, although it did launch the satellite in December.

North Korea isn't close to having a nuclear bomb it can use on the United States or its allies. Instead, Hecker said in a posting on Stanford University's website, "it wants to hold U.S. interests at risk of a nuclear attack to deter us from regime change and to create international leverage and diplomatic maneuvering room."

___

Associated Press writers Kim Kwang Hyon in Pyongyang, North Korea; Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim, Youkyung Lee and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Yuri Kageyama and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo; and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-conducts-third-controversial-nuke-test-091212327.html

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Video: MOH recipient: ?I?m humbled I?ve been singled out?

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50772941/

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Friday, February 8, 2013

Stripe Releases Library To Help Developers Build Sleeker Credit Card Forms; Now Processing Millions In Payments Per Day

screen-shot-2012-07-09-at-5-10-22-pmSimple online payments company Stripe quietly launched jQuery.payment, library of code for building credit card forms, validating input, and formatting numbers. It's basically a library that helps developers build better payment forms, regardless of whether they are using Stripe or another payments platform.

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

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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Animal magnetism: First evidence that magnetism helps salmon find home

Feb. 7, 2013 ? When migrating, sockeye salmon typically swim up to 4,000 miles into the ocean and then, years later, navigate back to the upstream reaches of the rivers in which they were born to spawn their young. Scientists, the fishing community and lay people have long wondered how salmon find their way to their home rivers over such epic distances.

How do they do that?

A new study, published in this week's issue of Current Biology and partly funded by the National Science Foundation, suggests that salmon find their home rivers by sensing the rivers' unique magnetic signature.

As part of the study, the research team used data from more than 56 years of catches in salmon fisheries to identify the routes that salmon had taken from their most northerly destinations, which were probably near Alaska or the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, to the mouth of their home river--the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. This data was compared to the intensity of Earth's magnetic field at pivotal locations in the salmon's migratory route.

Earth has a magnetic field that weakens with proximity to the equator and distance from the poles and gradually changes on a yearly basis. Therefore, the intensity of the magnetosphere in any particular location is unique and differs slightly from year to year.

Because Vancouver Island is located directly in front of the Fraser River's mouth, it blocks direct access to the river's mouth from the Pacific Ocean. However, salmon may slip behind Vancouver Island and reach the river's mouth from the north via the Queen Charlotte Strait or from the south via the Juan De Fuca Strait.

Results from this study showed that the intensity of the magnetic field largely predicted which route the salmon used to detour around Vancouver Island; in any given year, the salmon were more likely to take whichever route had a magnetic signature that most closely matched that of the Fraser River years before, when the salmon initially swam from the river into the Pacific Ocean.

"These results are consistent with the idea that juvenile salmon imprint on (i.e. learn and remember) the magnetic signature of their home river, and then seek that same magnetic signature during their spawning migration," said Nathan Putman, a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University and the lead author of the study.

Important results

It has long been known that some animals use Earth's magnetic field to generally orient themselves and to follow a straight course. However, scientists have never before documented an animal's ability to "learn" the magnetic field rather than to simply inherit information about it or to use the magnetic field to find a specific location.

This study provides the first empirical evidence of magnetic imprinting in animals and represents the discovery of a major new phenomenon in behavioral biology.

In addition, this study suggests that it would be possible to forecast salmon movements using geomagnetic models--a development that has important implications for fisheries management.

Get out the map

Putman says scientists don't know exactly how early and how often salmon check Earth's magnetic field in order to identify their geographic locations during their trip back home. "But," he says, "for the salmon to be able to go from some location out in the middle of the Pacific 4,000 miles away, they need to make a correct migratory choice early--and they need to know which direction to start going in. For that, they would presumably use the magnetic field."

Putman continues, "As the salmon travel that route, ocean currents and other forces might blow them off course. So they would probably need to check their magnetic position several times during this migration to stay on track. Once they get close to the coastline, they would need to hone in on their target, and so would presumably check in more continuously during this stage of their migration."

Putman says that once the salmon reach their home river, they probably use their sense of smell to find the particular tributary in which they were born. However, over long distances, magnetism would be a more useful cue to salmon than odors because magnetism--unlike odors--can be detected across thousands of miles of open ocean.

A long, strange trip

Like other Pacific Salmon, sockeye salmon spawn in the gravel beds of rivers and streams. After the newly hatched salmon emerge from these beds, they spend one to three years in fresh water, and then they migrate downstream to the ocean.

Next, the salmon travel thousands of miles from their home river to forage in the North Pacific for about two more years, and then, as well-fed adults, they migrate back to the same gravel beds in which they were born.

When migrating, salmon must transition from fresh water to sea water, and then back again. During each transition, the salmon undergo a metamorphosis that Putman says is almost as dramatic as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Each such salmon metamorphosis involves a replacement of gill tissues that enables the fish to maintain the correct salt balance in its environment: the salmon retains salt when in fresh water and pumps out excess salt when in salt water.

Salmon usually undertake their taxing, round-trip migration, which may total up to 8,000 miles, only once in their lives; they typically die soon after spawning.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Science Foundation.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Nathan?F. Putman, Kenneth?J. Lohmann, Emily?M. Putman, Thomas?P. Quinn, A.?Peter Klimley, David?L.G. Noakes. Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting as a Homing Mechanism in Pacific Salmon. Current Biology, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.041

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/pmYHSb0zb_E/130207131713.htm

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) ? Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-02-05-Sugary%20Drinks-Lawsuit/id-09bed9e683a44c7eb09bcfee97cdd30d

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1865 baseball card fetches $92K in Maine auction

BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) ? A rare 148-year-old baseball card discovered at a rural Maine yard sale has been auctioned for $92,000.

Saco River Auction Co. in Biddeford held an auction Wednesday night that included a card depicting the Brooklyn Atlantics amateur baseball club.

Troy Thibodeau, manager and auctioneer at Saco River Auction, said the card drew plenty of interest. Bidding started at $10,000 and quickly rose to the final $92,000, which included an 18-percent premium.

The name of the buyer, who was at the auction house, was not released.

The card isn't the same as a modern-day baseball card, which became common in the 1880s. Rather, it's an original photograph from 1865 mounted on a card, showing nine players and a manager.

The Library of Congress said last month it was aware of only two copies of the photo. The other is in the institution's collection.

In its book "Baseball Americana," the Library of Congress calls the item the first dated baseball card, handed out to supporters and opposing teams in a gesture of bravado from the brash Brooklynites, who were dominant and won their league championships in 1861, 1864 and 1865.

A Maine man who doesn't want to be publicly identified found the card inside an old photo album he bought while antique picking in the small town of Baileyville on the Canadian border. The man bought the photo album, old Coca-Cola bottles and a couple of oak chairs together in a single purchase for less than $100, Thibodeau said.

It was impossible to predict what kind of price the card would fetch because of its rarity, he said, but he guessed before the auction that the winning bid would fall somewhere between $50,000 and $500,000. The priciest baseball card ever is a 1909 Honus Wagner card, which sold for $2.8 million in 2007.

"We're happy with it and the consigner is happy with it," Thibodeau said.

Tom Bartsch, editor of Sports Collectors Digest, said $92,000 is a good price for a pre-war card without a Hall of Famer's picture.

"There are very few artifacts around from the 1860s," he said. "Baseball was near its infancy in that time."

Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions for Heritage Auctions, said there's also only a small pool of buyers for such an esoteric item.

Both said the story of the card's discovery remarkable is a reminder to collectors of all kinds that a rare find can easily be missed among otherwise unremarkable items.

"It's what keeps those treasure hunters out there going," Ivy said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/1865-baseball-card-fetches-92k-maine-auction-012135538--spt.html

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