Source: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/21/dish-of-the-day-beer-matching-menu-part-3-the-main/
kate middleton marco rubio marco rubio Zero Hour Funny Valentines Chris Kyle Russian meteor
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
IBM's Watson Has a Boring New Job Answering Phones
After you've used your crazy robot intellect to crush puny meatbags definitively in a game of Jeopardy
Companies including Australia?s ANZ Bank, Nielsen, and Royal Bank of Canada plan to put this supercomputer to work answering questions by SMS, online chat, email, or through a compatible app. Watson will not only be saving humans from having to answer hundreds upon hundreds of inane questions about insurance plans and loan interested, but also help provide better information, since he doesn't zone out when reading fine print.
Watson doesn't have any voice recognition capability yet, but that could come later this year, putting him toe-to-toe with things like Siri and Google Now. IBM's likely to continue pimping out Watson's noggin to more companies as down the line, and really, we could all benefit from having more, smarter computers answering our questions for us. But it just seems like he's settling. We just hope he's happy, happy as a lifeless machine brain can be.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/ibms-watson-has-a-boring-new-job-answering-phones-509034580
sean taylor Lisa Robin Kelly Nexus 4 Girl Meets World Jason Babin Nolan Daniels angus t. jones
Sennheiser's HDVD 800 digital headphone amp now available in the US for $2,000
Analog may be king for audiophiles, but digital is the future, friends, and Sennheiser knows it. That's why it built the HDVD 800 digital headphone amplifier to improve the sound of your digital tunes, and now stateside listeners can finally get their mitts on the thing. That's right, folks, a year after it was revealed across the pond alongside its analog brother, Senn's digital offering's finally available in the US for just a nickel less than two grand. Folks looking to part with the necessary cash to improve their listening pleasure can do so at the company's online storefront linked below.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Sennheiser
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xCww1ctWmX4/
kevin durant miranda kerr memorial day Jodi Arias Call Of Duty Ghosts Sergio Garcia Ray Manzarek
Comprehensive analysis of impact spherules supports theory of cosmic impact 12,800 years ago
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Sonia Fernandez
sonia.fernandez@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-4765
University of California - Santa Barbara
(Santa Barbara, California) About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally and remarkably occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode.
The cause of this cooling has been much debated, especially because it closely coincided with the abrupt extinction of the majority of the large animals then inhabiting the Americas, as well as the disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, known for its big game hunting.
"What then did cause the extinction of most of these big animals, including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, American camel and horse, and saber- toothed cats?" asked Kennett, pointing to Charles Darwin's 1845 assessment of the significance of climate change. "Did these extinctions result from human overkill, climatic change or some catastrophic event?" The long debate that has followed, Kennett noted, has recently been stimulated by a growing body of evidence in support of a theory that a major cosmic impact event was involved, a theory proposed by the scientific team that includes Kennett himself.
Now, in one of the most comprehensive related investigations ever, the group has documented a wide distribution of microspherules widely distributed in a layer over 50 million square kilometers on four continents, including North America, including Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands. This layer the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) layer also contains peak abundances of other exotic materials, including nanodiamonds and other unusual forms of carbon such as fullerenes, as well as melt-glass and iridium. This new evidence in support of the cosmic impact theory appeared recently in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.
This cosmic impact, said Kennett, caused major environmental degradation over wide areas through numerous processes that include continent-wide wildfires and a major increase in atmospheric dust load that blocked the sun long enough to cause starvation of larger animals.
Investigating 18 sites across North America, Europe and the Middle East, Kennett and 28 colleagues from 24 institutions analyzed the spherules, tiny spheres formed by the high temperature melting of rocks and soils that then cooled or quenched rapidly in the atmosphere. The process results from enormous heat and pressures in blasts generated by the cosmic impact, somewhat similar to those produced during atomic explosions, Kennett explained.
But spherules do not form from cosmic collisions alone. Volcanic activity, lightning strikes, and coal seam fires all can create the tiny spheres. So to differentiate between impact spherules and those formed by other processes, the research team utilized scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry on nearly 700 spherule samples collected from the YDB layer. The YDB layer also corresponds with the end of the Clovis age, and is commonly associated with other features such as an overlying "black mat" a thin, dark carbon-rich sedimentary layer as well as the youngest known Clovis archeological material and megafaunal remains, and abundant charcoal that indicates massive biomass burning resulting from impact.
The results, according to Kennett, are compelling. Examinations of the YDB spherules revealed that while they are consistent with the type of sediment found on the surface of the earth in their areas at the time of impact, they are geochemically dissimilar from volcanic materials. Tests on their remanent magnetism the remaining magnetism after the removal of an electric or magnetic influence also demonstrated that the spherules could not have formed naturally during lightning strikes.
"Because requisite formation temperatures for the impact spherules are greater than 2,200 degrees Celsius, this finding precludes all but a high temperature cosmic impact event as a natural formation mechanism for melted silica and other minerals," Kennett explained. Experiments by the group have for the first time demonstrated that silica-rich spherules can also form through high temperature incineration of plants, such as oaks, pines, and reeds, because these are known to contain biologically formed silica.
Additionally, according to the study, the surface textures of these spherules are consistent with high temperatures and high-velocity impacts, and they are often fused to other spherules. An estimated 10 million metric tons of impact spherules were deposited across nine countries in the four continents studied. However, the true breadth of the YDB strewnfield is unknown, indicating an impact of major proportions.
"Based on geochemical measurements and morphological observations, this paper offers compelling evidence to reject alternate hypotheses that YDB spherules formed by volcanic or human activity; from the ongoing natural accumulation of space dust; lightning strikes; or by slow geochemical accumulation in sediments," said Kennett.
"This evidence continues to point to a major cosmic impact as the primary cause for the tragic loss of nearly all of the remarkable American large animals that had survived the stresses of many ice age periods only to be knocked out quite recently by this catastrophic event."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 21-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Sonia Fernandez
sonia.fernandez@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-4765
University of California - Santa Barbara
(Santa Barbara, California) About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally and remarkably occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode.
The cause of this cooling has been much debated, especially because it closely coincided with the abrupt extinction of the majority of the large animals then inhabiting the Americas, as well as the disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, known for its big game hunting.
"What then did cause the extinction of most of these big animals, including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, American camel and horse, and saber- toothed cats?" asked Kennett, pointing to Charles Darwin's 1845 assessment of the significance of climate change. "Did these extinctions result from human overkill, climatic change or some catastrophic event?" The long debate that has followed, Kennett noted, has recently been stimulated by a growing body of evidence in support of a theory that a major cosmic impact event was involved, a theory proposed by the scientific team that includes Kennett himself.
Now, in one of the most comprehensive related investigations ever, the group has documented a wide distribution of microspherules widely distributed in a layer over 50 million square kilometers on four continents, including North America, including Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands. This layer the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) layer also contains peak abundances of other exotic materials, including nanodiamonds and other unusual forms of carbon such as fullerenes, as well as melt-glass and iridium. This new evidence in support of the cosmic impact theory appeared recently in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.
This cosmic impact, said Kennett, caused major environmental degradation over wide areas through numerous processes that include continent-wide wildfires and a major increase in atmospheric dust load that blocked the sun long enough to cause starvation of larger animals.
Investigating 18 sites across North America, Europe and the Middle East, Kennett and 28 colleagues from 24 institutions analyzed the spherules, tiny spheres formed by the high temperature melting of rocks and soils that then cooled or quenched rapidly in the atmosphere. The process results from enormous heat and pressures in blasts generated by the cosmic impact, somewhat similar to those produced during atomic explosions, Kennett explained.
But spherules do not form from cosmic collisions alone. Volcanic activity, lightning strikes, and coal seam fires all can create the tiny spheres. So to differentiate between impact spherules and those formed by other processes, the research team utilized scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry on nearly 700 spherule samples collected from the YDB layer. The YDB layer also corresponds with the end of the Clovis age, and is commonly associated with other features such as an overlying "black mat" a thin, dark carbon-rich sedimentary layer as well as the youngest known Clovis archeological material and megafaunal remains, and abundant charcoal that indicates massive biomass burning resulting from impact.
The results, according to Kennett, are compelling. Examinations of the YDB spherules revealed that while they are consistent with the type of sediment found on the surface of the earth in their areas at the time of impact, they are geochemically dissimilar from volcanic materials. Tests on their remanent magnetism the remaining magnetism after the removal of an electric or magnetic influence also demonstrated that the spherules could not have formed naturally during lightning strikes.
"Because requisite formation temperatures for the impact spherules are greater than 2,200 degrees Celsius, this finding precludes all but a high temperature cosmic impact event as a natural formation mechanism for melted silica and other minerals," Kennett explained. Experiments by the group have for the first time demonstrated that silica-rich spherules can also form through high temperature incineration of plants, such as oaks, pines, and reeds, because these are known to contain biologically formed silica.
Additionally, according to the study, the surface textures of these spherules are consistent with high temperatures and high-velocity impacts, and they are often fused to other spherules. An estimated 10 million metric tons of impact spherules were deposited across nine countries in the four continents studied. However, the true breadth of the YDB strewnfield is unknown, indicating an impact of major proportions.
"Based on geochemical measurements and morphological observations, this paper offers compelling evidence to reject alternate hypotheses that YDB spherules formed by volcanic or human activity; from the ongoing natural accumulation of space dust; lightning strikes; or by slow geochemical accumulation in sediments," said Kennett.
"This evidence continues to point to a major cosmic impact as the primary cause for the tragic loss of nearly all of the remarkable American large animals that had survived the stresses of many ice age periods only to be knocked out quite recently by this catastrophic event."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/uoc--cao052113.php
nor easter nor easter veep los angeles kings timothy leary jonathan frid pujols
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Panel: Apple uses firms outside US to avoid taxes
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Apple Inc. employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found.
The world's most valuable company is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The strategies Apple uses are legal, and many other multinational corporations use similar tax techniques to avoid paying U.S. income taxes on profits they reap overseas. But Apple uses a unique twist, the report found. The company's tactics raise questions about loopholes in the U.S. tax code, lawmakers say.
The spotlight on Apple's tax strategy comes at a time of fevered debate in Washington over whether and how to raise revenues to help reduce the federal deficit. Many Democrats complain that the government is missing out on collecting billions because companies are stashing profits abroad and avoiding taxes. Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 percent and ease the tax burden on money that U.S. companies make abroad. They say the move would encourage companies to invest at home.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company's chief financial officer and its tax chief are scheduled to testify and explain the company's tax strategy at a hearing by the subcommittee Tuesday.
Apple spokesmen didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on the subcommittee report.
The company has made clear that given current U.S. tax rates, it has no intention of repatriating its overseas profits to the U.S.
The subcommittee also has examined the tax strategies of Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other multinational companies, finding that they too have avoided billions in U.S. taxes by shifting profits offshore and exploiting weak, ambiguous sections of the tax code. Microsoft has used "aggressive" transactions to shift assets to subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Ireland and Singapore, in part to avoid taxes. HP has used complex offshore loan transactions worth billions while using the money to run its U.S. operations, according to the panel.
The subcommittee's report estimates that Apple avoided at least $3.5 billion in U.S. federal taxes in 2011 and $9 billion in 2012 by using the strategy. The company, based in Cupertino, Calif., paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes in 2011 and $6 billion in 2012.
Apple uses five companies located in Ireland to carry out its tax strategy, according to the report. The companies are located at the same address in Cork, Ireland, and they share members of their boards of directors. While all five companies were incorporated in Ireland, only two of them also have tax residency in that country. That means the other three aren't legally required to pay taxes in Ireland because they aren't managed or controlled in that country, in Apple's view.
The report says Apple capitalizes on a difference between U.S. and Irish rules regarding tax residency. In Ireland, a company must be managed and controlled in the country to be a tax resident. Under U.S. law, a company is a tax resident of the country in which it was established. Therefore, the Apple companies aren't tax residents of Ireland nor of the U.S., since they weren't incorporated in the U.S., in Apple's view.
The subcommittee said Apple's strategy of not declaring tax residency in any country could be unique among corporations.
"Apple wasn't satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee's chairman, said in a statement. "Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere."
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the panel's senior Republican, said that while Apple claims to be the biggest U.S. corporate taxpayer, it is also "among America's largest tax avoiders." He said the company is "purposefully depriving the American people of revenue" by using a "byzantine" tax structure.
The subcommittee report also noted that Apple has been setting aside billions for tax bills it may never pay. As previously reported by The Associated Press, the overlooked asset that Apple has been building up could boost Apple's profits by as much as $10.5 billion. However, Apple has been lobbying to change U.S. law so it can erase its tax liabilities in a less conspicuous fashion.
In its second quarter ended March 31, Apple posted its first profit decline in ten years. Net income was $9.5 billion, or $10.09 a share, down 18 percent from $11.6 billion, or $12.30 a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue increased 11 percent, to $43.6 billion.
Apple said in April that it will distribute $100 billion in cash to its shareholders by the end of 2015. The company is expanding its share buyback program to $60 billion, the largest buyback authorization in history, and is raising its dividend by 15 percent, to $3.05 a share.
President Barack Obama has proposed using the tax code to encourage companies to move jobs back to the U.S. and discourage them from shifting jobs abroad. Many in both parties say they want to overhaul the entire tax code, but there are vast differences in how they would do so.
The subcommittee's inquiry and hearing are intended to shine a light on "offshore tax-avoidance tactics" by Apple, Levin said at a news conference Monday. Companies' use of such loopholes has the effect of raising the taxes of ordinary Americans and increasing the federal deficit, he said.
McCain called Apple's strategy "an egregious and really outrageous scheme that Apple has been able to orchestrate to avoid paying taxes."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/panel-apple-uses-firms-outside-us-avoid-taxes-210041569.html
pbs ron paul Cnn Electoral Map roseanne barr guy fawkes gary johnson gary johnson
China's Xi will meet Obama earlier than expected
BEIJING (AP) ? China's new leader Xi Jinping will confer with President Barack Obama next month in California, months earlier than their expected first meeting, as both sides seek to stem a drift in relations, troubled by issues from cyberspying to North Korea.
The June 7-8 meeting at a retreat southeast of Los Angeles, announced Monday by the White House, underlines the importance of the relationship between the countries as they work out ways for the U.S.-led world order to make room for a China that is fast accruing global influence and military power.
Xi has said that China wants its rise to be peaceful, but that Beijing will not compromise on issues of sovereignty ? a stance that has aggravated disputes over contested East and South China Seas islands with U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines and friend Vietnam.
Among the other pressing items on their agenda: the spotty global economic recovery, U.S. allegations of persistent Chinese cyber-attacks and espionage and Washington's desire for China to do more in international efforts to curb North Korea's nuclear program.
The issues are so many that the agenda was becoming crowded for any Obama and Xi meeting. The two leaders have spoken by telephone since Obama was re-elected and Xi elevated to Communist Party chief in November. But their first face-to-face meeting was not expected to be held until September on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of 20 large economies in Russia.
"They needed more than 20 minutes on the sidelines of another meeting," said Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "If they want to see U.S.-China relations on a solid footing, to manage the differences and find issues to cooperate on ? North Korea, Iran, climate change ? it has to start at the top. U.S. China relations are not managed from the bottom up but from the top down."
The White House, in its statement, said the two presidents will "discuss ways to enhance cooperation, while constructively managing our differences, in the years ahead."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that "this meeting is important to the long-term, sound and steady development of China-US relations as well as regional and international peace, stability and prosperity."
The decision to hold a working visit instead of a pomp-filled state summit also underscores the government's decision to put protocol aside to focus on substance. Xi will make the stop-off in California after traveling to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico.
"The engagement has become more flexible, and that helps keep the contact at the highest levels, which is conducive to understanding each other's viewpoints and taking more effective measures," Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.
U.S. diplomats have said that Chinese officials had wanted Obama to come to Beijing late this year or early next. His last visit was in 2009. Since then, Xi went to Washington in early 2012 as vice president, and his predecessor as president, Hu Jintao, was given a formal White House welcome a year earlier.
To prepare for the California meeting, Obama's national security adviser, Tom Donilon, will go to Beijing on May 26-28, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-xi-meet-obama-earlier-expected-032851953.html
Paul Harvey ihop Sasquatch 2013 super bowl commercials wheres my refund Fast And Furious 6 superbowl ads
Monday, May 20, 2013
Foreign buyers pushing up land prices in Japan? ? Real Estate ...
Foreign buyers are reportedly joining the apartment buying frenzy in Japan.
The recent weakening of the Yen by up to 20% means an offshore buyer can now save as much as 20 million Yen when buying a 100 million Yen apartment (assuming they were initially planning to buy last year but put it off until now).
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) announced the results of their assessed land values (koji-chika) in March.
The most surprising observation from the report was that the highest increase in land values in Tokyo?s 23 ward was an area in Tokyo?s manmade islands that is at risk of liquefaction in a major earthquake ? Toyosu 4 Chome. This area saw residential land prices increase by 2.8% over the past year. The continued development of the area into a high-rise residential and commercial hub is creating an unexpected bubble.
Seminars targeting foreign buyers
In February, Jones Lang LaSalle held a Japanese real estate seminar in Singapore targeting wealthy buyers. It was said to have been a great success. Some of the condominiums marketed at the seminars include 24-hour room service, linen change and housekeeping, dinner cruises and night helicopter flights.
Over 200 prospective buyers were invited to the two day event, which resulted in offers made on five apartments and a number of apartments being reserved. Of the 65 apartments offered for sale to this group, almost 30 were sold.
Another high-rise condominium in Roppongi was also marketed to Singaporeans, with positive sales on apartments priced over 100 million Yen. One visitor said that she did not feel there was a huge price difference between apartments in Singapore and Japan, and found the Roppongi area appealing as it was famous for being a celeb-hangout.
The weakening Yen is supporting the buying activity from foreigners in Japan.
If a foreigner had purchased a 100 million Yen apartment last year when 1 USD was 80 Yen, they would have paid 1.25 million USD. The Yen has now dropped to about 1 USD / 98 Yen which means the same apartment could be purchased for 1.02 million USD ? a saving of almost 20%.
At the event in Singapore, apartment prices were listed in Yen along with their Singapore-dollar equivalent.
(Foreign buyers need to be aware of the exchange rate risks when buying real estate overseas. At the time of the event in February, 1 SGD was around 75.5 Yen, so a 100 million Yen apartment would have cost the buyer about 1.33 million SGD. The Yen has since weakened further, so that 100 million Yen purchase would now be about 1.25 million SGD in May, losing the buyer about 6% in 3 months.)
[Currency rates used here are different to the retail rates available to consumers]
Chinese real estate tours
Foreign buyers are increasingly noticeable at apartment showrooms in Tokyo. A salesman from a European securities company near Roppongi said ?the reason that the staff of foreign companies are being aggressive buyers is due to the exchange rate.?
Chinese and Taiwanese buyers are also being lured to Japan on real estate tours. Areas convenient to Narita and Haneda Airports are popular with such buyers. These buyers were not active in 2012, and many suggested it was because of the renewed dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. However, the real reason was said to be the high Yen at the time.
Popular areas with foreign buyers include Toyosu, Roppongi, Azabu, Aoyama and Akasaka.
A salesman from a major developer explained that ?after the Lehman Shock, many foreign corporations pulled out of Japan and the luxury rental market suffered considerably. However, the sales market did not suffer as much.?
President Oki of Attractors Lab said there is a pattern where the value of apartments drops by an average of 12,000 Yen/sqm per year. However, in the popular expat areas of Azabu, Aoyama and Akasaka, the prices drop much slower, if at all. Because there is a very small supply of new developments, demand remains strong.
An employee of a foreign financial company said his foreign boss once remarked that he didn?t consider any executive rental apartment outside of those three expat areas to be ?Tokyo?. However, this belief has changed in recent years as surrounding areas see a rise in the development of luxury residences. Toyosu is on area is seeing growth in foreign residents. It?s elementary school now has students from China, Korea and Russia,
Editor?s Note:?Zoe Ward is the publisher of?Japan Property Central?and has extensive experience in the Tokyo real estate market, working for some of the advertising agents on Real Estate Japan.
Tokyo Apartments For Sale | Tokyo Apartments For Rent | Real Estate Japan
Source: http://www.realestate.co.jp/2013/05/20/foreign-buyers-pushing-up-land-prices-in-japan/
Richard Engel Daniel Inouye steelers scarlett johansson peter frampton Sandy Hook Elementary School Colors Cassadee Pope
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Watch This Badass Pilot Save the Day With a Ballsy No-Wheel Landing
Last night, the pilot of US Airways Express Flight 4560 was having some bad luck. The landing gear on his turboprop twin-engine plane just wouldn't go all the way down. So with some quick thinking and righteous piloting skills, he went in for a wheelless, sparky touchdown, and pulled it off without a hitch.
     |
First Row Sports American flag Happy 4th of July 4th Of July Desserts fireworks fireworks 4th of July
The Weekly Roundup for 05.13.2013
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
eva longoria Michael Clarke Duncan Nazanin Boniadi Deval Patrick Dedication 4 labor day college football scores
I need a american payroll dispatcher - Must Live In America :D ...
Tax Type Tax Rate Tax ID or Company no.
eg. VAT, GST ? Registration no.
comedy central philadelphia eagles obamacare Todd Akin Register To Vote Obama 2016 Who Is Winning The Election 2012
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Jordan finally front and center in 'Fruitvale'
CANNES, France (AP) ? Before "Fruitvale Station," Michael B. Jordan was glimpsed sporadically in supporting roles on TV shows like "The Wire" and "Friday Night Lights," and in films like "Chronicle" and "Red Tails."
That changes emphatically with "Fruitvale Station," a Sundance hit that premiered Thursday night at the Cannes Film Festival. In the film, he plays Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old victim of the infamous 2009 police shooting on the Oakland, California, transit system.
To humanize Grant, first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler fashioned the movie around his last day: Jordan hardly leaves the frame.
"When I first saw it, I was like, 'Man, can we cut to something else? I'm tired of looking at myself right now,'" Jordan said in an interview by the beach off the Croisette. "That's when it really sunk in that this is sink or swim. Sink or swim. Hope I'm swimming."
Not only is the 26-year-old Jordan swimming, he might as well be doing swan dives along the Riviera. He utterly commands "Fruitvale Station" with star-quality charisma and an honest naturalism.
"I wanted to show that I could carry a movie," he says. "That's the next step. I want to do films. I want to be a leading man. A lot was riding on this."
"Fruitvale Station," which was simply called "Fruitvale" before the Weinstein Co. picked up the film for release July 16, won both the Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award for a drama at Sundance. Cannes has a tradition of cherry-picking the best of Sundance. Much as "Beasts of the Southern Wild" did last year, "Fruitvale Station" is playing in this year's Un Certain Regard section.
Jordan, who says he was merely hoping the film would make it into Sundance, was excitedly enjoying himself at Cannes on Thursday. He's planning to stay at the festival a few days longer than necessary, "to drink a little more, stay up a little later."
"It's electric," says Jordan. "It's like March Madness. It's that time of year where everyone's just in it, talking about movies."
But he's also trying not to get ahead of himself.
"I don't want to be that ignorant American who comes over here and expects everyone to love it: 'Oh, you got to love it because it's hot over there,'" he says. "I want people to be excited about it because it really affects them."
"Fruitvale Station" has certainly been doing that, with raves for the film continuing at Cannes. Its power owes much to Jordan's performance, as he slowly ? through a routine day of running errands, fighting to keep a job, trying to live down an earlier stint in prison, and caring for his daughter ? fleshes out Grant beyond the simple posthumous photo in a newspaper.
"Something me and Ryan really wanted to show is spontaneity," he says. "It's about the humanity. It's about how people treat each other, regardless if they're black, white, orange, from wherever, whatever social background, how much money you got ? it doesn't matter."
Coogler, a native of the San Francisco Bay area where the film takes place, had Jordan specifically in mind for the part. A moment after meeting him, the director knew he had the magnetism of the sociable Grant.
"In everything that he was in, I wished the camera stayed on him," says Coogler. "He would be in a scene, and on TV, it leaves and goes on (to another character). I would be like, 'Man, we should be following that guy.'"
Jordan has had some memorable roles, including as the tragic, young, drug-dealing Wallace in the first season of "The Wire," and as Vince Howard, the troubled but good-hearted quarterback of "Friday Night Lights." The show, Jordan says, was the first time he got the material to "show what I can do."
The actor says he was "drooling at the bit" to play Grant. But perhaps the greater challenge to seeing his name atop the call sheet every day during shooting "Fruitvale Station" was that Jordan would be playing a real person, one whose family was intimately connected to the production.
"His daughter is going to have to watch this movie one day," he says. "I didn't want to let anybody down. I didn't want to see me up there. That was the biggest thing: I didn't want to see Mike up there."
Jordan has been in talks to play the Human Torch in Twentieth Century Fox's "Fantastic Four" reboot. He acknowledges the possibility, but says, "That's not real yet." The film is to be directed by Josh Trank, who cast Jordan as one of three high school friends who gain superpowers in "Chronicle."
If Jordan were to be cast in "Fantastic Four," he would be the rare black actor to assume a superhero role. Jordan acknowledges that some will prefer the continuity of the Human Torch remaining white, as he is in the comics. But he thinks the character's most identifiable qualities have little to do with race. (Jordan's character in "Chronicle" was also originally scripted as white.)
"I'm all about breaking barriers and changing stuff," says Jordan. "It's 2013. We've got a black president. Times have changed."
But whatever is to come for Jordan, it's clear he has big ambitions: "I want a career like Leo," he says. "I want a career like Ryan Gosling."
Smiling, Jordan says: "It feels good. It feels good to get to a place where I can be creative and selective about certain things I do. I'm really curious to see what's next."
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-finally-front-center-fruitvale-134641858.html
American Music Awards 2012 oregon ducks oregon ducks rob gronkowski Coughing eddie murphy Stephanie Bongiovi
Google Play Services gives control of Android back to Google
With API services outside of the core operating system, Google is taking back control of Android
We didn't get a new version of Android this year at Google I/O. You can read all the lamenting and gnashing of teeth over this across the web, so I'll spare you the play by play of how it was supposed to happen (a proverbial lock), but didn't.
Instead, I'll tell you a little bit about what we did get -- a huge updated version of Google's service APIs, which turns out is much better.
Wait. Better? How can an app I never wanted that got magically pushed to my phone be better than a newer, higher number in my about phone screen? That's crazy talk, right?.
Turns out, that little app is a powerful beast. Read on.
| |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/kea7HFBstg8/story01.htm
us news law school rankings gael glen rice jr bars lindzi cox bachelor finale courtney robertson
Nanotechnology could help fight diabetes
Friday, May 17, 2013
Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.
The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Ultimately, this type of system could ensure that blood-sugar levels remain balanced and improve patients' quality of life, according to the researchers.
"Insulin really works, but the problem is people don't always get the right amount of it. With this system of extended release, the amount of drug secreted is proportional to the needs of the body," says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor of chemical engineering and member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.
Anderson is the senior author of a paper describing the new system in a recent issue of the journal ACS Nano. Lead author of the paper is Zhen Gu, a former postdoc in Anderson's lab. The research team also includes Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, and researchers from the Department of Anesthesiology at Boston Children's Hospital.
Mimicking the pancreas
Currently, people with Type 1 diabetes typically prick their fingers several times a day to draw blood for testing their blood-sugar levels. When levels are high, these patients inject themselves with insulin, which breaks down the excess sugar.
In recent years, many researchers have sought to develop insulin-delivery systems that could act as an "artificial pancreas," automatically detecting glucose levels and secreting insulin. One approach uses hydrogels to measure and react to glucose levels, but those gels are slow to respond or lack mechanical strength, allowing insulin to leak out.
The MIT team set out to create a sturdy, biocompatible system that would respond more quickly to changes in glucose levels and would be easy to administer.
Their system consists of an injectable gel-like structure with a texture similar to toothpaste, says Gu, who is now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and molecular pharmaceutics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. The gel contains a mixture of oppositely charged nanoparticles that attract each other, keeping the gel intact and preventing the particles from drifting away once inside the body.
Using a modified polysaccharide known as dextran, the researchers designed the gel to be sensitive to acidity. Each nanoparticle contains spheres of dextran loaded with an enzyme that converts glucose into gluconic acid. Glucose can diffuse freely through the gel, so when sugar levels are high, the enzyme produces large quantities of gluconic acid, making the local environment slightly more acidic.
That acidic environment causes the dextran spheres to disintegrate, releasing insulin. Insulin then performs its normal function, converting the glucose in the bloodstream into glycogen, which is absorbed into the liver for storage.
Long-term control
In tests with mice that have Type 1 diabetes, the researchers found that a single injection of the gel maintained normal blood-sugar levels for an average of 10 days. Because the particles are mostly composed of polysaccharides, they are biocompatible and eventually degrade in the body.
The researchers are now trying to modify the particles so they can respond to changes in glucose levels faster, at the speed of pancreas islet cells. "Islet cells are very smart. They can release insulin very quickly once they sense high sugar levels," Gu says.
Before testing the particles in humans, the researchers plan to further develop the system's delivery properties and to work on optimizing the dosage that would be needed for use in humans.
###
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice
Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 33 time(s).
Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128296/Nanotechnology_could_help_fight_diabetes
tumblr Ravi Shankar Geminid meteor shower right to work Clackamas Town Center 12 12 12 Anne Hathaway Wardrobe Malfunction
Jordan finally front and center in 'Fruitvale'
CANNES, France (AP) ? Before "Fruitvale Station," Michael B. Jordan was glimpsed sporadically in supporting roles on TV shows like "The Wire" and "Friday Night Lights," and in films like "Chronicle" and "Red Tails."
That changes emphatically with "Fruitvale Station," a Sundance hit that premiered Thursday night at the Cannes Film Festival. In the film, he plays Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old victim of the infamous 2009 police shooting on the Oakland, Calif., transit system.
To humanize Grant, first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler fashioned the movie around his last day: Jordan hardly leaves the frame.
"When I first saw it, I was like, 'Man, can we cut to something else? I'm tired of looking at myself right now,'" Jordan said in an interview by the beach off the Croisette. "That's when it really sunk in that this is sink or swim. Sink or swim. Hope I'm swimming."
Not only is the 26-year-old Jordan swimming, he might as well be doing swan dives along the Riviera. He utterly commands "Fruitvale Station" with star-quality charisma and an honest naturalism.
"I wanted to show that I could carry a movie," he says. "That's the next step. I want to do films. I want to be a leading man. A lot was riding on this."
"Fruitvale Station," which was simply called "Fruitvale" before the Weinstein Co. picked up the film for release July 16, won both the Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award for a drama at Sundance. Cannes has a tradition of cherry-picking the best of Sundance. Much as "Beasts of the Southern Wild" did last year, "Fruitvale Station" is playing in this year's Un Certain Regard section.
Jordan, who says he was merely hoping the film would make it into Sundance, was excitedly enjoying himself at Cannes on Thursday. He's planning to stay at the festival a few days longer than necessary, "to drink a little more, stay up a little later."
"It's electric," says Jordan. "It's like March Madness. It's that time of year where everyone's just in it, talking about movies."
But he's also trying not to get ahead of himself.
"I don't want to be that ignorant American who comes over here and expects everyone to love it: 'Oh, you got to love it because it's hot over there,'" he says. "I want people to be excited about it because it really affects them."
"Fruitvale Station" has certainly been doing that, with raves for the film continuing at Cannes. Its power owes much to Jordan's performance, as he slowly ? through a routine day of running errands, fighting to keep a job, trying to live down an earlier stint in prison, and caring for his daughter ? fleshes out Grant beyond the simple posthumous photo in a newspaper.
"Something me and Ryan really wanted to show is spontaneity," he says. "It's about the humanity. It's about how people treat each other, regardless if they're black, white, orange, from wherever, whatever social background, how much money you got ? it doesn't matter."
Coogler, a native of the San Francisco Bay area where the film takes place, had Jordan specifically in mind for the part. A moment after meeting him, the director knew he had the magnetism of the sociable Grant.
"In everything that he was in, I wished the camera stayed on him," says Coogler. "He would be in a scene, and on TV, it leaves and goes on (to another character). I would be like, 'Man, we should be following that guy.'"
Jordan has had some memorable roles, including as the tragic, young, drug-dealing Wallace in the first season of "The Wire," and as Vince Howard, the troubled but good-hearted quarterback of "Friday Night Lights." The show, Jordan says, was the first time he got the material to "show what I can do."
The actor says he was "drooling at the bit" to play Grant. But perhaps the greater challenge to seeing his name atop the call sheet every day during shooting "Fruitvale Station" was that Jordan would be playing a real person, one whose family was intimately connected to the production.
"His daughter is going to have to watch this movie one day," he says. "I didn't want to let anybody down. I didn't want to see me up there. That was the biggest thing: I didn't want to see Mike up there."
Jordan has been in talks to play the Human Torch in Twentieth Century Fox's "Fantastic Four" reboot. He acknowledges the possibility, but says, "That's not real yet." The film is to be directed by Josh Trank, who cast Jordan as one of three high school friends who gain superpowers in "Chronicle."
If Jordan were to be cast in "Fantastic Four," he would be the rare black actor to assume a superhero role. Jordan acknowledges that some will prefer the continuity of the Human Torch remaining white, as he is in the comics. But he thinks the character's most identifiable qualities have little to do with race. (Jordan's character in "Chronicle" was also originally scripted as white.)
"I'm all about breaking barriers and changing stuff," says Jordan. "It's 2013. We've got a black president. Times have changed."
But whatever is to come for Jordan, it's clear he has big ambitions: "I want a career like Leo," he says. "I want a career like Ryan Gosling."
Smiling, Jordan says: "It feels good. It feels good to get to a place where I can be creative and selective about certain things I do. I'm really curious to see what's next."
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-finally-front-center-fruitvale-134641858.html
abraham lincoln vampire hunter their eyes were watching god lara logan manu ginobili sports illustrated swimsuit 2012 aretha franklin whitney houston paul williams
Friday, May 17, 2013
New OS X Spyware Discovered at Oslo Freedom Forum
During the 2013 Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual conference focused on human rights, a new piece of spyware was discovered on an attendee's Mac. The spyware, which was discovered by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, is currently being analyzed by F-Secure to fully understand what it does.
Appelbaum discovered the backdoor during a workshop in which freedom of speech activists could learn how to protect their devices from government monitoring. An interesting property of the spyware is that it?s actually signed with an Apple Developer ID. The use of Developer IDs for signing software is meant to prevent users from installing known malicious software, but isn't effective against newly discovered malware. Fortunately, now that the malware is known, Apple should be able to block installation of the malware by more users, and may have already done so.
What is known so far about the spyware is that it will add itself to the list of applications that are launched when the user logs in, ensuring it runs every time the victim logs in to their computer. While running, the spyware takes periodic screenshots and stores them in a directory called MacApp that is created in the user?s home directory. Information was also uncovered about two C&C (command-and-control) servers likely used by the spyware. C&C servers allow for malicious software to receive instructions from the spyware?s author(s).
While the full impact of the spyware is not currently known, hopefully its reach is restricted by security features introduced with Gatekeeper. And with Apple's ability to block further installations of the spyware, the risk to other users should soon be mitigated.
| |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/9nP6wFsMyE4/story01.htm
millennial media nit championship transcendentalism bells palsy channel 5 news uc berkeley harrison barnes
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)