The idea behind the Forum Avatar Sharing is to give you a place to upload all your avatars for use in the Forum. This is similar to photobucker, flickr, etc. If you click on the sample avatar you will see that it gives you the link to copy for placing in your Forum profile. If you want to share your avatars with others to use you can do so, or you can keep them private for only you to use. If anyone is creative out there and would like to make avatars for sharing the size should be 150×200 px. in order to work with The Cult Music Forum.
The Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup championship on Monday by beating the Boston Bruins in the National Hockey League’s (NHL) best-of-seven championship final. Alex Gordon had already struck out three times when he came to the plate with the bases loaded in the 10th inning. Hexabromocyclododecane, commonly known as HBCD, is a flame retardant that is starting to give a lot of green builders headaches. The eggplant stands alone, a food like no other. It deserves your respect, not as a meat substitute but as a treasure in itself. Eating healthfully is easy to do when you have the money to dine on wild Alaskan salmon, arugula and fresh raspberries. But is it is possible to eat well on a tight budget? Bipartisan letter asks Government Accountability Office to look into costs of ITER The British banking giant is making progress in shrinking its consumer loan portfolio in the United States, which has been a drag on its earnings. Fourteen teams will participate in this year’s MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator (MIT GFSA), an international entrepreneurship program that provides student entrepreneurs with the skills and resources needed to launch successful startups. The program, held from June to September 2013 and hosted at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, will bring together eight MIT student teams and six teams from universities in Canada, China, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Turkey.The MIT GFSA will provide participating student teams with up to $20,000 in grants for meeting customized milestones, as well as individual stipends, workspace and personalized instruction and guidance. The program culminates in a Demo Day to be held at MIT on Sept. 7, 2013.”We have combined the best of university and external programs to create a top-tier initiative that is uniquely suited to MIT’s mission of advancing knowledge and educating students,” said Bill Aulet, the managing director of the Martin Trust Center. “The addition of six teams from universities around the world gives our students a unique opportunity to broaden their understanding of global entrepreneurship and helps disseminate MIT’s experience and leading-edge research in entrepreneurship.”The MIT GFSA is an expansion of the MIT Founders’ Skills Accelerator, a pilot program that hosted several MIT student teams during the summer of 2012. It is a natural progression from the 40-plus courses and numerous startup competitions and entrepreneurial programs offered at MIT. The MIT GFSA will solidify students’ entrepreneurship skills and increase their effectiveness at creating new innovation-based ventures to meet the challenges of the 21st century.The eight MIT teams participating in the program (29 total team members, of which 24 are MIT students — including 10 undergraduates, 10 master’s candidates and four doctoral candidates) are: SANTIAGO, CHILE — Sebastián Piñera pledged during his presidential campaign to bring fiscal prudence to Chile, but moments before his inauguration Thursday, he received a jolting reminder of how last month’s 8.8-magnitude earthquake has shredded that promise. Scholars have long been interested in tracking “knowledge spillovers,†the way technical and intellectual advances spread among communities of researchers and innovators. And a significant body of work has shown that distance matters when it comes to the dissemination of knowledge: advances are more likely to be noted by those nearby to the advance’s origin. Now a new study co-authored by an MIT assistant professor adds a wrinkle to this issue: National and state boundaries have a distinctly limiting effect on knowledge spillovers, as revealed by an examination of roughly 30 years of data on patent citation. A patent is less likely to be cited by someone working, say, 100 miles away from its point of origin if that distance means crossing a state line, within the United States, or a country line, around the world. The spread of knowledge has a clear geopolitical shape.“When people tend to work in the same geographic areas, knowledge tends to get shared, not just within companies, but between them,†acknowledges Matt Marx, an assistant professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management. “Some people have said this is all about distance, and the closer you are, the more the knowledge is flowing. But we find that there is a state [border] effect, although it’s getting weaker over time.†More puzzlingly, however, he notes, “The country effect is getting stronger.†In a paper presenting the research, published in the journal Management Science, Marx and Jasjit Singh of Singapore’s INSEAD business school summarize their findings, based on more than 4 million citations of private-sector patents spanning the years 1975 to 2004. They conclude that citations of patents among firms are 1.3 times as likely to spread a comparable distance when within one country, and not crossing any borders; more than two times as likely to spread a comparable distance when within a U.S. state; and nearly three times as likely to spread when within one metropolitan region within a state.Simultaneous studyThe concept of tyu date to the famous economist Alfred Marshall in the 1920s, and gained considerable popularity as a subject for empirical study in the 1990s. Most of those studies, however, have examined patent data at one geographic level at a time — the country, state or metropolitan area. By looking at all three at once, the current study could compare the flow of knowledge across comparable distances, but in circumstances where the political borders varied.“It’s not just how many miles are between researchers,†Marx says. “You might think that, with the Internet, those borders shouldn’t matter. But they do.†Indeed, Marx and Singh found that patents generated within just 20 miles of a state border are considerably more likely to be cited within the state of origin than in the neighboring state. And even in the roughly 60 metropolitan areas in the United States that are situated in multiple states — such as the Cincinnati area, which is based in Ohio but also extends into Kentucky and Indiana — patents are again more likely to be cited in the state of origin.The research paper’s primary focus is on establishing the empirical landscape of knowledge flow. But Marx suggests a few reasons why knowledge spillovers take the shape they do. For one thing, he says, the still-existing but receding state-level effect in the United States could reflect increased adoption, since the 1990s, of online patent databases. Alternately, it may be that many patent citations are added, as a protective measure, by law firms with specialized local knowledge. On the international front, it is not especially hard to list possible restrictions on knowledge spillovers: “You might imagine that borders, language, currency, and immigration tend to keep people [and knowledge] in the same places,†Marx says. But there are other categories of reasons that could explain some of the phenomena, too. “It could be that U.S. industries are becoming more specialized,†Marx says. That would lead to fewer knowledge spillovers because the innovations would be less applicable among countries. As Marx notes, perspectives may also differ on the value of that knowledge flow. Local or regional political or business leaders might want to maintain the local impact of knowledge spillovers; one might also see it as an affirmation of the value of research clusters, or as a spur to create more of them in more localities. But others might prefer to see knowledge flow more easily across boundaries. “It depends where you’re sitting,†Marx says.‘Interesting, puzzling’The study is based on citation data sourced from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which include international patents filed in the United States. The cities used in the study come from a definition of metropolitan areas with surrounding commuting zones issued by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in 2003. Other scholars in the field say the findings are notable, and call for further research that can shed light on the precise dynamics shaping the flow of knowledge. “It’s an interesting paper that presents a puzzling fact,†says Olav Sorenson, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who is familiar with the findings. When it comes to the transmission of knowledge, he adds, “we had not known whether within-country borders have an effect,†but Marx and Singh “have demonstrated quite convincingly that metropolitan areas and state borders restrict the flow of information.â€And yet, Sorenson adds, “In order to determine whether it would lead to any policy recommendations, it’s crucial for us to understand the underlying mechanism†behind the effect Marx and Singh have found.For his part, Marx agrees that the paper suggests ways that follow-up research is needed by scholars in this area of study. “The role of this paper is really to establish some empirical facts and raise questions,†Marx says. “The idea is to get those facts on the table, and future work can focus on figuring out the mechanisms at work here.†Siblings chafe against their assigned family roles in Lucinda Rosenfeld’s novel. A 70-pound “cheetah†robot designed by MIT researchers may soon outpace its animal counterparts in running efficiency: In treadmill tests, the researchers have found that the robot — about the size and weight of an actual cheetah — wastes very little energy as it trots continuously for up to an hour and a half at 5 mph. The key to the robot’s streamlined stride: lightweight electric motors, set into its shoulders, that produce high torque with very little heat wasted. The motors can be programmed to quickly adjust the robot’s leg stiffness and damping ratio — or cushioning — in response to outside forces such as a push, or a change in terrain. The researchers will present the efficiency results and design principles for their electric motor at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in May. Sangbae Kim, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant ty2u MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, says achieving energy-efficiency in legged robots has proven extremely difficult. Robots such as Boston Dynamic’s “Big Dog†carry heavy gasoline engines and hydraulic transmissions, while other electrically powered robots require large battery packs, gears, force sensors and springs to coordinate the joints in a robot’s leg. All this weighty machinery can add up to significant wasted energy, particularly when a robot’s legs need to make frequent contact with the ground in order to trot or gallop. “In order to send a robot to find people or perform emergency tasks, like in the Fukushima disaster, you want it to be autonomous,†Kim says. “If it could run for more than two hours and search a large field, that would be useful. But one of the reasons why people think it’s impossible to make an electric robot that does this is because efficiencies have been pretty bad.†Kim adds that part of the challenge in powering running machines with electric motors is that such robots require a flexible response upon impact, and high power, torque and efficiency — characteristics that have historically been difficult to achieve with electric motors. Scottish actor to reprise Emcee role that won him a Tony award in 1998 – but not with Anne Hathaway as Sally BowlesLife in the Kit Kat Club is so beautiful that Alan Cumming will return to Kander and Ebb’s musical Cabaret in the role that won him a Tony award 15 years ago.However, contrary to reports, he will not be joined by Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway, who had been tipped to take the role of Sally Bowles following a one-off concert at Joe’s Pub in New York last year during which she sang several of the show’s iconic numbers. Hathaway’s publicist has denied the reports, saying that he “has no idea” what prompted the story.Cumming, though, will be saying “Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome” for a second time after composer John Kander confirmed to the New York Times that the Scottish actor would star in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival at Studio 54 next year.In 1998, Cumming played the Emcee opposite the late Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles and Ron Rifkin as Herr Schultz. All three won Tony awards for their performances, with Cumming awarded the prize for best actor in a musical. The production, directed by Sam Mendes and originally seen at the Donmar Warehouse in London, ran for six years on Broadway.In a recent interview, Cumming alluded to the project, saying, “I’m doing another show on Broadway after The Good Wife season ends. It starts rehearsals the day after my 49th birthday, so I’ll be entering my 50th year dancing my tits off and being a sexpot.” While he didn’t name the musical, he added: “It’s something I did before and we’re doing it again.”He’s currently being talked about as a potential Tony nominee in relation to his current Broadway production, the National Theatre of Scotland’s one-man Macbeth, directed by John Tiffany. Cumming has already picked up a nomination for the distinguished performance gong at the Drama League awards, alongside fellow Brits Tom Sturridge, Bertie Carvel, Vanessa Redgrave and Fiona Shaw.MusicalsBroadwayTheatreAlan CummingAnne HathawayNew YorkUnited StatesMatt Truemanguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Here’s what the Loop is reading today: Strong arms of the law — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg might be little, but she sure is tough. the Supreme Court Justice can do 20 pushups, according to this fascinating story about her trainer (who also works with Justice Elena Kagan). Read full article >> Bipartisan letter asks Government Accountability Office to look into costs of ITER Cisco announced at the Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando, Fla., today that it is now possible to patch WebEx users into Cisco telepresence conferences as full participants. “Honky,†a brash comedy by Greg Kalleres presented at Urban Stages, looks at race relations through the perspective of basketball shoe company executives. After a thin season, Sunday’s episode roared back with great one-liners and performances. Consolidation among publishers carries costs you won’t find on a price sticker. This show of work by Sopheap Pich runs across several spaces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amid all the attention paid to the role of corrupt Mexican officials in drug trafficking, a similar problem on the U.S. side of the border has been growing. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa said on Thursday that doctors had told him that Nelson Mandela’s condition had improved and that he was “now stable.†For years, a battle between the need to fill the holes in the family narrative during World War II and a duty to keep silent. In most flood affected areas entire village economies were dependent on
[Translate]
Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey has long wanted to join the Senate, but has let opportunities pass; now he is exploring whether to run for the seat Frank R. Lautenberg will vacate next year. It turns out that running the United States House of Representatives is harder than it looks.According to Allen Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, 95% o all attacks on enterprise networks are the result of successful spear phishing. In other words, somebody received an email and either clicked on a link or opened a file that they weren’t supposed to. Spanish Tercera Division team Quintanar del Rey get a lucky break when their player lashes the ball against the crossbar in a game against Toledo The findings, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, could be a result of pregnant women being at risk more and more often for things such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, all risk factors for stroke, the Journal reports. Ecologist Colin Henderson co-authored a study that may have identified the cause of the illness that has plagued honeybees since 2006. Post reporter Keith L. Alexander bids goodbye to the air travel industry beat with some recollections and parting observations. London’s Air Ambulance has teamed up with mobile operator EE to develop new systems that will use 4G technology to cut vital minutes off mission times to benefit its patients. The Jets bolstered their pass rush by signing outside linebacker Antwan Barnes to a three-year contract. Attending private views is a must for building up a network of contacts ex girlfriend guru pdf support your artistic careerTo get anywhere in the arts you need a following: a crowd of people who support you and your work. These are the people who will eventually, if you are lucky, set you on a path to making a living from your creative talents.Visual artists build up a following by throwing free drinks parties on the opening night of each exhibition they have. These previews – or private views, as they are known in the trade – have a dual benefit of being both highly sociable and incredibly important networking events.The first few private views of your work will probably be during your time at college, and they will involve you and 10 other students quaffing a few cans of cheap lager. But these boozy nights will grow throughout your career. At their pinnacle a lucky few artists get to hold golden ticket parties that go on for several days, with limousine parking services and a heavy security presence.But let’s begin at the beginning: these shenanigans are essentially networking events where artists and crafts people can meet kindred spirits and bond with new founds friends over a common love of art and warm white wine.Nick Fox is an artist and a lecturer in Fine Art at Newcastle University. “When new students arrive at Newcastle one of the first things we do is get them to see art work in the real. Often they’ve only ever seen some of their favoured artists on the internet, so it’s really important for them to start to get a sense of the physicality trade miner work – how it was actually made and how it has been displayed,” he says.”But, after that, the real purpose of sending them along to private views is to get them to start building the networks that will sustain them throughout their career. The students become a tribe, they do things together.”Not everyone who goes to art school becomes an artist. Some become critics, curators, commissioners, art handlers, gallery workers, dealers, picture framers – all useful contacts for budding artists.Matt Hale, presenter of Art Monthly Magazine’s talk show on Resonance FM, says that private views are an incredibly important part of the art world: “If they were suddenly to stop it would make a huge difference.”Attending private views is about choosing a tribe and joining it, according to Hale. “You get a kind of touring village of people who go to certain galleries – a kind of treaded map – and you will see the same people on that circuit over and over again,” he explains.”Other groups go to other openings at other galleries on a different circuit. If you went to Timothy Taylor Gallery in Mayfair you wouldn’t meet the same tribe as you would meet in an artist-run space in Deptford, South London, such as Enclave. There is some overlap, but it’s tiny. Really they are different worlds.”Lesser known artists generally hold open parties with cheap or free bars to try and draw in the punters. If you know the time, the date and the address then you can get in. The fact that someone has told you when and natural vitiligo treatment review party is means you must be well-enough connected to be worthy of a place.When you are first starting out, and the tickets aren’t flooding through your door, you will need to do a few people a few favours. People higher up the chain – gallery owners, critics and curators – will have far more invitations than they need. If they ask you for your help – if they ask you to watch their gallery for a couple of hours, to help serve drinks or to take some photographs for them – ask them for some of their spare private view tickets in return, on top of your payment.”There is a kind of quid pro quo, a certain moral obligation to support someone who has supported you,” says Fox. “Turning up and being a considerate audience at one of their artists openings is important. Buyers and curators like to see that the artist they are considering investing in can draw a crowd. Gallerist like to know people’s faces. Going to private views gets your face known and makes gallerists more sympathetic when you approach them with a proposal.””My students organise a private view in London every year to introduce themselves to the scene in the capital. They invite curators, gallerists, critics, they sell work – it’s how things get done,” says Fox. “It’s a big financial commitment, but for what they get back in terms of sales and getting signed up by galleries it is more than worth it.”• To find out more about this summer’s Newcastle University London show, go to nclfineart2013.com.Art google sniper 2.0 review and culture careersArts educationArtAdvice for studentsStudentsHigher educationFrederika Whiteheadguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Instead of paper checks or direct deposit, employers are issuing A.T.M.-style cards that can have large fees associated with them. CAJICA, COLOMBIA – Long experienced in fighting cocaine cartels and Marxist guerrillas, Colombia is training thousands of Mexican policemen as well as soldiers and court officers to help contain drug gangs that have turned parts of Mexico into virtual combat zones. Villa is moving from Barcelona, where he often was lost amid the other stars, to Atlético Madrid, where he can easily rejuvenate his career. James Chesley Jr., a physician, has the serene look of a man who has found the perfect balance in life. If there is any doubt that the global apparel trade has involved a massive scramble to the bottom when it comes to wages and working conditions, the Center for American Progress and the anti-sweatshop Workers Rights Consortium would like to dispel it. In a new study of textile industry wages in the world’s top garment exporters, new research concludes that on an inflation-adjusted basis, earnings for factory workers in most of the countries have been falling. Read full article >> Three members of the MIT School of Engineering — Anant Agarwal, John Hansman, and Edward Merrill — are among the 69 new members and 11 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) on Feb. 7. MIT fat burning furnace pdf Charles M. Vest, NAE president since 2007, made the announcement today. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,†and to the “pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.†Ungaro’s new designer hits some high notes. Aging monarchs in the Netherlands and Belgium are making room for the next generation of Europe’s crowned heads. But here in Britain, the birth in the coming days of a royal baby will have heirs stacking up like so many planes at this city’s super-clogged Heathrow Airport. Read full article >> The play by Jesse Eisenberg, starring Vanessa Redgrave, is one of the hottest Off Broadway tickets. Daniel Sedin had a goal and an assist, and Cory Schneider made 32 saves in the Vancouver Canucks’ 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. The British musical earned more than $1 million last week, joining “Motown†and “Kinky Boots†as new shows that are drawing substantial audiences. To fine-tune his musical before it hits Broadway, a producer is giving audiences hand-held dials at a world premiere in Portland, Ore., to gauge their opinions. Because of its natural gas boom, the United States is ahead of Europe in fixing climate change, the Oxford economist Dieter Helm argues. A soldier bent on revenge tracks down his target in “Killing
[Translate]
Six months ago, a traveler flying from Washington D.C. to Mumbai would likely layover in London or Amsterdam on the way. But since Emirates Air launched nonstop service from D.C. in September, that same traveler can stop in Dubai before flying on to points east — a small change that could actually speak to a bigger, geographical restructuring of international flight routes. Read full article >> mtvU’s Woodie Awards have become something of a SXSW tradition over the past few years with a day pa[…]Susan Solomon, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate SciencePhoto: Dominick Reuter The oil company told a federal appeals court that a claims administrator misinterpreted the terms of a multibillion-dollar settlement reached last year. Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer has been selected to replace injured Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira on Team USA’s World Baseball Classic roster and is expected to join the squad on Wednesday. The sale of the Lonely Planet guidebooks, for $77.8 million, is a significant loss on the broadcaster’s purchase price of about $196 million. PANAMA CITY, FLA. — Most people who arrive for their weekend getaway in the hot and humid area commonly called the “Redneck Riviera” make a beeline for the beach, rip off their clothes and take a quick dive in the ocean. The World Cup is no place for defending champions, with only Italy in 1938 and Brazil in 1962 repeating. The Azzurri are facing an early, ignominious departure from South Africa if they don’t beat Slovakia on Thursday. A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked Friday with the International Space Station, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting lab to six. The unmanned Russian Progress 51 rocket begins its cargo mission to the International Space Station Rob Zombie likes to keep busy As he prepares for the release of his newest film as a director The Lo[…] Highly anticipated launch of next Samsung flagship Android phone point to larger screen – but analysts don’t expect flexible versionClaims that specifications for Samsung’s forthcoming flagship Galaxy GS 4 – to be launched in New York on 14 March – have been leaked online have been denied by Expansys, the British company which specialises in selling unlocked phones.A series of tweets on Tuesday morning from @evleaks, an account ex girlfriend guru on the smartphone market, suggested that the phone will have a super AMOLED screen, a 13-megapixel rear camera, and LED flash. Separate reports by the New York Times on Monday suggested that the S4, as it is expected to be called, will include an eye-tracking technology that will scroll pages on the screen according to where the user is looking, using a new system developed by Samsung and called Eye Scroll.But the @evleaks tweets were quickly discredited after Expansys said that the diagrams that had been tweeted actually came from its own site – and that they were its artists’ impressions of what a Galaxy S4 might look like, rather than actual pictures.With the launch due next week, the handset is expected to start shipping in Europe by the end of March or early April, and in the US by June. Samsung’s integrated supply chain – meaning that it makes its own parts – means that few details about the phone have leaked out ahead of the launch. But it is expected to have a slightly bigger screen, at 4.9in or 5in, than the Galaxy S3 released a year ago. Some estimates suggest that Samsung expects to sell 10m of the handsets per month, and 100m during 2013. It is also expected to run Android 4.2.1, come with 2GB of RAM, between 16 and 64GB of storage – and possibly up to 128GB – Near Field Communications, LTE/4G capability. It is forecast to have an eight-core ARM processor, possibly from Qualcomm.Other rumours point to a gesture-controlled interface rather than a pen-based system. That would separate Samsung’s phones even further from other Android rivals, and tie users more closely into its own ecosystem of apps and functions. Samsung is already the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, and makes nearly half of all Android phones. It also has the second-largest profit in the smartphone business, behind Apple – with which it is one of only four companies making a profit in the smartphone business, along with Taiwan’s HTC and Finland’s Nokia.Samsung has been building up its portfolio of services to distinguish itself from rival Android smartphone handsets for the past years. It is also expected to unleash a huge marketing and advertising campaign to go with the new phone: Samsung Electronics’ marketing spending dwarfs trade miner any rival company, including Apple, Microsoft, and bigger names such as Coca-Cola.However expectations that the GS4 might have a flexible display have been played down by analysts. Richard Windsor, formerly with Nomura Securities and now an independent technology analyst, commented: “We have been waiting for these for over a year and still there is no sign of [bendable screens]. Some prototypes were shown at CES, but a quick ramble through YouTube will show you that those same prototypes have actually been on display for more than two years.”Windsor explains: “I think that the problem is encapsulation. The OLED substrate is very sensitive to degradation by oxygen meaning that the panel has to be perfectly sealed from the air. This has proved to be much more difficult to do in flexible plastic than rigid glass and I suspect that the yields are still so low that Samsung can not yet put it in a product.”He added: “This [flexible screen] is Samsung’s silver bullet against the ravages on commoditisation in Android, but fortunately Samsung does not need it to work right away. This could be another story in another 12 months.”Samsung’s chief product officer Kevin Packingham told the New York Times that the Galaxy S4 is “an amazing phone” overall.The Guardian will be covering the launch of the Galaxy S4 next week from New York.SamsungSmartphonesMobile phonesAndroidCharles Arthurguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Paddleboarding while upright means venturing far and wide without having to hunt for waves. A Roman Catholic activist group said Tuesday that Pope Francis was slow as head of the Argentine church to act against sexual abuse by clergy and urged him to apologize for what it called church protection for two priests later convicted of sexually assaulting children. TOLEDO, Ohio — A letter opener found in a priest’s room was a “perfect fit” when inserted into a jaw wound suffered by a nun slain in 1980, an assistant coroner testified Tuesday at the priest’s murder trial. Deirdre JordanRead the Rest… Syrian troops backed by pro-government gunmen swept into a Sunni village in the mountains near the Mediterranean coast on Thursday, killing dozens of people, including women and children, vitiligo treatment homes, activists said. Read full article >> SA+P’s new Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) is joining forces with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in a new research collaboration focused on how design can help improve urban health.The research will support AIA’s efforts through the Clinton Global Initiative’s Decade of Design: Global Urban Solutions Challenge — a ten-year AIA pledge to promote urban design that addresses the interests of public health and the effective use of natural, economic and human resources.Through that initiative, the AIA is working with organizations to effect meaningful change through research, community participation, design frameworks and active implementation of innovative solutions.The collaborative effort is based on the premise that massive urbanization can affect human and environmental health in uniquely negative ways, many of which can be addressed through the realm of design. Some of the great health challenges facing the world in the next century and beyond — including the prevalence of obesity, asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression, among others — are increasing at an alarming rate and are frequently linked to physical design and urban environmental factors.Through joint research, prototypes and demonstration projects, CAU and AIA will develop guidelines and design solutions that support human and environmental health in and around cities.Read more Russia’s change in tone has a simple explanation: Oil prices have soared. President Obama urged congressional Republicans on Monday to drop their opposition to a jobs bill that he said is desperately needed to spur hiring but has been blocked because of “pure partisan politics.” On Monday, there were further indications that Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had been killed last week in northern Mali. Q. DEAR TIM: The wood deck railing at my home rotted prematurely and needs to be replaced. How long should deck railings last? I love mine but wonder whether I should replace it with a vinyl railing or even an aluminum one. Americans’ press conferences during secretive process before selection of next pope provoke ire in VaticanLoquacious US cardinals have been told to stop talking to the media after a series of press briefings that delighted journalists, but broke with tight-lipped Vatican tradition.This week, as the college of cardinals entered its period of “general congregations” designed to prepare it for the election google sniper 2 new pope, press conferences held at the Pontifical North American College had proved a popular way of providing information during what is usually a secretive process.However, the ensuing reports were apparently enough to provoke ire in some quarters. “Concern was expressed in the general congregation about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, the US cardinals’ spokeswoman, in a statement. “As a precaution, the cardinals have agreed not to do interviews.”The Vatican said it had not put pressure on the Americans to stay quiet. But a Vatican spokesman said that cardinals had perhaps decided among themselves to cancel the briefing as they increasingly appreciated “the importance of keeping things among themselves”.153 cardinals participated in the fourth general congregation on Wednesday morning, with 113 of them cardinal electors who will take part in the conclave to choose a successor to the emeritus pope Benedict XVI. Another elector was due to arrive later on Wednesday, meaning that by Thursday there will be just one missing. A date is expected soon after his arrival, but there is increasing speculation that it may not start early next week as had been expected. The church has until 20 March to start the conclave.In its official communications, the Vatican says it cannot be specific about what the cardinals are discussing in their meetings and can only give a general subject area. Most cardinals have remained near-silent during the process, but some of the Americans, while under an oath of confidentiality, had spoken rather more freely, giving insights into how the meetings were progressing while not giving away any great secrets.However, comments reported in the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa were apparently viewed as overstepping the mark and violating their oath. It was unclear specifically which remarks were concerned.Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, was quoted as saying there were “two schools of thought” in the college of cardinals: those who felt the Roman curia would be best reformed by someone within it, and those who believed an outsider was needed. Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, was quoted as saying the cardinals wanted to be briefed on the Vatileaks scandal in order to make the right choice.Meanwhile, in the first photograph to emerge from his time at Castel Gandolfo, the emeritus pope was shown fat burning furnace the gardens with his trusted secretary George Gänswein. Dressed head-to-toe in white, Benedict appeared to be wearing a floor-length cassock with a jacket and baseball cap, and was walking with a cane.The picture was published by the celebrity magazine Chi, which last month published photographs of a pregnant Duchess of Cambridge on holiday. Chi also featured a picture of Cardinal Roger Mahony, under fire for having shielded priests accused of abuse, sipping wine in a Roman restaurant.The clerical abuse scandal – which has overshadowed the papal transition period – continued to do so on Wednesday, as a group representing abuse survivors released a so-called “dirty dozen” list of the papabili it would least like to be made the head of the Roman Catholic church.Highlighting what it said were failures to properly handle abuse claims, Snap – the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests – said its list was based largely on legal documents, witness statements and media cuttings.VaticanCatholicismItalyUnited StatesChristianityReligionEuropeLizzy Daviesguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds The Guardian (27 April) and the Observer (28 April) have recently given coverage to my alleged views about Eton and public service. In both I was quoted out of context. I was not denigrating any school, state or private. Indeed, I have spent large parts of my life working in or around education. This includes running an NGO giving away new medical textbooks in Eastern Europe, during and after the Communist period; serving as board member of an inner-city comprehensive school; helping to set up an early online learning provider; and supporting education and training programmes for young people today, through various local and national organisations. I also taught philosophy for six years at University College London. In my constituency I vigorously promote and support local schools. Indeed, two years ago I set up my own pilot programme for KS2 children in Herefordshire who struggle with maths. Much of this is a matter of public record on http://www.jessenorman.com and http://www.jesse4hereford.com.Jesse Norman MPCon, Hereford and South HerefordshirePrivate schoolsSchoolsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More
[Translate]
The two-time mayor of Providence, R.I., on doing time without his toupee and whether he’ll run again. When Major Lazer came out tossing vuvuzelas you knew they meant business Dull plastic toots bounced […] The MIT Wind Ensemble performed “Awakening” on March 2012 in Kresge Auditorium. • Manchester United defender was selected by Roy Hodgson• ‘We have to look at things before Rio decides if he joins up’Sir Alex Ferguson has hinted that Rio Ferdinand may not join up with England next week.Ferdinand was selected by Roy Hodgson on Thursday for this month’s World Cup qualifiers with San Marino and Montenegro, the first time he has been called up by the England manager since he took charge just before Euro 2012.The move caught Ferguson by surprise given Ferdinand’s long-standing fitness issues and he is not entirely convinced international duty is the best way forward for the 34-year-old.”I was as surprised as anyone when I heard,” Ferguson said. “I need to speak to the [United] doctor because we prepare Rio Ferdinand in a certain way and there are certain treatments he has to go through.”He has to make sure he is going to be OK in terms of the number of games he plays. We have been doing that for two years and it has worked. We have to look at all these things before Rio decides [if he joins up].”If Ferdinand did not report it would be a minor embarrassment for Hodgson given his climbdown from previous statements that he has “moved on” from the Manchester United defender.”The procedures have been the same all season which has given him fantastic performance levels when he’s playing for us,” said Ferguson. “We have to consider that and Rio is considering that. And we’ll see what the outcome of that is.”Meanwhile, Ferguson has rejected Rafael BenÃtez’s accusations that he refused to shake hands with the Chelsea manager ahead of last Sunday’s 2-2 FA Cup draw at Old Trafford. “It is nonsense,” said the Scot. “Why would I refuse to shake his hand?”I was signing autographs and I never saw him. Why he has said that I have no idea. If he wanted to shake hands he could have stood straight in front of me. It is absolute nonsense.”Ferguson also confirmed neither Nani nor Phil Jones will be available for Saturday’s Premier League encounter with Reading at Old Trafford, although in the winger’s case, his hamstring injury is not as bad as first feared.”When he came off against Chelsea last week we thought it could have been another bad hamstring injury,” said Ferguson. “It is not as serious as we thought but he could be out for a couple of weeks.”Rio FerdinandSir Alex FergusonRoy HodgsonEnglandManchester UnitedWorld Cup 2014 qualifiersguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds A Jesuit priest who was a popular teacher for 14 years at Georgetown Preparatory School inappropriately touched a student at the prestigious Jesuit-run boys’ school in North Bethesda, an investigation by Jesuit authorities found. Whether or not you think science is wonderful, the stereotype of all scientists being atheists is unrealistic. There is, however, a special danceScientists used to be white guys in white lab coats with crazy hair, spectacles and an autistic inability to relate to other people. Now scientists are (mostly) white guys who are obsessed about the wonder of science and hate religion; and I think they all like Star Trek quite a bit too. This new religion-hating, super-awed scientist stereotype seems to based on some very strange amalgamation between Brian Cox and Richard Dawkins. And this cartoon-version of “what a scientist looks like” is all sort of tangled up in religion; where science pundits are either vilified because they are seen to all hate religion or almost worshiped like gods they supposedly detest. Ignoring that science and religion are really not the same thing, on the love side Cox has been said to resemble what God would have probably looked like “with hair that falls around his face like a helix”. On the flip-side, popular scientists have been attacked for using the misty-eyed language of religion – because apparently using the word “wonder” ain’t allowed if you are an atheist or a scientist. As Eliane Glaser put it last week: “It’s ironic that the public engagement with the science crowd is so pro-wonder, because they’re so anti-religion.”All scientists; religion haters. Also it is a little known fact but now when you get a physics PhD in the UK, you are given a job-lot of Wonders wallpaper for your new office and complementary D:Ream CD; which must be played on trade miner and holidays. We also learn a special dance but I am not allowed to talk about this. I really hate to be the one to break the news, but scientist is not synonymous with atheist. Scientists also don’t all have the same gender, race, sexual orientation or political ideology, much less religion or lack thereof. Whether or not a person is religious, with respect to their vocation as a scientist, is completely irrelevant. Just like sexual orientation, race and gender should be irrelevant to being a scientist. Reinforcing the scientist = atheist stereotype, whether you are for it or against it, necessarily excludes people. No one should be excluded from science if they want to do it, be excited about it or read about it. Richard Dawkins aside, the view that all scientists – even if they be atheists or famous people – hate religion is not really true. Peter Higgs has very sanguinely criticised Dawkins for his anti-religious stance, and goes on to say that he doesn’t think science and religion are incompatible. Brian Cox himself echoes the same sentiment. There are, moreover, a number of prominent openly religious scientists, such as Frances Collins, currently the head of the US National Institutes of Health; Gerhard Etrl who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (2007) and William D Phillips who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. And this is just naming a few. Most scientists in the media don’t make a stand one way or another, perhaps because they too think it is irrelevant. Maybe this is a crazy idea but I am guessing a fair few scientists don’t like Star Trek either. The cartoon stereotype that all scientists are religion-hating atheists isn’t just annoying; it is harmful. It is divisive and does nothing to encourage people into scientific discovery. In fact, it reinforces the idea that only a certain type of person can do science. This is not true. Professional science has enough diversity problems as it is, with women and minorities still grossly under-represented, without throwing religious-typing in there too. Public scientists and critics alike need to take a bit more care in lumping all scientists into the same stereotypical category. The world is much more complex than that.• Dr Sylvia McLain runs a biophysics research group at Oxford. She is on Twitter – @girlinterruptinPeople in scienceAtheismBrian CoxReligionRichard DawkinsSylvia McLainguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds There was a rare moment of candor on the House floor this week. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), a committee chairman and the man who led House Republicans to their majority in 2010, was explaining why he and his colleagues decided to drop the food stamp program from the farm bill. Read full article >> MANAMA, Bahrain – Frenzied clashes swept Bahrain Tuesday, a day after a Saudi-led military force entered the country to defend its Sunni monarchy from a Shiite-led protest movement. Hundreds of demonstrators were injured by shotgun blasts and clubs, a doctor said. After spending a day with her boyfriend’s family recently, my daughter marveled, “They only drink whole milk!” That milk was delicious, she reported, even after the container had sat on the counter for a while. A retro setting, $16 cocktails and a possible encounter with musical history. Jamie Jackson was online answering your questions about Manchester United’s Champions League tie against RealJamie Jackson Emmett J. Rice was a World Bank official and member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia’s big sluggers had the day off to rest for the playoffs. The Phillies didn’t miss them in their final postseason tuneup. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s Marc Goldwein takes your questions about the proposed federal budget, which will be announced Monday, Feb. 14. MLS Commissioner Don Garber addresses his disappointment that D.C. United has been unable to reach a deal to build a new stadium. The Demarees of Bethesda seem to be a normal American family, but wait. They didn’t tell their children what their SAT scores were? They didn’t do test prep? They didn’t hire tutors? Could they have the answer to America’s obsession with college admission? Economists often talk about “moral hazard,†the idea that people’s behavior changes in the presence of insurance. In finance, for instance, investors may take more risks if they know they will be bailed out, the subject of ongoing political controversy. When it comes to health insurance, the existence of moral hazard is a more matter-of-fact issue: When people get health insurance, they use more medical care, as shown by research including a natural vitiligo treatment study on the impact of Medicaid, which MIT economist Amy Finkelstein helped lead. Such evidence helps explain why insurers and policymakers looking to reduce overall costs have become increasingly attracted to the concept of “consumer-directed medical care,†in which consumers pay for a larger share of medical expenses, sometimes in the form of high-deductible insurance plans. If people have to bear greater initial costs (the deductible is the amount consumers must pay before coverage kicks in), they may be less likely to seek insured medical care for seemingly marginal health issues.But a new paper co-authored by Finkelstein suggests that forecasting the likely spending reduction associated with high deductibles requires a fine-grained approach, to account for the differing ways consumers respond to incentives in the health-care market. The research indicates that consumers select insurance plans based not only on their overall wellness level — with people in worse health opting for more robust coverage — but also on their own anticipated response to having insurance. By scrutinizing a large data set based on choices made by employees of Alcoa, Inc., the researchers found that consumers selecting a new insurance policy who expect to reduce their use of medical care by a lot if they have to pick up additional costs shy away from high-deductible plans; by contrast, the people who opt for high-deductible plans are the ones who expect to change their health-care use the least.Thus insurers, or at least those who expect that offering more high-deductible plans will lower their expenses, may experience smaller spending changes than they might expect if a random group of people were assigned to such plans. “What we [find] is that if you base your forecasts on random assignment, you would substantially overestimate the spending reduction you can get by introducing high-deductible plans,†says Finkelstein, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT. “The people who select these plans aren’t randomly drawn from the population — they tend to be people who have a lower behavioral response to the [insurance] contract.â€Anticipating changes in behaviorTo grasp this dynamic at work, Finkelstein suggests an analogy to an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the customers are there for two reasons: one group with consistently robust appetites, and another group who, by not having to pay a la carte, can have a larger meal than usual at a decent price. When it comes to health care, she suggests, consumers can also be divided into two similar categories: those who consistently seek a lot of coverage, and those who, given greater coverage, will change their behavior, and suddenly use much more medical care. But how much more care do people in the second group seek? The paper, “Selection on Moral Hazard in Health Insurance,†published this month in the American Economic Review, answers that question by scrutinizing health-plan choices made between 2003 and 2006 by more than 4,000 employees at Alcoa, the global aluminum producer. The researchers were able to assess the overall health status of individuals, the health-plan choices employees made when switching coverage, and subsequent medical claims. The varying Alcoa plans offered different deductibles, but used the same network of health-care providers, meaning consumer choices were heavily based on financial concerns. By analyzing the data this way, the researchers were able to identify the links between insurance-plan choices, overall health status, and changes in behavior — or “moral hazard†— as measured by increased claims. In quantitative terms, their bottom-line finding is that these two factors are equally significant: “Selection on moral hazard is roughly as important as selection on health risk,†the paper notes.“There may be heterogeneity, and people may differ in how much more they spend when they get health insurance,†Finkelstein notes.That finding could influence the way insurance firms and policymakers structure plan choices and estimate overall costs. “In a world in which people chose health plans based on not just how sick they think they are, but also on how much they think they’re going to increase their medical care use when the care is subsidized,†Finkelstein says, it could significantly affect how much health-care spending would be reduced through mechanisms such as high-deductible plans.In addition to Finkelstein, the co-authors of the paper are Mark Cullen, a professor in Stanford University’s School of Medicine; Liran Einav, an economist at Stanford; Stephen Ryan, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin; and Paul Schrimpf, an economist at the University of British Columbia. Since 1997, Cullen has worked in coordination with Alcoa to study employee health issues.Hard evidence — but more would be usefulBen Handel, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley who focuses on health-care issues, calls the study “a fantastic paper,†both because of the way it reveals heterogeneity google sniper 2.0 way people chose insurance plans and because of the granular data it contains. “They’ve done a great job of acquiring this very, very detailed data on health-insurance choices, claims, and many aspects of these individuals,†Handel says. “I think research on these kinds of questions is moving a lot in the direction of looking for this kind of individual-level data, and [the co-authors] have been leading the charge on that.â€For her part, Finkelstein emphasizes that the topic could use additional investigation.“I view this paper as a proof of concept that this phenomenon exists and can be important,†Finkelstein says. “Now what we need to do — both ourselves and other researchers, hopefully — is to think about this in other settings, besides just the employee benefits of Alcoa.â€The research received funding from Alcoa, Inc., as well as the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health, and a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration to the National Bureau of Economic Research. There are familiar, but often overlooked, foods lurking in your pantry that can assist with weight control and help combat abdominal fat: whole-grain products, from oatmeal to whole wheat bread. LeBron James wasn’t just satisfied with dunking over Jason Terry. On Wednesday, he threw it in the Boston guard’s face again. Nonpartisan center for debate, research, education and policy about civility in public discourse was created in the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shootings in the city where six people were killed and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Foreseeing a long battle like the one over abortion, conservatives in their 20s and 30s say there is time to shift the debate away from gay rights. Luis Voloch investigates how sources of information, including viruses, can be concealed or revealed in computer networks. Lyne Tchapmi Petse develops a heart-monitoring device that transmits vital signs to a smartphone in real time. Sebastian Leon mines user data from the online education platform edX to create a predictive model of learners’ progress.These researchers aren’t professors or postdocs. They’re not even graduate students. They’re MIT undergraduates who, through a new initiative called the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program — or SuperUROP — are deeply involved in some of the world’s leading-edge research.On Dec. 6, these students and several dozen of their peers gathered in the Grier Room to present their work in a poster session attended by MIT faculty, Boston-area venture capitalists and representatives of companies who support the research.“This is an amazing experience as an undergrad,†says Voloch, a senior studying mathematics who grew up in Brazil and attended high school in New York. “SuperUROP is a special arrangement, because there’s a high level of expectation from the students. It creates a setting in which professors and students take a project very seriously and for a long term. I think it’s a good preview of what graduate school can be like.â€â€œThe exciting thing about MIT is the number of revolutionary ideas that develop here,†says Fairhaven Capital founder and electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) alumnus Rick Grinnell, who attended the poster session to meet the program’s students and offer them advice.“I think it’s important to encourage [the students] — for them to see that people from the real world who invest are putting in the time to see what they’re working on and that [research is] not just academic,†Grinnell says.Standing next to her poster, Petse explains how her heart-monitoring device senses vital signs from just behind the ear, where the device is worn, and transmits them via Bluetooth radio signals to a smartphone app for analysis and display.“You have Bluetooth on your smartphone, so you can basically have a device that you can wear at home and that can help you monitor your heart,†says Petse, a senior in EECS.The Cameroon native says her technology could improve on others in development partly because it replaces high-power radio signals with low-power Bluetooth, and partly because the app she is developing can provide the user with instantaneous and continuous readouts.Leon’s work is equally cutting-edge in a completely different field. He explains that edX — which offers free online courses from MIT, Harvard and other universities — has hundreds of thousands of users whose interactions with the platform generate a “gigantic mass of raw data. The idea is to create a predictive model of student behavior based on all of this data.â€Leon, a junior in EECS who is from Ecuador, is among the first researchers to investigate edX’s user dynamics. “SuperUROP offers me an independent project that I can really own and really take control of,†he fat burning furnace download Eric Grimson, who is also an EECS faculty member and the Bernard M. Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering, came away from the poster session inspired. “The level of research being conducted is remarkable, and the articulate manner in which students talk about their research and the excitement they communicate are impressive,†he says.Publication-worthy resultsSuperUROP is a logical progression of UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program), which itself launched in 1969 as a bold experiment bringing younger students into the laboratory for the first time. More than 80 percent of the Institute’s undergraduates now participate in the program, and typically they spend a semester experiencing what it’s like to work in a research laboratory.But many students participate in UROP for a longer period — often a year or more — indicating that there is a demand for greater exposure to the rewards and complexities of scientific investigation. EECS Department Head Anantha Chandrakasan responded to that demand, working with his department’s undergraduates and the UROP office to launch SuperUROP in September.“Many students desire a more in-depth research experience — one that culminates in results that could be published in a journal or top conference, or advanced prototypes that could be commercially developed,†says Chandrakasan, who is also the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering.MIT students have responded enthusiastically to the new opportunity. There are 86 participants during this pilot phase, and Chandrakasan expects greater numbers from departments throughout the Institute to enroll in the coming years. The program is open to junior and seniors.In addition to working closely with a faculty member for at least a year, participants take a two-semester class, “Preparation for Undergraduate Research,†that covers topics ranging from industry best practices to presentation skills to ethics in engineering. The program also gives undergraduate researchers access to MIT’s sophisticated nanofabrication facilities (through the Microsystems Technology Laboratories) — a privilege typically reserved for graduate students.SuperUROP students receive a significant stipend of $3,000 per semester for 10 hours per week of work, and their faculty supervisors receive $4,000 to support the student for the entire academic year. In addition, on completion of the program, SuperUROP scholars will receive a certificate that will serve as an additional takeaway as they proceed in their career paths.Rui Jin, an EECS senior who is developing a wireless charging technology for medical devices, explains why his research requires the time, training and technical facilities that the program provides.“With my project, I need to first build a prototype, but that’s not the end of it. I need to test the prototype and make improvements. But the ultimate goal is to actually fabricate silicon and design a chip that will support all the features that are in my prototype. All of that work combined together will take far more than one semester — more than even one year,†he says, adding that he will expand his project into his graduate thesis next year as part of a five-year EECS Master of Engineering (MEng) program in which students earn a bachelor’s and a master’s.Jin’s project is a specialized adaptation of a wireless mobile phone-charging technology developed by Texas Instruments, which supports his work through SuperUROP’s Research and Innovation Scholars Program. Representatives of the company attended the poster session to hear about the project. “They’re pretty enthusiastic,†Jin says.Many other participating students are working on research aligned with the interests of industrial sponsors that — along with individual donors including (EECS) alumni Dr. Erika N. Angle and her husband Colin A. Angle, and Dinarte R. Morais and Paul Rosenblum — provide support through the scholars program. Besides Texas Instruments, the industrial sponsors include Analog Devices, Basis Technology, Denso, Draper Laboratory, eBay Inc., Facebook, Foxconn, Google, Intel, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Quanta Computer and VMware.Stan Reiss of Matrix Partners, another EECS alumnus and venture capitalist who attended the poster session, thinks undergraduates can gain a lot from the program.“They can get to some real results, and that’s the kind of experience you really need,†he says. “Even if [the students] have no intention of commercializing their work, this is a great program. It’s an opportunity to do something relevant to the real world — to whatever they’re going to end up doing when they graduate.â€Whether they go on to graduate school, a startup or an industry career, SuperUROP gives MIT students a valuable head start on generating the revolutionary ideas of the future. Transferring loan balances to a zero percent interest credit card may seem to be a good idea, but it may come at a cost. The death toll of a suicide bombing in a Christian neighborhood of Kano on Monday has risen to at least 41, the police said Tuesday, and at least 44 others were
[Translate]
Bundesliga minnows Freiburg are in contention for a Champions League spot but coach Christian Streich is already planning next season’s relegation battle as his players are lured away by bigger clubs. DfE announces that early years teachers will need to have same level of qualifications as those working in primary schoolsEarly years teachers will need to have the same level of qualifications as those working in primary schools in the future under plans to reform pre-school education, it has been announced.Teachers working with young children will be expected to meet new standards similar to those that classroom staff are expected to meet, the Department for Education (DfE) said. They will also be expected to pass the same literacy and numeracy tests taken by trainee teachers. The move is part an overhaul of childcare qualifications that ministers say will help raise standards for young children. Under the reforms, pre-school staff will either be early years teachers or early years educators.From next September, early years teachers will be expected to be educated to the same level as a primary school teacher, while educators will be asked to hold a qualification equivalent to an A-level.Charlie Taylor, chief executive of the National College of Teaching and Leadership, said: “There is nothing more important in early education and childcare than the quality of the staff who are delivering it. The workforce supporting our babies, young children and their parents should be well qualified, well respected and well led.”Education minister Elizabeth Truss said: “Good quality early years education, which is teacher-led, has been shown to be beneficial for children, especially those from low-income backgrounds. It makes a difference to young children’s lives and enables them to learn and grow.”Early years educationEducation policyguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds BANGKOK — Asian stocks were mixed Wednesday following a retreat on Wall Street as the staggering toll exacted by Japan’s worst-ever earthquake came into sharper focus and uncertainties grew about the outcome of Western military action against Libya. With an audience of more than 13 million, the mini-series adaptation of the Stephen King novel is off to a strong start. Keep in mind Professor Trelawney’s divination class at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft Wizardry, and much clickbank pirate review happened in the iOSphere this week becomes clear. Ellen T. Harris, the Class of 1949 Professor of Music, has been awarded a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to broaden her research on “Messiah” composer George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and develop a new book, “Mr. Handel and His Friends: Music in the Context of 18th-Century London Life.””Mr. Handel and His Friends” takes up the study of Handel’s career when he lived in London (1711-1759), where he composed “The Messiah” as well as numerous well-known oratorios and operas. Harris’ 2002 book, “Handel as Orpheus: Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas” (Harvard), explored Handel’s use of silence in his cantatas, composed when he lived in Italy and was “very much embedded in the patronage system,” Harris said. “Orpheus” won the prestigious Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the Louis Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Harris described her new work on Handel as getting to know the renowned composer “without his wig.” “We know a lot about Handel within his wig — in his role as composer of big public works, producer of 30 oratorios and 42 operas — but little about how he lived his life. Unlike Mozart, he left few letters or other documents. But a turning point came when he moved to London: He had a home of his own; he made money from composing and, before he died, he wrote a will,” Harris said.Handel’s music has inspired Harris for more than 30 years, she said, thanks to its richness, humanity and emotional power. But his will contained surprises that led to a wealth of material about how his music fit into 18th-century English society. “Handel left money and all his scores to his manager for 40 years, John Christopher Smith. He left money to his librettists and to his extended family in Germany. He left all the performance materials for ‘The Messiah’ to the Foundling Hospital. You’d expect that. “But he also bequeathed money to five ‘mystery’ people, unknowns whom he clearly had cared about. I tracked them all down. It was exhilarating to discover, for example, that Handel’s music copyist, known in all his works as “S7” (“S” is for scribe), was his friend James Hunter,” Harris said. The life stories of Handel’s friends and aquaponics 4 you review as revealed through documents Harris dug through at the British Library, National Archives, the House of Lords Library and other dusty storage sites — yielded the details that Harris needed to get “outside the wig” in portraying the composer’s character, particularly his capacity for sympathy. “The ‘mystery beneficiaries’ in Handel’s will had much in common with him and with one another. All were slightly on the edge of English society. Few were Anglicans (Handel was Lutheran). All but one were childless; most were unmarried; and most of them had up-and-down middle-class financial lives typical in England’s market economy,” Harris said. Most revealingly, Handel’s neighbors were amateur musicians, men and women who played his new works and heard him play at parties, she noted. “Through his music, he was participating in English society, not just riding above it. His music was not just for kings. It was supported by the aristocracy, yet intended to be played in the home. A circle of music-loving friends and neighbors nourished this very human composer, and he repaid their affection,” Harris said. The magazine Southern Living is branding 15 independent resorts, with perks to be determined. ONLEY, Va. — Maybe it’s the homemade windmills spinning on the balcony. Or the golf-cart batteries that power the kitchen. Or maybe it’s the purple shag carpeting, the pink shutters, the “Dick Van Dyke Show” furniture, the leopard-print paint on the dining room floor or the gold Rolls Royce in the gravel driveway. ‘a slice of brilliance!’Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior is a brilliant book if you are a person of adventure. It is about a boy called Jack whose mother is dead and whose sister is in England. So Jack is with his father, on a ship but they get shipwrecked off the coast of Japan and get attacked by ninja pirates and his father gets killed in the fight. Then a sword master called Masamoto saves Jack and takes him to the Dojo to start his training to become a samurai warrior. Jack also has to be careful because the leader of the ninjas is trying to get his father’s rutter which is a book full of the secrets of the oceans. But at school things aren’t getting any better because he is singled out by bullies and with his friend Akiko gsniper side he is still getting treated as an outcast.Find out about their great adventure. I definitely recommend this book because it is a slice of brilliance!Want to tell the world about a book you’ve read? Join the site and send us your review!Children and teenagersChildren’s books: 8-12 yearsAdventure (children and teens)guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds A selected guide to performances of classical music in New York and the area. A law professor sees too much foot-dragging in Obama’s climate plans. “Mindless Behavior,†a documentary, follows the group of the same name on its “#1 Girl Tour†and in countless public appearances across the country. Voting districts may hold the same number of people, but they don’t hold the same number of voters. The Supreme Court will decide next week whether to hear a Texas case on the issue. MIT will receive up to $25 million in funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a new five-year project intended to fight poverty by developing and evaluating useful technologies for communities around the globe.“People here really care about doing something for the world’s poor,†says Bish Sanyal, the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), who is one of the leaders of the Institute’s participation in the project.MIT’s role in the new program will involve two related but distinct enterprises: The Institute’s D-Lab will help lead a consortium of higher-education institutions in creating the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN), which aims to foster and provide structure for technological innovation in developing countries. The Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) — which DUSP and six other groups within MIT will help develop — will assess technologies intended to alleviate poverty and determine which will have the most impact. “We were very excited when we heard about this grant,†says D-Lab founder Amy Smith, a senior lecturer in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The USAID backing, she adds, represents “an effort to promote local innovation and to increase the problem-solving and creative capacities of communities around the world, so that people are solving problems [themselves] rather than relying on external sources.†forex megadroid one of six academic institutions involved in the project, along with six nongovernmental organizations. The other academic partners in the IDIN are Colorado State University, Franklin Olin College of Engineering, the University of California at Davis, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. As part of the CITE program, MIT will work with the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, UNICEF and the World Food Program.Building innovation networks The IDIN portion of the program will involve, among other things, 12 international design summits to look at technologies helping local development, along with the building of eight Innovation Hubs globally to act as centers for technological development. IDIN will work on innovations in a wide variety of areas, including agriculture, clean drinking water, improvement of power sources in rural areas and health-care projects.A crucial part of the IDIN’s work is the linkage of technologists from around the world, sometimes through intensive, monthlong workshops that Smith has developed. “A lot of time people don’t have the resources or training to engage in these activities,†Smith says. “One of the things that’s exciting about the IDIN grant is that it helps give us the capacity to build a network of innovators, and tap into that network to solve challenges.†The CITE project, on the other hand, will involve the development of rigorous evaluation methods for new technologies — aiming to address the problem of promising innovations that do not necessarily take hold as intended in developing countries. “Our problem is not simply the supply of technological solutions,†Sanyal says. “The problem is that the solutions are not assessed.†As a result, he notes, funding for global development has not always been guided toward the most effective solutions. Ms. Stribling-Kivlan is the new president of Stribling & Associates, a residential real estate brokerage firm based in New York. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Obama administration had gained new confidence that the Syrian opposition can minimize the risk of weapons falling into extremists’ hands. NEW YORK — “Today we march! Tomorrow we vote!” It’s been a popular slogan at recent immigration rights rallies, and now organizers are trying to make it reality. Advocates nationwide are aiming to boost low voter turnout among foreign-born citizens forex growth bot review file naturalization papers for the millions… Princess Madeleine of Sweden, 30 and newly married, attended the Valentino couture show in Paris. The buyer, SpinMedia, recently bought Spin magazine and turned it into an online-only publication. It will take more work and analysis before physicists have the cold numbers that clinch the case that the new particle announced last July is in fact the long-lost Higgs boson. A group of conservative House Republicans blasted the decisions on same-sex marriage issued Wednesday by the Supreme Court as legally inconsistent and detrimental to the future of the nation’s children. One lawmaker pledged to soon file a constitutional amendment to reinstate the Defense of Marriage Act. Read full article >> Just because the home of the Masters now has female members, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club has no plans to pressure the all-male clubs in the British Open rotation to change its membership policies. ‘At times the book was hard to read because there were lots of unusual words, but that made it more exciting and grown up.’Winterling is all about a girl named Fer, who isn’t a regular girl. Fer is special because she comes from a different land. She opens “the way” to her own land hoping to find her parents but actually finds something else. This was a great story with lots of twists and turns. I wasn’t expecting the book to end how it did but was glad with the way it ended. The story builds in excitement again and again, I didn’t want to put the book down it was so good. At times the book was hard to read because there were lots of unusual words, but that made it more exciting and grown up. This book is great for both boys and girls aged 7 or above. I would definitely recommend it with a score of 4.5 stars out of five!Want to tell the world about a book you’ve read? Join the site and send us your review!Children’s books: 8-12 yearsChildren and teenagersguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Michelle Obama said she kept her perspective on a life in the spotlight as she promoted a physical education initiative for
[Translate]
• Ukrainian retains world titles with win over Francesco Pianeta• Haye watches then Klitschko cites ‘challengers who talk a lot’Wladimir Klitschko put on a show for the watching David Haye as he stopped the unbeaten Francesco Pianeta in six rounds in their heavyweight title fight in Mannheim, Germany.The Ukrainian put his plucky yet out-of-his-depth Italian challenger on the canvas three times, finishing the job with a punishing right hand as he won for an 18th successive time.Klitschko, who holds the IBF, IBO, WBO and WBA titles, said in an apparent dig at Haye: “I want to thank my opponent. There are a lot of challengers who talk a lot, but he got in the ring and fought bravely.”Wladimir KlitschkoDavid HayeBoxingguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds After President Hugo Chávez’s death, The Times’s William Neuman surveys the scene in Caracas and the president of the Inter-American Dialogue examines American relations going forward.Increasing the stakes in the smartphone battle, the South Korean manufacturer showed off the Galaxy S IV, the latest version of its flagship device. WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and the Senate’s top Republican both declared on Friday they want to take on the huge entitlement programs driving America’s long-term deficits – but their lines of attack differed sharply and that could lead to a showdown over government borrowing. This week, I tell you about a climate change book, a Beatrix Potter book, a book about reproductive politics, and several field guides that will be very useful for your summertime adventures.Below the jump, I mention the books that I received recently in the mail as gifts or as review copies, or that I purchased somewhere. These are the books that I may review in more depth later, either here or in print somewhere in the world. When I get new books, I like to share them with people. Unfortunately, you are all so far away, so I cannot host a book party in my crib where you can look then over, so I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll host a book party on my blog each Friday of the week when I either purchase books or when they arrive in the mail. In this New Book Party, I will try to be your eyes by presenting my quick “first impression” — almost as if we are browsing the stacks in a bookstore — and I’ll also provide relevant videos about the book and links so you can get a copy of your own. Books that arrived this week: Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes by Bill McGuire [Oxford University Press, 2013; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK; Amazon US/kindle US] Publisher’s synopsis Twenty thousand years ago our planet was an icehouse. Temperatures were down six degrees; ice sheets kilometres thick buried much of Europe and North America and sea levels were 130m lower. The following 15 millennia saw an astonishing transformation as our planet metamorphosed into the temperate world upon which our civilisation has grown and thrived. One of the most dynamic periods in Earth forex-growth-bot rocketing temperatures melt the great ice sheets like butter on a hot summer’s day; feeding torrents of freshwater into ocean basins that rapidly filled to present levels. The removal of the enormous weight of ice at high latitudes caused the crust to bounce back triggering earthquakes in Europe and North America and provoking an unprecedented volcanic outburst in Iceland. A giant submarine landslide off the coast of Norway sent a tsunami crashing onto the Scottish coast while around the margins of the continents the massive load exerted on the crust by soaring sea levels encouraged a widespread seismic and volcanic rejoinder. In many ways, this post-glacial world mirrors that projected to arise as a consequence of unmitigated climate change driven by human activities. Already there are signs that the effects of climbing global temperatures are causing the sleeping giant to stir once again. Could it be that we are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one?My first impression: Call me a sceptic with regards to the relationship between climate change and earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic collapses, but this book presents cogent, clearly-argued evidence that supports this premise. I read chapter 5, “Earth in Motion”, which discusses volcanoes, particularly those that I knew as near neighbours in my youth (one of which exploded and dropped part of itself onto my head). The author discusses ancient volcanic collapses — how we know they happened, what we know of them from computer models and what the climate conditions were that triggered them — and compares these findings to what we see happening today due to climate change. Needless to say, although the data and evidence are fascinating, they are not comforting. Oh no, not comforting at all. I am still trying to wrap my brain around a 400 metre tall tsunami wave, such as those generated by a volcanic collapse that crashed into Hawaii’s Kohala volcano. Hugely fascinating reading. Great nightmare material (best not read immediately before bedtime). The author tells us a little about his book:[Video link] Reproductive Politics (What Everyone Needs to Know) by Rickie Solinger [Oxford University Press, 2013; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK; Amazon US/kindle US] Publisher’s synopsis The term “reproductive politics” was coined by feminists in the 1970s to describe contemporary Roe v. Wade-era power struggles over contraception and abortion, adoption and surrogacy, and other satellite issues. Forty years later, questions about reproductive rights are just as complex — and controversial — as they were then. Focusing mainly on the United States, Reproductive Politics explores the legal, political, religious, social, ethical, and medical dimensions of this hotly contested arena. Tracing the historical roots of reproductive politics up through the present, Rickie Solinger considers a range of topics from abortion and contraception to health care reform and assisted reproductive technologies. Solinger tackles some of the most contentious questions up for debate today, including the definition of “fetal personhood,” and the roles poverty and welfare policy play in shaping reproductive rights. The answers she provides are informative, balanced, and sometimes quite surprising. Offering a wide range of information in an accessible and engaging manner, Reproductive Politics: What Everyone trademiner pdf Know orients readers and provides the knowledge necessary to follow the debates in this important and continually evolving field.My first impression: Written in no-nonsense language, this book is sobering and disturbing. It’s essential reading, and it’s well-written, but dang, it’s a bit scary in places, too. This book could be a good inspiration for a fictional account of what could happen if the worst case scenario comes about. A Victorian Naturalist: Beatrix Potter’s Drawings from the Armitt Collection by Anne Stevenson Hobbs, Eileen Jay and Beatrix Potter [Frederick Warne & Co., 1992; Amazon UK; Amazon US] Publisher’s synopsis One of the most unusual collections of Beatrix Potter’s art is held by a small trust in the English Lake District, the Armitt Library in Ambleside, Cumbria. The collection comprises studies of fossils, archaeological finds, mosses, lichens, microscope drawings and many exceptionally fine fungus paintings. This book contains reproductions of these superb watercolours, along with a commentary by various experts on Beatrix Potter’s scientific work.My first impression: This beautiful book was a gift. It’s filled with full-colour reproductions of Beatrix Potter’s paintings and sketches that are held by the Armitt Museum, along with some of her handwritten letters and black-and-white photographs of her and some of her family and friends. The book tells the story that I want to read, that of her “lost years” as a naturalist, but the writing is far less engaging than the illustrations, which are, to my eye, the primary reason to obtain this book. The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan [Princeton University Press, 2013; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK; Amazon US] Publisher’s synopsis Part of the revolutionary Crossley ID Guide series, this is the first raptor guide with lifelike scenes composed from multiple photographs — scenes that allow you to identify raptors just as the experts do. Experienced birders use the most easily observed and consistent characteristics — size, shape, behavior, probability, and general color patterns. The book’s 101 scenes — including thirty-five double-page layouts — provide a complete picture of how these features are all related. Even the effects of lighting and other real-world conditions are illustrated and explained. Detailed and succinct accounts from two of North America’s foremost raptor experts, Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan, stress the key identification features. This complete picture allows everyone from beginner to expert to understand and enjoy what he or she sees in the field. The mystique of bird identification is eliminated, allowing even novice birders to identify raptors quickly and simply.Comprehensive and authoritative, the book covers all thirty-four of North America’s diurnal raptor species (all species except owls). Each species is featured in stunning color plates that show males and females, in a full spectrum of ages and color variants, depicted near and far, in flight and at rest, and from multiple angles, all caught in their typical habitats. There are also comparative, multispecies scenes and mystery photographs that allow readers to test their identification skills, along with answers and full explanations in the back of the book. In addition, the book features an introduction, and thirty-four color maps accompany the plates.Whether you are a novice or an expert, this one-of-a-kind guide will show natural vitiligo treatment download entirely new way to look at these spectacular birds. The most complete guide to North American raptors, written by some of the foremost experts The first raptor guide using Richard Crossley’s acclaimed, innovative composite images that show birds as they actually appear in the field 101 stunning color plates — including thirty-five double-page layouts — composed from thousands of photographs Comparative, multispecies plates and photos of mystery species that allow readers to test their growing identification skills Complete with introduction, 34 color maps, and detailed species accounts My first impression: If you think this book is a field guide, well, you’d be wrong. Written by North America’s top raptor birders, this book is filled with photographic quizzes in the front half of the book, and in the back half are colour-coded range maps that accompany expanded life history information about the diurnal “raptors” in North America. The three North American vulture species are included, even though they are not raptors, and owls — even day-flying owls — are excluded. Inside the front cover is a photo guide for identifying soaring birds along with relevant pages in the book for more information. If you want to learn how to identify North American raptors at a glance whilst they are mere specks in a cloudy sky, then this book is the one you want. Beautifully executed, this book is suitable either for a course of self-study or as a textbook for a raptor ID class. The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia (9th Edition) by Frank Knight, Graham Pizzey & Sarah Pizzey [Harper Collins, 2013; Amazon UK; Amazon US] Publisher’s synopsis The definitive and most respected guide to Australian bird identification, this book is a must for both experts and amateurs. First published in 1980, Graham Pizzey′s Field Guide to the Birds of Australia combines a depth and breadth of knowledge with beautiful, full-colour illustrations by Frank Knight. Comprehensive and fully updated, this 9th edition of the Guide is more user-friendly than ever before. Species entries have been re-ordered and updated to reflect the new taxonomy, and the book has been expanded to include eighteen new species as well as a new section on vagrant species. It also features new information on bird family groups, more than 750 distribution maps based on the most recent bird atlas data, as well as a new Quick Find Index, to assist with quick identification of birds in the field. This is the essential reference for every bird enthusiast.My first impression: This is the best, most complete, field guide to the birds of Australia. However, that said, I noticed an error on my quick inspection of the book: the red-collared lorikeet, Trichoglossus rubritorquis, is listed as part of the rainbow lorikeet radiation, T. haematodus, although almost all authorities consider the red-collared lorikeet to be a separate (although closely-related) species. Some users may be dismayed by the lack of arrows (or other method) in the illustrations as an aid to quickly picking out distinguishing field marks. Britain’s Hoverflies: An Introduction to the Hoverflies of Britain by Stuart Ball and Roger Morris [Princeton University Press, 2013; Guardian Bookshop; Amazon UK; Amazon US/kindle US] Publisher’s tinnitus miracle Hoverflies is a beautifully illustrated photographic field guide to all the genera of hoverflies found in Britain, focusing on the species most likely to be identified. Accessible and designed to appeal to a wide audience, the book contains more than 500 remarkable photographs exploring the various life stages of all 69 hoverfly genera and the 164 most commonly seen species. Easy-to-use species accounts highlight key identification features, including status, behavior, and habitat requirements. The book also contains distribution maps, phenology charts, and introductory chapters that examine hoverfly biology. This guide is the perfect companion for wildlife enthusiasts, professional ecologists, and anyone with an interest in this unique insect family. More than 500 remarkable photographs depict all 69 hoverfly genera and the 164 most commonly seen species in Britain that can be identified by eye or with a magnifying glass Introductory chapters explore hoverfly biology Species accounts highlight key features of each genus and species, including status, behavior, and habitat Maps and phenology charts examine hoverfly distribution A complete list of the 281 hoverfly species recorded in Britain to date with degrees of identification difficultyMy first impression: This is an informative book, filled with life history information, range maps, numerous colour photographs of habitat and the species with the identifying structures and patterns clearly labelled. Not all species are illustrated. What book(s) are you reading? How far are you along in the book? What do you think of it so far? Do you think your book is worth recommending to others?.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. GrrlScientist can also be found here: Maniraptora, and on social media: facebook, G+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and of course, on twitter: @GrrlScientistGrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds AFGHANISTAN The commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Sunday that there is “clear evidence” some Taliban fighters have trained in Iran. The State Department finds no significant environmental barriers to approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The bride and groom are associates at New York law firms. BP said Tuesday that it will restart its suspended dividend payments, put its troubled Texas City refinery up for sale and sell another $13 billion in assets, a move aimed at covering costs flowing from last year’s the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. UNDER THE SUN The Letters of Bruce Chatwin Selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare Viking. 554 pp. $35 With the publication in 1977 of his first book, “In Patagonia,” the virtually unknown British writer Bruce Chatwin became an instant literary celebrity, and remained… MF Global customers moved a step closer to recouping their missing money when JPMorgan Chase released its claim to more than $500 million belonging to the bankrupt brokerage firm. The New England Collection reproduces classic American hooked rugs in modern sizes. A return to the Jaffna Peninsula, where the spiritual life and a welcome to visitors are being renewed. Washington Post opinion columnist Eugene Robinson discuss his recent columns and anything else that’s on aquaponics 4 you Q. We built a spec house in 2007 as the market declined. We’ve tried to do everything to get it sold and recently received a short-sale offer on the home. The Time 100 gala is the kind of event at which politicians (Joe Biden) fraternize with celebrities (a cleavage-baring Christina Aguilera.) Woman charged with gross negligence manslaughter after death of Lydia Bishop in York in September last yearA woman has been charged with manslaughter following the death of a three-year-old girl in a nursery playground.Lydia Bishop died in an incident at York College nursery on 17 September last year.North Yorkshire police said on Friday they had charged a 24-year-old woman with gross negligence manslaughter. She will appear in court next week.They said York College would be summonsed to court for alleged health and safety breaches.The woman, who has not been named but is understood to have been a member of staff at the nursery, will appear before York magistrates court on Monday 8 April.Lydia suffered serious injuries in the outdoor play area on her first day at the nursery.Emergency services were called and she was taken to York district hospital, where she was pronounced dead.Her death was described as “absolutely devastating” by the college at the time and the nursery, which opened in 2007, was permanently closed.Detective Chief Inspector Nigel Costello, of North Yorkshire police, said on Friday: “This has been a very distressing case for everyone involved, not least for Lydia’s family who have suffered an extremely tragic loss.”Our thoughts are with them and specially trained officers continue to support them through this very difficult time.”The matter is now in the hands of the criminal justice system and we await the outcome of any subsequent court proceedings.”ChildrenCrimeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds In my online discussions I frequently get questions from couples facing financial issues. Juan Esteban Montero in Chile Photo courtesy of Juan Esteban Montero Before the infamous leak, the 250,000 State Department cables acquired by anti-secrecy activists resided in a database so obscure that few diplomats had heard of it. The halls of MIT were enriched this past fall with the presence of several internationally acclaimed artists brought to campus for residencies by the MIT Visiting Artists Program and the Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST). Of particular interest to the School of Architecture + Planning were an Argentinian architect-cum-artist famed for his speculations on alternative ways of living; a pair of artist/activists who use public art to help build healthy communities; a Brazilian photographer exploring the nature of visual cognition; and two British filmmakers whose work has transformed the craft. Take a brief look at the visitors and their activities at MIT. Exploring a “flexitarian†diet, regulators aim to restrict payday lending by big banks, doubling the workout doesn’t double the benefits and other consumer focused news from The New York Times An astrophysicist’s new theory seeks to explain Saturn’s unique and constantly changing rings. “We’re not getting any younger” says Nick Lachey of a principal motivation behind his longtime
[Translate]