Elon Musk is being interviewed tonight at the D11 conference, and gave an early preview of news coming tomorrow: his company's Supercharger EV stations will be available in more areas soon. The network will triple its coverage area this month, and he predicts Tesla owners will be able to drive from LA to NY using only Superchargers by the end of 2013. As he mentions, the company is adding more density to "well-traveled routes", as well as increasing overall coverage, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get a map. That's all consistent with promises made at the network's launch, when he said it will allow the Model S to drive across the country for free. Another thing making that easier is an incoming software patch for the cars that will let drivers route directly to the nearest Supercharger -- perhaps Tesla can get John Broder to give it a shot first.
There's going to be a dramatic acceleration of the supercharging network. By the end of next month, we'll triple the supercharger coverage area. There's a map that'll go live tomorrow, obviously.
By the end of this year -- you'll be able to drive from LA to NY just using the supercharger network. We're improving the density of superchargers in well-traveled routes, as well as the overall coverage area.
Volcanic ash plume covers the sky outside of Reykjav?k, Iceland after Gr?msv?tn erupted in 2011. Image: Flickr/Kris Olin
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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(ISNS) ? Scientists may be able to track dangerous ash-filled clouds by using information similar to the bars showing signal strength on a cell phone.
The new technique analyzes the GPS's "signal strength" -- the intensity of a GPS signal ? as it attempts to cut through a volcanic plume. The research was published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The dangerous particles within these plumes can clog an airplane's engines and send it plummeting from the sky.
Two years ago this month, Gr?msv?tn, a volcano in Iceland, erupted, leaving behind a thick column of ash that led to canceled flights all over Europe for days.?
The new research uses GPS data to detect these hazardous clouds as they fill the sky. Such early hazard detection could help pilots to avoid areas loaded with deadly ash.
Signal-strength data is logged in the inner workings of the GPS machines. ?But since it has never been useful to scientists studying how the earth moves during volcanic eruptions, the data has been ignored. In fact, most scientists don't even upload the information to their computers.
"When I learned GPS, you were supposed to use it to measure where you are," said Kristine Larson, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder and author of the study. ?"These days, I look for weird things to do with GPS."?
Larson was working with colleagues from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who set up GPS antennae at Alaska's Mount Redoubt to measure how terrain shifted during an eruption. Those measurements come from an array of satellites beaming down signals that indicate the exact position of a GPS antenna on earth.
Equipment on the ground automatically stores GPS data on the strength of the signals coming from those orbiting satellites. But Larson is the first to use the information to measure volcanic plumes.
Think of your cell phone, said Larson. "I always hear people talking about how many bars they have," she said. "That's basically what I'm using."
She found that the plume, which was loaded with bits of volcanic ash, somehow blocked the GPS signal coming from satellites in space.
Knowing this, Larson could then track the plume in real time by observing the strength of the GPS signal in a certain area. Once the plume passed, the signal bumped back up to its normal level.
This once-overlooked information may help track plumes when other methods like radar or pictures taken from satellites fall short.
Images taken from space can monitor plumes but "if it's cloudy you can't see anything," said Larson.
Since the GPS signal strength beamed down from orbiting satellites is largely unaffected by clouds and water vapor, Larson can detect only the dangerous ash within a plume.
Radar can spot plumes but the equipment is expensive. "We have many more volcanoes in the world than we have resources to monitor them," said Larson. "The beauty of GPS is it's so inexpensive."
Many scientists already have GPS antennae dispatched at volcanoes all over the world that automatically collect signal strength data.?
More research is needed to determine how dense a plume must be to cause a drop in signal strength, said Michael Lisowski, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory, in Vancouver, Wash.?
Signal strength can only be measured if satellites are actively sending signals to the antennae on the ground. Since only about a couple of dozen GPS satellites are in orbit over the earth, there may be times when there is no satellite overhead to connect with an antenna on the ground and no data can be collected on signal strength.
But many countries already have plans to send new GPS satellites into space. "As more satellites systems get launched, it will become a better tool," said Lisowski.
Larson's study looked only at two volcanic plumes in Alaska. Plans are in place to test the technique on more volcanoes, she said. "GPS is not the only instrument that is helpful but it's a new thing that we could add to the list of tools we're using to make air travel safer."?
The deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest has created a hidden consequence: The seeds of palm trees have evolved rapidly to be smaller.
The change is the result of a domino effect that begins with human agriculture and hunting, which have devastated large bird populations in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. With these birds, which include colorful toucans and cotingas, locally extinct or barely hanging on, the palm trees have no way to disperse their largest seeds. As a result, seed sizes are smaller in parts of the rain forest where large birds are missing, finds a new study detailed in the May 31 issue of the journal Science.
Combined with climate change, the result could be devastating for palms, said study leader Mauro Galetti, an ecologist at Paulista State University in Brazil.
"If we think about climate change, we will have less rainfall, and we know that for smaller seeds, they lose more water than large seeds," Galetti told LiveScience. "That's a major problem for this palm." [Images: Palm Trees and Lost Birds of Brazil]
Shrinking seeds
The Atlantic Forest runs along the coast of Brazil, starting at the easternmost tip of South America and continuing approximately to the country's southern border. The region has been heavily altered by human agriculture, with only about 12 percent of the original forest remaining. Of that area, about 80 percent is disjointed fragments too small to support large animals. As a result, large fruit-eating birds have vanished or nearly vanished from much of the forest. These birds swallow fruit seeds and spread them through their droppings over many miles, making the animals crucial to the forest ecosystem.
Galetti and his colleagues studied seed sizes in 22 populations of palm trees, some in fragments where hardly any large birds survive and others where bird populations are relatively robust.?
They found that seeds are consistently smaller in sites without large birds. Seed sizes vary, but in areas with few or no large birds, common sizes range from about 0.3 to 0.4 inches (8 to 10 millimeters) in diameter, with almost no seeds a half-inch (12 mm) in diameter. In areas with robust large-bird populations, half-inch (seeds are common, with some seeds reaching 0.55 inches (14 mm). In sites without large birds, the researchers found that seeds with a diameter of a half-inch or larger had nearly no chance of being dispersed away from their parent tree.
Other factors ? such as soil fertility, forest cover and climate ? could not explain the change in seed size, the researchers reported.
Human action
Using genetic data from the seeds, Galetti and his colleagues created computer models to figure out how long it would have taken trees to evolve smaller seeds in bird-free zones.
"For the plants that we studied, it was 50 to 75 years," Galetti said. "It's quite fast."
Human deforestation in the Atlantic Forest dates back to the 1800s, more than enough time for the observed changes to evolve.
The researchers plan to study other plant species, and to take a deeper look at the genetics of the seeds, to understand how forest fragmentation might be affecting heredity.
The only way to turn the tide against the changes, Galetti said, is reforestation and conservation.
"First of all, we have to replant the forest and put back animals that are important, and stop hunting," he said.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Picture an optical telescope, a really good optical telescope, and you have to think big. The most powerful consumer-grade models often stand taller than their operators. The grand, institutionally owned ones are hidden beneath giant domes above the clouds on mountaintops. The world's best, the Hubble Space Telescope, is as big as a school bus and sits out in orbit, while its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be roughly the size of a Boeing 737.
What, then, could a telescope smaller than a trash can possibly do? Quite a lot, as it turns out -- if you can get it outside of the Earth's pesky atmosphere, that is. Planetary Resources plans to take rocks floating aimlessly in the solar system and turn them into valuable commodities. But, before we get there, the company hopes to revolutionize space exploration in the same way that 3D printing and microfunding have revolutionized manufacturing. Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Peter Diamandis chatted with us, telling us why the company made the unusual decision to put its first orbital optical telescope up for grabs on Kickstarter.
PARIS (Reuters) - Close to half the staff managers at companies in French urban areas have seen problems arising from religious demands by employees and expect them to increase in future, according to a new study issued on Tuesday.
Listing faith-related problems, the new study said some men refused to take orders from a woman boss or shake hands with women and some refused to handle alcohol or pork products.
Other problems include employees wanting to pray or wear religious garb at work. Some employees try to impose their religious standards on colleagues, such as preventing non-observant Muslims from eating at work during Ramadan.
Smaller towns and rural areas had far fewer problems, the study said. Fewer than five percent of human resources managers in the western region of Brittany reported any difficulties.
The survey, conducted by university researchers in Rennes and the international recruitment agency Randstad, was released as French lawmakers prepare new legislation extending strict public service bans on religious garb at work to some private firms.
President Francois Hollande has also launched an official campaign to ensure the legal separation of church and state is fully respected in France.
"These initial results show the issue of religion at work exists and is not a marginal question," concluded the study, which said 43 percent of staff managers saw faith-related work problems and 41 percent expected to encounter more in future.
HEADSCARF DEBATE
Sociologists say most religious demands at work come from the large Muslim minority, with some also from orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians. These groups mostly live in or around big cities rather than the traditionally Catholic rural areas.
Many demands concern Muslim women's headscarves, a sensitive issue in France where full-face veils are banned in public and women public servants and girls in state schools are not allowed to cover their hair.
A decision by France's top appeals court in March to reinstate a Muslim woman fired by a private creche for wearing a headscarf revived a debate about religion at work and prompted calls for tighter laws on "laicite," or official secularism.
Several large companies including France Telecom, IBM France, Electricite de France and retailer Casino have drawn up internal guidelines on religion at work in recent years.
France's official secularism bars teachers, postal workers and other civil servants from wearing items such as Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps or Christian crosses at work.
Many French believe this also applies to the private sector, but companies are free to set their own internal rules. Some firms adapt to employees' requests when possible, while others apply strict bans on anything religious at work.
While politicians from both left and right have been calling for clearer guidelines, the study showed only 12 percent of human resources managers and no more than two percent of middle managers thought stricter laws would solve most problems.
(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Simple 'frailty' test predicts death, hospitalization for kidney dialysis patientsPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Assessment developed for elderly useful for dialysis patients of all ages
Johns Hopkins scientists report that a 10-minute test for "frailty" first designed to predict whether the elderly can withstand surgery and other physical stress could be useful in assessing the increased risk of death and frequent hospitalization among kidney dialysis patients of any age.
In a study described in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and published online yesterday, the Johns Hopkins investigators said dialysis patients deemed frail by the simple assessment were more than twice as likely to die within three years, and much more likely to be hospitalized repeatedly.
Results of the frailty test, which measures physiological reserve, suggest that kidney failure patients who submit to the long and arduous process of mechanical blood cleansing several days a week are undergoing a premature aging process detrimental to their health, the researchers say.
"More than 600,000 people are on dialysis and they have a wide range of mortality and hospitalization risks," says study leader Dorry L. Segev, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "But we're not very good at predicting who is at more or less risk for hospitalization and death. This assessment tool gives us much better insights into which dialysis patients are at greater risk, so that their treatment can be tailored to minimize complications, hospitalizations or death."
Dialysis machines do much of the work of damaged kidneys, cleansing the blood of waste and excess water. Dialysis cannot, however, fully compensate for the blood pressure and fluid control roles played by kidneys, and the body can weaken as it tries to make up for what is missing, Segev says. The only cure for kidney failure is a kidney transplant.
In the study, frailty was measured using a five-point scale developed at Johns Hopkins. Patients are classified as frail if they meet three or more of the following criteria: shrinking (unintentional weight loss of 10 or more pounds in the previous year); weakness (decreased grip strength as measured by a hand-held dynamometer); exhaustion (measured by responses to questions about effort and motivation); reduced physical activity (determined by asking about leisure time and activities); and slowed walking speed (the time it takes to walk 15 feet).
Segev and his team enrolled 146 hemodialysis patients between January 2009 and March 2010, and followed them through August 2012. At enrollment, 50 percent of the participants who were 65 and older, and 35 percent of those under 65, were measured as frail. The three-year mortality rate for frail participants was 40 percent, compared to 16.2 percent for the non-frail. Of those hospitalized more than twice over the study period, 43 percent were frail, while only 28 percent were not frail.
"We're learning that lessons from gerontology can help us understand younger patients with chronic diseases," Segev says.
Segev, a transplant surgeon and director of clinical research for transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins, says doctors who are aware of their patients' frailty may choose to examine those patients more frequently, adjust dialysis to a more conservative protocol, or make sure the patients have the social support needed to ensure they are taking their medications and otherwise taking care of themselves.
Physicians also could recommend physical therapy to those with low muscle mass to help them rebuild their strength. "You can imagine if you spend several days a week sitting in a chair hooked up to a machine, and the rest of the day recovering, that it would be difficult to get in shape and stay in shape," says Mara A. McAdams-DeMarco, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and another co-author of the study.
###
The study was funded by a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging (T32AG000247).
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Andrew Law, Sc.M.; Megan L. Salter, Ph.D.; Brian Boyarsky, B.A.; Luis Gimenez, M.D.; Bernard G. Jaar, M.D., Ph.D.; and Jeremy D. Walston, M.D.
Media Contacts:
Stephanie Desmon
410-955-8665; sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
[ | 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.
Simple 'frailty' test predicts death, hospitalization for kidney dialysis patientsPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Assessment developed for elderly useful for dialysis patients of all ages
Johns Hopkins scientists report that a 10-minute test for "frailty" first designed to predict whether the elderly can withstand surgery and other physical stress could be useful in assessing the increased risk of death and frequent hospitalization among kidney dialysis patients of any age.
In a study described in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and published online yesterday, the Johns Hopkins investigators said dialysis patients deemed frail by the simple assessment were more than twice as likely to die within three years, and much more likely to be hospitalized repeatedly.
Results of the frailty test, which measures physiological reserve, suggest that kidney failure patients who submit to the long and arduous process of mechanical blood cleansing several days a week are undergoing a premature aging process detrimental to their health, the researchers say.
"More than 600,000 people are on dialysis and they have a wide range of mortality and hospitalization risks," says study leader Dorry L. Segev, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "But we're not very good at predicting who is at more or less risk for hospitalization and death. This assessment tool gives us much better insights into which dialysis patients are at greater risk, so that their treatment can be tailored to minimize complications, hospitalizations or death."
Dialysis machines do much of the work of damaged kidneys, cleansing the blood of waste and excess water. Dialysis cannot, however, fully compensate for the blood pressure and fluid control roles played by kidneys, and the body can weaken as it tries to make up for what is missing, Segev says. The only cure for kidney failure is a kidney transplant.
In the study, frailty was measured using a five-point scale developed at Johns Hopkins. Patients are classified as frail if they meet three or more of the following criteria: shrinking (unintentional weight loss of 10 or more pounds in the previous year); weakness (decreased grip strength as measured by a hand-held dynamometer); exhaustion (measured by responses to questions about effort and motivation); reduced physical activity (determined by asking about leisure time and activities); and slowed walking speed (the time it takes to walk 15 feet).
Segev and his team enrolled 146 hemodialysis patients between January 2009 and March 2010, and followed them through August 2012. At enrollment, 50 percent of the participants who were 65 and older, and 35 percent of those under 65, were measured as frail. The three-year mortality rate for frail participants was 40 percent, compared to 16.2 percent for the non-frail. Of those hospitalized more than twice over the study period, 43 percent were frail, while only 28 percent were not frail.
"We're learning that lessons from gerontology can help us understand younger patients with chronic diseases," Segev says.
Segev, a transplant surgeon and director of clinical research for transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins, says doctors who are aware of their patients' frailty may choose to examine those patients more frequently, adjust dialysis to a more conservative protocol, or make sure the patients have the social support needed to ensure they are taking their medications and otherwise taking care of themselves.
Physicians also could recommend physical therapy to those with low muscle mass to help them rebuild their strength. "You can imagine if you spend several days a week sitting in a chair hooked up to a machine, and the rest of the day recovering, that it would be difficult to get in shape and stay in shape," says Mara A. McAdams-DeMarco, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and another co-author of the study.
###
The study was funded by a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging (T32AG000247).
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Andrew Law, Sc.M.; Megan L. Salter, Ph.D.; Brian Boyarsky, B.A.; Luis Gimenez, M.D.; Bernard G. Jaar, M.D., Ph.D.; and Jeremy D. Walston, M.D.
Media Contacts:
Stephanie Desmon
410-955-8665; sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
[ | 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.
If you?ve been reading this column for a while, you know the first commandment of the Flippin? Insider: Buy at a discount.
This is good advice because it preserves your options: If you can buy at a discount, you not only have every advantage going into a flip, but you?ll have a much easier time renting it out for more than you are paying out in mortgage, interest, maintenance and taxes. It?s simply much easier to create a cash-flow positive property from a house you buy cheap than from one for which you pay full price.
Many times, you actually have an option: You can continue flipping the property, or you can rent it out and use the proceeds to finance future acquisitions ? or for yourself. Which is better?
The answer, for most, is either one, but not both! At least, not at the same time. Few people excel both at being a property flipper and a landlord. The two require different mindsets: The flipper is a hunter, always on the lookout for his next deal; the renter is a farmer, looking to cultivate his farmland to provide a generous yield every year.
Both approaches can generate very good results over the long haul ? if you do them right. But before you get involved in playing landlord, ask yourself a few questions:
Do I Have What it Takes to Evict People I Like?
If you?re in the landlord game long enough for enough properties, sooner or later you?re going to have to make the difficult choice to evict a sympathetic tenant. We?re talking single moms, kindly grandmothers, nice families with a breadwinner out of work, and the like. In some cases they could be friends or relations ? which is doubly tricky.
Sure, you can step out of the process altogether and have a property manager handle the eviction based on protocols you define ? but that doesn?t absolve you of the responsibility to make the difficult decision. It only isolates you from the consequences for the tenant.
But if you are a real estate investor, you have to be willing and able to do this. Indeed, if your tenants know you will, your chances of having to do so are lower.
Do I Want the 3 a.m. Phone Calls for Plumbing Emergencies?
Being a landlord means you?re always on call. You can never really be ?on vacation? because when the phone call with a big maintenance problem comes, you still have to deal with it. If you?re flipping houses and you want to take some time off, you can do so. Just don?t buy a new place right after you sell one. But being a landlord is a 365-day commitment every year.
Can I Handle the Risk?
You have heard it said that flipping real estate is risky, and there?s a big chance of loss. But I say that rental real estate is at least as risky as flipping, for one simple reason: liability. Your risk is minimal if you?re flipping unoccupied houses, or you don?t own them for very long. But your risk is substantial if you are renting the place out to clumsy, careless or irresponsible people. If someone gets hurt and they can attribute it to your property, they?re coming after you.
Mitigating against this risk takes careful planning, well before the potential tort occurs. For example, you definitely should be speaking to an attorney about using entities to separate your properties from one another ? so that one person who slips on a tile floor cannot sue you and unravel your entire enterprise. But even if they win a lawsuit and attach just one property, or one LLC, that?s a pretty big ding on any small real estate investor.
Who Will My Likely Tenants Be?
The better the neighborhood, and the more substantial the home, the better your tenant quality is likely to be, and the fewer the headaches. Potential issues that landlords encounter include:
Late-payers.
Partial rent payments.
Crime.
Drugs and drug labs, including environmental clean-up.
Depressed property values.
Drama.
This has nothing to do with race. This is true in white neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, Hispanic neighborhoods, Jewish neighborhoods and any kind of community or combination you can think of.
All these issues will not just generate risk: They will also create demands on your time. You must compensate by demanding a lower price, higher rents, or some combination of the two. You can also expect any future buyer will also demand price concessions for the same reasons.
Do I Know the Landlord/Tenant Laws in My Area?
Some areas are much more tenant-friendly than others. One key factor: How long does an eviction take? Some areas can clear out your property in a few weeks with a legal eviction order. Other jurisdictions let the process drag out for months ? during which time you aren?t getting rental income, but still on the hook for your own mortgage, taxes and insurance payments.
You also need to take into account any rent control provisions, zoning restrictions on the number of people who can live in a given house, restrictions on security deposits, and access restrictions: You can?t always just walk into a home you own.
Working with a good attorney early in the landlording process is a must ? from the property acquisition through the development of the lease agreement and through the eviction process. The rules are extensive, vary by jurisdiction, and it takes a full-time commitment to keep up with them all.
Tenant screening is hugely important. Indeed, it?s a make-or-break issue for rental property owners. But the rules are complex, and it?s easy to get in trouble over discrimination and fair housing rules. Make sure you know the rules going in.
Advantages of Renting
That said, there are significant advantages to renting: You get a steady stream of passive income ? which you can use to borrow against to enhance your flipping practice. Renting a cash-flow positive property can also buy you time with a difficult flip: You have an income cushion to see you through if a flip takes longer than anticipated. You can also be a little pickier when courting buyers: Your rental property will still put groceries on your table (though you shouldn?t be cutting it that close).
Successful renters can also relax a bit more between deals. The pure flipper is a hunter ? and must always be hungry and on the prowl for the next deal. The renter is a farmer. If he cultivates his fields, they will provide.
Rental properties are also a nice hedge against disability, illness or life changes. The day may come when you can?t put in the time and relentless energy it takes to flip properties anymore. A rental portfolio is there, through disability, illness, unemployment, and nearly any other economic hazard you can name ? except perhaps a collapse in rent payments!
Finally, a nice rental portfolio is a beautiful thing to pass on to the next generation. You cannot pass a flipping business on to the next generation, unless they are dedicated flippers, too. And if they are, they don?t need you to do it. A rental portfolio, though, is a potential source of income, security and wealth for generations to come. Indeed, historically, landownership is the most long-lasting and reliable legacy and source of family wealth, going back to the ancient world.
That said, combining the two approaches is very difficult. The more time you spend attending to landlord problems, the less time you will have for flipping. So if you are a die-hard hunter ? if you were born for the hunt ? be wary of getting sidetracked too early in your career. But at a certain point, you might want to plan a transition.
James Lipton has interviewed countless celebrities about their jobs on his long-running Bravo series "Inside the Actors Studio." But that doesn't mean that the 86-year-old (who has also appeared on TV shows including "Arrested Development") can't trump all of them with one of his own former jobs: As a pimp in Paris in the 1950s.
As he told Parade magazine, "It was only a few years after the war. Paris was different then, still poor. Men couldn't get jobs and, in the male chauvinist Paris of that time, the women couldn't get work at all. It was perfectly respectable for them to go into 'le milieu.'?
The "underworld," literally -- but that meant prostitution. "Young women desperately needed money for various reasons," he said. "(They) were beautiful and young and extraordinary" -- and "inspected medically" each week.
He was cleared by those who ran "le milieu" ("otherwise they would have found me floating in the Seine") and ended up representing an entire bordello of ladies of the night. "I did a roaring business, and I was able to live for a year," he said. "That's how I lived. I was going through my rights of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life."
Lipton went on to hold many other jobs -- including writer for soap operas, including "Another World" and "Guiding Light" -- before establishing a non-credit class at the Actors Studio Drama School and starting up the TV show in 1994. It will air its 250th episode on May 29.
Still, despite his experience in 1950s Paris, Lipton says a person shouldn't pay for sex: "I think if you can't earn it on your own, then you don't deserve it."
WASHINGTON -- If Republicans were writing a movie script for next year's congressional elections, the working title might be "2014: Apocalypse of Obamacare."
The plot: The rollout of President Barack Obama's health care law turns into such a disaster that enraged voters rebuke him by rewarding the GOP with undisputed control of Congress.
But there's a risk for Republicans if they're wrong and the Affordable Care Act works reasonably well, particularly in states that have embraced it. Republicans might be seen as obstinately standing in the way of progress.
The law already has been a political prop in two election seasons, but next year will be different.
Voters will have a real program to judge, working or dysfunctional. Will affordable health care finally be a reality for millions of uninsured working people? Or will premiums skyrocket as the heavy hand of government upends already fragile insurance markets for small businesses and individuals?
"The end of this movie has not been written," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care. He says next year's movie actually will be a documentary: what happens in states that fully put the law in place and those that resist ? "a message of reality."
One of the most prominent doomsayers is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who predicts "Obamacare" probably will be the biggest issue of 2014 and "an albatross around the neck of every Democrat who voted for it."
"This thing can't possibly work," says McConnell. "It will be a huge disaster in 2014."
Counting on that, House Republicans are busy framing an election narrative, voting to repeal the health law and trying to link it to the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of tea party groups. It could help excite the conservative base.
But Democratic pollster Celinda Lake doubts reality will follow the GOP script. Next year, "we won't have to worry about the mythology laid out by the right wing about Obamacare: death panels and dramatic cuts to Medicare," she said.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said uninsured people in her state will have over 200 coverage options to choose from. "We have been hearing the fear, but in states like mine, people are seeing the reality," she said.
In just about five months, people without access to coverage through their jobs can start shopping for subsidized private insurance in new state markets. The actual benefits begin Jan. 1. But because of continuing opposition to the law from many Republican governors and state legislators, the federal government will be running the insurance markets in more than half the states.
Another major element of the law, the expansion of Medicaid to serve more low-income people, also has run into problems. With many legislative sessions over or winding down, it looks like fewer than half the states may accept the expansion. That means millions of low-income people are likely to remain uninsured, at least initially.
Other early indicators of how well the health care rollout might fare are mixed.
In a dozen or so states that have started releasing details of their new insurance markets, there's robust insurer interest in participating, according to the market research firm Avalere Health. That's a good signal for competition.
There still are concerns about a spike in premiums for people who already buy their own coverage, particularly the young and healthy. That could happen for several reasons.
The health care law forbids insurers to deny coverage to sick people, and it limits what older adults can be charged. Also, the plans that will be offered next year are more comprehensive than many bare-bones policies currently available to individuals.
Another big source of angst is the Obama administration. The Health and Human Services Department will be running the program in half the country while trying to fight off attempts by congressional Republicans to starve it financially. Unusual for a social program, the administration is largely operating behind a veil of secrecy.
Will Obama's underlings turn out to be the Keystone Kops of health care?
Frustration that he and his constituents couldn't get basic information from the administration led one of the authors of the law, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to warn recently that he sees "a huge train wreck coming down."
Republicans loved it. Lost in the uproar was the fact that Baucus was referring to potential problems with implementation. He stills thinks the health care law itself is a good thing.
The administration official running the rollout, Gary Cohen, told Congress this past that he didn't agree with the senator's statement. "We are very much on schedule," Cohen said.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff says he's skeptical of what he hears from the administration as well as from his own party. McInturff, who has made polling on health care his specialty, says the launch of any national program is bound to have problems. President George W. Bush's Medicare prescription benefit went through several weeks of chaos before things got smoothed out.
"Life experience says to me there is not going to be some simple, clear narrative that is sitting here today," McInturff said.
May 27, 2013 ? Humans and most mammals can determine the spatial origin of sounds with remarkable acuity. We use this ability all the time -- crossing the street; locating an invisible ringing cell phone in a cluttered bedroom. To accomplish this small daily miracle, the brain has developed a circuit that's rapid enough to detect the tiny lag that occurs between the moment the auditory information reaches one of our ears, and the moment it reaches the other. The mastermind of this circuit is the "Calyx of Held," the largest known synapse in the brain. EPFL scientists have revealed the role that a certain protein plays in initiating the growth of these giant synapses.
The discovery, published in Nature Neuroscience, could also help shed light on a number of neuropsychiatric disorders.
Enormous synapses enable faster communication
Ordinarily, neurons have thousands of contact points -- known as synapses -- with neighboring neurons. Within a given time frame, a neuron has to receive several signals from its neighbors in order to be able to fire its own signal in response. Because of this, information passes from neuron to neuron in a relatively random manner.
In the auditory part of the brain, this is not the case. Synapses often grow to extremely large sizes, and these behemoths are known as "Calyx of Held" synapses. Because they have hundreds of contact points, they are capable of transmitting a signal singlehandedly to a neighboring neuron. "It's almost like peer-to-peer communication between neurons," explains EPFL professor Ralf Schneggenburger, who led the study. The result is that information is processed extremely quickly, in a few fractions of a millisecond, instead of the slower pace of more than 10 milliseconds that occurs in most other neuronal circuits.
Identifying the protein
To isolate the protein responsible for controlling the growth of this gigantic synapse, the scientists had to perform painstaking research. Using methods for analyzing gene expression in mice, they identified several members of the "BMP" family of proteins from among more than 20,000 possible candidates.
To verify that they had truly identified the right protein, the researchers disabled BMP protein receptors in the auditory part of a mouse brain. "The resulting electrophysiological signal of the Calyx of Held was significantly altered," explains Le Xiao, first author on the study. "This would suggest a large anatomical difference."
The scientists then reconstructed the synapses in three dimensions from slices that were observed under an electron microscope. Instead of a single, massive Calyx of Held, which would encompass nearly half the neuron, the 3D image of the neuron clearly shows several, smaller synapses. "This shows that the process involving the BMP protein not only causes that one synapse to grow, but also performs a selection, by eliminating the others," says Schneggenburger.
Synaptic connectivity, the key to many psychiatric puzzles
The impact of this study will go well beyond increasing our understanding of the auditory system. The results suggest that the BMP protein plays an important role in developing connectivity in the brain. Schneggenburger and his colleagues are currently investigating its role elsewhere in the brain. "Some neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, are characterized by the abnormal development of synaptic connectivity in certain key parts of the brain," explains Schneggenburger. By identifying and explaining the role of various proteins in this process, the scientists hope to be able to shed more light on these poorly understood disorders.
If like me your Android devices are rooted and running alternate ROMs ?then you’ll be sick of downloading 200+MB files everytime an update comes out. If you’re running Cyanogen 10.1 nightlies then you’ll be downloaded these files, well, every night. ?CyanDelta Updater?is an app that does incremental downloads of your CM 10.1 nightly downloading only [...]
TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) ? African soldiers in the fabled city of Timbuktu worry their equipment, training and circumstances are not adequate to defend against another takeover by Islamic extremists who know the terrain as a double bombing by radical elements has also threatened neighboring Niger.
Burkina Faso soldiers officially took over at the end of April after hundreds of French forces left the northern Malian town several months after their military operation largely ousted the radical Islamic fighters from the area.
French forces parachuted into Timbuktu in late January to liberate the city from the radical Islamic fighters who had occupied it for 10 months. Al-Qaida's wing in Africa imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, requiring women to wear the veil and carrying out public whippings. The French are now scaling down their deployment from 4,000 to 1,000 soldiers in its former colony by the end of the year, leaving other forces in charge.
But a report by obtained by The Associated Press this week indicates that some 500 soldiers from the neighboring West African country are facing problems with defense.
"Insufficient night vision capabilities and radio communications with the Malian army for coordination," are among the issues, the report turned in to the head of the African-led mission in Mali said.
Col. Gilles Bationo, who leads the Burkina Faso soldiers, also said that their second-generation night vision equipment doesn't allow them to see if there is wind, dust or no moon in this desolate area of the world. He said that the jihadists also circulate faster through the deserts in their vehicles because they know the terrain so well, making it difficult for the forces to capture them.
"Weak capacity engineering, the need for air combat assets on site, transport logistics," and shielding tactics are also missing, according to the report and Bationo.
The fight against the radicals is also hindered by an airplane runway that is blocked by trees.
"The trees around the airport prevent U.S. military from coming into the airport, and security is not guaranteed," Bationo said, adding that jihadists also can hide out in the thick trees to shoot at any planes landing or taking off.
He said that they also lack reliable electricity. Bationo submitted the report to Pierre Buyoya, the head of the African-led mission, in hopes the battalion's concerns will be addressed. Buyoya visited Timbuktu on Monday.
"The battalion is going to stay in place in Timbuktu and will transform into the MINUSMA which is the U.N. mission for maintaining peace around July," Buyoya said. "The Burkina Faso battalion will be made up of 850 soldiers."
Bationo said the situation in Timbuktu remains calm, despite frequent reports of robberies and inter-communal clashes in neighboring communities, but that amped up defenses are needed.
"The double bombing in Niger means we must prepare," he said, adding that an attack on Timbuktu is likely after suicide bombers in Niger detonated two car bombs simultaneously, one inside a military camp in the city of Agadez and another in the remote town of Arlit at a French-operated uranium mine, killing at least 35 people, according to Niger's president.
The attacks that began at dawn Thursday were claimed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and by Algerian terrorist Moktar Belmoktar. Both are believed to have fighters in Mali. Belmoktar, whose brigade known as "Those Who Sign in Blood" is also responsible for the devastating attack in January on the Ain Amenas gas plant, where 37 foreigners including American, French, Irish and British citizens were killed.
U.N. peacekeepers are supposed to take over in July from a 6,000-member African-led mission now in Mali, although the deployment date is subject to change depending on security conditions. The U.N. force will be tasked with helping to restore peace. However, it will not be authorized to launch offensive military operations or chase terrorists in the desert, which French forces will continue to do.
Mali fell into turmoil after a March 2012 coup created a security vacuum that allowed secular Tuareg rebels to take over the country's north as a new homeland. Months later, the rebels were kicked out by Islamic jihadists who carried out public executions, amputations and whippings.
When the Islamic rebels started moving into government-controlled areas in the south, France launched a military offensive on Jan. 11 to oust them. The fighters, many linked to al-Qaida, fled the major towns in the north, but many went into hiding in the desert and continue to carry out attacks including suicide bombings.
Tuareg separatists have since reclaimed the northern city of Kidal. The government is in talks with the separatists as elections are slated for this year.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? No one answered the tax-help hotline at the IRS on Friday. And you could forget about getting advice on avoiding foreclosures at the 80 Housing and Urban Development field offices nationwide.
It was "furlough Friday." Roughly 5 percent of the federal workforce ? 115,000 people at six major agencies ? were told not to show up as the government dealt with the continuing effects of the sequester spending cuts.
The good news for many federal workers: a four-day Memorial Day weekend. The bad news: no pay for the day.
The across-the-board budget reductions, the result of Washington's failure to work out a long-term, deficit-cutting plan in November 2011, essentially shut down some government agencies, though it had a negligible impact on others.
The IRS, embroiled in a scandal over agents targeting tea party groups, got a day of quiet. Its offices were closed with more than 90,000 employees furloughed on Friday, one of five days the agency plans to shut down this year to save money.
A self-employed, small business owner calling the agency's hotline to check on the deadline for second-quarter estimated taxes got a recording saying, "Due to the current budget situation, all IRS offices are closed on Friday, May 24." The tax deadlines are unaffected.
HUD furloughed nearly its entire staff of more than 8,400 employees, closed the agency's headquarters in Washington and shut down about 80 field offices.
That meant no walk-in housing counseling services at HUD offices to help people wanting to buy homes, refinance or avoid foreclosure. The furloughs also created delays for developers and municipalities needing technical assistance or approval of housing projects, officials said.
At the Labor Department, spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said 437 employees out of about 16,500 were furloughed. She said the layoffs were negotiated between supervisors and employees to have the least possible impact on the agency's operations.
Furloughs also hit the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget and the Interior Department.
J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, dismissed any suggestion that the extra day was welcome news to anyone.
"'Furlough Friday' is a disgrace to our nation," Cox said in a statement. "Let no one believe for a moment that this is some kind of four-day weekend or holiday for federal employees forced out of work without pay."
He called it "a day of shame for the lawmakers and administration officials who allowed sequester and furloughs to occur."
The automatic cuts that kicked in March 1 have had a disparate effect on individual agencies and their workers. The State Department, for example, says it can handle a $400 million cut without forcing employees to take unpaid leave. The Pentagon, on the other hand, decided to furlough about 680,000 civilian employees for 11 days through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
President Barack Obama has pressed Congress to reverse the automatic cuts, but many Republicans have shown little inclination to do so. Lawmakers see the broad reductions, recently estimated at $81 billion, as a surefire way to trim the federal deficit despite the outcry from defense hawks in Congress that the military cuts are too painful.
Congress did step in last month to undo furloughs for air traffic controllers after a week of coast-to-coast flight delays, and lawmakers have found money for meat inspectors.
The furloughs have frustrated many government employees facing several days without pay.
The EPA's decision to post job openings after sequestration began angered union officials who argued the agency should be using any available money to reduce the number of furlough days instead of hiring new employees.
Acting EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe informed agency employees in an April 9 memo that the agency would "limit new hires to only those that are critically needed." But representatives of the American Federation of Government Employees said several of the posted openings were for budget analysts, environmental and chemical engineers and other positions they considered to be nonessential.
EPA said in an emailed statement that it was allowing limited hiring, subject to budget constraints, in order to fill personnel gaps in priority areas that would place a burden on existing staff if left vacant.
John O'Grady, president of AFGE Local 704 in Chicago, left a protest on his voice mail.
"I will be furloughed on Friday the 24th thanks to this Congress and this administration," O'Grady's message said. "I don't appreciate it. I will remember this in November. Leave a message if you care to. I will not respond until I get back into the office on Tuesday the 28th.
In addition to Friday, the IRS plans to close its offices and furlough employees on June 14, July 5, July 22 and Aug. 30. The agency said no tax returns will be processed on those days.
The Interior Department said more than 13,000 people were being furloughed, including all 767 employees of the U.S. Park Police. That number includes Chief Teresa Chambers, who along with other employees must take three unpaid days by June 1.
The furloughs had been expected to continue through the summer tourist season but will now end June 1, because the agency was able to find other savings to offset mandatory cuts, the National Park Service said Friday. The Park Service oversees the Park Police, which patrols national parkland in three urban areas: Washington, New York and San Francisco.
An additional 8,500 employees of the U.S. Geological Survey and 4,100 employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs also face furloughs, although they have not yet begun.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said cuts to the Interior budget "push us back in time to funding levels we last saw in 2006."
The department has frozen hiring, eliminated seasonal positions and cut back on programs and services, including visiting hours at national parks. Jewell called those steps essential in order to maintain the department's core mission to serve the public.
Even so, the cuts "are not sustainable, as these actions which are eroding our workforce, shrinking our summer field season and deferring important work cannot be continued in future years without further severe consequences to our mission," she said.
At HUD, some telephone hotline services run by outside contractors providing housing counseling services to the public were still operating on Friday, including the Federal Housing Administration Resource Center. But callers needing more specialized assistance might have needed to call back once HUD offices re-open on Tuesday after Memorial Day.
HUD plans to shut its offices and furlough workers for seven days spread out over the summer because of the budget cuts. The furlough days will either precede a federal holiday or be on a Friday or Monday.
"When selecting its furlough days, HUD did so in a way in which impacts to the mission of the agency and to the general public would be minimized," said Melanie Roussell, a spokeswoman.
The furloughs have frustrated many in Congress, too, especially lawmakers in the Washington area who represent a disproportionate number of federal employees.
"Congress has failed the 115,000 federal workers being furloughed today, many of whom have children in college, mortgages and car payments. Our federal workers did not cause this mess. It's unfair they must bear the brunt of our dysfunction," said Rep. James Moran, D-Va.
There was another reminder on Friday of the budget cuts. Missing from the promotion ceremony and pageantry at the U.S. Naval Academy where Obama delivered the commencement address was the Navy's Blue Angels aerobatic team. Budget cuts led to the cancellation of their program.
___
Associated Press writers Richard Lardner, Andrew Miga, Matthew Daly and Sam Hananel contributed to this report.
In parts of the southeastern US, aggressive fire ants have been driven out by an even more recent arrival, the tawny crazy ant. Edward LeBrun, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, describes the newcomers and how one invasive species can out-invade another.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday the Syrian government had agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference proposed by Russia and the United States, and criticized what it called attempts to undermine peace efforts.
"Damascus has expressed its readiness in principle to participate in the international conference in order for Syrians themselves to find a political path to a solution," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said after talks in Moscow on Wednesday the government would soon decide whether to take part in the conference aimed at bringing government and opposition representatives together for talks.
Lukashevich said international action including a May 15 U.N. General Assembly resolution that praised the opposition and condemned President Bashar al-Assad's forces has "essentially pushed (the opposition) to reject negotiations".
Russia has shielded Assad during the more than two-year-old conflict that has killed at least 80,000 people, opposing sanctions against Syria, delivering arms and blocking, with China, three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions.
(Reporting by Thomas Grove; Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
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Many times, you actually have an option: You can continue flipping the property, or you can rent it out and use the proceeds to finance future acquisitions ? or for yourself. Which is better?
