High-fat diet during pregnancy contributes to offspring's increased weight

June 17, 2013 ? Exposure to a high-fat diet in the womb and after birth can permanently change the cells in the brain that control food intake, predisposing monkeys to overeating and an increased preference for fatty and sugary foods, a new study finds.

The results were presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, also found that male offspring of maternal monkeys that ate a high-fat diet had increased body weight, compared with the offspring of mothers that ate a low-fat diet.

"Studies in humans have demonstrated that maternal obesity during pregnancy is a strong determinant of offspring body mass index, or BMI," said the study's lead author, Juliana Gastao Franco, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon Health and Science University.

"Our group demonstrated that consumption of a high-fat diet during gestation alters fetal development of neurons that control food intake, ultimately leading to an increased preference for high-calorie food and to increased body fat in the offspring."

Franco and her co-investigators studied monkeys born to females that consumed either a low-fat (control) diet, consisting of 14 percent of calories from fat, or a high-fat diet in which 36 percent of calories came from fat. After weaning, 20 offspring of female monkeys on the high-fat diet either received the same high-fat diet (8 monkeys) or were switched to the control diet (12 monkeys). Seven offspring of the control monkeys continued to receive the control diet.

When the monkeys were 6 to 11 months of age (equivalent to toddlers in humans), the researchers measured their total food intake, dietary preferences, body composition, physical activity and metabolic rate, which is the rate at which the body burns calories. Using molecular and cell biology techniques, the investigators examined neurotransmitter systems in the monkeys' hypothalamus, the region of the brain that regulates food intake.

All male offspring that had fetal exposure to a high-fat diet had increased body weight, despite having no changes in their metabolic rate and regardless of what they ate after weaning, Franco reported. Also, the offspring that were switched to the control diet displayed, on average, greater overall food intake and increased binge eating of food with high sugar and fat, compared with either those maintained on a high-fat diet or the controls' offspring, she said.

According to Franco, these animals had what appeared to be permanent changes in their hypothalamus -- an abnormal organization of the neurons that control food intake.

Co-author Elinor Sullivan, PhD, also of Oregon Health and Science University, speculated on the possible cause of this neurochemical change.

"We know that obesity incites inflammatory cytokines [molecules], which change how neurons develop," Sullivan said. "We believe that inflammation in the brain is causing the reprogramming of these appetite-regulating neurons."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/nutrition/~3/Y7_Ri69FyLg/130617142033.htm

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Amazon's Grocery Business Learns From Webvan That Rapid Growth Is The Enemy Of Fresh

Amazon is moving deeper into at-home grocery delivery with AmazonFresh, which is expanding to L.A. as of last week, and which is set to continue to roll out to further markets over the course of this year and beyond. But it learned to take things slow from Webvan, the famous home grocery delivery flare-out of the 90s, and also to limit delivery areas to only high density urban areas, and to pursue as efficient a warehousing strategy as possible, according to a new Reuters report.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/k2dEJYjAm7Y/

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Advances in genetic sequencing diagnose Paralympic hopeful's rare condition

June 16, 2013 ? National Paracycling Champion Tom Staniford has an extremely rare condition which, until now, has puzzled his doctors. He is unable to store fat under his skin -- yet has type 2 diabetes -- and suffered hearing loss as a child. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, an international research team led by the University of Exeter Medical School has identified Tom's condition and pinpointed the single genetic mutation that causes it.

In addition to enabling a better understanding of Tom's condition, the discovery may have implications for his bid to participate in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. He hopes this new diagnosis will allow him to be more accurately classified in Paracycling competitions; a more accurate classification could help him become a world champion.

In a study published in today's Nature Genetics, researchers funded in part by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health Research have identified the genetic mutation behind MDP syndrome -- a condition thought to affect as few as eight people in the world, including 23-year-old Tom.

"In some ways, identifying the syndrome behind my symptoms shouldn't be important -- a name is just a name, after all -- but it is reassuring to know that there are other people with the condition and that we can lead relatively normal lives," says Tom. "What could prove crucial, though, is enabling me to be properly classified in competitions so that I am not competing at an unfair disadvantage against others. I hope to be able to compete for Great Britain in the 2016 Paralympics and this finding could make a real difference to my chances."

Tom was born a normal weight, but throughout his childhood and teenage years lost all the fat around his face and limbs. His hearing deteriorated throughout his childhood, and he now wears hearing aids.

Tom's condition means he has no natural cushioning on his body, and he suffers from extremely sore feet and a higher risk of breaking bones if he falls from his bike. He has to take extra measures to protect himself from the cold, particularly when he races, and he boosts his energy levels through a special diet.

Unusually, Tom's body thinks he is obese because of the high fat levels in his blood, and he has type 2 diabetes; his diabetes is managed using metformin and a carefully controlled diet. However, when training, Tom is able to reduce his use of metformin as the intense exercise acts as form of self-medication, controlling his insulin levels.

Professor Andrew Hattersley, a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator at the University of Exeter Medical School, has been working with Tom for several years to help manage and understand his condition. He led an international team of researchers in a study of four unrelated patients in the UK, the USA and India, all with the same symptoms. None of the patients had any family history of a similar condition, suggesting that their condition may have been caused by individual genetic mutations -- spontaneous changes in their DNA, rather than inherited mutations.

By sequencing and comparing the entire genomes of the patients and their families, Professor Hattersley and colleagues were able to pinpoint the exact mutation responsible -- an abnormality in the POLD1 gene on chromosome 19. They found that a single amino acid was missing from an enzyme that is crucial to DNA replication. Recent studies have shown that a different type of mutation in the same gene is associated with a predisposition to colorectal and endometrial cancer.

Professor Hattersley says: "Tom's condition has been a puzzle to us for many years. We could see the symptoms, including the very unusual case of type 2 diabetes in someone with no obvious body fat, but did not know what was causing them.

"We had to look at 30 million base pairs in Tom's DNA, and similar numbers in his family members and the other patients, to identify the single mutation. This would not have been feasible even a couple of years ago, but new sequencing technology makes it possible for even patients with a rare genetic disorder to receive a diagnosis."

The diagnosis of MDP syndrome has been as important to Tom for identifying what the disease is not as to what it is: he had previously been told by a specialist that he may have progeria, a rare genetic disorder of extreme premature ageing, associated with high risk of dementia. The new diagnosis will reassure Tom that this is not the case.

Professor Hattersley and colleagues hope that the genetic discovery will help scientists identify therapies that could make a significant difference for people with this rare and complex syndrome. It could also have wider implications for understanding obesity and related conditions; knowing how the body works when no fat is stored in key places can provide meaningful clues about why and how too much fat is stored.

Dr Michael Dunn, Head of Genetic and Molecular Sciences at the Wellcome Trust, adds: "This is a great example of genome sequencing coming of age. Where previously sequencing a patient's entire genome was prohibitively expensive, it is now far more cost effective. As we've seen here, it is no longer just about identifying genes implicated in common diseases, but is about informing diagnoses and prognoses of rare diseases -- and, in Tom's case, helping inform his sporting performance."

The international team of researchers also included collaborators from the University of Washington, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital and the KEM Hospital Research Center in India, Tor Vergata University in Italy, the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, Glan Clwyd Hospital, and the University of Cambridge.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/KJxyrUebeHA/130616155200.htm

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Erdogan urges protesters to leave Istanbul park

SINCAN, Turkey (AP) ? In a boisterous speech to tens of thousands of flag-waving party faithful, Turkey's prime minister on Saturday threatened protesters that if they don't clear out Istanbul's Taksim Square, security forces "know how to clear it."

Supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan converged in Sincan, a suburb of the capital Ankara that is a stronghold of his Justice and Development Party. The rally came just hours after protesters camping out in the adjacent Gezi Park defied earlier warnings to leave, vowing to press on with a two-week sit-in that has galvanized demonstrations around the country.

Erdogan warned protesters to cheers from the crowd: "I say this very clearly: either Taksim Square is cleared, or if it isn't cleared then the security forces of this country will know how to clear it."

A violent police crackdown on what began as an environmental protest over a redevelopment plan at the park has sparked a much broader expression of discontent about Erdogan's government, and what many say is his increasingly authoritarian decision-making.

The anger has been fanned because riot police have at times used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse mostly peaceful protesters. Five people, including a police officer, have died and thousands of people have been injured, denting Erdogan's international reputation.

Erdogan, who was elected with 50 percent of the vote for his third term in 2011, vehemently rejects the accusations by protesters and points to his strong support base.

A second pro-government rally is planned for Sunday in Istanbul, though Erdogan has previously said that the rallies were not designed as "an alternative" to the demonstrations at Gezi Park, but part of early campaigning for local elections next March.

On Saturday, Erdogan lashed out at what he called the "plot" behind the biggest street protests in his 10-year tenure.

"Over the last 17 days, I know that in all corners of Turkey, millions and billions have prayed for us," Erdogan said, as he moved about the stage. "You saw the plot that was being carried out, the trap being set." He said his supporters represented the "silent masses."

"You are here, and you are spoiling the treacherous plot, the treacherous attack!" he said, insisting unspecified groups both inside and outside Turkey had conspired to mount the protests centered on Istanbul ? and that he had the documents to prove it.

The crowd chanted in response: "Stand straight, don't bow, the people are with you!"

In his speech, he focused on some protesters who have clashed with polices ? at time by throwing stones and firebombs.

"There is no breaking and burning here, we are people of love," Erdogan said. "If people want to see the real Turkey, they should come here to Sincan."

Erdogan already has offered to defer to a court ruling on the legality of the government's contested park redevelopment plan, and floated the possibility of a referendum on it. But concessions over the park seem to no longer be enough.

Earlier this week, Erdogan ordered Taksim Square to be cleared of protesters. Police moved past improvised barricades on Tuesday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets and using water cannons to fend off small groups of demonstrators throwing stones, bottles and firebombs. Tear gas was also fired through the trees into the park, although the protesters were not removed.

Taksim Square itself returned to normal right after the end of the police operation early Wednesday. Traffic returned, the protest banners and flags were taken down, and cafes set up their chairs and tables outside again. At night, demonstrators still spill out from the park down the steps, while riot police keep watch from the edges.

Tayfun Kahraman, a Taksim Solidarity member who met with Erdogan in last-ditch talks that lasted until the pre-dawn hours Friday, said the protesters had agreed to continue their sit-in at Gezi Park after holding a series of discussions.

"We shall remain in the park until all of our democratic rights are recognized," he told The Associated Press, insisting that four key demands laid out by protesters in the talks had not been met.

The group has demanded that the park be left intact, anyone responsible for excessive police force resign or be fired, all activists detained in the protests be released, and the police use of tear gas and other non-lethal weapons be banned.

"As of today, with the dynamism and strength that comes from the struggle that has spread to the whole country, and even the world, we shall continue the resistance against all kinds of injustice and victimization in our country," Taksim Solidarity said in a statement posted on its website and later read out in the park. The group didn't say explicitly that it would remain in the park.

As the statement was read out, many among the gathered crowd clapped and began shouting, "This is just the beginning ? the struggle continues!"

Although the most prominent group to emerge from the protests, Taksim Solidarity doesn't speak for everyone occupying Gezi. With many protesters saying they have no affiliation to any group or political party, many could make individual decisions on whether to stay or leave.

But there were few signs of anyone intending to pack up Saturday afternoon, and the daily activity in what has become a tent city continued with little indication of change. Deliveries of bottles of water and food arrived, people lined up for servings of lunch, while others cleared garbage and swept the paths clean after the morning rain.

According to the government's redevelopment plan for Taksim Square, the park would be replaced with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. Under initial plans, the construction would have housed a shopping mall, though that has since been amended to the possibility of an opera house, a theater and a museum with cafes.

Protesters angered by the project began occupying the park last month, but the police crackdown on May 31 saw the demonstrations spread to dozens of cities across the country. In recent days they have concentrated on Istanbul and the capital, Ankara.

Earlier Saturday, President Abdullah Gul wrote on Twitter that "everyone should now return home," insisting that "the channels for discussion and dialogue" have opened ? an apparent reference to the talks between Erdogan and a small group of delegates from the protest.

____

Keaten reported from Ankara. Elena Becatoros in Istanbul and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/erdogan-urges-protesters-leave-istanbul-park-173552884.html

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Early vote count in Iran gives Rowhani wide lead

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's reformist-backed presidential candidate surged to a wide lead in early vote counting Saturday, a top official said, suggesting a flurry of late support could have swayed a race that once appeared solidly in the hands of Tehran's ruling clerics.

The strong margin for former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani may be enough to give him an outright victory and avoid a two-person runoff next Friday.

Rowhani had more than 52 percent of the more than 5 million votes tallied, the interior ministry reported, well ahead of Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf with about 17.3 percent. Hardline nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was third with about 13 percent.

It was unclear when the final count would be known. Iran has more than 50 million eligible voters, and turnout in Friday's election was believed to be high.

Many reform-minded Iranians who have faced years of crackdowns looked to Rowhani's rising fortunes as a chance to claw back a bit of ground.

While Iran's presidential elections offer a window into the political pecking orders and security grip inside the country ? particularly since the chaos from a disputed outcome in 2009 ? they lack the drama of truly high stakes as the country's ruling clerics and their military guardians remain the ultimate powers.

Election officials began the ballot count after voters waited on line for hours in wilting heat at some polling stations in downtown Tehran and other cities, while others cast ballots across the vast country from desert outposts to Gulf seaports and nomad pastures. Voting was extended by five hours to meet demand, but also as possible political stagecraft to showcase the participation.

The apparent strong turnout ? estimated at 75 percent by the hardline newspaper Kayhan ? suggested liberals and others abandoned a planned boycott as the election was transformed into a showdown across the Islamic Republic's political divide.

On one side were hard-liners looking to cement their control behind candidates such as Jalili, who says he is "100 percent" against detente with Iran's foes, or Qalibaf.

Opposing them were reformists and others rallying behind the "purple wave" campaign of Rowhani, the lone relative moderate left in the race.

The interior ministry said Rowhani had more than 2.7 million votes from the 5,211,245 counted so far. Qalibaf trailed with more than 903,000, and Jalili had more than 679,000. The other three candidates were further back.

But even if the last-moment surge around Rowhani brings him to the presidency, it would be more of a limited victory than a deep shake-up. Iran's establishment ? a tight alliance of the ruling clerics and the ultra-powerful Revolutionary Guard ? still holds all the effective power and sets the agenda on all major decisions such as Iran's nuclear program and its dealings with the West.

Security forces also are in firm control after waves of arrests and relentless pressures since the last presidential election in 2009, which unleashed massive protests over claims the outcome was rigged to keep the combative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power for a second and final term. He is barred from seeking a third consecutive run.

The greater comfort level by the theocracy and Revolutionary Guard sets a different tone this time. Opposition groups appear too intimidated and fragmented to revive street demonstrations, and even a win by Rowhani ? the only cleric in the race ? would not likely be perceived as a threat to the ruling structure.

Rowhani led the influential Supreme National Security Council and was given the highly sensitive nuclear envoy role in 2003, a year after Iran's 20-year-old atomic program was revealed.

"Rowhani is not an outsider and any gains by him do not mean the system is weak or that there are serious cracks," said Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Strayer University in Virginia. "The ruling system has made sure that no one on the ballot is going to shake things up."

Yet a Rowhani victory would not be entirely without significance either. It would make room for more moderate voices in Iranian political dialogue and display their resilience. It also would bring onto the world stage an Iranian president who has publicly endorsed more outreach rather than bombast toward the West.

The last campaign events for Rowhani carried chants that had been bottled up for years.

Some supporters called for the release of political prisoners including opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both candidates in 2009 and now under house arrest. "Long live reforms," some cried at Rowhani's last rally. The rally was awash in purple banners and scarves ? the campaign's signature hue in a nod to the single-color identity of Mousavi's now-crushed Green Movement.

"My mother and I both voted for Rowhani," said Saeed Joorabchi, a university student in geography, after casting ballots at a mosque in west Tehran.

In the Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas, local journalist Ali Reza Khorshidzadeh said many polling stations had significant lines and many voters appeared to back Rowhani.

Just a week ago, Rowhani was seen as overshadowed by candidates with far deeper ties to the current power structure: Jalili and Qalibaf, who was boosted by a reputation as a steady hand for Iran's sanctions-wracked economy.

Then a moderate rival of Rowhani bowed out of the presidential race to consolidate the pro-reform camp. That opened the way for high-profile endorsements including his political mentor, former President Akbar Heshmi Rafsanjani, who won admiration from opposition forces for denouncing the postelection crackdowns in 2009. This, too, may have led to Rafsanjani's being blackballed from the ballot this year by Iran's election overseers, which allowed just eight candidates among more than 680 hopefuls.

Iran has no credible political polling to serve as harder metrics for the street buzz around candidates, who need more than 50 percent of the vote to seal victory and avoid a runoff. Journalists face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country. Iran does not allow outside election observers.

Yet it's clear that fervor remains strong for Rowhani's rivals as well.

Qalibaf is riding on his image as a capable fiscal manager who can deal with the deepening problems of Iran's economy and sinking currency.

Jalili draws support from hard-line factions such as the Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary corps, the Basij. His reputation is further enhanced by a battlefield injury that cost him the lower part of his right leg during Iran's 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which at the time was backed by the United States.

"We should resist the West," said Tehran taxi driver Hasan Ghasemi, who supported Jalili.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has not publicly endorsed a successor for Ahmadinejad following their falling out over the president's attempts to challenge Khamenei's near-absolute powers.

Ahmadinejad leaves office weakened and outcast by his political battles with Khamenei ? yet another sign of where real power rests in Iran. The election overseers also rejected Ahmadinejad's protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei in apparent payback. The usually talkative Ahmadinejad gave only a brief statement to reporters as he voted and refused to discuss the election.

Khamenei remained mum on his own choice even as he cast his ballot. He added that his children don't know whom he backs.

Instead, he blasted the U.S. for its repeated criticism of Iran's clampdowns on the opposition and the rejection of Rafsanjani and other moderates from the ballot.

"Recently I have heard that a U.S. security official has said they do not accept this election," Khamenei was quoted by state TV after casting his vote. "OK, the hell with you."

By many measures, this election is far removed from the backdrop four years ago.

Iran's security networks have consolidated near-blanket control, ranging from swift crackdowns on any public dissent to cyberpolice blocking opposition Internet websites and social media. Hackers calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army disrupted at least a half dozen reform-oriented websites, including one run by well-known political cartoonist Nikahang Kosar.

Prominent reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was jailed after the 2009 disputed election, voted from his cell in Tehran's Evin Prison, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.

The economy, too, is under far more pressures than in 2009.

Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have shrunk vital oil sales and are leaving the country isolated from international banking systems. New U.S. measures taking effect July 1 further target Iran's currency, the rial, which has lost half its foreign exchange value in the past year, driving prices of food and consumer goods sharply higher.

Outside Iran, votes were casts by the country's huge diaspora including Dubai, London and points across the United States.

"I hope we take a step toward democracy," said Behza Khajavi, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in physics from Boca Raton, Florida, as he voted in Tampa for Rowhani.

In Paris, a 25-year-old Iranian student, Sohrab Labib, voted at his nation's consulate while a small group of protesters gathered across the street.

"It's our country. It's our future," he said. "In any case, even a little change could influence our future."

___

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/early-vote-count-iran-gives-rowhani-wide-lead-013630646.html

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Grammar Nazism vs Creative Writing | Street of Dreams

Sherman Alexie, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian,? started a twitter firestorm with his short statement ?Grammar cops are rarely good writers. Imagination always disobeys.?

Coming from my background, a technical writer who attended a liberal English program, I find myself conflicted.

One the one hand, I was taught and truly believe that language is so amazing because of its adaptability. There are no set rules given from God on grammar, only arbitrary rules that we decide are such until the point that subversive forces change it. The reason language survives is its necessity and? adaptability. (Note: for a discussion on this, see my blog about one of my favorite words that shouldn?t exist.) And if it didn?t evolve well all of us would write and speak very differently than we do today.

But, I also wrote a 13 page paper on the verbiness of certain verbs. And I loved every minute of it. Linguistic classes were some of the toughest classes I took in college but they are worth every minute you spend looking at rules, decoding texts and engaged in late night study session.

The English language has a fascinating history. Understanding its roots, and the principals behind word foundation, punctuation and grammar has helped my writing in innumerable ways. Your writing becomes more rich. You understand how the proper adjective can make or break a piece. You can make the world hang on a period.

As one of my teacher?s once lecture to us, ?A good writer breaks the rules, but he has to know the rules first so that he can break them.?

In the end, Alexie has a point, fixation on proper grammar can hinder creativity. Often very technically correct work that lacks imagination or innovation is uninspiring.

But what Alexie ignores is that grammar knowledge? can also enhance writing.? Knowing when to use grammar rules and when to break them enhances and adds variety with writing as does knowing the varying nuances of word history and definition.

In my opinion, it is both creativity, and a knowledge of the grammar rules (and when to break them) that makes a truly skilled writer.

Which do you think is more important, grammar or creativity? Or a combination of both?

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Source: http://rachaelstanford.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/grammar-nazism-vs-creative-writing/

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Roach-Net Radio - IEEE Spectrum

Photo: Ben Epstein

Skittering Sensor Net: Purdue engineers have come up with a new radio transceiver to link cockroaches into a network of sensors.

You?re pinned under the rubble of a collapsed building. Hundreds of roaches scuttle toward you, but you?re unable to move. You can only watch as a great brown swarm closes in. But there?s something different about this approaching army of bugs. Each one hefts a coin-size sensor that?s glued to its back. The troop of roaches has been sent to rescue you.?

That?s the scenario a team of Purdue University engineers has been working toward. This week at the Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, in Japan, the group unveiled a new high-sensitivity, low-power wireless transceiver meant for insect-based wireless sensor networks. The transceiver can link to a variety of sensors. The researchers have already tested the technology using microphones, but it?s compatible with all sorts of other sensors as well, including those used for heat, light, position, acceleration, vibration, weight, pressure, humidity, and more.

?We can deploy these insects in areas that are contaminated by nuclear [waste] or by toxic chemicals,? says Byunghoo Jung, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue, in West Lafayette, Ind., ?who oversaw the group?s research. ?Then those insects equipped with sensors and wireless communications can detect the toxic chemical levels and report that back to the base station. But that process takes some energy, because they need to use some wireless communications. The radio that you can put on top of these insects has to be very power efficient. That is why we designed such a radio that consumes ultralow power but still has very high sensitivity.?

You can think of each separate bug in the Purdue scheme as a sensor node?a component of a network that is capable of processing sensory information and communicating with other connected nodes in the network. Each bug backpack consists of a microcontroller (the processing unit), a sensor, an antenna, and a wireless transceiver. The roaches can either send data directly to a base station or pass data to other roaches closer to the base station.

The team chose death?s head cockroaches (Blaberus craniifer) as sensor nodes for certain advantageous traits: They?re fast, they can crawl through cracks, and their locomotion is powered by a diet of decaying plant and animal matter. (They?ll willingly devour feces or wood too, if their favorite nosh is in scarce supply.) But they have some limits. While a death?s head roach typically grows up to 5 to 8 centimeters long?it is a truly massive bug?it can carry a maximum of just 3 grams.

?[We] performed architecture and circuit-level optimizations to achieve [an efficient] sensor node design,? explains Serkan Sayilir, a doctoral candidate and member of the Purdue team. The group realized that the key was optimizing the wireless transceiver, the component that typically consumes the most power and requires many external components. ?If we could optimize the transceiver, we could optimize the metrics,? Sayilir says.

The group first tried to design a sensor node using commercial components, but the effort came up short. ?At 14 by 14 millimeters and less than 1 gram, the size and weight were okay,? Sayilir recalls. ?However, the power consumption was greater than 100 milliwatts, and it was dominated by the wireless transceiver. So we designed a custom wireless transceiver.?

A transceiver chip consists of several blocks of circuitry, but the group?s breakthrough idea was to combine several of these blocks into one. Specifically, they merged the voltage-controlled oscillator, the power amplifier, the low-noise amplifier, the transmit/receive switch, and the modulator.

That move eliminated many of the redundancies in the chip, both for power and the number of components. The oscillator and amplifiers, for example, require inductors. ?Inductors are very big in the integrated circuit design. In order to reduce the on-chip area, we wanted to minimize the number of inductors,? Sayilir says. The engineers were able to use the same inductors for the low-noise amplifier, the power amplifier, and the voltage-controlled oscillator.

Besides saving space, the unified blocks saved power. For example, in transmit mode, the design uses the same current in the voltage-controlled oscillator as in the power amplifier to drive the antenna. The engineers were able to turn the oscillator off for a fraction of the time, cutting power consumption in half. In addition, integrating the transmit and receive blocks let them toggle between modes easily so that the design didn?t need an external transmit/receive switch, explains Sayilir.

Sayilir emphasizes that even though the researchers discarded a number of usual parts and components, they didn?t sacrifice performance in any way. ?It is better than existing works in many aspects,? he says.

This latest research by Purdue is far from being the first effort in the world of bionic bug engineering. Up until recently, a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program called Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) was actively conducting research. The program aimed to develop technology to provide control over insect locomotion, which would lead to steerable robot spies or rescue workers. That yielded a proposal for a cyborg moth, among other ideas, but the program was not renewed, and the research contracts eventually ran out.

Still, the work inspired Benjamin Epstein, vice president of special projects at systems and networking company OpCoast, in Brick, N.J., to think about building a network of insects that provide a robust communications system. ?[HI-MEMS] focused on controlling the movement of insects by remote means,? he says. ?And I said, let?s look at the communication part of it, because that part to me has been consistently ignored.?

Even though the DARPA insect program no longer exists, the U.S. military is still interested in this type of work. OpCoast secured a contract with the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command and subcontracted the team at Purdue to develop a wireless sensor node it could use.

Epstein, who entrusted the design of the chip to the Purdue team, was impressed with the work they turned out. ?It was well-conceived,? he says. ?They knew exactly what they wanted to do, and they executed.?

Currently, the Purdue engineers are refining a new scheme to link multiple sensor nodes in sequence, which would boost the network communication signal. This tactic is known as ?daisy chaining,? in which nodes too distant to reach the base station transmit their data to roaches that are closer to it. ?By connecting multiple sensors in daisy chains, we?ll be able to increase the actual communications distance instantly,? Jung says. ?We have already conducted a peer-to-peer link test, where the [effective] distance is between 10 and 20 meters, depending on the set of conditions. But because our design is able to support the daisy chain, basically there could be no limit in terms of distance.?

He says the group has already managed to carry out a field test with three nodes connected in a chain. ?Everything went smoothly; the initial setup process was time-intensive, though,? he recalls. Test videos show field technicians frantically scrambling to round up roaches that, when released, immediately made a beeline for any dark crevices they could find.

According to Jung, the group?s work on the sensor node is essentially complete. The only missing piece is figuring out how best to get the cockroaches to behave the way they want. ?The development of a wireless sensor node light enough for the cockroach is in the prototyping stage beyond proof of concept,? Jung says. ?However, training the cockroaches based on the understandings on their behavioral pattern is still in the early stage of development.?

But Epstein says there is one surefire way to overcome this limitation: ?Releasing swarms of them. Statistically, some of them will go where we want them to go.?

Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/military-robots/roachnet-radio

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Teacher fired over ex-husband?s ?threatening and menacing? behavior

Carie Charlesworth (NBC 7 San Diego)

An elementary school teacher fired by a private San Diego-area school following a domestic violence incident involving her ex-husband is speaking out about her ordeal.

Carie Charlesworth, who taught second grade at Holy Trinity School in El Cajon, Calif., told the San Diego NBC affiliate that the incident with her ex-husband occurred back in January.

?Basically, we?d had a very bad weekend with him," Charlesworth, a mother of four, said. ?We'd called the Sheriff?s Department three times on [that] Sunday."

The following morning, Charlesworth said, she informed the school of the incident and told the principal to be on the lookout for her ex-husband. When he was spotted in the parking lot, the school went into lockdown.

Charlesworth was put on indefinite leave, and her children, who also attended Holy Trinity, were removed by the school.

"At this time, Mrs. Charlesworth and her children are on an indefinite leave of absence," Francie Wright, Holy Trinity's principal, wrote in a letter to parents on Jan. 29. "We request that you keep them in your prayers."

?It felt like the kids and I were being punished for something we didn?t even do,? Charlesworth told NBC 7.

Her ex-husband was subsequently sent to prison, but in April, the school fired her anyway.

The Diocese of San Diego wrote in a letter to Charlesworth that it was concerned about her ex-husband's "threatening and menacing behavior."

The letter noted, "We feel deeply for you and about the situation in which you and your children find yourselves through no fault of your own. Although we understand he is currently incarcerated, we have no way of knowing how long or short a time he will actually serve and we understand from court files that he may be released as early as next fall. In the interest of the safety of the students, faculty and parents at Holy Trinity School, we simply cannot allow you to return to work there, or, unfortunately, at any other school in the Diocese."

Kenneth Hoyt, Charlesworth's attorney, said she intends to sue.

"They?ve taken away my ability to care for my kids,? Charlesworth said. ?It?s not like I can go out and find a teaching job anywhere.?

Not surprisingly, advocates for domestic violence victims are outraged.

"We have 1 in 3 women in the United States who are victims of domestic violence," Heather Finlay, chief executive of YWCA San Diego, told NBC 7. "Firing all of them is not the answer."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/teacher-fired-domestic-violence-ex-husband-161455153.html

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U.S. says Assad forces used chemical weapons against Syria rebels

By Matt Spetalnick and Erika Solomon

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The United States has concluded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemical weapons against rebel fighters and Washington will supply direct military assistance to the opposition, the White House said on Thursday.

The new assessment and decision came as Assad's surging forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies turned their guns on the north, fighting near the northern city of Aleppo and bombarding the central city of Homs after having seized the initiative by winning the open backing of Hezbollah last month and capturing the strategic town of Qusair last week.

With outgunned rebel forces desperate for weapons after their battlefield setbacks, U.S. President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said on Thursday the president had decided to provide "direct military support" to the opposition.

But he would not specify whether the support would include lethal aid, such as weapons, which would mark a reversal of Obama's resistance to arming the rebels.

The announcement followed deliberations between Obama and his national security aides as pressure mounted at home and abroad for more forceful action on the Syria conflict, including a sharp critique from former President Bill Clinton.

The arrival of thousands of seasoned, Iran-backed Hezbollah Shi'ite fighters to help Assad combat the mainly Sunni rebellion has shifted momentum in the two-year-old war, which the United Nations said on Thursday had killed at least 93,000 people.

U.S. and European officials anxious about the rapid change are meeting the commander of the main rebel fighting force, the Free Syrian Army, on Friday in Turkey. FSA chief Salim Idriss is expected to plead urgently for more help.

Obama has so far been more cautious than Britain and France, which already forced the European Union this month to lift an embargo that had blocked weapons for the rebels.

After months of investigation, the White House laid out its conclusions on chemical weapons use by Assad's forces but stopped short of threatening specific actions in response to what Obama said would be a "game changer" for Washington's handling of the conflict.

'SMALL SCALE'

"Our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year," Rhodes told reporters.

"Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information," he said. "The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete."

Rhodes said the U.S. military assistance to the rebels would be different in "both scope and scale" from what had been authorized before, which included non-lethal equipment such as night-vision goggles and body armor.

Pressed on what the United States would do next, Rhodes said the White House would share the information with Congress and U.S. allies but will "make decisions on our own time line."

Syrian rebel and political opposition leaders immediately called for anti-aircraft and other sophisticated weapons.

Western governments that predicted months ago that Assad would soon fall now believe that support from Tehran and Hezbollah are giving him the upper hand. But they also worry that sending arms to rebel fighters could empower Sunni Islamist insurgents who have pledged their loyalty to al Qaeda.

While Britain and France have yet to announce their own decisions to start arming the rebels, their diplomats have been making the case that the best way to counter both threats is to beef up support for Idriss' mainstream rebel force.

Strengthening the FSA with money, weapons and ammunition, they argue, would help combat Assad and also provide a counterweight among the rebels to al Qaeda-linked groups.

France in particular has developed good relations with Idriss while providing funds and non-lethal support, and seems eager to send him military aid.

BILL CLINTON SPEAKS OUT

Among those whose comments put pressure on Obama to act was one of his predecessors, Bill Clinton.

"The only question is: now that the Russians, the Iranians and Hezbollah are in there head over heels ... should we try to do something to try to slow their gains and rebalance the power so that these rebel groups have a decent chance to prevail," the former president was quoted by newspaper Politico as saying.

Assad's government says its next move will be to recapture Aleppo in the north, Syria's biggest city and commercial hub, which has been divided since last year when advancing rebels seized most of the countryside around it.

Syrian state media have been touting plans for "Northern Storm," a looming campaign to recapture the rebel-held north.

The United Nations, which raised its death toll for the war to 93,000 on Thursday, said it was concerned about the fate of residents if a new offensive is launched.

"All of the reports I'm receiving are of augmentation of resources and forces (for an Aleppo offensive) on the part of the government," U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay told Reuters Television.

Assad's army appears to be massing some troops in its footholds in Aleppo province, particularly in Shi'ite areas such as the enclaves of Nubel and Zahra, although some opposition activists say the government may be exaggerating the extent of its offensive to intimidate rebel supporters.

Activists reported fighting in the area around Aleppo on Thursday, especially near an airport that rebels have been trying to capture. The government has also launched an offensive in Homs, the closest big city to its last victory in Qusair and one of the last major rebel strongholds in the country's centre.

"There was a fourth day of escalations today on the besieged neighborhoods of Homs' old city. Early in the morning there were two air strikes ... followed by artillery and mortar shelling," said Jad, an activist from Homs speaking via Skype.

"More than 25 rockets fell in one area and then the area was combed with tanks. ... The shelling is still going on now."

Ahmed al-Ahmed, an activist in Aleppo, said the government's reinforcements in the north were just a distraction from Homs.

"They've turned the world's attention to watching northern Aleppo and fearing an attack and massacres as happened to our people in Qusair, to get us to forget Homs which is the decisive battle."

Hezbollah's participation has deepened the sectarian character of the war, with Assad, a member of the Alawite offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, backed by Shi'ite Iran and Hezbollah, while Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey back the rebels.

The 7th century rift between Sunni and Shi'ite Islam has fuelled violence across the Middle East in recent decades, including the sectarian bloodletting unleashed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the Lebanese civil war of 1975 to 1990.

Leading Sunni Muslim clerics met in Cairo on Thursday and issued a call to jihad against Assad and his allies on Thursday, condemning the conflict as a "war on Islam.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; John Irish in Paris; Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Omar Fahmy and Asma Alsharif in Egypt; Roberta Rampton, Mark Felsenthal, Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff and Jim Loney; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-says-assad-forces-used-chemical-weapons-against-000953375.html

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Rubio: ?I?m done? if immigration bill includes gay couple amendment

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a co-author and key proponent of the Senate immigration bill, said he will revoke his support if an amendment is added that allows gay Americans to petition for same-sex spouses living abroad to secure a green card.

"If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done," Rubio said Thursday during an interview on the Andrea Tantaros Show. "I'm off it, and I've said that repeatedly. I don't think that's going to happen and it shouldn't happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it is."

The amendment, introduced by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, would grant green cards to foreign partners of gay unauthorized immigrants who seek legal status under new rules in the bill. Leahy originally introduced the measure during the Senate Judiciary Committee markup of the bill, but he withdrew it under pressure from Republican lawmakers who said it would reduce the chance of the bill passing.

The effort underway in Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration system is a bipartisan one, and its success hinges on a fragile coalition of political, business and religious groups that span the ideological spectrum. Opponents of Leahy's amendment have said repeatedly that his proposal would cause some key groups to withdraw their support and kill the bill. Rubio's exit would be especially devastating to its survival.

The Senate is expected to vote on Leahy's amendment soon.

In the interview, Rubio also said that as the bill is currently written, it has "no chance" of passing.

"If the border situation is not improved in this bill, this bill won't pass," he said. "It won't pass the Senate and it has no chance in the House. It won't become a law and we're wasting our time."

This article has been updated to more accurately define Sen. Leahy's amendment.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rubio-m-done-immigration-bill-includes-gay-couple-160223193.html

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India Mounts Debt Limits Up To $5 Billion for Foreign Investors

Bangalore: Indian government officials have pulled up their socks to stabilize the condition of the Indian debt market. After the global investors started pulling out their money from the market, Securities and Exchange Board of India are trying some new measures to overcome the crisis.

After there have been drainage of $3 billion from the debt market in the past two weeks, SEBI has mounted the investment limits for global investors in government debt. In this increased limit, only long-term funds will be able to participate, as reported by Rafael Nam of Reuters.

Among the long term debt payers? foreign institutional investors who are registered with multilateral agencies along with sovereign wealth funds, endowment and pension funds will be able to purchase within the $5 billion increased limit, said SEBI. It was also revealed that the government debt will be provided on a first come first served basis.

However, the FIIs who have by now worn out their investment limit will have an only one-time chance to increase their debt investments by $250 million. Any FII who boosted their investment limit will also have a lock-in period of 90 days.

Also read:

5 Indian Companies Among World's Most Valuable Brands

Coffee Chains; A Growing Business In India

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/si-finance/~3/6uCl6rpjTDs/India-Mounts-Debt-Limits-Up-To-5-Billion-for-Foreign-Investors-nid-148953.html

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The National Enquirer has a backstory worthy of the National Enquirer

The cover of the National Enquirer, Sept. 6, 1977.

The National Enquirer, like the salacious stories it publishes, has a juicy backstory?one filled with scandal and blackmail.

Some of that dark history is revealed by John Connolly in next month's issue of DuJour magazine. It delves into the alleged mob ties of the tabloid's former owner, Gene Pope Jr., who acquired the then-New York Enquirer in the early 1950s, and the magazine's shifting mission: gore in the late '50s to-mid-'60s; "fallen angels" in the '60s and '70s; the targeting of celebrities and politicians like Ted Kennedy and Sylvester Stallone in the '70s and '80s; and an increasing emphasis on celebrity.

From the article:

When Senator Ted Kennedy was suspected of having extramarital affairs in the 1970s, Pope dispatched a squad of his most tenacious reporters to get the story. [Former staffer Bill] Sloan remembers four or five ?very nasty? stories on Kennedy in those years. It is widely rumored that an emissary from Kennedy approached Pope with an offer to become a confidential source for the Enquirer if the paper would leave the senator alone. Pope agreed.

Over the years, scores of celebrities and politicians were rumored to be making deals with the National Enquirer to conceal all manner of indiscretions, be it a DWI or other arrest on a minor charge, an intimate photo or video, fear of an affair being aired (particularly if it involved the spouse of another star), a gay or lesbian encounter, or an out-of-wedlock child. In exchange for information on someone else or agreeing to an exclusive interview, stars were able to keep their secrets out of the spotlight. Confidential sources confirmed to DuJour that celebrities were essentially blackmailed to work with the Enquirer or else risk their improprieties appearing on the front page. It is alleged that Sylvester Stallone was told to cooperate or have a nasty expos? published. As agreed, such a story was not written.

Pope, Connolly reports, encouraged his reporters to pay sources for stories:

Enquirer reporters were allowed to pay up to $2,500 to a source without any approval needed from the home office, say several ex-employees. But Pope was willing to go way higher. In 1977, after Elvis Presley died, he chartered a jet to rush a task force to Memphis. According to Tony Brenna, who worked for the Enquirer for 18 years, ?We took over a hotel and had special telephone lines installed so that we could not be bugged by other papers. I was assigned to get information on the Elvis physician who had prescribed him all the drugs. Others on our team were charged with getting a photo of the dead Elvis. We bought every miniature camera that was for sale in Memphis. One reporter found a distant cousin who, for a guarantee of more than $5,000, agreed to go to Graceland and try to get a photo.? The issue featuring that photo of Elvis lying in a white suit in his copper coffin became the biggest seller in the history of the National Enquirer, selling 6.5 million copies.

The Enquirer has always had a fascination with death. And according to Connolly, it was born out of an epiphany Pope had in 1957 during a traffic jam:

As his car reached the cause of the delay?a violent crash?he realized that the drivers all slowed down to get a good look at the carnage. This kicked off the paper's gore stage, which lasted almost a decade. Headlines screamed about one tragedy after another: "I'm Sorry I Killed My Mother, but I'm Glad I Killed My Father." Circulation soared, and Pope took the newspaper national, changing its name to the National Enquirer. Gruesome stories and photos were the order of the day. But two subjects were strictly off-limits: the CIA and the Mafia.

In the late 1960s, after John F. Kennedy's death, the formula shifted from gore rubbernecking to supermarket-friendly "fallen angels," namely, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

"Pope had standing orders that there was to be a cover story or cover line on Jackie in every issue," Sloan, who worked at the Enquirer from 1968 to 1970, told Du Jour.

While the Enquirer is now almost entirely celebrity focused, there are some notable exceptions (John Edwards).

The current print issue has a cover story on Paris Jackson ("FROM $300 MILLION HEIRESS TO PSYCH WARD!") while NationalEnquirer.com is leading with reports on Katie Holmes, Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Danica Patrick and Justin Bieber (headline: "BIEBER, SIZZURP AND ME: 'WHEN I?M DOING THAT SH**T I FEEL GOOD'").

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/national-enquirer-dark-history-203859156.html

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Hands-free texting still distracting for drivers

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Using voice commands to send text messages and emails from behind the wheel, which is marketed as a safer alternative for drivers, actually is more distracting and dangerous than simply talking on a cellphone, a new AAA study found.

Automakers have been trying to excite new-car buyers, especially younger ones, with dashboard infotainment systems that let drivers use voice commands do things like turning on windshield wipers, posting Facebook messages or ordering pizza. The pitch has been that hands-free devices are safer because they enable drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.

But talking on a hands-free phone isn't significantly safer for drivers than talking on a hand-held phone, and using hands-free devices that translate speech into text is the most distracting of all, researchers found. Speech-to-text systems that enable drivers to send, scroll through, or delete email and text messages required greater concentration by drivers than other potentially distracting activities examined in the study like talking on the phone, talking to a passenger, listening to a book on tape or listening to the radio.

The greater the concentration required to perform a task, the more likely a driver is to develop what researchers call "tunnel vision" or "inattention blindness." Drivers will stop scanning the roadway or ignore their side and review mirrors. Instead, they look straight ahead, but fail to see what's in front of them, like red lights and pedestrians.

"People aren't seeing what they need to see to drive. That's the scariest part to me," said Peter Kissinger, president and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the group's safety research arm. "Police accident investigative reports are filled with comments like the 'looked, but did not see.' That's what drivers tell them. We used to think they were lying, but now we know that's actually true."

There are about 9 million cars and trucks on the road with infotainment systems, and that will jump to about 62 million vehicles by 2018, AAA spokeswoman Yolanda Cade said, citing automotive industry research. At the same time, drivers tell the AAA they believe phones and other devices are safe to use behind the wheel if they are hands-free, she said.

"We believe there is a public safety crisis looming," Cade said. "We hope this study will change some widely held misconceptions by motorists."

AAA officials who briefed automakers, safety advocates and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the study's findings said they want to limit in-vehicle, voice-driven technologies to "core driving tasks."

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was skeptical. "We are extremely concerned that it could send a misleading message, since it suggests that hand-held and hands-free devices are equally risky," the association said in a statement.

The automakers' trade group said the AAA study focuses only on the mental distraction posed by using a device and ignores the visual and manual aspects of hand-held versus hands-free systems that are integrated into cars.

Other studies have also compared hand-held and hands-free phone use, finding they are equally risky or nearly so. But a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of drivers' real world driving experiences found hand-held phone use was less safe than hands-free.

Researchers at the University of Utah who conducted the study for the AAA measured the brainwaves, eye movement, driving performance and other indicators of 32 university students as they drove and performed a variety of secondary tasks, ranging from listening to music to sending emails. Cameras were mounted inside the car to track drivers' eye and head movements. A device that drivers pressed was used to record their reaction time to red and green lights introduced to their field of vision. Drivers were fitted with a special skull cap to record their brain activity.

The students were tested while not driving, while driving in a simulator and while driving a car on a 3-mile loop through a suburban Salt Lake City neighborhood with stop signs and stoplights. A researcher with a backup braking system accompanied the students in the test car.

One reason using voice commands is so much more distracting for drivers, even though they aren't using their hands, is that they often require more concentration than simply speaking to another person, said University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, an expert on cognitive distraction and lead author of the study. Talking to a computer requires far greater precision than talking to a person, he said. Otherwise, "Call home" may get you Home Depot.

Synthetic computer voices can be harder to understand than human voices, also requiring more attention. The computers used in the study were exceptionally high-fidelity systems that made no errors, but the systems in cars aren't as good, Strayer said. He said that means the study probably underestimates the concentration required of drivers, and thus the ability of speech-to-text systems to distract them.

Another difference: In phone conversations, a person who is listening will give indications that they agree with what the speaker has said or have heard what was said. Computers don't provide that feedback.

"The complexity of trying to say something that is coherent when there is no feedback is much more difficult," Strayer said.

A simple, quick voice command to turn on windshield wipers isn't very distracting, he said. But concentrating on creating a text message and trying to get it right takes a great deal more mental effort and time.

"The more complex and the longer those interactions are, the more likely you are going to have impairments when you're driving," Strayer said.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hands-free-texting-still-distracting-drivers-100317896.html

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The Jaz Coleman Interview | Stuff.co.nz

If Jaz Coleman didn't exist you couldn't make him up. That doesn't mean people haven't tried, from Spinal Tap to All Together Now (the Australian sitcom which starred Jon English as Bobby Rivers) via efforts from Harry Enfield, Steve Coogan and many other comedians, the role of the rock-star as renaissance man with a huge ego, lofty ideas and an occasional romance with reality is something Jaz Coleman mastered long ago, in a truth is stranger than fiction kind of way.

Jaz Coleman, producer and musician, frontman of Killing Joke, New Zealand resident - but ask him what else belongs on the business card and he'll quickly add author ("my book's coming out shortly, it's basically my philosophy" - it's so hard not to hear it as Nigel Tufnel), poet, composer, arranger, philosopher, ordained priest, free thinker, eco-village activist, patron, raconteur and - quite possibly - warlock. At one time drug-taker and drinker might have been the fulltime job with a dash of music to dabble in on the side.

The British-born Coleman formed Killing Joke in 1978, a post-punk band which provided a crucial link between punk and metal to make hints toward industrial music.

In 1982 he announced he'd quit his own band and disappeared to Iceland, where he decided he would become a classical composer. When I remind him of this during our time on the phone he laughs loudly. Pauses. Then laughs even louder.

Back in the day Coleman talked down to journalists, lectured them on the occult and punched them in the face for stupid questions or reviews he didn't agree with. I'm glad we've got a phone-line between us.

But, he's a happy man these days. And why not - he became a resident of New Zealand ("my paradise") some 20 years ago and divides his time between "the island" and his places in Prague and Switzerland - "and, you know, travelling about; seeing things". He's busy too. Reading his CV requires a coffee-break. When you finish you feel like you need a nap.

Killing Joke will - almost unbelievably - play their first shows in New Zealand tonight (Auckland, The Studio) and tomorrow (Wellington, Bodega). A huge cackle from Coleman when I ask why he's never brought the band to New Zealand to tour when he's lived here on and off, recorded Killing Joke albums here, produced Kiwi bands, even built a recording studio; "my gift to New Zealand!".

After the laugh dies down, "New Zealand is a special place for me - it's my heart. And I've liked coming here as a break from the rock'n'roll life, keep the madness away from here". He brings a little of the madness with another huge - probably unnecessary - laugh.

"I don't know why we've never played here, actually, I don't know. But we're back together now, the original lineup, and we're touring the world playing all the singles so we're playing New Zealand. And I'm very excited about it. I've been very involved with music in New Zealand and so to play here as Killing Joke, to play here with the band after all this time - yeah, it's special. Very special. We're thrilled."

Coleman's career is fascinating. Write off Killing Joke if you like (and, actually, I'm convinced the band is getting better, since 2003's self-titled album, of which Coleman says "that was a big one, a hard record to make, made on the road, no contract, no band pretty much, and dry". Killing Joke have been relentless in their quest to move forward, the sound is signature but they never quite resort to not repeat themselves) but you can't write off Jaz Coleman, because you can't peg him down. Producer of Shihad's brilliant debut album, Churn ("I guess I helped, I guess we gave them a bit of my sound"), supporter of Maori music ("I'm really proud of the Oceania project, it was a blessing to meet and work with Hinewehi Mohi, just extraordinary, I'm very proud of that and I think it did a lot in terms of introducing some Kiwis to their own music"), and symphonic-rock producer/arranger, classical player and collaborator. The mind boggles. Well, you'd have to assume Coleman's mind is always boggling...

"My philosophy comes from the actual spirit of the renaissance - which is very punk in itself too - and that's to just dive in and have 15 projects on the go. So I'm always honouring that, I'm moving from one thing to the next, but actually I always have several things happening all the time. It is exhausting!" And then another proud bellow.

Coleman studied classical music until the age of 15, but carried on playing violin until 17.

"I didn't really tell anyone this, it never really was part of Killing Joke to begin with, until I went to Iceland on my 22nd birthday and there I just announced that I wanted to be a composer and conductor."

What he wanted to be - and has been all along - is a control freak.

"You could say that Killing Joke has financed my study. We didn't have huge hits but we were a successful band and so I used that money to continue my studies with classical, to learn arranging, to further myself."

Some of the stories behind the projects are in part fascinating, but to hear Jaz tell them they're mostly just hilarious.

"The symphonic records have been great - but they're funny." He's talking about his hugely successful Symphonic Pink Floyd album, The Doors Concerto?and Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin.

"Because, listen, I'll tell ya, we were just drinking champagne one day, loads and loads of champagne, and I just had this idea that I could make a symphonic record and so I said 'bring me some of these records'" - it's not clear who he makes this order to - "and I went through about 60 of these records, just listening, and they were awful. I thought 'I could do better than that'."

And he did.

The Symphonic Pink Floyd - Us And Them - has been a huge-seller. It created a new platform for Jaz.

"It was my first experience with a double string quartet - or octet - we omitted the brass and through that I created a sound of my own. That enabled me to take on other symphonic projects; the success of that record was frankly overwhelming. And I know that Jimmy Page likes the Led Zeppelin one and The Doors were very supportive of the symphony I did with Nigel Kennedy. Hey, Nigel Kennedy is a serious drinker, man, let me tell you!"

Speaking of serious drinking, Coleman says "the blackouts on the 2003 tour were a wakeup call; since then it's been a bit clearer for me. When my alcoholic doctor, bless him, told me that I needed to cut back to two drinks a day I thought 'how much am I paying you?' because, let me tell you, this guy could drink. But, anyway, he says 'Jaz, you can have one drink or two' and I just thought 'what's the point in that?' so I just stopped. I mean we're talking some pretty serious stuff here because there was the time me and Geordie had a full punch-up after drinking all night and I split up with my Czech girlfriend of the time - who I don't even remember, so there you go, what does that tell you?"

We get a pause for a laugh. Which is handy. Because this time we both need it.

"She was a nurse though, which was bloody good because the next morning she's stitching us up - literally - after this big dust-up and we've not really remembered a thing but we're getting fixed up over breakfast. Yeah, so there's been a bit of wild stuff. Lots of it, obviously. I don't remember a lot of it from being so drunk. Probably a good thing."

Coleman considers himself a lifelong student of "the music of the world" and says he can't be tied to just rock or metal or classical music - he's interested in studying what comes behind the music, what informs it, the culture. His interest in Maori music - for example - started long before he first visited New Zealand.

"When I was 15 I used to go and see Be-Bop Deluxe, and Charlie Tumahai, bless him, was of course a member of that band before he returned to New Zealand and played with Herbs. He was a great musician and a great friend. He told me a lot about his culture and the music and from there I became fascinated with it - the Maori culture, the music. A beautiful music, the Maori voice is so haunting. And I studied, I devoted a lot of time to it. And then of course I re-met Charlie in Auckland years later, which was lovely. And it was because of him that when we built York Street, the studio, I insisted we have the tapu lifted. I wanted to do it properly."

You could listen to Jaz Coleman speak for an hour or more - as I did. And you'd never quite know who the real person is. Because it's not clear that Jaz knows. But he's genuine - every time he opens his mouth. Happy to sound off on any topic and passionate, so clearly passionate.

It's almost hard to believe he has been able to fit it all in - a band, so many other projects, the drinking, the drugs, the fascination with the dark side of so many things: magic, religion, psychology; regular disappearing acts to meditate, to simply retreat. To unplug.

But then when it's time to wrap up, Coleman quickly rolls out another plug for the shows. "We're absolutely killing it with this new album and with all the songs from the past, we're a great band to see." And then he offers me the tip of a lifetime, the reason - he reckons - he can fit it all in.

"Throw your mobile phone away, ditch your computer, get off the internet. It's all stupid. It's all unnecessary. If people want to find you they'll find you. Get yourself offline and live life. That's how you get things done."

Tonight, Killing Joke will be getting things done at The Studio in Auckland. Tomorrow at Bodega in Wellington.

Also, brand new in the Killing Joke world is the fascinating documentary, The Death and Resurrection Show. To read my review of the movie - which had its world premiere last night - click here.

Are you a Jaz Coleman fan? Are you a Killing Joke fan? Are they one and the same? What non-Joke Coleman projects have you kept up with? And are you looking forward to the New Zealand shows? Or have you never been a fan?

Blog on the Tracks is on?Facebook?and?Twitter.

You can also check out?Off the Tracks for The Vinyl Countdown, reviews and other posts.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/8791397/The-Jaz-Coleman-Interview

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Transgender student suit goes to Maine high court

BANGOR, Maine (AP) ? Lawyers for a transgender girl and a Maine school that required the fifth-grader to use a staff bathroom instead of the girls restroom differ over whether the student's rights were violated.

The state's highest court heard arguments Wednesday in an appeal by Nicole Maines and her family that seeks to have her discrimination lawsuit reinstated.

A judge in a lower court previously ruled that the Orono (OR'-uh-noh) school district acted within its discretion by requiring her to use a staff bathroom after there was a complaint.

The student is now 15 and attending a high school in southern Maine. After Wednesday's hearing in Bangor, she said she hoped the justices understand the importance of getting an education and making friends without being "bullied" by students or administrators.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/transgender-student-suit-goes-maine-high-court-153230913.html

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Apple unveils music streaming service, revamps iOS

By Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc unveiled a music streaming service called iTunes Radio and new mobile software on Monday, in the biggest redesign of its operating system since the original iPhone was introduced in 2007.

The new software, designated iOS 7 and announced at Apple's annual developers' conference in San Francisco, sports a streamlined design, employs translucency and a fresh palette of colors, and features animation in apps.

Apple's iTunes Radio, one of the more highly anticipated features of the new iOS 7, comes free, supported by ads across many devices including iPhones, iPads and the Apple TV.

Much like rival Pandora Media Inc's Internet radio, the service - which launches in the fall, months after Google Inc's "All Access" on-demand competitor debuted - allows listeners to customize their own radio stations by genre, skip songs multiple times, or just tune in to some 200 featured stations.

Apple has been talking to record companies for the past year in hopes of getting the service off the ground, seen as crucial to retaining users as music consumption grows alongside smartphone use. It will also come free of ads for customers who subscribe to Match, another Apple music service.

Executives also showed off a new line of Macbook Air computers. They gave a sneak peek at a cylindrical Mac Pro desktop, in a rare preview of upcoming hardware. And, in a continuation of efforts over the past year to wean itself off arch-rival Google's services such as maps, Apple's updated Siri voice software on the iPhone will turn to Microsoft Corp's less-popular Bing as its default in-app search engine.

Previously, Siri handled Web search queries by asking users if they would like to access Google, which dominates Internet searches. With iOS 7 however, users can still choose to ask specifically for Google results.

The latest Macs will run a new computer operating system christened OSX Mavericks - named after a famous California surfing spot and a departure from Apple's penchant for naming software after big cats like Mountain Lion.

The real makeover was reserved for iOS 7, a smartphone and tablet platform overhauled by resident creative honcho, Jonathan Ive. It comes with a new edge-to-edge look that uses translucency to highlight underlying content, new typefaces, and new icons. Apple plans to release iOS 7 in the fall.

It will support multitasking for all apps.

"It's the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone," said Chief Executive Tim Cook.

Robert Brunner, founder of design consultancy Ammunition and a former design head at Apple, said it was past time Apple changed the look of software that had become "busier and busier" visually and, to some degree, busier and busier functionally.

"The iOS look and feel had become long in the tooth," said Brunner, who hired Ive while he was at Apple. "So what Jony has done is really gone in and cleaned it up. He made it feel more sophisticated, more modern."

"It seems like quite a lot to have done in a relatively short period of time," said Brunner, who uses an iPhone.

"MY ASS"

The conference, whose tickets sold out in just over a minute after they went on sale in April, comes as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd solidified its lead in the smartphone market in the first quarter with a 33 percent share followed by Apple with 18 percent, according to market research firm IDC.

Cook is under pressure to show that the company that created the smartphone and tablet markets is not slowing as deep-pocketed competitors like Samsung and Google encroach on its market.

Investor concerns center on whether Apple will be able to come up with more groundbreaking products as the smartphone and tablet markets get more crowded. In April, Apple reported its first quarterly profit decline in more than a decade.

Marketing chief Phil Schiller offered the audience a sneak peek at Apple's upcoming new Mac Pro, its top-of-the-line computer. The computer has a sleek cylindrical chassis that he said will feature several times the processing and memory speed and power of the previous generation.

It will be released later this year and be assembled in the United States, Schiller said.

"Can't innovate any more, my ass," Schiller said as he showed off the new Mac Pro. "This is a machine unlike anything we've ever made."

Apple's stock has fallen 37 percent after touching a high of $705 in September as competition in the smartphone market escalated. Some investors believe the company is struggling to come up with original new products since the death of cofounder and former CEO Steve Jobs in 2011.

The redesigned iOS comes after Cook ousted former chief mobile software architect and 15-year Apple veteran Scott Forstall last November, in a sweeping management move that also gave Ive more control of the look-and-feel of both hardware and software.

Some industry experts have criticized Apple's mobile operating software, which has retained its general look and feel since its inception, for looking somewhat dated.

"The iPhone was the first real smartphone for a lot of people so it had to be really basic," said Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, which makes note-taking software for smartphones. "Now the training-wheels are starting to come off a little bit."

Among some of the other features introduced was "activation lock," an anti-theft security enhancement that prevents unauthorized resetting of the device.

Cook told the audience of developers that Apple's App Store now has 900,000 apps that have been downloaded a total of 50 billion times.

Apple's stock dipped 0.66 percent to close at $438.89 on the Nasdaq.

(Additional reporting and writing by Noel Randewich, Editing by Andre Grenon, Richard Chang, Steve Orlofsky and Matt Driskill)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-unveils-music-streaming-revamps-ios-010909034.html

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Senator says intel chief was not forthcoming

WASHINGTON (AP) ? One of the staunchest critics of government surveillance programs said Tuesday that the national intelligence director did not give him a straight answer last March when he asked whether the National Security Agency collects any data on millions of Americans.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called for hearings to discuss two recently revealed NSA programs that collect billions of telephone numbers and Internet usage daily. He was also among a group of senators who introduced legislation Tuesday to force the government to declassify opinions of a secret court that authorizes the surveillance.

But other key members of Congress, including House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, say the programs were valuable tools in counterterror and that the former NSA contractor who leaked them is a traitor. President Barack Obama has vigorously defended the program, saying Americans must balance privacy and security to protect the country from terrorists.

Wyden, however, complained that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, during a Senate Intelligence hearing in March about threats the U.S. faces from around the world, was less than forthcoming.

"The American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives," Wyden said in a statement.

Wyden said he wanted to know the scope of the top secret surveillance programs, and privately asked NSA Director Keith Alexander for clarity. When he did not get a satisfactory answer, Wyden said he alerted Clapper's office a day early that he would ask the same question at the public hearing.

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked Clapper at the March 12 hearing.

"No, sir," Clapper answered.

"It does not?" Wyden pressed.

Clapper quickly and haltingly softened his answer. "Not wittingly," he said. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect ? but not wittingly."

Wyden said he also gave Clapper a chance to amend his answer.

A spokesman for Clapper did not have an immediate response on Tuesday, but the intelligence director told NBC that he believed Wyden's question was "not answerable necessarily, by a simple yes or no." Officials generally do not discuss classified information in public hearings, reserving discussion on top-secret programs for closed sessions where they will not be revealed to adversaries.

"So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner, by saying, 'No,'" Clapper said.

The programs that do sweep up such information were revealed last week by The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers, and Clapper has since taken the unusual step of declassifying some of the previously top-secret details to help the administration mount a public defense of the surveillance as a necessary step to protect Americans.

One of the NSA programs gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records to search for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad. The other allows the government to tap into nine U.S. Internet companies and gather all communications to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

A new poll by the Post and the Pew Research Center found Americans generally prioritize the government's need to investigate terrorist threats over the need to protect personal privacy, and most (56 percent) considered the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone call records an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism. Americans were more closely divided on whether the government should be able to monitor email and other online activities to prevent future terrorist attacks, with 52 percent opposed to that.

The poll was conducted June 6-9, as many details of the NSA's data collection efforts were still being revealed.

A senior U.S. intelligence official on Monday said there were no plans to scrap the programs. Despite backlash from overseas allies and American privacy advocates, the programs continue to receive widespread, if cautious, support within Congress as an indispensable tool for protecting Americans from terrorists. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive security issue.

Wyden said lawmakers must have clear and direct answers to questions in order to conduct oversight. "This job cannot be done responsibly if senators aren't getting straight answers to direct questions," he said in the statement.

The Justice Department is weighing whether to charge the American man who claims to have given documents about the classified programs to journalists. The whereabouts of Edward Snowden, 29, were not immediately known. He was last in Hong Kong, where he hopes to avoid being extradited to the United States for prosecution.

The NSA contractor for whom he worked, Booz Allen Hamilton, announced Tuesday that they had fired Snowden after less than three months on the job.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament planned to debate the spy programs Tuesday and whether they have violated local privacy protections. EU officials in Brussels pledged to seek answers from U.S. diplomats at a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin later this week.

The global scrutiny comes as other lawmakers including Senate intelligence chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California accuse Snowden of committing an "act of treason" that should be prosecuted.

Officials in Germany and the European Union issued calm but firm complaints Monday over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages ? potentially including phone numbers, email, images, video and other online communications transmitted through U.S. providers. The chief British diplomat felt it necessary to try to assure Parliament that the spy programs do not encroach on U.K. privacy laws.

And in Washington, members of Congress said they would take a new look at potential ways to keep the U.S. safe from terror attacks without giving up privacy protections that critics charge are at risk with the government's current authority to broadly sweep up personal communications.

"There's very little trust in the government, and that's for good reason," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. "We're our own worst enemy."

House Speaker John Boehner, however, said he believes President Barack Obama has fully explained why the program is needed. He told ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday that "the disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are and it's a giant violation of the law." He called Snowden a "traitor."

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was considering how Congress could limit the amount of data spy agencies seize from telephone and Internet companies ? including restricting the information to be released only on an as-needed basis.

"It's a little unsettling to have this massive data in the government's possession," King said.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later joined Booz Allen, where the papers said he gained access to the surveillance. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine said, it was "absolutely shocking" that a 29-year-old with limited experience would have access to this material.

FBI agents on Monday visited the home of Snowden's father, Lonnie Snowden, in Upper Macungie Township, Pa. The FBI in Philadelphia declined to comment.

The first explosive document Snowden revealed was a top secret court order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that granted a three-month renewal for a massive collection of American phone records. That order was signed April 25. The Guardian's first story on the court order was published June 5.

Snowden also gave the Post and the Guardian a PowerPoint presentation on another secret program that collects online usage by the nine Internet providers. The U.S. government says it uses that information only to track foreigners' use overseas.

It was unclear when or if Snowden would be extradited.

"All of the options, as he put it, are bad options," Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first reported the phone-tracking program and interviewed Snowden extensively, told The Associated Press on Monday. He said Snowden decided to release details of the programs out of shock and anger over the sheer scope of the government's privacy invasions.

"It was his choice to publicly unveil himself," Greenwald told the AP in Hong Kong. "He recognized that even if he hadn't publicly unveiled himself, it was only a matter of time before the U.S. government discovered that it was he who had been responsible for these disclosures, and he made peace with that. ... He's very steadfast and resolute about the fact that he did the right thing."

Greenwald said he had more documents from Snowden and expected "more significant revelations" about NSA.

Although Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political. Any negotiations about his possible handover will involve Beijing, but some analysts believe China is unlikely to want to jeopardize its relationship with Washington over someone it would consider of little political interest.

Snowden also told The Guardian that he may seek asylum in Iceland, which has strong free-speech protections and a tradition of providing a haven for the outspoken and the outcast.

The Justice Department is investigating whether his disclosures were a criminal offense ? a matter that's not always clear-cut under U.S. federal law.

A second senior intelligence official said Snowden would have had to have signed a non-disclosure agreement to gain access to the top secret data. That suggests he could be prosecuted for violating that agreement. Penalties could range from a few years to life in prison. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the process of accessing classified materials more frankly.

The leak came to light as Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was being tried in military court under federal espionage and computer fraud laws for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other items. The most serious charge against him was aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. But the military operates under a different legal system.

If Snowden is forced to return to the United States to face charges, whistle-blower advocates said Monday that they would raise money for his legal defense.

Clapper has ordered an internal review to assess how much damage the disclosures created. Intelligence experts say terrorist suspects and others seeking to attack the U.S. all but certainly will find alternate ways to communicate instead of relying on systems that now are widely known to be under surveillance.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was open for a discussion about the spy programs, both with allies and in Congress. His administration has aggressively defended the two programs and credited them with helping stop at least two terrorist attacks, including one in New York City.

Privacy rights advocates say Obama has gone too far. The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School filed legal action Monday to force a secret U.S. court to make public its opinions justifying the scope of some of the surveillance, calling the programs "shockingly broad." And conservative lawyer Larry Klayman filed a separate lawsuit against the Obama administration, claiming he and others have been harmed by the government's collection of as many as 3 billion phone numbers each day.

Army records indicate Snowden enlisted in the Army around May 2004 and was discharged that September.

"He attempted to qualify to become a Special Forces soldier but did not complete the requisite training and was administratively discharged from the Army," Col. David H. Patterson Jr., an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said in a statement late Monday.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Frederic Frommer and Matt Apuzzo in Washington, Robert H. Reid in Berlin and Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senator-says-intel-chief-not-forthcoming-182533174.html

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