Saturday, June 23, 2012

Senate votes to end public money for conventions

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Senate has voted overwhelmingly to end public financing for political party conventions.

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who sponsored the proposal with Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, says taxpayers should not have to contribute, as they are doing for the two conventions this year, when the nominee has been decided.

Coburn says the public this year is spending more than $36 million for the conventions.

The measure, if it becomes law, would not take effect until future political conventions. The idea would need the House's OK.

The Senate vote was 95-4 for the proposal, which was presented as an amendment to a farm bill.

Associated Press

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Friday, June 22, 2012

School of the Strange

School of the Strange

Strange people with strange powers have been invited to a suspicios boarding school in the middle of the Australian Outback. Are you one of these strange people? *OPEN*

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Taliban gunmen attack popular Kabul hotel

?

By msnbc.com news services

Updated at 9 p.m. ET: Afghan Taliban gunmen, some armed with rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, have attacked a hotel at Kabul's popular Qargha Lake recreation area, triggering a gun battle in darkness, Afghan police said on Friday.

"It would be very easy for police to kill them, but we are afraid because there are civilians, including women and children, trapped inside. We are waiting for daylight," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police investigation unit. Afghan police did not know how many were in the hotel or the number of casualties.

"According to the information we have, they have martyred some of them," Zahir said, meaning an unknown number of civilians had been killed.


The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying wealthy Afghans and foreigners used the hotel to have "wild parties" in the lead up to the Friday religious day holiday.

The attack recalls the Taliban commando takeover a year ago of the Intercontinental Hotel on a Kabul hillside that left at least 19 dead, according to news reports at the time. Like the Spozhmai Hotel, the Intercontinental was favored by well-heeled Afghans more than foreigners.

Attacks across Afghanistan have surged in recent days, with three U.S. soldiers and more than a dozen civilians killed in successive attacks, mostly in the country's east, which has so far been a focus for NATO-led forces during the summer fighting months.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a speech to a special session of parliament on Thursday that attacks by insurgents against local police and soldiers were increasing as foreign combat troops prepare to exit the country in 2014.

Afghan insurgents attacked Kabul's heavily-protected diplomatic and government district on April 15 in an assault eventually quelled by Afghan special forces, guided by Western mentors.

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

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Top predators key to extinctions as planet warms

Top predators key to extinctions as planet warms [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David DeFusco
david.defusco@yale.edu
203-436-4842
Yale University

New Haven, Conn.Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science.

"Currently, most models predicting the effects of climate change treat species separately and focus only on climatic and environmental drivers," said Phoebe Zarnetske, the study's primary author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "But we know that species don't exist in a vacuum. They interact with each other in ways that deeply affect their viability."

Zarnetske said the complexity of "species interaction networks" discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or "climate envelope," approach, researchers have predicted that 15 percent to 37 percent of species will be faced with extinction by 2050.

But research has shown that top consumerspredators and herbivoreshave an especially strong effect on many other species. In a warming world, these species are "biotic multipliers," increasing the extinction risk and altering the ranges of many other species in the food web.

"Climate change is likely to have strong effects on top consumers. As a result, these effects can ripple through an entire food web, multiplying extinction risks along the way," said Dave Skelly, a co-author of the study and professor of ecology at Yale.

The paper argues that focusing on these biotic multipliers and their interactions with other species is a promising way to improve predictions of the effects of climate change, and recent studies support this idea. On Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, rising winter temperatures and a disease outbreak caused wolf populations to decline and the number of moose to surge, leading to a decline in balsam fir trees. Studies in the rocky intertidal of the North American Pacific Coast show that higher temperatures altered the ranges of mussel species and their interaction with sea stars, their top predators, resulting in lower species diversity. And in Arctic Greenland, studies show that without caribou and muskoxen as top herbivores, higher temperatures can lead to decreased diversity in tundra plants and, in turn, affect many other species dependent on them.

"Species interactions are necessary for life on Earth. We rely on fisheries, timber, agriculture, medicine and a variety of other ecosystem services that result from intact species interactions," said Zarnetske. "Humans have already altered these important species interactions, and climate change is predicted to alter them further. Incorporating these interactions into models is crucial to informed management decisions that protect biodiversity and the services it provides."

Multispecies models with species interactions, according to the paper, would enable tracking of the biotic multipliers by following how changes in the abundance of target species, such as top consumers, alter the composition of communities of species. But there needs to be more data.

"Collecting this type of high-resolution biodiversity data will not be easy. However, insights from such data could provide us with the ability to predict and thus avoid some of the negative effects of climate change on biodiversity," said Mark Urban, a co-author and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut.

###

The paper, "Biotic Multipliers of Climate Change Effects," was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Yale Climate and Energy Institute.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Top predators key to extinctions as planet warms [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: David DeFusco
david.defusco@yale.edu
203-436-4842
Yale University

New Haven, Conn.Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science.

"Currently, most models predicting the effects of climate change treat species separately and focus only on climatic and environmental drivers," said Phoebe Zarnetske, the study's primary author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "But we know that species don't exist in a vacuum. They interact with each other in ways that deeply affect their viability."

Zarnetske said the complexity of "species interaction networks" discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or "climate envelope," approach, researchers have predicted that 15 percent to 37 percent of species will be faced with extinction by 2050.

But research has shown that top consumerspredators and herbivoreshave an especially strong effect on many other species. In a warming world, these species are "biotic multipliers," increasing the extinction risk and altering the ranges of many other species in the food web.

"Climate change is likely to have strong effects on top consumers. As a result, these effects can ripple through an entire food web, multiplying extinction risks along the way," said Dave Skelly, a co-author of the study and professor of ecology at Yale.

The paper argues that focusing on these biotic multipliers and their interactions with other species is a promising way to improve predictions of the effects of climate change, and recent studies support this idea. On Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, rising winter temperatures and a disease outbreak caused wolf populations to decline and the number of moose to surge, leading to a decline in balsam fir trees. Studies in the rocky intertidal of the North American Pacific Coast show that higher temperatures altered the ranges of mussel species and their interaction with sea stars, their top predators, resulting in lower species diversity. And in Arctic Greenland, studies show that without caribou and muskoxen as top herbivores, higher temperatures can lead to decreased diversity in tundra plants and, in turn, affect many other species dependent on them.

"Species interactions are necessary for life on Earth. We rely on fisheries, timber, agriculture, medicine and a variety of other ecosystem services that result from intact species interactions," said Zarnetske. "Humans have already altered these important species interactions, and climate change is predicted to alter them further. Incorporating these interactions into models is crucial to informed management decisions that protect biodiversity and the services it provides."

Multispecies models with species interactions, according to the paper, would enable tracking of the biotic multipliers by following how changes in the abundance of target species, such as top consumers, alter the composition of communities of species. But there needs to be more data.

"Collecting this type of high-resolution biodiversity data will not be easy. However, insights from such data could provide us with the ability to predict and thus avoid some of the negative effects of climate change on biodiversity," said Mark Urban, a co-author and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut.

###

The paper, "Biotic Multipliers of Climate Change Effects," was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Yale Climate and Energy Institute.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


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Thursday, June 21, 2012

?The Ultimate Fighter? makes changes, but will it be enough?

Usually, in the months before the UFC starts taping a season of "The Ultimate Fighter," the show holds open tryouts. Fighters from all over the country flock to hotel ballrooms to try to win the favor of the UFC execs watching their every move.

As the show heads into its 16th season, there were no tryouts. Instead, the UFC asked managers to bring welterweights to Las Vegas for auditions and personal interviews.

"I've never seen them skip the tryout process and fly guys straight in," one manager told MMAjunkie.com.

This isn't the only change coming to the UFC's long-running reality show. As Kevin Iole reported, the UFC is going back to a taped format after the 15th season aired fights live. FX has also decided to keep the show on Friday nights.

Though ratings are up for FX on Friday nights, the ratings for the show are down compared to previous seasons. Attendance and gate from the show's finale were also down.

TUF is first a television show, and two rules have always remained true about the modern television landscape. First, it's hard to keep any show fresh for 16 seasons. Secondly, Friday nights are where ratings go to die. There is not much the UFC can do to get around those truisms.

What other changes should "The Ultimate Fighter" make to get you to tune in? Tell us in the comments, on Facebook or Twitter.

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei barred from courts

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Discovery increases understanding how bacteria spread

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) ? A Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher is moving closer to understanding how infectious bacteria spread.

In a study published in the high-impact Cell Press journal called Structure, Joel Weiner and his collaborators, Gerd Prehna and Natalie Stynadka at the University of British Columbia, share new knowledge about how bacteria release proteins.

Proteins are complex molecules that perform all sorts of functions in the cells of living things. The group studied a specific protein called YebF in E. coli bacteria. It is widely found in other bacteria as well.

Solving the structure and understanding the mechanism by which this protein spreads bacterial pathogens was a big step forward. As humans develop more resistance to antibiotics, researchers are in search of new ways to stop bacteria from spreading.

"Most pathogenic bacteria induce special structures in order to release proteins that allow them to infect a host," said Weiner of the Department of Biochemistry, whose lab is funded by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. "What we show here is that normal, run-of-the-mill bacteria can actually release a protein through the pores [of the bacterial membrane] which are normally there to take in small molecules."

YebF proved to be an interesting protein molecule because in addition to its release through the bacterial pore, which is the most recent discovery, it has the unique property of secreting "passenger proteins" that are attached to it. This unique property was a prior discovery patented by the U of A because it has potential use for the production of protein-based drugs by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.

"What we found in the structure is that there are regions that are very flexible in YebF that seem to be very important in getting it out of the bacteria," said Weiner. "If you make mutants in those regions you can prevent the protein from going out.

"We're not investing enough in identifying new targets for antibiotics," he said. "What this system does suggests a new target. We're looking at drugs that could block the ability of YebF to go out.

"That's really easy to test for," he added. Because the screen is easy, it's good for pharmaceutical companies."

This step in the research took several years, because solving the structure of this protein wasn't easy. The lab typically uses crystallization but stubborn YebF wouldn't work, so instead they had to use nuclear magnetic resonance.

Typically researchers know what action takes place and they try to find the protein that triggers it. In this case the researchers have been working the opposite direction. They have the protein, YebF, but they need to find out its purpose in the cell.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Gerd Prehna, Guijin Zhang, Xiandi Gong, Marek Duszyk, Mark Okon, Lawrence P. McIntosh, Joel H. Weiner, Natalie C.J. Strynadka. A Protein Export Pathway Involving Escherichia coli Porins. Structure, 31 May 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2012.04.014

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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