Jill Kelly McKayla Maroney gronkowski jeremy renner best buy black friday deals breaking dawn part 2 breaking dawn part 2
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Practice makes perfect? Not so much, new research finds
May 20, 2013 ? Turns out, that old "practice makes perfect" adage may be overblown. New research led by Michigan State University's Zach Hambrick finds that a copious amount of practice is not enough to explain why people differ in level of skill in two widely studied activities, chess and music.
In other words, it takes more than hard work to become an expert. Hambrick, writing in the research journal Intelligence, said natural talent and other factors likely play a role in mastering a complicated activity.
"Practice is indeed important to reach an elite level of performance, but this paper makes an overwhelming case that it isn't enough," said Hambrick, associate professor of psychology.
The debate over why and how people become experts has existed for more than a century. Many theorists argue that thousands of hours of focused, deliberate practice is sufficient to achieve elite status.
Hambrick disagrees.
"The evidence is quite clear," he writes, "that some people do reach an elite level of performance without copious practice, while other people fail to do so despite copious practice."
Hambrick and colleagues analyzed 14 studies of chess players and musicians, looking specifically at how practice was related to differences in performance. Practice, they found, accounted for only about one-third of the differences in skill in both music and chess.
So what made up the rest of the difference?
Based on existing research, Hambrick said it could be explained by factors such as intelligence or innate ability, and the age at which people start the particular activity. A previous study of Hambrick's suggested that working memory capacity -- which is closely related to general intelligence -- may sometimes be the deciding factor between being good and great.
While the conclusion that practice may not make perfect runs counter to the popular view that just about anyone can achieve greatness if they work hard enough, Hambrick said there is a "silver lining" to the research.
"If people are given an accurate assessment of their abilities and the likelihood of achieving certain goals given those abilities," he said, "they may gravitate toward domains in which they have a realistic chance of becoming an expert through deliberate practice."
Hambrick's co-authors are Erik Altmann from MSU; Frederick Oswald from Rice University; Elizabeth Meinz from Southern Illinois University; Fernand Gobet from Brunel University in the United Kingdom; and Guillermo Campitelli from Edith Cowan University in Australia.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/F3vIyII2ck4/130520163906.htm
vernal equinox mr rogers jamie lee curtis spring equinox audacious pollen count mexico city
Monday, May 20, 2013
Greying China taps rural elderly to care for those even older
By Li Hui and Maxim Duncan
QIANTUN, China (Reuters) - Two years short of 70, Zhang Guosheng spends his days caring for an 81-year-old fellow villager - washing his clothes, bringing meals to his bed, and keeping him company - a routine he'll keep up until he himself needs the type of care he is now giving.
"Living here is better than staying at home alone. We help each other and have a common language," said the spritely Zhang, an enthusiastic dancer. "We are very happy here."
With younger villagers who would traditionally have looked after their parents and grandparents flocking to the booming cities to seek work as part of Beijing's urbanization drive, Qiantun village in northern China's Hebei province has had to pioneer a new model - the old looking after the even older.
Surrounded by green wheat fields that stretch across a flat plain, Qiantun is unremarkable among countless rural Chinese communities, but its old-age care model is now a prototype cited by central government as a solution to the daunting challenge of caring for a vast and rapidly greying rural population.
One of every four Chinese will be older than 60 by 2030, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Massive rural-to-urban migration will further strain the rural areas' ability to provide care for the elderly, as personal savings and family support remain the primary pillars of old-age care.
"Migrants to urban areas are mainly young adults, leaving mostly the elderly in villages with children," said Wang Dewen, an expert with the World Bank's Beijing office. "The formal eldercare system in rural areas is very weak, and basically a blank spot in many places."
As a result, the gap between the number of elderly in rural and urban areas is expected to balloon over the next 15 years, to 11 percentage points from today's 1.24 percentage points, the ministry projects.
The costs of caring for China's rapidly expanding elderly population are likely to be too heavy a burden for the government, forcing Beijing to find cost-effective and creative ways to provide care in myriad localities. The self-help model practiced among the 1,500 residents of Qiantun offers a cheaper and streamlined alternative to a state-run system.
More than 95 percent of China's rural elderly still adhere to the traditional practice of seeking old-age care within their families, Wang said. But families are no longer able to cope, with youth and even middle-aged people heading to cities to find work, leaving the elderly behind to fend for themselves.
THE "LIGHT" OF FEIXIANG
In their search for affordable eldercare models, Beijing's leaders have turned their attention 450 km (280 miles) to the south in Hebei's Feixiang county, where Qiantun lies. The practice of old people taking care of each other posed a simple and attractive solution.
Labeled "mutual assist eldercare", the Feixiang model is set to be expanded to the rest of rural China, with 3 billion yuan ($490 million) set aside by the central government to get it started over the coming three years.
"The light of Feixiang will shine across China," Li Liguo, minister of civil affairs, declared enthusiastically during a trip to Feixiang in 2011. "Feixiang has set an example for the whole country."
But not everyone is as optimistic about the model.
"As people get older, they don't tend to get healthier. So if you have somebody in their sixties caring for somebody in their nineties, are they going to be able, and trained and strong enough themselves to care for somebody who has chronic conditions?" said Tony Buccheri, a manager with Right at Home International, a U.S.-based senior home care provider that offers services in China through a partner.
Buccheri's concern echoes that of Cai Qingyang, pioneer of the model and Qiantun's village chief.
"Old people with critical illnesses need more than the very basic care provided here, and we will have to think of other ways to care for them," said the 61 year-old former soldier Cai, watching several old villagers dancing in the yard.
"But this really is the only feasible way given the local elder care situation. The village and the government simply can't afford proper institutional care for every aged rural resident," Cai added.
In 2008, Cai sought to do something about the lack of care for rural elderly left behind as young adults sought better paying work in cities. He turned an abandoned brick house into an old-age home, where 25 elderly villagers moved into 11 rooms, keeping each other company, sharing meals, as well as farming and doing housework.
His innovation has thrived under state support and more than a dozen other provinces have replicated the model.
OLD BEFORE RICH
What separates China's ageing pattern from that in other Asian societies such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore is that the country is still relatively poor on a per capita basis. The phrase "getting old before rich" reflects the fact that even though China's economic growth remains robust, its demographics work against it.
Those in the emerging middle class have more options among at-home care providers, and public as well as private senior homes, and are more likely to find them affordable.
The rural elderly have fewer resources and fewer choices, while youth migration patterns unstitch the traditional family safety net. And despite years of efforts by China's leaders, the income gap between urban and rural residents has increased. A report published by the World Bank last year noted that rural elderly have "remained consistently poorer than the urban elderly over time".
Nor is that likely to change. Two-thirds of elderly Chinese currently live in rural areas, and although migration patterns cloud demographic estimates, many demographers believe the majority of China's elderly will remain in the countryside.
To meet the challenge, says the World Bank's Wang, China must make its urbanization an equalizer of basic social services for urban and rural residents. To do that, he adds, it must reform the household registration system that ties social services to people's registered home, to facilitate family migration to cities and receive care there.
But in the short term, rural areas such as Qiantun, which has three times as many elderly residents as young adults, can only make do with the resources they have. The government provides 600 yuan ($97.68) a year in subsidies for each of the 30 elderly Qiantun villagers at the centre. Their average age is 75.
By contrast, offering professional care at an old-age care institution would cost a minimum of ten times as much, 6,000 yuan a year, according to government estimates, offset by a mere 120 yuan annual subsidy from the government.
At the Qiantun villager centre, "old" Zhang, as he is known, talks about the future as he brings a bowl of dumplings and medicine to the bedside of his charge, bedridden by a broken thigh bone.
"He can't move around now, I help him," said a still spry Zhang. "When I can't move, someone will also care for me."
($1 = 6.1428 Chinese yuan)
(Editing by Ben Blanchard and Ian Geoghegan)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/greying-china-taps-rural-elderly-care-those-even-041855642.html
Is The World Going To End Mayans camilla belle instagram Robert Bork mark sanchez christina aguilera
Friday, May 17, 2013
Google's Knowledge Graph Gets Smarter, Adds Statistics And 4 New Languages
Amit Singhal, Google’s senior VP of search, today announced that Google’s Knowledge Graph will start exposing a number of statistics as graphs on the search results pages today. Google is also adding Polish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese to its lineup of supported Knowledge Graph languages. With regard to the statistics, Singhal said the system will also try to predict what your next question will be and add related statistics to the graphs. Say you want to know more about how many people live in India, Google may also show you stats for China. Singhal also recapped a number of Knowledge Graph features that expose users personal information – the kind of information Google Now would usually expose, too. These are currently available in beta and uses can sign up for it here. The Knowledge Graph, Singhal said, has enabled Google to move beyond keywords. “It allowed us to answer questions we couldn’t previously answer.” Clearly, Google has been investing heavily in this technology and the company also today announced its new voice-enabled conversational search feature that makes it even easier to find answers from the Knowledge Graph. Singhal also stressed that this is just the beginning. Google’s investment into making its search smarter is “immense,” he said. While there are still many problems to overcome, Google is clearly pursuing these new kinds of search experience (while de-emphasizing social search, it seems).Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4Cxi-_beirU/
dishonored april 18 delonte west vanessa williams nicklas backstrom discovery shuttle allure
Thursday, May 16, 2013
ACLU: Time for 'Modern Family' gay couple to wed
NEW YORK (AP) ? The ACLU is lobbying for the gay couple on "Modern Family" to get married.
ACLU Action started a campaign to urge the show's producers to write a wedding episode for Mitchell and Cameron, fathers of an adopted child and one of three couples at the heart of the show.
The ACLU says it is appealing to the fictional family to draw more attention to the real issue as it awaits Supreme Court decisions on two important marriage equality cases.
"Mitch and Cam are a couple that America has come to know and love, and seeing them get married, and seeing the characters in the story grapple with their desire to get married, makes it real for a bigger part of America," said James Esseks, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project at the ACLU.
Supporters are invited to "RSVP" to the wedding online. The ACLU plans to deliver the online "guest list" to the show's producers but said it had not yet contacted the show.
Esseks said the petition was a departure for the group, but that along with filing lawsuits, lobbying for bills or organizing ballot initiatives, the group saw public education and changing the culture as part of its mission. He applauded what "Modern Family" has done already for public perception of gay couples.
"It's a popular show, they're a lovable, very real couple, and it would be great to see them walk down the aisle," he said.
ABC referred questions to 20th Century Fox Studios, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Show creator Steven Levitan tweeted a link to the campaign with a simple "Wow." Jessie Tyler Ferguson, who plays Mitchell, tweeted: "Love this! Thank you ACLU! Maybe once Prop 8 is overturned!"
___
Online:
http://modernfamilywedding.com
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-time-modern-family-gay-couple-wed-210244962.html
aubrey o day johan santana viktor bout ncaa hockey role models ferdinand porsche gregg williams
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Nigeria extremists say they kidnap women, children
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? An Islamic extremist group in Nigeria says it has started kidnapping women and children as part of its bloody guerrilla campaign against the country's government.
In a video released Monday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says the group began to kidnap as retaliation for Nigerian security forces taking the wives and children of his group's members. The video shows 12 children, though it does not identify them.
Police and security forces have not discussed any kidnapping cases involving Nigerians taken after Boko Haram attacks, though such abductions could be easily done.
Boko Haram's attacks have been increasing in number and sophistication since 2010. According to an Associated Press count, attacks blamed on the group and other Islamic extremists have killed at least 244 this year alone.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-extremists-kidnap-women-children-171112245.html
Azarenka NFL fantasy football Chris Kluwe Jennifer Granholm Tulane player injured fox sports obama speech
Monday, May 13, 2013
Facebook's iPhone Culture Builds An Overzealous Home On Android
Facebook didn't realize just how important widgets, docks, and app folders were to Android users, and that leaving them out of Home was a huge mistake. That's because many of the Facebookers who built and tested Home normally carry iPhones, I've confirmed. The lack of "droidfooding" has left Facebook scrambling to add these features, as complaints about their absence are keeping Home from growing.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7wZFpFR92Ik/
woody guthrie benson henderson 2012 dunk contest edgar vs henderson berkshire hathaway ufc 144 james jones
Friday, May 10, 2013
May Day protests: From Bangladesh to Europe, angry workers rally in the tens of thousands (+video)
But this year's May Day demonstrations come on the heels of the tragic Bangladesh factory collapse, a potent symbol for many of the importance of workers' rights.
Workers and protesters hold a huge banner march to the government office during a May Day rally in Hong Kong, Wednesday. Hundreds of workers, local labor right groups, and striking dockworkers join the annual rally to demand better wages and working conditions.
Vincent Yu/AP
EnlargeIn Dhaka, Bangladesh, a raucous crowd descended on the city center with signs and drums, chanting and waving banners demanding the death penalty for the owner of a factory where more than 400 people died in a building collapse last week.
Skip to next paragraph Ryan Lenora BrownCorrespondent
Ryan Brown edits the Africa Monitor blog and contributes to the national and international news desks of the Monitor. She is a former Fulbright fellow to South Africa and holds a degree in history from Duke University.?
Recent posts
' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
As marches take place around the world to mark Labour Day, in the Spanish capital hundreds gathered to protest against the economic crisis that has driven the country?s unemployment rate above 27 percent.In Jakarta, Indonesia, some of the tens of thousands of demonstrators marching through the city came dressed as ants ? complete with bright red outfits and antennae ? to depict the exploitation of workers.?
And in Greece, trains, buses, and ferries sat vacant and hospitals nearly empty as thousands of public sector employees walked off the job in a one-day strike.
Each year, May 1, better known as May Day, is marked with labor rallies and strikes around the world. And this year's holiday came at a particularly prescient moment in many parts of the world.?
From Europe, where the bite of austerity has left many facing down unemployment and reduced benefits, to South and Southeast Asia, a region cluttered with precariously-built factories similar to the one that collapsed last week in Bangladesh, demonstrators gathered to vent outrage and demand reform.
?My brother has died. My sister has died. Their blood will not be valueless,? yelled one Bangladeshi protestor through a crackling loudspeaker, according to the Associated Press.
As the march wove through downtown Dhaka, rescue workers in the industrial suburb of Savar continued their search for bodies and survivors in the rubble of Rana Plaza, which collapsed suddenly on April 24 with thousands of garment workers inside.
The disaster at the factory, which manufactured clothing for several low-end Western retailers, touched off global outrage about the working conditions of garment workers across the developing world. In Phnom Pehn, Cambodia, workers rallied for higher wages and safer working conditions. In Manila, Philipines, where labor unions are banned, workers marched to demand the right to organize. And in Hong Kong, thousands turned out in support of striking dock workers, calling for wages that would help close the income gap between the country?s rich and its poor.
And that was all before Europe woke up.
There has "never been a May 1 with more reason to take to the streets,? one Spanish union leader told Reuters during a march in Madrid this morning, where protestors carried signs reading "austerity ruins and kills" and "reforms are robbery.? (Read the Monitor's feature about how Spaniards are increasingly flocking to the countryside to cut costs and find new jobs.)
In Greece, where the government recently announced that it would lay off 180,000 civil servants over the next two years ? the first such cuts in 100 years ? a strike shut down public transit across Athens. ?
And in France, which saw unemployment rose again last month, marchers carried banners reading, ?It?s too much! Alternatives exist? and ?Where are the real socialists in our government??
An exception to the doom and gloom of this year?s May Day was Russia, where a festive celebration of the holiday harks back to Soviet times. Indeed, many of those who gathered in the streets of Moscow were buoyant, Euronews reported.
?The atmosphere is excellent. It?s a holiday for us, the beginning of something new, bright, and joyful,? one demonstrator told reporters.
May 1 is a national holiday in some 80 countries around the world, and its ties to labor advocacy date back to 1886, when American police killed 10 protestors at a rally for an eight-hour workday in Chicago?s Haymarket Square. International socialist organization and labor unions declared it a day of commemoration and action soon after.
Ironically, however, May Day is not celebrated in the United States. In the early 1890s, fearing the ?socialist? overtones of the holiday, President Grover Cleveland quickly declared an alternate holiday, beginning the American tradition of celebrating Labor Day on the first Monday of September.?
Farrah Abraham Video golden state warriors knicks Ray Harryhausen elizabeth smart chipotle Shakira
Monday, May 6, 2013
Discovery helps show how breast cancer spreads
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_usVkh2t9N7AV_qYNv8mYF3EeIql1YwFiobUwyljCsw1LKYtRUQfdlinNVT37u4hbljLtWjzB0jMHmON8m4yoP3ppbsyoIRPSDuxHpgJuY=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 5-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Julia Evangelou Strait
straitj@wustl.edu
314-286-0141
Washington University School of Medicine
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered why breast cancer patients with dense breasts are more likely than others to develop aggressive tumors that spread. The finding opens the door to drug treatments that prevent metastasis.
It has long been known that women with denser breasts are at higher risk for breast cancer. This greater density is caused by an excess of a structural protein called collagen.
"We have shown how increased collagen in the breasts could increase the chances of breast tumors spreading and becoming more invasive," says Gregory D. Longmore, MD, professor of medicine. "It doesn't explain why women with dense breasts get cancer in the first place. But once they do, the pathway that we describe is relevant in causing their cancers to be more aggressive and more likely to spread."
The results appear online May 5 in Nature Cell Biology.
Working in mouse models of breast cancer and breast tumor samples from patients, Longmore and his colleagues showed that a protein that sits on the surface of tumor cells, called DDR2, binds to collagen and activates a multistep pathway that encourages tumor cells to spread.
"We had no idea DDR2 would do this," says Longmore, also professor of cell biology and physiology. "The functions of DDR2 are not well understood, and it has not been implicated in cancer -- and certainly not in breast cancer -- until now.
At the opposite end of the chain of events initiated by DDR2 is a protein called SNAIL1, which has long been associated with breast cancer metastasis. Longmore and his colleagues found that DDR2 is one factor helping to maintain high levels of SNAIL1 inside a tumor cell's nucleus, a necessary state for a tumor cell to spread. Though they found it is not the only protein keeping SNAIL1 levels high, Longmore says DDR2 is perhaps the one with the most potential to be inhibited with drugs.
"It's expressed only at the edge of the tumor," says Longmore, a physician at Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital and co-director of the Section of Molecular Oncology. "And it's on the surface of the cells, which makes it very nice for developing drugs because it's so much easier to target the outside of cells."
Longmore emphasizes that DDR2 does not initiate the high levels of SNAIL1. But it is required to keep them elevated. This mechanism that keeps tumor cells in a state that encourages metastasis requires constant signaling meaning constant binding of DDR2 to collagen.
If that continuous signal is blocked, the cell remains cancerous, but it is no longer invasive. So a drug that blocks DDR2 from binding with collagen won't destroy the tumor, but it could inhibit the invasion of these tumors into surrounding tissue and reduce metastasis.
One possible way DDR2 may govern metastasis is its influence on the alignment of collagen fibers. If fibers are aligned parallel to the tumor's surface, the tumor is less likely to spread. While fibers aligned perpendicular to the surface of the tumor provide a path for the tumor cells to follow and encourage spreading. Tumors without DDR2 or SNAIL1 tend to show the parallel fiber alignment that is protective against spreading.
"This whole notion of fiber alignment and the tumor interface is a hot topic right now," Longmore says. "Our co-authors at the University of Wisconsin have developed a scoring method for collagen alignment that correlates with prognosis. And the bad prognosis disappears when you take away DDR2."
With the current emphasis on genetic mutations in cancer, Longmore is careful to point out that 70 percent of invasive ductal breast cancers show DDR2. But in 95 percent of these tumors the genes in this pathway from DDR2 to SNAIL1 are entirely normal, without mutations.
"If you did genomic sequencing, all of these particular genes would be normal," Longmore says. "You have to be careful not to just focus on mutations in cancer. This is an example of normal genes put together in an aberrant situation. The change in the environment -- the tumor and its surroundings -- causes the abnormal expression of these proteins. It is abnormal, but it's not caused by a gene mutation."
In early drug development efforts, Longmore and his colleagues have done some preliminary work looking for small molecules that may inhibit DDR2 binding to collagen.
"Currently there are no DDR2 specific inhibitors," Longmore says. "But there is great interest and work being done here and elsewhere to develop them."
###
This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants P50CA94056 to the Imaging Core of the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, GM080673, CA143868 and F31CA165729, and by Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Zhang K, Corsa CA, Ponik SM, Prior JL, Piwnica-Worms D, Eliceiri KW, Keely PJ, Longmore GD. The collagen receptor discoidin domain receptor 2 stabilizes SNAIL1 to facilitate breast cancer metastasis. Nature Cell Biology. Online May 5, 2013.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 5-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Julia Evangelou Strait
straitj@wustl.edu
314-286-0141
Washington University School of Medicine
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered why breast cancer patients with dense breasts are more likely than others to develop aggressive tumors that spread. The finding opens the door to drug treatments that prevent metastasis.
It has long been known that women with denser breasts are at higher risk for breast cancer. This greater density is caused by an excess of a structural protein called collagen.
"We have shown how increased collagen in the breasts could increase the chances of breast tumors spreading and becoming more invasive," says Gregory D. Longmore, MD, professor of medicine. "It doesn't explain why women with dense breasts get cancer in the first place. But once they do, the pathway that we describe is relevant in causing their cancers to be more aggressive and more likely to spread."
The results appear online May 5 in Nature Cell Biology.
Working in mouse models of breast cancer and breast tumor samples from patients, Longmore and his colleagues showed that a protein that sits on the surface of tumor cells, called DDR2, binds to collagen and activates a multistep pathway that encourages tumor cells to spread.
"We had no idea DDR2 would do this," says Longmore, also professor of cell biology and physiology. "The functions of DDR2 are not well understood, and it has not been implicated in cancer -- and certainly not in breast cancer -- until now.
At the opposite end of the chain of events initiated by DDR2 is a protein called SNAIL1, which has long been associated with breast cancer metastasis. Longmore and his colleagues found that DDR2 is one factor helping to maintain high levels of SNAIL1 inside a tumor cell's nucleus, a necessary state for a tumor cell to spread. Though they found it is not the only protein keeping SNAIL1 levels high, Longmore says DDR2 is perhaps the one with the most potential to be inhibited with drugs.
"It's expressed only at the edge of the tumor," says Longmore, a physician at Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital and co-director of the Section of Molecular Oncology. "And it's on the surface of the cells, which makes it very nice for developing drugs because it's so much easier to target the outside of cells."
Longmore emphasizes that DDR2 does not initiate the high levels of SNAIL1. But it is required to keep them elevated. This mechanism that keeps tumor cells in a state that encourages metastasis requires constant signaling meaning constant binding of DDR2 to collagen.
If that continuous signal is blocked, the cell remains cancerous, but it is no longer invasive. So a drug that blocks DDR2 from binding with collagen won't destroy the tumor, but it could inhibit the invasion of these tumors into surrounding tissue and reduce metastasis.
One possible way DDR2 may govern metastasis is its influence on the alignment of collagen fibers. If fibers are aligned parallel to the tumor's surface, the tumor is less likely to spread. While fibers aligned perpendicular to the surface of the tumor provide a path for the tumor cells to follow and encourage spreading. Tumors without DDR2 or SNAIL1 tend to show the parallel fiber alignment that is protective against spreading.
"This whole notion of fiber alignment and the tumor interface is a hot topic right now," Longmore says. "Our co-authors at the University of Wisconsin have developed a scoring method for collagen alignment that correlates with prognosis. And the bad prognosis disappears when you take away DDR2."
With the current emphasis on genetic mutations in cancer, Longmore is careful to point out that 70 percent of invasive ductal breast cancers show DDR2. But in 95 percent of these tumors the genes in this pathway from DDR2 to SNAIL1 are entirely normal, without mutations.
"If you did genomic sequencing, all of these particular genes would be normal," Longmore says. "You have to be careful not to just focus on mutations in cancer. This is an example of normal genes put together in an aberrant situation. The change in the environment -- the tumor and its surroundings -- causes the abnormal expression of these proteins. It is abnormal, but it's not caused by a gene mutation."
In early drug development efforts, Longmore and his colleagues have done some preliminary work looking for small molecules that may inhibit DDR2 binding to collagen.
"Currently there are no DDR2 specific inhibitors," Longmore says. "But there is great interest and work being done here and elsewhere to develop them."
###
This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants P50CA94056 to the Imaging Core of the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, GM080673, CA143868 and F31CA165729, and by Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Zhang K, Corsa CA, Ponik SM, Prior JL, Piwnica-Worms D, Eliceiri KW, Keely PJ, Longmore GD. The collagen receptor discoidin domain receptor 2 stabilizes SNAIL1 to facilitate breast cancer metastasis. Nature Cell Biology. Online May 5, 2013.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/wuso-dhs050313.php
stefon diggs nazi ss andrej pejic steve jobs fbi safehouse brown recluse brown recluse
Friday, May 3, 2013
Bombing probe takes investigators into Mass. woods
Massachusetts State Police walk out of the woods of The Smith Neck Farm in Dartmouth, Mass. on Friday, May 3, 2013 as federal, state and local authorities on Friday searched the woods near the UMass-Dartmouth campus as part of the marathon investigation. (AP Photo/The Standard-Times, John Sladewski)
Massachusetts State Police walk out of the woods of The Smith Neck Farm in Dartmouth, Mass. on Friday, May 3, 2013 as federal, state and local authorities on Friday searched the woods near the UMass-Dartmouth campus as part of the marathon investigation. (AP Photo/The Standard-Times, John Sladewski)
Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass., sits in one of the facility's rooms Friday, May 3, 2013. Stefan confirmed his funeral home will handle funeral arrangements for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but did not say whether he had possession of the body. (AP Photo/The Telegram & Gazette, Chris Christo)
In this undated photo provided by Robin Young, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, left, and Here & Now host Robin Young?s nephew, right, pose for a photo after graduating from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. Tsarnaev has been identified as the surviving suspect in the marathon bombings. Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, April 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Robin Young)
A vehicle believed to be carrying the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev backs into an underground garage at the Dyer-Lake Funeral Home, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Attleboro, Mass. The body of Tsarnaev, who was the subject of a massive manhunt and died after a gunbattle with police, was claimed on Thursday. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
The Dyer-Lake Funeral Home in North Attleborough, Mass, where a vehicle believed to be carrying the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived Thursday, May 2, 2013. The body of Tsarnaev, who was the subject of a massive manhunt and died after a gunbattle with police, was claimed on Thursday. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
BOSTON (AP) ? The family of slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was making arrangements Friday for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near the college attended by his younger brother and alleged accomplice.
A funeral parlor in Worcester that is familiar with Muslim services said it will handle arrangements for Tsarnaev, whose body was released by the state medical examiner Thursday night.
The body was taken initially to a North Attleborough funeral home, where it was greeted by about 20 protesters. Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of their death and he is prepared for protests.
Tsarnaev, 26, died three days after the bombing in a furious getaway attempt in which authorities say he and his brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago, killed an MIT campus police officer and tossed home-made bombs and grenades at police. The younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ran over his brother's body as he drove away from the scene to escape, authorities have said.
The medical examiner had yet to release the cause of death, pending the filing of a death certificate.
Relatives had said they would claim the body, but Stefan said Friday funeral arrangements had yet to be worked out and he could not say whether he has possession of the body.
Meanwhile, two U.S. officials said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators that he and his brother initially considered setting off their bombs on July Fourth.
Boston police said they planned to review security procedures for the Independence Day Boston Pops concert and fireworks display, which draws a crowd of more than 500,000 annually and is broadcast to a national TV audience. Authorities plan to look at security procedures for large events held in other cities, notably the massive New Year's Eve celebration held each year in New York City's Times Square, said David Procopio, a spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police.
Gov. Deval Patrick said everything possible will be done to assure a safe event.
"I think the most important thing is that we got them, and there's investigation continuing about where the other leads may lead," he said. "I can tell you, having been thoroughly briefed, that the law enforcement at every level is pursuing everything."
As part of the bombing investigation, federal, state and local authorities were searching the woods near the UMass-Dartmouth campus, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student. Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, could not say what investigators were looking for but said residents should know there is no threat to public safety.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard, faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill. Three of his college classmates were arrested Wednesday and accused of helping after the bombing to remove a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.
The April 15 bombing, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards, killed three people and injured more than 260 others near the marathon's finish line.
The brothers considered setting off their bombs on July Fourth, but they decided to carry out the attack sooner when they finished assembling the bombs, the surviving suspect told interrogators after he was arrested, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Investigators believe some of the explosives used in the attack were assembled in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's home, though there may have been some assembly elsewhere, one of the officials said. At this point, it does not appear that the brothers ever had big, definitive plans, the official said.
The brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.
Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Department ordered border agents to immediately being verifying that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government's first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.
The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that one of the students accused of hiding evidence, Azamat Tazhayakov of Kazakhstan, was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.
A benefit concert featuring Aerosmith, James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett is scheduled for May 30 at the TD Garden in Boston. The proceeds will go to The One Fund, which has taken in more than $28 million so far for those injured and the families of those who were killed.
Kenneth Feinberg, the fund's administrator, said Friday he plans to hold meetings with victims next week and begin cutting checks by the end of June.
___
Associated Press writers Pete Yost, Eileen Sullivan and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.
Associated Pressgeraldo obama trayvon martin pietrus cheney tori spelling marion barber marion barber
The 20 most amazing masked wrestlers
As much a part of professional wrestling as ring aprons and three-counts, masks have a long and important role in the history of sports-entertainment.
Although there?s some argument about when the first masked grappler actually appeared inside the squared circle ? some say it was The Masked Marvel in 1915, while others claim it was The Masked Wrestler, way back in 1873 in Paris ? masks have a special significance to the performers who wear them. They?re also pretty cool, and help add to the mystique of the already larger-than-life personas that have thrilled fans for generations.
See spectacular photos of masked warriors | Vote: Which mask is the coolest?
What follows is a list of the 20 Most Amazing Masked Wrestlers of All Time ? no small undertaking, considering the sheer number of Superstars who have donned a mask over time. So to calculate our list, we?ve concocted a witches? brew of criteria that includes in-ring prowess, overall contributions to sports-entertainment, the association between the wrestler and the mask and, finally, the sheer coolness of the mask in question.
As this list will prove, sometimes it?s the mask that makes the man.
Source: http://www.wwe.com/classics/20-most-amazing-masked-superstars
Colorado shooting victims aurora Angie Everhart tom hardy British Open leaderboard Jessica Ghawi People Water
Kellogg first-quarter profit hurt by ingredient costs
May 1 (Reuters) - Post position for Saturday's 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs after Wednesday's draw (listed as barrier, HORSE, jockey, trainer) 1. BLACK ONYX, Joe Bravo, Kelly Breen 2. OXBOW, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas 3. REVOLUTIONARY, Calvin Borel, Todd Pletcher 4. GOLDEN SOUL, Robby Albarado, Dallas Stewart 5. NORMANDY INVASION, Javier Castellano, Chad Brown 6. MYLUTE, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss 7. GIANT FINISH, Jose Espinoza, Tony Dutrow 8. GOLDENCENTS, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill 9. OVERANALYZE, Rafael Bejarano, Todd Pletcher 10. PALACE MALICE, Mike Smith, Todd Pletcher 11. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kellogg-first-quarter-profit-hurt-ingredient-costs-121711062.html
elite eight stephon marbury the lion king suzanne collins cherry blossom festival nc state erika van pelt
Growing gap between teens' materialism and willingness to work hard
May 1, 2013 ? Are today's youth really more materialistic and less motivated than past generations, or do adults tend to perceive moral weakness in the next generation?
San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge -- along with co-author Tim Kasser, professor of psychology at Knox College -- has set out to answer that question.
In a study published today by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Twenge and Kasser show that there is in fact a growing gap for today's young adults between materialism and the desire to work hard.
"Compared to previous generations, recent high school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they're willing to work hard to earn them," said Twenge, author of the book "Generation Me."
"That type of 'fantasy gap' is consistent with other studies showing a generational increase in narcissism and entitlement," Twenge said.
Twenge and Kasser drew from a nationally representative survey of 355,000 U.S. high school seniors conducted from 1976 to 2007. The survey examines the materialistic values of three generations with questions focused on the perceived importance of having a lot of money and material goods, as well as the willingness to work hard.
The fantasy gap
Compared to Baby Boomers graduating from high school in the 1970s, recent high school students are more materialistic -- 62 percent of students surveyed in 2005-07 think it's important to have a lot of money, while just 48 percent had the same belief in 1976-78.
Sixty-nine percent of recent high school graduates thought it was important to own a home, compared to just 55 percent in 1976-78. Materialism peaked in the 80s and 90s with Generation X and has continued to stay high.
As for work ethic, 39 percent of students surveyed in 2005-07 admitted they didn't want to work hard, compared to only 25 percent in 1976-78.
The researchers also found that adolescents' materialism was highest when advertising spending made up a greater percentage of the U.S. economy.
"This suggests that advertising may play a crucial role in the development of youth materialism," said Twenge. "It also might explain the gap between materialism and the work ethic, as advertising rarely shows the work necessary to earn the money necessary to pay for the advertised products."
Why it matters
Understanding generational trends in materialism among youth is important because placing a strong priority on money and possessions is associated with a variety of problems, including depression and anxiety, according to earlier research performed by Kasser.
"This study shows how the social environment shapes adolescents attitudes," said Twenge. "When family life and economic conditions are unstable, youth may turn to material things for comfort. And when our society funds large amounts of advertising, youth are more likely to believe that 'the good life' is 'the goods life.'"
The researchers
Twenge is author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable than Ever Before" and "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement." She has authored more than 100 scientific publications.
Kasser has been a professor at Knox College (in Galesburg, Illinois) since 1995 and is the author of the book, "The High Price of Materialsm" and the editor of the book "Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World." He has authored more than 80 scientific publications.
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 San Diego State University. The original article was written by Beth Chee.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- J. M. Twenge, T. Kasser. Generational Changes in Materialism and Work Centrality, 1976-2007: Associations With Temporal Changes in Societal Insecurity and Materialistic Role Modeling. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2013; DOI: 10.1177/0146167213484586
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.
stephen colbert new madrid fault rihanna and chris brown affirmative action helicon zac efron and taylor swift real housewives of orange county
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Juror: Landmark EEOC verdict in Iowa sends message
A Feb. 11, 2009 photo shows the former school and Quonset hut near atalissa, Iowa, that housed mentally disabled men while they worked at West Liberty Foods until the state of Iowa closed down the facility. A jury on Wednesday awarded $240 million to 32 mentally disabled men for what government lawyers say was years of abuse by a Texas company that arranged for them to work at an Iowa turkey processing plant and oversaw their care, work and lodging. (AP Photo/The Quad City Times, John Schultz) Mandatory Credit
A Feb. 11, 2009 photo shows the former school and Quonset hut near atalissa, Iowa, that housed mentally disabled men while they worked at West Liberty Foods until the state of Iowa closed down the facility. A jury on Wednesday awarded $240 million to 32 mentally disabled men for what government lawyers say was years of abuse by a Texas company that arranged for them to work at an Iowa turkey processing plant and oversaw their care, work and lodging. (AP Photo/The Quad City Times, John Schultz) Mandatory Credit
This Feb. 11, 2009 photo shows the recreation room of the former school and Quonset hut near Atalissa, Iowa that housed mentally disabled men while they worked at West Liberty Foods until the state of Iowa closed down the facility in 2009. A jury on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 awarded $240 million to 32 mentally disabled men for what government lawyers say was years of abuse by a now-defunct Texas company that arranged for them to work at an Iowa turkey processing plant and oversaw their care, work and lodging. (AP Photo/The Quad City Times, John Schultz) MANDATORY CREDIT: THE QUAD CITY TIMES, JOHN SCHULTZ
In this April 29, 2013, photo Henry's Turkey Service president Kenneth Henry leaves federal court in Davenport, Iowa, under the watchful eye of Sherri Brown, right, sister of one of the men who worked at the turkey processing plant and lived in what one juror described as deplorable conditions in a rural Iowa bunkhouse. Juror Robin Griebel told the Associated Press after the verdict Wednesday, May 1, 2013, that she wanted to send the message that this cannot happen again by supporting the $240 million verdict in favor of 32 mentally disabled men who were abused by the Texas company. (AP Photo/The Quad City Times, Jeff Cook) MANDATORY CREDIT: THE QUAD CITY TIMES, JEFF COOK
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) ? A juror says she wanted to send a message by supporting a historic $240 million verdict for 32 mentally disabled men who faced decades of abuse by a Texas company: Never again.
Juror Robin Griebel outlined her rationale for awarding $7.5 million to each former employee of Henry's Turkey Service, while the men, their attorney and relatives celebrated Wednesday's verdict.
One man planned to dress up for a steak dinner with Robert Canino, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer who represented them. Another hoped to use any damages recovered to fulfill his dream of buying a camper.
Griebel, of Davenport, was part of the eight-member jury for the trial, which exposed the deplorable conditions the men faced living in a rural eastern Iowa bunkhouse while working at a turkey processing plant. They were forced to work grueling jobs through injuries, were verbally and physically abused by supervisors and lived in a filthy, century-old building.
Jurors wanted to try to compensate the men for their suffering while holding the company accountable for mistreatment, Griebel said. It's the largest verdict obtained by EEOC.
"We wanted to let the men know there are people out there that do care, and we wanted to let people out there know that, in the future, this cannot happen," she told The Associated Press.
She said the jurors agreed quickly during deliberations that the company had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The hard part was figuring out how to calculate damages because "life does not have a dollar amount."
"They were in there for 30 years. They had their lives taken away from them," said Griebel, 48, who is unemployed. "Nothing can compensate these men for what they went through or for what they have missed out on."
Sherri Brown, sister of former worker Keith Brown, who now lives in Fayetteville, Ark., spurred state officials in 2009 to investigate the bunkhouse, which they closed and then took the men into custody.
Her brother lived there 30 years while working at West Liberty Foods, which paid Henry's $500,000 annually for the men's work. Sue Gant, an expert witness for EEOC, prepared a report showing Brown was routinely forced to carry heavy weights as punishment, locked in his room and called derogatory names ? like the other workers.
When the bunkhouse was shuttered, Brown was underweight and in need of mental health treatment, the report said. He's since had surgery for a hernia and takes sleep medicine because he suffers from nightmares about the abuse, Gant found.
Despite medical problems, he's happier than ever: living in an apartment, working at a center for the disabled, cooking his own meals, his sister said.
"What is amazing is how resilient the guys have been," she said. "They are so happy to be out of that. They have a new life."
Canino said the verdict will likely be reduced because of damage limits in the ADA, but it's not clear by how much. Lawyers will file briefs before U.S. Senior Judge Charles Wolle enters a judgment in coming weeks.
Wolle has already ordered Henry's to pay $1.3 million in back wages because the company paid workers $65 monthly ? 41 cents per hour ? after excessively docking their paychecks and Social Security benefits for the cost of their care.
Henry's, now defunct, isn't expected to have the resources to pay. Canino said he will seek to collect as much as possible by going after assets, including 1,000 acres of Texas ranchland.
Canino was traveling to Waterloo, Iowa, to celebrate the verdict with former workers. One of them, Gene Berg, was disappointed that he wasn't called to testify because he'd picked out the outfit he was going to wear and was "so proud," Canino said.
"I promised I would drive up there and have dinner with him, wearing the outfit he was going to wear in court," he said.
Keith Brown reacted to the verdict by expressing his desire to buy a camper so that he can retire on a relative's farm, Sherri Brown said.
"He kept saying, what about the money, can I get my camper? I keep trying to explain the process: That's going to be a difficult thing," she said. "But it's so good that he has a dream."
Sherri Brown said her father had good intentions when he placed Keith with Henry's in the 1970s, noting Texas officials promoted the company for training the mentally disabled. Henry's sent hundreds of men to labor camps in Iowa and elsewhere.
Henry's founder T.H. Johnson lived at the bunkhouse in Atalissa, Iowa, about 35 miles from the Illinois border, until his 2008 death. Sherri Brown said conditions started to really deteriorate then. Her brother was begging her to allow him to move to Arkansas, but wouldn't explain what was wrong.
"I knew something wasn't right," she said. She called state officials in 2009 asking them to investigate.
Within days, they shut down the former schoolhouse after the fire marshal declared it uninhabitable. It was infested with mice and cockroaches and had a leaky roof, boarded-up windows that failed to keep out cold and fire hazards that included space heaters as the only source of heat.
"I think greed got in the way. They saw the dollar signs," Sherri Brown said. "They saw how easy it was to make money and keep these guys hidden away."
___
Follow Ryan J. Foley on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/rjfoley
Associated PressLondon 2012 basketball London 2012 Slalom Canoe Alex Morgan Misty May Treanor Lolo Jones Marvin Hamlisch Megan Rossee
"Shameless" British fraudster, James McCormick, jailed for selling fake bomb detectors
LONDON (Reuters) - A British businessman was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Thursday after a judge described him as having "blood on his hands" for selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq and other countries and endangering lives for profit.
James McCormick, 56, was convicted of fraud last week for selling equipment based on a $20 (13 pounds) novelty machine for finding lost golf balls.
McCormick made more than $40 million from sales in Iraq alone, British police say. His customers also included the United Nations.
Judge Richard Hone said at London's Old Bailey court that McCormick had blood on his hands and used a callous confidence trick likely to have contributed to the death of innocent people.
"The device was useless, the profit outrageous and your culpability as a fraudster has to be placed in the highest category. Your profits were obscene. You have neither insight, shame or any sense of remorse," Hone said, quoted by the Press Association.
McCormick had shown a "cavalier disregard of the potentially fatal consequences" of his deception, he added.
The useless devices had promoted a false sense of security which probably contributed to the death and injury of innocent people, the judge said.
The detectors were sold for up to 40,000 pounds each. But they had no working components and lacked any basis in science, the court heard.
McCormick was convicted of fraud last week for manufacturing and selling the hand-held "ADE 651" devices to countries at serious risk from bomb attacks such as Iraq, claiming they could detect explosives, drugs and other substances.
Marketing material claimed items could be detected up to 0.6 miles (1 km) underground, at up to 3 miles away from the air and 100 feet (33 metres) under water.
During his trial, McCormick said he had sold his detectors to police in Kenya, the prison service in Hong Kong, the army in Egypt and border control in Thailand.
They were also sold in Niger and Georgia and between 2008 and 2010, Iraq bought 6,000 devices.
McCormick, a former policeman and salesman from Somerset in south-western England, maintained the detectors did work.
"I never had any negative results from customers," he said.
(Reporting By Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shameless-british-fraudster-jailed-selling-fake-bomb-detectors-125707528.html
m.i.a super bowl coin toss best superbowl commercials madonna super bowl halftime kelly clarkson super bowl giants super bowl 2012 half time show
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Six Things the Phone Book's Actually Still Good For
The phone book. There's perhaps no more outmoded, unnecessary, downright wasteful collection of printed information in the known universe. But Doghouse Diaries has a few suggestions that might make them useful after all.
On second thought? Nah. Let's just burn 'em all and call it a day. [Doghouse Diaries]
Top image via Reddit
Source: http://gizmodo.com/six-things-the-phone-books-actually-still-good-for-486207893
auld lang syne dick clark Happy new year fiscal cliff Pitbull Hannah Storm fergie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)