Student loan forgiveness and more: 5 ways Obama wants to ease student debt (The Christian Science Monitor)

Skip to navigation ? Skip to content ? By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo Stacy Teicher Khadaroo ? Wed?Oct?26, 2:25?pm?ET Follow Yahoo! News on , become a fan on Facebook

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Amazon.com shares slump as costs weigh on outlook (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Shares of Amazon.com Inc fell 13 percent in pre-market trade on Wednesday, a day after the company forecast a disappointing outlook for the current quarter on costs related to Kindle and other investments to grow the company.

Analysts with at least four brokerages, including BofA Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Securities, lowered their price targets on Amazon's stock, as third-quarter results came in below market expectations.

The world's largest Internet retailer had launched its Kindle Fire tablet in September, which is likely to weigh on the fourth-quarter profit, Analyst Ken Sena of Evercore Partners said in a note to clients.

"Fulfillment spending was higher than expected as the company works to expand the number of fulfillment centers and adds selection," Sena added and cut the price target on the stock to $260 from $290.

The company has been spending on support growth, primarily to handle the growth of its main online retail business, and plans to build 17 new fulfillment centers this year.

"Amazon continues to invest in high-growth opportunities at the expense of near-term profits," brokerage Stifel Nicolaus said in a note, while cutting its rating on the stock to $265 from $280.

Shares of Amazon slumped to $197.91 in pre-market trading on Wednesday. They had closed at $227.15 on Tuesday on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Arpita Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111026/bs_nm/us_amazon

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India central bank raises rates (Reuters)

MUMBAI (Reuters) ? India's central bank raised interest rates on Tuesday for the 13th time since early 2010 but gave a strong signal it may be finished with its current tightening cycle as growth slows and it expects high inflation to ease starting in December.

The Reserve Bank of India raised its policy lending rate, the repo rate, by 25 basis points to 8.5 percent, in line with expectations in a Reuters poll last week.

It also revised down its growth forecast for the current fiscal year ending in March to 7.6 percent from 8 percent with a downward bias earlier, while sticking with its forecast that headline wholesale price index inflation will ease to 7 percent at the end of the fiscal year.

The likelihood of a rate move at its December review is "relatively low," the central bank said in a statement.

"Beyond that, if the inflation trajectory conforms to projections, further rate hikes may not be warranted," it said.

Investors took comfort in the prospect that India's steady upward rise in interest rates may be at an end.

The benchmark 10-year bond yield fell as much as 7 basis points to 8.69 percent after the policy statement, while the 5-year swap rate fell 10 bps to 8.30 percent. The main BSE index (.BSESN) extended gains to as much as 1.1 percent before dropping.

"Clear direction from the RBI is now in place, that they are not looking at any more increase," Indranil Pan, chief economist at Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The RBI under Governor Duvvuri Subbarao has been one of the most aggressive central banks anywhere and has continued to take its fight to inflation even as its global counterparts have refocused monetary policy toward promoting growth.

Subbarao maintained his hawkish view on Tuesday.

"While the impact of past monetary actions is still unfolding, it is necessary to persist with the anti-inflationary stance," he said in the policy statement.

The central bank warned that medium term inflationary risks in Asia's third-largest economy remain high due to structural imbalances in agriculture, infrastructure bottlenecks, and India's fiscal deficit.

"In the absence of progress on these, over the medium term, the monetary policy stance will have to take into account the risks of inflation surging in response to even a moderate growth recovery," it said.

Despite continued policy tightening, inflation in India remains sticky, with the headline wholesale price index up 9.72 percent annually through September, its 10th straight month above 9 percent and highest among the BRIC grouping of economies that includes Brazil, Russia and China.

Inflation in India is driven in large part by high food and global commodity prices as well as fiscal policies that spur demand, all of which is beyond the scope of monetary policy, prompting some critics to urge the RBI to relent in its tightening.

Meanwhile, India's economy grew at 7.7 percent in the June quarter, its weakest in six quarters, while industrial output growth was below 5 percent in July and August.

In last week's Reuters poll, 17 economists had expected the central bank to raise rates on Tuesday but 13 had expected it to pause, with most respondents expecting rates to remain unchanged after Tuesday for the remainder of the fiscal year through March.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111025/bs_nm/us_india_economy

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Ancient cooking pots reveal gradual transition to agriculture

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2011) ? Humans may have undergone a gradual rather than an abrupt transition from fishing, hunting and gathering to farming, according to a new study of ancient pottery.

Researchers at the University of York and the University of Bradford analysed cooking residues preserved in 133 ceramic vessels from the Western Baltic regions of Northern Europe to establish whether these residues were from terrestrial, marine or freshwater organisms.

The research led by Oliver Craig (York) and Carl Heron (Bradford) included an international team of archaeologists from The Heritage Agency of Denmark, The National Museum of Denmark, Moesg?rd Museum (Denmark), Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t, Kiel (Germany) and the Arch?ologisches Landesmuseum, Schleswig (Germany).

The project team studied ceramic pots from 15 sites dating to around 4,000 BC- the time when the first evidence of domesticated animals and plants was found in the region. The research, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is published online in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The research team found that fish and other aquatic resources continued to be exploited after the advent of farming and domestication, with pots from coastal locations containing residues enriched in a form of carbon found in marine organisms.

Around one-fifth of coastal pots contained other biochemical traces of aquatic organisms, including fats and oils absent in terrestrial animals and plants. At inland sites, 28 percent of pots contained residues from aquatic organisms, which appeared to be from freshwater fish.

Lead author Dr Oliver Craig, of the Department of Archaeology at York, said: "This research provides clear evidence people across the Western Baltic continued to exploit marine and freshwater resources despite the arrival of domesticated animals and plants. Although farming was introduced rapidly across this region, it may not have caused such a dramatic shift from hunter-gatherer life as we previously thought."

Carl Heron, Professor of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford, said: "Our data set represents the first large scale study combining a wide range of molecular evidence and single-compound isotope data to discriminate terrestrial, marine and freshwater resources processed in archaeological ceramics and it provides a template for future investigations into how people used pots in the past."

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Journal Reference:

1. Oliver E. Craig, Val J. Steele, Anders Fischer, S?nke Hartz, S?ren H. Andersen, Paul Donohoe, Aikaterini Glykou, Hayley Saul, D. Martin Jones, Eva Koch, Carl P. Heron. Ancient lipids reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in Northern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1107202108

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111024153407.htm

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GOP primary now a contest of character (AP)

NEW YORK ? The Republican presidential race has become a no-holds-barred contest over character.

With the pace of the GOP contest quickening, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are resorting to tough language online and while campaigning to undermine each other's credibility and values.

"It's time for you to tell the truth," Perry said during last week's Republican debate, all but calling the former Massachusetts governor a liar.

The Texas governor also is trying to cast Romney as someone who lacks a core set of beliefs, highlighting Romney's shifts on health care and other issues in hopes of dislodging him from atop the field.

Romney is portraying Perry as a dimwitted novice who coddles illegal immigrants and takes liberties with his economic record.

"The great challenges we have we will overcome," Romney said in South Dakota recently, "if we have leaders that will tell the truth, and live with integrity, and who, by virtue of their life experience, know how to lead." It was a suggestion that Perry didn't fit that bill.

The amped-up rhetoric signals a more aggressive phase in the race and sets the tone in the 10 weeks before the nominating contest begins in Iowa in early January. It also illuminates campaign strategies and previews likely attack ads sure to surface on television soon.

It's raised concerns among some Republicans, who fear a drawn out, personal battle between their top contenders will only help President Barack Obama's chances of winning next year.

"I don't like that, I'm not for that. I'm a Ronald Reagan Republican, he didn't think it was smart to attack each other and I don't either," oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens told Fox News last week after Romney and Perry got in each other's faces during the Las Vegas debate.

Despite their oft-stated reverence for Reagan, the two leading Republican hopefuls are ignoring Reagan's so-called 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

Romney, seen as the Republican to beat, has identified Perry as his top rival, even with businessman Herman Cain polling well and lower-tier contenders such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum drawing positive buzz in debates.

Only Perry has been able to compete with Romney in fundraising and the two are expected to have enough resources for a protracted national campaign if necessary. Both have the backing of powerful special political action committees that can raise unlimited funds to run attack ads of their own.

Romney's campaign has started web site, www.careerpolitician.com, that jabs at Perry's record in Texas. The Romney team posted a video on the site after Perry's stronger-than-usual debate performance last week, stringing together several clips from past debates in which Perry stammered and looked confused.

"Ready to lead?" the ad asked.

The Romney campaign pulled the video after CNN complained it used too much of the network's material without permission. Still, the ad signaled a chief Romney argument going forward ? Perry isn't up to the job of being president.

Also last week, Romney's campaign released another web video trying to debunk Perry's claim that Texas leads the nation in job creation, which is the central premise of Perry's candidacy. The video asserts that unemployment in the state has gone up under Perry and that most of the new jobs created were in state government or went to illegal immigrants.

The ad includes a clip of Perry saying he disagrees with those figures.

"Disagree? It's a fact," the ad states ? essentially calling Perry a liar.

Perry has used Romney's own record on illegal immigration to suggest that he's disingenuous.

During the debate, Perry pointed out that Romney had used a lawn company at his Massachusetts home that employed illegal immigrants. Perry's campaign followed up with a web vide, arguing that Romney was a hypocrite on illegal immigration, health care and his own political ambition.

"You can't lead a nation by misleading the people," the video concludes.

Perry made the same point at a campaign event, describing himself as a conservative "authentically, and not by convenience."

He added: "You won't hear any shape-shifting nuance from me."

Perry got an assist this past week from the Obama campaign and its allies, who have singled out Romney.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina echoed the flip-flopper theme, telling reporters Romney will "say and stand for anything to get elected, even if it means forgetting the positions he's previously taken."

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC run by two former Obama White House aides, released a web video that needles Romney for his wealth and suggesting he believes millionaires like him should pay a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans.

The ad drew a rebuke from Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, who called it "another pathetic attempt by President Obama's political machine to distract attention from their nonexistent record on creating jobs."

Democrats have their own history of nasty primaries, most recently between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008. The two reconciled after months of personal attacks, and Clinton now serves as secretary of state.

Ken Khachigian, a Republican strategist and former Reagan White House staffer, said he finds the character attacks between Perry and Romney "unpleasant to watch" but said such primary dust-ups were inevitable.

"Party politics, like all politics, is rough and tumble," Khachigian said. "When it's all over, the desire to defeat Obama will be so huge they'll all be sipping tea together."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111023/ap_on_el_pr/us_character_campaign

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Gaza abductor says Israeli soldier treated well (AP)

GAZA CITY, Gaza City ? A leader of the Palestinian militant group that captured the Israeli soldier swapped this week for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners said Saturday that the soldier was treated well during his captivity.

Zuhair Al-Qaisi of the Popular Resistance Committees told The Associated Press that Gilad Schalit was given sufficient food and allowed to watch Hebrew-language TV.

Schalit was notably gaunt, pale and exhausted when he was freed. His father says his son is suffering from malnutrition, the effects of isolation and lack of exposure to sun and also wounds sustained during his capture that had not been treated properly. Noam Schalit also said his son "endured harsh things" in his more than five years of captivity in Gaza.

Al-Qaisi dismissed the accusations, saying that Schalit was provided food that "fits him as a Jew," by which he appeared to mean kosher food.

"The way Schalit looked when he was released proved that he was treated well," said Al-Qaisi. "He used to watch the news through the television and through watching some of the channels in Hebrew."

Since his return Schalit has been meeting family and friends, and taking walks and bicycle rides around his home in Mitzpe Hila, a small village in northern Israel. Well-wishers from across the country have flocked to the tiny community to catch a glimpse of the soldier who became a national figure while in captivity.

But many Israelis were also critical of the steep price Israel had to pay for his freedom. Schalit was freed Tuesday for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had been convicted of involvement in deadly attacks on Israeli civilians.

Of the hundreds of prisoners released in the first part of the two stage swap, many have called for more violence and abductions.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

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Lohan's second trip to the morgue is a success

LOS ANGELES?? Lindsay Lohan's arrival at the morgue for community service ? take two ? had a better result Friday as the actress was quickly put to work after arriving early.

News helicopters hovered over the coroner's facilities and cameras greeted her black sport utility vehicle when Lohan reported for duty, one day after officials turned her away for being 40 minutes late to an orientation session.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said Lohan arrived "real early" on Friday, completed her orientation and was put to work before 8 a.m. She had been ordered to report at the coroner's facilities at 7 a.m., but Lohan's publicist, Steve Honig, wrote in an email that the actress had been outside for more than an hour before it opened.

Story: Reader: How could Lohan not find morgue door?

Lohan's days at the morgue, where she must complete 16 hours before a Nov. 2 court hearing, will consist of custodial work. She will be expected to mop floors, clean and stock bathrooms and wash dirty sheets, coroner's officials have said.

Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner revoked Lohan's probation during a contentious court hearing on Wednesday after the judge learned the "Mean Girls" star had been fired from doing community service at a women's shelter. Sautner ordered Lohan to complete 360 hours at the center and 120 hours at the morgue in April as punishment for taking a $2,500 necklace without permission.

Story: Lohan late, turned away on first day at morgue

Lohan later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge related to the necklace and served 35 days on house arrest.

It is Lohan's second time doing service at the morgue ? she initially completed a program there after a pair of drunken driving arrests in 2007. She has consistently struggled with completely the terms of her sentence.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44990127/ns/today-entertainment/

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Settling Up

Talks among state officials, the Obama administration, and the banks are currently focused on reported abuses in servicing mortgages, foreclosing on homes, and evicting their residents. But leading banks are also accused of illegal behavior?inducing people to borrow, for example, by deceiving them about the interest rate that would actually be paid, while misrepresenting the resulting mortgage-backed securities to investors. If these charges are true, the bank executives involved may fear that civil lawsuits would uncover evidence that could be used in criminal prosecutions. In that case, their interest would naturally lie in seeking (as they now are) to keep that evidence from ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.

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Sony Music Unlimited arrives for Android tablets, bearing gifts of unlimited music

It's been a week of upgrades for Sony Tablet S owners. First came news of the PlayStation Store's arrival and now comes confirmation that Sony's Music Unlimited service is available, as well. Yesterday, the company announced that its music streaming service has finally made its way to the Tablet S and other Android slates, a little more than four months after launching on Google-laced handsets. The basics remain the same: $4 per month for a basic subscription or $10 per month for premium service, though Tablet S owners can take advantage of a 180-day free trial, in case they still have their hesitations. Stream past the break for the full PR, or grab the app for yourself at the source link, below.

Continue reading Sony Music Unlimited arrives for Android tablets, bearing gifts of unlimited music

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Libyan PM says Gadhafi trying to recruit fighters (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya ? Libya's acting prime minister said Wednesday that ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi is believed to be recruiting fighters from other African countries and preparing for a possible insurgency, hoping to destabilize Libya's new regime.

The comments by Mahmoud Jibril reflected fears that Gadhafi will be able to use friendly relations with neighboring countries cultivated during his more than four decades in power to help him launch a bid to return to power.

"Reports have shown that 68 vehicles with at least eight fighters each crossed the Libyan borders to Mali and Gadhafi is hiding in the southern desert," Jibril told reporters.

He said Gadhafi had made a deal with the Hamada tribe, which roams the borders between Chad, Sudan and Libya, to provide 12,000 fighters "to enter Libya and start the fight."

Suggesting that the U.S. also was concerned about the possibility, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a visit to Tripoli Tuesday that she hoped Gadhafi would be captured or killed.

Gadhafi loyalists already have put up fierce resistance in several areas, preventing Libya's new leaders from declaring full victory nearly two months after revolutionary forces seized Tripoli and have seized many other parts of the oil-rich North African nation.

Revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid, this week. In the other loyalist bastion of Sirte, anti-Gadhafi commanders said they have squeezed Gadhafi's forces into a residential area of about 700 square meters but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings. Deputy defense minister Fawzi Abu Katif told The Associated Press that authorities still believe Gadhafi's son Muatassim is among the ex-regime figures holed up in the diminishing area.

It took the anti-Gadhafi fighters, who also faced disorganization in their own ranks, two days to capture a single residential building.

It is unclear whether Gadhafi loyalists who have escaped might continue the fight and attempt to organize an insurgency using the vast amount of weapons Gadhafi was believed to have stored in hideouts in the remote southern desert.

Unlike Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi had no well-organized political party that could form the basis of an insurgent leadership. However, regional and ethnic differences have already appeared among the ranks of the revolutionaries, possibly laying the foundation for civil strife.

Gadhafi has issued several audio recordings trying to rally supporters. Jibril and other Libyan officials have said they believe he's hiding somewhere in the vast southwestern desert near the borders with Niger and Algeria.

Jibril also addressed concerns about a rise in revenge attacks and lawlessness as thousands of young men with weapons have found themselves unemployed after waging months of brutal fighting.

He said authorities were considering plans to give them the option of joining private security companies that will be given priority for securing the borders, oil fields and public institutions, or the national army.

He also reiterated that he plans to resign after liberation is declared and turn over the reins of the country to a new interim government that can guide the nation to elections. The transitional leadership has said a vote would be held within eight months of liberation.

The U.S.-educated Jibril said he will turn his attention to working with non-governmental organizations to help fight corruption.

Also Wednesday, Libya's transitional government said it has formally recognized the Syrian opposition's umbrella group as the country's legitimate representative, making it the first country to do so.

Hassan al-Sughayer, a member of Libya's National Transitional Council, announced the decision in Tripoli after meeting with members of the Syrian National Council.

The recognition is largely symbolic and unlikely to have any practical impact. Syria's government has threatened tough measures against any country that recognizes the opposition council.

___

Associated Press journalist Christopher Gillette in Sirte contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111019/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_libya

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Most Americans 'occupied' with repairing their economic values (Seattle Times)

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Some stores freezing out Ben & Jerry's new flavor (Providence Journal)

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Foreign Premier League owners eye relegation end

/

By ROB HARRIS

updated 3:51 p.m. ET Oct. 17, 2011

LONDON - Some of the Premier League's foreign owners want to abolish the relegation and promotion system, a senior English soccer executive said Monday.

With half the Premier League's 20 clubs under foreign ownership, League Managers' Association chief executive Richard Bevan said many owners would like to emulate the American system, where the major professional sports leagues have no relegation. if more teams are sold to overseas investors they could force a dramatic change to the rules.

"There are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Premier League," Bevan said at the Professional Players Federation conference in London. "If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen."

Forcing any change requires support from 14 of the league's 20 clubs. Even then, The Football Association must approve. League rules state the FA's consent is needed for "the making and adoption of or any amendment to ... promotion to and relegation from the league."

"Certainly you'll find that with American owners and you'll find that with some of the Asian owners (they have been talking about scrapping relegation)," Bevan said on the sidelines of the conference.

Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sunderland are owned by Americans, while Blackburn is under Indian ownership and Queens Park Rangers has Malaysian backers.

United manager Alex Ferguson said he supported the current system in which the three bottom clubs drop from the top tier to the Championship, while three clubs are promoted from the second tier to the Premier League.

"You may as well lock the doors (without relegation)," said Ferguson, whose club is owned by the Glazer family. "It would be absolute suicide for the rest of the teams in the country, particularly the Championship."

The Villa board headed by Randy Lerner, who also owns NFL's Cleveland Browns, was "confused and surprised" by Bevan's remarks.

"If he intended this group to specifically include Aston Villa, as could be inferred by his comments, then we would ask him to confirm as much," the club's board said.

But Bevan said "particularly American owners without doubt" have been looking at a system without relegation.

"Obviously if I was an American owner and I owned a football club or I was an Indian owner I might be thinking I would like to see no promotion or relegation, my investment is going to be safer and my shares are going to go up in value."

Stoke chairman Peter Coates, one of just 10 English owners in the top tier, warned of the dangers of scrapping the "lifeblood of our game."

"I'd be horrified to think that was someone's long-term agenda," Coates told The Associated Press. "Although it happens in America with franchises, our traditions are totally different. ... It would be an absolutely unthinkable thing."

The issue has not been publicly raised at a meeting of clubs since 2009 when Bolton chairman Phil Gartside proposed a 38-team Premier League split into two divisions.

If Premier League owners tried to abolish the ability of lower-tier teams to rise into the elite, they would meet opposition from Europe's soccer and political institutions. Since becoming UEFA president in 2007, Michel Platini has made good relations with the 27-nation European Union a priority to help ensure that the EU protects soccer's right to govern its own affairs.

UEFA has highlighted promotion and relegation among its core values in the "European sports model."

___

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Barca, Chelsea advance easily

??Barcelona set a club record by extending its unbeaten streak at the start of the season to 13 games with a 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic's Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League, and Fernando Torres scored twice for Chelsea in a 5-0 rout of Genk on Wednesday night.

Rights bidding

Broadcasters ESPN, Fox and NBC are bidding for the rights to show the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the United States.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44929883/ns/sports-soccer/

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Strauss-Kahn wants to be questioned in new probe (AP)

PARIS ? A lawyer for Dominique Strauss-Kahn says the former IMF chief wants to be questioned by police so that he can debunk claims he was linked to a suspected hotel prostitution ring.

Lawyer Frederique Beaulieu says Strauss-Kahn "is asking to be questioned to put an end to these insinuations and extrapolations."

The lawyer said Monday that Strauss-Kahn expressed his wishes in a statement but has not yet been contacted by police.

Prosecutors in the northern city of Lille are investigating a suspected prostitution ring in France and neighboring Belgium. The head of Lille's luxury Hotel Carlton was among those detained.

The weekly Journal du Dimanche said Strauss-Kahn's name surfaced in the investigation as a possible client.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111017/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_france_strauss_kahn

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US rivers and streams saturated with carbon: Releasing enough carbon to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011) ? Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon, according to Yale researchers in Nature Geoscience. Their findings could change the way scientists model the movement of carbon between land, water and the atmosphere.

"These rivers breathe a lot of carbon," said David Butman, a doctoral student and co-author of a study with Pete Raymond, professor of ecosystem ecology, both at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "They are a source of CO₂, just like we breathe CO₂ and like smokestacks emit CO₂, and this has never been systematically estimated from a region as large as the United States."

The researchers assert that a significant amount of carbon contained in land, which first is absorbed by plants and forests through the air, is leaking into streams and rivers and then released into the atmosphere before reaching coastal waterways.

"What we are able to show is that there is a source of atmospheric CO₂ from streams and rivers, and that it is significant enough for terrestrial modelers to take note of it," said Butman.

They analyzed samples taken by the United States Geological Survey from over 4,000 rivers and streams throughout the United States, and incorporated highly detailed geospatial data to model the flux of carbon dioxide from water. This release of carbon, said Butman, is the same as a car burning 40 billion gallons of gasoline.

The paper, titled "Significant Efflux of Carbon Dioxide from Streams and Rivers in the United States," also indicates that as the climate heats up there will be more rain and snow, and that an increase in precipitation will result in even more terrestrial carbon flowing into rivers and streams and being released into the atmosphere.

"This would mean that any estimate between carbon uptake in the biosphere and carbon being released through respiration in the biosphere will be even less likely to balance and must include the carbon in streams and rivers," he said.

The researchers note in the paper that currently it is impossible to determine exactly how to include this flux in regional carbon budgets, because the influence of human activity on the release of CO₂ into streams and rivers is still unknown.

The research was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Yale University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

---

Journal Reference:

1. David Butman, Peter A. Raymond. Significant efflux of carbon dioxide from streams and rivers in the United States. Nature Geoscience, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1294

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017111614.htm

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Flood barriers hold firm in shielding Bangkok (AP)

BANGKOK ? Thailand's capital was breathing easier Monday as barriers protecting Bangkok from the country's worst flooding in half a century held together and the government said floodwaters ravaging provinces just north of the capital had begun receding for the first time.

Authorities said the death toll rose to 307, however, mostly from drowning. And outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents were struggling to survive in half-submerged towns. On Sunday, the military rescued terrified civilians from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the swamped city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.

Bangkok has averted calamity so far thanks to a complex system of flood walls, canals, dikes and underground tunnels that are helping divert vast pools of runoff south into the Gulf of Thailand. But if any of the defenses fail, floodwaters could sweep through the tense city.

Ronnarong Wong-Ngern, a bare-chested construction worker in northwestern Bangkok, said residents there still worry that things could go wrong.

"I can't sleep at night," Ronnarong, 38, told The Associated Press as he stood beside a wall of sandbags built over a canal straddling one of the capital's northernmost borders. "Whenever it rains, all the men here get up and start adding new sandbags to these walls."

Seasonal rains that drench Southeast Asia annually have been extraordinarily severe this year, killing hundreds of people across the region. Thailand has been particularly affected. Nearly 300 people have died in the country so far, while more than 200 major highways and roads have been shut, along with the main rail lines to the north.

Despite widespread fears that disaster could touch Bangkok, the city has so far been mostly untouched. Heavy rains showered the capital for much of the day Sunday, but life was otherwise normal with shopping malls open and elevated trains crisscrossing the city.

Nationwide, the government says property damage and losses could total $3 billion dollars or more. The most affected provinces are just north of Bangkok, including Ayutthaya, a former capital which is home to ancient and treasured stone temples.

An Associated Press photographer who flew over Ayutthaya on Sunday in a Thai military helicopter saw the tops of historic pagodas rising out of the water like islands.

In Ayutthaya itself, troops in patrol boats rescued people who had taken refuge on rooftops after waters burst into the Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate.

"It's very scary, it's never been like this since I was born," one of them, Kwaikai Jeunglam, told Associated Press Television News. "Last night the water wasn't this high. Last night, it rose ... this morning, it rose a lot."

Speaking to reporters earlier Sunday, Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut expressed confidence the worst was over ? but stopped short of saying the threat to Bangkok had passed completely.

Theera said the largest mass of runoff water flowing south from the country's heavily inundated central plains had already passed through Bangkok's Chao Phraya river and into the sea, and water levels in river would rise no higher.

Floodwaters in the central provinces of Singburi, Angthong, and Ayutthaya had also begun to recede, Theera said.

A spokesman for the government's flood relief center, Wim Rungwattanajinda, said floodwaters have decreased in Nakhon Sawan province as well. Nakhon Sawan is also in central Thailand.

Another worry ? several days of higher-than-normal tides which have slowed runoff into the Chao Phraya ? has also eased. But similarly high tides are expected again at the end of the month.

Late Saturday, Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said he was worried about barriers on the northwest side of the capital, saying they were not as strong as in other parts of Bangkok and water could flood around them and into the city from the west. But on Sunday, he said the situation was still under control.

Associated Press journalists who traveled to that area Sunday found no serious flooding in the district bordering Nonthaburi and Nokhon Pathom provinces. Canals were not overflowing and although some residents were still reinforcing sandbag walls, few were worried.

Over the last few days, government officials have voiced increasing confidence the capital would survive without major damage. On Sunday, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra echoed those sentiments again, saying "I believe Bangkok will be safe."

Yingluck spoke just after presiding over a ceremony in which an armada of more than 1,000 small boats stationed in dozens of spots on the Chao Phraya turned on their engines in an effort to help propel water down the river. It wasn't immediately clear what impact the effort would have.

___

Associated Press writer Grant Peck contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111017/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_floods

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Intruder detected: Raise the alarm!

Friday, October 14, 2011

When a thief breaks into a bank vault, sensors are activated and the alarm is raised. Cells have their own early-warning system for intruders, and scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, have discovered how a particular protein sounds that alarm when it detects invading viruses. The study, published today in Cell, is a key development in our understanding of the innate immune response, shedding light on how cells rapidly respond to a wide range of viruses including influenza, rabies and hepatitis.

To sense invading agents, cells use proteins called pattern recognition receptors, which recognize and bind to molecular signatures carried only by the intruder. This binding causes the receptors to change shape, starting a chain-reaction that ultimately alerts the surrounding cells to the invasion. How these two processes - sensing and signalling ? are connected, has until now remained unclear. The EMBL scientists have now discovered the precise structural mechanism by which one of these receptors, RIG-I, converts a change of shape into a signal.

"For a structural biologist this is a classic question: how does ligand binding to a receptor induce signalling?" says Stephen Cusack, who led the work. "We were particularly interested in answering it for RIG-I, as it targets practically all RNA viruses, including influenza, measles and hepatitis C."

In response to a viral infection, RIG-I recognises viral genetic material ? specifically, viral RNA ? and primes the cell to produce the key anti-viral molecule, interferon. Interferon is secreted and picked up by surrounding cells, causing them to turn on hundreds of genes that act to combat the infection. To understand how RIG-I senses only viral RNA, and not the cell's own RNA, and sounds the alarm, the scientists used intense X-ray beams generated at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of RIG-I in the presence and absence of viral RNA, in a technique called X-ray crystallography. They found that in the absence of a viral infection, the receptor is 'sleeping with one eye open': the part of RIG-I that senses viral RNA is exposed, whilst the domains responsible for signalling are hidden, out of reach of the signalling machinery. When RIG-I detects viral RNA, it changes shape, 'waking up' the signalling domains, which become accessible to trigger interferon production. Although the EMBL scientists used RIG-I from the mallard duck, this receptor's behaviour is identical to that of its human counterpart.

"RIG-I is activated in response to viral RNA, but a similar mechanism is likely to be used by a number of other immune receptors, whether they are specific to viruses or bacteria," says PhD student Eva Kowalinski, who carried out most of the work.

Thus, these findings contribute to a broader understanding of the workings of the innate immune system ? our first line of defence against intruders, and the subject of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The work was carried out within the framework of the International Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions, a collaboration between EMBL, the University Joseph Fourier (UJF), in Grenoble, and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and also involved contributions from the laboratory of Denis Gerlier at the Institut National de la Sant? et de la Recherche M?dicale (INSERM), in Lyon, France.

###

European Molecular Biology Laboratory: http://www.embl.org

Thanks to European Molecular Biology Laboratory for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114323/Intruder_detected__Raise_the_alarm_

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FTL Neutrinos Explained... Maybe

It's bogus. (Yes, I am a physicist.) OPERA used portable atomic clocks, which were moved to the the two labs and then synchronized via GPS (see this article [nature.com]). GPS thoroughly incorporates general relativity (which includes special relativity). It has incorporated GR ever since it was first built, because if it didn't, it wouldn't work. At all. No, not even well enough for hiking and driving. Here [livingreviews.org] is a review article on relativity in GPS. GPS uses coordinates called Earth-Centered Inertial (ECI). These are coordinates (t,r,theta,phi), where the spatial coordinates are spherical coordinates that rotate along with the earth, and t is the time coordinate of a hypothetical observer in a nonrotating frame at rest relative to the center of the earth. General relativity is completely agnostic about what coordinate system you use, so this choice of a coordinate system is not a choice that has any physical significance; it's just a bookkeeping thing. Van Elburg assumes that GPS was constructed by people who didn't understand relativity, and therefore GPS times need to be corrected for relativistic effects. That's just completely wrong.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/XtHyUufg0MY/ftl-neutrinos-explained-maybe

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Apple reportedly trying to add movie streaming to its iCloud

Apple's iCloud may have only just launched but according to rumors reported by the LA Times and Wall Street Journal, it's already negotiating with Hollywood to add movies to the service (funny how things have changed in five years.) The timing is particularly curious because Apple, along with Disney, is one of the notable holdouts from the movie studio-backed Ultraviolet scheme with similar buy once / stream anywhere aspirations that just hit the streets this week. However, according to "people familiar with the matter" it could allow Ultraviolet access on iThings via app, while also bringing its usual media lock-in magic by also throwing in streaming copies of any flicks purchased on iTunes, but only on its own hardware. Recently activated streaming of purchased TV shows to the Apple TV shows the cloud's potential, but we'll have to wait for deals to be signed before that North Carolina datacenter puts Hollywood's best on its to-do list.

Apple reportedly trying to add movie streaming to its iCloud originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 05:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  LA Times, Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

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

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McMahon reaching out to women in 2012 Senate bid (AP)

SOUTHINGTON, Conn. ? Former professional wrestling executive Linda McMahon says she's making a special effort to reach out to women voters as she makes a second bid for a Connecticut U.S. Senate seat.

The Republican kicked off a statewide tour of women-owned businesses this week. She told The Associated Press she didn't reach out to many female business owners during her 2010 race.

This time, as she seeks the seat held by the retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman, McMahon said she plans to make more visits and meet with women's organizations.

McMahon struggled to win over many female voters in 2010. Her opponent, now-Sen. Richard Blumenthal, received three of every five votes from women, despite McMahon's last-minute advertising targeting women voters. She spent about $50 million of her own money on her campaign.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111012/ap_on_el_se/us_connecticut_senate

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Educational Requirements in Becoming a Doctor

One of the most respected professions in the world is being a doctor. People leave their hopes and fates in the hands of the doctors; wishing they can help make it better. The responsibility is great, but the road to it is hard.

Becoming a doctor requires a lot of studies. Learning also does not end when graduating; doctors attend congresses and conventions to get updated. Even the most experienced professionals have to know how to adapt with the new times and treat new illnesses or else they?ll be left behind by the industry.

For undergraduate education requirements, there is no specific coursework needed but a strong emphasis on works that are science related gives one an advantage. Subjects such as biology, chemistry and physics can give a student the knowledge needed to get into medical school because of the industry and study he is about to revolve around in. What needs to be remembered is to focus on the specific study that is relevant to the profession wished for.

After college, aspiring doctors now enter medical school. This is where they will encounter an EDD Sacramento, or a doctor of education. He will help mold students into becoming the specific professionals they want to be. In medical school, students will learn the most general medical things. They will know the procedures, the information, the facts and the diagnosis that are involved in the practice of their craft.

Granted that they complete the medical examinations, and pass the boards, the doctors can now enter their respective residency programs. These doctoral programs in California help them in getting their feet wet in the industry. Normally, they are taken under the wing of an experienced doctor who has the same specialization. This way, they will know how everything goes; most things not read on books.

After this, they can now go through their fellowship. Not included in the list of doctoral programs in California, a fellowship is when a doctor decides to enter a specific branch of medicine. While some doctors are happy with general medicine, some want to be pediatricians, gynecologists and others. It requires more years of learning but the return is extremely beneficial.

Source: http://education.ezinemark.com/educational-requirements-in-becoming-a-doctor-7d3109dcf639.html

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Canada to block airline strike

MONTREAL (AP) ? Canada's Conservative government moved Tuesday to prevent a strike Thursday by Air Canada flight attendants by sending the matter to the Canada Industrial Relations Board for review.

Labor Minister Lisa Raitt said that referring the matter to the labor board will prevent nearly 7,000 flight attendants at Canada's largest airline from going on strike Thursday.

"While the matter is before the CIRB, there cannot be a work stoppage," Raitt said.

Her comments come after members of the union rejected a second tentative agreement supported by union leaders.

The referral buys the government time as it looks to pass back-to-work legislation. Parliament resumes sitting next week.

Earlier Tuesday afternoon, the union announced that its negotiators were prepared to resume talks and called on Air Canada to address more of the issues that have upset the airline's flight attendants over the past decade.

About 3,800 Air Canada customer sales and service representatives held a three-day strike in June, but Raitt introduced back-to-work legislation two days into it.

The flight attendants' union has been negotiating with the Montreal-based airline for months. Union leaders had predicted the revamped offer would be approved. They said they had managed to get about 80 percent of what the membership had demanded in the areas of wages, pensions, crew rest, working conditions and work rules.

Air Canada said it would operate a partial schedule with the help of company managers. The airline has said it would allow customers booked for travel over the next several days to change dates free of charge.

Air Canada its regional partners carry about 31 million passengers.

Air Canada's desire to start a low-cost carrier using lower paid new hires is just one of several issues that likely prompted a second rejection of a tentative deal. Workers fear this model will create a dangerous precedent that could be transferred to the mainline carrier.

Workers also felt increased pay during layovers and a nine percent overall wage increase over four years wasn't enough compensation for sacrifices made since the airline obtained creditor protection in 2003.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-11-CN-Canada-Air-Canada-Strike/id-1f27a91c56c0469895de879fb6f13c35

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Hank Williams Jr. lashes out at media in new song (Reuters)

NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) ? Country singer Hank Williams Jr., whose theme song was pulled from "Monday Night Football" after he compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, lashed out at the media on Monday with a topical song called "Keep the Change."

The track, which borrows its title and certain themes from another song released by Williams' daughter, Holly, in 2009, was offered as a free download on his website.

Williams sparked an uproar when he appeared on the Fox News Channel show "Fox & Friends" on October 3 and said Obama's pairing with Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner in a June golf summit was "like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu."

He also referred to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as "the enemy." That day, ESPN publicly rebuked Williams and dropped his "All My Rowdy Friends" song as the opening theme for its weekly "Monday Night Football" broadcast.

He subsequently issued a statement saying he was sorry for anyone who took offense, but the Disney-owned sports channel and Williams later said they were parting company after an association of more than 20 years. Williams had introduced "MNF" since 1991 on both ABC and ESPN.

In his new song about the controversy, Williams took aim at both ESPN and Fox News.

"So 'Fox & Friends' want to put me down/Ask for my opinion/Twist it all around/Well two can play that gotcha game," he sings on the track.

Williams, a longtime supporter of Republican causes, also sings that the United States is becoming "socialist" and takes a dig at Obama's 2008 campaign theme of "change."

"I'll keep my freedom, I'll keep my guns/Try to keep my money and my religion too ... Keep the government out of my business/ and y'all can keep the change," he sings.

The song ends with the 62-year-old Williams, nicknamed Bocephus by his country music legend father, urging fans to join him in a boycott.

"Yeah you can keep 'Fox & Friends' and ESPN out of your homes too. 'Cause Bocephus and all his rowdy friends and his song is out of there," sings Williams, who is selling "Hank Jr. for President" T-shirts on his website.

Fox News declined to comment on the song, and a representative from ESPN could not be reached for comment.

The new Williams track borrows its title from a song called "Keep the Change," which released by his daughter, Holly Williams, in 2009.

While Holly Williams did not write the song, her version gained solid radio play with lyrics that present a more subtle but still biting critique of the Obama administration.

Hank Williams Jr. is slated to hit the TV talk show circuit on Tuesday, including appearances on the ABC daytime program "The View" and the conservative Fox News show "Hannity."

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Steve Gorman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111010/music_nm/us_hankwilliams

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Democratic Infighting Escalates (Taegan Goddard's Political Wire)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/146612978?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Ancestor of All Living Things More Sophisticated than Thought (LiveScience.com)

The mysterious common ancestor of all life on Earth may have been more complex than before thought ? a sophisticated organism with an intricate structure, scientists now suggest.

The last universal common ancestor, or LUCA, is what researchers call the forerunner of all living things. Much about LUCA remains enigmatic ? many think it was little more than a primitive assemblage of molecular parts, a chemical soup from which evolution gradually built more complex forms. Some even debate whether it was even a cell. [Theories on Earth's First Life]

Now, after years of research into a once-neglected feature of microbes, scientists suggest the last universal common ancestor was indeed complex, and recognizable as a cell.

Miniature organs

The researchers focused on a region of cells loaded with high concentrations of polyphosphates, molecules such as ATP used to transfer energy around the cell in chemical form. This storage site for polyphosphates may represent the first known universal organelle ? compartments within cells that essentially act as miniature organs ? the investigators suggest. Other kinds of organelles include the chloroplast, which gives plants the ability to use sunlight as energy, and the mitochondrion, which allows life to use oxygen for respiration.

Scientists had thought organelles were absent from bacteria and their distantly related microbial cousins, the archaea. Now these findings suggest this polyphosphate storage organelle is present in all three domains of life ? bacteria, archaea and the eukaryotes, which include animals, plants and fungi.

"It was a dogma of microbiology that organelles weren't present in bacteria," said researcher Manfredo Seufferheld, a stress physiologist and cell biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Still, earlier research of his and his colleagues' showed that the polyphosphate storage structure in at least two bacterial species was physically, chemically and functionally the same as an organelle called an acidocalcisome found in many single-celled eukaryotes.

To look for this storage unit, in their latest research the team analyzed the evolutionary history an enzyme known as a vacuolar proton pyrophosphatase (V-H+PPase), which is common in the acidocalcisomes of eukaryotic and bacterial cells. The results showed archaea also have the enzyme and a structure with the same physical and chemical properties as an acidocalcisome.

"This organelle appears to be universal," Seufferheld told LiveScience. "This suggests the last universal common ancestors had a lot more cellular structure than others had thought."

Describing a common ancestor

By comparing the sequences of the genes for this enzyme from hundreds of organisms representing the three domains of life, the researchers constructed a family tree showing how different versions of the enzyme in different species were related. The more similar sequences were, the more closely they were related, and the less similar they were, the more distantly they were related.

The researchers found a component of V-H+PPase shared by 31 species of eukaryotes, 231 of bacteria and 17 of archaea. The simplest and most likely explanation for this discovery "would be that you already had the enzyme even before diversification started on Earth," said researcher Gustavo Caetano-Anoll?s, an evolutionary genomicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The protein was there to begin with and was then inherited into all emerging lineages."

These findings suggest "we may have underestimated how complex this common ancestor actually was," said researcher James Whitfield, a phylogeneticist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The last universal common ancestor may have been more complex than even the simplest organisms alive today.

"Some have argued that the reason that bacteria are so simple is because they have to live in extreme environments and they have to reproduce extremely quickly, so they may actually be reduced versions of what was there originally," Whitfield said. "According to this view, they've become streamlined genetically and structurally from what they originally were like." [Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures]

One potential criticism is that archaea and bacteria might not have inherited this organelle from the last universal common ancestor. Both these domains of life are potentially capable of absorbing genes and even organelles from other life ? the former phenomenon is known as lateral or horizontal gene transfer, the latter as endosymbiosis.

However, the researchers said it was far less likely that bacteria and archaea came across this organelle by lateral gene transfer and endosymbiosis. The family tree drawn up for V-H+PPase is broadly similar to other family trees of life created by prior studies that each analyzed up to hundreds of genes. This suggests V-H+PPase and its associated organelle were passed down much like all the other genes were. If lateral gene transfer or endosymbiosis were involved, the family tree for V-H+PPase "would conflict strongly with the family trees we recognize from other sources of data," Whitfield told LiveScience.

One possibility regarding the last universal common ancestor that remains was that it was not a single-celled organism, Whitfield added. Rather, it might have been more of a colony of tiny subcellular entities. "We have no way of telling," he said.

The researchers now plan to investigate the evolutionary history of other proteins linked with this organelle to get a picture of what the last universal common ancestor might have been like.

The scientists detailed their findings online Oct. 5 in the journal Biology Direct.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111009/sc_livescience/ancestorofalllivingthingsmoresophisticatedthanthought

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