"G.I. Joe: Retaliation," buffed up with 3D, aims to conquer Box-Office world

By Todd Cunningham

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "G.I Joe:Retaliation" reports for box-office duty Wednesday night, after a nine-month delay. The world's most famous toy soldier and his mates will battle the evil agents of Cobra In the movie, but in the multiplexes, it will be all about 3D.

Paramount last May took the unusual step of delaying its $135 million sequel to "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," originally scheduled to be released last June 29, in order to convert it to 3D. The decision came just after another movie based on a Hasbro toy, Universal's "Battleship," tanked domestically after making more than $200 million overseas.

"We wanted to put out the very best movie we could," Paramount's head of distribution Don Harris told TheWrap Tuesday, "and it became clear to us that 3D was the way to go."

Certainly it will make the kabooms bigger and the fights scenes and panoramas more dizzying, and that should please hardcore fans raised on "G.I. Joe" toys, comic books and cartoons. But the real reason for the conversion was to cash in at the box office, particularly overseas.

The 3D allows for $3 to $4 ticket price upticks. More than 3,000 of the roughly 3,700 theaters showing "G.I. Joe" will be screening the film in the format, along with another 300 Imax screens. Though its official opening date is Thursday, Paramount is getting a big jump on the weekend, debuting the film in a numbers of theaters starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

That should translate to a $50 million, four-and-a-half day total and the top spot on the Easter holiday weekend, industry analysts say. The battle for second will be between last week's No. 1 film, DreamWorks Animation's "The Croods," and "Tyler Perry's Temptation" at about $20 million. The latter opens Friday, along with the weekend's other wide opener, the sci-fi thriller "The Host," based on the young adult novel by "Twilight' series author Stephenie Meyer. it's tracking at about $15 million for the three days.

The first ?G.I. Joe" film brought in about $300 million at the global box office, split almost evenly between domestic and foreign. The buzz and anticipation surrounding "Retaliation" has been as strong or stronger than for the first film, and analysts believe "Retaliation" should come close to that domestic total and exceed the foreign number.

Success for "Retaliation" abroad will be critical if Paramount is going to make money. The merchandising and marketing campaigns for the film - including a pricey Super Bowl commercial - were under way when the decision to push the date was made, and that had to raise costs.

It appears set up to score overseas. "Retaliation" will open in 53 foreign markets this weekend, and that's where the studio's decision to convert to 3D could really pay off. The format is still something of a novelty in many countries, and the percentage of 3D screens is very high.

Action films often translate well abroad. "Retaliation" stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Channing Tatum and Bruce Willis, all are proven overseas draws ("Good Day to Die Hard," with Willis starring, just crossed $220 million in foreign grosses for Fox). Pakistan, Tokyo, Nepal London and the Himalayas are locales in the film, and Korean star Byung-hyun Lee will drive grosses in that market.

U.S. critics so far aren't impressed; the film has just a 44 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But the young males who make up the film's primary fan base are the target demo, and that won't dissuade them; they're expected to dominate the early screenings. By Saturday, though, Paramount is hoping the PG-rated "Retaliation" will begin scoring with families.

The script is by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick ("Zombieland"). Suffice to say that Cobra manages to replace the President of the United States with an evil stand-in, and then the fun begins. John M. Chu ("Step Up 3D," "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never") directs.

Along with Willis, Adrianne Palicki and Elodi Yung join the cast, which includes Jonathan Pryce, D.J. Cotrona and Ray Park. MGM and Skydance Productions were co-producers on the film.

"Tyler Perry's Temptation" is tracking strongly with its target African-American audience. Box-office success is something of an Easter tradition for Perry, who writes and directs. Three of his previous films have debuted on Easter weekend ("Why Did I Get Married Too?," "Madea's Big Happy Family" and "Meet the Browns"), and all opened between $20 million and $30 million.

Lionsgate, which has the PG-rated film in roughly 200 theaters, sees an opening for "Temptation" along the lines of last year's "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds," which debuted to $15 million in February and went on to take in $35 million domestically.

"Temptation" follows a heated romance between the ambitious and married Judith (played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Harley (Robbie Jones), a handsome social media billionaire who aggressively courts her. Reality star and marketing marvel Kim Kardashian plays Judith's co-worker at the high-end couple's therapy business.

"The Host," is a bit of a wild card. Distributor Open Road Films has the film in about 3,200 theaters and is targeting young women - the same group that made the "Twilight" series such a hit.

Tracking is tricky on that group, and few will be surprised if it overperforms or underperforms, like the similarly young-skewing "Beautiful Creatures" did earlier this year.

Andrew Niccol ("The Minutes") directs and adapted Meyer's novel in which an unseen enemy threatens mankind by taking over their bodies and erasing their memories. Saoirse Ronin ("Hanna"), Max Irons and Jake Abel star.

Chockstone Pictures and Nick Wechsler Productions produced, for a reported $40 million.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/g-joe-retaliation-buffed-3d-aims-conquer-box-234043054.html

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Exercise helps ease arthritis pain and stiffness | Leisure Fitness ...

Article mayoclinic.com, Recommended by Jessica Loeser, Wellness Outreach Team

As you consider starting an arthritis exercise program, understand what?s within your limits and what level of exercise is likely to give you results.

Exercise is crucial for people with arthritis. It increases strength and flexibility, reduces joint pain, and helps combat fatigue. Of course, when stiff and painful joints are already bogging you down, the thought of walking around the block or swimming a few laps might seem overwhelming.

But you don?t need to run a marathon or swim as fast as an Olympic competitor to help reduce the symptoms of your arthritis. Even moderate exercise can ease your pain and help you maintain a healthy weight. When arthritis threatens to immobilize you, exercise keeps you moving. Not convinced? Read on.

Exercise can help you improve your health and fitness without hurting your joints. Along with your current treatment program, exercise can:
-Strengthen the muscles around your joints
-Help you maintain bone strength
-Give you more strength and energy to get through the day
-Make it easier to get a good night?s sleep
-Help you control your weight
-Make you feel better about yourself and improve your sense of well-being

Though you might think exercise will aggravate your joint pain and stiffness, that?s not the case. Lack of exercise actually can make your joints even more painful and stiff. That?s because keeping your muscles and surrounding tissue strong is crucial to maintaining support for your bones. Not exercising weakens those supporting muscles, creating more stress on your joints.

Talk to your doctor about how exercise can fit into your current treatment plan. What types of exercises are best for you depends on your type of arthritis and which joints are involved. Your doctor or a physical therapist can work with you to find the best exercise plan to give you the most benefit with the least aggravation of your joint pain.

Your doctor or physical therapist can recommend exercises that are best for you, which might include range-of-motion exercises, strengthening exercises, aerobic exercise and other activities.

Range-of-motion exercises
These exercises relieve stiffness and increase your ability to move your joints through their full range of motion. Range-of-motion exercises involve moving your joints through their normal range of movement, such as raising your arms over your head or rolling your shoulders forward and backward. These exercises can be done daily or at least every other day.

Strengthening exercises
These exercises help you build strong muscles that help support and protect your joints. Weight training is an example of a strengthening exercise that can help you maintain your current muscle strength or increase it. Do your strengthening exercises every other day ? but take an extra day off if your joints are painful or if you notice any swelling.

Aerobic exercise
Aerobic or endurance exercises help with your overall fitness. They can improve your cardiovascular health, help you control your weight and give you more stamina. That way you?ll have more energy to get through your day. Examples of low-impact aerobic exercises that are easier on your joints include walking, riding a bike and swimming. Try to work your way up to 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week. You can split up that time into 10-minute blocks if that?s easier on your joints.

Other activities
Any movement, no matter how small, can help. If a particular workout or activity appeals to you, don?t hesitate to ask your doctor whether it?s right for you. Your doctor might give you the OK to try gentle forms of yoga and tai chi. Tai chi may improve balance and help prevent falls. Be sure to tell your instructor about your condition and avoid positions or movements that can cause pain.

Start slowly to ease your joints into exercise if you haven?t been active for a while. If you push yourself too hard, you can overwork your muscles. This can worsen your joint pain.

Apply heat. Heat can relax your joints and muscles and relieve any pain you have before you begin. Heat treatments ? warm towels, hot packs or a shower ? should be warm, not painfully hot, and should be applied for about 20 minutes.

Move gently. Move your joints gently at first to warm up. You might begin with range-of-motion exercises for five to 10 minutes before you move on to strengthening or aerobic exercises.

Go slowly. Exercise with slow and easy movements. If you start noticing pain, take a break. Sharp pain and pain that is stronger than your usual joint pain might indicate something is wrong. Slow down if you notice inflammation or redness in your joints.

Ice afterward. Apply ice to your joints as needed after activity, especially after activity that causes any joint swelling.
Trust your instincts and don?t exert more energy than you think your joints can handle. Take it easy and slowly work your exercise length and intensity up as you progress.

You might notice some pain after you exercise if you haven?t been active for a while. In general, if your pain lasts longer than two hours after you exercise, you were probably exercising too strenuously. Talk to your doctor about what pain is normal and what pain is a sign of something more serious.

If you have rheumatoid arthritis, ask your doctor if you should exercise during general or local flares. One option is to work through your joint flares by doing only range-of-motion exercises, just to keep your body moving.

Check with your doctor about exercise programs in your area for people with arthritis. Hospitals and clinics sometimes offer special programs, as do local health clubs.

The Arthritis Foundation conducts exercise programs for people with arthritis in many parts of the United States. Programs include exercise classes ? in water and on land ? and walking groups. Contact your local branch for more information.

Source: http://blog.leisurefitness.com/2013/03/exercise-helps-ease-arthritis-pain-and-stiffness/

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Professional Business Marketing ? Business Insider's Slideshows ...

Business Insider has become known all-too-well for making its site sticky with a constant procession of topical?or newsy slideshows.

Well, the New York-based digital publisher this week started to monetize the idea with a sponsored gallery ad unit, and location-based marketing firm Yext has signed on as the first buyer. The ad unit lets brands own an entire slideshow gallery experience at BusinessInsider.com.

?We?ve done sponsored posts, and we?ve done sponsored email. So why not do sponsored slideshows?? Julie Hansen, Business Insider president and COO, told Adweek. ?It?s a pretty obvious extension for what we?ve been doing. And it?s part of what everyone is seeing in the larger native advertising trend.?

While Business Insider published Yext?s nine-slide gallery dubbed ?Why Local Search Is Important For Retailers?And Why It?s A Mess? on Wednesday, the publication will be pushing the slideshow in its featured section by mid-morning today. Yext is also getting the site?s top banner placement on the gallery?s pages, while promoting its recent quarterly report/white paper on local search.

Allison Tepley,?svp of marketing at Yext, said the gallery-takeover format is well-suited for her firm, which looks to educate brands about how its software can help them manage multiple online listings. ?For this, we are looking to get [white paper] downloads and create awareness of our data,? Tepley said.

Peter Spande, chief revenue officer at Business Insider, said, ?It?s another example of how brands are starting to use the same tools and techniques that professional content creators on the editorial side employ every day.?

Spande said his content team handled the production of the gallery for Yext and plans to do the same for future advertisers.

?I think it will attract companies like luxury auto manufacturers, consumer electronic firms and other brands with products that have a lot of need for product-detail differentiation,? he said. ?But I do think this is going to mainly be a B2B-focused ad solution because there?s generally a more nuanced and complex message to convey for those brands.?

Topics:
Allison Tepley, business insider, digital ads, Henry Blodget, Julie Hansen, native ads, native advertising, Online, online publishing, Peter Spande, publishing, sponsored content, Web publishing, Yext

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Source: http://lowbrowse.org/business-insiders-slideshows-are-now-ads-too.html

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Jenna Wolfe Baby Daddy: Who Is It NOT?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/jenna-wolfe-baby-daddy-who-is-it-not/

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Competition brings out autism?s social side

New game shows kids can appreciate what other people think and believe

By Bruce Bower

Web edition: March 27, 2013

Children with autism may understand more about how other people think than they?re usually given credit for. The trick to exposing this awareness, a new study finds, is to motivate these youngsters to show what they know.

In a lab game that requires a child to compete with two adults for a prize, many kids with autism demonstrate insight into how other people?s thoughts shape their behavior, say psychologist Candida Peterson of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues. The finding suggests that previous research testing this ability, called theory of mind, ?underestimates how well youngsters with autism can interpret other people?s actions, Peterson?s team reports March 19 in Developmental Science.

Studies published since 1985 have found that most high-functioning individuals with autism ? those who have serious social and language problems but average or better IQs ? fail a standard theory of mind test at least through adolescence. Kids without autism usually pass the test by age 5.

In the standard test, called the Sally-Anne test, children watch an experimenter play with a doll named Sally, who has a covered basket, and a doll named Anne, who has a box. Sally puts a marble in her basket and leaves. Anne moves Sally?s marble to the box. Kids with autism usually indicate that, when Sally returns, she will look for her marble in the box, failing to recognize that Sally falsely believes the marble remains in her basket.

Socially aloof children with autism may have no incentive to think about what Sally believes just because an experimenter asks them to do so, Peterson says.

The new lab game gives children an incentive to think about others? thoughts. A child first picks a desired prize from several choices. Two adults, Dot and Midge, then enter the room and talk about wanting the same prize. The child and an experimenter hide the prize in one of three boxes as the women watch. Dot then leaves the room. Midge and the child watch the experimenter move the prize to another box. Midge departs and returns with Dot. The child then picks Dot or Midge to open a box first. If the adult opens an empty container, the child can retrieve the toy.

On two trials, 17 of 23 high-functioning kids with autism, ages 7 to 13, gave Dot the first shot both times, thereby earning themselves a prize. So did 20 of 26 typically developing 4?- to 5-year-olds. That figure fell to 13 of 24 typically developing youngsters who had just turned 4 and to four of 23 typically developing 3 year olds.

Despite the success of children with autism at exploiting Dot?s false belief, it?s easier to deploy knowledge about others? minds in a game with clear rules than in real-world encounters. Making small talk effectively, appreciating ironic and sarcastic asides and tracking what a peer knows during a conversation can challenge even socially adept adults, Peterson says.

As individuals with autism get older, they tend to become better at sensing others? mental states, says anthropologist and autism researcher Richard Grinker of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Sally-Anne test treats this ability as either present or absent.

?Theory of mind evidence is not used in diagnosing autism, because the research hasn?t developed enough yet,? Grinker says.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349229/title/Competition_brings_out_autisms_social_side

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Supreme Court hears oral arguments on DOMA: Live blog (Washington Post)

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

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Amanda Bynes Cleavage Photos: Drake, Come Hither!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/amanda-bynes-cleavage-photos-drake-come-hither/

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Hammer Time: Good, Fast, And Cheap | The Truth About Cars

Good, Fast and Cheap.?

Feel free to pick any two when it comes to all things cars. Consumer. Retailer. Rebuilder. Doesn?t matter. You always get a choice of two out of the three.

Don?t believe me?

Good. Cynicism is always a solid first step in buying any used vehicle. Whether you are kicking the tires at a lot as the end consumer. Or listening to the urgent chant of an auto auctioneer trying to sell the mediocre remnants of a rental fleet at a wholesale dealer auction. Everyone pretends to offer you a great deal.

But truth and reality in this business, at all levels of this business, are two very separate things.

Let?s take all those great deals I get from the auctions? good, fast and cheap. Sure. I do get them all.?Just almost never in the same car.?

The Good and Fast Selling Car, Is Never Cheap To Buy

Do these sell? You betcha. The reason is that these cars wind up as ?finance fodder?. Consumers who are looking for the cost of the monthly payment, and little more, almost always want a popular late model vehicle and are willing to spend five to seven years indentured to that popular ride for that privilege.

The only problem is that you can?t buy these vehicles in any great volume if you are an independent dealer. Thanks to record low production numbers in 2010, and the manufacturer?s new found ability to create aggressive CPO programs that keep this inventory firmly within the dealer network. So whenever these vehicles do pop up at the auctions, they are almost always a repo that is bid to an absolute pie in the sky valuations.

The price at the retail level only makes sense once you realize that the end consumer simply can?t do math.??

You Want A Good And Cheap Car? Are You Real Sure About That?

The good and cheap car, almost always, does not sell fast. We blame the public for this. Damn snobs!

In our business these are the cars that were made forever, have conservative owners, and were maintained with reasonable care. Ye olde Lincoln Town Cars and Mercury Grand Marquis, most Buicks, a few Oldsmobiles, Tauruses, Malibus, and generally anything that was either a rental fleet special back in the day, or appeals to mature people, will fall into this category.

Cars that once were fast selling, but have declined in popularity over the last several years, also fall into the good/cheap, but unpopular nexus. It used to be that Mustang and Camaro convertibles, and a variety of SUV?s that didn?t come with leather and all the options would wind up at the car lot for a very short period of time.

Well, if you are not in the mood to go anywhere, I guess I?ll just sit and think for a while. ? ?Ten more years of thumb twiddling I guess!

Today?s gas prices have changed that game.

When most folks look at any base to mid-level V8 model these days, they don?t think speed at all unless it?s their first car. They think gas. As in gas guzzling models that are going to seriously crimp their already limited budgets.

The same is true with most large cars and trucks that don?t come loaded up with popular options, but have a big engine in them. If a consumer is willing to buy a gas swilling beast, it?s only because of all the cool features that make it worth a stiff gas penalty.

Uncool? This guy is 1000 times cooler than the five-figure debt you pay for what amounts to daily transportation.

The Not-In-My-Driveway Syndrome

The good and cheap car is a double whammy if the model you buy also happens to be a one generation wonder (Lincoln LS, Mercury Cougar, Pontiac G6) or has an unpopular feature (stickshift in a non-sporty vehicle, traditional wagon style, minivans without power sliding doors or leather seats).

Domestic luxury and full-sized cars, minivans, regular cab full-sized trucks, and most sport coupes that don?t have a popular brand name will also fall into this category. The Toyota Matrix sells. The Pontiac Vibe sits. Most consumers who pretend to shop for the deal of the Vibe, are really just looking for the Matrix at a cheaper than market price.

These unpopular cars will likely sit for close to three to four months, and the person you finance it to may be a serious gamble due to their employment and/or criminal history. They need access to a car and yours is simply a last result. As a result, most of these customers have payment issues within a few months.

The smart money in this business always avoids the good and cheap cars at the auctions for two big reasons. They are only cheap relative to the hysterically overvalued ?finance fodder? these days and, in terms of consumer tastes, they simply aren?t very good anymore.

Me? Trouble? Surely you jest!

You Want A Cheap Car That Is Popular? Then Never Mind The Good.

This leaves the type of car most of you turn your nose at, but eventually buy if you get it financed from a dealership that is not selling you a Certified Pre-Owned vehicle. The cheap and fast selling car that isn?t very good when it was leased, repossessed, or traded in.

This will almost always be a popular vehicle that needs substantial repairs in order for it to become a marketable commodity. Mid-2000?s Nissan Altimas and Sentras with the 2.5 Liter Engine or the pre-CVT automatic transmission. Older Honda Accords with V6 automatic transmissions. Certain Jeeps with differential issues. All of these brands and models still carry a premium return in the marketplace. Even though the powertrains may have repair issues that sometimes must be tended to before they can be sold to the public.

My mechanics, who also handle several other dealerships, have rebuilt dozens of Nissan valve bodies and 2.5 Liter engines over the past several years. Once they are rebuilt with parts that address the issues that are well known at the wholesale level, these units stay together.

It?s not rocket science. But the cost is substantial, and I also have to get all the other minor repair issues handled as well. So a car that I bought for $6000 with a well-known engine issue and a few other hiccups may wind up as a $7500 investment for my business.

If the car doesn?t run well, I don?t get paid. Simple as that. If it does stay together for the long haul, I make money and the finance company I may sell this deal to will cut me a healthy check for putting the deal, and the car, together.

Hitting Them Where They Ain?t Gets Tougher Every Year.

These loopholes aren?t always in the same places. Volvos that were equipped with the completely mythical ??lifetime transmission fluid? often ended up with hard shifts that can be corrected using the Gibbons method. Honda hybrids with failing batteries can be given an extended life with a grid charger?that isn?t available at the Honda dealer.

Nearly every manufacturer has some type of weakness that can be overcome with research, experience, and the willingness to ?invest? in equipment and a learning curve.

There are some dead ends. Northstar engines that are 2003 and older. ?Chrysler 2.7 Liter engines. A long list of manufacturers that offered CVT transmissions in the prior decade. Those vehicles may suffer from the double whammy of high repair cost and low market demand. But in the real world of operating a used car dealership, where most of your customers finance their rides, the best recipe is to find a fast selling cheap car, and make it good.

If you know of a few, or even one, let me know.

Steve Lang contributes to The Truth About Cars, Yahoo! Autos and Jalopnik. Do you want good, fast and cheap advice? Then pick any two and write to him at steven.lang@alumni.duke.edu .?

Source: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/hammer-time-good-fast-and-cheap/

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Laser empties atoms from the inside out

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

An international team of plasma physicists has used one of the world's most powerful lasers to create highly unusual plasma composed of hollow atoms.

The experimental work led by scientists from the University of York, UK and the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of Russian Academy of Sciences demonstrated that it is possible to remove the two most deeply bound electrons from atoms, emptying the inner most quantum shell and leading to a distinctive plasma state.

The experiment was carried out using the petawatt laser at the Central Laser Facility at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to further understanding of fusion energy generation, which employs plasmas that are hotter than the core of the Sun.

The results are reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

A hollow atom occurs when an electron buried in an atom is removed, usually by being hit by another electron, creating a hole while leaving all the other electrons attached. This process creates plasma, a form of ionised gas. An X-ray is released when the hole is filled.

Normally the process involves removing electrons from the outer shells of atoms first and working inwards. The team of scientists demonstrated a new mechanism for creating hollow atoms that involved emptying atoms from the inside out.

The experimental work used an intense laser, which at one petawatt delivers approximately 10,000 times the entire UK national grid, delivered in a thousand-billionth of a second, onto an area smaller than the end of a human hair.

Dr Nigel Woolsey, from the York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, at the University of York was the Principal Investigator for the experimental work.

Dr Woolsey said: "At such extraordinary intensities electrons move at close to the speed of light and as they move they create perhaps the most intense X-rays ever observed on Earth. These X-rays empty the atoms from the inside out; a most extraordinary observation and one that suggests the physics of these interactions is likely to change, as lasers become more powerful."

Analysis and theoretical work was led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA and Osaka University, Japan.

The analysis showed the mechanism for hollow atom generation was not due to the collision of electrons or driven by the laser photons, but was driven by the resulting radiation field from the interaction.

Lead author Dr James Colgan, from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said: "The conditions under which the hollow atoms were produced were highly non-equilibrium and the production mechanism was quite surprising. These results indicate that a little-explored region of physics is now starting to become accessible with the unprecedented intensities reached by the world's leading laser facilities."

Co-author Dr Alexei Zhidkov, from Osaka University, said: "This experiment has demonstrated a situation where X-ray radiation dominates the atomic physics in a laser-plasma interaction; this indicates the importance of X-ray radiation generation in our physics description. Future experiments are likely to show yet more dramatic effects which will have substantial implications for diverse fields such as laboratory-based astrophysics."

If the scientific and technological challenges can be overcome, fusion offers the potential for an effectively limitless supply of safe, environmentally friendly energy. The experimental work was designed to further scientists understanding of how intense lasers can create electron beams with speeds close to the speed of light, then use these beams to heat fusion fuel to thermonuclear temperatures.

Co-author Dr Sergey Pikuz, from the Joint Institute for High Temperatures RAS, said: "The measurements, simulations, and developing physics picture are consistent with a scenario in which high-intensity laser technology can be used to generate extremely intense X-ray fields. This demonstrates the potential to study properties of matter under the impact of intense X-ray radiation."

Co-author Rachel Dance, a University of York PhD physics student, said: "This was a very dynamic experiment which led to an unexpected outcome and new physics. The hollow atom diagnostic was set to measure the hot electron beam current generated by the laser, and the results that came out of this in the end, showed us that the mechanism for hollow atom generation, was not collisional or driven by the laser photons, but by the resulting radiation field from the interaction."

###

University of York: http://www.york.ac.uk

Thanks to University of York for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127450/Laser_empties_atoms_from_the_inside_out

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IRS apologizes for $60,000 'Star Trek' tax-evasion training video

By Ira Teinowitz

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Internal Revenue Service, after going boldly where no man - or government agency - has gone before, has come crashing back to earth, apologizing for what it spent to produce a "Star Trek" parody training video.

The video was made for a 2010 conference training IRS agents on finding tax evaders. Also produced for the conference was a skit parodying "Gilligan's Island." Both cost around $60,000 to produce.

The "Star Trek" video was made public on Friday, after drawing phaser fire from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's oversight chairman, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La.

Boustany questioned how the IRS, in the midst of debt concerns in Congress, could spend that kind of money for the two training skits. He demanded that the IRS release the "Star Trek" video to the public, to show how money was being wasted.

The "Gilligan's Island" parody, which was much more explicit in showing training operations, was not released.

As a result, the IRS said it has put in place safeguards over its production facilities to "ensure that all IRS videos are handled in a judicious manner that makes wise use of taxpayer funds while ensuring a tone and theme appropriate for the nation's tax system."

It also said, "A video of this type would not be made today."

"The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars," the agency said in a statement. "There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources."

Boustany, who had questioned the use of taxpayer resources to produce the videos didn't exactly tell the IRS to "live long and prosper."

Instead he suggest the IRS had at least realized it had erred.

"There is nothing more infuriating to a taxpayer than to find out the government is using their hard-earned dollars in a way that is frivolous," he said in a statement. "The IRS admitted as much when it disclosed that it not longer produces such videos."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irs-apologizes-60-000-star-trek-tax-evasion-013654986.html

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WWE helps launch Superstars for Sandy Relief

NEW YORK (AP) ? WWE is joining with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes to launch Superstars for Sandy Relief.

Fans can bid on hundreds of items in an online auction, including attending a NASCAR race with WWE superstar John Cena, meeting Tyra Banks on the set of "America's Next Top Model," or pitching entrepreneurial ideas to Mark Cuban.

The auction begins Monday and closes April 9 on charitybuzz.com.

Paul Levesque, executive vice president of talent and live events, better known in the ring as Triple H, says he can't think of a better way to celebrate WWE's annual WrestleMania event than using the group's global reach to assist those in need.

Wrestlemania will be held April 7 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

"It's like a homecoming for us, and since there's still a lot of devastation, we felt the best thing we could do is reach out to not only our own superstars to our celebrity contacts and our sports contacts. There's a lot of people that are fans of the WWE in those worlds," Levesque said.

"Our chairman, Vince McMahon, has a saying that everybody in this company ... their job at the end of the day is to put smiles on people's faces," he said. "It sounds corny and cliche, but it really is how we operate here."

The sports entertainment company is based in Stamford, Conn. The storm last October left millions of people without heat or electricity for weeks in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Levesque asked his fellow superstars what they wanted to do for the auction.

"Who would have thought Ryback would say, 'I'll go bowling with someone.' Cena loves NASCAR, so that was more expected," he said.

There will also be a Superstars for Sandy Relief reception at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on April 4, hosted by Sean "Diddy" Combs.

___

Online:

http://www.wwe.com/

http://www.charitybuzz.com/wwe

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wwe-helps-launch-superstars-sandy-relief-122541539--spt.html

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Researchers unravel molecular roots of Down syndrome

Monday, March 25, 2013

What is it about the extra chromosome inherited in Down syndrome?chromosome 21?that alters brain and body development? Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) have new evidence that points to a protein called sorting nexin 27, or SNX27. SNX27 production is inhibited by a molecule encoded on chromosome 21. The study, published March 24 in Nature Medicine, shows that SNX27 is reduced in human Down syndrome brains. The extra copy of chromosome 21 means a person with Down syndrome produces less SNX27 protein, which in turn disrupts brain function. What's more, the researchers showed that restoring SNX27 in Down syndrome mice improves cognitive function and behavior.

"In the brain, SNX27 keeps certain receptors on the cell surface?receptors that are necessary for neurons to fire properly," said Huaxi Xu, Ph.D., professor in Sanford-Burnham's Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging and Stem Cell Research Center and senior author of the study. "So, in Down syndrome, we believe lack of SNX27 is at least partly to blame for developmental and cognitive defects."

SNX27's role in brain function

Xu and colleagues started out working with mice that lack one copy of the snx27 gene. They noticed that the mice were mostly normal, but showed some significant defects in learning and memory. So the team dug deeper to determine why SNX27 would have that effect. They found that SNX27 helps keep glutamate receptors on the cell surface in neurons. Neurons need glutamate receptors in order to function correctly. With less SNX27, these mice had fewer active glutamate receptors and thus impaired learning and memory.

SNX27 levels are low in Down syndrome

Then the team got thinking about Down syndrome. The SNX27-deficient mice shared some characteristics with Down syndrome, so they took a look at human brains with the condition. This confirmed the clinical significance of their laboratory findings?humans with Down syndrome have significantly lower levels of SNX27.

Next, Xu and colleagues wondered how Down syndrome and low SNX27 are connected?could the extra chromosome 21 encode something that affects SNX27 levels? They suspected microRNAs, small pieces of genetic material that don't code for protein, but instead influence the production of other genes. It turns out that chromosome 21 encodes one particular microRNA called miR-155. In human Down syndrome brains, the increase in miR-155 levels correlates almost perfectly with the decrease in SNX27.

Xu and his team concluded that, due to the extra chromosome 21 copy, the brains of people with Down syndrome produce extra miR-155, which by indirect means decreases SNX27 levels, in turn decreasing surface glutamate receptors. Through this mechanism, learning, memory, and behavior are impaired.

Restoring SNX27 function rescues Down syndrome mice

If people with Down syndrome simply have too much miR-155 or not enough SNX27, could that be fixed? The team explored this possibility. They used a noninfectious virus as a delivery vehicle to introduce new human SNX27 in the brains of Down syndrome mice.

"Everything goes back to normal after SNX27 treatment. It's amazing?first we see the glutamate receptors come back, then memory deficit is repaired in our Down syndrome mice," said Xin Wang, a graduate student in Xu's lab and first author of the study. "Gene therapy of this sort hasn't really panned out in humans, however. So we're now screening small molecules to look for some that might increase SNX27 production or function in the brain."

###

Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute: http://www.burnham-inst.org

Thanks to Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 40 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127431/Researchers_unravel_molecular_roots_of_Down_syndrome

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Ethiopia says foils Somali rebel plot to seize U.N. staff

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia's intelligence agency said on Monday it has detained eight members of Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist militant group who it accused of plotting to kidnap U.N. workers.

The arrests were the latest in a crackdown on people charged with having links to fighters in neighboring Somalia, where Ethiopia has deployed troops to support Mogadishu's battle against al Shabaab and its six-year insurgency.

The group wanted to abduct foreigners working for the U.N. World Food Programme and the United Nations Development Programme in Ethiopia and take them to Somalia to demand a ransom, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) said.

"The eight were caught red-handed with arms as they plotted to carry out the kidnappings," NISS said in a statement.

An Ethiopian official told Reuters the group planned to carry out the abductions in a camp for Somali refugees in the Ethiopian frontier town of Dolo Ado.

Several U.N. agencies and other humanitarian organizations operate in Ethiopia's dry Somali region that borders Somalia.

The region has also been plagued by a low-key rebellion for nearly two decades, though residents now say local rebels have largely been weakened by successive government offensives.

Monday's announcement comes two months after authorities said they arrested 15 suspected militants who were accused of being trained by al Shabaab.

An Ethiopian court convicted 10 other people in January of preparing strikes on political and economic targets in Ethiopia.

Somalia's al Shabaab group has threatened to attack Ethiopia in revenge for its military interventions.

Ethiopia fought Islamist rebels in Somalia in 2006 to 2009 and sent troops back in 2011 to fight al Shabaab, opening a third front alongside Kenyan troops and an African Union (AU)mission.

The campaign in Somalia has gained ground in the past two years. Al Shabaab, which is allied with al Qaeda, withdrew from the southern port of Kismayu in September, its last major urban stronghold.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ethiopia-says-foils-somali-rebel-plot-seize-u-200934362.html

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Mutation location is the key to prognosis

Friday, March 1, 2013

The three most important factors in real estate are location, location, location, and the same might be said for mutations in the gene MECP2, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital in a report in the journal Cell.

"Where a mutation occurs can affect the severity of the symptoms of the disease," said Dr. Huda Zoghbi, professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM and director of the NRI. Zoghbi, corresponding author of the report, found the MECP2 gene in 1999 and confirmed that deficiency in the protein causes Rett syndrome, a post natal genetic disease that mainly affects girls.

In the study, she and her colleagues relied on data from rare male patients with disruptions in MECP2 that showed that severity of symptoms could be influenced by the location of the gene mutation. The few boys with this disorder fell into two broad categories: Those who suffered severe brain disease and death before age 4 and those who lived for decades with symptoms similar to that of Rett or developmental delay and other disorders similar to those seen in autism.

Looking at the placement of the mutations in the boys, they hypothesized there was a distinct difference in symptoms seen in boys who had mutations at amino acid 270 in the protein and those who had mutations only slightly farther along, at amino acid 273. The protein is truncated or shorter in those with amino acid 270 mutations than those with the mutation at amino acid 273.

After Steven Baker, a graduate student in the Program in Developmental Biology at BCM, generated and characterized mice that had mutations at the two sites of the protein, he found that mice who had mutations at amino acid 273 lived longer and developed symptoms later than those mice who had mutations at amino acid 270 or those who lacked the MeCP2 protein all together (knock-out mice).

One reason for the differences could be that the mutation at amino acid 270 disrupts a key topological feature of the DNA ? an AT-Hook domain that is a DNA binding motif. By disrupting this domain, the mutation could affect the way the protein bind the DNA and make the already truncated protein much less effective.

"The participation of patients and their families with Rett researchers really helped us to key in on regions of MeCP2 that are critical for its function," said Baker, who is also an M.D./Ph.D. student in BCM's Medical Student Training Program.

The researchers propose a model for this DNA binding in which MeCP2 binds to sites across the genome. In some spots where this occurs, the protein manipulates the structure of the nearby chromatin.

"We think that one function of MeCP2 (the protein associated with the gene) is to alter the architecture of chromatin (the mass of proteins and DNA found in the nucleus of the cell)," said Zoghbi, who is also Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Baker said, "The picture of MeCP2 as a chromatin architectural factor is emerging from the combined efforts of many laboratories. Understanding how MeCP2 modifies chromatin structure will ultimately allow us to understand why it is so important for neuronal health."

Others who took part in this work include Lin Chen, Angela Dawn Wilkins, Peng Yu and Olivier Lichtarge, all of BCM.

###

Baylor College of Medicine: http://www.bcm.edu/news/mediacenter

Thanks to Baylor College of Medicine for this article.

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This press release has been viewed 11 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127076/Mutation_location_is_the_key_to_prognosis

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