May 22, 2013 ? What people take from nature -- water, food, timber, inspiration, relaxation -- are so abundant, it seems self-evident. Until you try to measure how and to what extent they contribute to humans.
Scientists at Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, in two parallel papers published in this week's journal PLOS ONE, develop a new integrated approach to measure human dependence on ecosystem services and human well-being so as to promote the understanding of the linkages between them -- an important step toward improved understanding, monitoring and management of coupled human and natural systems.
"Climate change, energy and food insecurity, biodiversity loss and water shortages all have raised the stakes," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and CSIS director. "If we can't quantify the complex relationships between ecosystem services and human well-being, both ecosystems and humans will suffer and will not be sustainable."
Wu Yang, a CSIS doctoral student, created two new index systems for measuring human dependence on ecosystem services and human well-being from ecosystem services. The trick, he said, was to come up with ways to represent the benefits people gained from these resources, as well as any socioeconomic benefits that are not gained specifically from nature. On the other hand, it was to design a reliable instrument to quantify different components of human well-being that could be linked and integrated with the index of dependence on ecosystem services in models.
"If you don't understand the linkages, you're not going to be able to sustain the flow of those benefits to human society," Yang said. "Thus, we've developed and validated our new methods. We made them as general as possible so they can be applied to many other coupled human and natural systems across the globe."
China's Wolong Nature Reserve served as an excellent laboratory to study coupled human and natural systems. The reserve was particularly suited for testing the new methods because it was close to the epicenter of a devastating earthquake in 2008, which dramatically changed local households' dependence on ecosystem services and human well-being in a short time. Because CSIS scientists had studied the area for almost two decades, they had rich long-term data and local knowledge to evaluate the relationships between people and ecosystem services.
Additional researchers contributing to the papers include Liu; Thomas Dietz, MSU professor of environmental science and policy, sociology, and animal studies; Wei Liu, former CSIS doctoral student now a postdoctoral fellow at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria; Junyan Luo, CSIS research associate; Daniel Kramer, MSU associate professor in fisheries and wildlife and James Madison College; Xiaodong Chen, former CSIS doctoral student now on faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, MSU AgBioResearch, MSU Graduate Office, and the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program.
Imagine a bendable tablet computer or an electronic newspaper that could fold to fit in a pocket.
The technology for these devices may not be so far off. Northwestern University researchers have recently developed a graphene-based ink that is highly conductive and tolerant to bending, and they have used it to inkjet-print graphene patterns that could be used for extremely detailed, conductive electrodes.
The resulting patterns are 250 times more conductive than previous attempts to print graphene-based electronic patterns and could be a step toward low-cost, foldable electronics.
A paperdescribing the research, "Inkjet Printing of High Conductivity, Flexible Graphene Patterns," was published April 8 in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
"Graphene has a unique combination of properties that is ideal for next-generation electronics, including high electrical conductivity, mechanical flexibility, and chemical stability," said Mark Hersam, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "By formulating an inkjet-printable ink based on graphene, we now have an inexpensive and scalable path for exploiting these properties in real-world technologies."
Inkjet printing has previously been explored as a method for fabricating transistors, solar cells, and other electronic components. It is inexpensive, capable of printing large areas, and can create patterns on a variety of substrates, making it an attractive option for next-generation electronics.
Inkjet printing with graphene ? ultra-thin sheets of carbon with exceptional strength and conductivity ? is extremely promising, but it has remained a challenge because it is difficult to harvest a sufficient amount of graphene without compromising its electronic properties. Exfoliating, or breaking apart, materials such as graphite often require oxidizing conditions that make the resulting graphene oxide material less conductive than pure carbon. Pristine unoxidized graphene can be achieved through exfoliation, but the process requires solvents whose residues also decrease conductivity.
The Northwestern researchers have developed a new method for mass-producing graphene that maintains its conductivity and can be carried out at room temperature using ethanol and ethyl cellulose to exfoliate graphite. This relatively clean process minimizes residues and results in a powder with a high concentration of nanometer-sized graphene flakes, which is then mixed into a solvent to create the ink.
The researchers demonstrated printing the ink in multiple layers, each 14 nanometers thick, to create precise patterns. The ink's conductivity remains virtually unchanged, even when bent to a great degree, suggesting that graphene inks could be used to create foldable electronic devices in the future.
Thanks to Northwestern University for this article.
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Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. GOP LOOKS TO CAPITALIZE ON OBAMA WOES
Many Republicans would like to deny the president a victory in immigration reform, which is being considered by the Senate today.
2. FIERCE FIGHTING ON BORDER AS KERRY PRESSES FOR PEACE IN SYRIA
Twenty-three fighters from the militant Hezbollah group were killed in a fight for a strategic town near Lebanon on the day Kerry is flying to the Middle East.
3. TORNADOES LASH MIDWEST
An Oklahoma trailer park was destroyed and one man killed as the dangerous storms moved east.
4. THE TOLL OF MILITARY SEX ABUSE
The AP reports that more than 85,000 veterans were treated last year for injuries or illnesses stemming from sex assault or harassment at work.
5. HOW MUCH POWERBALL JACKPOT COULD BUY
The $590.5 million winning ticket, which was bought in Zephyrhills, Fla., but hasn't been claimed, could pay for the small Florida city's budget 12 times over.
6. SPLIT-SECOND DECISION BEFORE A HOSTAGE WAS KILLED
A Long Island police officer fired when a masked man holding the college student in a headlock pointed the gun at him, killing the gunman and the 21-year-old hostage.
7. HOT AIR BALLOONS COLLIDE
The two balloons crashed in Turkey during a sightseeing tour of volcanic rock formations, killing a Brazilian tourist and injuring over 20.
8. WHY MEASLES ARE SURGING IN THE UK
Officials attribute the spike in cases to the parents who declined vaccines more than a decade ago because of research that suggested a link to autism.
9. TAYLOR SWIFT NABS 8 TROPHIES AT BILLBOARD AWARDS
Justin Bieber and Madonna were also big winners, but the country star won for top artist and top Billboard 200 album for "Red."
10. WHO'S FOOTING THE BILL FOR SOCHI OLYMPICS
The Russian government has gotten state-controlled companies and tycoons to cover more than half of the $51 billion price tag for the 2014 Winter Games.
LONDON (Reuters) - Singer Prince has signed a new deal with Kobalt Music Group to market and distribute his future work without giving up control over his rights, the company said on Monday.
The singer-songwriter, who is famed for changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol in a wrangle over musical rights, will release his own work as well as a slate of new music by other artists that he produces, Kobalt said.
The announcement came just hours after the 54-year-old Prince was given a Billboard Icon Award (lifetime achievement) and rocked the Billboard Music Awards ceremony with a version of his "Let's Go Crazy" dressed in electric green trousers and sporting an Afro hair style.
Kobalt, which is also a global independent music publishing company, launched an artist and label services division in 2012, allowing artists to maintain ownership of their work and control over when, how and where they will release their music.
Traditional labels often take ownership or part-ownership of the artist's material and often dictate how it is used, an increasingly important sticking point in an industry where digital music can be instantly available.
"This new venture gives Prince the flexibility and freedom he's always sought in a label partner," Kobalt President Richard Sanders said in a statement.
The Grammy award-winning singer will also provide artist development and recording services for newly signed artists that Kobalt will market and distribute.
Kobalt was set up in 2000 by Swedish businessman Willard Ahdritz and its publishing roster includes former Beatle Paul McCartney, Icelandic singer Bjork and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Michael Roddy)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Myanmar President Thein Sein says that all perpetrators of inter-communal violence in the country will be brought to justice.
Thein Sein made the comments Monday in a speech at a university in Washington after meeting President Barack Obama.
Myanmar has been roiled by unrest between Buddhists and minority Muslims over the past year that has left hundreds dead and displaced more than 100,000 people. Most of the victims have been Muslims.
Separately, Thein Sein expressed confidence of soon reaching a cease-fire with Kachin rebels, the main ethnic armed group still fighting the military.
Earlier, Obama said Thein Sein has shown leadership to move his country toward political and economic reforms.
It was the first time a Myanmar leader has visited the White House in 47 years.
May 19, 2013 ? One of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely small -- one nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair -- they are going to become more perfect.
"Perfect in the sense that their arrangement of atoms in the real world will become more like an idealized model," says University of Vermont engineer Frederic Sansoz, "with smaller crystals -- in for example, gold or copper -- it's easier to have fewer defects in them."
And eliminating the defects at the interface separating two crystals, or grains, has been shown by nanotechnology experts to be a powerful strategy for making materials stronger, more easily molded, and less electrically resistant -- or a host of other qualities sought by designers and manufacturers.
Since 2004, when a seminal paper came out in Science, materials scientists have been excited about one special of arrangement of atoms in metals and other materials called a "coherent twin boundary" or CTB.
Based on theory and experiment, these coherent twin boundaries are often described as "perfect," appearing like a perfectly flat, one-atom-thick plane in computer models and electron microscope images.
Over the last decade, a body of literature has shown these coherent twin boundaries -- found at the nanoscale within the crystalline structure of common metals like gold, silver and copper -- are highly effective at making materials much stronger while maintaining their ability to undergo permanent change in shape without breaking and still allowing easy transmission of electrons -- an important fact for computer manufacturing and other electronics applications.
But new research now shows that coherent twin boundaries are not so perfect after all.
A team of scientists, including Sansoz, a professor in UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, and colleagues from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere, write in the May 19 edition of Nature Materials that coherent twin boundaries found in copper "are inherently defective."
With a high-resolution electron microscope, using a more powerful technique than has ever been used to examine these boundaries, they found tiny kink-like steps and curvatures in what had previously been observed as perfect.
Even more surprising, these kinks and other defects appear to be the cause of the coherent twin boundary's strength and other desirable qualities.
"Everything we have learned on these materials in the past 10 years will have to be revisited with this new information," Sansoz says
The experiment, led by Morris Wang at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, applied a newly developed mapping technique to study the crystal orientation of CTBs in so-called nanotwinned copper and "boom -- it revealed these defects," says Sansoz.
This real-world discovery conformed to earlier intriguing theoretical findings that Sansoz had been making with "atomistic simulations" on a computer. The lab results sent Sansoz back to his computer models where he introduced the newly discovered "kink" defects into his calculations. Using UVM's Vermont Advanced Computing Center, he theoretically confirmed that the kink defects observed by the Livermore team lead to "rather rich deformation processes at the atomic scale," he says, that do not exist with perfect twin boundaries.
With the computer model, "we found a series of completely new mechanisms," he says, for explaining why coherent twin boundaries simultaneously add strength and yet also allow stretching (what scientists call "tensile ductility") -- properties that are usually mutually exclusive in conventional materials.
"We had no idea such defects existed," says Sansoz. "So much for the perfect twin boundary. We now call them defective twin boundaries."
For several decades, scientists have looked for ways to shrink the size of individual crystalline grains within metals and other materials. Like a series of dykes or walls within the larger structure, the boundaries between grains can slow internal slip and help resist failure. Generally, the more of these boundaries -- the stronger the material.
Originally, scientists believed that coherent twin boundaries in materials were much more reliable and stable than conventional grain boundaries, which are incoherently full of defects. But the new research shows they could both contain similar types of defects despite very different boundary energies.
"Understanding these defective structures is the first step to take full use of these CTBs for strengthening and maintaining the ductility and electrical conductivity of many materials," Morris Wang said. "To understand the behavior and mechanisms of these defects will help our engineering design of these materials for high-strength applications."
For Sansoz, this discovery underlines a deep principle, "There are all manner of defects in nature," he says, "with nanotech, you are trying to control the way they are formed and dispersed in matter, and to understand their impact on properties. The point of this paper is that some defects make a material stronger."
Conventional wisdom tells us that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, we have two options: Collect as many weapons as possible -- the explosive kind, preferably -- and stage a futile, dramatic last stand, or, alternatively, make a run for it -- a desperate (and inevitably fruitless) search for someplace safe.
This topic is frequently explored in video games. Last year?s The Walking Dead won numerous game-of-the-year awards, while Capcom?s (TYO:9697) Resident Evil remains an icon of the genre, having spawned nearly two dozen game titles and four Hollywood productions, with a fifth on the way.
But while zombie business may be booming, game companies are facing an apocalypse of their own, as the cloud, social media, and mobile computing combine to wreck what used to be a pleasant suburban industry.
The first victim was game developer THQ (OTCMKTS:THQIQ). It filed for bankruptcy late last year, and Atari (EPA:ATA) followed suit several months later. Square Enix (TYO:9684), best known for its Final Fantasy series, landed deep in the red for fiscal 2012, as it restructured itself toward smartphones and tablets. Nintendo (TYO:7974) reported its first annual loss in 30 years, and EA (NASDAQ:EA) recently announced that it was laying off 10% of its workforce, citing ?priorities in new technologies and mobile.?
The gaming industry has always been cyclical -- Atari and Nintendo have weathered any number of cycles -- but things have gotten worse for the old guard, as console systems like Nintendo?s Wii fall out of favor. Console sales fell 21% last year, and while there?s no hard proof that the rise of mobile and social gaming is responsible, it?s clearly the elephant in the room.
True to script, console manufacturers are preparing for a showdown, and arming themselves to the teeth. Nintendo kicked off a new generation of gaming consoles -- the eighth, if anyone's counting -- when it released the Wii U last November. Microsoft?s (NASDAQ:MSFT) new Xbox is rumored for a summer release, and Sony?s (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 4 should be available by Christmas.
These consoles will bristle with technology. They?ll be socially connected, and built around online connectivity. Controllers will be wireless -- this is the mobile era, and that means batteries, baby -- or in the Wii U?s case, a controller/tablet hybrid, complete with touchscreen. They?ll run PC hardware and surf the Web; and if that?s something you?d rather not do with thumb buttons, the Xbox will feature motion detection, so perhaps you can pantomime your next Twitter post.
Game developers are taking the other tack, and running for safety, but rarely finding it. EA brought some of its more popular games to social networks, only to ditch them earlier this year. Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has dominated social gaming for years, and even with top hits like FarmVille, the company has never made real money at it. The rapidly-growing mobile market is no safe haven either, given how stingy mobile users are with their wallets. Rovio?s Angry Birds is, by far, the most successful game on mobile platforms, having reached a billion customers, but the franchise only earned $70 million last year, half of which came from merchandising. The company also claims it produced 50 failures before landing its big hit ? a success rate that would sink most larger developers, whose success has always depended upon large budgets and lavish marketing campaigns.
PC gaming remains healthy and continues to be a growth market, but it, too, is wrestling with the following question: What will happen to this premium industry when the world is overrun by cheap, throwaway mobile apps? Computer games have traditionally offered a more substantial and user-differentiated experience, but this is changing as developers move toward subscription models and ?always-online? -- ie, the cloud -- not because it?s better for consumers, but because it keeps their wallets open and cuts down on piracy.
Blizzard?s (NASDAQ:ATVI) Diablo 3 and EA?s SimCity each require a network connection. Both games suffered major debacles at launch due to the demand placed on company servers, but the larger issue may be that, whereas earlier generations of these games still run today -- and remain quite popular -- the current crop will die out when they are no longer supported, or become defunct when users no longer pay for them. They?re no less ephemeral or disposable than something that costs $.99 on Apple?s (NASDAQ:AAPL) app store.
Remarkably, the two most popular paid games on mobile are Tetris and Pac-Man. ?After 30 years of upselling customers on new technology, more buttons and better graphics, the video game industry is under siege from products that died last century.
It?s a good plot, but from the looks of things, the ending won?t be pretty.
Contact: Ruth Francis ruth.francis@biomedcentral.com 44-203-192-2737 BioMed Central
What lures a lady frog to her lover? Good looks, the sound of his voice, the size of his pad or none of the above? After weighing up their options, female strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) bag the closest crooner they can, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers of Zoology. This seemingly short-sighted strategy turns out to be the optimal mate choice strategy for these colourful frogs.
Males of the species congregate in the Costa Rican rain forest 'lek-style' to display and call together, giving females the chance to weigh up multiple males at once. But despite their best efforts, build and territory size, females tend to mate with the closest calling male, Ivonne Meuche from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues report.
The find was confirmed by playback experiments where females, played recordings of various male calls, failed to discriminate between different call rates or frequencies, preferring instead, the nearest speaker.
Female mate choice is a tricky business. Some species chose the first mate that is 'good enough' whilst others seek out and compare many mates before returning to choose the fittest. But the simplest, least costly option is to mate with the first or nearest male encountered, regardless of quality. The strategy doesn't seem an evolutionary winner as it means that nearby, unfit frogs sometimes get to pass on their genes at the expense of more distant, genetically-superior specimens. But it does make sense in certain situations.
Non-choosy behaviour like this has been noted in fishes, and some frog species with a lek-like mating system. It's thought the strategy works for them because it reduces 'costs' in terms of search time and competition for mates. Female strawberry poison frogs may also benefit little from 'shopping around' because strong inter-male competition means the available mates are all much of a muchness.
The team also noted that females unable to find a mate within a certain time period ended up laying unfertilised eggs that never hatch. So in species, like the strawberry poison dart frog, where the choosing sex outnumbers the chosen sex, it makes sense to 'grab the nearest guy' rather than run the risk of not mating at all.
###
Media Contact
Ruth Francis
Head of Communication, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 20 3192 2737
Mobile: +44 7825 287 546
E-mail: ruth.francis@biomedcentral.com
Notes to Editors
1. Only distance matters - non-choosy females in a poison frog population
Ivonne Meuche, Oscar Brusa, Karl E. Linsenmair, Alexander Keller and Heike Prhl
Frontiers in Zoology 2013 10:29, doi:10.1186/1742-9994-10-29
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
All images are to be credited to Ivonne Meuche, Oscar Brusa, Karl E. Linsenmair, Alexander Keller and Heike Prhl. Videos are available on request.
The author is currently travelling and can only provide limited contact. For further enquires please contact BioMed Central's press team on the details given above.
2. Frontiers in Zoology is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal publishing high quality research articles and reviews on all aspects of animal life.
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
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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.
Contact: Ruth Francis ruth.francis@biomedcentral.com 44-203-192-2737 BioMed Central
What lures a lady frog to her lover? Good looks, the sound of his voice, the size of his pad or none of the above? After weighing up their options, female strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) bag the closest crooner they can, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers of Zoology. This seemingly short-sighted strategy turns out to be the optimal mate choice strategy for these colourful frogs.
Males of the species congregate in the Costa Rican rain forest 'lek-style' to display and call together, giving females the chance to weigh up multiple males at once. But despite their best efforts, build and territory size, females tend to mate with the closest calling male, Ivonne Meuche from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues report.
The find was confirmed by playback experiments where females, played recordings of various male calls, failed to discriminate between different call rates or frequencies, preferring instead, the nearest speaker.
Female mate choice is a tricky business. Some species chose the first mate that is 'good enough' whilst others seek out and compare many mates before returning to choose the fittest. But the simplest, least costly option is to mate with the first or nearest male encountered, regardless of quality. The strategy doesn't seem an evolutionary winner as it means that nearby, unfit frogs sometimes get to pass on their genes at the expense of more distant, genetically-superior specimens. But it does make sense in certain situations.
Non-choosy behaviour like this has been noted in fishes, and some frog species with a lek-like mating system. It's thought the strategy works for them because it reduces 'costs' in terms of search time and competition for mates. Female strawberry poison frogs may also benefit little from 'shopping around' because strong inter-male competition means the available mates are all much of a muchness.
The team also noted that females unable to find a mate within a certain time period ended up laying unfertilised eggs that never hatch. So in species, like the strawberry poison dart frog, where the choosing sex outnumbers the chosen sex, it makes sense to 'grab the nearest guy' rather than run the risk of not mating at all.
###
Media Contact
Ruth Francis
Head of Communication, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 20 3192 2737
Mobile: +44 7825 287 546
E-mail: ruth.francis@biomedcentral.com
Notes to Editors
1. Only distance matters - non-choosy females in a poison frog population
Ivonne Meuche, Oscar Brusa, Karl E. Linsenmair, Alexander Keller and Heike Prhl
Frontiers in Zoology 2013 10:29, doi:10.1186/1742-9994-10-29
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
All images are to be credited to Ivonne Meuche, Oscar Brusa, Karl E. Linsenmair, Alexander Keller and Heike Prhl. Videos are available on request.
The author is currently travelling and can only provide limited contact. For further enquires please contact BioMed Central's press team on the details given above.
2. Frontiers in Zoology is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal publishing high quality research articles and reviews on all aspects of animal life.
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Motorcycle-riding gunmen assassinated a police chief in front of his house after he led an anti-Taliban campaign in western Afghanistan, an official said Saturday.
Police Chief Abdul Ghani was leaving his driveway in his car outside his home in Farah province when the two raced up and opened fire.
Provincial spokesman Abdul Rahman Zhawandai said that Ghani was rushed to hospital after the attack Friday night but died of his wounds.
Ghani had recently launched a crackdown against insurgents in his district of Khaki Safad that resulted in the killing and capture of several Taliban leaders, Zhawandai said.
"Because he was an active commander in this district, he was a target of the Taliban," he said.
In the same province Saturday morning, four Afghan army soldiers died in Bakwa district when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Afghan security forces and government officials are targeted by the Taliban to weaken the government of President Hamid Karzai ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops by the end of 2014.
People missing after 16 tornadoes tore through north Texas on Wednesday have all been found alive, authorities report. As officials and residents assess the damage, they are keeping a wary eye on the weekend forecast.
By Allison Terry,?Correspondent / May 17, 2013
Emergency personnel look through debris near Granbury, Texas, on Thursday. Sixteen tornadoes touched down in several small communities in Texas Wednesday night, leaving at least six people dead. Officials report that all people reported as missing have been found.
Rex C. Curry/AP
Enlarge
North Texas residents who were reported missing after an outbreak of severe tornadoes Wednesday have all been found alive.
Skip to next paragraph Allison Terry
Correspondent
Allison Terry works on national news desk for the Christian Science Monitor. She also contributes to the culture section and Global News blog.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said Friday that all missing people are accounted for, and the death toll is unlikely to rise above six adults.
Surveying the extensive destruction in Granbury, Texas, residents and volunteers say they are surprised that more people were not killed or seriously injured.
?The good Lord was busy [Wednesday] night,? Red Cross volunteer Ray Fishercord told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.?
?Most of the homes had people in them when the tornado hit, and most of the people said they couldn?t believe what happened. The American Legion Hall at the bottom of the hill looked like a triage scene from 'M*A*S*H.' ?
An EF-4 category tornado hit Granbury, carrying winds of 166 to 200 m.p.h. and creating a path of destruction spanning 100 yards wide and a mile long. The highest tornado rating is an EF-5, which produces winds faster than 200 m.p.h.
Residents in the Rancho Brazos neighborhood ? where more than 70 homes were damaged or destroyed ? were evacuated, and authorities said it not clear when they will be able to survey the damage.
"I can't see them being able to get anyone in the area," said Hood County sheriff's spokesman Nathan Stringer. "That area is utterly devastated. I was in there for a couple of hours and I didn't see anything untouched. It was one big debris field."
Amanda Hernandez was at home with her husband and three children, but the warnings on TV didn?t really worry her. The sirens went off about 15 minutes before the tornado hit, so the family hid in a closet.
?It seemed like it lasted for an hour,? she told the Star-Telegram, describing the pounding hail and train-like sound of the twister. Her house lost half its roof, and she said her neighborhood is unrecognizable.
?You could see across where houses were supposed to be,? Ms. Hernandez said.
The Granbury tornado was one of at least 16 confirmed tornadoes that broke out across north Texas Wednesday, which is more than the 10 originally reported.
An EF-3 tornado (with winds ranging from 136 to 164 m.p.h.) hit the town of Cleburne, destroying numerous homes, but officials reported no major injuries or fatalities.
Meteorologist Harold Brooks, who works at National Severe Storms Labratory in Norman, Okla., said he expects 2013 to have one of the lowest levels of tornado-related deaths since the lab began tracking such fatalities in 1954. This is the furthest into tornado season that significant tornadoes have started, he told the Star-Telegram.
The forecast, however, includes a chance for additional storms in the area this weekend, the Weather Channel reports. There are several components in the mix that create tornado conditions: a dip in the jet stream as it moves east from the Rockies, intensifying low-pressure systems, and warm moisture moving inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
Thunderstorms, hail storms, and potential tornadoes are possible for Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Missouri, Nebraska, and parts of northern Texas throughout the weekend and possibly into Tuesday.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Does the house must be renovated in several ways? Or are you thinking of adding an expansion, just like a patio? If that?s the case, this article contains many tips that can answer some of your questions and get you going inside the right direction with a successful home improvement project.
Be sure to maintain your filter to your air conditioning unit clean. In the event the filter clogges up up, the air conditioning unit will have to keep working harder for cooling the house, burning more energy. It may also result in the machine running over it should be needed. You ought to improve your filter at least once monthly in order to avoid buildup.
Improving the air quality inside your home can be an invaluable home improvement for both your wellbeing as well as the resale value of your house. The first step is usually to replace any old carpets or have them cleaned professionally, as they are often hiding contaminants, allergens and unpleasant odors. Secondly, if your budget allows, install an energy efficient air conditioning system.
Maintain fans circulating, or put money into some if you don?t currently use them. Rooms are kept more cool with the circulating air manufactured by fans. Additionally, if you utilize them rather than air conditioning on days gone by that are not scorching, the quantity of energy you eat is reduced, allowing you to enjoy lower electric bills. Read This
Installing fans will lessen your energy bill, add value to your house and improve the feel of your house. Ceiling fans circulate and funky the air in your house, especially during summer nights. This can certainly help to lower the price of air conditioning. Ceiling fans add some style unlike another accessory!
Whether it be summer or winter it is wise to pay attention to drafts. You?ll find nothing more frustrating than heating or cooling the outdoors. Work with a lighted candle near a window or door, of course, if the candle flickers, you know you probably have a very crack to close. Be sure you check every side of each of the windows and exterior doors.
If you realize that your heating cost is more than you expected to get paying, you have to have someone install some better insulation to your house. While this is usually a bit pricey, it is far less than you?ll have to spend on inflated power bills, as time passes.
Solar panels are an easy way to make your home greener and help you save money ultimately. Solar heating panels can be used as heating your house and providing additional available electricity on your own use. To boot, the federal government comes with a tax break for many who use and who have installed solar power panels on their home.
Keep your house is well insulated. Insulation is important keeping in mind the temperature in your home consistent, regardless of the temperature outside in your home. That is useful in keeping down the price of your time bill inside the heating and cooling of your house. Insulation is additionally effective in decreasing the noise received from outside. Furthermore, it adds to the value in your home (make sure you keep all receipts and invoices so that you can prove what work was completed). Resources
A house improvement project might be fun to do, it can be quite practical. Caring for property is something you should take seriously, and renovating older, worn-out sections can make a huge difference when you find yourself about to market it for a high price. The following tips could save you time and expense and take advantage decision for your household.
Kindle Winners? The Wildlife Society April membership promotion was a great success. We had more than 500 members join or renew their membership. Ruth D?Amico from Moose Pass, AK; Robert Gano from Frankford, DE; and Laura Underhill from Lakewood, CO were selected to receive a Kindle Fire HD Tablet. Be on the lookout for another Kindle promotion in the coming months.
Amazon and The Wildlife Society Remember that when you shop on Amazon, visit http://wildlife.org/amazon?first and The Wildlife Society will earn a commission for everything you buy on Amazon at no extra charge to you. Feel free to bookmark this link and share it with friends and family. This is a great way to help your Society.
Wildlife Techniques Manual for Kindle Available through Amazon.com The Techniques Manual is now available as e-book for the Kindle reader. It?s priced at $85.50, and it?s a great idea for students ? no heavy books to carry around! Remember to use http://wildlife.org/amazon to purchase it.
Membership Center The Wildlife Society is moving to a new association management system. This new enterprise-wise database system will improve the user experience for our members. Each member will have access to an individual membership portal. The system will go live in June and we will have more information to share with you next month.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, left, and director Baz Luhrmann arrive for the opening ceremony and the screening of The Great Gatsby at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, left, and director Baz Luhrmann arrive for the opening ceremony and the screening of The Great Gatsby at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
Dancers perform on the red carpet ahead of the opening ceremony and the screening of The Great Gatsby at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
Jury president Steven Spielberg poses for photographers during a photo call for the jury at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
From left, director and jury president Steven Spielberg, actress Nicole Kidman and actor Daniel Auteuil attend the opening ceremony ahead of the screening of The Great Gatsby at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
From left, actors Amitabh Bachchan, Leonardo DiCaprio, director and jury president Steven Spielberg, actress Nicole Kidman and actor Daniel Auteuil stand on stage as the jury is presented during the opening ceremony ahead of the screening of The Great Gatsby at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
CANNES, France (AP) ? Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the Cannes Film Festival:
LUHRMANN: JAY-Z KEY TO 'GATSBY'
Not everyone is a fan of "The Great Gatsby'''s hip-hop flavored soundtrack, but director Baz Luhrmann says using modern music was essential to capturing the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel.
"We wanted the film to feel like how it would have felt to read the novel in 1925," the director told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie provided opening-night screen fireworks and red-carpet glamor.
"Fitzgerald put music front and center in his novel. He took African-American street music called jazz and he put it right as a star in the book. People said, 'Why are you doing that? It's a fad, it'll be gone next week.' And he said, because I want this book to feel right here, right now."
Luckily for Luhrmann, "Gatsby" star Leonardo DiCaprio introduced him to Jay-Z, and the superstar agreed to help score the film. Two of Jay-Z's own tracks ? "$100 Bill" and the Grammy-winning jam "No Church in the Wild" ? feature on the soundtrack, and he elicited contributions from the likes of wife Beyonce, Emeli Sande and Lana Del Rey.
Luhrmann also used the soundtrack to counter criticism of the absence of African-American speaking characters in the movie ? as in Fitzgerald's book.
"Jay said that music is a star in the film so I think there is a great African-American presence in this film and I am very, very grateful for it," he said.
The French Riviera is a magnet for gamblers, so it's no surprise oddsmakers are speculating furiously about who will win prizes from the Cannes Film Festival jury headed by Steven Spielberg.
Journalist and Cannes betting expert Neil Young ranks "Grisgris," by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the early favorite for the Palme d'Or at 5-1, followed by "The Past," from Iran's Asghar Farhadi ? who won an Academy Award for "A Separation" ? at 11-2 and U.S. director James Gray's 1920s New York story "The Immigrant" at 13-2.
Other frontrunners are "Like Father, Like Son" from Korean director Kore-eda Hirokazu; Arnaud Desplechin's "Jimmy P," with Benicio del Toro as a traumatized Native American war veteran; and Alexander Payne's road movie "Nebraska."
But none of those films has even screened yet, and the odds are sure to change often before the prizes are handed out on May 26.
Add Julianne Moore to those who are commending Angelina Jolie for her decision to reveal her choice to have a double mastectomy.
"I think that I'm very impressed. I'm impressed with her and I'm impressed with her announcement particularly because I feel there are so many women who are facing the same kind of choice, and it's a way to kind of validate and have solidarity with women who are having the same issue," Moore said in an interview from Cannes on Wednesday.
"It's obviously a really, really complicated (decision), and so I think her decision to go public about something like that can only help other women."
Jolie announced this week that she had her breasts removed recently because she had a very high chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Jolie has since had reconstructive surgery. Jolie's mother had breast cancer and died of ovarian cancer, while her grandmother suffered from ovarian cancer.
The chefs who prepared the dinner for the Cannes Film Festival's opening gala were as starry as the guests.
Anne Sophie Pic, who is a three-star Michelin chef, and Bruno Oger, who has two, collaborated for the four-course meal after the festival's opening night film of "The Great Gatsby" on Wednesday night. Guests were treated to a menu that included King crab with shrimp and sea bass with rhubarb and celery. Select media were given a preview on Tuesday.
Pic and Oger will join other chefs during the festival at the Electrolux Agora Pavillion to ensure VIPs get top cuisine in the resort town.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States in 2011 to stop trying to recruit its security agents as spies and expelled a CIA operative in January this year after Washington ignored the warning, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday.
Russia kept the expulsion in January quiet but went public this week when it detained Ryan Fogle, a U.S. diplomat it says was a spy, because it was fed up with the United States ignoring its concerns, FSB spokesman Nikolai Zakharov said.
"The CIA crossed a red line and we were forced to react," Zakharov said in a written response to questions from Reuters.
In the biggest spy scandal between the former Cold War foes in three years, the FSB said on Tuesday that Fogle had been caught red-handed trying to recruit a Russian security officer as a CIA agent. He was ordered to leave Russia.
The FSB played up the capture, providing television stations with footage of the American being detained in a blond wig and pinned to the ground, as well as pictures of disguises, a wad of cash and a letter offering a target up to 1 million euro a year.
It could hardly have come at a worse time, days after Russia and the United States announced plans to organize an international conference to seek an end to Syria's civil war and cooperate more on counterterrorism after the Boston bombings.
Senior Russian and U.S. officials have signaled they do not want the scandal to scuttle attempts to improve strained ties, but by publicizing it Moscow has tried to make the point that it is the United States that risks torpedoing those efforts.
"PROVOCATIVE"
In October 2011, the FSB officially warned the CIA station chief in Moscow "that if provocative recruitment efforts aimed at Russian security service employees continued, the FSB would take 'mirror' measures," Zakharov said.
He said the FSB had named Russian officers who had been targeted and the CIA operatives who had approached them, adding that the U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, had been "made aware of this issue".
"The CIA did not take our concern over the situation into account" and continued its recruitment efforts, he said.
He said that last December, an American diplomat - like Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. embassy in Moscow - had been caught trying to recruit a Russian agent, and had left the country on January 15 after being declared persona non grata.
He identified the American as Benjamin Dillon. Both Fogle and Dillon are listed as third secretaries at the U.S. embassy in the autumn-winter 2012-13 edition of a directory of foreign diplomatic, media and business offices in Moscow.
The U.S. embassy declined to comment on whether an employee was expelled in January. The FSB said it had information indicating Fogle worked for the CIA when he arrived in Russia in April 2011.
"In the hope that the CIA leadership would draw the necessary conclusions, we did not make this case public. But apparently the adherence by the FSB to the principles of professional ethics were not properly appreciated."
The FSB response to the query from Reuters confirmed and elaborated on statements made by a man shown in silhouette on Russian television and identified as an FSB employee.
Contact: Vicli Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, May 16, 2013Lethal and rescuer genes are defined as genes that when inactivated result in cell death or enhanced cell growth, respectively. The ability to identify these genes in large-scale automated screening campaigns could lead to the discovery of valuable new drug targets. A genome-wide lethality screen that relies on RNA interference technology and led to the validation of 239 gene candidates essential for cell survival is described in ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, a peer-reviewed journal published from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website.
A team of researchers led by Bhavneet Bhinder and Hakim Djaballah, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, present their work in the article "An Arrayed Genome-Scale Lentiviral-Enabled Short Hairpin RNA Screen Identifies Lethal and Rescuer Gene Candidates."
The authors developed a high-stringency analysis method used to determine which genes result in cell death when they are "knocked down." Gene knockdown is achieved via an RNA interference approach, using double-stranded RNA molecules called short hairpin RNAs, or shRNAs. A shRNA binds to a target gene, blocking gene expression. The high-throughput screen is carried out in cells in 384-well microtiter plates.
###
About the Journal
Assay and Drug Development Technologies is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year in print and online. It provides early-stage screening techniques and tools that enable identification and optimization of novel targets and lead compounds for new drug development. Complete tables of content and a complementary sample issue may be viewed on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology and Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
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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.
Contact: Vicli Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, May 16, 2013Lethal and rescuer genes are defined as genes that when inactivated result in cell death or enhanced cell growth, respectively. The ability to identify these genes in large-scale automated screening campaigns could lead to the discovery of valuable new drug targets. A genome-wide lethality screen that relies on RNA interference technology and led to the validation of 239 gene candidates essential for cell survival is described in ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, a peer-reviewed journal published from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website.
A team of researchers led by Bhavneet Bhinder and Hakim Djaballah, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, present their work in the article "An Arrayed Genome-Scale Lentiviral-Enabled Short Hairpin RNA Screen Identifies Lethal and Rescuer Gene Candidates."
The authors developed a high-stringency analysis method used to determine which genes result in cell death when they are "knocked down." Gene knockdown is achieved via an RNA interference approach, using double-stranded RNA molecules called short hairpin RNAs, or shRNAs. A shRNA binds to a target gene, blocking gene expression. The high-throughput screen is carried out in cells in 384-well microtiter plates.
###
About the Journal
Assay and Drug Development Technologies is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year in print and online. It provides early-stage screening techniques and tools that enable identification and optimization of novel targets and lead compounds for new drug development. Complete tables of content and a complementary sample issue may be viewed on the ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology and Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Johnny Ortiz, left, and James South, right, carry Miguel Morales, center, who was injured in a tornado, to an ambulance in Granbury, Texas, on Wednesday May 15, 2013. Officials report the tornado caused "multiple fatalities" as it tore through two neighborhoods of a North Texas town. Hood County sheriff's Lt. Kathy Jiveden reported the multiple fatalities, but she had no estimate of dead or injured. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Johnny Ortiz, left, and James South, right, carry Miguel Morales, center, who was injured in a tornado, to an ambulance in Granbury, Texas, on Wednesday May 15, 2013. Officials report the tornado caused "multiple fatalities" as it tore through two neighborhoods of a North Texas town. Hood County sheriff's Lt. Kathy Jiveden reported the multiple fatalities, but she had no estimate of dead or injured. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
A trucking company trailer landed on a car that was parked in front of a Lindsey Ln. home in Cleburne Texas after a powerful storm went through Wednesday night, May 15, 2013. Neighbors say the trailer was parked on the street and was rolled over onto the car. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Tom Fox)
Mp locates area hit by tornado in Texas
An unidentified injured person is carried to an ambulance in Granbury, Texas, on Wednesday May 15, 2013. Officials report the tornado caused "multiple fatalities" as it tore through two neighborhoods of a North Texas town. Hood County sheriff's Lt. Kathy Jiveden reported the multiple fatalities, but she had no estimate of dead or injured. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
A trucking company trailer landed on a car that was parked in front of a Lindsey Ln. home in Cleburne Texas after a powerful storm went through Wednesday night, May 15, 2013. Neighbors say the trailer was parked on the street and was rolled over onto the car. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Tom Fox)
GRANBURY, Texas (AP) ? A rash of tornados slammed into several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens more injured and hundreds homeless. The violent spring storm scattered bodies, flattened homes, threw trailers onto cars.
In Granbury, the worst-hit city, a tornado tore through two neighborhoods around 8 p.m. Wednesday. Resident Elizabeth Tovar described the fist-sized hail that heralded the tornado's arrival, prompting her and her family to hide in their bathroom.
"We were all, like, hugging in the bathtub and that's when it started happening. I heard glass shattering and I knew my house was going," Tovar said, shaking her head. "We looked up and ... the whole ceiling was gone."
The powerful storm crushed buildings as it tore through the area, leaving some as just piles of planks and rubble. Trees and debris were scattered across yards, fences flattened.
Behind one house, a detached garage was stripped of most of its aluminum siding, the door caved in and the roof torn off. A tree behind the house was stripped of its branches and a vacant doublewide mobile home on an adjoining lot was torn apart.
Daniel and Amanda Layne initially thought they were safe sheltering under their carport. But then "it started getting worse and worse," and the couple took shelter in their bathroom, Daniel Layne said.
"The windows and the cars are gone. Both our cars are messed up. I had a big shop. Ain't a piece of it left now," Layne said with a shrug.
Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds described the devastating aftermath and the hunt for bodies in Granbury, about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
"Some were found in houses. Some were found around houses," Deeds said. "There was a report that two of these people that they found were not even near their homes. So we're going to have to search the area out there."
Deeds said around midnight that 14 people were still missing but Mayor Pro Tem Nin Hulett told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday morning that he believed most residents had been accounted for.
"Our highest priority right now is to try to get the people that are out there in those communities under a shelter somewhere," Hulett said.
Deeds said about 50 people were taken to a hospital in Granbury. Yet more gathered at a local elementary school where paramedics provided on-site treatment. Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar Mobile Healthcare, estimated that as many as 100 people were injured.
Utilities said about 20,000 homes and businesses were without power early Thursday.
Another tornado that storm spotters told the National Weather Service was a mile wide tore through Cleburne, a courthouse city of about 30,000 about 25 miles southeast of Granbury.
Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain said early Thursday that no one was killed or seriously hurt, although seven people suffered minor injuries. He estimated that dozens of homes were damaged and declared a local disaster.
In one neighborhood, a trucking company trailer that had been parked on the street was picked up and dropped onto a nearby car and garage.
Another tornado hit the small town of Millsap, about 40 miles west of Fort Worth. Parker County Judge Mark Kelley said roof damage was reported to several houses and a barn was destroyed, but no injuries were reported.
Hail as large as grapefruit also pelted the area around Mineral Wells on Wednesday evening. A police dispatcher reported only minor damage.
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Associated Press writers Terry Wallace and Jamie Stengle in Dallas and freelance photographer Mike Fuentes contributed to this report.
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Public release date: 19-May-2013
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