Iran could ban EU oil exports next week: lawmaker (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? A law to be debated in Iran's parliament on Sunday could halt exports of oil to the European Union as early as next week, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday.

"On Sunday, parliament will have to approve a 'double emergency' bill calling for a halt in the export of Iranian oil to Europe starting next week," Hossein Ibrahimi, vice-chairman of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying.

Parliament is pushing for the export ban to deny the EU a 6-month phase-in of the embargo on Iranian oil that the bloc agreed on Monday as part of a raft of tough new Western sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The EU accounted for 18 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the first half of 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), making it Iran's second biggest customer after China.

"If the deputies arrive at the conclusion that the Iranian oil exports to Europe must be halted, the parliament will not delay a moment (in passing the bill)," Fars quoted Moayed Hosseini-Sadr, a member of parliament's energy committee, as saying.

"If Iran's oil exports to Europe, which is about 18 percent (of Iran's oil exports) is halted the Europeans will surely be taken by surprise, and will understand the power of Iran and will realize that the Islamic establishment will not succumb to the Europeans' policies," he said.

Reflecting how seriously Tehran was taking the idea, Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi told the ILNA news agency the country might choose to raise the issue at the next OPEC meeting.

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament has previously shown it is ready to force the government to take action against what it sees as hostility from the West.

In November it voted to expel the British ambassador after London announced new sanctions ahead of other EU countries.

The day after that vote, radical Iranians stormed the British embassy, causing London to withdraw all staff and close the mission.

(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_iran_sanctions_oil

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Japan's 'Nuclear Alley' conflicted over reactors (AP)

OHI, Japan ? International inspectors are visiting a rugged Japanese bay region so thick with reactors it is dubbed "Nuclear Alley," where residents remain deeply conflicted as Japan moves to restart plants idled after the Fukushima disaster.

The local economy depends heavily on the industry, and the national government hopes that "stress tests" at idled plants ? the first of which is being reviewed this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency ? will show they are safe enough to switch back on.

But last year's tsunami crisis in northeastern Japan with meltdowns at three of the Fukushima reactors has fanned opposition to the plants here in western Fukui prefecture, a mountainous region surrounding Wakasa Bay that also relies on fishing and tourism and where the governor has come out strongly against nuclear power.

"We don't need another Fukushima, and we don't want to repeat the same mistake here," said Eiichi Inoue, a 63-year-old retiree in the coastal town of Obama. "I know they added stress tests, but what exactly are they doing?"

"I oppose restarting them," he said.

Other residents said that economic realities made the plants indispensable, including Chikako Shimamoto, a 38-year-old fitness instructor in Takahama, a town that hosts one of the region's nuclear plants.

"We all know that we better not restart them," Shimamoto said. "But we need jobs and we need business in this town.

"Our lives in this town depends on the nuclear power plant and we have no choice," she said.

On Thursday, an IAEA team visited a plant in the town of Ohi to check whether officials at operator Kansai Electric Power Co. had correctly done the tests at two reactors. The tests are designed to assess whether plants can withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, loss of power or other emergencies, and suggest changes to improve safety.

Their visit, at Japan's invitation, appeared aimed at reassuring a skeptical public that authorities are taking the necessary precautions before bringing nuclear plants back on line. After the visit, IAEA team leader James Lyons said its assessment would be released at the end of the month but deciding whether to restart the reactors was up to the Japanese goverment.

Some experts are critical of the stress tests, saying they are meaningless because they have no clear criteria, and view the IAEA as biased toward the nuclear industry.

"I don't view their evaluation as something that is trustworthy or carries any weight," said Hiromitsu Ino, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and member of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's stress test panel.

The government idled of Japan's 54 reactors for mandatory tests and maintenance after the Fukushima disaster. The number still operating dropped from four to three Friday morning, when Chugoku Electric Power Co. suspended operations at the Shimane No. 2 reactor for scheduled tests.

If no idled plants get approval to restart, the country will be without an operating reactor by the end of April.

Before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that led to the Fukushima crisis, nuclear plants generated about 30 percent of the country's electricity. To make up for the shortfall, utilities are temporarily turning to conventional oil and coal-fired plants, and the government has required companies to reduce their electricity consumption.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has promised to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power over time, but it still needs some nuclear power until next-generation sources are developed.

In Fukui, 13 reactors at four complexes are clustered along a 55-kilometer (35-mile) stretch of coast with snow capped mountains facing the Sea of Japan. It's known as "Gempatsu Ginza," a phrase that roughly translates to "Nuclear Alley."

Only one of the 13 reactors is still running. The rest have been shut down for regular inspections required every 13 months. To start running again, they must pass the stress test.

Another hurdle will be gaining local support for the plants to restart. While local consent is not legally required for that to happen, authorities generally want to win local backing and make efforts to do so.

Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa, however, says he will not allow a startup of any of the prefecture's commercial reactors.

And the city assembly in Obama ? a town that briefly enjoyed international fame when it endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential race_ has submitted an appeal to the central Tokyo government to make Japan nuclear-free.

But officials in Mihama, another town that hosts a nuclear plant, have expressed support for the town's three reactors also operated by Kansai Electric, also called Kepco.

Fukui is a largely rural area, traditionally focused on fishing and farming, but it has a significant textile and machinery industry, and boasts of being a major producer of eyeglasses. Its nuclear power plants supply approximately half of all the electricity used in the greater Kansai region, which includes Osaka and Kyoto.

Several towns' fortunes are tied closely to the nuclear industry.

Community centers and roads are paid by the government subsidies for hosting the plants. Closing the plants not only means losing jobs for thousands of workers, but hardship for stores, restaurants and other service industries.

Many of those interviewed had family members, relatives or friends with jobs at the plants, and some refused to give their names due to fear of repercussions.

Noda has said the final decision on restarting nuclear plants would be political, suggesting that the government would override any local opposition if Japan's energy needs become dire.

Naozane Sakashita, a taxi and bus driver, said his salary had decreased "substantially" after the Ohi and other plants went offline.

"I think these idle plants should resume as soon as their safety is confirmed," he said. "Our jobs and daily life are more important than a disaster that occurs only once in a million years."

Still, he said he is concerned about the safety of the plants because his son works as a control room operator at the Takahama plant.

"If our economy prospers without compromising our safety, of course it would be best to live without nuclear energy," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_nuclear

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The Gamesville Blog: Best Pets: Lahotsauce's Adorable King Ransom

Written by felixturtle / January 26, 2012 9:07 am / 5 Comments

This week?s Best Pets comes to us from Gamesviller lahotsauce of Lake Charles, Louisiana!

Distinguishing Personality Traits

Lahotsauce shared with us why King Ransom is so special to her. ?I have a 12 week old German Sheppard, his name is King Ransom. He is a handful but brings joy to my life everyday.

My husband got him for me to replace my American Eskimo that we had for 14 years. Our pets become our children and I would do anything for them. I also have a toy poodle and a cat and they all play together like they are best friends.? Just wanted to share!?

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Want to share photos of your own favorite pet with the Gamesville community?

Send photos to: members@gamesville.com

In addition to your pet?s picture, please be sure to include:

• Your Gamesville member name ? I can?t award you GVs without it!
• Your pet?s most distinguishing personality trait, their name and a little bit about them!

If we publish your pet as a ?Best Pet,? we?ll give you 5,000 GV Rewards. Submit your pet today!

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Source: http://blog.gamesville.com/6237/best-pets-lahotsauces-adorable-king-ransom

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February 1 Is Change Your Password Day [Change Your Password Day]

If you are like me—and of course you are, right? we are all gingers inside—you probably have password security that ranges from awful-like-Batman-Forever to thoroughly mediocre. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/0akwm9mnAVE/february-1-is-change-your-password-day-ive-decided

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Video: Winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx dressed for flight

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Since its discovery 150 years ago, scientists have puzzled over whether the winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx represents the missing link in birds' evolution to powered flight. Much of the debate has focused on the iconic creature's wings and the mystery of whether ? and how well ? it could fly.

Some secrets have been revealed by an international team of researchers led by Brown University. Through a novel analytic approach, the researchers have determined that a well-preserved feather on the raven-sized dinosaur's wing was black. The color and parts of cells that would have supplied pigment are evidence the wing feathers were rigid and durable, traits that would have helped Archaeopteryx to fly.

The team also learned from its examination that Archaeopteryx's feather structure is identical to that of living birds, a discovery that shows modern wing feathers had evolved as early as 150 million years ago in the Jurassic period. The study, which appears in Nature Communications, was funded by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

"If Archaeopteryx was flapping or gliding, the presence of melanosomes [pigment-producing parts of a cell] would have given the feathers additional structural support," said Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown and the paper's lead author. "This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight."

The Archaeopteryx feather was discovered in a limestone deposit in Germany in 1861, a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Paleontologists have long been excited about the fossil and other Archaeopteryx specimens, thinking they place the dinosaur at the base of the bird evolutionary tree. The traits that make Archaeopteryx an evolutionary intermediate between dinosaurs and birds, scientists say, are the combination of reptilian features (teeth, clawed fingers, and a bony tail) and avian features (feathered wings and a wishbone).

The lack of knowledge of Archaeopteryx's feather structure and color bedeviled scientists. Carney, with researchers from Yale University, the University of Akron, and the Carl Zeiss laboratory in Germany, analyzed the feather and discovered that it is a covert, so named because these feathers cover the primary and secondary wing feathers birds use in flight. After two unsuccessful attempts to image the melanosomes, the group tried a more powerful type of scanning electron microscope at Zeiss, where the group located patches of hundreds of the structures still encased in the fossilized feather.

"The third time was the charm, and we finally found the keys to unlocking the feather's original color, hidden in the rock for the past 150 million years," said Carney, a graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, studying with Stephen Gatesy.

Melanosomes had long been known to be present in other fossil feathers, but had been misidentified as bacteria. In 2006, coauthor Jakob Vinther, then a graduate student at Yale, discovered melanin preserved in the ink sac of a fossilized squid. "This made me think that melanin could be fossilized in many other fossils such as feathers," said Vinther, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas?Austin. "I realized that I had opened a whole new chapter of what we can do to understand the nature of extinct feathered dinosaurs and birds."

The team measured the length and width of the sausage-shaped melanosomes, roughly 1 micron long and 250 nanometers wide. To determine the melanosome's color, Akron researchers Matthew Shawkey and Liliana D'Alba statistically compared Archaeopteryx's melanosomes with those found in 87 species of living birds, representing four feather classes: black, gray, brown, and a type found in penguins. "What we found was that the feather was predicted to be black with 95 percent certainty," Carney said.

Next, the team sought to better define the melanosomes' structure. For that, they examined the fossilized barbules ? tiny, rib-like appendages that overlap and interlock like zippers to give a feather rigidity and strength. The barbules and the alignment of melanosomes within them, Carney said, are identical to those found in modern birds.

What the pigment was used for is less clear. The black color of the Archaeopteryx wing feather may have served to regulate body temperature, act as camouflage or be employed for display. But it could have been for flight, too.

"We can't say it's proof that Archaeopteryx was a flier. But what we can say is that in modern bird feathers, these melanosomes provide additional strength and resistance to abrasion from flight, which is why wing feathers and their tips are the most likely areas to be pigmented," Carney said. "With Archaeopteryx, as with birds today, the melanosomes we found would have provided similar structural advantages, regardless of whether the pigmentation initially evolved for another purpose."

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Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau

Thanks to Brown University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116999/Video__Winged_dinosaur_Archaeopteryx_dressed_for_flight

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Spotting dyslexia before a child starts school

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2012) ? Children at risk for dyslexia show differences in brain activity on MRI scans even before they begin learning to read, finds a study at Children's Hospital Boston. Since developmental dyslexia responds to early intervention, diagnosing children at risk before or during kindergarten could head off difficulties and frustration in school, the researchers say. Findings appear this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Developmental dyslexia(dyslexia that's not caused by brain trauma) affects 5 to 17 percent of all children; up to 1 in 2 children with a family history of dyslexia will struggle with reading themselves, experiencing poor spelling and decoding abilities and difficulties with fluent word recognition. Because of problems recognizing and manipulating the underlying sound structures of words (known as phonological processing), children with dyslexia have difficulty mapping oral sounds to written language.

The Children's Hospital Boston researchers, led by Nora Raschle, PhD, of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, performed functional MRI imaging in 36 preschool-age children (average age, 5?) while they performed tasks requiring them to decide whether two words started with the same speech sound. They used an elaborate protocolto get these young children to hold still in the MRI scanner.

During the phonological tasks, children with a family history of dyslexia had reduced metabolic activity in certain brain regions (the junctions between the occipital and temporal lobes and the temporal and parietal lobes in the back of the brain) when compared with controls matched for age, IQ and socioeconomic status.

"We already know that older children and adults with dyslexia have dysfunction in the same brain regions," says senior investigator Nadine Gaab, PhD, also of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience. "What this study tells us is that the brain's ability to process language sounds is deficient even before children have reading instruction."

In both the at-risk and control groups, children with high activation in these brain areas had better pre-reading skills, such as rhyming, knowing letters and letter sounds, knowing when two words start with the same sound, and being able to separate sounds within a word (like saying "cowboy" without the "cow").

The children at risk for dyslexia showed no increase in activation of frontal brain regions, as has been seen in older children and adults with dyslexia. This suggests that these regions become active only when children begin reading instruction, as the brain tries to compensate for other deficits.

Studies have shown that children with dyslexia often have negative experiences in school, being labeled as lazy or unmotivated. Their frustration can lead to aggressive, impulsive and anti-social behaviors and an increased likelihood of dropping out of high school and entering the juvenile justice system.

"We hope that identifying children at risk for dyslexia around preschool or even earlier may help reduce the negative social and psychological consequences these kids often face," says Raschle.

While various neuropsychological interventions are available for dyslexia, the condition generally isn't diagnosed until the child has reached third grade, when they are less effective, Gaab adds.

"Families often know that their child has dyslexia as early as kindergarten, but they can't get interventions at their schools," she says. "If we can show that we can identify these kids early, schools may be encouraged to develop programs."

Gaab and Raschle plan to follow the children over time to see if the brain patterns they observed correlate with a later diagnosis of dyslexia They just received a large NIH grant to extend their study, and are actively enrolling preschool-aged children (for information on enrollment, contact the Gaab lab.

Jennifer Zuk, M.Ed., also of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Children's, was a coauthor on the paper. The study was funded by the Charles H. Hood Foundation, a Children's Hospital Boston pilot grant, the Swiss National Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Janggen-P?hn Stiftung.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Children's Hospital Boston.

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Journal Reference:

1. N. M. Raschle, J. Zuk, N. Gaab. Functional characteristics of developmental dyslexia in left-hemispheric posterior brain regions predate reading onset. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1107721109

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.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123152510.htm

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Sharon Osbourne: ?I?m Going to Be the Grandmother From Hell?

"I am going to be the grandmother from hell because I am going to spoil this baby so bad," she says. "My son and Lisa are going to be like, 'Get her out of here!'"

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/daFb8XZokPA/

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Alan Singer: The School-to-Prison Pipeline

Rethinking Schools is a magazine written for teachers by teachers. It is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and covers local issues, but really its concerns are national in scope. Its Winter 2011-2012 issue was a special on what they call "the school-to-prison pipeline." An opening editorial made clear their point of view. Too often schools where student populations are overwhelming black, Latino and poor are becoming "pathways to incarceration rather than opportunity." As teachers they are outraged because "we cannot build safe, creative, nurturing schools and criminalize our children at the same time."

According to Rethinking Schools, "zero tolerance" disciplinary policies in schools are responsible for transforming minor transgressions of school rules that could be handled as educational opportunities into disciplinary matters where students are subject to suspension and often even into legal issues involving the police and courts. The editors of Rethinking Schools blame federal "No Child Left Behind" and "Race to the Top" programs that focus what takes place in schools on control and test scores rather than meeting student needs for accelerating the trend toward increasing severe punishment.

Punishment in school and in American society often has a racial dimension. The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid. In Washington, D.C., three-fourths of the young African American men are arrested at some point in their lives. Since 1970, the U.S. prison population has grown from about 300,000 people to over two million, even while crime rates have dropped. More than seven million children have a family member who has passed through the prison system.

The connection between prisons and schools dates to the Reagan and Clinton administrations. The term "zero tolerance" came into popular usage during the Reagan presidency when Congress passed the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. During the Clinton years, the Safe and Gun-Free Schools Act mandated expulsion for any student, no matter how young, who brought a gun to school. Public fear of school violence was ignited by the Columbine shootings in 1999. Although the perpetrators were white and the incident had nothing to do with race, black and Latino students in inner-city schools increasingly became the target of the anti-crime, anti-violence programs.

State policies, not the students, are often the actual criminals. According to a 2011 study "Breaking Schools' Rules," in Texas, with a school population of 4.7 million students, there were 1.6 million student suspensions during the 2009-2010 school year. Fifty-four percent of the students in Texas were suspended or expelled at least once while in secondary school. Overwhelmingly, 97 percent of the suspensions were for minor infractions that could have been treated as educational rather than disciplinary problems.

A major focus of the Rethinking Schools theme issue was discussion of a book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness. In an interview with a Rethinking Schools editor, Alexander, a legal school and civil rights activist who is also African American, explained that the explosion in the prison population and increasingly harsh punishment in schools has had a devastating impact on black children and the black community. Families are separated, lives are uncertain, older siblings are stopped and frisked by police, and children experience harassment starting at a young age and become resentful of authority figures, whether they are teachers or police officers.

Alexander believes school discipline policies were shaped by the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement. She charges that zero tolerance language in school disciplinary codes was taken from a Drug Enforcement Administration manual. She feels that students, parents and teachers need to resist these policies and promote programs that will actually improve the quality of education and community life. "We're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge percentages of poor people are going to remain jobless, locked out of the mainstream economy, unless and until they have a quality education that prepares them well for the new economy."

Courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have ruled on student rights on a number of occasions. The best-known case is Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). In this case, the United States Supreme Court decided that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." However in Ginsberg v. New York (1968) the Supreme Court recognized that states must exercise greater authority over children than over adults, partly because they are responsible for ensuring an environment that is safe and conducive to learning.

In Safford Unified School District v. Redding (2009), Associate Justice Clarence Thomas argued:

"For nearly 25 years this Court has understood that maintaining order in the classroom has never been easy, but in more recent years, school disorder has often taken particularly ugly forms: drug use and violent crime in the schools have become major social problems... For this reason, school officials retain broad authority to protect students and preserve order and a proper educational environment under the Fourth Amendment. This authority requires that school officials be able to engage in the close supervision of school children, as well as enforce rules against conduct that would be perfectly permissible if undertaken by an adult."

Unfortunately, if Thomas' views become the law of the land, and they well might in a country that has already suspended fourth amendment due process rights for people accused of ties to terrorism, students may effectively lose all legal protection against abusive authority. Schools will become more like prisons and young people will be one step closer to incarceration.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/school-to-prison-pipeline_b_1219950.html

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Experts: Paterno's death won't stop court cases

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. In a statement made Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, retired Penn State assistant coach Sandusky, who faces child sex abuse charges in a case that led to the firing of Paterno, says Paterno's death is a sad day. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. In a statement made Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, retired Penn State assistant coach Sandusky, who faces child sex abuse charges in a case that led to the firing of Paterno, says Paterno's death is a sad day. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Joe Paterno would no doubt have made a dramatic courtroom witness. But legal experts said his death will have little or no effect on the criminal or civil cases to come out of the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal.

"Obviously, you're taking away a great deal of the high-profile nature of this case, because it deals with Joe Paterno's football program," said Jeffrey Lindy, a criminal defense lawyer involved in a clergy-abuse case in Philadelphia. "But with regard to the legal impact of his death, there is none."

Paterno died Sunday at 85, two months after former coaching assistant Jerry Sandusky was charged with molesting boys and two university officials were accused of perjury and failing to report child sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky to police.

The criminal case against the two university officials may even become more streamlined without Paterno in the mix.

Former university vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley are charged with failing to report to police what graduate assistant Mike McQueary said he told them in 2002: that McQueary saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a locker room shower.

McQueary first told Paterno, who said he reported it to Curley and Schultz the next day. The administrators told the grand jury they were never informed that the allegations were sexual in nature.

With Paterno's death, though, a jury is free to focus not on what Paterno knew or did, but on the defendants' actions.

What McQueary told Paterno "was a distraction, and now that that part of the case is really gone, it will focus much more on his interaction not with Paterno, but with the Penn State officials," said Duquesne University law professor Nicholas P. Cafardi.

McQueary is also the more crucial witness in the case against Sandusky, who is charged with abusing 10 boys, at least two of them on the Penn State campus.

Paterno testified for just seven minutes last January before the grand jury. He gave only vague answers ? and was never pressed ? when asked what he knew about anyone accusing Sandusky of molesting boys.

"Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?" Paterno was asked, according to the grand jury testimony read in court last month.

"Well, he had seen a person, an older ? not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it ? I'm not sure what the term would be ? a young boy," Paterno replied.

He was asked if he ever heard of any other allegations against Sandusky, who had been the subject of a lengthy campus police investigation four years earlier after a mother complained Sandusky had showered with her young son at the football complex.

"I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no. I do not know of it," Paterno said, adding, "You did mention ? I think you said something about a rumor. It may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody. I don't know."

Paterno's grand jury testimony cannot be used in court, because the defense never had the chance to cross-examine him.

"His passing deprives folks from finding out, directly from his lips, exactly what he knew and when he knew it, and what he did or didn't do. But the reality is, sometimes those things can be proved by other means," said Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul, Minn., lawyer who filed the first civil case against Penn State on behalf of a Sandusky accuser.

It's not unusual for a witness to die or become infirm before trial, especially in child sex-abuse cases, which can take years or even decades to surface. In Philadelphia, prosecutors won the right to question 88-year-old retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua on video last year to preserve his testimony before the spring trial of three priests and a church official. Bevilacqua suffers from dementia and cancer.

Prosecutors never got the chance to preserve Paterno's testimony, given his surprise cancer diagnosis and rapid decline after they filed the charges Nov. 4.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-22-Paterno-Legal/id-5bc7bfbf3a914437a49e15cb7bce7219

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Confidence in eurozone improves despite downgrades

[unable to retrieve full-text content]PARIS (AP) ? France and Spain sailed through their first long-term debt auctions since their credit ratings were downgraded by Standard & Poor's, a sign that politicians and the central bank have at least temporarily stemmed the spread of Europe's debt crisis.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-19-EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis/id-822455e6f1774916859eafaa4992ce03

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Mutant microbes unlock seaweed energy

A promising new system can convert brown seaweed into biofuel, opening up a new possible source of energy that could help replace fossil fuels, like gasoline, scientists reported Thursday.

The secret: bacteria genetically engineered to break down a previously inaccessible sugar in seaweed, called alginate.

The researchers who developed this new system used it to generate ethanol, a biofuel that is added to gasoline; however, it has the potential to produce not just ethanol but other biofuels, they and others say.

The new system is like a Lego platform, said Yasuo Yoshikuni, a study researcher and chief science officer and co-founder at Bio Architecture Lab in California. With changes to the components in the process, the same microbe-based system could be used to produce a variety of products, Yoshikuni said.

For instance, the system could be used to turn seaweed into a source (also called a feedstock) for other biofuels, which could include butanol ? an alcohol, like ethanol, that is blended into gas ? or chemicals used in biodiesel, which has properties similar to conventional, petroleum-based diesel.

[ 10 Ways to Power the Future ]??

"It opens up a vast new potential for biofuel feedstocks," said Tom Richard, director of the Institutes of Energy and the Environment at Pennsylvania State University.

Two questions remain, according to Richard, who was not involved in the study, which is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science: Is it economically feasible to use seaweed to produce biofuel? And is it environmentally attractive?

"We don't know the answer to either question, what this article demonstrates is that it is technically possible, which is a great first step," Richard said. "And I think in both cases there is reason to think there is a good shot." ?

Why seaweed?

Seaweed now joins the cadre of plants ? from corn to single-celled algae ? that offer tantalizingly renewable and domestically produced alternatives to fossil fuels. In the United States, ethanol made from corn is added to gasoline; in Brazil, cars are powered largely, sometimes completely, by ethanol made from sugar cane.

But converting corn and sugar cane into fuel can be problematic, since both are also food crops. Even other potential biofuel sources, like switchgrass, can compete for land in a world whose population is growing and seeking a more resource-intensive diet.

[ 7 (Billion) Population Milestones ]

"This is one of the great debates about biofuel: Is there sufficient agricultural land to produce the food we require in society and also produce significant amounts of biofuels," Richard said.

Seaweed is different; it doesn't compete with farming.

"There is a lot of biomass in the ocean, and so far people haven't really found ways to substantially exploit it," said Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, who wasn't involved in the study.

Seaweed ? a relatively unexploited source of nutrition, particularly in North America ? is high in sugars, which are precursors for most biofuels. Seaweed also lacks lignin, a compound that makes cell walls rigid in land plants and that must be removed before such plants can be turned into fuel.

Even so, until now, seaweed appeared to have limited potential as a feedstock for biofuel, since one of its primary sugars, alginate, couldn't be broken down efficiently enough to produce biofuel on an industrial scale. ?

The bug

Marine microbes already have the ability to break down alginate, transport the products and metabolize them, so Yoshikuni's team first figured out the details of how this happens. Then, they engineered another, more industry-friendly microbe, E. coli, to do something similar, spitting out ethanol at the end of a multi-step process. The last of the steps could be replaced to produce other biofuels, or even chemicals such as plastics and polymer building blocks.?

This system also takes advantage of other sugars in the seaweed, mannitol and glucan, since the E. coli already possessed the ability to break down mannitol, and commericially available enzymes can easily break glucan down into a more accessible form, glucose.?

This system could be used in any brown seaweed (seaweeds also come in green and red). Yoshikuni's team used kombu, kelp used in East Asian cuisine.??

Cultivating seaweed along three percent of the world's coastlines, where kelp already grows, could produce 60 billion gallons of ethanol, according to Dan Trunfio, BAL's chief executive officer.?

Both Richard and Somerville said the production of ethanol from seaweed using their microbial system would likely require more work to become cost-effective on an industrial scale.

BAL, which is testing cultivation methods at four pilot seaweed farms off the coast of Chile, is working on commercializing the process to produce ethanol and renewable chemicals, according to Trunfio. Seaweed's advantages, its high sugar content and lack of lignin, make it a viable source for biofuel from a cost perspective, he said.

Looking ahead

There is also the environmental question.

One challenge will likely be seaweed's demand for nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which are not naturally abundant in the oceans, Somerville said. "And generally it is undesirable to fertilize the ocean," he said.

Runoff filled with nutrients creates dead zones, with low oxygen content, as happens in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River delivers its payload of agricultural fertilizer.?

Trunfio argues, however, that seaweed's need for nutrients creates an opportunity, noting BAL's seaweed farms are located near salmon farms, so the seaweed can use salmon waste as fertilizer.

Overall, Somerville was cautious about the implications of the new microbial system.

"Does this change everything? No," Somerville said. "It's the beginning of opening up a new area; it needs quite a lot of additional investigation broadly speaking to see what the real opportunity is."

You can follow LiveSciencesenior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46062030/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Make Windows Explorer's Sidebar Expand As You Navigate Through Folders [Windows Explorer]

A simple option in Windows Explorer's preferences fixes one of its biggest annoyances, automatically expanding the left sidebar as you navigate through your computer's folders.

Perhaps this is an obvious tip, but once I discovered it, I realized how useful it can be. In Windows 7, by default, Explorer's sidebar stays the same unless you click around in it. That is, if you use the right pane to navigate through folders, as most of us do, the left sidebar doesn't change. With a simple checkbox, though, you can have the left sidebar focus on your current folder in the tree as you click around the right pane. To enable this feature:

• Open up Explorer and go to Organize > Folder and Search Options.
• On the General tab, look under "Navigation Pane" and check "Automatically expand to current folder".

This is especially useful considering Windows 7's Explorer doesn't have a "one folder up" button. You could always click on the folder's name in Explorer's address bar, too, but this can save you a few clicks if you're constantly jumping around nearby folders. Again, it certainly isn't a new tip, but we've never featured it before, and having just discovered it, I thought it was a pretty cool feature.

Set the Navigation Pane Tree to Automatically Expand in Windows 7 | How-To Geek

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/LI1T_AMiawg/make-windows-explorers-sidebar-expand-as-you-navigate-through-the-tree

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OCZ details Z-Drive R5 enterprise SSD, reckons it doubles speed of the R4

We've barely digested the carb-rich Z-Drive R4 and already OCZ wants to flaunt the next in its series of enterprise PCIe SSDs. The R5 sports an entirely new 'Kilimanjaro' controller platform (shown in the reference design above), developed in cahoots with Marvell and incorporated into each and every flash module that you might wish to add to the base card. These scalable controllers communicate directly with the host system, removing the need for an extra SATA RAID chip and thereby promising greater speeds -- especially as you pile on more modules. We won't get full specs until CES, but in the meantime OCZ has hinted at a doubling of the SandForce-based R4's performance, which could take us into the three million IOP realm. So long as the company also tackles the question of reliability on this new type of drive, then it'll likely be an easy sell. Check out the source link for more.

OCZ details Z-Drive R5 enterprise SSD, reckons it doubles speed of the R4 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TCi-cBaa5bo/

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'Shore' guys celebrate America with new 'dos

MTV

The guys of "Jersey Shore": from left, Ronnie, Vinny, Pauly D and The Situation.

By Ree Hines

The men of "Jersey Shore" enjoyed their Italian vacation last season, but once they returned stateside, they raced to get the one thing that Italy didn't offer -- proper guido-friendly, Seaside Heights-worthy haircuts.

In this sneak peek from the show's upcoming season-five premiere, Pauly D and guys voice their appreciation for a made-in-America head of hair.

"I'm so happy to see some American barbers that use straightedge razors and the right clippers, and they know how to fade and shapeup and tape-up," the DJ raved. "We love it!"

Pauly then took a moment to appreciate Vinny's "UFC fighter" cut before soaking in the all-new (and almost indistinguishable from before) Situation.

"We lookin' fabulous right now," Sitch bragged as he showered his head in more hairspray than anyone with less than an inch of hair could possibly require.

The comment and the action earned several appropriately baffled looks from the cutting crew.

See more when "Jersey Shore" returns to MTV on Jan. 5 at 10 p.m. ET.

Are you looking forward to another season of G.T.L. at the "Shore" house? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9921891-jersey-shore-guys-celebrate-america-with-new-dos

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Cop: Man escapes from trunk after being shot

By msnbc.com staff

A Chicago man who was shot in the chest and stuffed into the trunk of his car managed to escape while his captors continued driving, thinking he was still inside, police said.

The motorist was carjacked at gunpoint on Chicago's West Side on Monday evening, police said, according to a report in?The Chicago Tribune. He was shot at least three times in the chest, according to officers.

At that point, the attackers, reportedly four men in ski masks, dumped the man in the trunk of his car, a 2000 Nissan sedan. They drove through at least two neighborhoods with him inside; the victim, who was not identified by The Tribune, then managed to get out of the trunk. His kidnappers kept driving, apparently unaware of his escape, police said, according to The Tribune.

The victim was taken to the hospital in critical condition, reported the paper. He was able to speak to police despite the severity of his injuries.

Police later found the victim's car on fire in a garage, but did not find the carjackers, said the paper. The car appeared to have been torched.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9920694-cop-man-escapes-from-trunk-after-being-shot

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Google Maps Driving Directions

Google Maps provides excellent directions with a lot of hidden features. Not only can you get driving directions, you can get walking, public transport, and biking directions, too. This tutorial assumes you're using the desktop version of Google Maps. You can get directions from your mobile phone, but the interface is slightly different. The concepts are the same, so this tutorial may still be useful.

To get started, go to maps.google.com and click on Get Directions on the upper right hand corner.

You may also notice a link labeled Set your default location. This is an optional step to set the place you're most likely to need driving directions from. In most cases that's your house or your business. If you click on the link and set your default location, that saves you a step the next time you get driving directions. That's because Google will automatically add your default location to your starting location.

Source: http://google.about.com/od/mapsanddirections/ss/How-To-Get-Driving-Directions-And-More-From-Google-Maps.htm

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Create an Anal Retentive Baby with My First Flowchart Blocks [Genius]

Sick of your kid making decisions based on emotion? Why not rear a child that can formulate the correct response to most any toddler situation thanks to My First Flowchart. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/i_F-NTXvSfo/create-an-anal-retentive-baby-with-my-first-flowchart-blocks

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FreeBSD : lighttpd -- remote DoS in HTTP authentication (c6521b04-314b-11e1-9cf4-5404a67eef98)

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Source: http://www.nessus.org/plugins/index.php?view=single&id=57411

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Oil companies may hike petrol prices by over Rs 2 today

New Delhi:? Will petrol prices be hiked again today? Oil companies are likely to revise rates with a Rs 2.10 - 2.13 per litre increase in petrol price saying that it is needed because of a weakening rupee.

State-owned oil companies, as per practice, revise rates of petrol on 1st and 16th of every month based on the average imported price and exchange rate during the fortnight.

As per this schedule, new rates were to be announced on Saturday if they were take effect from yesterday, but top officials at oil companies said the revision was "99 per cent unlikely" yesterday.

The oil companies, they said, will decide on revising rates only on Monday.

The rate change may, however, need a political clearance as Assembly elections in five crucial states, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, have been announced.

"While international price of gasoline (against which domestic petrol prices are benchmarked) are more or less at the same level (as at the time of last revision), the rupee has depreciated to about Rs 53 to a US dollar," an official said.

This warrants an increase of Rs 1.78 per litre and after adding local sales tax or VAT, the desired hike in petrol price in Delhi is Rs 2.10 - 2.13 a litre.

Petrol at Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp petrol pumps in Delhi is now priced at Rs 65.64 per litre and at Rs 65.65 a litre on retail outlets of Hindustan Petroleum Corp.

Oil firms had, at the last review on December 15/16, decided not to burden the consumers with about Re 1 per litre hike in petrol price needed at that time, as they felt Reserve Bank's intervention may help arrest fall in rupee's value.

The oil firms had in November cut petrol prices twice on drop in international oil rates. The companies reduced petrol prices by Rs 2.22 per litre, or 3.2 per cent, from November 16, followed by a Rs 0.78 per litre cut from December 1.

The domestic rates, which were last revised on November 30, are pegged at Rs 51.50 to a US dollar exchange rate.

The average exchange rate in first fortnight of December was Rs 51.98 to a US dollar, which has further deteriorated.

State-owned oil companies like Indian Oil Corp (IOC) use fortnightly average of benchmark oil price and exchange rate to revise retail rates on 1st and 16th of every month.

The revision was due today and if the oil companies had decided to pass on the exchange rate fluctuations to consumers, the new rates would have been effective from January 1.

However, it remains to be seen if the oil firms will get a political nod to increase the prices in view of assembly elections.

Petrol price was freed from government control in June last year but public sector companies continue to informally consult their parent Oil Ministry before taking a decision.

The government continues to control rates of diesel, domestic LPG and kersoene which were sold way below cost to keep inflation under check. The oil firms lose Rs 12.71 per litre on diesel, Rs 29.93 a litre on kerosene and Rs 326 per 14.2-kg LPG cylinder.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ndtv/Lsgd/~3/ZD5VRyOdEOg/story01.htm

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Jan. 02, 2012: University Closed for Winter Break

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Source: http://www.wiu.edu/wiucalendar/index.sphp?id=19167

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A Collection of Creative Global Google Doodles for 2011:) Please Share and like....

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Source: http://www.facebook.com/naIdzgraphics/posts/270173349702538

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Jaime: Drive through Death Valley, California

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President Plays 90 Rounds of Golf: Another Historic Obama First!

by Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Our history-making president has done it again! Barack Obama has played 90 rounds of golf during his three years in office, something observers say is an historic first for any president. Keith Koffler of the White House Dossier reports:

That?s about three months of golf, given that the excursions generally take about five hours ? much of the useful portion of the day.

What?s more, it?s the 32nd time he?s been on the links this year, a record for the president. His 32 outings eclipses the 2010 mark of 30 and is far ahead of his 2009 tally of 28 rounds as president.

Obama broke the record during his Hawaiian vacation.

Add this to the U.S. credit downgrade, poverty reaching a new high, and two lesbians giving a Navy ?first kiss? as another historic Obama first!

Ben Johnson is the editor of several conservative websites. A seasoned journalist, he has broken a host of news stories of national importance and written sizzling editorials that started the nation talking. A former talk show host, he has been a guest on The Michael Savage Show, Nothing But Truth with Crane Durham, Crosstalk on VCY America, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Bob Dutko Show, and scores of local programs. The Managing Editor of FrontPage Magazine (2004-2010) and previously its Associate Editor (2003-2004), he is the author of three books. He maintains his own website, TheRightsWriter.com, which you can view here. You can contact him here. This entry was posted in News Reports, Opinion. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://floydreports.com/president-plays-90-rounds-of-golf-another-historic-obama-first/

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