Though deep drilling on reefs finally confirmed Darwin's model in 1953, the reality of reef-building may be more complex.?
By Becky Oskin,?OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer / May 16, 2013
A satellite image of Maupiti, one of the Society Islands, which is on its way to becoming an atoll. Submerged reef appears in pale blue.
NASA Earth Observatory
Enlarge
Charles Darwin sparked more than one controversy over the natural progression of life. One such case involved the evolution of coral atolls, the ring-shaped coral reefs that surround submerged tropical islands.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Coral reefs are actually huge colonies of tiny animals that need sunlight to grow. After seeing a reef encircling Moorea, near Tahiti, Darwin came up with his theory that?coral atolls?grow as reefs stretch toward sunlight while ocean islands slowly sink beneath the sea surface. (Cooling ocean crust, combined with the weight of massive islands, causes the islands to sink.)
A century-long controversy ensued after Darwin published his theory in 1842, because some scientists thought the atolls were simply a thin veneer of coral, not many thousands of feet thick as Darwin proposed. Deep drilling on reefs finally confirmed Darwin's model in 1953.
But reef-building is more complex than?Darwin?thought, according to a new study published May 9 in the journal Geology. Although subsidence does play a role, a computer model found seesawing sea levels, which rise and fall with glacial cycles, are the primary driving force behind the striking patterns seen at islands today.
"Darwin actually got it mostly right, which is pretty amazing," said Taylor Perron, the study?s co-author and a geologist at MIT. However, there?s one part Darwin missed. "He didn't know about these glacially induced sea-level cycles," Perron told OurAmazingPlanet.
What happens when sea-level shifts get thrown into the mix? Consider?Hawaii?as an example. Coral grows slowly there, because the ocean is colder than waters closer to the equator. When sea level is at its lowest, the Big Island builds up a nice little reef terrace, like a fringe of hair on a balding pate. But the volcano ? one of the tallest mountains in the world, if measured from the seafloor ? is also quickly sinking. Add the speedy sea-level rise when glaciers melt, and Hawaii's corals just can't keep up. The reefs drown each time sea level rises.
The computer model accounts for the wide array of?coral reefs?seen at islands around the world ? a variety Darwin's model can't explain, the researchers said.
"You can explain a lot of the variety you see just by combining these various processes ? the sinking of islands, the growth of reefs, and the last few million years of sea level going up and down rather dramatically," Perron told OurAmazingPlanet.
For nearly 4 million years, Earth has cycled through global chills, when big glaciers suck up water from the oceans, and swings to sweltering temperatures that melt the ice, quickly raising sea level. This?cyclic growth of ice sheets?takes about 100,000 years.
The researchers also found that one of the few places in the world where sinking islands and sea-level rise create perfect atolls is the Society Islands, where Darwin made his historic observations.
Email?Becky Oskin?or follow her?@beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet,?Facebook?&?Google+.?Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
May 20, 2013 ? A new study conducted at the University of Bristol and published online today in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology sheds light on how the brain and inner ear developed in dinosaurs.
Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, together with Tom H?bner from the Nieders?chsische Landesmuseum in Hannover, Germany, picked the brains of 150 million year old dinosaurs.
The two palaeontologists studied different fossils of the Jurassic dinosaur Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki: a very young (juvenile) individual of approximately three years of age and a fully grown specimen of more than 12 years of age.
Stephan Lautenschlager, lead author of the paper, said: "The two different growth stages of Dysalotosaurus provided a unique opportunity to study their brain, and how it developed during the growth of the animal."
Using high-resolution CT scanning and 3D computer imaging, it was possible to reconstruct and visualise the brain and inner ear of Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki -- a small, plant-eating dinosaur, which lived 150 million years ago, in what is now Tanzania.
Co-author Tom H?bner said: "Well-preserved fossil material, which can be used to reconstruct the brain anatomy is usually rare. Thus, we were fortunate to have different growth stages available for our study."
By looking at the brain and inner ear anatomy, the two researchers found that the brain of Dysalotosaurus underwent considerable changes during growth -- most likely as a response to environmental and metabolic requirements. However, important parts responsible for the sense of hearing and cognitive processes were already well developed in the young individual.
Stephan Lautenschlager said: "Our study shows that the brain was already well-developed in the young dinosaurs and adapted perfectly to interact with their environment and other individuals."
This study has important ramifications for the understanding of how parts of the brain developed in dinosaurs. However, further research into that field is necessary to investigate if the pattern of brain development in individual dinosaurs is also reflected in a large scale trend during the more than 150 million years of dinosaur evolution.
The study was funded by a research fellowship to Stephan Lautenschlager from the German Volkswagen Foundation.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" ? Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto, left) and Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine).
Review ? J.J. Abrams? second Starfleet trip stays true to series? virtues.
The first rule of "Star Trek Into Darkness" is that you do not talk about "Star Trek Into Darkness."
There is so much cool stuff in director J.J. Abrams? second film based on Gene Roddenberry?s beloved science-fiction series, and information that should not be divulged, that a moviegoer should go in cold, if such a thing were possible in the age of Internet spoilers.
?
HHHhj
?Star Trek Into Darkness?
Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock and the Enterprise crew fly into new adventures, with a formidable enemy in their sights.
Where ? Theaters everywhere.
When ? Wednesday night, May 15, in IMAX theaters Thursday, May 16, everywhere else.
Rating ? PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.
Running time ? 132 minutes.
So the next two paragraphs are as much synopsis as you?re getting from me.
The movie begins with Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) getting in trouble with Starfleet for violating the Prime Directive, the United Federation of Planets? top rule against interfering with a primitive culture. (It?s a rule William Shatner?s Kirk violated in roughly half of the original series? 78 episodes.) But Kirk is let off the hook because Starfleet has bigger problems: a rogue agent, named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), is attacking Federation facilities on Earth.
Admiral Markus (Peter Weller) orders Kirk to kill Harrison, who?s been tracked to the Klingon homeworld, Kronos. But as Kirk and his first officer, the logical Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto), warp toward the Neutral Zone separating Federation space from the Klingon Empire, they discover that nothing about this mission ? including the identity of the fugitive Harrison ? is what it seems.
OK, that?s it for plot details, except to say that Abrams and his screenwriting crew (regulars Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof share credit here) name-drop enough classic "Trek" characters, place names and alien species that a Trekkie or Trekker will be hooting and laughing while those who are less "Trek" literate will be going "huh?" (Again, to give examples would spoil the fun.)
But this isn?t a Trekkie-only experience. Abrams & Co. pile on enough excitement and action to keep any moviegoer, whatever their "Trek" IQ, on the edge of his or her seat.
Abrams was criticized in his 2009 reboot, and will be again here, for mucking about with "Star Trek" canon. For example, in the first film, Spock?s homeworld, Vulcan, is destroyed. But here, Abrams stays true to the main virtues of the series: The camaraderie of the Enterprise crew, the bond of friendship among Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), and the way the old series created science-fiction allegories to explore current dilemmas.
Abrams draws nice moments of tension and comedy from the Enterprise crew, with actors Zo? Saldana (as Lt. Uhura), Simon Pegg (as Cmdr. Scott, the ship?s engineer), John Cho (as navigator Lt. Sulu), Anton Yelchin (as helmsman Ens. Chekov) and Bruce Greenwood (as Kirk?s mentor, Christopher Pike) taking a second ride. Newcomer Alice Eve joining the crew as ? sorry, another spoiler.
Pine brings a decent amount of swagger to Kirk, breaker of rules and horndog of the galaxy. And Quinto finds both the humor and emotional intensity within Spock?s struggle to balance logic and emotion.
story continues below
But both of them have to work overtime to stay even with Benedict Cumberbatch. The British star of "Sherlock" beefs up for this role, bringing muscle and old-school Shakespearean fire to the villain?s role. You?d have to think back to "Star Trek?s" classic characters to find someone to match him.
movies@sltrib.com
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Women with chronic physical disabilities are no less likely to bear childrenPublic release date: 16-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Connie Hughes connie.hughes@wolterskluwer.com 646-674-6348 Wolters Kluwer Health
Health care professionals should prepare for increased numbers of pregnant women with disabilities, suggests study in Medical Care
Philadelphia, Pa. (May 16, 2013) Like the general public, health care professionals may hold certain stereotypes regarding sexual activity and childbearing among women with disabilities. But a new study finds that women with chronic physical disabilities are about as likely as nondisabled women to say they are currently pregnant, after age and other sociodemographic factors are taken into account. The findings are reported in the June issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Health care professionals can expectand should prepare foran increase in the number of physically disabled women requiring care during pregnancy, according to the study by Dr Lisa I. Iezzoni of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. They believe their findings "refute long-held stereotypes about the reproductive choices and activities of women with chronic physical disabilities."
'Women with Chronic Physical Disabilities Do Become Pregnant'
The researchers analyzed nationally representative survey data on 48,000 U.S. women of childbearing age (18 to 49 years). Women were asked about various forms of chronic physical disability and whether they were currently pregnant. The study focused on physical health conditions causing difficulties doing certain activities; it did not address disability caused by mental or emotional problems, vision or hearing loss, or pregnancy.
Overall, 12.7 percent of women surveyed had some type of chronic physical disability. Compared to nondisabled women, those with physical disabilities were older, more likely to be black, more likely to divorced or separated, and less likely to have a high-school education. Women with disabilities were also less likely to be employed and had lower incomes.
Current pregnancy was reported by 3.5 percent of the women surveyed. The pregnancy rate for women with chronic physical disabilities was 2.0 percent, compared to 3.8 percent for nondisabled women. After adjustment for demographic and social factors, the pregnancy rate among physically disabled women was only 17 percent lower than that in nondisabled womenthe difference was not statistically significant.
Women with more severe physical disabilities did have lower reported pregnancy rates. However, even in the most severe disability category, 1.5 percent of women said they were currently pregnant.
'And Their Numbers Will Likely Grow"
The study is one of the first to use population-based data to examine the reproductive choices and experiences of women with chronic physical disabilities. Dr Iezzoni and coauthors write, "Historically women with physical disabilities have confronted stigmatization concerning their reproductive and sexual health."
Extrapolated to the entire country, the results suggest that nearly 164,000 U.S. women with chronic physical disabilities are pregnant at any given timeincluding 44,000 women with severe disabilities. The researchers write. "These figures are sufficiently large to merit serious attention, especially since the number of women of reproductive age with chronic physical disabilities will rise in coming decades," as part of a general trend toward increased numbers of people living with disabilities.
"Women with chronic physical disabilities do become pregnant, and their numbers will likely grow." Dr Iezzoni and coauthors conclude. "Whether obstetricians, nurse midwives, and other clinicians who care for pregnant womenand clinicians who provide preconception services and postpartum carehave sufficient training to serve women with chronic physical disabilities is unknown and requires additional research to explore."
###
About Medical Care
Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.
LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry.
Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2012 annual revenues of 3.6 billion ($4.6 billion).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Women with chronic physical disabilities are no less likely to bear childrenPublic release date: 16-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Connie Hughes connie.hughes@wolterskluwer.com 646-674-6348 Wolters Kluwer Health
Health care professionals should prepare for increased numbers of pregnant women with disabilities, suggests study in Medical Care
Philadelphia, Pa. (May 16, 2013) Like the general public, health care professionals may hold certain stereotypes regarding sexual activity and childbearing among women with disabilities. But a new study finds that women with chronic physical disabilities are about as likely as nondisabled women to say they are currently pregnant, after age and other sociodemographic factors are taken into account. The findings are reported in the June issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Health care professionals can expectand should prepare foran increase in the number of physically disabled women requiring care during pregnancy, according to the study by Dr Lisa I. Iezzoni of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. They believe their findings "refute long-held stereotypes about the reproductive choices and activities of women with chronic physical disabilities."
'Women with Chronic Physical Disabilities Do Become Pregnant'
The researchers analyzed nationally representative survey data on 48,000 U.S. women of childbearing age (18 to 49 years). Women were asked about various forms of chronic physical disability and whether they were currently pregnant. The study focused on physical health conditions causing difficulties doing certain activities; it did not address disability caused by mental or emotional problems, vision or hearing loss, or pregnancy.
Overall, 12.7 percent of women surveyed had some type of chronic physical disability. Compared to nondisabled women, those with physical disabilities were older, more likely to be black, more likely to divorced or separated, and less likely to have a high-school education. Women with disabilities were also less likely to be employed and had lower incomes.
Current pregnancy was reported by 3.5 percent of the women surveyed. The pregnancy rate for women with chronic physical disabilities was 2.0 percent, compared to 3.8 percent for nondisabled women. After adjustment for demographic and social factors, the pregnancy rate among physically disabled women was only 17 percent lower than that in nondisabled womenthe difference was not statistically significant.
Women with more severe physical disabilities did have lower reported pregnancy rates. However, even in the most severe disability category, 1.5 percent of women said they were currently pregnant.
'And Their Numbers Will Likely Grow"
The study is one of the first to use population-based data to examine the reproductive choices and experiences of women with chronic physical disabilities. Dr Iezzoni and coauthors write, "Historically women with physical disabilities have confronted stigmatization concerning their reproductive and sexual health."
Extrapolated to the entire country, the results suggest that nearly 164,000 U.S. women with chronic physical disabilities are pregnant at any given timeincluding 44,000 women with severe disabilities. The researchers write. "These figures are sufficiently large to merit serious attention, especially since the number of women of reproductive age with chronic physical disabilities will rise in coming decades," as part of a general trend toward increased numbers of people living with disabilities.
"Women with chronic physical disabilities do become pregnant, and their numbers will likely grow." Dr Iezzoni and coauthors conclude. "Whether obstetricians, nurse midwives, and other clinicians who care for pregnant womenand clinicians who provide preconception services and postpartum carehave sufficient training to serve women with chronic physical disabilities is unknown and requires additional research to explore."
###
About Medical Care
Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.
LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry.
Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2012 annual revenues of 3.6 billion ($4.6 billion).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Attorney General Eric Holder faces tough questioning from a House committee Wednesday afternoon over twin scandals that have dogged the Obama administration this week: the seizure of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors and the revelation that IRS employees singled out conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny.
In his prepared statement at the hearing, Holder mentioned neither topic, instead focusing on the Justice Department's commitment to civil rights, immigration reform, and the reversal of sequester cuts.
Holder said at the hearing that he realized there's been "criticism" of the department's decision to subpoena records for the private and work phones of more than 20 AP reporters and editors without at first notifying them, but that he was unable to say why the investigation's scope was so large, because he recused himself from the matter along with the rest of the national security division. Deputy Attorney General James Cole signed the subpoena. "I am not involved in the case," Holder said.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc, said he was troubled that Holder did not take responsibility for the decision. "We don't know where the buck stops," he said.
On Tuesday, Holder said at a news conference that the national security leak that prompted the department to seize AP phone records was among the most serious he had ever seen.
?I have to say this is ... among the top two or three most serious leaks I have ever seen. It put the American people at risk. That is not hyperbole,? he said. The leak led to an AP story last year about the government foiling a Yemeni-based terror plot to bomb American airliners.
Meanwhile, Holder said he has launched an investigation into why the IRS singled out conservative groups and subjected them to more review and scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status. The IRS' inspector general report said that a group of low-level staffers in a Ohio office were responsible, and a top IRS official has apologized on their behalf. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, asked Holder at the hearing whether an "apology" from the IRS protected them from criminal prosecution. Holder answered "no."
The investigation will go beyond Ohio and look into any allegations of targeting in other cities, Holder said. He said it's possible civil rights laws have been violated.
Holder's appearance at the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee hearing was scheduled before the IRS and AP news broke, but will most likely now be focused on those issues. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chair of the committee, said in a statement that he plans to ask "pointed questions" about the Justice Department's decision to subpoena two months' of AP telephone records, as well as question Holder about the IRS and whether there were any intelligence failures in the lead-up to the Boston bombings.
Holder has long faced criticism from Republicans, some of whom called for his resignation in 2011 over the failed gun-walking Fast and Furious operation on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Justice Department's inspector general cleared him of wrongdoing in that scandal last year, blaming the botched operation on Arizona federal prosecutors and ATF agents.
In the big new world of business intelligence, RJMetrics has found a market helping e-commerce companies easily analyze operations data and make smarter decisions as a result. Big startups have signed on, including Fab, Bonobos, Threadless and thousands of smaller businesses. Today, the momentum has landed the Philadelphia enterprise startup a $6.5 million first venture round led by Trinity Ventures.
SaaS BI, as online business analysis software is called within the industry, is full of competitors. Tableau Software, which is planning to IPO, along with GoodData, Domo and others have been successfully selling to big companies that need complex integrations to best analyze their own data. On the low end, Datahero and Chartio provide quick and inexpensive ways for a small business to get some quality integrations.
RJMetrics has focused on what e-commerce companies need, Moore explains, although he notes that its clients range from online gaming companies to nonprofits. The secret isn?t some magical new type of BI software, but a better focus on lucrative online transactions businesses. If an online retailer wants to analyze how colors of different types of hats are selling against each other, for example, a non-technical sales analyst at the company could go into RJMetrics and quickly create a visual explaining what?s happening.
The company promises to replicate client data to hosted, secure servers and optimize it for analysis within seven days, versus the months required for more complex products, with a set of APIs developed around systems that e-commerce companies are already using. Then it makes a dashboard of data visuals available to the company, including key stats for transaction businesses, such as customer lifetime value, repeat purchase probability, and cohort analysis?on database segments. This lets a company answer questions like which types of customers are likely to regularly buy red fedora hats.?For clients with technical staffers, it provides access for them to run their own queries on more complex data sets hosted on its own servers.?Prices for the basic version of the online service start at $500 per month.
Fab cofounder Jason Goldberg has written effusively about his experience with RJMetrics, and how its analysis helped him prove Fab?s worth to investors when it raised $40 million in 2011.
From a fundraising standpoint, providing access to the RJ data basically said to the VC?s, ?here we are, here?s the data, we?ve got nothing to hide, take a look and decide for yourself if you want to pursue investing in Fab.? Effectively, we turned the pitching on its head. Since the RJ data updates several times per day directly from our database, it was many times more powerful than providing powerpoints and excel spreadsheets. This was the real stuff, auto-updating! And, since RJ enables all the data to be downloaded into excel, the analysts at the VC firms were able to do all of their own analysis on the front end of the investment process.
The core RJMetrics product grew out of Moore?s?own data analysis work (which has separately resulted in some great guest posts for TechCrunch, like this formative 2009 analysis of Twitter user behavior). The new funding round, which includes participation from existing investor SoftTech VC, will go towards sales and marketing. With the overall growth in the Saas BI industry, Moore says it?s time to focus on the e-commerce part of it.
RJMetrics develops business intelligence software delivered as a service over the internet. RJMetrics was founded by two colleagues at a private equity and venture capital firm that focused on the software and Internet spaces. The RJMetrics business intelligence dashboard grew out of the analyses performed during due diligence and value-add work for the portfolio companies.
? Learn more
Founded in 1986, Trinity Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm dedicated to partnering with passionate entrepreneurs to transform revolutionary ideas into reality. With over $1 billion under management, Trinity Ventures believes in personal engagement, mutual respect and goal alignment with the entrepreneurs. Trinity focuses on early stage and seed technology investments with particular emphasis on social commerce and entertainment, digital media, Saas, and cloud and infrastructure. Trinity Ventures has invested in such leading companies as Aruba Networks,...
? Learn more
Robert J. Moore is the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, a on-demand database analytics and business intelligence startup that helps online businesses measure, manage, and monetize better. He was previously a venture capital analyst and currently serves as an advisor to several New York startups. Robert blogs at The Metric System and can be followed on Twitter at @RJMetrics.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The crew of the International Space Station is boldly going where no one has gone before ? to see the new "Star Trek" film.
The three astronauts were offered a sneak peak of "Star Trek Into Darkness" days before it opens Thursday on Earth, seeing it not in 3-D, but Zero-G.
NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said the movie was beamed up to the outpost Monday and the two Russians and American on board had a day off Tuesday. That gave them a chance to view it on their laptops. It's unclear if they watched it.
U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy is taking part Thursday in a Google+ hangout that's bringing together two Earth-bound astronauts, film stars Chris Pine, Alice Eve and John Cho, and its director and screenwriter.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A buttoned-down Prince Harry joined Michelle Obama in honoring military families Thursday and toured an exhibition in Congress about land-mines, opening a weeklong U.S. visit devoted to the wounded victims of war. Shrieking onlookers gave him the pop-star treatment, but he was all royal business.
The British soldier-prince had one of America's most storied wounded warriors, the wisecracking Sen. John McCain, at his side as he viewed a display of land-mine photos, maps and mine-detection equipment, staged by a charity held dear by his late mother, Princess Diana.
As the prince entered the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building near the Capitol, he was greeted by a roar and shouts of "Harry!" from a crowd of about 500 people, nearly all of them women. They crowded a roped-off hallway and stairway with a view of the exhibit, hoisting their cellphones and tablets to get a picture. Harry didn't visibly react except to give a polite wave.
McCain, with a laugh, said he told Harry "I've never seen, in all the years I've been here, such an unbalanced gender crowd."
From there it was on to the White House for a previously unannounced visit with the first lady, Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, and military mothers and children at an afternoon tea. Harry joined with the children in helping the kids make Mother's Day gifts from tulip and rose bouquets, vegetable chips and edible dough jewelry gathered in the State Dining Room.
For the prince, the Washington settings were a world away from the Afghanistan war zone where he recently served for 20 weeks as a co-pilot gunner in an Apache attack helicopter. It was just as far removed from his hijinks in a Las Vegas hotel room last summer, when fuzzy photos got out of a naked Harry playing strip billiards.
McCain, R-Ariz., who was shot down over North Vietnam and tortured as a captive, said he told the prince that "he was probably a much better pilot than I was."
As for the prince's reputation for cutting loose on occasion, McCain joked that the British diplomatic reception and dinner later in the evening was sure to be a "wild and raucous affair."
It was a glittering one, at least, hosted by British Ambassador Peter Westmacott for about 30 guests after a reception for 170, many connected with the mine-clearing HALO Trust charity. Harry sat between Teresa Heinz, wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the ambassador's wife, Susie, for the dinner.
On Friday, the prince visits Arlington National Cemetery and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center before flying to Colorado for the 2013 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs. More than 200 wounded servicemen and women from the U.S. and Britain will participate.
Harry will also visit parts of New Jersey afflicted by Superstorm Sandy and stop for events in New York City before capping his visit by playing in the Sentebale Polo Cup match in Greenwich, Conn., on Wednesday.
Diana highlighted the work of the HALO Trust when she was pictured wearing a face mask and protective clothing during a visit to a minefield being cleared by the trust in Angola in 1997. Fiona Willoughby, marketing manager of the trust, said the prince's tour of the trust's exhibit raises the profile of the issue once again.
"People have forgotten about it, and we think Prince Harry, following in his mother's footsteps, is a worthy cause and will raise the profile of what we are doing," she said.
Harry closely quizzed trust officials on mine-detection techniques and photos of amputees, keeping a somber if animated tone despite the swooning throng held back from the exhibit area.
The prince "seemed to be a little ? the word isn't embarrassed ? it was, I think, a normal reaction," McCain said. "I'm sure it's not the first time."
___
Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.
A 1,000-foot core sample taken from a lake in Russia's northeast Arctic documents a period when the region was 14 degrees warmer than today, but with similar atmospheric CO2 ?levels.
By Pete Spotts / May 9, 2013
A NASA satellite shows the state of Arctic sea ice, seen here September 16, 2008. A 1,000-foot ice core from the Arctic's Lake E suggests that the Arctic was heavily forested 3.5 million years ago, when carbon dioxide levels were similar to today.
Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio / NASA / Reuters / File
Enlarge
Working with a continuous record of Arctic climate reaching back 3.6 million years, researchers have documented a period when the region was significantly warmer and wetter than it is today and when the atmosphere's inventory of carbon dioxide was comparable to today's levels.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The period the team has analyzed covers the first 1.4 million years of the record, when the region's climate shifted from warm and wet to conditions that signaled the start of ice ages.
This period is of interest in part because the warmth persisted despite periodic shifts in Earth's orbit that reduced the intensity of sunlight reaching the region.
Temperatures were high enough ? about 14 degrees warmer than today in the warmest month of the summer ? to suggest that the climate system is more sensitive to small changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations than the sensitivity estimates included in some climate models.
If that's the case, as other paleoclimate studies have indicated, the models may be underestimating the amount of warming likely to result from increasing atmospheric CO2?concentrations, the scientists say.
The period also is of interest because it holds clues about the factors that drove climate from prolonged warmth into a cycle of ice ages ? factors that will help researchers understand the role natural variability plays in the region's climate and where climatic ?tipping points? may lie.
The work ?identifies for the first time a long, continuous story of that history from the Arctic and what I call the Arctic borderlands,? says Julie Brigham-Grette, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who focuses on the Arctic's ancient climate, referring to adjacent regions. Dr. Brigham-Grette is the lead author of a formal report of the results, which are being published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The research was conducted by a team of 16 scientists from Russia, the US, Germany and Sweden.
The evidence is captured in a 1,034-foot core sample the team drew from the bottom of Lake El'gygytgyn, known informally as Lake E. It formed 3.6 billion years ago after a meteor punched a crater in Russia's northeastern Arctic. The crater filled to form a lake 7 miles across and some 560 feet deep. The area around the lake managed to remain ice free during the ebb and flow of continental ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, allowing sediment layers ? and the pollen and other climate indicators they contain ? to build up uninterrupted for the last 3.56 million years.
The team published initial results from the Lake E core last year, focusing on the Pleistocene. This latest effort focuses on the climate from the earlier, mid Pliocene through the onset of the glacial cycles.
It's Mother's Day in the US this Sunday and to celebrate Google has released yet another?schmaltzy ad.
Using the search engine giant's usual method of using its own products to drive the video's slushy narrative, Here's To The Moms, raises a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates to all the amazing mums out there.
Created by agency Whirled, the one-minute commercial features children thanking their mothers for all the special things they do - from giving birth to just simply being there.
And just to add a little spice, they have even padded the ad out with various YouTube clips of moms doing some amazing things, including a funny video of a mum riding the SlingShot with her seven-year-old son and an even funnier clip of a 94-year-old grandma dancing dubstep.
Of course, it's not the first time Google has tried to makes its audience all misty-eyed, but this is certainly one of the best.?
YouTube will let you pay to subscribe to channels with a new pilot program that includes a limited number of channel partners for now. The company listed Jim Henson Family TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship as initial members.
May 3, 2013 ? The Research Group headed by molecular biologist Andrea Pichler from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has made an important discovery in meiosis research. Pichler and her group have identified a new mechanism that plays an important role in meiosis.
Starting point of the research
Meiosis, also called reductional division, is a key process in sexual reproduction. It shuffles parental genetic material and thus guarantees genetic variety.
In order to control various biological processes, cells are able to selectively alter properties of their proteins, such as their lifespan, activity level, binding partners, or localization of the proteins. This is accomplished, for example, by attaching one or more Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins. This takes place in three sequential enzyme-dependent steps. Scientists have assumed that the enzyme for step 2 was solely an intermediate.
The breakthrough
As the scientists in Freiburg have now discovered, the step-2 enzyme is itself modified by the SUMO protein and thereby alters how it functions. The surprising effect: the conventional activity of the enzyme is switched off by this change and instead, a new function gained. It works together with the activated, unaltered enzyme in the formation of SUMO chains. If this effect is blocked, there are serious consequences: the protein structure (synaptonemal complex) that forms between the homologous chromosomes can no longer be established.
The researchers' new insights
A tiny amount -- less than one percent -- of the SUMO-modified step-2 enzyme is sufficient to form a normal protein structure (left image). Researcher Helene Klug from Pichler's team: "The smallest amount of the altered enzyme together with the unmodified enzyme is sufficient to form an activated complex, which then carries out the meiosis specific SUMO modifications."
"In the beginning, the results of the biological and biochemical experiments were completely contradictory, although the data were absolutely sound. We were therefore convinced that both sets of observations were correct. Explaining this contradiction led us then to the new mechanism," according to Pichler, who heads the study. In extensive and complicated biochemical experiments, the researchers were additionally able to reveal, for the first time, how this enzyme complex carries out the formation of SUMO chains.
After fifty years of research on the synaptonemal complex, these new insights are setting a new course: "This is the first time we can study the loss of the synaptonemal complex with practically no secondary effects and we hope to unveil its secret. That allows us to investigate the consequences for meiosis and thus for development of the gametes," say Franz Klein and Martin Xaver, collaborators and meiosis researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna.
Pichler and her team were already able to demonstrate in 2008 that self-tagging by the step-2 enzyme in mammalian cells has an influence on precisely which proteins are tagged with SUMO. In order to uncover the biological function for this form of regulation, the research team switched to baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a simpler organism. "Now that we know where we need to search, we also want to switch back again to the mammalian system and investigate the role of this enzyme regulation more closely there," says Pichler. "In addition, we want to better understand the function of the discovered baker's yeast enzyme complex in the meiotic chromosomal structure."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Helene Klug, Martin Xaver, Viduth?K. Chaugule, Stefanie Koidl, Gerhard Mittler, Franz Klein, Andrea Pichler. Ubc9 Sumoylation Controls SUMO Chain Formation and Meiotic Synapsis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Molecular Cell, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2013.03.027
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration's decision to appeal a court order lifting age limits on purchasers of the morning-after pill set off a storm of criticism from reproductive rights groups, who denounced it as politically motivated and a step backward for women's health.
"We are profoundly disappointed. This appeal takes away the promise of all women having timely access to emergency contraception," Susannah Baruch, Interim President & CEO of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said in a statement late Wednesday.
"It is especially troubling in light of the Food and Drug Administration's move yesterday to continue age restrictions and ID requirements, despite a court order to make emergency contraception accessible for women of all ages. Both announcements, particularly in tandem, highlight the administration's corner-cutting on women's health," Baruch said. "It's a sad day for women's health when politics prevails."
The FDA on Tuesday had lowered the age at which people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 ? younger than the current limit of 17 ? and decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near the condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters. It appeared to be a stab at compromise that just made both sides angrier.
After the appeal was announced late Wednesday, Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said, "The prevention of unwanted pregnancy, particularly in adolescents, should not be obstructed by politicians." She called it a "step backwards for women's health."
Last week, O'Neill noted, President Barack Obama was applauded when he addressed members of Planned Parenthood and spoke of the organization's "core principle" that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their health.
"President Obama should practice what he preaches," O'Neill said.
In appealing the ruling Wednesday, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn't have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available.
The Justice Department's appeal responded to an order by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York that would allow girls and women of any age to buy not only Plan B but its cheaper generic competition as easily as they can buy aspirin. Korman gave the FDA 30 days to comply, and the Monday deadline was approaching fast.
In its filing, the Justice Department said that Korman exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while that appeal is under way, meaning only Plan B One-Step would appear on drugstore shelves until the case is finally settled. If Korman's order isn't suspended during the appeals process, the result would be "substantial market confusion, harming FDA's and the public's interest" as drugstores receive conflicting orders about who's allowed to buy what, the Justice Department concluded.
Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials insisted Wednesday that both the FDA and the Justice Department were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. But the decision to appeal was certain to irk abortion-rights advocates who say they can't understand why a Democratic president is siding with social conservatives in favor of limiting women's reproductive choices.
Current and former White House aides said Obama's approach to the issue has been heavily influenced by his experience as the father of two school-age daughters. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have also questioned whether there's enough data available to show the morning-after pill is safe and appropriate for younger girls, even though physicians groups insist that it is.
Rather than take matters into his own hands, the Justice Department argued to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Korman should have ordered the FDA to reconsider its options for regulating emergency contraception. The court cannot overturn the rules and processes that federal agencies must follow "by instead mandating a particular substantive outcome," the appeal states.
The FDA actually had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Sebelius overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn't be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own.
Sebelius' move was unprecedented, and Korman had blasted it as election-year politics ? meaning he was overruling not just a government agency but a Cabinet secretary.
More than a year later, neither side in the contraception debate was happy with the FDA's surprise twist, which many perceived as an attempt to find a palatable middle ground between imposing an age limit of 17 and imposing no limit at all.
Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it's not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages.
"We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high," Breuner said.
Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, "we know that it is safe for those under 15," she said.
Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone.
Social conservatives were outraged by the FDA's move to lower the age limits for Plan B ? as well as the possibility that Korman's ruling might take effect and lift age restrictions altogether.
"This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.
If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn't begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists ? and Korman, in his ruling ? said has been discredited.
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 16-May-2013
Share ] 
