Stopping Time

Using a stroboscope to generate extremely brief bursts of light, Massachusetts Institute of Technology electrical engineering professor Harold Edgerton photographed this splash made by a drop of milk in 1957. Edgerton?s stop-action pictures, created as scientific experiments, made it possible to observe movements and interactions too fast to be seen by the human eye. By studying the milk-drop images, Edgerton learned, for example, that the shape of the coronet was determined by the size of the drop, the height from which it fell, and the thickness of the film of milk on the surface from a previous drop.

Image: Harold Edgerton/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=c2a11e77b63c5d356f669da7236fc1d2

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Apple prepara dos nuevos iPad para completar la gama

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Microbial communities on skin affect humans' attractiveness to mosquitoes

Thursday, December 29, 2011

The microbes on your skin determine how attractive you are to mosquitoes, which may have important implications for malaria transmission and prevention, according to a study published Dec. 28 in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Without bacteria, human sweat is odorless to the human nose, so the microbial communities on the skin play a key role in producing each individual's specific body odor. The researchers, led by Niels Verhulst of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, conducted their experiments with the Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto mosquito, which plays an important role in malaria transmission. They found that individuals with a higher abundance but lower diversity of bacteria on their skin were more attractive to this particular mosquito. They speculate individuals with more diverse skin microbiota may host a selective group of bacteria that emits compounds to interfere with the normal attraction of mosquitoes to their human hosts, making these individuals less attractive, and therefore lower risk to contracting malaria. This finding may lead to the development of personalized methods for malaria prevention.

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Verhulst NO, Qiu YT, Beijleveld H, Maliepaard C, Knights D, et al. (2011) Composition of Human Skin Microbiota Affects Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes. PLoS ONE 6(12): e28991. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028991

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116342/Microbial_communities_on_skin_affect_humans__attractiveness_to_mosquitoes

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South Texas lost 13 troops to war in 2011

The San Antonio Express-News publishes a tribute each year to the military men and women from South Texas who died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2011, 10 died in Afghanistan and three died in Iraq.

Jeff Ausborn

Air Force Maj. Jeff Ausborn's interests were his wife and five children, flying, and Alabama football.

Ausborn, a T-1 Jayhawk instructor pilot at Randolph AFB, called home every day while he was in Afghanistan to talk to his wife, Suzanna, a retired Air Force captain.

Ausborn, 41, was among nine Americans killed in Kabul on April 27, when an Afghan pilot opened fire on them during a meeting.

He was born and raised in Gadsden, Ala., where he first dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. He was a computer science major at the University of Alabama, where he received a full scholarship.

Thomas Andrew Bohall

Army Sgt. Thomas Andrew Bohall was known to friends on the Reagan High School soccer team as ?The Rev? and ?Coach Bohall? because of the spirited exhortations he'd yell from the sidelines.

In 2005, after finishing first in his division in a marathon run in Kansas, Bohall was approached by a recruiter in Army special operations. He served twice in Iraq and was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he was killed May 26 by an explosive in Kandahar province.

Army officials said Bohall, 25, a member of the 101st Airborne Division, was in exceptional shape.

His survivors include his wife Jessica and young daughter.

John Felix Farias

Marine Lance Cpl. John Felix Farias used to work as a lifeguard at the Comal River for the city of New Braunfels, guarding tubers during the summer.

Farias, 20, was killed June 28 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, while on combat operations.

Mourners lined the streets as his casket was carried in a motorcade through town. Many attended a memorial service at Canyon High School, where he played defensive end.

More than 1,000 people who attended his funeral heard longtime friend Chris Serna read a ?death letter? Farias had written, urging his parents, older sister and others to be happy and laugh often.

?And I will see all of you at the pearly gates,? the letter said.

Ira Benjamin Laningham IV

Army Pfc. Ira Benjamin Laningham IV of Zapata was the first South Texas soldier to die in the war in Afghanistan in 2011.

Laningham, 22, was killed in Logar Province on Jan. 7, when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.

While attending Zapata High School, he played the trumpet and honored fallen soldiers by performing taps at military funerals.

He told his family he was going to be a lifer and had aspirations to become an Army Ranger.

Laningham married Stephanie Armendariz, also a soldier. He told her if anything happened to him not to cry, because he was doing something he loved.

Corey Owens

Relatives said that after Airman 1st Class Corey Owens graduated from the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen in 2003 he moved to San Antonio and fell in love with the city and the people.

Owens, 26, died Feb. 17 at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq of noncombat-related injuries, according to the Department of Defense. He enlisted in the Air Force in 2008 and trained to become an installation patrolman.

His family buried him at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery to be near his two daughters, who live in San Antonio with his ex-wife. He also is survived by his wife, Misty.

He considered his parents heroes.

Rodolfo Rodriguez

Sgt. Rodolfo Rodriguez Jr. of Pharr was on his first combat tour in Afghanistan, following three in Iraq, when insurgents in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, attacked his unit with a makeshift bomb.

He died of injuries sustained in the attack on Sept. 14, leaving behind a wife, Melissa, and two children. He was 26.

Rodriguez was remembered as a sincere and devoted leader who worked his men hard but wasn't afraid to joke around, carrying the same drive he'd shown as a star basketball player at Weslaco High School into his career in the military.

Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt

Marine Lance Cpl. Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt, a skilled marksman and scout sniper, got a standing ovation when he came home last year and appeared at an Alamo Heights football game.

Schmidt, 24, died on Oct. 6 in Afghanistan. His mother said the Marine Corps determined he was killed by ?friendly fire.?

The Alamo Heights High School graduate, a former defensive back for the Mules, had volunteered to return for a second tour of Afghanistan because he cared about his fellow Marines, friends and relatives said. One quote posted on his Facebook page was, ?Let there be songs to fill the air!?

Glenn Sewell

Family members remember there was no other job for Sgt. Glenn Sewell of Live Oak than serving his country as a soldier. He ?was guts and glory, he was all about being a soldier,? a cousin said.

Sewell, 23, was killed June 13, when a roadside bomb exploded near his armored vehicle in Wasit province in eastern Iraq.

A 2006 graduate of Judson High School, he played guitar and was known for his sense of humor.

He had served one tour in Afghanistan before he deployed to Iraq. His relatives said he was excited about returning to the war. He told his aunt, Pat Barrett, ?he needed to go back and help his friends.?

Omar Soltero

Gustavo Soltero said his son, Spec. Omar Soltero, always wanted to join the Army and ?fight the bad guys.?

Soltero, 28, died Jan. 31 after he was wounded during a roadside attack by insurgents in Wardak province in central Afghanistan.

He had enlisted about 10 years ago and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team

One of four children, Soltero sometimes talked to his father about the dangers he faced in Afghanistan, but he still wanted to be there. He never forgot his lineage and had a bicultural pride, his family said. But ?he loved his country,? Gustavo Soltero said. ?That's about all there is to say.?

Benjamin A. Stevenson

Master Sgt. Benjamin A. Stevenson, a Smithson Valley High School graduate, was on his 10th combat deployment when he died July 21 in Afghanistan after his unit came under attack in Paktika province.

A native of Albany, N.Y., Stevenson, 36, listed Canyon Lake as his home of record. He joined the Army in 1993 and passed his Special Forces qualification in 2000.

He served seven tours of Iraq and was on his third deployment to Afghanistan, assigned to the Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Stevenson, survived by his wife Heather and two young sons, was buried at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in North Carolina.

Steven Luna Talamantez

Sgt. Steven Luna Talamantez had helped build the Grand Hyatt downtown before he joined the Army and became an M1 Abrams tank crewman.

Talamantez, 34, was killed by indirect enemy fire in Maysan province on July 10, during his second tour of Iraq. The San Antonio native had a wife, Sandra, and two children.

At his funeral, Talamantez was eulogized as a class comedian among his troops, even though he possessed ?exceptional integrity,? Maj. Gen. David Rubenstein told mourners.

?He was always proud to be a soldier, and proud of his country and what it stands for,? Rubenstein said of Talamantez.

Charles J. Wren

Army Spc. Charles J. Wren, remembered as the ?Cheer Man? at Hondo High School, died of wounds suffered in an April 16 attack by insurgents in Nimroz province, Afghanistan.

Wren, 25, was one of three Fort Drum soldiers to die in the attack. He was survived by a wife, Klaryssa, and his two brothers.

Wren's home of record is Beeville, though he was born in Austin and spent most of his life in Hondo.

The ?Cheer Man? nickname came from his persona at pep rallies. But ?Chaz,? as many called him, also was remembered for bravery and strength amid hard knocks that included the loss of both of his parents.

Andres Zerme?o

1st Lt. Andres Zerme?o had shown promise as a boy growing up in the Rio Grande Valley. He attended the Science Academy of South Texas in Mercedes, and taught himself how to play the guitar.

After coming to San Antonio and earning a degree in psychology at St. Mary's University, he joined the Army and became known for tackling tough tasks and seeing them through.

On Sept. 25, about a month before his first tour of Afghanistan was to end, Zerme?o, 26, was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Wardak province. He was survived by his wife Rachel and two young children.

He was buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Staff writers Scott Huddleston, Vincent T. Davis and Lynn Brezosky contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/South-Texas-lost-13-troops-to-war-in-2011-2429927.php

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Top Five Energy Industry Stories of 2011 (ContributorNetwork)

Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown: The Associated Press reported on December 27 that the towns near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant are now ghost towns, left to wandering cows and stray dogs. On March 11, 2011, the area was hit by a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami. The events caused a nuclear meltdown at the plant that subsequently led to worldwide concern over the safety of nuclear energy and calls for safety measures on new reactors that would help them to withstand the most rare and unimaginable circumstances. Like a 9.0 earthquake.

Solyndra: According to a December 27 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, when California solar startup, Solyndra, shut the doors of its brand new, $528 million federally-funded factory doors and fired its staff late August, the accusations flew. Investigations into the company's bankruptcy led to the discovery of federal loans that were granted due to political ties inside the Energy Department and the White House, preferential treatment, and a rushed approval of a project with questionable potential.

Keystone XL: After the Obama Administration made the decision to delay approval of a project permit for TransCanada's pipeline, which would tie Canadian oil sands to Texas refineries, the issue became a late-year political football. According to a December 23 Reuters article, Obama recently signed into law a temporary payroll tax extension that forces his decision on the pipeline to be made within 60 days. However, with environmentalists opposing the line and Obama facing an election year in which he needs the support of environmentalists, some - including White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer say that the bill forcing Obama's hand on Keystone will ultimately kill the project.

Fracking: It has been considered a shining star for companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger. That is until the EPA released a draft report in which it blamed fracking fluids for the chemicals found in a Wyoming community's groundwater. Now, according to a mid-December article in Forbes, concerns over the damage that hydraulic fracturing may (or may not) cause - including water pollution, as well as seismic activity - has become a headache-inducing PR problem for oilfield services companies. With new fracking regulations in Colorado and Texas, public meetings to consider the issue in New York and the brink of an oil boom in the communities of the vast Marcellus Shale region, the pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing have become common conversation.

EPA Regulations: There was no shortage this year of discussions about the looming EPA regulations aimed at controlling pollution from coal-fired power plants in the U.S. According to a December 22 report from ABC's Good Morning America, health campaigners were praising the regulations, which would reportedly prevent such things as childhood asthma and bronchitis. However, industry officials were condemning the same regulations for imposing costly upgrades on power plants across the country and forcing the shutdown of older plants.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111229/bs_ac/10759409_top_five_energy_industry_stories_of2011

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New Drugs Raise Hope for Patients With M.S.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]After decades of research, a rapid rollout of sophisticated treatments is changing how the disease is managed.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=99bffdda86c85e61e8ed0951fd6a45e0

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Best Weird Animal Photos 2011 (PHOTOS)

This orphaned cat -- named Kitler -- couldn't get adopted in July because the dark fur under her nose resembled the moustache of Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler. Finding felines that bear a striking similarity to Der Fuhrer became a semi-popular internet meme with websites like "Cats That Look Like Hitler" popping up.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/best-weird-animal-photos-2011-_n_1151716.html

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Turkey angered by French bill to criminalize 'Armenian genocide denial'

The French parliament is expected to pass a bill Thursday dealing with the 1915 killing of Armenians in present-day Turkey.? Any denial could result in a one-year jail term and a $58,000 fine. Turkey is furious.

Nearly 100 years have elapsed since the killing of thousands of Armenians, but the wounds seem far from healed.

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The French parliament is to vote on a bill on Thursday making it illegal to deny that the 1915 killing of Armenians during World War I was genocide.? The bill, which is expected to pass, provides for a one-year prison term and a fine of $58,000 (45,000 euros) to anyone who publicly denies it was genocide.?

The vote in the French National Assembly has stirred a diplomatic frenzy and French and Turkish politicians are jumping into the fray.?

?This proposed law targets and is hostile to the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish nation and the Turkish community living in France,? Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister wrote in a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Reuters reports.?

During a Saturday news conference, Mr. Erdogan suggested that France ought to investigate her own role and actions in colonial Africa, including Rwanda.?

Turkey maintains that the proposed bill is a political ploy by Sarkozy's political party to win the votes of 500,000 Armenians in France ahead of next year?s parliamentary and presidential elections. Sarkozy has also been an outspoken opponent of Turkey desire to join the European Union.

Jean Leonetti, the European Affairs Minister of France, dismisses such allegations and says that opposition Socialists will endorse the bill as well. ??It has been nearly 100 years since the Armenian genocide took place, those responsible are dead, it is simply a matter of recognizing a fact of history,? he told Radio Classique, The Telegraph in London reports.

Ersin Onulduran, chairman of the department of international relations at Ankara University, told Today's Zaman, a Turkish daily, that ?only historians and archival experts should pass judgment on the merits of historical events.?

Although there is little consensus, Armenians say that about 1.5 million people were killed during the mass deportations of 1915-16.

The Turkish government acknowledges the death of many Armenians, yet, it denies that Ottoman forces deliberately exterminated them.?? Turkey considers the numbers as inflated and says that Turks were also killed due to the upheaval that followed the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. ?

Many Turks, disappointed and disillusioned by European delays over entry into the EU, are now embracing a more assertive rhetoric.

?I want to state clearly that such steps will have grave consequences for future relations between Turkey and France in political, economic, cultural and all areas,? Erdogan said according to Reuters.? While Turkey implicitly threatens to boycott French products if the bill passes, it has ruled out imposing trade sanctions.

So far this year, bilateral trade between Turkey and France is estimated at more than $13.5 billion.? About 1,000 French companies operate in Turkey.

"We have to remember international rules and with regard to Turkey it's a member of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and is linked to the European Union by a customs union and these two commitments mean a non-discriminatory policy towards all companies within the European Union," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero, Reuters reports.

In 2006, a similar bill was introduced and approved by the French National Assembly but was later dropped by the Senate.? In France, any legislative initiative requires the endorsement of both parliament and the Senate to be enacted.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/RNn13R951rM/Turkey-angered-by-French-bill-to-criminalize-Armenian-genocide-denial

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Police in Berkeley end overnight Occupy camping (Reuters)

BERKELEY, Calif (Reuters) ? A camp of anti-Wall Street protesters in Berkeley, California, has all but vanished under pressure from police, who have returned repeatedly to enforce a nighttime curfew, authorities said on Friday.

The Occupy Berkeley camp in the liberal Northern California college town was one of a dwindling number of similar sites where protesters camped overnight on public property.

Police in Berkeley made two arrests of people who refused to leave Civic Center Park on Thursday night, following another two arrests the night before, but most protesters left voluntarily, said Berkeley Police Lieutenant Andrew Greenwood.

Police leafleted the Occupy Berkeley camp on Wednesday, warning they would no longer tolerate violation of an ordinance that closes city parks between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. As a result, many protesters began packing up their tents.

The camp, which had about 50 tents at its height, had become increasingly violent, police said. And protesters told Reuters there were conflicts within their ranks as mentally ill people took up residence.

By Thursday afternoon, most tents were gone and public works employees guarded by police picked up tents and other items left behind, Greenwood said.

Protesters returned on Friday morning and pitched three tents. "It has been made clear to them that they will have to be out of there by 10 p.m.," Greenwood said.

The Occupy movement, which argues the U.S. economic system is unfair with too much wealth and power held by a few, began in New York in September and quickly spread to other cities.

But many of the encampments have since been cleared by authorities, often on the basis that they had become unsanitary or had growing safety and crime problems.

(Reporting by Laird Harrison: Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111224/us_nm/us_protests_berkeley

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Tax cut survives: Congress votes holiday approval (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Barely beating Santa's sleigh, Congress delivered a last-minute holiday tax-cut extension to 160 million American wage-earners on Friday, just when it looked like they and millions of unemployed workers were going to be left with coal in their stockings.

It was a major yearend political victory for President Barack Obama, a big slice of humble pie for House Republicans and a blow to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who'll have an angry band of tea party lawmakers to deal with when Congress returns to Washington next month.

Back-to-back voice vote approvals of the two-month special measure by the Senate and House came in mere seconds with no debate, just days after House Republican leaders had insisted that reopening negotiations on a full-year bill was the only way to persuade them to prevent a tax increase on Jan. 1.

Obama immediately signed the bill into law.

"I said it was critical for Congress not to go home without preventing a tax increase on 160 million working Americans and I'm pleased to say that they got it done," a buoyant looking Obama said at the White House before dashing off for his delayed holiday vacation to his home state of Hawaii.

Actually most lawmakers were long gone. A token few showed up to make approval official.

The legislation buys time for talks early next year on how to finance the year-long extensions ? negotiations that promise to be contentious, especially if Democrats continue to use Obama's jobs agenda to seek a political edge in the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns.

The measure will keep in place a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax ? worth about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year ? and prevent almost 2 million unemployed people from losing jobless benefits averaging $300 a week. Doctors will win a reprieve from a 27 percent cut in their Medicare payments, the product of a 1997 cut that Congress has been unable to permanently fix.

Republicans did claim a major victory, winning a provision that would require Obama to make a swift decision on whether to approve construction of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, which could generate thousands of construction jobs. To stop construction, Obama, who had wanted to put the decision off until after the 2012 election, would have to declare it was not in the nation's interest.

On Friday, an expressionless Boehner read from a piece of paper before him, gaveled the House's last session of the year closed and stepped off the podium on the Democratic side.

Boehner had been open to the Senate's version of the legislation a week ago, even though it would have punted the issue into February and given Democrats a proven political issue. But tea party forces and some in his own leadership revolted, insisting on picking a holiday fight with Democrats, and Boehner felt no choice but to go along.

The battle turned out to be a loser for House Republicans, earning the ire of swing voters and many in the GOP establishment, but when Boehner capitulated on Thursday he then felt the lash from hard-core conservatives.

"Even though there is plenty of evidence this is a bad deal for America ... the House has caved yet again to the president and Senate Democrats," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada did a victory lap, twisting the knife into tea party Republicans.

"I hope this Congress has had a very good learning experience, especially those who are newer to this body," Reid said. "Everything we do around here does not have to wind up in a fight."

A full-year extension of the tax cut had been embraced by virtually every lawmaker in both the House and Senate but had been derailed in a quarrel over demands by House Republicans. Senate leaders of both parties had tried to barter their own yearlong agreement a week ago but failed, instead agreeing upon a 60-day measure to buy time for talks next year.

House GOP arguments about the legislative process and what the "uncertainty" of a two-month extension would mean for businesses seemed lame to many people when compared to the consequences of raising taxes and cutting off jobless benefits in the middle of the holiday season, and Obama and the Democrats were hard on the offensive. House Republicans finally resorted to a technical fix and the fact that Reid would name negotiators on the GOP's yearlong measure as reasons to reverse course and embrace the Senate measure.

Friday's House and Senate sessions were remarkable. Both chambers had essentially recessed for the year, but leaders in both parties orchestrated passage of the short-term agreement under debate rules that would allow any individual member of Congress to derail the pact, at least for a time. None did.

The developments were a clear win for Obama. The payroll tax cut was the centerpiece of his three-month, campaign-style drive for jobs legislation that seems to have contributed to an uptick in his poll numbers ? and taken a toll on those of congressional Republicans.

The two-month version's $33 billion cost will be covered by a 0.1 percentage point increase on guarantee fees on new home loans backed by mortgage giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae ? at a likely cost of about $17 a month for a homeowner with a $200,000 mortgage.

The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was a driving force behind the final agreement, imploring Boehner to accept the deal that McConnell and Reid had struck last week and passed with overwhelming support in both parties.

Even though GOP leaders including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., promised that the two sides could quickly iron out their differences, the truth is that it will take intense talks to figure out both the spending cuts and fee increases required to finance the longer measure.

Republicans want to shorten the maximum length of unemployment benefits from 99 to 79 weeks, freeze the pay of federal civilian workers and make federal workers contribute more into their pensions ? all ideas considered by the failed debt "supercommittee" this fall. The main provisions of the yearlong House measure cost about $200 billion, and the final version could cost more.

Reid signaled a hard line for the House-Senate talks by assigning Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. ? a strong advocate for federal workers ? to the Democratic negotiating team.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111223/ap_on_go_co/us_payroll_tax

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Man stabbed on East Main Street in Rochester (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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FOR KIDS: Science fair as a family affair

Parents share their tips on helping kids prepare for a science fair

Web edition : Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

As temperatures drop and days grow shorter, middle and high school students across the country begin gearing up for science fair season. While these competitions typically take place in the spring, the qualifying projects can take several weeks or even months to plan, carry out and summarize. That means late fall and early winter are an ideal time for students to start brainstorming project ideas.? ?

But science fair planning can overwhelm many students. Some become intimidated at the prospect of designing a project that?s never been done before. For others, this event may be their first experience in long-term project coordination. And for parents, it?s often a time spent wondering how best to help their children without taking over the project themselves.

The good news is that a student?s own interests can lay the groundwork for a great science fair project. And by knowing what those interests are, parents often can help steer students toward projects that will prove personally meaningful and rewarding.

Visit the new?Science News for Kids?website?and read the full story:?Science fair as a family affair

Found in: Science News For Kids

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337063/title/FOR_KIDS_Science_fair_as_a_family_affair

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China probing blast at Apple supplier factory

SHANGHAI (AP) ? Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion over the weekend that injured dozens of people at the Shanghai factory of a supplier to Apple Inc.

The government formed an investigation group and ordered safety checks at the Riteng Computer Accessory Co. factory, a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple supplier Pegatron Corp., said Gan Shanjun, an official in the information office in Shanghai's Songjiang district.

Critics have taken Cupertino, California-based Apple to task for alleged violations of labor and environmental standards by its China-based suppliers, and the company has said it is working to resolve such problems.

Local media reported that 61 people were hurt by the blast and more than 20 of them hospitalized, but none suffered life-threatening injuries.

"Our hearts go out to the people who were hurt in Songjiang. We are working closely with Pegatron to understand the cause of this accident," said Carolyn Wu, a spokeswoman for Apple in China.

She would not comment further. Apple provides little if any information about its suppliers in China.

Pegatron, in a statement, said the blast occurred in dust collection equipment. Its staff also said they would not make further comment.

The New York-based group China Labor watch said the explosion occurred when aluminum dust from polishing cases for iPads caught fire.

A similar explosion occurred in May at a factory of electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group. Three people died and 15 were hurt due to what Foxconn said was "an explosion of combustible dust in a duct" at the plant in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

Aluminum dust is highly combustible, according to the U.S. Occupational Health & Safety Administration, and some experts have stressed the need to take special precautions in making Apple's trademark shiny metallic cases.

___

Researcher Fu Ting contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-12-20-AS-China-Apple-Factory-Explosion/id-06db9df604c347ac920834935a4ad3e2

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House GOP leaders want new payroll tax cut bill (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Top House Republicans rebelled Sunday against a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months, reigniting a politically fueled holiday-season clash that had seemed all but doused.

The House GOP defiance cast uncertainty over how quickly Congress would forestall a tax increase otherwise heading straight at 160 million workers beginning New Year's Day. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it could be finished within two weeks, which suggested that lawmakers might have to spend much of their usual holiday break battling each other in the Capitol.

A day after rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers used a conference call to spew venom against the Senate-passed bill, Boehner said he opposed the legislation and wanted congressional bargainers to craft a new, year-long version.

"The president said we shouldn't be going anywhere without getting our work done," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press," referring to President Barack Obama's oft-repeated promise to postpone his Christmastime trip to Hawaii if the legislation was not finished. "Let's get our work done, let's do this for a year."

A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the House would vote Monday to either request formal bargaining with the Senate or to make the legislation "responsible and in line with the needs of hard-working taxpayers and middle-class families."

Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon did not specify what those changes might be, beyond a longer-lasting bill. Boehner, though, expressed support for "reasonable reductions in spending" in a House-approved payroll tax bill and for provisions that blocked Obama administration anti-pollution rules.

Democrats leaped at what they saw as a chance to champion lower- and middle-income Americans by accusing Republicans of threatening a wide tax increase unless their demands are met. If Congress doesn't act, workers would see their take-home checks cut by 2 percentage points beginning Jan. 1, when this year's 4.2 percent payroll tax reverts to its normal 6.2 percent.

"By holding up this bipartisan compromise, tea party House Republicans are walking away once again, showing their extremism and clearly demonstrating that they never intended to give the middle class a tax cut," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the Nevada Democrat would be "happy to continue negotiating a yearlong extension as soon as the House passes the Senate's short-term, bipartisan compromise to make sure middle-class families will not be hit by a thousand-dollar tax hike on January 1."

Keeping this year's 2 percentage point payroll tax cut in effect through 2012 would produce $1,000 in savings for a family earning $50,000 a year. The two-month version would be worth about $170 for the same household.

On Saturday, the Senate voted 89-10 for its legislation, which was negotiated by Senate Republican and Democratic leaders and backed by solid majorities of senators from both parties. It would provide a two-month extension of the payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits and prevent scheduled 27-percent cuts to doctors' Medicare reimbursements during that period, reductions that could convince physicians to stop treating elderly patients covered by the program.

That measure was praised by Obama, and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., expressed optimism that the measure would become law. Initial bills produced by both sides lasted for a year, but negotiators working on the final product could not agree to savings that would finance such a measure, likely to cost roughly $200 billion.

Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Senate leader, said Boehner had asked McConnell and Reid to negotiate a compromise, seemingly suggesting that Boehner had walked away from a deal. Republicans said that is untrue and said the House GOP played no role in last week's bargaining between the Senate leaders.

The Senate bill included language cherished by Republicans giving Obama 60 days to approve an oil pipeline stretching from western Canada's tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, unless he declared the project hurt the national interest. GOP leaders had thought that provision would assure enough votes to pass the overall legislation.

Obama had previously said he was delaying a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until 2013, allowing him to wait until after next November's elections to choose between unions favoring the project's thousands of jobs and environmentalists opposed to its potential pollution and massive energy use. Obama initially threatened to kill the payroll tax bill if it included the pipeline language but eventually retreated.

Despite the Keystone provision, House Republicans used a Saturday conference call to express anger about the Senate bill and frustration that their leaders seemed willing to agree to the compromise, participants said. Many demanded a return to some of the House bill's spending cuts, including reductions in Obama's health care overhaul law of last year, and several expressed a willingness to work through the holidays to revamp the legislation, Republicans said.

Though GOP leaders support extending the payroll tax and jobless benefits, some House Republicans question doing that, arguing it won't produce jobs and could weaken Social Security. The payroll tax, subtracted from workers' paychecks, is used to finance Social Security.

The White House said little about the House GOP's demands.

"I really think it is very unlikely that the House would disrupt this overwhelming compromise six days before Christmas," Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111218/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_rdp

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WikiLeaks founder granted extradition appeal in UK

FILE - This is a Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he talks during a news conference in central London. As the suspected source for the biggest leak of intelligence material in American history faces his first hearing Friday Dec. 15 ,2011, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: The man who disclosed the documents to the world. When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

FILE - This is a Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he talks during a news conference in central London. As the suspected source for the biggest leak of intelligence material in American history faces his first hearing Friday Dec. 15 ,2011, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: The man who disclosed the documents to the world. When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

LONDON (AP) ? Britain's Supreme Court said Friday it had agreed to hear WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations.

The court said a panel of three judges had considered a written submission and granted a two-day appeal beginning on Feb. 1, meaning there is no prospect of Assange being sent to Stockholm until at least next year.

In a statement, the court said it had "decided that seven justices will hear the appeal given the great public importance of the issue raised, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority."

Assange's legal team argue that police and prosecutors ? like the Swedish prosecutor seeking to bring Assange back to the country for questioning ? are not a proper judicial authority, and shouldn't have the right to order extraditions.

Earlier this month, High Court judges John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley said Assange could apply to the Supreme Court to argue that point and seek to prove that Europe's process of carrying out extradition was flawed.

However, Thomas warned Assange that his chance of success "may be extraordinarily slim."

Assange ? who leads the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website ? was accused of rape, coercion and molestation following encounters with two Swedish women in August 2010. Swedish authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant on rape and molestation accusations, and Assange was arrested in London in December 2010.

The 40-year-old denies wrongdoing and is currently held on bail on the condition that he lives under curfew at a supporter's country estate in eastern England and wears an electronic tag.

Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer in Sweden representing the two women, said the decision would cause more strain for his clients ? and predicted Assange would eventually face extradition.

"It is stressful for my clients that there is yet another extension," Borgstrom told AP by telephone.

"I assume that the Supreme Court will rule that Assange should be extradited according to the European Arrest warrant. If not, you can scrap it," he said.

In a hearing in London in February, Judge Howard Riddle had ruled that Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face questions about the allegations, rejecting his claims that he would not receive a fair trial there.

Assange appealed to the High Court, and will now take his legal battle to the country's highest legal authority, the Supreme Court. The hearing will be his last avenue in Britain to avoid extradition, though lawyers have said they could consider a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

___

Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockhom contributed to this report

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-16-EU-WikiLeaks/id-ed8446e70ce24849801be5bb417b9067

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New Paraguay police chief to focus on rebels (AP)

ASUNCION, Paraguay ? Paraguay's new police commissioner says he'll be focusing on quelling a guerrilla conflict in the north of the South American country.

Pablino Rojas says the struggle against the Paraguayan People's Army is meant to "return the tranquility of the citizenry."

Officials say the rebel group probably has no more than 40 members, but Rojas' comments demonstrate the concern it has caused. The group has attacked soldiers, kidnapped landowners and practiced extortion.

Rojas made the comments as he was sworn into his post on Friday.

Anti-kidnapping prosecutor Sandra Quinonez says the rebels were formed about 10 years ago and are supported by some small villages. She says they have received training from Colombian rebels.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_paraguay_guerrillas

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Close family ties keep microbial cheaters in check, study finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? Any multicellular animal, from a blue whale to a human being, poses a special challenge for evolution.

Most of the cells in its body will die without reproducing; only a privileged few will pass their genes to the next generation.

How could the extreme degree of cooperation required by multicellular existence actually evolve? Why aren't all creatures unicellular individualists determined to pass on their own genes?

Joan Strassmann and David Queller, evolutionary biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, provide an answer in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Experiments with amoebae that usually live as individuals, but must also join with others to form multicellular bodies to complete their life cycles, show that cooperation depends on kinship.

If amoebae occur in well-mixed cosmopolitan groups, cheaters will always be able to thrive by free-loading on their cooperative neighbors.

But if groups derive from a single cell, cheaters will usually occur in all-cheater groups and will have no cooperators to exploit.

The only exceptions are brand new cheater mutants in all-cooperator groups, and these could pose a problem if the mutation rate is high enough and there are many cells in the group to mutate.

The scientists calculated just how many times amoebae that arose from a single cell can safely divide before cooperation degenerates into a free-for-all.

The answer turns out to be 100 generations or more.

Population bottlenecks that kill off diversity and restart the population from a single cell are powerful stabilizers of cellular cooperation, the scientists conclude.

"The leap from single-celled organisms to multicelled ones was a critical step in the history of life that paved the way for the world's plants and animals, including humans," says Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research. "This study provides important clues that about the conditions necessary for that leap."

Queller and Strassmann moved to Washington University from Rice University this summer, bringing a truckload of frozen spores with them.

Although they had worked for years with wasps and stingless bees, Queller and Strassmann's current "lab rat" is the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, known as Dicty for short.

The social amoebae, better known as "slime mold," can be found almost everywhere: in Antarctica, in deserts, in the canopies of tropical forests and in Forest Park, the urban park that adjoins Washington University.

The amoebae spend most of their lives as tiny blobs crawling through soil looking for E. coli and other bacteria to eat.

Things become interesting when bacteria are scarce and the amoebae begin to starve. Then they release chemicals that attract other amoebae, which follow this trail until they bump into one another.

A mound of some 10,000 amoebae forms and elongates into a slug a few millimeters long that crawls forward, but not backward, toward heat and light.

The slug stops moving when it has reached a suitable place for dispersal. Then the front 20 percent of the amoebae die to produce a stalk that the remaining cells flow up to become spores.

The 20 percent of the amoebae in the stalk sacrifice their genes so the other 80 percent can pass theirs on.

When Strassmann and Queller began to work with Dicty, one of the first things they discovered was that the amoebae sometimes cheat.

Scientist Dennis Welker of Utah State University had given them a genetically diverse collection of wild-caught clones--genetically identical amoebae.

They mixed amoebae from two clones together, then examined the fruiting bodies to see where the clones ended up.

Each fruiting body included cells from both clones, but some clones contributed disproportionately to the spore body. They had cheated.

How can a blob of cytoplasm cheat? In more ways than you'd think.

"They might," says Queller, "have a mutation that makes an adhesion molecule less sticky, for example, so that they slide to the back of the slug, the part that forms spores."

"But there are tradeoffs," says Strassmann, "because if you're too slippery, you'll fall off the slug and lose all the advantages of being part of group."

Strassmann and Queller wondered if it would be possible to break the social contract among the amoebae by setting up conditions where relatedness was low, and each clonal lineage encountered mostly strangers and rarely relatives.

Together with then graduate student Jennie Kuzdzal-Fick, they set up an experiment to learn what happened to cheating as heterogeneous (low relatedness) populations of amoebae evolved.

"At the end of the experiment we assessed the cheating ability of the descendants by mixing equal numbers of descendants and ancestors, and checking to see whether the descendants ended up in the stalks or the spores of the fruiting bodies," says Strassmann.

They found that in nearly all cases the descendants cheated their ancestors. What's more, when descendant amoebae were grown as individual clones, about a third were unable to form fruiting bodies.

Many of the mutants, in other words, were "obligate" cheaters. Having lost the ability to form their own fruiting bodies, they were able to survive only by free-loading, or taking advantage of the amoebae that had retained the ability to cooperate.

This result, Queller and Strassmann say, shows that cheater mutations that threaten multicellularity occur naturally and are even favored--as long as the population of amoebae remains genetically diverse.

But the scientists were aware that obligate cheaters are either very rare or altogether missing among wild social amoebae. They had not found any obligate cheaters in the more than 2,000 wild clones they sampled.

They also knew that in the wild, the amoebae in fruiting bodies are close kin if not clones.

What prevents cooperation in wild populations from degenerating into the laboratory free-for-all?

Could the difference be that the amoebae in the laboratory were distant relations and those in the wild are kissing kin?

Suppose, the scientists thought, one amoeba ventured alone into a pristine field of bacteria.

As it grew and multiplied, making copies of itself, how long would it take for cheating mutations to appear or what was the mutation rate? Additionally, how successfully would these mutations proliferate--how strongly would they be selected?

To establish the mutation rate, Strassmann and Queller along with graduate student Sara Fox ran what's called a mutation accumulation experiment.

In this experiment, amoebae that mutated didn't have to compete against amoebae that were faithful replicators.

In the absence of selection, all but the most severe mutations were also reproduced and became a permanent part of the lineage's genome.

The scientists allowed 90 different lines of amoebae to accumulate mutations in this way.

"At the end," says Queller, "we found that among those 90 lines not a single one had lost the ability to fruit. So that's almost 100 lines, almost a thousand generations and 100,000 opportunities, to lose fruiting and none of them did.

"That allowed us, using statistics, to put an upper limit on the rate at which mutations turn a cooperator into an obligate cheater."

The rate was low enough that if fruiting bodies were forming in the wild from amoebae that were all descended from one spore, cheating would never be an issue.

But the scientists wanted to ask another, bigger question.

They used calculations invented for population genetics to ask how many times the amoeba could divide--theoretically--before cheating became a problem.

What if, they asked, "we let an initial single amoebae divide enough times so there would be as many of them as there are cells in a fruit fly, then transferred one amoeba and allowed it to divide until the daughter colony reached fruit fly size, and so on?

"What if we let the colonies grow to human size? To elephant size? To blue whale size? Would the cheaters bring down the whale-sized Dicty colony?"

The answer, it turned out, was no.

A whale-sized Dicty colony is not the same thing as a whale, but nonetheless the experiments suggest how organisms, over the course of evolution, have sidestepped the cheating trap and maintained the levels of cooperation multicellular bodies demand.

"A multicellular body like the human body is an incredibly cooperative thing," Queller says, "and sociobiologists have learned that really cooperative things are hard to evolve because of the potential for cheating.

"It's the single-cell bottleneck,"he says, "that generates the high relatedness among the cells that allows them to cooperate."

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Journal Reference:

1. J. J. Kuzdzal-Fick, S. A. Fox, J. E. Strassmann, D. C. Queller. High Relatedness Is Necessary and Sufficient to Maintain Multicellularity in Dictyostelium. Science, 2011; 334 (6062): 1548 DOI: 10.1126/science.1213272

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/xhM6ZKGsntk/111216112901.htm

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PFT: Bears' Hurd's clients reportedly NFL players

Getty Images

I?ve had a chance to fully digest the five-page criminal complaint filed today against Bears receiver Sam Hurd.? The document reveals that Hurd submitted to a consensual interview with federal authorities in July 2011 ? but Hurd allegedly kept on buying and selling cocaine and marijuana, in large amounts.

On July 27, a person known only as T.L. allegedly was attempting to purchase four kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd.? T.L. wanted to buy the cocaine at an early hour, because Hurd would be taking it to a ?northern destination.?

Coincidentally ? or otherwise ? Hurd signed with the Bears on July 29.? Training camp opened in Illinois on July 30.

After a confidential informant arranged to sell the cocaine to T.L., but before the transaction was completed, the authorities arranged a routine traffic stop, at which time $88,000 was seized.? T.L. told authorities that the car and the money belonged to Hurd.

On July 28, one day before the Bears gave Hurd a $1.35 million signing bonus as part of a three-year contract, Hurd engaged in a consensual interview with federal authorities, in an effort to recover his $88,000.? Hurd said he had conducted bank withdrawals and wire transfers, and that T.L. had the car containing the money because T.L. was performing maintenance and detailing on the vehicle.

Hurd provided federal authorities with a bank statement reflecting the withdrawals.? The statement and the amounts allegedly did not match.

At that point, a normal person would have been scared straight.? (Then again, a normal person would never have been trying to buy four kilograms of cocaine.)? Roughly two weeks later, however, T.L. negotiated with the same informant the purchase of five kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd.? The discussions apparently continued in early September, but the transaction apparently was not consummated at the time.

Then, in early December, T.L. told the informant that Hurd wanted to meet personally with the informant to discuss further business.? Conversations between T.L. and the informant culminated in Wednesday?s meeting at Morton?s Steakhouse in Rosemont.? At the meeting, Hurd told the informant and an undercover officer that Hurd wanted to buy five to ten kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week.? The undercover agent eventually gave Hurd a kilogram of cocaine.? Hurd left the restaurant with the cocaine, and he was arrested in his car.

The criminal complaint raises significant questions regarding the three-month lag in communications between September and December between T.L. and the informant.? It seems odd that Hurd would have so quickly found someone in Chicago who could supply four kilograms of cocaine per week, while struggling to finalize a single transaction with the informant in Dallas.? It could be that Hurd was lying about the current breadth of his operations, in the hopes of securing the trust and respect of the people with whom he was still dealing in Texas.

Given the clumsy manner in which Hurd handled the $88,000 that was seized only a day or so before he received $1.35 million from the Bears, common sense suggests that, if he were buying four kilograms of cocaine per week from someone in Chicago, it will be easy to collect enough evidence to prove that Hurd was buying and selling that amount of drugs.

Time will tell whether Hurd was indeed trafficking that much cocaine per week.? For now, though, there?s a chance that Hurd has been operating less like Heisenberg and more like Jesse Pinkman.? (Bitch.)

Though it won?t allow Hurd to avoid charges arising from his apparent receipt with intent to distribute of one kilogram of cocaine from an undercover officer, it could mean that he isn?t quite the kingpin that he painted himself to be last night.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/15/report-hurds-drug-clients-included-many-nfl-players/related/

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White House says no veto of defense bill

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services, left, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. From left are, McCain, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services, left, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. From left are, McCain, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, center, flanked by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and fellow committee member Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

From right, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, confer before a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House on Wednesday abandoned its threat that President Barack Obama would veto a defense bill over provisions on how to handle suspected terrorists as Congress raced to finish the legislation.

Press secretary Jay Carney said last-minute changes that Obama and his national security team sought produced legislation that "does not challenge the president's ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the American people."

Based on the modifications, "the president's senior advisers will not recommend a veto," the White House said.

The statement came just moments after the House wrapped up debate on the $662 billion bill that would authorize money for military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and national security programs in the Energy Department in the budget year that began Oct. 1.

The House was expected to vote for the measure later Wednesday. The Senate planned to wrap up the bill in the evening and send it to Obama.

The White House had threatened a veto over the detainee provisions. Specifically, the bill would require that the military take custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and who is involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. There is an exemption for U.S. citizens.

House and Senate negotiators announced late Monday that they had modified that provision. They added language that says nothing in the bill will affect "existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency" with regard to a captured suspect, "regardless of whether such ... person is held in military custody."

The bill also says the president can waive the provision based on national security.

"While we remain concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counterterrorism professionals, the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country's strength," Carney said.

Uncertainty was a major concern of FBI Director Robert Mueller who expressed serious reservations about the detainee provisions.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller said a coordinated effort by the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement has weakened al-Qaida and captured or killed many of its leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. He suggested that the divisive provision in the bipartisan defense bill would deny that flexibility and prove impractical.

"The statute lacks clarity with regard to what happens at the time of arrest. It lacks clarity with regard to what happens if we had a case in Lackawanna, New York, and an arrest has to be made there and there's no military within several hundred miles," Mueller said. "What happens if we have ... a case that we're investigating on three individuals, two of whom are American citizens and would not go to military custody and the third is not an American citizen and could go to military custody?"

The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.

The escalating fight over whether to treat suspects as prisoners of war or criminals has divided Democrats and Republicans, the Pentagon and Congress.

The administration insists that the military, law enforcement and intelligence officials need flexibility in the campaign against terrorism. Obama points to his administration's successes in killing bin Laden and radical Islamic cleric al-Awlaki. Republicans counter that their efforts are necessary to respond to an evolving, post-Sept. 11 threat, and that Obama has failed to produce a consistent policy on handling terror suspects.

In a reflection of the uncertainty, House members offered differing interpretations of the military custody and indefinite detention provisions and what would happen if the bill became law.

"The provisions do not extend new authority to detain U.S. citizens," House Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said during debate.

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the bill would turn "the military into a domestic police force."

Highlighting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than Obama requested and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon.

Frustrated with delays and cost overruns with the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program, lawmakers planned to require the contractor, Lockheed Martin, to cover the expense for any extra costs on the next batch and future purchases of the aircraft. The Pentagon envisions buying 2,443 planes for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, but the price could make it the most expensive program in military history ? $1 trillion.

The legislation freezes $700 million for Pakistan until the defense secretary provides Congress a report on how Islamabad is countering the threat of improvised explosive devices.

It would impose tough new penalties on Iran, targeting foreign financial institutions that do business with the country's central bank. The president could waive those penalties if he notifies Congress that it's in the interest of national security.

The bill begins a reduction in defense spending, a reality the Pentagon hasn't faced in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon spending has nearly doubled in that period, but the deficit-reduction plan that Obama and congressional Republicans backed this summer sets the Defense Department on a budget-cutting course.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and several other GOP defense hawks pledged to return to Washington next month with a plan to avoid automatic across-the-board cuts to defense required in 2013. The failure of the deficit supercommittee last month means $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, with half from defense.

Defense hawks said the 10 percent cut would hollow out the Pentagon and devastate U.S. military readiness.

____

Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-14-Congress-Defense/id-ace64ee56f59453e93d48e94603ac93c

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Vintage Ball Gown Theme Wedding

Be prepared to be captivated, because the precious pictures would guide you into a nuptial style in an extremely adoring and cozy way. Jane and Brian made acquaintance with each other at a ball, thus there is no wonder that this pair select a 1930s Jazz motif style for their upcoming wedding. The newlywed offered us a celebration together with the latest hot elements, which is apparently represented on the following in the most delightful way! Check out all minutias in the gallery.

Let us have a look at the wedding shots: as a matter of fact, I am so in love with this wedding as the style states the young pair?s traits perfectly. Jane and Brian ran into at a ball not long ago, and then Brain began to pursue Jane. Finally, they get hitched! The reason why I show fetish for this wedding is that Brian came up with vintage, and completed it in a chic yet special way.

Let us check some details first. Jane discovered her classic 1930?s wedding dress at an exclusive store in Seattle, so does her cousin?s chic dress and her mother?s gown. Plus, Jane?s veil was also customized from netting and decorations.

As for the celebration, they blended all kinds of components to conceive their ideal centerpieces. Jane and her mother weaved the red doilies, the timber was from their dwelling, the feel of cotton fabric were from Brian?s ranch, and the pair even made the wine containers as vases, what an innovative idea.

Other striking minutias were the banners for the wedding. The venue was decided right in an air journey route, thus with the aim at witnessing the planes which traveled by, Brian and Jane provided all the present banners to scream to show they were there.

Share some other joyous elements of the wedding for all of you.

The wedding was filled with the touching atmosphere of dance (with a jazz band live show!), and the wedding cake was DIY by a relative. All in all, the wedding cake was a real statement of what makes the pair being together.

Even though the weather was not as nice as we expected in that the rainfall began from the beginning of the big day, the wedding reception was filled with all kinds of colorful and brilliant lovely umbrellas. But never mind, we truly felt like we had been transported into one big gorgeous daydream.

Source: http://www.artsyweddingblog.com/vintage-ball-gown-theme-wedding

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State: Mom who shot kids, self denied food stamps (AP)

SAN ANTONIO ? A Texas woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office and staged a seven-hour standoff with police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said Tuesday.

The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, remained in critical condition Tuesday. The shooting took place at a Texas Department of Health and Human Services building in Laredo, where police said about 25 people were inside at the time.

Authorities identified the mother as Rachelle Grimmer, 38, and children Ramie and Timothy. Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza said Grimmer had recently moved to the border city from Zanesville, Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus.

Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she didn't turn in enough information, Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know what Grimmer specifically failed to provide. In addition to completing an 18-page application, families seeking state benefits also must provide documents proving their information, such as proof of employment and residency.

"We were still waiting, and if we had that, I don't know if she would still qualify or not," Goodman said.

Goodman said Grimmer's last contact with the agency appeared to be a phone call in mid-November. When the family entered the Laredo office on Monday shortly before 5 p.m., Goodman said Grimmer asked to speak to a new caseworker, and not the one whom she worked with previously.

Shortly thereafter, Goodman said, Grimmer was taken to a private room to discuss her case. She said it was there the mother revealed a gun and the standoff began.

Police negotiators stayed on the phone with Grimmer throughout the evening, but she kept hanging up, Baeza said. She allegedly told negotiators about a litany of complaints against state and federal government agencies.

Despite those complaints, Baeza said it wasn't clear what specifically triggered the standoff.

"This wasn't like a knee-jerk reaction," said Baeza, adding that Grimmer felt she was owed restitution of some sort.

Grimmer let a supervisor go unharmed around 7:45, but stayed inside the office with her children. After hanging up the phone around 11:45, police heard three shots, and a SWAT team entered the building. Inside, they found Grimmer's body and her two wounded children.

The children were "very critical" and unconscious when taken from the scene, Baeza said.

Multiple family members in Ohio and Missouri did not immediately return phone messages Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said the agency had no information on Grimmer.

A YouTube channel the family appeared to have created in 2009 includes a profile that reads, "We are Shell, Ramie and Tim. Mom, daughter 10 and son 8. We like turtles, horses, and being outside. The kids have two turtles, an alligator snapper and a red eared slider. We work on naturalizing them and try to give them the most natural setting possible."

There are no videos uploaded. Tagged as favorites are an eclectic mix of nearly two dozen videos, ranging from a solar panel installation to a live clip of the band of AC/DC. The "Hometown" category reads: "We don't have one."

Goodman credited an office supervisor, a 24-year veteran of the agency, for ensuring the release of the other employees.

"He had told her he would try to help her, and that if she would let everyone else leave, he would talk to her," Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know whether Grimmer had a job, or whether her children were covered under Medicaid or the state children's health insurance program. The family had no history with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.

The family's move from Ohio may have complicated Grimmer's application if the family had no Texas records the agency could check electronically, Goodman said. Grimmer also would have been denied benefits if she was receiving welfare assistance.

Grimmer also appeared to fall out of touch during her pursuit of food stamps. The mother originally applied July 7, but Goodman said Grimmer missed her first interview and didn't call back and reschedule for a few weeks. Her case was closed Aug. 8 for lack of a full application, Goodman said.

How much food stamp money a family receives depends on their income level. The average family on food stamps in Texas receives $294 a month.

Three months later, Grimmer called the agency's ombudsman Nov. 16 and requested a review of how her rejected case was handled. Goodman said the agency found that caseworkers acted appropriately after looking over Grimmer's file, and a supervisor called Grimmer's cell phone last Thursday to tell her the outcome. No one answered and the phone's voicemail box was full, Goodman said.

"The indications she had she was dealing with a lot of issues," Goodman said.

State welfare offices have come under scrutiny in the past for being overburdened, but Goodman said the agency has made significant strides in the past three years. She said wait times are shorter, and that Grimmer was scheduled for her initial interview just one day after applying. Grimmer didn't make the appointment, she said.

Goodman said it's not unusual for caseworkers to confront angry or confused benefit-seekers, but that it's very rare for a situation to escalate to violence.

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111207/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_welfare_shootings

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