Daily Kos: Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Gun responsibility, autism ...

Team 26 riders supporting a team member up a long hill
Photo Credit: Becky Frank

Team 26 rides again!! This time, it's cycling to the 5th Annual Mothers United Against Violence March in Hartford. Gun violence affects inner cities as well as affluent suburbs. We are all in this together.

Dana Milbank:

?Don?t get squishy,? President Obama told members of Congress.

But they already have.

Milbank's analysis, like that of most inside the Beltway people, has a fundamental misunderstanding of what's done at state level (see CT next week), what's done at Federal level (it's all about background checks and keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them) and what it takes to make sausage in Congress (slow consensus building). Think of it as parallel to those who looked at one poll and concluded Romney is ahead. The data suggests otherwise:

Newtown changed the debate. The Newtown shooting had a greater impact on public opinion about guns than any other event in the past two decades?and led to a clear rise in public support for stronger gun laws. In particular, three aspects about public opinion in the wake of Newtown are notable:

? Near unanimous support for universal background checks and clear majority support for high-capacity magazine and assault-weapons bans
? Almost as much support for stronger gun laws among gun owners as among the general public
? A large gender gap in views on guns and violence

Vaccines are not associated with autism. Still.

A new study adds to years of research showing that childhood vaccines do not cause autism, despite worries among a growing number of parents that their young children receive ?too many vaccines.?

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that even when multiple inoculations are given on the same day, children are at no higher risk of developing autism, according to the report published in the Journal of Pediatrics Friday.
?This study looked into the concern that receiving too many vaccines at one doctor?s visit or too many vaccines during the first two years of life may be linked to the development of autism,? the report?s lead author, Dr. Frank DeStefano told NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman. ?We found they?re not related.?

If you think they are, you're wrong. You're not only wrong, you've wasted years of everyone's time and effort. Give it up and move on.

Jonathan Bernstein:

I recommend a solid New York Times editorial today about the unprecedented, outrageous obstruction by Republican senators against President Obama?s nominees, especially his executive branch nominees.

It?s critically important to give this story as much attention as it deserves ? which is quite a lot. Just the names alone: Hagel, Brennan, McCarthy, Perez, Cordray . . . and that?s only the ones from this term whom the Times mentions. Remember, however, that every single nomination is being subjected to a 60-vote requirement. That?s a filibuster, and it means that every single nominee is being filibustered. The only question is how many Republicans will support the filibuster, not whether there is one. And as the Times points out, there are additional forms of obstruction, too, whether it?s Sen. Rand Paul?s day-long speech, or asking the nominees to answering never-ending extraneous questions.

Greg Sargent:

Okay, so here?s today?s edition of what Brian Beutler has labeled GOP ?sequester NIMBYism.?

A group of nearly 30 House Republicans (and a few Democrats) has written a letter to the Obama administration protesting implementation of the sequester. They claim the federal government ? because of the sequester ? is requiring a refund of money that has ?already been disbursed to states,? which is unfair, because those funds ?are already being used for rural schools, emergency services, infrastructure, and protecting communities from the risk of catastrophic wildfire.?

Whether these Republicans are right on the merits ? and perhaps they are ? this is yet another reminder of the degree to which Republicans are chafing at the sequester cuts (which some of them claim they wanted all along) when they hit programs these lawmakers like.

Joe Nocera on some things about the NCAA you probably didn't know.... but ought to.

An organization with a moral compass would have refused to allow itself to be a pawn in a segregationist effort to preserve an all-white team. But the N.C.A.A. has never had a moral compass.

An interesting environmental observation from my son, Stephen Dworkin:

The timing of Shell?s New Years Day crash is also significant. According to the company?s own admission, Shell was hightailing the Kulluk out of Alaskan waters when the rig ran aground in order to avoid a January 1 state tax assessment. This scheme illustrates a much broader truth about Big Oil: there is a gaping disconnect between oil industry profits and Americans? economic prosperity. There can be no ?trickle-down? to working families or local and state governments when it?s standard practice to risk oil spills in order to evade taxes.

WaPo on the "changing" GOP:

Slurs against Latinos, gays complicate GOP?s mission to broaden its tent

Yes, we've discussed it before here. No, it has not gone away.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/30/1197970/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Gun-responsibility-autism-and-crazy-Republicans

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Signed copy of 'Sgt. Pepper's' sells for $290,500

Heritage Auctions via AP

An auction house photograph shows what is described as a "pristine" copy of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album autographed by all four members of the band.

By Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter

Even Lucy and her diamonds can't compete with these riches. A rare, signed copy of The Beatles? "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"?has brought $290,500 at auction, shattering the previous record for such an item.

PHOTOS: The Beatles: Rare Photos Offer Inside Look at Fab Four

The item signed by all four members of the legendary band was purchased Saturday by an unnamed buyer from the Midwest. An anonymous seller parted with the album through the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, which ahead of the bidding estimated the album would sell for $30,000.

The Fab Four are believed to have signed the cover near the June 1967 release of "Sgt. Pepper's."?The previous record for a signed Beatles album cover was the $150,000 paid for a copy of "Meet the Beatles."

PHOTOS: John Lennon: Days in the Life

Ahead of the auction, Beatles expert Perry Cox said of the piece: "With my being thoroughly immersed in Beatles collectibles for over 30 years, it takes something extraordinarily special to excite me, but I consider this to be one of the top two items of Beatles memorabilia I've ever seen -- the other being a signed copy of Meet The Beatles."

The album is a U.K. Parlophone copy with a high gloss cover and gatefold.

Source: http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/31/17541075-signed-copy-of-beatles-sgt-peppers-album-sells-for-record-290500?lite

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Japanese men?s favourite height, weight and bust size

By Ken Y-N ( April 1, 2013 at 00:02) ? Filed under Polls, Rankings

goo Ranking recently took a look at the female body shapes that men like.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were femle, 11.6% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. This question was for the men only.

I am surprised that huge breasts appear lower down than small ones! My wife has a theory that tall foreign men prefer short Japanese women, although I wonder if it is just because we tend to remember the height mismatches and forget the more size-compatable couples?

Note that for weight, the four categories in ascending size are slim, average, well built, and fat. The other two statistics should be self-explanatory.

Ranking result

Q: What female body shapes do you like? (Sample size=1,083, multiple answer)

Rank	Height	Weight	Bust	Score
1	Average	Average	Larger	100
2	Average	Average	Average	95.9
3	Average	Slim	Average	75.5
4	Short	Average	Average	73.5
5=	Short	Average	Larger	71.4
5=	Average	Slim	Larger	71.4
7	Short	Slim	Average	66.3
8	Short	Slim	Larger	56.1
9	Tall	Slim	Larger	49.0
10	Tall	Average	Larger	48.0
11	Short	Slim	Small	44.9
12	Average	Average	Huge	42.9
13	Tall	Average	Average	41.8
14	Tall	Slim	Average	40.8
15=	Short	Slim	Huge	38.8
15=	Short	Average	Huge	38.8
17	Average	Slim	Huge	35.7
18	Short	Average	Small	34.7
19	Average	Slim	Small	32.7
20=	Average	Average	Small	30.6
20=	Tall	Short	Huge	30.6
22	Average	Fat	Larger	28.6
23=	Average	Larger	Large	26.5
23=	Tall	Slim	Large	26.5
25	Tall	Slim	Small	21.4
26=	Short	Well-built	Larger	20.4
26=	Tall	Average	Small	20.4
28	Average	Fat	Average	18.4
29	Short	Well-built	Average	18.4
30=	Average	Well-built	Huge	17.3
30=	Average	Fat	Huge	17.3
32	Average	Well-built	Average	16.3
33	Short	Fat	Larger	13.3
34	Short	Well-built	Huge	12.2
35	Short	Fat	Average	10.2
36	Tall	Well-built	Huge	9.2
37=	Tall	Well-built	Average	8.2
37=	Tall	Well-built	Larger	8.2
39=	Short	Fat	Huge	7.1
39=	Short	Well-built	Small	7.1
41	Tall	Fat	Larger	5.1
42	Average	Well-built	Small	4.1
43=	Short	Fat	Small	3.1
43=	Tall	Well-built	Small	3.1
43=	Tall	Fat	Average	3.1

Read more on: bust,goo ranking,height,weight

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WhatJapanThinks/~3/6rL4esne10w/

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Slurs against Latinos, gays complicate GOP?s mission to broaden its tent (Washington Post)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295529500?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Bank of Cyprus big savers to lose up to 60 percent

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Big depositors at Cyprus' largest bank may be forced to accept losses of up to 60 percent, far more than initially estimated under the European rescue package to save the country from bankruptcy, officials said Saturday.

Deposits of more than 100,000 euros ($128,000) at the Bank of Cyprus will lose 37.5 percent in money that will be converted into bank shares, according to a central bank statement. In a second raid on these accounts, depositors also could lose up to 22.5 percent more, depending on what experts determine is needed to prop up the bank's reserves. The experts will have 90 days to figure that out.

The remaining 40 percent of big deposits at the Bank of Cyprus will be "temporarily frozen for liquidity reasons," but continue to accrue existing levels of interest plus another 10 percent, the central bank said.

The savings converted to bank shares would theoretically allow depositors to eventually recover their losses. But the shares now hold little value and it's uncertain when ? if ever ? the shares will regain a value equal to the depositors' losses.

Emergency laws passed last week empower Cypriot authorities to take these actions.

Cyprus' Finance Minister Michalis Sarris said the measures were taken to put the Bank of Cyprus on a solid footing.

"We suffered a serious blow without doubt ... but we now have a bank which is reformed and ready to assume its role in the Cypriot economy," the state-run Cyprus News Agency quoting him as saying.

Analysts said Saturday that imposing bigger losses on Bank of Cyprus customers could further squeeze already crippled businesses as Cyprus tries to rebuild its banking sector in exchange for the international rescue package.

Sofronis Clerides, an economics professor at the University of Cyprus, said: "Most of the damage will be done to businesses which had their money in the bank" to pay suppliers and employees. "There's quite a difference between a 30 percent loss and a 60 percent loss." With businesses shrinking, Cyprus could be dragged down into an even deeper recession, he said.

Clerides accused some of the 17 European countries that use the euro of wanting to see the end of Cyprus as an international financial services center and to send the message that European taxpayers will no longer shoulder the burden of bailing out problem banks.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble challenged that notion, insisting in an interview with the Bild daily published Saturday that "Cyprus is and remains a special, isolated case" and doesn't point the way for future European rescue programs.

Europe has demanded that big depositors in Cyprus' two largest banks ? Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank ? accept across-the-board losses in order to pay for the nation's 16 billion euro ($20.5 billion) bailout. All deposits of up to 100,000 are safe, meaning that a saver with 500,000 euros in the bank will only suffer losses on the remaining 400,000 euros.

Cypriot officials had previously said that large savers at Laiki ? which will be absorbed in to the Bank of Cyprus ? could lose as much as 80 percent. But they had said large accounts at the Bank of Cyprus would lose only 30 to 40 percent.

Asked about Saturday's announcement, University of Cyprus political scientist Antonis Ellinas predicted that unemployment, currently at 15 percent, will "probably go through the roof" over the next few years.

"It means that (people) ... have to accept a major haircut to their way of life and their standard of living. The social impact is yet to be realized, but they will be enormous in terms of social unrest and radical social phenomenon," Ellinas said.

There's also concern that large depositors ? including many wealthy Russians ? will take their money and run once capital restrictions that Cypriot authorities have imposed on bank transactions to prevent such a possibility are lifted in about a month.

Sarris, the finance minister, said that foreign branches of the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank in countries such as Britain, Russia, Ukraine and Romania will eventually be sold. He also said that Cypriots would seek out new markets like China and the Arab countries while maintaining good business relations with Russians, "despite their bitterness."

Cyprus agreed on Monday to make bank depositors with accounts over 100,000 euros contribute to the financial rescue in order to secure 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in loans from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. Cyprus needed to scrounge up 5.8 billion euros ($7.4 billion) on its own in order to clinch the larger package, and banks had remained shut for nearly two weeks until politicians hammered out a deal, opening again on Thursday.

But fearing that savers would rush to pull their money out in mass once banks reopened, Cypriot authorities imposed a raft of restrictions, including daily withdrawal limits of 300 euros ($384) for individuals and 5,000 euros for businesses ? the first so-called capital controls that any country has applied in the eurozone's 14-year history.

The rush didn't materialize as Cypriots appeared to take the measures in stride, lining up patiently to do their business and defying dire predictions of scenes of pandemonium.

Under the terms of the bailout deal, the country' second largest bank, Laiki ? which sustained the most damaged from bad Greek debt and loans ? is to be split up, with its nonperforming loans and toxic assets going into a "bad bank." The healthy side will be absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus.

On Saturday, economist Stelios Platis called the rescue plan "completely mistaken" and criticized Cyprus' euro partners for insisting on foisting Laiki's troubles on the Bank of Cyprus.

____

AP business correspondent Geir Moulson in Berlin and APTN reporter Adam Pemble in Nicosia contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-cyprus-big-savers-lose-60-percent-135608668--finance.html

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Sequoia Capital In Singapore After A Year, Has Yet To Invest In A Local Startup

When Sequoia Capital India landed in Singapore quietly in 2012, the buzz around town was that a big-name US fund being in the country was going to really jolt the market and provide serious cred to the startups here. The Indian team running operations here, however, appears to have spent the last year of its time in the island state helping its Indian funds expand into Singapore, rather than directly investing in startups here. Singapore is a popular choice as a base for foreign companies looking to expand into Southeast Asia. Early last year, Sequoia Capital India MD, Shailendra Jit Singh, expressed interest in having the fund?s companies expand into the region. Sequoia Cap in the US also appeared to have been eyeing activity in Singapore for a while?it had its first offsite meeting in the country in 2011, and was in discussion with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong about its presence here. The Prime Minister?s Office oversees its R&D arm, the National Research Foundation (NRF), which has been busy backing local venture capital firms here over the past few years. Its Technology Incubation Scheme is a program that distributes seed funding to startups picked by 11 NRF-appointed VCs. The NRF matches investment values in the proportion of 85 percent to 15 percent?the larger portion dished out by the government. This allows the VCs here to provide bigger sums of seed capital to startups, with much of the risk absorbed by the NRF. Former NRF projects head, Yinglan Tan, was also pulled over to Sequoia Capital India?s team in July last year, where he is now a venture partner based in Singapore. When I ran into Tan in Manila a couple of months ago, he was evasive about the funds they?re looking at in Singapore, but was happy to try to set up meetings with their existing funds in Singapore?all Indian-based startups, except for Airbnb and Evernote. Some of these companies that are being incubated in Singapore by Sequoia Cap include Via, Druva, Mu Sigma, Idea Device and Practo. The meetings never happened, but word on the street is that Tan has been meeting with some Singapore-based startups that are approaching Series A or B in size, and are looking to expand beyond the island. One that I know of provides Wi-Fi infrastructure. As for its current startups here, Via is pretty sizable. It operates a flight booking portal

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9RLBrFSLBM8/

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Argentina offers to pay debts with cash & bonds

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ? Argentina proposed a creative way out of its debt showdown Friday night, describing a mix of cash and bonds that it suggested would amount to a huge profit, but not a gargantuan one, for the investors it calls "vulture funds."

The government's lawyers gave an appellate panel in New York a proposed payment plan that could take many more years to cancel $1.44 billion in defaulted bonds, interest and penalties left unpaid since the country's world-record 2001 default.

"Argentina's proposal accounts for past-due amounts to bring the debt current, provides for a fair return going forward, and also gives an upside in the form of annual payments if Argentina's economy grows," the Cleary, Gottlieb lawyers said.

The money directly at stake in this case is just a fraction of Argentina's remaining defaulted debt, which adds up to more than $11 billion in capital and interest. This plan would also enable those creditors to get paid as well, over time, providing an equitable solution, the lawyers argued.

And to be truly fair to all, they said the new bonds would also be made available to the vast majority of investors who accepted pennies on the dollar in 2005 and 2010 for their defaulted debt.

Argentina is arguing that to do otherwise would violate the principle the court aims to uphold ? the "pari passu" clause in the original bond contracts, which means the sovereign debt issuer must treat all bondholders equally.

"This proposal would provide plaintiffs with significant compensation, and ? unlike the '100 cents on the dollar immediately' formula adopted by the court below ? is consistent with the pari passu clause, longstanding principles of equity, and the Republic's capacity to pay," Argentina argued.

Just who owns these bonds and at what price they were originally bought for is impossible to say. Even defaulted bonds are constantly traded, and the plaintiffs include huge hedge fund investors like billionaire Paul Singer as well as Argentine retirees who saw their much more humble life savings melt away in Argentina's economic crisis.

Under this deal, Argentina said the mom-and-pop investors would get immediate cash for the interest that has built up since 2003, plus Par bonds and GDP bonds that would eventually make them whole.

Institutional investors would be offered a different mix, mostly discount bonds, which Argentina said would reward them handsomely.

It cited as an example nearly $50 million in defaulted debt that the lead plaintiffs, NML Capital Ltd., reportedly purchased in 2008. Accepting the mix of new bonds in exchange for these bad debts would eventually provide an aggregate profit of 284 percent, but not an unfair gain of 1,380 percent, the lawyers argued.

President Cristina Fernandez personally reviewed the proposal just before it was filed, the state news agency Telam reported.

Fernandez and her economic team are proud of sharply reducing the country's foreign debt burden from 166 percent of GDP in 2002 to just 46 percent recently, and never failing to meet payments on the new bonds her government issued in exchange for the defaulted debt.

Argentina can pay $1.44 billion, but there are many more creditors seeking the same kind of judgment that NML Capital Ltd. won from U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa last year. If upheld, it would force the country to pay out an economy-destroying $43 billion in cash, the government said.

But the payment plan it proposed Friday night includes some bonds that wouldn't come fully due for 25 years, and that could be a non-starter with the appellate judges in New York, whose rulings in bond litigation are almost never second-guessed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the court agrees to Argentina's payment proposal, Fernandez expects a willing congress to promptly enact it, and voluntary exchanges of defaulted debt for new bonds would then eliminate most of the remaining mess, whether or not Singer's hedge fund accepts the deal, the filing said.

But if the judges don't agree and Argentina loses in court, it could be "suicide" for the South American nation's economy, says financial analyst Josh Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co. in New York.

"The court was looking for something simple, like: we're not going to pay them in a lump sum, but we're going to make a quarterly payment of the full $1.4 billion over three years. They weren't looking for creative financing where Argentina demands or forces a new bond," Rosner said. "What if somebody took that new bond, and the Argentine government defaulted the next day?"

Refusing to pay the holdouts anything better than what the exchange bondholders got is a politically popular position among Argentines, but Rosner says that's irrelevant when it comes to the markets.

"Monday morning is going to be a disaster," Rosner predicted.

Argentina's economy is being strangled by punishingly high borrowing costs because the Fernandez government hasn't fully settled its debts to bondholders, other governments and the many companies that have won judgments against it, Rosner said.

Instead, the government borrows from its own people, fueling inflation, and tries to centrally manage the increasingly isolated economy by frequently changing the rules for exchanging currency, importing and exporting goods, setting prices and paying taxes.

Increasingly, Argentines are feeling trapped by the government controls, and foreign companies are being scared off.

"This economic starvation ends up, by necessity, with the ultimate cutting of those services ? education, police, energy subsidies, transportation subsidies to the provinces, which is going to increase social unrest," Rosner said. "It's a human tragedy. I'm not understanding why they're fighting this."

.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/argentina-offers-pay-debts-cash-bonds-040817493--finance.html

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Hubble observes the hidden depths of Messier 77

Friday, March 29, 2013

Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a real star among galaxies, with more papers written about it than many other galaxies put together!

Despite its current fame and striking swirling appearance, the galaxy has been a victim of mistaken identity a couple of times; when it was initially discovered in 1780, the distinction between gas clouds and galaxies was not known, causing finder Pierre Mechain to miss its true nature and label it as a nebula. It was misclassified again when it was subsequently listed in the Messier Catalogue as a star cluster.

Now, however, it is firmly categorised as a barred spiral galaxy, with loosely wound arms and a relatively small central bulge. It is the closest and brightest example of a particular class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies -- galaxies that are full of hot, highly ionised gas that glows brightly, emitting intense radiation.

Strong radiation like this is known to come from the heart of Messier 77 -- caused by a very active black hole that is around 15 million times the mass of our Sun. Material is dragged towards this black hole and circles around it, heating up and glowing strongly. This region of a galaxy alone, although comparatively small, can be tens of thousands of times brighter than a typical galaxy.

Although no competition for the intense centre, Messier 77's spiral arms are also very bright regions. Dotted along each arm are knotty red clumps -- a signal that new stars are forming. These baby stars shine strongly, ionising nearby gas which then glows a deep red colour as seen in the image above. The dust lanes stretching across this image appear as a rusty, brown-red colour due to a phenomenon known as reddening; the dust absorbs more blue light than red light, enhancing its apparent redness.

###

ESA/Hubble Information Centre: http://www.spacetelescope.org

Thanks to ESA/Hubble Information Centre for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127517/Hubble_observes_the_hidden_depths_of_Messier___

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The Irresistible Rise Of Google+ - Business Insider

Social Media Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that collects and delivers the top social media news first thing every morning. You can sign up to receive Social Media Insights here or at the bottom of this post.

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Google+ Integration Allows Domination (Social Media Today)
Google+ recently overtook Twitter in the list of social platforms with the most active users, despite the latter officially winning the crown for fastest growing network for 2012. Twenty five percent of the global Internet population actively use Google+ in one way or another, compared to the 21 percent on Twitter. The key to Google+ is its deep integration with most other Google products, such as Search, Gmail, Calendar, Drive and Picasa. Google has built a social platform which is woven tightly with our day-to-day experience of the Internet. Read >>

The Irresistible Rise Of Google+ (Attwood Digital via Bit Rebels)
Google+ has created a few interesting traffic generating features, and Google authorship is one of them. Google authorship is a way to help search engine users find content from people they know or want to connect with. Basically what you do is personalize the visual search engine result and claim it as your own. And if you want traffic, you need to be where the traffic is generated. Click here for the full infograph. Read >>

Facebook Rumored To Reveal The Facebook Phone (TechCrunch)
Facebook invited press to an event at its headquarters on April 4th to "Come See Our New Home On Android." Sources tell TechCrunch it will be a modified version of the Android operating system with deep native Facebook functionality on the homescreen that may live on an HTC handset. The evidence aligns to say this is the Facebook Phone announcement people have been speculating about for years. Read >>

Majority Of Facebook Engagement Is In The First Minutes (VentureBeat)
Crunching the numbers on tens of millions of social data points, hundreds of thousands of Facebook pages, and 8,500 of the world?s top brands on Facebook, has taught Optimal Social a few things about virality.

"About half of your engagement is in the first 60 minutes," Optimal?s CEO Rob Leathern told me. "And about three quarters is within the first 180 minutes. That pattern is quite consistent."? Read >>

Things You Learn When Deleting Your Facebook Account (USA TODAY)
Kendra Benner, a USA TODAY college contributor, recently deleted her Facebook account. Here's what she learned:

1. It's possible to go without it
2. Some of the information posted on Facebook is really valuable
3. Social media made me feel like I could concentrate on multiple things at once
4. Facebook sometimes taints a person's sense of mystery
5. You can be technologically savvy without being social-networking savvy
6. Social media had given me an artificial sense of connection
7. Facebook posts sometimes hurt my friends' relationships
8. Birthdays are more special
9. Limiting your Facebook use little by little is better than trying to quit entirely

She was one of the last people in her high school to get a Facebook account, but she deleted it two years later because it became so distracting. Read >>

The Rise Of Social Media Apps (Baynote via Mediabistro)
Did you know that the time spent using social media apps on mobile devices grew by an incredible 387 percent between December 2011 and December 2012? Indeed, use of social media mobile software (such as the official Facebook and Twitter clients) led all types of apps in overall usage growth, pushing media/entertainment (+268 percent) and shopping (+247 percent) apps into second and third place respectively. Overall, consumers spent 132 percent more time using all apps year-on-year. This infographic takes a closer look at this data and the impact that these apps are making in retail commerce. Read >>

Social Behavior: The Big Game (iAcquire via Social Media Today)
iAcquire and Survey Monkey recently combined forces to create a study on social behavior. The March Madness-themed infographic uncovers key information on search privacy concerns, social influence, efficacy of images in search results, social sharing behavior, and social preferences by social network and demographic. Read >>

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-irresistible-rise-of-google-2013-3

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Business, labor close on deal for immigration bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Prospects for a Senate deal on an ambitious rewrite of the nation's immigration laws improved markedly as business and labor appeared ready to set aside their differences over a new low-skilled worker program holding up the agreement.

The AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce had been fighting over wages for tens of thousands of low-skilled workers who would be brought in under the new program to fill jobs in construction, hotels and resorts, nursing homes and restaurants, and other industries. But on Friday, officials from both sides said there was basic agreement on the wage issue, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said a final deal on the low-wage worker dispute was very close.

That likely would clear the way for Schumer and seven other senators in a bipartisan group to unveil legislation the week of April 8 to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, strengthening the border, cracking down on employers, allowing in tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers and providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country.

"We're feeling very optimistic on immigration: Aspiring Americans will receive the road map to citizenship they deserve and we can modernize 'future flow' without reducing wages for any local workers, regardless of what papers they carry," AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser said in a statement. "Future flow" refers to future arrivals of legal immigrants.

Under the emerging agreement between business and labor, a new "W'' visa program would bring tens of thousands of lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The program would be capped at 200,000 a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by a new federal bureau pushed by the labor movement as an objective monitor of the market.

The workers would be able to change jobs and could seek permanent residency. Under current temporary worker programs, personnel can't move from employer to employer and have no path to permanent U.S. residence and citizenship. And currently there's no good way for employers to bring many low-skilled workers to the U.S. An existing visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers is capped at 66,000 per year and is supposed to apply only to seasonal or temporary jobs.

The Chamber of Commerce said workers would earn actual wages paid to American workers or the prevailing wages for the industry they're working in, whichever is higher. The Labor Department determines prevailing wage based on customary rates in specific localities, so that it varies from city to city.

There was also disagreement about how to deal with certain higher-skilled construction jobs, such as electricians and welders, and it appears those will be excluded from the deal, said Geoff Burr, vice president of federal affairs at Associated Builders and Contractors. Burr said his group opposes such an exclusion because, even though unemployment in the construction industry is high right now, at times when it is low there can be labor shortages in high-skilled trades, and contractors want to be able to bring in foreign workers. But unions pressed for the exclusion, Burr said.

The low-skilled worker issue had loomed for weeks as perhaps the toughest matter to settle in monthslong closed-door talks on immigration among the senators, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida. The issue helped sink the last major attempt at immigration overhaul in 2007, when the legislation foundered on the Senate floor after an amendment was added to end a temporary worker program after five years, threatening a key priority of the business community.

The amendment passed by just one vote, 49-48. President Barack Obama, a senator at the time, joined in the narrow majority voting to end the program after five years.

___

Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/business-labor-close-deal-immigration-bill-185315130.html

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Matt Lauer's Twitter Apology to Former Intern

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/matt-lauers-twitter-apology-to-former-intern/

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Airbnb founder wants you to open your doors to strangers ? and let them sleep over

By Meena Duerson, TODAY

Brian Chesky may not yet be a household name, but his home-away-from-home site is on the verge of becoming one.

The 30-year-old is the founder of Airbnb, a website that lets you turn your home into a pseudo-hotel, renting it out to business or vacation travelers on a budget?looking to find a couch, room, or even a whole house to stay in.

The idea, which may sound crazy to some, has taken off since Chesky started the company five years ago: 300,000 people have rented out their homes on the site, and 4?million travelers have used it to find a place to stay in locations around the world.

He is seen as one of the driving forces in the new and rapidly expanding "sharing economy," in which more and more businesses are popping up based on the idea that people can share their resources. There are now a litany of?startups?based on this notion, from ride-sharing to office-sharing, and even pet-sharing.

"The stuff that matters in life is no longer stuff," he told TODAY. "It's other people. It's relationships. It's experience."

Chesky came up with the idea for Airbnb when he was short on rent money. "I have $1000 in the bank. The rent for our apartment is $1150," he recalled, of the moment the light bulb went off five years ago. "I have a basic math problem."

He and his roommate came up with the solution to turn their home into a bed and breakfast, renting out the living room and three air mattresses to visitors attending a conference in town ? and Airbnb was born.

"My mom just thought it was crazy," Chesky said.

And while Chesky says his company's success did not come as quickly as he originally anticipated, Forbes now estimates AirBnb's net worth is between $1.5 and $2.5 billion dollars. Those worried about the risks of turning over their homes to strangers can find reassurance in the company's million dollar insurance policy against theft or damage.

The San Francisco-based Chesky now lives couch-to-couch, jumping from one Airbnb property to another to mimic the experience of his users, and to get their feedback.?

"The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house," he said. "I think that dream's completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we're sharing with the Joneses."

As someone "On the Verge," we asked Brian Chesky for his picks on the next big things: Here's what?he?thinks is on the verge:

Music:?"This is the hardest question. ?I think the next big thing in music, and it's kind of because I come from the tech industry, is actually, I think it's the platform...Spotify is incredibly interesting. I think the platform is becoming the star."

App:?"One app I?really like?is Summly.?It's this entrepreneur, I think he's, like, 18 years old...And what he basically developed was a technology where you could take a full article, and the technology condenses it to three sentences...So you can read an entire newspaper in five minutes."?(Editors note: Just days after this interview was conducted, 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio sold Summly to Yahoo for millions of dollars,?and was featured on TODAY.)

TV:?"For the longest time, I didn't have a television, but thank God the iPad came, and I discovered amazing shows.? I just finished watching?House of Cards.? That was really cool. ?I actually think "House of Cards"?is super interesting, because it breaks down the format...I think what I really love is experimentation."

Food:?"I think the next big thing in food is already kind of happening in certain cities.? It's about being locally sourced. We say everything in Airbnb's gotta be local...and it's gotta be personal, and the same thing with food.? So you're starting to see farmer's markets. ?Right now, though, it's mostly for people that are kind of upper-middle class or upper class in cities that are able to eat locally sourced food, but that's where we used to eat...I think we'll go back to that."

What he'd bet on as 'the next big thing':?"A?much more democratized, cheaper way to fly...I would basically want that and invest in an alternative transportation system that can connect continents."

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653351/s/2a22431b/l/0Ltodaynews0Btoday0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C290C1750A93410Eairbnb0Efounder0Ewants0Eyou0Eto0Eopen0Eyour0Edoors0Eto0Estrangers0Eand0Elet0Ethem0Esleep0Eover0Dlite/story01.htm

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Thousands in NYC living in hotels after Sandy (Providence Journal)

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Rick Ross Responds To 'U.O.E.N.O' Backlash: I 'Don't Condone Rape'

'There was a misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation,' Rick Ross tells Q 93.3 in New Orleans amid controversy.
By Rob Markman

Rick Ross
Photo: Alexander Tamargo

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704537/rick-ross-does-not-condone-rape.jhtml

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Samsung Galaxy S 4 mini will reportedly go on sale shortly after GS 4

Not too long after the Samsung Galaxy S 4 was announced, we started hearing whispers of a "miniature" version of the device -- which makes sense, given the Galaxy S III had a smaller sidekick of its own. Today, however, Bloomberg reported the unannounced device is indeed coming soon after the flagship makes its appearance at the end of April. If it follows a similar pattern to its bite-sized predecessor, it likely will be offered in Europe as a lower-cost alternative to the Galaxy S 4. The device is rumored to offer a dual-core 1.6GHz processor, a 4.3-inch display and 8MP camera. Sadly, no official details were given, but we've reached out to Samsung officials for comment and will update when we receive word.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung

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The most likely buyer of Nokia or BlackBerry now in talks to acquire NEC?s handset unit

Lenovo

Reuters is reporting that Lenovo?(LNVGY), the Chinese electronics giant, is in talks to acquire NEC?s mobile phone unit. Lenovo has been speculated to be in talks with both Nokia (NOK) and BlackBerry (BBRY) over the past two years. Various brokerages have claimed that it is negotiating to buy Nokia?s feature phone unit, Nokia?s Lumia phone unit or BlackBerry?s hardware operations. If Lenovo ends up buying the NEC handset operations, it would acquire a technologically highly sophisticated operation with a minuscule annual production volume of roughly 4 million units.

[More from BGR: iPhone 5S announcement rumored for June 20th, launch in July]

The acquisition would open the door for the world?s No. 2 PC vendor to try to execute an aggressive cross-over to smartphone market ? Lenovo would presumably be well positioned to ramp up smartphone volumes rapidly. This would mean that the most likely buyer of Nokia or BlackBerry would gobble up a much cheaper and more easily integrated alternative.

[More from BGR: Google?s ?Babble? cross-platform messaging service gets detailed in purported leak]

NEC enjoyed its halcyon days around 2001, when its global mobile phone market share briefly spiked close to 10% and hit double digits in Germany and the United Kingdom. That was the period when i-mode was the hottest buzzword in the mobile telecom industry and Japanese vendors like Sony (SNE), Panasonic and NEC were making big gains in Europe and North America. The Japanese vendors were badly dented by the phone industry downturn in 2001-2003 and mostly retreated from the global competition to their home market.

Lenovo is one of China?s most ambitious electronics companies; its acquisition of IBM?s (IBM) PC business made it the world?s second largest personal computer brand. The company has come to regret that purchase, however: Soon after it snapped up the PC division it became obvious that smartphones would become the most important consumer electronics category and that the PC was entering its twilight era.

China and India are now bursting with smartphone brands with heady global growth numbers. Huawei, Micromax, Spice, Karbonn and others are enjoying 80%-plus volume growth by capitalizing on one of biggest trends in the industry as growth has shifted from North America and Europe to South-East Asia and China. Until now, Lenovo has watched the triumphant expansion of these upstarts silently seething. The giant may now be ready to make its move.

Ironically, Lenovo just might be about to repeat the timing mistake it made with its big personal computer acquisition. Global smartphone volume growth has slowed from over 50% to about 35% in just a year. Growth in North America and Europe is sputtering badly right now. If Lenovo buys the NEC phone division and starts to ramp up seriously in 2014, it just might enter the global smartphone competition just when the volume growth falls below 25% amidst intensifying competition.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/most-likely-buyer-nokia-blackberry-now-talks-acquire-174101942.html

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Rest easy, Spain: Your money's safe in a mattress safe

With a debt crisis still stalking Europe, a Spanish entrepreneur has a new idea to protect your euros: a mattress with a safe inside.

By Whitney Eulich,?Staff writer / March 27, 2013

Two men walk in the business district in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday.

Paul White/AP

Enlarge

Europeans have tossed and turned at night since the continent's sovereign debt crisis began three years ago. Right now it?s the Cypriots, surprised earlier this month by an announcement that some personal bank accounts could be taxed in order to raise the needed contribution for a bailout.

Skip to next paragraph Whitney Eulich

Latin America Editor

Whitney Eulich is the Monitor's Latin America editor, overseeing regional coverage for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She also curates the Latin America Monitor Blog.

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The creator of My Mattress Safe explains his unusual product

But Greeks, Irish, and Spaniards know the drill all too well themselves. Spanish bank deposits, for instance, dropped by 4.7 percent between June and July 2012, as faith in the country?s banking system plummeted.

In banks, it?s safe to say, many Europeans do not trust.

So what better way to slip soundly into sleep each night than knowing the precise status of one?s life savings? That?s the idea behind the simple and inventive Caja MiColch?n, or My Mattress Safe, a bed manufactured in northwestern Spain that is?outfitted with a safety deposit box.?

Francisco ?Paco? Santos worked in the mattress business for 14 years before losing his job in 2009. Unemployed, he tapped a dormant entrepreneurial spirit, designing this mattress that stands out from the rest.

My Mattress Safe was released by Mr. Santos' company Descanso Santos Sue?os (DESS) three weeks ago, in step with the Cyprus banking saga. It sells for about $1,120.?

Set to upbeat, jazzy music, one promotional video on the company?s website shows the ins and outs of production. The mattress is made with ?the best materials? and implanted at the foot of the bed is a digital-entry safety box (there's no mention of whether or not it?s fireproof).

In the video, Mr. Santos parodies a bank commercial, calling My Mattress Safe a ?financial institution? with a new, imaginative take on saving. Not to fear, he says ? this approach to savings doesn?t come with the threat of bankruptcy, mergers, or market fluctuations.

That could be a powerful selling point, with the safety of bank deposits high on the mind in Europe once again this month. According to The Christian Science Monitor, the European Union ?raised serious doubts about its promise to guarantee citizens? savings ? a vital pillar of any financial sector that underpins savers? trust ? when it went along with a plan to levy small Cypriot depositors.?

DESS hasn?t released sales figures, but the company said they?ve exceeded expectations. And despite the initial double take, there may be a larger audience for a Mattress Safe than one might expect.

In Argentina, for example, many keep their US dollars (a popular currency because of high rates of inflation) out of Argentine banks after ?harsh lessons? learned from past economic crises. The Monitor met one Argentine last summer who keeps his dollars in a safety deposit box.

?I know that the dollars in my box are actually there,? says Francisco, an IT worker in Buenos Aires.??If you have a bank account in dollars your money doesn?t exist ? it?s just virtual money."

The My Mattress Safe tagline feeds into this mentality: ?Your money, very close to you.?

For customers looking for assurance that their money isn't going anywhere with the Caja MiColch?n, there?s a calculator on the website where customers can work out their savings over time. Enter the deposit amount, the number of months of planned investment, and voila:?The same number of euros deposited in a My Mattress Safe is at the investor?s disposal a month, year, or decade later. (?What you deposit is what you have. So easy, so simple,? reads the website.)

"History repeats itself,? Santos told Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

?Older generations thought the safest place to keep their money was under the mattress. Now we?re proposing the same thing as we've seen people's uneasiness about the current situation. I'm not going to deny that the idea is a little crazy, but we believe that people with this mattress not only will sleep well, but also will be more relaxed because their savings are safe."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/VWpUbFeHFnI/Rest-easy-Spain-Your-money-s-safe-in-a-mattress-safe

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Mass rally in Pyongyang in support of Kim Jong Un

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? Thousands of North Koreans have turned out for a mass rally at the main square in Pyongyang in support of their leader's call to arms.

Chanting "Death to the U.S. imperialists" and "Sweep away the U.S. aggressors," soldiers and students marched through Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang on Friday during a 90-minute rally.

State media reported early Friday that leader Kim Jong Un called an emergency military meeting to order the army's rocket unit to prepare to strike the U.S. and South Korea in case of a "reckless provocation" by Washington or Seoul.

A full-blown North Korean attack is unlikely, though there are fears of a more localized conflict. Pyongyang has railed against the U.S. decision to send B-2 bombers for military drills with South Korea.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mass-rally-pyongyang-support-kim-jong-un-043129729.html

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Microsoft Excel 2013

Excel is the second-most widely used productivity app in the world, and it's second only to Microsoft Word. If you use Excel every day, but you don't need Word or Outlook or PowerPoint or the rest of the enormous toolbox that makes up Office 2013, you don't need to buy the whole Office suite. A long-standing but little-known option makes it possible to buy Excel alone. Just visit Microsoft's Office store, scroll down until you find the tiny icons that let you but the Office apps separately, and click on the icon that lets you buy Excel 2013 for $109.99. Just don't ask why Microsoft chose that price, because Microsoft isn't saying. It's a strange price, but for all the power the app offers, it's an excellent deal.

Excel 2013 deserves a longer and deeper look than we had room for in our write-up of the full Office 2013 suite, partly because Microsoft seems to have packed more new features and conveniences into Excel 2013 than into any of the other apps in the suite. Some of these new features add functions that Excel never had before, but most of them make it effortless to use features that took a lot of time, trouble, and expertise to use in earlier versions.

What's Obviously New
Some of the new features are obvious, such as the way Excel now opens multiple worksheets in separate Excel windows, each with its own ribbon interface, instead of as separate panes in a single Excel window sharing one ribbon. This makes it easy to manage different worksheets in a dual-monitor setup, while also bringing Excel into line with Word, which has used separate windows for separate documents for ages. Some are under the hood, including fifty new functions for use in formulas, including one that converts strings to numbers in a customizable way, so that "15%" appears as to "0.15" without requiring a trip to the "Format cell" dialog to change a cell's appearance.

Other new features streamline existing features, making it surprisingly easy for beginners to perform tasks that used to be limited to experts. When you select a block of data, a Quick Analysis icon appears at the lower right of the selection. Click on it, and Excel displays a gallery of suggested formatting, charts, totals, and much more. For example, as you move through the suggested choices, Excel displays a row or column of totals, running totals, averages, and other calculations based on the selected data.

Quick Analysis also suggests suitable charts, or custom formatting that color-codes the data, or displays icons in each cell indicating whether the number of greater or less than the preceding cell. The same gallery also suggests possible pivot tables for custom views of the data, making this feature more accessible than ever. All these various options were (and still are) available from the Ribbon if you had the knowledge and patience to find them, but now Excel goes out of its way to offer them. By the way, keyboard aficionados will be glad to know that the Quick Analysis gallery, like everything else in Excel, can be opened with a keyboard shortcut, in this case Ctrl-Q.

My favorite new feature, because it saves a tremendous amount of time-wasting effort, is called Flash Fill, and it's one of many features where Excel acts as it it's using its brain, not just its raw number-crunching power. If you have a column of first names and a column of last names, and you want a single column containing cells with a last name followed by a comma, then a first name. I used to accomplish this by copying the names into Word, combining them there by replacing tabs with commas, and then copying the results back into Excel. Now, all I need to do is go to the top row of the columns of names, containing, for example, "Arthur" and "Andersen," find an empty cell on that row, and enter "Andersen, Arthur". Then I start typing a similar combination of names on the next cell down, corresponding to the names in the second row, and Excel fills in that cell, and the whole rest of the column, with the combined names that I want. The filled-in data appears in gray until I click on an icon that invites me to confirm that I got the data I want.

You can use the same trick in reverse, too, extracting the first or last word from cells that contain multiple words, instead of combining multiple words into one cell. With some experimentation, you may find that Flash Fill is smarter than you expect. For example, if you have a column of dates such as "2012, 1995, 1987, 1990" and you enter "2000s, 1990s" in the column next to them, Excel will instantly suggest "1980s," and "1980s" to continue the series correctly.

What's Under the Hood
Some of Excel's best new features aren't visible in Excel itself because they exist only on the Web. One especially nifty feature lets you add a view-in-Excel button to almost any table that you want to include on a webpage. This can be a webpage on your own site or a blog or anywhere else. All you need to do is to visit Microsoft's site, click a few buttons to get the two chunks of HTML code that you need, and then paste that code above and below a table in a web page.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/owSp9WUPubk/0,2817,2417132,00.asp

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BlackBerry makes makes $94 million on revenue of $2.7 billion, ships 1 million BB10 devices in 2013 Q4

This isn't quite the BlackBerry earnings story you're waiting for -- after all, the US figures covering the success (or otherwise) of the Z10 won't arrive until the next quarter. Instead, we're looking at the company's results from the end of the financial year to March 2nd, which show that BlackBerry made $94 million in GAAP income on revenues of $2.7 billion -- in contrast to the $125 million net loss it made in the same quarter last year. More importantly, it shipped out almost one million BlackBerry 10 devices during the three weeks of the quarter that they were available. In addition, it managed to push five million of its older smartphones and 370,000 PlayBook tablets out of the door, but saw user numbers fall from 79 million last quarter to 76 million now.

It's important to notice that as revenues have remained relatively flat, the surge in profits is more than likely down to Thorsten Heins' cost-cutting measures, with the CEO remarking that "We have implemented numerous changes at BlackBerry over the past year and those changes have resulted in the Company returning to profitability in the fourth quarter."

At the same time, the company let slip that Mike Lazaridis will retire from his position as vice-chair and director of the company he helped found the better part of three decades ago. He'll exit the business on May 1st so that he can concentrate on his new enterprise, Quantum Valley Investments.

Developing...

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

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Paying the Costs of Iraq, for Decades to Come (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Scientists identify brain's 'molecular memory switch'

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Clancy
caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk
44-011-792-88086
University of Bristol

Common fruit fly key to discovery as to how memories are written into brain cells

Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss.

The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus the part of the brain involved in learning.

Previous studies have shown that our ability to learn and form memories is due to an increase in synaptic communication called Long Term Potentiation [LTP]. This communication is initiated through a chemical process triggered by calcium entering brain cells and activating a key enzyme called 'Ca2+ responsive kinase' [CaMKII]. Once this protein is activated by calcium it triggers a switch in its own activity enabling it to remain active even after the calcium has gone. This special ability of CaMKII to maintain its own activity has been termed 'the molecular memory switch'.

Until now, the question still remained as to what triggers this chemical process in our brain that allows us to learn and form long-term memories. The research team, comprising scientists from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, conducted experiments using the common fruit fly [Drosophila] to analyse and identify the molecular mechanisms behind this switch. Using advanced molecular genetic techniques that allowed them to temporarily inhibit the flies' memory the team were able to identify a gene called CASK as the synaptic molecule regulating this 'memory switch'.

Dr James Hodge, the study's lead author, said: "Fruit flies are remarkably compatible for this type of study as they possess similar neuronal function and neural responses to humans. Although small they are very smart, for instance, they can land on the ceiling and detect that the fruit in your fruit bowl has gone off before you can."

"In experiments whereby we tested the flies' learning and memory ability, involving two odours presented to the flies with one associated with a mild shock, we found that around 90 per cent were able to learn the correct choice remembering to avoid the odour associated with the shock. Five lessons of the odour with punishment made the fly remember to avoid that odour for between 24 hours and a week, which is a long time for an insect that only lives a couple of months."

By localising the function of the key molecules CASK and CaMKII to the flies' equivalent brain area to the human hippocampus, the team found that the flies lacking these genes showed disrupted memory formation. In repeat memory tests those lacking these key genes were shown to have no ability to remember at three hours (mid-term memory) and 24 hours (long-term memory) although their initial learning or short-term memory wasn't affected.

Finally, the team introduced a copy of the human CASK gene it is 80 per cent identical to the fly CASK gene into the genome of a fly that completely lacked its own CASK gene and was therefore not usually able to remember. The researchers found that flies which had a copy of the human CASK gene could remember like a normal wildtype fly.

Dr Hodge, from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "Research into memory is particularly important as it gives us our sense of identity, and deficits in learning and memory occur in many diseases, injuries and during aging".

"CASK's control of CaMKII 'molecular memory switch' is clearly a critical step in how memories are written into neurons in the brain. These findings not only pave the way for to developing new therapies which reverse the effects of memory loss but also prove the compatibility of Drosophila to model these diseases in the lab and screen for new drugs to treat these diseases. Furthermore, this work provides an important insight into how brains have evolved their huge capacity to acquire and store information."

These findings clearly demonstrate that neuronal function of CASK is conserved between flies and human, validating the use of Drosophila to understand CASK function in both the healthy and diseased brain. Mutations in human CASK gene have been associated with neurological and cognitive defects including severe learning difficulties.

###

The BBSRC-funded study, entitled 'CASK and CaMKII function in the mushroom body a'/' neurons during Drosophila memory formation' by Bilal Rashid Malik, John Michael Gillespie, James John Llewellyn Hodge was published on Wednesday 27 March 2013 in the Frontiers in Neural Circuits Journal.

---

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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.

Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Clancy
caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk
44-011-792-88086
University of Bristol

Common fruit fly key to discovery as to how memories are written into brain cells

Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss.

The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus the part of the brain involved in learning.

Previous studies have shown that our ability to learn and form memories is due to an increase in synaptic communication called Long Term Potentiation [LTP]. This communication is initiated through a chemical process triggered by calcium entering brain cells and activating a key enzyme called 'Ca2+ responsive kinase' [CaMKII]. Once this protein is activated by calcium it triggers a switch in its own activity enabling it to remain active even after the calcium has gone. This special ability of CaMKII to maintain its own activity has been termed 'the molecular memory switch'.

Until now, the question still remained as to what triggers this chemical process in our brain that allows us to learn and form long-term memories. The research team, comprising scientists from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, conducted experiments using the common fruit fly [Drosophila] to analyse and identify the molecular mechanisms behind this switch. Using advanced molecular genetic techniques that allowed them to temporarily inhibit the flies' memory the team were able to identify a gene called CASK as the synaptic molecule regulating this 'memory switch'.

Dr James Hodge, the study's lead author, said: "Fruit flies are remarkably compatible for this type of study as they possess similar neuronal function and neural responses to humans. Although small they are very smart, for instance, they can land on the ceiling and detect that the fruit in your fruit bowl has gone off before you can."

"In experiments whereby we tested the flies' learning and memory ability, involving two odours presented to the flies with one associated with a mild shock, we found that around 90 per cent were able to learn the correct choice remembering to avoid the odour associated with the shock. Five lessons of the odour with punishment made the fly remember to avoid that odour for between 24 hours and a week, which is a long time for an insect that only lives a couple of months."

By localising the function of the key molecules CASK and CaMKII to the flies' equivalent brain area to the human hippocampus, the team found that the flies lacking these genes showed disrupted memory formation. In repeat memory tests those lacking these key genes were shown to have no ability to remember at three hours (mid-term memory) and 24 hours (long-term memory) although their initial learning or short-term memory wasn't affected.

Finally, the team introduced a copy of the human CASK gene it is 80 per cent identical to the fly CASK gene into the genome of a fly that completely lacked its own CASK gene and was therefore not usually able to remember. The researchers found that flies which had a copy of the human CASK gene could remember like a normal wildtype fly.

Dr Hodge, from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "Research into memory is particularly important as it gives us our sense of identity, and deficits in learning and memory occur in many diseases, injuries and during aging".

"CASK's control of CaMKII 'molecular memory switch' is clearly a critical step in how memories are written into neurons in the brain. These findings not only pave the way for to developing new therapies which reverse the effects of memory loss but also prove the compatibility of Drosophila to model these diseases in the lab and screen for new drugs to treat these diseases. Furthermore, this work provides an important insight into how brains have evolved their huge capacity to acquire and store information."

These findings clearly demonstrate that neuronal function of CASK is conserved between flies and human, validating the use of Drosophila to understand CASK function in both the healthy and diseased brain. Mutations in human CASK gene have been associated with neurological and cognitive defects including severe learning difficulties.

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The BBSRC-funded study, entitled 'CASK and CaMKII function in the mushroom body a'/' neurons during Drosophila memory formation' by Bilal Rashid Malik, John Michael Gillespie, James John Llewellyn Hodge was published on Wednesday 27 March 2013 in the Frontiers in Neural Circuits Journal.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uob-sib032813.php

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