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"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." "Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot." "Crime is a product of social excess." "It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed." "Sometimes - history needs a push." "The most important thing when ill is to never lose heart." - Vladimir Lenin
Barel
Member for 1 years
may I reserve one villain? I'm gotta go to school now so when I come back, I'll submit my char ^^
blackwolf
Member for 1 years
Of course... Character reserved!
Barel
Member for 1 years
Can I resurve a villain? I have to do some stuff, but I will most likely get it in by tomorrow.
Tonks
Member for 0 years
Alright... Character Reserved!
Barel
Member for 1 years
Post a reply
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KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii ? A Hawaii-based Marine accused of hazing a fellow Marine who later killed himself in Afghanistan pleaded guilty Monday to assault as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Lance Cpl. Jacob Jacoby admitted in a special court-martial that he punched and kicked Lance Cpl. Harry Lew. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors withdrew charges that Jacoby humiliated and threatened Lew.
Jacoby said he acted out of anger and frustration that his fellow Marine had repeatedly fallen asleep while on watch while looking for Taliban fighters. That put the lives of his squad members in danger, Jacoby said.
Lew committed suicide on April 3 at a patrol base in Helmand province, shortly after the abuse. The 21-year-old was a nephew of U.S. Rep. Judy Chu.
Two other Marines also are accused of hazing Lew before he shot himself with his machine gun in his foxhole. Sgt. Benjamin Johns, the leader of the squad the Marines belonged to, and Lance Cpl. Carlos Orozco III will have their own separate courts-martial later.
Both Marines watched the court proceedings Monday.
Lew's father, Allen Lew, said his family wants to see what sentence is given to Jacoby.
"We just couldn't believe (his) own peers would do something like that to their own people. Very sad," he told reporters. "It's a tragedy for us. Never able to repair our broken heart."
Chu, D-Calif., attended the hearing. "I want to make sure that there is justice for Harry. And I want to support these brave persons, his parents," she said.
The attorney representing Johns said he was concerned the presence of a politician will taint the process and interfere with justice.
"How do I get a fair jury? What implicit message is she trying to send to those panel members?" said Tim Bilecki, a defense attorney who specializes in military clients.
Chu said that wouldn't be the case. "I'm not going to be saying anything in the trial. All I'm doing is being here. I'm here for the family to support them," she said.
The case involves the actions of Marines at an isolated patrol base the U.S. was establishing to disrupt Taliban drug and weapons trafficking in Helmand province.
At an Article 32 hearing ? the equivalent of a grand jury hearing for civilians ? Marines testified in September that Lew repeatedly fell asleep while he was on watch duty and patrol looking for attacking insurgents. Squad members and officers had tried different methods to get him to stay awake, including referring him up the chain of command for discipline and taking him off patrols so he could get more rest.
But on Lew's last night, when he fell asleep again, those efforts escalated into alleged acts of violence and humiliation, according to charges outlined at the hearing. The Marines were accused of punching and kicking him, making him do push-ups and pouring sand in his face.
A significant share of the questions raised at the Article 32 hearing focused on whether the accused intended to humiliate and harm Lew or discipline him so he would stop falling asleep while on watch duty.
Before Lew put the muzzle of his machine gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, he scrawled a note on his arm: "May hate me now, but in the long run this was the right choice I'm sorry my mom deserves the truth."
A Marine commander in retrospect speculated Lew may have been nodding off because he suffered from depression or some other medical condition.
Chu discussed her nephew's death during a House Armed Services hearing on suicide prevention in September, held at the same time as the Article 32 hearing. She told military witnesses that Lew was "a very popular and outgoing young man known for joking and smiling and break dancing."
Chu also issued a statement saying no one deserves being "hazed and tortured" like her nephew was, and that the military justice system must hold "any wrongdoers accountable."
Police officers arrest an Occupy Oakland demonstrator during a clash Saturday in Oakland, Calif., where officers fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters who tried to take over a shuttered convention center.
By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
Oakland police used tear gas and "flash" grenades Saturday to break up an estimated 2,000 Occupy protesters after some demonstrators started throwing objects at officers and tearing down fencing.
There were at least 19 arrests in the afternoon, but no reports of serious injuries.
After 6 p.m. (9 p.m. ET), police?in riot gear declared a group of protesters gathered near the YMCA under arrest en masse for failing to disperse.
Several protesters appeared to be put hard to the ground as police moved in and at least one protester had blood on his face.
Protesters chanted, "Let us disperse," but instead were taken one by one for police processing.
Earlier, Officer Jeff Thomason said police started making arrests when some in the crowd started throwing objects at them during the afternoon rally. Police declared an unlawful assembly after marchers tore down perimeter fences at the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.
Three officers were injured, police said, but did not elaborate.
After meeting up at Frank Ogawa Plaza around noon, protesters marched toward the convention center in hopes of making it their new meeting place and social center, NBCBayArea.com reported.
Read NBCBayArea.com coverage of the protest
Oakland officials said about 250 people were in the group when the protest started but the crowd grew to about 2,000.
@OaklandPoliceCA tweeted around 3 p.m., "Area of Oakland Museum and Kaiser Center severely impacted. Persons cutting and tearing fences for entry. Bottles and objects thrown at OPD."
Earlier during the rally one of the organizers, Shake Anderson, said, "We are here to protect each other and to be civil disobedient. ... We're doing it to change the world, not just today but every day."
Stephen Lam / Reuters
Occupy Oakland demonstrators shield themselves from an explosion Saturday during a confrontation with the police near the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, Calif.
The protesters were walking through Laney College around 2:30 p.m. Some people were wearing bandanas over their mouths and others were holding signs saying, "We are the 99%." A marching band dressed in pink and black tutus and neon pick tights also was in the crowd.
Once they reached the center, organizers planned to kick off a two-day "Oakland Rise-up Festival" to celebrate the establishment of the movement's new space.
Occupy Oakland spokesman Leo Ritz-Bar said the group's new headquarters "signals a new direction for the Occupy movement: putting vacant buildings at the service of the community."
He also warned that protesters could retaliate against any repressive police action by blocking the Oakland International Airport, occupying City Hall or shutting down the Port of Oakland.
City officials said that while they are "committed to facilitating peaceful forms of expression and free speech, police would be prepared to arrest those who break the law.
"The city of Oakland will not be bullied by threats of violence or illegal activity," city administrator Deanna Santana said in a statement issued Friday.
This article includes reporting from NBCBayArea.com, The Associated Press and msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? After months of talking and weeks of voting, Hollywood's actors finally name their picks for the best performances in the films and TV shows of 2011 at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday.
The SAG honors, which are closely watched in the race for Oscars, follow the Golden Globe, Critics' Choice and other awards given by media watchers, as well as acknowledgements from the U.S. Producers Guild and Directors Guild, which represent their respective professional groups in industry matters.
"The Artist," a romantic tale of a fading actor whose career is eclipsed by the woman he loves just as talkies are putting an end to silent pictures, has won top awards from many of those groups including the Directors Guild on Saturday night and will look to do as well with SAG voters on Sunday.
But "Artist" faces stiff competition from civil rights-era drama "The Help," which comes into Sunday night's awards with more nominations, four, more than any other movie, as well as from George Clooney-starring "The Descendants".
The actors in all three of those movies, along with the performers in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and the ladies of comedy "Bridesmaids," will compete for the night's top honor, best ensemble cast in a film.
The SAG Awards are a key barometer of which films and actors have a good chance at winning Oscars, the world's top film honors given on February 26 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because performers make up the largest voting branch of the academy.
In other SAG races, Clooney, playing a father struggling to keep his family together, squares off against Jean Dujardin of "Artist" fame and Brad Pitt for his role as a numbers-crunching baseball executive in "Moneyball." The other two nominees in that category are Demian Bichir in the little seen "A Better Life" and Leonardo DiCaprio for "J. Edgar."
The SAG race for best actress is seen as a tight one among Meryl Streep playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," Viola Davis as a maid in "The Help" and Michelle Williams for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn."
Rounding out that category are Glenn Close in a gender-bending role as a butler in "Albert Nobbs" and Tilda Swinton as a troubled mother in dark drama, "We Need to Talk about Kevin."
SAG also hands out awards for best supporting roles in movies, and it honors performances in TV dramas, comedies and mini-series. But because of SAG's importance in the Oscar race, the film categories are most closely followed.
The SAG Awards air on U.S. TV on Sunday night from Los Angeles on cable networks TNT and TBS.
(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte and Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Sandra Maler)
DAWEI, Myanmar (AP) ? Thousands of supporters in Myanmar's countryside cheered opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday as she made a political tour ahead of by-elections, highlighting how quickly and dramatically politics is changing in the long-repressed Southeast Asian nation.
Throngs of people lined the roads of several towns in the southern district of Dawei shouting, "Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi!" ''Daw" is a title of respect in Myanmar.
Many waved bouquets of flowers, and some hoisted babies on their shoulders to glimpse the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former political prisoner on her first political trip since announcing a bid for parliament.
"We will bring democracy to the country," Suu Kyi told an exuberant crowd of thousands. "We will work for development. We will bring rule of law to the country, and we will see to it that repressive laws are repealed."
"We can overcome any obstacle with unity and perseverance," she said from the second-story balcony of a provincial office for her National League for Democracy party.
Suu Kyi, 66, has devoted much of her life to a struggle against authoritarian rule, but spent 15 of the past 23 years under house arrest and has never held elected office. If she wins, she is likely to have limited power in the legislature, which remains dominated by the military and the ruling party, but victory would be highly symbolic and give her a voice in government for the first time.
The one-day trip to Dawei follows a series of unprecedented reforms enacted by the nominally civilian government that took over when a military junta ceded power last year. The government has released hundreds of political prisoners, reached cease-fire deals with ethnic rebels, increased media freedoms and eased censorship laws.
The April 1 by-election is being held to fill 48 seats in the lower house of parliament that were vacated after lawmakers were appointed to the Cabinet and other posts.
Suu Kyi's party boycotted the last vote in 2010, but registered earlier this month for the by-election after authorities amended electoral laws, enabling her party to legally participate.
The Election Commission must still accept Suu Kyi's candidacy. A ruling is expected in February.
Suu Kyi is hoping to run as a representative of the constituency of Kawhmu, a poor district just south of Yangon where villagers' livelihoods were devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
The vote is being closely watched because it is seen as a crucial test of the government's commitment to change.
Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her nonviolent struggle for democracy, has rarely traveled outside Yangon, the country's main city, over the last two decades.
Although she conducted one successful day of rallies in two small towns north of Yangon last August, a previous political tour to greet supporters in 2003 sparked a bloody ambush of her convoy that saw her forcibly confined at her lakeside home.
Suu Kyi was finally released from house arrest in late 2010, just days after the country's military rulers held elections widely viewed as neither free nor fair.
In Dawei, a coastal district south of Yangon, Suu Kyi was garnering support for another candidate running for a parliament seat, party spokesman Nyan Win said.
She will make similar campaign trips to other areas, including the country's second-largest city, Mandalay, in early February before campaigning for her own seat, Nyan Win said.
Dawei is home to activists who recently helped persuade the government to ditch construction of a 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant over environmental concerns.
A 400-megawatt coal plant is still planned, however, because it will be needed to power a massive industrial complex project that includes construction of a deep sea port, a steel mill and a petrochemical plant. The project also includes railroads and highways that will connect Myanmar's coast directly to Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia.
Banners with Suu Kyi's pictures decorated the area.
"People had been afraid to discuss politics for so long," said Aung Zaw Hein, an environmental activist whose Dawei Development Association helped stop the huge power plant. "Now that she's visiting the political spirit of people has been awakened."
Ancient Egyptians placed food in the mouths or stomachs of animal mummies, suggesting that animals were treated equally to humans in death and perhaps also in life.
In this case the mummies were sacred ibis birds. In a study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the findings are the first known examples of food placed directly in animal mummies. The primary organs were also removed, as was the practice for humans. It?s thought that the ancient Egyptians wished to preserve these organs for continued function in the afterlife.
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?That the birds received treatment for their own continued provision in the afterlife suggests that the afterlife welfare of the birds was important to the priests performing the embalming ritual on them,? lead author Andrew Wade told Discovery News.
?Certainly, in this sense, there appears to be some degree of equality between humans and animals in death,? added Wade, a University of Western Ontario anthropologist. ?If that is the case, then the birds may have been deserving of a greater respect in life.?
VIDEO: How Ancient Egypt Still Influences Us Today
Wade and his team analyzed a recently excavated mummified sacred ibis. They found numerous snails in his bill. The people who prepared the body inserted the snails.
The researchers also used non-invasive computed tomography to look inside ibis mummies housed at Yale University?s Peabody Museum. One of these mummies was found to contain wheat. Wade said that temple-raised birds were likely fed grain, so again the bird was probably sent off into the afterlife with food for its spiritual journey.
Life was a mixed bag for animals in the ancient world, however. Wade said all of the birds from the study had broken necks and were likely deliberately killed, probably as a sacrifice to the god Thoth.
Humans at the time were also sacrificed to appease the gods. In the case of these birds, however, the sacrifices were part of a large-scale operation. Wade explained that ?votive ibis mummies are found at Thoth shrines throughout Egypt, and are in their tens of thousands, and even millions, at the cult centers of Abydos, Saqqara and Tuna el-Gebel.?
Overall, life for non-human animals in ancient Egypt was still probably comparable to that for humans. Some literally lived in the lap of luxury, but others may have been viewed more as tools to achieve certain goals.
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Co-author Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, explained to Discovery News, ?Animals had a very important role to play in Egypt, as totems for divinities, sources of food and thus life, and as a source of raw materials.?
But, she added, ?Pets were often very spoiled, just as they are today, and received the same care in life and in death as did humans.?
NEWS: Animals Mummified By the Millions in Ancient Egypt
Ikram shared that, in burials, paleontologists have found food placed beside animals. Dates and jujubes have been found next to monkeys, for example, and milk was sometimes placed near cats.
The ibis received unique care, she suggested, because it was associated with Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing.
?The stance of the bird, rooting around, was regarded as a quest. ? Also, the bill is like a pen,? she said.
The sacred ibis went extinct in Egypt sometime in the mid- to late 19th century, likely due to urban encroachment and habitat destruction. The bird still exists in sub-Saharan Africa, though, and has been introduced to Europe and the United States. A new Franco-Egyptian venture is under way to reintroduce this species to Egypt, with at least two colonies now established in Luxor and Aswan.
NBA players may be too conservative with their shots, according to a comparison with a theoretical model describing shot selection reported Jan. 25 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The author, Brian Skinner of the University of Minnesota, aimed to create a model that could take into account multiple factors to determine when it was worth taking a shot. "Strategic decisions in basketball have long been made based on the intuition of the coach or players, but as advanced quantitative analyses are increasingly applied to the game it is becoming clear that many of the conventional, intuitive ideas for basketball strategy are misguided or suboptimal", says Skinner.
The results show that, when significant time is remaining in a possession, only higher quality shots should be taken, and this cutoff for shot quality decreases as the time remaining decreases. However, even though the optimal model suggests that only high quality shots should be taken early in a possession, the study finds that NBA players may go to an extreme and be overly reluctant to shoot the ball early in a possession, therefore missing out on scoring opportunities.
The model takes into account factors including the perceived probability that a given shot will go in and the number and quality of shot opportunities the offense will have in the future in a given possession. It does, however, have some limitations, such as the assumption that shot opportunities arise randomly in time, which call for care in the interpretation of the results.
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Skinner B (2012) The Problem of Shot Selection in Basketball. PLoS ONE 7(1): e30776. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030776
Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org
Thanks to Public Library of Science 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.
The Royal Rumble has been one of WWE?s most unusual and unpredictable events. From what I would call the ?best seat in the house,? I?ve witnessed - and on many occasions introduced - a number of defining occurrences through the years. Therefore, as we celebrate the 25th edition of this long-running WWE staple on Jan. 29, WWE.com revisits some of the magical moments that took place over the past 24 Royal Rumbles - some from the Royal Rumble Matches themselves, others?from clashes that took place in?the titularly named pay-per-view?event.
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CENA'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN 1/25/08 ? New York, N.Y. For a second consecutive year, the individual who drew entry No. 30 went right into the heat of battle and emerged as the winner of the Royal Rumble Match. To add further icing to the cake, John Cena was entrant No. 30, and made a successful return to action after recovering from a severe pectoral injury that forced him to relinquish his WWE Championship only months before.
SANTINO'S MOMENT ... LITERALLY 1/26/09 ? Detroit, Mich. You have the opportunity of a lifetime in front of you. Enter the Royal Rumble Match, withstand the competition, win it, then go onto WrestleMania for either a WWE or World Championship Match. On this occasion, however, the popular Santino Marella found out that achieving this lifelong dream in such a match can also turn into a record-shattering, nightmarish instant.
FIGHT OF THE PHOENIX 1/27/10 - Atlanta, Ga. A unique aspect of the Royal Rumble Match is the element of a surprise entrant. More times than none, when that individual enters the event, the word bearing follows. Such was the case in Gate City, as The Glamazon Beth Phoenix became the second Diva in WWE history to enter the fray ? and in the process eliminated The Great Khali!
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THE EDGE GOES TO EDGE 1/28/11 ? Boston, Mass. A very intense, personal issue building on Friday Night SmackDown set the stage for a one-on-one encounter between Edge and Dolph Ziggler. And in one of his final pay-per-view matches, The Rated-R Superstar would successfully defend his World Heavyweight Championship against the brash, cocky Ziggler and his personal Cougar, Vickie Guerrero.
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MORE ROYAL RUMBLE MEMORIES: 1988-1992 | 1992-1997 | 1998-2002 | 2003-2007
NASHVILLE (Reuters) ? Country singer Keith Urban says that during the three weeks he was ordered not to speak late last year after vocal surgery, he learned a few valuable lessons about communication including this: sometimes people talk too much.
"I was amazed at how much noise there is on television and in conversations," Urban told Reuters on Wednesday. "It's rubbish. We could strip away so much ... be more succinct ... and still make our point.
"I realized I'm as guilty as anybody. I learned that when you have to write stuff down you get real particular as to how and what you want to say."
The singer underwent surgery in November to remove polyps from a vocal chord, causing his doctor put him on vocal rest for three weeks and bar him from singing until February.
Urban, who has nothched a No. 1 single "Long Hot Summer" with co-writer Richard Marx, said that while he was unable to talk, his other senses improved, especially hearing.
He thought ahead, too, and prepared for how he would communicate with his three-year-old daughter, Sunday Rose. He recorded several of her favorite books onto a tape, and after his surgery, he would take the recorder to her room at night, press play and turn the pages of the book so he could "read."
Sunday Rose would let the tape play for a little while and then she'd hit the stop button. She would look at her dad and say, "I want you to read it," Urban said.
His wife, actress Nicole Kidman, would have to explain to Sunday Rose why daddy couldn't actually read to her.
Urban, whose hits include "You Look Good in My Shirt" "Making Memories of Us" and "Somebody Like You," is fully recovered from his surgery and plans to return to the stage on February 4, when he performs at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He is also planning a huge benefit for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on April 10.
(Reporting By Vernell Hackett, Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
There's an alarming rumor circulating that suggests that UK network O2 forwards your phone number to any website visited on a smartphone. Lewis Peckover built a site that displays the header data sent to sites you visit, finding a network-specific field called "x-up-calling-line-id" which displayed his number. Angry users who tested the site have flooded the company's official Twitter, which is currently responding with:
"Security is our top most priority, we're investigating this at the moment & will come back with more info as soon as we can."
The Next Web confirmed that Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone numbers are unaffected by the issue, but GiffGaff and Tesco Mobile (both MVNOs that operate on the same network) do. TNW's sources say it's most likely an internal testing setup, while Mr. Peckover suggests it's because the network transparently proxies HTTP traffic, using the number as a UID.
Update: We received confirmation from O2, who said that it was "investigating with internal teams and it's our top priority." Slashgear and Think Broadband were unable to replicate the problem, but in our tests (pictured) it was sharing our data with the site.
Update 2: Consumer magazine Which? contacted UK privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office which offered the following:
"Keeping people's personal information secure is a fundamental principle that sits at the heart of the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. When people visit a website via their mobile phone they would not expect their number to be made available to that website.
We will now speak to O2 to remind them of their data breach notification obligations, and to better understand what has happened, before we decide how to proceed."
We'll let you draw your own conclusions from that one, but it's not shaping up to be a good day for the company (or its users).
Update 3: Our tests have stopped working now, as it looks like the network is hurriedly trying to close the hole, but we've had no official word that it's over just yet.
Update 4: O2 has issued a full statement and Q&A which we've embedded after the jump. Long story short, it's fixed the issue -- caused by accidental routine maintenance. 3G / WAP users will have shared your number with any site you visited since January 10th. The network has promised it will co-operate fully with the ICO and has reported itself to Ofcom.
TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Children with asthma who don't have heartburn and other signs of gastroesophageal reflux don't get additional asthma control from acid-reducing medications, according to new research.
And, taking these medications when there are no digestive issues increases a child's risk of developing a respiratory infection, reports the study.
"There's a strong epidemiological link between acid reflux and asthma," explained study co-author Janet Holbrook, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. As a result, current asthma guidelines call for evaluating people with asthma for acid reflux, Holbrook said.
Because definitive tests for excess acid production can cause children discomfort, some doctors may choose to do a trial of acid-suppressing medications called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Some common brand names in this class of medication are Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium.
"Our findings suggest that physicians should not take kids with poorly controlled asthma and test whether PPIs will help," said Holbrook.
Results of the study are published in the Jan. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and conducted by the American Lung Association Asthma Clinical Research Centers.
Asthma and gastroesophageal reflux (GER or GERD) are common conditions in children. Youngsters with asthma often have symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux. In adults, PPIs seem to help people with asthma who also have symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux, but not those who don't have symptoms, such as frequent heartburn.
The current study included 306 children recruited from 19 centers across the United States between 2007 and 2010. The average age was 11 years. All had poor asthma control despite receiving treatment with inhaled corticosteroids.
The children were randomly assigned to receive either lansoprazole -- a PPI -- or a placebo daily for six months. The dose of lansoprazole was based on the child's weight.
Asthma improvement was assessed through a change in the Asthma Control Questionnaire, which has a scale of 0 to 6. A change of 0.5 is considered clinically significant. Lung function was also measured.
After six months, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups. The average change in the Asthma Control Questionnaire score was only 0.2, and there were no statistically significant changes in lung function, quality of life or rate of asthma flare-ups.
In addition, among 115 children who also had a 24-hour esophageal acid study, 43 percent were found to have elevated levels of acid production. Yet even in this group, treatment with lansoprazole didn't improve asthma symptoms over placebo.
Holbrook said although this study only looked at one PPI, she believes the results would hold true for other medications in this class of drugs.
Children taking lansoprazole had about a 30 percent higher risk of respiratory infections and sore throats in this study. PPIs were also associated with a difference in the risk of activity-related bone fractures, although the difference was not statistically significant, according to an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal.
"PPIs do not improve asthma in children who do not have symptoms of GER/GERD, and it is unlikely to be of great benefit even in children who do have such symptoms," said the editorial author, Dr. Fernando Martinez, director of the Arizona Respiratory Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
"The substantial increase in use of PPIs in children during the last decade is worrisome and unwarranted," he wrote.
Still, Martinez advised parents not to abruptly discontinue any medications. Parents "should consult their pediatricians, who can best evaluate the clinical situation for each child," he said.
Holbrook agreed and said if a child is on a PPI, it's reasonable for parents to ask why. She noted that these medications may come with an additional risk and cost, and they may not have any additional benefit.
"If your child is on a PPI for asthma, it's not an effective treatment. These medications are approved for the treatment of acid reflux," said Holbrook.
More information
Learn more about asthma treatment from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
WASHINGTON ? Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday's auction to the highest levels since August.
The Treasury Department auctioned $29 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.04 percent, up from 0.025 percent last week. Another $27 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.07 percent, up from 0.06 percent last week.
The three-month rate was the highest since three-month bills averaged 0.045 percent on Aug. 8. The six-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 0.08 percent on Aug. 16.
The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,998.99 while a six-month bill sold for $9,996.46. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.041 percent for the three-month bills and 0.071 percent for the six-month bills.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, was unchanged at 0.11 percent last week, the same as the previous week.
TOKYO ? Japan's central bank said Tuesday it expects the economy to shrink slightly during the fiscal year ending in March instead of expanding as it forecast earlier because of the overseas slowdown.
The Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate the same at close to zero percent but downgraded its growth forecast for the year ending March 2012 to a 0.4 percent contraction from the 0.3 percent expansion it gave in October.
The bank stuck to its projection for a moderate recovery starting the first half of the next fiscal year.
But it lowered its projection for fiscal 2012 to 2.0 percent growth from 2.2 percent growth. It was more upbeat about fiscal 2013, raising that to a 1.6 percent expansion from 1.5 percent.
The bank said the massive debt problems in Europe as well as uncertainty about the U.S. economy are risks for Japan's outlook.
The strong yen, which erodes the value of exports from the world's third largest economy, also dragged down growth, keeping economic activity "more or less flat," it said.
Water sees right through graphenePublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University, Rensselaer study reveals graphene enhances many materials, but leaves them wettable
Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water.
A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without.
The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications.
"The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," said Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "A drop of water sitting on a surface 'sees through' the graphene layers and conforms to the wetting forces dictated by the surface beneath. It's quite an interesting phenomenon unseen in any other coatings and once again proves that graphene is really unique in many different ways." Ajayan is co-principal investigator of the study with Nikhil Koratkar, a professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering at RPI.
A typical surface of graphite, the form of carbon most commonly known as pencil lead, should be hydrophobic, Ajayan said. But in the present study, the researchers found to their surprise that a single-atom-thick layer of the carbon lattice presents a negligible barrier between water and a hydrophilic water-loving surface. Piling on more layers reduces wetting; at about six layers, graphene essentially becomes graphite.
An interesting aspect of the study, Ajayan said, may be the ability to change such surface properties as conductivity while retaining wetting characteristics. Because pure graphene is highly conductive, the discovery could lead to a new class of conductive, yet impermeable, surface coatings, he said.
The caveat is that wetting transparency was observed only on surfaces (most metals and silicon) where interaction with water is dominated by weak van der Waals forces, and not for materials like glass, where wettability is dominated by strong chemical bonding, the team reported.
But such applications as condensation heat transfer -- integral to heating, cooling, dehumidifying, water harvesting and many industrial processes -- may benefit greatly from the discovery, according to the paper. Copper is commonly used for its high thermal conductivity, but it corrodes easily. The team coated a copper sample with a single layer of graphene and found the subnanometer barrier protected the copper from oxidation with no impact on its interaction with water; in fact, it enhanced the copper's thermal effectiveness by 30 to 40 percent.
"The finding is interesting from a fundamental point of view as well as for practical uses," Ajayan said. "Graphene could be one of a kind as a coating, allowing the intrinsic physical nature of surfaces, such as wetting and optical properties, to be retained while altering other specific functionalities like conductivity."
###
The paper's co-authors are Rice graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli, RPI graduate students Javad Rafiee, Xi Mi, Abhay Thomas and Fazel Yavari, and Yunfeng Shi, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at RPI.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research graphene MURI program funded the research.
Read the abstract at http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3228.html
Download high-resolution images at media.rice.edu/images/media/NewsRels/0123_wet.jpg
CAPTION:
Drops of water on a piece of silicon and on silicon covered by a layer of graphene show a minimal change in the contact angle between the water and the base material. Researchers at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute determined that when applied to most metals and silicon, a single layer of graphene is transparent to water. (Credit: Rahul Rao/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
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Water sees right through graphenePublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University, Rensselaer study reveals graphene enhances many materials, but leaves them wettable
Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water.
A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without.
The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications.
"The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," said Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "A drop of water sitting on a surface 'sees through' the graphene layers and conforms to the wetting forces dictated by the surface beneath. It's quite an interesting phenomenon unseen in any other coatings and once again proves that graphene is really unique in many different ways." Ajayan is co-principal investigator of the study with Nikhil Koratkar, a professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering at RPI.
A typical surface of graphite, the form of carbon most commonly known as pencil lead, should be hydrophobic, Ajayan said. But in the present study, the researchers found to their surprise that a single-atom-thick layer of the carbon lattice presents a negligible barrier between water and a hydrophilic water-loving surface. Piling on more layers reduces wetting; at about six layers, graphene essentially becomes graphite.
An interesting aspect of the study, Ajayan said, may be the ability to change such surface properties as conductivity while retaining wetting characteristics. Because pure graphene is highly conductive, the discovery could lead to a new class of conductive, yet impermeable, surface coatings, he said.
The caveat is that wetting transparency was observed only on surfaces (most metals and silicon) where interaction with water is dominated by weak van der Waals forces, and not for materials like glass, where wettability is dominated by strong chemical bonding, the team reported.
But such applications as condensation heat transfer -- integral to heating, cooling, dehumidifying, water harvesting and many industrial processes -- may benefit greatly from the discovery, according to the paper. Copper is commonly used for its high thermal conductivity, but it corrodes easily. The team coated a copper sample with a single layer of graphene and found the subnanometer barrier protected the copper from oxidation with no impact on its interaction with water; in fact, it enhanced the copper's thermal effectiveness by 30 to 40 percent.
"The finding is interesting from a fundamental point of view as well as for practical uses," Ajayan said. "Graphene could be one of a kind as a coating, allowing the intrinsic physical nature of surfaces, such as wetting and optical properties, to be retained while altering other specific functionalities like conductivity."
###
The paper's co-authors are Rice graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli, RPI graduate students Javad Rafiee, Xi Mi, Abhay Thomas and Fazel Yavari, and Yunfeng Shi, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at RPI.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research graphene MURI program funded the research.
Read the abstract at http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3228.html
Download high-resolution images at media.rice.edu/images/media/NewsRels/0123_wet.jpg
CAPTION:
Drops of water on a piece of silicon and on silicon covered by a layer of graphene show a minimal change in the contact angle between the water and the base material. Researchers at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute determined that when applied to most metals and silicon, a single layer of graphene is transparent to water. (Credit: Rahul Rao/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama is praising Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as an "inspiration" and "the very best of what public service should be."
Giffords announced Sunday that she intends to resign from Congress this week to concentrate on recovering from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt last January.
Obama praised Giffords for "a dedication to fairness, a willingness to listen to different ideas, and a tireless commitment to the work of perfecting our union."
He says Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, "have taught us the true meaning of hope in the face of despair" and "determination in the face of incredible odds."
The president says the congresswoman's "cheerful presence will be missed in Washington."
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks posted their best week since Christmas, even with a mixed finish on Friday after strong earnings from tech bellwethers IBM (IBM.N) and Intel (INTC.O) contrasted with Google's (GOOG.O) disappointing report.
The market heads into the most hectic week so far in this earnings season after a mixed start, with some worries over revenue and growth offset by sharp cost-cutting to protect the bottom line.
For the week, the Dow rose 2.4 percent and the S&P 500 gained 2 percent as investors showed some relief that earnings didn't reflect the worst elements that battered the market in the last year, especially given the problems in the euro zone that have been weighing on investor sentiment.
"For the time being, investors are pretty much taking earnings in stride. They knocked Google down this morning, but the general feeling in the marketplace is (stocks) are very undervalued at these levels, even given the marginal misses they're making in earnings," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.
Indeed, investors in recent weeks have been heartened by improving economic data, even though progress has been uneven. Reflecting improved economic sentiment, the Dow Jones Transportation Average, an indicator of the economy's strength (.DJT) has gained about 2 percent in each of the last two weeks.
IBM (IBM.N) lifted the Dow a day after it offered a strong outlook and results from several big-tech names signaled they were shaking off nervousness about economic growth and boosting technology spending. IBM's stock rose 4.4 percent to $188.52.
On the flip side, Google Inc (GOOG.O) slid 8.4 percent to $585.99. The Internet search giant's quarterly profit and revenue missed expectations on declining search advertising rates.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) gained 96.50 points, or 0.76 percent, to 12,720.48 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) inched up just 0.88 of a point, or 0.07 percent, to 1,315.38. But the Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dipped 1.63 points, or 0.06 percent, to close at 2,786.70.
For the week, the Nasdaq climbed 2.8 percent, making this its best week in seven.
General Electric Co (GE.N) was unchanged at $19.15 after the conglomerate's revenues missed consensus forecasts. Fellow Dow component American Express Co (AXP.N) fell 1.8 percent to $50.04 as it set aside more money to cover bad loans.
Intel Corp (INTC.O) rose 2.9 percent to $26.38, while Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) advanced 5.7 percent to $29.71. Both reported results late Thursday.
Investors also kept an eye on Greece, where a bond-swap deal between the cash-strapped country and its private bondholders appeared to be close, according to sources. An agreement was deemed possible by late Friday. Creditors could lose up to 70 percent of the loans given to the fiscally troubled nation.
Hopes are an agreement would prevent the nation from spiraling into bankruptcy and bring some stability to the debt-strained euro zone.
(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Earlier today false internet reports surfaced claiming that a lady posed for a smiling photo with a severed head in the Hollywood Hills, and now The Insider is setting the record straight.
The woman in question, Lauren Kornberg of LA Pet Care, reveals to The Insider that the rumors are categorically false and that she never posed for any pictures with the severed head.
Kornberg continued saying that the only way her picture could have been taken at the crime scene is if one of the hikers took a snapshot of her without her knowledge. In any event, Kornberg emphatically denies any claims that she might benefit from the tragedy in any way.
Kornberg discovered the severed head on Tuesday during a trek through a hiking trail, sparking one of the largest searches in the Los Angeles Police Department's history.
According to CBS 2's Suraya Fadel, police are questioning an unamed person in connection with the homicide case.
NEW YORK (AP) ? ABC News interviewed Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich's second wife ? with whom he's said he has no relationship ? and is likely to air the segment Thursday on "Nightline," an ABC News executive told The Associated Press.
That's two days before the South Carolina primary, where the former House speaker is trying to topple GOP front-runner Mitt Romney by casting himself as the more conservative option.
The ABC News executive did not indicate what the ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, said in the interview. The executive spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans for airing the interview were tentative.
The interview, should it air before Saturday's primary, would shine a spotlight on a part of Gingrich's past that could turn off Republican voters in a state filled with religious and cultural conservatives who may cringe at Gingrich's two divorces and acknowledged infidelity.
Marianne Gingrich has said Gingrich proposed to her before the divorce from his first wife was final in 1981, and they were married six months later. Marianne's marriage to Gingrich ended in divorce in 2000, and Gingrich admitted he'd already taken up with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide who would become his third wife. The speaker who pilloried President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky was himself having an affair at the time.
As tentative plans to air the interview were disclosed, Gingrich's campaign released a statement from his two daughters from his first marriage ? Kathy Lubbers and Jackie Cushman ? suggesting that Marianne Gingrich's comments may be suspect given emotional toll divorce takes on everyone involved.
"Anyone who has had that experience understands it is a personal tragedy filled with regrets, and sometimes differing memories of events.
"We will not say anything negative about our father's ex-wife," they said. "He has said before, privately and publicly, that he regrets any pain he may have caused in the past to people he loves."
A message seeking comment from Marianne Gingrich was not immediately returned.
___
Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey in South Carolina and Ray Henry in Georgia contributed to this report.
CENA'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
SANTINO'S MOMENT ... LITERALLY
FIGHT OF THE PHOENIX
THE EDGE GOES TO EDGE
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Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
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